Despite dark days and even darker nights, as the festival of light drew near, excitement among the children became palpable, no one moaning about being forced to read out loud or help their mother wash plates and cutlery. Even Ramon ceased his complaining about the number of mouths he had to feed, welcoming their landlord and wife to his home with charm and grace.
Anticipation had reached its zenith the previous night, when Ramon and Pepe covered the ancient olive tree with paraffin lanterns, wiring the tiny metal reservoirs to its boughs. No one had wanted to remain indoors after that, despite the close-knit darkness, in which the eerie hoot of an owl, or sharp bark of a fox, raised the spectre of ghosts and goblins among the excited children.
Begging Maestro to play, everyone apart from Ramon and Pepe, who capered about giving piggy-back rides to Delors and Tatania, linked hands, dancing round and round the tree, the merry jig leaving them all breathless and demanding more.
As night’s shadow crept across the sky blotting out its ribbon of stars, Yöst imagined he heard Rue’s voice: ‘Once I can achieve the celeste, I will disappear into the heavens and steal a star and bring it down to earth for you.’
‘When winter really bites, you will remember tonight,’ Pascual said as Maestro, once again aided by Pepe, played songs that made Yöst dream of summers on the island. Katarina had danced, her gown a waterfall of liquid gold, dazzling in the glow of the oil lamps. Adelita also, her scarlet satin replaced by black, her hair severely dressed in a bun at the back of her neck. No castanets this time, their only prop, a fan carried by Katarina.
‘It’s different from before,’ Yöst exclaimed.
‘That’s because Adelita’s dancing the role of the man,’ Rico whispered.
‘You mean men dance?’ Yöst exclaimed astonished, reading into the swirling movement a dance of courtship, the younger woman shy and retiring gradually being seduced by the energy and passion of the elder.
‘Course.’ Rico replied almost impatiently, his attention riveted on Adelita, her upright carriage and proud tilt of her shoulders, the arch of her back. ‘In our country, the man is the real dancer. He’s like the great fighting bulls, both beautiful and proud. People flock in their thousands to watch the most famous.’
‘I would love to see that,’ Yöst exclaimed, astonished by a description that so closely fitted the cobs – proud, beautiful and majestic.
‘Bulls or men dancing?’
‘Bulls, silly. Men dancing would be boring. No way, are they as graceful as Katarina.’
‘And bulls are?’ Rico eyes lit up. ‘Tell you what,’ he sounded excited, ‘one day, when I’ve got lots of money, I’ll take you to a bull fight.’
‘In Spain?’
‘No, not Spain,’ Rico’s scowled. He stared at Yöst. ‘What?’
‘Just thinking. I come from somewhere else, so do you. That’s yet another thing we have in common. Neither of us can go back to where we were born.’
20
As December leached into a new year, the weather worsened, leaving great swathes of water swamping the valley floor. Confined to the house, Yöst found time stretched endlessly, convinced that the great spinning ball that was Earth had left its brake on, days of the week merged into a congealed mass of nothingness.
Every so often, when the rains eased for an hour or two, desperate to keep boredom at bay, he bundled the two children into boots and capes made from a piece of old oilskin Rico had given them.
‘They’re a bit ripped and tatty,’ he said, looking almost shamefaced by the paucity of his gift. ‘I found the stuff in the market and asked Adelita to make them.’
Yöst felt his throat seize up, his breath tight.
‘She’s good with a sewing machine.’ Defensively, Rico swung away, his cheeks flushed. ‘You’d have done the same,’ he muttered, ‘if it had been me stuck here not able to go into town.’
They didn’t go far, they couldn’t. A great torrent covered the lower reaches of the meadow, while the rock-filled slopes above the beehive house had become too dangerous to even approach, boulders loosened by the rain crashing down like giant hailstones. Instead, they followed the track towards the main road, through the olive grove, making a game of jumping puddles and swinging Tatania over the deepest.
‘See their faces?’ Rico pointed at the knots in their gnarled trunks that resembled the grimaces of old and toothless men. ‘Once upon a time, they were trolls, wicked creatures that ate cattle and children,’ he recounted ghoulishly. ‘Eventually, the wood nymphs became so angry, they imprisoned them in the trunks of those trees. And there they will stay until they learn the error of their evil ways.’ He pointed to the newly formed buds as evidence of the tears of regret the trolls were shedding.
‘I’m surprised Clara didn’t come with us,’ Yöst raised his face to the sky, drinking in the moisture. ‘She and Zande are usually joined at the hip.’
‘She hates rain,’ Rico shouted above the noise of raindrops splashing down. ‘Ma’ll have my guts for garters as it is, the kids must be soaked. Still, it’ll be worth it. TaTa’s got some colour in her cheeks, and you look as if the end of the world might just not happen until tomorrow now.’
Yöst laughed. ‘And you hate walking.’
‘Yeah, I hate walking.’ Their glance met. ‘How about a song, Zande, TaTa? Make it loud. Frighten the rain gods away for Yöst.’
Swinging round, they headed back up the track, the return journey taking a fraction of the time, as if the rain had shrunk the road to half its size. Nevertheless, to Yöst, each moment outdoors was a lifeline, snaking across water to rescue him from drowning.
By the time they had returned to the house, time had resumed a more normal pace, with the hours between dinner and bedtime flying past, a complete reversal of the daytime. Occasionally, Adelita and Maestro provided a splendid entertainment, loudly quarrelling as only lifelong friends can do, with Adelita’s sarcastic wit duelling against Maestro’s pithy comments. Well aware Ramon’s hospitality carried a price tag, they gave no quarter. With Ramon’s good-humoured bellow leading the appreciative laughter, they flung out remarks like a flurry of blows from a boxer’s gloves, propelling time into furious overdrive, abruptly halted by Pascual’s gentle prompting that it was bedtime.
Not surprisingly, it was Yöst who first noticed the winter darkness retreating. He had taken to leaning up against the yard door. With its top half open and pushed back flat against the hinges, he stared out across the rain-filled skies, able to smell the fresh air, even whilst rain blasted mud in the yard into pools of brown water. There, he felt at ease, the murmur of voices from the kitchen, occasionally broken into by a peal of laughter at a witticism from Adelita, reminding him of home. He did try not to dwell on the past, although after a particularly vivid dream it proved impossible, his reason stalled until he had revisited both the pain and joys of his old life. He didn’t have nightmares about the attack much anymore. For that he had Pascual to thank. Like the burns on his arm, that particular nightmare had healed.
Convinced that a few days before, the sky over the top of the barn had already fallen into darkness, he checked the clock on the kitchen mantelshelf to make sure, unable to quell a frisson of excitement from sweeping through him.
Within a week the expanding daylight became obvious to everyone then, as if a switch had been thrown, the atmosphere inside the beehive house changed. There was new purpose to Pascual’s steps as she opened the window in the kitchen to sniff the air, singing as she worked.
‘Soon it will be spring,’ she carolled, ‘and we will celebrate.’
‘Why?’ Zande asked.
‘All farmers celebrate the first day of spring. We are no different and this little girl …’ she picked Tatania up and swung her around, ‘will have a birthday. Delors celebrated hers a month ago; it’s only fair TaTa has one too.’
‘What’s a birthday?’
‘Don’t you remember, Zande, Yöst had his birthday in the winter?’
‘When Pepe hung lights on the tree?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Will TaTa have lights?’
‘Not lights, no. She will have with a proper birthday cake with candles and we will fly kites.’
‘Kites?’ Tatania echoed.
‘Yes, we always fly kites in March.’
It was Maestro who built their kites. Complaining the barn was too cold and damp, he sat at the kitchen table whittling fine pieces of cane to create a light framework. ‘If Pascual won’t let me stay in bed, I need to keep busy,’ he explained to Yöst, who was watching from his usual spot in the doorway.
He was bored, all the adults apart from Maestro had gone off to market; Pascual armed with a long shopping list sat beside Rico, the cart he was driving filled with boxes of apples, the last of the previous year’s crop.
‘My fingers become stiff if I don’t use them, and I can’t play my guitar all day.’ Maestro glared down at his hands, their joints swollen, with thick callouses on the fingers on his left hand from the guitar strings. ‘It’s good for my hands to do something else.’
‘On the island, we used to build kites … out of driftwood. Not as good as this, though.’
‘Better forget those days, does you no good to remember the past,’ Maestro replied in a whisper, noticing the twins lingering in the corridor, their attention fixed on Yöst, ‘safer to think about the present.’ Raising his voice to include the two girls, ‘Emilee will tell you it’s the custom in our country to fly kites in spring. Pepe’s fingers are too big and clumsy for such dainty work so he’s in charge of collecting paper and string from the market. Not rags. With eight children in the house, we’ve always plenty of those.’ He smiled down at Tatania, who was wearing the pink dress she had arrived in. ‘If you would hurry up and grow, my little lady, this dress will make a most beautiful kite.’
Despite his frequent catty remarks, unlike Berte, who dissolved into tears whenever he spoke sharply, Tatania was often to be found sitting by Maestro’s bedside, patiently waiting for him to wake up. She wasn’t silent, her vigil accompanied by a litany of whispers. Zande had claimed she was reciting the story Yöst had read them the previous day, although her narrative remained unintelligible to everyone apart from her.
Once Maestro had completed their frames, tying their tails with strips of rag, the older girls were given the task of decorating them, Adelita instructing each one what to draw and insisting they kept it a secret. When they were finished, the fourteen kites became their evening’s entertainment, and paraded past the dinner table while their audience were made to guess who they represented. Pepe’s was easy. Ana had drawn a large pair of feet with knobbly toes; as was Yöst’s kite, a smiling sun on a background of deep blue sky, peeping out from under a dark cloud that looked suspiciously like a pair of spiky eyebrows. Surprisingly it was Tatania who picked out the kite Zande was to fly, pointing to the image of two birds. ‘Because he’s always watching the sky,’ Adelita confirmed.
By the time the lower reaches of the meadow had dried out, swapping its winter carapace of mud for a green carpet that hinted at sunshine and flowers, the dismal greys of early morning had been replaced by a gradual burgeoning warmth. Anticipation woke the children early, apart from Rico, who pulled a pillow over his head demanding to be left alone. It was already bright outside, promising a pleasant day, and it was Pascual, threatening they wouldn’t be allowed out at all unless they ate their breakfast, that eventually brought the excited throng to heel. Even so it was a hasty meal, with so much noise even Rico gave up on sleep, keen to join in the merriment. After which ten pairs of feet, in various sizes of boots and wellingtons, raced across the yard to collect their kites from the barn, where they’d been hung to await the official dawning of spring for their first outing.
Bemoaning the loss of a morning’s work, Ramon, taking his breakfast coffee with him, strolled out to watch. Even Maestro had got up early, and bundling himself up in a coat and shawl hobbled out to the edge of the field, anxious not to miss a minute.
Seeing him, Adelita shouted out: ‘It’s officially spring everyone. See,’ she pointed at Maestro, ‘the cuckoo’s back.’
Ignoring Maestro’s jibe about having clumsy fingers, Pepe had secretly built himself a second kite in the shape of an eagle. Shielding it behind his back, he waited until the sky was alive with dots of cheerful colour before launching it. Then oblivious to Adelita’s protests about cheating, skilfully dive-bombed the children’s kites, making them scream out and tug their paper shells out of danger. Within an hour, unable to bear Pepe’s triumph any longer, Ramon had snatched his wife’s kite out of her hands. Realising a battle royal was about to commence, everyone else hauled theirs in. After a brief stumble, which had Pepe’s hoarse bray sounding out, Ramon revisited his childhood skills, demonstrating how to make a kite swoop and dive, before accepting Pepe’s challenge, the air vibrating across the taut paper faces filling the sky with sound.
After a while, impatient to join in their game of tag with the wind, other shapes joined the eagle and the loaf of bread, Ana had drawn on her mother’s kite. Watching, Yöst couldn’t help wonder how it would feel to be no longer tied to the earth – to fly free and to swoop and glide. Suddenly remembering Maestro’s advice not to think about the past, he set himself the task of discovering something new about each member of the family. He didn’t count growing; over the winter months they had all done that, the girls’ dresses both tight and short, and Ernestina’s with a faint line around the hem, where it had already been let down. Rico had grown his hair over the winter, insisting it kept him warm. That morning, sensing the strength of the wind, Adelita had teasingly presented him with a hair ribbon.
Helping Tatania to launch her own kite, Yöst had been astonished how fast she moved over the ground, and surprisingly strong. Once airborne, she had no trouble controlling its wayward habits. Strolling back up the slope to where Pascual was watching, he said so.
By way of a reply, she pointed across the river. ‘Do you see those trees?’
‘Ye–es?’
‘And the birds?’
‘Of course. One’s a sparrow hawk.’
‘You have wonderful eyesight, Yöst, for someone who can’t see what’s under their nose.’
‘Under …?’
‘Only teasing. TaTa decided a long time ago, if she didn’t want to be left behind, she had to run to keep up with you and Rico.’ She shrugged. ‘I never know what to make of her, she’s certainly not a bit the same as my girls when they were small – they were all very noisy, even then. I mean, TaTa rarely says anything, yet is aware of everything going on in the house almost before it happens. Katarina said she’s like an alarm clock. The other day, I went into the kitchen to fetch the plates for the dinner table, and found her standing by the cupboard waiting to carry her own plate in.’
She held out her arms to the sun, embracing it. ‘It’s so good to feel the sun again. I dread the autumn when the rains begin. Remember when you first got here, how Zande took care of her? That’s changed.’ She pointed to the lower slopes of the meadow where Zande and the girls were playing some sort of game with a bat and ball, Pepe mounting guard over their kites. ‘Look there?’ Not taking part in the ball game, Tatania was watching Zande. ‘I’m beginning to think she’s worried he might fly away like the kites.’
Yöst froze.
‘Your face, Yöst, it’s a picture,’ she exclaimed, misunderstanding. ‘You mean to say you’ve not noticed?’ She patted his arm. ‘Never mind, I’ve had more practice than you. By this time next year, you’ll be an expert.’
She nodded down the slope towards the milling children, their noisy chatter, after the incarceration of the previous weeks, joyful, mimicking the birds almost dizzy with delight at the onset of spring. ‘It’s a good life … farming. None better.’
‘Have you always been farmers?’
‘Ramon’s family have. They owned an orange orchard. On summer’s nights, that’s all you cou
ld smell, the tang of oranges ripening. Not Adelita; she’s from the city. As Katarina told you, she was a famous dancer. We saw her perform one time, Ramon and me, not long after we were married.’ Pascual bit her lip, grinning at her indiscretion. ‘You’re so easy to talk to, I forget you’re only supposed to be twelve … or thirteen depending if Rico’s in a good mood or not. Still, he’s been better since you came, not half so moody. I used to despair. I hope for his sake, you’ll eventually settle … the children have, and then perhaps you can get rid of all those secrets tied up in here.’ She poked her finger into his chest. ‘Go and protect Rico and Zande from the girls. They’re ganging up and I’m going to steal my kite back from Ramon and join them.’
As the river slowly began to subside, Ramon gave Rico and Yöst the task of oiling the tools, while he and Pepe went out into the fields, to see how long before they could start spring planting. All around, signs of spring were evident, the skies awake and bustling with the trumpeting of birds seeking a mate and a suitable nest site, and battling any neighbour intent on usurping it. Even the distant skyline had changed, the greys and purples of winter replaced by the green of the swelling buds. Only the peach and apple trees in the nearby orchard lay dormant, needing a few more days of warm sunshine before bursting into their cascades of pink and white blossom.
Within a couple of days, the largest of the fields proved dry enough to plough. The previous autumn Pepe and Ramon had divided a small part into squares, separated by paths of beaten earth. That again had been Adelita’s idea, insisting each of the girls should be given a plot in which to grow flowers or vegetables, and already bizarre figures with flapping cloth arms had taken up residence.
Barone had been harnessed to a small hand-plough and, with Ramon walking alongside, steered a straight path through the soggy ground, depositing furrows of brown earth on either side. Made nervous by the circling seagulls, that had flown inland and were greedily snatching up worms uprooted by the plough’s curved blades, the horse constantly jerked its head, whinnying in alarm.
The Click of a Pebble Page 23