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3 - Soinujolearen semea in Asteasu
I arrived in Asteasu in the late afternoon of July 3, 2010. The drive north through the Vall d’Aran and the green and golden fields of southern France, then back into Spain via Irún was beautiful but uneventful. When I arrived in town the clouds hung low. A thick, wet mist blanketed the lush green countryside, and the white-washed, red-roofed homes of Asteasu were bathed in a blurry twilight. That entire week the town had been celebrating its Fiesta de San
Pedro, and the town was decorated with the Basque flag (called the Ikurriña, a green, red, and white Union Jack), and all types of propaganda. Joseba Irazu, the man known to the world as
Bernardo Atxaga, grew up in this town and still owns the house in which he was raised, right on main street in the lower section of the town, just a stone’s throw away from the town hall and its two most important bars, the Iturriondo, and the Patxine.
Upon my arrival in town, an eery feeling crept up inside of me. Atxaga had told me the day before to keep my eyes open in Asteasu, that it was a strange place where strange things happen. I had also already read Paddy Woodworth’s exceptional book on the Basque Country in which he describes Asteasu as a place where the magical coexists with the quotidian. “A few years ago a man I knew was sealing a hole there,” Atxaga tells Woodworth in the book, pointing to an agricultural outhouse.
He asked me if I knew what it had been used for. “So the cat could get in?” I
asked. “No,” he said, “it was made to lock up a little boy called Manueltxu. He
was bitten by a rabid dog, and turned into a dog himself. When anyone came by,
he used to bark and howl. And that went on until he died.” “So what was the hole
for?” “For his food. His mother came here twice a day and put a plate through the
hole, with great care not to be bitten.” (145)
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Atxaga leaves the story at that. Then Woodworth points out:
The question is not whether these stories are true or false; they simply belong to
another time, another world. The story of Manueltxu was the starting point for the
boy who became the hunted boar in Obabakoak. It is the terror and sadness of
these stories, rather than their precise ‘facts’, which ring true for him. (145)
I never saw any human turned into an animal in Asteasu (although I did carefully avoid a cavernous hole in a wall that ran along a path I had to use to get to my car each day), but terror and sadness certainly lurk in nearly every dark corner of this mysterious town, and the tension between that other time, that other world, and the ever-pressing here-and-now permeates nearly all of conversations I had in Asteasu.
The first thing I did upon my arrival was to stop by the Iturriondo to introduce myself to
Jon, the bar’s owner. He greeted me warmly and let me park in the street while I carried my battered suitcase up the stairs to Atxaga’s family flat. Jon even let me use the bar’s washing machine to do my laundry. Finally, I sat down amongst the San Pedro revelers to watch Spain play Paraguay in a hotly contested, brutally physical World Cup matchup. As I sat there in the bar, completely ignored by all those people surrounding me, it suddenly dawned on me: there were at least as many people cheering against Spain as were cheering for it. This was certainly a strange place.
***
A Town of Hedgehogs
I came to Asteasu to study readership of Soinujolearen semea (2003) (The Accordionist’s
Son [2010]), a novel that touches on many of Atxaga’s own experiences growing up in postwar
Asteasu. In many ways, Soinujolearen semea is a culmination of what some writers have come
Mack 3 to call the Obaba cycle, a series of short stories and novels tied together by the mythical town of
Obaba, a place that could theoretically be anywhere in Euskal Herria but which Atxaga has specifically identified as Asteasu, the town where he lived the first thirteen years of his life.
Atxaga begins his most famous novel of the Obaba cycle, Obabakoak, with the following statement about the Basque language: “Born, they say, in the megalithic age, it survived, this stubborn language, by withdrawing, by hiding away like a hedgehog in a place, which, thanks to the traces it left behind there, the world named the Basque Country or Euskal Herria” (Kindle
Locations 114-116). This stubborn withdrawal, the secretive hiding, aptly describes the cautious, suspicious nature of many of the people in Asteasu. History has made them very wary of outsiders, and there are many things that people just do not discuss, in private or in public.
One afternoon, in a back room of the Patxine, I sit down to discuss Soinujolearen semea with Xanti and Gorka1, schoolteachers and boyhood friends from Andoin, a town just a few kilometers from Asteasu to which Atxaga moved with his family when he was thirteen years old.
Xanti and Gorka are a few years younger than Atxaga, and they remember how they admired those older boys from the neighborhood who had the courage to stand up to the Guardia Civil, and who later suffered the consequences for their brazen actions.
“I remember, for example, an excursion into the mountains,” begins Xanti, “and later on the train we were coming down singing, and one of these [referring to the older, braver boys], they made him go back to military service for singing in Euskera. The Civil Guards stopped him, they saw him [singing] in Euskera, ‘documents,’ and he had his military ID, and he had to do almost another year of service. And, sure, we stood there a bit-- What’s going on? You know?”
He repeats it in an urgent, confused whisper, and looks me dead in the eyes: “What’s going on?”
1 Names changed
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Gorka chimes in: “But afterwards nobody talks about these stories, nobody talks--”
“Of course not!” Xanti cuts him off. “No, no, no. You interpret many of them after the fact.”
Gorka continues:
With people from our group, a bit older, who have lived through all of this on the
front lines, who because we were younger-- I mean, they didn’t tell us anything.
But later, in the end I feel like we still don’t talk about that. Nobody talks about
that. I have friends who have been in prison, and people from my group of friends
who have been thrown in prison and such-- I’m talking here about twenty five or
thirty years ago, and later. Since they’ve gotten out we have never spoken about
this topic.
“No.” Adds Xanti.
“Never.” Gorka adds flatly. “I know what their life was like then. They don’t bring it up,
I don’t bring it up, and we don’t talk about that subject.”
Resistance to talking about the recent Basque past, especially the events of the Spanish
Civil War and the ensuing repression, which in part led to the rise of ETA, lies at the heart of
Soinujolearen semea, in which David, the novel’s protagonist, finds out as a teenager that his father may have been involved in the execution of some of the town’s more liberal citizens during the war. The suspicion burns inside of David and he actively pursues knowledge about his father’s activities during and after the war. Upon finding the truth, he wants to demand a confession from his father. When he has the opportunity to confront the man about it, however, his words fail him. “I didn’t want to talk to him,” he states. “All I wanted was his confession [...]
Remorse could be a first step, the beginning of a better relationship between us. Or perhaps not”
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(215). The conversation never happens, unfortunately, because there are certain topics that should simply never be discussed.
Relationships are critical in Atxaga’s novels and stories, and the titles of his works often play a key role in helping the reader identify those important relationships. Jon Kortazar points out that one possible title for Soinujolearen semea is Anaiaren liburua (Book of My Brother), referring to the relationship between David and his best friend Joseba. But Atxaga chose instead
“to focus on the relationship between David and his father” (66). While Kortazar sees this relationship as a symbol for the modern Basque country’s birth out of the violence of the Spanish
Civil War, there are important parallels between David’s story, his relationship with his father, the way he puts together his past (and thus his identity) like the various pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and the experience of many of the people of Asteasu and the surrounding towns. Xanti’s experience with his own father bears striking similarities to David’s story.
When I ask Xanti if the novel has affected him personally, he immediately responds in the affirmative:
“Yes. I told you before that ... I think I translate things, you know?” He looks at me and smiles sadly. “I am convinced that I have been very much deceived in my life. Very, very much.
And I could give you very concrete examples. I mean, totally deceived. In my house they didn’t tell us anything. Never anything. About anything.”
Gorka helps his friend along: “Because of fear or because of ...”
Xanti brushes this comment aside with a wave of his hand: “Because of whatever.
Because they didn’t want to, I don’t know, make our lives bitter, perhaps.”
“Or in order to not denounce the neighbor, who ... might be,” adds Gorka.
Xanti continues:
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I even think that, I have had the feeling that I have been very unfair to my parents, you know? I didn’t, I didn’t understand this, that probably I, to my own kid right now I would explain to him in a different way. I would tell him “Look, something happened there and you shouldn’t know about it.” But it wasn’t even that. Then sure, when you asked you parents to take you to [???] again and “When are we going to go to [???]” and you keep pounding at them. “And when are you going to buy this for me, and when we are we going to do that thing, and when are we--”
Sure, they couldn’t explain to you that, well, they didn’t have a dime, and they were working at four places at the same time [...] I mean, they never told you anything. Right now, my kids, I tell them “Hey, tough times. I can’t buy that for you right now,” and then they didn’t tell you, and you were like “Why don’t they want to-- Why don’t they want to buy that for me? Why--”
My father was very serious, for example, right? How little my father hugged me. I mean, sure, if I could recover lost time I would tell him “Look, tell me that you don’t want to talk about some things, surely so that I won’t go around talking about them, and they won’t make life hard for you ... But I don’t know, let’s have a different kind of relationship. Let’s talk about something else, you know? If we can’t talk about this, right? And I do have this feeling that my father died young and ... with a lot of debt, you know? I have learned, I’m telling you, many things just now, thanks to things like this, you know? Like this book. And you say “This?” And you ask someone and they tell you “Yes, this and worse and other things, and they used to get together and one day they got caught and that guy disappeared for this and that.”
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Xanti’s face is a picture of childlike innocence. “Me, well, what a life? You know? And you couldn’t have anything ... and you are left with this doubt, that will be there forever because my father no longer lives, I mean ...”
“What was your first reaction when you read the novel?” I ask Xanti at another point in the interview.
“Well I sat there, I remember, for a long time. It was like ... like being punched, or like being woken up. I remember that.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Precisely because of the evocation it provoked in me. I believe that it took me, I don’t know if to another century, in reality it was last century. I sat there stunned, you know?
Positively stunned. Because I believe that I came to understand many things.
I continue to probe: “What things?”
We, you know, we would come across our parents when they were talking
amongst themselves. And then you ask “What?” “Nothing.” “Who?” “Nobody.”
Me, these are the only answers that I try never to give my kids, for example. I
have said I will never answer my son with “nothing” or “nobody.” Back then it
was very common. You come across your parents. “Who?” “Nobody.” or “You
don’t know them.” Because of course they had conversations, you know? They
talked about ... There was a secret world, in which you did not participate, and I
believe that our childhood became something unreal, eh? We were happy,
participating in a happiness that our parents did not have.
We might best understand David and Xanti’s experience, and that of many others who grew up in and around Asteasu, in the light of Joseba Zulaika’s important 1996 book, Basque Violence:
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Metaphor and Sacrament, in which he gives a detailed analysis of the Basque use of the terms bai (yes) and ez (no). In traditional Basque society, ez is associated with strength and bai with weakness. Thus the stereotypical “yes-man” is not to be trusted. Furthermore: “Among people of the older generations, a frequently used expression that is employed to charge the youth with being too permissive is ‘These days the youth say bai to everything’” (300). Perhaps in order to combat the too-frequent use of bai among the youth, one villager told Zulaika: “You say ez to the children” (301).
Zulaika continues:
The clearest definition I heard in Itziar of what it is to be a person is the
following: "To be a man is to be able to say ez." This centrality of eza as a
fundamental cultural premise was pointed out in its simplest form by a man of
seventy-five, who in a criticism of young people lamented, "Gaurko gazteak ezik
ez" (Today's youth does not have a no). On another occasion I was told, "It is
totally necessary to have to say ez to certain things to give meaning to life. That's
all, for me that's all that makes life meaningful and nothing else." These quotes
are indicative of the extent to which the culture's ideal persona is grounded in
mastering the negative. Normativeness is here defined in negative terms, and the
person required to fulfill such norms has to be intimately acquainted with ez. It is
within the logic of the culture that the notion of the person also should be founded
on ez as the bearer of the idea of limit essential to personal autonomy. Becoming a
person is accepting the differences that circumscribe the self in relation to the rest
of society. (301)
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Perhaps those Basque parents saw their dogged use of ez in the dark years of dictatorship as a sign of strength rather than weakness. Zulaika recalls his schooldays in Itziar when older brothers would torment their younger brothers by causing them physical pain.
The torture would continue as long as the young brother kept answering ez
to the question of whether he was feeling pain. Finally, incapable of further
resistance, he would burst into tears with a bai Thus, the older brother
asserted his dominance over the younger by extracting bai from him. (303)
It appears that when a parent like Xanti’s father denied to his children that bad things were happening he was in his own eyes asserting his humanity and his strength by protecting his children, and in Xanti’s case the “protection” held for years. His father sacrificed his own happiness, his own working through the problem, so that his children could enjoy a happiness he would never feel.
José Luken Agote, an intimate friend and colleague of Atxaga, highlights the importance of silence as a mechanism for parents to protect their children in our interview, which we did in the Patxine the day after my interview with Xanti. It is easy to see the war as a unique phenomenon, a pinnacle event that, because of its singularity, traumatized people into silence. But violence has always been a part of rural life, and as
Agote points out, silence has always been the mechanism for dealing with it in his town.
During the Civil War, he explains in a voice like a well, “there were two sides. Back then, among, among the Basques themselves, and back then these things, well, they covered them up.
They covered them up in any way possible. And they raised us always as if nothing was amiss,”
Mack 10 he laughs incredulously. I am surprised, however, that the specific cases of violence that he brings up have apparently nothing to do with war:
And later, as you become older you find out about things. Information comes to
you, from here, from there, but all in a very disjointed manner, you know? And
what’s more, normally, including now-- My mother is eighty four years old--
When suddenly in some odd way you get some strange information about that
time, well what do I know? about some woman’s multiple abortion, with archaic
methods. And later, a forced marriage, by the priest. That’s when you start to ask
what they know, and they tell you “And you, what do you know about that? And
how?” And whatever else. And they don’t want to tell you, you know? They think
it’s better not to open up old wounds, right? Because deep down, later, this forced
marriage worked out, right?
“They had another son,” he points out the window behind him, “who lives around here, and ... and all is well.” He laughs. “So, there have been arrangements like this, for example don
Hipólito,2 Right? That, that, some son in the heat of the moment, in an argument with his father gets angry and grabs a shotgun and ... he shoots his father ... And and leaves him,” he points first to his arm, then to his leg, “well, with a gimpy leg, I mean with a leg that won’t work anymore.”
Back then in a caserío, a man who couldn’t work was practically worthless. So,
instead of ... the priest finds out and instead of calling the police and arresting the
boy, and taking him away, the priest comes running, he grabs the son, he puts him
in front of his parents, he tells him: “Look, if you ask your father for forgiveness,
and you promise here before them that ... you will work and you will provide for
2 Don Hipólito is the real life the town priest to whom Atxaga pays homage in the novel.
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your family, I will cover this up and you will stay here at home. If you do not do
it, you will go to jail.” And the son, promised it, and from that time on he worked
as if he were the father of the family and he provides for his father and his mother.
And ... the law, the police, didn’t hear about anything. Back then, there were
things like this. So this old world is there, but we have had to find out about it
little by little ... about all of these details. You don’t see this, and a novel, well,
can clear these things up or not, depending on if you are interested or not.
Admiration and pride tinge José Luken’s voice with emotion as he talks about these two incidences - the forced marriage that worked out and the priest who protected a boy from prison and his family from ruin. Both of these examples deal with violence in a rural setting, but neither is directly related to the war or the repression of the dictatorship. As a researcher I wanted to jump to the conclusion that silence and caution in Asteasu, the current hedgehog mentality, was the result of the war and the dictatorship. But this way of doing things has been the status quo for as long as people can remember in Asteasu. And in many cases silence was probably the best policy. The marriage worked. The couple had another child and nobody had to know about the violent and traumatic circumstances surrounding the legal union of that boy’s parents. The family of the injured man stayed together, and people only pieced together much later that the father was not wounded in a hunting accident but was rather shot by his own son. Given these examples, it is little wonder that when faced with the challenges presented by the Civil War, or the dictatorship, or ETA, people would prefer to keep silent, to work things out on their own - even when that may not have always been easy or possible.
But silence has not always led to peace among the people in and around Asteasu. It has just as often led to hate and fear. José Luken continues:
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I remember in Zarauz, that is there on the coast, well, in ... it’s like my
friend’s mother said, right? The Nationals come and take everything from their
house and well, everyone had their-- They have a port there and the women went
every morning to the port to try to buy fish directly from the fishermen, cheap.
And each one had a pot or something, in-- Back then they didn’t have plastic bags
like they do now. So they went, sure, you go down with whatever you have left in
your house and suddenly you see another woman with your pot, and automatically
you know that she is from the other side and that they gave her your pot ... and
this leads to terrible hate, right? But what happens, sure there was also terrible
fear because they couldn’t tell anyone. They swallowed all of that hate, right? But
after that they knew clearly that these people are from the other side. And up to
that point you hadn’t even suspected.
Then, well, in a different way, but well, this has been there, always
floating around. In my house we talked about a few things, but we never really
got into it because there was this, lots of fear and at the same time ... [he takes a
deep breath]. Just as there are people from both sides, well the kids should play
together, and they shouldn’t have any problems. The fact that the parents have
gone their separate ways doesn’t mean that the kids have to, from when they’re
little, go each one to his own side as well. So, let them live together and not hate
each other. So this has been applied generally, I believe.
To the outside observer there appears to be a huge disconnect between the first and the second half of what Agote tells here. The first part makes sense, and falls into the general line of discussion of the war in the pueblos. Everybody knew everybody. Everyone eventually knew on
Mack 13 which side everyone else stood. If he had stopped there, his testimony would sound like that of any other resident of rural Spain. But he goes on to point out that due to a desire to protect their children from the very hate and fear that they felt, the parents never told them about it. They let their children play together. Is this noble sacrifice on the part of parents? or is it madness?
One more note before I leave the point of silence and negation in the face of tragedy in the Basque Country. Xanti points out that the rest of Spain has often criticized the Basques because they have failed to react to violence in their country. But he points out that while the outward response appears callous, there is real pain on the inside, and there is also concern about the way that the Basques are portrayed by the Spanish. When I ask him if people should talk about what they never talk about he responds:
“I believe so. I believe that, at this moment in which ... the political situation looks like something else, that I think we are headed back to where we were before,” he points behind himself, to the past, then becomes pensive: “I, when they say,” he continues, “that many Basques have looked the other way when there has been violence, that we haven’t protested, that--”
“No,” Gorka mutters disgustedly.
“And I say, how many of us have not wept in silence? Because in my house we have cried plenty, but nobody knows about it, and how can I accuse my mother of, when there has been an assassination, of looking the other way. What do you mean, look the other way?” His voice is angry, his eyes intense. “If they have killed her brother-- brothers! or fathers ... who have disappeared ... And then, and nevertheless there is no answer to this, you know? ‘You have looked the other way. Even if you didn’t kill you looked the other way.’” He casts a suspicious- looking sideways glance at the ceiling.
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And nobody says anything. There is a saying that goes: Like donkeys, we are used
to beatings. And I say, well how sad, you know? How sad. And I now try to
explain everything I can to my kids. Everything that I can. And come on! I swore
when my father died and I started to understand that I would never hide anything
from them. And that’s that. They can come to their own conclusions but they
should know what’s going on. Well, of course. They should know what we think
about an assassination by ETA or in the face of a torture or in the case of-- sure.
But there are still people who [...] There are few people who will sit there and say
“Well look, for us the war was like this.” [...] I believe that people here have wept
and they will continue to weep a lot. I mean plenty. What we don’t do is call
Telecinco ... to say “Hey, we have agreed to meet today at six to cry together.”
Gorka and I chuckle.
“The Spanish cry a lot.” Xanti lets out a long mocking howl. Gorka continues to chuckle.
“But not us. We cry at home, and we will cry all damn afternoon, and nobody else knows about it, not even in our own house.”
“Sure.” Gorka affirms, still laughing.
“But it seems like an injustice to me because they are giving us lessons about ethics, about morals, about pacifism, about ... come on! People who aren’t willing to dig up bodies and identify them and give the a proper burial, nothing more. Nothing more!” He affirms staunchly.
Nobody has said, “Let’s see, who killed that guy?” No. No. But at least let me-- ...
And I-- You think, maybe I’m totally confused, but do you think that my
grandmother, my mother, sees you as pacifists? If I still haven’t found my father,
you know? If my brother went to the War and nobody sent me a letter telling me
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... you know? He just never came back. He just never came back. My brother.
And you say, and you? I see you as a pacifist? That’s impossible. And yet ... Well,
you’ve surely been able to see, right? The things that are published in the papers.
The things they accuse us of, and stuff, and because ... And we have been the
victims, and now victims of the victims.
Despite the Basque desire for privacy, the hedgehog mentality, there are those who want to discuss things. Xanti wants his children to know exactly what happens. But true to the spirit of the hedgehog, he prefers to do it quietly, in private. Protected.
***
Cherokee Nation
Maite, Asteasu’s resident butcher and librarian, was one of my first and most important contacts in the town. One afternoon she introduced me to one of her friends, a tall, good-looking man named Aitor3, who Maite informed me was an actor. Aitor had read Soinujolearen semea, and we set up an appointment to meet in the conference room at the library to discuss the book.
During our interview, I ask Aitor whether he thinks that Soinujolearen semea is a faithful representation of how things were in Asteasu in the time it describes. He responds:
“Well, living here you also realize that-- Me, I call this world the Cherokee world, you know? It is very Cherokee, it is very indian, very from the reservation, you know? It is ... we are close to
...”
I laugh. He continues:
Yes, the Cherokees, the Cherokee is the man who is ... you could call him
primitive, but not dumb because of that. No way! He is very wise, but he lives in a
3 Name changed
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mountainous region and his language is Euskera. And if he drives, he needs a four
by four ...” He smiles fondly. “I don’t know. It’s strange because since you are
American - ... I have a neighbor who is very Cherokee. He is a mechanic that lives
here at the entrance of the town, but he is from a caserío way out there, from the
area that Atxaga writes about.”
Aitor’s demeanor changes as he slips, perhaps unconsciously, into acting mode. He has an audience. Aitor is in his element. He sits up in his chair, then leans into his story:
Yes, yes. And he’s Tommy Lee Jones! I mean, it’s him! No, no, seriously I’m
telling you and if you want we can go and meet him later [...] Well, Atxaga knows
him. Surely, man, he knows him. Sure. He is the same age. He was a stone lifter.
Eh ... and you walk in his house, these are really good people, you know? They
are very ... well they are even violent like [???] but they are very noble ... and
very much from this part of the mountains. Then ... eh ... he, he knows Castilian,
but he practically never has to use it, and you go-- I remember when I went in his
house once and I saw a two-hundred-and-fifty kilo rock, the kind that these guys
lift, in the middle of his living room, and on top there was a plant. So I went in,
and you say “And this rock?” ... “This rock is the biggest that I lifted when I was
young.” Because this gentleman probably stopped lifting rocks twenty years ago.
And he says: “I show people the ones that I’ve lifted, not like others ... who put a
bunch of rocks around their caserío to make it look pretty but they even put out
rocks that they haven’t lifted.” I think it’s the whole honor thing. And this is very
Cherokee [...] Very Cherokee in this sense. I mean indian.
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As Aitor, a relatively new resident of Asteasu from a much larger nearby town, describes the old-timer mentality of his neighbor in Asteasu, I sense again the tension that many people feel between the rural and the urban, the old and the new. Paddy Woodworth points out how this dichotomy shows up even in the town’s architecture:
Walking in the other direction from the writer’s family home, you come quickly -
the village is very small - to Lege-Zarran Enparanza, the plaza of the Fueros. It
has most of the elements you might expect: an eighteenth-century town hall with
a portico, two or three equally venerable big houses, and a couple of bars. There
are sculptures commemorating native sons, both very influential in their
respective traditions: a bertsolari, Pedro José Elizegi Pello Errota (1840-1919)
and the accordion player, Eleuterio Tapia, who died in 1988. (142)
Everything is as it should be. Reality appears to fit the stereotype except for one glaring exception: the frontón4 is missing. Instead, just to the right of town hall “a very smart rectangular wooden frontage dominates one side of the plaza. The wood frames a single assembly of big glass windows, all smoked dark grey.” It looks like some kind of office building, but in reality is a state of the art gym that holds inside a “fully covered-in frontón of Olympic proportions” that even has one side turned into a climbing wall. Thus, the juxtaposition of old and new, rural and modern, occurs geographically on the large scale (Asteasu is just a 20 minute car ride from downtown San Sebastián) but also within the structure of the town itself where Tommy Lee
Jones educates the hip young actor about how it is dishonorable to decorate your yard with stones you have not lifted on your own, and many mornings in Asteasu I would run on a state of
4 A frontón is a court where the traditional Basque handball game pelota is played and a staple in every Basque village, no matter its size.
Mack 18 the art treadmill while staring back in time through the smoky glass windows of the gym at people enjoying a coffee on the cobblestone plaza.
Atxaga uses the distinction between the old and the new, the rural and the urban, even
Spanish and Euskera throughout Soinujolearen semea, and he does it by talking about people having two pairs of eyes. The first eyes see what is old and traditional. They see the idyllic past where pain and violence are always quickly negated. The old tongue speaks Euskera and knows all of the old Basque words like mitxirrika or inguma, that mean butterfly, or gezeta and domentxa, which both mean apple. The world of the first pair of eyes is quiet, intimate, introspective, and peaceful. The second pair, however, is tainted by modernity and the war that it brings. They see that David’s father was probably a murderer, and they take David to the city to study economics. There he learns to speak with his new tongue the words of revolution: “‘the people,’ ‘national,’ ‘social,’ ‘proletariat,’ ‘revolution,’ and others in the same vein” (355). The world of the second set of eyes shows up in the vulgar ways David’s friends talk about the girls in the town. It is bombastic and violent.
These descriptions at first seem too stereotypical to correspond with what anyone would call reality. Yet fascinatingly, they come up time and again in my interviews in and around
Asteasu.
Xanti states:
I say that, that in my childhood I have two geographies: one urban, and the other
rural. And back then I spent a lot of time in the rural geography. Rural geography
for me represents happiness, tranquility, peace. Because it was another way of life
that was much more, in my case, much friendlier, much happier, with few things,
but we were always going to the caserío as soon as we could, you know? It was a
Mack 19
trip, for a five or six year old kid, it was a trip to the mountain. There were no
highways, it got dark really early, and nevertheless we preferred to go running to
the caserío more than staying with my grandmother, for example, in town, you
know? My urban grandmother was ... “the devil,” “religion,” “punishment” ...
“eternity” ... it was horrible. Back then I was really scared of my grandmother in
town. And yet, my grandmother in the caserío never talked to me about God nor
about hell, nor about-- everything was heaven. And then to me this novel brings
back lots ... to this world, to this geography. Then ... I recognized my happy
childhood, but, sure, I understand that, that it was happy at the price of, of silence
in this case of my grandparents, of those uncles that never talked about, these
things, you know?
Xanti identifies with the idyllic description of country life while at the same time realizing the price that his parents paid so that he could have that life. Perhaps no one I interviewed in Asteasu or any of its surrounding pueblos had a stronger emotional connection to the work than Xanti.
The description he gave me of his childhood feels like a carbon copy of what David remembers of his childhood in the novel, as does the way he works things out, “translating,” as he puts it, the things he hears and sees around him to try to make sense of those things that do not fit with his view of the world. Is this because Xanti really remembers his past to be that way? Could his reading of the novel actually affect his memory of his childhood, giving form and meaning to what had previously been disjointed and meaningless feelings?
I have no way of knowing for sure the answers to these questions, but the fact that other interviewees echo Xanti’s dichotomous descriptions makes me think that Atxaga is indexing rather than creating a phenomenon.
Mack 20
My second-to-last day in Asteasu was the busiest I had in the entire two weeks I was there. Word had spread that I was in the area and people seemed to have more confidence in speaking with me after some of their more outgoing friends had taken the plunge. On this particular day I found myself visiting the library in Zizurkil, a few kilometers down the road from Asteasu, just to see if I could round up anyone who might have read the novel. After I had introduced myself to the librarian, a younger library patron overheard us and told me that her father had read the novel. She called him on her cell phone and he came right over. His name was Josepe5, and he works with a local historical group gathering oral histories from older people in the area.
Josepe tells me that one of the things he most appreciates about the novel is Atxaga’s peaceful tone when dealing with such turbulent times. “This very convulsive society ... of ... this mixture of ... of society ... traditional, rural ... with a more modern society, more urban. This clash,” he rolls his hands in a mixing motion, “all of this world ... that I have experienced. I experience it because I live here. So, I still experience it. These two worlds, that at times are so different.”
“Does it still exist?” I ask.
Yes, yes, yes. I live in ... Zizurkil, but the upper part ... Zizurkil has two parts, the
upper and the lower. The upper part is a little village where you have the city hall
and the principal church, but ... there are just four houses and caseríos. And then
there is lower Zizurkil which is here, where four or five times more people live,
but it is urban. And it is very different. It is very different. Upper Zizurkil is still
5 Name changed
Mack 21
much more traditional in, in the way people express themselves, in their
traditions. This down here is much more industrial.
The close proximity of the rural and the urban creates a totally different dynamic in
Guipúzkoa than what I had found in Pallars just a few days earlier. Pallars feels like its own world, and while each town and village is has its unique qualities, they also each feel essentially the same. Barcelona, or even Lleida for that matter, feels very distant for the people in Sort and its surrounding villages. People in Pallars don’t have to assert their rurality because there is nothing urban for hours in any direction. Asteasu, on the other hand, has this proximity that heightens conscience of the rural. Even as the two spaces collide on a smaller and smaller scale - inside of towns, inside of homes - they almost never seem to completely fuse. People discuss the two as if they were completely different worlds - and they feel like completely different worlds - yet they are so close together that one is constantly crossing the very real boundaries between the two. It is paradoxical, but it is also fundamental to understanding the conflict in Soinujolearen semea and the way that Atxaga approaches that problem. For the Basques that I interviewed in and around Asteasu, questions of urban and rural space, tradition and modernity, are more than theoretical. These people negotiate these concepts in concrete ways on a daily basis. The strict dichotomy between the rural and the urban, the old and the new, reminds me of Zulaika’s discussion of ez and bai.
***
A Third Way
On April 9, 2004, in the Babelia book review section of El País, Ignacio Echevarría published a scathing review of El hijo del acordeonista in which he laments: “It is hard to
Mack 22 believe that, in these times, someone could write like this.” He backhandedly blames the pressure that must come with being the representative of Basque letters to the “lukewarmness” and the
“confusion that surround Atxaga’s perception of Basque reality. But it can in no way ease, with regard to this novel, the very stereotypical character - accusingly stereotypical, this time - of his narrative approach, the sickly consistence of his characters, the smallness of his developments.”
Echevarría’s main gripe with the novel, however, is not the development of plot or character, but
Atxaga’s idealization of Obaba, “The imaginary Basque locality in which Atxaga recreates, with archaic shades, the attributes of the rural environment in which he himself was raised.” He continues:
Among other things things, the novel tells of the deterioration and the definitive
loss of this idyllic world due to the work of progress, yes, but most of all because
of the interference of a historical violence in whose spiral David, the story’s
protagonist, becomes trapped.
All of this leads to a book written with a “Jurassic sentimentality” and make El hijo del acordeonista “useless [...] as a testimony of Basque reality.”
A quick Internet search shows that this scathing criticism of the book was an anomaly, the only real opposition that Atxaga received in an editorial world that has been very kind to him over the years. But the story behind the reception of the novel is actually much more complicated. Atxaga told me about this one sunny afternoon as we sat in the study of his comfortable rustic home in Zalduondo, about a 60 minute drive from Asteasu. The Echevarría criticism was not, he explains to me, the first real criticism of the novel:
The story of ... of The Accordeonist’s Son ... is a story-- I still need to write the
story of the book ... of when-- I mean about the book itself. Because ... it has been
Mack 23
a very special book. I have just thought of it and later, regarding its reception, it
has been very, very special. [He looks fondly out the window]. For example,
people who were close ... and people who read it ... first in the Basque language,
many of these people, and most of all those people who have to do with what we
call here the Radical Nationalist Left, you know? the group that we would call
Herri Batasuna, which is very unpopular right now because they are tied to ... who
can’t vote right now ... they are excluded from the elections because supposedly
they are tied, or are, they support, ... the activity of ETA, right? And they are
sympathetic toward ETA. Well, this group of people is very numerous. It is full of
lots of young people, there are many young people, etcetera, and they had an
extremely aggressive reaction with this book. And why?
A mischievous grin creeps across his face. “Well, it is ... these things are very interesting to me.”
“Why?” I ask. Thoroughly intrigued.
He responds:
Because of the matter-- Because of the betrayal. Because in the book, there is a
betrayal. This is insufferable for ... it is taboo. It is not just insufferable, it is
taboo. Taboo! With the force that ... that taboos have, you know? In other words it
is not a joke. No way! It is very bad and very serious. And first of all the reaction
was extremely aggressive and at first they didn’t come out ... mmm ... and say it
clearly. I did not completely understand exactly what was happening, until
suddenly it started to come out here and there, you know? People saying let’s see,
where had I found a basis to say-- ... In other words ... “There can not be traitors
in that organization. They are all heroes of the same mold, etcetera, etcetera.”
Mack 24
Well ... So, they go from the theme to what is concrete. I do the opposite. I am not
thinking about putting a traitor in my story. What happens is I am writing the
novel and one of the characters seems to me that he is going to be a traitor. I
answered ... one of those ... well, articles or ... saying that it seemed strange to me
that if there was a traitor among the twelve apostles, you know? How could there
not be a traitor in one of these organizations? Surely there are. Surely. I could
even give examples. There have been some cases that are, I don’t know how to
tell you, very evident, you know? Very evident.
The closest thing I found to this type of a negative reaction in my own interviews was with an important bertsolari named Josu6 in Larraul, just up the road from Asteasu. When I ask Josu if he thinks that the novel is a faithful representation, he sighs tiredly, irritatedly:
“Well, I can’t tell whether it is or not.”
“But the impression?” I press ....
He answers:
The impression is, the impression is, where do you put the accent, you know?
Well, the ... above all the ... aside from the postwar, aside from the Franco period
and ... up to now ... well ... more or less he focuses on the political evolution and
the consequences that could ... well ... let’s say within a certain political sector
and ... he does not describe this evolution ... of the rest of the ideologies. This is a
bit what I missed. In other words, let’s say ... he tells the evolution like ... well the
society in the time of Franco was such-and-such, the War, more or less what
happened, suddenly the people begin to take different paths ... but ... he doesn’t
6 Name changed
Mack 25
tell, let’s say ... the other reality that has also taken its course and its ... well, its
transition, right? So--”
“The other reality is ...?”
“The other reality is ... well there are-- More or less what I ... understood was ... well ... the reality that is close ... let’s say ... to the ... well ... to the violence ... of, of ETA, more or less.
The other reality is the rest.” He laughs, exasperated. “So everything has had its development, you know? Some have had one, others have had another, so if you want to understand ... everything ... well more or less ... well ... what I missed here, was that he didn’t criticize, well, that he also didn’t tell that everyone has their virtues and their vices.”
Josu’s gripe with Atxaga is that he doesn’t take into consideration all of the ideologies, but Atxaga explains that he isn’t interested in ideologies, he is not interested in telling the whole story. He is interested in people. His starting point is the concrete individual.
The second wave of criticism of Soinujolearen semea came from a totally different group, Atxaga explains:
Later there was an extremely aggressive reaction, aggressive, well, on the part of
a Spanish critic, eh? Where, well, a bit, or at least the interpretation that others
have given, I don’t know exactly. He probably didn’t like the book, but he didn’t
really read it all, I believe, but, but anyway-- Like a kind of conversion into
heroes, well, not into heroes, into protagonists [...] Well ... like a ... I could even
send you books that comment on this reaction, you know? He considers that I,
because I put two people as protagonists-- Sure, these are two people that you
could come to care about, I don’t know, or feel compassion for [...] Well, sure so
Mack 26
this is insufferable for ... just as it was for, whatever, the fanatics ... This is
insufferable.
“So then there was this reaction that was very, very, very ... very, very, very ...” He whispers now, nearly dropping into silence as he patiently searches his mind for the right word.
“Very aggressive. It is a curious book in this regard.” He concludes.
These two extreme reactions, one from the leftist Basque nationalists, the other from the
Spanish nationalist right, echo the dichotomy that I previously outlined between ez and bai, old and new, rural and urban, traditional and modern, Basque and Spanish. They also stand in stark contrast with the reaction of the great majority of people I interviewed in and around Asteasu.
These people appreciate the novel, in fact are often moved by the novel, because of the combination of what Atxaga writes and the way he writes it. Josepe sums up this idea in the following terms:
Trying to make a ... when I was driving here in my car, I tried to make a, a
synthesis of what, of what I thought of the book ... Well look, I have come to the
conclusion that, and, I didn’t come to this conclusion then, but now I have, with
time ... That he speaks of hate ... but without hate. In other words, I don’t know if
I’m making myself clear. I mean, he is speaking of this time that was so difficult,
of the postwar and of deaths and executions and tortures, and-- ... but there is no--
I don’t remember a ... a single phrase that, that, that ... that transmitted any, any
hate, or revenge ... or of-- ... This is the memory that I have.
Jon Unanue, an expert in the history and culture of the Basque Country, especially the areas around Asteasu, describes a similar sentiment in the following terms:
Mack 27
I believe that it is a very faithful representation, and it is also of a high literary
quality. And I believe that is the great contribution of this novel, by Bernardo
Atxaga. Aside from the fact that he takes us to different places, which is
something that has happened lately, because ... to give an example ... the exiled
grandson, the grandson of someone in exile. Today in the United States, for
example, or in South America, or in Mexico, the grandson of someone who was
exiled, of one of these people, who was exiled in ‘thirty-six evidently lives in an
environment that is absolutely, that has nothing to do, with what, not with the
contemporary environment this area, but with the environment of that time. He
administers all of this, well, and this helps a lot because it refreshed the story and
the narration a lot. I mean that he does not turn this narration into something, that
he could run the risk of drowning himself by focusing too much on the details, in
historical memory, in how terrible that time was, in whatever. But well, the story
didn’t end there, nor did the world end there. So, well, this letting history pass and
taking you to other settings, the ability to contemplate how all of this evolved,
gives the novel agility and freshness, and it allows you to, well, read it, with a
really pleasing tone.
Atxaga’s tone, which so irritated Echevarría, is exactly what people in this valley find refreshing and comforting about the novel. It comes to these people, so tired and even bored of the constant struggle between worlds, like a breath of fresh air. One reader, Edur7, an old school teacher from the area, told me that he considers Atxaga to be a “wizard of language,” and that perhaps
Atxaga’s greatest feat is to take readers back to a time that for them was idyllic (remember
7 Name changed
Mack 28
Xanti’s testimony about his happy childhood) and show them the darkness without allowing them to lose themselves in it, without allowing them to lose the beauty of the past. Atxaga, it seems, has done something few Basques appear to have done: he has found a middle ground between ez and bai. He sees the world with a third set of eyes, perhaps more distant than the first or second pair of eyes from the day-to-day life of Obaba or Asteasu, but paradoxically closer to the sentiments of many real-life readers. In the novel, David finds himself, at the end of his life, reunited with his old friend Joseba with whom he shared both the first, old world (Obaba), and the second, newer world (that of militaristic ETA violence). As David listens to his old friend speak, he closes his eyes in order to analyze the tone of Joseba’s voice:
I thought I could distinguish four components: conviction—about 30 to 35
percent; despair—20 percent; candor—10 percent; and sincerity. What he said
was very convincing. This was, without a doubt, a third Joseba. Not the one from
Obaba, nor the one who had been part of the organization, but another Joseba who
has only surfaced in the last few years: “The joker,” the one who never speaks
frankly and resorts to stories and metaphors. (336)
This is Bernardo Atxaga describing Bernardo Atxaga, or Bernardo Atxaga describing Joseba
Irazu - the man behind the myth. This combination: conviction, desperation, intimacy, and sincerity along with a desire to describe things in anecdotes and metaphors, is a perfect reflection of my own interview with Atxaga. Nearly every one of his answers comes in the form of an story or an analogy.
When I ask Maria and her sister Maia8 if there is anything that they think Atxaga captured really well in his novel, Maria responds:
8 Names Changed
Mack 29
I remember that, in ... in all of these stories there are some that are always like ...
good guys and bad guys, you know? And I believe that the novel-- Among the
bad guys ... there are also some good ones, right? And I believe that this is
important. Just like you can belong to families in which there have been all kinds
of people, well you realize in the end that what brings people together is their ...
eh ... well the ... the family ties that they have, independent of the political
ideology, that your grandparents, your uncles, people who are ... might represent
... who might have had some importance in the events ... in a town this small, and
... maybe they had ... eh ... something to do with that period in which, anyway,
“everyone was bad,” you know? Everyone who had some kind of power in that
time, and well, I believe that ... um, I personally have had the feeling that, well--
In my family there have been people who could be considered the worst of the
bad guys, but for me, independent of their political ideology, they were people
who I really appreciated. And I believe that the novel, yes, in some moment, I
mean, you can see that as well, you know?
“In other words, these people are good ... good as well,” she laughs nervously “for those-- most of all for those who love them, right?” She finishes.
For Maria it is comforting to see how Atxaga treats those people in the novel that remind her of some of her own dear family members - people who he could probably more easily attack
- with his characteristic softness and kindness.
Mack 30
The novel was also comforting for Nerea9, who like Xanti, found herself reflected in
David’s character, not because she was unraveling the mystery of her father’s past, but because she read the novel while contemplating and facing her own possible death:
Oof I had, because of the time through which I was passing, that I told you about
before ... in-- ... My mother had passed away a few months before, I was sick, I
was having a really hard time. I mean, in my own way I had a small brush with,
with death, I believe. You know? And then, I was in this period of reflexion, of,
of assimilating what was happening to me, and from the first instant the book was
helping me. I mean when I started to read it, I saw that, that it really helped me
that, that the things that were happening to this character who was also sick, he
was going to die, I mean that, well, all of this was helping me somehow to, to
appreciate life, to, to, well ... it brought back lots of memories, and most of all
emotions. Wow!
She clears an emotional lump from her throat.
“Memories of ...?” I encourage.
“My childhood, my environment, my town, and personal experiences as well.”
Nerea, like Xanti, expresses her initial reaction to the book as a blow (“Oof”). However, even as
Atxaga delivers the blow, he almost immediately softens it. This reaction stands in stark contrast with that of many of the readers in Pallars, who often talked to me about how difficult it was to read Cabré’s novel. On one level this is because Cabré’s prose is much more complicated than
Atxaga’s, but Cabré’s book is also perhaps also more emotionally complex. The difference between Nerea’s reaction to Soinujolearen semea and that of Joan Blanco, Mari Angels, and others in Pallars to Les veus del Pamano reminds me of something Franz Kafka once wrote:
9 Name changed
Mack 31
I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the
book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we
reading it for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? [...] We need the books
that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we
loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like
a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us. (16)
For many people in Asteasu, Atxaga’s book does not break a frozen sea; it calms a stormy one. I mean this neither as a condemnation nor an endorsement of any specific kind of reading or writing. Nor do I mean to imply that one kind of writing resonates “better” or is more “pleasing” than the other. Cabré’s enormous commercial success throughout Europe is more than enough proof that many readers enjoy his style. I only mean to point out that these novels appear to
“speak” to many readers in entirely different ways, and I feel that they do so in large part due to socio-historical context grounded in space.10
In rural Catalonia, and many other regions of Spain, the postwar was a frozen sea, certainly roiling beneath, but relatively quiet on top. The Basques, more than any other people in
Spain, have continued to witness firsthand violence. This shows up clearly in Julio Medem’s
2003 documentary La pelota vasca, in which he interviews dozens of experts on Basque
10 There are obvious counter-examples to the following argument. For example, Xanti describes his reading of Soinujolearen semea exactly as a blow, and Nuri and Francesc show none of the distress Kafka points to with regard to Les veus del Pamano. I have not attempted to hide these because I believe that they are exceptions that highlight the trends. They also go to show just how problematic it is to make any kind of blanket statements in this kind of study and how unscientific this approach must necessarily be.
Mack 32
Violence, Atxaga among them, along with victims, family members of victims, etc. in an attempt to paint a picture of contemporary Euskal Herria. Many of Medem’s interviewees have been identified as ETA targets and one even sits with his bodyguard in the background. It would be unthinkable for a similar film to be made anywhere in contemporary Spain.
In La pelota vasca, Medem uses the powerful back and forth pounding of pelota as his metaphor for contemporary Euskal Herria, a place where where the Spanish government and
ETA nearly constantly trade vicious blows. Towards the end of the work, he displays a sequence of violent images from films and newsreels: maimed bodies in the streets next to charred cars, hooded members of ETA training in the mountains with pistols - preparing for stealthy assassinations -, Carrero Blanco’s car sailing spectacularly onto the second floor of a neighboring building. Medem masterfully splices shots of the violence with shots of the game.
The result is dizzying, mesmerizing, terrifying. Soinujolearen semea enters into that environment with a remarkable calming influence, not to affirm or deny, but to explore. Not to pound or grasp, but to caress. Levinas states:
The caress consists in seizing upon nothing, in soliciting what ceaselessly escapes
its form toward a future never future enough, in soliciting what slips away as
though it were not yet. It searches, it forages. It is not an intentionality of
disclosure but of search: a movement unto the invisible. In a certain sense it
expresses love, but suffers from an inability to tell it. It is hungry for this very
expression, in an unremitting increase of hunger.
This approach to the situation especially maddens those who are still in the struggle, who wish for war, because Atxaga’s caressing approach to the situation denies the totalizing discourse inherently necessary for conflict. It is simply too soft.
Mack 33
***
“This is good for all of us ...”
The result of Atxaga’s loving exploration of his own childhood resonates deeply with people in the area of Asteasu. Some even believe that if it were widely read, this novel could change the social dynamics of the Basque Country, it could put an end to the violent back and forth, it could soften the tension between competing visions. Josepe states:
I believe that, what this book does is reflect what each of us has experienced in
our homes. [...] At this moment we are doing a work, we are trying to do a work
about the people who were executed during the Civil War. In this next year--
Next year will be the seventy-five year anniversary of when Franco’s troops
entered Zizurkil, and they executed a-- ... several people. So we are ...
investigating this topic, a small local investigation, investigating this subject and
we come across the things that happened in Obaba ... I mean, I find out that the
guy who denounced this other guy who was executed is so-and-so, and his son is
my friend!
He pauses to let the weight of his words sink in.
So I am here at this time ... I am investigating this subject, so we have come to the
conclusion that we are going to investigate what happened, we are going to ... to
retrieve documents, but later we are going to really think about what we are going
to publish and what we can’t publish. And it is the same thing. It is exactly the
same! In other words, you find out that ... you start to dig a bit - which is what
that kid did with his life and his environment - you start to dig a bit and you
realize that things come out, that ... this is not, this is not high politics. It is local
Mack 34
politics with first and last names ... and ... and, and it is difficult because you have
to make an effort to extrapolate ... it’s difficult ... you can fall into the easy game
of judging today things that happened seventy-five years ago ... and that’s - You
have to put yourself in the place of those who were here seventy-five years ago ...
Then, well ... maybe we don’t have to judge, but we do need to see what
happened ... We need to know what happened ... and to bring to light what
happened. And then, well when you see a novel like this, like what happens with
this one, well, come on! You identify completely with it. And anybody from here
in, in the Basque Country, from Euskal Herria who reads this kind of books,
identifies immediately with these situations. Because if you change the name of
the town or you change the name of the character, you are anywhere in Euskal
Herria.
He looks at me, thinking. I wait, sensing he wants to say more.
“Now the ETA prisoners.” He finally musters. “There is no one here who doesn’t, who doesn’t know three or four people who are in prison. Or that, or, or, or the cousin of somebody, or the brother of somebody else. It’s the same situation. Yes.”
“Do you think it is important that the people from around here read this novel, or, or similar things?” I ask.
He takes a deep breath, looks down and stares at nothing while he again gathers his thoughts.
“Right.” He sighs, then looks up at me with confidence. It is important for people to read, for starters. That people read. That-- ... I mean football is really nice ... but ... panem et circenses.
Well ... we have to ...” He pauses again, thinking. Then plugs on.
Mack 35
OK. It’s important that people read culture. And it is important that, that they read
these kinds of things because ... I believe that ... it will help them to understand
themselves. They encourage them to understand things, many things that they
already have in their heads, and ... and maybe, they encourage them, to face these
things in a more peaceful and less visceral way. I believe that the reading of these
books is good exercise. It’s like I told you before. It is a very tough book, but
there is no, there is no blood of vengeance [...] There is no, there is no, there is no-
- It is, it is very calm, very calm, very peaceful. I believe that that is good for all
of us.
Maria and Maia would agree. when I ask them if they would recommend this book to people from their area Maia immediately responds:
“Yes, yes. In fact there are people who ask me and I tell them to read it because it was really good.”
“What does the book offer for a person from Asteasu?”
“Well, I don’t believe that it is only for Asteasu.” Maia continues. “I believe that the, the, the ideology that frames the novel is very, very common, you know? I mean, not just in Asteasu.
I believe that even people from all over the Basque Country could identify, with those thoughts, with those doubts. Not just in Asteasu.”
Maria murmurs her agreement, but lets her sister conclude. “Maybe more so for people from Asteasu, if they know that the writer is from here, and if, well you know, if you can connect the book to concrete places, with places in town. But everything else ... for the Basque Country in general.”
“I would also recommend it. Yes.” Now Maria jumps in.
Mack 36
And for the same reason, also so ... I believe that it also transmits the ... I believe
the necessity for us - of the exercise of empathy that we have to do, you know? To
put ourselves in the place of another and to see, how we would react in the face
of, in the face of these situations, right? And here in this sense I believe that, we
really need to do it, this, ... for us and for the others, if there even is an us and an
others, right? I don’t know, these days.
Even Josu, who was disappointed by what he perceived as a lack of balance in the novel, agrees that this novel is important for the area.
“An act. Perhaps. This is how things were.” He tells me when I ask him what the reading of this novel might offer to someone from Asteasu. “I mean, until someone tells you how things are, well-- You know that they are, you have experienced it, but until they take a picture of you and you see yourself in the photo, well, you don’t know what you are like, right?
Perhaps this vision of the novel as a photograph or as a documentary witness of the times, something that will live on, is the most surprising discovery of all from my interviews in
Asteasu. Itxaso11, a sweet woman who works in town hall, loves how Atxaga gathers many different stories from the area and puts them all in one place - the novel. One such story is that of the priest, don Hipólito, who passed away in 1992. Her eyes and voice fill with emotion as she thinks about this man who impacted so many people in the town, and who will live forever in
Atxaga’s book. When I ask Itxaso if the novel has changed the way that she sees the town, she responds:
Me ... I don’t think, not so much changing the way I see, no. But, but maybe the
fact that someone gathers, and sets down in a book, and ties the story together, I
believe that this turns them into something that is more important. It is like, well,
11 Name changed
Mack 37
not just the things that they told me, but look! It’s here, you know? I believe that
this gives it importance and it gives it a place, a weight. They are here. This
happened. It is here. Right?
Josu sees the novel as both a window to the past and a possible prophecy for the future:
Well, surely it is a book ... and also ... now it has value ... and in one hundred
years maybe, maybe it will have a different value. That is also true. Because it is a
testimony [...] It gives a clue about where this evolution might be headed.
Hopefully we don’t go there. I hope that our words aren’t in matchboxes.12 But
maybe, inside ... inside of not too long ... maybe its value ... will grow, let’s say.
Which would not be a bad sign, on the other hand. But well ... I don’t know.
Edur explains his feelings about the future of the novel as we sit in a beautiful restaurant high above the valley where Asteasu sleeps on an emerald mattress beneath a cobalt sky. Edur’s answers always come slowly, methodically. He pauses between each few words, carefully deciding what to say next: “The novelist tries ... to give testimony and create ... and this ... at times it is very difficult for people, for good writers ... I believe that one needs ... distance ... distance ... It is very difficult ... for a good writer ... to write about ... his own reality ...” He continues:
In Spanish literature ... which I also read. I mean that even though I don’t feel
Spanish it is, that’s the way it is. Because classical Spanish literature is very good
literature, of a very high level ... It tried to reflect a reality ... in one way or
another ... I don’t know if ... in that moment ... people realized that, that, that it
12 This is a reference to the way David buries the words of the Basque language in matchboxes in
California, and idea to which I will return further along.
Mack 38
reflected reality ... After four, five centuries we realize that it reflected a reality
very well. [...] Those are the classics. They give testimony of, but not-- not for
their own generation, but for future generations.
“Do you think that this book is a classic?” I ask.
“In Euskera I believe so ... I believe so ... More than Obaba, it seems to me.”
“Why?”
I don’t know ... Why? Perhaps because [...] it does give testimony, better than in
Obaba ... of the tensions that came alive in the rural ... society ... of these valleys
... after the Civil War. Perhaps not immediately after the Civil War, but surely
after the ... the first half of the fifties and later. So it is a testimony of a period, and
so I believe that ... in spite of some shadows that there might be ... I believe that it
gives testimony in a very dignified way of ... of a part of ... of the history ... of this
people.
Edur is not the only one who sees the value of this book for future generations. Many others feel the same way, but express doubt as to how effective this or any other book - important as it may seem, as well-written as it might be - can have in a society where, as Aitor puts it: “Reading requires effort ... An effort that once you get inside it’s marvelous, because, because for me reading is a marvel once you enter. But you have to train [...] Man, just reading takes a lot of effort.”
In Soinujolearen semea, David settles on his uncles horse ranch in rural California, after escaping the secrets of the Civil War and the violent gravitational pull of ETA. He finds salvation in the beautiful blue-eyed daughter of a man who had served in the International
Brigades during the war: “Mary Ann to the rescue again,” writes David at the end of his story,
Mack 39 the end of his life. “Once she helped free me from my past, and now she’s taking away my fear of the future. She breaks the silence. She drives me forward” (310). Part of David’s hope lies in his two daughters, to whom he tries to teach Euskera, although sadly only one of the girls shows much interest. As a game he decides to teach them words in his old tongue, writing them on little scraps of paper, and burying them in matchboxes in the fertile California soil. The question for readers then becomes: Is this burial of the Basque language, or do the matchboxes represent seeds being planted? As I speak with people throughout the area of Asteasu, it becomes more and more apparent that, like Josu, they see it as burial. Despite the fact that the Basque language is in as strong a position as it has ever been, and ikastolas13 dot the countryside, there are still relatively few habitual readers in Basque. Despite Atxaga’s international success, and his uncontested position as Euskadi’s most important contemporary writer, perhaps its most important writer ever, the fact remains that very few people have read much of his work at all.
Obabakoak is a classic, and yet it runs the risk of being the only widely-read Basque novel among Basques simply because it remains difficult for most Basques, even those who have been educated in ikastolas, to read in Euskera.
Jon Unanue muses: “Me, as a writer, if I were Atxaga, the aspiration that I would have would be that my readership could reach a younger part of the population.” He grimaces. “There
I have my doubts. Atxaga probably reaches lots of young people. [...] But this is general these days. He will reach them more through the schools, or the universities because they have to be required readings, or for projects, or ... more because of this than because of any voluntary reading.”
“What does this book offer a younger reader? Twenty, twenty-five years old?” I ask him.
13 Schools where all education is given in Basque.
Mack 40
It offers a lot. The deal is ... Here the problem is not whether or not it is
Atxaga. Her there is a ... probably, based on what I see, I suspect that there is a crisis of readers in these age groups. Which is, in a certain way, logical because of all of the new technologies and-- ... When I was that age, and even a lot younger, when I was twelve or thirteen years old I was reading Pío Baroja. Now it’s unthinkable that a kid that age-- Unthinkable? It’s very difficult. And we read, well, we read every day. I, it was something that I couldn’t ... you know? This, today, is very difficult.
What does Atxaga offer? Well, a bit of what I said before, sure. Atxaga is a wealth ... right ... in the case of The Accordionist’s Son he is a wealth, to begin with, of historical memory. And that won’t hurt anybody and much less the young people here who in general know nothing of our most recent history, you know?
And they allow themselves to be led a bit by the stereotypes and by a series of, of, of ... of beliefs, of myths even, that have been created around the Basque Country, around Euskadi about politics, etcetera, etcetera. In this sense Atxaga’s contribution would be highly important for these young people. It would be in the case of The Accordionist’s Son, as it is in Obabakoak as it is in Behi eukaldun baten memoriak, Memories of a Basque Cow, which is, for me, among the best that Atxaga has produced, or in his latest publication Siete casas en Francia. To begin with, this.
On the level of literary style, he offers, well he is a ... a man with some technical resources ... when it comes to style ... that for me are commendable.
And for me I always learn, right? from his, from his literature. Well, absolutely
Mack 41
recommendable for any young person, not even twenty years old, but I would say
even down to sixteen. I mean, to me it looks very difficult, at least based on my
perception of sixteen-year-old kids that, that they would enter this kind of
readings today.”
When I ask Luken, Josune, and Ainhoa - all part of this twenty- or thirty-something generation - what they talk about when they discuss the novel with other people from the area, the three meet my question with awkward silence. Ainhoa sighs heavily, scratches her forehead and consults a spot on the tabletop. Then Luken begins:
“Me, about this novel, I didn’t really talk much.”
“I was the same way.” Responds Ainhoa. “Very little.”
“I have talked about it more in recent years, when people ...” Luken’s voice trails off.
“Later.” Josune adds.
“Yes, yes.” Luken affirms.
“And what do you talk about, when you talk about this book?” I press.
More blank stares.
Luken again breaks the ice. “About this book? No.” He shrugs his shoulders and looks at his companions, hoping for some relief.
“Or do you just not talk?” I shift my question.
“Yes, yes, yes. About what you liked about it ...” Luken appears to be trying to encourage the girls to speak.
“Like you three.” I decide to take a different approach. “Let’s say you are on the bus, all three of you have read the book. What do you talk about?”
Mack 42
Josune takes the bait. “We might lend each other some book. ‘Read this.’ But you probably don’t talk about it. We ride the bus together every day, but each one is in their own seat, we go to work, we come back and ... reading, or sleeping. It depends.”
“Or sometimes studying,” says Luken. They all chuckle.
“Yeah. It’s an hour on the bus, and another on the return trip. Maybe we lend stuff to each other, something ‘Hey, have you read this?’ But really, to go on talking about a book? No.
And me, well not with Soinujolearen semea ... Normally I read a book and I don’t, I don’t share it. I don’t have a circle that I share with--”
Ainhoa, who has remained practially silent up to now, jumps in. “That’s what I was going to say. I don’t either ...” She shakes her head.
“Now I have these two friends that I share with, with whom I do talk about books. But this one, at that time, I didn’t talk about it.”
“And people who read in Castilian, sure,” adds Ainhoa. “But, people who read literature in Euskera ...? I mean, in my group of friends, I’m the only one.”
Josune mutters her assent: “Mmm hmm.”
“And people who read in Castilian, they haven’t read this book?” I ask. More blank stares. “In general?” More silence. “Here?” They stir unocomfortably.
Josune, confused, tries to figure out exactly what I’m asking: “This book? In Castilian?”
She says it as if I were asking something totally absurd, so again I rephrase my question.
“Or is it that if you are from Guipúzkoa and you want to read Atxaga you will read him in Euskera or you won’t read him at all?”
“I believe so,” Ainhoa confirms. “I don’t know. If you want to read this book even though you aren’t used to reading in Euskera, if you want to read this book and you know
Mack 43
Euskera, I think that you would read it in Euskera. I don’t know. I suppose so. But I don’t know.”
“So among your friends who don’t read in Euskera, they probably haven’t read it?
“No.” She responds. “But because they aren’t used to reading in Euskera. Not because it is Atxaga or because it is someone ... else. No. Because,” she chuckles, “as a rule they don’t have, the don’t usually read in Euskera.”
While this and other discussions that I had in and around Asteasu lead me to believe that a general lack of reading habits forms a large part of the problem with reception of Soinujolearen semea in this part of Euskal Herria, it certainly not the only factor. Closely tied to that relatively poor reception among these people is the issue of silence that I addressed earlier in this chapter
Even when a teacher or administrator realizes the importance of this book, and assigns it to high school students, the pupils fail to see the novel’s significance because they lack the socio- historical context of their parents. This year Itxaso’s son read the book as an assignment for a class. “Look. I’ll tell you about this from experience.” She clears her throat, thinking:
Eh ... this year my sixteen-year-old son, in high school, had to read this book ...
And ... I realized, because of what we talked about ... that, well as a story he
thought it was entertaining, but he didn’t identify with any of the things that ...
that Bernardo tells about. Because those experiences are all so far away from him,
the things of the town. For him, his experience in the town is much closer. And
because he isn’t familiar with all of these things that have been passed down to us
orally, we-- I have heard people talk about this, that Atxaga tells about Uzkudun
who came to box in the town because, he was a, you know? At that time he was
very famous and everything. I have heard people talk about the executions during
Mack 44
the Civil War - people from this town, from the caseríos, with first and last
names, you know? I don’t know. These things, I have realized that my son doesn’t
know them at all because I also haven’t transmitted them to him. And I have
realized that there is going to be a lot of loss of our history here, very local, very,
very, from here, that the young people aren’t experiencing. So I believe that my
son read the novel like someone from ... from Donosti would read it. In the same
way. But he doesn’t identify with it like that. He might recognize some name,
because it turns out that it is the name of some caserío from around here, and he
says, “Hey, well, look, he uses this name--” But the story isn’t familiar to him at
all, and it is to me. It is to me. It connects me to other things. So, I believe that
there, I don’t know, it has made me think that we are losing a lot of this
transmission of these things.
This description highlights as well as any the connection between memory, literature, and place because Itxaso claims that because her son lacks the context of a shared historical memory he reads the novel as if he were from some other place - in this case Donosti.
***
Silence
Soinujolearen semea “has not come to ... feed many conversations in the street.” Explains the methodical Edur, as he puffs lightly on his pipe.
But the, the story tells you that here, it is a story, that in one way or another ... is
in these conversations, not because of what Atxaga says ... but because we know
what has happened and we have direct testimonies ... of situations that have
happened that are just like what is narrated here. It isn’t necessary for you to have
Mack 45
read this novel to realize this. It is already known. There is conscience of what has
happened.
“So there is fear ... there was a terrible fear.” He tells me at a different point in our conversation:
People don’t want to talk about these stories because there are ... there are
families mixed up ... who took advantage of that situation ... to rat out other
people ... to denounce ... people ... Because of self interest ... because of hate ...
They don’t want to talk, but out there ... out there there is a pit ... that if it doesn’t
dry out and air out and ... if justice isn’t done ... This is like a wound that doesn’t
... heal well, and even though on the outside it is apparently clean, on the inside it
is gangrenous.
Some, like Xanti, fear that if things do not get worked out, if the wound is not allowed to air itself out, the Basques are already headed for dark times.
This hasn’t really been a literary boom for Atxaga. I believe that there have been
greater literary booms, you know? And especially here. And I believe that it is
because of this. Because here people continue not wanting ... to talk about this.
And, surely this novel that has been translated into Castilian and other languages
... well it probably has had more repercussions, surely. In this sense, yes. Because
it is very well written, and logically, it’s precious, and ... and very entertaining,
right? Because it had a little of everything. It has, well, it is what we could call a
good book, you know? But here ... oof. I don’t know if some day the lid will
really be lifted, but I believe that with the political situation that we are living
again ...
He winds back the hands of an imaginary clock with his hand.
Mack 46
Even today I heard about someone ... and this someone should not be named ...
who called the police saying that two people from their town called out “Gora
ETA” at a funeral. That these two have been taken to court and they are
demanding ... I mean, the ratting out ... works again. And sure, this, this takes us
to very dark times, eh? I mean very dark. I mean, the fact that a person can say “I
heard this guy say “Gora ETA” and this is sufficient cause ... There is no video or-
- ... sufficient cause to take him to court and he might get who knows how many
years.
He looks suspiciously out of the corners of his eyes, right then left. “Well I believe this: it is all too fresh. That is not the way, and, and this points to the fact that this, you know? that this is still
... there is still something that hasn’t been resolved [...] Because we still don’t even know very well where we are, nor who we are, nor, nor what we want. And we can’t talk about it either.
***
On July 11, 2010, I arrived late in Asteasu after spending the day in Pamplona.
Exhausted, I decided to skip dinner and the World Cup final and head to my room. I would not have had to worry about the crowds, or the reveling. There were none of either. As I sat comfortably in Atxaga’s empty flat, checking my email, Skyping with my family, preparing for the next day ... the end of the match came and went unnoticed. There were no cheers, there were no fireworks. It was just another night in Asteasu. When I commented this to someone they told me that everyone had watched the game, but when people in this part of the country watch the
Spanish national team play they do it in their own homes with the blinds drawn. Nobody wants the neighbors to hear if their children cheer out in triumph “Goal!!!” You never know who might be listening in, or who they might tell. Silence is still the best policy in these areas, but that
Mack 47 silence, while at times offering protection, also suffocates many, who want to know, who want to ask, who want to tell.
Mack 48
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Atxaga, Bernardo. El hijo del acordeonista. Madrid: Alfaguara, 2004. Print.
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Itxaso. Personal Testimony. 7 Jul. 2010.
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Kortazar, Jon. Bernardo Atxaga : Basque Literature From the End of the Franco Era to the
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Unanue, Jon. Personal Interview. 8 Jul. 2010.
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