Nona's Room

by Cristina Fernández Cubas

  Tristán looked at him questioningly. I understood immediately. My brother was wondering why, in such a far-off place, the natives use ‘yes’ for the affirmative and ‘no’ for the negative. Just like us. Sometimes Pedrito spoke my thoughts out loud before I could.

  ‘Another day,’ replied Tristán after a couple of seconds. ‘Now, we need some sleep.’

  My brother kicked me under the table.

  ‘I don’t think he knows,’ he said under his breath.

  Then he yawned again. I felt tired, too. But, as hard as I tried and with Pedrito already soundly asleep in his bed, that night it took me a while to drop off. Tristán and Valeria didn’t stop their moaning and groaning and abandoned themselves to their games of love with more energy than ever. It was as if they hadn’t seen each other for years or were afraid they would never see each other again for the rest of their lives. Or, it occurred to me, as if Tristán wanted to show Valeria that she was the only woman in the world for him.

  Wah in the language of the Wahyes-Wahno means man or, to be more precise, the man or the men. There are many examples in the history of mankind – and Tristán told us a few – in which coincidence, error or mistakes have conspired to give names to lands or peoples that didn’t belong to them until then. The history of the Spanish conquest of Latin America is full of them, and the history of the Wahyes-Wahno (although they have never been conquered or subjected by anyone) was no exception. They were the men, and that was enough for them. They didn’t have many dealings with other peoples or tribes, but neither did their voluntary isolation exclude the possibility that at some point they might have been seen by groups of white people and might even have had sporadic contact. That’s probably how some colonizer, researcher, timber or rubber merchant, together with missionaries and evangelists, must have taught them how to say yes and no. Or being so intelligent and quick off the mark they worked it out themselves straight away. What happened is that they adopted the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and even expanded their implicit meanings of acceptance and rejection and started using them in their dealings with outsiders, always preceded by Wah: Wahyessss (that is, man accepts) or Wahnoooo (man rejects). Or, to put it another way, they, the men, started to judge outsiders on first appearances and act accordingly. And they cannot have liked the meddlesome visitors very much because they quickly became adept at camouflage, and their skill for passing unseen through the jungle was legendary. As their environment became deforested, the river waters polluted, the fish and plant life poisoned, they tirelessly searched for new areas to settle and reconstruct their villages. That was why – and here Tristán traced both his hands over the entire green map – it was impossible to know exactly where they were now. Survival had made nomads of them. They had become the almost invisible wanderers called the Wahyes-Wahno – or so the representatives of so-called civilization called this people about whom hardly anything was known. They were the Wahyes-Wahno for English speakers, the Wahsí-Wahno for Spanish speakers and Wahsim-Wahnão for Portuguese speakers. It was exactly the same thing.

  ‘OK,’ said Pedrito. And he shrugged his shoulders.

  My brother was gradually losing interest in Tristán’s passionate explanations but becoming more and more enthusiastic about Valeria’s practical lessons: diving into the river, weaving branches or imitating the sounds made by the cats, dogs, goats, chickens and birds all around us. I had never seen him so happy or so involved. It was as if he were at summer school or summer camp. But as he spent more and more time in activities down by the river (not to mention hiking in the mountains hunting for animal tracks or droppings) I preferred to stay at home talking to Tristán and jotting down anything to do with the Wahyes-Wahno in my notebook. There were hardly any empty pages left, and I was delighted to see how much progress I had made since the first night when the real protagonists were the Pacahuara and the Wahyes-Wahno were just an unanswered question.

  But now I did know all about them. And not only did I know all about them but I had a very special feeling, as if those marvellous people had been waiting for me since the day I was born and those lands were my true place of origin and my final destination. Tristán must have felt the same way when the woman in the jungle with the geometric markings on her face and two small babies in a sling accepted him without a word and gave him the warmest welcome. Because never, as far back as I could remember, had two simple words given me so much peace and happiness. I told Tristán about it. That’s what I was experiencing at that time. Before I went to sleep I would whisper, ‘Wahyes-Wahno’, and immediately felt I was there, in a place that was familiar and surprising at the same time, surrounded by friendly faces, talking with my mind or listening to unspoken snatches of sage advice and revelations. And, more than anything else, seeing. Memories were filing past non-stop, and they were more vivid than ever. There were old memories, memories of memories and sometimes, more often than not, impossible memories. Because I could suddenly rekindle images that until that point I had known nothing about. The rites and observances of the tribe, for example, or the origin of the markings on the cheeks and foreheads of some of them, which – although they looked like drawings or tattoos – were simply the physical manifestation of certain feelings: love, hate, fear, annoyance, compassion and hospitality. The markings remained as long as the emotion causing them was experienced. And, in the same way that they appeared, they then faded away.

  ‘It’s another of their languages,’ my uncle said one afternoon in the bar. ‘Just another one, and it’s almost as eloquent as words.’

  But he didn’t seem the slightest bit phased by what I’d just told him: that there is a space suspended in time that I could enter merely by closing my eyes and concentrating. It was quite the opposite. As if it were something we knew or had spoken about before. He just lit his pipe and whispered under his breath, ‘Their wisdom will help you to solve many problems, although it’ll always be you who comes up with the answer.’ He blew out a series of smoke-rings aimed towards the ceiling. ‘They are a state of mind. That’s what they are. The Wahyes-Wahno are often a state of mind.’

  We continued to go to the village square at the same time every day. We sometimes joined in with the game of betting on the passengers arriving and leaving. And other times we didn’t even wait for the last coach. We had a drink, Tristán collected his correspondence, and we walked back home. I never saw him rip up a letter again, and I never again saw him looking worried or concerned. One of those afternoons when we were walking back home with Valeria and Pedrito a few steps behind us and were talking about everything and anything, I said to him, ‘I dreamed about Aunt Berta today. When she was young. She was incredibly beautiful in my dream. And kind, too.’

  My uncle burst out laughing. ‘It wasn’t a dream. Your Aunt Berta really was incredibly beautiful, but she was a coward. She made her own bed…’

  Later, when we were almost at the front door, while I was trying to make some sense out of what he’d said, he slapped me on the back.

  ‘Cowardice or excessive caution – which is the same thing – always turns against the coward. Never forget that.’ Then his face contorted just as it had when he ripped the letter into little pieces thinking no one could see him. But he wasn’t thinking about Aunt Berta any more. I was certain of that. Just as I was certain that, because of an unexpected association of ideas, he’d been gripped by an old fear. He glanced behind where, a few metres away, Valeria and my brother were collecting stones on the path and, making sure they couldn’t hear us, he whispered, ‘And jealousy. Never forget that either.’

  Mum still phoned every night. Always at the same time. She spoke to Tristán first and then to us, although, as her voice reached into the furthest corners of the house, the three of us heard the same news at the same time. The great news was that Dad was definitely getting better. It started to become old news because every day Mum enthusiastically told all three of us about it. She told Tristán first, then me and finally Pedrito. Before saying goodby
e she always remembered to send her love to Valeria and say how grateful she was to her for having us. And Valeria, from the kitchen or the bedroom, from whichever room she was in, arched her eyebrows and shook her head smiling. ‘But I love having them here.’

  One day there was a different kind of telephone call. It wasn’t at the usual time, and no one, apart from our mother, had ever phoned our aunt and uncle since we’d been at their house. I ran down the corridor, somewhat concerned. Valeria was holding the telephone and talking loudly. ‘Yes? Hello? Who is it?’ She smiled when she saw me, shrugged and was about to hang up when the two of us clearly heard that the person at the other end had already done so. There were more calls on different days and at different times. I rushed to answer the telephone on a number of occasions, but all I heard was the familiar silence and the dialling tone as the phone was put down at the other end. It was annoying and disheartening. It wasn’t a wrong number, the telephone wasn’t out of order and it wasn’t a joke. But those silent calls could not be a good omen. Or, worse, something not good at all, something decidedly nefarious or unhealthy, perhaps irrational, was incubating feverishly in the midst of our peaceful summer. And it was easy to detect it in Valeria’s increasingly bad mood and in Tristán’s offhand manner. Because Tristán didn’t seem the least bit worried by the telephone ringing at any time of day or night, and that when you picked it up there was no one there. He was so indifferent and so clearly wanted to show that he, Tristán, wasn’t at all worried about what was going on that I suspected that actually the opposite was true. And I put two and two together. In fact, I didn’t even need to do that because the few pieces of the jigsaw I could see had joined themselves up all on their own: the ripped-up letter, Tristán looking half worried and half suspicious or his mentioning jealousy a few days before on the way home. It was as if he were rekindling some tempestuous event from the past and was worried that it would happen again.

  I saw it all the more clearly in bed that night, just before going to sleep, when I whispered ‘Wahyes-Wahno’ and all the day’s events came rushing back into my mind. I had a whole jumble of images in my head: snippets of the evening in the kitchen and things that the family had said about Tristán that I must have once heard, but it was only now that they took on an unexpected meaning. And I felt I was able to put a name to the strange situation we were experiencing. It was a triviality, a trifle that could, all the same, end in disaster. Because, with a good sense that was unusual for the age I was at the time, I understood something that life taught me later on with many different examples: an argument, an outburst, some kind of breakdown is often caused by an event that would have no meaning on its own unless it linked back to others that did mean something at the time. And that’s what happened with the telephone calls, or the letter, or Tristán’s apprehension. Time was turning back on itself and everything was happening all over again. The reason my uncle ripped up the letter and said nothing to Valeria was because he was scared of how she would react. Jealousy. An unhealthy passion that perhaps made Tristán hide away in a lost village in the mountains. I was prepared to walk over coals for my uncle. This time, at least, he was innocent, and it was only his past, his happy past that the family had sometimes talked about, that was to blame for the confusion. Now his past was determined to return at the most inappropriate time. My mother said that Tristán had broken many hearts. But that was before, before he had met Valeria, I couldn’t have been more certain of it. He respected Valeria and loved her dearly. And he also, and I only realized this now, protected her and looked after her in his own way. That was why he tried to keep her away from anything that might upset her. As if, in spite of her apparent strength, she were just a little girl. As if she were ill.

  I didn’t have to wait long for my suspicions to be confirmed. One night, shortly after Mum’s usual call, the telephone rang again. This time Tristán answered it. I remember he said ‘Yes, what’s up?’ completely naturally, probably thinking it was his sister again and that she’d forgotten to tell him something. But there was silence this time, too. It was a dense, threatening silence that made my uncle’s face contort and to which I listened at one end of the corridor almost without breathing. I wanted him to hang up. For him to hang up once and for all or for the mysterious presence at the other end of the line to beat him to it and hang up first, as they usually did. But he hesitated. Perhaps it was deliberate – as if, tired of the whole situation, he wanted the inevitable to happen as soon as possible.

  And the inanity, the trifle, the event that had no importance whatsoever on its own, occurred in the blink of an eye. The ancient telephone rang out like a powerful radio, and the sweet, whispering voice of a woman could be heard in all four corners of the house. I didn’t understand a thing she was saying. I couldn’t understand Tristán either when he interrupted her in an unexpectedly furious voice that frightened me. I couldn’t understand a single word of the argument and, to this day, have no idea what language they were speaking. But the inflection in their voices left no room for doubt. She was asking and he was refusing; she was suggesting something and he was rejecting it. Her insistence just made him more annoyed. And in the end, even though it was abundantly clear that he, Tristán, wanted nothing whatsoever to do with the owner of that sweet, whispering voice, he shouted out loud, as loud as in the theatre. And in our own language. So that we would all understand.

  ‘Don’t call again! Forget all about us!’

  But the poison had already been injected.

  There are many things I will never know. Who that woman was, for example, or what must have happened in the past to make the situation so unbearable now; and whether it was always the same woman or whether there were several. The only thing I do know is that things quickly came to a head. Valeria started drinking. She was really knocking it back. I left her in the kitchen with a bottle of wine that had just been opened, and when I returned ten minutes later the bottle was almost empty. You could tell there would be no dinner that night – certainly not a calm and peaceful dinner as usual. Tristán had put some bread, cheese and salami on the table. I wasn’t hungry any more.

  ‘Isn’t it all lovely?’ said Valeria suddenly, looking at us with blurry eyes. ‘Don’t believe a word your uncle tells you!’ She was talking in a shaky voice and stumbling over her words like a drunk in a film. I avoided looking at Tristán. ‘I’ll tell you the sad truth, children.’ She repeated the word ‘children’, burst out laughing and spread out the green map that had accompanied so many of our evenings together on the table.

  I made a sign to Pedrito. We had to go to bed. As soon as possible.

  ‘No way.’ Now Valeria was shaking her finger at us. ‘Stay here, keep quiet and listen to what I have to say.’

  I had never wanted anything so much: to melt away, to disappear and leave them in the kitchen. But there was no way of escaping what was about to happen. My aunt downed the rest of the bottle in one long gulp, stood up and scratched at the map. For a moment her fingers seemed like claws and her laughter reminded me of a hyena. I thought she was ill. Really ill.

  ‘The Wahyes-Wahno don’t exist!’

  She said it slowly, enjoying how the words sounded, speaking with deliberate exaggeration and to one person alone: Tristán. This time I couldn’t avoid looking at him. His face was red, and there was a throbbing vein on his forehead.

  ‘Everything’s in that little head,’ she continued. ‘A fifth-rate anthropologist. Old wives’ tales that only children would believe.’

  I took my brother’s arm, and we left them on their own. Pedrito followed me without a murmur. We went to our room, and I bolted the door. This was serious, very serious. Perhaps that’s why, to calm my brother down or to fool myself, I whispered, ‘It’s just a lovers’ tiff.’

  We heard glass smashing and crockery being thrown against the wall or on the floor. We heard cooking pots sounding like funeral bells. And insults. So many insults and mutual accusations. There were screams that cut through th
e air like arrows, increasingly wounding and forceful. I thought that something irrevocable was about to happen. So, I did it. I still don’t know how I managed it. I shouted with all my strength. It was more like a wild animal than a human being. It was a shriek from the very depths of my being. It was a shot that went in through your ears and pierced your heart. I shouted, ‘WAH-NOOOOOOOOO!’

  And the voices stopped immediately.

  I was panting for breath and had almost no puff left. I felt shocked and liberated at the same time. I was breathing in the dense silence that had suddenly fallen over the house. All I could hear was my own panting and Pedrito’s breathing and heartbeat. A few seconds later I wrapped his arms around my waist, and we stayed like that for a long time. Until he fell asleep.

  I started packing my bag. My brother was still asleep, and there wasn’t any sound from the rest of the house. Perhaps that’s why a faint metallic noise took me so much by surprise. I turned off the light and looked out of the window. Valeria was at the garage door struggling with the lock. Her hair was loose, she had a mac around her shoulders and the only other thing she was wearing was the wrap she’d worn to swim in the river. It was tied around her waist. In the moonlight I thought I could see markings on her face, drawings. I leaned over the windowsill. Her face and part of her body were covered in geometric shapes. But they looked nothing like those I had imagined on Tristán’s indigenous saviour. They were aggressive and bloodthirsty, as if they had just been hammered out. And if they did say anything at all, if it were a language as I had been given to understand during our days together, they communicated anger, indignation, instability. She finally went into the garage, and I waited. A few minutes later the old van’s headlights lit up the countryside and were immediately lost on the road.

  I switched on the light and carried on collecting up my things. Those days full of discovery were already part of the past. But I didn’t want to think about that or be sad.