The House of Impossible Loves

by Cristina Lopez Barrio

  She found him sitting on a rock in the meadow that led from the hut to the ravine. He was holding the Bécquer book like a lump of stone.

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t come back,” the shepherd said as he got to his feet.

  “So was I,” Olvido replied.

  The book fell to the ground, the river of their kisses flowing over it. They walked to the hut. Embers from the logs that had comforted Ezequiel’s sleepless nights still crackled in the hearth. They kissed against the wall, undressed on the unmade cot that groaned under the weight of love, the weight of bodies now come undone, and the smell of a man who lived alone drifted out the door.

  18

  THE CASTILIAN TOWN was unprepared for Santiago Laguna’s fall from grace. The townspeople had watched him grow up on that altar dais in the church, singing Glorias and Ave Marias in an angelic voice that may have lost purity and gained gravity with the onset of adolescence but continued to fill hearts with faith, raising the hair on arms swathed in their Sunday best. (Some even remembered him lying in his crib, sleeping like a baby, as Manuela Laguna lifted his genitals on a stick to display proof of his exceptional birth.) They had grown used to hearing him recite sections of the Gospels or saintly poems on their radios, their hands greasy with bacon, a café con leche moustache over their lips. No one made announcements like him: times for Mass, times for catechism, times for retreats flowing out over the waves. “The boy speaks so clearly,” they said, “with such joy and conviction.” They had grown used to his poetry about honeysuckle, geranium, and morning glories every Saturday morning. Young girls sucked on lollipops as they thought about petals; older girls confused pine needles with wintry branches awaiting the return of an uncertain love; old women were invigorated as they made vegetable soup. They had even grown used to his beauty, adopting it as theirs, making it the pride of the town. “Shame there are only contests for the best-looking calf around here. If there were one for boys, our Santiago would win them all,” the old women in black shawls would comment in the late afternoon when they saw him pass by, offering a smile. It no longer mattered that his beauty came from Olvido, she who had given them recipes to soothe their longing for the dead. It no longer mattered that his saint’s name was followed by a last name sullied by a curse. Without a doubt, he had been born to put an end to that curse, to squash it with his prodigious gifts. So said Padre Rafael, who loved him like a son.

  But once Santiago saw the way his grandmother and Ezequiel Montes looked at each other that October Sunday, his Glorias and Ave Marias were suffocated in a mantle of grief and rage that clouded any godly love in the hearts of the faithful. This affliction—inflamed on holiday afternoons when Ezequiel Montes drank boiled coffee and ate cinnamon cake in the parlor at Scarlet Manor, sitting between him and Olvido—also affected his ability to write and recite poetry. Santiago read the Gospels halfheartedly, like a simple instruction manual; he attributed verses by Matthew to Luke, and Luke’s to a nonexistent apostle. He recited sacred poems in fits and starts, with the intonation of a dying man, and he constantly mixed up the times for Mass, catechism, and retreats. Afternoon teatime became dull, cups of café con leche unsteady, and slices of bacon disappointing. Old women went to church in time for First Communion catechism, while children, excited by the prospect of holy wafers, arrived to hear talks on living with Christian principles after a spouse has died. The poems Santiago wrote for his Saturday-morning programs were no longer filled with nature’s nostalgia but steeped in eulogies to times gone by, to rough traitors who stole love and died poisoned by laudanum and rose fertilizer.

  Padre Rafael began to do what he had never done before—censor Santiago’s poems—until there was nothing left to read, nothing but pursed lips before the solitude of a microphone. Fraught by the anguish of his love and incontinence, the priest wound up buying a mammoth collection of religious music to replace Santiago on the air until he was cured of the ill consuming him, an ill the priest attributed to nothing but a furious attack of adolescence.

  October unfurled in the mountains, fields, and pine forests. Nights began to smell of snow, carpets of dry leaves were picked up by the wind, and the ground grew hard with the first frost.

  The traitors who invaded Santiago’s poems appeared in Manuela Laguna’s stories as well. At Scarlet Manor, as night grew thick after dinner and Pierre Lesac’s portrait over the fireplace flushed with shadows, the Atlantic Ocean grew choppy between Olvido and Santiago, schooners splintering to pieces, waves flooding eyes, and the traitors the boy invented were the cause of all misfortune, of all the sailors’ laments, of all the losses in the world, as if they controlled nature itself. When Santiago fell silent, waiting for his grandmother to tell the end of the story, his cheeks would furrow with sad creases. But Olvido paid no attention to the traitors, treating them as if they did not exist. Nothing had or ever could change between them, she seemed to be saying to her grandson as she recounted the end of the story just as she had heard her mother tell it many years before.

  Santiago fell ill and stopped going to school. In the mornings he would vomit the dinners he and his grandmother had made, now without laughter or games, dinners of silent squash, grief-stricken tuna, and bitter potatoes, dinners seasoned with the same question—“Is he your boyfriend?”—and the same answer—“For now he’s just a good friend.” But she was lying, even if it was to save him from hurt, to let him slowly get used to Ezequiel Montes on the periphery of their lives.

  Santiago knew it was a lie. Olvido’s eyes sparkled when she talked about the shepherd; before they had only ever sparkled when she talked about him. Santiago twisted in his sheets, afflicted by cramps that filled him with joy, for as long as he was home, his grandmother could not meet Ezequiel in the meadow, could not walk in woods that had always been theirs. Olvido brought him chamomile tea, fed it to him by the spoonful, kissed his forehead when he was done, and he was as happy as when nothing stood in their gaze. Didn’t Ezequiel Montes know he was the one chosen to save his family? Didn’t Ezequiel Montes know who he was up against?

  Olvido had had the occasional suitor since her cooking program opened doors to a social life. Santiago knew that Agustino, the widower from the fabric store, invited her to the summer cinema one day, but she offered apologies, saying she was going with her grandson. That night Agustino sat drinking wine in a corner of the plaza, fuming as he watched them laugh at the movie, arm in arm against a star-speckled sky. Santiago had also watched as the lawyer’s son—who had inherited the business after his father died of prostate cancer—tried to caress Olvido’s hand when he indicated where she was to sign. As she moved toward the paper, pen in hand, he was waiting with the vile sword of his fingers. It was not war they were seeking but love, and she knew it, a feverish Santiago thought, and would surreptitiously move her hand, leaving the office holding her grandson’s hand, squeezing it to include him in what had just happened.

  The new doctor in town, a young blond man afflicted by alopecia and extreme myopia requiring thick glasses, came to Scarlet Manor to diagnose Santiago. Long fingers examined Santiago’s stomach, finding it contracted, as if wanting to escape his touch. He examined Santiago’s tonsils, as red as cod gills, and his ears, where he found a wax plug he extracted with a silver instrument and a gush of water.

  “The boy is healthy,” he told Olvido at last. “The vomiting is a case of nerves. Make sure he gets out for fresh air, and if symptoms continue, give him a glass of water with baking soda and three drops of lemon every eight hours. If his nerves don’t settle on their own, they’ll need to be purged.”

  That night there were no stories by the fire, replaced by baking soda purgatives. Olvido went to bed early in Clara Laguna’s room, wanting to avoid the bricked-up window in her room and hoping her grandmother might offer advice to help the boy understand her friendship with Ezequiel Montes. Olvido pictured the shepherd reading the Bible, lonely as a wolf, unable to eat, unshaven and in love, the candle nub melting onto the table, him l
ying on the iron cot, waiting for her. It had been over a week since she had seen him, since Santiago had grown ill. Sunday teatimes were suspended, as were Ezequiel’s visits during the week to bring them cheese and fresh milk or have a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

  The baking soda and lemon revealed a new dimension to Santiago’s stomach, filled with longing for Olvido. Unwell, he went to her room, but not finding her there, he continued on to Clara Laguna’s. He stood for a moment, staring at his grandmother’s shape beneath the purple canopy, then climbed in silently beside her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and fell asleep as a lace dressing gown swished down one wall.

  Fire. That was the first night Santiago dreamed of flames surrounding him, choking him. But the dream ended there. He woke in a cold sweat, his gaze lost in the purple canopy. He clung to his grandmother, who calmed him with kisses, rocking him as she had when he was a boy and the nightmare of Manuela Laguna drooling a blue sea of poison startled him awake. They held on to each other for over an hour, sharing secrets in the silent dawn filtering in through the window. Later, over a breakfast of toast, Santiago thought those flames must belong to the very hell Padre Rafael spoke of from the pulpit armored against his prehistoric weight. Santiago felt guilty about leaving the priest to his fate surrounded by bedpans, the theological treatises he wrote in the clarity of morning, and records of Gregorian chants, requiems, and solemn Masses. He refused the glass of water with baking soda and lemon and had no trouble with the previous night’s dinner or the morning slice of bread and butter.

  “I’m going to church, Abuela,” Santiago said after drinking the last of his milk. “Padre Rafael needs me. I shouldn’t have left him like that.”

  “I’m sure he understands. He loves you very much . . .”

  “And tomorrow I’ll go to school.”

  The day dawned to black clouds, so Santiago put on a raincoat and rubber boots. He went to stay goodbye to Olvido, busily skinning a rabbit for lunch, and found her smiling down at the blood and clumps of fur that escaped her knife.

  Santiago headed down the gravel road. He knew Olvido would go see Ezequiel Montes and felt a stab in his chest as his bones became a mountain stream once again. But he needed to see Padre Rafael and resolve this issue with hell. As the first drops of rain fell, he began to think about the pharmacist’s granddaughter, his ringleted classmate whose breasts had grown from paella mussels to frosted cupcakes. They still kissed and caressed in the room behind the pharmacy amid balsams, bottles, and concoctions, though he had never dared tell Padre Rafael or his grandmother. Santiago thought he might be able to give up those afternoons that engorged adolescence in his pants, if in exchange God would separate Olvido and Ezequiel Montes. After all, Santiago told himself as rain pelted his forehead, this is all just a mistake; I wasn’t born for misfortune.

  Padre Rafael was so happy to see Santiago that he had to race to the bathroom. The church echoed with his footsteps, but not like before, his illness softening both him and his journey through the world. Santiago waited for him in the small radio station room. It was more organized than he could believe. A new shelving unit stood in one corner, housing the collection of sacred music Padre Rafael had bought, the records arranged by choir or composer.

  “How are you, my boy?” the priest asked when he came back from the bathroom wearing an oft-mended cassock.

  “I want to help with the radio again, and with Mass if you need me. I don’t feel like doing my radio shows yet, but I could play the music.”

  “I’m so happy to hear that, son. I was considering finding someone else—just until you were better, of course.”

  “No need, Padre. I’m here. But I have to tell you, I dreamed of hell last night.”

  “Such a place was not made for you, Santiago,” the priest replied, ruffling his hair.

  When he arrived home for lunch, Santiago found a rosy-cheeked Olvido in hiking boots.

  “You went up to the meadow to see your friend the shepherd,” Santiago said.

  “In a few days, when the fog of the dead arrives, he’ll take his sheep to Extremadura and won’t be back until spring.”

  Olvido knew shepherds led their flocks to pasture in Extremadura because of its warmer winter and returned once the cold weather was gone. Still, she had never paid attention to it until that morning, when Ezequiel Montes announced his departure. She would miss their conversations sitting by the door to his hut, their walks through the meadows, their hugs and kisses on the messy iron cot.

  “Invite him to tea this Sunday to say goodbye,” Santiago proposed.

  The boy was thrilled to see just how quickly God listened, taking Ezequiel Montes away. The second half of fall and one full winter seemed long enough for his grandmother to forget. Now he had no choice but to hold up his end of the bargain and stop his games with the pharmacist’s granddaughter.

  Ezequiel Montes came to Scarlet Manor in his stiff suit, his hair neatly combed back with cologne. He watched Olvido pour the coffee and arrange the cinnamon cake on a porcelain platter. He spoke of his trip, the excellent pastures free of snow, and oak groves that turned the landscape into a world of giant shadows when night fell. Santiago was friendly that evening. He asked the shepherd how long it would take him to reach Extremadura, what towns he would pass, and other details that interested him not at all.

  Just after eight o’clock, Ezequiel said he should go. Santiago said goodbye in the parlor, letting his grandmother walk the shepherd to the door. Hiding in a corner of the hallway, Santiago watched them hurriedly kiss, reach up to touch a face, as if hands were memory to be recalled later, and embrace as a blade of dark sliced their bodies through the half-open door. It took everything in Santiago to forget this painful image, and after dinner, when he and his grandmother sat in front of the fire to tell their stories, he had to fight the desire to inject a traitor responsible for the deepest sorrow.

  The next day, when the first church bells rang, Ezequiel Montes set off with his flock and his dogs, leaving the town behind like a cloud billowing up at dawn.

  November crept deep into the mountains and forests. Winds blew, making lime trees sing, mountain ash burn bright, beech trees turn yellow, ferns grow brown. Autumn marched wet and multi-hued into winter.

  Santiago’s bones were bones once again. He sang at Sunday Mass once again, up on the dais with a voice still recovering, deeper but also more beautiful. He recited the Gospels and sacred poems once again, announcing times for Mass, catechism, and retreats without any mistakes. The only thing he could not do was write poetry, neither about nature nor traitors. Santiago asked his grandmother to pick him up from school a few days a week and accompany him in the room next to the sacristy for his radio shows. She would sit and watch him recite into the microphone, but every now and then Santiago sensed her gaze was far away, lost elsewhere, though her eyes were fixed on his, and it pained him to think that she might have traveled to Extremadura, to that rough man off in some pasture. Yet Olvido showed no sign of missing the shepherd.

  The only noticeable change was that she went to the cemetery more often. Olvido always visited the graves of Esteban and her daughter, and sometimes Manuela’s mausoleum. It was a hexagonal, pink marble shrine held up by Ionic columns, a gloved goddess rising from the center. The townspeople whispered that it was a fitting grave for the life she had led: a whore who rose high because the flesh was weak. In winter no one was ever at her grave, but in spring and summer, entomologists from all over the province, even the capital, visited the mausoleum. At that time of year, thousands of insects—primarily centipedes and crickets—would pilgrimage there. Scientists had yet to discover a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon. Endless rows of insects climbed the hill with religious obstinacy, despite children throwing rocks to break their military formation, stray dogs sniffing them with wet snouts, and funeral processions stomping on them to avenge their pain.

  By the time the first snow fell, Santiago noticed that his grandmother had becom
e more absent-minded. She would forget her stews on the stove, burning them; use dessert ingredients in first and second courses, adding cinnamon and sugar to garlic soup or cooking meatballs in lemon cream. It was then she began to tell her grandson about Ezequiel Montes, his life, his childhood adding lambs and subtracting them, his extraordinary ability to read the Bible when he was illiterate before any other book, the little bag where he kept the shells of the bullets that killed his father and how for years he slept with them under his pillow.

  Santiago’s bones ached and the vomiting returned; so did the traitors in Manuela Laguna’s stories and fire in his dreams. But this time Santiago did not fear they were the flames of hell. Even though they still surrounded him like that very first dream, now they were suddenly extinguished by a ray of moonlight. This heavenly glow bathed him in an albino fire, and it was in those fresh flames that the face of a woman appeared. Over several nights all Santiago could make out was a mass of wavy chestnut hair. But as the dream took root inside, one night he distinguished a smooth forehead, another night a pair of sorrowful black eyes. The next day Santiago was obsessed with the lumps of coal in the stove; he gorged on black olives and squid in its ink that Olvido prepared, surprised by her grandson’s sudden desire to consume anything dark she set before him.

  Several days passed before Santiago was assaulted by the dream again. He had tried to sleep wherever he could, slumped over his desk at school, listening to the Gregorian chants and requiems he played on the radio, as his grandmother told the end of a story. He was no longer afraid of the fire. Instead he was anxious to decipher the woman’s whole face, anxious to see what lay beyond those eyes that held him captive.