A Film (3000 Meters) Page 4

  During one of her husband’s absences, the wife was caught in a sticky situation and had to flee the city and hide from her acquaintances … She remembered the midwife and wrote to her, asking her to find her a house. After renting it, she planned her move, fired the old servants, contracted new ones, and traveled to the village. The midwife immediately understood what was happening and that she must be careful to employ only folk she could trust. She called on her friend Maria la Gallinaire to wash clothes and do other jobs, and, as she didn’t feel able to bottle up the secret, she told Maria everything.

  When difficult times were nigh, Maria was available to do the necessary and was instructed to quietly take the newborn baby boy to the Orphanage. Before the child was born, Donya Tulita had insisted he or she should be indelibly marked; the midwife took a sewing needle, scored two deep lines in the loose, wrinkled skin around the baby’s left nipple, dipped a piece of cotton in an inkwell, soaked the wounds, and kneaded the tender skin so the liquid penetrated the fleshy folds.

  But his mother became very distressed, got into a big tizzy, afraid that the mark might be erased too easily, and insisted he should be given something else so he would stand out from all the orphans for a longer time—“Two years, at least two years!” she moaned feverishly—the midwife removed a Monserrat medallion from the mother’s neck and placed it around the baby’s, complete with blue silk cord.

  Once that was done, the sobbing mother gave him a slavering kiss, and the babe was quickly handed to Maria, who was charged to arrange for him to be baptized, before she took him to Girona, by the name of Ramon Nonat, to which, half an hour later, the priest added Ventura and Miquel.

  As the mansion was outside the town gate, that scene took place in the middle of the night; the maids were lodged in an annex to the main building, attached at the end opposite to the one occupied by the midwife’s bedchamber—in any case, they slept the deep, bombproof sleep of the young. As her mistress had been ill for two days, the midwife stayed at her side on the excuse of her sickly state and allowed nobody to come near her. As her isolation continued a few days more, when the mistress got up, she pretended she was still fat, and nobody suspected what had really happened.

  The housekeeper spoke of a mysterious baptism and spread a romantic tale whose lead role was played by a poor girl who’d been abandoned by her fiancé and suddenly had to leave the village, disgraced and shamed, in order to go and help an old aunt.

  Soon after the said lady left, Maria shut down her chicken business and the midwife died. Before the midwife’s passing, Maria had asked her what she knew about those people, and the midwife told her Donya Tulita had written to say they were well, that she often remembered the village, the midwife, and her, and that for her part, she could never be happy or peaceful as long as she was separated from her absent loved one. When she said that, she seemed to refer to her husband, but the midwife knew it wasn’t him, but the boy.

  Not long after the midwife’s death, another letter came from the lady. The midwife’s nephews and nieces read it. It told the recipient to go to the city immediately: something very unfortunate had happened and they must talk. The nephews and nieces sent news of the loss of their aunt and never heard anything more from that lady.

  As Maria was aware that Donya Tulita’s husband suffered from a very poor stomach and that the doctors didn’t give him long to live, when she heard of the letter, she concluded that the misfortune must be the death of the lady’s husband, and prayed an uplifting Pater noster.

  When dawn broke, Jepet was awoken by the cold, empty space Maria left when she abandoned their uncomfortable shared cot in the barn; he felt disorientated by the new arrangements, and he had to think hard. The previous night’s scenes and Maria’s last comments came back to him, making him feel jittery, which wasn’t like him at all.

  He was the mildest of men, not because it was in his nature or he willed it to be so, but because he tended not to react. His awareness of things lasted like rain on thin topsoil: it immediately filtered through, sucked downward, leaving not a drop on the surface, scattered, silted, and hidden from sight in the dark, mysterious depths of his being. And he never spoke spontaneously, nor had a word to say about whatever he might have seen or heard; though if asked, he was one to tell the whole truth, not out of natural honesty, but because he lacked the wit and guile to fabricate a lie. His Maria, the Chicken Woman, had had to wage war on the poor man’s natural tongue-tied state, though he had no padlocks or bars to defend himself against inquisitive neighbors, who, whenever he returned from a voyage or after the sale of a catch, sank their claws into him, on the cart or in the tavern, and dragged out of him everything they were after, simply by forcing him to let slip a “yes,” or untoward information.

  Thanks to repeated warnings from his wife, he’d learned to curb this weakness of his, but he was always terrified by questions to which the two of them hadn’t jointly prepared a reply.

  “I mean, when Jan Fuma from across the road comes and asks how much cash you got as your share from the catch, tell him only the half of it, say prices were down …”

  “But …” Jepet was about to protest feebly, given the huge difference between the price suggested and the real one, when she deftly demolished his scruples.

  “No ifs or buts … First, there’s no earthly reason why he should know how much we make, and second, he’s council secretary this year, and will pile on the taxes if we give him half a chance.”

  Delighted by a wife who’d think and sort everything out on his behalf, with a clear conscience Jepet repeated the lesson he’d learned whenever he had to, making her entirely responsible, and then avoided further conversation for fear he might stumble. Which was usually the case. However, that day was quite unlike any other. It wasn’t merely the quantity of grapes or profit from a fishing trip that were at stake—that was his business when all was said and done—but something much more serious and unusual, because Maria had stated it might cause more than one family upset: he didn’t have a clue what he should say. There were lots of gray areas in Jepet’s memory, which was never too secure or well-nourished, though he did know something about the matters the young visitor was so desperate to hear about. Because La Gallinaire loved him, led him wherever she wanted, and because her expansive nature required it, she confided everything to her husband, convinced, as we have said, it was tantamount to consigning it to a tomb. However, the sudden appearance of the inquisitive locksmith and his hunger for facts threatened Jepet’s unguarded reserve, and as Maria had said she didn’t want him to speak before thinking it through, yet she’d fled their bed without telling him what she’d decided, or telling him what he could and could not say, Jepet was as terrified as if there was already a noose around his neck. If he could be sure all the questions would be fired at his wife, no worries; she was well spoken, had a silver tongue, and could deal with anything. But if he was unlucky and they were misfired in his direction, he might make an awful mess of it. He might say the exact opposite of what Maria had said … Because he imagined she’d been speaking to the young man for a while … It was broad daylight, the young man was in a hurry, and their house was so silent; he could already imagine them by the fireside … However, that wasn’t the case. Jepet had got it wrong: as he was pulling on his clothes, he went over to the barn window overlooking the yard, and saw Maria alone on the bench, next to the laundry basket, opposite the bushel of grain, stock still. Poor Jepet had another nervous turn. Oh dear! His blessed wife wasn’t well … Or else, at that time of day, when she’d usually be going through household chores like wildfire, why would she sit ramrod on the bench? Even the hens, fearfully, then shamelessly, twisted their heads to look at her, with one eye on heaven, and one on earth, pecking at the grain, yet she said and did nothing to shoo them away …

  Suddenly, as if sensing she was being watched, she looked up, and, as on the previous evening, seemed to wake up from a dream. She lifted a finger to her lips, signaling her husband
to keep quiet, and then motioned for him to come down.

  Barefoot, tiptoeing as much as possible so the floorboards didn’t creak, Jepet hastened to obey.

  Maria told him to pull up a rock and sit next to her. Then she whispered falteringly, as if in the confessional: “You know, Jepet, I’ve been chewing all night over what came through our door … and I can’t think what to do and keep a clear conscience …”

  Jepet felt even more anxious. It was the first time he’d seen Maria fret and struggle to reach a decision. She was always one to make her mind up instantly, without a moment’s hesitation.

  “What do you mean, Maria?”

  “What do I mean? That I wish this lad had never come … It might have spared me a lot of agony in my old age.”

  More upset than ever by such a statement, Jepet ventured to offer some advice: “If it’s going to make you suffer so, you’d better tell him everything …”

  Maria gestured to him to shut up.

  “I’d suffer even more … I promised the midwife I wouldn’t say a word, and her mistress had her make me swear an oath … You see, the lady was married, had a daughter, her honor was compromised, and she was terrified somebody might get an inkling …”

  Jepet felt confused and stared blankly at the bushel of grain, where not just one or two hens were pecking away: making the most of their mistress’s inattention, the whole flock had gathered around.

  “Don’t say anything then …”

  Maria reacted impatiently.

  “That’s easily said! Anything goes if you couldn’t care less … But I’m not like that … That lad speaks good sense, depending on how you look at it … He has wealthy parents but he’s beating metal, like one of God’s forgotten … If I speak up, I’ll make him a rich man; if I don’t, he will never learn the truth … I mean, it really is as I said: a case for the conscience …”

  It was all too complicated for Jepet to risk voicing an opinion. He let it go and yielded to his sluggish stream of thought, while instinctively following the movement of the hens. A red one, with oil-colored eyes, a small, cropped crest, and folds of fat hanging like a turkey’s glanced between Maria and the basket for some time before finally jumping into it. Unsure whether to follow her or afraid of being attacked, the other hens circled around, twittering as if they were squabbling. Finally, one of them, black as a crow, its huge comb tilted to one side like a Carlist leader’s beret, daringly stretched her neck and stuck her head into the bushel. No sooner had she done so than she was quickly repelled and a drop of blood even redder than her crest appeared.

  Christ, that red one’s a tough nut! thought Jepet, vaguely amused. And whenever the other hens tried to share in the booty, the sharp beak in the bushel defended her prize, keeping them at bay.

  “Tougher than La Ferriola!” thought the master of the house to himself.

  La Ferriola was a fishwife neighbor, with a temper like tinder, ready to take on anyone, if only over the miserable scale of an anchovy.

  In the meantime, Maria wracked her lonely brain, between Jepet’s mental void and the chickens’ hue and cry.

  “Besides, when they handed me the baby, the mistress told Magdalena (the midwife) that she wasn’t putting him in the Orphanage because she hated him, but because she had no choice. As she was pledged and couldn’t show her face, his father, the soldier, would take care of him … But as the military man was a professional, and those people are always on the move … And as he himself probably married … The truth is he must have forgotten the boy … Men will be men! Good at doing things on the side, and then …” The hidden pain in her life was spilling out again, though her spirit of fairness didn’t allow her to put all the blame on the soldier, however much a man—and a fly-by-night—he had been. “You’ll say if he hadn’t done his duty, she could have done hers, after being widowed … After all, it was her son!” But when she was on the point of assigning blame, doubts took her along a different path and a thousand and one times she encountered the same hurdles that had prevented her for hours from moving forward. “Praised be the Lord! I can’t think of what could have stopped her … Perhaps it was her reputation … perhaps she didn’t want to harm her daughter, perhaps it was her husband’s legacy … perhaps, if you press me, she was sick, or even died. I’d put it down to that rather than anything unbecoming … Because Donya Tulita was extremely generous and thoughtful in everything she did … She couldn’t bear to see anyone suffer … You saw how she wept when she left the baby … She couldn’t sleep, and within two days sent me back to Girona to find out whether he was all right … And she missed him every minute! And even said it would be the death of her if God didn’t find a quick solution … And look at the solution! Now, if I believed she’d pushed him to the back of her mind, as if she never had a son, if I believed that was the case, I’d encourage Nonat to fight for his legal rights … But, now, like this, in cold blood, not knowing what actually happened, I wouldn’t want to put her on the spot, and betray her to her son … I couldn’t, I couldn’t possibly, even if I hadn’t given my word … If she’s alive, her daughter must be married or about to be, and if the truth were trumpeted around, that might end their peace of mind, and all their fates … And if she’s dead, what would be the point of speaking up and sullying her memory? Do you see? If she were alive and I knew where she was, we could—for example—secretly go and see her, inform her of the situation, and ask her to look after her son without going public.” But then she started to falter and hesitate. “Except he wouldn’t accept that … Once it began, he’d want to take things to a conclusion, then it would be a disaster … Because there’s the catch! He’s set on doing this without heeding anyone, and it’s clear he’ll not stop short of causing havoc … I told you as much yesterday, Jepet: I don’t like this young man … he’s too full of himself … If he wants to find his parents, it’s not because they’re his parents, but because he thinks they’re rich and will give him a life of luxury. And if he finds them, he’ll be pitiless; he’ll drive them into a corner, you mark my words; he’ll drive them into a corner, and all hell will break loose. He’d only leave them in peace if he discovered they were poor, without a cent to their name …” She stopped. A clever idea had just flashed across her brain: an idea she’d been chasing all night. Her anxious face brightened into a sly grin. “And if so … let’s give it a try, I’ll bet you I’m right.”

  But Jepet couldn’t bet anything because, though he seemed attentive, he hadn’t been following Maria’s thread of thought. The hens had seized all his energy. None outside the basket had been able to get a single grain. The one that had established herself like a sovereign queen was in complete control. Clucking contentedly, she scratched with her yellow legs, claws full of dirt, in that God-blessed granary, discovering endless treasures: a black bean gleaming like jet, the small whitish-gray cadaver of a desiccated insect, a broken ear of corn, a shiny pebble, a vetch the size of a chickpea … Her sieving revealed surprising riches. Her coop-mates, the other hens, bristled with envy, and seeing they weren’t strong enough to force her off her throne, were taking it out on each other, skirmishing furiously, beaks pulling out feathers …

  Until a bitter, frantic sound suddenly issued from the warm depths of the coop, and all at once, as if shot out from a blowgun, another hen emerged, disheveled and flustered. The soldier of the yard, who’d been amorously accompanying his favorite while she laid an egg, then appeared, solemn and erect, imposing respect. And at the sight of their magnificent lord and master, the hysterical hens around the basket lifted their siege, fluttered off forlornly, and, alerted by the turmoil, Maria, with an angry swipe of her apron, frightened away the delinquent, greedy red hen.

  Jepet now heard the buzz that till then had barely reached his ears turn into something intelligible, and he grasped what Maria was saying: “People are so quick to say that you think you’ve got it right when you’ve got it all wrong! I so regretted not holding onto him at the time … If I’d been te
mpted to do so before I took him to the Orphanage, we wouldn’t be so happy today. Because it’s obvious he would never have accepted our poverty-stricken lives! I mean, he gives himself such airs!”

  And, as if she’d finished wracking her brain, she stood up, affectionately telling her husband to go and get the egg from the coop, while she went to see if Nonat was awake.

  “And don’t get it wrong: the best layer is the one with the black squiggle.”

  But Jepet stopped her, panic-stricken: “But what if he asks me something?”

  Her response came loud and clear.

  “If he asks you? Say you haven’t a clue … It’s all a mystery to you … Better do that, so you don’t muddy the waters …”

  Jepet was fully on board, and, peace of mind restored, went to look for that egg.

  The conversation between godmother and godson was a curious tug-of-war: a subtle game of defensive diplomacy on her part; on his, a spirited, impetuous dive into the deep end, its sole outcome a leap into the void.