“What are you doing with the light on for so long?” her mother called to her one night from her room next door.
“Pee pee.”
She jumped into bed and turned off the light, trembling.
During the day, Felipet visited the doll. Mercè would take him to see her. In the midst of some lively game, or while reading a story, the memory of the doll would rush feverishly over her, and she would hurry to look at her, pulling her by the arm or leg, gazing silently at the distorted cardboard shape.
Till the day the doll was discovered and the elders created a row.
On the
Train
. . . no, no, just like I was telling you, I ain’t never been able to sleep on the train, I get kinda drowsy, but I always hear the creaking of wheels and wood and besides, with all this wobbling and jerking, I’m afraid to go to the toilet and it frightens me that the train might send me spinning against the wall and me struck dumb and if nobody has a need for hours, even if I holler nobody’s gonna hear me and at my age they’d find me dead and I don’t want to die without the taking of Our Lord. All of us could be struck by accident, but it’d be mighty sad to die doomed and me, I don’t like fire, and the one in hell, judging by what they say, must be one of the fiercest.
They thirsty? Poor creatures, sure they’re thirsty. With these half-open beaks, their crests all sad—but I can’t help ’em any. The day after tomorrow they’ll be dead and roasted ’cause it’s Santa Maria and at my gentleman’s house they gonna have them a big party ’cause, besides being the Senyora’s Saint’s Day, the oldest daughter, she looks like a Virgin on one of them religious cards, well she’s gonna make her debut. You gonna remember to let me know when we get to Barcelona? I can’t read, not one letter, my son now he knew how to read like he was a gentleman’s son, but he died from the chest and he wasn’t even twenty years old. My husband, he told me: “Don’t cry, now he don’t have to be a soldier.” ’cause we used to live right in Barcelona, I don’t remember the name of the street now, but it was near the Estació de França. My husband was a baker and they liked him, and working with flour ain’t something disgusting. I used to always tell him—Virgin Mary, and now it has to rain and these poor little creatures must be dying of thirst, with this sultry weather, look at them nice and fat, that’s how I raise ’em, no lice, co-coc, co-coc, poor little things, if I could only collect a bit of water for ’em. You see, they used to run free all day. And I always try to keep their feet all dry and . . .
I think it was the year they burned the convents, no? I hope the good Lord don’t remember them, and in the village there was a storm that destroyed all the crops and left us poor as Job’s turkey and my husband said to me: “Let’s go to Barcelona, that way the boy’ll learn more than if we stay here, a farmer’s always a farmer, but a gentleman is always a gentleman.” And my brother, who had money ’cause he was the oldest and got everything, he had it good, good since the day he was born, well he bought the house and the fields so as to raise the value of his property, ’cause he could and we couldn’t, and when we got to Barcelona we had a little money, but bit by bit we lost it all, ’cause my husband couldn’t find work straight off and the boy was already sickly, and doctor here doctor there till good-bye to the money my brother gave us for the house and the land. And all on account of the water, ’cause without that spell of bad weather, what must of been punishment for burning Barcelona, and the good always pay for the sinners and we had to pay ’cause the land was by the river and on a slope and the water carried everything away.
Help yourself, if you’d fancy some, it’s bad to feel weak and you know it’s the stomach that carries us along. I remember how we all went hungry . . . Take a peek, a little omelet, ah eggs, the eggs are fresh this week. When I lived in Barcelona every Sunday we went to Tibidabo and we took lunch with us, but I was always afraid of the eggs in Barcelona on account of they was eggs that was kept. Want a little bit of ham? Just a little slice? Don’t say no, you don’t know what you’d be missing. It’s nourishing but it don’t make you feel stuffed. I used to go and wash clothes for some senyors who had four women servants and a man just to open the door, his name was Julio, and the gentleman he was tall and thin and he wore glasses of gold, and Carmeta, that was the housemaid, she told me he was head of a political party and every once in a while he had to escape to France and no time to pack his bags, on account of Catalans being so persecuted. Sometimes, when he saw me passing by with a basket of laundry, he’d say “Ah, Ramona, on your way to do the clothes, are you? Want a peach? They’re all sugar and honey. They’ll cure your thirst.” Still raining. Virgin Mary, and like a simpleton I left my umbrella and I get all flustered when I get to Barcelona, ’cause since I don’t know how to read I get all agitated when I got to catch the tram and I always have to ask what name’s on the side. Want another one? Make you healthy, eat up. Well, you got to realize they said Mass right there in the house, and I still don’t know why they didn’t kill ’em all when the revolution came, and the priest, who was a friend of the family and helped the Senyora’s mother to die good, he was saved too. I never saw his face, I only seen him twice when he was crossing the hall and he was hurrying like a rat, but he was small. Where are we? Ah! Cerdanyola. Fancy that. Talking and laughing away we already got to Cerdanyola.
Not long before, my husband went on strike and I asked my Senyora, she was tall and slim too like her husband and was always wearing silk and she spoke in a low voice, all calm like, and I’d get sleepy just listening to her, well I asked her if she knew about more houses where I could go and clean ’cause we was having us a bad stretch and everything was getting more costly, and she asked me did I want to take charge of the cleaning of the China room. Everything was from China and embroidered in fine gold that don’t turn black, with these creatures that looked out at me when I dusted ’em, ’cause Carmeta was kinda careless and she was always knocking off the mother-of-pearl, cleaning so hard, you know, slap-bang. I told her I’d clean real slow and we reached an agreement. Well, when my husband was striking, Carmeta found herself a man, but she was real proper like, and the day she found out he was married she said enough, but he would hang around the house and spy on her when she went to buy the milk, since she was the housemaid they only made her buy the milk in the afternoons, and there he was following her on her day off when she went out and she not even giving him a look and he was going mad. And one day he wanted to see the Senyora and he told her straight, yes, it was true he was married, but it wasn’t his fault, and he was mighty powerful in love with Carmeta, and if she didn’t want to speak to him no more, he was sorry but he was gonna do something crazy on account of he was losing his head over her and the Senyora gave him good advice and told him not to think about Carmeta, ’cause she was a good girl and owing to him she was suffering sorely and losing weight. He promised her he wasn’t gonna do nothing foolish and to tell Carmeta to talk to him every now and then, even if only once a week, but Carmeta was right when she said he should of told her straight off he was married and she didn’t want to speak to him again, not even to say “Bona tarda.” And one afternoon she went to fetch the milk and didn’t come back ’cause he killed her with a revolver and left her stretched out in the middle of the street and Julio and I went down and covered her with a sheet. Yes, that’s how it is, here today, gone tomorrow . . .
The doctor as soon as he entered he looked at me and said: “Your husband has caught it.” But I never believed it. He looked like he’d got the evil touch. First he turned yellow and for two days he was unconscious and passing worms, and the doctor said it was the epidemic, but an epidemic without poison, and he’d get well ’cause he was strong as an ox, and the next day I threw away all the medicine ’cause it made him sick at the stomach and he turned all green. The third day he spoke and told me to make him a poultice with white onions for his stomach, by the third one his stomach was real chafed and you could see his skin all raw, and he co
uldn’t stop groaning, and he never stopped groaning till he died, with a heat that burned up everything. When he died it was already the Republic, and he couldn’t never be boss, and he would of liked it, ’cause the revolution was on the way and the fellow that took care of the kneading trough when the revolution came he said to me, “Now your husband could of rested, ’cause the workers are the bosses and the bosses are the ones that got to slave away”—excuse me, you’re not a member of the Falange Party, are you? Ah, I thought so . . .
I sold the furniture to the wife of a fellow that took part in the revolution and I went to the village alone. My nephew, who loves me like a mother and used to play with Miquel when he was little—Miquel, that was my boy, may he rest in peace—he says to me, “Don’t you worry, the land is for them that work it and now it’s all mine and you’ll always have a place at my table.” And he took me in, but that ended soon, ’cause when the fellows with the berets came, he had to go to France and ended up in the camp in Vernet and he had to sell his watch, and he still hasn’t got paid, ’cause a Negro—what we call a negritu—who was a soldier and guarded the camp tricked him good. But just you wait, my nephew is a bad-tempered sort and you’ll see what he done. He told me himself when he got back two years later, all disgusted ’cause speaking French was just too much for him and they moved them up and down and made them pick beets. Ah, thank goodness the sun’s come out, the sun is half a life. It bothers you? Sometimes a migraine comes from the stomach . . . you see, the negritu would walk up and down the camp and my nephew calls out to him and asks him does he want to buy a watch, it’s a good make, chock-full of wheels inside, and he says yes, it’s a deal, and my nephew gives him the watch and the negritu walks away all happy-like not giving him a cent, and here they made an agreement. The next day, my nephew sees the negritu passing by, it seems he was expecting him to pass; he calls out and says: another watch, but this one is even better, it goes tic-tock, tic-tock, and the negritu laughs and runs away, and about that time, the Negro is in pieces ’cause my nephew told me the clock that went tic-tock was a time bomb.
Just like I was telling you, my nephew took me in, but when he had to go to France, that same night my brother comes to find me, the one that bought the house from us when the flood left us penniless and he says to me, “Ramona, come with me. I’m not moving, no matter what, the boy did something crazy, but I got the lands, and they’re rightly mine, and I didn’t fight in the revolution, but if they come looking for explanations you can always tell them what I say is true, for the field and the house I paid you what they was worth, and I’m counting on you to tell if need be, ’cause they burned down the town hall and I don’t know if my property is in order, and the deeds I was keeping, when the revolutionaries came they took them and I ain’t never seen them again.”
Ah, gracious me, here we are; time just flew by. Well what I wanted to tell you is the world’s like a play, but the trouble is nobody knows how it ends, ’cause we all die before, and those that’s left just plug along as if nothing happened. Sometimes I get cranky, and I’m not one that ought to complain. I always been healthy, I’m not delicate-like. My stomach’s all swollen now, like I was pregnant, but I think it’s only holding water and it don’t bother me. When I think about all them that ain’t been so lucky like me, Mother of God, and all the tragedies they have, it’ll make you shudder. Well, I got to catch the tram to Bonanova, my Senyora lives on Avinguda de Craywinckel. Thank you, thank you, I’ll find it. All roads lead to Rome. Nice to meet you and Bona tarda.
Before
I Die
Before I die I want to write an account of the last two years of my life to explain—explain to myself—everything I’ve been forced to renounce. One afternoon toward the end of winter, I was so cold that I went into a café and ordered a grog. The café was called “Els Ocells,” the birds. I sat down at a table by the window. People were hunched over as they hurried past. I was nervous. I’d had an argument with the instructor in my art course; he said my colors were too muted and I didn’t agree. I thought he was old fashioned and had terrible judgment. I found it utterly absurd that he didn’t want to understand me and realize that the way I painted was the way I had to paint. Besides, I was in a bad mood because I should have received a check from my uncle a couple of weeks before, and as I was leaving the pension in the morning, the proprietor asked me when I was going to pay my bill. To top it off, I had dropped my fountain pen on the floor and the tip had broken. I asked the boy in the café for pen and ink; I wanted to write my uncle at once. As I was taking paper and envelopes from my satchel, a man sat down beside me. There was nothing extraordinary about him. I would never have noticed him had he not sat beside me. Such audacity! I considered it offensive, especially as there were so many empty tables.
Among my classmates I was known to be rather wild and unsociable, a person “easily irritable, with unexpected, violent reactions.” The man sat there beside me without moving, his briefcase on the table casting a shadow on me. It was a good-quality briefcase, but worn, made of brown leather, with spots on it, a metal lock. He had provoked me, and without giving it a thought, I spilled my drink on him.
“Don’t worry.”
His voice made me even more indignant. A cold, dark voice, accompanied by an indifferent glance. He pulled out a handkerchief and calmly dried his trousers.
“I did it on purpose.”
“I don’t believe I have disturbed you.”
“Why did you sit at my table?”
“Forgive me, it is you who are sitting at my table.”
I looked at him in surprise.
“Tables in a café don’t have owners; they’re for the first person who arrives.”
“I am a creature of habit; I come to this café every day at the same hour, and invariably I sit at this table, summer and winter.”
•
The following day I returned to the café. He entered and headed straight to his table. I was sitting opposite. We looked at each other and laughed. The previous night, before falling asleep, I had thought about the incident with the drink and felt bad.
As I left the café I noticed he was following me. When I reached the door to the pension he addressed me:
“I would like to ask you something, something that is important to me: Please come to the café every day, if you can. I won’t address you, if you don’t wish me to. Your presence does me good. I entreat you.”
I began going to the café every day. We each sat at our own table, but we would leave together, and he would accompany me part of the way. One day he asked me, “Have you ever thought of getting married?” “No.” He said nothing more that day, but on the following he posed the same question, and I had one of my reactions. “I’m not going to respond. Come take a look at my room.” It was the perfect day to prove my point: everything was in disarray, a dreadful disorder. “You see? Do you believe a girl like me can consider getting married? And I smoke. I smoke like a madman who’s a mad smoker. Look at this.” I opened the wardrobe. None of my clothes were folded, everything was all jumbled up, towels mixed in with stockings, face creams, books with bars of soap, tubes of paint. “In a marriage, everything is order and harmony and I—”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“Never.”
“Don’t you love anything?”
“No.”
“Flowers?”
“No.”
“Music?”
“No.”
“Art!”
“No.”
“Animals?”
“No.”
“But, doves you do.”
“Roasted.”
He laughed and left. I accompanied him down the stairs.
The following day at three o’clock a boy arrived at the pension with two white doves in a cage. “For Senyoreta Marta Coll from Senyor Mârius Roig.” The following day I invited him to dinner
: hors d’oeuvres, roasted dove, fruit and cheese for dessert.
“I thought as much.”
“What?”
“That they would be good.”
More than spilling the drink on his trousers, I regretted my crime. We went out for a stroll. As we walked I confessed that I had made the cook at the pension kill the doves. “I’m sure you thought I wouldn’t be capable of doing it.”
•
I didn’t go to the café the following day. I was filled with a strange sense of remorse. I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept thinking that he must have waited for me all afternoon. In the morning, I found a letter beside my café amb llet. “Please forgive my absence yesterday afternoon. It was impossible for me to come. You cannot imagine how I agonized.”
We met that day and were happy to see each other. We had a pleasant time, but I had a terrible dream that night. I was traveling, and everywhere I went—on trains, in hotels, in every country I visited—I encountered two white doves, the feathers on their necks soaked in blood. The afternoon that neither of us had gone to the café changed us. We were different. Closer. As if the day we hadn’t met had brought us together.
“Would you mind marrying a miserable man?”
“Why do you ask such strange questions?”
“Would you answer my question?”
“I can only give you one answer: I don’t know. I’ve never given it a thought. I suppose the only thing I’d ask of a man was that he love me.”
“I love you.”
•
From my diary:
I felt suffused by an infinite emptiness on the afternoon I didn’t go to the café. Terrible. I’ve learned something about myself. I don’t believe in anything. But I think the least one can ask of intelligent people is that they know how to be happy, how to live, how to accept. When we separated, he said, “Thank you.” “Thank you for what?” I asked. “For the trust you have shown me since we met.” He kissed my hand. As he walked away I stood in the center of the sidewalk, looking at him. I followed his shadow, the shadow of the briefcase attached to his body.
The Selected Stories of Mercè Rodoreda Page 14
