THREE DAYS IN GALICIA

DANIIL KISLOV
TRANSLATED BY NATHAN JEFFERS

They arrived at the coastal village of Gándara on a Friday morning in August, in a rental car with two bottles of wine in the back. The final days of a holiday in the cold and foreign North; some time away from children, acquaintances, and supermarkets.

At the top of the hill the sky seemed clear, high and bright, although drops of rain were already beginning to fall. Sailboats pitched and rolled in the distance while the ebbing tide dominated the water’s edge. The receding sea had revealed lost nets, stiff sea plants, and fishermen’s boats whose broken remains were slowly becoming one with the ancient pebbles beneath.

But now the water was rising.

The man parked by the house they were renting, right on the wet grass. His wife threw on a cardigan and they headed straight to the sea, walking along the deserted beach of pure, forgotten sand, beneath shreds of darkening clouds.

The river broke its banks and surged over the passing road. White-walled, one-storey houses pressed themselves to its edge regardless. There was virtually no-one in the streets. Just two or three bars overlooking the bay had their windows and doors open, and inside were perhaps the shadows of a few early customers.

The man had come to concentrate, he needed a few days to think over an anthology and put his archive in order.

At the coast, the sea thundered.

The woman was reading books on modern dramaturgy, some plays, and was preparing for an upcoming trip to a theatre festival. “The house is perfect for those seeking isolation; there is no internet, it was disconnected for lack of payment” wrote the landlady in her first letter. That was when they agreed upon the rent. “Leave the money in the kitchen cupboard, no one’s going to come looking for it, everyone works in the city and tourists are very rare at this time of year. The drizzle is permanent and clouds hang over the mountains.”

The rain clouds swelled.

The pine-covered cape pressed down onto the waters of the ocean edge. Amongst the trees something, without moving, cried out.

“The tide is rising,” the man said.

The television glowed in the living room. The news was on and precipitation was expected. It was already cold upstairs, but the woman opened the windows. A table lamp shone in the middle of the day, and air from an inland ravine delivered the smell of wild grass. It was lunchtime and they were sat at a table covered with a damp tablecloth, “If you wish for it, the sea will come to you,” he said with a smile on his face. After lunch they went down to the beach which was separated from the village by a pile of rocks and a tangle of scrub. They made their way down a wooden path with no steps, which twisted its way down the hill.

As the sea wind began to blow, a flock of grey dappled seagulls stationed themselves at the water’s edge. Heavy layered clouds filled half the sky, reigning over the coastline in place of sunrise and sunset.

Later the pair went back; the garden was covered in moisture and an unseen bird sang out, in conversation with the growing clamour of the crashing surf.

At night there wasn’t a star to be seen.

Come morning, the surrounding mountains had sunk deep into fog and the water had risen higher. The incoming tide covered the beaches and low-lying plains. The squawking seagulls relocated to the roof of a decaying cathedral, built at the foot of a mountain covered in eucalyptus. Heavy rain began to fall which quickly became a deluge, and the ships on the horizon silently disappeared from view. The wind began to blow stronger than before and the waves thundered right at the foot of the village. The sun had almost completely faded; a light stain amongst the endless fog.

They spent all of the second day locked inside with their books, hiding from the growing swirl of sea and sky, wrapped up in blankets by an electric heater, turning page after page. The television screen became a storm of static. “Loss of signal is common around here,” the woman said, “thunder, magnetic fields, Meteopathy.”

Streams of water. Distant threatening shadows on the sea. Something lapped at their doorstep. Then the lights went out in the whole house, and night became indistinguishable from day. “The fuses have blown. I’ll light a fire,” he said, but the firewood was wet through, as were the matches. All that was left to do was wrap themselves in blankets, sit in silence, and savour the elemental darkness.

The water came closer.

Gradually, the village had become as dark as an echoing cave, but the ocean was already expanding its dominion, taking the bakery on the corner, the butchers by the market and the shop at the side of the road.

The third morning began with the same twilight and pouring rain. Reading was impossible, you couldn’t even make out capital letters. “If you look closely at Mantegna’s painting you can see a horseman in the clouds,” he said. “You can hardly miss it,” she replied as she sat in complete darkness.

Below, beneath the water, house windows shimmered like ghosts.

The man felt around for a pencil and gathered wet pieces of paper into a pile. As the rain continued to pour the woman struggled to keep hold of new thoughts about her upcoming trip. The waves crashed amidst the wall of rain and the woman’s thoughts were lost to the fog and waves.

The landscape all but disappeared, leaving everything in isolation with itself. By evening the water had surged to the upper streets, climbing the steps of the fish market. Even the orreos disappeared under the water: corn storehouses raised up on stilts, built to protect the harvest from damp and rodents, to protect the farmers from hunger and illness.

“Open a book darling,” he said.

Next the village graveyard disappeared and then the half-ruined church steeple which birds had once roosted on. Next followed the courtyard, the neatly parked cars, the stone fence, the trailing snails in the garden, the hills covered in brambles and the rabbit holes beneath them. As he flicked through the pages of his last novel, and she pondered dialogues for future plays, a wave engulfed the roads the surrounding peaks and the air all the way up to the sky.