Synopsis

That’s How Whales Are Born (170 pages) is Anxos Sumai’s third work of fiction and tells the story of a woman who returns from her studies in Mexico to visit her sick mother and the city where she spent her childhood. The book is divided into three parts: ‘Mother Writes a Letter’, ‘A Thousand-Pound Heart’ and ‘The Pail Follows the Rope’.

In the first part, the narrative voice, a woman, remembers her nanny, Felisa, embroidering on the balcony of their home. One of her earliest memories is that of her mother tearing up letters and photographs of her wedding. Her father is a serene, but absent figure. The rest of the family is an uncle and aunt, and Ramón, who died before the memory of her mother destroying photographs. The woman is studying marine biology at university in Mexico, having left home when asked to by her mother. She has now returned to the city where she grew up in order to visit her mother, who is sick. She is met at the airport by her aunt, Natalia. She finds her aunt’s presence soothing. Hers is the voice that has accompanied her on her travels. Her mother was a successful businesswoman, transforming the family’s ironmonger’s shop into a chain of stores selling household appliances, but two years earlier she took the decision to shut herself in her bedroom, having fallen into a depression caused by the lack of a mission in her life and the death of Ramón, the woman’s brother.

The woman’s mother and uncle, Cándido, were born with fixed destinies. Cándido would inherit the family’s ironmonger’s shop and carry on the family business. The woman’s mother would look after her parents in their old age, but the parents died in a fire and Cándido was forced to devote his youth to resurrecting the family business literally from the ashes, while the woman’s mother no longer had any parents to devote her time to.

The woman returns to the family home in the company of her aunt, Natalia. She is met by the faithful janitor, Matías, who still remembers when a papier-mâché whale was delivered to the house and the day the woman was born. Her old nanny, Felisa, is overjoyed to see her. The woman remembers the time Felisa put her to bed for an afternoon sleep and the woman, a small girl at the time, gazed at the motes of dust floating in the air. Felisa is overjoyed to see her, but all the woman manages is a faint smile. While waiting to see her mother, the woman waits in the library of the house and discovers a telephone number she knew would be in one of the books, which she promises herself she will ring while she is in the city.

The woman remembers taking her leave of Ángela in La Paz. Ángela is a university teacher from California studying jellyfish in Mexico. The problem is, as soon as the woman leaves a place, she feels how it recedes and is replaced by her new destination. So the city where she grew up has already replaced Ángela in her feelings. The only person who is not replaced in her feelings is Ramón.

The woman re-encounters her mother after an absence of five years. Her mother’s bedroom is full of photos of Ramón, a few of her and none of her father. Her mother assures her that she never really hated her and her uncle, Cándido, greets the woman by lifting her in the air. In her old bedroom, the woman rediscovers the papier-mâché whale she and some friends from school made for carnival. The woman leaves the house and discovers Matías and Felisa in the entrance, trying to conceal their passion for each other. Upstairs, Felisa is asked by the woman’s mother why the woman has been crying all day and how long it is since Ramón died. The woman visits the three shops the family has in the city (they have fifty shops in all, in forty cities) and, while there, her aunt, Natalia, gives her the good news that she will inherit the family business and the bad news that the family wants her to return at once to assume the reins or she runs the risk of being disinherited.

The woman studies a box with a design of a cherry tree and a woman dressed in a kimono holding a basket of cherries. This box was her father’s final offering to her mother when he returned from sea for a few days and made her mother pregnant because she wanted a daughter to look after Ramón when she was gone. The woman thinks she also was born with a fixed destiny. Her aunt, Natalia, tries to apologize for forcing the woman to abandon her studies and come back to look after the family business, but this is how things are, and the woman thinks her destiny is still Ramón, even though her brother has been dead for fifteen years.

The woman is shocked to discover that Felisa has moved into Ramón’s old bedroom. She used to live in the attic, where she would entertain clients who wanted her embroidery and show them her urban garden. The woman is almost sure her mother doesn’t know about this profanation of a sacred space, or that her father supposedly sent a Christmas card from Osaka, Japan, with the words ‘Thinking of you. Congratulations’. The woman remembers how, when she was twelve, she invaded her mother’s privacy and tried on the French knickers and camisole that had been a present from her father. She felt the same sexual excitement they must have felt and learned how to calm it.

The woman remembers her first proper boyfriend, Virxilio, and how he liked to talk and to kiss in the same measure. In the end, the woman grew fed up of him and hid whenever he came to call on her. The woman realizes she has only ever been happy, truly happy, away from home. At home, she has felt obliged to be happy. Felisa, her aunt and uncle, shower her with attention. The only one who leaves her alone is her mother, who from time to time dictates a letter. It turns out the letter is addressed to the woman’s father, who is still a young man, only sixty-two, in her mother’s words. Her mother’s breathing slows and the woman calls Felisa, who revives her by applying alcohol to her body. The woman suspects the writing on the Christmas card wasn’t her father’s and he may in fact be dead.

In the second part, it is 1987, and Ramón lets out a loud burp after finishing lunch. He sometimes falls asleep, his chin resting on his chest, a trickle of saliva threatening his shirt. After lunch, Ramón likes to sleep and is annoyed with his little sister if she wakes him up. Sometimes he has to leave her with the nanny in the attic before heading to work, which makes him feel uncomfortable. Ramón is very disciplined in his actions. He arrives at the family’s ironmonger’s shop at 8:59 and leaves at exactly seven. On the way to work, he asks everybody the time. On the way home, he stops in the small square and greets all the children coming off the school bus. Once he brings his little sister a corkscrew home because he hit her when she woke him up. He enters the kitchen theatrically and gives her the present, which the girl understands is an angel spreading its wings, but the bottle they are opening falls on the ground and smashes. The mother doesn’t know how to react: her son is a backward giant, her daughter likes to bite the corners of objects and the knees of people, and their father is away at sea. Since his last visit, their father would ring every fortnight and send a letter or a postcard every month. The last visit was not a success. Ramón was jealous and, when their father brought a geranium home for their mother, pushed him against the wall. Their father admitted to their mother he had a daughter in another port, called Akiko.

Ramón left school at sixteen and went to work in the family’s ironmonger’s shop. Thanks to his medicine, he was normally restrained and attentive to customers. At the end of the month, he would bring his wage packet home and present it to his mother, proud to be taking care of his family. If their mother is not there, Felisa cares for Ramón and his sister. One day, Ramón tells them about a man who has cancer on his face and wears a steak bandaged to his head so the cancer will eat the steak instead. The girl draws a biscuit on the floor with chalk, then puts a ball of plasticine in her mouth. Felisa jumps up, breaking a cup, removes the plasticine and gives Ramón the girl to look after. Ramón always asks questions that have two possible answers: do you like steak with rice or potatoes? If the other person gives a third answer (with lettuce), he doesn’t know how to respond. Their mother is angry with Felisa for breaking one of her best cups, she is exhausted, but Felisa knows she cannot leave the house, if only because she has to look after the girl (the daughter she never had). Natalia (who has also been unable to give birth to a child) asks Felisa if she is happy in the house. All Felisa can reply is ‘Yes, madam’.

The mother remembers when she gave birth to Ramón. He was stillborn, but later revived. Her idea was to call him Cándido, the name reserved for the family’s firstborn sons, but, when he came back to life, she gave him the name of the doctor, who informed her there might be some brain damage owing to the lack of oxygen. She tells Natalia and Cándido that, since she is responsible for expanding the family business, she will take two thirds of the profits. On the girl’s third birthday, the family gathers and Ramón gives her a brass funnel, which he uses to pour Coke down her throat, then puts on his head to make her laugh. They go about the house, introducing objects in the funnel to see what comes out. Felisa thinks Ramón is excessive in the way he cuddles and kisses his sister. Ramón puts the girl to bed, but she wakes up because of a nightmare. She goes to look for Ramón, who is not in his bedroom but in that of their mother, stroking her head. He quickly puts on his dressing gown and takes her back to bed, but she notices the smell of his breath is that of their mother.

At the weekend, they travel to the uncle and aunt’s villa in the country, where the girl falls over and cuts her eyebrow, and Ramón thinks that in order to become a whale he must be in water. Natalia loves to cook and is very tender with the ingredients she uses, more tender than with the children. In the living room, there is an old oak wardrobe, which Ramón describes as a fat man in a hat and bow tie. These definitions the mother notes down in a photo album she calls Anthology of Daily Objects. The next moment, Ramón has an erection. His mother tells him to go the bathroom and satisfy his desire. She has done this in the past, shown him what he must do and even allowed him to touch her. In the meantime, her daughter arrives from the garden. She is hungry, and the mother, who allows her to put her arms around her neck, wishes the girl had been born an adult.

On the Sunday, Ramón and the girl are playing in the swimming pool. Ramón wants to show her how whales are born and dives head first into the water, colliding with the tiles on the bottom. The mother, seeing her son’s lifeless body, calls for Cándido. Back in the city, sorrow has invaded the house. Felisa and the girl find the mother in the dining room, tearing up letters and photographs of her wedding. Felisa takes the child out, but she returns on her own to watch her mother. Her mother looks up and, for the first time, the girl sees the dark monster occupying her mouth. When her mother throws a vase at the girl’s head, Felisa comes in just in time to save her, but this part of the memory the girl has deliberately blotted out.

In the third part, the narrative voice is again the woman’s. She remembers how at school she refused to sit down if she was told to. Also, how she wet herself in class in order not to have to ask the teacher for permission to leave the classroom. Only when the teacher approached her and began to massage her neck did she give way and lower her resistance. Something similar happened when she met Ángela for the first time. Ángela was giving a postgraduate course on jellyfish in La Paz, and the woman tried to catch her attention by asking her questions all the time. Then she began to appreciate the beauty of the jellyfish and fell silent. When the woman calls Ángela from a park in the city, she receives a cold response because she hasn’t been in touch. When she calls again, Ángela’s response is a little warmer. The next day, her uncle, Cándido, takes her to the villa to check whether there is water in the well. He tells his niece to sign the contract, assuming the reins of the family business, and then leave. He has hired a company to look after the day-to-day administration, so all she has to do is show her face from time to time. When her mother dies, they can sell the business and do whatever they like. For the first time since her return, the woman feels happy. She will return to Mexico and come back to visit in the holidays. She informs her mother, who asks if she knows about Akiko. The woman says she knows much more than her mother thinks, and suspects it is Akiko who wrote the Christmas card in place of her father. They smoke a cigarette, and her mother confesses that what makes her saddest of all is not knowing how her daughter is.

That’s How Whales Are Born is a tender and poetic text divided into three parts: the first and last relate in the woman’s own voice her return to the city where she grew up and how she manages to put the ghosts of her past to rest; the second part explains the background to the current situation and what happened to her brother that had such an impact on their mother. Their father remains a distant figure. It is really a text about a woman’s attempts to find her way in life and make peace with her background. This book merited both the Repsol Short Fiction Prize and the San Clemente Prize awarded by Galician schoolchildren. It led to Anxos Sumai being voted the Galician Publishers’ Association author of the year for 2007 and has since been published in Spanish.