An hour of physical therapy. When she arrived, she said hello in a way that everyone present would understand:
“Hi.”
As a result, surrounded by white gowns, she was praised and congratulated. It’s important to raise the patient’s morale. It’s the norm there, even though Arantxa is extremely annoyed when people speak to her as if she were a child and treat her the way they treat children and old people. I’m not retarded.
The rehabilitation plan: exercises intended to reduce the hypertonia in her left hand and arm. Then they’d work with her lower extremities. The therapist asked her if the tingle had recurred. No, it hadn’t. A good sign. Progress is slow, slow, but there is progress. And at the end of the hour they’ll try to stand her up and have her hold herself in place, and walk a few yards, of course with support.
There was too much hustle and bustle in the room, a constant coming and going of therapists, patients, and those accompanying them. And voices. Arantxa did not have her iPad at hand. So there was no possibility of asking anyone to do her that favor, but later on there was, when she was alone with the speech therapist and she could explain her request. She:
“Is the letter very long?”
Not at all. Fourteen lines. The best thing would be for Arantxa to send it as an e-mail right then and there, and she at night, as soon as she got home, would write it out and slip it into a mailbox near her street. She promised. Did she keep her promise? Arantxa had her doubts. But after a month, she got a postcard inside an envelope, why didn’t her mother read it?, from Joxe Mari. It contained jokes and affectionate remarks, and a postscript that said: “She wrote.” He didn’t say who and didn’t have to. “And I answered her.”
104
THE THIRD LETTER AND THE FOURTH
A letter from his sister, what a surprise, arrived. Open, of course. Joxe Mari is closely monitored. His time out in the courtyard is limited, approximately every two weeks they move him to another cell, they read his mail, they photocopy it and archive the copies.
The first time his sister has written to him in more than fifteen years. He doesn’t count the Christmas cards with formulaic messages that inevitably ended “and a prosperous”—was she teasing him?—“New Year from this family that doesn’t forget you.”
Once, at the beginning, she added a few lines of encouragement to a letter from his parents but that was that. Arantxa, the Spaniard in the family, but he loves her just the same. As far as I’m concerned, she could be wrapped in the Spanish flag. I wouldn’t allow it for any other relative, even my little brother. He the very least. Arantxa is my sister, hell. She married that asshole who left her. That’s her punishment for being a Spaniard.
Suddenly Joxe Mari remembers his mother saying, super serious in one of those phone calls he has a right to, that his sister had a very bad accident in Mallorca. What was my sister doing in Mallorca? On vacation with Ainhoa. And then Miren of course doesn’t have the slightest delicacy.
“I spoke with a doctor down there. Insofar as I understood, she’s going to be stupid forever.”
It wasn’t her handwriting. Of course, someone had written for her because she can’t. And she announced a letter that would likely arrive soon. From whom? From Bittori, Txato’s wife. Just what the doctor ordered. And that he should please not talk about this with ama. Joxe Mari’s initial joy faded. What is all this? He knew from his mother, she told him just recently in the visitors’ room, that the woman is ripe for internment in the Mondragón madhouse and that:
“She’s gotten into her head to hound us. She won’t leave aita in peace. Ever since the armed struggle ended, the enemies of Euskal Herria have become emboldened. They seem to think they’re the only ones who’ve suffered. It’s obvious that what they’re looking for is revenge. They want to harass us so that we give up our dignity and ask their forgiveness. Me? Ask for forgiveness? Never.”
Two days later he was handed the letter announced by his sister. His first impulse? To rip it up right there in front of the guard. It was then he understood why Arantxa, doubtless in a big hurry, had written to him. To restrain him. To rein in his instincts. If she hadn’t written, the Madwoman’s letter would have gone right down the toilet. But as soon as he was alone, he read it.
This is a trap to undermine my morale. As if I wasn’t already down from being in a Spanish extermination prison. The humble tone, the fear of annoying, the ridiculous request. But who the hell does this old lady think she is? And I’m supposed to pass information about an ekintza to her? So the prison cops can get it, too? So she can show it to some super-fascist journalist?
He ripped up the letter. “She’s a good woman.” Not a chance in the world. But it was useless for him to get rid of the snips of paper as quickly as he could because now he knew the contents of the letter. “I’m Bittori. You may remember…” Even after a week had gone by, the carefully written lines persisted in appearing in his memory. He even invented a voice for them. The voice of Txato’s wife as he remembered it. He heard it all the time. In the dining room, in the recreation patio, at night in bed while he waited for sleep to overcome him. A ghost that chased after him. He often dreamed of old times. Now even more. And he saw himself as he was then, standing outside the entrance to the Pagoeta, slurping an orange or lemon ice Txato bought for his children and for him and his brother and sister, all children, the street sunlit and people in their Sunday best. And the church bells. And the smell that flowed out of the bar, grilled shrimp, cigar and cigarette smoke.
He let some time pass, but finally he got fed up with all those imaginary ices and with smelling grilled shrimp down there in the uncontrollable depth of his mind. And he told himself: answer her with any dumb thing to get her back. Make her understand you aren’t going to play her game. And that’s what he did. In an instant, he wrote her: hostile, militant, rejecting. Nothing, four lines. That he wasn’t sorry, that all he wanted was an independent Euskal Herria, socialist and euskaldun; that he was still in ETA, and that this was the last time he’d answer a letter. He then sent a postcard to his sister and handed over the two envelopes so the cops could check them before sending them on or, if they liked, wipe their asses with them or, if they liked, eat them with tomatoes.
He went on resisting. Other ETA prisoners, more and more, were quitting the organization, and that hurts. Pakito himself, if you can fucking believe it. The guy who’d given him his first pistol, the guy who said: kill everything you can. Pakito, who when the rest of us were going through our thousandth hunger strike secretly ate in his cell. And Potros and Arróspide and Josu de Mondragón and Idoia López. Were they expelled? Not a one. Why expel anyone? That would be like throwing you over the side of a beached ship. And about a year ago, and not for the first time, they’d asked Joxe Mari if he’d sign that letter where the forty-five signatories of this letter reject violence and ask forgiveness of the victims. Like children sorry they’d done a bit of mischief. Repentant, at this stage in the game and, above all, for what purpose? Really repentant? What they really want is to go home. Traitors. Softies. Egoists. To sacrifice yourself for this. For nothing. For absolutely nothing. He’d been thinking about it for a long while. In reality for years, and every time he sees his aged, decrepit mother in the meeting room, or when he found out about his sister, or when he thinks about his niece and nephew and realizes he doesn’t know them and can’t play with them, or when he finds out his aita’s become a slob rotting from sadness. Was it his fault? Probably. And the Spanish state stronger than ever. The emboldened enemy wants to settle accounts with us. The organization abandons the struggle and leaves us prisoners tossed aside like useless rags. He got a sudden flash of rage and disgust, a punch on the wall, so hard he skinned his knuckles, and he was crying a long while in the loneliness of his cell, first in silence, with his hands pressed to the wall, as if he were being searched; later, without changing position, when he again remembered the orange and lemon
ices of his childhood, with sobs that could be heard outside, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything.
The next morning, he sat down to write on a piece of lined notebook paper.
Bittori:
Forget the letter I sent the other day. I was angry when I wrote it. It happens from time to time. Now I’m calm. I’ll be brief. I did not shoot your husband. It doesn’t matter who did it because your husband was an ETA objective. We can’t turn back the clock. I’d rather it never happened. Asking forgiveness is difficult. I’m not mature enough to take a step like that. The truth is I didn’t join ETA to be a bad guy. I was defending a few ideas. My problem is I loved my people too much. Am I supposed to repent that? That’s all I have to say. I’m asking you to write no more letters. I’m also asking you to stay away from my family. I only wish you the best.
He wrote a stark goodbye: agur. And now, what next? He didn’t like the idea that some functionary would read the letter. Not because it contained compromising or relevant information, which it did not. It was something else. It was too intimate a letter. Here, even if I don’t go into details, it’s as if I were stripping naked.
He’d heard talk about the services of Pecas, an ordinary prisoner, second grade, drug addict, smashed-flat nose. A guy who when he talks with his marked Andalusian accent you see his tongue because he’s missing teeth, both above and below. He did favors for cash. Joxe Mari approached him in the recreation patio.
“Pecas, when do you go out on leave?”
“Saturday.”
“Want to earn five euros?”
“Depends. What’s the job?”
“Drop a letter in a mailbox.”
“That costs ten.”
“Okay.”
105
RECONCILIATION
So Miren and Arantxa went five years without speaking. They didn’t call, they didn’t send Christmas cards, they didn’t wish each other a happy birthday. Nothing. And during all that time, Miren never saw her grandchildren and wasn’t invited to either first communion. Invited? She never even received the usual commemorative cards. And in all those years she never saw her son-in-law, either, though that mattered little to her because she felt no love for him.
Hardheaded, mother and daughter, like fence posts, was what Joxian said. Like fence posts? Just his way of expressing himself. But he, yes, he would from time to time take the bus to San Sebastián and another from there to Rentería, to visit Arantxa and Guillermo. He would bring them greens and fruit from his garden, and once in a while a rabbit (at first alive, later skinned and ready for the pot, because the children, after playing with the animal, were horrified at the idea it would have to be killed). He’d spend the afternoon with his grandchildren, buy them trinkets, give them some money when he left. In sum, even if he was dull, silent, with no spark, he played the part of grandfather with great goodwill.
To keep the peace at home he would visit his daughter behind Miren’s back. That he was going down to the garden and wouldn’t be back until dinner. By the third or fourth time, Miren liberated him from his childish lies.
“Do you really think I don’t know where you go?”
How did she find out? No idea. From then on, Joxian didn’t bother with lies. If he was going to the garden, he would say clearly that he was going to the garden. And if he was going to see his family in Rentería, then he’d only say he was going out.
Back home, Miren simply asked:
“Well?”
“They’re fine.”
And that was all, unless Joxian, melancholy, prolonged the brief dialogue and asked if she might think of visiting her grandchildren someday.
“Me? They know where I live.”
What Joxian didn’t tell Miren was that Arantxa and Guillermo were at each other’s throats. Sometimes, when he got to their flat, standing outside the door, he would hear them screaming at each other. And the children there, witnessing their parents’ continual fights. Joxian would walk into the apartment with his sheaf of leeks or his bag of apples and find his daughter in tears, his grandchildren terrified, and Guillermo, looking like a madman, would stomp out of the flat without saying hello and slam the door behind him.
Arantxa, in a low voice, would tell her father that:
“I put up with it for the sake of the children.”
For a long time Arantxa denied her body to Guillermo. Actually, she wouldn’t even allow him to pat her on the shoulder as he passed by. And since the apartment was small, after the night when she decided she’d never again have sexual relations with her husband, they still went on sharing a bed, but not for long, ten or twelve days back-to-back until Arantxa bought herself a thin mattress that folded into three parts and from then on, she spread it on the floor and slept in her daughter’s room.
Their last sexual encounter, she remembers, what a repulsive thing. Like two insects. Not a single loving word, not one damn kiss at the end. They’d had an argument during dinner about something or other, because they no longer argued about specific things but about everything and nothing, especially about nothing. And he, in bed, was suddenly in the mood. And go ahead, put it in. He finished immediately. She told herself: this is the last time. I’m not this guy’s property. And she hated his smell, which before she liked so much. His nasal tone of voice, his explanatory chatter, his know-it-all ways all became unbearable to her.
Guillermo, arrogant, offensive:
“I’m going to the whorehouse.”
“I see. So until now I’ve been your whore and free into the bargain.”
Arantxa had a desire that grew stronger every day, a desire she couldn’t satisfy. Why? Because she didn’t earn enough in the shoe store.
What help could she expect from her mother when they weren’t even speaking? From her father, yes, some help: lettuce, hazelnuts, and from time to time a few awkward words of consolation. From her in-laws, who were good people, the same: favors and cordiality for which she was thankful, that made life more bearable, but which did not supply her with the economic relief she longed for.
She knew she was trapped. It wasn’t that Guillermo was earning much more; but, of course, with the two salaries the family could get along without hardships. On her way to work, on her way home, in the house, and, really, everywhere at all times, she was making calculations, always with the idea of separating from her husband. The mortgage, food, clothes, school costs. Expenses with even more expenses attached; expenses that she couldn’t pay with her modest saleswoman’s salary. Then she forgot the bills. She’d say to herself: I’ll just leave, I’ll find something, I’ll remake my life. And then Endika would come into the kitchen with some request and a little later Ainhoa would appear needing something, and Arantxa would again understand she was trapped at the bottom of a well from which she could never escape.
What mattered least to her is that Guillermo (she stopped calling him Guille, he doesn’t deserve it) goes out with other women. Some nights he didn’t come home. Arantxa never called him to account. Jealousy? To the contrary, she was wishing he’d get involved with one of them, ask for a divorce, and disappear from her life.
One weekend he went to Jaca with his sweetheart. Arantxa found out from Endika:
“Aita went to Jaca with a girl.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I asked him if he’d take me and he said he can’t because he’s going with a girl.”
“That must mean he’s got a steady girlfriend.”
“Of course.”
At least he didn’t hold back money to support the family. At home he never lifted a finger. No cleaning, no cooking. He never did. His mother did. Angelita, less and less able to move around because of her rheumatism and her bad hip, frequently came to the flat. She ironed, washed windows, made food for the children. And she could also count on Rafael to drive his grandchi
ldren to one place or another and then pick them up. So on that side of things, Arantxa had no complaints. Her principal problem was her economic dependency. If I had a larger income, I’d already be divorced. But the apartment, but the children. Subjugation, chains, uncertainty. Fear? Possibly. And when she was alone she consoled herself thinking up plans for when her children were adults and lived away from home.
One Friday in May, Guillermo and Arantxa got tangled up in one of the bitterest arguments she can remember. A dispute that didn’t escalate even farther because in a flash of panicked rage, Arantxa grabbed her purse and without changing out of her slippers dashed out of the house. That day ETA assassinated two national policemen in Sangüesa by putting a bomb under their car.
A few days earlier it was the fifth anniversary of the attack that ended the life of Manolo Zamarreño. Guillermo was still affected. In fact, he never again bought bread in the neighborhood bakery. One night he went out with a can of paint to cover over graffiti, ETA HERRIA ZUREKIN, which appeared that afternoon next to the entryway. And Arantxa tried to dissuade him, look, you’re only going to get into trouble, but he went downstairs, I don’t give a shit, and the next morning there was a huge white stain on the wall.
And it’s my opinion that it was because of his sorrow and his painful memories and the rage that burned inside Guillermo that he lost control of himself. For the first time in ages, husband and wife agreed to do something as a family outside the house. And with their children they went to mass, with the idea of honoring the assassinated friend. Days later, bam, bomb and two men lose their lives in a similar way and at a time similar to when Manolo was killed. Who were the victims? Two policemen who’d come to Sangüesa with their mobile office to expedite making identification cards. And Guillermo’s blood was boiling. That had to be the cause. Arantxa can’t think of any other explanation. Husband and wife hadn’t seen each other all day. She came home from work at nightfall. At the first sign of discord, because of something of no importance whatsoever, Guillermo exploded. What wild eyes, what bitterness, how he bellowed. Two men with children, he was saying. Two poor men murdered because they were wearing uniforms.
Homeland Page 50
