The Sheep Walker's Daughter

by Sydney Avey

  Then she looks down the street in the direction of her house. As if she’s putting a toe in treacherous waters, she draws into herself and her next words are less confident.

  “Dee, I’d like to offer to have you stay at our house. Lord knows we have the room. But the truth is, Fred is a bit of a stick. He has a routine and he doesn’t like to have it disturbed.”

  It suddenly occurs to me that there may be a reason that Laura spends so much time at my house. What does it say about me that I’ve never even thought about that?

  She stands up a little straighter. “But I have a plan.”

  PART 2

  Part 2

  The Heart’s High Place

  17 — Valerie, Roots

  H Valerie I

  17

  Roots

  I ’m not taking the Borrells up on their invitation to recuperate at their home. I’m not lying here in this hospital bed waiting for Gibert and Peter to meet over my inert body either. The most sensible thing I can do is call Aunt Alaya.

  When Elazar comes to collect me, he’s driving a gull-wing Mercedes 300SL. He pulls the passenger seat all the way back and guides my leg that is mummified in plaster to rest on the dashboard while I squat down on my other leg looking like I’m trying to pee in the gutter. I do a chicken dance to lower myself down into the seat and pull my other leg in. It’s a good thing I’m a stretchy sort.

  “I’m sorry, Valerie, the boys took the truck earlier this morning to repair some fences and the Land Rover was out of gas.”

  We are outside Barcelona now, zipping around the curves in the road at high speed. It’s good medicine. All the blood rushes to my heart, dulling the pain in my leg. I’m curious about how a farmer came to drive such a cool car and I’m bold enough to ask.

  “Ah, well.” Elazar’s eyes crinkle with pleasure. “This was a gift from a generous sponsor.”

  It turns out that Uncle Elazar is a national handball champion. Now that’s the first thing I would have mentioned, but in this family we are tight-lipped. We don’t even leave crumbs on the trail. That sounds like a theme for my next novel.

  Back at the farmhouse, Alaya has a spacious room behind the kitchen set up for me where I can close the door and rest or keep it open and be part of the action.

  Alaya helps me up into the bed and positions my leg on some pillows. Then she brings me a glass of water so I can take my pain pill.

  “Doctor’s orders,” she says with a wink. “Doctor Gibert Borrell.” She practically sings his name.

  I guess it’s time for a talk. I have to talk this out with someone because I’ve come up with nothing trying to figure it out on my own. I explain my dilemma.

  Alaya is a careful listener. She doesn’t speak right away, but when she does, it’s a divination.

  “What are you trying to choose between—two men or two lives?”

  Alaya walks to the window and looks out over her estate. The sheep have returned. We can see them grazing in the distant pastures. Farm workers are lugging baskets of apples from the orchard to the cider house. The cycle of activity in this place is like the blood in our veins, nourishing and ever present even if it goes unnoticed. You would notice it only if it stopped. She turns back to me and leans against the window frame, her arms folded across her chest.

  “I chose a life. Let me tell you about that.” The sun coming in the window plays on her face and I can see memories warm the depth of her dark eyes.

  “In 1933 I had a chance to leave Navarre. Many Basque people were fleeing the political unrest. I could not go to the United States because your borders had been closed to us, this time under the National Origins Act. But I had another option. I was in love with the younger son of a shipping tycoon. You’ve heard of the Aboitiz shipping line?”

  I shake my head no.

  “Well, the Aboitiz family went to the Philippines. They’ve done well there. In our culture, though, younger sons must find another line of work. They don’t inherit the family business. Luis wanted to go to California. He figured that the borders would not be closed forever, so he decided to get as close to the United States as he could. He chose Baja California.

  “Papito told me to go. ‘Go with Luis. He will get rich in America,’ he said to me. ‘Find your sister. Iban will help you. When your husband gets rich, you can come back to the farm. It will be here for you.’

  “It was clear to me that if I married Luis, we would establish our lives in a new country. I didn’t doubt that he would make good, and he has. He is still in Baja California, in Ensenada. I knew I had a community to go to in Bakersfield. I even knew that Dolores was in San Francisco, that she’d married your father and had a baby girl—you.”

  “How did you know all that?”

  “Every large Basque community, wherever it is located—Argentina, Mexico, Canada, even the Soviet Union—has a mutual-aid society that is as much about passing information on dispersed families’ whereabouts as it is about collecting money to help displaced people. Word about where my mother was got back to us. She made a bit of a name for herself as the first female court reporter in the West. Knowing where Leora was made it easy to keep track of my sister.”

  “But you decided not to go see her.”

  “I decided that my roots were here and here I would stay. I did not have a burning desire to get rich. Like my father, I love this land. From the way Papito described California—so spread out, so many people coming and going—I did not think I would love it.”

  “And Luis?”

  “Apparently I did not love him enough. I have no regrets.”

  The pills are fogging my anxiety and replacing it with light-headed euphoria. I work to keep my focus on the tale of star-crossed lovers. It’s as if my soul were divided into one part happy child hearing a love story and one part suspicious seeker of the truth. Alaya continues her story.

  “I met Elazar a year later. He was very different from Luis, but there were similarities. Elazar is competitive and adventurous but not a wanderer. He’s a hard worker. He helped me build what we have today, a family business to pass on to our boys if they want it. It’s not an international shipping business, but it’s enough. And Elazar, he’s handsome, don’t you think?”

  She laughs and then turns to raise the window. A fresh, apple-scented breeze blows in.

  “So, you don’t think there is a ‘right one’?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  I don’t hear anything after that.

  I am wandering somewhere between sleep and awareness. Do roots matter to me? Apparently they did not matter to Lita. I am getting to know a lot about the Basque side of my family. I know nothing about my grandmother’s Greek immigrant family. And my dad’s people, who were they? The faces of an old couple living in an apartment somewhere drift by. They are dead. They came from somewhere and went somewhere. I sink back into sleep and bob up again later with this thought in my head: people are like the irises in my mother’s garden. They form rhizomes that creep through the dirt and shoot roots everywhere. If they get cut off, they keep growing. If they aren’t separated, they sometimes weaken and die.

  We come from good stock, my Lita used to say. She cut herself off from her roots, and strong, capable women blossomed from her stock. Alaya chose to stay clumped together with her family, tangled in a showy display in her homeland. I can’t see that this has weakened her though, so my metaphor fizzles. All I know in this present moment is that Alaya is right. I have to decide whether to choose a man or a life.

  17 — Valerie, Choices

  H Valerie I

  18

  Choices

  T wo days later, I’m feeling more myself. I’m sitting up in my room, listening to the rain drumming on the tile roof. My hair is drying after a much needed shampooing and I’m reading the last of John Dos Passos’s U.S.A. trilogy, The Big Money. Good thing I’m up because Alaya walks into the room with a cheery greeting. “You’ve got visitors.”

  All my senses perk up as i
f I were a small animal sensing danger. Pant legs rustle in the next room. The floorboards shiver from the tread of big feet. I inhale the scent of wet wool, musk, and hair oil. Touching my fingers to my throat, I emit a squeak of alarm as Gibert and Peter walk through the door. Gibert interprets this as a squeal of delight. He strides across the room, bends over me, and gives me a kiss.

  “How’s my patient? I’ve brought you a friend.”

  Gibert squats down in front of me and takes my hand, feeling for my pulse, which is racing. This gives me a clear shot of Peter, who is standing back with a wry smile on his face.

  “Hello, Valerie.” He says this in an upbeat way with an undertone that could be saying Well, isn’t this interesting? Or You hussy! Or Would have been nice if you’d let me know we were over.

  Alaya leans against the doorframe looking amused. As soon as I catch her eye, she turns on her heel and heads back into the kitchen. “You young people visit while I fix some hot apple cider.”

  Elazar comes in and out of the room carrying chairs for the men to sit on. Gibert sits on the one Elazar has placed next to my bed and Peter pulls his chair around to face me.

  I read somewhere that one of the saints—Ezekiel, I think—was transported directly into heaven by God. I wish for that. Of course, heaven would probably not be my destination. There is probably a special hell for women who play men for fools.

  Peter leans back in his chair, crosses a leg over a knee, folds his arms over his chest, and watches as Gibert pulls a stethoscope out of his bag, slips it beneath my gown and prepares to listen to my heartbeat.

  “Your pulse rate is pretty high, young lady.”

  I’m scrambling for words when Gibert finishes his examination, repacks his bag, and says, “Well, your friend has come a long way to see you, Valerie, and I’m due back at the hospital this afternoon, so I’m going to leave the two of you to visit. You seem to be doing well. The elevated heart rate is the result of a surprise visit from two admirers, am I right?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I burble. Gibert kisses me again, pats my shoulder in a see-you-soon gesture, and goes out the door.

  The survival instinct of the human species motivates all kinds of craziness. Maybe I will be able to keep these relationships separate and intact, at least until I can extricate myself in such a way that allows us all to keep our dignity. Then I follow Peter’s gaze to the bare third finger of my left hand. I don’t know what Gibert has told him or how much he has guessed, but it takes no genius to know the jig is up. I am guilty as charged, and Peter is probably just waiting for me to stop dancing at the end of my rope, give him back his ring, and let him sail on into other ports.

  I open my mouth to begin an explanation, not knowing what words will tumble out, when Peter gets up, sits in the chair Gibert has just left, and gathers me into his arms. He crushes me to him, stroking his fingers up the back of my neck and pulling them back down through my damp hair. For one panicked moment I think He’s going to break my neck, but the movement softens into one of comfort as he whispers, “I’m so sorry you’ve been hurt.”

  What is he talking about? My broken ankle? Gibert? Is Gibert seeing someone else? Is he talking about himself? Has he …

  Peter pulls away, holding both my shoulders, and looks at me sternly. “I know we have a lot of talking to do, but remember this, Valerie. I love you.”

  Then he kisses me full on and gently holds me as if I were a wounded animal. I don’t know how much he knows about what I’ve been up to over here, but apparently he plans to forgive me. How do I feel about this plan? We can’t just pretend nothing has happened. Now I’m starting to get a little miffed. He’s treating me as if I were some kind of prize that he has won.

  I have to admit that it feels good to be in his arms again. As lovely and sophisticated a man as Gibert is, I never really know where I stand with him. When we’re together, he is a loving and devoted companion. When we’re apart, which is most of the time, I tell myself he is completely absorbed in his work. I’ve ignored the clues: the broken dates he attributes to schedule changes, his apartment I’ve never seen, his friends I’ve never met. Truth is, Gibert is a sexy, companionable diversion, an arrangement his parents made hoping it might settle down their playboy son. An American girl from Stanford might open some doors for a talented, ambitious second son. Okay, that’s just cynical; the Borrells have been nothing but nice to me.

  Peter gives my shoulders a little shake and says, “Let’s get you better and get you home.”

  Peter can only stay a few days. He has to get back to Stanford to finish up the fall term. I fill him in on Alaya and her family and extract a promise that he will not tell my mother. I should be in a shorter cast by Christmas, I tell him. I can travel then. I’ll be back at Stanford in January. In the meantime, I’ll stay here in the Basque countryside, scribbling away on a proposal for a dissertation on immigration themes in Spanish literature and plotting my next novel. Peter seems okay with that.

  “I have something to talk to you about,” he says, “but it can wait until you get home.”

  Peter declines Alaya’s invitation to stay at the farmhouse. He wants to do some sightseeing, he says. Elazar offers him the use of his truck to knock around in and that’s a perfect plan. It will give me time to think.

  It’s funny how having your leg stuck in a cast can sharpen your resolve to get moving. As much as I love the bustle of Barcelona and the peace and beauty of the Basque countryside, I know now that this is not my place. I’m a person compelled by ideas. I want to study how the movement of people contributes to the growth of nations and ultimately the world. What must be preserved? What has to die? Do old paths still provide a useful surface, like the paths the sheep have walked for generations, or should the path be changed and be lost? What do we fight for? What do we yield to?

  Regardless of what new paths I forge, I won’t make my grandmother’s mistake. I don’t want to break connections with my ethnic past. I will come back to this place as often as I can to dip my ladle into the cultural stew that sustains the Basque people all over the world. But live here? Europe is like an old bull running through the same streets, recovering from old injuries even as it fields new jabs to its vitals.

  I won’t make Alaya’s mistake either. I don’t want only the pastures I can see to be my borders. California is big and bold, and its enterprising spirit is in my blood. Palo Alto and the sleepy towns around it percolate with new ideas that promise to cut new paths in every field. It will start at Stanford and Berkeley.

  I don’t know what is coming, but the energy is palpable. Back home, when I walk through the neighborhoods and smell the sweet aroma of apricots and Italian plums mixed with the sharp scent of freshly planed wood stacked at new home sites, I see The Valley of the Heart’s Delight making room for all comers.

  The itch I have is not only in my leg, it’s coursing through my whole body. I have a little money from Leora coming to me and a modest advance from my publisher put away for a rainy day. I’ll apply for another grant. I’ll give up my pricey student apartment on campus and find a cheap room to rent. If I get through my PhD program, I’ll be able to supplement my writing income with a good teaching job. One thing for sure, come January I plan to be off my mother’s payroll, paying my own way entirely.

  I’m not the only one making plans. When Peter returns from his travels in Elazar’s truck, he tells me he has decided to postpone law school and try out for a major league baseball team.

  In the life I dreamed about with Peter, a Spanish literature professor and an attorney fit the picture perfectly. Easy to tuck a couple of kids into that album too. While life in bustling Barcelona or on a farm in the Basque land holds some appeal for me, it’s family life that fills a hole in me I didn’t know I had. The time I’ve spent with the Borrell family and with my aunt, uncle, and cousins has been a revelation. I grew up lonely, with only myself to watch after while my mother worked. Being part of a family is exhilarating. There is laughter, ar
gument, negotiation, heaps of encouragement, showing off and holding forth, teasing and tussling, admonishment and advice—a daily human interaction I’ve never experienced in such intensity. All this passes before my eyes as Peter outlines the next few years of his life.

  While Peter chatters on, I am weighing the options. My head tells me that the union of a professor and an attorney would produce a suitable environment for a family, but a professor and a baseball player—how would that work?

  Peter and I sit in the kitchen late into the night discussing likely scenarios and in the end I give him back his ring. I cry. He has tears in his eyes too. We agree that we love and care for each other, but that the life of a rookie baseball player has no room for a young family. It’s a short career, and when it’s over, he hopes I will be there waiting for him.

  When it’s over, my heart tells me, I will be too old and too established in my career to start a family. If his plans work out, he’ll be in a perfect place to marry and have kids—just not with me.

  Elazar drives Peter to the airport in Barcelona at dawn for the long flight home. Alaya wanders into the kitchen in her bathrobe and makes us coffee. I have an awful headache from being up half the night and then crying into my pillow. Now I’m back at the kitchen table. My mouth is cotton, my heart has a stiletto stuck in it, and my stomach is empty and sick.

  My aunt sets a cup of coffee in front of me. The roasty aroma promises comfort, but when I stare into the black liquid in the cup, it triggers a surprising reaction. I struggle to my feet, tuck my crutch under my arm, and pick up the cup with my other hand.

  “Alaya, you and my mother are going to have to work out your relationship yourselves—or not. I can’t fix this.” And I hobble back to my room, swinging the door closed behind me with the tip of my crutch.