Encarnita's Journey Read online

  Before moving to Churriana they had to go to England, to settle their affairs, but they would come back to Yegen one more time, in order to collect their furniture, as well as Maria and Rosario, and Rosario’s husband Antonio, who were to go with them to look after their new house. They took with them the little Elena, whom they renamed Miranda Woolsey Brenan. Before they left Don Geraldo gave Juliana a thousand pesetas – worth about fifty pounds sterling in the year 1934 – with the promise that he would send her two hundred and fifty pesetas a year.

  The villagers did not judge Juliana harshly for taking the money. Few knew what they would do themselves in the same situation, especially the women who struggled to feed and clothe three, four, five children or more in miserable hovels. They were sorry for her when she wept afterwards.

  The Brenans came back in November to pack up their belongings, having dropped off the little Miranda at a friend’s house in Torremolinos, not far from Churriana.

  They toured the village to say their goodbyes and Don Geraldo invited Encarnita to come up to the house to choose a book. She hesitated before saying that she would like one by the lady who had worn the soft leather shoes. For a moment he could not think whom she meant, then he laughed and said, ‘Do you mean Señora Lobo?’

  ‘Could you spare one? Only if you can.’

  ‘Let me see. You know, I think I might have two copies of this one.’ He pulled To the Lighthouse from the shelf and put it into her hand.

  She thanked him, saying that she would keep it for ever, and the other books he had given her.

  ‘You have a difficult time ahead, I think, Encarnita. I hear your mother is very ill. That’s hard. Losing people is difficult. I know that myself.’

  Don Geraldo gave her fifty pesetas before kissing her on both cheeks. ‘Don’t argue with me now! That’s to help you out. You’ll need it.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll keep it for my journey.’

  The Brenans loaded up two lorries with their possessions and then climbed on board themselves with Maria, Rosario and Antonio. There was a road passable for wheeled transport into the village now.

  Encarnita did not go to wave the travellers off. This was one departure that she did not wish to see.

  1935

  Encarnita was fifteen years old on the first of January. By now Pilar was very weak. She had to be helped out into the yard to relieve herself. And she could not walk as far as the church, which grieved her even more. Her condition had worsened over the winter and she had been given the Last Rites twice, rallying afterwards each time.

  ‘Don’t let yourself be too sad, Encarnita. Think about going on a journey. This might be the year to begin it. You might try to go and find Rinaldo.’

  Rinaldo was a half-brother of Pilar’s of whom she had been fond. He had gone off down to the coast some years back to seek work and a while afterwards had sent them a letter, which he had got someone to write for him. The letter was in Encarnita’s special box.

  ‘I’m not going to leave you, Mama!’

  ‘But I might be going to leave you. We both know that.’

  Encarnita held tightly onto her mother’s hand, willing her to live, fervently praying that she would, but with little hope. Just before first light she felt the last traces of strength ebb from the fragile body. Pilar had slipped away as quietly as she had lived; she had never been one to raise her voice or make a fuss. She was thirty-five years old. Her daughter sat beside her, frozen like a statue until Isabel, Juliana’s mother, came in and found her.

  The neighbours were good to Encarnita; they were willing to share what little food they had and they mourned with her and helped to bury her mother. Pilar had been well liked in the village. She had never spoken ill of anyone and she had had a kindly manner. She was buried in a shallow grave in the part of the cemetery known as la olla – the stew pot – where the poor resided after death, their relatives being unable to afford one of the masonry niches in the walls. She was conveyed there in the communal parish coffin whose hinged bottom opened to allow the corpse to drop through.

  Encarnita shed tears with Juliana, who was mourning her own loss. Juliana said her arms felt empty. She would never forget her daughter but her daughter would not remember her! She was too young. Why had she let her go? But it was too late now. What was done was done. Encarnita, trying to comfort her, said, ‘Think of the good life she will have in England,’ but even as she said it she knew it was cold comfort. Both of the girls felt cold, chilled, through to the bone.

  Encarnita spent time, too, with Luisa, whenever her friend could snatch a little time away. They embraced, holding on tightly to each other, reluctant to let go. They did not speak much of their troubles; there was no need to. But during those short visits the girls grew close.

  When alone, Encarnita went walking in the campo for hours at a time and the neighbours worried that she might become demented like Paquita or Black Maria, but she was sane enough and talked calmly. She was often to be seen sitting in the doorway of her house reading her book of English Fairy Tales. She no longer believed that a fairy godmother with a silver wand or a prince in shining armour would come but the stories comforted her nevertheless and made her feel that there was always the hope of things changing.

  In a short space of time she had lost the two people that had fed her life. Her mother was the biggest loss of all for they had lived together for fifteen years, sharing the same bed, never spending a night apart; but Encarnita missed Don Geraldo, too. She missed the possibility of meeting him in the campo and stopping to talk. She missed the life he had brought into the village, the very unpredictability of it. Every time she had crossed his doorstep she had felt a little spurt of excitement, not knowing what or whom she might find there. The house was closed up now and when she passed she turned her head.

  Life in the village had little variety on these dark wintry days. People complained of the rain and lack of money and envied Maria and Rosario who had had the luck to be taken out of it to live in a better place. There was little prospect of anyone doing anything in Yegen to make life better. The fish vendor went on crying his few wares, as did the pedlar, but Encarnita was unwilling to spend much of her savings on either. She ate sparingly, lived mostly on maize porridge and Cinderella’s milk and the occasional scrap of cheese or sausage which the shopkeeper pushed across the counter to her free of charge. She was saving for her journey.

  Juliana had money to spend but she was not in a buoyant mood. She still shed tears daily for her lost daughter. She was living with her mother and her son in a small house that had been bought for her by Don Geraldo. Her boyfriend had gone off to do his Military Service but she planned to marry him on his return. In his absence her mother was keeping a close watch on her and any young men who might come near.

  ‘Do you think you will ever make your journey, Encarnita?’ asked Juliana. ‘You keep talking about it. You’ve talked about it ever since you could speak.’

  ‘I will, come summer.’ That would be the time to go, when the days were warm and the nights mild, for then one could sleep out in the campo.

  Encarnita had decided that she would try to find Rinaldo down on the coast. It would be a start. She took his letter, discoloured from age and damp, and smoothed out the creases. It said little, other than that he was well and living in the fishing village of Almuñecar and hoping to find work. It was not much to go on but Encarnita thought that it should be easy enough to find him as long as the village was not large. Provided, too, that he was still alive. She did not take for granted that he would be. She folded up the piece of paper and put it carefully away, then she went up to the school and asked the teacher if she could look at the atlas. Yegen was not marked on the map of Spain, nor Almuñecar, but Úgijar was, and Granada and Motril. And there, to the west, lay Málaga, with a bigger dot to its name. The teacher said that Almuñecar was somewhere on the coast between Motril and Málaga.

  ‘It doesn’t look too far,’ said Encarnita.

  ‘N
ot on the map. It would be a long walk, though.’

  But Encarnita liked to walk.

  During the harsh weeks of winter when it was cold and the light failed early she held on to the thought of her journey. She put her travelling money safely away and resolved not to touch it, knowing that if she did she would never be able to replace it. There was no work to be had at this time of year. No one in the village could afford to pay a servant now that Don Fernando was dead and Don Geraldo gone. Neither the shop nor the posada did enough business to need an assistant. The traders lived on the poverty line themselves. At times Encarnita had to rely on charity, scraps that others could afford to give her. Juliana helped her and occasionally Jaime would come by and leave her an egg without expecting anything in return. She knew it was for her mother’s sake. He had married and his wife was expecting a child.

  One night, she wakened to see the dark outline of a man framed in the doorway. She tried to let out a scream but it became strangled at the back of her throat and emerged like the squeak of a mouse. She tried again but could make no other sound. It was as if her voice had frozen. In the corner, Cinderella became agitated and trampled her straw.

  ‘That’s right, just you keep quiet,’ said the man. ‘I have a peseta for you if you’ll give me what I want.’ She knew him. He was the father of Luisa. She had seen him earlier, eyeing her in the street. He had called out to her and she had looked away. ‘A peseta’s a lot of money for a chica like you. You’ve not had a man yet, have you? It’s time.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’ She cowered back against the wall. He was coming closer, his bulk blotting out the small amount of light that there was in the room. She could smell his foul breath and hear his laboured breathing. She found her voice now but nobody would come. ‘Go away!’ she cried. ‘Leave me alone!’

  He was on top of her then, a solid weight crushing her body into the bed of rosemary and thyme as he forced himself into her. The pain made her head swirl and she blanked out and when she came round the man was lying on her, spent. After a moment he pulled himself up and saying not a word stumbled out. He did not leave the peseta.

  Encarnita cried herself to sleep and in the morning went to talk to Juliana, who said it was better not to fight it.

  ‘Men don’t like to be refused.’

  ‘I hate him! I’ll kill him if he comes back,’ vowed Encarnita. She would do it for Luisa as well as herself. ‘I mean it!’

  She was worried that he might have made her pregnant but Juliana said she thought it unlikely, the first time. ‘Come to me at once if you think you are.’ Encarnita did not reveal who the man was, nor would she ever tell Luisa.

  When Juliana had gone she set off down the path to Yátor, to the small pond known as the women’s bath, where she had bathed often with her mother. In February the water was cold but after she had stripped off her bodice and skirt she plunged straight in and submerged herself up to her neck and stayed there until she felt her teeth begin to chatter and her feet to grow numb.

  After her bath she kept to the house for several days, afraid to go out in case she would meet him in the street. He came into the village to drink in the bar. She could not bear the idea of his eyes on her face, on her body. At night, she barricaded the door, using an old piece of rusted machinery that she’d found in the campo and dragged up the street. Beside the door she kept a solid piece of stone which she would use against him if she had to. He did come back another night. He put his weight to the door and she thought he might splinter it but after a couple of tries he gave up and went off cursing her.

  Not long afterwards, he got into a drunken brawl and fell, or was pushed, onto a spike, which pierced his thigh. His troubles were not over for the wound went septic and for many weeks he was laid up in agony flat on his back. It was said that his groans could be heard far and wide in the campo. Encarnita did not hear them herself for she did not go anywhere near his house, but she rejoiced. She had an uneasy feeling that it might be wicked of her to feel such joy in her heart, but that did not stem her sense of satisfaction. Surely he had been punished for what he had done to her, and to Luisa? She did not think she should go so far as to thank God for punishing him. He might not like it, especially since He was supposed to forgive sins, but only if the person repented. She could not imagine him repenting of anything.

  She went into the church and lighting a candle for her mother she knelt down and began to talk to her. The little flame helped to calm her. She told her mother the story of the man from beginning to end and when she had finished she knew what Pilar would want her to do. She had been a religious woman and believed in the power of the confessional. She had always said it was bad to keep ugly thoughts locked inside you. So Encarnita went to confess her sins to the priest, who asked if she was sure she had not enticed the man. The question shocked her.

  ‘No, I did not.’ She had to clasp her hands together to stop them trembling. She was sure that she never had. When she had seen him looking at her in the street hadn’t she glanced away?

  ‘A young woman can entice a man in different ways. Just by the way she looks at a man. Or by the way she flaunts herself.’

  ‘But I didn’t! Flaunt myself.’

  ‘You must learn humility, child. You must learn to take responsibility for what happens to you in your life. In such matters as this it is seldom that it is one person who is at fault.’ She tried to speak but he hushed her. ‘If you look into yourself you may find that your conscience will tell you that you are not guiltless. Few of us mortals are without guilt. We harbour sinful thoughts. Sometimes lustful thoughts. That is the way of the flesh.’

  She could not deny that at times she had sinful thoughts, but she was not going to confess to having wanted to break the sixth commandment. Thou Shalt Not Kill.

  ‘It is the duty of a young Christian woman to dress soberly and behave with modesty at all times. Have you forgiven this man?’

  ‘How can I? He is a horrible man. He hurt me.’

  ‘He is a child of God, as you yourself are.’

  ‘He is a monster.’

  ‘To harbour hatred is a sin also.’

  She was silent. She thought that what he said might be right but she did not want to acknowledge it, not to him, anyway. She felt spent.

  ‘I ask you again – have you forgiven him?’

  ‘It’s difficult,’ she muttered.

  ‘To follow the way of the Lord is difficult. For the third time, I ask you – do you forgive this man?’

  If she did not say, ‘Yes’, that one small word, her sin would not be absolved.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes.’ She forced it out in no more than a whisper but it was heard. Her sins were absolved, according to the priest, and she was given five Hail Marys. She left the church knowing she had committed another sin. She had lied. In her heart, which was what mattered, she had not forgiven the man. If he were to die from his wounds tomorrow she would not be sorry. If that meant she was wicked then she could not help it. But she did the Hail Marys, anyway, just in case the priest knew what he was talking about. She had begun to doubt that he did.

  Now she could roam freely around the village again, without the fear of meeting the man, and as time went on she realised that if their paths were to cross she would be able to stare him down without flinching. Something inside her had resolved itself and she was determined that no man would ever treat her in that way again. When she said so to Juliana her friend advised her to get a boyfriend of her own.

  ‘That’s the best way to keep other men off you.’

  But Encarnita was not interested in having any of the young men in the village as a boyfriend, not in the sense that Juliana meant. Her mother had told her to keep herself for someone special. She did not expect to meet him in Yegen but perhaps she would, on her journey.

  WOMANHOOD: ALMUÑECAR

  SUMMER, 1935

  Encarnita waited until midsummer to set out. The days, now, were hot, but that suited her well. S
he thrived on heat, due perhaps to her gypsy blood, so her mother had thought. She washed her spare set of clothes and tidied the house where she had spent fifteen and a half years of her life. As she worked she was watched anxiously by Cinderella, who sensed that something was afoot. Once her chores were done, Encarnita went down to the women’s bath and soaked herself in the warm, limpid water, letting her hair float free. She lay on her back, gazing through half-closed eyes up into the sky, watching the white clouds scud across the wide expanse of blue, and she thought of the journey she was about to make. She would be leaving this place that she knew so well, and the people she knew, but the sky would still be the same sky above her, and that was a comfort to her.

  ‘Are you sure of what you’re doing, Encarnita?’ asked her neighbours, many of whom had never been as far as Motril, let alone further west. Military service had taken the men to places further afield. ‘You’re young to travel alone,’ the women said. ‘Think of what could happen to you!’ She might meet with bandits. Fall over a cliff. Starve by the wayside. Find that her uncle was long dead. Find that he was alive but had a wife who did not want her.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Encarnita, ‘I am going. I have to go. We are going.’ For she intended to take Cinderella with her. There was no question of leaving her behind, any more than she would her water bottle, her blanket, or the bag that contained her books, Rinaldo’s letter, and Señorita Carrington’s drawing. The goat, as well as being her companion, someone to share the journey with, to talk to, and sleep beside at night, would have a practical use. She would supply her with milk. And goats were good at walking. Goatherds regularly walked their flocks from dawn to dusk. The day before she was set to go, Encarnita left Cinderella behind and walked out to Luisa’s cortijo. She stopped before she reached it and let out a long whistle, a signal to let Luisa know that she was there.