Of Beasts and Fowls - Softcover

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Pilar Adón was born in Madrid in 1971 and is the author of four novels, including The Mayflies (forthcoming from Open Letter), several short story collection, and four volumes of poetry. She received the Ojo Critico Prize for Viajes inocentes, and won the Premio Francisco Umbral al Libro del Año, Premio Cálamo, and the Premio de la Critica for Of Beasts and Fowls.

Katie Whittemore translates from the Spanish. Full-length translations include works by Sara Mesa, Javier Serena, Aroa Moreno Durán, Lara Moreno, Nuria Labari, and Katixa Agirre. Forthcoming translations include novels by Jon Bilbao, Juan Gómez Bárcena, Almudena Sánchez, Aliocha Coll, and Pilar Adón. She received an NEA Translation Fellowship in 2022 to translate Moreno's In Case We Lose Power, and was a finalist for the Spain-USA Prize for her translation of Katixa Agirre's Mothers Don't.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

There was no telephone in Betania. So no calls. No messages. No greetings or inquires or total availability for any idea implying an exhibition, a lecture, a debate, or transfer by train or plane. She had started making a scarf—thinking of Zinaida and her ball of yarn—as she walked the hall, sat in an armchair, and stood back up. She leaned in a doorway, went down to the cellar to check on how everything was going, and returned upstairs, listening for the sound of an electric saw, even though they’d told her it was prohibited to cut down trees in the area. She followed the downward-sloping path in the direction of the lake, planning her next step, stunned by the blue sky, no one paying her any mind now that circumstances had changed. Still, she must continue to watch what she was doing, even if not as strictly. The insects hidden under leaves. The metal objects glinting on the boundaries of the property, beside the posts and wire fencing. This activity, she believed, was indicative of her good mental state. Solid evidence to demonstrate that if she’d decided to remain there, if she’d stopped looking for an escape—a phone or a car with gas—it wasn’t because of a fit of depression or delirium, but because she had opted to stay strong and wait for a new sign. Because there was a before and there would surely be an after. But above all because, at the moment, what she wanted was to repeat the encounter. Not let anyone down.

            What good would it do her to spend hours before a painting or at a keyboard when what she needed was to be submerged, to learn how to turn water into nutrients and produce oxygen. A lifetime of training, lessons, work, only to reach her age and discover that all that mattered in the world was water, to live in it. To produce oxygen.

            She had shown up to what was to be her last public show inhabited by grace, but no one seemed to notice. The ochre stone pigments had begun to show on her skin, maybe because she hadn’t showered in days. Though showering wouldn’t have done much. Brushing her teeth. Washing her hair. Conditioning her hair. Dyeing her hair. Changing her clothes. The others would say she had walked through there, among and before them, like a beast, in a savage state, a primitive creature. With an appearance that was unnecessarily unkempt and made clear that she wasn’t well. That she had relinquished responsibility for her own behavior. That she needed help but was still refusing to admit it. And that was before she put the paintings in the trunk of her car. And that was before she had put on the cotton sack with pockets she was dressed in now, as easy to make as unmake. And that was before she left her phone at home or started driving down the highway at 130 kilometers per hour, 90 on the back roads. Consuming seeds, roots, insects, plant leaves, and berries. It was easier to possess mental strength when she was rested, when she was decently fed and her mind stopped insisting that her sanity hinged on her resolve when it came to disposing of a few portraits she herself had painted. Then it was easier to not fear the canvasses or the stories she told on them.

            Fear of the paintings, of what her own paintings represented, could only be the consequence of an exhaustion leading toward obsession and mania. But everything was different now. And it would be even more different when she once again sank into the grey-wrapped water. The veil that would evenly coat her body and ultimately transform into green. Ashes and grass.

Now she was there, in a house at the end of a dirt road that ran the whole length of the so-called Betania stretch (though there were some who remembered it as the Colono stretch) and which was still besieged by ants, despite the lateness of the season. If she was okay there, she should just think that she was okay and not feel guilty. And she was fine there now. With her feet on solid ground. After having lived in a state of alarm, of never letting down her guard. Never trusting. Caution. Care. Instituting adequate and ongoing discipline. Because she never got far enough. Never. And she had to be prepared. Get out of bed every day without losing her patience and allow the hours to pass without wavering, going up and coming down, dismissing all suspicion from her imagination.

            All of that would change. It was changing already. After all, that could be her place. Sometimes it did happen that one found their own space, the place fated for each person. The corner of dirt, mud, and trees where one might let oneself go. From window to window. To the kitchen, the fireplaces. Taking penciled notes. Going onto the porch to observe the part of the property around her, the passing of time and its shadows. Repeating to herself, I am compassionate. I am universal. I am absolute. I am compassionate. I am universal. I am absolute. A reaffirmation linked to ritual. To the celebration of a ceremony in which the same formula was reproduced, like a hymn or poem. Without stopping to consider its meaning. Without reflecting on the relationship that could exist between the words. Without straining her memory.

            That is how one of the women of Betania behaved. The one called Coro.

            Although she was also called Mag. And Mae. The consequence of her parents giving her several names to address by different means one of the girls who had arrived in their universe in order to make it a little more decorated, to fill it with different material. Intending that she should answer whenever she was called, they referred to her as Coro, as Mag, as Mae. Depending on the day. Depending on how they woke up. On what was for breakfast and what they had to celebrate. Depending on the father’s mood. On whether or not he came out of his study. Or how the mother sang in the plant room. On the varying states of the various people who moved around her. With their own reasoning and their own codes.

            Sometime Coro. Sometimes Coro Mae. Sometimes Coro Mag.

That afternoon and evening, she and Tresa would make jam, now that they boasted kilos of tomatoes. Now that they were reinstating the routines of the house. They had settled on land that could prove itself generous, and they would not let anything to go to waste.

            Eat: good. Walk: good.

            Rest: good. Sleep: good.

            Draw: good. Dive: good.

            And at all costs, avoid conflict. Imbalance.

            “You’re not thirsty?” Tresa was asking her.

            The ivy. The round stone table. The flowerpots all lined up in a row.

            Now she was there, too, sharing the house with the...