THE RETURN

Outside the screams of victory preceded the flags flapping on the wind, going over the streets among detonations in the air. Ecstatic crowds stepped on the cobblestones in front on Martina's house, acclaiming the name of the victors and eliciting derision from the defeated.

She paid no attention to the racket and went to great lengths cleaning the furniture once and again. The floor was mopped, the window panes were spotless and the best table linen was on. She once more put in order the chairs around the round table in the centre of the room and came into the kitchen.

The stew on the stove was ready and would keep warm for a while. It would not take long to reheat it if necessary. Venancio would be here soon and, after so long without his mother's cooking, he wouldn't mind for a few more minutes.

Martina went over everything again. Nothing else was left to do, but she could not just stand there waiting. The war was over and her son was coming back home. Venancio was the only child left after the death of her husband and other two sons, one when being only a boy, a victim of a bad fever, the other one and his dad under the ferocious enemy fire. Her house had been a gloomy cave since the men raised in arms; shutters closed, lean soups on the table. Darkness and silence were her only companions while she awaited and prayed for everything to be over, and hers to come back safe and sound. At least part of it had been tended to, at least one of them was coming back home.

When she heard the door, Martina ran out of the kitchen. In the hall she found a soldier with dusty and worn-out clothes, his skin dry and smudged. She looked at him for a few second, unsure of who she was seeing. The cheeks were too hollow, the eyes too dark, the way of looking... The way of looking was not the same, but there was no doubt that man was her little Venancio.

Martina ran to embrace him, but he did not hold her back and got rid of her to cross the room, dropping the big backpack on his way. His boots left muddy footprints on the clean floor. Venancio let himself fall into a chair.

“I've cooked your favourite stew”, said Martina. “It's still warm”.

But Venancio made no reply. His eyes were lost gazing at some point beyond the walls of the house. His face looked like the spitting image of weariness and despondency. Three years had past since Martina last saw her son, and yet he seemed to be thirty years older. The forceful smile of the young man who had followed his dad and big brother was gone now. The light on his eyes extinct. It was as if her son had been left behind in some dirty battleground and only his body had come back home. An empty vessel.

“Venancio, my boy, what happened?”

The dark pools in which Venancio's eyes had turned looked to Martina with apathy, and a terrible grief poured out of them, suggesting wounds so deep as they were incurable.

“That we won, mom”, he said. “We won”.