Guernica

by Dave Boling

  “Sending him to the seminary was worth it for this moment if no other,” Justo whispered to Mariangeles.

  Miren, a month from her twentieth birthday, had as much trouble as Miguel focusing on the proceedings. At one point, when protocol caused the assembly to rise, she glanced back at her parents. Her mother, beautiful, happy, and immaculately dressed, leaned into her scrubbed but rumpled father. Without Justo noticing, Mariangeles reached behind him, curled his collar back down into place, and lightly pulled the tail of his coat so it would be more comfortable for him when he once again sat. In that moment, Miren saw the kind of wife she wished to be. It was not instilled in her by the mass or the vows or Father Xabier’s incantations; she wanted to care so much for her husband, even after more than two de cades of marriage, that she still would attend to his upturned collar and crumpled jacket. She wanted that concern to be second nature. That was the vow she made to herself at the altar that day.

  The first dance at the wedding party did not involve the bride and groom but was a man’s dance executed in honor of the couple. Domingo Abaitua, one of the dancers in Miren’s old group, stepped forward and bowed before the newlyweds as others cleared the dance area. Straightening, he removed his beret with a flourish and sent it sailing toward the couple. Music began and he executed a series of spins and kicks that grew higher and faster as the gathering cheered louder with each. He finished with a deep bow to the couple and vacated the floor.

  Miren held her groom at arm’s length. She’d worried about this for weeks. Against slight resistance, Miguel pulled her tight, encircling her with his right arm. Four notes were struck, and on the next beat, Miguel confidently stepped forward with his left foot, catching Miren unprepared. He had brought his feet together to conclude his first three waltz steps before she caught up to him. Her smile slackened in shock as Miguel used firm pressure from his right hand on her lower back to guide her into the turns. Gliding through spirals inside a circle, they flowed across the floor. He counted his steps aloud, but he could dance.

  “How? When?” Miren could barely form the questions. “Who?”

  Miguel ignored them, content to grin at her amazement. And answering would have disrupted his counting.

  Moving in unison, they were alone. They didn’t hear the cheers of their families and barely noticed when the music finished, coasting gently to a stop rather than ending abruptly. How long had they danced? Had they ever not been dancing?

  Without the benefit of a running start, and despite the constrictions of dress and decorum, Miren leaped onto Miguel, her arms clasped behind his neck, and kissed him on the mouth with a force that whiplashed his neck. She threw her head back, her veil dipping to the floor, and unleashed an irrintzi scream. After the first shriek, Justo joined her, as did Josepe and Father Xabier, and then the rest of the guests.

  When the first notes of a jota were played, Miguel pried his bride loose and withdrew a few steps to give them space.

  “What?” Miren stood motionless.

  Kicks, spins, snaps. If Miguel’s jota performance was more studied than natural, it was notable for its absence of bruising and bloodshed. Miren joined him, as did a grinning Mariangeles.

  “Where did we get this dancer who looks so much like my new husband?” Miren asked her mother.

  “It was a slow process,” Mariangeles answered.

  “Kuttuna, your kind and patient and fearless mother has been giving me lessons for months,” Miguel said, slightly out of breath.

  “Mother . . . you must be . . . the world’s greatest . . . dance teacher,” Miren said between spins.

  “He asked me so sincerely, there was no way I could refuse,” Mariangeles said. “And he tried so hard. I had to lie to your father to protect the secret.”

  Miguel pulled his mother-in-law into a tight hug. “Thank you,” he whispered into her ear, inhaling the same scent as his wife’s. That soap. “Sorry about the all damage to your feet.”

  “It was worth it,” Mariangeles said, standing back to let them dance again.

  “Any other surprises for me, astokilo?” Miren asked when they started another waltz.

  “I hope there will be many.”

  Miguel pulled back slightly to look in her eyes.

  “I have something I better say since I believe we should build our marriage on nothing but truth.”

  Miren stilled.

  “I have to confess, I never really knew a Gypsy fortune-teller named Vanka.”

  “You fool!” she shrieked, giving him a pretend slap on the head. “I would be rid of you now,” she said, grabbing his arm, “if you weren’t such a fine dancer.”

  With his parents dancing and Miren bouncing between friends and meeting her obligation to dance with every man in attendance, Miguel joined the brothers of his father-in-law.

  As Miren danced with Simone, the chorizo maker, who was redolent of garlic, and then with Aitor, the corpulent baker, Miguel could not stop watching her.

  Josepe and Father Xabier lifted their wineglasses toward Miguel.

  “Osasuna,” they toasted.

  “Osasuna,” he said.

  “You are a lucky man, Miguel,” Josepe said.

  “I know that, my friend,” Miguel responded, still focused on his bride’s movements. “Could you have ever foreseen in all those years as your neighbor that I would one day join your family?”

  “I think it’s wonderful; she couldn’t have found a better husband,” Josepe said. “And so, neighbor, now that you are officially part of the family, do you want to know all the old secrets? Ask us anything. Father Xabier here is used to answering questions, so there’s not much he hasn’t heard.”

  “Oh, you would not believe the things I hear in that box . . .”

  “Does Justo confess to you?” Miguel asked, wondering for the first time if he would be obliged to start taking his confessions to the uncle of his wife.

  “Justo does not come to me officially, no,” Xabier said. “I’m certain he worries that I might issue undue penance because he once held my head underwater in the stock trough.”

  “Go ahead, Miguel, ask,” Josepe said.

  “All right, here is what I need to know,” Miguel pressed. “I believe he likes me and we have a good relationship. He calls me ‘son,’ which I take as a good sign. Should I still be in fear for my life?”

  His concern amused both brothers.

  “If you promise not to pass this along to our brother, I’ll tell you the secret to Justo Ansotegui,” Xabier said. “He’s no different than everybody else. Everyone is driven by what they want most. Figure out what that is, and you have the answer to who that person is. Most of the time it’s obvious, but all of us are usually too concerned about the things we want to ever stop and look at anybody else’s motives.”

  Miguel nodded, if only to hurry Xabier past the philosophy.

  “We can see what makes you happy; you haven’t taken your eyes off your bride since you sat down, even when you’ve tried to look us in the eye. You’ve found what you want, whether you knew it was what you wanted all along or not.”

  Miguel nodded. He had been accurately diagnosed. “How does this apply to Justo? You were going to tell me the great secret.”

  Xabier took another drink of wine before starting. “When our father died, Justo took it as his duty to become the father. To little ones, the father is the biggest and smartest and strongest, the man in control of all situations. Most people grow up to learn that their parents are just people with the same weaknesses we all have. Justo never got the chance to see that. In some ways, he’s still fifteen, trying to live up to his image of what a father is supposed to be. After a while, he felt he could be everybody’s father . . . father of the whole town.”

  Miguel nodded; it made sense. “I’ll admit that I am much less threatened by him now than I was at first. But I still don’t want to anger a man who killed a wolf with his bare hands.”

  Josepe and Xabier squinted in unison. “What wol
f?”

  “The wolf,” Miguel said. “The one that chewed his ear off.”

  Miguel joined his four fingers and snapped them against his thumb in the vicinity of his right ear, pantomiming the jaws of a vicious wolf. “You know . . . the wolf.”

  “Wolf . . . there was no wolf!” Josepe shouted. “Justo lost that part of his ear when he was young and tried to shoot down an eagle with a rusted-out rifle. The thing exploded on him and jammed the stock back into his head. He’s been without that part of his ear for more than thirty years.”

  “A wolf, eh?” Father Xabier said, flashing a priestly scowl. “He’ll need at least ten Our Fathers to work his way out of a lie like that.”

  Miguel was in parts relieved and saddened by the debunking of a classic Justo Ansotegui myth.

  “Did he kill the eagle, at least?”

  “No,” Josepe said solemnly. “It came out of nowhere and there was nothing he could do. We were all so little.”

  Josepe and Xabier smiled at each other, thinking, That’s Justo. It was just a story, of course, but both were certain that if a wolf actually had attacked Justo, he might very easily have throttled it with his bare hands, even as it chewed off part of his ear. It may have been fiction only because the situation never arose.

  José María Navarro waited for a moment when his son was neither dancing nor visiting with new relatives to pull him aside and express his happiness and his pride. He also had news from France.

  “Eduardo sends his love and his great jealousy over your fine catch of a wife,” the father said. “I told him about Miren, how she is Josepe’s niece and what a perfect match she is for you.”

  Miguel smiled at the mention of Dodo. “Was there any chance he could have come to the wedding?”

  “No, none,” the father said. “He wanted to, and he knew how important it was to you, but you would be surprised to know that he has learned to become cautious in many matters. He sends word to me occasionally through fishermen from Saint-Jean, or at times he’s on a boat that we meet at sea.”

  “So he’s fishing?”

  “No, he is staying active in the mountains,” José María said. “But we sometimes make arrangements to meet and he comes out on the boat of some friends he’s made in France.”

  “In the mountains? Is he farming, herding sheep?” Miguel asked incredulously. “That doesn’t sound like Dodo.”

  “No, not herding sheep.” José María leaned in close. “He’s in with a group of smugglers.”

  Miguel laughed so loudly the sound rose above the music, and many turned in his direction. His father gave him a sharp, tight-lipped shush.

  “Fine,” Miguel said in a lowered voice. “But that’s perfect for Dodo; I’m sure he is having a wonderful time and he’s very good at it, if he can keep himself from taunting too many border guards.”

  “Well, it sounds as if he’s at least being smart enough to keep himself unseen. This is a dangerous business, and some of his friends have been captured and thrown in prison. If he got caught and they connected his identity to that business at home, it might lead to a bad outcome.”

  “I’m stunned to hear that he’s being cautious or careful about anything. How long will that last?”

  “That, I don’t know,” José María said. “But he better behave himself.”

  “Why now? Why now more than any time in the past?”

  José María whispered into his son’s ear: “Because now Josepe and I are helping him.”

  By the time the newlyweds reached their home, friends had unloaded the oxcart and decorated the interior with strands of chorizos and peppers. It would help the young couple sustain themselves without having to exit the home for a week or so as they got their marriage off to an amicable commencement. On the table was a present from Miguel’s mother, a clear glass canister filled with lemon drops.

  Miguel and Miren stepped inside, overtaken by weariness, stopping to kiss without even closing the door. The jokers who unloaded the presents had piled many of them on the bed.

  Miguel picked up one to show Miren.

  “My father must have done this.” It was a carved fishing boat, with EGUN ON painted on the stern. “I’m going to put it on our mantel, to start our own collection of special things.”

  “Asto!” she said, noticing the dark oak chest at the foot of their bed. On the top was inlaid a lauburu of light poplar, and beneath that was a routed pair of interlocking Ms.

  “Your gift,” he said. They grew more intent on clearing the bed, and they doused the lamp before undressing.

  They had known each other for almost a year and had been convinced of the genuineness of their affection, but they had never translated those feelings into the physical, always withdrawing by mutual unspoken decision. Neither had experience, but it wasn’t important. In this moment, it was their nature that was most meaningful: his was to be patient and attentive to detail, hers to be giving and agreeable. He was a craftsman; she was an artist. They were inexhaustibly tender and fully transparent. He was power, she was grace. He solid; she liquid. Then both liquid.

  PART 3

  (1935–1937)

  CHAPTER 11

  Walking slowly through the small hillside meadow above her home, Alaia Aldecoa used her gifted nose to determine which of the flowering herbs had reached the point of readiness and which would supply the perfect scent to the soaps that she made and sold every Monday afternoon at the market. The lavenders and heathers she favored matured at different times and at various elevations and compass attitudes. Like the people in the village, the herbs lived out their individual preferences, some seeking exposure and others darker places, with flowers attuned to the light and shadows and the length of the day.

  The process took time and particular caution at first, but by now, Alaia could negotiate the terrain by smell alone. With her fingers, she tested the turgidity of the stem and bloom to judge the moisture content and the levels of nectar or sap and scent. She exchanged soaps for a small sack of oats from one neighbor, wood-ash lye from the charcoal maker up the valley, and fresh strawberries and even certain vegetables from another farmer. And she was able to use the blooms of the lilacs and flowering osiers and dogwoods in her own yard. She cataloged their locations in her head, along with the recipes for her product varieties, some constructed on the creamy foundation of Pyrenean sheep milk she received, in exchange for bartered services, from a widowed farmer who lived nearby.

  She charged so little for her soaps at the market that some who came from outside the valley wondered how she could manage. It would be insulting, though, to suggest to this woman that she should raise her prices. So customers usually made no comment as they bought soap squares for themselves and filled their sacks with bars to sell to their neighbors at home at double the price.

  For Alaia, the income was secondary to the approval from the customers, who raved of her soap’s smoothness and scent, so soothing and so reminiscent of the hillsides. Some women went on in detail about how it softened that rough skin on their elbows, or how effectively it scoured the stench of fish or field off husbands.

  Visitors who went inside her cottage were struck by the intoxicating mixture of scents. Adding those to the constant mumble and hum of the adjacent stream, Alaia Aldecoa’s cabin exerted a powerful effect.

  As she started to roll mint leaves between her fingers at her table, a visitor arrived, knocking lightly.

  “Bai,” she said, and he opened the door tentatively and peeked inside. When he saw that she had not made an effort to turn away from her work, he knocked louder.

  “Bai,” she said again softly, still focused on her table.

  He rapped once more, even louder.

  “Come in.”

  She knew who it was without turning. He paused, taking in the outline of her dress and the storm-cloud hair that made her one of the most provocative women in the valley. Still facing away from the door, continuing to work with the materials at the table, Alaia pointed toward h
er bed.

  The man sat and removed his shoes, then his shirt, and then his pants. Alaia fingered a small leaf of the fragrant mint and placed it in her mouth, just under her tongue, and approached him now. The man took in the sun-reddened cheeks and poppy lips, and was unfazed by the darkened lids of her closed eyes. Instead, he saw the shape and hair of the mythical lamiak who taunted men from the mountain caves. He smelled the clusters of flowers and heard the tumbling hum of the stream, and he was overcome by their sensory collusion. She bent to offer her lips, and he shivered when he tasted the wet mint in her mouth.

  Alaia Aldecoa, blind since birth, raised in a convent of sequestered sisters, served the village in a capacity far more personal and intimate than that of soap maker. It was unlikely anybody was more talented or better suited to their calling.

  Picasso fell to his knees at the feet of Marie-Thérèse and theatrically promised to divorce Olga. Marie-Thérèse was pregnant. But bureaucracy soon diverted his romantic intent. French codes, he discovered, required he evenly divide his holdings with Olga, which meant the surrender of hundreds of paintings of incalculable value. Yes, to live with passion and be ruled by love is life’s only way, he preached, but in this case, love’s price might be unreasonably dear.

  Talk of divorce was dropped. Olga left him for good, and Marie-Thérèse swelled through the hot summer before giving birth to a daughter, María de la Concepción, whom they called Maya.

  Picasso grew dark under the weight of the conflicts in what he later called the worst time of his life, and he gave up painting for most of the year. Instead, he wrote poetry, and he converted his pain into a large etching. He created women looking out an elevated window, a wounded horse, and a minotaur advancing on a young girl, who fearlessly faced the danger with an outstretched arm holding a candle.