In the same letter, Arantxa wrote: “You’ve got your jail, I’ve got mine. My body is a life sentence. One day you’ll be released. We don’t know when, but you will get out. I’ll never get out of mine. There’s another difference between us. You’re there because of what you did. What did I do to deserve it?” That last sentence, actually the entire passage, hit Joxe Mari hard. That day he skipped going out to the recreation yard. He avoided conversation. He barely ate anything. He didn’t visit the library, his favorite refuge recently. Shortly after going to bed, he looked at the photo and decided to abandon ETA without saying a word to anyone, not to his comrades, not to the organization.
And not to his mother.
She was well aware, when she made her next visit to the prison, that Arantxa had sent a photo, so she showed him others. Arantxa in the village square, Arantxa with Celeste, with aita at the entrance to the garden, with Gorka and his husband the day of the wedding, in the kitchen, standing up as she took a few tremulous steps during a physiotherapy session. Photos that Joxe Mari commented on with interest, calmly, even making jokes; pictures that didn’t affect him as violently as the first did.
His sister continued to write him. She followed no routine. She might send him two letters one week and then let a month pass without writing another. The year ended. During January, Arantxa sent him another photograph. On the back it said: “Here I am with my best friend.” There was Bittori, standing behind the wheelchair, not as jolly as Arantxa, but even so, happy. It was hard for Joxe Mari to recognize Txato’s wife in that thin, visibly deteriorated woman. How old she looks. She’s aged worse than ama. There was an explanation for her appearance: “She tells me everything. We see each other practically every day. We’re close friends. She knows she only has a little time left. She refuses to get treatment. Why, when she’s lost all her illusions? She says she’s struggling to stay alive as best she can because she’s hoping for a human gesture from you. She wants nothing else. Your broken-down disaster of a sister begs you. Don’t disappoint me. Put another way: ask her forgiveness. What would it cost you? It hurts me that you don’t do it.”
Women: how they know how to tangle us up. In bed, his mind a blank, Joxe Mari was staring at the square of blue sky out the window. For a long time, he didn’t move a muscle, listless, his hands joined under his chin. Finally, thoughts came to him. Actually images. Time was a film of his life running backwards. Soon he left the jail and entered another and then another, he was mistreated, later arrested, he went back to the armed struggle, to the rainy afternoon when Txato looked him in the eye, to the pub where he’d shot a man for the first time, to France, to the village, and when he reached the age of nineteen, the speeding mental images suddenly stopped. He then imagined a different destiny, one that culminated in the great dream of his life, to be on the FC Barcelona handball team.
He confirmed it to himself: asking forgiveness takes more courage than firing a weapon, than setting off a bomb. Anyone can do those things. All you have to be is young and credulous, with hot blood. And it isn’t only that you need balls to sincerely make up for, even if it’s only verbally, the atrocities you’ve committed. What stopped Joxe Mari was something else. What? How do I know? Come on, confess. Damn, suppose the old woman shows the letter to a newspaperman, then they’ll set up the usual circus of the repentant terrorist, people in the village will speak badly of him and yank his photo out of the Arrano Taberna. Ama would faint.
123
CLOSED CIRCLE
Cloudy afternoon. Bittori goes out on the balcony to check on the storm, which was rolling in from the sea. Clouds from one side of the horizon to the other. It was raining hard and you’re not going up to Polloe by yourself, let me drive you up. That morning, at times, the sun had broken through. Bittori chatted with Arantxa as usual in a corner of the plaza. Just before midday, she got on the bus, and she didn’t have enough time to get home before the sky began to pour down so much water you couldn’t see. And it hasn’t stopped raining since then.
Xabier on the telephone:
“Where do you get off going to the cemetery with the way it’s pouring out there?”
“I have important things to tell Txato.”
“Ama, please forget those games.”
He passed by, the shoulders of his raincoat wet, to pick her up at four. Bittori was ready when he arrived. She picked up her umbrella and put the letter in her purse. In this woman’s eyes, every once in a while, a flash of happiness lights up. And if not of happiness, of joy. Xabier knows the reason. It’s that yesterday, late, the three of them met. Nerea, alarmed, asked what the fuss was all about. And her mother told them, she showed them the letter and read it with badly dissimulated euphoria, while the faces of her children darkened with grief.
“This is what you wanted so much?”
“Exactly this, my girl.”
“Well, now you have it. Congratulations.”
Now it’s time to tell Txato. On the landing, Xabier noticed that his mother was going out in her slippers.
“Good thing you noticed.”
From time to time along the way, Xabier took his eyes off the traffic for an instant and turned to look at Bittori. Really admirable, considering how sick she is. And the windshield wipers, clak, clak, did their job without resting.
Bittori:
“I see this rain and you can’t imagine what it reminds me of.”
“That it was raining this way the day aita was murdered.”
“How did you guess?”
“It’s rained just as hard many times since then.”
He dropped his mother off by the cemetery entrance. It was an afternoon flood. And Bittori got out slowly, awkwardly, possibly impeded by a stomach pain that she wouldn’t bring up. She didn’t want him to accompany her. No. Should he wait for her? Okay, if you like, but she wouldn’t be more than half an hour. And between the words of the son and the words of the mother resounded a noise of myriad drops smashing with whispered violence against the earth and with a note of lively sparking on Bittori’s umbrella. At least it wasn’t windy. SOON IT WILL BE SAID OF YOU WHAT IS NOW SAID OF US: THEY DIED! Macabre and trivial. And how people fight against returning to the planet the atoms they’ve borrowed. Actually, what’s rare and exceptional is to be alive. Xabier waited for his mother, wearing ritual black, to enter the cemetery before he found a parking space nearby.
In her purse, Bittori carried the square of plastic and the kerchief, but what for? How can I sit down on those flooded slates?
“Txato, Txatito, can you hear me? It’s raining the way it did on the afternoon they murdered you. Today I’ve got news.”
And she told him, standing at the grave site, under her umbrella, that without Arantxa, without her generous mediation, she would not have succeeded in closing the circle. She softened the terrorist, convinced him to take the step he’d taken. How did she do it? Well, because she loves him. He’s her brother, that I understand. She doesn’t justify his actions. To the contrary, she judges them, severely, without secondary considerations. But he is her brother. She’s trying by all means possible to liberate him from himself, to pull him out of his atrocious past. And when she learned of the remorse of the prisoner in his far-off jail, she wrote me on her iPad: “Something’s changing in him. He’s thinking a lot. Good sign.”
But he was frightened.
“I’ll bet you can’t imagine the idea that came into his head.”
To send her a symbolic object instead of an explicit request for forgiveness. That boy must feel very alone; well, he’s a full-grown man now who long ago thought nothing and now, apparently, thinks too much. Arantxa interceded with her brother, that Bittori wouldn’t like that idea.
“And of course I didn’t like it. That was two weeks ago. And forgive me for not being able to come see you. But it’s that since all this news came in and my having had some days wi
th pains, I had no way to get up to the cemetery.”
Joxe Mari considered, what an idea, sending her an object. What object? No idea. One that could fit inside an envelope. A photo, a drawing. And that he would send the thing to Bittori and that would mean he was asking forgiveness.
“I told Arantxa that I wouldn’t go along with that, that I’m in no mood to fool around. And she wrote me on her iPad that if she were in my place she wouldn’t go along, either. The problem is that the scaredy cat’s afraid that if he sends me a letter asking forgiveness I’m going to run with it to the newspapers. Where does he get these ideas? He must be slightly off his rocker after so many years in jail. It never entered my mind to talk to newspaper people. It’s the last thing I’d like, to appear in the newspapers, that they’d come to my house to take photos and ask questions.”
So she answered now. Arantxa, a short while later: that if she could give Joxe Mari a guarantee of maximum discretion. She did give him the guarantee, offended that anyone could doubt she would be honorable. And yesterday morning the letter came.
“Shall I read it to you?”
She read (she practically knew it by heart):
Kaixo, Bittori.
Following my sister’s advice, I’m writing you. I’m a man of few words, so I’ll get right to the point. I’m asking forgiveness from you and your children. I’m very sorry. If I could make time go backwards, I’d do it. I can’t. I’m sorry. I can only hope you will forgive me. I’m already suffering my punishment.
All best,
Joxe Mari
The rain fell on the graves and on the asphalt path and the dark trees that flanked the path. Headstones, soaking wet, and a fresh aroma of silence. The dense clouds floated over the city, and beyond, over the mountains and over the distant sea. There was not another human silhouette to be seen in the entire cemetery.
“Fine, don’t you think? I had a great need of these words. My manias, Txato. Soon I’ll join you. Now I know I’m coming in peace. Meanwhile, warm up the grave for me the way in other times you warmed up the bed. I’ll leave you now, because Xabier is waiting for me. The children know that as soon as it’s possible they’re to bring us both to the village. So you can rest easy. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain on the day of my burial the way it’s raining today. The poor gravediggers. They’ll get soaked. And the flowers, too.”
Xabier got out of the car to wave to his mother to tell her where he was, about ninety feet down the hill. It went on raining. Did she want to go anywhere? No, home.
“Aita says hello.”
“So you spend your time talking to yourself, right?”
“It consoles me. Anyway, there’s no one there to hear me. Now, if by any chance you think I’m crazy, you may be mistaken.”
“I never said that.”
“Before I forget, Txato asks when you’re going to get married. He says it’s about time.”
Silence fell inside the car. Stopped at a red light, the street foggy gray, Xabier turned to look at his mother.
“Actually, I do think you’re crazy.”
The light turned green, and Bittori burst into laughter.
124
SOAKING
A cloudy afternoon. In Miren’s house, routine scenes after dinner. She, scouring pad and suds, had finished washing the pots and pans in the sink. She hung her apron on the nail behind the door and poked her head out of the kitchen window to confirm whether it had stopped raining. It was pouring, and in the dining room, she said to her daughter, you won’t be able to go out this afternoon.
“It would probably be a good idea to call Celeste so she doesn’t make a wasted trip here.”
Joxian, sleepy, mute, stayed in the kitchen drying the dishes with a rag. And Arantxa, paying no attention to her mother’s words, was writing letters on the screen of her iPad.
“What’s that you’re writing?”
Arantxa showed her what she’d written: “There is something you have to know, even if it hurts you.” Miren, suspicious:
“If it’s anything to do with that woman, don’t tell me anything. Damn, all that’s missing now is for you to invite her here.”
The irate finger now wrote more quickly. “In this house, you’re the only one who doesn’t know.”
“Know what? What are you talking about? Can we just skip the theatrics?”
“Joxe Mari has asked her for forgiveness.”
“Hey, Joxian, did you know about this?”
From the kitchen:
“About what?”
“Don’t play dumb. About Joxe Mari.”
“Of course. Arantxa told me before dinner.”
“So why the hell didn’t you say anything to me?”
“What’s the big deal? You’re being told right now.”
Miren, Miren, this is really something you didn’t expect. She spoke, cursed?, under her breath. It couldn’t be, she didn’t believe it. These fools have misunderstood something.
“I was just with him ten days ago. He said nothing about it.”
The church bells rang out three o’clock. Arantxa’s nervous finger tripped over the iPad resting on her lap. “He wouldn’t dare tell you. He’s afraid of you.”
Tired of stretching her neck, and expecting new revelations, Miren brought a chair over to the wheelchair. Sitting down, serious: Arantxa should tell her everything. There was no bitterness in her words, not even anger. The sentences followed one after another on the screen, for Miren, more and more wounding as they went on.
“He’s asking forgiveness in a letter.”
“Bittori read it to me this morning.”
“And what if she wrote it herself? Everybody knows she’s crazy.”
“I know Joxe Mari’s handwriting.”
“My brother isn’t the only member of this family who’s asked her for forgiveness.”
“Who else?”
“Ask in the kitchen.”
“Joxian, get in here. I want you to clear up just what you’ve been doing behind my back.”
Joxian came into the dining room drying his hands on his sweater. Without getting upset, he told all, clearly, and precisely, and then went to have his siesta. Miren, to her daughter:
“Anything else?”
“That’s all.”
Later, he in bed, the daughter unable to speak, watching the television news, Miren did not have to give them any explanations. Nothing about where are you going, no goodbye, nothing. Without going into the bedroom where, who knows, Joxian might wake up, she left wearing a housedress. As she left, the door made a cautious, pained click instead of the usual angry slam.
Where is she going? It’s pouring down rain. Like the afternoon when that man was killed. So let’s see why he has to ask forgiveness. Having crossed the street, she snapped her tongue in disgust. She should have brought an umbrella, but I’m not going back now. She felt betrayed, victim of a family plot and, of course, convinced that the rain was falling only on her.
The butcher shop, closed. Normal: it wasn’t even four yet. She saw light inside and went in, not for the first time, through the entryway. She understands me. Who else would? The silent half-light smelled of suet, meat, cold cuts. Her neighbors had better be used to it by now. She rang the buzzer, which sounded shrill, cacophonic. What was most certain: the door would open, and Juani would appear with her ears ready to receive her friend’s verbal stream, a friend who needs to unburden herself at all costs.
But it didn’t open. Instead, through the closed door:
“Who’s there?”
“Me.”
“Who?”
“Me, Miren.”
She should wait a minute. How odd. If you’re there, what are you waiting for to open up? As soon as Miren saw Juani’s hair let down, she guessed: she isn’t alone. She only stayed a bit. She s
aid hello to him, a man who, despite his years, still had a good presence. So these two are involved? And to cover up, she bought a few slices of this and a quarter pound of that.
“Sorry for coming by at this hour, but I’m really busy. I’ll pay you tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about it, dear.”
She went back out to the street, back to the bleak afternoon and the puddles. Before she went into the church, she tossed the plastic bag of cold cuts into a trash basket. Soaked from head to toe, she sat in her usual pew. Votive candles were burning at the altar. How many she’d lit over the course of her life to ask favors from God, thinking about the well-being of the household, seeking divine protection for her children.
The church was empty and Miren sopping wet. If the priest walks in, I’m walking out. She was in no mood to talk to anyone. Only with the statue of the saint from Loyola, up there on its corbel. Well done, Ignatius, well done. A good bit of work you’ve done for me. After all is said and done, I’m going to be the bad person.
She addressed bitter reproaches to him. Out loud, whispered? No, as always, in her mind. She cast doubt on the saint’s capacity to be our great patron. You’re on the wrong road. Come now, why do we have to ask forgiveness? What about the crimes committed by the Antiterrorist Liberation Groups? Has anyone asked forgiveness for them and for the torturing in the barracks and stationhouses, and for the diaspora, and for all the oppression of the Basque people? And if what we did was so bad, why didn’t you stop it in time? You let us go on and now it turns out that the sacrifice was for nothing, that thousands of us Basques who love what is ours have been mistaken idiots. Come on, Ignatius, that can’t be right. Cure my daughter, get my son out of jail, or I’ll never speak to you again. Damn, don’t you see that I’m suffering, too?
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