by Joan Sales
I was keen to obtain this unanimous statement from the great and the good in the municipality, bailiff and town clerk included, because, in the prevailing climate, a merely religious marriage ran the risk of lacking a legal basis. All the loose ends were tied, everything was as planned: we had a marriage in canon and civil law.
Old Olegària was the biggest surprise of all; she also said she knew! I mean, that she’d known all the time. My head went into a spin and I asked her how come: “Well, the whole village knew,” she replied. In the end, they’ll convince even yours truly; how does the adage go, vox populi vox Dei?
I went up to the castle. I was received in the diner cum sitting room and the minute I walked in I noticed something new: a snapshot beneath the cornucopia. A man in his late forties: a plump, ordinary face, with bushy eyebrows over half-wily, half-simple eyes. I’d have mistaken him for a grocer whose corner shop was raking it in.
“My husband, may he rest in peace.”
She said “husband” quite naturally. She was wearing a black silk bodice I’d not seen before with an enamelled gold and diamond brooch at her breast.
“He gave it to me as a present on my saint’s day. I didn’t ever dare wear it.”
“It really suits you.”
Her eyes were radiant with gratitude. Her children’s bedroom door was open; I’d never seen inside before. It’s very cheerful, gleaming white, reddish exposed beams – probably juniper; a trousseau chest by the wall, natural pine wood, without cornices or mouldings as is the style hereabouts, where it is still a common piece of furniture. A reed chair on either side of the chest; the two small iron bedsteads, painted pale red, are in a small alcove separated from the rest of the room by a very plain arch-way; the eiderdowns are cretonne with big red and white stripes, like the curtain hanging from the arch. There is a hand basin between the beds identical to the one I have at old Olegària’s. A scent of lavender, of bitter almond soap, of linen sheets that have been stored with quince and apples wafted through the open door; bright, cheerful and simplicity itself.
“I’m so grateful. Thanks to you they’ll have a name and status. You’ve worked wonders.”
I looked at the two little beds and thought: it didn’t strike me I was doing it for them.
“I’m delighted I could do it for you. Now we can call you ‘the lady of the castle’.”
“I couldn’t care less. I wanted it for their sake.”
“I didn’t do it for them. I would be a hypocrite if I pretended I did. You know very well —”
“I’m so grateful.” She cut me off with those quietly murmured words. She bowed her head and her eyes that were darker and brighter than ever looked at me askance. What did that look mean? I soaked it up silently, not daring to venture into the no man’s land that lay between us. Yes, we were like two enemies barely separated by a scrap of no man’s land overtaken by a heavy silence. She suddenly looked up and out of the window that was wide open as usual. Swallows flew to and fro; their mewling didn’t reach that no man’s land – it belonged to the outside world.
“I’d like to ask you something, Don Lluís.”
I was upset by her “Don” – that was so unexpected.
“I don’t address you as ‘Donya Olivela’.”
“Quite right: it doesn’t fit. One must be born with that ‘Don’. Your face says it: you come from the breed of gentlemen. Don’t try to deny that. It’s obvious, stronger than anything else. Experience has taught me that. I’d like to ask if I need to do anything else to ensure my children’s inheritance.”
“You need to legalise everything with a notary and take it to a court of justice. The nearest is two hundred metres from the front, but who knows where the nearest notary might be?”
More silence. I looked at her. She was staring vaguely into space, as if absorbed by something she couldn’t find the words for. She was breathing deeply; with each intake she seemed to breathe in all the air in Olivel, air drenched in memories for her. A smell of fresh bread wafted in on a breeze from the three communal bakeries and mingled with smells of straw, sheep and basil – there’s not a window sill in Olivel, big or small, that doesn’t have its pot of basil to ward off the flies. Each smell must arouse in her an upsurge of faded emotions like the flocks of birds that fly up and scatter when people walk by, those preparing to migrate in the autumn. I said nothing. I waited for the magic word that would open up that inner world, so closed and forbidden, which made my head spin. She was equally silent; the magic word wouldn’t be forthcoming.
“Olivela, you promised that you would read my letter if I found the marriage certificate . . .”
She stirred from her thoughts, as if rudely awoken, and gave me a look of surprise: “Yes, don’t imagine I’ve forgotten. I read your letter and naturally I am grateful to you for your kindness.”
The naturally was a scalpel that sliced through my heart.
“You are so kind,” she continued, looking back out of the window. “I don’t know if I can thank you for everything you’ve done. I would hate you to think I am ungrateful!”
“You don’t need to thank me for anything. I’m not kind. What I —”
“I’d ask you for two days to think it over quietly. You must understand that with all this emotional turmoil I’ve only been in a fit state to think about my children. Put yourself in my shoes. Their lives were being decided. When Santiaga brought me the news, I fainted. I’d never fainted before. I’m sure I’ll never faint again. You can’t imagine how I was at my wits’ end waiting on those decisions. It was all or nothing! No, you can’t. In your letter, you tell me things, private things I’d never have told anyone, you know? Don’t be upset if I say that I don’t like these sorts of confession. I can’t relate to things like that. Believe me, they aren’t things you tell other people.”
“I would tell you everything, even my saddest inner secrets. I want you to grasp how much you —”
“Please stop.” Her icy glance was more forbidding than her words. “Stop being so foolish and listen. As you’ve revealed such private matters in your letter, I’ll match them with some of mine. Then you might understand me just a little. No, don’t be under any illusion, you understand nothing! You’ve mistaken me for somebody else. I’ve felt that right from the start. I was born in Castel de Olivo; my father is a landless farmhand, one of the poorest in the district. I’ve not seen him for years. And don’t want to. On the other hand, he no longer lives in Castel: he’s in enemy territory.”
“I know all about that. They told me in Castel when I was far from ever thinking that I’d get to know you, that one day you —”
“Do you know they call my father Turdy?”
“Yes, of course, I know all about that.”
“A ridiculous business. Tragedies are ridiculous. It’s not the poverty. Why should I worry if my father is poor? Nor am I embarrassed by his nickname, and I’d have good reason, don’t you think? I’ve never done anything to hide it. No, it’s something else. The rudeness and lack of sympathy . . . It’s all very well to say that you should resign yourself to being the child of the parents you’ve got; that’s very easy when, like you, one is a Don Lluís de Broca i de Ruscalleda.”
“Not true,” and I repressed a sad smile. “I’m not a ‘de Ruscalleda’, on the contrary, I’m ‘Ruscalleda’s Son, Fine Pasta for Soup’. If I told you . . . it would take too long. You fantasise about my family! I’m an orphan; I never knew my father or mother. And I’ve suffered more than my fair share of rudeness and lack of sympathy from my uncle . . .”
“Whatever you say, it’s not the same. I don’t know your uncle, but I’m sure he washes and doesn’t swear and drink. Though I often wonder if some people are alcoholics, even though they don’t drink, because my father doesn’t drink, I can assure you. He doesn’t have that excuse. He’s not a drunkard. So let’s forget all this. Tragedies are ridiculous and that’s why sensible people avoid them. You’re a qualified lawyer, an infantry aide-de-camp a
nd perhaps other things not on file; I expect your wife has studied too, can play the piano . . . The piano! Can you believe I sometimes dream I’m playing one! Of course, I don’t know my scales. I learned to read with the real lady of the castle; I find it hard to call her my mother-in-law. The good lady died never suspecting that’s what she would end up being . . . She treated me very well: she taught me to sew, to embroider, to read, to write, to cook, even to speak, because I spoke the hotchpotch they speak in these villages . . .”
She was becoming animated, and her eyes sparkled in a way I didn’t recognise. The wind from the past seemed to kindle a flame hidden beneath the ash.
“The lady played the piano very well; a strange, different music. I loved to listen to her. I’d be in my little room darning or ironing, and she’d play in the sitting room. She did once tell me what the music was; some strange names . . . I thought they were from another world. I’d so like to hear them again! I’d so like to! But in these villages . . . Don’t think I didn’t ever ask her to teach me! She didn’t scold me; she was very good about it. ‘Olivela, what use would the piano be to you? It’s not for you; you learn what will be useful to you and don’t crave other things.’ She was right. Why would a servant want to learn to play the piano? And she couldn’t ever suspect I could be somebody else. Poor Donya Gaietana, she was such a good person. If she had had the least suspicion, she’d have died from the shock. The poor woman started to grow old but she was never begrudging. One summer she gave me a week’s holiday so I could be in Castel de Olivo for the annual festival. I was fifteen. I’d not seen my parents for two years. I went full of expectation. I loved my parents, can you believe that?”
“Everybody loves their parents until the contrary is proven. I, for example, am crazy about mine, though that doesn’t stop me from sometimes thinking: would that still be the case if I’d known them?”
“Do you know what it feels like to walk into the house where you were born so full of expectation and find . . .? Bah, tragedy’s ridiculous. I don’t want to play the victim. People have insulted and scorned me: when I came pregnant to Olivel, they even daubed the doors with —”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, can you believe that I prefer it if they hate me? Pity revolts me. It’s a cowardly way people have invented to express their contempt and at the same time feel good. I prefer them to spit in your face, daub your doors with . . .”
I was shocked to see her so uncontrolled. She always kept her feelings on a tight rein.
“You’re so young. When you reach my age, you’ll realise that loneliness is our daily bread, out-and-out loneliness.” Her magnificent contralto voice, fired by passion, made her tremolo resonate even more deeply. “And we should face up to it, see it as it is. Listen, please; don’t interrupt. I know you won’t understand, but so what. Why should you? I couldn’t care less. I want to tell you everything. I feel you’ve created a fantasy around me, and I’d like to tell you that we women don’t like that sort of thing. We don’t like being seen as angels; it’s uncomfortable and an imposition.”
“I don’t exactly see you as an angel.”
“A vampire, then? Worse still. That would be even more disappointing.”
“Neither vampire nor angel.”
“A maid in service?” Her eyes flashed sarcastically. “Who managed to make it to mistress of the castle by the riskiest of routes?”
She stopped looking at me; there was a horrible silence that went on and on. I’d hit bull’s eye, and finding her sore spot gave me tremendous pleasure. Perhaps passion is a cruel mystery. No pleasure can be compared to making one’s idol suffer so we can wreak revenge for the way she inspires adoration!
She looked into the distance and started to speak slowly, whispering as if talking to herself: “What could I do to haul myself out of the pit? I had to return to Barcelona; where else could I go? The lady of the castle acted in an understanding way – provided distances were maintained. She welcomed and consoled me. Enric was twenty years older, a difference that seemed huge at the time; to begin with, I didn’t understand his insinuations, the words he whispered in my ear, in the passageway. I should add that he seemed even older, because he was so fat, and premature baldness made him look highly respectable. What’s more, the poor fellow was shy. The lady, when we spoke about my position, always said the same: ‘In the end, Olivela, if your parents don’t want you, I do: we are a Christian family and, thanks to God, an old-fashioned family.’ Poor lady! She was more innocent than I was. She’d give me Sunday afternoons off, provided I spent them in a nunnery on carrer de Consell de Cent. I can see it now: the Convent for Domestic Servants. I’ll not a hide a thing: the nuns treated me very well and they would have been delighted to take me as a novice. I could have been a nun in that convent, it was friendly, welcoming, clean and spacious. The Mother Superior liked me a lot. I didn’t know which way to go. I couldn’t see what would be best. If the master, that is, Enric, had been young and handsome, I’d have become a nun.”
“I’m not sure I understood. Haven’t you got that the wrong way round?”
“Wrong way round? Why?” She glared at me, surprised by my question. “If Enric had been young and handsome, I could only have hoped for a short-lived, trifling affair, the sort you don’t even tell your friends about because they’re pointless. Fortunately, he was fat and bald, much shorter than me and, most importantly, was already my father’s age. He was my father’s age but wasn’t my father, and that was the big difference!”
“What was the difference?”
She looked at me as if she’d suddenly remembered she wasn’t alone, that I was listening. She paused.
“I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t want you to think that I hated my father because he was poor.” She was getting highly emotional again. “I’ve never told anyone, you will be the first and the last. I’d be upset if you . . . particularly you . . . I’ve never worried what others might think about me, but you’re not like anyone else. I was hurt by what you said. Don’t ever think that again, I’m not an evil woman.” She was being so emotional now I thought she would burst into tears. “I’m just unfortunate, believe me.”
“I believe you.”
More silence. She was visibly trying to calm down. I thought: What if she really isn’t evil? So what? What exactly is an evil woman? A woman who goes to your head? But what if it’s no fault of hers?
“Of course, you’ve heard the story of the laundry tub; a very silly story. And you believed it, like everybody else. Like Donya Gaietana, like Enric even . . . It’s so easy to blindly believe a story is true when it’s so silly and so idiotic! My father never threw me out of the house. I left of my own accord. And I didn’t even dry myself, because I was having a wash in the tub. I left dressed in whatever I could grab. I bolted. I needed to escape! I shouldn’t say this, but my father always had a brutish face; usually though – how can I put it – it was the face of a tame brute. I’d never seen the expression he had that day; I don’t want to see such a face ever again, anything but that! I let out a horrible shriek and ran off, knocking the tub over.”
Silence descended again, and was nastier than ever. I looked at the ground.
“If only you knew how that wild face comes back to me . . .”
There was a shift: her contralto voice assumed its normal tone: “Enric, on the other hand, was never frightening. He seemed defenceless . . . He could seem a bit disgusting, because he was sickly: he’d had an unruly youth. He could offer me security and a quiet life. Wasn’t it natural for me to do my sums? I thought that if I could get some leverage on him, I felt that would be easy enough, one day when his mother was dead I’d persuade him to marry me. I was wrong. ‘Are you mad? You want me to marry Turdy’s daughter? No chance!’ ‘They know nothing about all that in Barcelona,’ I insisted. ‘Everything comes out sooner or later.’ And I couldn’t budge him. I had no choice but to play for all I could get, especially now I was past thirty; I couldn’t waste
any more of my years. I’d already wasted too many!”
She spoke as if she were talking to herself, as if she’d blocked me out. “I engineered it so his precautions failed. Such pathetic precautions! My God, isn’t it pitiful? To think that’s why men say and even do such horrible things . . . Well, they don’t really; they think twice first. Once I was sure I was pregnant, I begged him to do the right thing by his son, and I played the religious card. I was certain of victory and was wrong yet again: ‘Do you want to make me the laughing stock of all Barcelona? Me marry the servant!’
“I looked askance at his corner-shop grocer’s face – no debts, no debtors, so smug and sly. No credit today, none tomorrow. This was Don Enrique de Alfoz Penyarrostra, lord of Olivel castle and prince of Aragon, as they call him in the papers I’ve just found.”
“This fellow must have made you suffer a lot.”
“Suffer?” and she looked at me so strangely again. Her contralto voice seemed distant and veiled, her tremolo fading as if far away or in a twilight zone, like that ‘good afternoon to you’ at the crossroads. “Please don’t question me about my feelings for him. Why are men always so keen to find out this kind of secret? If you only knew how I hate being asked questions . . . Be satisfied with what I’ve told you, which is far too much. Think how you know all about my biggest secret, the secret between you and me, our secret – that my children will never find out!”