Maria Barbal - Stone in a Landslide

Yes, I was hoping for a son. The girls were already young women and after the first year, bringing them up had flown by. They had been raised to respect Tia’s authority — they called her grandmother. They had a father they adored but who was away a lot, and a mother they treated more like a big sister. I too was under Tia’s daily orders, just like them, even when I didn’t want to be. I thought of the last time I’d been upset and had to go through it alone, when my aunt and uncle had kept the milk from the girls because the calves needed it. I hadn’t protested. I’d even not told Jaume about it, so there wouldn’t be a fuss.

I wanted a boy. I don’t know why. Maybe to protect us in the future, because he wouldn’t do anything he didn’t want to do, he wouldn’t say he was fine when he was sick, and he wouldn’t see pitch black as white.

Before dinner we went out to have a drink with a whole crowd of couples. The atmosphere was very animated. Aleix from Sarri came over and spoke to us about the water situation. Jaume said that Aleix could count on him, that he would go there the very next Monday. It was a matter of diverting it from a shaded area, where it flowed freely, to the meadows and houses in the sunny area of the village. The problem was that it would have to pass through a sliver of land belonging to the Alimbaus, the richest people in the village, and they didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Jaume said it would have to go through the courts if there was no other way.

Fresh water going through the meadows from one side to another, flowing from the spring above. Water filling the basins and the sink to do the washing.

After we’d finished the wine and xolís sausage we had ordered, we strolled home. It was starting to get cold, and we would need to bring overcoats if we were going out to dance again.

Jaume wasn’t around much those days. He had been made a justice of the peace and he said that now was the time to bring water to Sarri de Dalt.

He had joined the Republican Left, which was the party of the Generalitat government. He had explained all this to me. It was a government in Barcelona which made deals with the one in Madrid. The president was from Lleida and was named Lluís Companys. He was a man who loved the workers and above all those who worked the land. Like us, he said. When I listened to him, it was easy to understand, but what he had joined was strange to me… and I must admit it worried me a little. What if Monsignor Miquel was right for once and Jaume got involved in wanting to fix what couldn’t be changed… I didn’t respond as he explained all this, and when he saw I was a bit sulky, he said, Don’t worry, woman, I’m doing it all for good reasons. And then he suggested: When we go to make hay this afternoon in Solau meadows we could go fishing in the river.

How quickly the shadows of the trout slipped under the rocks! Elvira was as smart as a fox, she’d learnt to fish by hand and very few got away from her. She didn’t use tricks like swirling the water with a branch of mullein, which makes the trout drunk so they can be caught even by unskilled hands. That’s not an honourable contest, Elvira would say, it gives no satisfaction at all. It’s just cheating.

That evening they caught eight. That was enough. The dark grey scales with black and silver dots on its belly. Cooked on a hot stone with pieces of bacon, they were so good! Tia came along with salad, pickle, bread and wine.

While they finished haymaking, Angeleta accompanied me to find clover for the rabbits. When we were picking it, she found strawberries. Her little nose wrinkled as she concentrated on picking them. So tiny, red, fragrant, soft, easily squashed if you tugged them too forcefully… And Angeleta’s little lively eyes, hers honey-coloured too, and her animated voice: Mama, I’ve found lots here!

The angels in the church at Pallarès didn’t have eyes on their wings. I must admit that I didn’t understand much when it came to religion and Monsignor Miquel’s sermons often lost me. He would start with one thing then speak at great length before pausing. By the time he went onto something else, I’d already gone home, to the meadows, or even further, to the eyes of the angels of Ermita, which gazed at me unblinking so that I would tell them the truth about whether I had been good.

That Sunday, however, Monsignor Miquel’s sermon touched on more earthly things, and when he began to speak about the men of this village, I held on to what he was saying as if I were holding the reins of a horse. He said that you couldn’t shift things from where God had placed them, that every day man’s desire to feel better than he was grew stronger, but that he did things without asking himself if he was going against the will of Our Lord, who had said, This way shalt thou run and no other way. When I heard him talking about running this way, I thought of the water for Sarri. But he couldn’t possibly be referring to that. I continued to listen: there was an established order one had to accept, whether we were born rich or poor, sick or healthy. That in the eyes of God we were all equal before death. And that was what mattered. That all this recent talk of freedom and justice was driving people mad, including those doing the talking, who were also risking eternal damnation. In the first pew, right next to the pulpit, old lady Sebastià was nodding her head as if she agreed with everything. He finished by addressing the women and said we had to lead our men towards God and guide them when we saw they were lost. If we didn’t, divine retribution would fall on the whole family.

When he finished preaching, Tia gave me a nudge and we exchanged meaningful glances. As we left, she told me that Monsignor Miquel had always been an arselicker when it came to the rich and now he was talking rubbish about things that had nothing to do with him. Tia didn’t beat around the bush, and that was when I understood the sermon had been aimed at me. It made me want even more to forget everything that had been said as soon as possible. I had enough to do with just thinking about the amount of work there was to do at home and about my belly, which at the church door was the subject of conversation, friendly words and sideways glances.

The girls wanted a boy too and this brought them together. One was knitting a pair of socks and the other was sewing a little cotton shirt. I was exhausted, especially my legs, and the days felt very long despite the fact that Elvira was helping eagerly. If it was a boy, Jaume had already found him a name. He would be called Mateu, like Jaume’s father. If it was a girl, he wanted her to be named after me. Sometimes I heard the name Mateu and liked it. Sometimes the sound of it made me think of matadors and death. But I often found myself with the name on my lips and I got used to it. And if a boy didn’t want to be born? That bird of ill omen, Soledat, hadn’t said anything to me, which gave me hope.

I’d been dreaming. I was dancing and when the music stopped I looked at my partner and he had no face. I was sure I was dancing with Jaume, but his features were erased… The plaza was full, but all the people I saw there were strangers to me. I only recognized Martí Sebastià on top of the stone platform playing music. He was laughing like a madman, with plenty of sweat trickling down his face, and showing all his teeth. I wanted to run but my legs wouldn’t move. Then I felt the tiny hand of little Mateu in mine, pulling me until I found myself at the steps of home, all alone.

I sat up in bed wanting to shout out loud. Jaume had already got up and it was just becoming light. It was the day he had to go to Sarri.

In the dream, Mateu was a bit bigger. He must have been six years old, and when I had that dream he was only three. His hand in the dream, though, was very small. I could almost still feel it there in my hand, as I stared at the wall from the bed, my hair all tousled.