The Winterlings by Cristina Sanchez-Andrade

Author:Cristina Sanchez-Andrade
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: FIC019000
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Published: 2016-08-11T04:00:00+00:00

2

July dragged on endlessly in the sticky humidity of Tierra de Chá. The bats flew low, drunk on heat and lust, the meadows glowed yellow, and the cicadas sang. The flies sought shelter in the houses, and bugs stuck to the skin.

Greta the cow mooed at five in the morning.

Saladina opened an eye, pulled an arm out from under the sheets and, moved by a habit acquired over many years, felt the nightstand for her dentures. Then she said to herself, ‘You idiot, you don’t have them anymore!’ She got up. She dragged the porcelain chamber pot out from under the bed and put it in the middle of the room. She lifted up her nightdress, bent her knees, stuck her bottom out ceremoniously, and prepared to relieve herself. As the first jet hit the porcelain, she let out a large sigh.

The sound woke Dolores, who stayed in the foetal position, pretending to be asleep or dead, her gaze fixed on the leaky roof, an elephant, a star, a flower. The light was streaming into the bedroom, and for a while she stayed like that, intently watching the details and delicate movements that the damp had left on the whitewashed walls. Resting her ear on the pillow, she amused herself by counting her heartbeats. Another day. Another day in the company of her sister. The cow, the mountain, the Singer. Mending, sweeping, pulling down the cobwebs, and scrubbing. The same thing she did yesterday and will do tomorrow. For a while now, she had begun to think that the routine that had offered them so much consolation upon their arrival in Tierra de Chá was now nothing more than a way to grow old.

While she listened to the numbing stream of urine coming from her sister, she began to think about the movies, and the movies made her think of Ava Gardner. She could already begin to smell the sour, dreadful urine vapours, but she couldn’t get the idea of Ava Gardner coming to Spain to make a movie out of her mind. For that film they’d be looking for body doubles, tall women with wavy hair who could speak English. She was thinking about what a good double she would be, when her sister’s urine splashed her in the face. Why did she have to put up with this life? She covered herself with the sheets, and turned over. Her sister clicked her tongue and moaned with pleasure as she inspected, between her open legs, the abundant foam that floated on top of her urine. She had finally finished.

Since she had heard the news, that afternoon in June when she was feeding the chickens, Dolores had not stopped thinking about how being an actress was what she had always wanted, and that the film they were shooting on the Spanish coast was her opportunity. Again came the stream, like an open floodgate, Niagara Falls. Hadn’t she finished already?

She was splashed again, this time on the shoulders. How disgusting. Would

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.