Homeland

no sooner had he started walking than he saw me. The Browning gripped in my pocket, and Txato, what does he do, what on earth does he do, he crosses the street and comes straight toward me. The scene wasn't in the script. “Hey, Joxe Mari. You back? I’m glad.” Those eyes, those huge ears, that friendly demeanor. His father’s friend, who used to buy him ice cream when he was a boy. (...) Don't do it. Don't kill him. They had stood mute facing each other. (...) I am a member of ETA and I've come to execute you. But he hadn't told him. It hadn't come out. High above, the bell had chimed a no. This scene, described on page 445, could have been a possible opening for the novel, lending unity, in my view, to the exploration of the consequences—not social and political, but psychological and existential—of a civil war that tore an entire community apart. Instead, Aramburu narrates the individual stories in a disordered fashion, shifting back and forth, trailing the trajectories of single characters as though they were mundane, predictable, run-of-the-mill tales, invigorated only by their connection to that single terrible event. Txato’s murder destroys long-standing bonds of friendship, dictates everyone's life—their emotional ties as well as the material conditions of their existence—and freezes them into roles defined by hatred and grief. Joxe Mari will end up serving a life sentence, condemned to being a hero of the Basque Country’s liberation. His mother, Miren, takes on the role of the fierce, unyielding protector of her persecuted son,

fanaticized by maternal instinct. Miren’s husband and Txato’s best friend retreats into himself; a coward, he conceals his grief over Txato’s death and his disapproval of Joxe Mari’s choices. The other children have fled that cursed land, just as Txato’s children have. They are all

satellites of a murdered man. Whether they wanted it or not, their respective lives had revolved for long years around that crime, around that ceaseless fire of—of what?—fuck, of sorrow, of grief, and this story must end and I no longer know how. Shattering the paralysis of suffering is Bittori, Txato’s widow, with her decision to return to the village and reopen the old house:

a strange atmosphere enveloped the ornaments, the walls, the furniture, a characteristic odor that, without being sickening, was anything but welcoming. And it was the same smell my mother's clothes give off when I hug her. We are past 2011; the civil war is over and everyone would like to forget. The parish priest stops Bittori on the street to urge her not to return to the village,

not to reopen old wounds. The woman’s reply is cutting: she is here

to draw out all the pus that is still inside. Otherwise, it will never heal. Resolute, Bittori will succeed in having Joxe Mari ask her for forgiveness, because only then can there be genuine reconciliation, rather than a craven, omertà-bound oblivion. Bittori’s determination will stir all the other protagonists of the story, who will emerge from their suffering to find themselves once again, finally processing their grief and coming to terms with their destiny.