Martutene

by Ramón Saizarbitoria

  “It’s not that.”

  She moves a hand away to take a sip of her gin and tonic.

  “What is it, then?”

  Now, all of a sudden, now that the chance to meet the man seems very close, she’s afraid. She feels it could be the end, the end of everything. She says she felt something similar the day she saw Martin putting the new map of Sicily up on the wall with pushpins. She tells her she told Martin, teasingly, that he’d never have the energy to go to Sicily if it weren’t on one of those one-week package tours with the flight, hotel, and rental car all included, and he didn’t answer her. While they were still arguing about the map, she picked up a book from the pile of them on the table, opened it at random, and, incredible though it seems, read the following: “Our ships will always set sail for Sicily, although we know they’re heading to destruction.”

  “¿Qué te parece?”

  She doesn’t believe her. It’s impossible that she could have found that exact text, whose author is unknown to her, while Martin was fixing a map of Sicily to the wall. What could she possibly make of it, she answered. She regrets not having ordered a gin and tonic herself. Sometimes she’s tempted to get slightly drunk in the afternoon, and that temptation makes her a little afraid.

  Harri’s finished hers. She picks up her glass and looks into it for a moment, as if surprised to see only bits of ice and lemon left in it, and then puts it back down on the table. She has the peculiar habit of talking about herself in the third person. The man at the airport and the woman—herself. She seems to be worried about the idea of the man and the woman meeting and nothing else happening, that being the end of it all. So now that she knows they’re going to meet, now that they’re about to see each other again, she’s very afraid. “Do you know what I mean?”

  How can she expect her to understand if she doesn’t tell her anything? What does she mean she’s about to meet the man? She tells her about it, but tells her so little that it’s difficult to follow her. She wrinkles her face up, that unattractive gesture she makes when she tastes a bite of food she doesn’t like. Why would she tell them anything, they don’t believe her, they stop her in her tracks and think she’s crazy. That complaint once more, in the plural, the reproach that they’re only interested in things that happen in novels, which Julia thinks stems from her complex about not reading much. “There is life beyond books,” she often says. She raises her glass to her lips once more and tips her head straight back in a rather vulgar movement, taking in all the ice, and Julia wonders if she hasn’t started drinking a little too much lately. Don’t be silly, of course she believes her, she says, putting her hand on her forearm this time, a way of showing affection that’s more typical of men and that she finds easy to use. Apparently Adolfo’s called her again.

  “The Iberia guy,” she explains unnecessarily—so Harri really does think she doesn’t pay any attention to the things she says. He called her by surprise one day when she was in Bilbao and asked to see her at the Hotel Ercilla. Among many other things, the most important one he told her was that it was very clear which of the last two travelers he had not yet spoken with was the man. There was no doubt about it—when he called one number and said what he usually did, a vulgar woman told him that the jerk didn’t live there any more and she didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Just in case, Iberia Adolfo took the trouble of going to the other traveler’s office—he was a businessman, and very well protected by his secretary—and managed to see him. (He’d done all this using some skill not relevant to the story, but something to do with his ability to seduce the secretary.) And he turned out to be nothing like the man Harri had described, not at all, in terms of appearance. To start with, he was bald. So the only thing they still had left to do was find the true man’s new address, which, unfortunately, they could only do through his ex-wife, because his first and last names, which were very common indeed, wouldn’t be any use to them in that sense.

  “A bit of a disappointment.” Harri smiles sadly, as if truly disappointed. But she doesn’t know his first and last names, she only knows that they’re very common, because that was all the Iberia guy would tell her. He refused to tell her, even though she begged him. As if being able to put a name to the man from her memory might almost be enough for her, but the Iberia guy wouldn’t budge. He said he couldn’t risk giving her information about a traveler without checking first that he actually wanted her to get in touch with him. First he, Adolfo, would have to speak with the man and check that Montauk meant something to him, that he understood what was meant by a second chance, and that he was interested in being put in touch with her. He couldn’t be budged from there. In any case, he promised that he’d soon be in touch with her again, because he was determined to get the information out of the peroxide blonde. He didn’t tell her how and she didn’t ask him for any details, but it seemed the Iberia guy had some plan or other and was confident of his seductive powers over women—in this case a trashy abandoned woman. She made him swear that he would give her the man’s name soon, and he swore on a photo of his son, a cute-looking boy called Borja. Then everything happened more or less like the first time. Adolfo stood up and started walking, and she followed him up to room 222. His wife called him while he was trying to fuck her for the second time, and he had to leave. She called Martxelo and told him that she was in a meeting in Bilbao, it was going to finish very late and she had another one first thing the next day, so it wasn’t worth her going back home and he should get something out of the fridge for dinner. She ordered herself hot chocolate and pastries and fell fast asleep.

  The next morning, on leaving the hotel, she had to pay not just for her chocolate and pastry feast and the room but also for the minibar, which Adolfo had emptied. She picks up her glass again, looking inside once more as if she’s just realized for the first time that it’s empty, puts it back on the table, and pushes it away from her. Then she stares at it. The Harri who is sometimes a serious woman, especially when it comes to her work.

  “Do you think he’s trying to get money out of me?”

  “I wouldn’t trust him.”

  “So you’d let the whole thing go?”

  Julia has her doubts. She’s afraid Harri will say “silly you, I can’t believe you believed me!” and she doesn’t want to feel like a fool. She doesn’t reply. Harri waits for her answer for a few seconds while she looks for some coins in her purse. Then, in the way she normally does such things, she puts the money carefully on the tray and says, “You guys are always clipping my wings.” With neither anger nor sorrow. Not very nicely, though, either.

  Julia could change the subject by asking her why she’s using the plural, but she doesn’t. Obviously, she must have told Martin about her affair previously, he probably thought she was crazy, and that’s what’s got her back up. That’s why Harri’s used the plural. She ends up saying, “What you have to concentrate on now are your tests.” Getting back to cancer. Sensibly, as a mother would do, but it’s too late by the time she realizes. Harri looks at her sadly, gives a laugh, and nods. The waiter’s been attentive, and he gets a good tip. They both keep quiet, each waiting for the other to say it’s time they got going.

  Harri looks at her watch and says it’s terribly late.

  On their way back to the car, and because Harri’s said it’s so late, Julia doesn’t dare suggest that they cross the street and have a look at the bookshop. When they reach the corner, it’s Harri herself who suddenly stops and asks her if she doesn’t want to go in and have a look at the bookseller, and Julia feels obliged to say no, in order not to come across as being as crazy as her.

  She finds Zigor alone at home, because her mother’s gone to her sister’s. He says grandma is sad, she’s been crying. Apparently, a friend from Otzeta came by to visit and told them the latest news from Etxezar. It seems her great nephew is still selling bits of it to his neighbour, and several days earlier he was found lying in vomit
on the kitchen floor with the dog chewing at the bills from the sale of the pine forest.

  Zigor’s sad, too, and Julia’s angry the situation at Etxezar’s made him so. He’s sitting at his desk, a fold-down board like the one Julia has that comes out of the closet. She asks what he’s up to. He’s trying to finish his project about the war.

  They spend a long while without talking, because the boy’s reading, or pretending to, and while she folds some T-shirts, Julia tries to think of something to say to him about why her mother is so sad about losing Etxezar. Until he breaks the silence.

  “Does Martin have a lot of money?”

  The question doesn’t surprise her much. She knows he’s sometimes heard her mother saying that if she, Julia, asked Martin, he’d lend them enough money to be able to get Etxezar back, and Julia’s even less pleased that her mother’s made the boy her confidant for her absurd ideas.

  “I don’t know if he’s got a lot. Enough to live on, I think. Why do you ask?”

  He shrugs his shoulders.

  “I just wanted to know.”

  She folds the last T-shirt, sits down on the side of the bed, and, seeing his txistu and drum cases, says, for the sake of it, “You haven’t played your txistu in a while.”

  “I don’t have any time.”

  Silence once more. Julia is thinking about the best way to tell him they can’t ask Martin to lend them the money, and even less so in order to buy the old baserri in the hills around Otzeta for the sole reason that that’s where her mother was born. She prefers not to seem angry and asks him what he’s reading, to buy herself time, and he makes a movement to hide the pieces of paper on the table. Finally, he tells her he’s gotten ahold of a book in the city library with some horrifying information about the war. In fact, it’s a compilation of firsthand accounts that Joxemiel Barandiaran collected from people who fled across the border. The witnesses weren’t all old people, he says, as if that point were important, but what they had to say was more interesting than what the people at the retirement home have been telling him. He photocopied what one woman said; her last name was Barandiaran, as well, and she, too, was from Ataun, but he says the whole book is horrifying. He reads that in the summer of 1936, some woodsmen had been working in the Eugi hills when one night, several Falangists turned up with four prisoners and told the woodsmen to kill them. They didn’t want to, but they forced them to take the rifles, otherwise they’d kill them right then and there. One of the woodsmen, Juan Galfarsoro, from the Tellerietxea baserri, fainted as soon as he picked up the rifle, and the rest of them shot and killed three of the prisoners. The fourth managed to flee through the forest thanks to the light coming from the headlights of the car in which the group had arrived. The Falangists ordered them to bury the bodies, and the woodsmen obeyed them. When the Falangists left, the prisoner who got away came back, said he was going to Gasteiz, and asked them to please tell him the way. They went back to the village and never told the whole story of what had happened, only saying that the Falangists made them bury the three shot prisoners. The rest of it came out later.

  “The one who fainted was a nice guy, wasn’t he?”

  Julia’s glad Zigor likes the woodsman who wasn’t up to killing another person. She’s moved, and she doesn’t mind her son seeing that.

  Zigor says he’s thinking of including an imaginary interview with the woodsman who fainted in his project, but Julia tells him she doesn’t think it’s a good idea. The objective of the project they’ve asked him to do is to interview old people and, as far as possible, he’s supposed to use firsthand accounts, find people who actually saw things. Zigor doesn’t give in—the old people themselves haven’t told him anything interesting. Even his grandmother has told him nothing more than vague platitudes, and when he asks for more details, she says she can’t remember.

  In fact, she doesn’t even know where his grandfather spent the war.

  Julia decides to leave him alone, let him do whatever he wants to. She’s not going to be the one to criticize him for finding what he reads in books more interesting than what people around him have to say.

  “I’d like to read it once you’ve finished.”

  Julia gets up, grabs the txistu and drum, and puts them on the table.

  “Hey, can you play something? I’m feeling sad.”

  Zigor plays “Intxaustiren Kontrapasa,” because it’s the most traditional piece in his repertoire, and he probably thinks it’s the most appropriate piece for his mother. Really, she’d have preferred a fandango, but as always when she listens to the txistu, she ends up thinking about how it’s amazing what people can do with a simple three-holed flute.

  After the short concert, Zigor puts the txistu back in its case, and while he does so, Julia says she understands Grandma feeling sad about Etxezar being destroyed but she can’t ask Martin for money. She wouldn’t ask him even if he had more than enough.

  “Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, Ama, don’t worry.”

  18

  Light’s pouring in through the gaps in the blinds when he opens his eyes. Pilar’s footsteps up and down the hallway mean she’s getting ready to go out. It’s Saturday. For a moment, he wonders whether to get up or stay in bed until she leaves; in the end, he decides to get up, though not knowing why. Perhaps he doesn’t want to come across as being lazy.

  Pilar sticks her head around the bathroom door to say good morning. He’d forgotten she’s going to Bordeaux. She has the look she usually has in the morning, the look of being in a hurry. She hasn’t dried her hair, and she’s standing in her bra, dressed only from the waist down—a tight skirt and quite high-heeled shoes, a bit more formal than most days—and she has a blouse, a jacket, and a bag hanging from one arm. She disappears and then appears again to remind him that Loiola’s coming at noon. Will he take care of him? She says she’s in a great hurry and rubs her neck with a tissue. She’s just had a shower, and she’s already sweating.

  She’ll call him as soon as she gets to Bordeaux.

  South wind today at the Bretxa Azoka. The intense blue brightness and the golden sandstone of the buildings. People out for a walk, happy to live where they do. The noble market building turned into a vulgar mall. The farmers swept to small stands on one side. Hothouse runner beans and tomatoes; peas that should have been spring peas at this point in the season; year-round carrots, chard, and leeks; and shiny eggplants, all identical in shape and size, imported from Holland. People trying to use their Basque to get better deals from the farmers. The peas are incredibly expensive; they swear they’re home-grown. It’s a long time since anybody’s bartered for anything, but the farmers still give the parsley away for free. The old woman fishmonger wrapping anchovies from Benidorm up in newspaper sheets. The escalator goes down to the underground market. Hake that isn’t from Hondarribia, red seam bream that isn’t from Orio, its best side flipped up under the strong spotlights. He has his favorite fishmonger, Jon Sarriegi, who never cheats him. But why is swindling accepted? Answer: because we are all of us sinners. For the same reason that the allopathic, scientific, official medical establishment tolerates natural remedies, homeopathy, and even witchcraft.

  Many familiar faces. Doctors doing their shopping—it’s well-looked upon socially on Saturday mornings at the Bretxa Azoka.

  As soon as he sees her among the people at the flower stand, he recognizes her by her hair. She has it tied up in a small kerchief, it shines like bright copper in the light. She’s wearing those rather loose blue jeans he’s seen her in before, she uses a belt with them but places it beneath the loops, which shortens their length and brings out her buttocks. He doesn’t know if he wants to go be with her. Or rather, if he wants to take the risk of some acquaintance seeing them together.

  Now he sees her turning around, as if she’s noticed him looking at her, a small bunch of violets in her hand and sunglasses half-covering her face
. He doesn’t do anything to hide himself and leaves her seeing him or not to chance. He’d like to go for a walk with her, show her places in Urgull and then have a glass of wine with her, but he has to admit that his reluctance to meet up with her is greater than his desire. He’s reluctant to have some midwife or colleague looking at them maliciously; he doesn’t want their being seen together out and about to be a confirmation of their relationship; he’s afraid he’ll get used to her being there; anticipated malaise about having to eventually tell her he has to leave.

  He hardly has time to start wondering whether his doubts might be due to a lack of affection when somebody pats him on the back. He turns around. It’s the resident from the neonatology department, and he seems to be glad to see him. Beautiful weather, it’s like being in the Caribbean. The shirt he’s wearing certainly gives that idea, it’s loose-fitting and has yellow flowers on a blue background. He’s just come off night duty and is going to sit down at an outdoor terrace, read the paper, and have “un cafecito”—a little cup of coffee. Then he’s going to meet up with some friends. “Para tomar algo y echarse unos vinitos,” he says—to grab a bite and have “a little glass of wine” or two. He finds the childish satisfaction expressed by his use of so many diminutives supremely irritating. The baby with choanal atresia has been having some serious problems, he mentions in passing. Abaitua had forgotten all about that child. The resident looks away, following Abaitua’s glance, and says, “Mira por dónde”—would you look at that—“it’s Lynn.” And he moves his arms as though swimming to clear a path through the crowd to her.

  “Hi.” They kiss each other on the cheek, probably because they’ve bumped into each other outside the hospital. She gives Abaitua two kisses, too. “Qué alegría”—so great running into you. She tells the resident he looks good without his smock on. And his shirt’s really beautiful, too; fatty blushes. She doesn’t say anything to Abaitua. She takes her glasses off for a moment, just long enough for him to see how much her eyes lighten, and then she puts them back on again. What beautiful weather, she says, gesturing at everything with one hand. “Perfect for going for a walk.” She turns to the resident again. “What route would you recommend?” Fatty hesitates, he’s disconcerted. “The Kontxa could be good, but there’re too many people.” Abaitua listens to them in silence, full of the innocent satisfaction of knowing himself to be the chosen one.