A Thunderous Whisper
Page 12
“You’re right.… I forgot! You never finished seeing it.”
“Nope, but that’s okay,” I said, knowing that half a movie was better than no movie at all.
Mathias tossed his makila from one hand to the other. “So that’s what we’ll do. Come over and I’ll have my father give us our own showing. That way you’ll get to see a whole movie.”
I shook my head, but smiled at the thought. “I can’t. You know I have to do the deliveries with Mamá tomorrow. But it was a nice thought.” I looked up to see his mother at the window. She waved at me.
Mathias glanced up too and signaled for her to give him one more minute. “I have to go in, but … Wait, I have an idea. Why don’t you have your mother come too? She can have lunch with my family, and then we’ll all watch the movie.”
“Ha,” I chuckled. “That might work if I had anyone else’s mother.”
“No, we can do this. What if we do it on Sunday? You don’t make deliveries after church, right?”
“No.” I mulled the idea over. “I’m just not sure. You haven’t even asked your parents. You’re leaving in a few days, and they may not want to—”
“It’ll be fine. I know it.” He stepped closer to me. “My parents feel guilty about making me move. Why do you think Mother isn’t out here pulling me inside for Shabbat dinner? I know they’ll say yes. C’mon. Ask your mother.”
“But you know how she is.…”
“So?” he said, his eyes twinkling with the possibility.
I shook my head. “She’ll probably just say no.”
Mathias gave me a half smile and leaned on his makila. “But she might say yes.”
I thought about it for a few more seconds.
He folded his arms like a little boy ready to pout. “Do you not want to come over?”
“No, no. I didn’t say that.” I just didn’t know if I wanted Mamá to go with me.
“Then let me handle my parents and you deal with yours, vale?”
I let out a short sigh. “Vale. Okay. I’ll ask Mamá. No promises, though.”
“Fine, but you have to ask.”
“Yes, I will.” I spun him around and pushed him toward the door. “But get inside before your mother gets angry.”
“Fine,” he answered. “I’ll expect you on Sunday.”
The shadows of the night were already growing longer, and I turned to head home myself. A permanent smile had replaced the sadness from a few minutes earlier.
Lunch and a movie with Mathias on Sunday. There was still some fun to be had.
As I reached the lamppost on the corner of the street, I heard the sound of a window opening, and from the darkness Mathias yelled, “Don’t forget to ask your mother!”
Mamá. This night was still not over.
TWENTY-SEVEN
I stared at the wrinkles that darted from the corners of Mamá’s dark brown eyes. Would I look like her when I was old? I’d never really given it much thought, but now I wondered. Maybe she had been like me when she was young. Had there been a time when she wanted to be something else? Maybe I should tell her about leaving.… It could be a chance to start over … for both of us.
“¿Qué?” Mamá asked, lifting her eyes to meet mine. “What are you staring at?”
“Nada, nothing,” I answered.
“Hmph, you’re acting different today. Something happen during your deliveries?” Mamá tore off a piece of bread and ran it along her plate, letting it sop up whatever sauce was left.
“Um, well, actually, there was—”
“You put the money you earned in the drawer, right?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the napkin.
“Sí, señora. In the box, by the Bible in the top drawer.”
She stood and took her plate over to the sink. “Don’t forget that I know how much money is in there at all times.”
I rolled my eyes since her back was to me. “I’d never take anything without permission.”
“It’s just a reminder,” she answered. “Were you saying something about what happened today?”
“Mathias’s family is moving next week.”
Mamá didn’t turn around. “Oh,” she said, not sounding too interested.
“We’d made a bunch of plans, and I thought—”
“No point in crying over what’s done.” Mamá paused for a moment, holding the plate under the running water. “You’ll keep his customers, right?”
“Kind of. The customers cut back their orders too. They only want deliveries once every two weeks.”
Mamá threw the sponge into the sink. “¡Qué cosa! We need the extra money now more than ever!”
I stayed quiet. Perhaps the timing wasn’t right to ask about the movies or mention moving.
“Well, we’ll just have to go out and try to do more sales every day. No more of this easy living for you. We’ll even work Sunday morning if we have to.”
“Um, about Sunday …” I picked at the edge of the napkin that rested on my lap.
“Let me guess.… You don’t want to work?” she said, still not bothering to turn around to look at me.
“No. I mean yes, um, just not this Sunday.” I twisted the napkin edge. “Mathias invited us to have lunch with his family.”
Now Mamá turned around. “Why? Aren’t they moving?
What’s the point?”
“To thank us for helping sell the sardines. We’ll also get to see a movie at the theater.”
Mamá shut off the faucet and wiped her hands on a cloth lying by the sink. I could see her thinking about it. “El cine, huh?”
I nodded. “Can we go?”
Mamá didn’t move or say anything. A chance to watch a movie was tempting for anyone … even her.
“I suppose … it would be the polite thing to do.”
I smiled. Seeing Mamá be gracious might be better than the movie.
“Mathias and I can also make some plans for when he comes back in the summer,” I said as Mamá walked out of the kitchen. “Maybe sell some more sardines,” I added for good measure.
She paused right outside the doorway and glanced back at me. “Summer? Ha! Once that boy leaves, he won’t come back. Best that you realize early on that people always leave. Look at your brother, and now your father. Can’t get too attached or else you won’t survive.”
“No, that’s not what’ll happen. We’ll see each other again.… He told me so.”
Mamá walked away, shaking her head. “Eventually you’ll learn, neska. We all do.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
All day Saturday Mamá and I walked the streets of Guernica trying to make as many sales as we could. We didn’t stop even when the air-raid warning sounded. As usual, Mamá regarded it as a false alarm, and she continued her calls of “¡Sardinas, saaardiiiinas!” over the sound of sirens and church bells. So far, she’d always been right, but it felt as if we were tempting fate.
And then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, it was Sunday afternoon, and Mamá and I were walking toward the theater after Mass.
“¿Me veo bien? I look fine, ¿verdad?” Mamá asked me as some of the more refined women from church crossed the street in front of us.
“Of course you do.” I’d noticed Mamá sniffing her sleeve during Mass, probably wondering if her nicest white blouse, the one with the lace trim on the collar and cuffs, smelled just like all the rest of her clothes.
“You said they don’t put on airs, right? Because you know I can’t tolerate self-righteous people.” Mamá tugged on her brown skirt, adjusting the waist, as we walked by one of the crowded cafés.
“No, his parents are very nice. They both speak Spanish and—”
“Spanish?” She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, causing a few people to maneuver around us. “Why wouldn’t they be speaking Spanish? Don’t tell me they’re foreigners?”
I looked down at my feet, regretting having said anything. It would have been better for Mamá to have realized that after she met them.
“Mamá, please,” I begged, my stomach already churning.
“Don’t talk like that.”
“What?” She pursed her lips. “You think I’ll embarrass you?”
“No,” I whispered. “I just want to have a good time today.”
“Hmpf.” Mamá rolled her eyes and said nothing else.
As we continued walking, past storefronts that had heavy sandbags stacked along their doorways, I thought of how the war now surrounded us. It could come from Franco’s soldiers breaking through the front lines or from the Germans flying above us. That’s when I realized Mamá still didn’t know Mathias’s mother was German. Things could get very ugly during lunch.
I needed to say something. Make sure Mamá didn’t insult his family.
We were walking across the town’s center plaza, where the pigeons and people all gathered, which meant that Mathias’s apartment was around the corner. A few more seconds and we’d be there.
I glanced at Mamá’s profile as she stared across the street at the theater. There was no more time to come up with the right words, the right approach.… I had to tell her.
“Mamá, there’s something you should know. Mathias—”
“I’m not going in,” Mamá declared, cutting me off. She looked down at her well-worn shoes. In a low voice, she said, “I don’t fit in here.”
For a moment, a huge weight lifted off my shoulders; then I saw Mamá’s face. For the first time, she looked defeated.
I glanced up at the window above the theater. Mathias’s mother stood by the open curtains watching us.
Thoughts swirled in my head. I didn’t want to go and have Mamá cause a scene, but she also deserved to see a movie once in her life. “Mamá, they’re good people and, look … she’s already seen us.”
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Mamá shook her head. “This isn’t me.”
“But we can’t just leave. We have to tell them something.”
Mamá sighed. After a few seconds, she simply said, “You should go.”
“Mamá, I—”
“No,” she said forcefully. “I’ve made up my mind. I won’t go in. You can.” She cupped my chin with her hand and stared straight into my eyes. “Neska, you don’t need to have my life.”
“But we can both have a new life,” I blurted out.
“What?”
I knew I had to tell her. Let her make the choice. Perhaps we could start over in Madrid. “Mathias’s family … they offered to help us move, too. If we want, we can go somewhere else … away from here. Papa can join us later.”
“Run away? From Guernica? Leave the place where I last saw your brother, God rest his soul.” She quickly made the sign of the cross. “All because of a silly war? Never!” Mamá rolled back her shoulders. “If Franco’s troops come in, so be it. We’ll sell sardines to them.” She shook her head. “I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised to hear you say this.”
“No, I only meant—”
“You certainly aren’t the same girl you used to be.” The slightest hint of a smile seemed to cross her face before quickly disappearing. “Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. At least you’ve become a somewhat stronger creature.”
“I, um, uh …,” I stammered, unsure of what I should do or say next.
“I knew this moment would come.” She turned me around so I’d face the theater. “I’ve seen you changing over the last few weeks. It’s time for you to make your own decisions, Anetxu.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear before giving me a nudge forward. “Just don’t depend on anyone … become who you need to be. It has to be what you want because, in the end, we’re all left alone.”
And with that she turned to walk back home.
At first, I didn’t move. Mamá’s words seemed to echo in my brain. The fact that she had called me by my name highlighted that this was no ordinary conversation.
I thought about chasing after her and telling her that I didn’t care about seeing the movie. That selling sardines was going to be my life, too … but that would be a lie.
Plus, for the first time, I felt Mamá wanted something different for me.
Mathias flung open the front door to his building and ran across the street. “Where’s your mother?” he asked.
“It’s just me.” I looked at the street filling with other people, but for me it seemed empty. “She couldn’t stay.”
“But you’re not going … are you?” he asked.
“Well,” I bit my lip, still unsure of what I should do. I didn’t want Mamá to feel alone.
“You have to stay,” he said. “I leave in two days.”
“I can still meet you tomorrow out by the tree. No deliveries, right?”
“No, no deliveries tomorrow.” He looked back toward his apartment. “But what about today? The movies and my parents. Our plans.” His eyebrows scrunched together, trying to make sense of the situation.
Mamá had told me to make my own decisions. Not her choices … mine. I didn’t want to live like she did. I was already making a difference, and even without Mathias, my days of delivering secret messages weren’t going to be completely over.
“C’mon.” Mathias took my hand. “You can deliver sardines any other day,” he said, walking me across the street and to his front door.
He was right, I could always help Mamá later. She’d see that I hadn’t abandoned her.
But as I stepped over the threshold of the building and the door closed behind us, a feeling of sadness, laced with touches of excitement, pinched at my heart.
Sardine Girl was gone.
TWENTY-NINE
The next day I looked at the school clock at least a hundred times. Even though there weren’t any deliveries to be made, Mamá had agreed that I could spend the afternoon with Mathias and not help her at the market. I think she knew that I would’ve gone to see him no matter what and I’d have been willing to accept a beating for it.
The sound of the bell dismissing us from class was like the pistol at the start of a race. I rushed out of the schoolyard and down the crowded streets, weaving around people and carts. Mathias and I had agreed to meet by my tree, and I wasn’t going to let anyone slow me down. Every minute counted.
I turned onto the dirt road that led to the countryside, kicking up lots of dust on my way to the tree because I refused to slow down.
Then it hit me. I paused to catch my breath. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy a regular day by my tree with Mathias. Were we going to pretend that this was any other day? He was leaving the very next day. I knew I wouldn’t cry, but I really wasn’t going to laugh either. It felt as if a gaping hole had opened up in my chest.
I thrust my hand into my pocket and felt for the satin pouch.
“Ani!” Mathias waved his makila in the air. He was already walking toward me across the field.
I smiled, refusing to believe that this would be goodbye forever.
“Hi, Mathi—” I stopped midword because in the distance the church bells had begun to ring.
I could feel every one of my senses go on high alert.
Mathias, who was now next to me, scanned the horizon and then looked back at me. “You think …?”
I stood still. We both knew that the nonstop clanging of church bells could signal an incoming attack. I waited for the factory sirens to start wailing.
We searched the sky again.
“I don’t see anything,” he said as the sirens joined the chorus of bells. “You think it’s another false alarm?”
“Probably. Maybe we should go home or to a shelter,” I suggested, not wanting to tempt fate as Mamá so often did. “Just until they give the all clear.”
“There’s no time for that. We can go up to the Garza farmhouse. That’s closer.” Mathias started walking up the mountain path.
A flock of birds heading
in from the coast caught my eye. Then I focused.… Those were no birds.
“Mathias, look!” I pointed to what was clearly a group of planes coming our way.
“I see them! We have to go!” Mathias grabbed my hand and started a hobbling dash toward a ditch that someone had converted into a makeshift foxhole by placing sandbags around the edge.
“The tree. They won’t see us there. It’ll be a better place to hide,” I suggested.
“We won’t make it,” he said, pushing me into the dirt pit.
Moments later, a plane whizzed by, heading straight for Guernica. It was flying so low I could see swastikas on its wings and tail.
“They’re German,” I whispered. “But they wouldn’t … I mean, why? We’re just a little market town to them.”
Mathias didn’t answer. I looked over and saw him gripping his makila so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. A few mumbled words were all I heard before the roar of several more planes drowned out everything.
Then there was silence. For several minutes neither of us moved, barely daring to breathe, but the eerie quiet proved to be too much. The planes had come, and as far as we could tell, they had gone without doing anything.
I let out a deep breath. “They were just scaring us.”
Mathias slowly nodded and stood up. “Way to wrap up my stay in Guernica, huh?” he said, holding out his hand to help me up.
Both of us crawled out of the ditch, and although I’d been petrified a few moments earlier, a sense of giddiness seemed to overtake me. “Now you have to come back in the summer. Guernica must be pretty important if Hitler wants to see what we’re doing.”
“Yeah, Guernica … the great military base of women, children, and homeless refugees,” Mathias teased.
I put my hands on my hips. “Oye, you don’t have to be cruel.”
“Wait a minute, you just said the same thing!”
“Yeah, but I’m from here. I can make fun of my own town.”
Mathias rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I can never win,” he muttered.