or overseer. It was unlikely she knew any of the others. Still, she wondered who these men were who were about to lead them into the night. The light had the cast of sadness. The sounds were those of anxious hooves. And the smells those of working men, leather, and mules.
In the darkness, Tonio and his head packer, or cargador, rechecked the seating of every load, each of them walking down his own side of the mule train, the clack of their double-soled boots resounding in the darkness. Tonio, who was responsible for the safety of his charges, his men, and his beasts, wanted to assure himself that his muleteers had done their work well as he felt for the correct placement and security of each item. Saddle clothes, grass stuffed pads, grass cinch, straw mat coverings—nothing was overlooked in his inspection. Once the examination was completed, he mounted his own mule which stood at the front of the train. Then with the cargador’s “Adios!” and Tonio’s response of “Vaya!” the mules, led by a bellmare and divided into four strings, began to inch their way down the steep cobblestoned corridor and away from the house on one of Toledo’s highest hills. Then, although admonished by his father not to look back, Diego glanced one final time at his grandfather’s home which now appeared empty, dark, and desolate, and at its exterior balcony as he rode beneath it. He searched in vain for the spot in the wall where he had hidden his white stone as a prayer to assure their return and worried that it would not be able to work its magic. However, his attention was quickly diverted to more pressing matters when one of his mother’s mules slid into his as they exited the corridor.
Through shadowed, Moorish streets like dark ravines, the family moved along steep, narrow corridors paved with cobbles taken from the muddy, red bed of the Tagus. They rode past crowded whitewashed houses, which faced terraced streets, the corridors overhung by glazed verandas or by wrought-iron balustrades enclosing narrow passages. The silence was broken only by the sound of hooves and of water splashing into stone basins.
As they neared the river, they rode through the ancient Jewish quarter of Toledo, virtually a town in itself, situated in the southwestern portion of the city. The southern section of the district sloped down an incline to the bank of the Tagus and included a fortress once known as the ‘Jew’s Citadel.’ Here, with the clatter of their mules the only sound to be heard they passed through the battle-scarred walls of the fortress, away from the roofs, towers, and domes of the ancient city and began their steep descent to the river.
Galiana’s Palace
A few plain trees and Spanish poplars marked the road the Robledo party traveled. There were many rocks, and the fields, which at winter’s end had been a broad stretch of parched meadows, were now covered with the emerald grasses of an early spring. The hollows of dry waterbeds were choked with tamarisk, their fine, feathery branches and minute scale-like leaves now moving in the pristine air. A gentle breeze sprang up along the deeply etched bed of the Tagus, bearing the scent of mud and dry leaves and, incongruously, the faint odor of animal dung, the remains of a previous passage.
As they rode alongside the river, which was bordered by white-trunked poplars and giant tamarisks, the sun began to tip the horizon, and the landscape in all directions became clearer. While riding, they began to see the harsh uplands long-celebrated in the annals of Spanish history. Streams interlaced the area of scrubby brush, rock rose, heather, and cork oaks, while in the heights, deer, foxes, lynx, wolves, and wild boar were to be found. A single cloud, like tufted cotton, was ridged against the sky as they headed toward a distant hill.
Riding through the area, Pedro thought of how, during visits to their grandfather’s home, the children had begged to be taken to see the local wonders. Scattered throughout the area were numerous prehistoric sites, all boasting megalithic ruins composed of huge stone monuments and tombs. Also in the area was an ancient ghost town once protected by a fortress, while odd stone boars or bulls—verracos—decorated nearby castles. Each of these sites had presented the possibility for an excursion and a chance to enjoy life in the open air but would have required a long day’s ride. Therefore, instead of visiting one of these, he had last taken them to Galiana’s Palace and the clypsedra, or water clock, which had been one of the wonders of the Moorish world. The water clock, which lay among the ruins of a Moorish palace, or alcazar, on the banks of the Tagus River, had once consisted of two large stone basins that filled and emptied themselves of water every lunar month in time with the waxing and waning of the moon. It was said that in 1085, some 50 years after the Christian re-conquest of Toledo by Alfonso VI, Alfonso VII, his grandson, curious to learn how the clock worked, had it taken apart. Unfortunately, his craftsmen, as skilled as they were, had been unable to reconstruct it. Pedro had presented the story to them as an allegory. “Sometimes,” he had said to his children, his blue eyes seemingly reflecting the late winter sky, “it’s best to accept things as they are, to enjoy them, to marvel at them, or to suffer the pains of their sorrows without question. However, at other times, it’s best to search for meaning.”
To accept things as they are, he thought to himself as they rode by the palatial ruin. His hallmark had always been his cheerful acceptance of life in its simplest and most sublime terms—with all its tragedy and all its enveloping mystery. Now, however, he, too, searched for meaning in the family’s recent tragic events and could find none.
* * *
As the members of the mule train rode to the brow of a rounded hill, a little beyond where they had once dismounted for their walk to Galiana’s Palace, Pedro reined in his mule. Here he turned to look back for the last time at the city of high walls which ascend and descend and enclose the small hill ringed by the river. On their right was the deeply carved bed of the Tagus still veiled in drifting mists and shadows. On their left were hills, rocks, and low scrub, all of which were half-shrouded in a dusty gray. The southern mountains under the early April sky were dimly visible in the distance. Toledo, its neutral tones broken only by shadows cast within its gigantic walls, its roofs dominated by the magnificent towers of its cathedral and its alcazar, was barely visible on the distant horizon. Without comment or command, Pedro took Diego and Lucia from their mules and lowered them to the ground. Catalina, however, asked to be left where she was. The children and their father then sat in the grass beside her litter while their train waited on the road above them.
The river was beautiful in the morning light with the sun glinting off the blue and yellow waters of the stream. Above them, just before the crest of the hill, Pedro and his children could see some crumbling walls. Below them, on the slope of the hill, were live oaks, ilex and olive trees. The olive trees’ delicate, silver leaves parted to reveal clusters of small, black fruit that had refused to be beaten from the branches at harvest. Pedro, who refused to look at the river, sat there bareheaded and motionless as he strained to see the home of his father-in-law on the hill beside the cathedral. He imagined that he could see both the house and its exterior balcony. As they gazed, Pedro, Diego and Lucia were enclosed in their own thoughts of Alonso’s home, the ancient city behind them, and all that they had lost, until Pedro decided that it was time to go. Again, without a word being spoken, for they had all learned to suffer in silence, Pedro placed the children upon their mules. Then, seemingly as an afterthought, he reached into one of the panniers that were slung across the croup of his mule, took out a leather-clad book, and returned to his seat on the hillside. With a final look at Toledo, which was but a smear on the distant horizon, and a last search for the balcony, he began to write.
The first week of April has been filled with such sadness that I have pushed aside my journal and can, now, only cobble it together from memory. It might seem meaningless that I do so. However, I follow the dictates of my teacher who made me believe that who we are and what we experience as a family—and as a people—are important and deserve to be preserved. The dates now seem unimportant. Suffice it to say that this has been the most tragic period of our lives.
He stood up, re-wrapped the journal in its oilskin, and, with a brief prayer rendered to St. Tobit, patron of travelers, said, “We must go.”
