The Watcher in the Pine

by Rebecca Pawel

  He stopped as he opened the door and saw that the room was empty. There was a note propped up against a book on the table. “WENT TO TAMA. BACK SOON.—ELENA.”

  Tejada shook his head, unsure whether to laugh or be annoyed. He was fairly sure that normal women did not set off on two-kilometer walks through the snow by themselves when they were heavily pregnant. And there was the question of dinner. His Elena was certainly unique. Or possibly incorrigible. Fine behavior for a respectable married lady, he thought, smiling. It comes of those years on her own in Madrid. And then, more seriously, I wonder what Márquez was going to tell me when he said, “It could be awkward if—” I wonder if he knows about Elena’s life in Madrid, before I met her. And if he does, is there something he’s not mentioning?

  Uneasy for reasons he could hardly identify, Tejada turned and headed down the stairs. There was only one road to Tama, and Elena was in all likelihood already on her way back. He put on his hat again, and set out to meet her.

  Chapter 6

  Although their move back to Anselmo and Bárbara Montalbáns’ fonda had solved their most pressing problems with regard to furniture, the Tejadas’ room still lacked a decent table for writing, and anything in the way of shelves. Elena, whose luggage consisted of nearly as many books as clothes, felt the lack of shelf space acutely. She had spent the first few days after their move making herself as comfortable as possible with the existing furnishings, and futilely trying to talk to Bárbara de Montalbán. At noon, after her morning chores she had dutifully eaten lunch and done her best to follow her husband’s injunction to take a nap. We need a table and shelves, she thought, staring at the ceiling. Then, with a strange mixture of fear and exhilaration, like someone who has just turned the key in the ignition of a car for the first time: And I suppose we’ll need a cradle soon. The idea made sleep impossible. She got up, dutifully wrapped herself in sweaters and scarves against the cold, and set off for Tama to find a carpenter.

  Elena had not traveled along the road to Tama since her arrival in Potes in the predawn blizzard nearly two weeks before. Now, although the wind was still sharp enough to take her breath away, she was in a far better position to appreciate it. The road sloped uphill gently for perhaps fifty meters from the fonda, lined on both sides with houses made of the same tiny, painstakingly assembled stones as the Torre del Infantado. At the top of the crest the houses stopped suddenly and the road leveled out, curling around the base of the mountain that bordered the valley to the east in a leisurely curve shaped like a swan’s neck. The land beyond the town was bare. To her left, in the valley, lay fields that would surely be cultivated in a few weeks’ time. To her right, barren scrub marked the hillside, broken occasionally by shepherds’ huts made of windowless stone. The first houses of Tama sat in the curve of the swan’s neck, just over a kilometer away.

  Elena was content to meet no traffic as she trudged along. She had a destination, and a pleasant sense of purpose, and she did not mind being alone. She was far more lonely among the hostile stares of Potes’s townsfolk who whispered about the lieutenant’s wife, or the equally hostile stares of the guardias under her husband’s command. The exercise warmed her, and the clean-smelling wind brought color to her cheeks even as it made her eyes water. By the time she reached the center of Tama, the village was once again coming alive after siesta. Hopeful that she would not be recognized as the lieutenant’s wife, Elena stopped at a tiny dry-goods store that had just reopened its shutters and asked timidly if anyone knew where the carpenter’s workshop was.

  “Quico’s, you mean?” The man behind the counter nodded. “Yes, Señora. You take the first left, three doors down. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you.” The man had spoken to her as if she was simply a normal stranger, and Elena was grateful. “Do you know if he’s likely to be open for business now?”

  He laughed. “This isn’t Bilbao, Señora. Quico is open when he’s home, providing it’s a decent hour.”

  Elena smiled, thanked him again, and set out. She took the first left, and headed along a narrow street, cautiously sniffing the dry air for the scent of wood shavings. It was too cold to smell anything, but the third house on her left had a set of wooden shutters on the ground floor, and over the shutters hung the neatly lettered sign: FEDERICO ÁLVAREZ. CARPENTER. The door was shut. Elena hesitated, wondering if she should knock, when a howl of outrage shattered the quiet of the street, and the door opened inward rapidly. A girl of about five emerged at full speed, followed by another perhaps a year older. “I-hate-you-I-hate-you-I-hate-you!” The howls resolved themselves into words. Elena stepped to one side quickly to avoid being bowled over, and the smaller child fled past her, hardly noticing her presence. The girl’s pursuer had the advantage of longer legs, however, and rage animated her. She tackled her opponent with a flying leap, and the two of them collapsed in the street, wrestling ferociously.

  Elena had spent a fair amount of her life as a schoolteacher, and her instinct was to intervene at once. But she was painfully conscious of the damage a carelessly aimed kick could do to her baby. For a moment warring impulses held her still. Then she said sharply, “That’s enough. Both of you.”

  Even as she spoke, the door opened again to reveal a middle-aged man, who leaned on a shepherd’s hazel-wood crook. “Girls!” The man’s voice was quiet but firm. “Stand up and apologize to the lady.”

  Confronted with overwhelming authority, the combatants separated and scrambled to their feet. There was, Elena saw as they bobbed rebellious curtsies and muttered apologies, a strong resemblance between them. Both had the round cheeks and fair hair typical of the region, strikingly combined with dark, almond-shaped eyes. Both wore much-faded cotton skirts, thick wool sweaters, and injured expressions. The man in the doorway had gray hair, but the same almond-shaped eyes. He nodded gravely to Elena. “I hope my girls didn’t trouble you, Señora?”

  Elena shook her head. “No. Not at all.”

  “Good.” He looked at the girls. “Upstairs.”

  “But—” the older one began.

  “Upstairs,” he repeated.

  The children filed past him, both making an effort to hold back tears. He turned back to Elena, looking slightly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Señora. My wife has been tied up with our youngest. You mustn’t think . . .”

  “I like children,” Elena said honestly, as he trailed off. “And I know on a day like today when it’s too cold to play outdoors, and they don’t have much to do, they get cranky.”

  “True enough,” he agreed with a slight smile. “But I don’t know what the neighbors will say, with them making an exhibition like that in the street.”

  Since Elena was not prepared to vouch for what the neighbors would say, she murmured something noncommittal and then asked hopefully, “Are you Señor Álvarez?”

  “At your service. How can I help you?”

  “I understand you make furniture,” Elena explained. “My husband and I have just moved, and—” She hesitated for an instant. “And my husband is very busy at the moment. Do you have time to do some work for us?”

  “Of course,” the carpenter agreed readily. “Come in.” He stepped backward and gestured toward the hall.

  As Elena entered the hallway, she saw that a steep staircase led up to a door that stood ajar. Light and the warm smell of lamb stew spilled down the stairs. Señor Álvarez opened a door beside the stairway that led to a much colder room, with a workbench in one corner, trails of sawdust on the tiles, and the faint sweet scent of pine emanating from planed boards piled along one wall. “What do you think?” the carpenter asked, gesturing to the center of the room, where an almost completed rocking chair and an apparently finished end table sat.

  “They’re beautiful,” Elena said truthfully. “Do you do bookcases as well?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Do you have the dimensions you want?”

  “Yes.” Elena had left the sheet of paper with her penciled jottings in an inside pocket and had t
o unwind herself from several layers of clothing to get at it. She located it finally and held it out. “Here they are. The top measurements are for a table, and the lower ones for shelves.”

  He inspected the paper, and then seemed to notice that Elena was shivering. “I could do these. But the shop’s cold right now. If you’d like to come upstairs to the fire, we can talk business in comfort.”

  “Thank you.” Elena followed him with relief. The walk had tired her more than she liked, and the idea of sitting down somewhere warm was attractive.

  “Through here.” Señor Álvarez pushed open the door at the top of the stairs. “Marta,” he raised his voice. “Company.”

  A woman carrying a baby came forward to meet Elena. She had obviously just left a rocking chair by the woodstove in the far corner, a finished version of the piece Elena had seen in the workshop. A thin-faced boy bent over several sheets of paper at a table pushed against one wall looked up curiously as they entered and then got to his feet. The two little girls Elena had seen earlier stuck their heads out from behind a door to what she guessed was a bedroom. “My wife.” Señor Álvarez gestured to the woman.

  The woman nodded, and held out her free hand. “Marta Santos. Nice to meet you.”

  “Elena Fernández. Likewise.”

  “Señora Fernández is interested in furniture,” the carpenter explained, ushering her toward the table. “Shelves and a table, isn’t that right?”

  “You’re new to Tama?” his wife asked, as Elena nodded and sank gratefully into the chair Señor Álvarez offered.

  “To Potes, actually. I understand there’s no one who makes furniture there, though,” she added.

  “There isn’t call for many of us,” Quico Álvarez explained. “Most folks just buy lumber and do simple stuff on their own.”

  Elena flushed. Both Álvarez and his wife were too polite to ask, but she could feel their unspoken curiosity about her absent husband who had no time for carpentry. “You work on your own then?” she asked, to distract him.

  Álvarez smiled, and indicated the boy beside him. “Simón helps me. He’s a good little apprentice.” The boy looked at the floor, obviously embarrassed by his father’s praise.

  Elena addressed her next remark to Simón, knowing that children hated being discussed in their presence as if they weren’t there. “Do you want to be a carpenter when you grow up?”

  Simón shrugged and muttered something inaudible. “Of course he does,” said his father firmly. He turned back to business. “Did you have a preference for the type of wood, Señora? Pine would be cheaper, but oak is more durable. A nicer finish for the table, too.”

  “How much cheaper?” Elena demanded.

  Señor Álvarez handed the sheet of paper with Elena’s notes on it to his son. “Can you do the calculations?”

  Simón took the paper with alacrity, picked up the pencil he had been using before, and began to scribble. His father smiled at him, and then said, half-apologetically and half-proudly, “The boy has a head for figures.”

  “It’s a useful skill,” Elena said, feeling the inanity of the comment.

  “That it is.” The carpenter looked at the boy with fondness. “In a way, it’s a shame he can’t go to school. Father Bernardo’s been kind about showing him all kinds of tricks with numbers.”

  “Algebra,” Simón put in helpfully, animated for the first time. “And a little geometry. He says carpentry is mostly geometry anyway but that he doesn’t remember it much because it never made sense to him. Here.” He slid the paper to his father, shaking his head at the priest’s forgetfulness.

  “Give it to Señora Fernández, not to me,” Álvarez gently corrected the boy. “Can you read his handwriting, Señora?”

  “Yes, of course.” Elena, who had deciphered handwriting far worse than Simón’s, read the estimates without difficulty. They were unexpectedly and almost embarrassingly moderate. She was torn between a distaste for unnecessary haggling and the knowledge that airily ordering the most expensive furniture would mark her as relatively wealthy, and mean an end to the easy familiarity of her dealings with the Álvarez family.

  Álvarez misread her hesitation. “These are just estimates, Señora. I’ll accept payment in kind, whenever it’s convenient, of course.”

  Elena blushed, doubly embarrassed by her wealth and the uselessness of her husband’s profession, which created nothing that could be offered in exchange for furniture. “No, it’s fine. I think we can afford the oak.” She tried to soften the words.

  “Maybe you’d like to consult with your husband?” the carpenter suggested.

  Faced with the choice of explaining her husband’s finances or his job, Elena opted for the former. “I’m sure it will be no problem.” She hesitated and then said, “Also, I should have mentioned it before, we—” irrationally, she blushed, “we need a cradle.”

  “Of course.” Álvarez nodded. “Say another—” He frowned in thought. “Seventy-five pesetas.”

  Elena nodded. “I-I suppose that will be fine.” She hesitated, still feeling awkward. “Do you want a deposit?”

  The carpenter smiled at her. “If you’d like to pay for the materials in advance, you can. But it’s not necessary, Señora.”

  Elena, used to the more businesslike practices of the city, was once more embarrassed. “Well . . . then . . . thank you.”

  “It will take a few weeks.” Álvarez spoke calmly. “I can make the pieces you need most urgently first and you can pick them up. Or would you rather come and collect them all together?”

  Elena thought a moment. “It depends a little on how easily my husband can borrow a truck.”

  Marta Santos spoke up from her place by the stove. “It would have to be a cart. The only trucks in the valley are government vehicles.”

  Elena sighed. Sailing under false colors any longer would be unwise as well as difficult. “Actually, my husband is the lieutenant of the Guardia Civil post in Potes.”

  There was a little space of silence around her words. Then Quico Álvarez said in a slightly overly hearty tone, “That will likely be no problem then.”

  Elena nodded, looking at the ground. It had been so pleasant to talk to people without the invisible barrier that enclosed her in Potes. “No.” She stood up reluctantly. It was time to go. “Thank you for—thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Álvarez stood also, to shake hands with her.

  Elena dawdled putting on her coat, unwilling to step out into the cold loneliness of the afternoon again, even though her hosts’ hospitality had given way to wariness. The baby kicked, and she was inspired to say suddenly, “Señora Santos, I wonder if you—if you know of a midwife? Since we’ve just arrived, I don’t know anyone and . . . ” Her voice trailed off. She looked more as if she was pleading than she realized.

  “This is your first?” The carpenter’s wife thawed slightly, speaking with the faintly approving condescension of the experienced mother.

  “Yes.”

  “There aren’t midwives here, the way you’d get in the city. Mostly the neighbors come and help. After all, once a woman’s been through the whole thing a few times she knows how it works.” Marta’s voice was sympathetic as she added, “I don’t suppose the guardias’ wives . . . ?”

  “They’re unmarried.” Elena paused, and then added, “We’re staying at the Casa Montalbán. I know Señora Nuñez mentioned she’d had children. Maybe . . .

  “ Marta shook her head. “I don’t think Bárbara’s a good choice.”

  “She . . . she seems a little hard to get to know,” Elena admitted, unwilling to ask for help outright, and hoping that it would be offered.

  “You can’t really blame her.” Señora Santos took pity on her guest. “Bárbara’s had troubles with the Guardia.”

  “Marta.” Señor Álvarez’s voice held the same note of quiet warning he had used with his daughters.

  She glanced at him and shook her head. “It’s no secret, Quico.” To Elena, she
added, “The younger Montalbán boy was killed on the orders of the old lieutenant.”

  Elena bowed her head. “I’d heard that after the town fell there were some reprisals.”

  Because her eyes were lowered, Elena missed the quick look that passed between the carpenter and his wife as she said, “after the town fell,” so she was both gratified and intrigued when Señora Santos added, with some bitterness, “This had nothing to do with the war. Jesulín Montalbán was going with a girl Lieutenant Calero had his eye on. Everyone knew they’d quarreled about her. But when the soldiers came and the lieutenant said Jesulín was a Red, who could argue with him?”

  Elena met Marta Santos’s eyes, horrified. “And the girl?”

  “Poor Señorita Laura,” Marta sighed. “She wouldn’t give Calero the time of day until he threatened that the soldiers would come for her brother as well.”

  “He deserved what happened to him!” Elena’s voice was trembling with rage.

  Quico Álvarez nodded, almost unconsciously, but stopped himself from agreeing in words. A nod could always be denied later. “It broke Anselmo’s heart,” he said quietly. “Jesulín always was his favorite.”

  Elena leaned on the table, trying to control her sudden nausea. She remembered Bárbara Nuñez saying tightly, “My sons were taken four years ago.” And then, with sickening clarity, she heard her husband’s voice saying, “It’s likely her husband’s a murderer.” “I’m sorry,” she said, knowing the words were both true and meaningless, and wanting to make some reparation. “I . . . I won’t ask Señora Nuñez.”

  Marta nodded, accepting the words and the intention for what they were worth. “Bárbara’s had troubles,” she repeated. “Don’t be too hard on her.”