Adios, Cordera!
Leopoldo “Clarín” Alas
The three of them, always the three of them! Rosa, Pinín,
and ‘Cordera’.
Somonte meadow was a triangular parcel of green velvet
spread out like a drapery at the base of a small hill. The lower angle sprouted
in close proximity to the railway line from Oviedo to Gijón. A telegraph pole,
left there as a banner of conquest, with its little white insulation cups and
parallel lines to the right and left, represented for Rosa and Pinín the big,
wide, mysterious, frightening, eternally ignored world. Pinín, after thinking
the matter over at great length and watching for days on end how the quiet,
inoffensive pole stood so open to the world, and noticing how in its desire to
fit in the village it did everything in its power to take on a resemblance to
an ordinary tree, dared draw closer until he became confident enough to wrap
his arms around the wood and climb toward the lines. But he never managed to
touch the porcelain at the top, which reminded him of the small cups he had
seen at the parish house in Puao. Seeing himself so close to a sacred mystery
brought on a feeling of panic and he slid fast down the pole until his feet
touched the ground.
Rosa, less audacious but more taken with the idea of the
unknown, was content to bring an ear close to the telegraph pole. She would
listen for minutes on end, even entire quarter hours, to the formidable
metallic sounds the wind extracted from the fibres of the dry pine where they
came in contact with the wires. The vibrations, at times intense like those of
a tuning fork and that seemed to burn with the giddying beat of a flame when
heard close up, were for Rosa the ‘papers’ that passed, the ‘letters’
transmitted on the ‘threads’, the incomprehensible language the unknown wrote
to the unknown; she felt little need to understand what the people in one
far-off place had to say to others on the opposite side of the world. What did
it matter to her? She was only interested in the sound for the sound’s sake, in
its tone and its mystery.
‘Cordera’, so much more formal than her companions and much
more mature, in years too, kept her distance from the civilised world and
looked at the telegraph pole from afar as if at an inanimate thing not even
worth scratching against. She had lived through a great deal. On all fours for
hours upon hours, an expert in pastures, she knew how to make use of her time.
She meditated more than she ate and enjoyed living in peace beneath the grey,
tranquil sky of her country, as if she was succouring her soul – something that
even the brutes of this world possess. Were the idea not profane, it would even
be possible to say that the matronly cow’s thoughts, which derived from much
experience, resembled Horace’s most calming, doctrinal odes.
Like a grandmother, she took part in the games of the
shepherd boys given the task of taking her to pasture. Had she been able to,
she would have smiled at the thought that Rosa and Pinín’s task in the field
was to care for her, ‘Cordera’, to see she did not wander too far, or go near
the railway track or leap into the adjoining property. Why leap? Why go astray?
To graze a little from time to time, but every day a little
bit less, without bothering to lift her head out of idle curiosity, choosing
the choicest mouthfuls; afterwards, to rest on her hindquarters with delight,
contemplate life, and enjoy the pleasure of not suffering; anything else would
be a dangerous adventure. She could not remember when a fly had last bitten
her.
The bull, the crazy leaps through the fields … all that was
a distant memory.
Her peace had only been disturbed on the inauguration of the
railway. The first time ‘Cordera’ saw a train pass by she went berserk. She
leapt Somonte’s tallest hedge and ran through the adjacent fields. Her fright
lasted days, returning with more or less the same intensity every time a train
appeared on the line. Little by little she grew accustomed to the innocuous
racket. When she managed to convince herself that the danger always passed,
that the threatened catastrophe never came to be, she took no more precaution
than to rise on all fours and gaze straight ahead, her head raised, at the formidable
monster; later, she did no more than look at it, without rising, with antipathy
and distrust. Eventually, she reached the point of not bothering to gaze at the
train. For Rosa and Pinín, the novelty of the railway left lasting pleasant
impressions. If, at the start, it was a crazy kind of happiness, mixed with
superstitious fear, a form of nervous excitement that brought on shouts,
gestures, and wild pantomimes, later it was peaceful and gentle recreation,
renewed several times a day. It took a long time to expend the emotion of
watching the giddying transit, accompanied by the wind, of the great iron snake
that carried with it so much noise and the faces of so many unknown, strange
people.
However, the telegraph, the railway – all this really amounted
to a momentary accident that drowned in the sea of solitude surrounding Somonte
meadow. No human dwelling could be seen from there and the only sound that
could be heard from the outside world was that of the passing train. On endless
mornings, beneath the occasional rays of the sun, among the buzzing insects,
the cow and the children awaited the onset of midday and the return to the
house that followed. And later, the eternal afternoons of sweet, sad silence in
the same field, until night fell, its evening brilliance silent witness at the
heights. The clouds gathered, trees cast shadows, birds perched among the rocks
in the ridges and ravines, some stars began shining in the darkest sections of
blue sky; and Pinín and Rosa, the twins, Antón and Chinta’s children, holding
onto the sweet, dream-like serenity of solemn, serious nature, remained quiet
for hours on end after their games, never exceptionally rowdy at anytime,
seated near ‘Cordera’, who punctuated the august silence of the afternoons with
the pointed sound of a sluggish cowbell.
In this silence, this calm undisturbed by activity, there
was love. The twins loved each other like two halves of a ripe fruit, united by
the same life, with scant consciousness of what made them distinct from one
another or of what separated them. Pinín and Rosa loved ‘Cordera’, the big,
yellow, grandmotherly cow, the nape of whose neck resembled a cradle. ‘Cordera’
would have reminded a poet of the zavala of the Ramayana, the sacred cow, in
the abundance of her form, the solemn serenity of her deliberate, noble
movements, her air and contours of a dethroned, fallen idol, pleased with her
fortune, happier to be a real cow than a false god. ‘Cordera’, to the degree
that it may be possible to guess such things, would have said too that she
loved the twins charged with the task of grazing her.
She wasn’t that expressive; but the patience with which she
submitted to the twin’s games, in which she variously served as pillow, hiding
place, saddle, and whatever else accorded with the children’s fantasies,
silently demonstrated the affection of the peaceful, thoughtful animal.
In difficult times Pinín and Rosa had gone to incredible
lengths to care for the ‘Cordera’. Antón had only recently acquired the meadow.
Years before, ‘Cordera’ had to graze as best she could, at random along the
roads and narrow streets of the sparse meadows of the community, comprised as
much of public thoroughfares as pasture. In such days of penury, Pinín and Rosa
guided her to the prime hillocks, to the quietest and least heavily grazed
places, thus liberating her from the thousand abuses to which poor animals
forced to leave their search for food to chance on the road are exposed.
In the most difficult days, in the barn, when the hay was
scarce and the corn stalks used to make a warm bed for the cow were also
lacking, the Cordera owed the amelioration of her misery to the inventiveness
of Rosa and Pinín. And what can one say about the time of the calving and the
breeding, when the needs of the offspring conflicted with the Chintos’
interest, which consisted of robbing from the udders of the poor mother the
entire quantity of milk with the exception of what was absolutely indispensable
for the survival of the calf! At such times Rosa and Pinín always sided with
‘Cordera’, and whenever they found the opportunity secretly set the suckling
free. The creature, blind and as if crazed, bumping against everything, ran to
the shelter of the mother, who lodged him under her belly and turned her
grateful, diligent head, saying in her way:
‘Let the children and the sucklings come to me.’
Such memories, such ties, are among those never forgotten.
Also, no cow in the whole world could have been better
tempered or more patient than ‘Cordera’. Whenever she found herself paired with
a companion, attached to the yoke, she bowed her will to what was alien to her,
and hour after hour found her with neck bent, head twisted, in an uncomfortable
position, on her feet while her yokemate slept on the ground.
Antón understood that he was destined for a life of poverty
when he came face to face with the fact that he would never realise his golden
dream of acquiring a farm of his own with at least two heads of cattle. By dint
of hard labour and unstinting privation, he eventually saved enough to purchase
his first cow, ‘Cordera’, and that was that; he would not be able to buy a
second until he paid arrears to the landlord, the owner of the little house
that he rented, and carried off to the market that piece of his insides,
‘Cordera’, the love of his children. Within two years of the Cordera’s arrival
at the house, Chinta died. The cow’s shed and the double bed shared a wall,
that is, a partition comprised of the branches of chestnut trees and corn
stalks. Chinta, muse of the miserable house’s poverty, died looking at the cow
through a hole in the divide, pointing her out as the salvation of the family.
‘Take care of her. She’s your bread and butter,’ the eyes of
the poor moribund appeared to say. She died debilitated by hunger and work.
The twins had focussed their love on ‘Cordera’; the mother’s
lap exudes a particular affection that a father cannot compete with. The
children sought it now in the warmth of the cow, in the shed, and in the field.
Antón understood all this in his confused way. He did not
have to say a word to the children about the need to sell the cow. Early one
Saturday in July, in a bad mood, Antón began walking toward Gijón, ‘Cordera’,
which had only the bell around her neck, in front of him. Pinín and Rosa slept.
Other days he had to practically whip them awake. On this day he left them
alone. When they awoke they discovered that ‘Cordera’ had gone. ‘Papa’s taken
her to the bull.’ No other conjecture occurred to them. Pinín and Rosa believed
the cow went with reluctance; they thought she wished for no more offspring
because she always ended up losing them soon, without knowing how or when.
At dusk, Antón and the Cordera entered the yard in front of
the house, gloomy, tired, and covered in dust. Their father said nothing though
the children guessed the danger.
He had not made the sale because nobody agreed to the price
he asked. It was excessive; his affection for the beast clouded his reason. He
asked so much for the cow to ensure nobody would dare take her away. The men
who approached intending to obtain a good deal soon moved off, cursing the one
who looked with rancour and defiance at those among them who insisted on
nearing the price that Antón obstinately maintained. Until the last minute of
the day, Antón was in the Humedal, leaving the matter to fate. ‘It can’t be
said,’ he thought, ‘that I don’t want to sell the cow. It’s that they don’t
want to pay me what ‘Cordera’s’ worth.’ Finally, with a sigh, if not exactly
satisfied but with a certain relief, he turned and started walking along the
Candás Road, among the confusion and noise of bullocks and pigs, oxen and cows,
which the villagers from many parishes in the district conducted with greater
or less exertion, in accord with the length of time the men and beasts had been
acquainted.
At a crossing in Natahoyo, it seemed as though Antón might
yet lose the cow; a neighbour from Carrió who had pestered him the whole day
offering a price just a few duros less than that asked, and who was now rather
drunk, made a final attack.
He bid higher and higher, torn between greed and the whim of
owing the cow. But Antón held firm as a rock. They ended up with their hands
joined, standing in the middle of the road, blocking the way … Finally, greed
triumphed; the amount of fifty duros separated them like an abyss; they let go
of each other’s hands and each went his own way; Antón followed a lane adorned
with honeysuckles that had not yet bloomed and budding blackberries and led her
to the house.
From the day they surmised the danger of the situation,
Pinín and Rosa did not rest. In the middle of the week, the steward showed up
at Antón’s yard. He was another villager from the same parish, a short-tempered
man, known for his cruelty toward tenants who fell behind in their payments.
Antón, who did not stand for his reprimands, turned livid when the other
threatened him with eviction.
The landlord would not wait longer. In that case Antón would
sell the cow at a low price, for the equivalent of a light snack. It was either
that or the streets.
The following Saturday Pinín accompanied his father to the
Humedal. The child looked horrified at the meat dealers, who were the tyrants
of the place. A man from Castile bought the Cordera for a just price. Branded,
she returned to her shed in Puao, already sold, somebody else’s, her bell sadly
ringing. A sullen Antón walked behind her with Pinín, whose eyes were swollen.
When she heard about the sale, Rosa wrapped her arms around ‘Cordera’s’ neck.
She inclined her head at the caresses just as she did when they submitted her
to the yoke.
‘There goes the old girl,’ the unsociable Antón thought to
himself, broken-hearted.
She is a beast, but his children had no other mother or
grandmother!
The silence of the following days, in the field and in
Somonte’s greenery hung funereal. Ignorant of her fate, ‘Cordera’ rested and
grazed as usual, apparently unconscious of the passage of time, as she would
rest and eat a minute before the brutal cudgel killed her. But Rosa and Pinín
lay grief stricken upon the grass, which would soon be good for nothing. They
gazed with rancour at the passing trains, the wires of the telegraph pole. It
was that unknown world, so far from them on both sides, that would take
‘Cordera’ away from them.
When it grew dark on Friday, it was time for the goodbye. An
agent of the new owner came for the animal. He paid and took a drink with Antón
and they brought ‘Cordera’ to the little square. Antón had drained the bottle.
He was in a highly excited state. The weight of the money in his pocket further
enlivened his spirits. He wanted to blind himself. He spoke a lot, singing the
praises of the cow. The other man smiled because it was impertinent of Antón to
go on in this fashion. Who cared if the cow provided so much milk? That she was
noble in the yoke, strong when heavily burdened? So what, if in a matter of
days she was going to be turned into chops and other delicious cuts? Antón did
not want to imagine that; he thought of her alive, working, serving another
labourer, having forgotten him and the children but alive, happy … Pinín and
Rosa, sat holding hands atop a mound of fertilizer, a sentimental reminder for
them of ‘Cordera’ and their own work, looking at the enemy with terrified eyes.
At the last moment, they threw themselves on top of their friend; kisses,
embraces, everything. They could not release her. Antón, now that the effect of
the wine had worn off, fell as if in a marasmus. He folded his arms and entered
the darkened yard.
The children followed for a good distance, along the narrow
street with high hedges, the sad group of the indifferent agent and ‘Cordera’,
who accompanied the unknown man unwillingly and at such an hour. Finally, Rosa
and Pinín had to abandon their pursuit. In a fit of pique, Antón shouted from
the house:
‘Children, come here. That’s enough foolishness,’ so the
father implored from a distance, in a tearful voice.
Night fell. The high hedges along the darkened, narrow lane
appeared black, practically forming a vault. They lost sight of the vague shape
of ‘Cordera’, who seemed equally black from afar. In a moment there remained
nothing of her but the slow tinkle of the bell, a sound that faded little by
little in the distance among the sad creaks of countless cicadas.
‘Goodbye, ‘Cordera!’ cried Rosa, overcome with weeping.
‘Goodbye, my love!’
‘Goodbye, ‘Cordera!’ repeated Pinín, equally distraught.
‘Goodbye,’ the bell answered at last, after its fashion, the
sad refrain coming apart, resigned, among the sounds of the July night in the
village…
Very early the next day, at the regular hour, Pinín and Rosa
went to Somonte meadow. For them, the solitude encountered there had never been
sad. But that day, without ‘Cordera’, the Somonte resembled a desert.
Suddenly, the locomotive whistled, smoke appeared, and then
the train. In a closed wagon, in narrow, high windows or air vents, the twins
glimpsed the heads of cows that peered, bewildered, through the openings.
‘Goodbye, ‘Cordera’!’ cried Rosa, imagining her friend, the
grandmotherly cow, there –
‘Goodbye, ‘Cordera’!’ yelled Pinín, with the same faith,
brandishing his fists at the train, which flew toward Castile.
The tearful boy, more conscious than his sister of the
villainy of the world, cried out:
‘They’re taking her to the slaughterhouse … Beef, for the
gentlemen, priests … for those who’ve come back rich from America.’
‘Goodbye, ‘Cordera’!’
‘Goodbye, ‘Cordera’!’
Rosa and Pinín gazed with rancour at the railway line and
the telegraph, symbols of a malevolent world that snatched from them, that
devoured, their companion of so many solitary hours, of so much silent
tenderness, to gratify the appetites, and convert her into the food, of rich
gluttons.
‘Goodbye, ‘Cordera’…!’
‘Goodbye, ‘Cordera’…!’
Many years passed. Pinín grew into a young man and received
a summons from the king. The third Carlist war raged. Antón was a farm manager
for a local boss of the defeated party, but it would have been futile for him
to declare his son unfit for duty. Besides, Pinín was like an oak.
One sad afternoon in October Rosa waited alone in Somonte
meadow for the mail train from Gijón. It carried with it her only love, her
brother. The locomotive whistled in the distance and then the train passed
along the cutting in a flash. Rosa, nearly caught up in the wheels, saw for an
instant in a third-class coach the heads of numerous poor conscripts, crying
out and gesticulating, greeting the trees, the soil, the fields, and everything
about their mother country that was familiar to them, their local areas,
everything left behind to go and die in the fratricidal conflicts of the
country as a whole, in the service of a king and ideas they had no knowledge
of.
Pinín, half his body out the window, spread out his arms
toward his sister; they almost touched. Rosa heard the clear voice of her
brother among the noise of the wheels and the shouts of the recruits. He
sobbed, exclaiming, as though prey to a distant memory of pain:
‘Goodbye, Rosa…! Goodbye, ‘Cordera’!’
‘Goodbye, Pinín! My love…!’
There he goes, like the other, like the grandmotherly cow.
He goes into the world. Beef for the gluttons, for those who return rich from
America. Flesh of her soul, cannon fodder for this world’s craziness, for the
ambitions of others.
So ran the train of Rosa’s thought, among a riot of pain and
ideas, as she watched the train disappear in the distance, whistling sadly,
whistles that echoed in the chestnut trees, the valleys, and among the
boulders…
How alone she felt! Now, yes, now Somonte meadow resembled a
desert.
‘Goodybe, Pinín! Goodbye, ‘Cordera’!’
With what hatred did Rosa gaze at the tracks stained with
burnt coal, with what rage did she appraise the telegraph wires. Oh, ‘Cordera’
had chosen well never to go near them. That was the world, the unknown, which
swallowed everything. And without realising what she was doing, Rosa leaned her
head against the pole that stood like a banner at the extremity of the Somonte.
The wind sang its metallic song in the entrails of the dry pine. Now, Rosa
understood. It was a tearful refrain, of abandonment, of solitude, of death.
In the rapid vibrations, like moans, she thought she heard,
very far off, the voice that sobbed on the line ahead of her:
‘Goodbye, Rosa! Goodbye, ‘Cordera’!’