Death in Spring by Mercè Rodoreda Read Free Book Online

would go to the Pont del Pescador because the thing she most liked about the village was the bridges. I told her during fishing season the Pont del Pescador drank so much fish blood that just the thought of it caused me anguish, and my father had often taken me fishing with him on the days when others went to stare at the prisoner. I told her I found it all strange: the two rows of men, one at each railing on the bridge. When they caught a fish, they jerked the cane up in the air very fast, removed the fish from the hook, and flung it on the ground. Sometimes the fish would be stunned; sometimes it would leap up and fall back in the river. To keep it from flopping about, they would crush the head with their heels—if they could—slowly, so the blood would ooze out the gills without splattering them. When the fish was dead, my father would make me throw it back in the water. I would walk home again beside my father, my hands open, not knowing what to do with them because they were covered in scales. She said she had never understood why they fished, hour after hour, glued to the railing on the bridge, only to throw the fish back in the river when they were dead. As she was speaking, we started walking again, falling silent for a moment, till we reached the end of the bridge. Then we ran all the way down the path. When we got to the fork—one side leading to the forest of the dead, the other to Maraldina—she told me she wanted to climb the mountain. We’d go down into the cave. But first she wanted to visit the cemetery below the heather, where people without souls were buried: those who died alone or from some misfortune. I told her I didn’t want to go into the cave; I would walk with her only as far as the cemetery at the foot of Maraldina, no farther. She took my hand, and we climbed up to the first cluster of heather. She drew me along, so I would go with her. I pulled away, in an effort to stop; then she let go of my hand and started up without a word. I called to her, told her we hadn’t gone to the cemetery for people buried in the ground, and she turned round. She was still close by, and in the moonlight her face was white as a root. She said we’d go another day, she wanted to climb down the well because it was cool.
    I began the ascent. The seemingly endless path snaked through the tall thicket. I spotted my stepmother’s shadow, half-hidden at times by the heather. She grabbed hold of twigs to keep from falling. She stopped for a moment, then abruptly vanished. I turned round to look at the view: below I could see the shimmering river that separated two strips of darkness. Looming above everything stood the slaughterhouse tower, the side with the clock sphere shining in the moonlight. You could see a brighter patch, the stables, and two or three windows lit up. Senyor’s house was silhouetted against the night. The wind whirled dust, and I was consumed by fear: fear of the village so quiet beneath me, its houses filled with sleepers. I spun round quickly, toward the mountain, and again caught a glimpse of my stepmother’s shadow in an opening in the path. I could tell she was looking at me, so I lay on the ground to be out of sight. Dust blew into my eyes and mouth. When I stood up, the heather was moaning. As I walked along I could feel the sleepers weighing things down, digging. Again, fear returned to my legs, the fear of night, the memory of revisiting my father’s tree. When this fear pierced me I always wanted to run away, but I couldn’t. Fear kept me scurrying between my father’s tree and the blacksmith’s house.
    The wind was tiring. I glanced up the mountain and caught sight of my stepmother at the foot of the dead tree. When I drew near, I asked her what she was doing. Embracing the trunk, her cheek against it, she said she was thinking about things, things about my father and her, and the moon gazing down at us. She stretched out her hand and stroked my brow three times with her finger. I