Pilgrim

  These were good conditions. Other less wealthy or more stinting landowners might leave their people in the hills for as long as four to five months.

  Three days after their first encounter, Teresa de Cepeda rode Picaro out with the horsemen to visit Manolo and to see Las Aguas. She had fallen in love with the landscape, and for all his nearly speechless awkwardness, she missed Manolo’s charming innocence. That was her phrase for it, written in her notebook, which otherwise was filled with prayers, pressed flowers and injunctions against her personal sins—amongst them, levitation. Anything sensational was clearly a sin—unless it had been commanded by His Majesty. To be the centre of a sensational event was to curry favour in other people’s eyes. She had begun to pray in barns and earth closets.

  The horsemen, once they heard of Teresa’s destination, gave her Manolo’s personal supplies and sent her off with them. She was popular with these men, who treated her as a daughter of the house—one of their own.

  Don Pedro’s residence was known as El Cortijo Imponente—the Grand Farmhouse. It was home to five children besides Teresa, and had already sent five others out into the world by means of marriages, seminaries and the army. Two, many years before, had died as infants.

  In all, Doña Aña de Cepeda y Caridad had given birth to twelve children. She was now, as was Don Pedro her husband, in the late forties of her life and, unlike him, was prone to extended periods of melancholy during which she would sit with her rosary in hand, not praying but merely staring off across the meseta at the horizon. She believed, in her deepest states of depression, that the world at large had retreated beyond this place and that, in the end, she would be abandoned by all those she loved and had given birth to and left to die without ever having knelt in the great cathedrals of Madrid or walked in the flowery cloisters of the Alhambra. These were her dreams, and like a child, she often fancied that she would run away to fulfil them.

  Teresa, who loved her aunt well enough, was nonetheless happy to escape her company for a day. It was difficult to watch so many hours being wasted on daydreams—hours that might at least have been spent in contemplative prayer. Doña Aña was too much like Teresa’s own mother in this—too much brooding, not enough doing.

  It was still relatively early when she came to the wood above the lake where she had first encountered Manolo. The eighth hour—perhaps the ninth. This is where she had knelt to pray and had risen into the trees.

  Had that been God’s doing?

  Why should it be?

  Why should His Majesty take any more interest in her than in anyone else? While she believed this was logically so, she nonetheless intended to bring herself to His attention. Though she was well aware His Majesty had greater problems, she was prepared to lecture Him on the subject of Manolo’s limbs. If His eye was on the sparrow, why not on the least of men?

  Teresa, standing now amongst the trees, wondered if a person dared to pray yet again in such a place?

  Had it been the tree—the ground—the wood itself or the sky above that had caused her to rise in Heaven’s direction?

  Levitation—and well she knew it—was the property of saints. And she was not a saint. This she also knew.

  Perhaps it was a trick of diet.

  If one was abstemious—as she often was with much effort—perhaps one was simply overcome by a lack of poundage—or whatever it was that kept one tied to the earth. If one let go, one rose. This made her laugh. I am a kite, she thought, and the wind may have me whenever it chooses.

  Yet she had never seen levitation in her witness of prayer where other people were concerned.

  Picaro was anxious for the waters—but she held him back and got down to wait.

  The cicadas sang.

  The earth tilted. She could feel this.

  There was no cloud—no shade where she stood—no advisory voice saying do this or do that.

  She was alone, but for the burro.

  “Is anyone here?” she said. “Is anyone—someone—here?”

  Bird wings.

  A clatter.

  Teresa looked upward.

  A dove.

  And then a second.

  Baa.

  Sheep voices.

  Sheep sounds—shufflings, wallowings, shakings, rustlings below her in the woods.

  Baa. Baa.

  The voice of God.

  Pray. But she was afraid.

  And yet, every impetus within her—physical, mental and spiritual—pushed her away from the ground. The sinews behind her knees extended, contracted, convulsed. Her legs quavered. Her brain emptied. She lost consciousness.

  When she woke, a bird was singing an exquisite song—one of those curving, long-lined songs that thrushes sing. But the bird itself was not visible. And besides, Teresa’s vision was clouded. She had both risen and fallen, and where she had fallen there were leaves, pine needles and the detritus of last year’s undergrowth.

  I could lie here forever, she thought, with my cheek against this earth. I could lie here forever and simply become a part of it—a fusion—a mix—a blending, like all dead things…I am corruptible and one day will be corrupted by this soil.

  She smiled and gave a sigh. Picaro stepped forward and nudged her shoulder with his muzzle.

  “All is well,” she told him. “I’m alive.”

  His muzzle was soft as velvet. His breath was sweet as the grass he had eaten. His eyes were full of concern.

  Below her amongst the trees, the sheep were mumbling, their lambs kicking dust. Teresa tucked her legs beneath her and knelt.

  It had been thought on more than one occasion when she had fainted that she had died. She had lain so still that whether she breathed or not could not be told. As for herself, there was no sense of time or of place during these trances. She was nowhere. That was her word for it: nowhere. Somewhere in between life and death, where there is no sensation and no awareness.

  I am alive, she said to God. I thank Your Majesty for life.

  She crossed herself and stood up. “Come,” she said to Picaro. “Let us go to the water.”

  Manolo’s supplies—and her own bread and wine—were in saddlebags straddling the blanket on Picaro’s back. This is where Teresa sat when she rode him. A saddle was not appropriate for a burro. No one used one. Most people rode them bareback, but Teresa liked to think that Picaro might appreciate the blanket. Besides, it was colourful, with its scarlet field and its yellow stripes. It was not unlike having a banner or a flag.

  There was no need to lead the burro once Teresa had turned his head towards the bottom of the hill.

  It was cool beneath the trees and the sheep were dispersed in such a way that one could make a path between those who rested and those who browsed. They seemed entirely imperturbable. A person could come and go, almost as God could come and go, unremarked but absolutely present.

  “Picaro, Picaro, shoo-shoo-shoo,” Teresa whispered. The burro’s hooves might have been made of cloth. The only sound was the sound of his weight on the earth and the wavering kiss of leaves along his flanks as the branches parted, made way and fluttered, newly dusted, back into their tangled order. If the sheep looked up, it was only to see the gathered skirts of one intruder and the switching tail of the other. The light was all of gold and green and the smell of leaf mould, animal breath and trampled dung.

  At the bottom of the descent, where the trees stepped back towards the hill, there was a water-cooled breeze and the scent of yesterday’s campfire.

  “Manolo?”

  There was no sign of him. Nor of Perro. This was clearly unacceptable, since it meant the sheep were unattended, something she assumed Manolo would not allow.

  “Manolo? Manolo?” Teresa called somewhat louder.

  Pulling the saddlebags and the blanket from Picaro’s back, she slapped him gently on the rump and he descended farther towards the water.

  A covey of ducks lay basking in the shade on the opposite shore. The cicadas were silent and would remain so until the
sun had reached its zenith in three hours’ time. A beast, perhaps a weasel or a stoat, brought her young to drink beside the weir, at first sliding down alone to the water’s edge like the shadow of a disembodied hand. She looked up briefly at the woman on the other shore and the burro in the shallows and whistled that all was well. Her children—three of them—slid forward to join her. Having drunk, she sat up, gleaming in the sunlight, while her brood bent in towards the water. There was not a sound.

  Teresa dared not move until they had finished. But where could Manolo be? All these sheep and no shepherd. If he had been a dog, she could have whistled for him—the way that beast had done to summon her young. She would not have had to call his name. He would simply have come.

  Would he be naked again this day? Against her will, she conjured him standing stilled below her, the way she had seen him first from her place in the tree. Men are not meant to be beautiful, but are, she thought. The nuns preached otherwise. Thou shalt not dwell upon the image of man lest the image tempt you with its form.

  The very word tempt was meant to invoke the Devil. Darkness. Evil. But Sister, Teresa had queried, is not man made in the image of God?

  This question had produced much blushing and stammering. “Yes, yes, yes.” And: “no, no, no. You do not understand. Man is carnal. God is not. God is Spirit. It is man’s spirit that is created in the image of God, not his body.”

  Ah. Yes. And well…Smile.

  Why are we taught to lie? Teresa wondered. God does not want us to look away. God wants us to see.

  “Manolo?”

  Still no answer.

  Teresa, noting that the beast at the weir had departed with her children, went to where Manolo had built his fire the night before in a circle of rocks. A pit had been dug and even now, there was a residue of warm ash.

  “Manolo!” This time, she called across the water.

  Picaro climbed to the embankment and shook himself.

  “Manolo?”

  No response. Teresa listened.

  There was someone coming. From where? Someone walking on dead leaves.

  “Manolo?”

  Teresa turned back towards the trees. The sound must be coming from there—behind her. But she was deceived. It came from across the river.

  Picaro snorted. Something or someone fell or was pushed into the water. Teresa turned again.

  On the far shore, a horseman rode away beneath the trees. She had no time to see his face. Nor even the colour of his clothes.

  Manolo lay, apparently unconscious, on the other side, the lower half of his body submerged, the upper half lying back.

  Teresa did not know how to swim. She was afraid of water. Hitching her skirts, she ran to the weir.

  Manolo appeared to have been hit on the head. Also, the backs of his hands were bleeding. There was blood on his shirt and on his trousers and his sticks lay broken beside him. There was no sign of Perro. Nor any sound of him.

  Teresa did not know what to do.

  Suddenly, she began to run—retracing her steps across the weir to the far side, where she gathered Picaro’s halter in her hand and led him back to where Manolo lay half in, half out of the water. He was breathing. Still alive. But how to get him onto Picaro’s back? If one could only make him rise…

  Pray.

  Pray?

  Teresa manœuvred Picaro into a position roughly parallel to Manolo’s and knelt in the dust beside him. “Your Majesty…” No. Say nothing. Prayer is not words.

  Teresa fell silent. Her eyes were open. She rarely prayed with them closed. If His Majesty should appear, one must see Him.

  The shepherd did not rise. But Teresa did. Reaching down, she caught Manolo by the collar of his already torn shirt and began to lift him to his feet. He seemed to be lighter than air itself. She laid him face down along Picaro’s back, his legs and arms hanging on either side.

  When she recovered herself, Teresa was barely aware of having risen from her knees, and was standing at Picaro’s head. Her hand was on his halter.

  “Come,” she said. “We shall go.”

  Together, they walked out over the weir and for the briefest moment stopped at its centre. Teresa looked along the lake to its nether end. There were the pelicans, yellow and dusted, placid in the shallows. There were also three deer—a doe and two fawns—who had come to drink.

  A kingfisher hurried forward—dove—and failed to make a catch.

  A distant halloo informed Teresa that others were in the valley—the retiring horsemen, more than likely, with whom she had journeyed out that morning from El Cortijo Imponente. Also, at some farther distance, the barking of a dog.

  Perro?

  The heat was oppressive—wet. Whatever one wore stuck first to one’s skin and then to itself. To move was to walk through a waterfall.

  A fish jumped. Lucky fish. At least she would be cool in her depths.

  Teresa pulled at Picaro’s halter and they moved along farther to the sheltered embankment and into the shade of the trees.

  It was relatively easy to achieve Manolo’s descent. His limp body offered no resistance. It simply fell. As he lay on the ground, Teresa examined his wounds. He had been struck on the head, perhaps by someone using his own sticks to beat him—and his hands had the look of having been stepped upon by someone wearing boots.

  “Manolo?”

  He did not stir.

  Teresa tore off the hem of her gown and went to the water, where she wrung it out several times to rid it of its golden dust. She then washed Manolo’s head and hands and made a lap for him.

  In twenty minutes or so he began to recover his senses. “Thee,” he said, but nothing more.

  Picaro moved away until he stood entirely beneath the trees.

  Manolo’s arms and legs regained their lives in a series of spasms that flung them in all directions, one hand striking Teresa in the face. When he had quietened, he lay in a position reminiscent of a soldier standing at attention while lying on his back.

  “What has happened?” Teresa asked him. “And where is Perro?”

  At first, Manolo was almost speechless, but finally his jumble of words began to have meaning. A number of horsemen—three?—three hundred?—had ridden out of the opposite wood, crossed the river and stolen two sheep and five lambs. (Manolo used his fingers to count them off.) Of course, he and Perro had attempted to prevent the thefts, but there were too many adversaries and these, being on horses, were all too easily able to overwhelm him.

  One of the horsemen had dismounted and driven Manolo to the ground, where he kicked him and beat him with the handle of a sword.

  And Perro?

  He too had been kicked and then the horsemen had repeatedly attempted to trample him, but each time, their mounts had instinctively managed to manœuvre their hooves around the frantic animal beneath them. The last that Manolo knew was that Perro had run into the lake, trying without success to pursue the marauders. Manolo himself had caught hold of one of the horse’s tails and had been dragged partway through the woods opposite. He could not remember what had happened next.

  As Teresa had witnessed, one of the marauders had pulled him back to the shores of Las Aguas and left him there before rejoining his fellows.

  Manolo was devastated. He would lose his job. He would never work again. He would die. Above all, he wanted Perro to be returned to him.

  Teresa attempted to console him. The dog, the sheep and the lambs were gone. It was not in the order of things that they should be returned.

  “I want my dog!” Manolo cried. “I want my dog!”

  It was noon. Teresa spread Picaro’s blanket like a tent above them, using a forked stick to support its farther end. Then she sat, with Manolo’s head in her lap.

  The remaining sheep retreated deeper into the woods. Picaro stood with his back against a tree. The birds fell silent. The cicadas sang.

  Teresa prayed. Only concentration. No words. Remember this.

  She fanned Manolo’s face with her
notebook. Time passed. An hour. Another hour. The cicadas began to sing again. The flies came.

  Teresa went on fanning.

  Picaro stamped his impatience, switching his tail, and then went to the other side of his tree where perhaps the breeze might drive the flies away. But there was no breeze. There was only the merciless sun and stillness.

  All at once, there was the sound of a splash. Teresa glanced towards the opposite shore. The water shimmered, blinding. She squinted, but had no hand to wipe the sweat from her eyes. One hand held the fanning notebook, the other the stick that supported her canopy.

  Something was out there in the heat haze. A mirage—a figure seemingly floating above the water, melting above the reeds…

  “Manolo.”

  Manolo opened his eyes. Teresa dropped the notebook and pushed at his shoulders until he sat.

  “Look,” she whispered, “someone is coming.”

  A golden head could be seen. A streaming in the sunlight. A lifting of something alive. Of eyes.

  Of Perro.

  When the dog came ashore and had shaken himself, he loped—tail wagging—straight into Manolo’s flailing arms. In spite of his wetness, there was matted blood on his ribs—but he seemed otherwise unharmed. He lavished kisses of such extravagant generosity on Manolo’s cheeks that Teresa burst out laughing.

  “Such a celebration!” she cried. “One should come home more often!”

  Some moments later, Manolo looked up at her and said: “thou hast done this, Doña hermosa—beautiful lady. Thou hast done this—thee and thy God.”

  Looking into his face in that moment, Teresa was alarmed. What she saw there was a reflection of her own desire to see His Majesty—and she knew that in Manolo’s eyes, she was that selfsame figure incarnate, as though she had been transfigured. The thought, he thinks I am God, raised itself and left her breathless.