Pascual misreading Yöst’s expression patted his arm. ‘You’ll not find any doors in our house, Ramon won’t allow them.’ Swirling gracefully on her heel, she pointed to a second curtained doorway, the vague outline of a corridor beyond.
A memory flashed across Yöst’s vision of his mother dancing. The two women would have been a similar age, both with long dark hair and laughing eyes. Immediately he felt a liking for her.
‘When you use the outhouse, you will need to sing loudly. Come and eat.’
As the fog of anxiety gradually began to clear, the confused mass at the table separated into individuals, a long line of girls seated down one side.
‘They’re all girls,’ he stuttered, feeling shyness as a heavy weight overtake him again.
Pascual laughed. ‘You noticed?’ Seeing the young boy at a loss how to reply, she added more gently, ‘Are you not used to girls?’
‘No,’ Yöst shook his head vehemently, before remembering Tatania. He added lamely, ‘Only my sister.’
‘Well, my girls are very nice; you will like them.’
The woman with the cooking pot had made her way along the line of children, filling their plates, and exhorting them, ‘to eat up while it is hot.’
To Yöst’s relief he saw Tatania among them, Zande seated next to her. She had been placed in a high chair, its seat bolstered with cushions. Next to her was a tall girl, her dark hair drawn back and tied neatly against her neck. She was fussing with the cushions, attempting to make the child more comfortable. Yöst remembered what Rico had said about his sisters … the name of the eldest? Ana, was it?
On the far side of the table, a group of men and women waited to be served, Ramon greeting them cheerfully as he made his way to the far end of the table.
Yöst hesitated. ‘Who are all these people?’
‘The woman serving is my sister, Katarina.’ Pascual pointed to the two girls closest to them. ‘Those are her children, twins, Ernestina and Emilee. Her husband was killed.’
‘How?’
‘All the people in this room have a story, Yöst.’ Pascual’s voice was low and patient sounding, well used to explaining to children the mysteries of life. ‘We don’t put a price on our hospitality by asking what it is. If they wish to tell you, they will do so. What I will explain is that Katarina is also a dancer.’ The woman, hearing her name, smiled at Yöst. ‘If you play your cards right, one day she may dance for you; then you are in for a treat. As for the rest, Berte, my second daughter, is in charge of Delors, my youngest. Clara is next. She went with Ramon to the market—’
‘Yes, I met her,’ Yöst gasped out thankfully.
Overhearing, the girl swung round, her gap-toothed grin reminding him of a toothless old crone he had seen begging in the market.
‘Surely you recognise Zande and Tatania?’
‘Yes. It just seemed a lot … I mean.’
Pascual chuckled. ‘Ramon would agree with you. Then last, but not least, is my Ana. It is a popular name in my country, only we spell hers with a single ‘en’. Such a good girl.’ Overhearing, her daughter smiled affectionately. ‘And over there we have another Ramon … but, to avoid confusion, he is called Maestro.’
Yöst followed the direction of her finger towards a little gnome of a man, dwarfed by the individual sat next to him. He appeared elderly, his bulbous face pitted with disease, and he sat hunched over the table leaning sideways, grasping a knife and spoon in his hands. On the man’s other side was a large woman wearing a black satin dress, a black shawl around her shoulders. The man, who Pascual had referred to as Maestro, was younger than his companions, his face still relatively youthful, despite his back being bent, with one shoulder higher than the other.
Hearing his name, he glanced up, immediately focussing on Yöst. He raised his eyebrows, his tone of voice supercilious. ‘I used to be a giant.’
Yöst, flushed with embarrassment at being caught staring, hastily shifted his focus to the woman next to him, the dress she was wearing made for someone thinner, her flesh bulging and straining at the seams like bread after yeast is added. Sensing Yöst’s attention, with an elegant twist of her shoulders, she flipped off her shawl, tucking it around the shoulders of the crippled man sat next to her. They laughed and she leant her face close, ‘You still are.’
Katarina rapped her ladle sharply against the iron pot she was carrying, ‘Adelita, please. There are children present.’
Ramon snorted and banged the butt of his knife on the table, making Yöst jump. ‘Food woman, I’m hungry. I’ve been working since dawn.’ Katarina hastened to the end of the table ladling stew on to his plate.
‘Sit down, we don’t bite; at least, not often.’ Pascual put out a hand, giving Yöst a little push. ‘Go and sit by Rico.’ She nudged him forward. ‘See, he has kept a place for you.’
Overhearing, her son waved, patting the empty chair next to him.
‘Now if you are looking for a real giant,’ Ramon continued talking. He flicked his fingers at Katarina. ‘More.’ He nodded approvingly as she gave him another piece of meat. ‘Pepe stand up and make your bow.’ He nudged the older man seated next to him with his elbow, his mouth twitching with amusement.
The room fell silent as the man, nodding amiably, shuffled in his seat. He took so long to stand up Yöst began to wonder if he too was crippled in some way, and felt ashamed of the fuss he had unwittingly caused.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered to Rico who was craning forward, his face lit with excitement. ‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Pa?’ the boy shouted out, ignoring Yöst’s interruption, ‘you forgot the introduction.’
‘So I did. Whatever will Pepe think of me?’ Slowly and deliberately, Ramon drew his finger along the line of children, his hand pausing in front of each one, as squeals of merriment and anticipation erupted.
‘His mother already had twenty children,’ Ramon began, his voice as stentorian as a story-teller narrating a long and tedious story. ‘Thirteen of which were boys. Having chosen Pepe for her first born, by the time she reached her fourteenth boy, his mother had run out of names.’ He paused dramatically. ‘This baby came into the world early and was so small, the smallest of all her children, both she and the midwife thought it unlikely to survive. Indeed …’ he continued in a monotone and was so motionless in his chair, Yöst began to wonder what he was about to say next – surely, nothing good.
‘When the child succumbed to the pox, she was convinced it had no chance. And so, she decided to baptise him Peppino, which means baby Pepe.’ He paused theatrically, the room falling silent, its tension palpable. Yöst caught a distant sound as one of the dogs lapped at a bowl of water outside. ‘As she was so fond of saying to anyone who would listen, he was such a tiny baby. Make your bow Peppino, the smallest of all.’
To a roar of delight, the man began to edge his way onto his feet. Yöst found his mouth gaping open as he rose taller and taller. Sitting down, there’d been little difference in height between him and Ramon, maybe he was even a shade shorter, his entire length invested in his legs which appeared unending.
‘Two metres plus three centimetres,’ Rico shouted at him over the noisy outburst, his face alight with merriment.
‘Unless he grew again this week,’ Katarina called, sitting down next to Yöst at the far end of the table, opposite her daughters.
Grinning amiably, the man slowly lowered his bulk back down, angling his knees awkwardly under the table.
‘He can’t speak,’ Rico whispered. ‘Why?’
‘Pa won’t say, only that he knew him as a boy. Have an olive?’ Leaning over the table, he hooked one of the tiny pottery dishes, filled to bursting with small green and black fruits, and pulled it towards them. ‘Adelita, pass the bread and oil.’ He pointed to the wooden platter in the centre of the table, out of reach.
The table had been carved from a section of a tree and was huge, large enough for a couple of dozen people, far more than the sixteen gathered around i
t. Used to the spindly and stunted firs and hazel that grew in the wooded section of the island, Yöst had not imagined trees could grow this big. ‘It’s like a giant,’ he confided to Rico.
‘Pa and Pepe did it. When they first came here and were clearing the land, they found it lying on the ground.’
Overhearing, Adelita elbowed Rico saying in a loud voice, ‘To be strictly honest, it wasn’t lying on the ground until Pepe walked past.’
Laughter broke out again and Pepe peered round the table, beaming.
‘See those rings?’ Rico pointed to the planed wood scarred with knot holes, a series of brown-rimmed swirls set close together. ‘If you count how many, it gives you the age of the tree. Pa said this oak is almost two hundred years old.’
‘So why did they cut it?’
Rico shrugged. ‘Pa wanted to build a house and it was in the way.’
Exhausted, Yöst tuned out, listening to the multitude of different voices thronging the air, immediately identifying Ramon’s deep tones and Pepe’s grunted replies. One of Katarina’s twin girls called down the table to Maestro something about music, the smaller children giggling at some private joke, their voices light and carefree.
‘You okay? Tired, I s’pect,’ Rico said. The other sounds faded as Yöst focussed on the boy sat next to him. He sensed sadness in his light tones and wondered why.
‘No!’ He rummaged up a grin. ‘I was wondering if I’d ever eaten olives before.’
‘What?’ Rico gazed at him in surprise. ‘Where you been livin’?’
Yöst hesitated, unsure how Tante Marie had couched her request to Ramon. Had she confided that the three children were orphans of the slaughter on the island? She would have had to say something acceptable for him to agree so readily. Doubtless, he would pass on that information to his wife and family. ‘What did Ramon say?’
‘Who, Pa?’ The boy chuckled, the sound wide open, nothing dissembling about it at all, except for happiness loaded with affection. ‘Pa’s tighter than a clam when he wants to be. Won’t even tell you the time of day.’
‘What about the priest?’
‘What priest?’ Rico winked and pointed to the dish of black and green fruits. ‘Go on. Dare you; some days, when we’re working the fields, that’s all we eat at midday, bread and olives.’
Reaching out, Yöst took one of each, nibbling the solid flesh cautiously. ‘Salty.’
‘They’re meant to be, but good, yes?’
Yöst wrinkled his nose, making Rico laugh.
Pulling the dish closer, the boy picked out a handful of the tiny green ovals, tossing them into the air and catching them in his teeth. ‘These are my favourite. When they’re in season, and we have a bit extra money, Ma buys anchovies and stuffs them. By the way, another of Pa’s rules; if you take food, you must eat it.’
‘I’m not arguing,’ Yöst smiled, beginning to relax. ‘Ramon’s like the—’ He froze.
‘Like?’
‘Nothing,’ he said hastily, concerned Rico already knew about his fear of the priest. Say nothing, Monsieur Meijer had instructed. ‘The less anyone knows about you, the safer you will be.’
Opposite, Ana had taken Tatania onto her lap and was feeding her spoonsful of gravy, the little girl gurgling contently between mouthfuls and smacking her lips. She had plumped out again with Mme Meijer fussing over her. Zande was grinning happily at something Clara had said, her cheeky expression very much in evidence as she confided some secret, he obviously found funny. He was a strange boy, certainly in his zealous care of Tatania, and far too old for his years. Perhaps making friends with other children would teach him how to have fun. As if Yöst had spoken directly to him, Zande glanced up, his long eyelashes concealing his thoughts. He reached out and rested his fingers on Tatania’s arm, reassuring Yöst he was still taking care of her.
‘The food’s that delicious, no one could possibly argue with that rule,’ he replied, nudging Rico with his elbow to cover up the awkward pause.
‘We work hard, mind. Pa says to work hard you need to eat well. He tells people he only married Ma for her cooking.’
‘What foods do you like, Yöst?’ Overhearing, Pascual leaned forward, pointing her knife at him.
He hesitated. ‘I don’t really know.’
‘You don’t know?’ she sounded incredulous.
Yöst blushed. ‘I meant to say,’ he gabbled, ‘we ate plain food; meat and vegetables mostly.’ He stopped. What did they eat? Usually fish and rabbit, unless one of the men went hunting on the mainland. ‘I can taste something else besides salt. I recognise garlic but not the other herbs.’
At the far end of the table, Ramon, who had been listening to this exchange, patted his stomach. Kissing his hand to his wife, he called over the children’s noisy chattering, ‘Her skill with spices is the reason I married her.’
For Yöst that had been the biggest surprise of all, seeing children as part of the whole, calling across the table to ask questions of the adults, even Clara. On the island, children had eaten and slept apart, the cobs treating their offspring with condescension and a casual pat on the head for carrying out some task. Not until their fledging were they taken to one side and taught about their society, and their place in it.
‘The rules we live by are set by the Black. You want to quarrel with them? Go on, go and tell him you know better how we should live,’ his grandmother had shouted when, one particularly bitter winter’s morning, with frost penetrating deep into the ground, Yöst had objected to being sent out to set traps.
‘People on the mainland buy their food from shops,’ he had argued.
He glanced towards the end of the table watching Ramon, thinking how much he resembled the Black. Even dressing the same. Tall and powerful, autocratic even, his authority was absolute. Yet somehow different?
Yöst’s thoughts faltered, remembering his story about Pepe. Ramon must have repeated it a dozen times, perhaps on every occasion they entertained a newcomer to dinner, the younger children softly reciting the words of the story with him. The woman in the black dress leaned over the table tapping Ramon on the arm and Yöst heard his laughter ring out; something else different. He had never heard the Black do that, never once; ruling the carinatae with a rod of iron and brooking no interference, not even from his own brother, Yöst’s father. Yet apparently women thought differently. ‘A real man,’ they gossiped between themselves, even his grandmother describing him as a man of great charm. ‘Robert took over responsibility for the clan when he was quite young. He has guarded us well.’
Except he hadn’t. He had flown away with the greater part of the flock, leaving the rest to be slaughtered.
Yöst caught at the rogue notion and felt ashamed of his disloyalty. This was the Black, their leader he was criticising. What he did or did not do should never be questioned. Words his grandmother had repeated often enough when he asked, why they hadn’t taken his mother to hospital to have her baby. He picked up a piece of meat with his fork. Then, burying his face in his plate, chased away his unruly thoughts, replacing them instead with uncertainty as to what he was eating, the new flavours tickling the back of his throat.
‘Goat,’ Rico said, reading his mind.
‘Shush!’ he grimaced. ‘Whatever you do, don’t let Zande hear you.’
Rico grinned. ‘He’ll soon learn to accept it. Nothin’s secret if you live on a farm. That’s why Pa laughed when Katarina tried to shush Adelita.’
‘You mean?’
‘She and Maestro … course.’
‘But he’s a cripple,’ Yöst whispered.
‘Stop it!’ Rico placed his finger firmly across Yöst’s mouth to prevent him from speaking. He shifted furtively in his seat, relaxing again as Yöst’s remark slipped past the chattering throng unnoticed. ‘Don’t you dare say that stuff,’ he said reinforcing his words with a glare. ‘You’re never even to think it.’
‘But he is.’ Yöst persisted, bewildered by Rico’s impatience, remembering how the Bla
ck had ordered a crippled swan to be killed. ‘It cannot fend for itself and will starve to death,’ his grandmother had explained later.
‘Shut up!’
‘But—’ Yöst felt despair at the sight of Rico’s sulky face, wondering what he had done.
‘I told you to shut up, didn’t I? If you still think like that tomorrow, you’re on your own.’ Rico lapsed into a sullen silence, his face turned away, his shoulder blocking any further discourse between them.
Yöst sensed his hostility and felt his face redden. What had he expected? Rue had warned against making friends with humans. ‘They’re fine for a while then you do or say something. Next minute, they’re walking away … saying they don’t want to play no more because you’re weird and their mother warned them about kids like you.’
Why should he believe it would be any different for him? Yet in the market it had been different, he hadn’t imagined it. There had been a connection with Rico that came across as strong and vibrant, every word that of an old friend, rather than someone he’d just met. If his life were a jigsaw puzzle, Rico’s offer of friendship would have been a corner piece. Maybe more than one, maybe all four corners as Willem had once been, creating a framework for their being.
Overhearing, Pascual, at the end of the table, leaned across Katarina and tapped his hand. ‘Ignore my son.’ Rico swung round, glowing at his mother’s intervention, his dark eyes moody.
‘Your friends where you stayed before, did they sulk and pull their faces … so?’ Pascual crossed her eyes and pursed her lips, making Rico laugh.
‘Sorry, Ma,’ he called, his face brightening like a light bulb igniting. ‘Sorry, Yöst. I forgot everything’s new.’
Yöst felt his rigid fingers relax.
The Click of a Pebble Page 12
