Caminos

by Scott Walker

  Robert counted twenty-five cousins of his mother’s generation and forty-three of his own. It was more than his mind and heart could grasp.

  Antonio passed his hand over a large blank space in the middle of the family tree. “This is where our American family belongs,” he said, “but we have known so little about you.”

  He told Robert and Marlene what he knew about Mercedes’ time in Asturias: her exile from Las Cepas after Casilda’s death, and her return by Antonio González Conde; her life at the farm and Mondays at the market; how she met Antonio Rivas. He withdrew a heavy folder from his pile, opened it, and handed it to Robert. The folder contained a piece of fragile, faintly lined writing paper. It was yellowed with age and insect-eaten around one edge. But the spidery handwriting in slightly-faded black ink was clear.

  “From your great-grandmother to our grandfather,” Antonio said. He reached over and carefully turned the page over. Robert read at the bottom, in a full, nineteenth-century hand: “Mercedes González Conde.” Beneath it was written a cramped but legible: “A Ribas.”

  “My father has had this for decades,” Antonio told Robert. “I have looked at it many times but never translated it because the handwriting and the antiquated language are difficult to decipher. But I will do it for you tonight.”

  Then it was Robert’s turn. He talked. Fernanda translated. He told them what he knew of Mercedes’ life in the U.S.; the sad story of her daughter Julia; of his mother’s abandonment, adoption and discovery of her family. He was choking back tears as he finished. Fernanda was unable to contain hers.

  * * *

  The next morning at ten, Antonio, Marina and Antonio’s nephew collected Robert and Marlene at the hotel. The nephew was also named Antonio, and he spoke English. They drove to see Las Cepas, with its view down the little valley to the Cantabrian Sea. They visited San Román Church, where Mercedes was baptized, and Antonio told them of her marriage there by proxy. They went to a neighboring farm where Robert and Marlene met another granddaughter of Antonio González Conde and her large extended family. Three generations lived under the same roof.

  The apartment Antonio shared with his sister and parents was the final stop on their tour. “El jefe del clan,” Antonio said proudly as he presented his ninety-two-year-old father Manuel. The robust old man’s eyes open wide as he gripped Robert’s hand in both of his. “We are all so pleased you have come.” His ninety-three-year-old wife África hugged Robert and kissed him on both cheeks. “It is a miracle,” the stout old woman declared as she took a step back and looked him over, still holding both his hands.

  They all gathered around the two Antonios after the older one had again retrieved the letter from Mercedes. He read, and his nephew translated for Robert and Marlene. “It specifies no year,” the older Antonio said, “but we guess from the content that it must be from around 1930.”

  Anmoore

  21 December

  My dear sister-in-law and brother,

  I have just received your letter in which I read that you are all well, which makes me very happy, That we all have work is everything, otherwise our lives will be as hard as the people who are suffering without relief from this endless Depression. It is as you used to say, Antonio. If I want to eat, I have to work, and God provides plenty where the people are not afraid of labor.

  María, when your neighbor Tomás comes to Anmoore, please have him bring me the Asturian cabbage seeds and the jeans buttons you bought. Thank you very much for always sending me the things I need. These have been lean years.

  Give my regards to all those who have asked about me, especially to Aunt Carmen and her family at La Siega. I send a strong hug to you and my nephews, and when you write to Ramón, tell him his aunt is thinking of him.

  No more for today, and the same wishes from your brother-in-law.

  Mercedes González Conde A Ribas

  Antonio returned the letter to a new thick envelope and handed it to Robert. “My father rescued this from the granary at Las Cepas after my grandfather died,” Antonio explained. “I am sad to say, it is the only one we have. My grandfather had boxes and boxes of papers stored in the there, but some people, unfortunately, do not place much value on such things.” He sighed and shook his head. “My father’s cousins, who inherited the farm, had hauled much of my grandfather’s archive away by the time my father heard what they were doing and dashed out to the house. He was able to save only this and a few other documents. We have held this letter, in trust as it were, for you and your family, and we agreed last night that you should have it.”

  Again, Robert was overwhelmed by a wave of emotions. He had lost count of how many times it had happened over the past twenty-four hours. His head felt as thick as a melon, but it seemed that his soul was expanding faster than the universe.

  When they returned to the hotel, Marina had arranged for them to meet yet more relatives. Jorge and Loli were the great-grandchildren of Mercedes’ brother Ramón, the one who had emigrated to St. Louis. His oldest daughter Sagrario, the grandmother of these cousins, married an Asturian immigrant to the U.S. in the 1930s, and they returned to Avilés to make their life there. Ramón’s daughter and her husband had spun the Indiano story in the opposite direction: they had shown up in Avilés with a little money and made a fortune when the city boomed in the 1950s.

  * * *

  And then it was over. Part of Robert desperately wished they had more time in Avilés. But part of him was glad they did not. He was saturated. He could absorb no more experiences until it all had the time and space to settle.

  When they passed those crumbling factories again, driving away from Avilés, Robert felt ashamed of his initial reaction for the third time. Even they looked beautiful to him now.

  Years before, Robert had searched the Ellis Island database and found the ship manifest records for his great-grandparents. As he and Marlene drove back to Barcelona for their flight to Berlin, it occurred to him that they had come to Asturias one week before the hundredth anniversary of Antonio Rivas’ departure for America.

  Epilogue

  Robert returned to Avilés six months after that initial arrival with Marlene. He spent two weeks visiting with his relatives, and meeting others he had missed the first time. He enjoyed getting to know them without the pressure of the original encounter. Then he went down to Oviedo, the capital of the modern Principality of Asturias—as it was of the medieval Asturian Kingdom—and he walked the Camino Primitivo, the original ninth-century Way of St. James.

  Over two weeks and more than 200 miles, the Camino de Santiago carried Robert through the heart of Asturias and Galicia. When he set foot for the first time in the homeland of Antonio Rivas, on a gravel hillside trail in the rain, powerful sobs exploded from him unexpectedly. One second, he was merrily tromping up the trail, savoring the foggy, windy solitude. The next he was gasping and weeping with an intensity he had never experienced.

  Robert placed a white stone for Antonio on the cairn marking the border. From his backpack, he pulled a plastic bottle he had filled with local red wine in the village where he had spent the night before. He raised the bottle and toasted his great-grandfather and Galicia. He suspected that under the stern exterior he had seen in the photos, Antonio would have been delighted. He hoped so anyway.

  He returned to Berlin after the Camino, feeling as if he had closed the circle which opened a hundred years before with his greatgrandparents’ emigration. But he quickly grew restless again, and his thoughts drifted often to Asturias. Six months later, Robert moved to Avilés, planning to live there for a year. He had to know this land and his family there better. His previous visits felt like they had only been an introduction.

  Robert passed many carefree hours and days with his relatives, especially Antonio, Marina and Jorge. His cousins were happy to have him around, and they took him on frequent excursions to every part of Asturias. He grew closer to them than he imagined possible.

  Every chance he got, Robert hiked the
coastal trails alone, through the fragrant eucalyptus groves and along the high crags overlooking the sea. He went often to Arnao and stood in the sun and stiff wind on a bluff looking down at the castillete—which was now a museum of the Real Compañía mine—and across the small bay to the smelter where Antonios Primero and Segundo met and became friends.

  He rented an apartment on Calle Rivero, where the street entered the Plaza de España. The Franciscan Brothers’ was his parish church. Robert loved how its cut sandstone blocks were rounded unevenly at the edges and ridged horizontally—like a seaside escarpment—by the centuries of buffeting from ocean winds and rain.

  Robert attended mass only occasionally, but he stopped in the church every time the door was open when he passed. He always knelt and said the same prayer, as he had at each church and chapel along the Camino de Santiago: “Thank you for this. For this day and this place. And for my family and for Marlene. Please keep them healthy and happy. Please help me always to listen. To know the way and to have the wisdom to follow it. And please keep me strong.”

  On a summery September day, a month after Robert moved to Avilés, he and Marina’s son Arturo were strolling back toward Robert’s apartment. They had spent the afternoon, in Asturian style, eating well and drinking well to celebrate the wedding anniversary of Marina and Arturo Sr., who had married six days before Robert was born.

  “Let’s get a beer over there, at Ochobre,” Arturo said as they came across the Plaza de Carbayedo, where the old livestock market had been held until the 1940s. The compact, two-storey house in which the bar was located resembled a small fortress, with its thick walls of uncut stones, small windows and narrow wooden door. “This is one of my favorite spots in Avilés,” Arturo said after they bought their bottles of Mahou and sat down in the sun on the elevated walk looking out over the grassy and treed square. “I think it was one of the first houses built on Carbayedo, back in the sixteenth century. The family who ran the livestock market lived there, and they used to sell beer and cider on hot days from the ground floor window.”

  Robert felt at home. “Thank you for inviting me today, Arturo. It meant a lot to be to be there.”

  “Of course we invite you,” Arturo said, a bemused look on his face. “You’re not just some American relative who dropped in for a visit. You’re a member of the family.”

  Acknowledgments

  I should like to thank Alex Myers for reading the first draft and for his suggestions which transformed the book. Michael Mirolla for agreeing to publish my debut novel, and Julie Roorda for her thoughtful editing. Ulrike-Luisa Eckhardt for helping me find my way. And Marina Iglesias González, Antonio González Díaz, and Jorge Rodriguez González for welcoming me into their lives and making Asturias home.

  About the Author Scott Walker grew up in West Virginia and currently lives on the northwest coast of Spain. In between, he taught high school history, shilled for a Congressman, and has worked as a news analyst and editor while living in Virginia, Florida, New Orleans, Prague, and Berlin.