Bernardo Atxaga - The Lone Woman

It seemed to her, in fact, that the poem and others like it could have a negative influence, since they named the insurmountable obstacle and brought it into the house, like a ghost, and her sole aim should be to create diversions, to cheer people up by whatever means possible. Why not use instead a collection of humorous poems? Poems like the one that used to make Antonia laugh so much:

I always eat peas with honey,

I’ve done it all my life,

they do taste kind of funny,

but it keeps them on the knife.

She saw at once that she had succeeded. Most of the young people were applauding and one of them was roaring with laughter, revealing a toothless mouth. Yes, that was the way forward. It wasn’t a case of extolling happiness. You demonstrated happiness by making people happy.

She saw herself standing at the window of the room strewn with cushions, smoking a cigarette and looking out at the waves on the beach. Yes, she could stay in that house. It was a place set apart from the world, like the Pampas. Besides, she could be useful there.

The waves on the beach suddenly disappeared and she again saw the bus window speckled with rain. They had reached the final toll booth of the journey.

THE LARGE WOMAN was still talking. The nun with green eyes was nodding, but she was looking at her.

“We’re nearly there,” said the nun, taking advantage of a pause in the conversation.

“I’ll just smoke one last cigarette then,” she said, looking out of the window. She saw the lights of a factory and the street-lamps in a deserted street. The rain was falling, forming threads, grey threads.

“I put the last one out myself. It was burning a hole in the plastic cup,” said the large lady, trying to gain favour with the older nun. But the latter was still looking out of the window, taking no notice of her.

“You should start putting your things away in the suitcase. We’re coming into Bilbao now,” said the nun with green eyes.

The bus was going along a stretch of motorway from which you could see the whole city.

She peered out of the window. For miles around, the lights made everything look blurred, and it was impossible to see where the river was or where her house was in the old part of Bilbao.

The bus started heading downhill, then turned off up another street. She saw two men with umbrellas walking along the pavement, and further on, in an open space, a group of boys playing football. Bilbao. Her city.

She had to look away and concentrate on the cigarette she was smoking. She didn’t want to get upset.

“It seems we’re here,” she heard someone say. The policeman in the red tie had come over to her. “Please, ladies, don’t look at me like that. I’ve just come to say goodbye. Anyway, I’m off duty now.”

“You never give up, do you?” said the nun with green eyes.

“There are such a lot of tedious people in the world,” said the old nun.

The policeman ignored them and addressed Irene instead.

“See you again, Irene. At least I hope so.”

“I doubt that very much.”

“I know I haven’t behaved particularly well today, but I meant no harm by it. And I meant it when I said that I wanted to be your friend. You should at least give me a chance. I won’t ask anything in return. Keep this, will you?”

Her jacket was still on one of the seats. The policeman picked it up and put his card in one of the pockets.

“My home phone number is on the card. I’m giving it to you in complete confidence, and I hope you’ll respect that. As for you,” he added, looking at the nun with green eyes, “I’d just like to say one thing.”

“Well, make it short. We’re nearly at the bus station,” said the nun.

“It’s very simple. You’ve been sitting around this table talking about people who are ill, people who are marginalized. Well, we’re marginalized too, you know, especially here in the Basque country. We can’t make friends, and we have to live in hiding, if we don’t want some terrorist to kill us. That’s why you were wrong to criticize our behaviour. We’re just doing our job, whether we like it or not. Today, for example, I didn’t like what I had to do. But we still had to do it. Now the job’s done, and life goes on.”

He was making a great effort to control himself and not to give way to his anger, but his face was flushed by the time he had finished his little speech. He seemed utterly sincere.

“I’ll bear it in mind,” said the nun.

“Home at last! And about time!” said the old nun, getting up. The bus had just driven into the bus station.

“Goodbye, Irene,” said the policeman, holding out his hand to her.

“If we ever see each other again, then I’ll shake your hand. But not now,” she said, putting on her jacket.

There was a noise like a sneeze and the doors sprang open. The passengers from the upper deck started to come down the stairs.

“All right, Irene, see you then,” said the policeman. He joined his colleague with the flattened nose, and the two of them got off the bus.

“We’re going to get a taxi. What about you?” asked the nun with green eyes. After what they had talked about downstairs, the question was an invitation for her to accompany them.

She decided to consider that possibility. She could try it, just for a couple of weeks, until she saw how the land lay in Bilbao. Why not? She could go there tonight. She would call her father and tell him that she needed to be somewhere quiet for a while, not for any particular reason, just as a precaution.

She got off the bus and looked around. Where were the policemen? Would they follow her? From that point of view too, it seemed a good idea to go with the nuns. They were her insurance policy.

“I need to get a taxi as well. I live really close, but I feel too weak to walk,” said the large woman.

“I’ll go with you as far as the taxis,” she said.

It was about twenty yards from the door of the bus to the taxi rank, but that distance seemed much longer, because it was like a descent into reality. With each step she took, the beachside villa for the sick seemed farther off, and her plan to go there and work as a nurse or assistant seemed more and more unreal. In the end, when they reached the taxi, her plan — like all chimeras, like all dreams — had vanished into thin air. No, she wouldn’t accept the invitation, she wouldn’t go and take care of those young patients in order to assure herself of a refuge where she could live apart from the world. Besides, there was no running away. Like the very air itself, the malignant substances of this world penetrated every crack, impregnating everything, even the lives of people who shut themselves up in watertight rooms.

“I think I’ll walk. My family lives just over there, in the old part,” she said to the nun with green eyes.

“That sounds like a good idea, but don’t forget us. Drop by whenever you like,” she said, handing her a card.

“I will,” she said, taking the card and putting it in her jacket pocket.

“We’re going to get wet if we stand here much longer,” said the old woman, pointing up at the rain.

“Goodbye then. See you.”

The walk to the old part of the city was another descent, but this time her steps were crossing not the space between dream and reality, but another simpler space separating outside from inside. She had been away for a long time and now she was going home. When she reached the bridge over the river and saw all the places she had known as a child — the Arenal Park, the church of San Nicolás, the Arriaga Theatre — she began to feel what Margarita had said she would feel when she left prison, that the things from her past life would start to speak to her, be it the stones the buildings were made of or the boats on the river or the signs over the cafés — “Welcome, welcome home” — and that those welcoming voices would give her strength.