Homeland

by Fernando Aramburu

  The ETA prisoners in the Picassent prison had received word they were to go on a hunger strike. The lawyer arrives and says: strike. And Joxe Mari, who in this as in so many other matters was overly strict, was keeping an eye on his comrades. A hard man. Which made Miren feel proud, saying later in the village that Joxe Mari’s made of steel, that no one can make him bow.

  To which Catalina replied that they’d been allowed to bring into the meeting room a bag of madeleines she’d baked herself, that depending on whether the prison guards liked you or not they could either let you bring in food or not, since once they didn’t and this time they did.

  “He ate every one of them right there.”

  Miren leaped:

  “Well, of course they let you bring in food. They know the prisoners are on strike and this is how they break it, so they aren’t united.”

  “For heaven’s sake, no one knows about it.”

  “Well, I know. Being on strike means everyone or no one.”

  And she said nothing more because of Joxian’s surreptitious nudge. In the car, an uncomfortable silence ensued, and Alfonso used it as an opportunity to slip in a zarzuela cassette, not the same one he’d played in the morning, but much the same, much the same, and they still had many miles of Spanish music ahead.

  Nowadays castor oil

  is not too hard to take.

  Why so?

  You just take a tiny pill

  And the effect is just the same.

  Suddenly it happened. How? Miren doesn’t remember. Joxian, lost in his sorrows and thoughts, was dozing off with his arms crossed. He barely noticed. A curse from Alfonso followed by a screech from Catalina woke him up. What’s going on? The car had gone headfirst into a ditch on the side of the road. Miren was the first to get out. The door on Joxian’s side wouldn’t open. The two in front, silent. And the zarzuela singers as well.

  Miren, outside, grabs Joxian.

  “Come on, get out.”

  And she extracts him by pulling on his arm, and in a matter of seconds they feel the bite of the cold. Joxian asked Miren if she was hurt.

  “No. We’ve got to get them out.”

  Alone, way out in the country. A wasteland at nightfall. And the sky cloudless, dotted with the first stars, announced that it was going to freeze up. They ran to help Alfonso. There were no problems, but the door was jammed. So Joxian yanked him out of his seat by tugging under his arms. They couldn’t see his face, all covered with blood. Joxian tried to sit him on the rocky ground, but it wasn’t necessary. His wounds weren’t serious. Or at least that’s what he was saying. A cut on the forehead and another on his scalp, which turned his gray hair red. Nothing more. But he panicked about his wife, still in the car, calm, quiet, with her head fallen over one shoulder. On the other side of the car, Miren vainly tried to open the door.

  “Get over here, you two. See if you can do it.”

  Joxian, a furnace operator in a foundry, calloused hands, powerful arms, ran over and tugged on the door handle, one foot against a protruding piece of the dented chassis for leverage, his teeth clenched, until he yanked the door open and there was Catalina, not bloody or anything, how great that woman smelled, but saying in agonized-plaintive whispers:

  “My legs, my legs.”

  Meanwhile, Miren, standing in the middle of the highway, stopped a white van going in the opposite direction. The driver offered to get the hurt woman to Teruel and carefully helped to lay her down in a space in his load, just enough room for her and for Alfonso, who’d rolled his sweater around his head like a turban to stop the bleeding. The van vanished in the darkness. Miren and Joxian got their things and those of Alfonso and Catalina out of the trunk in case thieves came by.

  “Did you see Catalina’s legs?”

  “Both of them broken. You don’t have to be a doctor to know that.”

  “She can pray they set them properly and that they heal.”

  The inhospitable place was absolutely silent. They quickly put on more clothing. How cold it is, and what do we do now? They had no idea where they were. Between Teruel and Zaragoza, that for sure. There were no houses, no lights, and no traffic signs. Not even a refuge in that desert, I don’t know, a shepherd’s cabin, a thicket where we can get some protection.

  Miren:

  “Are you sure you aren’t hurt? Tell me the truth.”

  “I’m fine, damn it.”

  “You’re covered with blood.”

  “It must be Alfonso’s.”

  “Put something around your neck, you’re going to get a chill. That’s what happens when you lose heat.”

  “Don’t get all wound up. We’ll have to make a report to the Guardia Civil.”

  “I’d rather die than talk to Joxe Mari’s torturers.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  “Think.”

  Miren thought she remembered their passing near a village a while ago, but she wasn’t sure. In a daze, Joxian neither knew nor remembered. The best thing would be to stop a car. They saw one coming with its lights on. They didn’t wave. They were certain that the driver would realize what their situation was when he saw the crashed car. It didn’t stop.

  “How do you expect them to stop if you don’t wave?”

  “Well, if you’re so smart, why don’t you wave?”

  “Okay, let’s not argue.”

  The next one, after a few minutes passed, did stop. Were they hurt?

  They said no, trembling with cold. The driver said he was going to Calamocha, nearby, his village, and if they wanted he could drive them. He did. He introduced himself as Pascual. Fifty or so years old, a potbelly, a bit of a blabbermouth: before the third curve in the road he’d already revealed his cardiac arrhythmia and his diabetes.

  “Is this still the province of Teruel?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, we won’t be getting home today.”

  “It would be difficult. The last bus for Zaragoza already left.”

  Miren explained where they were going and with whom they’d been traveling and what had happened.

  “So all of you were on vacation?”

  “That’s right. In Benidorm.”

  The man saw the bloodstains on Joxian. It was impossible not to see them. And he again asked if you aren’t hurt. Joxian explained that the blood wasn’t his. This Pascual, in his marked Aragonese accent, made a suggestion when the first houses in Calamocha came into sight:

  “Why don’t you come home with me? My children are in Zaragoza, the eldest working in a bank and two studying at the university, and my girl in Paris, married to a French musician, a really nice guy. Polite, calm. Of course he doesn’t speak a word of Spanish, but we understand each other well enough. As you’ll see, there’s room, I assure you, for an army. You can rest, wash off the blood, and tomorrow, as calm as you please, I’ll drive you to the train station in Zaragoza, where I have to go anyway. I’m a widower and as I said I live in a big, empty house.”

  He made them a succulent dinner, offered them a bedroom with a beamed ceiling, and a bed with cold, heavy sheets, and bright and early, after breakfast, kind and jovial, drove them to Zaragoza. Miren and Joxian wanted to pay him. No, not a chance. They insisted, awkward, timid. Pascual answered back, patting his belly with both hands, that the famous stubbornness of the Aragonese was nothing compared to theirs. Along the way, he praised the Basques. Noble, hardworking people. The bad part has to do with ETA attacks. They said goodbye outside the Portillo station. It was Sunday and a north wind was killing. The next day, in the afternoon, Miren went to the San Sebastián post office. She’d rather die than go to the village post office. What business is it of anyone around here that I’m contacting a gentleman in the province of Teruel? In the box, a couple of pounds of Tolosa beans, a jar of pickles wrapped in padded plastic, an
Idiazábal cheese in a vacuum pack, and no more because nothing else would fit in the box.

  Joxian joked:

  “You beat the Aragonese guy from Calamocha in stubbornness.”

  “I’m not stubborn. I’m thankful.”

  “I hope this doesn’t mean you’re turning Spanish.”

  “Get out of my sight, you jerk, you stupid jerk.”

  112

  WITH THE GRANDSON

  Things look awful, Joxian. Awful? More than awful. A son in jail I may never see free again, because for sure I’ll die before it happens; another in Bilbao, who never calls, never writes, never visits, Miren suspects because he’s ashamed of his family; and the daughter, who hasn’t spoken to her mother for more than a year and who doesn’t get along with her husband. Joxian mulled over his tribulations on the Rentería bus and what bad luck we have. Couldn’t we be just a little bit more normal? And suddenly, seeing the looks on the faces of the other passengers, he realized he must have been talking out loud to himself. I’m losing it, the way geezers do. Which is what I am. He was sitting in a seat reserved for senior citizens and pregnant women.

  He got out at his usual stop. This was during the time when he would visit his grandchildren behind Miren’s back. When he left the house, he’d say he was going to the garden. And he really did go there; he’d gather up some greens or fruit, and would sometimes add a rabbit which he would kill and skin on the spot, since he couldn’t do it in front of the children, and then he’d take the bus at the industrial polygon stop.

  He was about to press the door buzzer, in his plastic bag three or four leeks, escarole, and a handful of hazelnuts, when he suddenly longed to return home. Guillermo shouting, Arantxa shouting, little Ainhoa bawling: a madhouse. He rang the buzzer. The sound of the buzzer silenced everyone instantly except for the girl, who went on crying her eyes out. Even so, ten or twelve seconds passed before the door opened. A burst of pungent smells: food, bodies, closed space. Guillermo, dry, in a huff, said hello and made for the street.

  What a bad scene. Everywhere, disorder and filth. The furious, tearful stare of Arantxa, surrounded by a ring of sunken eyes, profoundly depressed Joxian. Ainhoa, five years old, stops sobbing when she sees aitona and runs to see the potential gifts hidden in the bag. Spurred on by the same curiosity, Endika, seven years old, also runs over quickly, pushes his sister, who defends herself by pushing back, and finally both children express a shared disappointment when they see the greens and nuts. Arantxa:

  “Would the two of you like to go outside with aitona?”

  Both in one voice:

  “No.”

  “Why not? He always buys you trinkets.”

  The boy reinforces his no with a shake of his head.

  “Well, ama, I just get bored.”

  Joxian can’t think of anything to say. He doesn’t know how to trick them, he doesn’t promise them anything. He seems tired, apathetic, and he ends up looking toward Arantxa to ask her with not a trace of vigor in his voice how she’s doing.

  “You can see for yourself. Terrible, with a ton of work to do, the house, the kids, and a husband who treats me worse than a dishrag. I don’t even have time to be unhappy.”

  “Do you remember Catalina?”

  “Which Catalina?”

  “Alfonso’s.”

  “The one who was left lame after the accident she had with you and ama? I read the obituary note in the paper.”

  “She was sickly for a long time. Tomorrow’s the funeral.”

  “What became of her son?”

  “He’s still there. In Badajoz, I think. He had a lot of blood on his hands.”

  “More than my brother?”

  “Much more.”

  Endika interrupts their conversation.

  “Ama, I’m hungry.”

  “Get a yogurt from the refrigerator.”

  “There’s none left.”

  Arantxa sweet-talked the boy with maternal fussing to go out with aitona to have a snack somewhere. To her father: please do me the favor of taking him out. And Ainhoa? She flatly refused to go with them, unmoved by the sweetness of her mother’s words: jelly bun, cake, cream. Her lower lip, offended, fell. And she didn’t say why she didn’t want to go and she didn’t go.

  “That’s that, aita, go out with the boy.”

  “Would you like me to bring you something, maitia?”

  The girl answered no with two disgusted shakes of her childish head.

  Grandfather and grandson left the apartment. At the entryway, Endika did not allow his hand to be held. He thought he was much too old to be walked along that way. They walked into the neighborhood bakery, where the boy ordered two doughnuts, one sugar coated, the other chocolate coated. And while Joxian counted out his money, the boy, hungry, gluttonous, took the first bites. By the time they were back on the street, he’d eaten both.

  “The bomb went off here. I was with aita inside the bakery.”

  “What bomb?”

  “The bomb that broke my bedroom windows. A man who was a friend of my aita died and his name was Manolo. He was lying right there, aitona, where that black car is. I saw him.”

  “Why did you look?”

  “I didn’t look.”

  “So how could you see?”

  “Well, I looked a little bit with this eye.”

  “Would you like to go to the swings?”

  “Okay.”

  This wasn’t the first time the boy brought up the bomb. He couldn’t forget the explosion. It’s also true that as he grows up, he takes an interest in the matters of his elders, asks questions.

  In the playground, grandfather and grandson sit down on a bench. The shouts of children. Here and there, mothers and fathers with baby carriages. Out of nowhere, Endika:

  “Aita says some bad men planted the bomb.”

  “That sounds right. Should we get something to drink?’

  “When the Guardia Civil catches them, they’ll put them in jail the way they did with osaba Joxe Mari.”

  “Did your aita tell you that, too?”

  “No, it was Grandma Angelita who said that.”

  Joxian was tempted to agree with boy. So that he wouldn’t go around saying that. So that it would all be over as soon as possible. And because every mention of his son was like getting hit with a bat.

  “Would you show me osaba’s photo?”

  He hadn’t asked that in a long time.

  “Why do you want to see it?”

  “Come on, aitona, show it to me.”

  Joxian got the faded, wrinkled photo out of his wallet. It showed Joxe Mari at the age of eighteen, smiling, long-haired, with a beard. He was just short of becoming a professional handball player.

  “He’s got an earring.”

  “Will you wear one, too, when you’re older?”

  “No, because they stick a needle in your ear and it does a ton of damage. Is it true osaba Joxe Mari’s in jail for being a super-bad guy?”

  “Is that what Grandma Angelita says?”

  “No, that’s what my aita says.”

  “Well, I suppose he must have done something. I don’t think he’s in jail for wearing an earring.”

  A short while later, Joxian went back with the boy to the apartment. He gave a hundred-peseta coin to each grandchild; to his daughter a five-thousand-peseta banknote to help out with the household expenses, as he said, and he left. On the bus back to San Sebastián, the same thing happened to him as happened on the trip out. What? He suddenly noticed that people were staring at him. He must have been talking to himself.

  113

  UPHILL FINISH

  He said to himself: if it rains, I won’t go. It was nine in the morning. He looked out the window. It was raining; he went. I’ll put on my parka, my waterproof trousers, and that’s
it. Miren, as he was getting ready to leave:

  “Who in the world would go out on his bicycle with this weather? You think you’re still twenty?”

  Arantxa, in her wheelchair, gave her father a thumbs-up sign, though it wasn’t clear whether as a joke or as a sign of approval.

  “Even your daughter’s laughing at you.”

  Whatever doubts he had had nothing to do with his health or his strength. Let’s see, how many times had he done all the course stages set by the cyclotourism club on rainy days? Rain, sun, or wind, now he only signs up for the short runs, of thirty or forty miles at the most. You know how it is, age, aches and pains, with the passage of time the hills seem steeper. About three years ago, he pedaled one Sunday with his friends all the way to Ondárroa. A beating. On the way back, his chest throbbed with palpitations. Careful, Joxian, be very careful. He had to stop to rest several times. He got home late to dinner. A row.

  His doubts centered on the bicycle. It gets wet, it gets covered with mud, it can break, and it isn’t (carbon fiber frame, Campagnolo groupset) just any bike. It cost him a ton of cash, he improved it little by little, substituting some elements for others that were better and more expensive. So, before setting out, he went into the Pagoeta to have a coffee to get in the proper mood and see if the rain let up, still not totally convinced he should get out on the highway.

  Lo and behold, it stops raining. And not only that, but there are breaks in the clouds, and, before he got to San Sebastián, at about Martutene, the sun came out. Joxian was wearing his club uniform: green-and-white top and black shorts, along with his own personal helmet and gloves. I don’t know if in a place as serious…More than anything it was so Miren wouldn’t get suspicious and bombard him with questions and sermons.

  He went up the hill in the Eguía neighborhood without difficulty, though slowly. And at the last steep point, he saw noisy children off to his right, divided up into teams in a schoolyard; and to the left a flower shop he entered when it occurred to him to buy a simple, cheap bouquet, because I don’t like fancy things. All he had to do was dismount, what a pain, he realized he’d left his bike lock home.