Homeland

by Fernando Aramburu

  “Are you dumb or what? She married the guy from Salamanca in a civil ceremony. And now think a minute and figure it out. Without the blessing of God, without telling us, with no banquet. What are they, Gypsies?”

  Suddenly Joxian’s eyes widened. Owl eyes set in fatigued features: from six a.m. on, standing at the furnace. He disagreed. First, in his opinion, the news of his daughter’s wedding was great, and it should be celebrated, what the hell. Second, how long have they been living together? She didn’t know. Two, three years? Anyway, quite a while, which had been a point of contention for Miren. So it was high time they formalized their relationship. And for Joxian, the fact that his daughter was marrying the man she loved didn’t seem any reason for disgust, just the opposite. And the boy, our son-in-law, is not from Salamanca. He was born in Rentería. And even if he had been born in Salamanca, who cares?

  “As far as I’m concerned, he might as well be Chinese, black, or a Gypsy. He’s the one my daughter chose. That’s it.”

  “You’re stupid, you’ve always been stupid, and you’ll die stupid. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Did a roof tile fall and hit you on the head? Go on, since you think you’re so smart, go tell Don Serapio that your daughter got married outside the church to a man who doesn’t speak Basque.”

  “To a proper, hardworking man who respects and loves her.”

  That was too much for Miren: she tore off her apron and threw it against the chair back. She shouted, biting the words, as she ran out of the kitchen so she could lock herself in the bathroom:

  “Oh, Jesus, how alone I am, how alone!”

  Other days passed by, other rains fell. In February, the two families agreed to meet in a restaurant. Miren, sarcastic, celebration in the intimacy of the family, as if it were a funeral. A total of seven at table: the married couple, their parents, and Gorka, who, contradicting his mother, refused to wear a suit and tie because after dinner he planned to get together with his friends and didn’t want them to make fun of him. Miren insisted, inflexible, making it an obligation. Arantxa and Guillermo agreed with the boy, who turned up for the meal in a sweatshirt and sneakers, and was the first to leave.

  The other men dressed according to tradition and their wives’ wishes. The suits were too wide here, sagging and ballooned out there. The three of them looked like proletarians on a special day of elegance, disguised by their respective wives, all of whom took charge, stand still, don’t move, of tying the knot in their ties.

  The women looked better. With more taste and more style. All three with hairdresser hairdos. Arantxa wore the dark-green dress she’d worn the morning of the wedding, a fabric rose the same color pinned to her hair; Miren, a navy-blue number she’d bought in a San Sebastián shop; and Angelita, her fat stuffed into a combination of blouse and skirt, the blouse white, the skirt beige, which gave Miren an opportunity to criticize her that night in bed.

  Joxian, his face toward the wall, tried in vain to silence her verbal eruption. The day had been long, and he needed rest. Miren, her back against the headboard, paid no attention. She asked:

  “What did you think of all that?”

  “It was fine. The meat a little tough.”

  Why did you say anything? Don’t you see that makes the conversation go on? He was sorry, not about his answer, but for having said anything. But it was too late.

  “Tough? Stiff as a board. And the consommé, nothing special. We’ve eaten in better and cheaper places. But of course when you do things improperly, that’s what happens.”

  “In case you didn’t know, tomorrow I have to go to work.”

  “Arantxa and her mother-in-law seem to get on well. Did you see how she helped her unfold the napkin? And then, how she cleaned that spot of mayonnaise off her mustache? Because if that’s not a mustache, I’m a bishop. The tenderness Arantxa never gave to her mother, she gives now to that fat lady from Salamanca.”

  “Okay, okay. Don’t start.”

  “Anyone could see you were having a good time with your son-in-law. What were you two laughing at?”

  “You’ve got it in for him, too? The guy is a sweetheart, couldn’t be more affectionate. What worries me is that he’ll be henpecked by our daughter.”

  “It looked like you two were having a private talk.”

  “We both like sports.”

  “And your little sentimental performance? Where do you get off bawling like that in front of everybody? When you feel like that, you should step outside or go to the bathroom, and not make a spectacle of yourself. I’ve never been so ashamed in all my life.”

  “I already told you I couldn’t stop myself.”

  “What you couldn’t stop doing was guzzling champagne. I’m not blind. Right away I saw you scratch your side.”

  “Don’t confuse one thing with another. I remembered our son. The family celebrating and him God knows where.”

  “You made us look ridiculous. The last straw would have been if you started talking about Joxe Mari in front of them. I’d have broken a plate over your head, I swear.”

  “Fine. May I go to sleep now?”

  Miren turned off the lamp on her side. Joxian had turned his off a long while before. Did they keep silent? He did. In the darkness, Miren, without changing position in bed, went on pouring out comments, criticisms, reproaches.

  “I see them as being out of place. They’re friendly, polite, whatever you like, but you can see they’re not from here. That way of speaking, those gestures. I actually think they chew differently. Start getting ready to have a grandchild whose last name is Hernández. Just thinking about it gives me liver pains. That’s what makes me want to cry and not Joxe Mari, who’s out defending the cause of Euskal Herria. I don’t know, Joxian, I don’t know. What did we do wrong? Do you know? How did we produce such a twisted daughter? Joxian, are you asleep?”

  72

  A SACRED MISSION

  It was in San Sebastián that the names of those who’d won the literary prizes for young people were announced. These were annual competitions held by the Provincial Savings Bank in Guipúzcoa. Miren only half understood the information she heard over the telephone, so that at dinnertime, when Gorka came home, the only thing she could tell him was that:

  “A gentleman called asking for you. He says you’ve won something in the savings bank.”

  Until the next morning, Gorka, about to turn eighteen, could not confirm the news he was hoping for. He’d won the first prize in the category Poetry in Basque with a poem titled “Mendiko ahotsa.” His first success.

  No one, not even his best friends, knew he’d entered a literary contest. It wasn’t the first time. If I win, terrific; if I don’t, who’s going to find out? But in fact, the whole town found out, because on the afternoon when he was handed the prize a journalist interviewed him, and the young author’s photo appeared the next day in the culture section of El Diario Vasco. The other newspapers in the area also published the story, but without photos or interviews. Each winner was given ten thousand pesetas.

  “Ten thousand? Son of a bitch!” Joxian gave his son a large smack of joy on his back. And he looked at him with a big, approving smile on his face, his lower lip hanging open in pride. “What are you waiting for? Get to your room and write. You can get rich.”

  Miren:

  “What do you intend to do with the money?”

  “I don’t have the money yet.”

  “When you do.”

  “I need clothes and shoes.”

  The one who was happiest about that modest triumph was Joxian. In the Pagoeta he happily put up with his friends’ benevolent jokes. That since he was a blockhead, where had this brilliant boy sprung from? Genes, he said. They countered:

  “Must be your wife’s genes.”

  And he defended himself with good humor:

  “That woman’s genes?
Don’t think so.”

  He had to promise his card-playing friends that even if he won the match, he’d pay for the jug of wine out of his own pocket. And he also treated some others scattered around the bar.

  The next day the owner of the foundry came to the furnace to congratulate him. Joxian, overwhelmed by his own modesty, hastily took off his soot-blackened glove to shake that white, powerful hand connected to a wrist adorned with a famous brand of watch. Which brand? Who knows?

  To Gorka in the kitchen:

  “To buy a gadget like that I’d have to work a lot of days and you’d have to win a lot of prizes.”

  Silently, Miren felt pride. A pride of absorption, which passed from outside to inside, like a sponge filling up. And except for sporadically stretching her neck, she barely revealed the satisfaction she felt.

  “Are you happy, ama?”

  “Of course I am.”

  During the days that followed, whenever Gorka walked in, Miren immediately transmitted the congratulations from this one and that one. Her pupils dilated in a kind of euphoria, she enumerated the people she’d met in the street who asked her to congratulate: who? The writer? No, the guy who’d won ten thousand pesetas, the one who’d appeared in the papers, photo and all, which was what really dazzled people. And all of that produced in Miren an intense, silent contraction of pleasure, as if her bones, viscera, organs, muscles, and even her veins and arteries had compressed into a central point in her body, which caused her a pleasure that contained more than a little compensation:

  “It’s about time people envy us.”

  Arantxa, over the telephone, told her brother to be careful. Of course she was happy. Very happy. Bravo, champ, she said to dissipate any doubts. And that she’d always believed in him. She didn’t forget to transmit congratulations from Guille, who also sent along a big hug. Then she said something about him not exposing himself too much.

  “You understand me.”

  Gorka didn’t understand. She realized he was confused, because after a few seconds of silence, she added that:

  “The best thing would be for you to write your things and not let anyone take advantage of your talent.”

  “Until now everyone has been very friendly with me.”

  “That’s fine. Did anyone in the town take any interest in your prize-winning poem? Did anyone read it?”

  “Not a soul.”

  “Now do you understand me?”

  “I think I’m beginning to understand.”

  Gorka recalled his sister’s warning a few days later, as he was walking to the church, where Don Serapio was waiting for him. That morning Miren had run into the priest, who said he wanted to talk to Gorka and personally congratulate him.

  “If you go over at five, you’ll find him in the sacristy.”

  “What does he want to tell me?”

  “What do you think? He wants to congratulate you.”

  “All this is a little exaggerated. I’ve only written one poem.”

  “In this town there aren’t many people who can win a poetry prize. So go see the priest at five and let yourself be loved, okay? But make sure you shower before you go.”

  He went unwillingly, overwhelmed with timidity. He’d never before been alone with the priest. He scratched his nose every two seconds to protect himself from Don Serapio’s halitosis. The priest, as he spoke, tapped the tips of his fingers together. On his face there frequently appeared a grimace of pained tenderness. He expressed himself calmly in a proper, seminary Basque, scattered with old-fashioned idiomatic expressions.

  “Ours has been a hardworking, adventurous people of brave and pious men. We’ve shaped wood, stone, iron, and we’ve sailed all the seas; but unfortunately, over all those centuries, we Basques haven’t paid enough attention to letters. What can I tell you that you don’t already know? You, as I understand it, are a great reader and, as we’ve just seen, a poet.”

  Inhibited, Gorka nodded. Directly ahead of him, a wall mirror next to the hanger where the priest hung his chasubles reflected his skinny image, his slightly (quite) squashed nose. The priest went on:

  “God has given you talent and vocation, and I, my son, in his name ask you to be disciplined and to place your abilities at the service of our people. This is a task that falls very specially to you young people who are now beginning to write. You have energy, health, and a long future before you. Who better than you to shape a literature that will become the central column in the protection of our language? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “Of course.”

  “Our language, the soul of all Basques, must find a support in its own literature. Novels, theater, poetry. All of it. It isn’t enough that children go to the ikastola, that their parents speak and sing to them in Basque. Writers who will raise the language to its maximum splendor are needed now more than ever. A Shakespeare, a Cervantes, in Basque, that would be marvelous indeed. Can you just imagine?”

  Gorka watched himself in the mirror, nodding affirmatively.

  “Oh, this enthusiasm of mine! What I wanted to do was to tell you to go on educating yourself and writing so that our people will construct a culture that will also be the product of their own hands. When you write, it is Euskal Herria that writes from within you. We know of course that this is a huge responsibility, perhaps too huge for a man who is still young and inexperienced like you. But it is a beautiful mission, believe me, a very beautiful mission, and one that in these moments of our history, I say without fear of exaggeration, is a sacred mission. You have a blessing, Gorka. If you’re constrained by some necessity, no matter what it is, don’t hesitate to visit me. I’ll lend you a hand whenever necessary so you can dedicate yourself to the noble office of writer.”

  After half an hour Gorka left the sacristy completely dumbfounded. The priest bade him farewell with an embrace. That unexpected impact of their chests impressed the boy. A physical closeness for which he was unprepared. Does he take me for one of the chosen? As he walked down the street, a hollow formed within him, like an existential gas, the result of his astonishment. How odd: Don Serapio never once mentioned Joxe Mari. How odd: he didn’t reproach him, which he thought the priest certainly would: I don’t see you very often at mass. And he remembered, how could he not remember?, what Arantxa recently said to him over the telephone. The priest hadn’t shown the slightest interest in his poem.

  As soon as he entered the apartment, his mother asked him:

  “What did Don Serapio want from you?”

  “What was he going to want? He congratulated me.”

  “Just what I thought.”

  Days later, who speaks to Gorka about the literary prize? No one. Not even his mother, who had congratulated him at home. So, tranquility. Finally. Or that’s what he thought. And thank heaven for that, because he was fed up with congratulations and jokes, and pats on the back, some sincere, the rest not. And above all, he was fed up with his own poem which, when he reread it alone in his room, suddenly seemed so weak that he couldn’t look at it without being ashamed.

  In sum, people stopped bothering him and on Saturday night he walked into the Arrano Taberna. Just being inside the place bothered him more and more, seeing the photo of his brother, having people ask about him. And the smoke, and the noise, and the stink, and the badly washed glasses, sometimes with traces of lipstick on them. But your friends drag you along and you go. If you don’t, someone notices. And if someone notices, that’s bad.

  Just then he approached the bar. His group had ordered a fresh round of calimocho. This time it was Gorka’s turn to fetch the glasses. Patxi, on the other side of the bar, his features tense, fixed a hard stare on him. He leaned over:

  “You’re making a big mistake and I don’t like it.”

  Gorka’s eyebrows flew up. For two or three seconds his face was paralyzed with a grimace of shock. A
nd he was afraid to look into the bartender’s severe eyes.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Let this be the last time you speak to a fascist newspaper and that you accept money from a banking entity that exploits workers. We can’t undo the first part. I hope it won’t be repeated. The second can be fixed. Know what this is?”—he placed before the boy’s horrified face the bank set aside for prisoners. “Ten thousand pesetas will fit nicely in here.”

  73

  IF YOU’RE HERE, YOU’RE IN

  Her workday at the shoe store over, Arantxa walked out to the street, and there, waiting for her in the first shadows of nightfall and looking like a sad dog, was her brother Gorka. What’s up? He needed a favor. If he could stay in her apartment for a few days. Why? Life in town was becoming very difficult for him.

  “And the aitas, what do they have to say?”

  “I wanted to talk to you first.”

  She reminded him:

  “We only have one bed. Ours.”

  It didn’t matter to him if he had to sleep on top of a blanket on the floor and use towels for a pillow. Arantxa, gesticulating, asked him to calm down. They had a sofa, but it might be too short.

  “You never stop growing.”

  She asked him if he was running away from the police. Answer: no. Are you sure? I’m sure. Arantxa gave a sigh of relief. Your friends, then?

  “My friends and someone else.”

  Brother and sister agreed to take the bus to Rentería and that Gorka would explain with Guillermo present what was going on in the town.

  “Because if you’re going to spend a few days with us, Guille has a right to know the reason, don’t you think?”

  “Of course.”

  Scene: Guillermo and Arantxa on the sofa before dinner. Gorka facing them sitting on a chair brought in from the kitchen because the young married couple, though they worked and worked, still hadn’t saved enough to finish furnishing their place. Gorka told in greater detail what he’d already told his sister while they were on the bus. In the presence of his brother-in-law, he began with the conclusion: