Martutene

by Ramón Saizarbitoria

  What happened at La Kontxa beach, not far from La Perla spa, had been much worse—the night he suddenly realized he was on his own. He and his wife had had an argument, a stupid quarrel, as a result of which he’d slammed the door and stormed outside. The last day for handing in their tax return was approaching and, for the hundredth time, he hadn’t gotten all their various receipts together as he’d promised he would. His wife was nervous, because she always liked to keep things up to date, and angry, because she always ended up doing all the work. He wasn’t in the best of moods, he was tired, and his wife’s obstinacy, even though she was right, made him fly off the handle, so he walked out. He talks about “the wife” in Spanish, la mujer, with the definite article and that vibrating letter R; it would be “the old lady” in Basque. A good wife, but a pain, he says, quite insistently, and he doesn’t mind adding that all women are a bit—“Todas lo sois un poco.” In any case, he raised his voice because she wouldn’t keep quiet, she started complaining that he never did anything she asked him to, and, fed up, he turned around and, just like that, slammed the door behind him and left the house.

  He crossed the street and headed for the Kontxa Pasealekua to go and calm down. That’s what he did. But he wasn’t able to go more than a hundred yards before, all of a sudden, hearing the echo of his own steps, he became aware that he was alone in the middle of the street and it was the first time in years that he’d been by himself at night without protection, and he got scared. Not even ten minutes had gone by since he’d left the house. He panicked and ran back to the building’s entrance, and after going in, he waited on the stairs behind the elevator and smoked a few cigarettes to pass the time and to be able to give the impression that he’d actually gone on his little walk and go back home with a little dignity. When he stepped out of the elevator on his floor, he didn’t need to put the key in the door—his wife was there waiting for him, worried, and she cried and kissed him.

  “La mujer still loves me a little.” While he takes his glasses off and carefully cleans them with the end of his tie, his eyes unfocused—accustomed as they are to relying on thick lenses—he looks up intermittently. Nobody says anything during those seconds, and suddenly, as he puts his glasses back on, he smiles.

  His bodyguards are still picking blackberries in the garden. Zabaleta realizes that Julia is looking at them, and he says they aren’t policemen, they’re private, thinking she must be interested to know that for some reason. What Julia would like to know is what he talks about all day long with young men like that, who have shaven heads and black leather jackets and are currently picking blackberries. “The Ertzaintza are only for the uppercrust now,” he says sarcastically. Then, turning toward Martin, he asks him the question the poor man is always afraid of, “So when’s that novel going to be ready?”

  “When’s that novel going to be ready?” Martin repeats the question very slowly, like a pupil caught daydreaming, trying, in vain, to buy some time. In fact, he explains, as he always does, he isn’t sure if it’s actually going to be a novel, and he tucks his hands inside his sleeves in that revealing gesture of his. He crosses his arms uncomfortably, stretches his legs out, and adds that he writes very slowly.

  “We can’t wait to read it.”

  Martin is an eternal pupil, always forced to lie about his grades, incessantly pressured to finish his work, as if it were a matter of urgency for a world suffering from some lack of novels. Julia doesn’t have time to feel sorry for him, because he immediately turns his question to her—“And how’s yours going?”—and she finds it hard to answer that she’s going over Bihotzean min dut one last time, because she realizes she’s been giving the same answer for too long.

  Zabaleta thinks Me duele el alma is a good translation of the title, and he thinks it would be good to publish the story on its own with a longish explanatory introduction, which would be a good opportunity for giving some historical context. That way, among other things, she would have the chance to explain how it was one of the first short stories in Basque literature to deal with the victims’ suffering. He says short story and not nouvelle, and also that it was one of the first works to talk about the victims’ suffering, not the first. Martin doesn’t like hearing that, and he seems to listen on in uncomfortable silence. As if that weren’t enough, he puts his arm over Martin’s shoulder affectionately and says that a long introduction would also allow him to tell people about the threats he received after publishing the story. His smile—that of somebody who has seen how vile society can be, understanding and playful—could also be that of a person forgiving somebody else. But Julia thinks it’s suspicious that he brings up the subject of the anonymous threats in front of her and Lynn, and she doesn’t like it. Just in case he’s planning to make a fool of Martin, she decides to stop him there and asks if he’d like a coffee. It’s obvious from her tone of voice that she might just as well have been asking him if he wanted a slap across the face, but even so, he says he does.

  From the kitchen, she hears him talking about socially committed literature. Zabaleta says that he recently went to a roundtable talk organized by a victims’ association; all the participants agreed that Basque writers have been more interested in the killers than in the victims and that Basque literature has not yet reflected the latters’ pain. Apparently somebody said that even writers who have publicly condemned violence have not expressed the degree of commitment and empathy that might be expected from them in their work and haven’t done anything to help demythologize ETA. Zabaleta says he mentioned Martin’s name, reminded them of Bihotzean min dut, in fact, and spoke against making generalizations. He says that accepting that the victims are always right will lead to trouble. Quoting Primo Levi, he says that the real victims are the dead; they should differentiate between people who accept the risk of becoming victims and people who are taken unawares—Julia doesn’t understand exactly to what end—and between victims and heroes. Things which he, Zabaleta, can talk about. Martin keeps quiet.

  What Julia would say is that it’s very clear in historical terms. That Basque writers’ social, cultural, and political origins are the same as those of ETA’s members; that at one time, the empathy between them was complete, and, in some cases, people were both things at the same time—members of ETA were writers, and vice versa. That those who started to see ETA’s activities as a mistake began to show some empathy, their aim being to convince people close to home. That they found it hard to see certain things as atrocities and to take in the victims’ pain, which is what usually happens when you’re part of a particular social and cultural world. That it will take years for their memories to ferment, and that only then will they begin to produce literature with nuances, with more than just black and white, literature of a kind much more interesting than what’s being offered at present in response to political opportunism and market demand, adding little to the already plentiful and at times excellent prose on the topic that you get in the press.

  Lynn’s telephone rings. It’s Harri, and Julia guesses that she’s on her way back from Bilbao. Lynn goes down the hall to speak, halfway between the living room and the kitchen, not wanting to bother people with work matters, and the two men talk more quietly now.

  Although she can’t hear him well, she knows what Martin is telling Zabaleta: literary works have to be left to themselves, and contextualizing introductions are surplus to requirements. He always says the same thing.

  “Be careful.” When Lynn tells them that it was Harri calling to say that she’s been delayed in Bilbao, Martin can’t resist the temptation to joke about it and say that what she was delayed by was finding the man from the airport. Because it’s obvious this remark might make Zabaleta curious, Julia intervenes once more and, this time, stops Martin from talking, in order for him not to make Harri look silly. So she asks them what they’ve been talking about while she’s been making the coffee. They say nothing of great interest. It’s clear from his tone of voice
that Zabaleta’s realized there’s something they don’t want him to know, and he says he’s got to go. But Martin, politely—perhaps too politely—says there’s something he wants to show him and takes him into the formal library.

  “He’s impressive.” When they’re left alone, Lynn nods down the hallway, and that’s how Julia knows she’s talking about Jaime Zabaleta. It isn’t the first term that would come to mind if she had to describe him. What impresses her so much? His humble stoicism, his discreet heroism.

  Julia was just reflecting on exactly the same thing a few moments ago, but without thinking he was “impressive.”

  Lynn has to go up to her room for a moment to change before Harri arrives. She says it with a cardigan wrapped around her, as if she were cold, although it’s actually rather hot. Julia asks if she isn’t feeling well; Lynn replies she’s extremely well. “I feel really good.”

  There’s no trace of the bodyguards in the garden. She thinks they must have gotten bored and moved over to the iron gate; there, at least, they can watch the people walking by.

  Barbellion (in The Journal of a Disappointed Man): “Am writing an essay on the life-history of insects and have abandoned for the time being the idea of writing on ‘How Cats Spend their Time.’”

  She doesn’t remember who said that the problem is you have to stop thinking in order to write and that writing is as tiring as thinking is invigorating.

  Come to think of it, there are voices that are ashamed and remain in silence in the Basque-speaking world. Embarrassed voices that think it’s too late for them to join those first ones that made themselves heard, daring and dignified, back in the day. Arrogant silences of those who don’t want their voices to be the last ones to join the chorus. Hypocritical voices that choose not to speak up so that it won’t be obvious they’ve been silent. But there are also the voices of those who, after falling off their horses and even before taking the time to shake the dust off themselves, attack those who used to ride with them, loud voices that hate all those who were their friends until recently. Extremely loud voices that don’t want to admit they were ever wrong, and silences that speak of no regret. An old, long silence imposed by the bullets that killed López de la Calle and by the disdain that drove Imanol Larzabal to his death in Torrevieja; and that silence lives on. Silences brought on by weariness, as well. And there are silences that consider themselves to be dignified. Respectful silences, from those who don’t feel they have the right to make use of pain. Prudent voices, who don’t believe it’s time yet to say everything about the absurd tragedy we’ve been through; let the noise not drown out the voices of those who have suffered.

  She knows she would have to write about it to find out what she really thinks.

  The rooster’s crowing. It’s been doing that for several days now, in some shed down by the railway, and it sings at any time of day. It hardly ever stops, but Julia doesn’t mind. In fact, she enjoys that remnant of the baserri world. Even though she remembers that she hated the sound of crickets as a child. At one time, people used to get cricket cages, and her mother always kept one or two. She would feed the cricket lettuce, and some bread soaked in wine, too, so that it would “sing” more as it got drunk, and she could never understand how her mother could like that cockroachish beast with its unpleasant noise. Her mother could never explain it to her. Now she suspects that it must have been a need for the presence of the abandoned pastureland around the house she was born in, a need to hear what she used to hear when she opened the window at Etxezar.

  Lynn comes back wearing a dress very similar to the one she was wearing shortly before. She asks Julia what she’s doing—she seems to be very surprised to find her just looking out the window like that—and Julia answers that she’s listening to the rooster.

  Basque roosters go “kukurruka,” something halfway between French birds’ “cocorico” and the “quiquiriquí” of Spanish ones, but she doesn’t know which language the one down by the tracks is crowing in. It sounds like a different version each time, and sometimes like a combination of the three. Lynn says it’s “cock-a-doodle-doo” in English. She imitates a rooster crowing, and they laugh; it doesn’t come out so very different from the one down by the railway.

  Even though Julia laughs, Lynn thinks she looks sad.

  “Not sad, tired.”

  She’s tired of always thinking about the same thing. There’s a strange silence, which only the distant murmur of Martin and Zabaleta’s voices breaks. Lynn says she understands.

  She says so very seriously, looking into Julia’s eyes. Julia isn’t sure just what she’s understood but thanks her for saying so.

  “That’s what I like best about you, there’s nothing human you don’t understand.”

  They laugh again.

  Regarding understanding. The truth is that sometimes Julia finds it hard to accept that they’ve been able to live with so much horror—general indifference toward fellow citizens being shot dead on the pavement in front of their houses—and even so, she gets angry when she hears people saying that they don’t understand it. She gets the feeling she’s being addressed from some superior moral status, from another phase of evolution, when she hears people asking how they’ve managed to reach such a situation. And that hurts her.

  “How did you come to this?” Step by step. Until the end of the ‘70s, being a member of ETA was a natural thing. Even in Madrid, people took off their sweaters and threw them up into the air in joy when they heard that Carrero Blanco, Franco’s number two, was killed in 1973. The tortured ETA member who was gunned down as he tried to escape, who’d gotten his start writing Gora Euskadi—long live the Basque Country—on walls and then gone on to planting bombs, was that brother, that neighbor—or someone who could have been that brother or that neighbor—who did what other people couldn’t, not because of ethical reasons but because they weren’t brave enough, and he was accepted as a hero for having put his life at risk and given a whole community’s dignity back to it. The martyr of a community proud to be considered resistant. She talks about dignity, because just like abused women, she felt despoiled every time she was overcome by fear, and that happend a lot, all the time. How can she tell Lynn about that feeling? Uncontrollable fear each time a secret policeman would ask for her ID on a train. It made her feel mortified; an uncontrollable fear that humiliated her. Other people managed to control it better.

  When the Civil Guard took her to the station at Ondarreta because they’d found a piece of paper with her address on that red-headed boy, and Sergeant López said “let’s take this little whore down to the basement,” she knew there was a carpenter’s workshop down there and that they used to tie the people they arrested to the bench and turn the circular saw on while interrogating them.

  Several residents on neighboring De Zumalakarregi Hiribidea—the type who consider themselves to be pillars of society—complained about the horrible screams they used to hear at night.

  So when she saw her sister with her face and blouse splashed with a motorcycle-mounted Civil Guard member’s blood and brain matter, she was terrified of what might happen to her. She called her from a phone booth in Ergobi to bring her clothes and money. The Civil Guard had stopped her friend and her at a crossroads, and when the officer put his head in through the passenger-side window, where Julia’s sister was sitting, the boy (“the killer”?—even the police hardly ever used that word) shot him at least twice. Then he fled, fortunately after making Julia’s sister get out first, and a few miles later, at a checkpoint near Bentak, he was gunned down. Julia felt very sorry for him, she cried for him, even though she didn’t know him. She knew that he was sweet on her sister and, from the photo in the newspaper, that he was handsome, and she knew that he had overcome his fear.

  She supposes she found out about the Civil Guard officer from the newspaper. She’s never met a Civil Guard member or a policeman personally, outside their work; in other wo
rds, she’s never seen one without feeling frightened. So whenever she’s around one, she still has to remind herself that she lives in a democracy, although that doesn’t entirely stop her from distrusting them, but at one time they were enemies, and her heart was like stone when she saw the spectacle of those Andalusian women throwing themselves on top of their sons’ coffins and screaming out their sorrow.

  (A memory connected with that: In Otzeta, a woman who’s lost her young son and is at the summit of her pain is urged by her sister not to lose her composure. “Come now, woman, don’t start wailing like the mother of some Civil Guard member.)

  FRAGEBOGEN: Have you ever felt avenged by the death of a policeman?

  She’d have to say she has.

  Obviously, not all the victims were policemen. There were civilians, Basques and even Basque nationalists, and children, whose innocence was unquestionable, but they were collateral damage, and canceled out on the other side of the balance sheet by noble, brave acts: people who risked having the bomb blow up in their hands as they tried to deactivate it because they realized there was still somebody in the building they were going to put it in; people who would try to resuscitate some bank clerk who collapsed during a raid. They were heroes and martyrs, and she couldn’t see them as murders right away. And the victims’ pain didn’t become apparent to her overnight, either. She thinks the two things are connected.