The cabinet was as untidy as the room that housed it. Her first instinct that it would be full of more barber’s junk had clearly been correct. The top drawer was stuffed with broken implements: scissors that had lost their handles, old brushes and rusting razors, a collection of keys, green with age, that had long since forgotten which door they belonged to, old pens, broken watches and clock faces. There appeared to be some system in the disorder. The second drawer was obviously used for storing old bits of paper. On the top were some blank writing pads, some newspaper cuttings and a pile of brown tinted photographs of Don Bosco and his brothers as children. Beneath the photographs was an envelope. Nicanora instantly recognised the writing on the front as Don Bosco’s: To my love, was all it said. No longer aware of the time, or concerned about who might be passing through the plaza to catch her, she sat down on the stool in the corner and opened the envelope. It was full of single sheets of paper on which were written love poems unashamedly describing the virtues and failings of the woman to whom they were written. Some of the poems were less than flattering, but all were written with the compassion and tenderness of a man who loved consistently, despite the shortcomings of the object of his affections. Each poem was inscribed with little drawings of flowers of the forest, birds with multicoloured plumes and trees from a mystical land dreamt up in Don Bosco’s lonely imagination. Each sheet of paper was separated from its neighbour by a dried rose petal. Nicanora took one of the petals in her hand and it crumbled into dust, adding to the film on the floor.
Were these poems really meant for her? She certainly recognised herself in some of the narratives, especially the more descriptive passages. Had he intended her to find them? Perhaps that was why he had given her the back-door key. Had she entered through the front of the shop she would most certainly not have stepped more than one foot into the messy storeroom. At the very back of the envelope, tucked in behind the poems, was a sheet of paper that looked fresher than the rest, as if it had been recently placed there. She carefully took it out and read it, certain that it had been put there for her to find. It was not a poem like the others and had no drawings on it. My only real sadness, it said, is that you have not yet known what it is to be loved and may now never find out.
Nicanora could not help herself now, she delved further into Don Bosco’s secrets. There were answers inside this cabinet, she knew it, and her search was quickly rewarded. Beneath the envelope was a letter, clipped to a photograph of a young man and woman. The woman was small and slight. She was wearing a light summer dress, her shoulders covered by a shawl and her long hair tied back so that the sun fell on her delicate Indian-looking face. Nicanora was struck by the uniqueness of the woman’s beauty and the honest expression in her dark eyes. The couple looked unselfconsciously happy. The young man was saying something to make the woman laugh. It was Don Bosco. Nicanora stared at the photograph and was clutched by a pain that she had not experienced since the early years of her marriage to Francisco. She was overtaken by a deep and unexpected jealousy. Her mother’s words of warning echoed in her head: Jealousy grows like an overfed pig, until it consumes everything in its path. She did not know what to make of the scene she was looking at. There was no doubting the radiance of love in Don Bosco’s eyes. She could not make out from the photograph exactly when it would have been taken, but judging by Don Bosco’s age, it must have been about the time she had left to try to make her life with Francisco. She felt foolish and cheated. She had spent her whole life assuming that she had been the only object of Don Bosco’s affections. She was not afraid to admit to herself now that it was the conviction that he still loved her, after all these years, that had given her the strength to face her life. She held in her hands the evidence that he had given these feelings to another, and probably more deserving, woman.
The letter to which the photograph was attached was dated twenty years previously and had been sent by Don Bosco’s brother, Aurelio. She opened it and read it. She no longer felt as if she was intruding into someone else’s private affairs, but rather that some hidden secrets of her own life were revealing themselves to her. The letter began with Aurelio counselling his younger brother on the ways of fickle women and suggesting that he leave behind his humiliation and the tatters of a broken heart and join him as a partner in the new export business he had established in the city of Manola. Inside the envelope was a ticket for the boat from Puerta de la Coruña. It was Don Bosco’s passage out of town, a ticket to the life of hope and success that he had never had. His brother had offered him the chance to start again and for some inexplicable reason Don Bosco had chosen not to take the risk and had stayed tied to his tiny barber’s shop. Perhaps she was not the only woman to have destroyed his dreams. To have your heart broken once is sad; to have it happen twice in the space of a few years is something that a person would never recover from. In her careless offer to buy the shop from Don Bosco, Nicanora realised she had tried to take from him his reason for being. He had faced the harsh reality of his existence with enough clarity not to bother to sweep its sad remains from the floor. The ticket, being out of date, had been left in the drawer and Nicanora supposed that after all his years as a barber he had now managed to save enough money to buy his own boat ticket to Manola, if that was where he was heading.
As she gently placed the evidence of a lost life back from where she had taken it, her hand brushed against the corner of a larger, sturdier envelope. It had been carefully tucked away at the back of the drawer. Dislodged by her fumbling, it had edged its way forward, into her hands. Believing there could not possibly be any more secrets to discover, she pulled out the envelope. Don Bosco had written on the front: Shop lease and agreement. She opened it. There were two documents inside. The first was largely unreadable, the language was so obscure. She turned the document to the last page and there were the signatures of Don Bosco and Don Ramirez, proof that the mayor had handed the property over to Don Bosco. This, she realised, was her chance to do at least one good deed in return for all the damage she had caused. She would pin the lease to the front of the shop so that everyone could see that it rightfully belonged to Don Bosco, and so prevent the mayor from doing anything to take away his business.
The second document was entitled ‘The Agreement’. It too was signed by Don Bosco and Don Ramirez, and dated the same day as the lease of the shop. I, Don Pedro Bosco, the letter stated, agree that in return for the lease on the barber’s shop I will assist Don Rodriguez Ramirez in all his political activities. I give my solemn word in front of the Virgin that I will never stand against him in his efforts to become mayor or support any other individual who stands against him. It continued: I, Don Pedro Bosco, understand that the lease is granted to me on condition that the keyholder will have full and unrestricted use of the premises on the plaza for as long as I desire, as long as the property is never closed for more than one working day in a week.
Nicanora had to read the paragraph several times to make sure that she had really understood what had been written there. Don Bosco had signed away not only his integrity but his freedom: his right even to close his business for longer than a day. That at least had explained his dedication to his work. But why had he not just walked away from it, as the mayor must have expected him to do years ago when he asked him to sign such a ridiculous agreement? It was clear to Nicanora that he had stayed because the shop, with all its sad memories, had been his purpose, his hope and his home. Perhaps he had been waiting all these years for the woman he loved to come back and join him. He had left now because he no longer felt he belonged.
Eighteen
Arturo returned to the clinic more dejected than he had felt since his arrival. He had failed everyone, not just himself. He had failed Don Bosco. He had failed Teofelo. He had let Doña Nicanora down and he felt he could no longer look Ernesto in the eye. Above all, he had shown himself to be far from the hero that Isabela believed he could be. Teofelo would have continued leading the search party into the swamp and risk
ed all their lives if Arturo had not stopped him. Was it fear for his own life that had held him back? Perhaps Teofelo was right. Perhaps it would only have taken a few more paces into the darkness and they would have found Don Bosco, dead or alive. Arturo had stood there, in front of Julio and Ernesto, and persuaded Teofelo to call off the search after only eight hours. They were pushing deeper and deeper into the treacherous bog and Arturo feared that he was allowing Teofelo to lead them all to their deaths. It was Arturo who, as they turned back, had seen the hat floating on a deep patch of bog, almost hidden in the undergrowth near the old tree. A sign to all that Don Bosco had been swallowed by mud. He did not know how Teofelo was going to break the news to the town that the search party had brought back certain evidence of Don Bosco’s death. It was too awful to contemplate.
He turned on his little radio to try to fill his overwhelming emptiness, and immediately tuned into a heated argument. ‘We will hunt them down,’ a man said stridently. ‘We will stop at nothing until we find them. We will not tolerate insurgents threatening our country and democracy. We will hunt the PLF down, I say. We will stamp them out.’
‘But with due respect,’ a voice replied, ‘don’t you think that sending the army into the countryside is an unnecessary response? After all, we are talking about a small group, who by all accounts are mainly students and intellectuals. Don’t you think the army will just cause more disquiet among the peasants?’
‘We will not tolerate this form of intimidation,’ the politician continued. ‘An army officer has been killed. A car bomb was placed close enough to the presidential palace to blow the windows out, and the campesinos have been looting shops in the city centre. There is mayhem in our streets and if we do not stamp on it now our country will descend into chaos. We must defend our democracy from the evil forces within.’
‘But with all due respect,’ the interviewer continued, ‘can we really call it a democracy when we do not let people speak out freely? After all, this began as a peaceful demonstration. People on the streets are saying that it only escalated into violence after the demonstrators were fired on with tear gas and rubber bullets. There was no intention for it to become violent before that.’
‘That’, the politician said, ‘is because most of the people on the streets are ignorant. Our country is full of uneducated peasants. That is the biggest problem we face.’
‘Isn’t that’, the interviewer interjected again, ‘because the government has neglected the people’s needs for so long? After all, that is what the demonstrations were about in the first place. Our country is selling its natural resources to increase the wealth of foreign nations rather than investing in the welfare of its people.’
‘You have clearly not been doing your homework,’ the politician continued. ‘We have the welfare of our people very much at heart, very much at heart. Haven’t we brought in reforms to make sure foreign investment goes to the poorest provinces?’
‘People are saying that is just a sop, a way to appease the peasants with the elections coming. Most rural communities don’t even know the money is there or how it is being spent. It is simply disappearing into municipal bank accounts.’
‘I say to those people’, the politician replied, ‘our spending in health and education is greater than that of any government before us. We have the support of our foreign friends who are investing in the development of our nation, and our provincial authorities are doing all they can to show the benefits of that investment.’
‘And what do you say to those who accuse you of dancing to a foreigner’s tune?’
‘I say I choose my dancing partners very carefully.’
Arturo listened to the debate with a growing sense of unease. He turned the radio off and lay awake with only the ghostly call of owls for company. Claudia was coming. He had known it for some time. His thoughts immediately turned to Isabela, and it felt as if a fresh, light breeze had floated in to calm his nerves. He drifted off into a disturbed sleep and woke suddenly in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. There was someone in the room with him, staring at him. The dream of Claudia still lingered in his subconscious. But it was not excitement or desire that thrilled through him at the anticipation of Claudia’s arrival: it was a sort of dread. He had no idea what trouble she was bringing with her, but whatever it was, his dream filled him with a sense of foreboding. Claudia had stood in front of him, a gun in her hand and a bullet hole in her chest, and told him she was on her way. Blood had trickled down her shirt at a slow and steady pace. Arturo had tried to reach out to her but he had been unable to move. He called to her but his words hovered in the air above her head and then floated away.
‘Well, you’re not much use, are you?’ Claudia said at last.
‘What’s happened to you?’ Arturo asked.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said.
‘You’re bleeding. Claudia, what have you done? What are you doing this for? It’s crazy, Claudia, you’re hurt.’
‘At least I’m trying,’ she replied. ‘What are you doing with yourself? What good are you to anyone here? From what I can see you are just drifting, Arturo. You couldn’t even find the barber.’
‘I tried,’ Arturo said, the guilt of his failure turning his limbs cold. ‘Well I’m not letting people get shot, that’s for sure. Claudia, you need help.’
‘You’re a doctor, aren’t you?’ she said, challenging him. ‘Why don’t you help me?’
Arturo reached out to her again, but she was too far away for him to touch her. He tried to stand but his knees buckled under him. He crawled across the floor until he reached her feet. She towered above him so that he could not see her face and her blood fell on him like a thick, warm waterfall.
‘I must stop the bleeding, I must stop the bleeding,’ he repeated to himself.
‘You can plug the hole,’ Claudia said in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘You can plug the hole with glue.’
‘It’s not as easy as that, Claudia,’ he said. ‘Things are not as easy as you say they are. You can’t just glue people back together again. If it were that easy there would be no need for doctors. We would only need modelmakers.’
Claudia looked down at him and then spat a large clog of leaves into her hands and stuck them into the hole in her chest. ‘There,’ she said, ‘I’m fixed,’ and the blood immediately stopped flowing. ‘You’re no good, Arturo,’ she said. ‘When I need you, you can’t help me. You’re weak. You will never be anything other than weak and pampered,’ and she disappeared.
Arturo sat up in bed peering into the darkness. He heard a faint rustling noise and then silence.
‘Is that you?’ he said softly. There was a pause.
‘Yes,’ a voice whispered back.
‘Is that really you?’ Arturo asked again.
‘I think so,’ the voice replied. It sounded thick and hoarse.
‘How did you get here?’
‘I walked.’
‘So far? You must be exhausted.’
‘I am. I am exhausted. You are the only person who has noticed.’
‘Are you in danger?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Are they following you?’
‘No. But they mustn’t find out that I’m here.’
‘Are you sure they don’t know where you are?’
‘No, we will have to keep it a secret.’
‘Who is after you?’
‘The mayor.’
‘The mayor,’ Arturo exclaimed. ‘How do you know the mayor?’
‘I’m married to him.’
Arturo leapt out of bed and fumbled for his trousers. He grabbed a box of matches from the pocket and lit one. There, perched on the end of the bed, was Doña Gloria. He had completely forgotten about the patient he had deserted the previous day in his search for Don Bosco.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked. ‘You can’t come here in the middle of the night. What will your husband say?’
‘He won’t find out,’ Gloria replied. ‘As I
said, we will keep it a secret. Who did you think you were talking to?’
‘Nobody,’ Arturo said. ‘I was dreaming. I thought you were a friend.’
‘I am a friend,’ Gloria replied. ‘You sounded frightened.’
Arturo lit another match and searched in the cupboard next to his bed for a candle. In the light he felt exposed, standing in front of Gloria with no shirt on. She was taking in every aspect of his being with her keen eyes.
‘I can help you,’ she said softly.
‘I don’t need help,’ Arturo replied.
‘I think you do,’ Gloria said. ‘You look sad.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I can smell sadness when I am near it,’ Gloria said. ‘If you are not sad, then tell me, what are you doing hiding yourself away here in the full bloom of your youth?’
‘I’m not hiding,’ Arturo said. ‘I’ve come to help.’
‘Help who?’
‘Well, you,’ Arturo replied.
‘And why do you want to help me?’ Gloria asked, with genuine interest.
‘Because’, Arturo replied, ‘your husband said you need a doctor.’
‘Well, he’s right about that,’ Gloria said. ‘I do need a doctor.’
‘No,’ Arturo replied, ‘I meant everybody here. The townsfolk.’
‘Why?’ Gloria asked. ‘What’s wrong with them?’
‘Nothing. Nothing at all,’ Arturo said, suddenly feeling exhausted.
‘Well, never mind that. I’m here now,’ Gloria said. ‘And I need your help.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Arturo said, sitting down on the bed. ‘Don’t you see? I’m no good to you. I shouldn’t have been sent here. It was a mistake. I’m sorry, but I just can’t help you. I don’t have what you need. I don’t understand anything. I certainly don’t understand ailments of the soul.’
Dona Nicanora's Hat Shop Page 19