by Colm Toibin
It was twilight. She had turned her back to him before they fell asleep and he lay cupped around her. As soon as she moved he awoke. They were both warm and sweaty in the bed. There was no sound in the house. She turned and kissed him and he put his hands on her breasts; he held the nipple between his thumb and forefinger; he put his mouth down and kissed it. His penis was hard again. She smiled as she lay on top of him and he put his face against her breasts. He pushed her back and put his tongue between her legs. When he came into her he did not use the rubber but he pulled out when he was ready to ejaculate and sat up. In the dim light she watched the jets of his seed pour on to her stomach.
There was no hot water in the shower and the bathroom was freezing. They stood together under a trickle of ice-cold water and tried to wash themselves. They stood together trying to wash the soap off. Miguel ran back to the bedroom to get towels and clean clothes. By the time they left the house they could see the fireworks and hear the rolling of the drums. The Patum had started.
The drums banged out the same sound: “Patum! Patum!” The giant figures in the small square towered above everything; the orchestra played fast dance music. The king and queen came first in all their guise of wisdom and solidity and the crowd followed them cheering. The other figures, each of them twelve feet tall, followed on; they, too, seemed majestic and implacable.
Katherine and Miguel moved around the crowd looking for Jordi but they couldn’t find him. At one point Katherine noticed the man she had seen earlier in the restaurant, the man with the green eyes and the grey hair. She caught his eye for a second. He looked much more foreign among the crowds of Catalans than at lunchtime.
It was pitch dark and the crowd was gathered around the giants and the drummers in the big square. The fireworks were going off, crackling in the air. The giants’ faces seemed as though they might at any moment come to life and frown down at the people of Berga. She wanted to stay and look at them and follow them, but Miguel wanted to go to the bar and buy a porrón of a drink he called mau-mau so they could wander about the streets for the rest of the night.
“Next year, we can follow the giants,” he said. He looked at her and they walked towards the bar. Next year, she had understood that. El año que viene. The year which comes.
They stood in the bar and had a beer. She remembered that he had spoken of the future—next year—as though they had agreed that they would spend the future together. She had not agreed to spend the future with him. She knew nothing about him. What he had told her she had no way of verifying. She went over in her mind again what he had told her. He would soon be thirty-five. He was born in a town called Reus in the province of Tarragona. He had told her he had not married and she had no evidence to the contrary. He had been put in prison for a short while after the civil war—his family was Republican and he hated Franco. He had lived in Paris and in Lyons. He had worked as a waiter in Lyons. But for the past ten years he had lived in Barcelona and, as far as she could make out, for most of this time he had painted. He had shown her the catalogues of his shows going back to July 1944. He told her that he had been involved in the civil war.
She wanted to know if she should trust him. Now here in Berga, late at night in a bar, she wanted to know if she could believe him. She thought of approaching Rosa. She thought of approaching Ramon Rogent, the painter who ran the studio where she went every day. She would give anything to know more about Miguel, but she realised she could not ask, she would have to watch and find out.
She looked around the bar for a moment. The man with the yellow skin and cat-green eyes was staring at her and when she saw him he stood up and came towards her. He had a carrier-bag in his hand. She turned away from him towards the bar and emptied her bottle of beer into the glass. Miguel was still talking to the barman. “Do you speak English?” the man asked. The accent was Irish. She stiffened, Miguel also looked at the man.
“Habla español?” she used the formal third person to ask if he spoke Spanish. She did not want to meet anyone from Ireland. He said that he spoke it but very badly. Miguel joined in and said that they were a pair then who spoke Spanish badly. The man said nothing. They both looked at him, waiting. He looked at both of them, taking them in, almost smiling at them. Miguel offered to buy him a beer and he accepted. After that no one spoke. Katherine stood uncomfortably at the bar, aware that Miguel was ignoring the man. She excused herself and went to the toilet. When she came back he was still there, self-possessed, quiet, watchful. She wanted him to go away.
“Es irlandés como tú,” Miguel said. She told him she knew that already. The man listened to her.
“There is no room at the inn,” he said. “I can find nowhere to stay tonight.” His hair was thick and cut very short like a grey cap around his head and he looked as if he might be short of money. His shoes were old and worn. He suddenly reminded Katherine of someone she might pass on the road while driving into Enniscorthy.
“Do you know anywhere I can stay?” he asked her.
“Ask him,” she pointed to Miguel who was paying for a porrón of mau-mau at the bar. Very hesitantly the man explained to Miguel that every hotel and pensión in Berga was full. Miguel shrugged his shoulders as though there was nothing he could do. Unless you want to come with us, he said.
“Tell him yes I want to come with you,” the man looked at Katherine. “Tell him my name is Michael Graves. Tell him I am a painter like him.”
“How do you know he is a painter?”
“I heard you talking at lunch.”
“I saw you watching us.”
“I know.”
“My name is Katherine. This is Miguel.” They shook hands. His hands were small and soft, like a child’s.
As soon as they went out into the street Miguel started singing but she couldn’t understand the words of the songs. When a group of young people came towards them on the small sloping Ramblas which went down from the square, Miguel stopped them. “Ese galapaguito no tiene madre,” he said holding Michael Graves in front of him.
They all laughed and Miguel sang the words again: “No tiene madre, ese galapaguito no tiene madre.” “What’s a galapaguito?” Michael Graves asked. “I don’t know.” Katherine asked Miguel, who laughed and repeated the lines from the song. “Ese galapaguito no tiene madre.” He pointed once more at Michael Graves and handed him the porrón of mau-mau. Michael drank from the neck. Miguel indignantly insisted on showing him how to drink from the spout. Again Katherine asked Miguel to explain galapaguito but he spotted a middle-aged couple and began to sing for them. The couple laughed.
“I have a dictionary in my bag. How do you spell galapaguito,” Katherine asked Michael as she flicked through the tiny book trying to find the word. “Have it, have it! It means ‘tortoise.’ The song says, ‘This little tortoise has no mother.’”
“I don’t see the joke,” Michael Graves said. By this time Miguel had his arm around a number of strangers, and was singing the song again and pointing at Michael. “No tiene madre, no tiene madre, no tiene madre.”
Later they went back to the bar and found Jordi and a crowd of others sitting at a long table. Miguel ordered three beers and made everyone push over to allow them room at the table. He had stopped singing about the galapaguito, but he told them all that Michael had no mother and nowhere to sleep and proceeded to give a long list of all the other things that Michael did not have. Everybody laughed, except Michael and Katherine who did not quite understand. Michael looked around the table at them all; he did not try to join in.
Katherine wanted to leave; the alcohol was having no effect on her; she was tired. She asked Miguel for the key. He asked her where she was going. Home, she said.
He pointed at Michael Graves. “Are you going with him?” he asked.
“No. Give me the keys.”
He took the keys out of his pocket and as he handed them to her he tried to toss her hair. She turned to the Irishman.
“Good night,” she said.
; The door of Jordi’s studio on the top floor was unlocked. She went in and turned on the light. The paintings were placed about the walls as before: six stations of the cross, all of them oblique and difficult. The two small figures of Christ and Mary embracing. Above them an enormous dark mountain and beyond that the clear, brilliant blue sky.
She went to the window and opened it; the cold night air came in like a shock. She stared down at the few lights left on in the small village of Berga and the utter darkness all around. Small fields and roads in the foothills of the Pyrenees, small holdings in the hills, small towns, Vich, Solsona, Baga, Cardona, Ripoll. The world turning over in the night. The world breathing in.
* * *
When she awoke in the morning Miguel was naked beside her. On the other side of her at the edge of the mattress there was someone else. Both men were fast asleep. She knew immediately who the other was. The Irishman. She slipped out of bed and put on some clothes before she went down to the bathroom. As soon as she was dressed she went out.
When she came back they were awake but still in bed. Miguel said he was sick, left for the bathroom and came back with a jug of water which he tried to drink. He was still naked. She wanted him to cover himself while the other man was there. The other man, who was still wearing his shirt, turned away from them as if to go back to sleep. She spoke to him:
“Are you going to stay in Berga?”
“No, I’m going back to Barcelona.”
“Do you live in Barcelona?”
“Yes.”
“How are you getting there?”
“I’m getting the bus.”
“So are we.”
“I know. I’m going with you. Your husband asked me to go with you. I hope that’s all right.”
“He’s not my husband.”
“He told me he was.”
“He is telling you lies. He is not my husband.”
“He says you are Irish,” the man sat up in bed, he looked dreadful, even more yellow and diseased than the previous day. “You sound English.” Miguel watched them carefully as they talked.
“Do I?” she asked.
“What part of Ireland are you from?”
“I don’t want to talk about Ireland.”
“What’s your second name, your surname?”
“Proctor, my name is Katherine Proctor.”
“That’s a good Protestant name,” he grinned.
“I’ve forgotten your name.”
“My name is Michael Graves. I had too much to drink with your husband last night.”
“He is not my husband.” She turned to Miguel. “Miguel, tú no eres mi marido, verdad?” He looked at Michael Graves, stood up naked and stretched. She wanted to stand in front of him, to shield him. She wanted him to put some clothes on.
When they had dressed they went up to the studio where Jordi was already working. Miguel asked Michael if he understood the word dinero.
“Money,” Michael said. Miguel introduced Jordi as Jordi Dinero and made a sign by rubbing his thumb and forefinger together and pointing at Jordi. “Dinero,” he mocked. He walked around the studio and looked once more at the paintings. He came to the half moon and told Michael that this was a half peseta which Jordi had lost at the Patum last year and which he wanted to recover. He pointed to the painting of the two figures and the mountain and explained that this was to record the day Jordi received some money from his mother. All the paintings for the monks at Montserrat were, he explained, on the theme of dinero, which was why the painter called himself Jordi Dinero.
At first Jordi was amused, but as the speech went on he seemed less so and Katherine noted the bitterness in Miguel’s tone. Michael Graves did not say anything. Katherine had no idea how they were going to be rid of him.
Jordi waved to them from his window as they went with their bags towards the bus. There was a crowd at the bus station and they had to wait for the second bus. Miguel wanted them to sit along the back seat so he could look out of the back window. Michael Graves asked her again where she was from.
“I’m from Wexford.”
“So am I,” he said, “what part are you from?”
“Between Newtownbarry and Enniscorthy.”
“Newtownbarry,” he said, “they don’t call it that any more. I’m from Enniscorthy.”
“You haven’t been sent to look for me, have you? Tell me if you have.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
THE HOUSE
A few weeks before she left Ireland, Katherine sat one afternoon watching the thundery blue light fall over the river and the fields between the house and river. She watched the oppressive sky, sensing the moisture in the air outside, knowing that no matter how intensely she watched this scene, and studied it, and thought about the colours, she would never get it right.
She simplified it; she left out the stillness, the crushed light from the low sky. She banked the clouds in watercolour on the sheet of paper, emphasised their texture, the grey and black and steely white. She stopped and left it there, and turned again to the window.
She noticed a figure walking up the driveway from the road. A woman walking with difficulty, someone she didn’t know; someone begging perhaps, or looking for firewood. She looked back at the watercolour to see if she could include the figure of the woman, but the scale was too small, the figure could only be a brushstroke, a fleck.
She became absorbed in her work and forgot about the woman. Later, it was well over an hour later, she remembered when one of the girls from the kitchen came up to tell her that there was a woman at the back door who wanted to see her and wouldn’t go away.
“Who is she? Do you know?”
“She’s from out on the road.”
“What does she want?”
“She won’t say.”
“Tell her I’m busy now.”
The girl hesitated, as though she was going to say something, but then turned and left the room.
The sky hung low over the river. Katherine moved back to the window and studied the scene once more; there was a bed in the corner, and a heavy double wardrobe stood against the wall, but the carpet had been rolled back carelessly, and the walls were covered with her paintings, the fruits of her labour she called them. The room was cluttered and untidy, unlike the rest of the house; the wash-basin was full of jam jars and brushes and half-finished work lay all over the floor.
The rain started gently at first, it came like the sound of wind, and then the clouds burst open and the rain beat against the window, and the sky became dark and the room all shadows. She watched the window, focussed her attention on the drops of rain hitting the glass and dripping down; she stayed there until it was time for her to wash and dress and abandon her private world.
Richard was at the table when she came into the kitchen, he had a friend with him, both boys had their copy-books out and were doing their lessons.
“Can we have some orange squash?” he asked as soon as he saw her.
“Not before dinner,” she said as she went to look at what was boiling on the stove.
“Mary,” she called into the pantry, “could you roast those potatoes a little when they boil?”
Mary came into the kitchen and looked at her nervously, almost suspiciously.
“What a dreadful day,” Katherine said.
“That woman is still out there, ma’am,” Mary said.
“The woman?”
“She’s one of the Kennys, ma’am.”
“Has my husband seen her?”
“He wouldn’t talk to her.”
“Is she begging?”
“O Lord, no, no, she’s not, ma’am.”
“Did you not tell her that I’m busy? The boys haven’t eaten yet. Is my husband in the drawing room?”
“She’ll get her death out there,” Mary said and gestured towards the door.
Katherine saw the woman again the following day, from her window. It was blustery outside, and she was working in her room with cra
yon and pencil on paper, drawing the bare trees, the birches and larches across the river, against a sky of dense white clouds. Later she would start to paint the scene, in the meantime she would try out the lines and perspectives, the spareness of what was out there.
* * *
They left her alone in the afternoons; everyone was banned except Richard, who sometimes came and watched her, but he would grow bored and mess with the paint and she would have to send him downstairs.
In general, no one disturbed her so she was irritated by a knock on the door a second day running, and annoyed as Mary came into the room.
“She won’t go away, ma’am. I can’t get her to go away.”
“Do you know what she wants?”
“She won’t say anything, ma’am, except that she wants to see you.”
She looked out at the sky, then walked over to the window and stood there. “I don’t know who has encouraged her to come here.”
Mary waited at the door, her expression pained and drawn back. There was silence.
“I’ll come down,” Katherine said, “I’ll come down presently.”
When she opened the back door the woman’s gaze was sharp and hostile. Katherine didn’t speak.
“I knew your father well, ma’am, and all before him. We never done any harm here.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand why you’ve been waiting to see me.”
One of the workmen on the farm passed by as they spoke, and suddenly Katherine felt embarrassed standing there. He stopped for a moment and watched them, and then passed on.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me what you want, I’m busy just now.”
“We’ll be ruined now. This is going to ruin us,” the woman said.
“I don’t understand.”
After dinner, when Richard had gone to bed, she told her husband what she had heard. A block of wood was sizzling in the grate, foam was oozing out and bubbling in the flame; they both sat and looked into the fire.
“She says that we’re going to sue them. They have a few fields adjoining ours down near Marshalstown. I know her, I didn’t recognise her at first, but I met her years ago. Her family were always very poor.”