Mercè Rodoreda - The Selected Stories

“See this?” she said to me. “Every year my husband planted dahlias in this empty basket. With a sharp tool he’d dig a hole in the spongy earth; then I’d hand him the bulbs, one by one, and he’d hold them up, slowly covering them with dirt. At night he used to call to me: ‘Come here,’ he’d say, wanting me to rest my head on his shoulder. He’d put his arm around me, said he couldn’t sleep unless I was right beside him, and even though he’d washed his hands, I could catch that scent of good earth. My husband would say the dahlias were our children. He was like that, you know, full of funny little stories, always wanting to joke around, make me laugh. Every afternoon I’d water the basket of flowers. He’d walk through the garden on his way back from work and notice the earth was damp, but still he’d say, as he gave me a kiss, ‘Have you watered the dahlias?’ You see, when I was a young thing, I didn’t like those flowers. They smelled bad. But now, when I pass a florist or a garden that has dahlias, I always stop to look at them. It’s like a huge, strong hand grabs my heart and squeezes it. Makes me dizzy.

“You have to understand that when we got married, my father almost damned me to hell. He didn’t want me to marry my husband, who was illegitimate, but I was madly in love and ignored my father’s wishes. When he died a year later, I always thought it was because he was old, but as time passed, I realized my disobedience upset him so much, it killed him. Some nights I’d feel like weeping when my husband called, ‘Come here.’

“We were happy, we loved each other, and we were managing well enough because I was working too, sewing children’s clothes, and they thought well of me at work. We put a little bit aside in case we got sick. You look at me and maybe you think she’s always been like this. If only you knew how pretty I used to be. When we were courting, my husband would sometimes stare at me for a while, not saying a word; then he’d run his finger over my cheek and whisper ‘Beautiful,’ like he was embarrassed. I wasn’t what you’d call attractive, but I had sweet, shiny eyes, velvety. Forgive me, but I can say this, because it’s like I was talking about a daughter who had died. You understand? I think the trouble began because I became a woman when I was really young. But things got worse when I stopped being a woman. Before, I’d only be grumpy a few days a month. When the dark mood came over me, my husband used to laugh and say, ‘I know what’s going to happen!’ And he was always right. Around the time I’m telling you about my husband lost his job. His boss went bankrupt. He stayed at home for several months — was really down even though I told him not to worry, we had enough put aside to carry us through — till a friend started telling him that waiting on tables was good, easy work. So, despite the fact that my husband was much more of an office man, he became a waiter.

“About seven or eight months after my husband started the job, I found out I was anemic from working too hard and not sleeping at night. You see, I used to wait up for my husband when he came home late, and then I’d have trouble falling asleep, because even though he slept pretty well, he’d keep turning, pulling on the sheet. We sold the double bed and bought two single ones. You know what? That started driving us apart. When there was a moon, I’d look over at him from my bed: he seemed so far away. It was like our feelings for each other had died a little, because we couldn’t touch. ‘Are you asleep?’ I’d whisper. If he said ‘No,’ it calmed me because I heard his voice; and if he was asleep, he didn’t answer. You see the kind of things that make people miserable? Little by little, I started to believe he didn’t answer because he was pretending to be asleep, and I would cry, all alone, quietly, because my husband worked in a café on the Rambla where women were constantly coming and going. One night I cried. I was thinking about my father who died like he’d been abandoned, all on account of losing me when I fell in love with my husband, and my husband got up, sat on my bed, and asked, ‘What’s the matter?’ But instead of calming down, I burst out sobbing, filled with sadness. My husband lay beside me, put his arm around me, my head against his shoulder like before, and said, ‘The day after tomorrow is Sunday, we’ll plant dahlias. You go to sleep now. You hear me?’ But we couldn’t sleep, we were still awake when the sun came up. When he got home from work the next day, he said he had a headache, he felt exhausted, it was my fault. I made him a cup of linden tea, but he didn’t want it. Finally he took an aspirin, but he was white as a sheet.

“A few days later, he said to me, ‘You remember that girl two doors down?’ ‘I don’t know who you’re referring to.’ I stared at him as if he’d just said, ‘I’ve fallen in love with her.’ I couldn’t help it, even though I didn’t know what girl he meant or why he was mentioning her. ‘The house with the two brothers.’ ‘Oh, I know who she is. What about her?’ ‘Well, she works in the café with me; she sits at the cash register.’

“The two boys and the girl lived down the street. They had only been there three years. When they moved in the girl was really young, she looked like a child; in summer she always wore a white dress with a red flower embroidered on the bodice. I don’t know why, but after that day I felt like I needed to wait for my husband by the gate. He’d arrive around two, and as soon as I glimpsed his little shadow at the end of the street, I’d run inside. As I waited I sometimes thought about my father: he used to send me to the druggist when I was little, and he’d lean against the railing on the balcony, waiting for me. I hated it. I could hardly walk, because I knew my father’s eyes never missed a gesture of mine. That’s why, before my husband could see me, I’d run back into the house and slip into bed, or take up my sewing. If he found me sewing, I’d tell him I’d stayed up because it was something urgent. Then one night I saw him walking with the girl; after that they always returned together. There’s nothing strange about it, of course, living as we did right beside each other. I didn’t think anything of it. My husband wasn’t like other men; since the day we married, he’d loved only me. They would stroll along slowly. I never, ever, saw her take his arm. Absolutely not! But then I started to agonize. If I hadn’t seen them together, maybe the strange change in me would never have happened. I began to feel like I was a nuisance to my husband; something was different, and without wanting to, I started to distance myself from him. I hardly said a word to him, for fear I’d let slip that I waited for him by the gate. One day I ran into the girl in the bakery. She didn’t notice me. I would’ve liked her to recognize me, greet me, tell me she and my husband were friends. ‘Your husband and I work at the same place, and since we take the same route home, we come back together at night.’ My old friend Roser, who sometimes helped me sew, used to say, ‘The more you do for men, the worse it gets. When you grow old and worn down, they look for a young girl. Best not to be upset.’ I felt like telling her, ‘My husband’s not like other men; that’s why I chose him. When we look at each other, we don’t see what we are, but what we were.’

“One night my husband stormed in, not like himself at all. ‘What will Maria think when she discovers you wait for me every night? One of her brothers sees you from his bedroom window and told me today. He says when you see us, you run inside. Can’t you understand my embarrassment?’ The following day I went to the bakery at noon to see if I’d run into the girl again.