Felipe Alfau - Chromos

Everybody talked about the fight and they were surprised because la Nescacha was younger and smaller and she had thrashed the other woman so easily and they all said that she was a great fighter since she had so much courage and then the Gorriti said that fear made people weak. He said:

“When one is afraid, one loses one’s strength,” and he lifted his porrón and drank without saying another word and Begoña must have congratulated la Nescacha also because she answered:

“One does what one can” and “I had to defend myself,” which sounded very funny because she had done all the attacking. After that she went over where the kids stood and she caressed their faces very lovingly as she liked them so much: “I did not mean to frighten you chavales. Finish your wine and you will feel better.” Then she noticed blood on her hands and she walked behind the counter and poured wine in a cooking basin and rinsed her hands in it.

“You see?” she said to Begoña, “I cut my hand on her teeth,” and Begoña went over to the counter and helped her dry her hands and he kissed the hand she had cut like a very romantic gentleman so that the Nescacha looked very happy and deep into his eyes, with worship. Begoña pointed at one of her rings:

“That ring cut into your finger.” He had a cigarette again between his teeth and he lifted one eyebrow and smiled with one side of his face in that way of his that the kids tried to imitate, he being such a famous ball player. “It must have cut more into her face.”

“Next time I will take the rings off,” the kids heard her whisper, but el Gorriti also heard her because he said:

“You expect to fight all the time? Then don’t fight in my tavern, because I don’t want women’s troubles in my tavern and there are wide fields all around to do your fighting and if you stayed away from married men, you could keep your rings on.” He lifted his porrón again and this time he drank longer since he had talked so much longer than usual.

The people who came attracted by the fight had dispersed and the men who were playing ball went back to their game and only a few people remained outside the tavern and three women in a group who walked looking at the tavern and moving their heads in the direction la Euscarra had gone as they were probably talking about her quarrel with the Nescacha. Then they all looked again where la Euscarra had gone and talked excitedly and the kids looked also and they saw la Euscarra who was coming back. Her face was still bloody and her hair hanging and streaming behind her because she was walking fast. When she arrived she stood in front of the door of the tavern and began to yell again. The kids noticed she had a knife in her hand. She shouted very loud for everyone to hear:

“I will kill the two of you as you stand there, you accursed ones,” and she opened the knife that was very large at that and had many springs that made it squeak loudly as she opened it, saying to la Nescacha: “You get a knife and come out here.”

La Nescacha walked very calmly toward her.

“Don’t lose yourself, Nescacha,” the Gorriti warned. “Nothing is worth dying for.” But la Euscarra only took a step back and said between her teeth: “I will kill you,” and Begoña looked very unconcerned as if all this had nothing to do with him and were very boring and he drank what was left of the wine in his bottle.

La Nescacha said: “She does not have the guts to use the knife.” She did not say “guts” but another word which the kids knew was much lower and they were surprised because they had never heard la Nescacha use language like she had used that day, and she continued to approach la Euscarra who stood with her knife in her hand. She had such courage, this Nescacha, and she said: “I don’t need a knife for you. I told you that you don’t have what you should to face a woman,” and with that she twisted the knife from la Euscarra’s hand and slapped her twice again. La Euscarra let out a curse and ran away sobbing and the people who had gathered again to watch began to laugh very much, which was also due to their relief as they had all feared that perhaps la Euscarra would really stab the younger girl. So the kids also laughed and even Begoña smiled a little more on the side of his mouth, but his smile was sad as usual.

Then the kids decided to follow la Euscarra and as they crossed the door the other kid saw the knife still lying on the threshold and he picked it up.

Little Garcia said: “That is for the two of us like everything else,” and the other kid said that yes, that he knew.

When they passed the three women who were still standing there talking before the tavern, they heard some of their conversation which was like this:

“What happened to her is the worst thing that can happen to a woman, I think.”

The other one said: “That is so, but she made trouble for him all the time, but now she won’t anymore.”

And the third one said then: “She gave him the key to her money chest anyway and that redheaded girl is a bitch,” and then the kids heard no more of the conversation because they walked on and were too far to hear it

They saw la Euscarra at the other end of the park reaching the stairs behind the public school building that was closed and empty since this was summertime. They saw her walk up the stairs slow and bent as if she were carrying a heavy load and they thought that maybe she was going home, so they followed knowing that they had nothing to do and that it was long before supper yet. They crossed the park that was quiet and with very few people and shot through with the aslant sun all the way to its farthest corners and sliced by long shadows like those of the two kids as they walked by, who judging by this should be very grown-up and tall men, but then shadows can grow faster than people and things. The kids heard again the crack of the ball against the frontón and saw the crowns of trees all aglow and golden green against the sky that was even bluer than before, this being late afternoon, and everything was peaceful.

The kids went up the stairs also and they walked along Santa Clara overlooking the park below, like a pond of sunny leaves. There were also trees in that part of town, bigger trees even. One of them stood leafless and branchless inside a large glass case, right where it was born and had flourished and died. It was the old tree of Vizcaitia looking through the dusty glass panes of its case at its son, a very large and leafy tree like the others, a short distance away.

That was something, that old tree, and the two kids were always impressed when they came upon it because it was hundreds and hundreds of years old and once upon a time the important men of the province sat under it to take some kind of an oath. The other kid said that any one of the other big trees around that spot might have been the old tree of Vizcaitia if the important men of the province had sat under it and taken their oath many hundreds of years ago, but little Garcia had told him that they probably chose that one because it was the largest then and gave more shade and the others must have been only saplings at the time and so it was considered like something holy by everybody, because the older a thing is, the holier it grows and for this it was the old tree of Vizcaitia and stood in a glass case for everyone to see and respect.

But the kids were not thinking of this as they were watching la Euscarra who was sitting on the edge of a horse trough. She was crying yet for the reason that this was the worst thing that could happen to a woman and she was washing the blood off her face that was all cut and puffed very badly and then she began to fix her hair too. The kids stood there looking at her and the other kid held the knife behind his back because maybe she would want it again. La Euscarra saw them and said to them: