The Farm
Page 1
Copyright © Héctor Abad Faciolince, 2014,
by arrangement with Literarische Agentur Mertin Inh.
Nicole Witt e.K. Frankfurt am Main, Germany
English Translation © 2018 Anne McLean
First Archipelago Books Edition, 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Archipelago Books
232 3rd Street #A111
Brooklyn, NY 11215
www.archipelagobooks.org
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication
Title: The farm / Háector Abad; translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean.
Description: First Archipelago Books edition. | New York, NY : Archipelago Books, 2018
Identifiers: LCCN 2017057968 (print) | LCCN 2018000087 (ebook)
ISBN 9780914671930 (ebook) | ISBN 9780914671923 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Brothers and sisters–Colombia–Fiction.
Family life–Colombia–Fiction.
Classification: LCC PQ8180.1.B33 (ebook) | LCC PQ8180.1.B33 O2813 2018
(print) | DDC 863/.64–dc23
Ebook ISBN 9780914671930
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017057968
Cover photograph by Simón Abad
Distributed by Penguin Random House
www.penguinrandomhouse.com
This book was made possible by the New York State
Council on the Arts with the support of
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Archipelago Books also gratefully acknowledges the generous support from Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
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CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Antonio
Eva
Pilar
Antonio
Pilar
Eva
Pilar
Antonio
Eva
Antonio
Pilar
Antonio
Eva
Antonio
Pilar
Eva
Antonio
Eva
Antonio
Eva
Antonio
Eva
Pilar
Antonio
Pilar
Antonio
Eva
Antonio
Pilar
Antonio
Eva
Antonio
Eva
Pilar
Antonio
Eva
Antonio
Eva
Antonio
Eva
Antonio
Pilar
Antonio
Pilar
Eva
Antonio
Eva
Antonio
Eva
Pilar
Acknowledgements
But the field of the suburbs of their cities may not be sold; for it is their perpetual possession.
Leviticus, 25:34
I could live here forever, he thought, or till I die. Nothing would happen, every day would be the same as the day before, there would be nothing to say. […] He could understand that people should have retreated here and fenced themselves in with miles and miles of silence; he could understand that they should have wanted to bequeath the privilege of so much silence to their children and grandchildren in perpetuity (though by what right he was not sure).
J. M. Coetzee
And I was sold in the end,
because I came to be so valued in their ledgers,
I no longer had any value in their hearts…
Dulce María Loynaz
ANTONIO
The telephone rang in the dark, early hours of a New York winter’s night. The only people who call at that time are drunks who have the wrong number or relatives with bad news. I hoped it was the former, but it was Eva, my sister:
“Toño I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, but Mamá died in her sleep this morning. Pilar called from the farm to say that last night, after dinner, she’d said she wasn’t feeling well. Of course lately, you know, she never feels well when she eats. Nothing agrees with her. So she went to bed. But this morning Pilar got up very early, to see how she was doing, and found her dead.”
“I’ll go straight to the airport and be on the first flight I can get,” I told her.
I felt a deep sorrow, like a thick, gray cloud throughout my body. A pain in my chest and throat, and the wave of sadness rose up to my eyes, uncontainable. How old was my mother? She said 88, but she was actually 89. When she was 25, and her family was pestering her to hurry up and get married, it made a bit of sense to pretend to be a year younger than she actually was. Then not so much, and later, even less, and by the time she was 89, even she thought it was funny to still be subtracting a year from her age. I felt guilty for not having phoned her that week. I usually spoke to her on Thursdays, almost every week. Every Thursday morning she connected to Skype to wait for my call. Jon came out of the bathroom and saw my face, asked what had happened. He didn’t ask with words, his eyes and hands formed the question.
“Anita died.”
“I’ll come with you to Medellín if you want,” he said. He sat down beside me and put his big, soft hand on my back. We sat there together for a while, in silence. Finally I answered:
“No, don’t worry, I’ll go on my own this time.” Something caught in my throat. I swallowed. “You should concentrate on your exhibition. My sisters will understand.”
We sat together for a while on the bed, in silence, holding hands, knowing that words would only get in the way. Finally I stood up and went to look at my mother’s last few messages. The most recent was affectionate and specific, as always: Settling accounts, read the subject heading.
My love: I tried to call you, but the little green light was off. I just wanted to tell you that I used one of your checks yesterday to pay your share of the council tax for La Oculta. I also transferred 816,000 pesos into Pilar’s account for your share of Próspero’s salary and the upkeep installment. I still have three of the checks you signed, in safekeeping. In our joint account, there’s a credit balance in my favor of 2,413,818 pesos, which I have no need to withdraw until my next credit card bill, in April. I went to see Dr. Correa today and he found me quite well. For the moment I have not the slightest interest in dying, though I’m a bit downhearted sometimes with Eva’s situation. Last week she told me she’s finally going to stop seeing Santiago, the widower Caicedo, you know, who she’s been going out with for almost four years. On the one hand I was pleased, because the age difference is too big, almost twenty years, and she’d have no company in old age with him. But on the other hand I’m sorry because she’s seemed content since she’s been with him. You told me when they went to New York last year, in spite of the age difference and wheelchair, Eva looked happy. And at Christmas they were fine, you saw for yourself, so it came as a surprise. Whenever she breaks up with someone it’s always a leap into the void. She gets depressed, and we never know what’s going to come of it. Santiago, in spite of his age, seemed sweet, although sometimes people said he looked more like my husband than Eva’s boyfriend. Oh, that’s what Pilar said on Christmas Eve, and Eva heard her tell me. It really hurt her feelings. Pilar is not the most discreet person in the world.
Anyway, what worries me most is that sometimes it seems nobody’s good enough for Eva, but at the same time she doesn’t like to be alone. No more on that subject. It makes me very sad. What most cheers me up is knowing that I’m going to see you for Easter. I think your visit will cure all that ails me. Say hello to Jon for me. I send you a kiss and all my love as ever,
Ana
* * *
All my mother’s letters were like that, practical and warm at the same time: the accounts all clear, and things going on in her life or the lives of her daughters or grandchildren. She looked after my Colombian bank accounts, almost all related to the farm. She was almost ninety years old, but she was more lucid than my sisters or me. Looking after my accounts in Colombia even kept her more alert. In other messages she’d written about the possible sale of a section of La Oculta to pay for the damages a gale had caused when a tree fell on top of the water tanks. She didn’t think the sale of more land was a good idea because at the rate we were going we’d end up with just the house left and surrounded by strangers, but at the same time she wasn’t prepared to have to take on those expenses, since she couldn’t leave herself with no savings for the final years of her life. The problem was that Eva, since she only went to the farm at Christmas, because she was still aggrieved about what had happened there some time ago, didn’t want to contribute a single centavo more toward the repairs and it was hard enough to get her to pay her share of the regular installment for taxes, bills, and salaries. She’d rather sell it. But selling it, for Pilar, would be like death.
I didn’t want to sell the farm either, even if I do live in the United States for most of the year. Colombia for me was my mother, my sisters, and La Oculta, our hidden-away farm. Now Anita had died, and with her an enormous piece of my life. The strange thing is that she’d died at the farm and not in Medellín, where she lived. Though if I thought about it, her dying at La Oculta on a Sunday just before dawn made a lot of sense. Thinking about my mother, about her death, I realized that we’d never have been able to hang on to the farm – which we’d inherited from my father’s side of the family – if not for her. Despite the fact that my mother had no family connection to this land, she’d been the one who sold her own apartment to enable us to keep it when we’d been on the verge of selling, shortly after the death of Cobo, my father Jacobo; she was the one who’d spent part of the bakery’s profits on improvements and repairs to the house; she was the one who gathered us all together at La Oculta, in December, in her sweet and firm way of doing things. She invited us all, shopped for everyone, cooked for everyone, and in those weeks together her children and grandchildren revolved around her like planets round a warm, benign, irresistible sun. So even though she wasn’t the owner of La Oculta, because Cobo had left it to his children, not his wife, the farm was indivisible from her, and now almost inconceivable without her presence. With Mamá no longer alive, without her cheerfulness, her recipes, her trips to the market, going to the farm would never be the same again. Someone would have to take over her position, Eva or Pilar, but I wasn’t sure either of them wanted to. I would never have enough joy, energy, or love to take on the role of gathering the whole family together.
Jon went to the airport with me and helped me find the quickest route. The only direct flight to Medellín had already gone, so I had to change planes in Panama. Since my hands were shaking and my English was failing me, he kindly did everything. He also paid for it all on his credit card and stayed with me until I had to pass through security. We had a long, tender, necessary hug and I left his shirt damp on the shoulder. In the departure lounge I looked through the files on my laptop for old photos of Mamá. Photos from her youth, where she was smiling and pretty, full of life, with her whole future ahead. I found one of her holding me, a year old, in her arms, and we’re both smiling and looking at each other happy and in love. I posted it on Facebook, which is where we now announce bereavements, visits, and commiserations, and as I wrote a couple of sentences about her, the teardrops rolling down my cheeks fell onto the keyboard. I don’t know if people were staring at me, but I didn’t care. A short time later my friends began to leave messages of condolence, some very beautiful, and to write fond memories of Anita.
I managed to get to Medellín that night. While waiting for my luggage I noticed that my shoes didn’t go with my trousers and when my suitcase arrived I changed shoes in the restroom. My mother dead and me thinking about silly things like that, my conscience scolded me, but I couldn’t help it, that’s just the way I am. Benjamín, Eva’s son, was waiting for me at the exit. My youngest nephew looked handsome and sad, and we hugged. From there we still had an almost four-hour drive to La Oculta. Pilar had already arranged for a Mass to be held the next day in Jericó. They were keeping vigil over Anita at the farm. Benjamín told me his mother had gone there first thing that morning, after calling me. That his Aunt Pilar had been getting his grandmother ready, that a doctor had signed the death certificate and the priest from Palermo had been down to bless her.
* * *
Two or three years ago Auntie Ester, my father’s sister, had also died at La Oculta and it was as if the farm was turning into a place to go to die. Auntie Ester had acute kidney failure, but she was very old and at that age they don’t do transplants, so she underwent dialysis for something like four years, but her health kept deteriorating until she finally said she didn’t want any more dialysis or any other treatments and just wanted to go and die at La Oculta. Pilar took her in, pleased to have her at the farm because Ester was her favorite aunt and glad to be able to look after her. They set up a hospital bed in the same old room that had been hers when she was single, and they hired a night nurse. Auntie Ester’s children came from Medellín to visit their mother every once in a while and to thank Pilar for taking care of her. Auntie Ester gradually faded away – she grew increasingly weak, paler and thinner, as fragile as a little bird – and eventually they began to give her morphine. When she lost consciousness and they could tell she was suffering because she was moaning and groaning, Pilar sent the nurse out of the room, asked her to heat up some broth in the kitchen, took a syringe and injected our aunt with a high dose of morphine, something like five ampoules in a row, she told me in secret, and Auntie Ester slipped away serenely, so relaxed that her body just forgot to keep breathing. Then Pilar called Auntie Ester’s children and told them that their mother had died peacefully, and began to get her ready so they’d find her presentable when they came for her. Pilar had always been the one to dress the family’s dead.
She has been dressing corpses since she was twenty-one years old. My father, who was a doctor, taught her how to prepare someone when they die, so there wouldn’t be unpleasant surprises before the funeral. In the midst of the pain, and overcoming it, someone has to get over the disgust and the shock, so that life, or to put it better, death, might be a little less insufferable or a little more bearable. Pilar is the firstborn and being the eldest daughter has advantages and disadvantages. There are responsibilities no one else is able to take on because the other siblings are too young. Pilar doesn’t get intimidated by any difficulty; she overcomes just about anything, without ever giving up. Nothing disgusts her, nothing embarrasses her, nothing frightens her. When there’s something almost impossible to figure out, in my family we think: if Pilar can’t solve it, nobody can.
* * *
The dead don’t speak, the dead don’t feel, the dead don’t care if you see them naked, pale, drawn, in the worst moment of their life, in a manner of speaking. Or perhaps there is an even worse moment, underground, or in the crematorium, but this, luckily, we almost never have to see. Pilar has an intimate and affectionate relationship with the dead; she treats them as if what she does really matters to them, as if it would hurt them to be seen in a bad light. She doesn’t dress anyone outside the family. She does up the dead so well (leaves them so presentable, almost as if they were alive) that one of Auntie Ester’s sons, Arturo, a su
ccessful businessman, seeing his dead mother, so well presented, almost a pleasure to see for the last time, proposed going into business with my sister (he offered to put up the capital, my sister would do the handiwork) to set up a corpse-dressing service. My sister didn’t want to. She told him that for her it was almost like arranging a newborn baby, because babies are also born looking horrible, and though they don’t realize it either, they have to be washed, spruced up, their hair brushed, dressed, so their parents and grandparents, when they see them, will be filled with tenderness. The first and last look are very important, says Pilar, and just as a mother wants to see her child looking good the first time, the child also wants to see her mother looking good the last time and that’s why she does it.
In every family, sooner or later, someone succumbs. When that happens in mine, Pilar is always there and she does what needs to be done, but not for money. She dressed our grandparents, some aunts and uncles, her mother-in-law, our father when his heart burst from so much suffering over Lucas, his eldest grandson, and some children of her closest friends. Now she will be dressing, or will already have dressed Anita. We don’t really know what it is that she does. I know she uses cotton, gauze, and candlewax to seal up orifices. According to her, death is compassionate to the face because people swell up a bit when they die, and that erases a lot of wrinkles, which is good, and the only shocking thing is the pallor, and so the first thing she does is put on a bit a color. She has to choose the foundation depending on the skin tone, blushers, lipstick, powder, mascara, and injections to give the skin back some vitality. She is an expert makeup artist and from a very young age she’s been doing Mamá’s hair and makeup for parties, so she’s had some experience. Whenever she dresses a corpse, she looks at photos of the person, and makes their face look like it did, preferably a bit younger. When I go from New York to Medellín I always take her cosmetics, little scissors and tweezers as gifts; it’s what she most likes me to bring her, although this time there hasn’t been a second to buy anything, just a couple of lipsticks I got on sale last week, a vermillion red and an irresistible fuchsia, according to the packages. I was also bringing her the news that now that our mother was gone, our turn to die had arrived. A piece of news that Pilar already knew because when we got there she told us that she had felt, since dawn, that old age had truly befallen her the very moment she’d seen that Mamá was no longer breathing.