A doctor tries to help a girl who has stopped sleeping and going to school. While treating her, she meets her grandmother, a woman marked by the hardest years of the postwar, when the anti-Franco guerrilla, repression, and secrecy forever shaped the fate of many places.
In Zenda we reproduce the first pages of A Night of 1947 (Lumen).
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Nieves drives at night along a side road. The trees have lost their color. They seem black, as dark as tar. She knows they are not really, that the green will greet her in the morning. It’s almost what she likes most about this life: new colors and new smells. Even the air is different here, so pure that it pricks when she leaves home to go to the clinic. What they warned her would be the heaviest thing, driving from one dispensary to another to treat her patients, she enjoys. On one side, forests and ravines; on the other, terraces; beyond, the plain with its almond, olive, and cereal fields. And in the background, the mountains, always the mountains.
But at night there are only stars like tulles in the firmament. The rest is darkness broken by the headlights of her utility vehicle. “Firmament,” a term that did not fit into her urban vocabulary. In the city the streetlights erase anything that lies above them.
In the house she rented she found a folding chair, and on temperate nights she takes it out to the yard, looks at the sky and tries to decipher the constellations. Then she regrets not having joined the scouts as a girl like her brother. She would know many more things about the firmament, the forests, the animals. She wasn’t very adventurous. Nor is she now, perhaps that’s why she has learned so little about nature in these two years. She feels awkward asking. She doesn’t want them to know she doesn’t know. It’s not that the fear of judgment bothers her; it’s that she blushes at the mere thought of asking the shepherd or the masovera. She prefers studying. The first option implies taking a risk and reaching out to others; the second she can do on her own. Besides, it would reveal that she doesn’t belong, like them, to the countryside. And if there is one thing Nieves regrets, it is not belonging. She would like to feel closeness, but she is reserved. No, let’s say it clearly: she is shy, she doesn’t know how to approach. She can remain many hours silent, without needing anyone to tell her something or to tell her something. If she misses the sound of a human voice, she turns on the radio. That suffices her.
Nieves doesn’t comment either when they address her in that tongue they call “chapurreado.” She makes an effort to master their vocabulary and turns of phrase. She does not reveal that she likes how it sounds and that she would like to learn it. She aspires to be one of them, to blend in, even though she knows that is unlikely; that even if she spent forty years in the village, she would still be a stranger. That is why she did not want to occupy the doctor’s grand house, to avoid standing out even more.
And because Manuel insisted on having a little land to make barbecues and plant a garden. Nieves believed him, she was elated by her fiancé’s enthusiasm. She went to the cooperative and bought tools. For Christmas he gave her a barbecue that still sits there, in the garage-stable-bodega-storage. Nieves sometimes goes down to fetch something and sees that metallic behemoth unused. Its shine wounds her, a future that never came to be. Manuel left as he came: without knowing how to sow, prune, or harvest.
In front of patients and neighbors she conceals her deficiencies, hoping to protect herself from gossip. She suspects they would not be benevolent about her ignorance, with the fragility she feels sometimes while she eats alone in front of the television. And indeed, in general they are not benevolent, at least not at first. Even after two years of treating them, even though they need her, even though her work is indispensable and she senses they appreciate it, they keep their distance. Trust is not granted until it has been proven that she deserves it. She wonders if this has to do with centuries of misery and inequality, with a stern society divided between masters and land workers, little schooling and too many priests.
She came from the city believing that era of penury had been overcome, that the Spain she lives in is catching up, is part of the European Economic Community and is preparing major international events: Olympic Games in Barcelona and a Universal Exposition in Seville. She sees it on the news while she eats dinner and it seems to be happening somewhere distant. They also speak of a very fast train that will connect the plateau with the south and that they will call AVE, but she feels closer to the birds that perch every morning on the windowsill.
At last she arrives at the mas, the characteristic country house of the area. She switches off the engine. A dog approaches, barking in a hoarse, furious voice. A primal fear seizes Nieves and she closes the door again.
“Come on, they’re shepherds and they’ve never eaten anyone,” she tries to reassure herself. As a girl a dog bit her at her best friend’s house; she still bears the small marks. Dog or no dog, the visit must be made. The people of the mases do not call for trifles; they are used to dealing with difficulties, including health difficulties, on their own. She steels herself and goes out.
—Hello, pretty… Hello, handsome dog…
The bark could be a welcome, its way of celebrating the visit, but Nieves knows as much about dogs as about stars. At last she dares, lowers her hand and pets him. The dog falls silent and wags its tail. Nieves’s heart steadies. The door of the house opens and the slender silhouette of a woman is outlined against the light. Nieves grabs the medical case and approaches the house.
—How are you, Josefina? How is everything?
—Sorry we’ve disturbed you at this hour, doctor. Please, come in.
—That’s what we’re here for.
—Shoo, Duglas! He gets so affectionate.
The woman pushes the dog aside without a glance and she smiles, masking her fear.
In the bedroom awaits Julián, an elderly man lying under a few blankets, though the room is not cold. He does not look well. She auscultates him, asks questions, writes a prescription, leaves some medicines. Slow and careful to use clear language, she explains to the woman how to administer them.
—Tomorrow you call me and tell me how he responds. Do not fail to do so. If it does not take effect right away I will have to change the treatment.
—Do not worry, doctor.
—Do you have someone who can go to the pharmacy?
The woman nods as she escorts her out.
—Yes, Miss Nieves, yes. The medic will come down as soon as dawn breaks. And forgive me for calling you by your name, but you seem so young that I find it hard to name you by your surname.
She is not offended. She smiles because, except for Josefina, no one pronounces her name around here. It is always “doctor,” and that is like having no name, and not having a name is like being nobody. She gets into her car, the dog starts barking again.
—Quiet, Duglas, quiet down already!
She starts the car and only as she maneuvers to turn around does she notice that, on the floor, beside the front passenger seat, there is a bag with eggs, a few apples, a jar of honey. It seems excessive to her. The way they lavish affection on her overwhelms her, as if she had contracted an involuntary debt she feels incapable of repaying. She rolls down the window:
—Why go to so much trouble, Josefina?
The masovera makes a vague gesture of negation:
<p—If the honey doesn’t suit you, you can sell it at the market. And don’t worry about the egg holder. You’ll return it to me!
Before she can reply, the woman withdraws into her house and closes the door. The car leaves, heading back.
[…]
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Author: Ángeles González-Sinde. Title: A Night of 1947. Publisher: Lumen. Selling: Todos tus libros.
Ángeles González-Sinde. © Elena López de Lamadrid