Encarnita's Journey Read online

  Don Geraldo settled into his house like one who intended to stay for a long time. He had furniture made by local tradesmen and bought up all the best pots and pans he could lay hands on. He stocked his larder with bags of almonds and raisins, as well as fourteen kilograms of honey, forty of figs, and three huge hams. As the villagers watched the food being carried in they sensed that life in their pueblo would never be the same again.

  In the spring, the first of Don Geraldo’s many visitors from England were awaited. These were important people who were coming, stressed Maria, who seemed to draw importance from that herself. The arrival of the group, consisting of two men and one woman, was overdue, which was heightening the suspense. There had been a buzz of excitement in the upper barrio all day. Women appeared in their doorways at intervals to peer down the street and speculate on possible reasons for the travellers’ lateness. They might have missed Don Geraldo who had set out to meet them on the road. Or they might have fallen into the hands of bandits though that seemed less probable. More likely was that Don Geraldo himself had fallen by the wayside for he had not been well when he set out and Maria had been worried.

  ‘These travellers will have come over land and sea, Encarnita,’ said Pilar, shifting her daughter higher onto her shoulder so that she could have a better view. For three months, the baby had an amazingly strong neck and could hold her head up. ‘It would be fine to make such a journey, would it not?’ It was thus that the idea of making a journey first entered Encarnita’s head.

  Encarnita always listened intently to her mother’s voice. Sweet and low, with a special timbre of its own, it came over more like song than speech at times and had an almost hypnotic effect on her. Later, when she is grown, she thinks that is why she has remembered so much of what her mother told her. Its resonance remains with her throughout her life.

  They moved closer to Don Geraldo’s door when a pedlar came cantering up the hill on mule-back. Steam rose from the animal’s flanks. The pedlar had brought news of the travellers, which was a relief to Maria. He had come across them when they’d stopped to rest and eat. They had set out the day before from Órgiva but on reaching the Rio Grande they had found it swollen to a dangerous height. They had decided, nevertheless, to attempt the crossing, but when the mules had plunged in the elder of Don Geraldo’s two male friends had been thrown into a panic and they’d had to withdraw and return to Órgiva to spend another night in the posada.

  ‘They might all have drowned,’ said Maria and a neighbour who’d come to listen crossed herself.

  ‘The man who panicked was in a foul mood,’ said the pedlar. ‘He rides ill on mule-back and so he walks much of the time, except, of course, when they have to cross water.’

  ‘He will be walking because of his piles,’ announced Maria. ‘He is sorely troubled by them, poor man. He is a writer of books, so Don Geraldo says.’

  ‘Perhaps he sits too long,’ suggested Pilar.

  ‘It is possible. Don Geraldo asked me to find a soft pillow for him.’

  ‘He is a long thin sort of man with a high, squeaky voice,’ went on the pedlar. ‘And he has a beard and spectacles and a large red nose.’ He mimed each attribute, enjoying being the centre of attention. Encarnita, too, was smiling, as if she were following every word and her mother would not have been surprised if she were. ‘I think if his nose had not been so large his spectacles might have fallen off when his mule was bucking. He was riding side-saddle.’ The pedlar had a poor opinion of that.

  ‘Look, that is the man.’ Maria pointed to the top name of three written on a slip of paper and Pilar craned her head to look even though she could not read. Encarnita turned her head, also. ‘Señor Lytton Strachey,’ said Maria, pronouncing the surname as ‘Stratchee’. Don Geraldo had gone over the names with her so that she would know how to address the visitors. The other man was Señor Partridge but Don Geraldo had told her she could change his name to the Spanish, Señor Perdiz. He’d said that would amuse his friend though Maria had not been able to see why. They liked jokes, Don Geraldo had explained.

  The third traveller was an unmarried lady called Señorita Dora Carrington. Don Geraldo had been quick to reassure Maria that by travelling with two men unrelated to her, the señorita would not ruin her reputation. Early on in her acquaintance with the Englishman Maria had come to realise that life in England was in many ways different to life in the Alpujarra. No well-bred unmarried woman in Spain from a good family – which this señorita must be – would travel with two men, for that would compromise her. Mothers liked to keep a strict eye on their unmarried daughters. A boy and a girl might glance at each other during the paseo but no more than a slight touching of the hands should take place. Once a girl allowed her reputation to be called into question no decent man would marry her. There were village girls who did not follow these rules, but then it could not be said that they came from good families.

  Don Geraldo had told Maria that the differences were what he enjoyed though it remained a mystery to her and most of the other villagers as to why he would want to live in their poor village without electricity when he might have a fine house with bright lights and a flushing toilet in his own country. When he said he was poor and could not afford such a house in England he was not believed.

  ‘Today, the travellers took the longer route,’ said the pedlar, ‘so that they could cross the river by the bridge.’

  ‘It’s a long walk from Órgiva to Yegen,’ said Maria. ‘It takes most of a day.’

  And the last part from Cádiar would be hard going, especially if the travellers were to decide to come straight up the mountainside, which they might be forced to do if the light was beginning to fail. It would mean a climb of about six hundred metres up a steep path, with the ground plunging away sharply on either side. The terrain was wild and rugged.

  ‘I think the big-nosed man might not have the nerve for it,’ said the pedlar with relish.

  ‘It is beautiful there, though,’ said Pilar, who had walked the route only once in her life, with a man from Cádiar, before she had met Encarnita’s father. ‘Especially now that it is spring.’

  It had been spring when she had walked with the man and the wild flowers, yellow, white, purple, had been strewn across the hillsides, with the scarlet poppies adding their own startling splashes of colour, while further down in the valley shreds of pink and white almond blossom had still been clinging to the branches. Spring was Pilar’s favourite season but it would not be Encarnita’s; she would come to prefer the deep heat of summer, the sultry days without a breath of wind, with bees buzzing over the lavender and gorse, and the warm evenings when you could stroll in the streets until midnight and beyond.

  The sun had gradually been lowering in the western sky, streaking it with bands of vivid pink and red. The houses, too, were touched with colour. The air was cooling rapidly. The goats were coming home from the campo, as were the mules and donkeys, toiling up the steep, cobbled streets, their bundles of grasses and sacks of oranges and lemons piled high on their backs. By now most of the women had gone indoors to make a meal for their husbands and children. Soon smoke was rising from the chimneys. The scents of burning rosemary, lavender and thyme stole through the narrow, twisting streets and a gauzy film spread over the rooftops. Pilar stayed where she was, for she had no husband and could feed her child where she stood. She was full of milk now. That, at least, was free. She unbuttoned her blouse and Encarnita snatched greedily at the engorged nipple.

  The stars, too, were coming out.

  ‘Where can they be?’ fretted Maria, retying the black kerchief round her head, while pacing restlessly up and down. She was a spry, nervy woman who found it difficult to be still. ‘I hope they have not fallen down a precipice. Let us go inside, Pilar. We shall have something to eat, too, while we wait.’ She felt sorry for Pilar who had to depend on the favours of men to feed her. She was fortunate since, as Don Geraldo’s servant, she was fed and also paid a peseta a day, more than most people
in the village could hope to earn. There was little paid work of any kind to be had.

  They went into the house, rented by Don Geraldo from the landowner Don Fernando, though his beautiful wife, Doña Clara, was even richer than he, with property in Granada. To own property was every villager’s dream but they were not so ignorant as to think that that in itself would bring good fortune. Doña Clara was a delicate woman who kept giving birth to sickly children, none of whom survived childhood. At eighteen Maria had been taken into their house as a servant and become Don Fernando’s mistress, subsequently bearing him a child, a puny girl, called Angela, who did survive and was now nine years old. Don Fernando had gone to live in Granada with his wife while retaining a room in his old house, in addition to the ground floor where he continued to stable goats, a pig and a cow.

  The smell of manure was rank and flies buzzed about the animals but none of this was noticed particularly by the two women as they passed through. Pilar saw that a fly was trying to settle on her child’s milky, half-parted lips and flapped it away. They followed Maria up the stairs to the first floor, which opened out onto a garden and a courtyard at the back. There were nine rooms of various sizes on this level, sparsely furnished, in the Englishman’s eyes, if not in Pilar’s. Some families in the village had little or no furniture and ate sitting on the floor. As Maria said, the foreigner was used to different ways.

  ‘It is just as well we have so many rooms,’ she said, as she trimmed a paraffin lamp and set it on the table, ‘since Don Geraldo has so many friends who are willing to travel long distances to visit him.’

  The kitchen was not overly large but it boasted a stone sink, cupboards of dark walnut, a row of charcoal stoves and an open fireplace, with a bakehouse and a water closet off it. Maria had shown the latter to Pilar before and she had marvelled at its seat of fine-veined marble. She had peered down into the depths of the closet to the chicken run six or seven metres below. Flushing toilets such as Don Geraldo spoke of were not known in Yegen. He had come to accept that.

  The room smelt of chicken stewing with garlic and herbs, making Pilar feel giddy with hunger. Saliva ran in her mouth. But the chicken was for the visitors, she understood that. Maria set out a heel of bread, some shrivelled green olives and a small plate of cold fried sardines glazed with yellow oil. With the food, they drank a cup of the rough local wine, which Don Geraldo had said would be too sour for his guests. For their coming, he had bought some special wine down in Cádiar.

  As they were finishing eating, they heard voices below.

  ‘They’ve arrived!’ cried Maria, leaping up and darting off down the stairs.

  Pilar cleared their dishes into the sink, holding the baby, who was now sleeping, against her shoulder. She waited, too shy to go down and meet the new people. Don Geraldo would not be annoyed to find her there; he mixed freely with the villagers and invited them into his house. He gave them anis and wine and encouraged them to tell their tales.

  When Maria returned she was accompanied by Don Geraldo and the woman traveller. The others were following on behind. The señorita did not look so very young and Pilar wondered that she would not have a husband. She was brushing herself down with her hand and wriggling her shoulders to ease the stiffness out of them.

  ‘What a journey!’ she exclaimed, though her eyes were dancing, as if she had not minded it at all. She had very blue eyes, a fine skin and a thatch of hay-coloured hair cut short round her ears. She glanced around the room. ‘So this is your hideaway, Gerald. What fun!’

  Don Geraldo introduced her as Señorita Carrington and she came forward to shake Pilar’s hand. Pilar felt embarrassed at the sight of her own rough brown hand with its broken fingernails nestling in the Englishwoman’s smooth white one. Encarnita had wakened and was also taking an interest in the stranger. The lady came up to her and chucking her under the chin, said, ‘What knowing eyes you’ve got, little one!’ Don Geraldo translated for Pilar, who had often thought this herself. When she talked to Encarnita she felt as if the child understood every word.

  Pilar left soon afterwards, going first to the fountain beside the plaza to take a drink. Feeding her child gave her a fearsome thirst. She would fetch water for the house in the lower barrio later. The water was good in Yegen, and plentiful. Sometimes, in spring, when the snows were melting, it would cascade down the street. Another woman was at the fountain drawing water, Maxima, one of the two acknowledged prostitutes in the village. Pilar, although she received men in her house at times, did not consider herself to be a part of them for she made love only with men that she liked. However, if they did offer her a few centimos or some food from their cortijo she was not too proud to accept it. She was too poor not to accept it. The other prostitute, known as La Prisca, an old name for a peach, was a clever woman who could read and write. She had written a letter for Pilar to the man from Cádiar but he had not replied, although he had claimed to be able to read and write. The muleteers favoured La Prisca, so tonight, once Don Geraldo’s visitors had all arrived, she might have business. She had two children whereas Maxima had half a dozen and needed to fill two pitchers and come often to the fountain. She was tired, always.

  Lulled by the rise and fall of the women’s voices, Encarnita dropped off to sleep again. In the nearby Bar Fuente men were arguing. About politics, of course. A new government, led by the Conservative politician Eduardo Dato, had just taken over, following on from a bloody year throughout Spain, rife with strikes and unrest and assassinations on all sides of the political divide. Martial law had been declared in Andalucía and troops had been sent to crush the strikers on the big estates though Yegen itself had remained calm. ‘Listen to them!’ said Maxima, as shouting erupted. ‘They’ll be at each other’s throats before long.’ Grumbling about men and children and the hardness of her life, she stumbled off down the street, with water slopping from her cans. Pilar had resolved to have no other child but Encarnita and had decided that if she were to fall pregnant again she would go to a woman in her barrio who would help her. She shifted the baby onto her other shoulder and then she, too, set off for home.

  The village was quiet. Most people would have gone to bed. The only sign of life was the odd blink of light at a window where the shutters remained open. Few houses in the village had glass in their windows. When Pilar reached the church in the broad stretch of land that separated the upper and lower barrios she stopped, hearing hoof-beats approaching. She waited in the shadows until the mules and their riders came into view. She could not make out their faces but she was able to identify the man with the piles, for, indeed, he did look to be very long and thin and he was hanging onto his mule as if his life depended on it. None of the travellers saw her. They passed on by and went labouring up the hill on the last lap of their journey, the muleteers spurring them on with their cries. Both beasts and riders must be tired. Pilar filled the pitcher she had left at the fountain earlier and made for her home in the lower barrio.

  The people of the two barrios did not mix much, not because of any great dispute; it was just that traditionally they had always tended to keep to their own areas. The barrios were small, tight communities, the total population of Yegen being only a thousand. Pilar was one of the few who went between the upper and lower village, mainly because Maria had befriended her and had known her mother.

  She pushed open the door of her dwelling, redolent of goat. Gabriella was braying, her teats heavy with milk, as Pilar’s had been earlier. Shortly, after Encarnita was settled, she would milk her. She had walked her during the day so she had been well fed. Although thin-flanked, the goat produced enough milk for their needs.

  Pilar laid the sleeping baby gently on the blanket spread over their bed of lavender and thyme and then she lit a candle, which she placed on the earth floor, taking care to keep it well away from the straw. Shadows danced across the rough walls. One day she would whitewash them, just as one day she would buy furniture and make her house pretty. She went now to attend to Gabriella.
Once the milk was in the pail, Pilar scooped out a cupful and drank, then she went outside to relieve herself in the yard. When she returned she extinguished the candle and lay down beside her daughter. There was an opening high up in the wall that let in the moonlight. She bent her head close to Encarnita’s. The child’s breathing was deep and regular. It was a sound that stirred her heart.

  Pilar herself was on the edge of sleep when she heard a footfall. She lifted her head. A man’s dark shape filled the doorway.

  ‘Jaime,’ she said. She was fond of the lad, she would not turn him away, and he always brought her eggs fresh from his father’s cortijo.

  Encarnita, too, wakened, and as she stirred her limbs, she became aware of the heaving bodies on the blanket beside her. She gave a little startled cry but they did not hear her; they were making too many noises of their own, noises that she had heard before. Someone seemed to be hurting her mother but she knew that she could do nothing about it. She quietened and closed her eyes though she did not go back to sleep until the turmoil stopped and the man got up and stumbled out into the night. Her mother relit the candle and went to look in the little bag Jaime had left by the door. ‘Two large speckled eggs,’ she murmured. She seemed content.

  1920