by Pete Ayrton
I saw some strangers enter. They had to be witnesses for the other prisoners. There was a hunchback walking with them, and he looked like a dwarf. I was afraid of him but then I felt sorry for him because he didn’t know what to do and because everyone was watching him. He sat down to our right under a big clock. He seemed uneasy and was probably protecting himself from the cold. When the clock struck the hour three times, its pendulum was the hunchback swinging above our heads from one side of the room to the other. Or maybe some child came in to skate up in the air.
It started. An usher read the paper where Papa and the others were harshly accused for attacking the Bishop’s holy residence and also the Seminary. Then everyone began to shout, extending long fingers toward the accused on their bench, wanting to knock it over. The prisoners tried to defend themselves, but there was so much screaming they sat down again. Things went on like that for hours. I’m sure Papa wanted to explain how that day he was there by chance, because he’d come from the other island to see us. There was a huge burst of shouting and now the fingers looked like knives.
I listened to them talking at home about a denunciation and I knew a different truth. They’d detained him for his political campaigns in the newspapers and meetings. I also knew that don Pancho wanted Papa to be accused for this assault on the bishopric instead, in order to keep him from falling into the hands of the ‘military authority.’ But my ears had a hard time getting used to the words ‘criminal delinquent assailant red’ and to other words that must be bad because people said them with such disdain. Suddenly I felt a great calm inside because Papa was looking right at us and he was sparkling. The usher’s voice stayed far away then, and the only thing hurting my eyes were the gold buttons on his uniform.
Then the little bell rang and the robes flapped like frightened crows and the faces got more hook-shaped, as if they were lying in wait as they asked each other questions. There was the sound of chairs and nervous moving around. People talked about ‘the great lawyers and great cases, the grandeur of the multitudes, and authority in the world.’ The word ‘guilt’ made the spectators’ knees, the pendulum on the clock, the blades in the fan, and Papa’s handcuffs all flap; and it seemed to be sucking up the little eyes of those men in the tribunal. ‘Guilty, not guilty?’ they asked, shaking the word just like when Chicho was born and everyone said ‘boy or girl?’ all at the same time. (‘What can they be guilty of? Why do the men at the table know and not the men on the bench?’ Papa must know as much about guilt as they do.) A list of names was read by the usher in a loud voice. The presiding magistrate had a kind face. It never occurred to me to think about why each person needs to have a name. They all answered immediately and went forward with curiosity, as if they’d been waiting until that moment to know each other close up. I looked around. When the magistrates argued, you had the impression that their faces were about to fall off. The fan moved slowly, scaring the flies. I watched the audience, which was very attentive and seemed bewildered. One person was smoking a cigar, a little old man whistled through his nose every time he breathed, some people were asleep and others scratched themselves nervously between their legs or tugged at their ears. I couldn’t figure out why they liked sitting there so much. But all of them seemed to be guards and to have some task. Maybe they like knowing ‘the law’ because they’re afraid and this way they’ll be able to watch out for themselves by watching over it. I looked at all those people again and again. Read the signs above the big table one more time. Each one indicates an important position. Magistrate, Public Prosecutor, Defending Counsel, Presiding Magistrate. At that moment the prosecutor was requesting five years’ imprisonment for some and three years for others ‘because the freedom of these men is considered pernicious.’ For Papa’s name there was respect.
Finally they called the witnesses and everyone startled. First Papa’s old friends walked by the bar, swearing they’d seen him lead the attack. I felt a pit open in my stomach when don Eustaquio maintained that Papa was ‘a subversive element and a declared enemy of the “Glorious National Movement.’” He’s Juanela’s father; I’ve sat on the roof terrace of his house and flown kites from his knees. Besides, he made the newspaper with Papa and even wanted to be my godfather. Traitor! Traitor! I would have liked to spit at him from my seat. (I won’t be Juanela’s friend anymore.)
They called one after the other until it was Mama’s turn; she cried a lot, wanting to convince everyone that he’d come that day only to visit us and his sole reason for going by the bishopric was to prevent accidents, that Santiago was a good man, that he was a great man, repeating tirelessly how he’d come that day solely to visit us and how he was a great man. But they made her sit down.
Auntie cried too because ‘my beloved brother had always been the vitality and intelligence in the family, that he had studied many things and that he even traveled to America, which is why you had to understand his restlessness and the adventurous spirit that prompts natural struggle, because the natural struggle of men,’ and here she got stuck and spent a long time searching for a word that would not come to her, until she continued with ‘the natural struggle of men is like a force spurring the growth of cities that with the influence of these men are, since they’re since they’re,’ and she got stuck again then went on to say that ‘they’re odd but, which is why my beloved brother should be respected, esteemed, decorated, instead of executed (that would definitely be an execution of injustice) like a war criminal, since, as one of those exemplary men, he had been instrumental in establishing the cultural basis of a city like La Laguna, and for all those things he deserved unlimited freedom.’ To which they answered that her city of such importance does not appear on any map of this earth, even if you study all the maps.
I thought that Auntie was saying too much and that she would never convince the tribunal. Along the table they were fidgeting impatiently, although this too seemed unjust. When she sat down, Auntie didn’t look so fat.
The smoke in the room was even reaching the members of the tribunal, erasing them. Above the table everything dazzled, like a large mirror held to the sun. The glasses of the presiding magistrate, the prosecutor’s bald spot, a ring waving accusatorially beside the glasses, the brass gleaming on the signs, the eyes of all the fidgeting men on the bench. For a minute Papa’s astonished face appeared and the rest was opaque. Then the room returned again. And again, countless times.
I realized immediately how important it was to choose your words carefully. Wished I were big and could say things naturally, the way those shy peasants who are Grandpa’s clients talk, because they don’t know many words. ‘Papa’s innocent, he’s always been an innocent person,’ to say that many times until those people believed it.
The little bell rang to announce that something would start soon. Your ears nearly burst, and you didn’t know how to block out that unbearably clear tone. It made people pay attention in a strange way, everyone stopped talking as if they hoped to be called. Then, you could hear a heavy murmur behind us. I realized that all those people must have wanted to testify. There was a truth in each one of them and now they spoke it in low voices, but it had nothing to do with the law and this made them happy.
The pendulum on the clock made a row of hunchbacks roll across the wall. They passed along the ceiling that divides the room in half, cast a watchful eye, and collapsed slowly, as if they felt cold. Papa felt nothing. Kept his back turned, motionless. From time to time he looked at us intensely; then his figure just gave you the impression of slow, humble waiting. I looked below the clock. It was still walking toward the next hour, and there the first hunchback was a strange hulk leaning against the wall.
Then they called Grandpa. Grandpa was weak and I was afraid of what he might tell them. He walked to the place they told him and looked at Papa as if he wanted to stop near him. Pinching his felt hat, he turned it around and folded it so many times you could hardly see it. The interrogation was always the same but each time it was faster. Grandpa
shook his head yes or no, and I thought that he’d get confused because of his age, since he takes his time making packsaddles and spends an hour eating his bowl of oatmeal. But I felt sure he’d confess what I would have said if I could have testified. A bold fly began to torment him and he whacked his nose hard with his hat, which made the magistrates laugh. I laughed too, but it’s because I realized he acts comical when he’s nervous. Alido intervened, demanding proper respect and the presiding magistrate banged his gavel on the table a few times, which made the noise die down.
I remembered that Grandpa’s reserved and he needs to weigh his sentences quietly before he pulls them out. Substitutes his voice for the needle he uses to sew packsaddles. But when Papa tried to keep him from talking, Grandpa got a set look in his eyes and his words were crystal clear. He protested, pretending to be angry, although he was really frowning from tenderness. ‘Jijo, everyone here wants to pull out the lining in his heart.’ Some people laughed again and others began to clap. But Grandpa doesn’t hear when he’s busy looking for ‘his words,’ and then I smiled and he caught ‘the knot by its hole’ as he says. Now he was very serious.
I was tired. I wanted to hear Papa, wanted that to end. Grandpa told the story starting from the day of the ‘Movement,’ which began with the entrance of those insurgents: ‘Gentlemen, those guys were indeed insurgents, since they came in stamping on everything, same as my clients the mules.’ There was some laughter again. This time it made me angry or feverish and I wanted to run out of there really bad. The doors started to fall down like that day, there was shouting and planes, a mixed sound of doors being bolted and windowpanes breaking. And Grandpa was shouting ‘the war, the war,’ with his mouth open very wide, until he swallowed me up little by little.
‘No, Grandpa, no,’ I shouted, creating a vacuum around me between Mama and Auntie; the two of them suggested taking me out to the street for some fresh air. ‘There is no street today, there is no street today,’ I kept hearing in my head. Remembered everything while Grandpa swallowed me. It was the war moving in my memory and everything happening there was because of the war, Chicho was still repeating ‘Ma-ma-ma-ma,’ same as then, Grandpa went on being old, and everyone talked with isolated words. ‘Why, why,’ in the name of all the laws in the world, they tirelessly asked guilt, the fan, Grandpa’s hat. I felt the wrinkles on Grandpa’s neck jumping all over my face again, like ants. It was that day again, all over again. A pile of bright straw rose on the table at the back of a black cloth shed. But instead of rotten packsaddles, there were uniformed rifles in red, blue, and black, elongated by the fan, shadows flying across the ceiling.
When we went back to the hall again after getting some fresh air, the men in dark robes were whispering among themselves. Grandpa was still waiting for more questions. One of the men stood up and shouted for him to get to the point, since there wasn’t much time left and they didn’t want to waste it on such vague names. Grandpa wiped away the sweat. It hurt me that those witches didn’t know that Grandpa talks with animals more than with people, that they didn’t know what a mule means for him. He looked at the row of faces out of the corner of his eye and then he stopped at the platform where a lot of feet tapped restlessly, raising dust. Trembling, he fixed his bony hand in Papa’s direction and began his story again. Said that the handcuffed man they saw there was his favorite jijo. Of course he grew up, but he was not like Grandpa. ‘I know him better than you do, as naturally you know your sons,’ he explained; ‘I know what he’s made of and know he’s incapable of making a racket for the fun of it, because he always had a powerful reason for his actions, and if he didn’t, he didn’t act. Besides,’ he said, ‘considering the attack that smashed the windowpanes in my home and how peaceful things were in town the day of the “Coup,” it’s unfair to demand order from others because there’s the same right, since each person has his own personal ideas.’ And he repeated that his jijo had a good reason for his actions. They asked him to be briefer and Grandpa recalled Papa as a child and how he used to punish him, ‘’cause I’ve always been a brute and he’d hide so I wouldn’t make ’im work on my packsaddles, since I didn’t realize he could benefit from time away from there; ’cause you men know that a father believes an jijo’s time belongs to his father, and he wanted to study, get himself an education and get his thoughts together his own way.’ Grandpa was tired and he breathed with his chest, walking the whole length of the bar and finally leaning on the magistrates’ table. He stopped near don Eutimio and don Tarife. They talked about when Papa was an altar boy and he borrowed books from the library. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ Grandpa repeated, ‘this is my jijo and he must be allowed his ideas, he must be believed when he says that something is true, because this is a total disgrace, it’s a disgrace that now you’re going to imprison him for years and years... ’ He even walked close to Papa, who was all hunched over, and asked in a loud voice if they would take off Papa’s handcuffs, stroking his hands like Samarina and I do. But Alido was listening to Grandpa very attentively, and he brought him over to where we were sitting, because Grandpa was crying and order had been disturbed, which made the magistrates’ little gavel bang on the table. ‘Grandpa.’ (I wished I could hug him hard, curl up in his oldness under his dirty lapel.)
But things continued. Movement of chairs. Papa and Alido chatted while the witnesses for the other prisoners waited. They patted us on the shoulder a few times, which meant we should meet with them. We went into a large room where there were pictures of hunched-over figures and the smell of old books. There were fat sofas covering the areas along the walls. A man in a suit was scratching his beard furiously. It all seemed like the buzzing of flies.
I felt dizzy. Through the door that led into the tribunal, you could hear the little bell, the scraping of chairs, and small blows on and under the big table. Even the sound of a sob carried that far. I looked at Papa and felt that he’d soon be free. But the thick sound coming through the door was like a battle raging in my head. I thought how from that moment on I would have him forever. Remembered how the presiding magistrate turned his monocle impatiently and tugged at it on a little chain. Pressed myself carefully against Papa’s hand, afraid of finding a hollow. Something incomprehensible had his hands tied within.
At the end of an hour a guard came in to get us. Then everything was easy. They took off Papa’s handcuffs and his free arms hugged us awkwardly. Alido was giving Grandpa little pats on the back and couldn’t stop laughing. (His broad stomach shook contentedly and he was friendly.) He congratulated Grandpa for having moved the tribunal. ‘That’s more important than a law,’ he said.
Nivaria Tejera was born in Cienfeugo, Cuba, in 1929. Her father was from the Canary Islands and the family moved back to Tenerife when Nivaria was two. The father was taken prisoner at the outbreak of the Civil War and not released until 1944, when the family returned to Cuba. The Ravine, first published in France in 1958, is a magical attempt to convey from a child’s point of view the confusions and fractures of the Civil War. Tejera said about the book:
At the beginning of the 1950s, I decided to narrate my experiences as a child during the Spanish Civil War in the small city of La Laguna... I wrote as a witness both real and imaginary, the young narrator who tells of the catastrophe foregrounded in the novel’s opening paragraph: ‘the war started today opposite Grandpa’s house.’ ... I believe that the goal running through the pages of The Ravine is timelessness, a secret hope that both the life fragmented by the war in Spain and the fragmented language I used to portray it will symbolize an eternal present found in subsequent but only slightly different situations.
Indeed, for the author, the narrator’s point of view is ‘a dialogue between past and present’: the voice of the little girl fusing with the adult voice of the author herself. In the early 1960s, Nivaria Tejera served as cultural attaché for the Cuban government in Rome. In 1965, she broke with the Castro government and returned to Paris. She died in January 2016.
