summer story | 'Two of August', by Juan Gómez Bárcena

A second of August who knows when.

For example, from 2022. For example.

The sun at the top: below, a town in Cantabria.

Around thirty stone houses scattered among the eucalyptus trees, not far from the sea.

It is the summer of 2022, but it is also the summer of 1797, and then there are no eucalyptus trees, but native oaks, and it is the summer of 723 BC, and then there are native oaks but no people.

But no, it's not that far back: it's the summer of 2022 and at most it's also the summer of 1797. A town and a house, the same house, which is repeated in both times like an echo that doesn't stop.

A hall with a trough for cows to drink from 1797, converted into a porch with wicker armchairs and a bronze bell for tourists from 2022 to call reception.

A balcony that no longer has ears of corn hanging but three faded flags: Cantabria, Spain, the European Union.

Posada San Tirso, says the sign.

No sign in 1797, for what, if in that town almost nobody knows how to read, and besides, no foreigner needs to stay: who would want to.

It is the summer of 2022: the eleven rooms of the inn are full and in one of them —the room that the owner of the inn pompously calls Suite Mar y Tierra— Macarena sleeps.

Except that Macarena doesn't sleep and she isn't exactly alone either.

She has spent half the night with her eyes fixed on the ceiling, going round and round while Martin snores next to her.

It is the summer of 1797: the same room and perhaps even the same bed—the room they simply call Agustina's room—and, of course, Agustina is sleeping in it.

Except that Agustina doesn't sleep and she isn't exactly alone either.

She has spent the last seven hours writhing in pain on that very bed, snapping one cypress stick after another between her teeth, and for just under an hour there has been no pain;

only the deep sadness of having in her arms a seething bundle, still red with blood and still without a name.

The sin.

The Disgrace.

The Opprobrium of the Family.

That's what it's called.

Thus, at least, she has been calling him Agustina's mother, long before she knew if she would be a boy or a girl;

from the very moment her daughter's belly began to swell last fall, to her dismay.

And now they're there

the nameless child in Agustina's arms;

Agustina in bed, her face beaded with sweat and tears;

Agustina's mother in the doorway, her arms crossed and her eyes dry with rage.

"What a shame, Augustine.

What a great shame you have brought to this family…

And Agustina who looks at the little hand clutching her index finger, embarrassed and at the same time wondering how that little hand can be a source of shame.

That is exactly what Macarena wants.

A little hand that tightly grips her index finger.

A boy or a girl: it matters so much.

She may even she wants it too much.

That is why she and Martín are there, far from Madrid, spending their vacations in that rural inn with 4.7 stars on TripAdvisor and the words “relaxing”, “restorative” and “paradise” written up to fourteen times in user comments: because you need to think about something else.

Because when our mind is too focused on achieving something, sometimes our body gets blocked.

Our inner girl asks for a

.

Our hormones say

.

These could be the words of Macarena's kinesiologist or her naturist or even her acupuncturist, but they are, in fact, the words of the doctor who has been treating her for three years in an assisted reproduction clinic.

For some time now, everything has been confusing in Macarena's life: her naturist talks to her about DNA and microbiology, while her embryologist feels authorized to talk to her about inner children, about repressed desires, about

.

And patience: above all patience.

Don't be in a hurry, Macarena: you have to think of something else.

And there they are right now, Macarena and Martín, lying in bed at Posada San Tirso —a place to disconnect from everything and everyone!!!—;

Martín snoring since eleven forty-five at night and Macarena with her eyes fixed on the ceiling;

Macarena thinking about that boy who hasn't, about that girl who hasn't, yet.

Always the same image: her in bed, holding her baby in her arms—still red with blood;

still nameless.

The child cries and she cries too.

Why would a mother cry?

Because she is too happy, of course;

only for that.

"What a great shame, Agustina."

What a humiliation for all the Sánchez who were, who are and who will be…

The child's father was a pilgrim on his way to Santiago;

a man who had spent a single day in the town, and of that day no more than an hour lying on the threshing floor with Agustina.

The fault, her mother reasoned, was Agustina's own: because she didn't say no.

I didn't say that, mother, Agustina replies, that she certainly didn't have time to say many words before the stranger threw himself on top of her.

Anyway, she resolves her mother with a snort: one way or another, the damage was done.

The damage was not that Agustina often had nightmares: the damage was not the pain, nor the fear of other men, nor the shame.

The damage was that little thing that has grown in her entrails: that belly that has had to be hidden from the neighbors with bundles and more slips.

Not to mention the many visits they have made to Doña Águeda,

Let him pray seven Our Fathers backwards, said the witch.

The fourteenth and fifteenth days of the cycle are preferable for conception, the doctor prescribes for Macarena.

Let him drink a concoction of rue and juniper on the first Sunday of the month.

Do not forget to record the basal temperature to estimate the moment of progesterone secretion.

Let him whisper the father's name into a well and then blind him with a stone.

And above all, relax, Macarena;

you have to listen to your inner child.

But neither the doctor's spells nor the witch's science could do anything, and that's why now Agustina and Macarena can't sleep.

Macarena, who sees the crack in the window slowly take shape with a bluish glow: another sleepless night, she thinks.

She sits up quietly, trying not to wake Martin: sandals for her feet, a knit sweater over her shoulders, Lucky's package in her pocket.

Nobody in the hall;

no one at the reception either.

Behind her, Agustina stands up, her legs still shaky.

She takes one last look—one last look?—at the fragile little body of that child who has finally fallen asleep.

She slowly lays him down in the loaf basket, which looks as much like a cradle as a coffin.

In the corridor she meets the eyes of her mother: a look that seems to go through her thoughts.

-What are you doing?

Her mother asks, without taking her eyes off the basket that she carries in her arms.

There is no need for Agustina to answer.

They both know the answer.

Save the family honor: that is what she is about to do.

It is dawn outside.

Macarena walks slowly through the streets of the town, feeling the tiny comfort of the touch of the cigarettes in her pocket.

She does not hear anything: neither a human voice, nor the engine of a car.

The streets of the town in the early morning of any given day in 2022: a silence identical to that of any early morning in 1797. Yesterday, on Oyambre beach, he never failed to come across pregnant women in bikinis: women bathing, women who walked, women who sunbathed for their future children.

It hurts just remembering them.

Perhaps that is why the silence of the sleeping streets fills her with a feeling similar to hope.

At some point, he arrives at the village church.

She suddenly feels the impulse to pray, but pray to whom.

Also the church is closed.

All that remains for him is to lean his back against the wooden door and let himself slide down to sit on the front steps.

Suddenly, galloping from Madrid, the doctor's words come to him: and above all, no tobacco.

Macarena closes her eyes and lights her first cigarette.

Just then she appears in front of the portico of the Augustinian church, with a basket in her arms: she too tries to walk quietly.

Look to the right, look to the left, and leave the basket at the top of the stairs, next to Macarena's lap —on the second of August of this year, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, it was found at the door of the Glorious Santo Thirso from Toñanes a child, in a basket with two handles that would make about a bushel, more or less, the priest will write the following day in the book of foundlings.

She then genuflects fearfully at the church door and runs as fast as she can without looking back.

a cry

Suddenly, Macarena seemed to hear it very close and deep inside her, as if it had come from her insides: the cry of a child.

Macarena turns to look at the empty step;

that step where there is nothing to look at.

She smiles sadly.

It must be the wind, she thinks to herself, before tossing out the butt.

It can only be the wind.

And of course, you are not wrong.

________________________

Juan Gómez Bárcena

(Santander, 37 years old) is a writer and has a degree in Theory of Literature, History and Philosophy.

He has written

(2012),

(2014),

(2017),

(2020) and

(2022).

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