Homeland

by Fernando Aramburu

  “I came all the way to Bilbao to stand by my son. I even bought new shoes.”

  And everyone stared at her feet.

  Taxis arrived. Miren, as soon as she got out, grabbed Gorka by the arm and holding on tight walked into the restaurant. Are you saying that the family came to the wedding banquet? What a dumb question. Of course they came.

  The newlyweds sat next to each other. On Ramuntxo’s right there was an empty chair, for his daughter. He explained everything to the guests during his brief greeting speech. And to Gorka’s left sat Miren, who at a certain moment slipped her son under the table an envelope with a thousand euros in it, our wedding present. Any less, she said, would be paltry. And she whispered in his ear:

  “Joxe Mari asked me to congratulate you.”

  117

  THE INVISIBLE SON

  Quique, dressed to the nines. Suit, tie, and the dissonant element, name-brand sneakers, because that’s the way he is. And Nerea, whose hem was about four inches above her knees. Pink lips, eye shadow, fishnet stockings, and high heels. Let them stare. Since they met at the end of the last century, they’ve happily shared those moments of moving freely, exhibiting themselves, provocative, wealthy. Together they formed juxtaposed centers of perfume that emanate outwards.

  They caught—hi, we’re so-and-so—a table between two of the wooden columns supporting the beams. A good spot, far from the kitchen door and the entrance to the restaurant. What day of the week was it? Saturday, nine thirty p.m. Quique had found out that afternoon that one of the investments he’d made the previous year in preserves, supposedly Lodosa peppers (supposedly?, well they bring them in at a low price from Peru), had folded with large losses all around. He told Nerea protected behind a cynical smile, with perfect teeth. And the Portuetxe grill was booked solid.

  Quique, with the menu in his hands, became explicative, narrative:

  “This place, when I was a child, was a village. When we were boys, we came here to fish with hazelwood poles and ordinary tackle. Suet, balls of bread. But we didn’t fish here because at this point the river flowed white, I mean really white, I swear, the fault of the milk center, so we did our fishing farther up, past the Cilvetis junkyard. We even got trout in those days.”

  Nerea suggested the appetizers, and Quique, who wasn’t listening, agreed to everything without paying attention. When he saw the platter of endive and salmon and txangurro on the table, he asked in surprise:

  “Did you order this crap?”

  And Nerea answered indeed I did, sweetheart, and then he said he’d be happy with scrambled eggs and mushrooms. The bottle of red wine, forty-five euros, he sent back. He sniffed, whirling the wine around in his glass, he sipped with closed eyes before disdainfully rejecting it. Another was brought. He repeated his sniffing and tasting, and finally accepted, in exchange for inflicting a deliberately pedantic and grandiloquent enological lecture on the waitress. He and Nerea clinked their glasses. She:

  “I can read your mind. The first wine was fine.”

  “Of course. Better than this one. But when you’re dealing with wait staff, you’ve got to assume a hierarchical superiority. Now the kitchen staff is probably scared shitless. They’ll do their very best. It’s only normal. Their lives depend on it. And whatever we order, they’ll bring the best they have.”

  “Or they’ll spit on the plate. If I see even a bubble in the sauce I won’t taste it.”

  “What does the endive taste like?”

  “Endive. And the mushrooms?”

  “Mushrooms.”

  About to celebrate twelve years of marriage, with myriad breakups followed by passionate reconciliations, they still lived in separate apartments. Your space, my space. Your filth here, mine there. And they talked about it, dipping bread in the sauce, Quique in a jubilant rapture because he’d suddenly confirmed something. What? He realized that for the first six years of their marriage, he’d never stopped begging her to move in with him (one roof, one bed; yes, but only one bathroom), while ever since then, until now, another six years, give or take a month, it’s been she who’s done the begging and he who’s done the refusing.

  “You know why I refused. But I don’t know why you’re refusing.”

  “I liked your secret. Of course, I had no idea what it was because it was a secret. The idea that you’re hiding something important from me about your private life and that I would come and take it away from you and destroy it turns me on. It would be like stealing your undies after raping you. But just look, if you think about it carefully, I’m the one who comes away losing. I get the disillusion of the boy who’s smashed his favorite toy. That’s why I don’t want us to live together. I’d be very sorry to get to know you so well that there would no longer be a margin, no matter how slim, for surprise.”

  An indiscreet comment by Bittori ruined the secret. And when she noticed that she’d made a huge mistake, she tried naïveté.

  “Oh dear, you mean you didn’t know?”

  A bitter pill for Nerea, sitting next to Quique on the sofa with the expression of a liar caught in the act and Ikatza on her lap. In the version she’d told Quique on previous occasions she said her father had died of lung cancer. And she would add calculated narrative embellishments to make the lie seem even more true to life.

  Once the truth was revealed, it was as if Nerea no longer saw the need for separate domiciles. In her place, my palace as she called it in English, she maintained a memory museum dedicated to her aita, and the last thing she would ever want in her house would be witnesses, questions, hands that touch, snatch, smudge things. An exposition of paternal relics: photos, newspaper articles (“ETA Assassinates Businessman in”), articles of clothing worn by the deceased, objects that belonged to him. For instance? The candle in the shape of a cactus that I gave him when I was a little girl, a fountain pen, cyclotourism and mus tournament trophies, his shirt with two bullet holes, objects from his office, a few pairs of his shoes, including the ones he was wearing the afternoon of the attack. In sum, things of great sentimental value for Nerea, who’d been given them, some by her mother, others by Xabier. And his pistol.

  It was her brother who had the idea of bringing the shirt to the cleaners. If it had been up to Nerea, she would have kept it with the bloodstains. And after Quique found out how the father-in-law he never met died, the fact is that Nerea no longer felt the need to hide her relics from him any longer, except that now it seemed he didn’t want that junk belonging to a terrorism victim anywhere near him. The photos were the limit for him. The rest he thought macabre. Nerea was unwilling to part with any of it. How could she? So they went on living in separate flats, though they got together frequently, almost every day, not always, according to the mood of the day.

  As usual, Quique placed his cell phone on the table, next to his plate, and every other minute he looked at it. It may be Saturday, but business never rests. And while he attacked his grilled monkfish with almonds (Nerea, Portuetxe-style codfish), the jingle of WhatsApp announced the arrival of a message. Nothing, just some crap from Elizalde, a short video, funny, of a bald soccer player who gets hit in the face with the ball over and over again. They were partners, they are friends, they text each other funny things. Nerea had her own theory.

  “That guy’s poking around to find out if you’re free and the two of you can go out on the prowl tonight.”

  “If you hadn’t had that falling out with Marisa, the four of us would be able to be here having dinner and laughing our heads off.”

  “I’m still wondering why I didn’t scratch her eyes out.”

  The two women get along well. Friends? Let’s not exaggerate. Their relationship reached the level of agreeable conversations, occasional outings to the El Corte Inglés department store in Bilbao, and even the exchange of some intimate secrets, but without going too far. And for good reason, they had different natures, different t
astes, and different interests. And then in the café at El Corte Inglés, Marisa, who according to Nerea was perhaps a bit envious, goes and says pretty much out of the blue that:

  “It’s none of my business, but if I were you I’d keep an eye on your husband. He’s quite a skirt chaser.”

  They returned separately to San Sebastián, Nerea by bus, the other in her car. And that’s how things stand today.

  “She tried to break up our marriage, and I just can’t allow that.”

  “How’s that cod?”

  “Okay, but I don’t really like it with red wine.”

  “So let’s order white wine.”

  “Elizalde, doesn’t he cheat on that idiot?”

  “All the time.”

  “The standard-model jerk who thinks she knows everything.”

  The waitress brought the white wine. Did they want to taste it? Quique asked her to leave the bottle on the table. If it was bad, they’d call her over.

  “That gold necklace with the ginkgo leaf that I gave you, you don’t wear it anymore?”

  “I threw it in the Thames the day I went nuts. But don’t worry, because I know exactly where it fell and I can get it back anytime.”

  “I’ll give you another. I don’t want you to freeze.”

  She was enraged, howling in the morning solitude of her room, more enraged with herself than with him. It’s just that, for openers, she can’t stand it when Quique pretends, as they walk down the street, that he’s holding the hand of the child they don’t have. In London, he repeated that act. No once, but several times. The last time, the one that unleashed her rage, happened when Nerea saw him from the hotel window. Quique was coming to pick her up, dressed up, elegant, and at the moment he crossed the street, he held the little hand of his invisible son. Could he have known she was watching him from a fifth-floor window? I’m getting like my mother, who peeks out the window when we leave. And noting that resemblance infuriated her.

  Nerea skipped dessert. He didn’t: flan, coffee, and a glass of sloe brandy, which he only ordered after making sure they had the brand he sells.

  For several years, Nerea was convinced Quique was sterile. And the fact is that he, depressed, shared that supposition. She convinced him to have his semen analyzed. Why? I don’t know, sometimes there’s a low sperm count or they don’t wag their tails and are useless. The laboratory results showed that Quique’s semen is of good quality. So the infertility in that case fell to her, so she defends herself:

  “Maybe your aim is off.”

  Nerea stopped looking for men, breeding bulls who resembled Quique physically. Because, of course, if you have a blond baby or a black one, how can you explain that? She was thinking of imitating a cuckoo and putting someone else’s egg in her husband’s nest, but couldn’t do it. And she had inseminators by the ton at her disposal.

  For some time now, he’s had this thing about holding the hand of the child he doesn’t have, that he’ll never have, at least not with me. He knows this morbid game, a way of throwing her infertility in her face?, jangles my nerves. Quique was suffering and she was suffering and she was enraged because he was suffering.

  “The check, please.”

  Nerea was faster when the moment came to hand the waitress her credit card. She added a tip equal to the price of the wine Quique had rejected. Outside the restaurant, they started making out, slobbery kisses, feeling each other up in the semidarkness, under the starry sky.

  “Jesus, you’re not wearing panties.”

  “So you won’t steal them.”

  “I adore the scent of your sex. I’d screw you here and now.”

  “It’s not a good spot. The river runs white here.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “I’d rather we go up beyond that junkyard you talked about.”

  And instead of going back to town, they took the Igara highway, toward mountainous places, toward higher ground, tree-covered darkness.

  118

  UNANNOUNCED VISIT

  From her brother, Nerea learned that Bittori and Arantxa met almost every morning in the village square. It was also Xabier who told her on which days and at what time her old friend came to the hospital for physiotherapy. The information included the veiled suggestion that she visit Arantxa. Nerea spontaneously decided she would visit her. But there is one thing, sometimes there’s a tiny little woman from Ecuador with her and other times it’s her mother.

  “What are you saying? That Miren would bite me or something?”

  “I’m just telling you in case you don’t want to run into her.”

  How long had it been since they’d seen each other? Mmm, since the days when Nerea was studying law in San Sebastián. Let me think. More than twenty years before she went to study in Zaragoza? Arantxa was already married by then, working as a saleswoman in a shoe store, and living in Rentería with her husband. She lost sight of her, a decade went by, another decade went by, and the third had begun. A long time after the last time they saw each other, when?, no idea, Arantxa had her stroke. About that as well, Nerea had found out from Xabier.

  “The truth is that it’s upsetting to see her the way she is now.”

  “Stop protecting me, brother. Can I talk to her?”

  “She understands everything. To communicate, she uses an iPad. You ask her something, and she answers in writing. I know she’s getting help from a speech therapist, but I don’t know if she can articulate comprehensible words.”

  One Wednesday, Nerea went up to the hospital. Following Xabier’s instructions, she located the person who would get her where she wanted to go. She found Arantxa in her wheelchair, alone in the corridor, passing the time while she waited for someone to bring her to physiotherapy.

  I almost fainted from sorrow. Her hair short, lots of gray; one hand clenched, useless, her neck awkward, and her facial features slightly but still visibly deformed. It took Nerea a few seconds to recognize in that broken woman the friend of her adolescence. And her first thought was: shit, what hits we take from life. And her second: I hope she doesn’t get angry because I didn’t tell her I was coming.

  “Arantxa, sweetie, look who’s come to see you.”

  Half a second of shock and doubt as she turned her head. And then, suddenly, her entire face transformed into a grimace of joy. After receiving a ritual kiss, Arantxa stretched out her right hand to touch, hold, what anguish, to try to hug her friend who was already stepping back. And Arantxa tried to speak and simply couldn’t, and she put so much effort into expressing herself that for a moment it looked as if she were choking.

  “I’ll leave you two alone, you probably have a lot to tell each other.”

  With affectionate, compassionate?, knuckles Nerea caressed her friend’s cheek. Arantxa in turn gave her a look of resignation, as if to say: take a good look, this is all there is. Or something like that.

  Nerea opted for being loquacious, in order to lower the dramatic temperature of the meeting. That she’d learned from her brother, that she’d found out, that she’d been told. And she concluded, sincerely:

  “What shitty luck.”

  By then Arantxa had taken the iPad out of the space between her body and the side of the wheelchair, sad eyed, nodding. With the device in her lap, she wrote:

  “I’m really happy to see you.”

  “Just what I’m saying. How is it going?”

  “Badly.”

  “That was a stupid question. Sorry.”

  And seeing that Arantxa was laughing, Nerea imitated her, though her lips were slack.

  “I’m divorced.”

  That pale, thin index finger made agile jumps among the keys. When she finished her sentences, Nerea looked at the screen and read.

  “My ex left me. It doesn’t matter.”

  She asked if Arantxa had any children. Sh
e knew how many. Xabier had told her, but the fact is Nerea was having trouble adapting to that spoken-written form of conversation, and in the hope of seeming more natural, she asked formal, stupid questions.

  Arantxa, ironically imitating the victory sign, raised two fingers.

  “What I love most in life. They live with him, but I see them a lot. If they visit, I’ll introduce you.”

  She went on, letter by letter, but quickly, to specify ages, wrote their names, declared her children clever, good-looking, tender.

  “They took after me.”

  “You’re proud of them, right?”

  She said yes by vigorously nodding her head. And she asked about Nerea’s life. Nerea gave her a summary: married, no children, a job in the finance ministry. And as she leaned over to see the screen again, she couldn’t avoid a bite of emotion when she read that her friend found her very pretty.

  “Don’t believe it. The years are piling up for me, too.”

  “I live with my aitas. I see your mother a lot.”

  “That’s right, she told me.”

  “I’m sorry about her sickness.”

  Hmm, so she’s right up-to-date.

  “Xabier and I try to be with her as much as possible. Xabier does more. You know he’s been a mama’s boy all his life.”

  “Bittori’s great sorrow is that she’s going to die without my brother asking all of you for forgiveness.”

  “True, she’s missing that consolation.”

  “I’m always pressuring Joxe Mari. I never stop.”

  She nodded, joining and separating the tips of her fingers several times to show she sent him lots of letters or messages or whatever.