María Dueñas - The Time in Between

The sweet little Moorish girl helped me to settle in. Together we unpacked my few belongings and hung them on wire hangers in the closet that was really no more than a wooden crate with a little leftover bit of fabric hung over the front. That piece of furniture, a bare bulb, and an old bed with a coarse stuffed mattress made up all the fittings in the room. An out-of-date calendar with a picture of a nightingale on it, courtesy of El Siglo barbershop, brought the only touch of color to the whitewashed walls marked by the leftovers of a sea of leaks. In one corner, on a trunk, a number of household odds and ends had accumulated: a straw basket, a battered washbowl, two or three chipped chamber pots, and a couple of rusty wire cages. The room was austere, verging on poverty, but it was clean. As she helped me to organize that mess of rumpled clothes that made up the entirety of my belongings, the girl with the jet-black eyes kept repeating in a gentle voice, “Siñorita, you no worry; Jamila wash, Jamila iron Siñorita clothes.”

I did not have much strength, and the little extra I’d used to move the suitcase and empty out its contents brought on a sudden wave of dizziness. I sat down at the foot of the bed, closed my eyes, and covered my face with my hands, resting my elbows on my knees. My balance came back in a couple of minutes, then I returned to the present and found that young Jamila was still beside me, watching with concern. I looked around. It was still there, that poor dark mouse hole of a room, with my rumpled clothes on the hangers and my suitcase disemboweled on the floor. Despite the chasm of uncertainty I felt opening before me, I realized with a sense of relief that, however badly things were going, at least I already had my own little hole in which to take shelter.

Candelaria returned an hour later. The others arrived at more or less the same time, the wretched catalog of guests to whom the household offered room and board. The parish was made up of a hair products representative, an employee of the Telegraph and Mail Department, a retired schoolmaster, a couple of sisters advanced in years and shriveled as salted fish, and a rotund widow with her son, whom she called her little “Paquito” in spite of his deep voice and the thick down that he sported on his upper lip. They all greeted me politely when the hostess introduced me and then settled in silence around the table, each in their assigned place: Candelaria at the head, the others spread along the two sides. The women and Paquito on one side, the men opposite. “You at the other end,” she commanded. She began to serve the stew, speaking without respite about how much the price of meat had gone up and how well the melons were doing that year. She wasn’t aiming her comments at anyone in particular and yet seemed to have a great desire not to yield in her chatter, however trivial the subject and slight the attention of her fellow diners. Without a word, everyone set to their lunch, bringing the cutlery from their plates rhythmically to their mouths. No other sound could be heard than the voice of the hostess, the noise of the spoons against the crockery, and the sounds of chewing and swallowing. A moment of inattention on Candelaria’s part eventually allowed me to figure out the reason for her incessant chatter: at her first pause, calling for Jamila from the kitchen, one of the sisters took advantage to drive in her wedge.

“They say Badajoz has fallen.” The words of the younger of the two older sisters didn’t seem to be directed at anyone in particular either—to the water jug, perhaps, or the salt shaker, or the cruets or the picture of the Last Supper that presided, slightly askew, on the wall. Her tone was meant to seem indifferent, too, as though she were commenting on the temperature that day or the taste of the peas. I learned right away, however, that her comment was as innocent as a recently sharpened blade.

“What a shame; so many good lads who’ve given their lives to defend the legitimate government of the Republic; so many young, energetic lives wasted, with all that pleasure they could have given to a woman as appealing as you, Sagrario.”

The acid-charged reply had come courtesy of the traveling salesman and was met with a laugh from the rest of the men. As soon as Doña Herminia noticed that her little Paquito had also found the salesman’s comment funny, she gave the lad a good thwack that left the back of his neck red. Supposedly helping the boy out, the old schoolteacher intervened at this point with his sensible voice. Without lifting his head from his plate, he pronounced, “Don’t laugh, Paquito, they say that laughing shrivels the brain.”

The moment he’d finished the sentence the child’s mother weighed in.

“That’s why the army rose up, to put an end to all that laughing, all that joy, and all the licentiousness that’s driving Spain to ruin…”

Then it was as though hunting season had opened. The three men on one side and the three women on the other raised their voices almost as one, a chicken coop in which no one was listening to anyone and everyone started yelling, letting insults and outrages fly from their mouths. Vicious commie, sanctimonious old cow, son of Lucifer, bitter old hag, atheist, degenerate, and dozens of other epithets shot through the air in a crossfire of angry shouts. The only people who remained silent were Paquito and myself: me because I was new there and had no knowledge or opinion about the outcome of the fighting, and Paquito probably out of fear of another blow. At that moment his mother was accusing the schoolmaster of being a foul Freemason and Satan worshipper, her mouth filled with half-chewed potatoes and a thread of oil running down her chin. At the other end of the table, meanwhile, Candelaria was being transformed, second by second: rage increased her bulk, and her face, which just a moment before had been so agreeable, began to redden until, unable to contain herself any longer, she gave the table a thump with her fist, so hard that the wine jumped from the glasses, the plates clattered, and the stew splashed onto the tablecloth. Like a thunderclap, her voice rose above the other half dozen voices.

“If you talk about this damned war in this blessed house one more time, I’ll throw you all into the street and toss your suitcases off the balcony!”

Reluctantly, and exchanging murderous glances, they all furled sails and concentrated on finishing their first course, struggling to contain their fury. The mackerel of the second course was devoured in near silence; the watermelon for dessert threatened danger because of its crimson color, but the tension never exploded. Lunch ended without any further incident; for that, I would only need to wait till dinner. It would all come back then, the ironic comments as a starter, and the double entendres, then the poison-tipped darts and the exchange of blasphemies and people crossing themselves, and finally the untrammeled insults and flying crusts of bread aimed at the eyes of the person opposite. And as a coda, we again heard Candelaria’s warning of the imminent eviction of all the guests if they persisted in reenacting the two sides of the conflict. I learned then that it was normal for this ritual to play out at the three daily meals at the boardinghouse, day in and day out. Never once, however, did our hostess cut a single one of the guests loose, despite the fact that they all kept their war nerves on the alert, their tongues sharp, ready to assail the opposing side mercilessly. Those days of scant trade were no time for the Matutera to voluntarily give up what each of those poor homeless devils was paying for room, board, and the right to a weekly bath. So, in spite of all her threats, there were few days that didn’t see one side of the table hurling opprobrium at the other, as well as olive pits, political slogans, banana skins, and at the most heated moments an occasional gob of spit and more than one fork. The essence of life itself on the scale of a domestic battle.