By MÒNICA BATET
Translated by MARIALENA CARR and JULIA SANCHES
Sometimes this is my story, others it’s not. They used to bring it up at home whenever the room fell silent. They’d talk about her, about a city with a strange name, Sokołowsko. They’d talk about that evening.
There are still pages and pages with tracings of her hands sitting in a drawer. Some are just of hands, while others have words written on the palms or along the fingers. Run away, Get out, Air air, Disappear…. Now and then I place my hand in one of the outlines to see if we have this one thing in common. If, maybe, I too will see all those people someday.
They say she used to lie down before supper. That she could’ve spent her whole life in bed without ever looking around her. This is when she noticed it, getting bigger by the day. She felt it right in her stomach. First it was a river pebble. Then one of those rocks that farmers use as markers. Finally, a vast, rocky cliff face that somehow grew out of her and filled the room. The landscape changed. All was light and air. She started walking with a sure step. Beneath her feet, the whisper of the sea. She shut her eyes and let that unfamiliar world envelop her until my grandfather knocked on the door, and the entire landscape vanished.
But that was only at the start. He’d misled her. She kept saying so. She said so to her mother-in-law and to a friend, when she could get her on the phone. Long before she ever said yes, he’d told her, It’s very green there. The trees come in different shades, and sometimes it feels like they’re fighting for room. Even though this wasn’t technically a lie—the shades of green did vary from dark to so pale it was almost yellow, and there were trees everywhere you looked—that was it. There were no streets, no people to talk to, just a trail that led to a forest of towering pines. It was a five-kilometer trek to the nearest town and another five back. Her mother-in-law always said, The forest behind the house is bigger than that city you’re from. All you have to do is follow the path. Don’t go Down There. Or people will talk.
She’d tried walking in those woods her first few weeks there, eyes trained on the dusty, reddish ground, and felt that she probably couldn’t take it. The voices came to her after the first trees. Though she couldn’t make out a single word, the melody was pleasant. It was like a choir of women and men singing in a language she did not speak. At first it made her feel less alone, but later, as she walked on, the lilting sounds morphed into ever more frightening screams, and she had to crouch and cover her ears. Then the ivy shot up and closed in on her, snake-like, twisting around her feet and ankles.
There always came a point when she could make them stop. She’d walk as fast as she could until the screams weren’t even so much as a distant murmur. Her forehead burning hot, strands of hair plastered against her face, and her mother-in-law demanding, the minute she saw her enter the house, And what have you been up to this whole time? She never had any idea what to say and struggled to hide the bewilderment in her eyes, because she knew her mother-in-law would nag my grandfather, Why’d you bring a city girl here? What did you see in her? I don’t get it. It was always the same. And he never answered, probably because that kind of question required too many words.
Some time after it all started, my grandmother gave up on the forest and went Down There instead. Just eight streets and a square with the same three women sitting on the same bench, day in, day out. Sometimes she talked with them: Yes, my mother-in-law’s doing just fine, thank you. You’re right, there aren’t as many trees in the city, and we don’t eat as well. Sure, the war felt closer, probably, but I was really young when it all happened. I remember so little. Yes, I guess, too noisy and too crowded. No, I don’t find it scary to come down here on my own. And no, my husband doesn’t mind. Yes, of course I like living up there. I’m so lucky my cousins introduced me to Joan. Bye now, have a lovely afternoon.
She’d bid them farewell with a smile, certain that the three women would remark to each other as soon as she walked away, Such a city girl. Antònia’s son let himself be swept off his feet—that’s the only explanation. I don’t believe a word when she says it’s all peaches and cream in that house. And they were right not to believe her. If only they knew she heard the choir of faraway voices whenever she stopped to answer their questions…. If only they knew that, two days earlier, as she’d strolled along one of the few streets Down There, ivy had sprung from the rooftops of each and every house and blanketed the walls before she could blink….If only they’d seen her run so the creeping ivy wouldn’t have a chance to coil around her neck, wrists, arms.
Sometimes, as she was nearing the farmhouse, she sensed the voices right behind her. Drawn to that song she couldn’t understand, she’d come to a stop because the oddness of that situation held a freedom of sorts. She’d count, Twenty, twenty-one… all the way to fifty, before turning around. The possibilities she imagined were so great, yet all she saw when she turned was the steep trail, strewn with uneven rocks. Her mother-in-law would ask her to help with supper, and she’d shut herself in her room, hoping to feel the cliff and sea beneath her feet once more, even though she hadn’t for so long.
Months after it all started, she fell pregnant with my mother. That’s when the singing voices stopped. Whenever she went Down There, she’d constantly eye the air above her, waiting for the ivy to tumble down. But it never did. Maybe it’s all over, she thought. And often she wondered if things really had to end this way. Endings—she’d always heard say—ought to be clear-cut. A door slamming so loudly it can be heard on another continent, a scream that’s been forming inside someone for years…. Eventually, she convinced herself that maybe some endings were meant to be quiet.
The next few years were unremarkable. Until one day, as she was watching my mother play, she pushed down on her belly and realized she could make out a tiny river pebble. She didn’t want to go back to the place she’d left behind. This is when she began to worry that what she’d thought of as an ending was just a lull. She didn’t want to make a fuss about it, but the pebble seemed to be growing, bit by bit, every single day.
A few years after it all started, my grandmother took to locking herself in her bedroom again, even when my mother called for her from the other side of the door. Evening after evening, she waited for the cliff, because the pebble was still there, and it was still growing. Every afternoon, she took my mother on walks, holding her by the hand, hoping to hear that choir. She kept her eyes on the ground, in case the ivy grew over their feet. Even so, none of it came back. To pass the days before the inevitable, she furtively traced the outline of her hands after lunch. Run away, Get out, Air air, Disappear.
And just when it seemed the inevitable wouldn’t happen, on a quiet evening of staring at the ceiling and waiting, she saw her. They say my grandmother was lying in bed, as usual, and, as usual, running two fingers over her pebble. The room spun so fast, everything was a blur. She shut her eyes to settle the vertigo, and when she opened them, a woman with long red hair was perched on a corner of the bed. She sat up, and the foreign woman beckoned her to follow.
They walked through a place of darkness. The sea before her was not the one she knew—there was no doubt in her mind. The air, freezing. The woman spoke words she couldn’t understand and gripped both my grandmother’s hands in distress. Her eyes had so much to say, but someone was on the other side of the door, and the cold left my grandmother’s face. She couldn’t eat her supper. As she held my mother in her lap, all she could think of was a word the woman had said over and over, Tramsa, Tromsa, Tramso… she wasn’t sure which.
After that first encounter, she spent hours tracing her hands. Her mother-in-law kept an eye on her. You should take the girl outside to play, she said. What is it you do in the dining room, scribbling on those pages all afternoon? Only to shut yourself in the bedroom after and not let anyone in. All while your little girl cries her heart out. She’s your daughter, not mine. I’m going to have to tell Joan. And my grandmother would answer, never dropping her pencil, eyes still on the page, Well, what are you waiting for?
Weeks went by before the foreign woman came back. The minute my grandmother felt the vertigo, she knew what to expect, and it probably made her happy. The sky was an unfamiliar shade of black. The street was wide, the houses all different colors. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The woman pointed at one of the houses, and my grandmother understood that this was her home. Again she said the word several times, Tramsa, Tromsa, Tramso… then hugged her, and even though everything she said was so strange, my grandmother knew that, like her, the woman wanted to Run away, Get out, Air air, Disappear.
My grandmother opened her bedroom door, sat at the dinner table, and tried to smile at my mother. After a few minutes, she buried her face in her hands. They say she was like that a long time. No one understood what was going on. Finally, her mother-in-law, who’d spent months waiting for this moment, started speaking, her voice growing louder and louder: Your wife’s not well, Joan. I’ve wanted to tell you for days. All she does is trace her hands on pieces of paper. Who knows how many pages she’s wasted? And she neglects your daughter. If it weren’t for me, this house would fall apart.
That might have been the first night my grandparents really talked to each other. It was also the first night my grandmother had the courage to tell her husband she’d had enough of all those trees, of being surrounded by green and only green. She couldn’t stand going to the village, where the same three women sat on the same old bench, and where she had to answer the same questions every time. Then my grandfather, who couldn’t understand how the thing that gave him comfort was taking years off her life, shot her the question: But what is it you want? Dwarfed in her chair, she answered, I want to have a place where I can walk without getting dust all over me. I want to see new faces.
It was only at the end of their talk that my grandmother told him about the stones, about the ivy that sprang up out of nowhere, about the choir singing in a foreign tongue that she was sure she’d hear again soon, about the screams that sometimes chilled her blood, about the woman who lived in another country…. My grandfather listened, then stared at the floor for what felt like forever, before saying, That’s enough. Tomorrow you’re going to the doctor.
When Dr. Solanell asked her what was wrong, she pulled out a page with a tracing of her hand. The man read what she’d written. I take it you’re not happy here, he said. May I ask since when? Since I got here, my grandmother admitted. He touched his chin, the corner of his right cheek, and added, to soften what he feared was to come, Then you’ve hidden it well. I’d like you to tell me what you see, because I’m sure you’re seeing something.
She told him about the stones, about the ivy that sprang up out of nowhere, about the choir singing in a foreign tongue that she was sure she’d hear again soon, about the screams that sometimes chilled her blood…. And when finally she got to the part about the woman who lived in another country, Dr. Solanell stopped her. Give me a minute—I need to think, he said, stunned. For this man, who’d found himself working as the doctor of a remote village for a list of reasons too lengthy to explain, was destined for a more brilliant future and a different kind of medicine.
They say he spent his nights reading heavy tomes written mostly in German. He also subscribed to journals from other countries. A room in his house was filled with stacks of books—so many you could barely walk through them. All the books dealt in one way or another with human behavior. This is why, when my grandmother showed him the tracing of her hand, he posed an unexpected question. And also why, after begging her to wait a moment as he quietly cast around his mind for a similar case he’d read about, he asked how she was so sure the woman was foreign.
Because she speaks in a language I don’t understand, my grandmother answered with a firmness that surprised even her. Afterward she added, There’s a word she keeps saying. I don’t know how to spell it. Tramsa, Tromsa, Tramso…. Dr. Solanell repeated after her, Tramsa, Tromsa, Tramso…. He asked her to come back in three days. He had some medical journals at home that could help, but he needed to read through them again, carefully.
When later that night Dr. Solanell realized the foreign woman was actually saying Tromsø, he couldn’t help but smile for a few seconds, reminded that even in the darkest dark there could be a faint glimmer of light. After that reflection, he remembered the precise article he’d read just two or three weeks earlier about what some women experienced in that place, Tromsø, in winter.
The city was in the far, far north. Some months of the year it was always light, while others the sky was consistently gray and black. So began the article titled “The Runaway Women of Tromsø.” It went on to explain that, starting around September, the residents of that city found it difficult to get out of bed and carry on with their day-to-day, knowing perfectly well what the next few months had in store for them. Women between ages twenty and fifty were, without question, the group most affected by this change in daylight hours. The core symptoms were weight loss, reluctance to go outside, and uncontrollable crying.
Though some women only had these episodes once in their lives, others experienced them year after year. The suicide rate for this subset of women ranged from twenty to twenty-five percent. It was hard to prevent, even when more therapy sessions were made available. In recent years, some of these women had chosen to leave Tromsø, with the attendant consequences for their families. A grand total of 323 women had abandoned the city in the previous decade.
The women’s reasons for leaving were crystal clear: a challenging climate and darkness that went on far too long. It was also clear they found leaving preferable to risking suicide. The article concluded that not all human beings could bear the same landscape or climate. The article’s bibliography included a reference Dr. Solanell didn’t recognize, though the title made him think he should try to access it.
He didn’t think of the bibliographic entry again until my grandmother’s fourth appointment. She did her best to tell her story. It was the same as always. At some point, everything started moving so fast she had to shut her eyes and grab onto something. When the woman showed up, she followed. First they saw the waves, then the street. They walked up toward the woman’s house. My grandmother glimpsed the color of the sky through the window. They sat at the kitchen table. The woman started tapping her own forehead gently, trying to get my grandmother to understand something. To help her along, she hummed a melody, and though my grandmother hadn’t heard the choir up close in a long time, she remembered the tunes perfectly.
Dr. Solanell knew that earlier in his career he would’ve given years of his life for a patient like her. He realized now that when my grandmother had told him about the choir that first day, he hadn’t given it enough consideration, maybe because it wasn’t his first time hearing about a case like that one, or maybe because he was more intrigued by the fact that she could see unfamiliar landscapes and foreign women. It dawned on him that he was out of practice. That very afternoon he wrote a friend in Vienna to ask for a copy of Issue 48 of a journal called Sturm und Blitz.
When it finally arrived, Dr. Solanell dropped the book he’d been reading and flipped through the journal’s thin pages till he reached the article. He’d never heard the name before, Sokołowsko. He opened an atlas and the encyclopedia. It was right next to Czechoslovakia. A border region that had been recently repopulated by Polish citizens because one fine day somebody decided that, like it or not, Sokołowsko was where they were supposed to be. That was Europe for you. Citizens shifted from one place to another without any consideration for their language or what they might leave behind.
A sad story. Apparently, they’d moved more than three hundred people there after the war. They’d told them, Take your pick. And these people, precarity lodged in the pit of their stomachs, had occupied the empty houses. Houses that had once been home to other people who were now goodness-knows-where. After a few days, some grew homesick. The ones who couldn’t sleep did guard duty, afraid they might be kicked out of their new homes.
They spoke the language they were supposedly meant to speak, but the street names were in the other language, which was now foreign. Naturally, this led to confusion. One night while the soldiers slept, the residents got together and decided to escape. This place was not theirs. They planned it out. Three hundred people swarmed the poorly paved road. Five hundred kilometers later, they were intercepted. That was it. They had to turn back. Surveillance was tightened, and many found it impossible to adapt. Some lost sleep, others fell sick with unclassifiable ailments, and all of them—as a form of resistance—began singing, in a circle after Sunday mass, folk ballads that spoke of exile.
Dr. Solanell believed all of this resulted from being uprooted and an inability to adapt to the landscape. The words poor people slipped out of his mouth. His friend had taken the liberty of sending additional issues of Sturm und Blitz, so he went through Issue 55 and found another article that referenced Sokołowsko and what the author termed the Sokołowsko Syndrome. His study drew from a sample of two hundred women from different regions of northern Norway, not just Tromsø. The symptoms Dr. Solanell was already familiar with appeared in Oldervik, Tønsvik, Oteren… weight loss, a reluctance to go outside, uncontrollable crying. However, most of these towns reported fewer suicides than Tromsø, around fifteen percent of those who experienced the syndrome.
The interviewed women noted that, although their distress waned when the daylight hours grew longer, leaving seemed the only real solution to a landscape that smothered them in sadness. But what grabbed the author’s attention was the fact that 47.3 percent of the interviewed women reported hearing music in their heads, melodies sung by different voices in a foreign language. What’s more, twelve percent of these women said that at some point they had turned around only to see a circle of women and men singing with feeling. This same twelve percent of women had also, at some point, tried to catch a ferry to a warmer country.
Surprisingly, the melodies hummed by that 47.3 percent of women were the same. Some even remembered scattered words, which revealed that the voices sang in Polish. Words like border, distance, emptiness, and longing linked these ballads to the songs of the Sokołowsko residents. Dr. Solanell couldn’t believe it. Obviously, there could be similarities in the imaginings of such patients, and all these people, whether from Poland or Norway, shared a common unease…. But even taking into account theories of a collective unconscious, Dr. Solanell found it unlikely that my grandmother could hear and see the same things as the women of Northern Europe.
Even so, he asked her in the next session: Did you ever see them, the singing people? And again she answered him honestly: A few years ago, as I was climbing the trail to the farmhouse, I felt like I might see them if I turned around ever so slowly. In fact, deep inside, I hoped I would. It never happened. Ever since my foreign friend started humming the melody a few months ago, I’ve been hearing them again. This may surprise you, but believe me: it makes me happy. I can hear them at any time. It isn’t like before, when I only heard them when I was alone or with the village women. Now I hear them even when we’re having supper and I’m trying to get my daughter to eat. She’s eight, but eating doesn’t come easy. They don’t always sing the same song, you know. Their voices are so beautiful. I don’t turn around anymore. I’m a little uneasy about seeing them. It’s not like before: I have more responsibilities now. Tell me, what should I do if I see them?
Dr. Solanell didn’t know what to say. There was one outcome he wanted to avoid at all cost. So he told her, Follow my advice, come to your appointments, and you won’t see them. And yet, as my grandmother was leaving, he thought it would be interesting to find out if the singing voices really did belong to the Sokołowsko residents. Another thought quickly followed: How long would he have to wait for that to happen?
He waited almost no time at all. Long, long after all this started, everyone in the house was seated at the supper table. My mother, as usual, didn’t want to eat. My grandmother was telling her a story to get her to budge. They say that, all of a sudden, she stopped talking and went to the window, where she began singing in a low voice. Nobody recognized the tune or understood the words. She put on her coat. They say that she kissed my mother and whispered in her ear, Don’t you hear them? She asked my grandfather the same question. My mother started crying and grabbed onto her waist. My grandmother held her close, stroked her hair, and said, Now I must go with them.
Mònica Batet has written five novels and a collection of short stories. She received the Just Manuel Casero Award in 2005 for The Grey Room, the NoLlegiu Prize for Nine Islands in the North, and the Crexells Prize for A Story Is a Stone Thrown into the River. Her short stories have been translated into English, Polish, and Spanish.
Marialena Carr now translates from Catalan and Spanish and writes in English, after half a lifetime as an oceanographer. Her translations include pieces in Hyperion and Metamorphoses, and Vicenç Altaió’s 2022 poetry collection El Jo-Ull / The I-Eye. An ALTA Emerging Translator Mentee, she attended the 2024 Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference.
Julia Sanches translates literature from Catalan, Portuguese, and Spanish into English.
