The Winterlings

by Cristina Sanchez-Andrade

  She was splashed again, this time on the shoulders. How disgusting. Would Saladina be on the pot all morning long?

  Under the pretence of having to milk the cow, Dolores got up and went to the cowshed. Greta was in the corner, breathing calmly. Sitting on a stool, with her face to one side, Dolores rested her right cheek against the cow’s flank. Lately, the cow had lost so much weight that her ribs were sticking out like the side of a galley, and you could surmise from her steely gaze that she was sick. To account for this thinness, the Winterlings had worked through thousands of possible excuses. Perhaps she was too old, perhaps going up and down the mountain had been too much exercise … But there was some other reason; strange things were going on in the village, and Greta was a victim too.

  It wasn’t just the village. Something had turned in the universe in which the two women had comfortably lived up until that point. Signs of a secret and domestic tension were floating in the air. Gone were the childish, innocent affairs of days gone by. They lived together, worked together, and slept together like a pair of friends who don’t really know each other, increasingly aware that something was coming between them. Between the comings and goings to the mountain, the arguments and moments of warmth, discontent was taking seed in the hearts of the two women. For some time, the universe had been turning — but now it was twisting.

  Every day, Dolores asked at the tavern if anyone knew the exact date that Ava Gardner was supposed to arrive in Spain. Nothing. Nobody knew a thing about it. They didn’t even know who Ava Gardner was. Then one day, Dolores went up to the bar for a jug of wine, and the mistress of the house, who always watched the television, said that on the newsreel they’d announced that an American actress had left New York and was currently in a hotel in London, preparing to come to Spain. Was that the actress she’d been asking about the other day?

  When she got home, Dolores found Saladina eating figs in the kitchen. She was still waiting for Tenderlove to call her, to put in the teeth that were missing. She hadn’t seen him since that day that he had brought her home drunk, so she still had three empty spots in her gums. That morning, making the most of the fact that her sister had gone to the tavern, she had put two jars of homemade jam in a basket, along with a few figs and the flannel jacket that she’d just finished. With the basket on her head, she went off to Mr Tenderlove’s house.

  But the dental mechanic wouldn’t even open the door. He limited himself to yelling at her from the window that he didn’t have her teeth yet, that he’d call her.

  ‘Can I come in for a while, Tender?’ she asked timidly. ‘I’ve got some presents for you.’

  ‘I’m very busy,’ came his reply. And then he shut the window.

  Saladina went back home with the basket on her head and entered the kitchen. She was sitting there, eating figs mindlessly, when her sister walked in. She picked them out of the basket, pulled off the stalks with her gums, and spat them on the floor. Then she put them in her mouth whole and swallowed them, barely chewing.

  Her sister watched them travel down her gullet —

  Gulp

  And then the lumps disappeared.

  Saladina didn’t even look up when Dolores entered. She had been waiting for her, but while she was doing so, she began to feel sick. She felt alone and abandoned, feeling absence like a bolt through the heart.

  ‘They’ve been like that for a while,’ said Saladina, staring ahead with a fig in her mouth.

  Dolores looked at her without understanding.

  ‘Who?’ she asked, looking around.

  But Saladina didn’t reply; she just spat the stalk out onto the ground.

  Alarmed, Dolores uncovered the Singer, threaded a spool of cotton, and sat down to finish a job. For a while all that could be heard was the monotonous clack, clack of the sewing machine.

  It began to rain outside.

  A tawny owl flew over the house.

  Saladina got up and went over to the window.

  ‘All they ask for is a few words of comfort, perhaps a bit of company,’ she said.

  Her sister held up the dress she was sewing … yes, she’d been working on it for a while, the bust, and the armpit … soon it would be finished. She stopped the machine and glanced around. She realised that during her absence, her sister had not only been eating figs, but she’d emptied the entire bottle of anise.

  ‘Who are you talking about?’ she asked. ‘I tell you, sometimes you drive me crazy.’

  ‘I’m talking about them,’ said Saladina, pointing to the chicken yard with a trembling finger.

  Her sister looked outside.

  ‘The chickens?’ she asked. ‘They’re doing better now. I already told you that yesterday one of them laid an egg. It seems Tristán cured them just with his presence.’

  Saladina sat down again.

  ‘My guts are churning,’ she said.

  ‘Here we go again, the same old story about your guts. It’s because of the figs,’ her sister told her, starting up the machine again. ‘You’ve been eating figs for months. You’ll get the runs. Should I make you a chamomile tea?’

  ‘Remember to dig a nice deep hole when I die, Dolores …’

  Dolores kept sewing, wrapped up in the deafening noise of the machine. Finally, she spoke:

  ‘You farted.’

  ‘And if I die sitting down, first lay me out on the bed, like we did with Little Ramón and also with …’

  Suddenly, and brutally, Saladina grabbed her sister by the wrist.

  ‘And didn’t we do the same with your Tomás?’ she asked with a fierce glance.

  Dolores disengaged her wrist and stopped the Singer. Ever since she had gotten up that morning, she had tried to contain herself, but she couldn’t do it any longer. That last comment was too much. She pushed her sister aside, went upstairs, and shut herself in the bedroom.

  From underneath the bed, she pulled out her suitcase and began to fill it with clothes. She pulled down the portrait of Clark Gable and wrapped it up in a nightdress. Get out of here. That’s what she’d do. Because in the end, what tied her to her sister? Why did she have to live with her forever? Not all sisters lived together. Tossa de Mar — just saying those words out loud filled her mind with salt and freedom. She already had everything she needed in her suitcase when, suddenly, she heard footsteps in the hallway. The door opened slowly, as if pushed by a breeze.

  Saladina stood in the doorway with the lantern in her hand. She was staring at Dolores with tired eyes, full of anger like black flashes.

  Then she began to speak. Or rather, to spit words out. Her sentences came out concisely, heavy and scathing, throwing the memories in her sister’s face, the terrible guilt for everything that happened in those few days.

  But even more than guilt, what she felt was numbness, a hollow fear inside of her. The fear was still there in the form of a frozen, slimy needle, in the space formerly occupied by the security of the days.

  The days before her wedding. The days before they fled.

  It was 1942. Dolores had just married a certain Tomás, fisherman of octopus and pout whiting. It was a simple wedding: a cream dress that went below the knee; a bouquet of heather; a supper of hot chocolate and churros. She had been in her new home for a week when she began to realise that every morning when she saw her husband, she felt a strange twisting in her stomach, a dull ache. What was she doing with this man who burped as he ate breakfast hunched over the table, without saying a single word? What was she doing with this brute who stank of fish?

  No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn’t understand why she’d decided to get married. She had been educated and brought up well, had acted in a movie, and even spoke English. She must have confused marriage with something else. Then she remembered her sister’s warnings: ‘Shortly after men get married they develop bad habits, they grow a gut, they stink of farts �
��’

  And so one day she told him: ‘Look, Tomás, my sister is ill. I’m going to Coruña for a few days to look after her.’

  Standing next to her just-packed suitcase, listening to the words her sister spat out, Dolores recalled how Tomás had shifted in his seat, raised his head, and looked at her. She remembered how his black eyes locked on her, and she remembered his words.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

  ‘It’s only for a few days,’ she replied.

  ‘I’ve heard that little story before,’ he said, still staring at her.

  ‘It’s no story. My sister is ill.’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that toothless freak?’

  ‘A bit of respect!’

  Dolores remembered (and Saladina told her) how, finally, Tomás had allowed her to leave. And her sister reminded her of his words at the door:

  ‘One month, Dolores. If you’re not back after one month, I’m going to find you and bring you back, dead or alive.’

  While she got the clothes back out, and put away the suitcase, Dolores remembered that she did go back.

  But not alone: her sister Saladina went with her.

  3

  ‘I keep telling you — you go around all day obsessed with that Superstars magazine and the sea. What is this I keep hearing you say in your sleep about Ava Gardner?’ Saladina asked her sister. ‘Does it have anything to do with the suitcase you packed the other day?’

  They had been baking bread in the communal oven. The communal stone oven was a meeting place for all the villagers in Tierra de Chá, especially for the women who didn’t go to the tavern. While they built up the fire at six in the morning, throwing on dry gorse branches, they solved the world’s problems. Meis’ Widow would spend her entire day there, whether she had to bake bread or not. That was where she could speak openly about her absence, explaining to everyone that it was like an intense burning in the kidneys that struck at sundown, or like something that dwelt in the hereafter, beyond the walls of her house. She was the one who spread the news that Saladina was having new teeth installed at Tenderlove’s clinic, as well as the news that she had fallen in love with the dental mechanic. It was also through Meis’ Widow that they heard, around the oven, about the death of Ramón in strange circumstances, and that a judge from Coruña required a statement from the Winterlings.

  But for now they were alone. With a wooden spatula, they had scraped the ash from the oven while the heat flushed their cheeks red.

  With all her sister’s nagging, Dolores had no option but to confess. In the tavern, the news had been confirmed: Ava Gardner was about to arrive in Spain to film a new movie. Do you remember? We read about it in Superstars. For the shooting in Tossa de Mar they need body doubles, tall women with dark and wavy hair, who spoke English if possible, for certain ensemble scenes so that the actress can take a break.

  Hearing this, Saladina was so shocked that she couldn’t speak. With trembling hands, she began to sprinkle the flour on the dough, and then, using a large baker’s shovel, flat and round, she pushed it into the back of the oven. She sealed the oven with cow manure, then turned slowly back to her sister, still trembling.

  ‘No, no, no … you’re not thinking of going there and applying to be … a double?’

  A double. There are beautiful words, and then there are ugly words. Hard words and soft words. Friendly words and hostile words. Flabby ones and muscly ones. Saladina had lists and lists of words. They both knew the word ‘double’ from their Superstars of Cinema magazine. But while that word transported one Winterling to an exotic location, it left the other one face to face with misery.

  Dolores wiped her hands nervously on her apron, and said that perhaps she would, why not?

  ‘All the men in the village find me attractive,’ she added. ‘They whistle at me every time we walk across the square. It would just be for a scene or two. That is if they take me at all.’

  Saladina dropped the baker’s shovel to the ground. A wave of rage rose within her.

  ‘It’s always the nude scenes that the actresses refuse to do! You filthy pig!’

  ‘Well, it’s not always like that …’ Dolores went quiet, then prepared herself. ‘I’ve been waiting for years, half my life, for this chance. I don’t know what it will be like, but I live for it, it’s what I’m chasing … It gets me through the day, Saladina, it makes me climb the mountain, scrub, sew, tend to the animals. I can’t think of anything else and … who knows … something’s going on in the village. Maybe we only have a short amount of time left. Perhaps only one winter remains for us. Perhaps tomorrow will be too late. I have to—’

  ‘You have to leave? The men whistle at you? Let me tell you something, you dummy, you’re gushing like a thirteen-year-old girl, repeating nonsense you’ve read in Superstars. You can’t ever change your life. No matter how far you travel, or what you seek abroad, your life will continue to be what it is. It’s the life you have now. The life that lives inside of you.’

  Dolores dismissed her by reminding her that lately she, too, had wanted to change her life, with her new dentures. And that she had noticed that she was getting on well with Mr Tenderlove, and that …

  ‘Who do you think you are, Ava Gardner?’ snorted Saladina. ‘And anyway, what you’re talking about costs money! We don’t even have enough to pay for my teeth. Look me in the eye if you dare! I’m missing three teeth! You think I’m getting them to show off?’

  Dolores looked at her sister. With her mouth open, teeth missing, she truly was repulsive.

  Her head down, Dolores began to decorate the rest of the dough by covering it with hardboiled eggs. Her eyes began to water.

  ‘It looks like one of the sheep is pregnant. We can make lots of curd cheese and sell it … I believe — I’m convinced that I found out about Ava Gardner coming to Spain for a reason. Fate is guiding me to this path!’ She began to sob. ‘If … if I was standing there feeding the chickens when I heard the news on the radio, it’s for a reason … I don’t normally feed them at that time.’

  Saladina grabbed a lock of Dolores’ hair, pulled her towards her, and stared at her fixedly.

  ‘There are two worlds, Dolores: the one you see through your eyes, and the one you see through the camera. Only the first one is real. In the movies, everything has its reason. If Ashley ends up married to Melania, a good and adorable woman, it’s for a reason. But life is different. It’s full of stupid events and stupid days that don’t mean a thing. Things are and that’s just it; you have to accept it and move on. Anyway, you wouldn’t want to be like Ava Gardner. Didn’t you know she divorced Mickey Rooney?’

  Her sister rebutted her between sobs.

  ‘Yes, because she was looking for tenderness, friendship, and understanding in him. I read about it in Superstars. But he would leave her in bed and go out to play golf. Just like my Tomás …’

  ‘Your Tomás never played golf.’

  ‘No, but he did go out to fish for octopus, which is kind of the same.’

  Saladina got even closer.

  ‘Now that you mention octopus …’

  Dolores twisted her neck away. The putrid stench of her sister’s half-finished mouth crawled over her.

  ‘You know why I’m talking about octopuses. Only I know what you did …’

  ‘You’re right, Sala.’ The tears were streaming down Dolores’ cheeks. ‘Don’t think I don’t remember that. Do you think … well, I think … I think about it constantly, I’m obsessed. Do you think that I … that we did the right thing, Sala?’

  Saladina looked at her fingernails, all covered in flour.

  ‘Such as things were, you did what you had to do.’

  Dolores forced a smile.

  ‘We did, didn’t we?’

  ‘Fine, we did. Happy now?’ Saladina rolled her eyes.

  This time, Do
lores expressed herself clearly.

  ‘You’re not suggesting that I have to take sole responsibility for it, are you?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Saladina smiled to herself. ‘But I’m not going to either; that’s the last thing I need!’

  Dolores looked at her for a moment, with a brutal desire to insult her.

  ‘Don’t play with fire,’ Saladina warned.

  ‘You’re ruining my dreams …’

  ‘I’m not ruining them for you, Dolores. You forged your own destiny. We did, or rather, you did what you had to do, but now you can’t just wander off into the wide world like that, let me tell you. You have to be responsible,’ Saladina went on distractedly. ‘Where did you say they’re doing it?’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘The filming …’

  ‘In Tossa.’

  ‘Ah yes, Tossa de Mar! When one makes a decision of this calibre, one must commit to the consequences. We spent a whole night making a plan, and I recommended about a thousand times that you shouldn’t marry that fisherman. Would it be far?’

  ‘Would what be far?’

  ‘Tossa.’

  The tears were flowing for Dolores. Round and brilliant, they rolled down her dress.

  ‘Somewhere in Catalonia.’

  They gathered up the flour that was left on the worktop and put away the baker’s shovel.

  Saladina became pensive again. Her blood was boiling like poison.

  4

  The next day, they went up Bocelo Mountain to take the old lady some of the bread they had made. For a while now, they had been worried by the idea that Tenderlove wouldn’t put the remaining teeth in Saladina’s mouth until he was paid, and, according to everyone in the village, the old lady had bundles of money, hidden under her mattress.

  They found the old lady sitting in her hut, cooking a sausage over the fire. She didn’t look like she was a hundred years old. In fact, she looked like she existed outside of time. When she saw them, she let them in and sat them down. She said that she’d never felt better in her life, now that she felt that her time had come.