A Coffee to the Past

by Stefania Gil

  Johanna listened to a call being made for some passengers on the flight to Los Angeles.

  Sigh.

  “It's the best decision you could ever make.”

  “I'm sorry.” Isabel said with much regret in her voice. “I'm an idiot for ignoring the warnings that you and Carlota gave me.”

  “You're in love, Isabel. That's why you don’t heed warnings.”

  “Yes...”

  Silence.

  “I'm...” Isabel sighed deeply, “in love.”

  “I 'm coming.”

  “No, Jo. For real. Thanks, but I want to go through this alone. I'll be fine. I promise.”

  Johanna sighed in defeat.

  “Don’t forget to call me as soon as you get off the plane in Madrid.”

  “I sure will my friend. I love you and I'll miss you.”

  “Shut up and hang up. I hate the goodbyes.”

  V

  Carlota woke up from the bed bouncing slightly. The mattress trembled to the rhythmic laughter of her daughter who, believing she was a grasshopper was leaping.

  When she turned she felt a stabbing pain in her neck.

  “Ouch.”

  Her husband was taking care that their daughter did not fall off the bed.

  “I put a muscle relaxer and a glass of water on the night stand.”

  Carlota was stunned.

  Carefully, she took the pill.

  “How did I get here? Wasn’t I in the basement?”

  “Yes, sweetheart,” he answered amused, “I found you asleep on a mountain of papers and at least two hundred years of dust.”

  She laughed.

  “You’re exaggerating!”

  “Look at your hands.”

  She did. When she saw the filth on them she ran to the bathroom.

  “Get her out of here. How could you let me sleep like this?”

  “You were asleep” he whispered. “Carl, do you think I was going to wake you up?”

  She turned the shower on. While she waited for the water to heat, she went back into the room.

  “I'm going to create a law that will force the lady of the house to be naked 24 hours a day," Ed said, looking seductively at Carlota.

  “Fool!” She kissed him on the cheek and then did the same with their little girl.

  “I need to write down everything I dreamed of.”

  Ed got off the bed and with the child in his arms.

  “Then shower,” he gave his wife a light swat as she headed for the bathroom, “I bought Chinese food to pamper your muse.”

  “For breakfast?”

  “It's two o'clock in the afternoon, Carl,” he winked as she stared wide eyed in surprise. “I told you that coming here would free your imagination and chase away your writer’s block.”

  ***

  Carlota took a quick shower. She was excited and wanted to continue working on what caught her attention.

  It all began with the tour of the city she took with Catalina the previous afternoon. They spent a couple of hours in an old town. Catalina was a magnificent tour guide and showed her inside the cathedrals that were near the Virgin Plaza.

  The Cathedral of Santa María Cathedral, the Basilica of the Virgin of the Desamparados and the Palace of the Generalitat. Three of the most emblematic buildings in the city. Carlota found them fascinating. She was not a religious woman, but she was attracted to the insides of churches. She thought the altars and the harmony of the paintings were majestic.

  These were no exception especially with Catalina’s soft voice recounting to her the city’s history.

  Until, they were standing in front of the Fountain of Turia, Catherine gave her a detailed account of how they celebrated the floral offering to the city’s patron saint.

  Carlota was looking forward to March so that she could see how it was celebrated. Her mind traveled with Catalina’s stories to ancient sites; touched every wall of the Cathedrals, fountains and ancient monuments. Carlota was convinced that everything around her could tell a story. Ed was always joking that it was the writer in her veins that would not let her stop imagining things.

  By the time they returned home, Carlota was so excited with the speed of her imagination that she asked Catalina to take her home so she could speak with Alfonso. She told her that she wanted to record the legend that her husband told her the first night they dined with them.

  Catalina was pleased by this and, of course, they ended up having dinner at the Martínez's house, surrounded by a great legend, good wine and excellent food.

  Upon returning home, Carlota went to the basement to continue researching the crazy legend. She still came up empty handed. However, there was much left to rummage through.

  She only found some old photographs that she would show Alfonso to see if he knew any of the people. She also found some of the estate’s accounts.

  Alcalá Orange Grove hid something according to the legend.

  She was going to find out if it was true but before she did anything, she had some priorities to attend to, like eating.

  ***

  Ed was pleased. He was achieving his goal of giving his wife her inspiration back.

  He could see it when she went downstairs or when she sat in the impromptu dining room they had.

  When the house was ready, Carlota-would surely be at the peak of her creativity and it would not surprise him if by that time, she had two or even three novels written.

  Such was the life of a writer. He knew that he must keep the spark alive so that everything at home went well. If Carlota's creativity was perfect, everything else would be wonderful if not, things got murky and more disagreeable than he liked.

  She was beautiful. The change of atmosphere made her feel wonderful and she had even gained some weight. That was great because he hated the very thin woman she had become and unfortunately, Carlota took refuge in exercise to drain her frustration of not being able to find a good story. Which unintentionally made him lose a few pounds.

  She saw him and smiled.

  He walked over to her and gave her a sweet kiss on the cheek.

  “I'm going to feed you very well so that you can go back to your cave later,” Ed said pointing to the basement. “Just do not forget to take your cell phone with you. It seems to me that everything down there is very dangerous and I want you to be able to call me in case you need it.”

  She smiled at him.

  “Honey, I think you're exaggerating. The basement looks bad because it’s dark and dirty but when we put in lights, it will be a great space.”

  He watched her with curiosity.

  “I was thinking of asking Isabel to remodel it into my studio.”

  Just then, their little girl applauded with excitement because she managed to pierce a piece of food with her small fork. Ed couldn’t be happier.

  “Good! Now that's great news, honey.”

  “Well,” she said as she wiped the corners of her mouth, “I'm not saying that I'm going to start writing today, but I think I can feel my creativity again.”

  He smiled. How wonderful.

  “Have you thought of something, yet?”

  She shook her head as she chewed her lip.

  “It will be a good story. You will see.”

  ***

  After the meal, Carlota was anxious to get back to the basement. She felt like she did when she wrote her first novel. She would never forget it, the excitement of doing what she loved so much: telling stories.

  She cleared an old wooden desk in a corner of the basement. The space was quite large. She was making three piles: what she would discard, what she would use for her story and what she would keep.

  When Isabel arrived, they would have to organize everything and then, establish where the new storage room would be built because this space would be her study.

  She could almost imagine it, with bright lights. The desk she had just discovered, if it could be restored would be perfect. She would install a nice bookcase for her collection o
f favorite books. She would have another one for books to be read and there would be a special space for a bookcase for only her books.

  There was enough room for everything. They would have to check the condition of the space in general: walls, floor, humidity, leaks or anything else that Isabel knew.

  She put her hands on her hips and smiled.

  She could feel her beloved muses fluttering around her.

  She went to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Everything was silent. Surely Ed and the little girl were asleep.

  She took a bottle of water and a cup of coffee before returning to the basement. She cleared a small space on the desk for her computer, a notepad with several other things. She place the cup of coffee and water bottle beside the tape recorder where she had Alfonso’s narration of the legend.

  She pressed the Play button and just relaxed to listen very carefully.

  “Since I was just a little boy, my grandfather” Alfonso began in the recording, “Don Felipe Martínez Martínez, told me many stories about the estates neighboring ours. They seemed like the darkest stories: witches, monks who persecuted witches, ancient religions, unsolved mysteries and the story that always caught my attention, was the one he told me about the secret buried somewhere, under the The Alcala Orange Grove”.

  She heard the crinkle of a wrapper and then a lighter.

  “I'm going to sit here so my cigar smoke won’t bother you” she heard Alfonso say.

  “No problem.” Carlota replied.

  “Well” continued Alfonso, “The Alcala Orange Grove was built by Don Manuel Alcalá Alcedo. He’s the man in this picture.” Carlota took the picture remembering the night before. “Don Manuel was the only son of a wealthy family. He inherited the land where your property is located. He built the house you now live in. Without realizing it, he became more and more involved with the town’s people. They helped him build the house and taught him how to plant and harvest oranges. Don Manuel was a city man, well-educated who had the opportunity to go other places but never the opportunity to feed the land, to see plants growing and to live on the countryside. That experience, turned him into another person. More humble, simpler. He learned to love small things. That's how he met María Villalobos. When she was only twelve, they fell in love. It was love at first sight.

  “Well,” said Carlota, “That kind of love gives me the creeps. Sounds like pure pedophilia.”

  Alfonso laughed loudly.

  “I'm surprised that a storyteller like you doesn’t know that in ancient times people fell in love and were married immediately.”

  “One thing is for me to know it, and another is to accept it. Come on, Alfonso, it's unnatural for a city man to fall in love with a twelve-year-old.”

  “Well, Don Manuel didn’t reach the age of twenty,” he said, “and yes, I agree that they got married or engaged too young, but that was the way things were done back then. In this case Don Manuel, asked Maria's father for her hand in marriage. He didn’t have as much money as the Alcalá but he would be proud to give Don Manuel a good dowry. He accepted the marriage request on the condition that he waited until Maria turned fifteen. He thought she was still very young.

  Carlota shook her head at the story again.

  “I can’t understand how that would be considered normal in the past.”

  On the tape, Alfonso cleared his throat.

  “When the time came, they got married and moved into the house,” Alfonso paused, and Carlota turned her attention to what she would hear next on the recording because she knew that it was the best part. “A few years later, they had some children, three apparently. As the story goes, they were playing in the rain on the estate’s muddy grounds when the ground opened and sucked them in.”

  “Quicksand?” asked Carlota from the recording.

  “No. Here when it rains constantly and heavily, everything floods. You can imagine with age, things got pretty ugly. So all the employees joined the boy’s rescue. They were unconscious at the bottom of a pit full of mud and water was falling in abundance. It is said that there were employees nearby who saw the accident and saved them immediately. In short, they rescued the children. One of Don Manuel’s employees noticed one of the mountains of mud that was standing in the pit contained something inside.”

  Carlota paused the recording and began making notes like never before in her life. She felt her imagination working at its fullest recreating every detail of that story.

  “Two days later, when the sun came out and began to heat the earth, Don Manuel went with several of his employees to look in the pit again.”

  “They were surprised to see that the mountain of mud was no longer there, and instead there was an elaborate marble coffin.” Alfonso snorted with the irony. “You can imagine all the things they began to say at that time and what’s more with the devotion the people had to the church.”

  “Well,” interrupted Carlota on the recording, “the people were terrified of the radical way the church proceeded against anyone who did not agree with them, you mean. Not devoted.”

  Alfonso laughed.

  “You have the Alcalá's rebellion in your blood, lass.” Carlota didn’t’ understand even now when she was listening to the tape if that was a compliment. “The rumor of the sarcophagus found in "The Alcalá Orange Grove" spread throughout the village in less than half a day. Before Don Manuel could think of what to do, the Church arrived with a handful of papers that indicated that the sarcophagus, and the land on which it was buried, were owned by them and they would take care of everything.” There was a pause, Carlota remembered that Alfonso was lighting a cigarette. “I’ll tell you one thing, I'm sure if the church had only mentioned the ownership of the sarcophagus, he would not have had any problem with letting them come and take it, but as a landowner they could not tell him that part of his terrain was theirs overnight. The love for the earth is carried in the blood and no one has a right to it. Don Manuel threw them off his land stating that they were out of their minds. These lands belonged to him. He told them to go and claim someone else’s land and to leave them alone. Of course, it did not end there. A battle began between Don Manuel and the church. It got to the point where they threatened to annul their children’s baptism and his marriage to María. When María learned what was at stake due to her husband’s refusal to give the church access to their estate, she organized a meeting with the bishop at her house. After the meeting, the bishop wanted to inspect the sarcophagus for himself. He explained to Don Manuel, his wife and their accompanying staff that this sarcophagus kept the body of the worst heretical soul with whom the inquisitors had fought at an earlier time. Apparently, the sarcophagus was carved with a prayer in Latin that wouldn’t allow the body to be resurrected. Carlota was laughing at the recording, and just in case the prayer did not work, the cover was sealed with two solid steel padlocks so there was no way the body could escape.”

  There was another pause.

  “Doña María was terrified to know that she had a heretical soul on her land, so she allowed the bishop and his people to remove the monstrosity. It was a surprise to everyone when they could not remove the sarcophagus. They didn’t even manage to move it a millimeter. The church drafted a document that forced Don Manuel to seal his terrain again and never disclose the location of the coffin. Also, some of the estate’s employees and María were forced to sign. No one could claim there was a body buried on the ranch and from that moment on no one could speak of the situation again.

  “And how was the legend born if no one could talk about it?”

  “I do not know Carlota, my grandfather never told me. I’m not sure about the truth of the signatures either because there is no record of them. It is not even mentioned in the property documentation because I asked Pilar a while ago.”

  “Is that why you wanted to buy the estate?”

  Nothing was heard from the tape but Carlota remembered Alfonso nodded.

  “He was willing to search every inch of dirt until h
e could verify the story. Besides, there was also the house, my grandfather told us so much about it that I inadvertently fell in love with it and wanted it for myself.”

  “Have you heard anything else about the legend?”

  “No, and it seems that I am the only one who knows about it because the younger generations have never heard the story.”

  Carlota snorted on the recording.

  “Or they are willing to keep the secret for the rest of their lives.”

  Carlota turned off the recorder. She saw her notebook was bursting with all the notes she had made.

  “Carl, honey,” Ed called out from the laundry room door, “it's time to eat and I have a surprise for you.”

  VI

  Isabel's stomach roared like a lion. It was very likely caused by her bad mood. When she got into the taxi and told the driver she didn’t feel like talking.

  Both flights were good, the only bad thing was the three hour layover in the Barajas airport. The stewardess in New York never mentioned it to her.

  She smiled as she looked out the taxi window and thought the poor stewardess couldn’t have done better because of the short notice. The lady solved her problem quickly.

  At last she was in Valencia. She climbed into a cab and was now cruising the CV-35 in the direction of her new life for a while.

  During the endless flight, she thought a lot about her new situation and decided that it would be very beneficial if she stayed in Spain for several months. She even thought about giving Jo a share of her company so that she could take care of everything in New York. That would give her the ability to sign as a partner in the company.

  Jo was her unconditional friend and was the second person she trusted most in the world. Sometimes more than her own sister.

  She knew it would be foolish to offer her the position for a thousand dollars because she did not have the money to pay for it, and Jo was not very good at receiving things from others. She was very suspicious of that. Once, Isabel had suggested it and she gave her a resounding 'No' as a response and also forbade her to mention it again. She told her when she had money; she would gladly accept the proposal. She would have to think of an effective way to tempt Jo into saying yes because they both needed it.