Translated by Margaret Jull Costa
Jose Angel Valente (Orense, 1929) studied Romance languages at the Universities of Santiago de Compostela and Madrid, and later taught at Oxford for three years. From 1958 to 1980 he lived in Geneva and now divides his time between Almeria, Geneva and Paris. He is known mainly as a poet and has won the Spanish Critics' Prize twice, in 1961 and 1980, the 1988 Principe de Asturias Prize for Literature and the 1993 Spanish National Poetry Prize. He has also translated the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Kavafis into Spanish. The book from which this story was taken, Elfin de la edad de plata was first published in 1973, and reprinted in 1995 following the publication to great acclaim of a French translation in 1992.
I - Santiago in Galicia has long been one of the world's shrines, and there people still wait and watch intently for a miracle ...
II - One evening, my sister Antonia led me by the hand to the cathedral. Antonia was much older than I. She was tall and pale with dark eyes and a rather sad smile. She died when I was still a child. But how well I remember her voice and her smile and the ice of her hand when she used to take me to the cathedral in the evening! ... Above all, I remember her eyes and the luminous, tragic flame that burned in them when she looked at a certain student walking in the atrium, wrapped in a blue cloak. I was frightened of him. He was tall and slim and had the face of a dead man and the eyes of a tiger, terrible eyes set beneath hard, slender brows. His resemblance to the dead was further increased by the way his knees creaked as he walked. My mother hated him and, in order not to see him, she kept the windows of our house that looked out on the Atrio de las Platerias firmly closed. On that evening, as on every evening, he was walking along, wrapped in his blue cloak. He caught up with us at the door to the cathedral and, drawing a skeletal hand from beneath his cloak, dipped it in the holy water and held it out to my sister, who was trembling. Antonia looked at him pleadingly, and he murmured, smiling:
`I'm desperate!'
III - We went into one of the chapels, where a few old ladies were following the Stations of the Cross. It is a large, dark chapel with an echoing wooden floor beneath the Romanesque vault. When I was a child, the chapel seemed to me imbued with a rural peace. It gave me the same cool pleasure as the shade of an old chestnut tree, as the vines that grow over certain doorways, or as a hermit's cave in the mountains. In the evenings, there was always a circle of old ladies praying. Their voices, fused into a fervent murmur, bloomed beneath the vaulted ceiling and seemed to illumine like the setting sun the roses in the stained glass windows. You could hear a glorious, nasal flutter of prayers, the dull sound of dragging feet, and a small silver bell rung by the altar boy, while he raised his lit candle above the shoulder of the priest spelling out the Passion in his breviary. Oh, when will this soul of mine, so old and so weary, immerse itself once more in the soothing shadows of the Corticela Chapel?
IV - It was drizzling and night had fallen when we crossed the atrium of the cathedral to go home. In the large, dark vestibule, my sister seemed afraid, for she ran up the stairs, still without letting go of my hand. When we got home, we saw my mother crossing the anteroom and disappearing through a door. Without knowing why, I was filled with mingled curiosity and fear; I looked up at my sister and she, without a word, stooped and kissed me. Despite my great ignorance of life, I guessed my sister Antonia's secret. I felt it weigh on me like a mortal sin as I crossed the anteroom which was full of smoke from an oil lamp with a broken jet. The flame in the lamp formed two horns and reminded me of the Devil. At night, lying in the dark, that resemblance grew inside me and would not let me sleep and it returned to trouble me on many other nights.
V - A few rainy evenings followed. The student strolled in the atrium of the cathedral in the occasional dry intervals, but my sister did not go to the chapel to pray. Sometimes, while I was doing my homework in the living room filled with the perfume of faded roses, I would open the window to see him. He was always alone, always with the same tense smile on his face, and, as night fell, such was his deathly appearance that it struck fear into the heart. I would withdraw from the window, trembling, but I could still see him before me and was unable to concentrate on my studies. From the large, closed, cavernous room, I could hear him walking about, his shinbones and kneecaps creaking ... The cat miaowed outside the door and seemed to me to be saying the student's name:
`Maximo Bretal!'
VI - Bretal is a hamlet in the mountains, near Santiago. The old men there wear pointed caps and serge smocks, the old women do their spinning in the stables because it's warmer there than in the houses, and the sacristan runs a school in the atrium of the church. With him keeping time with a baton, the children learn to speak the ornate language of mayors and scribes, chanting the charter of rights of an ancient family long since ruined. Maximo Bretal belonged to that family. He came to Santiago to study Theology and, to begin with, an old lady from the village who sold honey would come every week to bring him maize bread and bacon. He lived with some other poor theology students in an inn where one paid only for the bed. Maximo Bretal had already taken minor orders when he came to our house as my Latin grammar tutor. The priest at Bretal had commended this action to my mother as a charitable deed. She was visited by an old lady wearing a lace cap who came to thank her and brought her a basket of pippins as a gift. Later, it was said that the spell that bewitched my sister Antonia must have been contained in one of those apples.
VII - Our mother was very devout and did not believe in omens or witchcraft, but occasionally she resorted to them as explanations for the passion consuming her daughter. By then, Antonia was beginning to acquire the same deathly air as the student from Bretal. I remember seeing her working on her embroidery at the far end of the living room, blurred, as if I were seeing her in the depths of a mirror, her slow movements apparently responding to the rhythm of another life, her voice dull, her smile somehow removed from us. She looked very white and sad, adrift in a mysterious twilight, so pale that she seemed to have a ring around her, like the moon. And my mother, drawing aside the curtain at the door, would look at her and then noiselessly depart.
VIII - The sunny evenings returned with their tenuous golds, and my sister, as before, took me to pray with the old ladies in the Corticela Chapel. I would tremble, fearful that the student would reappear and hold out to us his ghostly hand dripping with holy water. The fear made me look up at my sister, and I would notice that her lips were quivering. As we approached, Maximo Bretal, who was in the atrium every evening, would keep disappearing and then, as we crossed the cathedral nave, he would reappear in the shadow of the arches. We would go into the chapel and he would kneel on the steps leading down to it and kiss the stones on which my sister Antonia had placed her feet. He would remain kneeling there, his body like a tomb, his cloak over his shoulders and his hands clasped. One evening, when we were leaving, I saw his shadowy arm reach out in front of me and pinch between his fingers one corner of my sister's skirt:
`I'm desperate! You must listen me, you must know how I suffer ... Don't you even want to look at me now? ...'
White as a flower, Antonia murmured:
`Leave me alone, Don Maximo!'
`No, I won't. You are mine, your soul is mine ... It isn't your body I want, for death will come for that sooner or later. Look at me, let your eyes confess themselves to mine. Look at me!'
And the waxen hand tugged so hard at my sister's skirt that it tore it. But her innocent eyes confessed themselves to those other pale and terrible eyes. That night in the darkness, I wept to think of it as if my sister had actually fled the house.
IX - I continued studying my Latin homework in the room filled with the perfume of faded roses. On some evenings, my mother would enter like a shadow and silently sink down on the great crimson damask sofa. I would hear her sighing and catch the murmur of her voice as she said the rosary. My mother was very beautiful, white-skinned and blonde, and always wore silk; she had two fingers missing on one
hand and on that hand she always wore a black glove; the other was like a camellia and covered in rings. This was always the hand we kissed and the hand she used when she gave us a caress. The other hand, the one in the black glove, she would conceal in her lace handkerchief, and only when she crossed herself did she reveal it entirely, so sad and so sombre against the paleness of her brow, against the rose of her mouth, against her Madonna-like breast. My mother was praying as she sat on the sofa, and I, to take advantage of the ray of light coming in through the half-open balcony windows, was studying my Latin grammar at the other end, my book open on one of those pedestal tables used for playing draughts on. One could barely see in that large, closed, cavernous room set aside for best. Occasionally, my mother, emerging from her prayers, would tell me to open the balcony windows wider. I would obey in silence and make the most of that opportunity to look out onto the atrium, where the student would still be pacing up and down, amongst the twilight mists. Suddenly, that evening, while I was watching him, he disappeared. I went back to chanting my Latin verbs and then someone knocked at the door of the room. It was a Franciscan friar recently returned from the Holy Land.
X - Father Bernardo had once been my mother's confessor and, returning from his pilgrimage, had thought to bring her a rosary made of olive stones from the Mount of Olives. He was an old man, small, but with a large, bald head; he reminded me of the Romanesque saints round the cathedral portico. That evening was the second time he had visited our house since he had returned to his monastery in Santiago. When I saw him come in, I left my grammar and ran to kiss his hand. I remained kneeling, looking up at him, awaiting his blessing, and it seemed to me that he was making the sign of the horns with his fingers. I closed my eyes, terrified by that work of the Devil! With a shudder, I realised that it was a trap he had laid, like the ones that figured in the stories of saints that I was beginning to read out loud to my mother and to Antonia. It was a trap to lead me into sin, similar to one described in the life of St Anthony of Padua. Father Bernardo, who, according to my grandmother, was a living saint, was too busy greeting the older member of his flock, my mother, and forgot to utter his blessing over my sad, shorn head with its ears wideset as if ready to take wing. The head of a child on whom weigh the sombre chains of childhood: the day's Latin and the fear of the dead and of the night. The friar spoke in a low voice to my mother and she raised her gloved hand:
`Leave the room, child!'
XI - Basilisa la Galinda, an old woman who had been my mother's nursemaid, was crouching behind the door. I saw her and she grabbed my clothes and put her wrinkled palm over my mouth:
`Don't call out, my dear.'
I stared at her because I found in her face a strange resemblance to the cathedral gargoyles. After a moment, she gave me a gentle shove:
`Off you go, child.'
I shrugged my shoulders to free myself from her hand, which had soot-black wrinkles on it, and I stayed by her side. I heard the voice of the friar say:
`It's a question of saving a soul ...'
Basilisa gave me another shove.
`Go away, you're not supposed to hear. . .'
Hunched by the door, she pressed her eye to the crack. I crouched down near her. Now all she said was:
`Just forget everything you hear.'
I started laughing. She really did look like a gargoyle. I wasn't sure whether she looked like a dog or a cat or a wolf. But she bore a strange resemblance to those stone figures reclining or leaning out above the atrium on the cathedral cornice.
XII - You could hear them talking in the room, though the friar's voice dominated:
`This morning, a young man who had been tempted by the Devil came to our monastery. He told me that he had had the misfortune to fall in love and that, in despair, he had sought access to infernal knowledge ... At midnight, he had invoked the power of the Devil. The evil angel appeared to him on a vast ash-strewn beach full of great rushing winds that made his bat's wings tremble beneath the stars.'
I heard my mother utter a sigh:
`Dear God!'
The friar went on:
`Satan told him that if he signed a pact he would bring him good fortune in love. The young man hesitated, because he has received the baptismal water that made him a Christian, and fended the Devil off with a cross. This morning, as dawn was breaking, he arrived at our monastery and in the secrecy of the confessional he made his confession to me. I told him that he must renounce his diabolical practices and he refused. My advice was not enough to persuade him. His is a soul on its way to damnation! ...'
Again my mother moaned:
`I'd rather my daughter were dead!'
And in a voice full of a terrifying mystery, the friar went on:
`If she were dead, he might triumph over Hell. If she remains alive, perhaps both will be lost ... The power of a poor woman like yourself is not enough to combat infernal knowledge-. . .'
My mother sobbed:
`What about the grace of God?'
There was a long silence. The friar must have been immersed in prayer, considering his response. Basilisa la Galinda had me clutched to her bosom. We heard the friar's sandals approaching, and the old woman loosened her grip on me slightly in order to prepare for flight. But she stayed where she was, held by the voice that said:
`The grace of God is not always with us, my daughter. Like a spring it flows forth and like a spring it can run dry. There are people who think only of their own salvation and never feel love for other creatures. They are the dry fountains. Tell me, what did your heart feel when I told you that we were in danger of losing a Christian? What are you doing to help avert this black accord with the infernal powers? Do you deny him your daughter so that he may have her from Satan?'
My mother cried out:
`Holy Jesus is more powerful than that.'
And the friar replied in vengeful tones:
`Love should be given equally to all creatures. Loving a father, a son or a husband is like loving figures of clay. Albeit unwittingly, you too, with your black hand, are raining blows down on Jesus on the cross just as the student from Bretal did.'
He must have been holding out his arms to my mother. Then we heard a noise as if he were leaving. Basilisa and I moved away from the door and we saw a black cat slip past us. No one saw Father Bernardo leave. That evening, Basilisa went to the monastery and came back saying that Father Bernardo was leading a retreat, many leagues from there.
XIII - How the rain beat against the window panes and how sad the evening light was in every room!
Antonia was sitting near the balcony embroidering, and our mother, reclining on the couch, was staring at her hard, with the hypnotic gaze of glass-eyed statues. A great silence hung about our souls; all one could hear was the pendulum clock. Antonia paused once, lost in thought, her needle poised in the air. Our mother sighed on the sofa, and my sister blinked rapidly as if waking from a sleep.Then the bells of many churches began to ring. Basilisa brought in the lamps, looked behind all the doors and barred the windows. Antonia went back to daydreaming over her embroidery. My mother beckoned me to her and kept me by her side. Basilisa brought in her distaff and sat down on the floor near the couch. I could hear my mother's teeth making a noise like castanets. Basilisa fell to her knees, looking at her, and my mother moaned:
`Get rid of the cat that's scratching beneath the couch.'
Basilisa bent down:
`What cat? I can't see one.'
`Can't you hear it either?'
Striking the floor with her distaff, the old woman replied:
`No, I can't hear it either.'
My mother shouted:
`Antonia, Antonia!'
`Yes, mother.'
`What are you thinking about?'
`Nothing, mother.'
`Can you hear the cat scratching?'
Antonia listened for a moment:
`Not any more.'
My mother shuddered:
`It's scratching right
by my feet, but I can't see it.'
Her fingers dug into my shoulders. Basilisa wanted to bring a lamp closer, but it was blown out by a gust of wind that rattled all the doors. Then, while our mother shouted, holding my sister by the hair, the old woman used an olive branch to sprinkle holy water in every corner of the room.
XIV - My mother withdrew to her bedroom, the bell rang and Basilisa ran in to her. Then, Antonia opened the balcony windows and looked out at the square with somnambular eyes. She moved away, walking backwards, then fled. I remained alone, my forehead resting against the panes of glass, where the evening light was dying. I seemed to hear shouts from inside the house, and did not dare to move, under the vague impression that the shouts were something I should ignore because I was a child. I did not move from my place by the balcony windows, going over and over my fearful, childish thoughts, all tangled up with the nebulous memory of being told off sharply and shut up in a dark room. It was like a casing about my soul, the painful memory, shared by precocious children, of listening, with wide eyes, to the conversations of old women, of leaving my games to listen. Gradually the shouts subsided and, when the house was once again in silence, I fled the room. As I went through a door, I found Basilisa.
`Don't make a sound, young master!'
I stopped on tiptoe outside my mother's bedroom. The door was ajar and from within came a sorrowful murmur and a strong smell of vinegar. I slipped in through the crack, without moving the door or making a sound. My mother was lying down and had a great many cloths soaked in vinegar wrapped about her head. Her black-gloved hand stood out against the whiteness of the sheet. Her eyes were open and, as I went in, she turned them to the door, without moving her head:
`My child, shoo away that cat at my feet!'
I went over to the bed and a black cat jumped to the floor and ran away. Basilisa la Galinda, who was standing at the door, saw it too and said that the reason I had been able to frighten it away was because I was an innocent.
XV - And I remember my mother one very long day, in the sad light of a sunless room with its windows slightly open. She was motionless in her armchair, her hands folded on her breast, still with a lot of cloths wrapped about her head, and her face white. She didn't speak and, when others spoke, she turned her gaze on them, imposing silence. That was a day without hours, immersed in a kind of early evening gloom. And that day ended suddenly, because servants rushed into the bedroom carrying lamps. My mother was screaming:
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