by Noah Gordon
They garroted murderers in Barcelona, or hanged them from gallows erected in the Placa Sant Jaume.
He skipped his selling trips to the Sitges market during the heat of the summer, not wanting to cook the wine in the hot sun, but he continued to bottle wine in the cool gloom of his cellar, and as the bottles accumulated on the dirt floor he realized the need for shelving. He had a good supply of salvaged lumber from the disassembled vats but not enough nails. Early one morning he rode Hinny through the darkness at a leisurely pace and spent a morning in Sitges culling old wine bottles, of which he bought ten, as well as buying ink powder and paper for more labels, and a bag of nails.
Passing an outdoor café, he saw abandoned on one of the tables a copy of El Cascabel, and at once he hobbled Hinny in a nearby patch of shade. He sorely missed having access to Nivaldo’s newspaper, and now he ordered coffee and eagerly sat to read.
The news held his attention long after the coffee cup was dry. As he had known, the war had been over for a time, now. The Carlists had not persevered, and things seemed to have quieted down all across the nation.
There was still bitter fighting in Cuba.
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, the prime minister, had formed a government in Madrid that was a coalition of the moderates of the conservative and liberal parties, oppressive to all its rivals. On his own he had established a commission that had drawn up a new constitution, subsequently ratified by the cortes and supported by the throne. Alfonso XII wanted to rule a stable constitutional monarchy, and that was what had been achieved. An editorial in the paper observed that while not everyone agreed with Cánovas, people were relieved to turn away from bloodshed and strife. Another editorial commented on the popularity of the king.
That evening as dusk fell, Josep stood in the village placa with Eduardo and discussed some of the political changes. “Cánovas has pushed through a new annual tax on landowners and business people,” Josep said. “Now farmers must pay 25 pesetas, and shopkeepers 50 pesetas, in order to be allowed to vote.”
“One can imagine how popular that will be,” Eduardo said drily, and Josep smiled.
Eduardo also had noticed that Nivaldo looked as though his health was poor, and he mentioned it to Josep.
“The older generation of the village is fast disappearing,” he said. “Angel Casals suffers greatly these days. His gout involves both of his legs now, and it gives him terrible pain.
He looked at Josep uncomfortably. “I had an interesting talk with him a few days ago. He believes it is time for him to step down as alcalde.”
Josep was shocked. Angel Casals was the only alcalde of San Eulália that he had known in his lifetime.
“It is forty-four years since he succeeded his father as alcalde. He would like to remain alcalde one more year. But he realizes his sons are not old enough or experienced enough to succeed him.” Eduardo’s face reddened. “Josep…he would like me to succeed him as alcalde.”
“But that would be perfect!” Josep said.
“You would not be offended?” Eduardo asked anxiously.
“Of course I would not.”
“Angel admires you greatly. He said he struggled for a long time, trying to choose between us, and that finally he arrived at me because I am older than you.” Eduardo smiled. “Which, he hopes, may indicate that I may be a bit more mature.
“But Josep, we do not have to allow Angel to choose his successor. If you would like to be alcalde of the village, I would support you with the greatest contentment,” Eduardo said, and Josep knew he was sincere.
He smiled at Eduardo and shook his head.
“He made me promise I would serve for at least five years,” Eduardo said. “After that, he said, perhaps you would take a turn, or one of his sons…”
“I need you to promise me that you will serve at least forty-five years. I would like to remain on the village council for that long, for it is my pleasure to work with you,” Josep said, and he and Eduardo embraced.
Their encounter lifted Josep’s spirits. He was genuinely happy that Eduardo would become the alcalde. He had come to see that whether someone was the owner of a great mill or a small grower of grapes, the very food and flavor of life depended on whether there was a good alcalde, a competent governor, an honest cortes, and a prime minister and a king who were truly concerned about the condition and future of their people.
Josep built cellar shelving that was strong enough to support several hundred bottles of wine, but without any attempt to make a piece of attractive furniture. He shelved the bottles next to one another on their sides, and he loved the sight of the array, the dark wine gleaming richly within the glass in the lantern light.
One day he was working among the vines late in the afternoon when a horseman turned his mount into the vineyard from the lane.
“Is this Josep’s vineyard?”
“It is.”
“You are Josep?”
“I am.”
Dismounting, the man announced that he was Bru Fuxá of the village of Villanueva. He was on his way to Sitges to visit his relatives there.
“The last time I visited my cousin Frederic Fuxá, whom you know, together we finished the last drops of a bottle of your beautiful wine, and now I would dearly like to buy four bottles as gifts for my cousins.”
It was not an overly hot day, but Josep cast a worried glance at the sun. It was already was low in the sky, but still, heat and wine…
“Why don’t you linger for a bit, relax with me for an hour? Then you can ride on to Sitges in the pleasantness of early evening, when cooling breezes blow along the Barcelona road.”
Bru Fuxá shrugged and smiled, and tied his horse next to Hinny in the shaded overhang of the roof.
He sat on the vineyard bench and Josef brought cool water. The visitor revealed that he was an olive grower, and they talked companionably about the raising of olives. Josep brought him to inspect the old trees on the Vall piece, which Senyor Fuxá declared to be beautifully maintained.
When the sun was sufficiently down, Josep brought him into the cellar and carefully wrapped four bottles in part of his dwindling supply of old newspaper, and they stowed the wine in his saddle bags.
Fuxá paid and mounted. As he saluted and turned his horse, he flashed a smile.
“A beautiful bodega, senyor. A beautiful bodega. But…” He leaned forward.
“It lacks a sign.”
The next morning Josep cut a square piece of oak planking and fastened it to a short length of narrow post. He asked Marimar to do the lettering, not confident that he could perform with the required neatness. The result was a sign that was not at all fancy, bearing resemblance to the For Sale sign that Donat had erected and he had destroyed. But the new sign performed its function well, which was to tell a stranger exactly where it was that he had arrived.
JOSEP’S VINES
On a Wednesday afternoon, when ordinarily he would have pictured Donat among his loud and clacking machines, Josep went to the grocery to buy chorizo and saw his brother standing behind the counter wearing a white apron, measuring out flour to Senyora Corberó.
Donat turned to Josep as soon as Senyora Corberó was leaving.
“Nivaldo is ill. He sent for us yesterday. I knew that it meant he’s bad off, and we came at once. Rosa is trying to nurse him, while I’m keeping open the shop.”
Josep tried to think of something appropriate to say under the circumstances, but could not.
“I only need some chorizo.”
“How much?”
“Quarter of a kilo.”
Donat cut the chorizo, weighed the hunk, added another slice, and wrapped it in El Cascabel, everybody’s wrapping paper, the merchant’s friend. He took Josep’s money and counted out the change.
“You want to go up and see him?”
“…I don’t think so, no.”
Donat stared. “Why not? Mother of God. You’re angry with him, too?”
Josep didn’t answer. He picked u
p the chorizo packet and turned to leave.
“You don’t like anybody, do you?” Donat said.
57
Extreme Unction
It was the time of year when the grapes were beginning to fulfill their promise, gaining their color, beginning to taste as they should, the season when Josep was starting to pick a berry now and then and pop it into his mouth to see what progress was being made.
The season to study the sky, to worry about the prospect of too much rain or freak hail or continued drought.
He attributed his moodiness to the seasonal uncertainty about the fate of the grapes.
But Marimar returned from a walk to the placa with Francesc to get water and said she had met Rosa. And Rosa had told her the priest had been with Nivaldo almost the whole day.
When Josep went to the grocery, he noted that Donat’s eyes were reddened.
“He is very ill?”
“Very ill.”
“…May I see him?”
Donat shrugged wearily and pointed to the three steps leading to the half-story above the storage room, the space that served as Nivaldo’s living quarters.
Josep walked down the dark hallway and paused at the bedroom. The old man lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. Padre Pio was bending over him, his mouth moving almost silently.
“Nivaldo,” Josep said.
The priest did not appear to notice Josep but seemed to be in another place, speaking words so soft Josep couldn’t make them out. Padre Pio held a cup in one hand and a tiny brush in the other. As Josep watched, he dipped the brush and with it made a tiny cross on Nivaldo’s ear, another on his lips, and on his nostrils.
He peeled back the blanket, revealing Nivaldo’s bowed back and hairy, skinny,
legs, and applied the oil of unction to his hands and feet. Jesús, to his groin!
“Nivaldo, it’s Josep,” Josep said loudly.
But the priest had reached up and closed Nivaldo’s staring eyes.
Padre Pio’s hand had to go back again to bring the lid down over the bad eye, and then the little brush made its final cross.
For years every person in the village had visited the grocery regularly, and most people thought well of Nivaldo. Even those who didn’t hold him in high regard attended his funeral Mass and followed the casket to the burial ground.
Josep and Maria del Mar and Francesc walked to the gravesite with the crowd.
In the churchyard, he found himself standing next to his brother and Rosa. She looked at him a bit nervously.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Josep.”
He nodded. “I am too.”
“A pity, isn’t it, that they couldn’t find a gravesite for him closer to Padre’s,” Donat said to Josep in a low voice.
Why is it a pity? Josep wanted to snap. Do you believe he and Padre will want to get together regularly to play draughts?
He swallowed his sarcasm, but he was not in a mood to talk to them, and in a few minutes he left Donat and Rosa and wandered closer to where the burial was taking place.
His mind was in a turmoil; he had never been so weary, so confused. He wished he had been able to hold Nivaldo’s hand as he died, mourned that he had not been wise enough to offer reconciliation and some small comfort. One part of him still seethed at the thought of the obsessed, scheming insurgent, the mad old man who had sent young men off to die, who had made other men’s sons his personal gift to war. But the other part of him remembered clearly his father’s charming, affectionate friend who had told stories of the Small Ones to a little boy, who had taught him to read and to write, who had helped a clumsy youth to rid himself of the burdens of innocence. Josep knew that man had loved him all of his life, and he stood apart from Marimar and Francesc and wept for Nivaldo.
58
The Legacy
Within two days the entire village had heard that Nivaldo Machado had left his legal will with Angel Casals as executor, and a day later everyone knew that the grocery had been bequeathed to Donat Alvarez and his wife Rosa.
The news was accepted without surprise, and there was not a stir in the village until almost three weeks later, when Donat moved the bench from its longtime place next to the entrance of the grocery. The bench was now located on the placa before the final few meters of the grocery’s land, as close to the church as it could get without being in front of church property. Directly in front of the grocery Donat placed the small round table that had been Nivaldo’s, and another round table slightly larger than the first, and chairs. Rosa told people that the outdoor tables would remain bare except on holidays, when she would cover them with cloths.
Josep was among those who grumbled.
“Nivaldo has barely grown cold. Could they not have the decency to wait a while before making changes?”
“They run a business and not a monument,” Maria del Mar said. “I like the changes they have made. The grocery never has been so spotless. The place even smells better, now that they have cleaned out the storage area.”
“It won’t stay that way. My brother is a slob.”
“Well, his wife is not. She is a strong and energetic woman, and both of them are working hard every day.”
“You realize that both the bench and the tables are on the placa, which is public property? They don’t have the legal right…”
“The bench has always been on the placa,” Maria del Mar pointed out. “And I think it is nice to have the tables there. They liven up the placa, give it a more festive appearance.”
Evidently most of the people of the village agreed with her. When Josep walked to the placa it quickly became ordinary for him to see one or both of the tables occupied with people having coffee or a plate of chorizo and cheese.
Within two weeks Donat had added a third table, and no one in the village came to the alcalde or the council with an objection.
At a rehearsal meeting of the Santa Eulália Castellers, Eduardo told Francesc that he was progressing nicely. After the first of the year, he said, Francesc would be allowed
to climb to the sixth tier in practice, and after a while he would become the pinnacle.
Francesc was visibly exultant. When the time came for him to do his practice climb he ascended very quickly, and Josep felt the boy’s arms around his neck. He waited for what had become ritual, his name being spoken into his ear, but instead he heard something different.
A word scarcely spoken, a breath, a sigh, a tiny puff of sound, like the ghost of a word borne on a breeze.
Padre.
That evening, when the three of them sat at the table in the kitchen for the evening meal, Josep looked at Francesc.
“There is something I would like to ask of you Francesc. A favor.”
The woman and the boy gave him their attention.
“I would enjoy it very much if, instead of calling me Josep, you would begin to address me as Padre. Do you think that would be possible?”
Francesc was not looking at either of them. Instead, he was staring straight ahead, his color high. He had a mouthful of bread, and he was stuffing in even more as he nodded.
Maria del Mar looked at her husband and smiled.
59
Talking and Listening
Their time for privacy, their most intimate and cherished moments of the day, came after Francesc was sound asleep, and one evening Josep led Maria del Mar out into the darkness, and they sat next to one another on the vineyard bench while he talked.
He told her of the group of unemployed youths she remembered well, boys with whom she had grown up. The boys of the hunting group. He spoke of the arrival of Sergeant Peña to the village of Santa Eulália.
He reminded her of the military training and the promises, and then he told her things she didn’t know. She listened to the story of how the village boys had been used as pawns; how, all unknowing, they had helped those who had assassinated an unidentified politician for reasons they could not begin to comprehend.
He told her how he and Guillem h
ad watched while her son’s father had been killed.
“You’re certain Jordi is dead?”
“They cut his throat.”
She didn’t weep; she had given Jordi Arnau up for dead for a very long time. But her hand gripped his very tightly.
He told her the details of his life as a fugitive.
“I’m the only one left,” he said.
“Are you in danger?”
“No. The only two men who could have felt threatened by me are gone. Killed in the fighting,” he added, a comfortable lie.
It was all he told her. He knew he would never be able to reveal anything else to her.
“I’m glad there are no more secrets between us,” his wife said, and kissed him hard on the lips.
He hated it that there were dark areas he could never reveal to her.
He would make it up to her, he vowed, by never failing to treat her with love and tenderness. He found the remaining secrets as burdensome as a hump on his back, and he yearned for someone to whom he could talk about them. Unburden himself.
But there was no one.
On a Saturday afternoon, not quite believing what he was doing but unable to resist, he opened the door of the church and stepped inside.
There were eight people already waiting, pious and faithful men and women. Some came every Saturday afternoon to be shriven, so that they might bring clean souls to the church on Sunday morning to accept the Eucharist.
The heavy red velvet curtains of the booth blocked sound, but in a sensitivity designed to make sure that their own perversities would remain private, those awaiting their turns sat in the last row of benches, as far from the confessional as possible, and Josep found a place among them.