by Noah Gordon
Finally she opened the door, blinking crankily, her eyes concerned and her hair wild from the pillow, and he followed her to the oil lamp on her table before he gave her the cup, because he wanted to see her face as she drank.
47
Like a Brother
Josep made a small, hot fire and held each of the empty l00-liter barrels over it in turn, searing and toasting the interiors as he had seen winemakers do it in France. The blended wine filled all fourteen of the small 100-liter barrels, as well as two of the four 225-liter barrels that he owned. From time to time he would have to take wine from one of the large barrels and top off the small casks, for the new oak drank liquid like a thirsty man, and air in the barrels would spoil the wine. After the three large vats were drained, Josep and Briel took the must to the village press and squeezed out another half-barrel of wine. Added to some of the unblended wine from the trodden grapes, the second pressing gave him nearly a barrelful of ordinary wine that didn’t have the quality of the blend but still was far better than any of the wines his father had made.
He and Briel had just begun carrying the barrels into the cellar when Donat came walking in from the road, and Josep greeted his brother easily but with some inner wariness, because he knew the purpose of the visit.
“Let me give you a hand,” Donat said.
“No, you sit and rest. You’ve come a long way,” Josep told him. In fact, even the larger and heavier barrels were best handled by one man at each end, and a third man would only get in the way. But Donat trailed after them as they lugged a cask, examining the details of the cellar.
“This cellar has been a fair amount of work. Wouldn’t Padre be amazed to see it in his hill!”
Josep smiled.
Donat pointed to the half-finished stone lining of the earthen wall. “I could give you a hand with that work if I could get away from the job for a few days.”
“Oh, no thank you, Donat, I enjoy the work with the stones. I just do a little bit now and again,” Josep said.
His brother dawdled and watched as they carried in the rest of the barrels, then the visit took a good turn, when Josep drew a pitcher of the blended wine and they carried it to Nivaldo’s.
The old man was impressed by the wine and was visibly pleased to have the brothers with him, and the three of them spent several hours sitting companionably over the drink and several bowls of Nivaldo’s stew. Nivaldo gave Donat a cheese to carry back to Rosa.
Josep and his brother walked back to the casa through the still coolness of the evening.
“Peaceful,” Donat said. “A good old village, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
He made up the sleeping pad with a blanket and a pillow, and Donat, feeling the wine, settled into it at once. “Goodnight, Josep,” he called warmly.
“Sleep well, Donat.”
Josep washed and dried the pitcher, and by the time he went upstairs he heard the familiar sound of his brother’s snores.
In the morning they ate bread and hard cheese, and then Donat belched, pushed back from the table, and stood. “Might as well get on the road for the early traffic, so someone can give me a ride.”
Josep nodded.
“So, the money.”
“Ah, the payments? I don’t have the money yet.”
Donat’s face reddened.
“What do you mean? You told me, ‘Two payments, after the harvest.’”
“Well, I’ve made the wine. Now I’ll sell it and get the money.”
Donat looked at him. “Who will you sell it to? And when?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll have to learn that. Don’t worry, Donat. You’ve seen the wine and tasted it. It’s like money in your pocket, plus ten percent.”
“Rosa will have a crazy fit,” Donat said heavily. He found the chair and sat down again. “It’s a hard thing for you, isn’t it, making the payments?”
“This is a difficult time,” Josep said. “I’ve had unexpected expenses. But I can do it. You just have to wait a little while for your money, that’s all.”
“I have been thinking about something that could make things easier for you…I’d like to come back to the village. I want to be your partner.”
They regarded one another.
“No, Donat,” Josep said gently.
“…Then, how is this? You have two pieces of land. You give one of them—I don’t care which one—to Rosa and me, to settle your debt with us. It could be good, Josep, living next to one another. You want to make us some nice wine, I’ll help you, and we could each of us work together, sell our main wine for vinegar, brothers making a living.”
Josep forced himself to shake his head. “What’s happened to your plans?” he asked. “I thought you loved working at the mill.”
“I’m having trouble with a foreman,” Donat said sullenly. “He picks on me, makes life a misery. I’ll never get a chance to become a mechanic. And the damn machines are destroying my hearing.” He sighed. “Look, if I have to, I’ll just work for you for wages.”
Something within Josep shuddered as he remembered what it had been like, always squabbling, always having to do Donat’s share as well as his own.
“It wouldn’t work out,” he said, and he saw his brother’s eyes harden.
“I’ll give you some of the second pressing to take home,” Josep said, and busied himself washing out a bottle and finding a cork.
Donat came with him to the wine. “We’re not good enough to be given your best?” he said roughly.
Josep felt guilty. “Yesterday I wanted you to taste the blend, but I won’t be drinking it myself, or giving it away,” he said. “I need to sell it so I can give you your money.”
Donat placed the filled bottle in his sack and turned away.
What did his grunt mean? Cheap bastard? Thank you? Goodbye?
As Josep stood and watched his brother moving slowly down the path to the road, it seemed to him that Donat walked like a tired man treading grapes.
48
The Visit
The Castellers of San Eulália had not met during most of the autumn, but as soon as the grape harvest was complete, Eduardo assembled his climbers.
Josep was glad to attend the practice, though he didn’t understand why he liked it. He wondered what makes men want to stand on one another’s shoulders, as high as they can build a tower with human flesh and bone instead of stone and mortar, and enjoy doing it again and again.
Inevitably, the time always came when a mishap would be caused by someone’s momentary lapse, a second of strayed attention, a careless movement, a desperate swaying followed by a mass plummeting to earth.
“A fall need not happen,” Eduardo told his castellers, “if everyone knows exactly what he must do, and he does it precisely the same way, time after time. Listen to me, and we shall have nothing but success. We need strength, balance, courage, and good sense.
“I want you to climb and descend in silence, quickly, with spirit, not a second wasted, everyone taking care of himself.
“But, if you should fall…” He paused, wanting them to listen hard. “If you should fall, try not to fall out and away from the tower, because that’s where injuries lurk. Fall into the base of the castell, where your drop will be broken by the pinya and the folre.”
At the very bottom of the castell, the strong men who bore the brunt of its weight were surrounded by a large crowd that pressed in on them and formed the pinya, the bulk. On the shoulders of the pinya stood a crowd of other people, the folre, or cover, also pressing forward to add more support to the second and third layers of climbers.
Josep thought the pinya and the folre were like a great rootball lending strength to the shaft of a tree that rose skyward.
He had quickly learned the nomenclature. A structure with three or more men per level was a castell. With two men per layer, it was a tower, with one man per layer, a pillar.
“We have an invitation,” Eduardo told them. “The Castellers of Sitges have c
hallenged us to a contest of castell-building, three men to a layer, to be held in their marketplace the Friday after Easter Sunday—the Sitges fishermen against the Santa Eulália grape-growers.”
There were murmurs of approval and some quick applause, and Eduardo smiled and raised a cautionary hand. “The fishermen will be very strong competition, because they grow up constantly balancing themselves on boats tossed by the sea.
“I have given a great deal of thought to how we can build our best castell eight tiers tall.”
Eduardo had already designed the castell on paper, and he began to call out names; as his name was called, each climber took his assigned position, and the castell began to rise slowly and raggedly.
Josep was assigned one of the places in the fourth tier, and he participated as the castell was assembled and disassembled three times, with Eduardo studying the climbers and making several changes and substitutions.
During a break period Josep noted that Maria del Mar and Francesc had arrived. She stood with Eduardo, their heads close and their faces serious as they spoke, and finally Eduardo nodded.
“Climb on me,” he called to Francesc, and turned his back to him.
Francesc began to run unevenly, and something caught in Josep’s throat. The boy looked bad as he scuttled like a crab. But he gained momentum and threw himself at Eduardo’s back and clawed to his shoulders.
Eduardo was satisfied. Turning, he caught Francesc and ordered the first four layers of the tower to climb again so the boy could be tested.
When Josep was in position, he could no longer see Francesc. People were chatting as they stood in clumps and relaxed, but the drums and the grallas began to play lustily, as if this were a performance before royalty instead of an opportunity to evaluate a very young climber.
In a few moments he felt small hands clutching his trousers, and the child was on him like a small ape. Francesc’s arms circled his neck and he felt the boy’s breath.
“Josep!” a joyful voice said into his ear.
Then Francesc quickly climbed down again.
On Saturday afternoon Josep was moving a barrow-load of gravel from the cellar excavation to be spread on the road when he noted a trap approaching, pulled by a grey horse and containing a man and a woman.
As it neared him, he saw that the woman was his sister-in-law, Rosa Sert. The man was someone he had never seen before. Rosa gave a little wave as the driver turned the horse into the vineyard.
“Hola,” Josep called and left what he had been doing.
“Hola, Josep,” Rosa said. “This is my cousin, Carles Sert. The mill is servicing the machines, and I have a bit of time to be free of the job, and Carles wanted to take a day in the country, so...”
Josep looked at her without comment.
Her cousin Carles. The attorney.
He led them to the bench, brought cool water, and waited until they drank,
“You go on with your work,” Rosa said, waving her hand. “Don’t you bother about us.”
So he got another barrow-load of gravel and went back to spreading it on the road.
From time to time he glanced up to keep track of them. Rosa was walking the lawyer about the property. The man wasn’t saying very much, but she did a lot of talking. They disappeared into the vines, and then they reappeared and went to the masia. They stopped to assess the house from afar and then made a complete circuit around it, peering.
“What the hell,” Josep growled to himself, for the lawyer was shaking the door to see if it was built solidly.
Josep dropped the shovel and went to them.
“I want you to get the hell away from here. Now.”
“No need to be unkind,” the cousin said coolly.
“You’ve put the wagon before the mule. Your cousin can wait until I don’t make the third payment before she takes possession. Until then, get off my property.”
They went, not looking at him or speaking again. Rosa’s mouth was set in a cool grimace, as if to indicate to Josep that he didn’t know how to talk with civilized people. The lawyer flicked the reins, the grey horse moved them away, and Josep stood by the house and watched them disappear.
What do I do now? he asked himself.
49
A Trip to the Market
Josep had inherited thirty-one empty bottles that had been abandoned by Quim, but only fourteen of them were the correct shape and would hold three-quarters of a liter. He found four old bottles tucked away among his tools, and when he sent Briel Taulé through the village to see how many he could collect, Briel came back with eleven more. In all, twenty-nine were usable.
He scrubbed and rinsed them until they gleamed, filled them with the dark wine, and tapped in the corks very carefully. Marimar came to help him make the labels. The sight of the filled bottles had the strange effect of making both of them nervous.
“Where will you sell them?”
“I’ll try to sell them in Sitges. Tomorrow is market day. I thought I’d take the boy with me, if that’s all right,” he said, and she nodded.
“Oh, he’ll like that…What do you want me to print on these labels?”
“I don’t know… Finca Alvarez? Bodega Alvarez? No, those sound too grand. Perhaps, Vinas Alvarez?”
She frowned. “They don’t sound exactly right.” She dipped the nib into the ink and the pen scratched as she drew some circles and a stem.
When she held up the label, he looked at it and shrugged. But he smiled.
JOSEPH’S VINES
1877
Early the next morning he wrapped each bottle in several sheets of newspaper, old copies of Nivaldo’s El Cascabel, and made a nest of ragged blankets to cushion the wine on the trip to Sitges. In a cloth sack he packed chorizo and bread, and it went into the wagon too, along with a bucket and two drinking cups.
It was still dark when he drove Hinny into the Valls vineyard, but Francesc was dressed and waiting for him. Maria del Mar stood, morning cup of coffee to her lips, and watched as they went away, the boy sitting next to Josep on the wagon seat.
Francesc was quiet, but he had never been beyond Santa Eulália, and his face showed his excitement. Very soon they entered territory that was new to him, and Josep saw that his eyes were everywhere, taking in the occasional masia, unfamiliar fields and vineyards and olive groves, three black bulls behind a fence, and the far-off sight of Montserrat reaching for the sky.
When the sun came out, it was very pleasant to sit in the wagon with the child as Hinny clop-clopped northward.
“I have to pee,” Josep said presently. “Do you have to pee?”
Fransesc nodded, and Josep stopped by some pines. He lifted Francesc down, and the two of them stood next to one another at the side of the road, two males watering the gorse. It may have been his imagination, but Josep thought he saw a bit of swagger in Francesc’s limping as they returned to the wagon.
The sun was well-up when they reached Sitges, and the market was already crowded with vendors, so Josep had to settle for an open space at the very rear, next to a stall that gave off the fine smells of broiling squid and prawns and garlicky fish stew. One of the two burly cooks was waiting on a customer, but the other ventured over to the wagon, a smile on his face.
“Hola,” he said, peering at the newspaper-wrapped bottles. “What is it you are selling today?”
“Wine.”
“Wine! Is it any good?
“Not merely good. Special.”
“Ohhh…How much is this special wine?” the man said in mock dread.
When Josep told him, he closed his eyes and turned down his mouth. “That is twice as much as one has to pay for a bottle of wine.”
Josep was aware this was true, but it was the price he would need to receive, while selling every bottle in order to be able to pay his debt to Rosa and Donat.
“No, it is twice as much as one has to pay for the ordinary wine of the region, which is mule piss. This is wine.”
“Where is this wonderf
ul wine made?”
“Santa Eulália.”
“Santa Eulália? I’m a casteller of Sitges. We will soon compete with the castellers of Santa Eulália.”
“I know. I’m a casteller of Santa Eulália.”
“Truly.” He grinned. “Ah, we shall mercilessly beat your natjas, senyor.”
Josep grinned back. “Perhaps not, senyor.”
“I am Frederic Fuxá, and that is my brother Efrén, serving the food. He is assistant to the leader of our team, and he and I are in the third tier of our castell.”
Third tier, Josep marveled. This man and his brother were large. If they were third tier, what did the men of the first two tiers look like? “I’m in our castell’s fourth tier. I’m Josep Alvarez, and this is Francesc Valls, who is in training to become our enxaneta.”
“The enxaneta? Oh, that is a very important job. No one can win a castell competition without a very good little enxaneta to reach the very top,” Fuxá said to Francesc, who smiled.
“Well, I wish you good fortune today,” Fuxá said.
“I thank you, senyor. Are you interested in buying my wine?”
“It’s too expensive. I’m a hard-working fisherman, Senyor Alvarez, not a wealthy winemaker from Santa Eulália,” Fuxá said good-naturedly and returned to his stall.
Josep filled the bucket with water at the public pump and set it on the wagon bed.
“It will be your job to rinse the cups after somebody samples the wine,” he said.
Francesc nodded. “What do we do now, Josep?”
“Now? We wait,” Josep told him, and the boy nodded again and sat expectantly, holding a cup in each hand.
Time passed slowly.
There was a great deal of bustle in the interior lanes of the marketplace, but fewer people walked into the final row, where most of the spaces still were vacant.
Josep looked over to the food stand, where a heavyset woman was buying a serving of tortilla.
