Guernica

  Each mock lover assumed that Miren had prepped the other on how important it was that they hit it off well. Both had been amused by her concerns.

  “You two . . . I was about ready to jump in and break it up.”

  “You threatened us that we had to get along; we thought this would make you happy,” Alaia said.

  They hugged politely once more, as a legitimate greeting.

  “I expected you to smell like Miren,” Miguel said.

  “That kind is only for her. That’s the Miren blend.”

  “Alaia, remind me to get more for my mother,” Miren asked. “You won’t believe this, but my father is using it now, too. He said it reminds him of my mother during the day. It doesn’t actually suit him, but it’s an improvement over what we were used to when he rarely even bothered to bathe. He’s always saying, ‘Ah, that Alaia; that girl has powers.’ ”

  “I think as long as we keep it in the family it will be fine. Miguel, I haven’t heard, have you met her father?”

  “Yes. It was a very interesting evening.”

  “You weren’t frightened off?”

  “At least not for now,” Miguel said. “But I’m staying alert.”

  They visited over the afternoon meal, and by the time they’d finished telling stories, and Alaia and Miguel had shared every amusing anecdote they could remember about the girl they both loved, Miren was able to relax. No, it didn’t appear there would be problems between Miguel and Alaia.

  CHAPTER 10

  José María Navarro moored the Egun On at a high-tide pier near Guernica and boarded his gleeful lading: a love-flushed son spliced to his luminous prospective bride. Miguel led Miren aboard, holding her hand for balance, and they made the voyage without surrendering taction at any point; there was always a steadying hand on a shoulder or around a waist. It wasn’t until he sighted the seaward crest of San Nicolas Island, with its white belt of breaking waves, that Miguel realized that he had been so busy introducing Miren, bragging about her to his father, and pointing out features of the boat that he had completed the trip without growing nauseous.

  “Goodness, young lady, you’re as pretty as your mother,” Jo-sepe Ansotegui announced when Miren and Miguel entered her uncle’s home, not more than five paces across the street from where Miguel grew up.

  “Now, that is the nicest compliment I could ever get,” Miren said, hugging her uncle.

  “It’s true; you’re lovely, and our friend Miguel is a fortunate man,” Josepe said. “Tell us, has your mother grown sick of that brother of mine yet?”

  “She’s hiding it well.”

  The Navarros hosted a meal that evening for both families. At dinner, in respect of grace, José María and Josepe simultaneously removed their berets, revealing identical coloring: brown creased necks, wind-ruddy cheeks, and an abrupt line of stark white scalp above their ears—created by the unvarying positioning of their berets—which looked like snow above the tree line in the high Pyrenees.

  Many toasts of wine were lifted, and afterward, Miguel sought to make an introduction of Miren through town, starting at the cafés and tabernas along the wharf. The couple drew people to them. None had seen Miguel since he left Lekeitio; all asked of his current activities and praised his fortune in landing a bride.

  Many sought to replay their account of his final night in Lekeitio, an encounter Miguel had never shared with Miren. She tactfully distanced herself from these conversations, visiting about small matters with the girls in the group while inconspicuously keeping an ear turned toward Miguel’s responses. Miguel quickly discouraged such talk, not knowing who could hear, or even who among this group might be willing to report his return to the Guardia Civil, who would be delighted to give Miguel their own brand of homecoming welcome.

  Miguel was then probed on the whereabouts of Dodo: “Don’t know, haven’t heard from him; maybe he’s gone to America to herd sheep.” It had become a common practice for fishermen to move to the mountains of the American West. His neighbor, Estebe Mure-laga, wrote to many of them from Idaho. He knew nothing of sheep but already had saved enough money to start his own flock. Of course, no one believed Miguel’s feigned ignorance; he and Dodo had been too close for him not to know where he had gone. But no one pressed him.

  When Miguel and Miren completed their stroll of the wharf, they kissed in the empty street, under the lamps that used to illuminate Miguel’s predawn walks to mass. He asked her to go to her uncle’s second-floor hall window before she went to bed. When she arrived, Miguel was already in the opposite window of his house, reaching out, thrusting and retracting the laundry line.

  “So, there are things about your past that you have forgotten to inform me of,” Miren said.

  “There are a few, yes, but only because I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

  “That the man I’m about to marry has a taste for lawlessness—yes, that’s something that might have interested me.”

  “Trust me, it was not the great drama that everyone wants to make of it.”

  Inadvertently, they each pulled the line in their direction when they listened.

  “Should I know, though, if somebody was hurt?” she asked.

  “Yes, somebody was hurt. Although it was nobody important, and I didn’t come out of it that well, either.” Miguel wiggled his jaw with his hand.

  “Could you still be in trouble?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Could they throw you in prison?”

  “They throw anybody in prison these days.”

  “But you?”

  “It depends how good their memories are.”

  “Should we get out of town?”

  “Tomorrow will be soon enough; I think we’re safe.”

  “Is anyone safe?”

  “If they haven’t tracked us down by now I think we’re fine.”

  “Us? I may assume that you were involved with the mythical brother Dodo?”

  “Yes, you may.”

  “And I may assume that it was this mythical brother who started the trouble and you somehow got tangled up in it?”

  “I’ll take responsibility for myself, so don’t assume too much.”

  “When will I get to meet this mythical brother?”

  “That, kuttuna, I don’t know.”

  “And will I like this Dodo?”

  “You will be amused. I know that he will like you a great deal.”

  “Oh, how can you be so sure?”

  “Because he will likely try to steal you from me.”

  “Asto, that will never happen.”

  “Good, I wouldn’t want to have to get violent with my own brother. He is already too willing to get into scrapes.”

  The shuttling of words and rope ceased for a moment as a heavy woman huffed along in a halting gait up the small street beneath them. She looked up at them as she passed, smiled, shook her head side to side over the follies of youth, and trod along toward home. Miren dipped her head to the side so that her braid swung around her shoulder and settled in front of her. She removed the red ribbon from the bottom of the braid, kissed it, tied it to the line, and sent it over to Miguel to hold for the night.

  “I know it’s silly, but you can keep this tonight,” Miren said. “I love you.”

  “Good night.” Miguel put the ribbon in his pocket. “I love you, too.”

  Come October, they’d be married, and these two families would be connected by means more substantial than a laundry line.

  Working alone at the upper edge of the oak habitat, Miguel felled timber through the morning and early afternoon, and with his borrowed mule skidded the logs back downhill to the small sawmill at the end of the day. Lately he found himself pausing more, though not from fatigue, because the logging had made him stronger and better conditioned. The stringy muscles that made him such an effortless swimmer were now knotted from the sawing and bucking of hardwood oaks. No, his breaks from work now were caused by a persistent inclination to take inventory.

&nb
sp; Encircled by the oaks, Miguel listened to the squirrels, who spoke only consonants, clacking their series of high-pitched hiccups. From the rocks came the soft, comforting gargle of doves, always in pairs, peaceful and mutually attentive. They had only the one muffled song, but it was a ballad that Miguel found soothing.

  The early fall haze of firewood smoke in the valley generally softened the sun in the morning until the midday breezes swept the air clean. Higher, he could see how the mountains overlapped and were tinted a progression of green to blue to gray to ghostly in the distance. From the mountainside, he saw cotton fluffs of sheep speckle the felt meadows. Haystacks spread shadows in the after-noon light, and the roof tiles of the houses reflected like the scales of a red mullet.

  In the marshlands by the estuary, flights of storks flashed their stark-white wings while banking in unison to alight. He had always bragged of Lekeitio as beautiful, but there the eye was treated to either the sea or the shore, with none of the subtle mood changes of these mountains. Yes, there was San Nicolas Island and the beautiful beaches next to the harbor. But fishermen rarely spend time relaxing on a beach; it feels too much like being on the threshold of work.

  Scanning the terrain, Miguel flushed at the memory of the first time he brought Miren to this hillside. Moments before sunset, she stood in a patch of spiky purple fireweed blooms, her hair taken by the breeze just as the plants dipped and bowed. He closed his eyes to fix the image in his mind. When he looked at her again, she held a bloom in her hands and was smiling back at him as if she had read his mind. He always suspected she had that power.

  The mule whiffled, causing Miguel to refocus. He thought of his brother. Could Dodo attend the wedding? Anything could happen with Dodo. But it would be unwise for him to visit now. Miguel snorted a laugh, imagining Dodo being chased down the church aisle by Guardia officers, ducking between pews, hiding in confessionals.

  But what a surprise I have for my father, Miguel thought: I’m now an eager fisherman.

  Earlier in the summer, Justo had taken Miguel into the mountains nearby “to have a talk.” Miguel feared it would be a lecture about another distasteful tradition of the baserritarrak. When they dipped into a glade shaded by alders and cottonwoods, Justo pulled from his pocket some light fishing line and a sack of grubs he had gathered from the plowed garden.

  “What’s this all about?” Miguel asked.

  “I am going to teach the fisherman to fish,” Justo announced.

  With line pitched and retrieved by hand, they floated fat grubs across the stream. In a pool dammed by a windthrow alder, the grubs attracted thick, firm trout. With each catch, Justo shouted so fiercely the sound tumbled across the hillside. In those moments, through all the hair and the mustache and bombast, Miguel could see exactly who Justo had been as a boy. Mimicking his technique at another pool downstream, Miguel soon had half a dozen trout pulled up on the streamside as well. Each time they landed a fish, they unleashed screams of success.

  Justo cut an alder branch and wove the switch through the gills and mouths of the trout as a stringer to carry them back to Errota-barri.

  “One question,” Miguel said. “Do we clean these fish with a knife or do we have to start chewing their guts out?”

  Justo let loose his loudest shriek of the day.

  “You can use a knife, son. But I am glad to know that you listen to my stories.”

  Miguel realized that this was Justo’s first use of the word “son” while speaking to him.

  “You have to tell me now, Justo, considering I’m marrying your daughter and I’ve treated her honorably, and hopefully have earned your trust . . . do you really chew the balls off sheep?”

  Belly laughs again. “Are you insane, boy?” Justo said. “I tried it one time because I heard the old-timers talk about it and I thought I should just see if it worked. But it was disgusting. Imagine it. Why would anybody in the world want to put their mouth down there? And if you think the ram is just going to stand there and allow someone to bite off his balls, you are very much mistaken.”

  Miguel cringed at the image.

  “Josepe was trying to hold him by his horns and Xabier had his back legs, and when I got anywhere near down there, that ram was kicking and squealing. Those old-timers must have taken honing stones to their teeth, too, because I had to gnaw for five minutes to get just one of them off. I came away looking like I’d been in a knife fight, and Josepe and Xabier couldn’t breathe for all their laughing. They had been rooting for the ram all the while. I used a knife to do the second one, and you’ve never seen a ram so happy to have a pelota removed that way.”

  Miguel, himself out of breath from laughing at Justo’s story, used his shirt sleeve to wipe his eyes. “And you say you don’t lie about these things.”

  “I never said anything about lying; I told you that I don’t exaggerate,” Justo said. “I’ll bet I’ve told you that ten thousand times.”

  Both grinned as they headed off down to the valley, each holding an end of the branch.

  “It makes a good story, though, does it not?”

  “It’s not one that I will forget soon.”

  The mule whiffled once more, causing Miguel to suspend his recollection. He was taken by a warm emotion that felt like nostalgia, except it regarded events yet to happen. He imagined so many years ahead, working at his craft, being married to Miren, raising a family here. He looked across the valley again; there was time for one more drink from his canteen before skidding the logs down to the mill.

  Aguirre hurried between the parallel rows of trees in front of the Basilica de Begoña, cigarette smoke trailing him as if it were coming from a train’s engine. He slipped into the rectory after midnight, looking for wine and a priest’s confidence, finding Father Xabier rehearsing and polishing his Sunday presentation.

  Xabier poured Madeira.

  “Here, I brought you something,” Aguirre said, sliding a book across the table. It was by his favorite poet, Lauaxeta.

  “New Directions,” Xabier said, reading the title. “I hope it’s a map to better times.”

  They touched glasses.

  “I doubt it,” Aguirre said. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “What? Is there more Madrid can do after canceling our elections and revoking our tax rights, and—”

  “It’s a miner revolt in Asturias,” Aguirre interrupted. “They brought in Franco to end it. He did.”

  Xabier leaned in, inviting elaboration.

  “Torture and executions . . . killing men and women in the town whether they were strikers or not.”

  “Were they Socialists—the strikers?”

  “I suppose,” Aguirre said. “Socialists, Anarchists, Reds . . . probably just a lot of workers sick of their conditions.”

  “I follow this. I try to study the politics. And I get these regular updates from you. But I’m having a harder time sorting through who’s responsible for anything anymore. I get more and more parishioners wanting me to explain it to them every day. But I’m helpless.”

  Aguirre nodded, finished his wine, and tried to simplify it for his friend. He started several times, halted, and finally admitted: “Father, I’m not sure I even understand everything that’s happening. Either we don’t get the news, or it’s been twisted in the telling. And it all seems to change from week to week, region to region. The alliances shift, parties change their names, and I’m confused all over again. I can only imagine what it’s like for the farmer out in the country or the worker down in the mine.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not very comforting,” Xabier said.

  “All I know for certain is that everywhere else on the continent where there’s been a power struggle like this, it’s made it easier for the Fascists to take over.”

  A brace of tan oxen, cloaked in sheepskin shawls, with flower garlands threaded through their horns, led the pro cession. Neck bells ringing as they stepped in unison, they pulled a two-wheeled cart bearing Miren’s dowry and possessions. Cop
per pots clanged as the cart rumbled across the cobbles. A wood-and-leather fire bellows, attached by one handle, made small syncopated exhalations whenever the cart bounced. A large crucifix destined for the bedroom wall was propped reverentially in one corner, with a heavy rosary draped around its vertical axis like a necklace on a scarecrow.

  Players of the txistu, drum, and tambourine followed, adding musical form to the rising clatter. The pro cession followed in pairs, not unlike the oxen: Miren and Miguel, her parents, his parents, family members, and then friends, with each woman carrying a wicker basket of presents or flowers.

  Given the increasing difficulty of the times, the gifts were mostly handmade or homegrown, sometimes as ornate as heirloom embroidery, sometimes as simple as a fresh skein of wool that might have been newly spun and dyed a pleasing color.

  Miguel would not be able to recall much of Father Xabier’s wedding mass and nuptial readings, as he was focused almost entirely on Miren. Mrs. Arana had made her dress of white satin, with pearl beads decorating the tailored Basque bodice that accentuated Miren’s slender waist. At the lowest point of the bodice in the back, just before it gave way to the spreading skirts, Mrs. Arana had embroidered a small silver butterfly, in honor of the nickname she had given Miren. Miguel saw the butterfly, and his mind was continually drawn to it.

  With his brother Dodo unavailable for duty, Miguel enlisted his father to be his witness, a position he proudly filled for several reasons: He could not have been happier for his son, but he also delighted in assisting the witness for the bride, Alaia Aldecoa, down the aisle to the altar. For weeks, Mariangeles and Miren had taken Alaia to Arana’s, where they selected fabric, executed repeated fittings, and constructed her first tailored garment. It, too, had a tight waist, on the theme of Miren’s dress, but it was an autumn rust color, and it served to flatter Alaia’s lighter hair and generous figure.

  Father Xabier’s message included personal references to Miren and a tribute to the powerful marriage bond between Justo and Mariangeles that had shaped her. Xabier smiled at them as he spoke; Justo grinned beneath his mustache.