La mujer del hatillo

Sobre un lienzo de papel y tinta · La mujer del hatillo

–Ave María purísima…

–Sin pecado concebida…

Y olor a suelo de madera viejo, al frío de la calle en el recibidor que se remezcla, áspero, con el aroma de esta casa. A mi izquierda, justo tras cerrar la puerta de entrada y verme enfrentada a los percheros, una cortina de flores me anuncia que, como en todas las visitas, toca descorrerla y enfrentar la oscuridad. No me importa esta negrura porque voy acompañada de un buen hombre narigudo, de ojos azules y chiquitajos y voz algo carraspeada por el humo del tabaco. No me importa el pasillo largo si mi abuela le contesta desde la cocina con ese tono cantarín de bienvenida a casa, descentrado, entonado por costumbre mientras la mente anda en otro sitio.

---

Cuenta dos (2022), en Editorial Graviola

El fragmento anterior es un adelanto de «La mujer del hatillo», relato publicado en la antología Cuenta dos (2022) con Editorial Graviola. La banda sonora y mezcla son de Adrián Resa López de Aguileta. El texto, voz y fotografía, de Miriam Huárriz Gúrpide.

Quiero saber más

To burn

Sobre un lienzo de papel y tinta · To burn

But what are we to do but keep ourselves from the longing that to burn for someone surely brings.

We are to long for. To burn.

The dun cat

It is late in the morning, the sun rising high, shimmering through the streets and against all those quaint houses’ limed facades in one of Cádiz’s prettiest and loneliest neighbourhoods. Almost no one’s out. It’s just too hot.

Sat on yet another whitish wall, with his legs up as if he were afraid to fall, a young boy awaits the appearance of the dun cat that lives on the other side of the road. Soft coffee-coloured hair, dark tanned and with attentive eyes, the child is six, as is the dun cat. They were born five days apart.

Time seems to have gone still. No clock ticking, no noise. Just the sun, the terracotta cobble stone road and the low white buildings. The cat’s nowhere to be seen.

A soft breeze starts dancing around the corner. Tentatively, it reaches the boy, who breathes it in. Inside him, the breeze straightens the kid up a bit. The boy patiently sights, and lets go of the air. Free again, the swirling wind goes on with its choreography.

Accompanied by a subtle purr, the meandering tail with the black spotted end comes into sight. The boy fixates his gaze upon it. One, two, three spots. It’s the dun cat. The animal tentatively comes into sight, dodging the burning metal pipe on its side. Without looking at the boy, it jumps and lands on a windowsill, and afterwards disappears through the ground floor’s open window.

The boy seems content. A smile ghosts around the corners of his mouth. People say he is sweet. Sweet enough to let his sister wrestle with her tiny fits when he is told to put her to bed. Sweet enough to let her play with his hair to get her to sleep. Sweet to his grandma, who can not remember him, but smiles regardless when he hugs her.

Carefully, the kid gets up on top of the wall and slowly makes his way across it and down some narrow, almost imperceptible steps. He lands on the street. His name is Marco. It’s summer.

A cute tiny human walks away. The dun cat, unnoticeable behind the thin linen curtain that hangs in front of the window, follows him with its greenish eyes until the cute tiny human is out of sight. Content, the dun cat purrs. It’s summer in Andalucía.

Classroom 9

Fresh air. It soothes you through the trance of accomplishing to get through your very first day. It soothes me. Rocks me.

I head to the bus stop in Labrit, first one in the row of two. Or are there three. The villavesa is buzzing with salutations; greetings which may be forced out of compromise, other ‘hi’s full of excitement and meaning. I do not know anybody, so I just let myself be under the effect of music. Until I realize I do. Forced salutation; maybe not so much. It smells like fuel.

The breeze hits me again as I walk down the path to the faculty. The tall, gray, concrete building rises in front of a large, even grayer square. The red Fcom letters shine as if just polished. Picture windows let me see both the reflection of the scenery on them and the long corridor already full of people inside. And all of a sudden the uncertainty, the slight sloth, evaporates into thin air. I walk in and I get the sense of tranquility, of satisfaction, that I developed last year. It is peaceful in here. Quaint. Special.

Classroom 9. One, two, three girls. One boy. Four, five, six girls. Another girl. The other boy. Me.

Warm-hearted hugs. Back to the chocolate from Guayaquil, to pottery from Tuxpan. To worldwide accents. To people.

Sweet, poisonous, thorny

Come here, let me take away your breath. Just for a few minutes, just until you get out from your cage.

Have I startled you? There shall be no fear. No fear-can to be popped open. Just unconditional revenge. Kidding, my lad. Don’t worry. Open up your heart, let me go inside. You’d do the same for me.

Punished me against a wall. You can surely leave me to work on your machinery. It ain’t working properly, my friend. No, no.

It really isn’t. First you know you don’t want the guy. You play the guy. You don’t know how on Earth you might stop. And suddenly you both break apart, no friendship even. It’s all your damn fault. Sweetie. Yeah, we shall not forget our education; you sweet, poisonous, thorny piece of existence.

Rose bushes aren’t that big of a deal. Not that appetizing, ha? Oh, those thorns. You can’t grab them entirely. Just when they let you, where they let you. But they’re beautiful, still, no? Beautiful to look at, just that.

You are a rose bush, my dear. A rose bush kind of beautiful.

3rd Composition

And I’ll only spoil the party for you

I think I’d rather leave it in darkness

Replaying in my mind a beautiful sunshine

There’s only me, there’s only you

Fighting off urges to get all grown,

break my voice

Tricky treaty, I made myself

Tricky treat, treaty, treat

Take a photo, mind me staying.

Not the background, worthless saying.

Let you taste that dawn feeling.

Oh, what’s kept you from that,

single feeling, just arrived:

spoiling beauty tonight

would be a regrettable, unforgettable crime.

My sense of right,

should be the enough,

which kept me from getting anywhere

by your side.

Not that you’d mind,

your voice’s kept me from hearing my own

spoil the party for you.

There is no better place tonight for me

but to keep watch in the background,

not to spoil you.

Not spoil the party.

And, high on top,

don’t get your voice off track way too soon,

needing a new recording to rewind,

sunshine times sweeping off…

Oh, way too soon.

2nd Composition

I didn’t really think

it was all we would ever have

until it was far gone,

far over.

Found myself taken aback.

–

You took me away to some place

where I didn’t really wanna go,

though once found myself there

no going back did my own being want.

–

I didn’t think it was all you could ever give me

until you walked away.

Now I know I was wrong,

now I know there was no reason for me to be.

For us to exist.

And for you to cling on me.

1st Composition

That makes it forever.

Love is gone

way up to your head,

you can’t even remember…

Try to hold on and don’t get lost.

Disclaim the fire.

Make it worth it,

being with me.

Stop trying to play up inside my brain,

trying to make it all the same.

Please, do.

Oh, do fight it.

Believe in what we should,

and forget what we may not.

Just try to figure out what it felt like,

counting on you and only you.

Make it worth it,

being with me.

Stop trying to play up inside my brain.

Oh, please, fight it.

Holding on

If we can’t hold these walls by ourselves we’d better cut it off. Leave the past where it should have been left and try to forget. We both know how it tasted when we fell down the cliff into the frozen waves down below. Even afterwards we tried again. It’s no coincidence you’re remembering that feeling right now, right away as we crush together desperately, tugging, and hit our backs with the bricks which haven’t been demolished throughout this whole battle we’ve endured.

Cry out-loud what’s harming you. They are those rocks you felt that day under your bare foot before jumping, aren’t they? Aren’t they that something that’s getting ride of you? That something that you are trespassing to me through our touching lips?

I know it’s hard to let go when you’re not certain about what’s going to happen next. I’ve suffered from that mystery so many times I still recall how it obscures everything you try to focus on to hold on.

It’s not strange to be determinate about something -or someone- and end up not knowing what that was about.

In the end, it all comes down to one single question. Y’ want it? Or not?

Lemme help. There ain’t a single way by which you can give an answer right away. But try to find a source to help you out.

Me? Oh, no. Don’t. I’m not that source. I’m just the girl next door. The one between you and the wall. Feeling your heartbeat racing ‘cause you’re loosing it. Wishing you don’t end up crushing me in your attack.

A thought crossed my mind back then, suggesting this might end up like this. You, me, the wall and your anxiety. I decided to give it a try. Don’t worry, I’m not sorry.

While you keep on holding my waist with both your soft hands I start to feel you growing tense. Your fingers grasp the end of my t-shirt and beginning of my jeans as if those would keep you from dying. This I’m sorry about: they won’t.

Either way, you don’t seem likely to stop. I’m not asking you to. Do whatever you like. I just want to warn you that I won’t fall with you. You stay, great. You go away, I’m not crying ‘til I can’t hold myself. I committed that crime once, twice. By the third time I had learnt from it. I may miss you, true. But, either way. If two people aren’t meant to be together they won’t be, it’s not worth it to cry over everything that was and won’t be. Better to part away. And I know we’re not meant to be.

Oh, I know you haven’t discovered that yet and you’re clutching to the last traces of what we had. I don’t mind, it’s not a problem to me. And, please, don’t think I’m hideous or sadistic. I learnt the hard way. Even though, I feel it in your mouth. Somewhere inside of you there’s this part of your soul which knows what’s going on and isn’t going to cry when the time comes. If I didn’t sense it I wouldn’t let you wonder through my and yourself. I would help you. I would cut it off myself. But it’s not the case, you strong boy.

Keep on, keep on. I’ll be here until you release me or… until you release yourself.

The Willow Tree

Sometimes I felt myself underneath the biggest willow tree in the smallest pond. You might tell me willows aren’t meant to grow in ponds, and I may tell you this one just did. It popped from the surface, and it resisted endured to the mere fact that my shoulders where there to carry it. To support it. Forever.

It wandered through the dam waters of the pond. Those times felt stinky, and the willow felt insecure by itself so it squeezed its roots around my chest, making me sink deeply, and then forcing me to fight the oppression and carry myself, and the willow, towards the surface. I wasn’t meant to spring up, just to keep on swimming under the big tree, my only bundle.

Never satisfied, the willow tree kept on trying to swim backward and forward through the freezing water. It never tried to berth. It just kept on going, through the same places, through the same sore spots. Analyzing.

One day, I felt it coming. The familiar squeeze. The one that drained life from me. The one that left me deaf to the world; but, most importantly, to myself. To my feelings.

I reacted. I overreacted. I slipped from the roots before they created a prison around my small body.

It felt reassuring. It felt astonishing. And it felt great.

I didn’t leave the poor willow tree, always crying, behind. I helped it. We got nearer the seashore with every stroke. I was delighted. Watching the world with my own eyes, the ones the obscured tree had banned me from using. Watching how the willow had left me with nothing but its point of view. Realizing how wrong it had been. Watching how, even though not everything was bright, not everything was dark either. Fighting the urge to leave it behind and explore everything on my own, I stayed by its side. When we landed, oh! Wonder. Instincts arose, euphoria crowding my soul.

The willow tree was still scared, but it calmed at my strokes, my caresses. Suddenly, it slipped away from me. It went through the dim woods and settled down near another willow. At first, it felt reticent. Reticent to let itself be, let its leaves fly through the whistling wind. When the other willow wreathed his bountiful leaves around my willow’s, everything changed. The willow tree lead it to come to fruition. And by the time I got to realize my willow was perfectly happy, it had already said its goodbyes to me.

I traveled, no boundaries. No bundles. Just myself and nature. I realized I hadn’t been alone, I had had fellows throughout my whole journey. We walked, enjoyed, and lived. And, one day, I found another companion.

Thanks were given to whomever had helped me to carry out the obliged duty of allowing myself the privilege of letting be. Of letting be happy. Because he was the only thing that was left for me to find. And I did get him. And he got me, and we got each other. That’s when we stopped wandering. That’s when we got the right path, when we came across the first steps of a long road.