Guernica (25 page)

He’d empty his mind again and focus on the saw blade’s hum, dropping tree after tree, until exhaustion rid him of memories.
He repaid the occasional loan of Mendiola’s mule with a portion of the lumber he brought in, and he made enough money to stay
alive, to buy some seeds for replanting, and to replace some of the tools that he found himself needing.

Alaia Aldecoa felt cloistered again as silence joined darkness as a constant in her life. She had so desperately sought to
leave the convent and then spent so much energy convincing Miren that she needed to be independent. And now, back at her cabin,
she had nothing but independence, and a life once empty somehow grew more empty.

There would be no more business partners, as Miren had labeled them. She was done with that. The closeness she’d wanted turned
out to be something else. No one knocked on her door, and she would not have admitted them anyway. So many were gone now;
so many were desperate for other things. She kept the hatchet that Zubiri had used for splitting her kindling. If soldiers
arrived with bad intent, she would swing it in the direction of their sounds until she made contact or she was killed.

No one arrived to buy soaps, either, and the market had not been reestablished.

She could tell from the way her dress hung slack that she’d grown stringy from lack of food. Zubiri continued to help as he
could. He was alone and could share what subsistence he could scrape off his small
baserri
. He knew without discussion that their arrangement had changed. They were friends now, and he would help Alaia for that reason.
They talked more, and that seemed important. He had managed to hide a goat at a shepherd’s cabin in the mountains, which meant
milk and cheese for them. He also tended bees, and he shared the honey with Alaia. It was a different closeness.

She thought of Miren often. She remembered the smell of breakfasts at Errotabarri, and how Justo greeted them both with hugs
and outrageous stories while Mariangeles was careful to make sure her needs were met. She remembered Miren and Mariangeles,
and the way they were like two generations of the same person. And she thought of Miren when she went to sleep, recalling
the nights in her bed, sharing private thoughts and wrestling.

Alaia no longer needed to recognize the time of day. She slept when she wished and for as long as she could. There was only
waking and sleeping now, and in her solitary darkness there was little difference between the two.

Why go to town? So much had changed and she had no one to show her the ways in which the new streets bent around the new construction.
So she stayed at home and survived without purpose. At times she worked on her soaps, even though there was no market in which
to sell them. She gathered herbs in the meadows for scents and for making tea, and she collected greens to boil and eat.

She found herself thinking of Miguel and how enormous was his loss. It had been a perfect family. But he had almost two years
with Miren. He had Justo and his family. She had only soap and thoughts, and she felt that was slender excuse for a life.
But she also had a small, worn rag doll that had become more important to her than she could have imagined.

The herringbone pattern of the wood made the floor of the Basilica de Begoña seem to rise on the lengthy path from the entrance
to the altar. Sister Incarnation helped a woman on crutches all the way to the front pew, taught her how to genuflect in her
new condition, and then retreated to give privacy to her prayers. At the back of the main nave, she found Justo Ansotegui,
who had been watching her.

“You look well, Justo,” she whispered.

“Thank you.” Justo gestured for her to sit. “I need to apologize to you, sister. I was dishonest with you. I’ve talked with
my brother Xabier and we’ve straightened out a few things.”

“Dishonest about what, Justo?”

“About my family, about my life, about what was going through my mind,” he said. “I didn’t believe I could talk about it without
breaking down, without being weak. I didn’t want you to see that in me.”

She patted his knee.

“By not telling you about my wife and daughter I kept you from knowing them,” he said. “And it’s important to me that you
understand who they were.”

“Justo, people have to find different ways,” she said. “That takes time; that’s not being dishonest. You just weren’t ready.”

“Sister, my wife and daughter were my life,” he said. “I know you hear that all the time. The only thing I could do was convince
myself they were alive somewhere and I was going to see them again. So, yes, I was dishonest with you and I was probably being
dishonest with myself. I apologize. For as hard as you worked with me, you deserved better than that.”

“Justo, I knew your family,” she said. “Father Xabier told me everything. I just couldn’t talk about them until you were ready.
I knew when it was time that you would tell Father Xabier how you felt and he would be the one to help you through this.”

They sat quietly for a moment, watching the altar candles flicker and reflect off the stone columns as parishioners branched
off to the side chapels for prayers. It was a busy place, but solemn.

“I wanted to tell you that I’m going home soon,” Justo said. “I hope you would keep watch on that brother of mine. We have
a family problem of thinking we can save the world.”

“Justo, that’s almost exactly what he told me about you,” she said. Both laughed loudly enough that some in prayer turned
to scowl, easing back around when they saw that a nun was involved.

“I worry how he makes everyone’s problems his own; he invites their suffering,” Justo said.

“Don’t worry for him, that’s what makes him such a fine priest,” the nun said. “He told me that you were the one who saw that
in him.”

“Sister, I just wanted to get him out of the house.”

“Justo,” she said harshly, “you are in the house of God; you should not lie here.”

From her pocket, she retrieved a small green cloth medallion connected to a string to be worn around the neck, emblazoned
with the likeness of the Virgin Mary and the inscription IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY, PRAY FOR US NOW AND AT THE HOUR OF OUR
DEATH.

“Justo, I want you to wear this scapular.”

“Thank you, sister, I will.”

“You never know when you might need help from the Mother of God.”

“True enough.”

He spread the supportive cord of the small medallion to accommodate its passage over his head, slipped it down around his
neck, and tucked it inside his shirt.

Both rose, dipped deeply as they stepped into the aisle, and crossed themselves. Sister Incarnation checked that her patient
in the front pew was still bent in prayer and then walked toward the entry with Justo.

“Justo, I’ve never had a patient like you,” she said.

“Is that a compliment?”

“I think it is, yes,” she said with her small birdcall laugh. “I want you to do what your brother says. Listen to him. You
are a good man and there are not enough of those to go around these days.”

“Sister, I promise you I’ll do my best to be myself again.”

“Good, Justo,” she said. “Because I would not want to have to get tough with you.”

The tiny nun moved in closer, as if to hug him. Instead, she reached up to her full height and socked him on the right shoulder.

Fishing was the best part now, on the hillsides in the afternoon with the coolness of the stream beneath the alders. Neither
shouted when a fish was caught, although it meant more to them now. But an instinctual response surfaced whenever the line
was pulled hard by one taking the bait. The connection seemed so different to Miguel from the winching in of hundreds in a
net.

When they first returned to the stream, Miguel knew not to ask Justo if he needed help baiting his hook. Even with just two
fingers and part of a thumb on each hand, Miguel was quicker at some things than Justo. Baiting a hook was one. After mutilating
dozens of grubs and worms while trying different ways of stabbing them with the hook, Justo arrived at a method that disgusted
Miguel, although it did not surprise him. When he found a fat grub under a rotting log or downed branch, Justo would pop it
into his mouth. With his teeth and lips pinching the worm in place, he brought the hook up to his mouth and threaded it through
the plump body. Once he hooked his own lip, causing him to howl. Often Miguel would see blood or worm guts on Justo’s mustache
and found he had to turn away.

“What?” Justo asked when Miguel groaned at the vision.

“Nothing.”

“The taste is not that bad, Miguel. It is not worse than some of the things we have been eating and calling dinner. If we
don’t catch anything today, it might just
be
our dinner.”

But there remained scattered fish to be caught. Unhooking them was somewhat less disgusting, although hardly artful. Justo
would lay the fish on the ground, step on it with his left foot, and yank the hook out with his right hand. Sometimes the
string broke or the hook bent or the fish’s lip ripped off with the hook. The weight of his foot smashed the fish soft, leaving
it with a mealy texture. But no one was choosy.

Miguel was slightly more deft, but a number of times, as he tried to unhook the fish, it would flop out of his hands and land
back in the stream.

“We’re a fine pair,” Justo said.

“We are,” Miguel said. “One hand and, what, maybe nine fingers between us.”

“And three ears,” Justo added. “Do you have all your toes?”

Yes, Justo’s ear. Miguel had not expected to have so much trouble with Justo’s ear. When Father Xabier sent word to Errotabarri
that he was bringing Justo home, Miguel did what he could to prepare, cleaning the house and restoring order as he remembered
it. He wanted to have a meal prepared, too. Miguel had gone to the Mezos’ when he returned to see if there was any help he
could provide, but the home was empty. He knew that Roberto was likely still in jail somewhere, but he had not heard of the
fate of Amaya and the seven children. When he walked up to their
baserri
, he saw in the garden a mound of dirt bearing a cross of scrap wood. In charcoal writing across the horizontal board was
the word AMA.

Mother.

What happened to the children was another of the many mysteries. Miguel looked through the house to be certain there was none
left to help. And when he saw no one, he looked for anything that might help him survive. No food was visible, but to his
surprise, he discovered a bottle of wine in a drawer in the kitchen.

He saved it for the meal to celebrate Justo’s return. One of the rabbits in the downstairs stalls was sacrificed. Miguel had
a fire burning and dinner cooking when the Ansotegui brothers arrived. It was an immediate disaster. Justo saw Miren’s braid
and broke down. Miguel saw Justo’s ear and thought instantly of Catalina. They sobbed in the same rhythm as they hugged, and
Xabier put his arms around both and recited prayers. He hoped it would calm them and that maybe it would call down spiritual
assistance, but mostly he prayed because he could think of nothing else to say.

Xabier saw the wine on the table and broke from their embrace to pour three glasses. There was no toast, no
osasuna.
And there was very little talking. Miguel stepped to the hearth to remove the pot simmering with rabbit and a few vegetables
he had collected to make stew. Justo rose to help, looking at the apron hanging from the nail.

When it was time for bed, all three slept in the main room. When fresh out of the hospital, Miguel had brought in a small
and ratty cot from the lambing shed, and he had been sleeping on that. He offered that to Father Xabier, who saw no benefit
in arguing over it. Miguel and Justo slept seated in the two padded chairs.

Xabier visited Santa María church the next morning before returning to Bilbao, subtly urging his friends and colleagues to
keep their eyes on his brother. In Xabier’s absence, Justo and Miguel were left to find their paths around each other’s grief.

Renée Labourd’s parents, Santi and Claudine, were still spry and clever enough for the work. But they had taken fewer jobs
as the civil war in Spain caused the border guards to be supplemented by Franco’s military forces, who were quicker to perform
impromptu executions for sport. The contraband was more precious now, as Basque, Catalan, and Republican refugees sought ways
to seep across the border into the relative peace of France. But the boundary was increasingly less permeable and the Labourds
were recognizable as frequent crossers.

Mostly it was Renée’s operation now, Renée’s and her new partner Eduardo Navarro’s. Eduardo had overcome his disastrous apprenticeship
to discover an innate talent.

“Papa, you’d be so proud of Dodo; he’s coming up with new ideas,” Renée said at dinner.

“Tell us, son,” Santi Labourd said. “We are not too old to learn.”

“No . . . you are the heroes of the mountains,” Dodo protested. “I’m new to all this. If I have any advantage it’s that I
have a better idea how the Spanish guards think. You French Basques try to use logic on them, but your logic doesn’t apply.”

“How so?” Santi asked.

“Spanish guards are predictable,” Dodo said. “If it is a hot day, you may be certain that the shaded areas will be fully staffed
and impeccably guarded. You are mostly free to do as you please out in the sunshine. If it’s rainy, they will be vigilant
in their attention to all covered areas. If it’s cold, they will surround the stove and protect it with their entire force.
So you can outthink them and outwork them. They’ll cluster in the easiest paths, where they assume you will pass. In their
minds, it’s inconceivable that anybody would walk a steep, rocky trail when a gentle path is available.”

“What about in town?” Claudine Labourd asked.

“I think you manipulate their perception; people are led by what they see, and you can make them believe just about what ever
you want them to.”

“Yes?”

Renée laughed. “Let me tell them,” she demanded.