The Click of a Pebble

by Barbara Spencer

  His mind drifted, gravitating to Rico, whose open-handed offer of friendship felt as warm and soft as a day-old chick, and just as fragile. He’d almost ruined it with criticism of Maestro; he couldn’t let that happen again. His aversion to the man’s physical state had not lessened, although now it was mixed with admiration for his skill, questioning the correctness of his former judgement. How could you destroy something or someone so gifted, capable of producing a maelstrom of emotions? Yet in declaring that to be wrong, he was doubting the omnipotence of the Black, and he had done that once already. If something was right, did it automatically make another thing wrong? Or like skeins of coloured wools all jumbled up, were both right in their own way?

  Too confused to sort it out, he lay listening to the sounds echoing through the beehive house. No longer strange and alien, in twenty-four hours they had become identifiable: the rattle of the walnut curtain as someone passed through, a clatter of pots in the kitchen and water running, Maestro’s sticks dragging on the matting floor, distant laughter from one of the sisters and the soft murmur of voices – comforting sounds without either anger or aggression.

  He was awake again early next morning with music still playing, the gold and scarlet figures swirling past his closed lids. Tiptoeing into the centre of the room, he stood under its apex, an overturned stool reinforcing the pictures Maestro had conjured with his fingers. Gazing upwards, he swung slowly round in a circle, his arms outstretched. As if his action was the key to his subconscious, his dream came flooding back. Not the island at all. His dream had happened here, in the dance. He continued to spin, following the shadowy image that in his dream had been Katarina dancing; except someone else was dancing with her … not Adelita, nor him. He was standing on his own.

  Unexpectedly, the agony of events overtook him once more, the shadowy figures on the dance floor swept aside, ghosts of his dead friends replacing them. Needing to feel the cleansing touch of fresh air, he raced across the floor, wishing he had fledged already and was able to rise up into the air, soaring effortlessly.

  By the time he returned to the house, dawn had long since broken, but it had done its work, his mind soothed and able to face the awakening day. As he passed the kitchen doorway, Katarina stuck her head through the curtain. ‘Yöst, plates please?’

  Taking a pile of dishes, he hesitated, shifting uncertainly from foot to foot. ‘I loved your dancing,’ wishing he might conjure up words to explain how overwhelming he had found the experience, the thunderous noise of heels hitting the ground, the blur of brilliant colour. Despite its brevity, the dancers’ passion for life had chased away every bad memory, providing him with a moment or two of happiness. ‘It was very beautiful,’ he managed.

  He heard muttering, quickly hushed, and Pascual pushed the curtain back, peeking out. She was wearing the same gown as the night before, a sacking apron tied around her waist. ‘Yet another admirer, sister, you will soon be as famous as Adelita.’

  ‘Adelita?’ Yöst exclaimed, surprised. ‘Adelita famous? What about your sister? She’s …’

  Katarina placed her fingers against his lips, stopping his words exactly as Rico had done that first night. ‘Do not speak until you know what you’re talking about.’

  He flushed red and pulled back, freeing his mouth.

  ‘I am not in the same league as Adelita. In the old country people travelled for miles to watch her dance.’ She dropped a curtsey, softening her rebuke with a gentle smile. ‘But thank you, anyway.’

  Thirty minutes later, it was a merry party that set out from the house. No one had lingered over breakfast, an impatient frown sweeping across Ramon’s face, his fingers drumming the table top whenever one of the girls forgot and began chatting. Pepe led their procession pushing a light handcart, in which Maestro and the two smallest girls, Tatania and Delors, were seated.

  ‘Like kings and queens,’ Maestro boasted. ‘And tomorrow you will wear crowns.’

  It wasn’t a long walk, perhaps a kilometre or two, maybe a little less, the day cool with the morning sun not yet broken through. Yöst had no difficulty identifying their path from the night they arrived, by the spicy scent of apples. That first night, overwhelmed by a sense of being hunted, the lack of light in the countryside had assumed an alien entity, its assorted noises mysterious and scary; in daylight, with the badger, fox and owl safely asleep in their dens, the dappled shade proved friendly, welcoming even. A noisy buzzing of insects accompanied their walk, mingled with the sorrowful sounds of the guitar as Maestro played a melody from his homeland.

  ‘Play us something cheerful,’ Adelita called. Closing the barred gate behind them, they emerged from the sombre shadow of the wood onto a road, the ground stony and uneven. ‘Then maybe the sun will come out.’

  To Yöst’s keen ear, Adelita’s speech set her apart as a foreigner, marked by syllables incorrectly accented. Ramon’s accent was the same yet very different, his voice most times sounding abrupt and impatient. Anxious not to judge him harshly, especially after his kindness, Yöst wondered if it was simply a lack of familiarity with their language. No one apart from Maestro seemed entirely at ease among the tongue- twisting syllables. They flew effortlessly from his mouth, as if he’d been born with them already in place.

  Acquiescing to Adelita’s request, Maestro called Zande and Clara to pay attention, and began reciting words to a song, which they chanted enthusiastically throughout the remainder of their walk; their route taking them across the river, before swinging into a neatly tended driveway bordered by vines, the red tiled roofs of the winery buildings beyond.

  ‘A very rude song,’ Rico confided when Yöst, hearing giggles break out, asked what it was about.

  For the first few hours, Yöst considered it the greatest of fun, the air fresh and light, the sweet juice of the grapes staining both his hands and his mouth. Idly, he listened to the voices of the family, Adelita scattering remarks into the air like fine breadcrumbs, making everyone laugh uproariously. Gradually as the temperature soared, the friendly badinage faded. Nothing broke the silence, apart from the distant cries of the two little girls, playing in the shade, and the irregular tread of feet, muffled and leaden, as one after another the grape pickers lugged their full baskets to the top of the rise. By the end of the day, Yöst felt so weary, he had difficulty even placing one foot in front of the other, his shoulder red and raw where the leather strap of the basket had rubbed it. Nevertheless, as he made his way up the slope, he experienced a sense of pride at what had been achieved. Between them, they had cleared the entire lower section adjacent to the river, leaving behind nothing apart from fruit that had spoiled or was not yet fully ripe.

  ‘Monsieur Benoit lets us take the leftovers. Ma makes jelly from some and we eat the rest,’ Rico told him as they set off down the drive.

  They walked in silence, the girls with their arms around each other’s waists for support; Pascual resting her head against her husband’s shoulder. Only Pepe showed no sign of fatigue, pushing the light cart as easily as he had some eight hours previously. On arriving back at the beehive house, noticing Yöst’s discomfort, Pascual sent him off for a warm bath, handing him a pot of salve to rub on his sore flesh.

  The next day was worse, his legs cramped from bending down, the sun searing his head and neck. All around, stepped rows of lush green were dotted with pinpricks of colour as if the vines had suffered an outbreak of the pox. That morning, eyeing the glittering sunshine, Pascual had handed out large cotton kerchiefs, insisting they all cover their heads. ‘To stop the sun frying your brains,’ she replied when Zande asked why. Under its fierce rays, the merry conversation had quickly died away, save for one of the cousins who sang tunelessly as she worked.

  ‘It does get easier.’ Rico, working the row below him, commented. He snipped off a stalk, a bunch of black grapes nestling in his cupped hand like a blackbird’s chick, his nails and fingers stained purple. Placing them gently in the wicker basket attached to his hip, he eased the leather st
rap holding it in place. Reaching down, he skilfully twisted another stalk free of its stem.

  ‘When?’ Yöst gasped.

  ‘When the grape harvest’s done, silly.’

  Shuffling along the row on his knees, picking bunches trailing the ground, Yöst found his thoughts drifting back to Pascual. Had he imagined her similarity to his mother, occasionally so strong he found difficulty even separating their voices. Determined not to forget, for several years after his mother’s death, on first waking he had conjured up the sound of her voice. ‘Wake up, lazy-bones,’ she would call him shortly after dawn, her lithe figure dancing across his bedroom floor. And yet they weren’t really alike, his memories offering up a woman with paler skin than Pascual, both taller and slimmer. He recalled her being almost as tall as his father, although perhaps that was his imagination. He had seen his father so seldom, he couldn’t exactly remember. Their eyes were differently shaped too. Pascual’s were long ovals which Rico had inherited and her lips were full, breaking into a wide smile that spread to her eyes.

  Maybe the confusion had arisen because he was searching for someone to share in the task of caring for Zande and Tatania. Was it possible, Zeus, in his wisdom, had decided he had suffered enough and purposefully blurred the images of the two women? If so, it had not been entirely successful. Like the gentle warmth of the balm he had rubbed into his shoulder, that had not worked for very long either, the pain of his memories, both resilient and more persistent, endlessly nagging at him. If he had identified the significance of a steel-tipped boot against stone earlier, would his friends now be alive?

  Cramp shot through his calf and he stood up to ease it, taking a sip of water from the leather canteen hanging from his belt, and wiping his lips with the back of his hand. If only he could do that with his thoughts, wipe them away. It was stupid to feel both anger and guilt at remaining alive, whilst people he had known so well were dead. Yet he couldn’t help it; the guilt hadn’t gone away. It perched on his shoulder, an invisible effigy, as heavy as the afternoon sun and equally as pitiless, ready to infiltrate his thoughts the instant they were no longer fully occupied. Forlornly, he wondered if it actually mattered anymore, deciding he would have collapsed and died from exhaustion long before they finished the harvest. Except for Zande and Tatania, did he even care?

  ‘Praying for death, Yöst?’ Adelita called over her shoulder as she plodded up the steep slope, a basket resting on her hip, bunches of grapes as big of cabbages flowing over its edges.

  He jumped startled, struggling to produce a smile. ‘Yes,’ he replied, his voice more forceful than he had intended, his inner-self obstinately refuting his cowardice.

  Yes, staying alive did matter. Zeus must have let him survive for a reason.

  ‘Bravo.’ She bent down, tipping the darkly flowing stream into one of the empty crates lined up on the pathway.

  Standing up again, Adelita stretched her spine, reaching up with her hands to grasp at imaginary castanets, her gesture mirroring that of the dance. Momentarily, Yöst saw past the sagging breasts and large stomach, catching a glimpse of the young woman she used to be, lithesome and supple, before her silhouette had become corrupted by time. She must have been so very beautiful, understanding now what Katarina had meant.

  ‘You will fit in well here.’ She twirled gracefully round on the spot. ‘Still, consider yourself lucky, we’ve done this once already this year. This is a late-blooming variety; we brought in the early crop almost two months ago.’ She gestured towards the crown of the hill. There, row upon row of stripped greenery lay strangely insipid and barren; its purpose in life fulfilled, waiting for the onset of winter to sleep.

  ‘Which is exactly what I want to do right now,’ Yöst muttered.

  Carrying the basket on her hip, Adelita picked her way down the steep path, pausing at the end of the row Yöst was working. ‘What?’

  He pointed. ‘Sleep like the vines up there.’

  Rico joined in their laughter. ‘Take a break if you want, we’ve done nine baskets.’

  Shoving the cork back in his canteen, Yöst shuffled deeper into the row, the soil beneath his sandals pale from lack of rain. He reached out with his fingers, parting the fleshy green leaves to reach the fruit, aware of those nine Rico had been responsible for five.

  He straightened up after a minute or two. ‘There! I can have a rest now, I’ve done my five.’

  A half-filled crate made from thin strips of balsa wood waited at the end of each row. Emptying his basket into it, he set off up the steep slope to fetch another, staggering a little under its weight.

  A narrow track ran around the hillside, scarcely wide enough for the ancient tractor that drove from the vineyard at intervals throughout the day. Lurching down the track, with its trailer bobbing and weaving from side to side, its driver collected any full crates, leaving a stack of replacements, its engine coughing out black diesel fumes as the cumbersome vehicle waddled back up the steep slope towards the winery, its red-tiled roof visible on the skyline.

  Placing the now full crate on the track ready to be collected, Yöst strolled over to where the two little girls were playing. To create an area of shade, Ramon had nailed a piece of sailcloth to the wall of a shack. Inside its open doorway, Zande and Clara lay curled up on the floor asleep, Pascual insisting they took a nap after their noon meal of bread and cheese. Zande, despite loudly claiming he was strong as his brother, and could work all day like him, had lain down and fallen asleep straight away. Yöst bent over him, watching the way his long lashes drifted down onto his cheeks, his face set in a smile, dreaming of something joyful.

  ‘Can you imagine living in this place?’ Maestro called from his seat under the awning. Almost tumbledown, stones in the furthest wall had become dislodged and fallen away, a rusty, galvanised iron sheet covering the roof. Weeds clung to cracks in the masonry, their leaves spindly and anaemic from lack of moisture. ‘We did, Pepe and me. Of course, we were a bit younger then.’

  Noticing Yöst, Tatania scrambled to her feet as if she’d been waiting all day for that precise moment. Trailing a length of cord behind her, she stumbled towards him over the rough ground. Yöst hastily snatched her up before she could fall. Hearing her laughter ring out, at what had so nearly been a painful tumble, he wondered if she ever cried. ‘Yöt sit,’ she commanded, one of her hands still grasping the wooden figure she’d been playing with, the fingers of her other hand reaching for her mouth.

  ‘My goodness, another new word; you are going to be a chatterbox.’

  Hurriedly wiping the dust from her hands with a corner of his shirt, he hugged her to him, the softness of her tiny frame comforting his disquiet. However hard he tried, the events of that night were never far away, the monotony of picking grapes a fertile breeding ground. The little girl’s mother should have been here. She should have been the one to witness how much better Tatania was at walking and talking, tenderly holding each new word in the palm of her hands and clasping it to her heart.

  Taking the little stick figure Tatania held out to him, he sat down cross-legged on the ground, placing her on his knee. It was an animal of some sort, although there wasn’t much skill in the carving, its skull more angular than round. Willem had carved animals, so lifelike one could imagine they might come to life. He glanced over to where Delors was contently marching other figures up and down the hills she had built out of the sandy earth, knocking them to the ground whenever they displeased or perhaps broke the rules of her game. Amused, he saw that she too was attached to a cord, its loop around Maestro’s wrist.

  ‘In my next life, I will insist on being able to run,’ the dwarf commented in a pithy tone.

  ‘No, I wasn’t ... I mean …’ he protested helplessly. ‘What is it?’ he sought for a lifeline, pointing to the wooden sculpture.

  ‘I am not sure if it matters,’ Maestro picked up another piece of stick from a pile lying on the ground next to his chair. Unclasping his knife, he began paring away at the wood to form
a rounded shape. ‘I was trying to build them a zoo.’

  ‘A zoo?’

  ‘Yes, where they keep wild animals such as lions and tigers. TaTa has a lion.’ He peered closely. ‘Or maybe a tiger. At that age, they love them whatever.’

  ‘You had younger brothers and sisters?’ Yöst exclaimed, emboldened by his friendly overture.

  Maestro stopped working and looked at him, his glance almost feline. Yöst quickly broke eye contact, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

  ‘Everyone has brothers and sisters in my country,’ he replied blandly. ‘At least we did.’ He began to fiddle with the carving taking shape in his hand, scraping away flakes of wood. ‘It was my task to care for them and keep them safe; a bystander in life, able to perform only the most mundane of tasks.’

  Yöst heard fresh bitterness in his voice as if he was sucking the juice out of a lemon. He shifted uncomfortably, pretending to be interested in a lizard halfway up the broken wall, aware how uncomfortable he was in Maestro’s presence, and conscious the man knew it. It had bothered him ever since that first evening when he sat down at the dinner table, the dwarf’s attention lingering on him as if he was one of those wild animals he’d been carving.

  Tatania obviously held no such reservations. Ashamed, he buried his chin in the little girl’s soft hair, her breath as delicate as a butterfly wing against his arm. Surely, the one thing that really mattered was the skill Maestro carried in his fingers that allowed him to create such masterful music? He knew the answer to that question. Tatania had shown him the way, oblivious to the dwarf’s disabilities. Nevertheless, he couldn’t control his revulsion. Shifting his gaze, he looked across to where Zande’s bare feet stuck out of the doorway of the shack. What if a similar illness had affected Tatania or Zande, would the Black have allowed his own child to die?