‘Whatever do goats find to eat up here?’ Yöst swung Tatania up a particularly sharp stretch, startling the animal peacefully grazing nearby. Uttering a bleat of recrimination, it cantered down the rock and disappeared from view.
‘Never asked ’em.’ Rico, shepherding Clara and Zande up the steep incline, swung round with a grin.
‘I have a goat,’ Zande broke in. ‘My mother gave it to me.’ He said the words quite naturally. Falling silent again, he held out his hand to Clara, pulling her up the path behind him.
Astonished by the remark, Yöst didn’t respond, leaving the small boy’s speech to fade away on the breeze. How extraordinary. Without being told, it was if he had already worked out that bits of his former life would need to be shared in payment for Ramon’s offer of hospitality.
‘We feed them in the winter, mind,’ Rico continued. ‘Pa says it stops them straying far in bad weather and getting lost in the hills.’
Using both hands to climb up onto the rock-strewn summit, he reached down, Yöst lifting Tatania up to him.
They emerged onto a barren plain, devoid both of trees and vegetation, the air around them silent and unmoving, the undulating landscape reminding Yöst of the swell of the ocean on a winter’s morning.
‘I come up here most Sundays.’ Rico curled up on the hard ground, the three children, reduced to silence by the steep climb, next to him, their legs stuck out in front like a row of organ pipes. ‘I told Ma it’s my bit of heaven. Besides, I don’t have nothin’ else to call my own.’ A bitter grimace emerged; his mouth turned down at the corners.
Way below, as if viewed through the wrong end of a telescope, lay the valley. With its slope diminished by distance, the spiralling course of the river resembled the glistening coils of a snake, even the beehive-shaped house reduced to little more than a brown bobble, perched on a green shawl. Beyond the river, the orderly rows of dark green vines reminded Yöst of the knitting patterns his mother used to make.
‘Ramon said all this’ll be yours one day.’ He spoke jauntily, wanting to cheer Rico up.
Absorbed in watching a flock of birds wheeling, flocking over the distant trees, Rico ignored his remark. Noticing a muscle flick in his cheek, Yöst wondered if his words had set off yet another disagreeable train of thought.
‘You get snakes where you come from?’
‘Snakes!’ Yöst exclaimed, confused by the abrupt change of subject.
‘Yes, snakes.’
‘Never seen one.’
‘You ain’t never seen a snake?’
Rico’s voice, once again light and teasing, demanded a similar response. Yöst obliged. ‘I’d never eaten a pear before, neither.’
Twisting round, Rico pointed over the rock-strewn plain, occasional hints of colour showing where a handful of wild flowers had escaped the marauding mouths. ‘See them rocks? When it’s hot like today, you’ll often see vipers sunning themselves. You can easily recognise them by their stripes. And, sometimes, we find grass snakes in the meadow. Ma makes us wear shoes but they don’t hurt you none.’ He hesitated and dropped his voice to a low murmur. ‘Ma told me your folks were—’
Yöst’s hand flew out, signalling to Rico to shut up. Beside him, Zande, apparently intent on a story Clara was recounting, flinched, his legs kicking out in protest. Yöst gently patted his knee, wishing he might explain to Rico about their keen hearing, both of them able to pick up a stray whisper from way off.
‘I only wanted to say …’ Rico glared. Removing the stopper from the leather canteen he was carrying on his shoulder, he offered it to the three children. ‘Ma likes kids, so you’ll be okay here … with us. You need to watch out for Pa, though, not that he isn’t nice.’ His words poured out; Rico obviously anxious to get his confession over and done with, his lips twisting bitterly. ‘He don’t beat us nor nothing. It’s just … he’s all about the farm. Says he lost everythin’ once and it ain’t going to happen again. Never dreams I might want somethin’ different.’
By midday, the light breeze had dwindled; the sun powering down from a cloudless sky, wiping away any trace of shadow on the exposed rock face. Covered with Zande’s shirt, Tatania had dozed off, Zande boasting to Clara that he didn’t need a shirt because the sun made no difference to his dark skin. Bored with sitting, they had wandered off to explore, Clara’s bursts of noisy chatter like the buzz of a mosquito, tinny in the clear air. Astonished, Yöst overheard Zande laughing, a sound he’d not heard since those carefree days in the village. In the days since his mother’s death, he had smiled but nothing more, and even his smile had been tinged with sadness.
‘Who’d have sisters, eh? That one never draws breath.’ Rico yawned sleepily, his lids half closed against the sun. ‘With her, you’re better off if she hates you. Least then, you won’t suffer from earache.’
Yöst leaned back on his elbows, relishing the quiet and peace, feeling the strain of the previous day leaching away. ‘I miss school.’
Rico jolted upright. ‘Cripes, what brought that on? Not me; couldn’t get shot of it fast enough. Okay, so sometimes I miss the other kids. I hate being the only boy in the family.’ He leaned back on his elbow. ‘Still, now you’re here, that’s sorted. Besides, what do I need learning for?’ His voice changed, ‘I pick grapes and milk goats.’ He poked Yöst with his finger, taking the sting out of his words. ‘What about you?’
Yöst made sleepy by the sun and off guard, caught the words balanced on the edge of his tongue, to be part of the carinatae, and hastily swallowed them back down. Nevertheless, they were true; he had never imagined being anything else. ‘I can milk goats,’ he substituted with a rueful grin.
‘We can be partners if you want and own the biggest herd of goats in the country. You don’t need schooling for that.’
‘Yes, you do,’ he retorted, his eyebrows flashing up and down like semaphore. ‘Someone has to count them,’ and bit his cheek to prevent a grin erupting.
Laughing at his witticism, Rico leapt to his feet, staring down into the valley, its nearside slope cast into shade. He sniffed the air. ‘Rain’s on the way.’
‘You can tell?’
‘Nah!’ Rico snorted. ‘Showin’ off. Adelita can though. Still, we have to get back.’
Bending down, Yöst woke Tatania, who immediately lifted up her arms demanding to be carried.
‘You’re too heavy.’ He dropped a kiss onto her hair.
‘No! Yöt carry.’
‘Yöst,’ he repeated, hefting her up in his arms.
She wound her arms around his neck, her skin as soft as a new-born babe. ‘Yöt.’
As they made their way down the steep incline, his gaze lingered on its sun-filled slopes doubting Rico’s forecast of rain, scenting none in the air. Not for the foreseeable future, anyway. Across the river nothing stirred, the wide expanse of hillside deserted, its covering of green leaves listless and lethargic under the hot sun. He opened his mouth to speak and shut it again. Admitting to Rico that he really could predict weather would invite questions. Questions he couldn’t answer and which might challenge their growing friendship. And it was growing. Moment by moment, Rico’s antipathy was lessening. It wasn’t quite right yet, but it was getting there.
‘Rico,’ Pascual called through the kitchen window as they crossed the yard. ‘If you’re hungry, help yourselves to bread, then bath the children. Ana will help.’ She glared at the two boys, their clothes dusty from sitting on the ground. ‘And get yourselves cleaned up too; you’re filthy.’
‘Ma!’ Rico’s face lit up. ‘Does that mean visitors?’
‘Make sure you wash behind your ears.’ she called, ignoring Rico’s remark.
Ana came into the yard, holding out her arms to Tatania. The previous night, Yöst had felt too timid to do more than cast a surreptitious glance in her direction. Now he recognised Ramon’s hawk-like features, her nose as elegant as his had once been. There the similarity ended, her patient demeanour towards her siblings much more in keeping with
her mother. He was glad, nervous of Ramon’s autocratic manner which reminded him so much of their leader.
Depositing Tatania on the ground, he tapped her affectionately on the behind as she ran off. ‘What was that all about?’
‘Sometimes Ma meets up with our neighbours at church, and if it’s a special night, she invites them for Sunday dinner. Pa says, the only reason our landlord ever goes to church is to wangle an invitation.’
‘Special?’ Yöst echoed.
‘You’ll have to wait and see.’ Rico’s eyes gleamed with excitement, the sour twist to his mouth, whenever he spoke of his father, missing.
‘And don’t you go spoiling the surprise neither, Clara,’ he admonished his sister, slapping her hand away from her mouth as she leaned in close to whisper to Zande. He pushed down on the handle of the pump, a stream of water gushing from its spout, tumbling down into a stone trough. ‘Go on, fetch us some bread from the kitchen. Only, wash your hands first; Ma’s watching. You can do the other bits in a minute.’
Through the open doorway, the warm smell of freshly baked bread stirred the saliva in Yöst’s mouth, and he hastily washed his hands, drying them on a towel hanging from the pump. Pascual and Katarina had obviously been busy and he wondered what Rico’s secret was; it had to be something special, his usual pallor replaced by a healthy glow.
Returning with a platter of freshly baked bread from the kitchen, Clara took a slice before handing it round; the two boys munching in companionable silence.
‘You goin’ to like it here?’ Rico helped himself to the last piece. Tearing it apart, he passed half to Yöst.
‘There’s an awful lot of girls,’ Yöst confided, hearing high-pitched giggles from inside the house.
‘Ma had six sisters.’ Leaning back on one elbow, Rico belched loudly. ‘Pa said if he’d known, he never would have married her.’ He grinned at Yöst’s horrified expression. ‘You don’t need to talk. Them eyebrows of yours, they speak for you. Course he knew,’ he continued scornfully, ‘they were sweethearts from the cradle. At least, that’s what Ma says. Besides, the girls are scared of you too.’
‘Scared of me? Who said that?’
‘Cousin Emilee. I expect she fancies you. Girls are like that when they fancy a boy; can’t say enough bad about them. Still, it makes a change. When the cousins first got here, they never spoke; not a single word all one winter. I asked Ma. She wouldn’t say nothin’ either, except they got caught up in the war and were lucky to survive.’
‘Ramon said about the war.’
‘Yeah! Pa says even when it’s done and dusted, we can’t return; too many of his enemies still alive.’
When Yöst eventually returned to the house after sharing his bath water with Rico and Zande, he was surprised to find an elderly couple sitting with Ramon near the open shutters. ‘That’s Benoit,’ Rico whispered, ‘he owns the winery.’ He pointed to several bottles standing on a table in front of the two men, one of them already open. ‘And it’s Monsieur Benoit to you and me. They don’t have kids. Pa hopes if we’re nice to him, when the old guy croaks, he’ll leave him the land.’
‘Do I have to speak to him?’ Yöst frowned nervously.
Rico guffawed. ‘Nah. He ain’t come to see us kids. I told you. He’s come—’ He paused dramatically. ‘Well, you’ll see in a bit.’
Apart from the arrangement of the table, with two extra places, everything appeared much as it had been the previous night. Ana had moved down to allow their landlord the chair next to Ramon, his wife seated at the far end of the table between Katarina and Pascual. Only Adelita wearing a dress of red satin, cut in the same style as the black one, was dressed differently.
In honour of their guests, Pascual and Katarina served two courses; a dish of fried meat and aubergines, served on pasta in a rich tomato sauce, and a dish of peaches in cream. Yöst, eagerly devouring everything set before him, remembered the limited choice on the island, using vegetables in season and often eating the same variety of roasted meat for days on end. By comparison, that now felt hugely boring. Except, he reasoned, having never met up with anything different, when he was hungry, he was grateful for any food at all.
Once again, dinner was accompanied by noisy conversation, occasionally interspersed by Maestro’s giggle as he swapped confidences with Adelita; the children calling their questions across the table exactly as they had done the previous night. Then, as plates were cleared and the two eldest girls brought in coffee, Yöst sensed the atmosphere changing, the noisy ebullience of the past hours replaced by an air of suppressed excitement, aware something extraordinary was about to happen. He sat silently watching the interplay of emotions between family members around the table; the newcomers, their attention repeatedly edging towards the empty space under the dome, where the matting had been rolled up.
Accepting a cup of coffee from Ana, Ramon drank it in a single mouthful. He clapped his hands. ‘Come now, Maestro, it is time. Adelita? Pepe?’
Unravelling his long legs from under the table, the giant leaned down and lifted the dwarf gently to his feet. Handing him his sticks, and supporting him with one hand, he ushered him towards the earthen floor. Yöst saw now that two stools had been placed on either side of a pillar, an oil lamp on a low table nearby. Bending over the oil lamp, the giant began fiddling with its wick, his fingers curiously dexterous for someone so large, the flame intensifying into a long cone of glowing light before puttering out. Picking up the lamp and table with one hand, he moved them to the edge of the circle, leaving Maestro in shadow. Passing him the guitar that had been leaning against the wall, Pepe sat down beside him, placing a wooden box with strings on his lap.
Puzzled, Yöst waited, unsure what was about to happen. The room quieted, not even the two smallest breaking the silence as Maestro struck a chord. It vibrated softly, the sound vanishing into the air like a conjuring trick; another chord, an equally tentative sound, as if the musician possessed awkwardly rigid fingers. Yöst swung round to ask Rico what was going on when, with a ripple of notes, Maestro began to play. Instantly, he forgot his question. He forgot everything else too: the newness of his surroundings, his timidity in the face of so many girls, the loss of his beloved family, even the menace cast by the priest in his black cloak; his entire being captivated by the music. It filled his head, until there was no space left between the bones of his skull except for the sounds Maestro was creating with his fingers.
Gradually, as the strings of the guitar spun their web of magic, he understood that Maestro was recalling a time long passed away, hearing among the vibrant chords the joyous sounds of spring awakening after a harsh winter.
He had reached the point when to hear more would reduce him to tears, when, abruptly, the sounds changed and Maestro’s fingers began plucking at the strings as if he hated them. Now, the guitar produced chords full of anguish rather than joy, and Yöst sensed the world about him tumbling down into despair and death. He could imagine Maestro had been on the island that fateful night and had witnessed the slaughter, guessing the music referred to something equally as horrific in the musician’s own life. The music changed yet again, chords on the guitar sounding out a message of hope, sweeping away his memory of Willem’s death, clubbed to the ground when he had tried to save the younger boys. Rubbing his sleeve across his face, he listened closely as the joyous sound soared upwards in a riot of chords and arpeggios. His thoughts raced to follow, his entire being bordered by hope for a better future, exactly as it would be when he fledged.
Silence – Maestro’s fingers placed flat across the strings of his guitar to suppress any lingering vibration.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know,’ Yöst burst out, aware now of the enormity of his crime. No wonder Rico had been angry. ‘I should have known by the name, only I never heard music before, except once when my mother danced. I swear—’
Rico’s frown vanished, the sad twist to his mouth replaced by a glowing smile. ‘I knew it; I knew I wasn’t mistaken. Now we can
be real friends.’
‘And Pepe, what …’
‘It’s called a cajón.’ He placed his finger on his lips. ‘Shush! Katarina is going to dance.’
Gone was the drab gown Katarina had worn to serve their meal, now she wore gold as vivid as the scarlet Adelita was dressed in. The satin gently hugged the young woman’s curves, the lines of her body graceful in their slimness. She had piled her hair high, gripping its heavy tresses with a comb, and on her feet, she wore black shoes with square heels. As she walked around the circle, she placed her feet down, softly at first, the sound barely more than a whisper. Toe-heel, toe-heel, toe-heel; gradually the sound began to resonate and speed up, Pepe beating time on the snares fastened across the face of the cajón box. Accelerating, the melody drove Katarina faster and faster, her skirts flying out as she whirled exposing equally graceful legs, her arms mimicking birds taking to the wing, her heels driving down into the floor, never missing a beat.
Then Adelita appeared. Yöst instantly forgot the dress she was wearing was too tight. Tapping out a contrasting rhythm with her feet, her body gracefully upright, her fingers began echoing the beat on castanets. Round and round the two women swirled, looping and ducking, parting and coming together again, their heels pounding the earthen floor into submission. In the background, the music built and built, speeding to its climax in an outpouring of sound and whirling colour.
The entire audience broke into cheers as the two ladies took their bows. Yöst remained silent, exhausted yet utterly content. Satiated by the hypnotic movement, the rhythm continued to pound through his head, as did the bright gold of sunlight that had been Katarina’s gown.
14
After the dancing had ended, one by one the sisters left the table, calling a goodnight. Yöst didn’t linger either, snatches of melody absorbing his attention. He wanted to replay them while they were fresh, then seal them in to be remembered and resurrected in times of trouble and loss. Except, it was doubtful they’d ever be needed, not in a place where the only neighbours were animals and birds. So silent and so tranquil this land, the words danger and death had obviously never crossed its path.
The Click of a Pebble Page 15