‘We’ll try again,’ he said, still unable to look at her. ‘I’ll get the tickets. It’ll be all right, I promise.’ Then he left the room and disappeared for a week.
Nicanora was determined not to give up. She could not face the shame of returning to Valle de la Virgen with a child and no husband, to be chastised by her mother and neighbours for having failed so easily. And she could not face looking every day into the eyes of the man whose feelings she had so carelessly dismissed. She made up her mind that whatever it took she would save enough money to buy the tickets to transport them to a world of hope. For the next three years, Nicanora sat on the streets selling her weavings while Francisco drank, gambled their money away and filled her belly every year with another child. It was during this time that the idea of the hat shop first came to her. She had seen the groups of mountain women who made their way down the treacherous pass for an opportunity to sell their produce in the markets of Puerta de la Coruña, their bowler hats perched meticulously on their heads. She remembered how, as a child, her mother would tell her stories about life in the mountain village from which her ancestors came, and in particular how she would lament the poor standards of dress in the swamp town to which her husband had brought her. ‘In the village where I was born,’ her mother would say, ‘no self-respecting woman would dream of stepping outside without her smart black bowler on her head.’ Or she would click her tongue after her neighbour had walked past bare-headed and mutter: ‘Where I come from you could tell the sort of woman your neighbour was by the state of her hat.’
Nicanora would challenge her mother as to why she had let her own standards drop so low and had abandoned her precious bowler. Her mother would simply reply, ‘It doesn’t do to stand out from the neighbours. I don’t want them killing me with their envy.’ It was true. Nicanora had never seen anyone wearing a hat in Valle de la Virgen, with the exception of Don Bosco, who always wore a smart black trilby sent to him by his brother Aurelio to go with his Sunday suit. Don Bosco would not walk out without it, even on the most stiflingly humid days. ‘It stops the mosquitoes biting my head and stealing my thoughts,’ he explained to Nicanora as the sweat dripped off his face during their Sunday strolls.
For many months now Nicanora’s daydreams had been drifting unchecked back to the safety of her hometown. No longer did she wish to be transported to foreign parts and exotic locations. She craved the comfort of her mother’s house, and with a regret that was too painful for her to acknowledge, she thought of how one day she might still set up her business in the plaza, selling her shawls, if she could bring herself to look humiliation and sadness in the face.
Her decision was made the day a travelling salesman stopped by her roadside stall. He stood for a long time looking at her woven shawls, touching them gently, running his fingers over the fine fabric of the weave. At last he spoke to her.
‘You’re very clever,’ he said, ‘these designs are works of art. Where did you learn how to do them?’ Nicanora, at first thinking he was making fun of her, did not answer.
‘They really are beautiful,’ he said again. ‘I’d like them for my shop. The colours and patterns are exquisite. But I’m afraid I would never be able sell them to the ladies in the city. These are peasant clothes.’
‘So what do the women in the city wear?’ Nicanora asked, feeling both indignant and deflated. The man pulled some pictures out of his pocket. The photos were of women in glittering jewellery and elegantly laced skirts, and all wearing the most glorious hats. She could not take her eyes off them. She ran her fingers over them as if trying to conjure the hats out of the photographs and into the reality of her world. She imagined herself returning home in one to prove to the townsfolk and above all to her mother, that despite what they thought of her she had made something of her life, and that she could dress like a glamorous city woman.
The man stood quietly observing her. ‘Would you like one?’ he asked finally. ‘I have one here in my bag. I will give it to you in exchange for your shawls.’ He bent down to undo his travelling case and pulled out a pink box. It contained the most exquisite hat Nicanora had ever seen. It had a soft, delicate sheen that subtly changed colour in the light, transforming itself through shades of pink and blue. It was trimmed with a lace that looked as if it had been woven from diamonds. Nicanora could not bring herself to touch it.
‘It’s yours,’ the man said at last, coaxing her. ‘I could sell it for a fortune. It comes all the way from Europe, handmade in Italy. You can have it in exchange for all the weavings you have.’ Nicanora knew, in that moment, that destiny had tapped her on the shoulder.
Her mind was now made up. She could no longer stand the squalor and disappointment of her life in a single rented room with only Francisco’s lies to support her and the children. She would face her mother and anyone else in Valle de la Virgen who might wish to judge her. She no longer felt she had to hide from the man whose goodness she had spurned and whose hopes she had destroyed. She knew who she was and what she was worth and it was far more than the life she was living now. In a moment of inspiration she knew where her destiny lay. She would bring joy and elegance to her hometown. She would save every penny she earned, and one day soon she would open Valle de la Virgen’s first ever hat shop, and this was the jewel in her collection.
She rushed home and gathered the results of her hard labour and handed them over to the man in exchange for the pink box. He tipped his hat to her as he departed and wished her a life full of surprises. She packed a small bag, and with the precious hatbox in her hand, a baby on her back and her children beside her, she made her way home for good. It was only when she arrived at her mother’s house, beaten and worn after three weeks’ travelling and with sick children to nurse back to health, that she realised she had been cheated. She had tentatively peered inside the box, but it was wrapped so beautifully in soft pink tissue paper and tied with ribbon that she wanted to leave it in its pristine state until she presented it to her mother. When she finally opened the box to reveal to her mother the woman she had become, she found a plain straw hat on which sat a bright pink plastic rose. It was the only possession she had to show for her three years’ toil on the streets of Puerta de la Coruña.
Several months later, Francisco arrived back from one of his many long absences wandering the area in search of profitable work to find another miserable and hungry family living in their rented room. It took him several hours to recognise that the sleeping children were not his own. It was only when their mother returned home and pleaded with him not to hurt them that he realised they were strangers and that his family had disappeared.
Nicanora put her mind to feeding the rapidly growing appetites of her children. She continued to weave her shawls, which she hawked around the surrounding villages, but nobody ever again picked them up with such tenderness and appreciation as the man who had shown her that perfection could exist in a single object. She set up a small stall selling fruit and cooked food for the men who passed through the market on their way to and from the estate and their small plots of land. The money she earned was barely enough to pay for the food to feed her family. Her dream and the straw hat were safely locked away – alongside her cherished hopes for her children – in a mental box marked ‘Life’s unfulfilled promises’.
She saw Francisco only one more time. He arrived suddenly one night at her mother’s house some years later wearing a smart suit, and regaled a wiser Nicanora with stories of how he was on the brink of making his fortune from his endeavours in gold prospecting, pig farming, matchmaking and storytelling. She listened to him with no more interest than she had listened to her mother’s warnings in her youth. He stayed for one last night, a night in which some of the passion of their first few months together was rekindled for old times’ sake, and then disappeared the next day promising to return with the money to change his family’s destiny. Nicanora sensed that she would not see him again. She did not expect, however, that his body would be found three days l
ater splattered at the foot of the cliff. He had been seen the day he left by one of the townsfolk, who had passed him stumbling drunkenly near the cliff edge, shouting about the great future he was about to give his wife and children. He left one lasting reminder of his visit. Nine months later Nena was born. As Nicanora stared into the eyes of her freshly delivered bloodstained daughter, she knew that Francisco had on his final journey been able to leave her with the most precious gift possible.
Don Bosco in the meantime resigned himself to a lifetime of bachelorhood and the removal of unwanted beards. He seldom ventured outside his shop, sleeping in the small room above and trying hard to keep himself out of the affairs of the town. His self-imposed isolation was thwarted by his natural good humour and charm, which despite all his efforts to the contrary drew people to him. Within a couple of years the barber’s shop had become known as the place to seek solace and advice for all manner of misdemeanours and problems, ranging from neighbourly disputes to marital infidelities. It was Don Bosco who settled the long-running and deeply felt quarrel between Don Julio and Don Alfredo over whose goat should be allowed to be tethered to the post situated equidistantly between their houses. Don Bosco finally came up with a compromise position, allowing each of them access to the post on alternate days and declaring Sunday a rest day for the post, during which time both goats wandered freely into Don Teofelo’s yard, causing another grievance that took a further year to settle.
Don Bosco’s barber’s shop became the unofficial meeting place of the men of the town. They would gather to watch and commiserate over the ritual humiliation of the national football team played out on the rickety black-and-white television, which at popular request had been installed in the corner of the shop, whilst airing their grievances against the goalkeeper, the president and the mayor. ‘He should be shot,’ was the usual cry that echoed around the shop, directed towards all three.
For over twenty years, Don Bosco’s had been the place where the disgruntled and disaffected would meet and talk confidently about how, if they were mayor, they would do things differently. Nobody could understand why, when the first free elections took place, Don Bosco refused to stand. Despite the insistence of his patrons that nobody would vote against Don Ramirez unless he gave his public support to a challenge, Don Bosco stood firm. He simply said that he wanted a life of peace and quiet away from the ups and downs of politics and that he was better suited to the business of cutting hair than cutting remarks. ‘Why don’t you stand yourself?’ Don Bosco would challenge the more belligerent among them, to which nobody could think of a better response than that they were either too busy or too unreliable to take on such an important task. In truth, nobody was prepared to make a challenge to the family who owned the homes they lived in. Don Bosco, on the other hand, who owned his business and had no wife or family to support, apparently had nothing to lose.
Don Bosco and Doña Nicanora maintained a respectful distance from each other over the years, exchanging pleasantries whenever their paths crossed as if nothing had passed between them. Don Bosco’s playful remarks always left Nicanora with an uncertain aftertaste, unsure whether they were meant as a sour compliment or a sugary insult. ‘And how is your exuberant brood?’ he would ask with interest as she passed by with her screaming and giggling children. ‘They do you proud, my dear Nicanora,’ he would add, surreptitiously pressing sweets into her children’s clammy, searching hands. On other occasions he would compliment her, saying, ‘My dear Nicanora, your children are just like little rose blossoms, with the possible exception of Ernesto.’ He would bend down and pinch the children on their cheeks before Nicanora had a chance to wipe away the dirt and food that had invariably stuck to their faces. Or he would stop with a remark such as, ‘You must be so proud of Ernesto. My dear Nicanora, there can be no greater sacrifice than to give your life to the rearing of our nation’s future intelligentsia.’ Then, checking himself, he would ask with a gentle look of concern, ‘But you, Nicanora, you’re content and keeping well, I trust?’
Nicanora always left her encounters with Don Bosco with a confusion of emotion. In all their years of pleasantries, neither she nor Don Bosco had ever mentioned the events that had passed between them and neither had ever made any reference to Francisco. The regret that Nicanora felt for the arrogance of her youth, which had led her to tread so roughly over the feelings of a man who with the wisdom of experience she now recognised was kinder than any she had known, had troubled her over the years. And yet she felt unable to move beyond their casual banter and offer the apology, which, although it could never change their past, would at least give her heart some peace. Instead she usually replied with formality, saying something like, ‘As well as can be expected under the circumstances, thank you, Don Bosco,’ never really sure which circumstances she was referring to.
Until the day he died, Francisco remained blissfully ignorant of the full details of the history that had preceded his marriage to Nicanora. But it was Don Bosco who had been there when Nicanora had needed him most. He had quietly and discreetly helped with the arrangements for Francisco’s funeral, making sure that the ceremony was carried out with solemnity and dignity. Francisco’s body had been too dismembered, picked about by carrion, to be fully recovered from the valley after the fall. And so, Nicanora had lain Francisco’s suit in the coffin, along with the old stones and coins he had brought back for her from his first gambling trip, and said a final farewell to the illusion that had taken away her youth.
Three
Life at the clinic was becoming a little more settled for the young doctor, who had quickly established a comfortable daily routine with his assistant, Ernesto. As soon as Arturo heard the first rumble of the pickup’s wheels making their way along the potholed mud road, he lit the gas burner and placed a pan of coffee on top, knowing that by the time Ernesto reached the clinic the thick, strong, sweet brew would be ready. By this point in the mid-morning he had carried out his daily check of the medicine cabinet, swept the rotting vegetation and dead insects off the clinic floor and polished the microscope, a parting present from his father. Even though Arturo had no work to give to Ernesto and was paying him a substantial portion of the allowance that his father had sent him off with, he was extremely grateful to have a companion to talk to.
At first, nobody had paid much attention to the arrival of the young doctor in town. His presence had not been noticed for at least ten days, when he was eventually spotted in the market trying to buy fish and potatoes during the annual shoe fair. Dr Arturo Aguilar had arrived in the middle of the night, on a donkey from Rosas Pampas arranged for him by Ramon, the mayor’s assistant, and had spent the first week of his stay in Valle de la Virgen lying on the floor of the clinic in a feverish state, only occasionally venturing outside to vomit and relieve his twisting and watery bowels in a small pit latrine. Ramon visited him on his first day, bringing him a few supplies of fruit as a welcome present, a box of medicines sent by the provincial health authority and a mound of forms to sign and paperwork to fill in. Ramon had been so appalled by the state of the new arrival as he lay moaning on the clinic floor that he at first suggested taking him to see the medicine man. Realising that this was inappropriate under the circumstances, he then decided to leave the young doctor to his own devices and hope he would soon sort himself out.
Ramon mentioned to a few of his neighbours that a sick doctor had arrived. Some of the more interested and concerned townsfolk wandered close to the clinic to try to catch a glimpse of him and to offer a variety of concoctions known to be good for troublesome bowels, including a plate of papaya seeds, a dish of cold fish soup, a variety of herbal teas and a half-drunk bottle of Coca-Cola. Fear that the doctor might have brought a highly infectious disease with him from the city prevented them from getting too close. When Arturo finally emerged from his malaise, the only sign that he had had any visitors was the little line of offerings left at the end of the path, which by the time he stumbled across them were swarming with
ants. It was only after the first appearance of the young man in the market that word really began to get around and rumours and suppositions started to spread. Once Arturo had recovered from his bout of dysentery, brought on by drinking the rancid water served to him in the guise of coffee at his guest house in Rosas Pampas, he made a diligent effort to get to know his surroundings and make the acquaintance of the townsfolk visiting the market every day.
He struggled considerably in his early encounters with the market, his initial approach having been to go there with some thought in mind of what he wanted to buy. The market, it seemed, always had other ideas for him. During his first week of recuperation he had gone there with a growing desperation to buy fish and vegetables with which to prepare a nutritious meal, only to be confronted with row upon row of stalls piled high with old boots and a range of sandals made out of used car tyres. Three months later, when the soles of his shoes had completely rotted away, he realised with regret how foolish he had been not to stock up with boots when the opportunity of the annual shoe fair had presented itself. There appeared to be no rationale to what was on offer on any particular day of the week, or in any particular week of the month. The market always took a perverse pleasure in thwarting his plans, and after several weeks of disappointment and frustration he finally decided to give in and leave his shopping to serendipity. The only certainty was that if he had an idea in mind of something he wanted to buy it would not be available on the day he wanted it and usually then for some time to come. If he desired fish, the stalls would abound with goat. If he wanted rice, there would be no end of dried pasta. When he finally decided to content himself with buying only the fruit that grew in abundance in the vicinity and was the one item consistently on offer, the fruit sellers suddenly left town for a month. For two weeks they were replaced by an influx of mountain women on their annual pilgrimage to sell dried llama foetuses, along with the neat alcohol, Camel cigarettes and little pink and white sweets that were intended as offerings to the unpredictable Mother Earth in exchange for the wandering souls of sick children, which she was so often inclined to devour if her insatiable hunger and sweet tooth were not appeased.
Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop Page 3