RIP Villager J

By Barbara Bos

Villager J and I always saluted when we encountered each other, backs straight, heels clicking.

I’m not sure who started it. I think I did. It became our inside joke.

Today I’m going to salute him one last time but he won’t salute me back because he’s inside a coffin and it’s his funeral.

*

It feels to me as if the village’s soul has unravelled with J’s  passing. He’s always been the thread in my village stories, in the scenes or behind the scenes, from the moment he showed up on our doorstep, to this piece, the one I don’t want to write.

And you know what, I’m not going to write a piece. J was more like a movie star anyway.

Hence I give you:

Villager J, The Movie

16 years ago: Scene One: Front of the House

Villager J turns up on our doorstep with a massive bag of corn cob cores. He knocks on our door and waits.

I open the door, with a slightly unsure face. We just arrived a few days ago and I’m not sure who to trust yet.

“I’m J,” he says, “I live over there,” he jerks his head indicating behind him, “If you need anything,” and he hands me the bag.

“Firelighters,” he explains.

I thank him and he leaves.

I close the door and tell my husband I’ve just met J.

Scene Two: Shed

I am trying to chop firewood in my shed and failing miserably. I can’t yet tell pinewood apart from oak, and I am using the wrong axe but am unaware of this fact.

It hasn’t stopped raining for days. I’m cold, my back is sore and am just about to throw my axe down in frustration when I look up and see him standing in the doorway, yellow raincoat, little dog at his side. That moment of awkwardness where I wonder how long I’ve been contemplated.

And that little shake of his head indicating a myriad of things. I have no clue what I am doing, and I obviously need help.

”Move,” Is all he says, and he takes off his raincoat, puts it on the side.

I hate getting help. No. Let me rephrase that. I hate feeling helpless. I prefer doing things myself, even if that means failure or things taking a lot longer than they ought to take. I try to explain to him in the little Galego I can manage that I can do it myself, but he ignores my protests, gestures at something which looks like a giant nail lying on the side, “Traie,” give me that and picks up the sledgehammer. 

With a few taps he puts the giant nail into the wood and then, quite impressive considering his size,  he slams the hammer onto it. And again. A tear begins to appear in the wood, which turns bigger and bigger until it is spliced.

I thank him for his help, he shrugs and takes the opportunity to look around in the shed. “Castana,” chestnut, he nods appreciatively pointing to the old wooden door in the corner. The wood he just spliced is carballo, oak, he tells me.  I am thinking how amazing it is that he can distinguish these different woods, not from looking at the trees, but just the wood itself.

Scene 3 Many years later. Sitting under J’s chestnut tree

”We have to be like ants.” J. tells me, again, “You know what ants are?”

We have entered banter territory.

“You’ve told me this a million times,” I sigh, in mock annoyance.

He ignores my comment and puts on his serious face. ”Ants collect in summer for the winter. Hence we all have to be like ants,” He lectures, “We have to do that with our firewood. See, you ought to listen to me. When you arrived here you knew nothing. You were as green as grass. You couldn’t even distinguish a cabbage plant from a potato plant.”

I disagree. ”I knew some things. And I am not stupid.”

”Who says you are stupid?’ he asks.

”You do, behind my back. You lot all do. You all still think I am a silly foreigner.”

He smirks. “But we like you.” he reassures me.

Scene 4, J’s Dining Room

We have dinner at his house with his family, and I spot the picture of him as a baby on the wall. I marvel over the fact he still has exactly the same smile. He hasn’t changed. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who still wears the exact same smile from babyhood, and this gives me even more reason to like him.

Scene 5, just before sunset, last autumn.

It’s an hour before sunset and I set out into the hills.

I walk towards villager J’s house, the path past his house leads into the forest and the hills behind our village. I can see him sitting on his balcony, a shadow of his former self. He’s had heart problems for a while now, and he had a nasty fall recently, damaging one of his vertebrae. His wife, S, is walking with a strained gait down the path to the patch where her daughter and son-in-law are loading up wood for winter, loud clangs of logs landing in the trailer of the tractor.

“S, you’re not walking well,” I say when I catch up with her. She turns and looks confused for a second, as if not being sure where my voice came from, but this is due to the fact she only has one working eye. I’ve never found out what happened to her. I’d like to think that she’s so wise she only needs the one eye to see. She can see through people.

“Oh hi!” She stops and smiles, “It’s my hips,” she says. I nod in sympathy.

I’m at the side of the house now, and I look up at the balcony to greet J, clicking my heels and saluting him, “Jefe de pueblo!” village Boss, I shout and his face lights up a little.

“I am,” he says.

“You should be the mayor,” I add.

“Take a stick!” J shouts from the balcony as I leave, “there’s wolves out there”· holding up his walking stick, forever the protector, but I decline.

“I’ll find a stick on the path.” I shout while walking off.

Last Scene

It is super busy when I arrive at the church, the sun is hanging low and is ridiculously bright, so bright it seems ethereal, the oak trees surrounding the church look flamboyant, dressed in bright orange, a sharp contrast against the gorgeous blue sky.

I have my left hand in my coat pocket, clutching a little branch of rosemary I snapped of a bush while walking up here. Convincing myself it will magically prevent me from bursting into tears. I already bawled my eyes out earlier when I saw his family.

I don’t dare to salute him while inside the funeral parlor, standing opposite the coffin. I merely brush my right hand over my hair above my ear.

*

It is cold in church and it is packed, and I am standing at the back. I recognise many people and wonder what J himself would make of this turnout. I stare at the god awful statue of St James on his white horse, towering at the far end. As always, the service is practically anonymous and says nothing about the person in question, so I drown out the monotonous voice of the priest and think of the end scene of Villager J, the movie.

A little video my daughter took of him a few weeks ago. It looked like a miniature documentary and just thinking about it gives me goosebumps.

J on his balcony, looking out over the scene behind the house, where the yearly pig slaughter is taking place.

Without him.

And then he turns around, shufflng back inside the house.

*

The service comes to an end. Men pick up the coffin, and slowly make their way outside.

When the coffin files past me, I swallow away my tears, attention, stand tall, and salute him.

From now on I’ll salute the chestnut tree he used to sit under, the bench he always used to sit on, his dog who always comes on walks with me, and his grandson who has his smile.

Thank you J, for making me, the silly foreigner, feel at home.

—

Barbara Bos is the managing editor and owner of Women Writers, Women’s Books. Barbara was born in Holland. After finishing University she left for the UK. Since then she has uprooted herself twice more, currently living with her family in a small village in Galicia, North-West Spain.

Follow her @chicaderock on Twitter.

She blogs about village life on her website https://chicaderock.wordpress.com/

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers