This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Translation copyright © 2019 by Alfred MacAdam
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in Spain as Patria by Tusquets Editores, S.A., Barcelona, in 2016. Copyright © 2016 by Fernando Aramburu.
Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Aramburu, Fernando, [date] author. MacAdam, Alfred J., [date] translator.
Title: Homeland / Fernando Aramburu ; translated from the Spanish by Alfred MacAdam.
Other titles: Patria. English
Description: First American edition. New York : Pantheon Books, 2019
Identifiers: LCCN 2018031975. ISBN 9781524747121 (hardcover : alk. paper). ISBN 9781524747138 (ebook).
Classification: LCC PQ6651.R26 P3813 2019 | DDC 863/.64--dc23 | LC record available at lccn.loc.gov/2018031975
Ebook ISBN 9781524747138
www.pantheonbooks.com
Cover photograph © Metin Demiralay/Trevillion Images
Cover design by Adalis Martinez
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
1: High Heels on Parquet
2: Mild October
3: With Txato in Polloe
4: Where They Live
5: Moving by Night
6: Txato, Entzun
7: Rocks in the Knapsack
8: A Distant Episode
9: Red
10: Telephone Calls
11: Flood
12: The Garden Wall
13: The Ramp, the Bathroom, the Caregiver
14: Last Snacks
15: Meetings
16: Sunday Mass
17: A Little Walk
18: An Island Vacation
19: Discrepancy
20: Premature Mourning
21: The Best of All of Them
22: Memories in a Spiderweb
23: Invisible Rope
24: A Toy Bracelet
25: Don’t Come
26: With Them or with Us
27: Family Dinner
28: Between Brother and Sister
30: To Empty Memory
31: Dialogue in Darkness
32: Papers and Objects
33: Graffiti
34: Mental Pages
35: A Box of Flames
36: From A to B
37: The Cake of Discord
38: Books
39: I the Hatchet, You the Serpent
40: Two Years Without a Face
41: Her Life in the Mirror
42: The London Incident
43: A Formal Couple
44: Precautions
45: Strike Day
46: A Rainy Day
47: What Became of Them?
48: Late Shift
49: Face the Music
50: A Cop’s Leg
51: In the Quarry
52: A Great Dream
53: The Enemy in the House
54: The Lie About Fever
55: Like Their Mothers
56: Plums
57: In the Reserves
58: A Walk in the Park
59: A Thread of Glass
60: Doctors with Doctors
61: A Pleasing Smallness
62: House Search
63: Political Material
64: Where Is My Son?
65: Blessing
66: Klaus-Dieter
67: Three Weeks of Love
68: Graduation
69: The Break
70: Homelands and Follies
71: Twisted Daughter
72: A Sacred Mission
73: If You’re Here, You’re In
74: Personal Liberation Movement
75: A Porcelain Vase
76: Go on, Cry in Peace
77: Evil Plans
78: The Short Course
79: The Touch of the Jellyfish
80: The Oria Cell
81: Only the Sad Doctor Went to See Her Off
82: He’s My Boyfriend
83: A Bit of Bad Luck
84: Basque Murderers
85: The Apartment
86: He Had Other Plans
87: Mushrooms and Nettles
88: Bloody Bread
89: The Air in the Dining Room
90: Fright
91: The List
92: The Child She Loved Most
93: The Land of the Silent
94: Amaia
95: Jug Wine
96: Nerea and Solitude
97: The Parade of Murderers
98: White-Dress Wedding
99: The Fourth Member
100: The Fall
101: “Txoria txori”
102: The First Letter
103: The Second Letter
104: The Third Letter and the Fourth
105: Reconciliation
106: Captivity Syndrome
107: Meetings in the Plaza
108: Medical Report
109: If the Wind Hits the Burning Coal
110: Conversation in the Afternoon
111: A Night in Calamocha
112: With the Grandson
113: Uphill Finish
114: A Pane of Glass Between
115: Massage Session
116: Arab Salon
117: The Invisible Son
118: Unannounced Visit
119: Patience
120: The Girl from Ondárroa
121: Conversation in the Meeting Room
122: Your Jail Is My Jail
123: Closed Circle
124: Soaking
125: Sunday Morning
Glossary
A Note About the Translator
1
HIGH HEELS ON PARQUET
Poor thing, there she goes: about to crash into him the way a wave crashes into rocks. A little foam and goodbye. Doesn’t she realize he doesn’t even bother to open the door for her? His slave and more than his slave.
And those heels, those red lips when she’s already forty-five years old: what for? With your standing, girl, with your position and education, what would make you carry on like a teenager? If aita were here to see…
Getting into the car, Nerea glanced up at
the window where she assumed her mother would, as usual, be spying on her through the curtain. Even if she couldn’t see her from the street, she knew Bittori was staring at her, whispering to herself, there goes the poor thing, a trophy for that egoist who never thought for a second about making someone happy. Doesn’t she realize that a woman must be really desperate if she has to seduce her husband after twelve years of marriage? It’s a good thing they never had children.
Nerea waved goodbye before getting into the taxi. Her mother, on the fourth floor, hidden behind the curtain, looked away. Beyond the tiled roofs was a wide strip of ocean, the lighthouse on Santa Clara Island, tenuous clouds in the distance. The weather lady predicted sunshine. And her mother looked again toward the street and the taxi, which was now out of sight.
She stared beyond the roof tiles, beyond the island and the blue horizon line, beyond the remote clouds, and even beyond that into the past forever lost, searching for scenes from her daughter’s wedding. And she saw Nerea once again in the Good Shepherd Cathedral, dressed in white, with her bouquet and her excessive happiness. Watching her daughter leave—so slim, such a smile, so pretty—Bittori felt a premonition come over her. At night, when she went back to her house alone, she was on the verge of confessing her fears to her photograph of Txato. But she had a headache, and besides, when it came to family matters, especially his daughter, Txato was sentimental. Tears came easily to his eyes, and even though photos don’t cry, I know what I’m talking about.
The high heels were supposed to make Quique voracious. Click, click, click—she’d dented the parquet. Let’s see if she punches holes in it. To keep peace in the house, she didn’t scold her. They were only going to be there for a minute. They’d come to say goodbye. And him, it was nine o’clock in the morning and his breath stank of whiskey or of one of those drinks he sold.
“Ama, are you sure you’re going to be okay by yourself?”
“Why don’t you take the bus to the airport? The taxi from here to Bilbao is going to cost a fortune.”
He: “Don’t worry about that.”
He pointed out they had baggage, that the bus would be uncomfortable, slow.
“Right, but you have enough time, don’t you?”
“Ama, don’t make a big deal out of it. We decided to take a taxi. It’s the easiest way to get there.”
Quique was beginning to lose patience. “It’s the only comfortable way to get there.”
He added that he was going to step outside to smoke a cigarette—“while you two talk.” That man reeked of perfume. But his mouth stank of liquor, and it was only nine in the morning. He said goodbye checking his face in the living-room mirror. Conceited ass. And then—was he being authoritarian, cordial but curt?—to Nerea: “Don’t take too long.”
Five minutes, she promised. Which turned into fifteen. Alone, she said to her mother that this trip to London meant a lot to her.
“I just don’t see what you have to do with your husband’s clients. Or is it that you’ve started working in his business without telling me?”
“In London I’m going to make a serious attempt to save our marriage.”
“Another?”
“The last one.”
“So what’s the plan this time? Going to stay close to him so he doesn’t take off with the first woman he sees?”
“Ama, please. Don’t make it harder for me.”
“You look great. Going to a new hairdresser?”
“I still go to the same one.”
Nerea suddenly lowered her voice. As soon as she started whispering, her mother turned to look toward the front door, as if she were afraid some stranger was spying on her. No, nothing. They’d given up on the idea of adopting a baby. How they had talked about it! Maybe a Chinese baby, a Russian, a little black one. Boy or girl. Nerea still held on to her illusion, but Quique had given up. He wants his own child, flesh of his flesh.
Bittori: “So he’s quoting the Bible now?”
“He thinks he’s up-to-date, but he’s more traditional than rice pudding.”
On her own, Nerea had investigated all the legal formalities involved in adoption and, yes, they satisfied all of them. The money involved was no problem. She was willing to travel to the other end of the world to be a mother. But Quique had cut off the conversation. No, no, and more no.
“That boy’s a bit lacking in sensitivity, don’t you think?”
“He wants a little boy of his own, who looks like him, who will play for La Real some day. He’s obsessed, ama. And he’ll get what he wants. Wow! When he digs in on something! I don’t know with what woman. Some volunteer. Don’t ask me. I don’t have the slightest idea. He’ll rent out some womb, pay whatever you have to pay. As far as I’m concerned, I’d help him find a healthy woman who’d make his wish come true.”
“You’re nuts.”
“I haven’t told him yet, but I imagine I might get a chance in London. I’ve thought it through. I don’t have any right to make him be unhappy.”
They touched cheeks by the front door.
Bittori: okay, she’d be fine on her own, have a great trip. Nerea, out in the hall as she waited for the elevator, said something about bad luck but that we should never give up happiness. Then she suggested her mother change the doormat.
2
MILD OCTOBER
Before what happened with Txato, Bittori had been a believer. When she was young, she’d nearly become a nun. She and that friend of hers from the village. Better off not remembering her. Both of them abandoned the plan at the last moment, when they had one foot in a novitiate. Now all that stuff about the resurrection of the dead and eternal life and the Creator and the Holy Spirit seems like fairy tales.
She was annoyed by something the bishop said, but she didn’t dare refuse to shake hands with such an important gentleman. Instead, she looked him in the eye, silently communicating that she was no longer a believer. Seeing Txato in his coffin undermined her faith in God.
Still, from time to time she’d go to mass out of habit. She sits on a bench in the back of the church, looks at the shoulders and necks of the priest’s attendants, talks to herself. It’s that she’s so alone at home. She’s not the kind to hang around in bars or cafés. Shopping? Only for necessities. And only because Nerea makes a point of it, because if she didn’t she’d be wearing the same clothes day after day. After Txato’s death, her coquettishness vanished.
Instead of wandering the shops she prefers sitting in church and practicing her silent atheism. The faithful gathered there were forbidden blasphemy and contempt. She looks at the statues and says/thinks: no. Sometimes she says/thinks it shaking her head as a sign of rejection.
If there’s a mass in progress, she stays longer. Then she methodically denies everything the priest says. Let us pray. No. This is the body of Christ. No. Again and again. Sometimes, with all due discretion, she takes a little nap.
When the sky was dark, she left the Capuchin church on Andía Street. It was Thursday. The temperature was pleasant. At mid-afternoon, she’d seen a neon sign in the drugstore that read 68 degrees. Traffic, pedestrians, pigeons. She spied a familiar face. Without hesitating she crossed the street and entered Guipúzcoa Plaza. She followed the path around the pond, amusing herself watching the ducks. She hadn’t strolled around there for such a long time. If memory served her, not since Nerea was a little girl. She remembered black swans that were no longer to be seen. Ding dong ding. The carillon in the provincial government office jolted her out of her daydream.
Eight o’clock. A temperate time, a mild October. Suddenly, she was reminded of the words Nerea had said to her that morning. That she should change the doormat? No, that there’s no reason to give up happiness. Bah, just nonsense you say to old people to cheer them up. It wasn’t hard for Bittori to accept that it was a stupendous afternoon, but that wasn’t enough to make her happ
y. She needed more. For instance? Who knows? That they’d brought my husband back from the dead. She wondered if after so many years she shouldn’t think about forgetting. Forgetting? What’s that?
A smell like algae and ocean moisture was floating in the air. It wasn’t even the tiniest bit chilly, no wind blowing, and the sky was clear. A good reason, she said to herself, to walk home and save the bus fare. At Urbieta Street, she heard her name. She heard it clearly, but she didn’t want to look around. She even sped up, but it was no use. Hasty footsteps caught up to her.