The Winterlings (25 page)

She cried for the cow, but most of all she cried for what she knew was lost from that moment on. She cried for Saladina making fig jam in the kitchen. She cried for the sound of her teeth clicking in the mornings, for the smell of her hot urine. She cried for the ferocious odour of her loins. She cried for the mashed banana sandwiches that they used to eat in England and for the stench of stale popcorn in the cinemas. She cried for the roosting chickens and for the sound of the cowbell as they went up the mountain. She cried for the yellow resplendence of the gorse flower. She cried for the film she would never star in, for the sound of Mr Tenderlove's red car wending through the back roads. She cried for Tierra de Chá.

She cried for life.

She cried for her.

Finally, she wiped away her tears with her apron, went to the kitchen, then made breakfast for her sister before taking it up. She found her sitting up in bed, wearing those thick glasses she used for sewing. She put water in a bowl, and left it on her sister's lap so that she could wash her hands. She dropped in a bar of soap, and left her hands in the bowl too. For a while, their hands intertwined in the soapy water, seeking each other out like fish, brushing against each other.

‘Are they my fingers or yours?' said one Winterling.

‘What difference does it make?' answered the other, after some thought.

They both started laughing.

Once the bowl had been cleared away, Saladina drank her cup of anise and ate a bit of cheese omelette, but she didn't have the strength for much more.

‘Did Greta …?' she asked suddenly.

‘Yes,' answered Dolores.

Saladina took off her glasses and sat watching the countryside from the window. The wind shook the cornstalks ferociously. From time to time, it carried the echoes of church bells.

‘No one will ever know that her real name is Teixa,' said one sister.

‘Or that we stole her,' said the other one. ‘So many secrets! Do you remember how scared we were that someone would recognise her?'

Silence fell over them again.

Outside, a crow croaked.

‘You never told me the reason for all that running,' said Saladina after a time.

‘Greta's running?' asked her sister, puzzled.

‘No, the Taragoña Express,' she answered.

Dolores the Winterling sat thinking on it for a while. So many years telling that same story, and she herself and had never stopped to think why that man ran about day and night.

‘It doesn't matter,' said her sister. ‘I don't even want to know anymore. We've had some good times together, haven't we, Dolores?'

‘We sure have.'

‘We had fun, didn't we?'

‘I think so …'

Then Saladina made a gesture for her sister to come close and whispered a single lucid sentence in her ear, ten words that Dolores would never forget and that, in truth, she never knew quite how to interpret: ‘You can go to Hollywood now to become an actress.'

Dolores began to hiccup.

‘Are you giving me your blessing? Really? And what about our little secret
?
What about my little secret
?
Does the priest know? What did you tell him? I have to know!'

But Saladina went silent; she fell into a deep and peaceful sleep, and shortly thereafter, she passed away.

Dolores watched over the body all night. Then she tried to sleep a little.

She felt terribly relieved.

19

The next morning, after sleeping for a couple of hours, Dolores went down to the kitchen. Her sister lay still on the stretcher she had prepared for her.

‘Sala, can you hear me, Sala?'

The mute presence of Saladina filled the room.

Dolores went silent, then began talking excitedly.

‘I know I need to get a move on … But I'm confused … It's difficult, you know? We always did everything together …'

She waited again in silence.

‘Don't you worry, I'll take off that nightdress and put something pretty on you. But let me just ask you one thing …' Her pulse quickened, she stopped, and then started again with a feeble groan. ‘Do you still think I should go, Sala? I don't want to do anything you don't approve of, now that …'

Dolores spent the whole morning thinking about how she would arrange for her sister's burial. At around midday, she wanted to move the body, but it had begun to stiffen and was difficult to move. She grew more and more confused and weary. Then she heard a knock at the door.

It was the priest, accompanied by nearly the whole village. When they saw him going past with his bag of holy oils, once again in the direction of the Winterlings' house, the villagers couldn't help but follow. Along the way, others joined them.

When she opened the door, Dolores felt herself give in to happiness, feeling the most absolute gratitude. Seeing all those people there, she felt she had been mistaken. Deep down they were good people after all: they were prepared to help out and bring comfort in difficult times. And so while she let them in, she explained in a trembling voice that she needed help to go to Sanclás to buy a … then she'd have to come back and …

‘My sister is dead,' she announced at last.

There was a general silence. Don Manuel crossed himself.

‘Jesus Christ!' said Meis' Widow, covering her mouth with her hand.

They came into the house and filed slowly by the body. Some of them kissed her knees and feet.

‘She looks sad,' said Aunty Esteba, screwing up her nose.

‘And thinner,' added Meis' Widow. She still had her hand over her mouth, as if that way she might avoid throwing up.

‘What a shame!' said the
gaitero,
the local bagpiper from Sanclás, who by chance was in town that morning. ‘All those new teeth and barely any time to use them.'

‘Considering how expensive they are!' said Tristán. ‘I was thinking of getting some myself, and look … What's the point? We all end up like her.'

They stood silently while the priest prayed in Latin. Dolores noticed then that three or four women were whispering and looking over at the priest, waiting for his signal, and then they dashed out towards the shed. Don Manuel stopped praying for a few seconds. Moments later, the women came back with a pick and a shovel, and went down to the cowshed.

‘Where are you going with those? Stop that!' he screeched, wiping beads of sweat off his forehead. ‘I'm telling you, you should wait for the Civil Guard.'

The women stopped dead in front of the cowshed door. They turned around and stood next to Dolores, the stretcher with Saladina on it and the group of villagers surrounding them. But they were impatient, and didn't put down the pick or the shovels.

‘My sister is going rigid,' said the Winterling. ‘We have to shroud her and put her in the coffin right away. I haven't got … I haven't got a coffin yet.'

The priest kept praying without taking much notice, his fingers entwined in his lap, visibly excited. The women, who hadn't stopped whispering and fidgeting among themselves, decided to ignore the priest's instructions and head into the cowshed. For a good while, you could hear them scratching away in the gorse: ‘Have a look here,' said one; ‘Move that branch, what a stink,' said another, and then more moving of branches and crunching of dry leaves; ‘Phwoah, it has to be here, get digging, yes, dig away…'; ‘But didn't he say it was in the cowshed?'; ‘Yes, here, it must be around here — look, here the earth has been turned over …'

From time to time, Don Manuel opened his eyes, listened in, then let out a sigh, shaking his head. ‘I told them it would be better to wait for the Civil Guard to begin the search,' he whispered to himself. The other men also listened to the hubbub with interest.

And then everything went silent.

Horribly silent.

Suddenly, the group of women marched out, leaving the pick and the shovels abandoned on the ground. They looked like they'd just seen a ghost; they pushed each other in their rush to get out. Meanwhile, the priest began to make way between them: ‘What's going on?' he yelled. ‘There's nothing here, what did you see? I told you to wait for the Civil Guard!'

‘But your sister told me he wasn't here!' he said, addressing himself to Dolores.

‘This has nothing to do with my sister,' she said calmly.

‘She told me what she had done …'

‘Then she lied to you.'

The priest wiped the sweat from his forehead again. He began to stutter.

‘But, dear woman … How could you?'

‘And what would you have done in my place?'

Those who had been waiting in the living room began to grow impatient. The circle of people around Saladina's stretcher melted away. The Widow said that it wasn't as if she didn't want to help, God no, but she had never liked being around the dead. She was followed out by Uncle Rosendo, who shrugged as he excused himself, what was he supposed to do? Where there's a captain, a sailor gives no orders. Aunty Esteba suddenly remembered that she had left bread baking in the oven, and went off, saying that she'd be back later. At the end of the day, she was the one who always dressed the departed, and she had no problem with helping out. Only the priest, Tristán, the bagpiper from Sanclás, and two other villagers remained.

The two villagers and the bagpiper were of the opinion that a woman who had lost her sister would need solitude and time to reflect, and that it would be best if they left. Tristán looked at his watch and left also. At the door, he turned around and confusedly muttered something about his birds squawking. Then the priest, who for some time now had had one foot out of the door, decided that the best thing would be to call Mr Tenderlove, who could take Dolores in his car to Sanclás to buy a coffin. And so he set off to find him.

Dolores was alone once more. Lying on the stretcher, her sister had acquired an ashen tinge. She was now so stiff that it would be impossible to dress her, ‘just as Saladina had told me, months ago, even before she fell ill,' thought Dolores to herself with sadness.

Hours later, as it began to grow dark, the Winterling set out to find Tenderlove at his house. She was walking gravely, all erect and lonesome, when she saw the priest running at full speed in the opposite direction. Don Manuel looked up at her for a second, then looked away again. Dolores noticed that the cuffs of his cassock had mud and burrs from the shortcuts he had taken.

She went back up the main street, up the spine of the fish, as it were. The village was empty — an emptiness that seemed somehow to fill everything. Where was everyone? Where were the animals? She crossed paths with a dirty blonde girl with blue eyes who had a wooden pail on her head, and who scuttled off immediately. Then she passed in front of the school. At that moment, Uncle Rosendo came out, clipping one of the kids over the ear. Seeing the Winterling pass by, he stood still. The children began to whisper among themselves.

‘I didn't say anything before because there were people around, but I think I'm going to follow your advice, Rosendo,' said Dolores.

Uncle Rosendo kicked a small child out of the way and shuffled over.

‘My advice?'

‘I'm going to face up to my moment of truth,' she replied.

The Winterling was expecting an effusive reaction from Uncle Rosendo, some kind of discourse on fear and the mechanics of the moment, but it never came.

‘Ah,' was his only response. ‘Perhaps …'

But Uncle Rosendo couldn't go on. Meis' Widow was already there, pulling at his arm and telling him to go inside.

Dolores found Mr Tenderlove in his workshop. With a degree of spite, she asked him if the priest had informed him of her sister's passing.

‘He … He told me,' said Tenderlove, somewhat embarrassed. ‘It's just that I'm in the middle of polishing, I've got a client from Coruña — how about that, Coruña! He's coming first thing in the morning, and I haven't been able to get away.'

Dolores stood waiting. She wasn't entirely sure she'd understood about the polishing. At last the dental mechanic put down what he was doing, and, putting his shirt back on to go out, he said that he had no problems helping out, that for Saladina he'd give his life and even his teeth.

They went to Sanclás in the SEAT 1400, and bought a coffin that they took back home. Once he was inside, Tenderlove didn't seem moved by Saladina's body. He looked at her very calmly, as if she'd been dead all her life.

‘One day, the priest came into the tavern all excited and told us all that Saladina had just confessed to killing your husband,
all by herself
, because of jealousy, but that the body wasn't here …' said Tenderlove after a while.

Dolores pretended not to hear.

‘First we need to get a clean dress on her,' she said.

She went up to the bedroom and took out several dresses and Saladina's red silk stockings. These were the clothes they'd brought all the way from England, clothes they'd barely worn in the village. She came back down and put it all out on the table. Tenderlove recognised the stockings.