Homeland

by Fernando Aramburu

From there they went on to the Sistine Chapel.

  60

  DOCTORS WITH DOCTORS

  Txato was leaving the table to have a siesta. He pointed out that they’d just met the woman, that it was too soon to judge her; but Bittori, severe, cutting, still wearing her apron, insisted: male doctors with female doctors, male nurses with female nurses. Then came her disdainful lip and the satirical wag of her neck:

  “The cute little couple. For God’s sake, she’s three years older than he is. Does this innocent need a second mother or what?”

  “Come on now.”

  “Well, am I right or not?”

  “And if our son hears you talking like that you’ll know if you’re right or not.”

  “I’m talking to you. There’s no reason for Xabier to hear anything.”

  They’d left a few minutes earlier, holding hands. At their age! The cute, happy little couple. People in town must be laughing their heads off. Sunday and clouds. The Real team was playing at five. At the end of the match, she’d pick him up, reel him in, and keep pulling the line until she lands the fish and stuffs him into the creel.

  Bittori opened the balcony door wide.

  “You can’t breathe in here. Don’t tell me she isn’t over the top. Even the consommé tasted like perfume.”

  “Well, I didn’t notice. Now, you’re not going to tell me she isn’t good-looking.”

  “What do you know about it? Go on, get to bed and dream about trucks.”

  The four of them could just as well have gone to a restaurant. Txato had suggested it immediately. And the fact is he didn’t want to meddle in anyone’s business. Xabier made the same suggestion a little later over the telephone, encouraged by Aránzazu, who wanted to present herself “on neutral territory.” Both father and son were willing to pay the bill, but Bittori said absolutely not. Her motive? In her opinion, in restaurants everyone behaves artificially and it was easier to get to know people at home.

  Txato:

  “You’d rather spend the whole morning cooking?”

  “So what? When you brought me to your village to meet your family, your mother made the food. Chickpea soup and fried chicken. I still remember. And when we were done, I helped her clean up. On the other hand, this grande dame didn’t even offer to lend a hand. Very elegant, that one, and nicely made up and all, but she could certainly see that I was taking away the plates and she didn’t lift a finger. Nice manners!”

  They were expected at half past one. A quarter hour earlier, Bittori had set Txato to keep an eye out, without their seeing you, understood?, next to the balcony door with strict instructions. One, he shouldn’t even think of touching the curtains, which are freshly washed; two, he was to warn her as soon as he saw them coming down the street, since for nothing in this world did she want to receive that woman wearing an apron.

  “ ‘That woman’? Her name is Aránzazu.”

  “I couldn’t care less what her name is.”

  Besides, she wanted to look her over before the introductions. Oh yes, three: he should not sample anything on the table—asparagus in mayonnaise, Jabugo ham, cod croquettes, barnacles, shrimp.

  “I know exactly how many and how much there is.”

  Txato doing sentinel duty, God give me patience, watched over the street, which was practically deserted because it was Sunday. And at the appointed hour, punctual, holding hands, they entered his visual field, she carrying a bouquet. How tall she is, how good-looking, how elegant. Impressed, he enjoyed a few moments of pleasure contemplating the woman before he warned Bittori, who came in from the kitchen taking nervous steps and loosening her apron as fast as she could.

  “The shoes don’t go with the dress.”

  “To me she looks like a monument of a woman.”

  “Don’t touch the curtains, please.”

  “She’s a knockout! She’s almost as tall as our son.”

  “That black hair is not natural. And that brooch on her lapel, from here, looks like a stain. I’d say the lady doesn’t have much taste.”

  After the couple said their farewells, didn’t Txato, who had eaten and drunk enough for three, have his siesta? He tried. Bittori, busy in the kitchen, could not calm down. She, the mother in monologue, the mother in pain, had a heart-to-heart talk with the soapsuds. Her son with that woman, a mere auxiliary nurse. She emitted adverse opinions toward an audience composed of filthy dishes. To the scouring pad she said this, to the faucet she said something else. She received no answers, and did not find the understanding she desired. At all costs, she needed the proximity of human ears. At home, in those moments, she found no other ears but those of Txato. As a result, regretting the effect on her husband’s digestion and repose, she entered—is that entering?—okay, she burst into the room. She came in from the kitchen talking to herself, drying her hands on her apron. Never quiet, she sat on the edge of the bed. She shook her husband.

  “How is it possible you can sleep so calmly?”

  Goodbye, siesta. His tongue thick, he muttered, what’s wrong, what’s going on? Bittori didn’t answer. She didn’t even seem interested in conversing. She didn’t want someone to talk to her. All she wanted was ears.

  “I don’t see how Xabier can be happy with that woman. She may have all the virtues you like. But I, for my part, don’t see them anywhere. To me she looks like a total lunatic. She didn’t even taste the seafood. Or the ham. I spent the whole morning roasting a suckling pig, which I went all the way to Pamplona to buy, and it turns out she’s a vegetarian. Come on!”

  One action perpetrated by the guest did not escape Bittori’s attention. Which? Thinking no one was watching, she brought those brightly painted lips of hers to Xabier’s ear into which she whispered a request—an order? And the innocent, a man who obeys a subordinate, letting a few seconds pass to pretend the request was coming from him, said:

  “Ama, would you mind removing the piggy’s head?”

  All eyes focused on the platter holding the golden-brown, juicy, pacific little animal at the center of the table. Half a suckling pig specially ordered from a butcher in Pamplona. The money it had cost Bittori, to say nothing of the two-way trip on the bus! And all to provide the guest with a first-rate product.

  Before she bought suckling pigs from Josetxo. She bought everything from him. She relied on him, was friendly with him. Now they don’t even say good morning to each other.

  “Well?”

  “It’s just that Aránzazu isn’t used to it.”

  He defended her, of course. And she’ll take us for primitive carnivores. Bittori could only feel Xabier’s attempted mediation as a knife in the back.

  “Can you imagine our son living with a person like that? My God! In this house, all our lives we’ve been eating meat and fish. And besides all these herbivores are full of manias. What a way she has of talking! Playing the part of the professor, explaining everything all the time. A mere auxiliary nurse! I don’t like her. She’s got the dumb doctor’s number all right. He may know a lot about surgery, but about living with a woman he knows nothing. She took one look and said: I’ll take this one. A divorcée as clever as a hungry rat. A secondhand woman, who’s had more experiences than she’s had hot meals. She eats like a bird. The cake, not one bite. She’d like to, but this morning she had her daily dose of carbohydrates. As pretentious as they get! Did you see the look on her face when I said I got up at seven this morning to bake it? She doesn’t have the slightest interest in us. She’s got eyes on the prize, catch the surgeon who owns his own house and earns a good salary. Did you see the look on her face when I asked if she wanted to bring home a slice of cake in the Tupperware? No thank you, don’t bother. I felt like slamming it in her face.”

  “Just tell me when the sermon is over. I’m still interested in getting some sleep.”

  “And all that stuff about Rome, to me it stinks to
high heaven! I don’t believe they’re sharing the expenses fifty-fifty. I know Xabier. I’d bet anything he’s paid for the lot.”

  Many years later, in a visit to the cemetery, sitting on the edge of the grave as she sat on the edge of the bed that distant day, Bittori was still mulling over the matter.

  “Of course, I’d like to see Xabier with a wife. But properly married and not with the first woman to sweet-talk him and smile at him like that nurse he brought to dinner one Sunday, remember her? I forget her name. What a bitch! As soon as I saw her I figured out her intentions. You know very well I’ve got a good eye for things like that. And of course, if it’s all going to make our son unhappy, I’d rather he stayed a bachelor.”

  61

  A PLEASING SMALLNESS

  Her face distorted, her footsteps energetic. As soon as he saw her walking toward him in the corridor, he supposed she was coming to scream at him. The newly widowed woman who came into what until yesterday was her husband’s bedroom. She asked a nurse about it, and she, perhaps without the appropriate consideration, gave her the news.

  Now she’s coming to blame someone. Xabier believes it’s usually women who can’t accept the natural fact of death. They look for someone to blame—a murderer? And there he is, a white hospital coat, available for insults, reproaches, accusations: the doctor on duty.

  Under the same circumstances, husbands are usually more easily managed. Generally, they collapse into themselves. The women (the younger women maybe not) explode, pouring out unrestrained emotions. This, at least, is his experience after two decades in the profession. Every so often, a lady just loses it in his presence. An elderly lady of limited culture but with a great capacity for verbal eruptions. Xabier has put up with similar predicaments. He endures them with equanimity.

  This octogenarian has gone too far. Between screams and sobs, she’s managed to offend, to cause an internal agony. Convinced that the doctor—because he’s evil? because he’s lazy?—didn’t do all he could to save the patient, she said to him, in familiar language, out of her head, howling that:

  “If it had been your father instead of my husband, I’m sure you wouldn’t have let him die.”

  She threatens him with a lawsuit. And he, paralyzed. The allusion to his father, might it have been because of the deceased’s age? She’s waving her arms in the air. She opens her mouth to exaggerated size. She’s missing a few molars. And he, impassive, while she recounts that in a hospital in Logroño they cured her of a perforation of her…She searches for the correct term, doesn’t find it, and concludes, brusquely, with a vulgar synonym: guts.

  Without moving a single facial muscle, Xabier stares into the depth of those weeping, ridiculous, furious eyes. A moment later, with the lady a bit calmer, Xabier asks her with cold respect:

  “Do you know my father?”

  “No. And I don’t have to. But for sure if your father was the sick one you’d have worked harder.”

  That was all he wanted to find out. If she knew him, if she knows what happened. Xabier has not the slightest interest in continuing to listen to the old lady. He doesn’t even offer his sympathy. He politely asks her to excuse him, but he has to take care of other patients. After a while, his spirits at low ebb, he’s seated at the desk in his office. He pours cognac into a plastic cup. He downs it in one gulp. He fills the glass again, never taking his eyes off his father’s photo. His severe eyebrows, the ears that, fortunately, neither he nor his sister inherited. In Xabier’s ears the screeching voice of the lady in the hallway still echoes. You wouldn’t have let him die. Aita, did I let you die? In any case, he didn’t stop it from happening. You didn’t stop it from happening, Xabier. Who says that? His father’s serious eyes say it. And ever since, you haven’t dared, it shamed you, you considered yourself unworthy to tear chunks of happiness from life.

  After the second drink, he looked up at the spiderweb, looking for good moments of the past, which he did have, of course he had them, and not only in childhood, when it’s easier to harbor illusions. Now, on the other hand, he’s experiencing something like a repulsion for happiness.

  How many times has he been tempted to ask the cleaning women please not to clear away that web! Just one blow would deprive him of so many memories. It would deprive him, without going any farther, of this one he’s having now, after the third shot of cognac, which restores to him the image of Aránzazu. When, where? If he put his mind to it he could date it precisely. Everything that has happened in his life has taken place at a determined temporal distance from the death of his father. He got his degree seven years before, he attended that cardiovascular-surgery congress in Munich nine years after. In the same way historical facts are dated in relation to the birth of Jesus Christ. And Aránzazu is prior to the zero point and also a little, very little, after, barely a few hours after.

  He remembers the place and the time. The Gaviria café, on the Avenida, at nightfall. It’s summer. A year and a few months before. But neither he nor she could know what would happen in that instant. Since all the outdoor seats were taken, they decided to sit inside.

  He swallows another cognac, which will later oblige him to take a taxi home. He can’t explain why such an apparently trivial episode should come to mind; but you can’t ask a cobweb to choose its victim. It grabs, if in fact it does grab, what lands on it, even if, as in the case of this memory, a pleasing smallness, a game played by incipient lovers.

  He, the doctor still doing his residency, is seated here; she, the auxiliary nurse, is at the opposite end of the table. It isn’t their first date. They’ve slept together twice. The last time, last night, but what does that mean? He stares at her, scrutinizing; he can’t stop himself. Aránzazu has for a while been relating, with visible intensity, an episode from her private life. What’s she saying? Something about when she was married. He’s barely listening. Fascinated, he observes her lips and for a moment he doesn’t care that she notices. Those lips when Aránzazu speaks and when she takes an elegant drag on her cigarette. Cool, feminine lips, nicely shaped, that move naturally and when she pronounces the letter u suggest a kiss that vanishes into the air. Enchanting lips over which he would pass his tongue slowly right now. Those lips in Aránzazu’s attractive face are tormenting him. And I, who work with bodies, who must make an effort not to see in them only organs and blood vessels and muscular tissue and bones, find myself carried away by an irresistible erotic impulse.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “I imagine you’ve been told quite often that you’re very pretty.”

  “In other words, you’re not listening to me.”

  “That would be impossible.”

  “I’m not the woman I once was. The years have gone by.”

  “Nature outdid herself in your case.”

  “Come on, Xabier, you’re going to make me blush.”

  Then he placed his right hand flat on the table, palm upward like a beggar asking for money. Chimpanzees also hold their open hand out to their fellows to ask reconciliation, I don’t know, as a hospitable, peaceful sign (I read it somewhere). And Aránzazu responded, placing her much smaller hand on Xabier’s, palm against palm.

  The spiderweb, up there, held that concise, distant memory. Touch told him that in Aránzazu’s hand there was a deep concentration of humanity. A warm, smooth hand. The hand of a woman who has suffered disillusion and, certainly, suffering; who has worked a lot, a hand that has taken things away, carried things, lifted things, and which is, was, a marvelous instrument of pleasure.

  He is seeing her with her delicate skin, her slender, confident fingers, the nails red. Suddenly he felt in his hand the entire person her touch announced with an enormous flood of tenderness. Dear God, this woman is in love right down to her marrow.

  62

  HOUSE SEARCH

  The four of them were asleep when the raid began. There were at least six of the
m, some wearing ski masks, screaming when it seemed unnecessary. There were even more in the entryway. Others cordoned off the street. A squad of the Guardia Civil. Bam, bam, open up! Miren, in bed, to Joxian:

  “Who should answer the door?”

  “Go see who it is.”

  “Who do you think it is? The police of course.”

  First they rang the buzzer. Then they pounded on the door. By then the whole neighborhood must have been awake. Miren, with the night-table lamp on, quickly slid her feet into her slippers and pulled her bathrobe over her nightgown. To Joxian she said that:

  “This must be about Joxe Mari.”

  No sooner had she cracked open the door than they pushed it open. She saw the barrel of a gun. She saw two black boots on the doormat. Come on, get out of the way. They’d come to search. And the txakurras scattered themselves over the house so quickly that she wasn’t sure how many had entered.

  They gathered the four of them in the dining room. Gorka in underpants and barefoot. They’d given Arantxa enough time to slip something on, but she, too, had nothing on her feet. And Joxian, in pajamas with a large urine stain on his pajama bottoms.

  The search warrant? It didn’t occur to them to ask to see it. What could they know? They also knew nothing about Joxe Mari, all except Gorka, as they found out later, but the boy hadn’t wanted to tell them anything. In any case, the police did have a search warrant. The one holding it was the same man who said that sooner or later they’d catch the terrorist and then they’d teach him right from wrong. Then he tossed the warrant to the floor, so you can blow your nose with it, and then asked which was Joxe Mari’s room.

  “My son doesn’t live here.”

  “Your son’s official residence is this house and we know you have weapons.”

  “Well, he doesn’t live here.”

  Tell us which room is his or we’ll turn this place upside down. Then to Gorka, who are you, how old are you? And Miren thinks that if the boy were two years older, they’d have taken him away. Gorka identified himself. Still very young. Self-conscious, he asked if he could get dressed.