coming home, Diego,” his father had replied as he returned to the task of filling his pipe. “Home from the wilderness where they nest during the winter. I’ve not seen it, Diego,” he said, “but it’s called Las Marismas—the tidelands—and it’s a place where millions of land, water, and shore birds go to find food during our long winters. Birds come there from Asia and Africa and from all over Europe. Geese from Denmark, starlings from Germany, and the beautiful white egret from West Africa, among many, many others. It’s said they have purple herons, and bee-eaters and hoopes without number. Someday, perhaps you’ll see it, Diego,” he had said, not realizing the prophecy of his words. “It’s near Sevilla, but my travels aren’t likely to take me there.
“Birds, Diego!” he had exclaimed. “It’s all about birds. Each town and village is watched over by a guardian bird which, according to the day and hour, renders the town pleasing, ravishing, or disquieting. I’m not sure what bird guards your grandfather’s home, but Carmena is watched over by a dove. Adam is said to have named them and perhaps this is true, for they’re ancient auguries of that which is favorable or unfavorable,” he had said, beginning one of those tales for which he was justly famous.
“When Noah’s ark landed at Mount Ararat after the great flood, he let loose a raven which flew off into a blackened sky. For countless days, he awaited its arrival, but it did not return. He then sent out a dove, and it returned because it couldn’t find a place to land. Later,” he had continued, “he sent out the same dove two more times. On the second flight, it returned with an olive branch in its mouth. It was a sign, Diego, a sign to Noah that he, his family, and all the animals could come out of the ark and begin a new life.
“Good old Noah,” he had continued. “He was the only righteous person of his time. And he took enough birds and animals aboard his ark to re-populate the earth. He knew, as we’ve all come to know, that birds are the best indication of a good climate and country. And now it’s said that the birds of the monsoon are seen as messengers of hope, for if they come, they foretell a year of plenty. If they don’t come, people know that there’ll be famine throughout the land. They’re symbols of all things wild and free and are a blessing. We’ve only to read their signs, Diego. We’ve only to read their signs.
“Over there, mi ijiko,” he had said, gesturing towards the northwest, “beyond Carmena and Avila, that’s where your abuelo and I saw an enormous flock of stilts coming from the north, from France where they’re said to nest. You should have seen them, Diego,” he had said with enthusiasm. “There were hundreds of them, the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Their necks were long, and their bills were, too, thin and very straight. They flew with their endless legs trailing behind them. I’d seen them before. On the Alberche below the walls at Escalona, their legs so long that they had to tilt their bodies to reach the ground. But when they fly, Diego,” he had continued, “they’re majestic. White with black wings and with a call like the yelp of a small dog. Your abuelo and I were on our way to Salamanca to visit the university. ‘Following knowledge endlessly like stars sinking below the horizon,’ is how my papa described it.”
“Stars, how stars, Papa?”
“Well, not stars, exactly” he had said, peering into the fading light and pulling his collar about his neck. “At least not the kind we see in the sky. But hopes and dreams. Salamanca is where your grandpa and I went in search of my education.”
“Further than Carmena, Papa?” Diego had asked. “Maybe we can go someday, Papa,” he had said, emphasizing the “we.”
“Perhaps, Diego,” his father had answered as though considering the possibility. “We’ll see, Diego,” he had said. ‘”We’ll see.”
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Pedro leaned against the wrought iron rail and thought of the sentiment expressed by his father-in-law, a sentiment he wished his father had also held: that it’s better to dare mighty things than to count oneself among those that neither enjoy much nor suffer much. “You must not grieve,” his father-in-law had said. “You must look for happiness, for to do otherwise is to live in a gray twilight and know neither success nor failure.”
We’ve suffered much, Pedro said to himself, and Ana, Luis and my poor nephew paid the ultimate price. The joy of his existence had been rooted in Castile and now God who had given these children to him had also taken then away. “I’ll keep you in my heart,” he said aloud to his beloved dead. And with no further time to contemplate their loss, left the balcony.
This Crag of Sorrow
“I can go by myself, Papa,” Lucia pleaded in her small voice as she stood beside her hooded mule, the hem of her nightdress trailing in the mud. “Like Diego,” she said. “I can go by myself.”
“Shh,” her father responded as he put his finger to her lips. He then placed her astride her mule, the scent of her—of angel water and sleep—sweet in the damp cool air. “We’ll see, ijika,” her father promised as he placed her in her saddle. “You’ll go with Tonio for now,” he said, “but we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes.”
Lucia, appearing spare and wan, held her thin arms tightly across her chest refusing to touch the withers or mane of her beast. The corners of her budded lips drooped slightly at their edges as she observed the remainder of her family waiting in the darkness. While she sat there, her father so close she could have reached out and touched him, she looked down into her mother’s sedan chair and could, she thought, make out her mother’s knees and her clasped hands which were folded in her lap. It was one of those moments, however, when one did not know whether what one was experiencing was real or imagined. She knew that her mother’s face and neck were hidden from her view, and that it would have been impossible for her to see the auburn hair, long, white throat or those blue-green eyes which she wished were her own. But would she have been able to see her mother’s hands? she asked herself. Or was this just the way she knew her mother would be seated? She did not know. What she did know was that she could see or sense movement within the sedan chair as her mother rearranged her seating.
Within the chair, Catalina felt for the correct placement of her feet on top of the Moroccan cushion which she had asked to take from her mother’s parlor. She had, until this moment, been brooding and immobile, locked in a deep trance from which she could not seem to escape. However, with the realization that she had to provide for the welfare of her remaining children, she had broken through her passivity, and assumed an active role in the preparations, even seeking to take some precious objects from her parents’ home to which she would likely never return. The darkness, as well as the haunches of her lead mule, obscured her view forward, although she knew that her position in the train, as in life, was immediately behind her husband who now sat on his mule ahead of her. As she settled back within her enclosed settee, which rested on the haunches and shoulders of her mule team, she could, through the dark clothing and the black shawl that she wore, feel the cold leather of the sedan’s seat and back as they pressed against her frail body. Additional mules, coughing and wheezing in protest, carried the trunks and valises containing the meager clothing and household goods they had obtained from her father. Once mounted, the family waited in silence.
The stars and the moonlight cast shadows against the walls of the tortuous passageway, a street so narrow that the overhanging roofs of the adjacent homes nearly touched. The normal qualities of the stones of this passageway were unrecognizable in the veiled light. The sky, reflected in the family’s tears and in the pools of moisture that had collected from the evening’s heavy dew, had a timeless quality about it that did not identify it as either a day or night sky. In the darkness, Lucia could barely distinguish one silhouette from another as additional muleteers came up the cobbled path. She tried to tell whether or not any of them were men who worked for her grandfather. One of them—whom she
