Bernardo Atxaga - The Lone Woman

AS SOON AS she fell asleep, a feeling of strangeness came over her. She saw herself beneath a completely blue sky and in an unknown place that was nothing like the bus. And it wasn’t only what she saw that was strange, there were strange noises and smells too: the birdsong, the tinkling cowbells, the fragrance of rosemary and thyme.

“What is this place?” she thought, and the effort of trying to find an answer almost woke her up. But what she could see, smell and hear was so pleasant that she decided, right at the last moment, just as she was about to open her eyes, to go on and to immerse herself in that new reality.

She examined what there was beneath that blue sky. She saw sheep, lambs and a hut.

“Of course, that’s why I could hear bells,” she thought. Then she reached out her hand towards one of the lambs nearby and gathered it into her lap. It had a black head and its tail was light brown, but the rest of its body was completely white. It smelled really good.

Suddenly she noticed Margarita. She was sitting at the door of the hut and had a book in her hands. Next to her, lying on the grass, was a huge dog, a greyhound.

“I’m going to read you a poem, Irene. I think it fits your new situation perfectly. You look just like a shepherdess,” Margarita said, opening the book.

How could that be? Had Margarita left prison too? In that case, where were they? In Argentina? On the Pampas? She raised her head and looked around. All about her was a vast meadow. Yes, they could well be in the middle of the Pampas.

She had to interrupt her thoughts. Margarita was beginning to read.

Little Lamb, who made thee?

Dost thou know who made thee?

Gave thee life, and bid thee feed

By the stream and o’er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing, woolly, bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice?

Little Lamb, who made thee?

Dost thou know who made thee?

She started stroking the lamb. She felt a great feeling of calm, or something beyond calm; quietness, stillness, trust, serenity. Occasionally, a gust of wind brushed her hair, but it did not feel in the least cold. Was that what the Pampas were like? A kind of Arcadia? Perhaps it was. There was the flock, there was the blue sky, there too, although she had not heard it until then, was the sweet sound of the flute. Where was the shepherd flautist? She looked everywhere for him; she scanned the banks of a lake near the hut, she peered into the shadows of the willows bent over the water, but she could see no one.

The sheep had begun to move towards the lake, closely followed by their lambs. The sun was high and the water glittered.

“Do you want to go too?” she asked the lamb in her lap. The animal did not move.

“You were quite right to come here,” said Margarita, standing in the door of the hut. She too seemed calmer than when they had been in prison. “Life is very simple in this part of the world. You can get by on very little here. Do you know why? Because there are no people.”

“No people?”

“Very few. There are no more than two hundred inhabitants in the whole region. It’s a twenty-minute ride to our nearest neighbour. Life is very easy in conditions like this.”

“The green desert,” she remarked, gazing into the distance.

“This is your place, Irene,” said Margarita. She got up from the door of the hut, walked over to where Irene was sitting and lay down on the grass. “The way things were, you couldn’t return to your own country. Why struggle to rebuild your life in the places of the past? It seems fine to me that Antonia should do it, or the prostitutes and gypsies who were with us, because they all had somewhere to go, they had someone waiting for them. But you? What awaited you in Bilbao? I’ll tell you, Irene. First, a cement wall with the words “informer” and “traitor” scrawled on it; second, the baleful looks and the hatred of your former friends; third, the pity of people of good conscience; fourth, insidious persecution by the police, trying in a thousand and one different ways to get information out of you; fifth, the indifference of that family of yours who scarcely ever visited you while you were in prison. In a word, Irene, hell. That is all you would have found in the places of the past.”

“You’re right,” she said. “Besides, my previous world doesn’t interest me at all. I mean, there are some situations, however awful, which can still seem attractive, but not in this case. During my last year in prison, I couldn’t bear to read the newspapers or the bulletins they sent me from the Basque country. They bored me.”

“I’m not surprised, Irene. That was something I could never understand, how a restless person like you could still belong to the stagnant world of your former colleagues.”

The lamb jumped out of her lap and ran over to the lake. The greyhound that had been lying at the door of the hut came over and lay down beside Margarita. It was the same colour as the lamb: white, brown and black.

“It’s called Run Run,” said Margarita. The dog wagged its tail.

“Why Run Run?” she asked. This time the dog looked up.

“Don’t you know the song?”

She shook her head.

“Shall I sing it for you?”

“All right.”

“I used to sing it every day, not just once, but often. But now, I’m not sure, I may not remember it all.”

While Margarita concentrated, she stroked the dog’s head and back. The moment seemed utterly delicious. It was the same as when they used to get together in the sanctum sanctorum in prison, only this time with the dog, the lambs, the blue sky and everything else. She folded her arms and waited for the song. Someone she couldn’t see started playing the guitar to accompany Margarita.

Aboard a train of oblivion,

before the break of day,

at a railway halt in time,

all ready and eager to go,

Run Run headed north,

don’t know when he’ll be back.

I’ll be back for the anniversary

of our solitude, he said.

Three days later a letter

written in bright red ink

told me that his journey

might last longer than he thought,

that this, that and the other,

that he never, and besides,

that life is all a lie

and only death is real,

ay, ay, ay de mí .

Run Run sent the letter

just for the hell of it.

Run Run headed north

while I stayed in the south,

between us lies a gulf,

no music and no light,

ay, ay, ay de mí .

“It goes on, but I can’t remember the rest of it,” said Margarita, patting the greyhound’s head.

“Why do you like that song?” she asked, rather mischievously, remembering what people used to say in prison, that Margarita had been disappointed in love and that in this lay the root of her problems with the law.

“It helps me to get things off my chest. As you know, something similar happened to me. But his name wasn’t Run Run and he didn’t go north. He went to Spain, to direct a play in Barcelona.”

“What was his name?”

“He was the director of the theatre company I was working in. His name doesn’t matter. It’s an old, old story now. Not like yours.”

“Mine?”

“Yours, yes. Your affair with Larrea.”

“Larrea was killed,” she said, looking away. A group of parrots were fluttering around near the lake. They were green, red and yellow. The flock of sheep had disappeared from view.

“Hold out your hand,” said Margarita, almost laughing. “Hold out your hand like God and Adam in the painting by Michelangelo, and see what happens.”

She closed her eyes to concentrate better. What did Margarita mean? That Larrea was there too? That he hadn’t been killed? That he had managed to flee to the Pampas?