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Fiction

The Devil Lives in Lisbon

By Berta Vias Mahou
Translated from Spanish by Daniel Hahn
In this short story, Berta Vias Mahou viscerally confronts the memory of a mother who may have been happier had she left her family behind.

On Mondays Mother always got up at five o’clock. She would leave half an hour after getting out of bed, once she had gathered up all the breakfast crockery, and then, looking at us again with a smile, she would not be back home till Saturday. When she’d come back down the same path that she had gone up on Monday. Nieves was seven at the time. I was six. Elisa, just three.

Mother worked as a schoolteacher. In La Comba, a small village in the mountains. The little bus would come to fetch her every Monday at the end of the path, the one with the chestnut trees, by the beech forest. There, in La Comba, she had a room that she rented for the whole week. And they gave her lunch and dinner right there. Breakfast, too. The owner of the house and his oldest son worked in the mine. His wife looked after the little ones, the cows, the pastures and the vegetable garden, as well as feeding the family and the schoolteacher who would arrive each Monday from Pola de Siero. And during that time the three of us would be left in the care of our aunt. We saw even less of our father then.

There were some weeks when Mother would take us with her. Just one of the three of us. But that was right near the beginning, when we weren’t yet in school, though sometimes, after we’d started at nursery, on turning four, Mother would make an exception and let us go with her, allowing us to miss class. Those weeks were like a great party for us. A party that we shared only with our mother, while all the others were left behind, down below in the town.

And so Elisa seemed to us to be the favorite, but it was really because in those days when we had to go to school, she was still very little and hadn’t even started nursery. When she spent the week with Mother she would run around in the fields, milk the cows, bathe in the stream, and eat all the fruit she wanted. Sour cherries. Apples. Pears. Even figs. And it was not that we didn’t have them here in town, it was that things tasted different there.

But there were some Saturdays when Mother did not return. It tended to coincide with the first Saturday of the month. Though not of every month. And right from the Monday, we—Nieves and I, perhaps even Elisa—knew it, because on those mornings she would be carrying a travel bag hanging over her shoulder and wearing a smile that was wider than usual, so wide that it made her look like a foreigner, a confident tourist, game for anything, arriving at a place she had dreamed of her whole life. The place many of us never reach.

And so Mother would walk away. The shadows from the chestnut trees playing on her shoulders. She would smile as she walked. In the rain. Or the sun. It was all the same. She walked like in the poem. Serene. Rapt. Glowing. Was it Prévert? Or Aragon? Perhaps Nieves would know. Or Mother, yes. Mother would definitely remember.

We also knew because on those weeks, when she disappeared, the hand-mirror disappeared, too, the one she always kept on top of the chest of drawers. In her bedroom. The only slightly showy object in the whole house. A house of whitewashed walls. Of large, old, simple pieces of furniture, worn with use and the passing of time.

The smile on those Mondays, Mother’s smile as she disappeared amid the chestnut trees, was the smile of someone who has received instructions for a mission, of someone who feels protected, transported by a single word. Father, however, noticed nothing at all. Or at least, he seemed not to notice. Or acted as though he didn’t see. As though he didn’t care. All he needed were his endless card games, the binges he’d go on with his buddies. And when Mother left with that bag and that smile, we would stay nearly an extra forty-eight hours with our aunt, linking one week to the next, barely seeing her, just for a moment, in the kitchen, when in the early hours of Monday morning she set about her climb back up to La Comba.

Where was it that she went on those two days that seemed so endless to me? For those hours we all felt as eternal? Perhaps even Father, too. For those days when I would always run, as perhaps my sisters Nieves and Elisa did, too, over to her bedroom, to consider the empty space left by the mirror. That mirror framed in complicated gold filigree, with a long, narrow handle, that Mother had inherited from old Aunt Freditas. Fredesvinda, her name was.

Where was it that she went? I don’t know. I don’t know where Mother would go off to. I’m not sure. All I know is that each time she came back, she told us she’d been somewhere different, some place new, in a different city, not too far away but exotic to our ears that were used only to the sparse sounds of the town. Whereas now, so long afterward, I think it was always the same place, one city, although I’m also not altogether sure which one. It’s just a hunch.

One fine day, much later, Mother started to miss those appointments. Or were they merely trips, and, therefore, nothing like the rituals with which I imagined she distanced herself from the tedious, gray life she lived in the town, with Father? Today, a bit more than twelve years on, having seen that smile of hers from those days again, I think I have been able to establish where it was she went.

Mother, do you believe in God? Elisa asked her this afternoon. Mother smiled and answered her, as usual, with another question. And what about the devil? Do you believe in the devil? My sister looked at her, puzzled. Perhaps she had got goosebumps, like me. Perhaps her hair was standing on end, like mine. Perhaps even Nieves was feeling the same. Could it be that we still believed in the existence of The Evil One? Or was it because of the expression we recognized in our mother’s face?

And Mother explained. José María used to say—do you remember him, one of my students from up there, in the mining village?—he used to say that the devil must be living in Lisbon. That’s what he said in a fine essay that he wrote for me. Naturally he got a high mark that time, too. He was my favorite, after all. And the time I asked them to write down the name of one of the apostles, can you guess whose name José María wrote? Father Pío!

The three of us laughed. Nieves, who has already turned nineteen. Me, about to turn eighteen. And Elisa, who’s only fifteen. Father Pío was the parish priest of La Comba. A good man, but with a temper on him like a thousand demons. Just think! And the thing with the autos sacramentales! Do you remember? He thought they were the cars used by Popes, bishops, and senior priests.

José María must have imagined Lisbon as a magnificent place to live. That is probably why he thought of posting the devil there. Though he may have had a mistaken idea of what the city was like. And that’s what I think, speaking as someone who also believes it must be the best place to live. What’s certain is that the poor boy has never been there himself. Nor have I ever been in Lisbon, either. He at most would have come down here occasionally. To La Pola. And what of the devil? Could he know what or who the devil is?

And what became of little José María?, Nieves asked then. With an imagination like that, he should have become a writer. The poet of La Comba. He ended up at the mine, like everyone else, said Mother with a look of uneasy resignation.

Just imagine, Juan, in Lisbon, she said not long after that, turning toward me and tickling the back of my neck. Just like then, I now recall. On those Mondays when Mother had decided to leave on one of her trips, while we had our breakfast milk and bread, she would play with our hair, putting her fingers on the back of our neck and running them up to the crown of the head and ruffling our hair. We particularly liked that affectionate gesture, but soon understood that it was the prelude to her going away and received it with a bitter gladness.

Smiling, Mother suddenly exclaimed: Satan living in Lisbon. With that smile of twelve years earlier. The one from those Mondays when she’d walk away with her bag hanging over her shoulder. Glowing. Rapt. Serene. And I thought I saw in her eyes the fleeting passing of flowers, the reflection of bottles of wine. “Green wine,” like they call it in Portugal, Mother? Yes, like your eyes. A transparent green. Like the glass of one of those bottles.

It almost felt as though I could feel her heart beating. Racing slightly. Then nostalgia clouded over them, her eyes. Like the mist of the sea when it wraps itself around cities, those cities you always feel far away from, even when you arrive there. The light of sadness was illuminating her face. And Mother shivered, as if she were feeling cold, sitting beside me on the bench, her tired old back leaning up against the wall of the house, against the stones that at this time in the evening were giving off the heat of the sun that they’d been storing up all day long. Mother shivered from head to toe, perhaps because she knew those secret days would never be returning.

Would she go to Lisbon? And would Madame see the devil there? I pictured a hotel room. Always the same one. And a table at a café. Perhaps that, too, was always the same. Walks among strangers along steeply sloping alleyways. Races to the platform on a station with tile-covered walls. And siestas on a beach. Fire and water at your feet, running over your body, your fresh skin covered in sand. Alone? With a girlfriend? Or with the diabo?

And I was jealous of him. Yes, jealous of the devil. And of her. Of my mother. And angry at Father. Always hunched over a wooden table, the wood covered in cuts. The cuts that he used to make with his penknife. With a concentration of absolute rage. And stained. Stained by grease and fire, from the hot base of the saucepans, stains which were impossible to get rid of. And Father with the deck of cards constantly in his hands. Bright and dirty, the corners worn.

You were, and still are, an intelligent, determined woman. Hardworking. Tireless. And at the same time, you seemed to be filled with knots, as though you were always at a crossroads, about to enter the sanctuary of your dreams. To leave forever. Sweet and accessible at the same time. Why didn’t you leave him, Mother? Why have you remained tied to this destiny, to a man you certainly no longer loved, and who probably didn’t love you either? Who had never loved you as you deserved. Eternal love only lasts four months, that’s what he used to say. Our father. And the other kind, two years, he would pronounce immediately afterward. Always so destructive, that sense of humor he had.

Was it because of us, Mother? Losing you would have been hard, but I would have liked to remember you always with that smile. Not to have you stroking our necks except in our dreams. There was this suicidal wish I had in which I imagined losing you, I’ve had it ever since I was a boy. Your being lost in another land. In other arms. With your smile. A smile to drive a man crazy. To drive men crazy. All of them.

Mother, did you drive men crazy? I’m sure you did, that you’d be able to do it still. Able to, without even putting your mind to it. Perhaps even driving yourself crazy, too. So did you drive men crazy? Or did you find yourself a man who was mad for love, whom you were too afraid to follow? And what if it was all just my imagining? And in reality you never were in Lisbon? Nor ever in the arms of the devil? And what if, after all, the devil never existed?

No. You’ve seen him, face to face. I know it. And that is why the mirror is broken now. In there, on top of the chest of drawers, in your bedroom. It’s been there for years. Never moving. You probably never even look into it any more. Perhaps for fear of capturing an image that was lost in some corner of the past. The devil’s reflection, suspended there in the void. Would it be there? In the mirror? And as for me, when I see that split in the glass, from one side to the other, my soul aches. This soul that I would have been ready to sell if it meant you would be able to leave here for ever.

Now, when winter returns and the chestnut trees lose their leaves, when the house falls silent and the windows are drenched with rain, we are the ones who will have to leave. And Elisa, as usual, the youngest, the one who looks most like you, will stay behind. Her green eyes, frank and alert, will stay with you for longer. Though you never know. Perhaps she will be the first to run into the devil. A proper, honest-to-God devil. And then she will walk away. Like you, smiling. Serene, rapt, glowing. Remember that, Mother.

“El demonio vive en Lisboa” © Berta Vias Mahou. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Daniel Hahn. All rights reserved.

English Spanish (Original)

On Mondays Mother always got up at five o’clock. She would leave half an hour after getting out of bed, once she had gathered up all the breakfast crockery, and then, looking at us again with a smile, she would not be back home till Saturday. When she’d come back down the same path that she had gone up on Monday. Nieves was seven at the time. I was six. Elisa, just three.

Mother worked as a schoolteacher. In La Comba, a small village in the mountains. The little bus would come to fetch her every Monday at the end of the path, the one with the chestnut trees, by the beech forest. There, in La Comba, she had a room that she rented for the whole week. And they gave her lunch and dinner right there. Breakfast, too. The owner of the house and his oldest son worked in the mine. His wife looked after the little ones, the cows, the pastures and the vegetable garden, as well as feeding the family and the schoolteacher who would arrive each Monday from Pola de Siero. And during that time the three of us would be left in the care of our aunt. We saw even less of our father then.

There were some weeks when Mother would take us with her. Just one of the three of us. But that was right near the beginning, when we weren’t yet in school, though sometimes, after we’d started at nursery, on turning four, Mother would make an exception and let us go with her, allowing us to miss class. Those weeks were like a great party for us. A party that we shared only with our mother, while all the others were left behind, down below in the town.

And so Elisa seemed to us to be the favorite, but it was really because in those days when we had to go to school, she was still very little and hadn’t even started nursery. When she spent the week with Mother she would run around in the fields, milk the cows, bathe in the stream, and eat all the fruit she wanted. Sour cherries. Apples. Pears. Even figs. And it was not that we didn’t have them here in town, it was that things tasted different there.

But there were some Saturdays when Mother did not return. It tended to coincide with the first Saturday of the month. Though not of every month. And right from the Monday, we—Nieves and I, perhaps even Elisa—knew it, because on those mornings she would be carrying a travel bag hanging over her shoulder and wearing a smile that was wider than usual, so wide that it made her look like a foreigner, a confident tourist, game for anything, arriving at a place she had dreamed of her whole life. The place many of us never reach.

And so Mother would walk away. The shadows from the chestnut trees playing on her shoulders. She would smile as she walked. In the rain. Or the sun. It was all the same. She walked like in the poem. Serene. Rapt. Glowing. Was it Prévert? Or Aragon? Perhaps Nieves would know. Or Mother, yes. Mother would definitely remember.

We also knew because on those weeks, when she disappeared, the hand-mirror disappeared, too, the one she always kept on top of the chest of drawers. In her bedroom. The only slightly showy object in the whole house. A house of whitewashed walls. Of large, old, simple pieces of furniture, worn with use and the passing of time.

The smile on those Mondays, Mother’s smile as she disappeared amid the chestnut trees, was the smile of someone who has received instructions for a mission, of someone who feels protected, transported by a single word. Father, however, noticed nothing at all. Or at least, he seemed not to notice. Or acted as though he didn’t see. As though he didn’t care. All he needed were his endless card games, the binges he’d go on with his buddies. And when Mother left with that bag and that smile, we would stay nearly an extra forty-eight hours with our aunt, linking one week to the next, barely seeing her, just for a moment, in the kitchen, when in the early hours of Monday morning she set about her climb back up to La Comba.

Where was it that she went on those two days that seemed so endless to me? For those hours we all felt as eternal? Perhaps even Father, too. For those days when I would always run, as perhaps my sisters Nieves and Elisa did, too, over to her bedroom, to consider the empty space left by the mirror. That mirror framed in complicated gold filigree, with a long, narrow handle, that Mother had inherited from old Aunt Freditas. Fredesvinda, her name was.

Where was it that she went? I don’t know. I don’t know where Mother would go off to. I’m not sure. All I know is that each time she came back, she told us she’d been somewhere different, some place new, in a different city, not too far away but exotic to our ears that were used only to the sparse sounds of the town. Whereas now, so long afterward, I think it was always the same place, one city, although I’m also not altogether sure which one. It’s just a hunch.

One fine day, much later, Mother started to miss those appointments. Or were they merely trips, and, therefore, nothing like the rituals with which I imagined she distanced herself from the tedious, gray life she lived in the town, with Father? Today, a bit more than twelve years on, having seen that smile of hers from those days again, I think I have been able to establish where it was she went.

Mother, do you believe in God? Elisa asked her this afternoon. Mother smiled and answered her, as usual, with another question. And what about the devil? Do you believe in the devil? My sister looked at her, puzzled. Perhaps she had got goosebumps, like me. Perhaps her hair was standing on end, like mine. Perhaps even Nieves was feeling the same. Could it be that we still believed in the existence of The Evil One? Or was it because of the expression we recognized in our mother’s face?

And Mother explained. José María used to say—do you remember him, one of my students from up there, in the mining village?—he used to say that the devil must be living in Lisbon. That’s what he said in a fine essay that he wrote for me. Naturally he got a high mark that time, too. He was my favorite, after all. And the time I asked them to write down the name of one of the apostles, can you guess whose name José María wrote? Father Pío!

The three of us laughed. Nieves, who has already turned nineteen. Me, about to turn eighteen. And Elisa, who’s only fifteen. Father Pío was the parish priest of La Comba. A good man, but with a temper on him like a thousand demons. Just think! And the thing with the autos sacramentales! Do you remember? He thought they were the cars used by Popes, bishops, and senior priests.

José María must have imagined Lisbon as a magnificent place to live. That is probably why he thought of posting the devil there. Though he may have had a mistaken idea of what the city was like. And that’s what I think, speaking as someone who also believes it must be the best place to live. What’s certain is that the poor boy has never been there himself. Nor have I ever been in Lisbon, either. He at most would have come down here occasionally. To La Pola. And what of the devil? Could he know what or who the devil is?

And what became of little José María?, Nieves asked then. With an imagination like that, he should have become a writer. The poet of La Comba. He ended up at the mine, like everyone else, said Mother with a look of uneasy resignation.

Just imagine, Juan, in Lisbon, she said not long after that, turning toward me and tickling the back of my neck. Just like then, I now recall. On those Mondays when Mother had decided to leave on one of her trips, while we had our breakfast milk and bread, she would play with our hair, putting her fingers on the back of our neck and running them up to the crown of the head and ruffling our hair. We particularly liked that affectionate gesture, but soon understood that it was the prelude to her going away and received it with a bitter gladness.

Smiling, Mother suddenly exclaimed: Satan living in Lisbon. With that smile of twelve years earlier. The one from those Mondays when she’d walk away with her bag hanging over her shoulder. Glowing. Rapt. Serene. And I thought I saw in her eyes the fleeting passing of flowers, the reflection of bottles of wine. “Green wine,” like they call it in Portugal, Mother? Yes, like your eyes. A transparent green. Like the glass of one of those bottles.

It almost felt as though I could feel her heart beating. Racing slightly. Then nostalgia clouded over them, her eyes. Like the mist of the sea when it wraps itself around cities, those cities you always feel far away from, even when you arrive there. The light of sadness was illuminating her face. And Mother shivered, as if she were feeling cold, sitting beside me on the bench, her tired old back leaning up against the wall of the house, against the stones that at this time in the evening were giving off the heat of the sun that they’d been storing up all day long. Mother shivered from head to toe, perhaps because she knew those secret days would never be returning.

Would she go to Lisbon? And would Madame see the devil there? I pictured a hotel room. Always the same one. And a table at a café. Perhaps that, too, was always the same. Walks among strangers along steeply sloping alleyways. Races to the platform on a station with tile-covered walls. And siestas on a beach. Fire and water at your feet, running over your body, your fresh skin covered in sand. Alone? With a girlfriend? Or with the diabo?

And I was jealous of him. Yes, jealous of the devil. And of her. Of my mother. And angry at Father. Always hunched over a wooden table, the wood covered in cuts. The cuts that he used to make with his penknife. With a concentration of absolute rage. And stained. Stained by grease and fire, from the hot base of the saucepans, stains which were impossible to get rid of. And Father with the deck of cards constantly in his hands. Bright and dirty, the corners worn.

You were, and still are, an intelligent, determined woman. Hardworking. Tireless. And at the same time, you seemed to be filled with knots, as though you were always at a crossroads, about to enter the sanctuary of your dreams. To leave forever. Sweet and accessible at the same time. Why didn’t you leave him, Mother? Why have you remained tied to this destiny, to a man you certainly no longer loved, and who probably didn’t love you either? Who had never loved you as you deserved. Eternal love only lasts four months, that’s what he used to say. Our father. And the other kind, two years, he would pronounce immediately afterward. Always so destructive, that sense of humor he had.

Was it because of us, Mother? Losing you would have been hard, but I would have liked to remember you always with that smile. Not to have you stroking our necks except in our dreams. There was this suicidal wish I had in which I imagined losing you, I’ve had it ever since I was a boy. Your being lost in another land. In other arms. With your smile. A smile to drive a man crazy. To drive men crazy. All of them.

Mother, did you drive men crazy? I’m sure you did, that you’d be able to do it still. Able to, without even putting your mind to it. Perhaps even driving yourself crazy, too. So did you drive men crazy? Or did you find yourself a man who was mad for love, whom you were too afraid to follow? And what if it was all just my imagining? And in reality you never were in Lisbon? Nor ever in the arms of the devil? And what if, after all, the devil never existed?

No. You’ve seen him, face to face. I know it. And that is why the mirror is broken now. In there, on top of the chest of drawers, in your bedroom. It’s been there for years. Never moving. You probably never even look into it any more. Perhaps for fear of capturing an image that was lost in some corner of the past. The devil’s reflection, suspended there in the void. Would it be there? In the mirror? And as for me, when I see that split in the glass, from one side to the other, my soul aches. This soul that I would have been ready to sell if it meant you would be able to leave here for ever.

Now, when winter returns and the chestnut trees lose their leaves, when the house falls silent and the windows are drenched with rain, we are the ones who will have to leave. And Elisa, as usual, the youngest, the one who looks most like you, will stay behind. Her green eyes, frank and alert, will stay with you for longer. Though you never know. Perhaps she will be the first to run into the devil. A proper, honest-to-God devil. And then she will walk away. Like you, smiling. Serene, rapt, glowing. Remember that, Mother.

“El demonio vive en Lisboa” © Berta Vias Mahou. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2013 by Daniel Hahn. All rights reserved.

El demonio vive en Lisboa

Los lunes madre se levantaba siempre a las cinco. Marchaba media hora después de haber abandonado la cama, una vez que había recogido todos los cacharros del desayuno, y, tras volverse a mirarnos con una sonrisa, no regresaba hasta el sábado. Descendiendo entonces por el mismo camino por el que había subido el lunes. Nieves tenía entonces siete años. Yo, seis. Y Elisa, tan sólo tres.

Madre trabajaba de maestra. En La Comba, un pueblecito de las montañas. La camioneta venía a recogerla cada lunes al final del camino, el de los castaños, junto al bosque de hayas. Allá, en La Comba, tenía una habitación alquilada para toda la semana. Y allí mismo le daban la comida y la cena. También el desayuno. El dueño de la casa y su hijo mayor trabajaban en la mina. Su mujer cuidaba de los pequeños, de las vacas, de los prados y la huerta, además de dar de comer a la familia y a la maestra que todos los lunes venía desde Pola de Siero. Y mientras tanto, nosotros tres nos quedábamos al cuidado de la tía. A padre entonces aún le veíamos menos.

Algunas semanas madre nos llevaba con ella. Sólo a uno de los tres. Pero eso fue muy al principio, cuando aún no íbamos a la escuela, aunque a veces, después de haber empezado ya en párvulos, al cumplir los cuatro años, madre hacía una excepción y nos dejaba acompañarla, permitiendo que faltáramos a clase. Aquellas semanas eran como una larga fiesta para nosotros. Una fiesta que sólo compartíamos con nuestra madre, mientras los demás se quedaban allá abajo, en el pueblo.

En eso, nos parecía que Elisa era la predilecta, pero es que, en aquella época en la que nosotros teníamos que ir al colegio, ella era aún muy pequeña y ni siquiera había empezado párvulos. Esa semana que pasaba con madre corría por el campo, ordeñaba las vacas, se bañaba en el torrente y comía toda la fruta que quería. Guindas. Manzanas. Peras. Y hasta higos. Y no es que aquí en el pueblo no hubiera todo eso, sino que allí sabía diferente.

Pero algunos sábados madre no volvía. Solía coincidir con el primer sábado del mes. Aunque no de todos los meses. Y desde el lunes, nosotros, Nieves y yo, tal vez hasta Elisa, lo sabíamos, porque esa mañana madre llevaba un bolso de viaje colgando del hombro y una sonrisa más amplia que de costumbre, tan amplia que le daba un aire de extranjera, de turista desenvuelta, dispuesta a todo, a llegar hasta ese lugar con el que uno ha estado soñando durante toda la vida. Ese lugar que muchos no llegamos a alcanzar jamás.

Y así, madre se alejaba. La sombra de los castaños jugando sobre sus hombros. Caminaba sonriendo. Bajo la lluvia. O bajo el sol. Lo mismo da. Caminaba como en el poema. Serena. Arrebatada. Rutilante. ¿Era de Prévert? ¿O de Aragon? Tal vez Nieves lo sepa. O madre, seguro que madre lo recuerda.

Lo sabíamos también porque durante aquellas semanas, con ella, desaparecía el espejo de mano que siempre ha tenido sobre la cómoda. En su dormitorio. El único objeto algo vistoso que hay en toda la casa. Una casa de paredes encaladas. De muebles grandes, viejos, sencillos, desgastados por el uso y el paso del tiempo.

La sonrisa de aquellos lunes, la de madre cuando se alejaba por entre los castaños, era la de alguien que ha recibido una consigna, la de quien se siente protegido, transportado por una sola palabra. Padre, sin embargo, no se daba cuenta de nada. O al menos, parecía no notarlo. O hacía como que no lo veía. Que no le importaba. A él le bastaban sus interminables partidas de cartas, sus parrandas con los amigotes. Y cuando madre marchaba con aquel bolsón y aquella sonrisa, nosotros nos quedábamos con la tía casi cuarenta y ocho horas más, uniéndose una semana a la siguiente, sin apenas verla, sólo durante un rato, en la cocina, cuando el lunes de madrugada madre se disponía a subir de nuevo a La Comba.

¿A dónde iría durante aquellos dos días que a mí me parecían interminables? Durante aquellas horas que a todos se nos hacían eternas. Tal vez incluso a padre. Durante aquellos días en los que yo siempre corría, tal vez también mis hermanas, Nieves y Elisa, hasta su cuarto, para contemplar el vacío dejado por el espejo. Aquel espejo enmarcado por una complicada filigrana de oro, con un mango largo y estrecho, que madre había heredado de la vieja tía Freditas. Fredesvinda se llamaba.

¿A dónde iría? No lo sé. No sé adónde marchaba madre. No estoy seguro. Sólo sé que, cada vez, cuando volvía, contaba que había estado en un sitio diferente, nuevo, en una ciudad distinta, no muy lejana, pero exótica a nuestros oídos acostumbrados a los escasos ruidos del pueblo. Ahora, en cambio, tanto tiempo después, creo que se trataba siempre del mismo lugar, de una única ciudad, aunque tampoco estoy del todo seguro acerca de cuál fuera. Sólo ha sido una intuición.

Un buen día, mucho después, madre empezó a faltar a aquellas citas. ¿O eran simples viajes y, por tanto, nada de los rituales con los que yo imaginaba que ella trataba de alejarse de la vida gris, insípida, que llevaba en el pueblo, junto a padre? Hoy, después de algo más de doce años, después de haber visto otra vez su sonrisa de entonces, he creído averiguar a dónde iba.

Madre, ¿tú crees en Dios?, le ha preguntado Elisa esta tarde. Madre ha sonreído y ha contestado, como de costumbre, con una nueva pregunta. ¿Y en el demonio? ¿Crees tú en el demonio? Mi hermana la ha mirado perpleja. Tal vez se le haya puesto la carne de gallina, como a mí. Tal vez se le hayan erizado los cabellos, como a mí. Tal vez incluso Nieves haya sentido lo mismo. ¿Será que aún creemos en la existencia del Maligno? ¿O habrá sido por la expresión que hemos reconocido en el rostro de nuestra madre?

Y madre ha explicado. Decía José María, ¿os acordáis?, uno de mis alumnos allá arriba, en el pueblo minero, que el demonio debía de vivir en Lisboa. Me lo escribió en una hermosa redacción. Naturalmente, aquella vez también se llevó una buena nota. Al fin y al cabo, era mi favorito. Y en una ocasión en la que les pedí que pusieran el nombre de un apóstol, ¿a que no sabéis cuál fue el que escribió José María? ¡El de don Pío!

Nosotros tres nos hemos reído. Nieves, que ya ha cumplido los diecinueve. Yo, que pronto cumpliré los dieciocho. Y Elisa, que sólo tiene quince. Don Pío era el párroco de La Comba. Un buen hombre, pero con un genio de mil diablos. ¡Qué cosas! ¿Y lo de los autos sacramentales? ¿Os acordáis? Decía que eran los vehículos de los Papas, de los obispos y de los curas importantes.

A José María, Lisboa le debió de parecer un sitio estupendo para vivir. Por eso, probablemente, se le ocurrió destinar allí al demonio. Aunque tal vez se hiciera una idea equivocada de la ciudad. Y eso que a mí también me lo parece, que debe de ser el mejor lugar para vivir. Lo más seguro es que el pobre niño nunca hubiera estado allí. Tampoco yo he estado nunca en Lisboa. Y él, a lo sumo, bajaría alguna vez hasta aquí. Hasta la Pola. ¿Y del demonio? ¿Sabría él qué o quién es el demonio?

¿Y qué fue del pequeño José María?, ha preguntado entonces Nieves. Con esa imaginación, tenía que haber sido escritor. El poeta de La Comba. Acabó en la mina, como todos, ha sentenciado madre con aire de incómoda resignación.

Figúrate, Juan, en Lisboa, ha dicho poco después, volviéndose hacia mí y haciéndome cosquillas en la nuca. Como entonces, ahora lo recuerdo. Los lunes en los que madre ya había decidido partir a uno de aquellos viajes, mientras tomábamos la leche y el pan del desayuno, ella jugaba con nuestro cabello, metiendo sus dedos por la nuca, subiendo hasta la coronilla y dejándolo alborotado. Aquel gesto cariñoso nos gustaba especialmente, pero pronto comprendimos que era el preludio de su marcha, y lo recibíamos con una amarga alegría.

Sonriendo, madre de pronto ha exclamado: Satanás viviendo en Lisboa. Con la sonrisa de hace doce años. La de aquellos lunes en los que ella se alejaba con el bolsón colgando del hombro. Rutilante. Arrebatada. Serena. Y me ha parecido ver en sus ojos el paso fugaz de unas flores, el reflejo de unas botellas de vino. ¿Vinho verde, madre? Como tus ojos, sí. Un verde transparente. Como el del cristal de una de esas botellas.

Casi me ha parecido sentir cómo latía su corazón. Un poco acelerado. Después, la nostalgia los ha enturbiado, sus ojos. Como la bruma del mar cuando envuelve las ciudades, esas ciudades de las que uno siempre se siente lejos, incluso cuando llega a ellas. La luz de la tristeza ha iluminado su rostro. Y madre se ha estremecido, como sintiendo frío, sentada junto a mí en el banco, la espalda ya vencida apoyada en el muro de la casa, en las piedras que a estas horas de la tarde desprenden el calor del sol que han ido acumulando durante todo el día. Madre se ha estremecido de arriba abajo, tal vez porque sabe que aquellos días secretos no volverán nunca más.

¿Iría ella a Lisboa? ¿Vería allí la senhora al demonio? Y he imaginado una habitación de hotel. Siempre la misma. Y una mesa en un café. Tal vez, también, siempre la misma. Paseos entre desconocidos por callejuelas en cuesta. Carreras hacia el andén, en alguna estación con las paredes cubiertas de azulejos. Y siestas en una playa. Fuego y agua a tus pies, recorriendo tu cuerpo, con la piel fresca cubierta de arena. ¿Sola? ¿Con una amiga? ¿O con el diabo?

Y he sentido envidia de él. Envidia del demonio, sí. Y de ella. De mi madre. Y rabia contra padre. Siempre encorvado sobre una mesa de madera, llena de cortes. Los cortes que él solía hacer con su navaja. Con una saña reconcentrada. Y de manchas. Manchas de grasa y de fuego, del calor del fondo de las cacerolas, que no se iban con nada. Y padre siempre con la baraja entre las manos. Brillante y sucia, con los cantos desgastados.

Eras, y aún lo eres, una mujer inteligente, resuelta. Trabajadora. Incansable. Y al mismo tiempo, parecías llena de nudos, como si siempre te encontraras ante una encrucijada, a punto de entrar en el reducto de tus sueños. De alejarte para siempre. Dulce e inaccesible a un tiempo. ¿Por qué no le dejaste, madre? ¿Por qué has seguido atada a este destino, a un hombre al que sin duda ya no querías, y que probablemente tampoco te quería? Que no te ha querido nunca como tú merecías. El amor eterno dura tan sólo cuatro meses, solía repetir él. Nuestro padre. Y el otro, dos años, sentenciaba inmediatamente después. Siempre tan destructivo, su sentido del humor.

¿Ha sido por nosotros, madre? Perderte habría sido duro, pero me hubiera gustado recordarte siempre con aquella sonrisa. Que no volvieras a rozarnos la nuca más que en sueños. Una ilusión suicida ha sido para mí este deseo de perderte, desde niño. De que te hubieras perdido en otras tierras. Entre otros brazos. Con tu sonrisa. Una sonrisa como para volver loco a un hombre. A los hombres. A todos.

Madre, ¿volvías locos a los hombres? Estoy seguro de que sí, de que aún serías capaz de hacerlo. Capaz, sin proponértelo. Enloqueciendo tal vez hasta tú misma. ¿Volvías entonces locos a los hombres? ¿O te encontraste con un loco de amor al que te dio miedo seguir? ¿Y si fueran sólo imaginaciones mías? ¿Y si en realidad nunca hubieras estado en Lisboa? ¿Ni en brazos del demonio? ¿Y si el demonio, al fin y al cabo, no existiera?

Pero no. Tú lo has visto, cara a cara. Lo sé. Y por eso ahora el espejo está roto. Allá dentro, sobre la cómoda, en tu cuarto. Lleva ahí años. Sin moverse. Probablemente ya ni siquiera te mires en él. Tal vez por temor a atrapar una imagen perdida en algún rincón del pasado. El reflejo del demonio, suspendido en el vacío. ¿Estará ahí? ¿En el espejo? Y a mí, al ver esa hendidura, de lado a lado, me duele el alma. Esa que habría estado dispuesto a vender con tal de que tú hubieras salido para siempre de aquí.

Ahora, cuando de nuevo llegue el invierno y los castaños se queden sin hojas, la casa silenciosa y las ventanas empapadas de lluvia, seremos nosotros quienes tendremos que irnos. Y Elisa, como siempre, la pequeña, la que más se parece a ti, se quedará contigo. Sus ojos verdes, francos, atentos, estarán más tiempo junto a ti. Aunque nunca se sabe. Tal vez sea ella la primera en toparse con el diablo. Con un demonio como Dios manda. Y entonces se alejará. Como tú, sonriendo. Serena, arrebatada, rutilante. Recuérdalo, madre.

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