Lara moreno
TRANS. BY Kate Whittemore
Save Yourselves
Things burn in the summer. He sits on a folding chair and looks out on the pine horizon from the porch. Nods and repeats: things burn. All afternoon a wind like an immense hand, a dry and ardent hand, the work of centuries, has blown. The sky isn’t mother of pearl, it’s not prelude: it’s movement. Go on, fill up my glass, he says to the girl. He sounds angry but he’s not, he simply commands. She doesn’t watch the horizon, she’s watching her father, the profile she knows by memory: the gray hair that falls across his forehead and the thin lips beneath his beard. The daughter knows his eyes will be hidden at this time of day. Will the fire reach us here, papá? The father clucks his tongue: Go fill my glass, Amalia. I told you, things burn in the summer, no pasa nada.
Amalia enters the house and, in the kitchen, senses something burning. On a shelf next to the cupboard, the sole television blinks with images of the fire and sends fear through her, it smells burned, but it’s just the potatoes in the pan with too little oil. They’ve started to stick. Her mother left the slotted spoon next to the kitchen sink, resting in a shiny circle of grease. The girl knows now she’s eight years old and can do a lot of things; or should do them, she’s not too sure. She forgets the empty glass and carefully grasps the handle of the spoon, stirs the diced potatoes. The browned edges turn up, face the surface. Mamá! she calls, but before the word is out of her mouth there’s a hand on hers, dry and strong like the wind from earlier, the wind that seemed as if it would destroy everything. The hand moves hers away: I’ll do it. Her father, surveillance post abandoned, is the one that removes the potatoes from the pan; he loads up the spoon and drenches it all in oil. That woman, he says, and then: weren’t you getting me more beer? Amalia opens the refrigerator door and stays there a moment, protected. It’s the only place that isn’t hot.
The mother is soaking her arms in the bathtub. She leans over the edge as if it were a well, and the fabric of her dress is tight across her back, marking the warm, sweaty flesh at the armholes. In the water, the little boy hardly moves. He sits with his legs apart, knees bent, intent on closing a jar, or opening it. The mother stirs the silky bubbles of the water around him, indifferently. She was making a tortilla de patata for dinner, too, before, a minute ago, but the steam from the hot water has stopped her suddenly, carried her away from herself. It’s as if instead of kneeling, she has fallen. Amalia enters the bathroom with her father’s beer glass and all of a sudden the boy flutters and splashes and plays, and the mother, her face wet, comes to a few seconds later than is natural. Mamá, dinner was burning. The mother doesn’t want to smile at her, but does.
They eat inside, of course we’re going to eat inside, the mother says. She’s in the middle of the living room, holding the little boy, clean and combed and in his pajamas, his cheeks smooth and cool as cockleshells. She sits him in the high chair at the table with the wrinkled tablecloth and the glasses, silverware, and napkins that Amalia has left for her to set out. She moves the glasses and utensils away from the boy and gives him the napkins to play with. And then, the four of them are seated around the table and the television, from the kitchen, is still broadcasting the catastrophe live. Amalia shushes her brother when he hums to himself a little too loudly. Neither her father nor her mother speaks. Is everything going to burn? she asks with her mouth full. The omelet is dry and bland, but still good. Her father finally responds: Amalia, your brother is in his pajamas already. Finish eating and go get changed, it’s almost bedtime. The mother is looking him directly in the eye; she studies him as though she’s never seen him before, as though she doesn’t see him.
Before she changes for bed, Amalia goes out on the porch again. A part of the horizon is now in flames. On the right, in the distance, an orange glow blends with the night, exaggerates it. The girl is frightened—it’s coming!—and in that moment her father comes behind her and rests his hands on her shoulders; he gives them a comforting squeeze, but it’s like a signal, a warning. Can’t you see that it’s far away, it’s really far away. It looks scarier at night, that’s all. Go to bed.
The mother comes to her room and when she sits on the bed, the mattress sinks and Amalia rolls a little to the left, just like every other night, and she begins to feel drowsy. Her mother won’t say anything now, either; she’ll bury her fingers in her hair and smooth her brow. Are you scared, mamá? The mother wants to smile at her, but doesn’t. Scared of what, Amalia? The wind has stopped.
Just before she falls asleep, Amalia hears footsteps. She just barely opens her eyes and sees her mother’s shadow pass through the door, the shadow, the spark of the colorful, striped dress, the fabric sticking to the flesh around her breasts and back. Her mother’s body, radiating heat, always. She closes her eyes again because tonight she sees her mother as if she were invisible. And she’ll pretend to sleep when her father walks past in the hall but doesn’t glance in the children’s room, his stride urgent, but defeated. And then nothing. Murmurs, a flurry, agitation.
At last, she dreams. They are all on a wooden boat like the ones tied up in the port, old and rickety. This one isn’t old, the paint gleams and it’s a very sunny day, a very hot day, and they’re happy, in spite of the heat. The four of them in a boat, but not on the sea, Amalia would be scared if they were out on the sea, and she’s happy. It’s a giant pond, a lake, maybe. All around them, in the background, there’s vegetation, the bright green of gardens in the movies. Her mother is singing one song, and her father is singing another, different songs, their voices colliding and cutting each other off as they float on the lake, and her brother is no trouble, he doesn’t complain, doesn’t fuss, even though he’s sitting on the bottom of the boat, not on one of the wooden benches, he’s down below and the mother doesn’t pick him up. The boat rocks and her brother laughs when his head knocks against the wood. In her dream, her parents’ voices start to bother Amalia, they’re too loud, it sounds like a language she doesn’t know. She wants to tell them to be quiet, to sing the same song, to not sing at all, but suddenly she’s very hot. She’s sweating and she can’t speak and now her brother isn’t laughing when his head hits the freshly painted wood, damp and hot.
When her father wakes her in the middle of it all, Amalia feels a sense of vertigo, but peace, too. Niña, we have to go. Her father helps her out of bed but doesn’t carry her, and Amalia notices the shaking legs. Outside, the blaze approaches in a furious dance, it’s still far off but a mouthful of ash catches her by surprise; she sees now that her father’s cheeks are dirty, and his beard, his straight nose. The headlights on the car out front are already on, and her brother is inside, still asleep. She can make out his white face through the window, through the new layer of dust, and her eyes are stinging. The mother shuts the door behind them, smudges on her arms, in that dress, still. She feels her father hesitate, hold back. But the mother moves with relief, already almost gone. There is a calmness in her voice, in the middle of that night, the night of the fire, a calmness beyond the tragedy: We’ll be safe, I know it. As she starts down the porch steps, the father reaches out his hand and grabs her waist with his strong fingers, the breaking of a barrier, an accusation. The girl looks at the masculine hand that holds—for just a few seconds—that small piece of her mother, but she senses the resignation, the destruction. She doesn’t know what it is, but it’s the fire. The mother frees herself, a small spasm at the waist, there isn’t any time. She goes first. They get in the car, he puts it in gear, and they drive off in the other direction.
Lara Moreno, born in Seville in 1978, is a Spanish poet and fiction writer. Her work includes the story collections Casi todas las Tijeras (Quórum, 2004) and Cuatro veces fuego (Tropo, 2008), as well as the novels Por si se va la luz (Lumen, 2013) and Piel de lobo (Lumen, 2016). In 2017, she was named guest editor at Caballo de Troya, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Kate Whittemore is an emerging translator of contemporary Spanish prose. Forthcoming translations include the short stories “Screech Owl” by Sara Mesa (Madrid, 1976) in Two Lines and “Father and Son” by Flavia Company (Buenos Aires, 1963) in Gulf Coast Online. She is translating Sara Mesa’s novel Four by Four for Open Letter. She holds a Master of Philosophy in Latin American Studies from Cambridge University and a Master of Arts in Spanish from Middlebury College. She lives in Valencia, Spain.