“Fine,” he said, running his hand through his hair and then clenching the back of his neck. “How about if I just carve ‘Navarro’ on the headboard? That should keep us covered for as many as we need.”
He expected fatherhood to alter his life, adding responsibilities and certain restrictions. But he could not envision it having an effect on his carpentry business. After baby Catalina was born, Miguel found himself veering away from his typical projects to spend time building things for her, starting with toys and furniture and progressing to things she couldn’t possibly use for years.
Finished with her cradle, Miguel added a high chair so that she would someday be able to sit with them at the table. He then built a small set of chairs and a table for her to use when she invited little friends for imaginary tea. He constructed a hobby horse on wheels that she could push around, except he chose to fashion a ram instead of a horse. He took a sun-bleached ram skull with a set of rounded horns that he had seen at Errotabarri, painted the bone a dark color so that it would be less frightening, blunted the horn tips for safety, and attached it to the frame of the toy.
Mendiola always chided Miguel for the sin of overbuilding, saying his projects were created to a shipwright’s tolerance. Partly as a joke for Mendiola, Miguel designed Catalina’s carriage in the shape of a boat. The sides were made of lapstrake oak, and the exposed upper edges were capped like gunwales and joined at the pointed prow. Miguel liked the theme of the little “craft” and was able to show Mendiola how easily it could be pushed with its oversized wheels.
“And this hood can be pulled down for storms at sea, correct?”
“There might be some foul-weather walking involved some days, sure,” Miguel answered. “Why not build it to last? Who knows how many children are going to end up using this thing?”
“And if flooding becomes a problem, Catalina could go for a boat ride instead of a stroll, right?”
“And fish while she’s doing it,” Miguel said.
Soon there was little room to walk through the clutter of furniture in their house. Miren viewed each piece as a family treasure and marveled at her husband’s skills but pointed out the impracticality of storing so much children’s furniture. When she mentioned the surplus to other young mothers she knew, some expressed interest in buying what Miguel had already made or ordering similar pieces for their children.
His business evolved as demand for cabinets and chests and chairs and tables diminished, but the requests for children’s furniture kept him busy. His added touch of routing the family name into each crib or cradle increased interest and allowed him to charge higher prices, as these now were being valued as long-term family possessions. Miguel had to tactfully deny this feature for some patrons. When Cruz Arguinchona asked for a cradle for his baby, Miguel had to break the surname into two parts on the headpiece, which Cruz understood and appreciated. But when Coro Cengotitabengoa ordered a cradle, Miguel told her he would have to carve the name across the headboard, footboard, and both side pieces.
They settled on a nice wood inlay of a lauburu.
Before Catalina was a month old, Miren could scarcely recall a time when she had not been a mother. At night, Catalina would whimper or cry only a few notes before either parent would rise. Miguel often would go to the cradle next to their bed, retrieve Catalina, change and clean her, and then bring her to Miren for feeding. At times Miren would sit in the rocker Miguel had built and nurse while cooing to the baby. Other times she might just double the pillows behind her head and sit up in bed to nurse. Miguel then would wedge his pillow behind him, too, and regardless of the hour and the darkness and how soon he might have to head up into the forest, he watched the sublime connection.
“Astokilo, go to sleep, you don’t have to be awake for this,” she always said to Miguel. “There’s not much you can do to help this process, you know.”
But he always waited until Catalina was finished and had been patted on Miren’s shoulder before taking her back to her cradle. He would kiss her head and smell her feathery hair and the breath of milk she sleepily exhaled. Then he would return to bed, kiss his wife—who often was already back to sleep—and thank her for feeding their baby girl.
In the evenings, Miguel and Miren sat beside each other and babbled at Catalina. After all, there had never been such a child, so intelligent and beautiful and well behaved. Why had no one told them of the wonders of parenthood? “Did you see how she grasped my thumb?” one would say. “That must be a sign of early advancement. Here, watch how her eyes follow my face when I move from side to side. And that smile . . . she will break hearts once she sprouts teeth.”
Miren worked with Catalina on her dance steps before she was able to support her own head. Holding Catalina in the hammock of her skirt, Miren would put her hands out so that Catalina could grasp her thumbs. Miren raised her daughter’s arms over her head and moved them in a gentle rhythm.
“This is how you do a jota,” she said. She then took the baby’s bare feet and kissed the tender arches until Catalina emitted a giggle that sounded like tiny bells. She wiggled her feet as if quick-stepping to a tune.
“You, my dear girl, will be the finest dancer in Guernica one day soon.”
When Catalina saw Miguel over her mother’s shoulder, she began frog-kicking furiously, excited by the sight of him.
“Isn’t that always the case?” Miren said in baby tones. “Papa is for fun; Mama is for food.”
“But we’ll let Mama be responsible for the dance lessons,” Miguel said, also assuming the high pitch of excitement he used to delight his daughter.
The parents soaked in the image of their baby girl, the dark, clear coloring, the wispy black hair and dark almond eyes that were already starting to resemble her mother’s.
It started with Josu Letemendi, a neighbor who helped Alaia Alde-coa gather the scents for her soaps. He enjoyed her company so much that he often chopped wood, stoked the fire, heated the water, and cleaned up. They chatted casually about a number of topics when they walked the fields or as he measured out portions of ingredients for her soap mixtures.
Josu had never been a handsome boy, with a large head bracketed by perpendicular ears. He received little attention from girls at school or at any erromeria. He found himself more at ease around Alaia than he ever had been with the girls of the village, even though she was infinitely more beautiful and exotic.
At times in the cottage it became easier for Josu to simply put a hand on each of Alaia’s shoulders and direct her to a jar or con-tainer holding a specific ingredient she needed. Alaia found herself anticipating those touches. Josu positioned her in front of the milk and a stir-pot one afternoon. Instead of feeling out for her ingredients, Alaia backed up slightly, slowly, so that her back touched his chest.
The bow knot of her apron tie made contact just below his waist. In a moment, he pulled her in, closer, until her hair touched his face.
“Uh . . .” Josu asked permission with a tentative syllable.
“Yes,” Alaia said.
The soaps went unattended for many days.
Within six months, though, Josu was called to Bilbao to work in the taberna of an uncle. He would return to Guernica several days a month to see family and also to help Alaia with her projects, but both knew the distance would keep the relationship from advancing beyond what it had been, a time of joyful discovery.
It was then that Mr. Zubiri stepped in and began helping Alaia, and he, too, soon provided her with a physical outlet that carried no expectations other than touch and secrecy. It was different with the patient and grateful Mr. Zubiri. But it was still fulfilling for Alaia and certainly a highlight for the widower Zubiri. In time, a man who sometimes brought her eggs initiated similar attention.
Alaia became well attuned to the delicacy and timing of human contact. Men were appreciative, and their groaned approval caused her to become more inventive and eager. The partner made little difference to her, and the man’s appearance certain
ly did not affect her. Her visitors learned that the enterprise was not a social function; she had little patience with explanations, commentary, and complaints about former relationships, politics, or the status of crops. She was not available to hear confessions or offer absolution. She accepted trade, services, chickens, eggs, bread, wine, cordwood, or supplies for her soaps.
In a gossipy town that prized fidelity, hers was not a volume business, but there were a few regulars. Alaia’s clientele consisted mostly of widowers, inquisitive strays, and unmarried young men whose thoughts were dictated by flowing sap. Alaia’s arts were largely wasted on the latter, as it was her practice to wash them with warm water and one of her special soaps beforehand, an activity that many times cured the problem spurring the visit in the first place.
If some of the more devout in town heard of Alaia Aldecoa’s activities, they might easily have gathered and burned her out of her home, blindness be damned. But most practiced the more fundamental orthodoxy of pragmatism. Had this been a girl with a full complement of God’s gifts, she would have been reviled, perhaps stoned in the market by the women in town.
It was this matter of need that made her different. If not honorable, Alaia Aldecoa’s position was viewed as excusably practical and was tolerated if not ignored by most of the community. As hints of her activities inevitably seeped into town, she was spoken of as the village soap maker, rarely anything else. How could the chattering amumak ignore a prostitute in their village when a neighbor’s flirtatious glance might trigger de cades of hostility? Because Alaia Aldecoa, relinquished to a convent when her parents discovered she was blind, was one of God’s needy children.
That she could support herself despite impairment was judged slightly more admirable in its enterprise than scornful in its immorality. She was unofficially shunned by many who knew the whispered secret, and they turned away without comment. But most rationalized that the girl was providing relief for widowers and for young men who might otherwise seek out and assault their unsuspecting daughters and granddaughters.
Another factor played into the community’s forbearance: All knew that Justo Ansotegui held her in high regard and would tolerate no demeaning comments. All knew and respected Mariangeles Ansotegui without reserve. And Miren Ansotegui? She was as close to the sightless girl as a sister, and to say something harsh about Alaia would feel like impugning Miren. Few would consider that.
Alaia had no way of knowing how the village had shaped a consensus on her lifestyle, just as she did not fully understand how comforting to men was her lack of sight. It amounted to the gift of anonymity at a time when being unrecognized was a man’s second priority. She knew who they were, most of them, at least. She could tell by their voices, having encountered them at times in the market. But there was never a name, never a discussion, sometimes no talk at all. A man might appear at her door with a plucked chicken, a clutch of eggs, a string of chorizos.
If the man wished to engage in conversation, she had several effective means of causing talk to abruptly cease.
With great ceremony, Justo Ansotegui uncorked the wine and poured small amounts for his wife, daughter, and son-in-law. As the wine burbled through the opening, Justo echoed its sound: “Glug, glug, glug.” New glass. “Glug, glug, glug.”
“This,” Justo announced as he wet a glass for himself, “may be the last bottle of txakoli we see for some time. With the next bottle, we may celebrate the glorious defeat of the Falange pigs.”
“Don’t call them pigs, Papa, that makes me think of food,” Miren said, drawing out “food” as if she could savor the taste of the syllable. It had been months since a pig had been slaughtered in the neighborhood, and Miren’s cows had been sacrificed, one by one, over the previous years. This diet of limited protein created gaunt faces and stooped shoulders among even the town’s most robust citizens.
They took tender sips of the clear, fruity wine to make it last.
Usually at this time, when the first flush of wine had moistened his throat, Justo began telling stories. But Miren did not give her father the chance to start a tale that might take an hour to finish before he finally linked it to an example of his own strength or mystical powers.
“Papa, Miguel is talking about joining the army and I want you to force him to give up the idea,” Miren said.
“He’s a man and I would say you hold more sway over him than I do,” Justo said. “And as for physical force, kuttuna, what good would it be if I returned to you a broken husband?”
“No, I don’t want to join the army,” Miguel stressed, putting down his glass with unexpected force. “I don’t want to fight anybody. I want to be left alone, but I don’t think they’re going to let us.”
“Good man,” Justo said. “I will not let that happen, either.”
“Don’t start that, Papa, he’s a father now,” Miren said, gesturing to Catalina, who was asleep in her carriage. “They’re looking for unmarried men to fight now.”
“Don’t kid yourself, they’ll take whoever they can get,” Mariangeles said. “I want both of you to promise not to do anything stupid.”
“Have we ever done anything stupid?” Justo objected.
“You are men,” Mariangeles said.
All four nodded.
“Papa, Miguel is thinking about trading some work for a rifle; I told him it will only get him in trouble,” Miren said.
Justo agreed with that point. “I had a bad experience with a rifle one time.”
“That’s the same thing Miguel says about berets,” Miren said.
“No, son, you don’t need a rifle, and I don’t need a rifle,” Justo said, clenching his hands as if strangling a thin-necked Fascist. “If anyone sets foot on Errotabarri I won’t need a weapon.”
“That’s probably what Roberto Mezo believed, too,” Mariangeles said.
Miren had heard the reports of atrocities and that there were dangers and threats, but she was helpless to comprehend them. These things happened, but not to her, not here. She was too embarrassed to say this, but she felt that if she could just talk to Franco, sit down with him, she could straighten this all out. She could make him see the importance of stopping the war, especially the fighting against the Basques. She could convince him. He would see her as a human being who deserved to be left unharmed. She could teach him a jota.
“We’ve never invaded anyone else’s territory,” Miren said with an expectation of fairness.
“Xabier has studied these things and told me that when the Romans came, we tolerated them because they built bridges,” Justo said. “We let them stay for a while, build some roads, and then watched them leave when they lost interest.”
“Could the same thing happen with Franco?” Miren asked. “Could he just come in without fighting and nothing would change?” All knew that was not the approach the rebels had taken elsewhere.
Mariangeles saw a clearer reality: “These aren’t Romans, these are Spaniards, and like it or not, we are in Spain, at least as they see it. Franco’s made it clear he wants to be rid of the Basques.”
Justo grew defensive. “We’ve always fought in the woods and the mountains and outsmarted everyone who invaded until what ever it was they wanted from us was not nearly worth the inconvenience of being stabbed in their sleep or being shoved off a mountain trail.”
“Franco is the devil,” Mariangeles continued. “I heard at the market that he had his own cousin executed on the first day of the revolt. And most of the Guardias have fallen in with the rebels now, too. Stopping the Fascists in Spain is something that we might manage. But with the Germans and Italians joining them, and nobody acting very interested in helping us, it’s different; you can’t stab an airplane in its sleep.”
Miguel felt a surge of anger mixed with stubbornness. He began to understand what Dodo had tried to tell him years before, that there would come a time to fight. “Are we supposed to just let them walk in and take over?”
“Some people around here won’t merely sta
nd for it, they’ll welcome it,” Mariangeles reminded him. “There’s Falange in town, you know it. They think if they support Franco it’s the best way to protect themselves. Who do you think turned in Mezo? Most of the priests in Spain are behind Franco. He has the support of the Vatican in Rome.”
Miren was stunned. “The church wants Franco to win?”
“Xabier said that’s true; it’s coming all the way from Rome,” Justo said. “But many of the Basque priests are ignoring the Vatican and supporting the Republican army.”
The four turned their attention to their glasses as Justo poured the last of the wine equally.
Justo raised his glass in a toast to signal the end of the discussion.
“Let us recall one of my favorite sayings,” Justo said. “Neither a tyrant nor a slave . . . a free man I was born, a free man I will die.”
They touched the rims of their wineglasses, which rang delicately inside Errotabarri.
CHAPTER 13
Miguel objected to the tradition because it felt like an act of desecration. But Justo insisted, with Mariangeles and Miren acting as willing conspirators. Catalina was to have her ears pierced, just as Miren had at her age.
Among the many gene tic advantages of being Basque, Justo reminded them, was the presence of gloriously pendant earlobes. The ancients would pierce the tiny lobes of baby girls and adorn them with ornamentation as a declaration of their Basque purity. Never bashful about trumpeting a perceived superiority, they developed a dismissive label for outsiders: “the Stumpy-Ears.” So Mariangeles and her sisters had their ears pierced when they still were in the cradle, and so did Miren. As much as Miren wanted to abide by the custom, she knew she could not perform the operation, leaving the task to Amuma Mariangeles, an experienced hand in the matter.
They gathered at Errotabarri for the ceremony, and Miren laid Catalina on the table, where she wiggled and babbled and stretched her arms up, clenching and reclenching her tiny fingers, trying to instruct these large oblivious beings that she’d rather be held.