“Nobody leaves this room.”
Shortly after, another txakurra ordered the four of them out on the landing, just as they were, saying be very careful about opening a drawer or touching anything. And he shoved Gorka either for no reason whatsoever or because he wasn’t moving quickly enough.
Soon after the four left the apartment, the court clerk, with a sleepy face, appeared and greeted them as if they were lifelong friends. Two armed Guardia Civiles guarded them, one on the stairway leading to the second floor, the other up against the street door.
Miren’s face was tense, hard, expressing rage. She offered Gorka her bathrobe, you’re going to be cold; but the boy, gloomy and silent, didn’t accept.
Every so often the lights would go out. The guard standing at the street door was right next to the switch and he triggered it from time to time. The neighbors’ peephole was covered with tape. An X. I don’t know if despite that the neighbors saw or not, but at a given moment, one of them, he or she, silently opened the door a little, enough to reach out a hand and toss two blankets onto the floor of the landing.
Joxian was shivering. Gorka was shivering. Father and son distributed the blankets. Arantxa said she didn’t need to cover up. Don’t bother asking Miren: anger warmed her. From inside the apartment came disturbing noises from time to time. Miren muttered:
“They’re going to wreck the apartment.”
Arantxa asked the guards if we can sit down and one of them, shrugging his shoulders, answered that he didn’t give a shit if you sit or don’t sit. So, the girl sat on the stairway to the next floor; Gorka, wrapped in the neighbors’ blanket, soon joined her. Joxian, after a long while, sat on the floor. He constantly checked his watch, worried because at six he had to go to work. Only Miren remained standing, stiff, dignified, resentful.
At a certain moment, they began to hear voices in the street. Young people from the village who had jumped out of bed and clustered on street corners in the darkness were shouting slogans in chorus: police, murderers; txakurrak kanpora and the usual.
The search went on for almost four hours. They even brought a dog into the apartment; in Miren’s opinion, so it could drool all over our things and, in case you didn’t notice, to piss and shit. The way they left the flat was as if a hurricane had ripped through it. What for, when Joxe Mari had left practically nothing in his old room? The one who suffered most was Gorka. They took away his school portfolio, a notebook with manuscript poems, an album of photos and similar objects. Arantxa lost a dozen videos.
The day dawned gray. Joxian rode his bicycle to the foundry. He skipped breakfast and having a good wash, but even so he was going to be late. Arantxa had time to put her room back together before going to work. She was complaining that they’d poured out a bottle of perfume, a gift from Guillermo. One of the drawers on the dresser had lost a pull. Gorka’s room looked the worst. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! His mother said, go on, get to the ikastola, that she would take care of cleaning up.
Over the course of the morning she put things into plastic bags to throw them into the garbage. Things, some new, that she found tossed on the floor. Socks, underwear; clothing, and objects she imagined touched by the hands of the Guardia Civil or the snout of the dog. And even though they were her things and those of her husband and children, she felt nauseated touching them. She picked them up with two forks, there was no other way. And the most valuable things she tossed into the washing machine or, if they weren’t clothing, set them to soak in the kitchen sink. Breathing the air in her own house made her nauseous. She opened the windows. She used bleach to wash the floor, passed wet rags over the furniture, disinfected door knockers. After a while she cleaned again what she’d already cleaned because she had the feeling that there remained signs, smells, who knows what, of the filthy souls of the txakurras.
Toward ten in the morning she knocked at the door of the neighbors. The spy hole was still blocked by two strips of tape. Who is it?
“It’s me.”
They opened the door. And Miren, thankful, returned their blankets. They asked her in. She accepted. She said she didn’t want to be alone in her raped house.
“Oh my dear, what things you say.”
The neighbors told their side of the story. The noise, the voices, the fright. They couldn’t sleep the whole night. They made coffee for Miren. They got out a box of cookies. She, too, told her version of what happened. How awful the business about Joxe Mari was! They knew nothing about him except that he wasn’t in town. At eleven she said she had to go and she left. Hoping to speak with Josetxo or Juani to ask them if their place had been searched, she left the house, leaving the windows wide open. If a robber comes in, let him rob.
63
POLITICAL MATERIAL
She caught Juani at a bad moment, all by herself in the butcher shop.
“Where’s Josetxo?” she asked over several heads.
“At the doctor’s.”
“If you like, I can come back later.”
“No, wait.”
After a while, the two women could talk for a minute alone.
“Do you know anything?”
“Nothing.”
“Last night they destroyed our flat.”
“No one in town talks about anything else. They’re coming to our place today.”
“Maybe.”
“What were they looking for?”
“Joxe Mari’s things. They call him a terrorist. They thought they’d find weapons. Since there’s nothing, they took the first things that came to hand.”
“Josetxo is nervous. He thinks our sons have entered the armed struggle. We’re not going to see those two for a long time.”
“What strange ideas your husband has.”
“Patxi was here yesterday. He told us that if we have any of Jokin’s papers we should throw them out right away. He couldn’t be clearer. Okay, now I have to leave you.”
“He didn’t say where those two have gone?”
“I asked him of course. He wasn’t very talkative. The only thing he wanted was for us to throw out the papers as soon as possible.”
“Damn, he sure didn’t come to our house to give us a heads-up.”
And then, walking along, she remembered, connected, put two and two together, suspected. Okay! The previous afternoon she’d surprised Gorka standing—with his shoes on!—on top of a chair, pulling Joxe Mari’s posters off the wall. On the floor were two plastic bags filled with newspapers and magazines. She’d once asked him why don’t take that junk off the wall now that your brother isn’t living with us. He: no way, ama, if he finds out he’ll give me a beating.
“Hey, what are you doing standing on that chair?”
“Nothing. I’m going to change the look of the room a little.”
“And you couldn’t put some newspaper down?”
Heading home, Miren went along talking to herself on the street. When people said hello, she answered without turning her face. If the txakurras saw the posters, we’d have been in for it. They’d have taken us all in handcuffs to the station. One thought intrigued her. Gorka did in our house what Patxi asked Juani and Josetxo to do immediately in theirs. What a coincidence, no? This will have to be explained.
As soon as he walked through the door, she interrogated him without giving him a chance to take off his shoes. He should explain why he’d pulled down Joxe Mari’s posters. Because he wants to put up different posters in their place.
“And where are those other posters. All I see are bare walls.”
“For heaven’s sake, ama, I was thinking I’d collect them one at a time.”
“What did you do with your brother’s posters?”
“I threw them out.”
“They weren’t yours.”
“They were dirty and old.”
“And some magazines and papers Jox
e Mari kept in the dresser?”
“I need space, and he’s not around.”
She looked him in the eye from close up. One second, two, and at the third, smack, she gave him a slap.
“That for not telling me the truth.”
Doing what Jokin and his brother asked him to do, Gorka went down to the town and in the Arrano told Patxi what he had to tell him. And Patxi said shit, double shit, triple shit, and without skipping a beat went into action, did things, organized things. Finally, after sending the boy on his way, since he was supposed to be collecting the first of the bicycles for Jokin and his brother, come back here, he called him back. It was then he asked if there was still any of Joxe Mari’s material in the house of his aitas. Material?
“Political material, you know what I mean.”
It took him a few seconds to figure out the idea. Okay: posters, propaganda, Zutabe. Yes, there is, quite a bit. He should destroy it instantly.
“As soon as you can, get me?”
He didn’t explain why he should carry out that cleanup and it didn’t occur to Gorka to ask for an explanation. He understood, of course, the essence of the message: that he was to hurry.
To his mother:
“Now you know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when I asked?”
“What’s the difference? Aren’t you happy the txakurras found nothing?”
“And since you’ve been such a busy boy, do you know where your brother is?”
“I’m clueless.”
“Are you sure?”
“I swear, ama. But you can probably figure out where.”
“Where, in that case?”
“You know better than I do. The only thing I’d like is for all of you to leave me in peace.”
He ran out of the room. Tall, skinny, more round-shouldered with every day that passed. He locked his door and didn’t come out. Miren: the beets are getting cold, that she’s had a busy morning, too busy for him to make problems for her. She grew more and more impatient, raising her voice, she told him this and threatened him with that. Then the noise of a capitulating key. Gorka took his place at the kitchen table. He began to eat, looking into his plate. His eyes were irritated, as if he’d been crying, his face covered with pimples.
He ate this, he ate that. With good appetite, that’s for sure. And from time to time Miren turned her eyes toward him. To see if he was eating, or if he was crying? Finally, she passed him the fruit bowl without saying a word. And when she took away the plate of chicken bones, she touched his hand. Gorka instantly jerked his away, intent on avoiding a possible caress.
He got up from the table. Before he could escape from the kitchen, Miren asked him if he’d liked his dinner. Gorka shrugged his shoulders and she didn’t pursue the matter.
64
WHERE IS MY SON?
The four of them ate their usual supper in the kitchen at the usual time. This woman has fish mania. Fried, in sauce, doesn’t matter: fish on Monday, on Tuesday, and so on and so on until death frees us of suppers. And yes, they like it, some of them more, others less; but, in Joxian’s opinion, we might have something different every once in a while.
“On Sunday, we had croquettes.”
“Sure, cod croquettes, screw that.”
Miren, who ignored these complaints, first prepared escarole with chopped garlic, oil, and vinegar. Then she brought out the leftover noodle soup from the previous evening, and last but not least placed on the center of the table protected by its oilcloth covering a platter of breaded anchovies. For the women, tap water. The men usually shared a pitcher of wine and soda water, more of the latter than the former.
Arantxa, sarcastic:
“Let’s hope the cops don’t pay us another visit tonight.”
Miren seemed to shudder:
“Listen here, that’s enough of that, we had a bad enough time without anyone having to remind us of it.”
“Maybe they’ll come back to return my videotapes and give me money to buy a new bottle of perfume.”
“Enough out of you.”
“I’m going to sleep with my clothes on just in case.”
Her mother ordered her to shut up. Joxian intervened on behalf of his daughter.
“Soon we won’t be able to say anything in this house.”
Say anything? With the children present? With Arantxa being a comedian? Miren, tempted to reveal during dinner a private chat she had during the afternoon, decided to deal with the issue alone with Joxian when they were in bed. In bed, without preambles:
“I talked to Patxi.”
“Which Patxi?”
“The one who runs the tavern. He knows a ton of things.”
Midway through the afternoon, Miren went into the Arrano. How many people were there—four or five boys? No more. The music so loud that even the deaf could hear it. I don’t know why the neighbors don’t protest. Or maybe they do, but only among themselves because you’re better off being on the boys’ good side. And it seems as if Patxi, thirty-plus years of age, earring in one ear, was waiting for her. How so? As soon as he saw her take one step into the tavern, he signaled her to follow him into the storage room.
Joxian shook his head.
“I don’t know who the hell ordered you to get mixed up in something that doesn’t concern you.”
“Me? For the sake of my son I’ll get mixed up in whatever I have to. Want me to tell you or not?”
In the storage room it smelled of sour wine and moldy humidity. The stone walls and the rafters were still there from when it was a stable. Miren remembered. So many years ago. She was a little girl and her family often sent her to buy milk fresh from the cow there.
Patxi closed the door. Before Miren said a word, he asked her to remain calm. She answered that she was calm. Was she? Of course not.
“Do you know where Joxe Mari’s gone? Tell me right now.”
“Come now, Miren, calm down.”
“Damn it, I already said I’m calm. I’m my son’s mother. It’s only normal that I’d want to know where he’s gone to.”
“He’s underground.”
“Fine. And where is that? He doesn’t have to move. I’ll go to him.”
Impossible. It wasn’t the way it used to be, when family members would visit the south of France on weekends and bring money, clothes, and cigarettes to the refugees. The blame belongs to the Antiterrorist Liberation Groups: the militants had no choice but to take precautions.
Joxian:
“In other words, we can’t visit him.”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“In that case, Josetxo is right. We won’t be seeing those two for a thousand years or so.”
“Patxi says there are two possibilities. Our son will either go to Mexico or some other country like that or join the organization.”
“I’d rather he go far away.”
“What you’d rather is of no interest to anyone.”
“It’s of interest to me. I know what I’m saying.”
“What you know wouldn’t fill a shot glass.”
She didn’t tell him—why bother?—that there came a moment when Patxi rested his hands on Miren’s shoulders. To her it seemed a gesture not so much of affection but of recognition, of homage, as if saying to her: you have good reason to be proud of your son. And with his hands here, on her shoulders, he told her, calming her, explaining things to her, that there existed internal channels for the distribution of mail among militants and family members.
“Ah, so he can write us?”
“And you can write to him.”
“Can I send him packages? His birthday is coming up soon and I wouldn’t like it if he didn’t get a little present.”
In bed, Joxian instantly turned over to stare at her.
“Did
you really say that? Do you think Joxe Mari has gone off to the colonies?”
“Where do you get off saying things like that? He’s my son. I gave birth to him. Did you? You didn’t even find out about it until the next day.”
“Okay, enough with the sermon, all you do is bust my balls with the story of how you gave birth to him.”
“Me in pain and you in the bar, and you don’t like me to remind you of it. So he’s my son and I don’t want winter to come and him being cold or that his birthday comes and he gets sad because he doesn’t have a present.”
Patxi took his hands off Miren’s shoulders. He told her to forget about packages at least for the time being; but that she should go home in peace because the organization never leaves a man behind. He repeated what he said about pride, adding that if there were many men like Joxe Mari in Euskal Herria we would have been free years ago. Before they left the storage room, he assured her that the moment there appeared any communication (letter, note, whatever) he would personally deliver it to her house. He pointed to the door in front of them. He told her that:
“When we’re outside of here we won’t be speaking again.”
And then, in the tavern, right in front of five or six boys, he kissed her goodbye.
To Joxian:
“Well, now I’ve given you all the information,”
“What information did you give me? We still don’t know where he is or what he’s doing. Of course, you don’t need much imagination to figure that out. No one joins ETA to be a gardener.”
“We don’t know if he joined ETA. He might well be on his way to Mexico. But if he did join, it’s to free Euskal Herria.”
“It’s to kill.”
“If I find out about anything I won’t tell you.”
“I didn’t bring up my son so he could kill people.”
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