Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal Read Free Book Online

wouldn’t be laughing much. She’d heard comments like this many times. And much worse: that they wouldn’t be loved any more, their mothers would only care about the baby, and that the best they could hope for was only having to share everything with their new brother or sister.
    All this left me very upset and I felt for Elvira. If I’d known what they’d said, she would have come with me that day even though I felt such along walk wasn’t good for a young girl like her. I couldn’t understand those people. Why did they do it?
    Luckily we found mushrooms everywhere. If we hadn’t, thinking about what Delina had told me might have made me really sick at heart. But there were mushrooms. It was as we’d hoped: it had rained, there had been sun and the earth was full and gave up its fruit. Tia would be happy. Seeing the moixarrons and carreretes poking their noses out of the grass – what a joy!
     

     
     
    Summer was coming, bringing work that began unexpectedly but kept you breathlessly busy until the end of August. Then a few thunderstorms would sweep away the heat, and afterwards it would only be really hot for a moment or two at midday if there were no clouds covering the sun.
    That year, 1932, the cousins didn’t come up from Barcelona for the Festa , but I remember it as one of the nicest ever. Jaume didn’t want us to miss a single dance. We were like sweethearts. I remember spinning with the music and the cool air on my burning cheeks. Flower dances, couples’ dances… we did them all. After going to eat, we came back to dance until the early hours. I couldn’t help remembering my first dance with Jaume. Was he thinking of it too? Just as on that day, I saw many people staring at us. Was it envy? He didn’t notice. He just seemed to be living in the moment. In his arms I felt safe and secure, asif he would protect me from anything. That made me happy and scared me at the same time. I was struck by a terrifying thought: what would I be without him? But the accordion didn’t stop and neither did I, as if I had wings on my feet.
    Even today I can see Angeleta watching out of the corner of her eye as her father led me out to dance to the medley of tunes which signalled the end of the dancing in the afternoon. And halfway through, Elvira looking steadily at a boy who had brought her something to eat. At twelve she had the air of a bud about to burst into flower, with curly, silky chestnut hair that was still parted in two plaits, honey-coloured eyes, freckles around the nose and small, finely-drawn lips. Then I turn to look at Angeleta’s small curly head as she dances with a slightly older girl, then again at Elvira, who waves and smiles. Before the last songs begin I tell Jaume that I am expecting and in the hustle and bustle I don’t know if he has heard me. He carries on spinning me round, I can’t see his eyes, only the down beside his ear. When the music stops, his smile makes me start breathing again. Will it be a boy this time?
    Yes, I was hoping for a son. The girls were already young women and after the first year, bringing them up had flown by. They had been raised to respect Tia’s authority – they called her grandmother. They had a father they adored butwho was away a lot, and a mother they treated more like a big sister. I too was under Tia’s daily orders, just like them, even when I didn’t want to be. I thought of the last time I’d been upset and had to go through it alone, when my aunt and uncle had kept the milk from the girls because the calves needed it. I hadn’t protested. I’d even not told Jaume about it, so there wouldn’t be a fuss.
    I wanted a boy. I don’t know why. Maybe to protect us in the future, because he wouldn’t do anything he didn’t want to do, he wouldn’t say he was fine when he was sick, and he wouldn’t see pitch black as white.
    Before dinner we went out to have a drink with a whole crowd of couples. The atmosphere was very animated. Aleix from