Francesc Serés

Years ago, St Michael's Fair in Lleida marked the change of the annual cycle. September was drawing to a close, there were almost no fruit or vegetables left, the terrible summer was petering out and school was starting. Neither Christmas nor New Year constituted significant dates in Saidí. The festivities of Our Lady of the Pillar in Praga were limited to funfair rides that terrified me. The Saidí ones, though familiar, were even strange. For me, there was nothing to compare with St Michael's Fair, for everything that could exist in the world came to the Camps Elisis fairgrounds. "Camps Elisis" sounded exalted, even before I knew the word "exalted".

Sometimes I went Friday, Saturday and Sunday. When St Michael came round you had to make the most of it because in Saidí there was little else to see. I went with my family or relatives or with the parents of one of my friends. I'd say they were the happiest days of the year. We kids jumped from one cabin to another the whole afternoon, from a car to a van, to tractors, trucks, excavators, and went back home with pockets full of balloons, caramels and key rings. There were always one or two who, when they got back to Saidí, had some trophy to show off: tyre valve or oil inlet caps, cigarette lighters from cars and tractors, or any piece that could quickly be pulled off and tucked away out of sight, for example a gear stick knob.

Once I went with Bernat and his father. Bernat and I are the same age but, until we were grown up, he always made two of me. We went from one pavilion to another, meeting up with other kids from Saidí, stuffing ourselves with the fruit they gave us because it was going off on the display shelves. We played around the whole afternoon and had such a good time that by the time we reached the car we were ready to drop. Once there, he showed me everything he had in his pockets, lighters and caps, just as we had seen the previous day with other kids.

I recall all the details, the caps and the lighters, his father's car, the place where we stopped and that no longer exists because they've widened the road, the screech of sudden braking and how his father made a detour on to a track. He was hopping mad. Where had that come from? His father took it all, wound down the window and threw it out. "Thief!" he roared. Bernat pissed his pants, wetting the seat but his father didn't even tell him off, as if he were just waiting to get home. There was I, looking on and keeping my mouth shut: I didn't have it in me to say anything, couldn't think of anything to say in his defence.

When I got home, I said I had a stomach ache and went off to bed. The next day, Bernat showed me marks, red welts on his thighs and back, and several bruises, marks of a belt. There were people who knew about it in the village but no one ever said a word. I, who was always haunted by this thing, started to see his father, him and his family with new eyes. I never went back to his house again.

I'd almost forgotten this story but, not long ago, I went back to Saidí and saw Bernat's son with his legs covered in bruises. How they got there I wouldn't know, but perhaps everyone knows about it and no one says a word. Maybe he got them playing. I'll never know.

Almost thirty years have gone by since those first bruises and I've come across dozens of similar scenes in books and films. When asked why I write, stories like this come into my head, things that everyone knows and yet, at the same time, no one knows anything about them; things that have been written about thousands of times already and that can still be written about again; things that have happened and will happen again; things that are what they seem and yet are much more than what they are; but that, in particular, make us wonder what is the story behind Bernat's son's bruises. Why do I write? I believe the answer lies somewhere along the trajectory that goes from books to experiences but, in fact, all I find there are approximations and I'm not sure if I'd know how to respond without writing yet another text that also requires explanation. I tried to get closer to these terrains with my first books, in Els ventres de la terra [The Bellies of the Earth], L'arbre sense tronc [The Tree without a Trunk] and Una llengua de plom [A Tongue of Lead]. With the what and the how there has to be a why as well. Did I pull it off? It hurts to say, yes and no, the picture is always partial, blurry and out of focus. But, for all that, it's mine.
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