Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal Read Free Book Online Page A

Sarri came over and spoke to us about the water situation. Jaume said that Aleix could count on him, that he would go there the very next Monday. It was a matter of diverting it from a shaded area, where it flowed freely, to the meadows and houses in the sunny area of the village. The problem was that it would have to pass through a sliver of land belonging to the Alimbaus, the richest people in the village, and they didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Jaume said it would have to go through the courts if there was no other way.
    Fresh water going through the meadows from one side to another, flowing from the spring above.Water filling the basins and the sink to do the washing.
    After we’d finished the wine and xolís sausage we had ordered, we strolled home. It was starting to get cold, and we would need to bring overcoats if we were going out to dance again.
     

     
     
    Jaume wasn’t around much those days. He had been made a justice of the peace and he said that now was the time to bring water to Sarri de Dalt.
    He had joined the Republican Left, which was the party of the Generalitat government. He had explained all this to me. It was a government in Barcelona which made deals with the one in Madrid. The president was from Lleida and was named Lluís Companys. He was a man who loved the workers and above all those who worked the land. Like us, he said. When I listened to him, it was easy to understand, but what he had joined was strange to me… and I must admit it worried me a little. What if Monsignor Miquel was right for once and Jaume got involved in wanting to fix what couldn’t be changed… I didn’t respond as he explained all this, and when he saw I was a bit sulky, he said, Don’t worry, woman, I’m doing it all for good reasons. And then he suggested:When we go to make hay this afternoon in Solau meadows we could go fishing in the river.
    How quickly the shadows of the trout slipped under the rocks! Elvira was as smart as a fox, she’d learnt to fish by hand and very few got away from her. She didn’t use tricks like swirling the water with a branch of mullein, which makes the trout drunk so they can be caught even by unskilled hands. That’s not an honourable contest, Elvira would say, it gives no satisfaction at all. It’s just cheating.
    That evening they caught eight. That was enough. The dark grey scales with black and silver dots on its belly. Cooked on a hot stone with pieces of bacon, they were so good! Tia came along with salad, pickle, bread and wine.
    While they finished haymaking, Angeleta accompanied me to find clover for the rabbits. When we were picking it, she found strawberries. Her little nose wrinkled as she concentrated on picking them. So tiny, red, fragrant, soft, easily squashed if you tugged them too forcefully… And Angeleta’s little lively eyes, hers honey-coloured too, and her animated voice: Mama, I’ve found lots here!
     

     
     
    The angels in the church at Pallarès didn’t have eyes on their wings. I must admit that I didn’t understand much when it came to religion and Monsignor Miquel’s sermons often lost me. He would start with one thing then speak at great length before pausing. By the time he went onto something else, I’d already gone home, to the meadows, or even further, to the eyes of the angels of Ermita, which gazed at me unblinking so that I would tell them the truth about whether I had been good.
    That Sunday, however, Monsignor Miquel’s sermon touched on more earthly things, and when he began to speak about the men of this village, I held on to what he was saying as if I were holding the reins of a horse. He said that you couldn’t shift things from where God had placed them, that every day man’s desire to feel better than he was grew stronger, but that he did things withoutasking himself if he was going against the will of Our Lord, who had said, This way shalt thou run and no other way. When I heard him talking about running