Unhappy Christmas

  ‘Antonia...’ Jacob whispered softly.

  Antonia opened her eyes, looked at Jacob confused and then turned and saw Natalia.

  ‘Oh, Maria, I fell asleep!’

  ‘Antonia, she’s not called Maria, she’s called Natalia,’ said Fatima, amused.

  ‘Shut up brat! I should know who Maria is! How's the show going? Am I on yet?’

  Natalia was speechless. She didn’t know how to react.

  ‘Come on girl, don’t just stand there, say something! Is it my turn or not?’ Antonia scratched her sparse head of hair with her rough hands, damping her fingers with spittle to smooth down her hair. ‘How do I look?’

  Natalia was so surprised and fascinated by what she was seeing and hearing that she was unable to answer.

  ‘You look beautiful, Antonia,’ said Jacob, ‘and don’t worry about your turn, there’s no show today. It’s Christmas Eve. You’ve got a day off.’

  ‘And so I should,’ content, the old lady crossed her arms over her hanging belly and tilted her head with the satisfied dignity and assurance that her Parkinson’s gave her. ‘When’s dinner?’

  Chapter 2

  Dinner at Jacob’s house

  ‘Can I help you with anything?’ Natalia offered.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s all under control,’ Jacob replied, taking the saucepans out of the bags. ‘Anyway, you’re my guest.’

  ‘I’ve set the table Jacob,’ said Fatima, proudly.

  ‘Well done sweetheart. Thank you very much.’

  Natalia was standing in the middle of the living room. She felt slightly uncomfortable, out of place in that ruin of a house, with no electricity, just a fire to give warmth and light, accompanied by a strange family of tramps, but above all she felt strange seeing the home life of those individuals who were tiptoeing around as if they lived in a haunted mansion.

  Antonia’s voice brought her back down to earth:

  ‘I don’t what's wrong with Maria, just standing there like a dummy. How are you going to make the starring role like that girl? You need more gall, more initiative Maria, you need to go out and conquer the world. Look at me, look at me woman,’ Antonia slapped herself on the shoulders and chest, shaking her head with a spirit and pride that were clouded by Parkinson’s.

  ‘You're right, Antonia. I’ve got a lot to learn,’ admitted Natalia.

  Delicately, Natalia helped Jacob to lift Antonia from the sofa and walk her slowly to the table, where they sat her in a dilapidated but cushioned chair. Jacob sat the girl on another higher chair, next to the granny, and invited Natalia to sit next to him on a board resting on bricks by the wall opposite them.

  On the table there were four tin dishes, chipped and scratched, four spoons and forks with bent handles and four dented green tin cups. They were the remains of a camping set from the eighties, thought Natalia, although that wasn’t a picnic, it didn’t even come close. In the centre of the table sat the two saucepans that Jacob had brought from the bar. Jacob opened one of them and picked up a huge ladle to start serving the soup.

  It was a humble broth, but on that cold night and after such an eventful day, it seemed like a delicacy to Natalia. Jacob finished serving the soup and aimed a charming smile at the three women accompanying him.

  ‘Happy Christmas and bon appétit!’ said Jacob and they all tucked in.

  While they were eating their soup Natalia looked at Antonia and Fatima’s happy faces, both with eyes lost in faraway worlds, far from the reach of the darkness of this world, blind to the sad reality. Jacob looked after his featherless chicks with the care and attention of a mother eagle.

  ‘Do you remember?’ Antonia grabbed Natalia’s hand with her shaky hand and looked her in the eye. ‘I was thirty-two and you were just nineteen, a novice. When we went back on stage to take a bow, remember how I was the secondary actress and went out before the star, that useless mare, but who did the public applaud the most, eh? Who? Do you remember? When I went out, the applause was deafening and it didn’t get any louder when the star went out. It was me they wanted, me they applauded, they applauded me! Me!’

  Antonia shouted excitedly, placing her hand on her chest with the dramaticism of a great diva. When she finally looked back down from the ceiling she fixed her gaze on Natalia. A shiver ran down Natalia’s spine when she saw the glint of ambition deep in the old lady’s eyes.

  ‘What happened to you Maria? Tell me, what happened to you? I don’t remember. I wasn’t really with it back then. Everyone said to me, “Antonia, you were divine.” And the next minute they told me I was conceited. How could I not be? Eh? How could I not be conceited, me, if they adored me?’ She came back down off her pedestal and tenderly stroked Natalia’s hand. ‘What about you Maria? It’s been so long since I heard from you. What happened to you? Did you turn as silly as me?’

  Natalia couldn’t utter a word. Her journalistic fluency was lost to her right then. Antonia, in the pathetic imposing theatre of her dementia, seemed to understand her friend Maria's silence.

  ‘Pour us a drink, will you? We’re going to get tearful,’ she said to Jacob, stroking the back of Natalia’s hand without stopping.

  Jacob reached out to the kitchen cupboard and took out a bottle half-full of an amber liquid that looked like whisky. Antonia held on to the bottle like a dog with a bone. Natalia looked at Jacob, concerned. He winked to tell her not to worry.

  ‘Have a drink, Maria.’

  Natalia went along with it, toasting with iced tea to the olden days when they were both theatre divas.

  ‘Delicious, that’s good soup son. What’s for mains?’

  Jacob and Natalia laughed at Antonia’s enthusiasm and the head of the family lifted the lid off the other pan, where they could see and smell a splendid meat and potato stew. Humble, simple, but it looked and smelled great.

  While he dished it up a lump formed in Natalia's throat thinking about how her twenty euros had helped those four tramps, herself included, to have dinner on Christmas Eve. She thought of all the twenty euro notes she had thrown away that very morning, and felt guilty and stupid.

  The stew was amazing. It wasn’t prime steak and the potatoes and vegetables weren’t anything special but it was full of the flavour of traditional cooking. Natalia thought that must be how the stews that her grandparents ate as children tasted, back in the remote, cold villages around Teruel where they grew up. She looked at Jacob’s family and felt truly grateful to be there with them, but also full of regret for not having gone to see her family.

  ‘What a fantastic cook Anna is lass,’ Antonia declared. ‘She was no good as an actress, but as a cook, she's marvellous, just marvellous. Well, it’s time to get the party started, isn’t it?’

  And without batting an eyelid she burst into song with a Christmas carol. Delighted, the four of them sang old carols together, the songs that the rich kids had already forgotten. After singing three or four, at the rhythm set by Antonia, Jacob searched the pockets of his coats and pulled out a bar of nougat.

  ‘The hard kind, the soft one is for old fogies,’ said Antonia, not realising that Jacob had bought the soft one specially for her. It didn’t really matter, as Antonia ate the soft nougat thinking it was hard and enjoyed every morsel.

  Natalia was amazed, thinking about what had come out of her twenty-euro hand-out, when Jacob searched his magic tramp’s pockets again and pulled out two gifts. Fatima and Antonia squealed in delight. Antonia’s was a cheap bracelet that she thought was made of pearls and nearly cried with joy. He gave Fatima a stuffed toy cow, which she hugged tenderly. Natalia imagined that most of the twenty euros had gone on the toy cow, but even so, she was surprised at how far Jacob had been able to stretch that note and give his family an all-round Christmas Eve.

  But she couldn’t stop to think for long, as Antonio continued singing carols with her new bracelet round her wrist and the others sang along. Then, not having a television, they told Fatima stories of kind princes and evil wizards, sad princess
es and terrible, cruel monsters, faraway kingdoms with skies of gold where the air they breathed was full of gold too.

  Jacob had a gift for telling these magical, fantasy stories. Fatima and Natalia listened to him, spellbound. Antonia dozed, leaning back in her chair, more likely than not dreaming about the very same fairytale realms.

  Fatima soon started to yawn, filling her small mouth with invisible treasure. She asked Natalia to put her to bed. Jacob and Natalia helped the little girl and the old woman, drunk on iced tea, to their luxurious bed chamber behind the blankets, which were no longer blankets, but heavy curtains decorating their room, and helped them into bed like two little princesses, snoozing innocently side by side in each other’s arms. They delicately tucked them in under their blankets and kissed their foreheads, like a doting mother and father, a generous king and queen.

  Now they were alone in the magical palace.

  ‘Come on, let’s go outside,’ said Jacob.

  Jacob took Natalia to a room in the house with a balcony looking out over an old, abandoned patio that was littered with rubble. Jacob rolled a cigarette and smiled at Natalia.

  ‘Look at those views.’

  In the distance above the rubble-littered ground was the Madrid skyline, a horizon of twinkling lights. Sparkling golden threads stretched out in all directions in the black night sky. Natalia was totally awestruck, fascinated by the magic of the evening. She had totally forgotten about Washington, Miguel and even herself.

  Chapter 3

  Dinner at Miguel’s house

  A giant pine tree, which still gave off the aroma of the forest that it had been ripped out of, but was now drowned in extravagant silver decorations, was the focal point of the room. Under the tree was a superfluous Nativity scene made up of enormous figurines in the classical Spanish style. The heating made the air stuffy and dry in the living room decorated with expensive furniture, antiques, wooden cabinets, paintings in golden frames and heavy velvet curtains.

  Sitting around the table, which was covered in an expensive embroidered tablecloth and crockery that might as well be in an art museum, Miguel’s family silently ate their starters.

  Miguel’s parents, his sister Alicia with her husband Ernesto and their two kids, eight and ten, his brother Alfonso and his grandmother Eugenia, Geniuca to family and friends, and Miguel was there too with an empty chair by his side. Miguel poured himself another glass of wine, frustrated and angry; drowning his sorrows seemed to be the best option right now.

  Tita, Miguel’s mother, was taking small bites of her food and pursing her lips so as not to ruin her lipstick. From her expression anyone would think she wasn’t enjoying the food very much at all. Everything about her was shiny and fake, from her golden blonde hair, which matched her chokers, rings and bracelets, to her nails painted as if they were the Baroque altarpiece of a church and her make-up that made her blend in with the varnished furniture around her. She sucked on the head of a langoustine with her typical expression of disgust and the most discrete sucking sound she could muster and then broke the silence that reigned over the dinner table:

  ‘I really don’t understand why your wife hasn’t come to dinner Miguel.’

  ‘She wasn’t feeling well mum, I’ve told you already,’ answered Miguel dryly, looking at his brother Alfonso out of the corner of his eye. His sister Alicia was watching the exchange of looks with a sly, knowing expression on her face.

  ‘But that’s no excuse to miss Christmas Eve dinner. She could have laid over there on the sofa, had a camomile tea and been with us anyway.’

  ‘Well, I think she’s better off staying in bed.’

  ‘I bet. She wasn’t sorry she couldn’t come, let’s face it.’

  Miguel didn’t answer. Just then, the housemaid came in with some more plates of food and put them down on the table. Nobody looked at her or spoke to her. All of the members of the family continued eating in silence. The housemaid cleared away the plates strewn with seafood shells and left.

  ‘Your wife’s always been very distant,’ Tita said suddenly.

  ‘What do you mean by that mum?’ said Miguel, clenching his jaw.

  ‘Well, she’s never really got involved with this family. That’s what it seems like to me anyway. Don’t you think so mummy?’

  Wrinkly old Geniuca, who looked like a featherless parrot dressed up as a human, opened her beady birdlike eyes with a start.

  ‘That girl’s always been a bit different,’ the grandmother concluded. ‘I don’t mean anything bad by that, just... different from us.’

  ‘Yes, she is,’ said Miguel, taking a deep breath.

  ‘You say that as if it were a good thing,’ Tita cawed.

  ‘I did warn him before he got married,’ his grandmother piped up. ‘You can’t marry someone from a different family background from your own. It never turns out well.’

  ‘Don’t be so pessimistic mother, it looks like you’re going to sentence his divorce with your theories. Everything is OK between you, isn’t it Miguel darling?’

  ‘Why do you ask mum?’ snorted Miguel, getting worked up.

  ‘Well son, your wife’s living in another country, which is... I don’t know, strange to say the least, and now she hasn’t shown up for Christmas Eve dinner, which at least in this family and the circles we move in is a sign of disrespect. Maybe it doesn’t seem so to her in her surroundings and family, but it doesn’t look good and you know it Miguel.’

  ‘Do you really want to know why she hasn’t come to dinner?’ said Miguel, challenging, about to go off the rails. Alfonso looked at him, alarmed, but Miguel was no longer looking at his brother. His gaze was fixed on his mother’s eyes, with their bottle green eyeshadow.

  ‘Do you mean that her being ill is a lie? Well, that’s just great!’ she said, maliciously, ‘On top of everything else, she’s turned out to be a liar.’

  ‘Tita, calm down,’ Miguel’s father chimed in, his voice low, almost a whisper.

  ‘Well, yes, it is a lie, but it’s not Natalia’s lie. She was going to come to dinner, she’s flown back from the States so she could come but something happened and she changed her plans.’

  Miguel’s mother was gobsmacked. She didn’t know whether to ask what had happened or keep her mouth shut to avoid a catastrophe. The whole family was dumbstruck at the possibility of an imminent scandal.

  ‘Don’t you want to know what happened?’ asked Miguel, defiant, his tone halfway between sinister and sarcastic.

  ‘It’s best not to ask dear,’ grandma Geniuca intervened, ‘it could be any profanity knowing that woman.’

  ‘Really grandmother?’ Miguel forced a smiled. ‘Let’s see if this is profane enough for you: Natalia arrived home by surprise this morning. I thought she was arriving later and she came in the house and caught me in bed with another woman.’

  Miguel’s niece shrieked. His sister Alicia looked at him in disgust.

  ‘How dare you say that in front of my daughter?’ she snapped.

  ‘Didn’t you want to know the truth? Well, there you have it. While my wife was away working in the States, I’ve been sleeping with another woman. But today she caught me and now she’s gone. That’s why she hasn’t come to dinner. Is that a profanity?’

  ‘The profanity is spilling all this dirt on Christmas Eve in front of all your family,’ said Tita bitterly.

  ‘If you hadn’t spent the whole evening trying to humiliate me and insulting my wife with your snobbish prejudices, you wouldn’t have had to hear it. So if you don’t like what you've heard, tough shit!’

  Miguel stood up and without looking back or saying goodbye, walked out, slamming the door behind him.

  ‘How horrific! There’s nothing worse than getting carried away on the wine and causing a scene,’ said Tita, trying to act normal.

  ‘Look what he’s ended up doing, getting together with Little Miss ‘I want but I can’t’. I hope you choose a better wife Alfonso.’

  ‘I don’t think so gran
dma.’

  ‘You will, you’ll see, you’re a wonderful lad, you’re not going to end up a bachelor.’

  ‘No, I’m sure I won’t, but it won’t be with a woman. It’ll be a man.’

  Grandma Geniuca’s fish knife fell out of her hand, clattering on the plate for a few seconds. A piece of sea bream hung from her mouth, open in an expression of senile amazement. Alfonso’s nephew sniggered.

  Tita rubbed her temples lightly and took a deep breath ready to say something through her wrinkled, made-up lips, but just then the housemaid came in with more trays and everyone went silent. When she had gone, taking away the empty plates, the silence lingered for a few seconds until it was broken by the giggles that Alicia’s children could no longer hold back.

  ‘What are you laughing at you nitwits?’ their mother bellowed.

  ‘Uncle Alfonso’s a poof,’ said the boy, still giggling.

  His mother put a stop to his amusement with a loud slap. The child, offended and red-faced, got up from the table and ran out. His mother stood up, glaring at her brother and followed him.

  Tita gracefully picked up her fork and looked at her son-in-law:

  ‘So, Ernesto, how’s it going at work? A little bird tells me that you’re going to build a shopping centre. That’s fantastic, isn’t it?’

  And with that enthusiastic, casual question the Christmas Eve meal continued as if nothing had happened.

  Chapter 4

  Confessions of two tramps

  Natalia and Jacob were staring up at the sky over Madrid from the balcony above the rubble heap. In the distance they could hear Antonia snoring in peaceful slumber. Jacob smoked peacefully, looking at the city lights that almost blocked out the light of the stars. Maybe it was a kind of optical illusion, but Natalia could have sworn that up in the sky one star was shining brighter than the rest. It was just for an instant, a flash of perception. It was so brief that she couldn’t share it with Jacob and so intense that it made her doubt her own senses. When she turned around she found herself defenceless and surprised, with Jacob’s ebony eyes setting her a sincere, affectionate trap.