Chapter 1

My Childhood in the Tavern “The Dispute”

“The Dispute” was the name of my father’s tavern, located in the vicinity of the city of Pontevedra, on the old road that leads there from Santiago de Compostela. From the tavern, you couldn’t even glimpse the last rural houses, already close to the Burg, scattered along the thoroughfare, and in reality you could only spot one or two small villages near the city, but you knew it was there from the frequent passing of carriages, stagecoaches with passengers, and carts with merchandise, as well as the royal post on horseback and various travellers who used to stop at our house for a drink or a rest. Pontevedra was less than half an hour away on a walking horse, and on days when the wind blew from the south, you could hear, without much effort, the bells of the Pilgrim and of St Mary’s summoning people to Mass or tolling the death knell from the other side of the Lérez.

The Dispute, an old, ramshackle house made of large slabs of granite, with a rectangular floor plan and most of its rooms empty and ruined, stood atop a small hill from where you could survey the thick forests that spread inland, the abrupt peaks of Castrove and Acival, a few pieces of the road on the plains and, if you strained your eyes, the white breakers bashing against the distant coast on the clearest days in the year. The air from the estuary penetrated as far as us, rusted hinges, hitching rings, and handles, dampened sheets and dresses, spoiled chorizos and hams, and ate away at doors and windows, forcing us to paint them every year and to plaster and whitewash the walls on a regular basis. On bitter winter evenings when there were hardly any customers, my father would curse the Jew who sold it to him and the unlucky hour when he had decided to take up this trade. He would then sit at one of the tables, with a bottle of brandy and a bowl, and my tears and my mother’s despair would do little to dissuade him. One swig after another, he would down the contents, getting more and more bad-tempered, until the bottle – and the day – finished and he slunk off in defeat to collapse into bed.

My father was a violent man with a quick hand, who would beat me every time I did something naughty, or so he thought, or he suffered some setback, or there was something he didn’t like. On such occasions, I relied on my mother’s aid – she would rush between us and upbraid him for his behaviour. A single word from her was enough to calm him. He would become melancholy, his eyes would darken, and he would mutter to himself, moving away from everybody, sorry perhaps for having raised his hand against me. Apart from that, I couldn’t say he didn’t love me. He was careless with his affection and barely paid me any attention, but he saw to my clothes and my food, treated me almost like an equal, and with the passing of the years a certain camaraderie grew up between us. From when I was little, he got me used to hunting with him in the nearby hills and going for wanders, leaving my mother in charge of the establishment. In return, I had to become a man at a very early age and help run the tavern, which also served as an inn when required, and so I got used to serving jugs of wine and stewed partridge, fried strips of bacon, bowls of broth and bottles of brandy, to cleaning the tables, to sweeping, to tasting the wine on offer from muleteers, to milking the cow, to taking it out and returning it to the stables, to grazing it in the nearby meadows, to cutting gorse and putting down bedding, to cleaning the stables, to fattening the pigs and keeping them in a chestnut grove we owned almost next to the Dispute, to helping with the slaughter, and, later on, with my mother sick and my father utterly overwhelmed, to tidying the rooms, washing up, sewing clothes, and cooking meals. I also learnt to argue and deal with difficult customers. What I didn’t learn was to read and write, even though it was said – and I later found out it was true – my father was of noble lineage, the son of a scribe, and in his bedroom he kept a Bible and two books of Medicine, which were meant to be a memory of his time as a university student. But he didn’t bother teaching me such an insignificant skill, nor did he allow my mother to send me to school, no doubt because he lacked the means to pay for a teacher and didn’t want to travel to Pontevedra on a daily basis. If I am able to write these memoirs now, at the request of my relatives and friends, it is because luck gave me a helping hand and an angel made sure to teach me my letters.

Even though we lived so close, I hardly knew the city. My father would only ever go there when it was necessary – to purchase something or to call for a doctor. We bought almost all our things from muleteers or neighbouring farmers, or through middle men. There were lots of murmurings among the locals regarding my father’s real motives for avoiding such visits. The most insistent – which I couldn’t help overhearing – claimed my father was a fugitive from justice, he lived under a false name and was afraid of being recognized in such places. This fitted the way we lived in solitude, I knew nothing of my relatives, my father let the house gradually fall apart, took no interest in the business, and succumbed to sudden bouts of sadness. Whatever the reason, it soon became clear to me that my father had a secret, he had had another life or another trade in his youth – nomadic perhaps, or adventurous – and he missed his lost freedom and an easier, more comfortable life.

No more than twenty times did I cross the old bridge, pass through the ruined gate in the wall, and travel beyond the Burg to visit a cousin of my mother’s, the only relative I recall, who always welcomed us with much hullabaloo, even though we could easily have been taken for wretches, so little was our interest – my father’s interest, really, since I realized my mother would gladly have gone on many other occasions – in greeting her. Among them, I must include the times, without my father’s knowledge, when he was out hunting, we took advantage of the opportunity to close the tavern and flee to the city. For her part, my mother’s cousin never visited the Dispute, perhaps because she believed the clients left a lot to be desired. Her name was Angela, but since she was a very old lady, we all called her Ma Angela. Her house was in a tiny, sad-looking side street, Coalman’s Alley, also known as Blind Street. It had no exit, its buildings were almost in ruins, and there were lots of cats. The paving stones were all uneven, and a torrent of filth spattered the pavements whenever we passed on the cart. Rather than a house, it was a dark, narrow attic full of reminders of her husband, who had been a Carlist captain, and her children. Ma Angela loved my mother and me a lot, but couldn’t stand my father. She was always giving me things behind his back. I can still remember these anise doughnuts, which I received at a patronal festival perhaps, because I vaguely associate their taste with crowds and my father’s absence.

With that lady lived a boy about my own age, he might have been a year or two older, her grandson Carlos, whom I treated as a cousin and got on very well with. I think he had been given that name in honour of their alleged king. But Carlos only ever thought about playing with other boys and, on days when my father wasn’t there, he would take me to visit the outlying suburbs, the Fishermen’s Quarter and the Port. Later, when we returned to the tavern, I would be bad-tempered, thinking how it would be another six or eight months before I got to see my only friend again.

I lived in that savage, sombre place almost like a recluse, knowing nothing of the world or life, until the ill-starred day when there appeared in the tavern a middle-aged stranger, dark as boiled octopus, more than ten spans tall, unkempt and virtually bald.

Now I recall his figure, I can see myself, aged thirteen, watching over the stud in the grove next to the road, as he approached on a dappled mule, with large saddlebags, a threadbare suit that looked foreign, and a leather jacket that was half buttoned up. He had a beard of several days, and everything in his appearance was imposing. He came up to me and raised his hat slightly, as if to see me better. He raised it with his left hand and then stroked the mule’s neck with the same. I realized his right hand looked dry, with rigid, bent fingers, even though he kept it half hidden under his sleeve. I later had occasion to observe a scar that crossed his hand and continued up his arm. He took his time and inquired:

“Is this Lourenzo Tasende’s tavern?”

“No, sir,” I replied. “It’s Lourenzo Gómez’s, my father’s.”

“Gómez?” he snarled. “You are about as much Gómez as I am a friar. Is your father at home?”

“He is, sir, but his name is Lourenzo Gómez,” I reiterated.

He smiled without answering and went whistling to the door of the house, got off the mule, and tied it to one of the rings. As chance would have it, my mother came out at precisely that moment with a large basket of clothes she was going to put out in the sun. When she saw him, she halted, let out a scream, and put her hands on her mouth, dropping the basket and scattering the clothes on the ground. Without saying anything, she went back into the house and ran upstairs. The stranger let out a guffaw – one of his loud, sonorous, contemptuous guffaws, which I heard so often afterwards and feared and hated in equal measure – and without a care walked over the clothes scattered on the ground and entered the tavern.

I left the boar to its own devices and ran after my mother. In the tavern, there was just one customer, an old shepherd and occasional day labourer, who lived not far away. He couldn’t even pay for what he drank, but my father, out of compassion perhaps, put up with him and served him the odd cup of brandy. The old man would sit at a table in the corner and spend the afternoons in silence, with a lost gaze. But at that moment he stared at the man who had so unexpectedly irrupted into our lives – stared at him in amazement – as the man leant over the counter, grabbed a carafe from one of the shelves, and took large swigs, while my father, justly known for his temper, paced anxiously up and down, without hiding his surprise, but still smiling between gritted teeth and showing not the least concern. He finally noticed my bewilderment and gestured to me to withdraw. At which the giant turned towards me, pulled the carafe away from his mouth, burped loudly, wiped his lips on the sleeve of his jacket, and said:

“So, you have a son, lazybones! Rosiña certainly held on tightly.”

Rosiña was my mother. Albeit darkly, I sensed the meaning of those words, which struck me as insulting. I caught a malevolent glint in the man’s eyes, which were such a light blue you had to strain to see it as much as you would strain to see the blue of the waves from on top of the hill.

“That’s right. This is my son, Lourenzo,” replied my father. He didn’t say anything else, nor did he introduce me to the stranger, but gestured again with his hand.

I quickly climbed the stairs, taking them two by two, and on the upstairs landing heard my mother’s stifled sobs. I went into her bedroom. She was on the bed, weeping. She hugged me convulsively.

“What is it?” I asked. “Who is that man?”

“That is Misfortune,” she said to me, stumbling on her words. “Misfortune: Lázaro Rivadulla.”

Chapter 2

Lázaro Rivadulla

From that day onwards, my mother began to decline and was not the same, and my childhood declined definitively with her. She would spend the autumn afternoons sitting on a stool in the meadow opposite the tavern, letting the low sun warm her legs. She neglected her work; she also neglected her appearance, and enormous eye bags consumed her face. A persistent, rebellious cough, which until then had only surfaced from time to time, became normal. She grew pale until her countenance was a white stain, with two yellow circles on her eyes. In the mornings, she would get up late, already tired, and can hardly have slept. My father muttered away, saying it was necessary to go to the doctor, but that visit kept getting put off: he was busy attending to his new friend, Lázaro, who stayed at our inn and went hunting with him or took shelter in the tavern on rainy days, drinking brandy, playing cards, and talking secretively, in a low voice, with my father or, if he wasn’t free, with himself. The old labourer, Bertomeu das Cabras, used to join in, laughing uproariously at the jokes and blaspheming after him, as if he was an unwitting impersonator.

Lázaro Rivadulla occupied a back room, which didn’t face the road. The window of this chamber overlooked the stables and an old oak with thick, twisted branches. One of the branches was so close to the window it should really have been removed many years ago. But in that house everything was like this – my father was a layabout and I, a child overwhelmed by circumstances, the branch stayed in its place, and the house carried on falling down. In lots of rooms, it rained, or at least it started raining the winter after Lázaro’s arrival, without my father replacing the tiles or doing anything to mend the roof.

I used to have to tidy the room occupied by Lázaro every day, as I did all the rooms that were being used, which, to tell the truth, weren’t that many. I had to be very careful and knock several times before entering. The sluggard would always ask, in a hoarse, distrustful voice that was quite unlike his usual voice, who was at the door. As soon as I answered, he would come and open and invariably have to turn the key, since he always locked from the inside, something that surprised me a lot. He would become enraged if I tried the handle without knocking beforehand and, as well as showing me the back of his hand, would complain to my father, who would repeat the punishment. More than once, the two of them left my face red, marked by the thin lines of their fingers. If he wasn’t there, the room remained locked, and he took the key with him, or so I thought to begin with.

But then I learnt that the bird didn’t always leave the cage by the door: on many occasions, when we thought he was sleeping or resting in his lodgings, he would jump out of the window onto the oak branch and climb down the tree. He would then make off along a hidden track, which crossed a stream on a little bridge and went towards the villages located on the slopes of Acival. He didn’t take his mule on these outings. I never found out whether it was my mother or my father he was hiding from.

He provoked so much mystery, naturally enough, that I would observe this formidable personage with a mixture of admiration, fear, and hatred. I blamed him for my mother’s illness and my father’s increasing dissipation. His left hand, which was agile, quick, powerful, and fearsome, had me enthralled. He could just as easily play a card trick with it as throw a knife and hit a menu that was nailed to the door or abruptly drive it into the table where he was eating. He tried to keep me as far away from it as possible. His right hand, his whole arm, always lying alongside his body or resting on his lap, on his legs, or on the bar counter, fascinated me no less.

There was something in this man that produced both aversion and attraction. Besides, I was convinced he had something to do with my parents’ unknown past. I kept asking my mother what the cause of her ailment was, who Lázaro Rivadulla was, and what I could do to help them, without ever getting any other response than sighs or tears, accompanied, it must be said, by the constant recommendation that I should never join forces with this man. Furthermore, despite Lázaro’s bedroom being very close to my parents’, he and my mother never passed on the stairs or in the corridors, not even in the tavern: she would come in if he wasn’t there; he would leave if she came in. They watched each other from afar, my mother with resentment and stealth, he with obvious indifference. It was clear my mother didn’t like him being there, but since he paid up front and generously, since the business was heading for the doldrums and he was practically our only customer, since he could be said to be the one who was keeping us going, and since in reality he didn’t intrude, she lacked convincing arguments or the necessary strength of character to persuade her husband to kick him out.

I started thinking that loafer’s influence on my father was owing to something he knew and might reveal, which is when I got the idea that, to get rid of him, I would probably have to kill him. But I was small and he was a giant, equipped with weapons, since in his room I had seen a musket and a pistol, several pouches of gunpowder, an old, chipped sword, and four or five different knives. During the short visual inspections I was able to undertake, always in his presence, while I swept and made the bed, I hardly discovered anything else. There was, though, a small, ironclad box or chest of pinkish wood which could have contained some document, jewels, or money. Nothing else, except for a few, indispensable articles of clothing.

All the same, there were moments when I was able to inspect the room more closely, albeit with jumps and starts and not in a very systematic way. But I never dared to open the box or the battered, tilting wardrobe that occupied the far wall. Those were the times when my father and his companion got so drunk they were incapable of climbing the stairs, and I had to take them up in turns, first one and then the other, hoisted onto my back, in the dark, since two hands were not enough to look after them, with a lot of huffing and puffing – especially in the case of the sluggard, who was much, much taller than I was – wishing at every step I could just drop them. Fear of the consequences is what stopped me. Once I got upstairs, panting away, I had to rouse Lázaro and ask him for the key, since I would never dare to stick my hand in his pocket, where the leather cord he used to tie the key around his neck was inserted. Lázaro would half wake up, yawn by gaping his mouth exaggeratedly, chew on some incoherent words, put his hand in his pocket, and give me the key. To open, I had to rest him against the door, then carry him into the room and lie him down. I never took off his studded boots or his jacket. What I would do is light a tallow candle and peek into the corners, study the weapons, and take silent steps, while keeping an eye on the profligate’s movements. How often did I reach out for the box without daring to open it, fearing at that very moment he would open his eyes, those eyes I imagined without pupils, and burst out laughing with one of his penetrating, malevolent, infernal guffaws!

I would take two or three steps, cover him roughly, dressed as he was, with the sheets and blankets, and go out, listening to him snore. Absurdly, the door would remain unlocked, since to lock it I would have had to take the key. I didn’t know what he was so afraid of, what he guarded against, but on those nights of drunkenness he was exposed to his enemies, without the capacity to defend himself. That said, who would have dared to pick a fight with him?

Lázaro always ate the same, whether it was hot or cold. He settled for broth made from turnip or collard greens or cabbage, necessarily flavoured with animal fat and fried onion, and a few strips of bacon or some chorizos, washed down with a jug of Barrantes wine. At night, he wanted “tired donkey soup”, bread soaked in wine and sugar, and in between meals his bottle of brandy. He never had breakfast, never tasted milk or fish, and only ate fruit if it came straight from the tree.

It was during one of those long afternoons when the rain fell insistently behind the windows with short, intense gusts and unending, monotonous periods of regular pattering, the night far advanced, as we sat in the light of candles or the blaze from the fireplace, no longer expecting any travellers, since no carriages were travelling towards the city, when another two individuals entered the stage, looking even more sinister than Rivadulla, if that was possible.

They hitched their horses next to the door and came inside, shaking themselves noisily, taking off their capes, and calling out for the landlord. Their hats and hair were dripping, their trousers were soaked, and their gaiters all muddy. One was blind in the left eye, blond, thin, almost a skeleton, and tall, but he walked with a stoop. He took two or three sluggish steps and sat at the first table he found, without looking up from the floor. He took his hat and placed it on the surface. The other was dark, short and stout, with a swollen nose and thick lips, a black beard and a large head that didn’t fit his body. Before taking a step, he looked around, and his eyes met those of Lázaro Rivadulla, who was sitting at a table near the fire, with a carafe, a hunk of maize bread and another of cheese in front of him, and Bertomeu by his side.

Without taking his eyes off him, he entered, moved a chair to one side, and sat down, removing his woollen cap. I went over to attend them and put a candle on their table. They both ordered broth and wine. As I approached, I saw the blond man had a large pistol in his belt. The other placed a hand on his colleague’s shoulder and gestured towards Lázaro with his chin.

“It’s a bad evening to be wandering on the road,” remarked the latter.

“Bad indeed, Lázaro,” replied the dark man.

“If one insists on going outside, he must be looking for something,” continued the sluggard, ignoring him, “especially if he travels far.”

“He may just be passing and have been surprised by the water.”

“Bah, bah, bah! A man who is used to the paths is never surprised. If he leaves home in this weather, it’ll be out of necessity.”

“It’s also possible he was heading home, not leaving,” intervened the blond man.

At this point, I arrived and served them their broth. My father, meanwhile, went down to the cellar and came back with a jug and two bowls. The men greeted him as if they knew him and started eating without taking their three eyes off the other table.

“And so,” insisted Rivadulla, “did you find what you were looking for?”

“We aren’t looking for anything,” repeated the dark man. “And we haven’t got anything against you, Lázaro. Nor should you against us. We’re here in peace. The same goes for you, Lourenzo,” he said to my father, who assented with a grunt.

“You’re very far from home, boys,” declared Rivadulla, and he produced an enormous knife from his boot and started cutting cheese with it. “But if you are looking for something, you might just find it. You want to take this to Tomás?”

“All we want is to spend the night under cover, if you don’t mind. May we?” he asked my father, but Lázaro replied for him:

“Boy, take these men’s horses and put them in the stable. Feed them. Give them the key to a room and show them the way. So, where are you coming from?” he continued, addressing the men.

“Didn’t you know Rawhide went before the firing squad yesterday?” said the blond guy. “We’re coming from Compostela.”

Chapter 3

The Gang

Lázaro invited them to sit with him, and they talked at length. They did so with circumlocutions, with long pauses, and with silences that denoted a certain understanding. I couldn’t catch anything they were saying and missed part of the conversation because I had to make up beds for the new guests and change the sheets and blankets. I gave them a room as far away as possible from that of my favourite client. To reach it, you had to go all the way down the landing and pass in front of my parents’ door and my own. I also went to see how my mother was. She hadn’t got up that day – and now I think that was the first of the days she spent in bed, one day and another, until in the end she stopped getting up altogether. But even though the warning signs were obvious, I still wasn’t conscious of the gravity of the situation. As always, she recommended me to follow a good path, not to walk in my father’s footsteps, and to keep away from Lázaro.

I went back to the tavern and arrived in time to hear them talking about a certain Tomás, in whom Rivadulla and my father showed particular interest. I saw Lázaro wasn’t drinking as much as usual, he didn’t even try the brandy, while the other two ordered a new jug of wine, and then another. That said, the blond man’s hand was never far from his pistol, not even when they picked up the cards and started playing Brisca.

That night, I was woken by the sound of a shot. I ran out of my room, in my nightshirt and bed socks, and a body collided with me and knocked me down in the middle of the landing. I banged my head against the wall and hurt my elbow. My parents’ door opened, someone came out with a burning candle, and a pair of arms lifted me up and led me back to bed. Some shutters or frames were making a racket, as if calling to me from a distance. I heard a horse galloping off. Gusts of wind howled in the chimney. Someone was striding along the corridors. A hoarse, low voice – the sluggard’s – was uttering oaths, blasphemies, and curses. He erupted into one of his guffaws. A current of air lifted the sheets. The cold penetrated my back like a knife. My father was leaning over me, trying to protect me. My mother was washing a wound on my scalp and applying a poultice. It was the last time I saw her on her feet – saw her in the fading, hesitant, weak, haggard light of a candle, and in her eyes I discerned a lot of pain.

The following morning, there was no sign of the outsiders. Their beds were made, their room was tidy. Rivadulla shut himself in his room and didn’t let me in. In the afternoon, he got suitably drunk, but it was my father, who remained serene and very bad-tempered, who went up to put him to bed.

In the stables, I came across one of the horses. It was a small, hairy, lively nag of a dullish brown colour. I didn’t know to which of the men it belonged. But nobody came to claim it on that day or any of the next. My father used it for carrying and fetching merchandise, for pulling the cart and hunting, and in the end sold it to some muleteers.

My mother grew noticeably worse. Since her husband wouldn’t make up his mind, I escaped to Pontevedra one day and talked to Ma Angela. I found my cousin, who suggested going for a wander or hunting in the hills, just the two of us, with my father’s permission. But I was worried about my mother’s health and rejected his invitation – I already knew my father wouldn’t let me.

Within twenty-four hours, my aunt arrived at the Dispute with a physician. The doctor went upstairs to see my mother, spent a long time with her, did some tests on her, which seemed to go on forever, ordered us to leave the room, talked to her alone, came downstairs, talked to Ma Angela, talked to my father, the two of them moving their heads and hands a great deal and making gestures of sorrow and impotence. I saw – for the first time, I think – some tears sliding down my progenitor’s dry cheeks. Ma Angela argued with him heatedly, but, contrary to custom, he did not reply and lowered his head.

As soon as she left, he started drinking and didn’t stop the whole day, until he ended up sprawled across a table. I left him there and rushed to see my mother, who was sleeping with a placid, serene, withered countenance and a beatific smile, uttering my name in her dreams. But the yellow stains around her eyes grew in intensity and size, and the all-conquering cough didn’t leave her alone even in sleep. I pushed the shutters to, while over by the sea the day, also defeated, collapsed as well, and I realized on a night like this my mother would abandon me in front of the world.

Later, everything got even worse. Lázaro and Bertomeu would drink one carafe after another, from when the sun rose until they sprawled across the floor. I didn’t even bother lifting them up or tidying their rooms. Lázaro’s money must have run out, since we didn’t see a penny from him. But he carried on eating as always and, as always, my father deserted the business and wandered in the fields, killing pigeons and rabbits, or got drunk with his mates and, completely sloshed, smashed full or empty bottles against the walls of the tavern.

In time, however, I noticed an increasingly stark change in our guest’s behaviour. He would disappear for long periods – a week or longer – and when he came back, he was happy, exultant, full of strength and money, which he spent generously and without reflection, and with him came other men and women of a similar appearance, old acquaintances, it seemed, of my father’s, who turned into regular customers at the Dispute and who would come and go, appear from time to time, stay for a couple of days, leave for a couple of months, and talk to Lázaro, always secretively, in a low voice, almost in his ear, talk and talk as if they had lots to say, so that I ended up thinking they were planning something and concealing not one, but several secrets which I urgently had to uncover.

All those individuals had strange names – strange nicknames, I should say, since I never found out most of their names, or only much later, and not because I heard them there, but from reading them in pasquinades or on posters, because some judge had pronounced them in a courtroom or an acquaintance had refreshed my memory. At the time, I failed to appreciate the strangeness of their aliases and used them, as did everybody else, as if they were their real names, or only names, and there weren’t any others.

One of those characters was called Rabbit, another Brave, another Tiger, another Dogface, another Caxide, another Caruzo, but the worst were Judas and Living Devil. These were the ones I feared the most – the former because he seemed capable of any kind of treachery and meanness, because of his large, rowdy eyes, always turning and shifting, because of his enormous, shapeless hands, because he was continually licking his lips, especially when there were women around, and because he always bit into coins to see if they were false. He was skinny and dark, he didn’t seem to shave or wash very often. And the latter because of his brutality, because he was wretched and cruel, and because he didn’t even fear Rivadulla. In fact, he didn’t obey him, as did all the others, unless it suited him, and on more than one occasion they argued without Living Devil letting his arm be twisted.

He was thickset and blond, ruddy, with swollen cheeks and chubby hands. He never wore the local cap or suit, not even a hat or clogs. I saw him beat more than one woman and more than one man. I saw him torture the mules and mark the face of someone who dared to win a game against him with his knife.

On one occasion when several of them were kicking up a real fuss, I thought they might disturb Mother and called them to order. Living Devil bashed me and threw me against one of the tables. My father, who had a certain standing among these men, came to my aid. But Living Devil turned around and jumped on top of him. They fought on the floor, dealing out blows. Living Devil picked up a chair and threw it at my father, then grabbed my father’s throat as if to strangle him. Bertomeu came up from behind and smashed a bottle over his head. He then dropped my father and held onto Bertomeu. Fortunately, Lázaro pulled out his knife and thrust it into the table next to the barbarian. He let go of his prey and gave Rivadulla a hard stare. In the end, it all came to nothing, and they carried on playing, laughing, singing, and arguing. But out of the corner of my eye I had seen how Judas put his hand on his pistol and took up position behind Lázaro’s back.

Among those reprobates, there was also a considerable number of women, who weren’t the least notorious members of the group. They came on their mules, accompanying the men, or on foot and alone, or mounted on the animals’ haunches, behind their companions. Some of them seemed, or were, the women or concubines of someone in particular; others didn’t hang around anyone special, but passed abruptly, without a second thought, from one to another or shared several; others showed absolutely no interest in the other sex and acted like another man, even in their voices, their gestures, their ferocity, their greed or rudeness, their excessive eating and drinking. I thought they were perfectly capable of dealing out blows and lashing out in brawls similar to the ones the men took part in. Also, of committing the many atrocities and crimes their male counterparts were accused of. But I have to say I never saw them fighting seriously, except for the odd little scuffle which never went up a level. It’s also true there were never more than two or three of them, since fortunately the group was never complete in the tavern, and even when there was a large gathering, it was never more than twelve or thirteen.

I could see all these things quite clearly, despite my innocence and young age, since not in vain was it my duty to make the beds and prepare the rooms when they stayed overnight, and I quickly realized who was sleeping with who, who was whispering in whose ear, and who was sharing confidences behind someone else’s back.

Among all the women, there were two with an air of unmistakeable authority: Anastasia Míguez and Rosalía Prado. Anastasia, who was small, extremely pretty, slim, with a childish face and large, black eyes, was Living Devil’s woman, and that brute, who invariably lived up to his name, didn’t dare lay a finger on her or raise his voice, he obediently performed her accurate observations and treated her considerately. She was an elegant woman, despite the poor clothes she could afford, or without them, since hers was a natural elegance and the skirt and the shawl suited her very well. I considered her to be intelligent, calm, and sensible, very different from her brother, Judas.

Rosalía, with a man’s voice and manners – although I know she was fond of men and never turned down an adventure – was energetic, authoritative, determined. She often summoned me to her side and showed me new card games, explained things I didn’t know about harvests, animals, the countryside, work, and forests. She told me gruesome stories and endless tales of apparitions, ghosts, the procession, the hound the Urco, and the supernatural vision the Estadea, legendary thieves and despicable priests, Carlists and Liberals. She also told me about her home and the hunger she had endured as a child, how their oxen and cows had been sold, their cooking pot and bed blanket, their cart and fields, so they were left only with the clothes they had on, how the local landowner had come to take everything, before her child’s eyes, when they were unable to pay their dues, and how the landowner’s son, who had been raised with butter and handkerchiefs, had played on the manor steps when they departed, never to return. She had two sisters who often accompanied her, María and Berta, much weaker and more hesitant than she was, and also much more attractive. She used to laugh a lot with them when they recalled some of their exploits or remarked on some of their robberies, and I blushed when they told me a saucy tale or insisted on clarifying certain things they thought I should know at my age. They were also the only ones who showed any concern for my mother and sometimes helped me look after her or in my tasks.

And so it was, without realizing, that I joined the life of the gang, since that is what this scattered group of thirty or forty miserable men and hapless women was: a gang of bandits.

Chapter 4

A Funeral and a Secret

We buried my mother one magnificent day in spring when the meadows were turning green, the cicadas were singing, and the sun was chirping like the happiest among them, announcing the summer, more than a year after she had taken to her bed and barely a year and a half since the arrival of Lázaro Rivadulla. I hadn’t realized until that day how quickly time passed, how a life of chores, without any free time to think about oneself, is only an apparent balm for ills, and in reality when one comes face to face with pain, as I was doing at that moment, all the sufferings you have been avoiding, all the ideas you have been pushing away, suddenly rush forward, you are defenceless and have to endure them all together, with no means of escape. So, neither the sun, nor the lizards and birds, nor the sermon of the priest, who used this opportunity to give us a memento mori, succeeded in taking me out of myself.

I had put on my finest clothes and some new clogs Rosalía had given me the week before, which meant I had hardly any darns or patches and, among the troop of wretches accompanying the coffin, I was perhaps the most presentable. The whole troop, if I am going to be truthful, consisted of seven or eight people, not counting the priest: Rosalía and María, Bertomeu, two of the poorest neighbours, occasional customers at the tavern, my father and me. Also, as if they were attending another funeral or belonged to another world, Ma Angela and Carlos, different from us not in poverty, which we shared, but in their poise, their attitude to life, their education and self-esteem. Rivadulla, in a final gesture of contempt, preferred to stay in the tavern, drinking his brandy and chewing over his greed.

Since we didn’t attend Mass regularly, nor step in the church very often, nor mix with the others very much, nor live close by, nor could we be considered, really, true parishioners, no one appreciated us or showed any concern. We had to bury Mother in an impromptu pantheon, which one of the neighbours accompanying the body lent unwillingly, at the priest’s insistence.

I had wanted, during her long illness, to talk to my mother on various occasions and ask her for help, advice regarding my future, and explanations concerning my birth, family, and past. But she just kept telling me to stay away from Lázaro and even, if it became necessary, from my father. Bouts of coughing continually interrupted her words, she lost the thread of the conversation, and kept repeating what she had already told me. Only from time to time the odd phrase, a sudden recollection that demanded her attention, the beginning of a story or memory of someone she had known in another life… and by another life I understood another situation, when she wasn’t subjected to misery, to illness, to tedium and the whims of an incapable man, perhaps when she was single, perhaps when I was a child, or perhaps when my father was a charming, considerate young man, a student with a promising future. I never found out then, nor did I learn any more. I only glimpsed the possibility that the stories about my father might be right and confirmed my own suspicion that a secret shrouded my origins. My mother died without revealing anything, and I decided to ask the only person I thought could tell me: Ma Angela.

But that was going to be impossible. Ma Angela had come, in the last few months, on various occasions to the Dispute, and the atmosphere she observed there, the faces she had to put up with, the conditions she found her agonizing relative in, my father’s laziness and my own excessive work, led on each and every one of them to increasingly heated arguments with my progenitor. The final dispute took place shortly after we had consigned my mother’s body to the ground. It was so violent my cousin had to intervene and grab his grandmother’s arm to pull her away from my father: bewildered as I was, without sleep, tired and overwhelmed, I still managed to comprehend that my aunt blamed him for my mother’s death and neglect and wanted to take me with her to get me away from work and bad company. Or that’s what she said, at least, but my father didn’t yield. He insisted that I was his child and he was the only person responsible for my education and well-being. In the end, Ma Angela threatened him. I didn’t understand a word she said, but the sight of that thin, livid, toothless, suddenly old man with hair that had once been blond now turning grey, carrying a weight much bigger than he could endure, a man, in short, who was destroyed, clenching his fists and biting his lips, holding back so as not to hit the old woman, made me realize the offence had been more than serious.

The cart that had brought my only relatives left, and I remained alone with my father, the crumbling house and inebriated companions. Immediately, that man, who I could barely recognize, forbad me from going to Pontevedra and conferring with Ma Angela. And then, to my surprise, he burst out crying. Fat, peremptory tears ran down his face and spattered the floor. He moved away from me and disappeared behind the house. The hours went by, and he didn’t come back. Despite his resolute mindset and unreflective manner, I was afraid this time he had touched bottom and done something irreversible. I went looking for him and couldn’t find him.

At dusk, I went into the stables to settle the animals and give them their dinner. There he was, slumped on a pile of hay, and not drunk, I think, at least not drunk on alcohol. He stayed there, without eating or drinking, for three whole days. I had to ask some muleteers heading to Pontevedra as a favour to inform a doctor, and then I had to ask Lázaro Rivadulla, the one client who remained in the tavern, as if none of this affected him, for the money to pay him. He handed it to me with one of his guffaws.

But there was nothing the matter. It was only, the doctor remarked, sadness on account of my mother, and with the days that shadow began to pass, he took to sitting in the sun and even started talking to people, and then he went back to being, more or less, the same as before. But it was obvious he was doing everything out of a sense of obligation and, deep down, he had lost all interest in the world and was living for his memories, as if he no longer expected anything. Seeing him like this, I understood the most helpless person wasn’t me, but him, and I couldn’t abandon him to his fate. After all, he was my father.

And yet, despite everything, my mother’s death liberated me. I was no longer tied to her bed and, since neither of us cared about the tavern, there were many days when we left it alone and sometimes didn’t even open up. This meant I could go for wanders, hunt for hares with my father’s shotgun, set traps for birds, and even, secretly, meet up with Carlos, who escaped from Pontevedra and came to fetch me. We had our own signal. Carlos, hiding behind a bush in the middle of the day, would mimic a barn owl’s hoot. If I could, I would go and find him; otherwise, after waiting for a while, he would go back to the city.

The gang members carried on coming, except they would increasingly disappear for whole weeks or fortnights, and Lázaro along with them. I was determined to climb the old oak tree and slip into his room, taking advantage of one of his absences, but since I didn’t know when he might return, I didn’t quite pluck up the courage.

Finally, one very hot afternoon at the end of August, when my father was having a nap, taking advantage of the fact people were busy with the many occupations of summer and there was no one in the tavern, I resolved to go up. Lázaro and his accomplices had disappeared three days earlier without giving any explanations, and I could count on at least another three before they came back, or so I thought.

I climbed the tree without difficulty. Windows and shutters were closed, and I had to make an effort to open them with a crowbar without breaking them. Fortunately, they gave way with surprising ease: the latch didn’t even fit properly. I jumped inside, allowing handfuls of light to flood in, and carefully scoured the room without coming across anything unusual. I opened the wardrobe, which was practically empty: it had two or three garments, an old coat, the weapons I have already mentioned, heaped on a shelf, two more knives I had never seen before, and another pistol I recognized as belonging to the blond man who had made off that night, some worn clogs, and a smattering of cut tobacco in an open packet. I examined under the bed, where I had looked before when cleaning, checked the drawers, rummaged through his clothes, and found nothing. Finally, I headed for the ironclad box and discovered it was locked. I thought about forcing it with the crowbar in my hand. But I immediately gave up on that idea, since I wouldn’t be able to put it back together and the sluggard would know what I’d been up to. As I was thinking, I heard, without paying a great deal of attention, the clip-clop of horses on the road, the whistles and voices of riders, and the twittering of birds. Then suddenly other sounds alarmed me: heavy studded boots, which could only belong to our guest, advancing along the landing, accompanied by other, lighter feet and a deep, gravelly, brandy voice asking for me.

I jumped up to the window, crossed over to the tree, closed the shutters haphazardly, but before I could secure them in place, the bedroom door opened and two people came in. I looked down and saw Bertomeu relieving himself in a secluded corner behind the tree. I hid as best I could in the tangle of branches, shaking like a leaf, trying to stop my teeth chattering, and heard a conversation that, while it was about me, wasn’t intended for my ears.

“Where has that boy got to?” asked Lázaro.

“He’s out somewhere,” replied my father’s voice. “You have to understand him. Let him breathe. It’s good for him to be a little distracted.”

“All right. But listen, that boy could be very useful to us, and it’s about time he started learning something about the world.”

“I don’t think now’s the best time.”

“Of course, it is. It’ll give him something to think about and take his mind off Rosiña.”

“Lázaro, he’s my son, and I don’t want him following in my footsteps. It’s enough with me.”

“What’s he going to do then?” asked the wastrel, answering his own question in the silence that followed. “Carry on with this wretched tavern? Die of hunger? Tell me, lord procurator, is he going to inherit a manor house? Is his family going to come looking for him? Is he going to be Lourenzo Tasende the Younger, doctor of medicine and noble?”

“All right then,” said my father. “But only when there’s no risk. He’s still a boy. What does he have to do?”

“Easy: enter houses, tell us what’s inside, move the well-to-do to pity, watch to see if the patrol’s coming – no violence. That’s down to me,” he laughed, “and you, Tasende, or do you prefer to carry on being Gómez?”

“It doesn’t matter, so long as the wrong people don’t catch on. Walls have ears, you know. But you owe me something.”

“Right,” said Lázaro. “Here’s your share, ten reales, and there’s a slab of bacon and a pint of oil waiting downstairs.”

“Is that all?”

“There wasn’t much in the house, it wasn’t very big, and you wouldn’t want to receive as much as those who went there.”

“Fair enough. From now on, I’ll go as well, and if the child goes, he receives a share like the others.”

“Agreed,” declared the profligate.

All that time, I had been listening to his boots in the room, without stopping, as if he had an itch and couldn’t stay still. He came over to the window and abruptly opened it.

I saw him lean out and stare straight at the tree. He was holding the blond man’s pistol. I shrank back into the branches. For a moment, I thought he’d spotted me. Above me, the oak twisted back and forth, one branch on either side, so that it formed a kind of horizontal bed, and the thick trunk contained a cavity that would have served as a better hiding place. But I didn’t dare move. I started getting cramp in one leg, which had been in a bent position.

“You have to fix this latch,” remarked Lázaro. “The wind opens the window. It’s not the first time it’s woken me in the night, nor the first time I’ve complained and you’ve done nothing about it.”

“Change room,” replied my father, also showing his face. I could almost reach out and touch them.

“I don’t want to change room. I like this oak. It’s like me – old, but strong and proud. A real treasure, don’t you think?” said the colossus, letting out a protracted guffaw.

He lifted the pistol and aimed at the tree.

Chapter 5

A Priest and an Angel

I slid down, scratching myself on the bark. I was sweating profusely. He shot – very high. I saw the gunpowder smoke rising and the detached leaves whirling and heard a light body falling to the ground. I looked down: a shredded magpie lay bleeding.

“One less magpie,” he boasted. “I don’t like magpies, they’re always snooping about, and they’re thieves. They want what doesn’t belong to them.”

“You think they’ll dare to come here?” asked my father. I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I recalled the blond man and the dark man who had spent a night in the tavern.

“Don’t be afraid. You think they’re going to attack when it’s just the three of us, one night, you, me, and the boy? They wouldn’t dare do that to me. As for you… if they realized what you’ve become, they might. But they think you’re the same as before, understand?”

“They know where we are, and when you leave, with just the boy and me…”

“Even if they do come, they won’t find what they’re looking for. You don’t know where it is, nobody does. Only I do. And they won’t get that information out of me. Since they’re not stupid…”

He went inside, leaving the window open. I took advantage of the fact Bertomeu had left to jump to the ground and run back into the tavern, as if I had just been for a wander. I arrived before they did, as they were descending the stairs. The two of them came in moments after I had taken a seat.

“Boy, go to the fountain for a pitcher of water,” said my father, and I obediently took the pitcher and ran to the fountain. It’s strange I should remember his exact words; among all the important things I heard without needing to that day and only vaguely remember, this, which might seem quite usual, is the one that stayed in my imagination. Thinking about it, I realize it was because of the subsequent shock, which I shall now describe.

However quick my feet might have been, my heart was quicker, galloping and threatening to leap out of my mouth. I was burning with a desire to discover the secret hidden in the ironclad box and a thousand contrary ideas flitted through my mind. But when I reached the fountain, I felt suddenly cold. Bertomeu das Cabras was sitting there, in the fresh shade of some small alders, his feet hanging right on top of the pipe. He was smiling at me with his whole mouth, as if he knew something very funny. Without saying anything, I crouched down, drank slowly, splashed my face, and filled the pitcher.

I don’t know whether it was the next day or two days later when an elegant carriage pulled by four plumed horses stopped at the tavern, and out got a priest far advanced in years and flesh, with a small amount of grey hair in a circle at the margins of his enormous tonsure, and a blonde, slim young lady, almost a child, or almost an angel. At least, that’s what she looked like to me the first time I saw her: she was wearing a pink embroidered suit and a wide tulle skirt, a bow held her hair over her forehead, hair the colour of ripe wheat which also spilled over her shoulders like the curly waves of a waterfall, as I was able to see when she took off her silk headscarf and put it around her neck, and eyes that glanced secretly at me glistened with a tone somewhere between chestnut and green, like a leaf turning brown at the start of autumn. On one of the fingers of her right hand, she wore a jet and silver ring, and on her left hand a gold band. I said she resembled a child, because of her soft face, where striking eyes almost darkened her delicate countenance and rounded nose, light bastion on slender lips and small mouth, and yet her breasts stuck out beneath her blouse and shirt, and from her stature and behaviour I guessed her age wasn’t all that different from mine.

She sat in a dignified manner at one of the tables, ever modest, and even though there was a blazing fire and it was midday, endured her excessive clothing with great patience and without complaining, while her companion fell heavily into one of the chairs and unbuttoned his cassock without the slightest concern. He had a bright, bloodshot expression. He clapped his hands to call my attention.

It is true I hadn’t had many dealings with girls, which might have contributed to the astonishment I felt on seeing this one, because I was really stunned and didn’t move or take my eyes off her. So much so that she noticed and lowered her gaze. In the end, with awkward movements, I went over to wipe the table and ask what they wanted.

Even though it was tremendously hot, the priest opted for chicken soup, followed by roast chicken and potatoes, chorizos and eggs, and then a dessert of cheese and half a bread roll, and that wasn’t the full extent of it. He was a real glutton, his greasy, sweaty humanity spread over his side of the table. The fair maiden, meanwhile, nibbled like a little bird at a small portion of lettuce and onion salad, she didn’t try the soup and only took two mouthfuls of the chicken.

And yet, even though the priest, who, from what I gathered from the conversation, was the girl’s uncle – she had been left an orphan – closest relative, and tutor, might have been an overeater, it couldn’t be said he wasn’t generous or was unusually open-handed on that occasion because joy had filled his heart – from what I could tell, both these things were true – because the coachman then came in and was invited to eat at the same table, and a little later there arrived a detachment of the newly formed Civil Guard, and the priest made room for them too, telling them to eat with him and order whatever took their fancy. The four guards sat down and, among all those men, that turtledove didn’t lift her head, she listened discreetly to their conversation without taking part, unless her uncle asked her to, and chewed slowly, no doubt feeling bothered by a situation she wasn’t used to. And since I was always coming and going, serving them and bringing things, taking away their dirty dishes and heeding the vicar’s constant petitions, her eyes, which avoided those of her commensals, kept colliding with mine, which only served to increase her confusion.

The men accompanied their meal and discussion with frequent libations, so that the priest’s colours became starker and the tongues of all began to trip over their words. As a whole, there was a great deal of talk, much politeness and extensive good manners, only three or four blasphemies got out, much to the annoyance of God’s servant, and the attentive ears of the parishioners who were in the tavern at that moment were able to glean a bunch of information: the priest was Don Avelino Rouco Pérez, vicar in Santa María de Beluso; he was coming from Lugo, where he had received an inheritance of 600,000 reales, which had been left to him by an uncle of his and of the girl’s – or rather her father’s – Don Benito Rouco; that same afternoon he would be returning home to the vicarage in Beluso; his niece, Helena, an orphan – poor thing – from an early age, lived with him, and he took care of her needs and education; she was a very discreet, pleasant, diligent child and did everything that was expected of her; his lordship was a great hunter, partial to partridges, alive or pickled, and an excellent shot; he had two shotguns and two hunting dogs, an old maidservant and a male servant who wasn’t so old; the people of Bueu were good Christians, and he had nothing to complain about; and the road from Lugo, a sad, dirty city, was a foreshadowing of hell.

Naturally, there was talk of other things that are of no interest for the development of my story, nor did they interest the ears that listened without missing a letter, namely those of Bertomeu and my father. I shuddered when, at the height of stupidity or torpor, Don Avelino pulled out a pouch, which he placed on the table, then opened the pouch to pay and scattered the coins which made it bulge all over the surface. The guards glanced at each other and looked around, their eyes lingering with particular attention on the figure of Bertomeu, who carried on sipping his brandy as if nothing was happening. Then, in a whisper, they made a suggestion to the priest. Helena glanced at me in alarm – from this gesture I could tell she was quite a lot more prudent than her uncle – and the vicar asked for the bill.

My father hastened to bring it, but not before I spotted a malevolent glint in his pupils. They left when the heat was still at its zenith, kicking up a cloud of dust. The guards accompanied the coach to Pontevedra or even further. And I went outside to watch them disappear into the distance.

I fell to thinking about Helena’s white hands, her hands that flew above the dishes, taking up and putting down the fork, like doves, with long fingers like wings. Like the wings of a dove. Or a magpie.

The boots of Lázaro Rivadulla, who had gone to hide upstairs as soon as the guards arrived, announced he was coming back down.

And, quick as you like, his servant, his henchman, Bertomeu, ran to tell him the news.

Text © Xosé Miranda Ruíz

Translation © Jonathan Dunne