The
two sisters-in-law, Teresita Marés Bigas and María Defaus Moragas,
were widowed when they were young. Juan, Teresita's first husband,
died in bed at home, due to a lung disease contracted in the war.
Agustí, María's first husband, was unexpectedly called to arms and
sent to Cuba, where he died.
At
the end of the 1980s, the Spanish army recruited reserve soldiers to
maintain peace and stifle the Cuban guerrillas and the Kingdom's last
remaining colonies. Between active military service, which varied
from four to six years, and reserve service, which lasted another six
years, the boys remained in the army for ten to twelve years.
However, the reserve period was nothing more than a bureaucratic
procedure, in which the soldier, at most, had to go to the Civil
Guard barracks, and after a few years he received full license,
except in periods of colonial revolts. Agustí, at the age of twenty,
had been drafted, but as his mother was widowed, he had done only one
year of active service and at the age of thirty, when he was serving
in reserve service, he had the bad luck to be enlisted again.
The
day Maria said goodbye to her husband, she said, “Go to Havana to
see my brother. He may know someone so that you can be assigned to a
troop that does not carry out warlike actions. My father says that
there are many influential Catalans in Cuba.”
“María,
don't talk nonsense, I don't know where they are going to send me and
a soldier cannot leave the army to go see a relative on the other
side of the island. Also, what is Mariano going to be able to do for
me? Nothing at all.”
“You
are always so pessimistic! I just want you to come back soon.”
“Don't
worry. The Great War is over, and the Spanish soldiers only have to
ensure that groups of independent guerrillas do not form again. You
will see that I will return soon and we will have many children.”
“Take
care of yourself and promise me that you will write me a letter every
week,” María told him, sobbing.
“Yes,
Maria!” He answered, kissing her.
It
was up to Agustí’s troops to disperse and crush the remaining
rebels; and when in 1886, it seemed that the skirmishes were coming
to an end, the Catalan soldier fell into an ambush and was seriously
wounded. They took him to the camp and treated him. However, after
three days he died on a stretcher, along with other wounded soldiers.
When María received the telegram, she became desperate, but little
by little she began to think about her future and began to gather her
very few possessions to return to Malgrat. That same day, she
received news that Teresita had given birth to a girl.
Instead
of sending them a telegram, which would alarm her parents, Maria
decided it would be best to take the coach and go to Malgrat to share
her misfortune with them. She also thought that without her husband,
there was no point in continuing at the farmhouse since the foreman
hired another couple of farmhands to help her when Agustí left. That
same day, she went to see the owner to tell him what had happened and
to let him know that she was leaving her job.
Sitting
in the coach, María thought about her childhood. She was a girl who
went unnoticed among all her male siblings and was ashamed of being
redheaded and freckled. Very soon they began to call her Marieta, the
Catalan diminutive of María, to distinguish her from María Ballesté
Teixidó, her grandmother. However, when her grandmother died,
everyone had gotten used to the diminutive and continued calling her
Marieta.
“I'm
going to take care of Marieta and you're going to take care of the
boys,” María Ballesté told her daughter-in-law Teresa Moragas,
the day the girl was born.
Teresa
Moragas, feeling almost like an intruder in the old house that day,
did not dare to contradict her mother-in-law. She had to remain
silent, but it seemed absurd to her that she should only take care of
the girl. Months passed and María Ballesté continued taking care of
her granddaughter, preparing her porridge, washing her carefully, and
knitting her clothes. José Defaus and Teresa Moragas had five
children in seven years. She could not cope with so many children,
but luckily her husband's single brother, Juan Defaus Ballesté,
lived with them. He was very affectionate with children and whenever
he could, he would lend a hand.
José
Defaus Ballesté never slowed down at home. He took care of the grain
and seed business that he had founded, while Juan worked the land.
The two brothers were polar opposites. Juan was simple, taciturn,
homely, humble, and held progressive political ideas. José was
conceited, bossy, talkative, and he liked to
give the appearance of wealth and being an honorable man in his
community. That's
why he went to the monarchist gatherings and to mass every Sunday,
without missing.
“My
girl, my girl, you are my queen. I only had boys, that's why when you
arrived you gave me the greatest joy in the world,” the grandmother
told Marieta, kissing her, one day when they were on the patio taking
in the fresh air.
“Don't
pamper her so much,” Mariano Defaus Segarra, her husband, told her.
During the summer months, he spent all day sitting in a chair between
the patio and the corral.
“Leave
me alone. With Marieta I am taking revenge for my deplorable fate -
my girl Luisa died and then I was surrounded by only men,” his wife
replied, not mincing words. That day her husband was silent, thinking
about the little girl they had had and who had only lived nine days.
She was dark and petite. She was born prematurely and was quickly
baptized with the name Luisa Defaus Ballesté. The death of her child
affected María greatly. She became harsher and became angry over
nothing.
For
a couple of years, Mariano Defaus Segarra had been suffering from
rheumatism, which bothered him and prevented him from tilling the
land. Despite his illness, he never complained. He was a calm man who
entertained himself by making wicker baskets for the laborers who
collected potatoes or other fruits from his field. He rarely left the
house; and when he did, he relied on a cane. Years ago, he confronted
his wife when she blew things out of proportion; but since he became
ill, he left her in charge of the family.
Marieta
looked out the window and when she saw the winding rows of vineyards
she remembered the purple color and the taste of the bread and wine
with sugar that María Ballesté prepared for her for a snack. Her
grandmother was very proud of the vineyard she had inherited from her
family and praised the wine she made from black grape clusters. She
felt a great longing for that woman with a strong character, who
liked to command and who was sometimes a bit grumpy, but with her she
became sweet and loving.
In
the summer, Marieta liked her grandmother to bathe her on the patio.
She sat in the basin full of water and María Ballesté soaped and
rinsed her with warm water, while she sang her a song.
“Mariano's
hair is light reddish, not like mine, which looks like scouring
pads,” Marieta told her grandmother when she washed her hair and
braided it.
“Your
hair is beautiful!”
“I
would like to have straight black hair like Juan or dark brown hair
like Isidro.”
“Marieta,
Marieta, don't complain, you are very pretty,” her grandmother told
her.
When
Francisco was born, the grandmother became desperate because she had
wanted another girl to be born. Marieta would also have liked to have
a little sister, but she immediately became fond of the baby. The joy
in that house did not last long, because the grandmother died
suddenly and after a few months the grandfather followed her. Marieta
went from being the princess of the house to Cinderella. She grew up
suddenly, and at nine years old, she was taken out of school to help
her mother by taking care of her brothers Isidro, Juan, and
Francisco. Four years later, Luisa was born, then Rosa and Marieta
also acted as their mother.
As
the stagecoach approached the town, Marieta began to imagine her
arrival at the house where she was born. She opened the wooden door,
walked through the hallway on the ground floor, the good dining room,
the gallery, and arrived at the large kitchen. There she saw herself
with her brothers sitting near the fireplace. She also thought she
heard the crackling of the fire and smelled the smoke from the olive
tree trunks that were burning. She opened the patio door and
recognized herself drawing water from the well and then washing the
laundry in the laundry room. Immediately, the image came to her of
the corral with the flowering hydrangea and the rose bushes full of
roses, yellow and red. She looked at the two lines of clothes hanging
to dry and saw herself picking up a white linen sheet. She smiled,
thinking about the strong smell emanating from the animal stables,
the chicken coop, and the manure heap where they dumped their waste.
Marieta
arrived exhausted, having first traveled ten kilometers by car to
Girona, and then the remaining fifty kilometers by stagecoach to
Malgrat. Her parents welcomed her with great joy, but when she told
them what had happened to Agustí, they couldn't believe it and
consoled her as best they could and knew how. Luisa and Rosa had
scarlet fever, but they were very happy to see their sister.
“I'm
never going to leave you again,” Marieta told them, putting cold
cloths on their foreheads to lower their fever.
“Let's
let them rest, the doctor has said that they will recover.”
“I
already had scarlet fever as a child, so allow me to hold Teresa, my
little niece, in my arms. I'm not going to infect her.”
The
girl was healthy and breastfed voraciously; but as a precaution,
Teresita wanted to keep her away from her sick sister-in-law. Marieta
took the newborn in her arms and began to cry.
“Don't
cry, Marieta, you are going to get married again and have children,”
her mother told her.
“I
don't cry because I haven't had children. I cry because I get excited
when a creature comes into the world out of nowhere. And please,
mother, don't talk nonsense; at thirty years old and a widow, how can
I get married again?”
“You
are still young and beautiful. You are going to have suitors.”
“I
don't even want to think about another husband, I still cry for
Agustí,” Marieta answered.
They
say that misfortunes never come alone. In a few days, scarlet fever
took away the two youngest daughters of Teresa and José. That
calamity was atrocious for the family - Teresa fainted several times,
and José fell ill. Francisco and Marieta took care of their parents
and took care of the double burial. The funeral of the two girls was
one of the most heartfelt and well attended in the town. Teresa was
not able to stand and had to sit on a slab while her two daughters
were buried.
Francisco,
Teresita, and Marieta did everything possible so that Teresa and
José, after the death of their daughters, did not fall into a black
hole. The baby grew healthy and little by little she brought joy to
the grandparents that saved them.
That
same year, Marieta met a childless widower from Malgrat named Narciso
Ribot Masens. The widower was very handsome, he was eighteen years
older than her and he was a long-distance overseas sailor. One
Sunday, he went to her parents to ask for Marieta's hand in marriage.
Marieta accepted under the condition that Narciso would give her
permission to go to her parents' house every afternoon.
“By
‘every afternoon,’ I mean every afternoon, without missing one,
from three to seven,” Marieta told the widower.
“Yes,
every afternoon, I accept this. When I'm at sea, you can stay at your
parents' house all day, I just want to find you at our home when I
return from a voyage,” Narciso told her.
When
a few months into her marriage she discovered that she was pregnant,
she went to put two candles at the Virgen del Carmen and the whole
family celebrated the unexpected event. At thirty-two years old she
had her first son, whom she named Joseph.
Five
years later, Marieta had a beautiful daughter, whom she named María
Engracia, in honor of her husband's sister who, when she was widowed
at fifty and without children, was taken in by Marieta and Narciso in
the house on Sant Esteve Street. Narciso had bought the house years
ago with the money he earned from sailing. Marieta was delighted with
her sister-in-law, who was a happy and helpful woman. She helped her
with everything and also kept her company when her husband was at
sea.
“Let's
see if Narciso has another woman in those worlds of God. We see each
other so little and he is so handsome!” Marieta confided in her
sister-in-law.
“I
don't think so, but don't worry, Marieta. It's not worth it - out
of sight, out of mind,”
María Engracia answered, smiling.
Years
passed, and one spring day when the two women and children were
impatiently waiting for Narciso to arrive from his journey, a
telegram arrived. Narciso had saved a good amount of money, and a few
months earlier he had decided that this would be his last trip
because he wanted to enjoy his wife and children, but he was not in
time to do so.
The
shipping company's report said: The
ship's captain, Narciso Ribot Masens, was attacked by pirates near
the Venezuelan coast. The crew defended themselves bravely, he died
in the fight. He has been buried with the other brave sailors in the
Maracaibo cemetery.
At
thirty-eight years old, Marieta was widowed for the second time.
Engracia consoled her and supported her in everything. Perhaps that
is why Marieta recovered from the misfortune in a few weeks and
returned to her usual routine. The two widows got along very well.
One day, a man knocked on the door who said his name was José Moner
Sans.
“I
was Narciso's best friend. I sailed with him for many years,” said
the sailor.
“Come
in and eat something with us,” Marieta told him, making him come
inside.
“I
don't want to bother you. I just wanted to give you Narciso’s
notebook. I promised him I would.”
“A
friend of Narciso will always be welcome.”
José
Moner Sans stayed in the widows' house for a whole year. The newly
arrived sailor was sixty-eight years old, and despite his age, he
continued sailing. However, that trip to Venezuela was also the last
for him. He promised his friend Narciso that he would watch over his
widow for a year. After twelve months, he went to live in Barcelona
where he had a single sister, but every now and then he took the
train and went to visit the two widows.
Marieta
was happy with her children and sister-in-law and the day she learned
that María Antonia Ribot, a cousin of María Engracia, had been left
alone and without resources, she picked her up at her house to come
live with them. María Antonia arrived with a piano and two trunks.
She was an affable woman who loved music. Every afternoon she gave
classes to girls from the town and when she finished, without fail
she would start playing the piano for the two women. Marieta closed
her eyes, sitting in the garden of her house, from where she could
see the intense blue of the sea. She felt at peace, thinking that
those last few years, despite the regrets, had been good because she
did not lack anything. She had two children and two widows as
friends, and thanks to Narciso, she enjoyed a good financial position
- she owned a house and had a sum of money in the bank that she could
live on.
“We
are the three Maries, the three vidues mes feliçes del poble (we are
the three Marías, the three happiest widows in the town),"
she said laughingly to the two women who lived with her.
