Dark Vales

by Raimon Casellas

  That awful dream of his first night in Montmany stayed imprinted in the poor priest’s mind like an image of woe and keening. He felt a strong need to tear it out of his head, in order to be able to embark with vigour on the redemption of the deprived shepherds and peasants of his parish. However, quite unaccountably, his memory was promptly filled again with the procession of dark figures which drifted sleepily back and forth in that limbo, unable ever to open their eyes to the radiance of life.

  Thus, when the next Sunday word came to him that his parishioners had turned up and were waiting for him in the cemetery, Father Llàtzer was seized by a strange anxiety at the mere thought of coming face to face with them. For they were the same ill-fated woodland dwellers whom he had seen in his dream wandering like ghosts through the slumbering landscape, silently entering and leaving the tombs in which they dwelled.

  As well as by these thoughts, he was tormented by something else: how to address those people in order to make himself understood… He had given classes in lecture rooms, and he knew what sort of language was right for communicating with his pupils; he had preached a thousand times in city churches, and he knew how to work the feelings of an educated congregation; he had disputed with some of the finest minds of his day, and he had the gift of swaying learned men by dint of argument. But… he had never before confronted such a lifeless audience as this one, and he did not know how to speak to them. He was overcome with doubts and anxiousness, and his stride seemed to falter…

  ‘Father, they are all waiting…’ said Josep.

  ‘Yes, yes… I’m coming.’

  And stepping out of his house, he said to himself, as though asking for inspiration from Heaven: ‘How am I to persuade them? What can I say to stir them? Which might be the best words to raise the dead?’

  Funeral at Can Plans, 1920s.

  (Courtesy of Josep Tordera)

  VI

  Dwellers in Limbo

  Moving along as smartly as they could, doddery greybeards and heads of households, all the menfolk of the parish had made their way to the hollow where the church stood, to see what the new priest wanted.

  Those who descended there from the houses high on the Ocata ridge, did not look as joyless as the ones who had climbed up from way down below: the clothes they wore were not as dark, nor did they look so surly. Some of them, having arrived around the same time at the Can Ripeta col, had even walked together all the way down to the church buildings. And now an occasional remark passed between the older men, as when the one from Can Janet would say the odd word to his counterpart from Malaric or from Polonell or to gaffer Carbassot.

  But the men who arrived from down in the ravines, either over the rocky slopes of Sunyer or by the dim paths in the Black Wood, could not have displayed a more dull-brained attitude nor more haggard looks. Such were their bearing and their appearance, so drowsily did they move their eyes, so unattractive was their whole aspect, so cowering their mien, that they looked more than anything like a line of praying mantises in a stubble field. Almost all of them wore suits that were too big for them, of a rough napped fabric, originally very dark in colour but now faded through the abrasion of brushwood or of clods of earth, a cloth which, if it had at first been black before turning a sort of dirty ash colour, had finally taken on an indeterminate, drab and muddy hue, ‘the colour of a dog running away’ as they themselves would have said… The whole company formed a turbid stain in that space, a blot of earth and dust, seemingly made by a gathering of people who, having lain buried for a long time, had risen from below ground in order to be present at the appointment.

  It was a feeble-minded and taciturn assembly. They barely exchanged greetings, as though it pained them to utter a single word. While some sat on the stone ledges at the edge of the cemetery, others huddled against the church wall or with their backs to the crumbling stones of the priest’s house.

  There were no absentees at all among the parishioners who lived closest by. Almost all of them were decrepit, with sores and other visible signs of infirmity, like worn out hacks ready for the knacker’s yard. Here was old man Pugna, encumbered with a goitre so big that it went right from the back of his neck to under his chin. There was Pere Mestre, with one leg shorter than the other and the painful limp that made him grimace. Then came the old devil who stayed up at Romaní, Aleix the truffle man, writhing like a snake and smirking. Over there, standing slightly apart, as though resentful about sharing the company of so many aged and infirm, one could see Cosme from the Rovira farmstead, with his blotchy face, tall and slender like a poplar tree. The blind man from Uià was sitting by the door of the priest’s house, next to daft Joe, Bepus, the farm tenant, who would not let the old man out of his sight, unless the wife was keeping an eye on him…

  Although so many people were gathered together, there was everywhere in the air a strange kind of stillness, as though all those men had the mysterious gift of being able to move about silently, without uttering a word, without breathing or causing even the slightest rustle. One was there with his head in the palm of his hand, as though asleep; another, as if in a trance, just stared at the heaps of freshly cut grass in the cemetery; there was one, with an ash stave held tightly in his fingers, who gently scraped the ground in front of him; and another who stood open-mouthed and with eyes closed, like an idiot.

  When Father Llàtzer appeared at his doorway, they turned momentarily to look in his direction as though to size up the new priest, only to sink back immediately into their habitual torpor. The thick-skinned backwoodsmen were not impressed by the good looks of the priest or the kindly expression on his face, nor by the pained emotion that quivered on his lips, nor by the gleam in his still youthful eyes, seemingly at odds with his head of snowy-white hair. If anything, they looked embarrassed and intimidated in the presence of that embodiment of aching benevolence.

  The priest gazed at them long and hard… and he could do nothing to prevent his mind from being filled once again with images of death. There before his eyes, that gathering of parishioners sitting around on the level ground of the cemetery, so burdened and depressed, seemed to him to be the representation of all the dispirited humanity that for centuries had lived out their lives in those grim environs. Under the earth, in the peace and tranquillity of death, lay the preceding generations. Upon the surface of the graveyard the present-day generations were here and there, almost as ashen and somnolent as those below who were lying in eternal slumber… But the priest was horrified by that idea, and so he rubbed his brow, as though to wipe away the haunting vision that once more intruded upon his thoughts. What he needed at that moment were not dark visions or depressing images, if he was going to touch the hearts of the sluggish rustics. Faith was what he needed, a burning faith in the resurrection of the dead… He needed charity, all-redeeming charity, in order to liberate those benighted souls who were wandering aimlessly in the darkness of limbo…

  And then, as though struggling to bring to his lips the words of compassion which in previous times had come so readily to him, he addressed his parishioners, spreading his arms in the gesture of a father about to speak to his family, full of tenderness.

  ‘My sons, I have called you here because… as you can well see… the poor church is going to rack and ruin… and we must see if we can repair it by all of us working together. Take a look inside there, for pity’s sake… and tell me if you are not deeply saddened by such neglect. The first time I entered there, I could not hold back my tears… I know, I know that in these ravines where you live, in these vales of tears no less, poverty and desolation rule. But think on it: my own house is in ruins, and I have had to make my home in the entrance porch, which is holding up but only just… And I imagine that what I have to put up with will be the same for all of you. But, no matter what hardship we have to bear, a corner in which to take shelter, to find protection at night from the wind and the rain, we all have this much, all of us… except God! The church looks like a homestead that the children of t
he family have abandoned. Everything is collapsing, there are cracks everywhere, the roof is falling in, the walls are crumbling, and birds of prey are nesting on the cornices and roosting inside the apse… And are you not distressed by this, my children? Do you never hear remorseful voices calling to you: “You have a home… while God has nowhere. God has no roof over his head… and rain pours into the church…”?’

  Most of his parishioners listened gawkily to this harangue from the priest, without showing any reaction. The less doltish-looking among them went no further than to move their heads indecisively, without giving away whether they were in agreement or not. In spite of this, the priest seemed not to lose heart, as though he felt that by dint of showing kindness and indulgence he would have the strength to win them over and to inspire them with the same fervour that was seething in his heart.

  ‘What is more, my dear children, you must think of this… that God’s temple is also the holy patrimony of his faithful followers, the hearth and home of Christian families. Never forget that within these walls which are now falling down other generations have come to pray and to find sanctuary: your parents, your grandparents, all your ancestors. Do not forget that in the nave there your own heads were sprinkled with baptismal water, when you came into the world; that there as children you were taught the holy commandments. Remember that there you were bound for life to the woman you have loved. Remember too how you came there to say the last prayer for your departed loved ones, before laying them in the ground… This house of God which has rejoiced in your gladness and lamented with you in your sorrows, how can you now leave it alone and desolate, locked… falling into ruins? Do you really want to commit to eternal silence these bells which have chimed merrily at your christenings and which have mourned the deaths of your nearest and dearest? Do you not miss the friendly voice greeting you in the morning and bidding you good night, awakening you and seeing you off to sleep, announcing storms or fair weather, calling you to festivities or to prayer and counting out for you the hours of the day? Do you not miss the sound of the bells? Tell me! Do you not miss it?’

  The peasants said not a word. Even when assailed point-blank by the priest’s blazing questions, they could make no reply nor show any reaction at all. They just looked pained and worried, as though bewildered by the new incumbent’s exaltation as he did his utmost to wrest them from their eternal torpor. It was apparent that they felt ill at ease, painfully uncomfortable… that they were being goaded and made to feel a strange distress… They did not know what to do or how to behave. Some of them clicked their tongues; others tapped the ground with their feet… One man wriggled a finger in his ear, another scratched his head…

  ‘How like creatures of the woods they are!’ thought the priest, filled with anxiety, as he confronted that silence. ‘Like moles underground, slinking in the winding depths of the mountains where they burrow… They hate to be disturbed, as though turning their backs on life. They would rather sleep submissively in the gloom than make their way towards the light. So much time spent in the dark has destroyed their sight, just as they have lost the power of speech from living in isolation…’ The poor priest felt a shiver of unease and foreboding, sensing uncertainty about his ability to open their eyes and to make them open their mouths. And what aggravated this depressing feeling was that, in beginning to lose his hope of resuscitating them, there was being roused inside him a different emotion which he was horrified to acknowledge. In the place of brotherly love and commiseration, he was beginning to feel hostility, resentful hostility and loathing for those sullen people whose eyes did not leave the ground and who could not utter a word.

  ‘But please say something, for pity’s sake!’ Father Llàtzer shouted. ‘Speak just one word! You seem to be dumb… or dead… Oh, my Lord God! Dead!’

  With this they began to recite all their miseries, the eternal litany of complaints they would voice whenever their affairs were pried into.

  ‘We are so poor…’

  ‘We are short of so many things…’

  ‘We are so behind with our rent…’

  ‘The last harvest was so lean…

  ‘So many of our animals have died…’

  ‘Things are so very hard…’

  ‘But I am asking you not for material possessions or for money, good God above!’ the priest said, starting to feel impatient. ‘I am asking you only for hearts, spirits, arms that might help me, bodies that can move, legs that can walk… All I am asking for is willpower, just a little strength of will! The building work needed on our poor church can be done by our own labours. I’ll get one or two skilled craftsmen to come up from Ametlla village, but you must help me in the holy work of restoring God’s temple… Those of you who have pine trees on your land can bring trunks to form scaffolding; those living near the cliffs can lay stone surfaces on the tracks leading to here; along the way up from Uià there is enough limestone to produce several loads from a kiln, for cement; we can bring up from the stream below the mill as much sand as might be needed…’

  They all stayed silent, as though not understanding what they were hearing.

  ‘You mean that you refuse to do anything for the church!’ exclaimed the priest indignantly. ‘You refuse to do anything for God!’

  Not a word was heard. Everyone stayed silent. The priest was looking at them, his eyes full of rage… and again there came into his mind the manic idea that the whole throng which he saw before him was nothing but a flock of animals. ‘Beasts of the field… Wild creatures that inhabit the woods… They even have that look about them, and the same way of behaving! God forgive me if I am in sin!’ he thought, ‘but I cannot rid myself of this infernal fixation. That is what they are. That’s what they are! It is enough to look at that man with the double chin and watery eyes to see that he is an ox, every bit an ox. And that one, with his round face and startled eyes, and his little pointy nose… that’s it, he’s an owl. Then him over there, with his sagging goitre and lumps all over his head, looks like a toad… And that other one, with the bad limp, he’s a frog, when he does his strange sort of hops. God forgive me! God forgive me!’ And horrified by his own thoughts which seemed like surges of madness, the priest stood forth, raising a compassionate arm, and said to his rustic parishioners:

  ‘Go away, leave in the name of God. And may the Lord bless you all!’

  The woodlanders were waiting to hear nothing else. They all turned tail and left, one of them slipping away towards the Ocata ridge, another disappearing in the direction of the Black Wood, each of them seeking their lair, in order once more to bury themselves alive.

  Those who were going the same way muttered quietly:

  ‘What a palaver the priest man came out with!’

  ‘Gobbledygook!’

  ‘And that crazed look in his eye…’

  ‘There’s something not right about him!’

  Others smiled with an air of mockery:

  ‘Go on then… build his new church for him,’ said Pere Mestre as he limped along.

  ‘That’s it…’ replied old man Pugna, making his goitre wobble. ‘And meanwhile my house is falling to pieces…’

  ‘Mine’s damn-near collapsed already…’ added the Truffle Man, smirking.

  El Bellver, Figueró-Montmany

  (Courtesy of Paquita Dosrius)

  View of L’Ullà, 1960s.

  (Courtesy of the Municipal Archive, Figueró-Montmany)

  VII

  The Local Entertainer

  Every Sunday and feast day, after lunch, it was usual for the younger men of those hillsides and ravines to head up to Puiggraciós and the church with its hostel bar.

  This was the meeting place at daybreak for those scattered worshippers of the district who had gone to early Mass when, every now and then, it was celebrated by some local priest or other. Later in the day, from noon through to the evening, it doubled as the haunt of card players intent on their game of brisca or truc. In the early morning what used to dominate
the scene were the women’s white headdresses, converging from all directions and going into the little church, summoned by the cracked sound of the bell which seemed to be saying, amid the silence of the woods around: Up you come, dang, dang… Come up, please, dang… Then, from late morning onwards, the place was taken over by males of all ages, some of them quite young, who, with a carnation tucked above one ear and cracking roasted pine nuts, went into the run-down hostel that was set like a buttress against the lower part of the church wall. The same pottering landlord who had assisted at morning Mass, wearing the surplice over his trousers, had now become the innkeeper who went to and from the wine barrel, collecting from his wife the glass pitchers with slender conical spouts after she had carefully filled them, and then delivering these porrons to the clients at the regular gathering: a shepherd or two, farmhands, charcoal burners or woodsmen turning up from who knows where…

  It was now quite some time since Mass had been said in the church… but this did not mean that, on any Sunday afternoon, you would not find a sizeable crowd in the hostel bar, all playing at truc or brisca and draining glass after glass of wine.

  Getting to the place was no problem at all for the people up at Ocata: a few good strides, and there they were. But the men who came from the far side of the Black Wood, or from beyond the ridge where the Romaní farm stood, had a long walk to make. There was a shepherd from even further away, from the hamlet of Vallcàrcara, who used to take a good hour between leaving home and showing his face at Puiggraciós… And then quite a few of them turned off from their direct route, making a deliberate detour, in order to drop down for a drink of water at the Fairy Spring, close to Rovira. Among all the springs thereabouts, most of them inhabited by mysteries and legends, the Fairy Spring was the one most renowned for its healing properties… The contingent who climbed by that route from around Uià never failed to make a stop here, even though the drop down into the deep gully where the water gushed out was tricky and even dangerous for anybody who was not completely sure of the way. While the visitor’s feet were still on the poplar-clad ledge, there was no difficulty… but the rock chute which had to be negotiated next was so very tight, so damp and slippery, that one had to cling firmly to branches and thicket, in order to avoid crashing down to the dark bed of the ravine. The thing was that the waters of the Fairy Spring were famous for bringing benefit to all who drank there, preventing bad dreams and protecting against misfortune… And so it really was not right to pass that way without going down to take a drink of the miraculous water, or perhaps even just to wet one’s fingers there and to cross oneself, as long as nobody else was standing close enough to see.