Kilian hugged his sister and held her by the shoulders to look at her straight; her chin began to tremble, and she burst out crying. Kilian hugged her again, and Jacobo nervously cleared his throat and repeated that they would miss the coach.
Kilian approached his mother, making a great effort not to falter. Mariana hugged him so tightly that both felt the spasms as they tried to keep from sobbing.
“Mind yourself, Son, mind yourself,” she whispered in his ear. Her voice trembled. “And don’t be gone too long.”
Kilian nodded. He fit his skis’ cable ties to the heels of his boots and tightened them with the metal levers a palm’s length from the tips. He put the parcel of food in a bag, picked up his suitcase in one hand, and began to ski after Jacobo, who was already disappearing down the eight-kilometer slope that led down to Cerbeán, the biggest neighboring town, where they had to get the coach to the city. The road did not go as high as Pasolobino, built at the feet of a giant rocky mass that reigned over the valley. In winter, skis were the fastest and most comfortable way to travel over the snow.
He had barely gone a few meters when he stopped and turned to get a last look at the dark figures of his mother and sister against the gray background of tightly packed houses and smoking chimneys.
Despite the cold, the women remained there until they lost sight of the young men.
Only then did Mariana bow her head and allow the tears to roll down her cheeks. Catalina moved closer, silently took her arm, and led her slowly to the house, wrapped in gusts of wind and snow.
When the brothers got to Cerbeán, with reddened cheeks, hands stiff with cold, and bodies sweating from the exercise, the wind had died down a little. They swapped their ski boots for laced shoes and left the boots beside the skis in a tavern close to the coach stop, where one of their cousins would come to collect them and return them to the House of Rabaltué.
Jacobo clambered up the rear ladder of the coach to tie the suitcases to the roof rack. Afterward, both brothers took their seats toward the rear of the bus. The driver started the engine and announced that they would be leaving in five minutes. The coach was practically empty. It was not the time of year when the people of Pasolobino normally traveled, but it would soon fill up on the journey so that the last passengers would arrive in the city standing or squashed together on the steps located to the driver’s right.
Jacobo closed his eyes to take a nap, relieved to be sheltered from the intense cold—it was not particularly warm inside, but it was tolerable—and to not have to make the first part of the journey on horseback like his father had done. Kilian entertained himself by looking through the window at the featureless countryside, which remained white for a good part of the journey until changing to gray rocks, through whose tunnels they left the mountains behind and approached the lowlands.
He knew the route. It was the only one that led to Barmón, a small provincial town seventy kilometers from Pasolobino. Barmón was the farthest Kilian, at the age of twenty-four, had traveled in his life. Some of his childhood friends had had the good fortune to get so sick that they needed specialist medical attention in the provincial or even regional capital; he had grown up as strong as an ox. Livestock marts in Barmón had been his most direct source of information of the outside world, with traveling salesmen from all parts there to sell their wares to the stockmen after they sold their animals. They bought cloth, candles, oil, salt, wine, household furniture, tools, and presents to take back to the mountain villages.
For him, this hustle and bustle of men and women proved that there was a universe beyond the narrow road hewn out of rock that led to his valley, a universe that was barely described by the words and drawings in his geography and history schoolbooks, the anecdotes of the older generation, and the news on National Radio of Spain, Radio Paris International, or the revolutionary—according to his father’s brother—Radio Pyrenees.
Jacobo woke up soon after passing Barmón. He had not heard the ruckus caused by the dozen adults and children who had boarded the coach with baskets of food, nor the cackling outcry of the hens in cardboard boxes. Kilian was still amazed by his brother, who could sleep in impossible positions, at any hour. He was even capable of waking up, chatting for a while, smoking a cigarette, and then going back to sleep. Jacobo maintained that it was a good way of saving energy. At that moment, Kilian did not mind Jacobo’s silence. After saying his good-byes in Pasolobino, he even appreciated the chance to become better accustomed to the changes in scenery and his mood.
In one of these intermittent waking moments, on sensing Kilian’s pensiveness, Jacobo put his arm around his brother’s shoulder and drew him toward him vigorously.
“Cheer up, man!” he said in a loud voice. “A couple of drinks in the Ambos Mundos bar will cure all your ills. An appropriate name, don’t you think?” He laughed. “Ambos Mundos!” Both worlds, Kilian thought to himself.
Hours later, they finally arrived in the big city. There was no snow in Zaragoza, but a strong north wind, almost as hard and chilling as that in the mountains, blew. Regardless of the cold, the streets were full of people: hundreds of men wrapped up in woolen coats, slightly stooped, holding their hats or caps with one hand, and women pressing their bags to their chests. Jacobo guided Kilian to the hostel, a narrow building several stories high in the Plaza de Espa?a. It was where Antón and Jacobo normally stayed when they passed through the city. They left the suitcases in their Spartan room and rushed back out again for those drinks.
First, following the custom of many who came to the city, they went through the narrow alleyways of the old quarter, popularly known as El Tubo, to go and visit the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar and ask the Virgin to watch over their journey. They then had a plate of fried squid in a crowded bar, where they accepted the offer of a bootblack. With their shoes shining, they milled about as the crowd diminished and the shops closed. In the middle of the paved streets, where the trams and black cars circulated and where buildings had been built up to eight stories high, the two men ambled, Kilian pausing often to take in everything.
“You’re acting like a country bumpkin.” His brother laughed heartily. “What are you going to do when we get to Madrid?”
Kilian asked him about everything. It was as if the nerves of the previous days had spun into an urgent curiosity. Jacobo was pleased to act as his expert guide, putting on an air of superiority. He still remembered his bewildering first trip.