The Unopened Gift

Dádiva had a phrase she said more often than good morning, and she always said it the same way, with the same smile and the same small drawing back of the body, like someone parrying a blow with practised ease: there was no need.

She said it when she was offered something, and she was offered a great deal, because Dádiva was the one who cared for half the village and the village, in its way, repaid her: a neighbour would bring her eggs in thanks for a few days' company kept with a sick relative, and Dádiva would say there was no need, and would contrive not to take the eggs, or would take them backing away, as if they were hot; someone would thank her with a compliment, would say to her you're an angel, Dádiva, I don't know what would become of us without you, and Dádiva would say there was no need, give over with that, anyone would have done it, and she would return the compliment before feeling it, before letting it in, like someone returning a letter without opening it. This was Dádiva's art, the art of a whole life: to give with both hands and to receive with none, to stand always on the side of the one who offers and never, never, on the side of the one who accepts, because to accept, for her, had a taste she could not bear, the taste of being in debt, the taste of coming down from the place of the one who gives to the place of the one who is in need, and from that place Dádiva fled as one flees a thing that truly does harm.

And it was noticed, in Véspera, that small drawing back of her body when something was offered her, though nobody knew how to read it: it was a half-step backward, a shrug of the shoulders, a way of putting her hands behind her back, the small gestures of one defending herself against a thing coming towards her, and the thing coming was only a dish, a kindness, a thank-you, but Dádiva defended herself against it as against a danger, because to Dádiva it was a danger, the danger of receiving, and her body, which never drew back to give, which always went forward to offer, always drew back to receive, as though receiving and giving were, in her body, two opposite movements, one open and easy, the giving, and another closed and impossible, the receiving.

And it did harm, it is true, though she had never told anyone why, nor herself in words. It came from far off, the harm of receiving, it came from her mother's house, but of that the book will speak further on; for now it is enough to say that Dádiva had reached the age of forty-eight as, in Véspera, the very personification of giving: she cared for the old whose children were far away, she watched over the sick, she ran the errands of those who could not, she carried soup to whoever fell ill, she helped at the births and at the funerals, which are the two ends where a village most needs hands, and she did all of this without charging, without complaint, without ever saying she was tired, with a readiness that seemed to have no bottom and that the whole village took for a blessing, without noticing that a spring which always gives and never receives is not a bottomless blessing: it is a spring emptying itself from within, slowly, and that one day, if no one lets it fill, runs dry.

Dádiva's days were all alike and all full, and full of the same thing: of other people. She rose early, and before thinking of herself she was already thinking of who needed her that day, who was bedridden, who had been left alone, who had a child far off and a sorrow near, and she left the house with the list of others in her head and no place in it for herself. And the list was always long: there was old Aniceto, who had lost his wife and could not fry an egg, and to whom Dádiva went to put the lunch on the fire; there was Romana, bound to a wheelchair since a fall, to whom Dádiva went to open the windows and shift her position so as not to make sores; there was the house of the Tristãos, where the mother had died in childbed and three children and a lost father had been left, and where Dádiva came in as one comes into her own home, washing, mending, combing heads. She went through the village from door to door, giving, doing, tending, and came home at night tired in a way she called good, the tiredness of one who has spent herself entirely on others, and which was, in truth, the tiredness of one who never lets herself be filled, the dry tiredness of a spring that gives without receiving. And the village loved her for this, and said so, and Dádiva grew with the village's love as a plant grows towards the sun, but it was a love from afar, the love one has for whoever serves us, and Dádiva, who had the love of the whole village, had no one's love close, because to have love close one must let someone draw near, and to draw near is to give and to receive, and Dádiva let near only those who came to receive from her, never those who came to give to her.

She had been widowed young. Bento, the husband — his name means blessed — a good and quiet man, a carpenter with good hands, had died some years before of a trouble in the chest that took him slowly, and since then Dádiva's house had grown more silent and she more giving still, as if the giving were the way of not feeling his absence, of filling with others the emptiness he had left, and the village, which noticed everything, said that Dádiva, poor thing, had thrown herself into the service of others so as not to think, and was half right; the other half, which the village did not see, was that Bento had been the only person Dádiva had let, in life, give her something, care for her a little.

And there had been, in his death, a sign of all this that the village had seen and had not known how to read. On the day of Bento's funeral, the neighbour women, who knew Dádiva and loved her in their way, organised themselves, as one organises in Véspera around whoever suffers a loss, and filled the house with food, and wished to stay, wished to keep vigil with her, wished to give her the lap that is given to widows; and Dádiva, on the day she most needed to be held up in all her life, on the day she buried the only man who knew how to receive her, did what she always did: she thanked them, and sent them home. She said go and rest, you have your own lives, I'll be all right, and she stayed alone in the house full of dishes she did not touch, keeping vigil over her husband with no one at her side, because not even in her greatest grief did Dádiva know how to let anyone come to her, and the village remarked, on its way out, that Dádiva was strong, that she bore everything alone, without understanding that that strength was the same loneliness as ever, now dressed in mourning. And Dádiva spent the first night of widowhood alone, on purpose, and she was cold, the cold of feet by the hearth that no one rubbed now, and she put it down to Bento's absence, without seeing that the cold was her own door, shut even on the night she most needed to open it.

And Bento had known how to do it in a way no one else ever had, with the gentle cunning of quiet men, never head-on, for head-on Dádiva always drew back. She remembered, now, a thing he did that at the time had seemed to her only a habit and that was, she understood it late, the whole key: when he saw her tired from a day of caring for others, Bento did not say rest, woman, you do too much, for that was offering and Dádiva refused what was offered; Bento would sit beside her at the hearth, saying nothing, and would begin to rub her feet with his thick carpenter's hands, slowly, in silence, like one doing a thing he himself felt like doing and not a favour for her, and Dádiva, who would have drawn back from a favour, did not draw back from that, because it did not have the face of a gift, it had the face of a habit, and Bento, clever in his way, had discovered that the only way to care for Dádiva was to care for her without it looking like care, was to come in under her wall rather than knock at the door on top. And so, at the hearth, with her feet in her husband's hands, Dádiva, and only with him, and only so, let herself, now and then, be received; and when he died that chink closed, and there died with Bento the only person who knew the way under the wall, and the wall shut for good, with no one on the inside who knew how to open it, and Dádiva's feet stayed cold by the hearth, and she put the cold down to his absence, without understanding that the cold was older than Bento and that Bento had only warmed it, for a few years, without ever having cured it.

There remained her daughter. Estima — esteem — lived nearby, married, with her own life, and loved her mother with a love that had a thorn in it, and the thorn was this: that Estima had never, in all her life, managed to give her mother anything. Everything she tried to give her, Dádiva returned, with the there was no need, with the keep that for yourself, you have your own house, with the I don't need anything, child, and Estima had grown and become a woman with that lack stuck in her throat, the lack of a mother who would let herself be repaid, who would accept from her, at least once, what her mother had given her all her life. Because Estima wanted to repay her mother, not in debt, but in love; she wanted to have, for once, the pleasure of being the one to give, and her mother, with her tireless giving, with her tender refusal of everything, always took that pleasure from her, always left her on the side of the one who receives, which is a good side when there is an exchange, but which hurts when it is the only one they let us hold.

And there was, in Dádiva's house, a sign of all this, a sign that was in plain view of whoever came in and that no one saw because it looked like only an object: on top of a piece of furniture in the front room, against the wall, was a parcel. It was a gift parcel, the paper already a little faded with time, the bow still tied, and it had never been opened. Estima had given it to her mother three years before, at a birthday, and Dádiva had received it, because one does not refuse a present in a daughter's hands in front of others, but she had not opened it there, she had said afterwards I'll open it at my leisure, and the afterwards had not come, and the parcel had stayed on top of the furniture, three years, with the bow tied, waiting for a leisure Dádiva never found, because leisure was not what was lacking: what was lacking was the courage to receive, to unwrap, to see what her daughter had chosen for her with love and to let that love come in, and Dádiva, who opened her door to half the village to give, had not been able to open, for three years, a parcel a daughter had given her, because to open it was to receive it, and to receive was the one thing Dádiva did not know how to do.

Estima saw the parcel each time she went to her mother's house, and each time she saw it she carried in her breast a small stab, the stab of seeing her present unopened, year after year, in the same place, with the same bow, gathering dust; and at first she had asked, mother, won't you open it?, and Dádiva had said I'll open it, I'll open it, leave it be; and then she had stopped asking, because to ask and to hear the leave it be was worse than the silence, and the parcel had become, between the two of them, a thing not spoken of, a wound wrapped in gift paper on top of a piece of furniture, saying, to whoever knew how to read it, all that was left to say between that mother and that daughter, which was that one knew how to give and did not know how to receive, and the other wished to give and was not let, and that the two loved each other over the top of it, but with the parcel always there, closed, between them. And the dust gathered on the bow, fine, and each layer of dust was a month, was six months, was a year, and the parcel grew, from being so still, so faithful to its place, almost a piece of furniture itself, a thing of the house, and Dádiva had nearly stopped seeing it, the way one stops seeing what is always in the same place, and that was the worst of all things, that the daughter's love had stayed still long enough to become invisible, to become part of the furniture, to stop hurting from sheer habit.

That morning, Dádiva had gone early to the house of Brandura — gentleness — an elderly neighbour who had fallen ill and was bedridden. Brandura lived at the top of Cedars' Street, in a small, tidy house of a woman left alone, and Dádiva came in as she always came in, without knocking, for she was already like family, and did what she did, with her usual efficiency: she opened the windows to the morning sun, she shook out the sheets, she changed the bed linen with the patient still in it, with that knack she had of turning a frail body without hurting it, she put water on the fire, she made the broth, she gave it to her by the spoonful, slowly, blowing on each spoonful as one does for a child. And Brandura let her do everything, her eyes set on Dádiva, with an attention Dádiva was not used to receiving, because others, when she served them, thanked her in passing and turned back to their own pain; Brandura did not, Brandura watched her, followed her about the room with her eyes, like one reading. And Dádiva was already on her way out, the bowl in her hand, thinking of the next house, when Brandura, from the bed, took her hand with her weak hand, and held it, and did not let it go, and said a thing Dádiva did not expect and that left her disconcerted: thank you, Dádiva. You let me receive you so well. And Dádiva, who always gave and to whom no one usually said that in that way, with that weight, was already about to answer with the there was no need of always, to draw back her hand, to set down the bowl; but Brandura pressed her hand with the little strength she had, and did not let her draw back, and looked up at her, from the pillow, and added, with the gentle wisdom of those who are bedridden and have time to think and no longer have time to lose: and you, Dádiva, do you let yourself be received by anyone? Or is it only you giving, always? I notice, you know. For weeks now you've come in here, you do everything, and you never sit down. You never let me give you so much as a glass of water. You don't sit down, Dádiva. And whoever doesn't sit down in anyone's house, it's because she lets herself be received nowhere. Because whoever only gives, my child, also wears out the one who loves her. Mind you, to receive is also a present one makes to whoever loves us.

Dádiva left Brandura's house with that phrase stuck in her, and it was the first time in her life that a thing said by a person she had gone to give to stayed turning over inside her own self. To receive is also a present one makes to whoever loves us. She did not understand it at once, or she understood it and pushed it far off, as she pushed everything that came towards her; but the phrase did not go, it stayed, and through the day, while Dádiva did her rounds, the phrase came back, and came back with Estima's face, with the lack stuck in the daughter's throat, with the unopened parcel on top of the furniture, and Dádiva began to feel, without yet knowing how to say it, that perhaps there was a side of generosity she had never seen, a side in which to give too much, and never to let oneself receive, was not the greatest of goodnesses, was a fine way of letting no one draw near, of staying upright, alone, in the high place of the one who gives, with the hand always held out away from oneself and never turned towards receiving.

At night, at home, alone, Dádiva sat in the front room, and her eyes went, as they always went without her meaning them to, to the parcel on top of the furniture. Three years. The faded paper, the tied bow, Estima's present unopened. And Dádiva stayed looking at it in another way, with Brandura's phrase in her head, and she saw, for the first time, not an object she had not yet had the leisure to open, but a portrait of her own self: she saw herself, wrapped, with the bow tied, on top of a piece of furniture of life, for years, waiting for a leisure that did not come, not letting herself be opened by anyone, with the love of others on the outside of the paper, gathering dust. The parcel was she. And what was inside, what her daughter had chosen for her with love three years before, was the proof of a love that she, Dádiva, had not let in, that she had refused without even seeing, that she had set on a piece of furniture to gather dust, as she had set, all her life, all the love others had wished to give her and that she had returned with a smile and a there was no need.

She did not open it that night. Not yet. But for the first time in three years she did not look at it as a deferred task; she looked at it as a question, Brandura's question made object: and you, Dádiva, do you let yourself be received by anyone? And she went to bed with the question, and slept badly, the sleep of one who has seen a thing that had been before her eyes for three years and that only that night, by the light of a phrase said by an old woman in bed to whom she had gone to give, she began at last to see. And in the dark, before falling asleep, she found herself thinking a thing she had never thought: that perhaps it was not leisure she lacked to open the parcel, perhaps it was courage, and that perhaps the courage to receive was a thing that could be learned, as she had learned to give, and that perhaps there was still time, at forty-eight, to learn the other half of what the whole village believed she already knew entire, which was to love.