Extracts from writer's works
Muñoz Trigo, Jokin
Narrative (short story and novel)
Bizia lo
Alberdania, 2003
Silences
It's the phone. That was how it seemed to her when the phone rang. It often happened when Jon was at High School. Sometimes she answered it and when she asked: "Who's calling?" they would hang up. Whenever that happened she would say to her husband with a smile, "Bound to be some girl in his class." But other times the phone only rang once, as if the person suddenly regretted calling or was content just to let the phone ring. Goodness knows! It was exactly like that last time. They only called once.
"But he's twenty-one," she thinks. Certainly not an age for fooling around. That is why she finds the call worrying, it's a bad sign. She closes the small jar of face cream and stows it away in the little cupboard behind the mirror. She rubs the cream all over her face again and again. She finds its penetrating smell pleasant. It reminds her of her mother. She, too, used to do the same thing every night, before going to bed. But her husband was surprised when she bought the first jar. It somehow seemed to go against his principles. Because he was one of those who is proud of never having worn a tie, until he went to work in a bank.
She can see his reflection in the mirror; he is reading the newspaper, just as he does every night. He can't read it during the day. He doesn't take that paper with him to the bank, just in case. It is frowned upon. He has a quick look at it before going to work and reads it more slowly at night. The columns, mostly. News in this country is old and out-of-date within a few hours. Today's, for instance. He had it with him in the kitchen when they announced the news on TV and he didn't make any special comment when they showed the picture of the car blown to bits right in the middle of the street.
She had passed by the phone on her way to the bedroom. She checked that it had been put down properly. "When things like today's happen, who informs the relatives? The police? The Gestoras?1" she wondered. "Do you have to go and identify the body, just like in American films? And how can you recognise the dead person at a single glance? What do you have to look at? The earrings? The shoes?" She can't take her mind off what they said on TV. At the beginning there were three. Then four. The bomb caused an awful lot of damage. It's true that lots of things like that have happened before, but...
She tries to give the appearance of being calm as she lies down next to her husband. Doesn't he tell her that she gets in a terrible flap about things? He hasn't said anything about what happened. He went to the bank after lunch and now he's hiding his head behind the newspaper. It's not surprising, anyway. She, too, prefers to keep quiet. Why talk about it? To poison the atmosphere? At one time whenever they killed someone, she would say, "another poor old devil" and her husband would go mad. "Yes, but the others, too..." She remembers they were his exact words, when the [ETA] ceasefire was broken. "Yes, but the others, too... they haven't stopped." At least it was ages since she had heard that issue about doing people in, and that was quite something. "So-and-so's been bumped off," they said at one time. Or he's been taken out. But now they both kept quiet, like when they saw that car bomb on TV, not far from the dead body of that well-known politician lying under a blanket; and quiet today, too, when another car bomb got four poor devils -"yes, poor devils", she said to herself- after they'd been blown to bits beyond recognition.
She leaves the door ajar. They used to do that when their son was a child, but once he was bigger they were in the habit of closing it.
-Don't close the door. I'm boiling -says her husband, without looking up from the newspaper.
-But I've left it open.
Her husband swallows. He has difficulty speaking, because he senses his wife's restlessness. Summertime, he reads at the top of the page he has open in front of him. There is an illustration of a small surfboard in the bottom corner of each page. He never stops to look at this supplement in the newspaper, but now that his wife has lain down at his side he realises he has not turned a page for some time. Yes, he heard the phone, too, and said to himself "That'll be Jon!" He did not find out about the explosion when he heard about it with his wife on TV. A colleague had told him as they were leaving the bank. "Anyhow, it isn't normal for four of them to go in the one car, is it?" he said, before saying goodbye. He did not mention it to his wife. He kept quiet until they heard the news on TV and he doesn't remember whether he mentioned it to her then... "What's the point?" he thought. "To poison the atmosphere?"
He wants to imagine Jon in the mountain hut in Belagoa 2 with his friends enjoying the night atmosphere. Right now they are very likely preparing dinner before an open fire. Their faces reddened by the heat of the day, and the glow on their faces more visible in the light of the flames. "Perhaps they've been up the Pic d'Anie today," he thinks. That is what Jon said, that they might go to the Pic d'Anie and to Hiru Erregeren Mahaia and to Petretxema3. That is exactly what they did ages ago when they went to the Belagoa mountain refuge with Dani and the others. They deeply regretted not taking any sunscreen with them. They all got badly sunburnt after climbing Hiru Erregeren Mahaia. Stubborn mountain climbers... And that was what he told his son, that he should take some sunscreen, when his son knew perfectly well what he had to take with him and what not. He feels slightly embarrassed as he remembers that now. Twenty-one years old. They took him mountain climbing when he was a little boy. They would go to Aralar4 from time to time carrying a small rucksack on their backs and to Irati5 a couple of times. But very soon they got to like going to the Mediterranean. His wife being a sun lover. And he does not object, either, even though he pretends to his wife that he still loathes all that. Last year they finished paying for an apartment in Benidorm.
He turns the page at last. Fiestas all over the place. He notices a photo. It shows a group of young people with their arms round each other's shoulders. They are shouting as they look at something that is not visible in the photo.
-I don't care a damn about the Portuene sokamuturra6!
His wife sighs, thus indicating that she has heard him. She often does that when she is about to go off to sleep. It is not the first time Joseba complains about it, but summer started nearly two months ago with the fiestas, concerts, passacaglias and all that and today is the first day he has moaned about it. "It's true there is nothing worth reading in the paper in the summer," he thinks, "but sometimes there is a piece of news, when one least expects it." Tomorrow's papers were going to have a field day, as were tomorrow's leaders and the statements made by different people. But those young people will carry on just as they have in the photo, first up the street, then down it, as if nothing had happened. He and his wife used to do that when they were young.
-Lamb stew championship in Arantzeta...- her husband goes on, in an increasingly resigned tone.
She recalls the San Fermin fiestas of long ago. She calculates: twenty-eight years ago. That was when she and Joseba ended up alone for the first time. They got separated from the rest of the group of friends. She could see their friends moving away perfectly well while she waited for Joseba. If Dani stopped to talk to someone or if Ane went to the loo, they would all politely wait for them. That day, however, no one looked back when she stood waiting for Joseba at the entrance to the bar. She had already got used to this kind of behaviour from Ane. She never liked Ane particularly, nor Dani, for that matter. "The stars of the group," she thinks. There they are on that farm of theirs now, telling everyone what to do. They have always had that ability to stand out from the rest. Dani, especially. The manifestations are well known: establishing one's personality as one distances oneself from the group. Now they see Dani's column in the newspaper once a week. He must be glowing with satisfaction. What a show-off! Her husband used to get mad; now he does not even mention him. She remembers what Dani used to do when he was young: throw stones at the police with his face hidden behind a scarf. A second-rate revolutionary.
-Telephone! -she hears her husband. When she raises her head he is already at the door to the bedroom. She sits on the edge of the bed, her ears pricked.
-Yes?
-...
-Who's calling?
-...
He hangs up and goes to the bathroom. He does not want to go back to his wife immediately. He pees without really wanting to and goes back to the bedroom leaving the door more open than before. On the bed are the jumbled loose pages of the newspaper. He anticipates his wife's question.
-They hung up.
-Hung up? Didn't they say anything?
1 Gestoras pro Amnistia: ETA prisoners' support group.
2 Valley in the Pyrenees in the north of Navarre.
3 Pic d'Anie, Hiru Erregeen Mahaia (Table of the Three Kings) and Petretxema: names of well-known mountains in the Pyrenees.
4 Mountain range in Navarre.
5 Valley in Navarre.
6 Game in which participants try to catch the end of a rope tied to a young bull.
