Happy Saturday, Story366!
Today we’re venturing off to a rec center to buy a yearlong family pass. Firstly, we love to swim. Despite the fact Missouri is pretty hot and Springfield in the southernmost part of the state, this isn’t a pool town or region. Nobody we know has a pool (including us), and even when I’ve flown in and out, I’ve not seen all that many pools in yards as I pass overhead. Might be a zoning thing, or a wires thing, I dunno. But if we want to swim, we either go to lakes—which none of us prefer—or public pools. We’ll venture out to a city outdoor pool or rec center facility, spend a couple of hours doing our thing, then go back home, all wet a cool and wet.
On top of this, the older boy and I are scheduled for a Scouting adventure in a ten months, what’s called a High Adventure. This particular adventure is to the Sea Base station in the Florida Keys, where we’ll be shipped off to an island for a week of sailing, fishing, snorkling and other Florida Keyslike activities. For this trip, we need to be top-level swimmers, and on top of that, in good shape; I need to drop a lotta pounds. Hence, a yearlong family pass where me and the boy can go do laps, get strong and aquatic, and kick ass next July, on our Caribbean Adventure. Wish us luck, as it’ll be a long road, but worth it.
Today’s post brought me to Sara Gallardo, an Argentinian writer who passed away in 1988. British publisher Pushkin Press released the first English translation of her books by putting out Land of Smoke in 2018, translated from the Spanish by Jessica Sequeira. This is my first exposure to Gallardo’s work, so of course I was happy to discover something new.
The first story, “On the mountain,” tells the tale of a soldier, Miguel, who falls off a cliff and is trapped on top of a mountain. Really, he was kicked off by his mule, which is a bad way to fall off a cliff—not that there’s a good way.
Miguel wakes in a cave, rescued by a mountain-man type who lives and survives there on his own. Miguel also has injuries, injuries that keep him immobile, inside the cave, and at the man’s mercy. To boot, his savior refuses to speak to him (or maybe he can’t), making for longer days, the two men stuck together in a small, dark space.
Miguel and the man exist and survive for quite some time as our hero’s injuries heal. Seasons change, and we even get to winter, where this outdoor-survival mode, all that hunting and gathering, is put to the test. They smoke meat, sew clothing, and make food out of things most people don’t consider food.
Oh, and there’s also a monster, of some sort, lurking outside the cave, sometimes trying to get in, scaring the shit out of Miguel.
When the thaw arrives, our man’s wounds are healed. He exits the cave, though still afraid of the monster, and sees soldiers from his own army marching in the cwm. He wonders if he should stay or should he go, but his caretaker makes the decision for him, however, in a most rude and familiar fashion.
“The case of Mrs. Ricci” is a ghost story, about the titular Mrs. Ricci, a woman whose punctuality is legendary. Every month, she’s in front of the line to receive her pay from the Pension Fund. When she’s hit by a car and is instantly killed, those who knew or remember her mourn her death, and are quite shocked to see her show up on the first of the month, first in line, her hand out for her pay.
Gallardo wrote a lot of shorts and I read a handful of those as I made my way through her book. “She,” “Byword,” “The caste of the sun,” and “The great night of the trains” are all good stories, all starting off different sections of the collection—did I mention those? Yes, the book is cut into several partitions, each with its own title. There are longer stories, like the two I describe above, but mostly in that first section—the rest of the book made up of shorts. Gallardo has a keen sense of circumstance, of word choice, and subtlety, making for a nice collection of flash.
Glad to have run into Sara Gallardo’s work today. Land of Smoke is the only book of hers translated into English, and it took the English to do so. Good for me it’s her story lone collection (amidst novels and children’s books and nonfiction of various types), and good for everybody, as there’s more stories out there for us to enjoy.
Story366 