Nerea:
“We’re getting paranoid.”
“Could be.”
Those piles of papers didn’t rouse Bittori from indifference. They should tell her where to sign and that was that. She wanted to know nothing about the business. The business, she said, was part of Txato, like his protruding ears and his fondness for bicycling. Xabier studied his mother carefully to see if she was joking, but she wasn’t. Darkly, she predicted that if her children took control of the business they would have the same fate as their father.
On the other hand, she took a great interest in preserving the personal objects the dead man kept in his office. One afternoon, Xabier brought them to the San Sebastián apartment in several cardboard boxes. Some time later, she and Xabier brought them to Nerea, who still keeps them in her house.
And Bittori told Xabier he could leave because she wanted to look over Txato’s belongings by herself.
“Would you allow me a small commentary on the contents?”
“No.”
“Did you know that aita—?”
“I said no.”
And she meant it. She walked him to the door. A kiss and agur. Alone in the flat, Bittori, scat, chased Ikatza off the sofa, sat down, and opened the boxes. Txato never told her he kept a pistol in the office. A surprise? No. I always thought he did. Didn’t he always say he felt safe there? She felt the heft of the black weapon. Could it be loaded? The cold metal, her fingers far away from the trigger. But the temptation was great. She aimed at the ceiling light. What does the person who fires feel when his victim falls, when blood begins to pour out of the holes the bullets make in the body?
She took out half a dozen small boxes, twenty cartridges of 9 x 19 mm bullets, all unopened except one. Txatito, my gangster, my gunman, how were you going to shoot someone when you were a saint? Why weren’t you armed the day when? Maybe, I’m thinking, you could have defended yourself.
She put those mortal artifacts on the floor and took out the framed photographs her husband had displayed on a shelf in the office: one of the two of them young, smiling, in front of the Tower of Pisa; one of each child, Xabier at the age of twelve or thirteen, Nerea, really pretty in her first-communion dress; another of the four of them together, all dressed up at the door of the Azpeitia church, at a relative’s wedding, and two others of Txato, each with one of his children.
Bittori took out other objects that interested her less. Ballpoint pens, a fountain pen, trophies from the cyclotourism club and from various mus tournaments, and a candle in the shape of a cactus given to him on some occasion by Nerea, his princess, his favorite, the one who didn’t come to the burial. In sum, sentimental trivia, decorations, souvenirs. And the extortion letters? Not a one. Maybe Txato destroyed them. Maybe Xabier filed them among the other papers.
33
GRAFFITI
The office was in a loft. It was a simple platform on iron columns, with a glass partition that allowed the boss to take in the interior of the warehouse with a glance, and a window that overlooked the esplanade. Txato had set it up that way so he could, as he said, keep an eye on the operation. Txato was a very controlling person. He would have wanted to do everything in the business: administration, close deals, supervise loading and unloading, oiling motors, check tire pressure, wash the trucks and drive them. He noted departures and arrivals, equally attentive to the arrival of a client or some unexpected visitor. As soon as he heard the sound of a motor, he was looking out the window.
The lot was surrounded by a six-foot concrete wall, which supported an even higher wire fence. A sliding gate sealed the entrance at night. During the workday, it was usually open. The village boys would ask Nerea when she was a little girl if her aita had built a prison. And she, to follow the joke, answered that yes he had and that the employees were the prisoners.
One day, at the first hour of the workday, Txato was at his window watching the coupling of a truck and a trailer. He didn’t trust the men. He never trusted them. Not even his most veteran drivers. When they’d finished, the truck moved out. Then a part of the wall until then hidden by the truck came into view. And from his office Txato read the large, twisted letters inscribed in spray paint: OPPRESSOR SHORTY.
That was the first graffiti directed at him. At first, he believed it was just hooliganism. More than the accusation, which did annoy him, and more than the dirtying and ugly act itself, which annoyed him even more, and more than the translation into Spanish of his Basque nickname, which drove him wild, he was disturbed by the fact that the words were on the interior side of the wall. Which meant that an intruder had entered, at night, into his space. Bittori, who was drying her hands on her apron, did not discount the possibility that it might be an employee. Txato came down from the office using the narrow, steep metal stairs, where one of these days, in Bittori’s opinion, “you’re going to kill yourself,” and was more concerned to cover up his rage than to watch where he put his feet. He walked to the area set aside as a repair shop. There he asked for a can of spray paint. He could have ordered an employee to cover up that stupidity, but Txato was a man of passion, of let’s-get-going, of rapid decisions, and also a man who took on the greatest possible number of jobs, manual or bureaucratic. So, that was that, he went to the wall and wiped out the offense.
At home, during dinner, he told Bittori. Together they went over the names of the employees (she called them “workers”) trying to figure out the possible culprit. Someone full of resentment, someone who thought he’d been treated badly by the boss. But as usual, without witnesses or proof there was nothing to be done. It didn’t occur to either of them to connect the vandalism with the extortion letters. Weeks passed, they forgot the incident, and followed their daily routines.
After a Saturday in mid-March, the lives of Txato and his family were never the same. What time did it happen? Joxian and Txato came up the street disputing some point or other because they were as fond of arguing as they were of each other. They were partners at mus and quite good at it; but sometimes, as we all know, the cards favor our rivals. Then, on the way home, it wasn’t strange that they’d be walking along each one blaming the defeat on the other.
They’d eaten at the gastronomic society—each one with his own dish, whatever his wife had prepared at home—and since they’d planned to be out early the next morning, they played cards before dinner and not after as they did on other evenings. The next day a rather long route in the cyclotourism program awaited them, one that would end in a bar in the center of Zumaya.
They were on the way home, between sober and drunk, enmeshed in one of their usual disputes, obscenities flying back and forth, with no limits because their friendship was in no danger. With the heat of their conversation and the weak light of the street lamps they didn’t notice some fresh graffiti covering the older tags along with many posters covering the lower part of the facades. At first, they didn’t notice one that was still wet next to the entryway to Txato’s house. The two friends had stopped to finish off their argument. They were saying good night, one said let’s hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow, and the other: okay, you pain in the ass, seven thirty in the square, when Joxian’s attention was struck by his friend’s name written on the wall.
“Holy shit.”
“What?”
TXATO TXIBATO. Son of a bitch. And Joxian: cover that up before you go to bed, you can’t play around with that. They said goodbye and Txato, grumbling, the assholes, instead of going up to his house went to the garage where he stored some old cans of paint. Me, an informer? They wrote that so they could get a good rhyme. I’ve never talked to a cop in my life. Another problem: he had no brush. Or maybe he did, but with his nerves on edge and the anger he was feeling he couldn’t find it. Finally, he did find a small brush, paint, and some newspaper. For better or for worse, he managed to make both words illegible, staining his trousers in the process. Bittori would mak
e a racket. Let her make a racket. Informer. In a village like his, the worst calumny. It was the same slogan that was written on the wall surrounding his business a few weeks back.
He fully intended to buy fresh paint the next day, as soon as he got back from his bicycle excursion. He told Bittori all about it in bed. And she:
“So, you think they may paint more graffiti.”
“I’m starting to think it’s not just a simple prank. We have to be prepared.”
“In that case, why bother painting over them? That’s a losing strategy. And tell me, did you see if there was more graffiti along the street?”
“I was walking with Joxian and we didn’t see any others.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely sure? No. But it’s late now and I’m in my pajamas.”
Informer, oppressor, traitor. They’d written all of that, in Basque and in Spanish, on his street, on the surrounding streets, in the square. A classic persecution campaign. At least twenty tags in the old part of town. So many all at once can’t be the work of a single vandal. And God knows what there could be on the houses in the outskirts. Here we see careful planning and many hands. He left his house early wearing his bicycling outfit and couldn’t believe his eyes. Txato this, Txato that. Herriak ez du barkatuko. That was the program in play. And when he got to the square and joined the other bicyclists, he noted what? He noted something, lukewarm greetings. Eyes that avoided meeting his. He missed the jokes from other days, although it could be that he’d suddenly become susceptible and a victim of his own imagination and suspicion.
They started off. Fourteen or fifteen, the usual men. Other members of the club had already left or would leave later. And the only one who pedaled near him was Joxian, who was also more silent than usual. Before they left the last house in the village behind, the shout of a boy from a window insulted him:
“Txato, son of a bitch!”
Not a one of his group did a thing to defend him. No one made a comment, a reproach, a reply to the insult. The group began to disperse. It was the usual thing. Some were faster than others. And Txato was left alone with Joxian, who the whole time stayed two or three yards behind him without saying a word. And going up the Orio mountain, he lagged even farther back even though he was a better hill climber than Txato.
They finally caught sight of Zumaya. They knew the bar from other years. Inside, someone would stamp the card where the various stages of the tour that season were listed. And then, the reward for all their effort, fried eggs and ham. They could hear voices and laughter from the street. Txato walked in. There was a sudden silence. And that was just too much for him. He couldn’t stand any more. He didn’t have his card stamped. Without saying goodbye to anyone, not even Joxian, he got on his bike and set out for home on his own.
34
MENTAL PAGES
When he was arrested, Joxe Mari’s hair hung down to his shoulders. What became of those curls, of the tickle of hair on his forehead and also here at the nape of his neck? Better not to think about it. When he looks at himself in the mirror, he says: that’s not me.
And one year passed, two, four, six years passed, each one with its Christmas, with the village festivals celebrated without him. Actually, everything happens now without him. He doesn’t see the river flow, doesn’t hear the church bell ring, and right at this moment he’d pay millions (which he doesn’t have) to eat a few figs in his father’s garden. To keep from putting himself in a foul mood, he chooses not to count the years of jail time he still has to endure; although there in the depth of his vague hopes, he doesn’t discount the possibility that maybe the organization, maybe the national government, maybe international pressure, et cetera. Some nights, in the dark, he tries to re-create in his mouth the taste of chacolí, the sharp wine of the Basque Country, or of cider, it’s all the same. And sometimes it seems to him that he almost tastes them.
In his sixth year, he began to lose his hair. Okay, that’s the least of his problems. Once he leaned the crown of his head against one of the bars on his bed and, damn, he felt a chill on fuzzy skin he’d never felt before. Now he’s bald. Completely bald. If he ever gets out, no one in the village will recognize him. He’s shaved his head down to the zero point so no one will notice, so it looks as if he’s got no hair because that’s the way he wants it.
His mother does not like his shaved head. Truth be told, she didn’t like his long hair in the old days, you look like a beggar, nor did she like his earring or his militancy, although with regard to that she changed overnight. For his sake? Certainly. Ama is strong. God, what courage she has. The old man is another story, like Gorka. Peace-loving, soft. I take after ama and that’s how I am and that’s why I’m here and why I’m going to be here a long time. Where? In my cell. In the fucking cell in the fucking jail until the next transfer or until they let me out.
Today he’s txapeo, but because he’s pissed off, see? Nothing to do with the struggle or the protest. Just to be alone and not to go out into the patio and the corridors and see the same faces I see every day. As he does so often, he stretches out in bed, picking over memories like someone leafing through a photo album. Sometimes he’s there for two or three hours mentally reviewing pages of old stories, and although on the one hand nostalgia eats away at him, on the other he manages to get the hours to pass without tedium. Come on, what more do you want; they’re just a few hours taken away from the mountain of years left on his sentence. In such instances, the surprises are what he likes most. Because he’s calm, sunk in his memories, staring at the ceiling, and suddenly such and such a memory comes to him or yet another from such a long time ago, from when he was free and had hair and played handball and drank all the chacolí or cider or beer he wanted.
They must have been how old, ten or twelve years? Something like that. The two of them together, he and Jokin, inseparable, going up into the neighboring hills with slingshots to hunt birds. They made them out of forked hazelwood branches, strips of rubber cut from inner tubes, and a piece of leather. One Sunday, he remembers, taking advantage of the fact that it was a festival day and there was no one at Txato’s business, they climbed over the entry gate to get to where they stored old wheels and there, using a knife, cut the strips from an inner tube. The ones they made that time were the best slingshots they ever had. Seriously. They could send a projectile all the way across the river and it would fall far beyond. Using ball bearings or stones, they tried to bring down birds, but as far as he can remember they never managed to get a single one. However, they were good at breaking bottles or hitting the traffic sign at the far end of the industrial park, until finally with all the stones they fired at it they chipped the paint to the point that not even God could have read the sign. One afternoon, Jokin got the idea of taking shots at windows. Crash, the broken glass collapsed. They started running, and someone came out and shouted at them—son of a bitch. Well, if you want to catch us, start running. And they broke up laughing. Eleven, twelve years old. Snot-nosed kids. About that time, the armed struggle began. We carried it in our genes. He smiles staring at the ceiling. What am I doing here, laughing while I’m racking my brains? He becomes serious. He turns another mental page.
When they were older they went out hunting with a decoy. He and Jokin, and sometimes Koldo as well. He tells the ceiling that using a decoy works better with smart guys than with jerks. Koldo was neither the one nor the other, but he had a goldfinch that could sing its head off. I never saw anything like it in my life. Koldo would hang the cage in the bushes. The damn goldfinch, peep peep, off and running with singing. The three friends would wait silently about twenty yards away, smoking. Not a word, not a sound. Then all of a sudden there would be a signal and we’d jump like hell out of our hiding place. And the birds, scared out of their wits, would get stuck to the branches covered with birdlime. And even without scaring them, don’t tell me. They would try to get away but it was useless
, and the more they flapped their wings the more they got stuck to the branches. There were afternoons when we’d catch, no exaggeration, seven or eight goldfinches, always watching out that the Guardia Civil didn’t catch us. At night, our amatxos would fry them up for dinner. What a great life, how awful that you grow up. Later on, Koldo became a goldfinch. Meaning he sang. But why hold it against him? They beat the crap out of him in the barracks over in Intxaurrondo. They dunked his head in water. The damned tub. And of course he gave them names. He and Jokin: he shouldn’t worry when, after all, sooner or later they would be coming for us. They ran away to France, and after a few months they found Koldo by chance in a bar in Brittany.
“Listen, you have to forgive me. I didn’t think I’d get out of there alive.”
“Relax. We’re going to give them a dose of their own medicine.”
When they used Jokin’s pellet gun they got fewer than they did using the decoy. But the pellet gun was a marvelous toy, they shared it and had one hell of a time. Later, when they were in the organization, when they did the weapons course, the instructor was left with his mouth hanging open. Shit, boy, where did you learn how to shoot like that? Better than some veterans, who were all talk but were blind when it came time to hit the target. Jokin, in village festivals at the shooting stand, bam bam, bam bam, never missed, that despite the fact that they’d deliberately twisted the sights out of alignment. The old guy at the stand said enough is enough and with a really mean face grabbed the rifle. He played dumb so he wouldn’t have to give Jokin the prize. But then a lot of us gathered around the stand. The old man had no choice but to give up the prize, some crappy stuffed animal.
Homeland Page 15
