Unai Elorriaga - Plants Don't Drink Coffee

“Poor Doña Beatriz was completely embarrassed,” continued Aunt Rosa. “And Aitite Julian had an uncle, Uncle Jose Felix. Do you remember Jose Felix, Martina? He was completely shameless. He had no qualms about saying anything to anyone. And he said something to Doña Beatriz. Do you remember what he told her, Martina? There, in the Avenida. Jose Felix saw Doña Beatriz in the Avenida, right there, and he told her: you’ve got faith to spare at home. That’s what he told her. You’ve got faith to spare. And what he was really saying was they had too many mysteries in the armoire. How much we laughed about that story at home. Do you remember how we laughed, Martina?”

Martina didn’t remember how they laughed. Martina didn’t remember anything about the rosary and the armoire. But she remembered, for example: many other things about Aitite Julian. She remembered, for example:

“The sea bream,” said Martina. “Do you remember the sea bream, Rosa?”

“How could anyone forget that.”

“What happened with the sea bream?” Mateo.

“You don’t know that one either, señe ?” Aunt Rosa. “What happened was that Amama Josefa left a sea bream on the pan. And then she left the kitchen, and she told Aitite to keep an eye on the sea bream, that the sea bream was in the pan and to keep an eye on it, just for a while. And when Amama returned to the kitchen she found the sea bream on the floor and the house cat on the sea bream, eating the sea bream, licking the bones. Back then we had a cat at home. A dog as well. The cat was Astolfo and the dog Balendin. Those were the names Amama and Aitite gave them. And Astolfo was on top of the sea bream, happy, eating the sea bream, and Aitite Julian was watching him. And Amama Josefa started yelling at Aitite and telling him Why Did You Let The Cat Steal It, Why Didn’t You Take It Back? And Aitite Julian explained to her that the poor cat had gone through unspeakable suffering to steal the sea bream from the pan. That it’d gotten burned three times. By the flame. . the poor thing. . so how could he take the sea bream from it, after all it had suffered and all the sacrifices it had made, how could anyone take anything from the poor creature? That’s what Aitite told Amama Josefa. That’s who Aitite Julian was.”

They told Mateo lots of things about Aitite Julian in the end. And it was clear that Aitite Julian was infinitely more interesting than Immanuel Kant, and much more interesting than André Breton and more interesting than James Joyce himself. But something was still missing for Mateo: the result of the competition. The competition to find the best carpenter in Europe, that competition. But did it really take place? And what did Aitite Julian do? Did he win? Or did he lose? This is what was missing, as far as Mateo was concerned.

Aunt Rosa said that maybe Fausto Lada would know about the competition. You know who Fausto Lada is, don’t you? Fausto Lada is Gur’s uncle. You know who Gur is, don’t you? Gur is that illustrious man who has I don’t know what sort of business with your uncle Simon; that one, yes, the one making the rugby field with Simon.

“Fausto might know about the competition,” Aunt Rosa. “Fausto was a widower at forty-seven. He’s ninety-seven now. You go figure. He was Aitite Julian’s friend, Fausto was. He went to the Americas afterwards. He might know about the competition; his head is all there. More than I can say for mine.”

Aunt Rosa left Maloena at nine thirty, and just then some crazy guy surpassed the world pole vault record, in Sestriere. The mackerel were still in the fridge, but they would have happily gone for a walk, just like Aunt Martina, Mateo, Iñes, and Tomas did.

Today Dolfo, Ismael and I got together. But we didn’t play soccer. We didn’t play soccer today because we were in the abandoned house yesterday. The house’s name is Linduena. And it’s abandoned because a man went to the Americas and then he came back and built the house in the middle of town, and it’s got seven trees, five really big ones and two normal ones, and then he left again and I don’t know for sure but I think he lives in America or Paris or Caracas now, and the house is abandoned and doesn’t belong to anybody. Uncle Simon told me that.

That’s why we often go in, and it’s got a stone staircase outside and wooden ones inside. And you have to be careful on the wooden ones, because they break sometimes. Dolfo says the staircases are rotten. Dolfo often says things are rotten, especially fruits and especially lettuce. Dolfo’s mom sells fruit. Walnuts also. And when one of us bangs a knee and it turns black Dolfo says the leg is rotten.

It looks like no one lives in abandoned houses. This isn’t true. I’ll tell you who lives in abandoned houses: cats and spirits. More cats than spirits. Spirits are like people, only they don’t work and they don’t shower, and they’re made of rubber, like gummy bears. And they are more intelligent than people, because they’re dead, and stronger than people, because they’re made of rubber, like gummy bears. And I think some of them fly, and others walk. Most of them are dead, like Jesus, but they continue doing things, and more than anything they go for walks. And I think spirits and the Holy Spirit are not the same thing. They have a similar name, but they’re not the same thing. I’ve never seen them. Or the Holy Spirit.

And we were in that house yesterday, Dolfo, Ismael and I, and that’s why we didn’t play soccer today. What we do in the abandoned house is, we make up games. And the games are always about running everywhere in the house and around the trees. But you have to run carefully in abandoned houses, because everything is broken or half-broken, and we can fall and hurt ourselves badly. And we run very carefully. But only at the beginning. Afterwards we forget we should be running carefully and we run like crazy. That’s why Ismael’s got three nail holes in his head.

Ismael hid in a wardrobe and when he lifted his head he hit something and hurt himself. And when he opened the wardrobe door we saw there were three big nails in the wardrobe, towards the top. And the points of the nails were pointing downward, and that’s how Ismael hurt his head. Because at the beginning we always play carefully, but afterwards we don’t. Because we forget.

Ismael said his head didn’t hurt too much, at the beginning it did, but later it didn’t, but we left the house anyway, because we were a bit bored, because we had spent the whole afternoon in it. And it was getting dark, and there are no lights in abandoned houses and you can’t see very well, and there are no spirits in the daytime, but when it gets dark they come. And cats are asleep when it gets dark.

And besides, we wanted to play soccer; that’s why we left the house, because yesterday I brought the ball. I have a yellow ball, it’s plastic. On TV, soccer balls are never yellow. Mine is.

And we started playing soccer, there, at Eldo. Because there are streetlights near Eldo, they light up at night. The street-lights aren’t in the school, they’re in the street, but they are good enough for playing soccer. And Ismael hit the ball with his head, and I thought it was odd because my ball has never been red. And I took the ball in my hands and I saw it had blood everywhere, and I told Ismael, and Ismael took his hand to his head like this, and he looked at his hand and he saw he had blood on his head and his hair and lots of it.

And we ran to Ismael’s house, Ismael, Dolfo and I. And we didn’t run carefully, because you don’t need to run carefully in the streets, like you do in abandoned houses. If there are cars then you do. But otherwise you can run like crazy in the street. Ismael’s dad cleaned the wound in his head a bit, with Merthiolate and hydrogen peroxide, but he said Ismael would need a tetanus shot. And we got a bit frightened. And Ismael got even more frightened.