Nona's Room

by Cristina Fernández Cubas

  She really was a kind and pleasant old lady. Perhaps she would pay her another visit sooner than she expected. The next day, with all her luggage and anything she was allowed to take out of the flat.

  ‘What about you, Ro,’ she said, rushing her sherry. ‘Don’t you feel like you’re rattling around in such a big flat?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ The old lady burst out laughing. ‘I’m used to it … although you’re right, it is big and I do lose things sometimes…’ Then she looked around, searching for something.

  ‘Can you do me a favour, dear, and help me find my glasses. I put them down somewhere just a moment ago – on the sideboard perhaps.’

  Alicia got up. As soon as she found the glasses she would ask her. A mutual favour. The old lady treated her as if she had known her all her life, and the flat was huge. One room. All she needed was one room. Just for a while.

  ‘Here they are,’ she said.

  Suddenly, with the glasses still in her hand, she stopped dead in her tracks. She had just seen a wooden bowl on the sideboard in between the yellowing photographs, the little silver boxes and the porcelain flowers. It was a salad bowl with the words ‘A souvenir from Mallorca’ written on its side, and it was crammed with rosaries, wrist-watches, buttons, a pile of old copper coins and – was she dreaming? – several five-hundred-euro notes.

  ‘Thanks again. Would you like another biscuit?’

  Five hundred euros! There weren’t many five-hundred-euro notes in circulation. Perhaps the old lady didn’t know how much they were worth or she’d forgotten. But, there they were, in the wooden bowl, jumbled up together with all the trinkets, rosaries and useless coins … There were at least five or six of them. Perhaps more. Six times five hundred … It was almost what she owed. This really was her last and final hope. Tomorrow, before they threw her out of the flat, she would pay it all off. She wouldn’t be stealing; it would just be a loan. She would pay it all back as soon as she could, down to the last penny. She would pay it back in instalments, leaving the money in the old lady’s letter box, in an envelope, with no return address or signature as she would never see her again. Although …

  ‘Alicia,’ said Ro, ‘are you all right?’

  Alicia. She had made the mistake of mentioning her name. That proved she had no intention of stealing from her, but it was a clue. She remembered the waitress in the Bar Paris asking her, ‘Are you Alicia?’ An old lady accusing someone called Alicia and a waitress who remembered passing on a message to a woman called Alicia. That idiot Andrés! Not only had he stood her up he had also told everyone in the neighbourhood who she was.

  ‘Yes, Ro. I’m all right. I smoke too much and sometimes…’

  ‘I’ll go and get some liquorice sweets for you. They’re good for sore throats.’

  The old lady disappeared down the corridor, and Alicia took a deep breath. It wouldn’t be stealing, she repeated to herself; it would just be a loan. No one had seen her going into the flat. The building didn’t have a concierge, and they hadn’t seen any of the other residents. Besides, who would believe the old lady? Five-hundred-euro notes on display in the dining-room for all to see? Quite likely she didn’t even remember they were there. Didn’t she say she was constantly losing things? Ro would forget her name just as she had forgotten all about the small fortune in the bowl. She had to be decisive. Now! She got up and took the banknotes. Seven of them – salvation! She put them in her pocket. She didn’t have time to go back to her chair. She thought she heard the old lady’s footsteps and bent down, pretending she had a problem with the heel of her shoe. She saw a broken doll and a teddy bear without any eyes on the floor.

  ‘I can’t find them,’ said the old lady. ‘I’m sure I bought a bag at the chemist’s yesterday.’

  Alicia showed her the teddy bear.

  ‘Have you got any grandchildren?’ she asked.

  She spoke clearly, naturally, as if she had nothing to hide.

  ‘No,’ said the old lady. ‘My son hasn’t got any children.’

  A son. Would her son know that his mother had a small forgotten fortune in a bowl? That she offered sherry and biscuits to any old stranger?

  ‘Does your son come and see you often?’

  It was a polite farewell. Alicia was picking up her handbag and getting ready to leave the flat. The last thing that mattered to her at that point was whether the old lady’s son did his filial duty.

  ‘No,’ said Ro, ‘he doesn’t come and see me. Why would he have to come and see me?’

  She didn’t see her expression. The old lady had turned around and was holding the edge of the curtain that separated the dining-room from the veranda.

  ‘My son lives here. With me.’

  Everything happened in the blink of an eye. She whipped the curtains back and the clinking of the curtain rings merged into her last words. ‘Here. With me.’ Alicia’s eyes clouded over. What was that? She had to lean against the back of a chair so as not to fall over.

  ‘This is Alicia,’ she heard.

  A large, deformed man was staring at her from behind iron bars, slavering at the mouth. He was a monster. A beast. A giant. He had a bulging head, expressionless eyes, and his face was covered in pustules. Alicia’s handbag was the first thing to crash to the floor, quickly followed by Alicia herself. The next day when she woke up she remembered that the last thing she’d heard was Ro’s voice saying, ‘Be gentle with her, son. Real-life dolls are very delicate.’

  But it couldn’t be real. It wasn’t real. It was just a horrible nightmare. The worst dream imaginable. Alicia was in bed, and her eyes were still closed. She heard a key in the lock. ‘They didn’t even bother to ring the doorbell,’ she murmured. ‘OK then, throw me out. Evict me! Anything is better than…’ She suddenly felt a rough hairy hand and woke up with a start. It was daytime, but she wasn’t in her room between the sheets of her bed. Instead, she was sprawled on a straw mattress inside a huge cage. Ro had just opened the door and put down a tray on the floor. She didn’t even look at her.

  ‘I’m off to church, son.’

  Ro left the barred veranda and turned the key in the padlock.

  ‘Let’s see how long this one lasts you. It’s getting more and more difficult to find someone. Young girls nowadays, they’re all sharp as a button and they don’t like chatting to old ladies.’

  Before the curtains were drawn Alicia spotted the wooden bowl on the sideboard. The five-hundred-euro notes were there along with the rosaries, the buttons, the pile of copper coins, her wrist-watch … She didn’t want to see any more. She closed her eyes and could smell his stinking breath close to her mouth. She wanted to die. But the giant man had already lifted her up in his arms and was rocking her from side to side. Just like a baby. Just like a much-loved doll.

  Interior with Figure

  It’s not a large painting, barely twenty-eight by thirty-five centimetres. What is more, the frame they’ve used makes it seem even smaller. The first time I came to see the exhibition I almost walked straight past and missed it. There was a tall, burly man completely blocking my view. He had a neck like a bull and a curious way of stretching it like an adjustable reading lamp. He also had a massive head, and he leaned forward very slowly as if he were waiting for the moment to lunge at the painting. So I carried on with the guide in my hand: Macchiaioli: Impressionist Realism in Italy. I stopped in front of a Signorini, discovered artists such as Fattori and Abbati and was filled with admiration once again for the perfect lighting at the Fundación Mapfre. But then, instead of leaving, I went back on myself. I often do this. When I go to an exhibition I usually follow a route, go back on myself and then take up the same route again with all the information I’ve managed to gather on the way. It’s a little like a compressed letter N. And that’s how I got lucky. When I came back the burly man with the bad eyesight had gone and I could now look at the painting Interior with Figure.

  I will try to describe it. There is a room containing only essentials: a bed, a bedside table,
two chairs, wallpapered walls. Through the half-open door we can see another door. And there is a girl beside the bed kneeling or crouching down. She’s a strange girl. She’s wearing a severe black smock with a little white collar. Her head is leaning against the bed and her hands are holding a bundle or sack that she’s probably made herself out of a sheet. We know she’s got something inside it because it’s bulky. Or does it just contain dirty laundry? There’s a stool beside the girl, or perhaps it’s a side-table, and there’s an open box on it that looks like a sewing-box. So perhaps the girl has put some sewing she was working on inside the bundle? Table linen or curtains that she’s embroidered herself? It’s possible. There’s a story concealed in the painting, and we’ll probably never uncover it. But if we take a closer look it seems as if the girl isn’t really kneeling or crouching down. She’s huddled up. Or maybe she’s hiding from something or someone who could come in through the door at any time. What is more, she’s probably so frightened, and still clutching the bundle tightly, that she’s closed her eyes. If she can’t see, no one can see her. Poor thing! I said earlier that she’s a strange girl, and she is. She’s more than strange, she’s special. She reminds me of a character in a short story I wrote recently whom I called Nona. I walk up to the painting slowly, much like the bull-necked man earlier. This girl, just like my character, has slanted eyes. Or perhaps they’re not really slanted. It’s simply because she’s so bound up in trying to hide that she’s got them as tightly closed as she can. Her hairstyle looks wrong for the period, too. She’s got short hair with a hint of a Mohican over her forehead. And her ears. I noticed her ears the first day. They’re enormous, far too big for a girl. They bring to mind gnomes, elves or imps. Although it’s not clear whether that was the painter’s intention. Her face doesn’t have any clearly defined features. The wallpaper pattern and the brass-and-iron bedstead are both more clearly defined. It suddenly occurs to me that she might not be a girl but, rather, a young woman, and it’s only the vast size of the bed that makes her seem like a child. And also the severe dress makes me think of a governess. But, no, I don’t think so. She has a child’s body, and were it not for the white collar I would say she’s a girl in deep mourning. Or perhaps it’s some kind of awful uniform and she’s in an orphanage? I have the same doubts as the first time around, and I’m more and more intrigued.

  Because here I am again in Madrid one week later. I’ve been invited to take part in a literary workshop, and I’m staying an extra night so I can go and see the Macchiaioli exhibition again. I’ll go back to Barcelona later today by train, which is how I like to travel. But for now I’ve got the whole morning free. Perhaps I’ll be lucky and there’ll be someone standing in front of Interior with Figure giving a commentary on the painting and revealing the secrets of a story that I haven’t been able to discover in any book and not on the internet either, nor by naïvely asking an employee who replied by shrugging. So, I don’t know any more than I knew a week ago. The artist’s name, Cecioni, and the probable date, 1868. Sometimes, like now, I think that Cecioni, who is much more explicit in the titles to some of his other paintings, wanted to preserve the sense of mystery of the room and the girl by being deliberately vague. Perhaps there is no such mystery, or perhaps there is, but the painter, who has been playing around with scale and proportion, would be the first to be surprised at the result. I don’t spend any more time thinking about it. I can hear whispering and children’s voices behind me. I turn around straight away. A very young guide smiles at me gratefully.

  ‘You can sit down now,’ she says to the children.

  About a dozen small children sit down on the floor, and I take a few steps away but don’t leave. I like these groups. I like what they do. I like the way the guides skilfully put the period and the costumes in context by pointing out details and figures and how the children, by putting up their hands and asking questions, gradually bring everything to life. It’s as if they’re colouring in cartoons in a comic. Having fun. Today I’m really curious to find out what the painting means to them. So I wait.

  ‘What a bed!’ says one little girl.

  All the others are just as surprised. To them, it seems enormous. ‘It’s old,’ says one. ‘It’s old-fashioned,’ the guide corrects him. But no one (neither the guide nor the children) mentions what I thought they would: the story about the princess and the pea and her gigantic bed. Perhaps Hans Christian Andersen doesn’t feature in a modern curriculum, or maybe these children pay much more attention to detail than I did at their age. How could you possibly compare a bed with only three mattresses to the sensitive princess’s gigantic bed with twenty mattresses! I suddenly feel like a silly grown-up, and for a moment I feel nostalgic for a childhood I never had – these children are able to sit calmly in front of an oil painting and say whatever they wish and not simply what the teachers expect – as in times past. Somehow, without moving or changing my position, I manage to sit down beside them. How old are they? Nine, ten?

  ‘The girl’s playing hide-and-seek with some other children who aren’t in the painting. She’s holding her breath so they can’t find her.’

  ‘No, she’s not playing. She’s a thief. Everything she’s stolen is in the sheet. That’s why there’s hardly anything in the room.’

  ‘And because she’s really young and it’s the first time she’s stolen anything she’s a bit scared.’

  ‘She’s really scared. She’s trembling. But she hasn’t been stealing and she hasn’t done anything bad. It’s because…’

  This latest comment comes from a redheaded little girl. She’s started talking and has then stopped dead in her tracks. She’s still staring at the painting, mesmerized, without blinking. It’s as if she’s not seeing the same thing as everyone else or at least not in the same way.

  ‘And?’ asks the guide. ‘Carry on, don’t be embarrassed.’

  I don’t think the little girl is the slightest bit embarrassed, but she is upset. I don’t know why. She takes a deep breath.

  ‘She knows they want to kill her,’ she says finally.

  And she’s still staring at the painting.

  I’m struck by the way she speaks clearly and deliberately and by the way she behaves as well. She’s examining the painting as if it were an open book and she’s just reading a few sentences. The guide goes back to her work.

  ‘Who wants to kill her?

  And she’s smiling. The guide’s smiling, but the children aren’t. They’re looking wide-eyed at the little girl.

  ‘Her parents,’ she says resolutely.

  The silence that meets her words will soon turn into a question. And she replies. She doesn’t take her eyes off the painting, and giving it her full concentration she speaks clearly and deliberately again and explains what we all want to know. You would think she was talking to herself. The guide isn’t smiling any more.

  ‘She’s hiding in her room with the door open. She’s left it open on purpose so they’ll think there’s no one in the room and they’ll go and look for her somewhere else. The girl’s ears look big, but they’re not. It’s just that she needs to listen carefully in case anyone’s coming. Later, when she’s sure there’s no more danger, she’ll leave home and go far, far away. And they won’t be able to kill her.’

  You could hear a pin drop. I get the feeling that we don’t exist. As if we’re in a different reality. There’s an invisible circle around us, although you can hear the echo of other footsteps and voices. Not only the echo. Now, as if my own ears had got bigger as well, I can clearly hear comments and appreciative murmurs being made in the furthest reaches of the room. But our silence devours them. Our silence. I’ve felt like a member of the group for a while now.

  ‘OK, but why would parents want to kill their own daughter?’

  The guide seems slightly anxious. She’s losing control and doesn’t know how to regain it. Perhaps that’s why she starts smiling again, or perhaps she wants the rest of us to think she’s smiling. But all she ma
nages is a grimace, a rictus grin, a false parody of a smile.

  ‘Because she knows something. She’s seen things she shouldn’t have seen.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ The grimace looks nothing like a smile now. ‘And what has she seen? What things has she seen?’

  The guide is young and probably hasn’t got much experience. Or perhaps this is the first time she’s come face to face with such an interpretation. Her question has slipped out, and now she regrets it. Why on earth has she asked about the things? Better not to know.

  The redheaded little girl hesitates for the first time. She seems confused, as if she were waking up from a dream. She looks at the floor and answers in a thin voice, ‘I can’t say.’

  And she closes her eyes. Just like in the painting. I’m suddenly aware of a kind of symbiosis between the two girls: the little girl beside me and the disturbing figure dressed in black. They have melded into one another, and there is a similarity that goes beyond the physical. I recall a few moments ago when the little girl was studying the painting without blinking, and it seemed to me that she was reading something in it. But now I think of something else. The little girl was looking at the painting and saw herself reflected there as if in a mirror.

  ‘So, she can’t say.’ The young guide has recovered her composure. ‘Let’s leave it there. Does anyone else want to say anything? Has anyone got a different interpretation of the scene?’

  I don’t know if she’s misheard her and it’s a mistake or if it’s the opposite: she’s heard her perfectly clearly and she’s said it on purpose. What’s certain is that in a very loud voice and adamant tone the young guide has just made a significant transference. In a matter of seconds. Because it’s no longer the flesh-and-blood little girl who’s admitting ‘I can’t say’ but rather Cecioni’s figure from her strange position beside the bed who’s admitting that she can’t say. And if the figure in the painting is refusing to cooperate there’s no point going on. Perhaps teaching hasn’t changed as much as I thought and anything a bit out of the ordinary is still frightening. That’s why the guide is trying to calm the situation down. She points to the children one by one. ‘You, perhaps? Or you? Who hasn’t spoken up yet?’ She’s clearly trying to make them speak up and wipe away any trace of the anxiety and bewilderment that was apparent a few moments ago. Finally one of the children puts up his hand.