The Map

by T. S. Learner

  Olivia glanced around the bar. It was exactly as she had pictured it, and if she closed her eyes slightly she could see the bluish imprint of the American’s presence still lingering at a table near one of the windows. Interesting – as was the large cage of canaries twittering and perch-hopping by the door. Birds were useful; they were easily manipulated.

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s too early for a cognac?’ Olivia kept her voice warm, reassuring and a little self-deprecating. The girl fell for it.

  ‘It’s never too early for a cognac, Madame.’ Bernadette smiled back, youth illuminating her thin beauty. She fetched a bottle and began pouring a glass in front of Olivia.

  ‘Haven’t you got lovely hair?’ Olivia practically purred.

  ‘Merci, Madame.’ There was something hypnotic about the Englishwoman’s voice that reminded Bernadette of her mother’s voice when she was little, before her mother had died – reassuring, warm, it made her feel safe and that was something she hadn’t felt for a long, long time. So when the Englishwoman reached out and stroked her hair, she wasn’t surprised or affronted at all, and for some inexplicable reason, when the Englishwoman plucked a strand from her head with a sharp tug, she hardly noticed. Instead, she finished pouring the cognac, and stood there, with the bottle in her hand, smiling mutely as the woman wound the strand of hair around one of her fingers.

  ‘I’m looking for someone, Bernadette.’

  Funny, she couldn’t remember telling the Englishwoman her name.

  ‘An American, maybe you can help me.’

  ‘Yes. Handsome, tall,’ she answered, surprising herself.

  ‘Bernadette!’

  She swung around. Her father stood at the cellar door, the hook he used for hauling in the beer crates still in his hand. ‘I can help this customer.’

  The threat in his voice made her snap out of the warm cloud in which she felt she had been floating. She looked across at the Englishwoman and down at the bottle of cognac she was still holding. She couldn’t even remember pouring the drink.

  ‘Yes, Papa.’ She returned the bottle to the shelves and retreated to the other end of the bar and Joseba led the Englishwoman to the front door.

  ‘This way, Madame, we have nothing to discuss.’ The arm he grasped felt surprisingly muscular and Joseba instantly became aware that the woman was not all she appeared. When they arrived at the door, Olivia pulled herself sharply out of his grasp, and as she did bent down and picked up a yellow feather – one that must have fluttered its way out of the cage. She sat herself firmly down at the nearby table.

  ‘Oh, but we do, Monsieur, we have a close mutual friend, August Winthrop. Although I suspect you know him by a different name.’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Joseba remained standing, gruff, legs planted wide in hostility.

  She glanced around, unfazed by his aggression. This rattled him.

  ‘For a small bar this place is very famous in certain circles.’

  She began to wind the strand of blonde hair around the feather, tighter and tighter. Behind her the canaries started to fly wildly around the cage, their song becoming more frantic. Joseba glanced down at the woman’s hands, her activity disturbed him. There was something primitive yet calculating about it. Was that a strand of his daughter’s hair? He felt sick. He sat heavily down opposite the Englishwoman; there was nothing about her that he trusted.

  ‘Who are you – MI6, Interpol?’ To his chagrin he sounded nervous.

  ‘Papa, there’s something wrong with the birds!’ Bernadette called out from the far side of the bar. Joseba ignored her; he couldn’t take his eyes off the twisting hair winding around the yellow feather.

  ‘Neither. I’m independent, Joseba, and I need to know where you have taken the American.’ The woman’s voice seemed to echo from inside his head but still he fought back.

  ‘Never. I do not betray my friends.’ The sound of the canaries reached a horrifying pitch.

  ‘Papa! They are killing each other!’ Now Bernadette was at the cage door, opening it. Joseba still couldn’t drag his gaze from the blonde hair winding tightly around the feather.

  ‘Never, Joseba? If you think I’m going to be the canary, you’re wrong.’ Olivia smiled. The blonde hair snapped and suddenly the bar was full of screaming as the canaries flew pecking at Bernadette’s face in a flurry of yellow feathers and blood.

  ‘Donostia!’ he shouted. Olivia looked blankly at him, not knowing the Basque name. ‘San Sebastián! That’s all I know. I took him across the border!’ Joseba yelled, before sweeping both feather and hair to the floor. He rushed to Bernadette, waving and punching at the air to rid her of the possessed birds. Calmly, Olivia finished her cognac and left.

  11

  By the time August had cycled back up to the farmhouse it was past four and the light was fading. He found Señora Aznar hauling clean straw into the barn in the ground floor of the house. The row of three small Jersey cows turned at the sound of him, staring over their shoulders mournfully out of the dim light, still chewing the cud. Two goats now united with the kid goat he brought were tethered on the other side of the barn, bleating contentedly, and just outside the door the family’s mule stood under a hand-woven rush canopy chomping at some carrots.

  Hanging on the barn wall outside was a collection of steel clippers and small shears that August recognised from the gardening shed at the summer house in Cape Cod that had been one of his childhood haunts. Convinced he must be mistaken, he docked the bike against the wall and went over to examine them.

  ‘So?’ Señora Aznar startled him. She stood holding a simple three-pronged fork, its pale wooden handle smoothed by years of use. ‘Who is dead?’ she asked, bluntly, propping the fork against the wall.

  He unhooked the string of onions and the bag of sweet potatoes he’d bought in the village from the bicycle.

  ‘The mayor. A sudden heart attack.’ He handed her the vegetables.

  She smiled. ‘But this is wonderful news. This means a fiesta. They will wait a few days until the Guarda Militar have gone back to Donostia but it will be a celebration. And it will be masked so that spies will not be able to betray the identity of the people. There are many who hated that man.’ She clapped her hands in glee then spun around towards the small meadow behind the house, where the distant figure of Gabirel stood swinging a scythe against the long grass. ‘Gabirel! Gabirel!’ The youth shouldered the scythe and began to stride towards them through the field.

  ‘A very unpopular man apparently.’ August studied her, wondering when he should confront her directly on her lineage. Now the faintly oriental appearance of her eyes, set in an otherwise distinctively Basque face, the aquiline nose and full lips, these all began to make sense to him as he searched her face for remnants of alchemist Shimon Ruiz de Luna.

  ‘A Carlist and a collaborator, he betrayed many, including my father,’ she elaborated.

  ‘I was given a message for you, by Mateo.’

  ‘That old rake.’

  ‘He told me to tell you to be sure to march in the funeral procession tomorrow. He told me you and Gabirel had the attention of the Guardia Civil.’

  ‘I will think about it.’ She swung away to greet Gabirel, who was now pushing open a gate, two furred rabbit corpses slung over his shoulder. August grabbed her arm.

  ‘You must go. If not for your sake, for the boy’s.’

  ‘You think you know how we live here?’

  ‘I know more than you think, Izarra. I fought here myself in 1934 with the Republicans.’

  ‘Con la brigada de Abraham Lincoln?’ Shocked, she slipped into Spanish.

  ‘Si. And you’re Izarra Ruiz de Luna Merikaetxebarria, the sister of La Leona. Your mother’s father’s clan were Ruiz de Luna.’

  He’d said it now, he’d revealed himself. The question was, would she? He glanced over at Gabirel, the boy wasn’t yet within hearing range. August stepped closer to Izarra. ‘Your family, they fought too.’

  She glanced up at h
im, terrified. ‘Who are you?’

  August put his hand reassuringly on her shoulder. ‘It’s all right, I am a friend. I came here to bring you something from Jimmy van Peters.’

  She gasped. ‘You have seen Jimmy?’

  ‘He gave me something to return to your family, something that belonged to the Ruiz de Luna family.’

  ‘Las crónicas del alquimista?’

  ‘It’s extraordinary.’ He was about to tell her about his translations when she held up her hand.

  ‘Not in front of Gabirel. The memories stay locked in – this is the only way we can grieve. We will talk later but tomorrow Gabirel and I will walk behind that pig’s coffin, only to keep suspicion at bay.’

  She moved away and began talking rapidly in Euskara to Gabirel. Keeping a discreet distance, August watched the vibrant glimmers of passion breaking through the young Basque woman’s stoicism, the beauty of her volatile face. But now he saw the way tragedy had bowed her shoulders, had given a defensive tinge to her gestures, the emotions buried below the surface like an underground river that roars on imperceptibly, indifferent to the passing of time.

  The rich smell of stewed rabbit laced with garlic, tomatoes and sage drifted up as Izarra lifted off the lid of the cooking pot. August was famished. In silence Izarra served the stew out onto the three plates, giving herself the smallest portion. She reached for the vegetables.

  ‘Sweet potatoes?’ She held the serving spoon over a large dish, a small pat of butter melting on top.

  ‘As many as you can spare.’ August tried to stop his stomach from audibly rumbling. He failed, and Gabirel grinned from across the table.

  ‘The mountain air makes me hungry,’ August said, apologetically.

  ‘You brought the potatoes, you’re entitled to eat as many as you like,’ Izarra said, with an air of sullen defensiveness. It was as if everything was a battle with her, August noted, and yet the tension between them had heightened as if their very proximity had created an unintended intimacy.

  ‘But I caught the rabbit,’ Gabirel quipped.

  Izarra looked at him sharply. ‘Señor August is our guest!’

  In lieu of a reply, Gabirel shrugged, pushing his meagre portion around the plate with a fork. August stole a sideways glance at Izarra. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of cooking and she’d undone the top buttons of her simple cotton blouse, showing the merest glimpse of cleavage – wanting her annoyed him. He couldn’t afford to let his emotions get in the way of the real reason he was there. As if reading his mind, Izarra met his gaze defiantly then ladled an embarrassingly large amount of sweet potato onto his plate.

  August held her gaze until, defeated, she looked away. As she did, he pulled over Gabirel’s plate and spooned some of his own sweet potato onto it.

  ‘Here, Gabirel, you’re still growing.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Without any more ceremony the youth began to shovel the food hungrily into his mouth. August guessed that he had been starving and such a lavish meal was unusual in the household.

  ‘Can I go to the fiesta after the funeral?’ Gabirel asked Izarra, in Spanish.

  ‘No, it will be too dangerous.’ But after glancing at the youth’s crestfallen expression, she softened. ‘You know it is. The young people will be watched.’

  Izarra took her place. August waited for her to start her meal, then began eating. The freshness and simplicity of the food was delicious. For a moment the flickering candle on the table, the glow of the fire in the hearth, the shine of Izarra’s hair catching the light, as well as the poignancy of the boy’s soft moustache, made August feel territorial. He had the strange impression that he had just stepped into another man’s shoes and become the missing element in this family – the husband, the father, the protector. Even more disturbing was that he liked the sensation.

  ‘You fought in the war, with the R … R … Republicans?’ Gabirel asked, abruptly, barely hiding his excitement.

  ‘Gabirel!’ Izarra’s voice was full of disapproval. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘You think I’m deaf as a mule?’ Gabirel spat back, then turned towards August. ‘Tell me about it. You fought with the Americans, didn’t you? Con la brigada de Abraham Lincoln – for the Republicans, our allies.’

  ‘Gabirel, you tell too much,’ Izarra insisted.

  August glanced over, unsure if he had permission from her to enter the dialogue, but the boy’s eager face swayed him.

  ‘Bilbo, Brunete, Tarazona. You g … g … guys were brave, fighting for ideals like that, an abstract. My pe … pe … people were fighting for their country and their lives. We had no choice,’ Gabirel continued.

  ‘What do you know? You weren’t even born,’ Izarra said.

  ‘I heard the stories, she told me.’ The statement burst out of Gabirel with such anger August knew instantly that the boy meant La Leona, and that he had stepped over a boundary, revealing one of the family’s unspoken secrets. Izarra brought her fist down onto the table, making the cutlery jump.

  ‘Enough! Take your meal, you eat in your room!’ she ordered, standing. Gabirel got to his feet. In stalemate, they stared at each other – the woman struggling to keep her domination over the youth, and August could now see it was only a matter of months before Gabirel would become a man. Finally, Gabirel backed down. He picked up his plate.

  ‘You win, this last time. But I go to the fiesta,’ he told her, turning back to August. ‘We will talk about the war later.’

  August waited until he heard Gabirel going up the stairs, then reached across the table. He put his hand over Izarra’s. Instantly, desire shot between them like a bolt, undeniable, confronting. She pulled her hand away.

  ‘Are you all right, Señora de Aznar?’ he asked, quietly.

  ‘You know my name is Izarra. Please, enough formality. You must forgive Gabirel, there have not been enough men in his life. He looks to you as a hero, and yet he doesn’t even know you.’

  ‘I’ll try not to disappoint him,’ he said, implying he would also try not to disappoint her.

  She blushed. ‘So how do you know Jimmy?’ she asked, tentatively.

  ‘I fought with him, at Teruel. He saved my life once.’

  ‘He loved my sister … It was a tragedy.’ Changing the subject, she looked at the cooling food. ‘Please, finish your stew.’

  ‘It is delicious.’

  ‘I was once a good cook, when I had something to cook with.’ She smiled and August sensed trust opening up again between them. I have to move quickly, win her back.

  ‘Izarra, the chronicle …’

  ‘It was an heirloom, I am happy you have brought it back.’

  ‘I have been researching your ancestor Shimon Ruiz de Luna, an extraordinary man.’

  To his surprise, her face closed down. ‘I know nothing. We are just the caretakers of the book. This was our family’s duty for centuries.’

  ‘So I understand, but I have been translating the chronicle —’

  ‘You’ve read it?’ She sounded shocked.

  He studied her reaction. He had to be so careful – any wrong moves and he knew she would retreat back into her shell. ‘Why are you so interested?’ she said, now sitting up, her shoulders rigid with fear. ‘Who are you really?’ she whispered, hoarsely.

  ‘Izarra, please, I’m not an enemy or a spy. I’m not with the authorities. Please, you must trust me.’

  ‘Impossible.’ Now she’d closed down entirely and August knew he’d pushed too far. ‘Please, no more questions, otherwise I will have to ask you to leave. With your war experience in Spain, you should understand this.’ Her tone was definite. She laid her knife and fork on her plate and pushed her chair away from the table.

  ‘When you’re finished, there’s an egg custard in the pantry. I will see you tomorrow after the funeral parade. I will clean up after you have gone to bed,’ she told him, curtly, then left the kitchen and August found himself staring across an empty table. After a while he blew out the candle and sat
there thinking, illuminated only by the embers of the fire.

  Like the pied piper, the plaintive notes of the txistu started up, wailing its reedy way through the plaza. The flute was joined by a drum beating out the zortziko – the 5/8 rhythm characteristic of the region – calling the mourners to the church. Hidden in the doorway of a shuttered shop, August watched as the procession gathered itself to leave from outside the church. The txistulari, dressed in traditional white, with a scarlet waist sash and a scarlet boina on his head, held the flute to his mouth with one hand while beating a sidedrum with a drumstick in the other. He prepared to lead them off, behind him ten ezpata dantzariak – sword-dancers – poised to begin their dance. Dressed a little like morris men, with bell-pads attached to their calves, in white with the traditional red sashes and berets, as well as the local flower, the yellow sempervivum, in their lapels, they also held swords in their hands. Their leader stood at the front, bearing a long banner-like flag. The txistulari stopped playing, a crow cried somewhere over the valley and the sword-dancers all kneeled solemnly as the flag-bearer waved his banner theatrically and dangerously low over their heads, as though giving a blessing. After the last dramatic swirl of colour, the txistulari began playing again and the sword-dancers began their dance, each clashing the tip of the sword of the man beside him as they executed small leaps and dance steps. Behind the ezpata dantzariak was the priest, flanked by two choirboys swinging ceremonial incense burners. They all stood in front of the funeral cart, draped in black cloth, with two muscular draught horses, black rosettes tucked into their bridles, standing impatiently, their long flaxen tails swishing against their steaming flanks. Gathered behind the funeral cart was the mayor’s family – a tall, thin, pinched-looking woman and two sons in their twenties and a young girl of about thirteen. Then came a group of local dignitaries, some smoking in the early morning chill, as the rest of the villagers, summoned by the txistu and too afraid not to attend, wound their way across the plaza: small groups of them appeared from the quiet lanes that led into the square, others emerged from the dwellings on the square itself. All dressed in black and stony-faced, they assembled behind the coffin cart. Grandmothers and babes in arms, young widows and husbandless wives, the old men – their faces scowled with both resignation and anger – waited silently as the coffin was carried out of the church and placed upon the cart.