“I don’t think it will be easy.”
“Why not?”
“Because all the older documents are in the basement archive; they went through the parish records during the war and now they’re all disordered. We’d have to reorganize everything that’s down there, but the archbishop doesn’t want to send me a younger curate who knows about archives and I’m not as young as I was and can’t think about organizing so many papers and documents, and of course I’m not going to let you just rummage through them all.”
“I’m not promising anything, but I could ask my Aunt Marta to see if she might want to help the parish and hire a librarian or an archivist to help put things in order...”
“That’s all very well, but I don’t think your Aunt Marta would care very much about the parish documents. Anyway, we hardly see her round here.”
“Well, I’ll ask her, there’s no harm trying.”
Father Antonio looked at me thankfully. He was a gentle man, one of those priests whose kindness justifies the existence of the Catholic Church.
“God bless you!” he exclaimed.
“But I would like you to let me look for my grandfather’s baptismal certificate in the meantime. I promise I won’t look at any document that doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m looking for.”
The old priest looked at me intently, trying to read the truth of my assertions in my eyes. I held his gaze while I composed my face into its best smile.
“All right, I will let you go into the cellar, but you must give me your word that you will only look for your grandfather’s baptismal certificate and not start poking around... I trust you.”
“Thank you! You’re a wonderful priest, the best one I’ve ever met,” I said thankfully.
“I don’t think you know that many priests, you don’t come to church that often either, so the odds are in my favor,” Father Antonio replied ironically.
He took the keys to the cellar and led me down a staircase that was hidden beneath a trapdoor in the sacristy. A bulb hanging from a wire was the only light in this damp place, which needed, like the dome of the church, a thorough restoration. It smelled like some shut-up place and it was cold.
“You’ll have to show me where I need to search.”
“It’s a bit of a mess down here... When was your grandfather born?”
“I think 1935...”
“Poor child! Right on the eve of the Civil War. A bad time to be born.”
“Well, no time is great,” I replied, just to say something, but I immediately realized I had said something stupid because Father Antonio gave me a severe look.
“Don’t say that! You, of all people! Young people today don’t know how lucky they are, you think it's normal to have everything... That’s why you don’t appreciate anything,” he grumbled.
“You’re right... I said something stupid.”
“Yes, my son, you said something stupid.”
Father Antonio went from one side of the room to the other looking at archive boxes, rummaging through boxes lined up against the wall, opening trunks... I let him look around and hoped he would tell me what to do. In the end, he pointed out three boxes.
“I think that this is where the baptismal records of those years are kept. Of course, there were babies who were baptized a long time after they were born, I don’t know if that’s the case with your grandfather. If you don’t find it here, we’ll have to look in the boxes.”
“I hope I’m lucky enough to find it...”
“When are you going to start?”
“Straight away, if you don’t mind.”
“Well, I have to go and prepare for midday Mass. When it’s over, I’ll come down to see how you’re getting on.”
I stayed alone in that mournful cellar, thinking that I would more than earn Aunt Marta’s three thousand euros.
I spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon looking through the baptismal record, a book yellow with age, but found no sign of my grandfather Javier.
By five in the afternoon my eyes were unbearably itchy; also, my stomach was rumbling so loudly that I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I went back to the sacristy and found a lay sister who was folding the altar cloths, and asked for Father Antonio.
“He’s resting in the rectory; there’s no Mass until eight o’clock. He told me that if you turned up then I should tell you. If you want to see him, go out through this passage and knock at the door you come to. The church is connected to Father Antonio’s quarters.”
I thanked her for her directions, although I knew the way very well already. I found the priest with a book in his hands, but he appeared to be dozing. I woke him up to tell him that my search had been a failure, and asked his permission to come back early the next day. Father Antonio told me to be there at seven thirty, before the first Mass of the day.
That night I called Aunt Marta to ask her to make a donation to the church of San Juan Bautista. She got cross with me for asking, angry that I didn’t have more consideration for the way the family’s money was spent. I tricked her by saying that I thought Father Antonio was vital to the investigation and that we needed to keep him happy in order to make him collaborate. I thought that the poor priest would have been upset to hear me talk like that about him, but there was no other way I could have convinced Aunt Marta. She cared little about Father Antonio’s goodness and the difficulty he was having keeping his church afloat. So I convinced her that she should at least make a donation to help repair the dome.
It was not until four days later that I found my grandfather’s long-sought baptismal certificate. I was upset, because at first I thought it was not what I was looking for.
Even taking into account that my grandfather had changed his maternal surname to a more common one, Fernández, it took me some time to realize that this Javier Carranza was the man I had been searching for.
It is true that the names Carranza and Garayoa are not very common, even less so in Madrid, but even so I nearly overlooked it because of the name Garayoa on the certificate. But now I knew that my grandfather’s mother was named Amelia Garayoa Cuní.
I was surprised that she had one Basque and one Catalan surname. A strange mixture, I thought.
I took the photograph that Aunt Marta had given me out of its envelope, as if the image of the young woman could confirm, somehow, that she was indeed that Amelia Garayoa Cuní who appeared on my grandfather’s baptismal certificate as his mother.
That young woman in the photograph was very attractive, or maybe that’s what I thought because I had already decided that she really was my great-grandmother.
I read the entry in the register of baptisms several times until I had convinced myself that it was what I was looking for.
“Javier Carranza Garayoa, son of Santiago Carranza Velarde and Amelia Garayoa Cuní. Baptized on November 18, 1935, in Madrid.”
Yes, there was no room for doubt, this was my grandfather and this Amelia Garayoa was his mother, who had abandoned her husband and her son to run away, or so it seemed, with a sailor.
I felt pleased with myself, and told myself that I had now earned my aunt’s first three thousand euros.
Now I had to decide whether to share my discovery with her or to carry on with my research before I revealed our relative’s name to my aunt.
I asked Father Antonio to let me photocopy the page on which my grandfather’s baptism was recorded, and after promising faithfully that I would return the book as soon as possible, and in perfect condition, I left.
I made several copies. Then it was I who exacted a promise from Father Antonio that he keep the original book under careful guard, but easily accessible in case I should need it again.
I knew my great-grandmother’s name: Amelia Garayoa Cuní. Now I had to find out something about her, and I thought that the first thing to do was to look for a member of her family. Did she have brothers? Cousins? Nephews?
I had no idea whether the name Garayoa was very common in Ba
sque country, but I knew that I should go there as soon as possible. I would call all the Garayoas I could find in the phonebook, but I hadn’t yet decided what I would tell them... If they answered the phone, that is.
But before I left, I thought I should look at the Madrid phonebook. After all, my great-grandmother had lived here, had married a man from Madrid. Perhaps she had family...
I didn’t expect to find anything, but to my surprise I found two Garayoas in the Madrid phonebook. I wrote down their phone numbers and addresses while I thought about how to proceed. Maybe I should call them. Maybe I should just turn up at their houses to see what would happen. I decided on the second course of action, and was determined to try my luck with the first address the next day.
2
The building was in the Barrio de Salamanca, the rich part of Madrid. I spent a little time walking up and down the street, trying to get every detail of the building into my mind, and above all to see who was coming and going, but all I managed to do in the end was attract the attention of the doorman.
“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked aggressively.
“Well, no... or yes, I suppose. Well, look, I don’t know if the Garayoas live here.”
“And who are you?” he wanted to know, and his question made me realize that there must be some Garayoas here.
“A relative, a distant relative. Could you tell me which of the Garayoas live here?”
The doorman looked me up and down in an attempt to convince himself that I was the kind of person to whom he could give this information, but I didn’t manage to dispel his doubts by my appearance alone, so I showed him my identity card. The man looked at it and handed it back straight away.
“You’re not named Garayoa...”
“Garayoa was my great-grandmother, Amelia Garayoa... Look. Maybe you could talk to the Garayoas who live here and if they’re willing for me to go up and see them I’ll go up, and if not then I’ll go.”
“Wait here,” he ordered, and I could tell from his tone of voice that he didn’t want me even to come into the doorway.
I stayed impatiently in the street, asking myself who might live in this house, if it was an old nephew of my great-grandmother, or her cousins, or just some Garayoas who had nothing at all to do with my family. Maybe Garayoa was as common a surname in Basque country as Fernández was in the rest of Spain.
Eventually the doorman came out to see me.
“She says you should go up,” he announced, sounding a little uncertain.
“Right now?” I asked in bewilderment, because I hadn’t really expected that anyone would agree to meet me, thought rather that the doorman would tell me to get lost.
“Yes, right now. You need to go up to the third floor.”
“Is it the apartment on the right side or the left?”
“The ladies’ apartment occupies the whole floor.”
I decided to take the stairs instead of the elevator, to give myself time to think about what to say to the people in the house, but my decision made the doorman even more unsure of himself.
“Why don’t you take the elevator?”
“Because I like to get exercise,” I replied, disappearing out of his curious field of vision.
A woman was waiting by the open door; she was middle-aged, wearing a gray dress, and had short hair. Her look showed even less confidence in me than the doorman’s had.
“They will see you now. Please come in.”
“And who are you?” I asked with interest.
She looked at me as if my question had somehow intruded upon her privacy. She glared at me before replying.
“I am the housekeeper, I look after the house. I look after the ladies. You will wait in the library.”
Just as the doorman had, she spoke about “the ladies,” which made me draw the obvious conclusion: There were at least two women who lived here.
She led me into a spacious room with ancient mahogany furniture, the walls covered with books. A dark brown leather sofa and two armchairs occupied one end of the room.
“Please sit down, I’ll tell the ladies that you are here.”
I didn’t sit down, instead I started to poke around among the beautifully bound leather volumes. It struck me that apart from the books there was nothing else in the library, no ornaments, no paintings, nothing.
“Are you interested in books?”
I turned around, a little embarrassed, like a child caught putting his hand in the jam jar. I stammered out a “yes” while I looked at the woman who had spoken to me. From her appearance it was impossible to tell her age: She could have been fifty or seventy.
She was tall and thin, with dark chestnut hair, and she wore an elegant trouser suit; a diamond ring and diamond earrings were her only accessories.
“I’m sorry to bother you. My name is Guillermo Albi.”
“Yes, the doorman said. You showed him your identity card.”
“It was to calm him down, make him see... well, make him see that I’m not a madman.”
“It is a little strange for you to come looking for the Garayoa family, claiming that Amelia Garayoa is your great-grandmother...”
“Well, it might seem strange, but it’s true. I’m Amelia Garayoa’s great-grandson, or at least I think I am. Do you know her?”
The woman smiled widely and looked at me in amusement before replying.
“Yes, I know Amelia Garayoa. She’s me, and it’s quite clear that I’m not your great-grandmother.”
I didn’t know what to say. So, this woman, who suddenly reminded me strongly of Aunt Marta, was Amelia Garayoa, and of course she couldn’t be my great-grandmother.
“You’re named Amelia Garayoa?”
“Yes, anything wrong with that?” she asked ironically.
“No, no, nothing, sorry, it’s just... well, it’s very complicated.”
“To start with, I’d like to know what you’re talking about when you say ‘it’s very complicated,’ and also, who are you? What do you want?”
The housekeeper came into the library before I could answer and announced solemnly:
“The ladies are waiting for you in the drawing room.”
Amelia Garayoa looked at me as if wondering whether to take me to this room where the other ladies were apparently waiting.
“My aunts are very old, they’re both over ninety, and I don’t want them to be upset...”
“No, no, I won’t upset them, I have no intention of upsetting them, I... I’d like to explain to them why I’m here.”
“Yes, some kind of explanation is in order,” she replied drily.
She left the library and I followed her in a trance. I felt as if I were an uninvited guest about to make a fool of himself.
The drawing room was large, with two wide balconies. But what first caught one’s attention was the imposing marble fireplace where a log fire was crackling. There was an armchair on each side of the fireplace and a black leather sofa facing the fire.
Two old women who appeared to be twins were sitting in the armchairs. Each had white hair drawn up into a chignon. They wore identical black skirts. One was wearing a white sweater, and the other was wearing a gray one.
Both of them looked at me curiously without saying anything.
“Allow me to introduce my great-aunts,” Amelia said. “This young man is Guillermo Albi.”
“Good afternoon; I am sorry for intruding, you are both very kind to see me.”
“Sit down,” ordered the oldest woman, the one wearing the white sweater.
“We have decided to see you because my aunts have agreed to it. I was not keen on speaking to a stranger,” Amelia interrupted, making it clear that if the choice had been hers then she would have sent me packing without further ado.
“I understand, I know it’s not very normal to turn up at someone’s house saying that you have a great-grandmother called Garayoa and asking about her. I apologize, and I do not want to intrude too much.”
“What do
you want?” the old woman in the gray sweater asked.
“Before I start, it’s probably best for me to say who I am... My family has a small firm, Carranza Machinery, run by my Aunt Marta; I’ll leave you the address and the telephone number so that you can confirm that I am who I say I am. I can go away and will come back when you have confirmed that my intentions are good and that there’s nothing strange about my visit...”
“Yes,” Amelia said. “You give me your address, that’s the best thing, and your phone number, and...”
“Don’t be impatient, Amelia,” the woman in the gray sweater interrupted. “And you, young man, tell us what you want and who you’re looking for and how you came to this house.”
“My name is Guillermo Albi, and it appears that I have a great-grandmother named Amelia Garayoa. I say ‘it appears’ because this woman is a mystery, we know little or nothing about her. In fact, we did not know her name until yesterday, when I found it on my grandfather’s baptismal certificate.”
I took a photocopy of my grandfather’s baptismal certificate out of the pocket of my jacket and held it out to the old woman in the white sweater. She picked up some reading glasses from the table and read the document eagerly, shot me a steely glance, and made me think that she was reading my innermost thoughts.
I couldn’t hold that gaze, so I looked at the chimney instead. She gave the document to the woman in the gray sweater, who also read it with care.
“So you are Javier’s grandson,” the old woman in the gray sweater said.
“Yes, did you know him?” I asked.
“And what was Javier’s wife named?” continued the old woman in the gray sweater, without answering my question.
“My maternal grandmother was named Jimena.”
“Carry on,” the old woman in the white sweater said.
“So, my Aunt Marta, my mother’s sister, found a photograph a while back and thought that it could be a picture of this mysterious vanishing grandmother. Because I’m a journalist, and because I’m going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment, I’m practically unemployed, she decided to hire me to investigate what happened to Amelia Garayoa. In fact, neither my mother nor my uncles knew until yesterday what their grandmother was really named. Their father changed his name from Garayoa to Fernández, and apparently he never spoke about his mother; it was a taboo topic in the family. For some time he thought that his mother was Águeda, the nurse, with whom his father had another child. I suppose it must have been very hard for him to realize that his mother had abandoned him. None of his children ever dared to ask him what had happened, so we have no information at all.”