Guernica

by Dave Boling

  Miren touted Alaia as “the most unique person in Guernica” and bragged about her new friend as if she were a possession. Rather than being offended at being treated as a new pet, Alaia thrived on the exposure, and before long she was able to negotiate the market and several places in town without holding Miren’s arm, using only the walking stick the sisters had carved for her. When the sisters heard of the success of her outings, they felt as if they’d helped nurse an orphaned animal to health and were about to release it back into its own habitat.

  On her early outings, Alaia found Miren to be as frenetic as the sisters were restrained and Miren’s hyperactivity to be as far from her personal rhythms as were the sisters’ meditations and prayer. She had gone from the company of slumbering lambs to guidance by a playful sheepdog puppy. After sensing Alaia withdraw a few times, Miren recognized her new friend’s need for a slower pace and softer voice, and their trips became more relaxed. Still, Alaia could sense Miren’s spirit vibrating at a pitch she could almost hear from a distance, humming like the sisters at vespers.

  Not a heartbeat separated Justo Ansotegui’s pious “amen” to the premeal grace and the start of his detailed personal biography for the sake of his daughter’s new friend.

  “Let me explain myself to you, child,” he said as he made the first forceful incisions into the bread loaf.

  Mariangeles and Miren groaned in chorus.

  “I am well known to be the strongest man in Guernica, and I suspect most women would agree that I am the most handsome man in the Pays Basque, too.”

  “Papa!”

  “Justo!”

  “Wait, women, it is only considerate that she understand the importance of this occasion,” he said. “But she must promise not to inform the sisters of my appeal, or the convent would be emptied by morning and Errotabarri would be crowded with those in black habits gathered to praise my manly form.”

  “Justo, that’s sacrilege!”

  “Papa, that’s disgusting!”

  “Alaia, pay no attention to this man,” Mariangeles said as she brought another dish of vegetables to the table. “If he is the most anything in the country, it is the most boastful.”

  “Come here, woman, let me smell those hands,” Justo said to Mariangeles.

  Justo buried his face in her palms and inhaled, finally pulling away as if intoxicated.

  “I love the smell of a woman who has just cut celery,” he declared. Alaia sorted through every smell that arrived as Mariangeles ferried plates to the table. She tried to memorize the flavors of the meal, the lamb with mint sauce, the bread coated in farm-churned butter, the beans, the paprika-dusted potatoes, the mild asparagus and peppers soaked in olive oil and garlic. And for dessert, she devoured the sweet flan that several times wobbled off her spoon before she could track it down.

  Mariangeles delighted in Alaia’s joy of food. It was one of the things that always appealed to her about Justo, too. Even his belching seemed a compliment.

  “Alaia, dear, you are welcome here for dinner anytime,” Mariangeles said.

  “Yes, you must come back,” Justo said, thoughtfully combing the evidence of dinner from his mustache. “I have many feats of strength to tell you about.”

  “Papa!”

  “Justo!”

  Alaia was not offended. It was this meal, in fact, that most convinced her that she would move out of the convent as soon as possible. That lamb. That mint sauce. Those vegetables. Butter. More butter, please. And that flan, oh, dear God, that flan. Did the sisters know of fl an? How could anyone renounce fl an?

  When Miren rose to lead Alaia toward her room, Justo stood and gathered them both close, one beneath each powerful arm. He squeezed them and clenched his hands together behind their backs and rocked them in rhythm. Miren squirmed as any daughter would, but Alaia squeezed in a matching response.

  “We will be disappointed if you don’t come back often to have more of this food and friendship,” Justo said, kissing Alaia on the crown of her head. “My little one here needs the company of others besides her boastful father and her cows and little donkeys.”

  “Alaia, may I present my dearest friend, Floradora,” Miren said, placing in Alaia’s hands the rag doll that had shared her bed since she was a baby.

  “She has shiny brunette hair . . .”

  (Brown yarn.)

  “. . . a graceful neck . . .”

  (Stretched thin from nightly hugging.)

  “. . . a shapely body . . .”

  (Rags inside a stocking.)

  “. . . lovely skin . . .”

  (Wool petted smooth.)

  “. . . a nice smile . . .”

  (Red paint.)

  “. . . and beautiful dark eyes.”

  (Black beads.)

  Alaia touched the beads.

  They rested in her bed end to end, Miren with her head propped on the headboard and Alaia angled upon a pillow against the footboard. A small grilled brazier filled with coals taken from the kitchen hearth warmed the room and released a wispy plume of incense to collect among the beams. Miren wanted to learn of blindness and Alaia of sight; Miren, feelings; Alaia, visions; Miren, sound; Alaia, colors; Miren, the solitude of the orphanage; Alaia, the comfort of all things familial.

  “What is the worst part of being blind?” Miren asked.

  “Having to try to tell people what it’s like.”

  “Do you have better hearing than us?”

  “What?”

  “Do you—oh . . . do you have a better sense of smell?”

  “Yes, and your feet are horrible,” said Alaia, leaning over Miren’s toes.

  “Do you see light at all?”

  “Not really, some shadows.”

  “Does it seem dark all day?”

  “I don’t really know dark from light.”

  “Are you angry that you can’t see?”

  “Not angry, really. I’m happy I can do most other things.”

  “How did you lose your sight?”

  “The sisters told me that I was born too early, and that was probably the reason. I was not yet developed. My eyes are not the only part that does not work. I also don’t get the monthly visits that the sisters told me of.”

  Miren: “Lucky you.”

  Alaia: “The sisters tell me that it means that I can’t have little ones.”

  Miren: “Oh, no. I’m sorry. That’s something I know I want, but I’m afraid of it. My amuma died after having a baby.”

  The girls talked through much of the night. Alaia could never tell the sisters of the boundaries she felt at the convent, how she imagined she was living inside a box. But she could share that with Miren. She couldn’t ask the sisters how she looked, if she was beautiful, but she could ask Miren. She couldn’t tell the sisters how wonderful it felt being in the town and meeting people, and knowing that her blindness made her special to them. That might cause them to have doubts about the decision they made to relinquish the warmth of others. She knew that when people met her, she would not be forgotten. But she couldn’t say that to the sisters because it might make them feel as if they had been forgotten once they went behind the walls.

  And then they wrestled. Pillows were hurled and blankets flew.

  “Hey, that’s no fair . . . you’ve got to close your eyes,” Alaia said.

  And Miren did, out of fairness.

  The wrestling was a welcome connection to them both, an excuse to feel another body like theirs but not theirs; to judge themselves against another by touch, size, weight, strength; to feel the softness of another’s hair and skin. Two young girls could not just reach and touch each other in this way, but in the guise of playfulness, all was appropriate. Alaia started by grabbing a nearby foot and shaking it, and Miren tentatively joined in after it was clear that wrestling with a blind girl was not only tolerated but appreciated.

  As they calmed, Alaia became absorbed by Miren’s quilt, feeling the varied textures of the cloth squares, the wool, the linen, the cotton,
and one of velvet, all held together with tufted yarn knots. She slept under a plain wool blanket at the convent.

  Nearing sleep, Miren asked, “What’s it like not having a family?”

  Alaia didn’t answer for long enough that Miren assumed she hadn’t heard. As Miren started to doze, Alaia answered softly, “Nobody touches you.”

  When Alaia readied to be returned to the convent in the morning, Miren placed Floradora in her hands.

  “She’s yours now,” Miren said solemnly. “You need her company more than I do.”

  Alaia hugged the doll and touched her face.

  That morning Miren had removed the beads, leaving only horizontal stitching where her eyes had been.

  The server was in her early forties and out of the practical range of their affections, but her prominence in the foredeck attracted the younger, flirtatious members of the crews to the Seaman’s Café in Lekeitio. Unseasoned at romantic nuance, they peppered her with suggestive references and were dealt rejection with a playful ridicule that was a part of the game. It served as courting practice as they tested tactics they could use when the target was an actual marriageable female. But most were more familiar with casting wide nets rather than the subtle use of baits.

  “I could make you the happiest waitress in Lekeitio,” Dodo said.

  “What, would you leave a tip?”

  Dodo winked and pursed his lips as for a kiss.

  “You, my friend, smell too much like my husband,” she said. “And you are far too eager. Women can smell desperation—even on a fisherman.”

  She turned and fingered the back of Miguel’s hair. “But you, the quiet one, you will break many hearts in time.”

  Dodo groaned loudly, punching his brother’s shoulder, envious of the waitress’s comment.

  “You,” she said to Dodo, “would be wise to learn from this one.”

  Miguel flushed with embarrassment, an emotion he knew was unknown to Dodo.

  “She’s just kidding me to make you jealous,” Miguel said.

  Dodo laughed at his naïve brother.

  “These are not the waters for finding women, Miguel,” Dodo rationalized.

  Miguel had witnessed Dodo’s brief and doleful history with the girls of Lekeitio. He was playful as a pup until he began breathing fire with his politics. His emotional elasticity wore down relationships quickly.

  The waitress returned with a basket of bread, putting a conciliatory hand on Dodo’s shoulder. Misreading the gesture—which was typical for him—he returned it with an arm around her hips. She slapped his hand with enough force to cause others to turn. Dodo laughed overly loud to imply it had all been a joke. But the message was received.

  Rebuked, Dodo moved on to his second-favorite topic, the politics of Spain, and lectured his younger brother on the varied platforms of the Socialists and Republicans and Fascists and Anarchists.

  Miguel listened as he ate, while Dodo used his fork mostly for gesturing, especially when repeating reports of conflicts that were growing more lethal around Spain.

  “There was no news of it in the papers, but I heard of this from a crew from the south,” Dodo said between bites. “The Guardia fired into a crowd of demonstrating landworkers in Extremadura. They killed a man and wounded two women, and the rest of the crowd surrounded them and killed the guards with stones and knives. Can you imagine?”

  No, Miguel hadn’t heard of it, and he wondered if such a thing could be true. Dodo might say anything to emphasize his point.

  “It happened again at a protest, a peaceful protest, in Arnedo,” Dodo said. “Guards killed four women and a baby, and wounded thirty people who were just standing there watching.”

  “Why wouldn’t we hear something about it?” Miguel asked.

  “Because they don’t want you to hear, that’s why. People are afraid to talk. Afraid it will happen to them. Which is exactly why we have to be ready.”

  The waitress, standing behind Dodo, listened to his stories. She shook her head slowly and said to Miguel, “Don’t listen to him, dear, he won’t be so angry when he finds a girl.”

  Had there been reason for the citizens of Guernica to hold a referendum on the most popular person in the village, Miren Ansotegui would have won without competition. She was only sixteen, but she seemed to encourage people to take part in her youth rather than give them reason to be jealous of it. She reminded them how life looked before it became so complicated.

  It was more than the way she floated through the streets of town, so lean and loose limbed, her black braid a pendulum swinging from one hip to the other with each stride. More appealing was her knack for disarming people, for drawing them near, as if initiating them into her own club of the unrelentingly well intended.

  There was no trick to it beyond good nature. As she spread warm greetings to everyone she passed, she uncannily inquired about that single portion of their lives that made them most proud. She always opened a gate to somewhere they each wished to go. And then she listened.

  “Do you have any more of those incredible peppers, Mr. Al-dape?” she would ask the old man with a vegetable cart. “I couldn’t stop eating them the last time we had them. They were the best peppers I’ve ever had.”

  Or she would buzz into the Aranas’ dress shop with “Mrs. Arana, I saw your granddaughter the other day at the market and she must be the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen; is she walking yet?” It allowed them to brag about themselves without the stain of immodesty. She had asked the question, for heaven’s sake, and it would be rude to contradict her or decline to elaborate. As Miren hurried on to further encounters in town, her path of courteous inquiries left a wake of goodwill. Charmed acquaintances felt better than they did before she appeared and were eager for her quick return. There was much more about them, after all, that she would want to hear.

  She might mention the particulars of an event in support of whatever was her charitable cause at the moment. If Miren Ansotegui was going to be there, it would be entertaining, and it was guaranteed that many others would be likewise ensnared by her plans. Their involvement would allow them to recount their mu-nificence the following day in the cafés and tabernas, and also, they presumed, would place them on the unofficial list of Contributors to Miren’s Causes.

  When Aitor Arriola’s house burned to the stone after an ember from the hearth blew into the kindling pile, neighbors were helpful in getting his family back on its feet. But because of the burns Aitor suffered while trying to fight the blaze, his attempts at reconstruction would be delayed past the onset of bad weather in the fall.

  Seeking out every unmarried gentleman in town, regardless of age, Miren promised them a special dance at the next erromeria if they would work one hour helping the Arriolas. She charmed commitments out of nearly a dozen men aged fifteen to seventy-five. As they arrived with their tools, Miren showily penciled their names on a list, making them promise to attend the dance on Sunday evening to be thanked and rewarded. Although some arrived sheepishly, every man who helped rebuild the home showed up to redeem the promise. Those who were not dancers claimed they had just come to be friendly, even if they had not been to an erromeria in years. And a number of them were dragged out to dance by Miren, who patiently taught them the simplest box-step waltz.

  Mrs. Arana, who found Miren’s civic flitting uplifting as she moved from shop to shop and friend to friend, labeled her tximeleta—the Butterfly. It was an image Miren shed at a late-summer dance practice.

  Her group of a dozen young girl dancers gathered in a small square behind a café to practice for an upcoming performance. Friends of the dancers sat on benches beneath the plane trees or at the several tables under the striped awning that covered the back patio of the café and provided a pocket of relief on the warm evening. Miren had parked her friend Alaia Aldecoa at a chair on the patio and ordered her a glass of cold cider.

  The group rehearsed the hoop dance, which required the girls to weave at increasing speed, tapping one anothe
r’s bamboo hoops with greater force as they tightened the intricate steps. Alaia frequently rose to sway in place when the music played, but this evening she appeared to drift away from a man at the café who was talking to her. Miren did not recognize him and approached them both during a pause.

  “Is there a problem, Alaia?”

  “I just asked this young lady if she wanted to dance with me,” the man said, turning his head toward Alaia.

  Miren looked at Alaia, who seemed uncomfortable, having edged farther away.

  “Did she tell you she didn’t want to dance?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “This is my friend, sir, and if you haven’t noticed, she happens to have lost her sight.”

  “I don’t see anything wrong with her.”

  Miren fought against her anger and smiled to douse the tension. “Sir, you may have enjoyed too much wine, so I’m sure you want to move on now, don’t you?”

  “Look, little one, she’s big enough to take care of herself.”

  Miren’s artificial smile vanished. Inadvertently trained for this by her dance practices, Miren struck at the table with her hoop, causing the man to jump.

  “Hey!” he shouted, rising from his chair.

  Miren recoiled and struck again so quickly that the bamboo whistled in the air. But she didn’t touch him with the decorative weapon. She slammed the bamboo on the table in front of him, then on the table leg, then on the back of his chair, then on the awning support just behind his head. Hit after hit, with the bamboo cracking like rifle fire, she repeated this circuit of strikes around the man as he cowered, seeking to reduce his surface area. Given the energy of her attack, Miren could have peeled the skin off the man if she struck him.