Emili Teixidor - Black Bread

Quirze said nothing as if he’d not heard what she’d said. Grandmother sighed and added: “War rots everything, that’s what Father Tafalla says, and he’s right. Blasted war spares nothing, saves nobody, simply kills…and…everybody scattered to the four corners…brother and sisters, sons and daughters, grandchildren…flung all over the shop, like thunder, lightning and hail that leaves not one plant standing.”

We noticed how Grandmother was squeezing Quirze tight around his waist because he stooped slightly forward and his shirt wrinkled where her hand pressed tightly. But he said nothing, not a word, and seemed as serious as ever. Cry-Baby and I looked up to see what was happening, and Grandmother’s eyes met ours and she smiled, as she always did, she always laughed in the end and that effort she made calmed us down, nothing could be that bad if she could turn it into a joke: “Even the goblins have scarpered, my children,” she laughed, “even they have cleared off to get a breath of fresh air, and now you see how old and rickety this big house is if the goblins, water maidens and witches don’t want to hide here. Everyone must do what they must do, must make their own path in life, must soldier on…it’s a law of life.”

Then Cry-Baby asked timidly, as if she knew she was crossing a forbidden frontier: “Won’t the goblin ever come out again, Grandmother? Won’t we ever see him again at night?”

“You will, my dear,” she laughed again, as if her sadness and sorrow had suddenly evaporated. “Of course, you’ll see the goblin again. Not here, because he’s already left, but you’ll be seeing him again — somewhere else.”

“Where? Whereabouts?” my cousin reacted in surprise until she grasped the kind of riddle Grandmother had invented: “Oh, I get it now! In the woods, I’ll see him in the woods, in the depths of the forest, in the darkest depths!”

Grandmother laughed again, as if cheered up by her little game, and replied: “We… Now you say that, I reckon it will be some time before he’s back. Goblins like a quiet life and flee houses and places where people shout and bicker. They want to be the centre of attention, and that means it’s harder to catch sight of them, especially when there’s squabbling, that’s when they’re quick to scarper!”

“And will only I be able to see him?” Cry-Baby seemed hooked on the game. “Won’t Andreu be able to see him? And what about Quirze? Or Oak-Leaf?”

“You poor little jenny-wren!” said Quirze keeping stock-still. “Oak-Leaf isn’t one of ours anymore. They’ve put Oak-Leaf out to work. You can bet she has no time for ghosts now. And, as far as I go, I don’t want to see anything. Father says I needn’t go back to school if I don’t want.”

“So now I’ll have to go to the Novíssima by myself?” Cry-Baby asked fearfully. “Every day? All by myself? Oak-Leaf says nasty things happen in the woods.”

“Oak-Leaf is out of her mind,” Quirze interrupted, “and a liar. Don’t you know everything she said was stupid nonsense? She never saw anything in the woods, and never met anyone either.”

Quirze’s voice was unwavering. I sensed he was starting to align himself with the grownups, in particular with his father, who divided people and the world into two halves, the good side that supported him, and the bad side that didn’t. Everything was black or white, there were no greys, no in-betweens. How could he say that when we all knew some of those things had turned out to be true?

“What about the dead horse then?” asked Cry-Baby, as if she’d read my thoughts, “and the civil guards?”

“Are you still scared of the civil guards, you ninny?” Quirze laughed, but he was play-acting, not for his benefit, but to make fun of her. “If you see them walk by, just ask them to go with you and that will be that.”

“Now that dead horse was a very strange business,” interjected Grandmother. “There are thieves and Republican soldiers who cross the border and come to steal… Perhaps Grandfather Hand will tell us something eventually, when he comes.”

Our conversation had made us forget the quarrelling in the kitchen. Aunt Ció’s voice, from the lobby, at the foot of the stairs, brought us right back to it.

“Quirze!” shouted Aunt Ció who we could tell was really angry. “Come down right now, Quirze, you’ve got to run to the monastery.”

“Right now?” he whelped, wearily. “At this time of night the monks are all asleep!”

“Shut up and come down at once if you don’t want your father to tell you!”

Quirze muttered and grumbled his way downstairs. We remained still and silent to see if we heard more voices. But we heard nothing else until Quirze was halfway down and Aunt Ció hurried him up with another exclamation that sounded odd from her lips: “And don’t you answer me back unless you want a good hiding!”

Then we heard her at the foot of the stairs telling him in a more subdued tone to fetch Father Tafalla from the Saint Camillus monastery, and to ring the little bell for the sick that’s by the front door, because they always have someone on standby in case they needed to rush off and give the last rites to someone who is dying.

Grandmother bade her time, until the figure of Quirze at full pelt disappeared around the corner of the house and the noise of squabbling voices in the kitchen became barely audible once again, and so remote it might have been restless animals in their stable.

“Perhaps we should all go to bed,” said Grandmother limply, as if we ought to be doing something.

“Before we’ve had dinner?” asked Cry-Baby, who really didn’t seem to feel the tension in the air.

“Are you very hungry?” smiled Grandmother. “Because I reckon the hottest thing at suppertime tonight will be the kitchen sink. We’ll have to eat grass. The oven’s not for lighting. Anyone want to test out that saying — sleep on an empty stomach, dream of the dead and gone?”

Cry-Baby scowled in disgust and wasn’t exactly overjoyed at going to bed so early on an empty stomach.

“You know what we could do?” asked Grandmother, as if she’d had a brainwave. “Andreu, you find your way downstairs and fetch a light from the kitchen…”

I didn’t budge because I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of returning to the kitchen if I didn’t know what kind of reception I would get. I imagined Dad Quirze’s face and those cold, hard eyes that looked as if they could sting, strip and nail you to the ground in front of him. Dad Quirze rarely argued, his gaze had been enough to get his way on the few occasions I’d seen him row or shout at someone, it only needed a couple of insults or snarls from him to crush anybody who tried to cross him. That’s why I thought the row in the kitchen that night was quite out of the ordinary. Something terrible must have happened, something unspeakable, some dreadful, dark deed had undermined Dad Quirze’s taciturn sullenness and made him go red with rage and raise his voice to his sister-in-law. A part of the obscure, hidden magma of the adult world had revealed itself in that outburst triggered quite fortuitously, on a minimal pretext, like a small crack that leaks liquid from a full tank, and it was all my fault, because of the visit paid by Mr. and Mrs. Manubens, the masters, who were opening their powerful wings to protect me. What else lay behind all I’d seen and heard?

“What do you think, lad?” persisted Grandmother.

However, before I could respond, we heard someone on the stairs, and a light getting ever closer and brighter. Aunt Ció was coming up to the sitting room with a smelly carbide lamp.

“What are you all doing here in darkness?” she asked, her voice calmer now voice, as if the earthquake was over and done with. “Don’t you want any dinner?”