The Winterlings by Cristina Sánchez-Andrade Read Free Book Online

of remorse, that the thoughts he had just had were hardly Christian.
    â€˜Old lady, my little old lady.’ Like every other day, he anointed her with oils on the eyes, the nose, and the feet, and told her that God already kept her in His glory.
    Silence fell. It had stopped raining, and the sky had cleared. It was cut through with a superb rainbow. The priest saw this as a sign: God was thanking him for all his years of sacrifice.
    After a while, the old lady suddenly opened her eyes. Her face was all shrunken and leathery, cracked up with tiny creases, particularly around her small dry eyes, and her nose was pointed like the beak of a bird. All she had left was one tuft of grey hair. She looked around her, and, seeing the light that filtered through the cracks in the hut, sighed. ‘Well, looks like I’m feeling a bit better.’
    Hearing this, the blood rushed to the priest’s face. He had already packed up his holy oils and was about to leave.
    â€˜It’s time to kick the bucket, woman! Christ, that’s what we’re here for!’ he bleated.
    And then the old lady sat up, a little put off by his words. She said:
    â€˜I can’t, Father.’
    â€˜You can’t what?’
    â€˜Die.’
    â€˜Here we go. The piece of paper. You can’t die because of a piece of paper you signed thirty years ago. But dying is so easy! People go and die every single day!’
    The old lady asked the priest to come nearer. She whispered to him:
    â€˜People are saying that Don Reinaldo’s granddaughters are in town. That they have returned …’
    â€˜The Winterlings,’ said Don Manuel.
    â€˜Exactly,’ said the old lady. ‘Bring them to me. I have to talk to them to settle this business about the piece of paper. As soon as I have that sorted, I’ll be out of your hair as quick as I can; you’ll see, Father.
    The old lady lay back down, and pulled the covers right up to her ears.
    â€˜You’re ugly, Father,’ she said, uncovering herself a little. ‘And you stink.’

11
    Don Manuel finished packing away the foodstuffs he had in the cart. He stood there with his fingers entwined, twiddling his thumbs.
    â€˜The old lady says she wants to see you. She found out you’re back in the area, and she wants to ask something of you. She says it has something to do with your grandfather and that until it’s settled, she can’t go.’
    â€˜Go where?’ asked the head that was still in the water.
    The priest stopped twiddling and exhaled through his nose.
    â€˜She keeps going on about some piece of paper she signed. I promised her you’d come with me tomorrow.’
    While he waited for their response, the priest set to choosing a tasty morsel from what he had in the cart. That morning he had requisitioned some filloa pancakes, bread, a pot of honey, sugar, and a cabbage (did the baker’s wife think she’d get away with little vegetables now?), and he was salivating at the prospect. Climbing Bocelo Mountain had whetted his appetite.
    â€˜In any case, it’s about time you came back into the fold,’ he added, putting a filloa pancake in his mouth. ‘All that business had nothing to do with you two.’
    He looked up, and there was the other Winterling. The exchange that then took place between the three of them was quite absurd: while the prettier Winterling made her excuses, the uglier one and the priest inspected each other like scared animals.
    â€˜The what?’ said the uglier Winterling.
    While he thought about the answer, Don Manuel chewed the cake with his mouth open, not taking his eyes off her.
    He hadn’t always been like this: it began with the death of his mother. The Winterlings remembered that before leaving the village, around the year 1936, Don Manuel still lived with her. She was a sickly and gossiping woman. Because she never left the house during the day, the mother wanted her son to