. . .
It was during that season, which lasted a whole summer and into the autumn, that the four of us lived crammed into a back room and El Rubio, for the first and only time, seemed settled. It was just after the time we spent living with our grandparents and before we moved to the flat with chandeliers. El Rubio had taken on the lease of a small shop and we slept at the back, me sharing a small bed with Lucía then Perla and El Rubio in the double bed, a yard away. It was wonderfuclass="underline" I could feel my sister’s body next to mine and hear my parents’ breathing, their hushed conversations. I didn’t have nightmares in those days. It was a transition period, a time with no ties in which each person could hope for whatever he or she wanted: El Rubio that at last he would be able to buy the car he and Perla had been dreaming of, that he wouldn’t have to count his pennies any more; Lucía that she was going to live in a real house where she could put together a library. I wasn’t yet expecting anything very much — I wasn’t even aware of being happy. (I learnt an awareness of happiness, I remember, one summer night four years later in the flat with the chandeliers. It must have been at the end of January because a few days later it would be my eighth birthday. We were going to have our first summer holiday and for the first time I was going to see the sea. That night I didn’t need to hope desperately that Lucía would wake up and chase away my fears: she was as awake as I was and both of us were sitting on her bed, talking about the sea, about how each of us dreamt that the sea would be. At dawn we went outside to wait for El Rubio’s friend to bring his car. I had never experienced the street at that time of day or the silence, heavy with people’s hopes, that defines that hour. Lucía and I didn’t argue about anything. Arms around each other, united in our excitement, we walked along the deserted street singing a bolero. That was the moment when I understood what happiness is.) During those back-room months I used to look forward to the hot nights, but I wouldn’t have been able to explain exactly why. El Rubio used to pull down the shutters on the little shop, leaving the door open to let in the vibrant summer air and we would turn off the lights so that we couldn’t be seen from the street and eat anchovy sandwiches made with pumpernickel and lots of butter and drink — beer for the parents, Bilz soda for the children — and chat, and laugh a lot, and nobody thought about death. And even though I couldn’t yet put it into words, years later I knew that I had been happy.
There are moments in time when everything seems to be in harmony, I thought. Like the fairy bites.
‘About time too. I thought you’d forgotten.’
And there was I thinking Lucía wouldn’t need to interrupt me, now that she’s a character with her own speaking part.
‘I’m appearing as a character, but not to my best advantage. Let’s agree that that car journey wasn’t our finest hour.’
It wasn’t the finest, or the most pleasant, but those two frightened women who were driving towards the Happiness Care Home were us too. That’s why I have to talk about the trip. And why I’ve never been able to forget it.
‘Speak about it all you want. But first of all tell the story of the fairy bites. I’ve already told you that I don’t want to keep being the ogre in this story.’
I was just coming to that — the fairy bites. The fairy bite, strictly speaking, because singularity was part of the appeaclass="underline" you didn’t get more than one at a time. The fairy bite was an invention of Lucía’s that came about while we were having our hot milk, and its appearance was independent of the shopkeeper game. I mean, even though we were playing Shopkeeper, at the moment in which she prepared the fairy bite, Lucía was Lucía. The fairy bite comprised all the most delicious things one can eat in the world, the golden crust of the bread, a lot of butter, the middle of the cheese, the best ham in the fridge, tomato, olives, if there were any olives, gherkins, if there were any gherkins. It contained everything necessary for an exquisite feast, but in such tiny quantities that you could eat one in a mouthful. It was like happiness: when you wanted to savour it, it had already passed.
Now we were driving a bit faster and in silence. There was a finality about the rhythm of the rolling car, something that smacked of death, but that was less august, more wretched than death. So I said to Lucía:
‘Once we’ve left her there, we won’t stay long, right?’
And Lucía said:
‘Well first we have to make sure that she’s comfortable and everything.’
I looked behind me. Perla was still gazing blankly out of the window. I tried a little experiment.
‘Are you feeling all right, Mother?’ I shouted to her.
She didn’t even turn towards me but continued immobile and inexpressive, as if I hadn’t said anything.
‘Are you all right, Mother?’ Lucía shouted.
‘No speeding,’ said Perla.
And that was all she said until we arrived at the Happiness Care Home.
It looked promising from the outside. White, two storeys, the front door and window frames painted green.
‘It’s pretty, isn’t it?’ said Lucía, determined to convince herself that everything was going well.
‘It seems decent enough,’ I said, not able to give Lucía full satisfaction, even though it would have benefited me, too.
Getting Perla out of the car was no easy task. But it wasn’t the near impossibility of moving her that struck me; it was her complete lack of resistance to what Lucía and I were doing with her body. She’s given in, I thought. She’s finally given in. I remembered the lion and wanted to cry.
So there we were, the three of us facing that green door. On a sign to my left I read: The Happiness Care Home. Recreational Residence for the Elderly. I’m getting old, Mariúshkale, Perla had said to me less than three years earlier, and she didn’t even believe it herself then. Now it had happened: she was incontestably old. All three of us women waiting at the door to the Happiness Care Home were old. What kind of unappealing tableau would we form for the person who was going to open the door any second now? I could hear hurried steps from inside.
Now she stood before us. A robust lady in a pink coverall overflowing with kindness. They were expecting us, yes, yes, Señora Daisy was genuinely excited to meet us, and was this lovely lady our mother? I was too cowardly to look at Perla; I don’t think Lucía looked at her either. We distanced ourselves, letting the lady in pink praise Perla and paw her, manhandling her into another coverall, this time in pale green. I’m not sure at what point we lost Perla: my attention was focussed on following Pink Coverall.
You could see that the place was well organised. Lovely chairs, lovely plants, lovely little old people with blank expressions dotted around. I tried not to look to either side of me. Walking beside Lucía I kept my eyes fixed on Pink Coverall, who never ceased doling out greetings and loving gestures, wiping a mouth here, rocking a chair there, spreading cheer wherever she went. She left us in a very tidy office and there, behind the desk, was Señora Daisy. She was blonde and buxom. And very talkative. I think she was already in full stream when we arrived, and was still talking when we left. It may well have been her natural state, as much a part of her as the big bosoms. Everything she said to us was wonderful. Even we, on her lips, were wonderful. She was very psychological and had realised straightaway that she was dealing with educated and intelligent people and that was particularly gratifying to her because it seemed that people on our intellectual level were better equipped than hoi polloi to appreciate the stimulating atmosphere of the home. From what I could gather of her speech, they got the old people to sew, to do embroidery, to gambol through meadows of wild flowers, and clap hands, and blow glass. I was trying to picture Perla — who had lately seemed so far away — physically cajoled into clapping games or sing-songs when, in the gap Señora Daisy left between two words, I heard Lucía shakily pipe up. ‘The thing is, our mother is quite an unusual woman,’ said my sister, incredibly, and I drew in my breath because now it had been said, and Señora Daisy was not going to be allowed to believe, like the police officer and monobrow and even the kind, dark-skinned girl that our mother was any old missing person. She sang 1920s tangos and said ‘I’m stiffed’ and wrapped herself in lemon-yellow feathers to look like an aristocrat. And she was so magical, that is her love was so excessive and magical that it had the power to chase away all misfortune. Until the day I lost the lion, I thought suddenly, and all the misery in the world came down on my head.