2004 - Dandelion Soup (31 page)

“Brother Bernardo,” he asked, “there’s a mark on the wall there as if a painting had once hung there.”

“Ah, yes, very, very sad. About ten years ago it was stolen away in the night by a thief.”

“Was it one of that Luciano’s paintings?”

“No, it was one of Brother Anselm’s.”

Padraig’s eyebrows rose involuntarily and he wondered who in their right mind would have taken Brother Anselm’s painting when they could have taken Luciano’s.

“Did they ever catch the thief?”

“No. The police they talked to old Muli, an odd little fellow, who was hanging around at the time but they had to let him go.”

“Was it ever found?”

“No.”

After a breakfast of fresh eggs cooked in oil, chunks of crusty bread and steaming bowls of coffee, the three pilgrims and Brother Bernardo stepped outside into the courtyard.

A few monks came ambling out of a barn carrying an assortment of ancient gardening tools. They looked so decrepit and frail that a puff of wind could have lifted them off the ground and blown them to kingdom come.

As if to prove the point, a hearty gust of wind swept round the courtyard sending the hens into a frenzied scuttle towards the cover of the barn. The old monks wobbled dangerously on drumstick legs and Nancy held on tightly to her skirts.

Suddenly a bell began to clang up in the tower. Brother Bernardo sucked in his breath with a bronchial whistling sound. The old monks stopped in their tracks and a hoe clattered noisily to the ground. The monks crossed themselves, then began to chatter and hug each other while the Ballygurry pilgrims looked on bemused.

“Mother of God! You see!” said Brother Bernardo grinning from ear to ear. “You pilgrims are a good omen for Santa Eulalia. The bells! They were all rusted up; they have not rung in twenty years! It is an omen. I feel it in my old bones!”

In the Villa Castelo, Brother Francisco looked down at the old woman who lay in the four-poster bed and shuddered. He felt cold to his very core despite the warmth of the afternoon.

Even close to death, Isabella Martinez still had that hard cruel smile impressed on her pale tight lips, and her eyes retained that wary watchfulness he remembered from his childhood. She held her blue-veined hand out towards him but he could not, would not, take it. He made the sign of the cross and turned his face away from her.

As he opened the door and stepped into the coolness of the corridor an old peasant woman shuffled past him into the room, looking up at him with lively inquisitive eyes. She was old but she had a peculiar air of great energy about her. She wore a faded brown dress and down-at-heel shoes, and on her head a green beret was pulled down tightly over her ears giving her a comical look.

He stepped back fearfully when he saw the look of peculiar triumph on her wrinkled face as she looked down at Isabella in the bed. She had a look of undisguised glee that was quite out of place in a deathbed scene.

The old woman looked back at him, scrutinized his face carefully. She spoke eagerly.

“She has made a confession to you, yes?”

Brother Francisco nodded.

“It’s my time now to speak with her. I’ve waited long enough and death will not deprive me of this pleasure.”

Brother Francisco looked down for the last time at Isabella Martinez. She lay quite still, eyes closed as the old peasant woman approached the bed. Then she rallied for a moment, her eyelids flickering, then opening wide as if startled.

The old woman bent her head closer until she was almost face to face with Isabella, who stiffened visibly, her eyes bright with terror. Her mouth moved and she whispered something hoarsely that Brother Francisco could not make out.

“Yes, Isabella, it is me. The past cannot be held at bay for ever.”

Brother Francisco turned away and closed the door softly. He thought sadly that a lot of people might have a score to settle with Isabella Martinez.

He had already made up his mind not to stay a moment longer at the Villa Castelo. He had listened to her confession and he knew that Isabella couldn’t possibly last more than a day or two. He wanted to get out of there as soon as possible and back to the peace of Santa Eulalia.

People were already arriving at the villa to visit Isabella in her last hours. There were villagers and workers from the estate, all come no doubt out of frightened respect. None of her closest family had arrived. Isabella, it seemed, was to be a very lonely woman in death.

“Is Piadora coming to the funeral?” he’d asked Carlos Emanuel.

“No, Brother. I have spoken with Isabella’s only sister, Augusta. Piadora, it appears, has gone, left abandoned her poor old aunt without a word. Augusta is on her way here now. By the terms of the will, as the next eldest she will inherit everything. She will be a very rich woman that one, a good catch for any man.”

“What about the other, er, younger daughter?”

“Pah! She wasn’t her daughter, you know. She was the illegitimate child of the daughter Piadora, but the good seftora brought her up as her own. She has been gone from here for years. I never knew her. Upped and off with some rough-necked fellow apparently. Cut off without a penny that one. Neither of the daughters was any good, if you ask me. It’s scandalous, though, that neither of them will be here for their own mother’s funeral, don’t you think?”

Brother Francisco had bitten his lip to keep silent, to stem the tide of his enormous anger. He had heard many a deathbed confession in his time but none as chilling as the one made by Isabella Martinez.

When the bell finally stopped ringing and the commotion in the courtyard had died down, the old monks had shuffled off to their work on the land and Padraig settled down on an old stone bench in a small alcove out of the breeze.

Chickens strutted across the courtyard, dipping and pecking at the cobbles, and a three-legged dog ran across to him and sniffed excitedly round his legs. Padraig stroked the dog and wondered why there were so many three-legged dogs in Spain. How had they all come to lose a leg?

Padraig looked round about him with interest. The monastery was a real higgledy-piggledy place; it would be a great place to play hide and seek. He imagined the orphans of St Joseph’s running round the courtyard and racing across the meadows that surrounded Santa Eulalia. It would be a lovely place for kids to live.

The ancient walls of the monastery had been cracked by the harsh winter frosts and the roof bowed by the deep falls of snow. There were bullet holes in a few of the windows and he wondered if the loony Brother Anselm had made them when he was taking pot-shots at flying pigs or shortsighted schoolmasters. Swifts and martins had built their nests beneath the eaves and the summer sun had faded the stone of the walls and bleached the statues of the stone saints in their mossy niches to a deathly hue.

Padraig took a well-chewed pencil from his pocket and began to draw in the sketchbook he’d bought in Camiga with the money Mr Leary had given him.

He worked quickly, feverishly, trying to draw from memory. When at last he was satisfied he closed the book and sat for a long time, staring ahead of him, lost in his thoughts.

A few minutes later Brother Bernardo came out of the barn, scattering corn for the chickens that scuttled behind him clucking and pecking at each other. Seeing Padraig, he waved cheerily and came and sat down beside him, throwing the last of the corn to the frantic chickens.

“You an artist?” he said, nodding at the sketchbook.

Padraig blushed to the tips of his ears.

“I’d like to be one day but I don’t expect I will.”

“I can look, yes?”

Padraig handed him the book shyly.

Brother Bernardo opened it at the first page, looked at the sketch and then looked with surprise at Padraig.

“This very good, very much, very good.”

“Thanks,” Padraig replied, blushing again with pleasure and pride.

It was a sketch of Sister Immaculata that Padraig had drawn from memory. He was very pleased with this drawing because he’d got her large nose just right, and the twinkling crinkled eyes and the lopsided smile. Padraig smiled and said fondly, “That’s Sister Immaculata, she’s an old nun who is real kind to me. I’m going to buy her a nice present while I’m here and take it back for her.”

The monk turned the page and studied the next sketch.

Padraig looked down at the drawing he’d done of the little girl in the Dark Wood.

“This one here, look, like a little nun in her cloak and hood. Ah, see look, she is holding the
diente de león
.”

“What’s
diente de león?
” Padraig asked.

“In English I think teeth of the lion.”

“Ah,” said Padraig, “dandelions.”

“From the
diente de león
you can make very good soup.”

“Can you?” said Padraig with a hint of disbelief in his voice. He’d never heard of anyone eating dandelions.

“
Si
, one day soon I make the dandelion soup for you, eh?”

“That’d be grand,” Padraig replied.

Brother Bernardo began to laugh uproariously as he looked at the sketch that Padraig had just completed.

“Who in the name of the Holy Father is this?”

Padraig grinned.

“Just someone from a dream I had last night.”

“Very bad dream, eh? Funniest bride I ever seen. Don’t look happy woman this one. I wouldn’t like waking up in bed next to that one, eh?”

Padraig looked up at the chuckling monk and giggled.

“No way. She’s another one of the nuns who looks after me. Not a very nice one either,” he said with a shudder.

The monk scratched his head.

“She’s a nun. A bride of Christ, eh?”

Brother Bernardo thought it was a funny thing for a little kid to draw.

“You should show these to Brother Anselm. He knows lot about art.”

“Brother Anselm is the old scary man in the bedroom near me, isn’t he?”

“
Si
. He studied art in Paris before become a monk. In the dining room you see many of his paintings. One time there lots of artists come to Santa Eulalia. Very good some. Some not good but think they am. Come with me if you like and I show you paintings in the Great Hall. Very old. Very good, I think.”

Padraig put away his pencil, picked up his sketchpad and followed Brother Bernardo inside the monastery and down a dim, cool corridor to the left of the refectory.

They stood together in the Great Hall studying a huge fresco on the wall. It was faded and flaking in parts but most of the colours were still bright.

“Wow,” said Padraig. “Would you look at that!”

“This was found when we were cleaning the walls, Padraig. Just think, it was hidden away for hundreds of years!”

Padraig looked eagerly up at the fresco. It seemed to tell a story, as if each of the three sections was a chapter in a book.

In the first section there was a group of big-bellied monks gathered round a pompous-looking monk who seemed to be telling them a story. All the monks wore cream-coloured robes except for one, who wore brown. The monks in white wore lots of jewellery, large rings and bejewelled crucifixes. Next to the monks stood a group of ragged men with long hair and beards, one of whom was fishing a bone from a cauldron.

Padraig looked again at the group of monks. They were all standing together under a lemon tree, and in their midst stood a three-legged dog who was piddling over the feet of the storyteller. The dog was almost identical to Quixote. Padraig thought that this artist must have had a good sense of humour.

“How come there are so many three-legged dogs in Spain?” he asked.

Brother Bernardo shrugged and said, “I don’t know about Spain but there’s always been dogs like that at Santa Eulalia.”

“How old do you reckon this painting is?”

“Hundreds of years, I think. No one really knows.” Padraig looked with interest at the second section, where another group of big-bellied and red-faced monks in cream robes were filling the goblets of two other monks from wine sacks. Next to them a monk sat at a table, counting a huge pile of money. There was the dog again, piddling against the leg of the table.

The third section was completely mystifying. There was a peculiar little man in the background, a shrivelled-up little fellow dancing naked above what looked like a pile of earth. Above his head were several clusters of dark clouds and in between them was a fork of angry lightning. He looked like some kind of little devil prancing up and down and causing mischief. Beneath him a group of monks were prostrate on the floor, others trampling on them as if trying to escape. A group of laughing children were running away, with the dog at their heels. Behind them the ragged men stood round an overturned cauldron, one of them looking down in wonder at a ring that lay in the palm of his hand.

Padraig stood looking up at the fresco for a long time. The artist had really caught the individual expressions of the different people.

“Brother Anselm thinks this many hundreds year old, but he thinks we should paint over them again.”

“Why does he want to cover them up? They’re wonderful,” Padraig said.

“Who knows? Just an old man being contrary.”

Padraig was absolutely enchanted by the fresco and the closer he looked the more detail he observed. He marvelled at the bright blue of one of the monk’s mischievous eyes, the detail on a red ring that the pompous-looking one wore on his little finger, a rosary one of the ragged children was clutching in her hand. He thought that he could look at the fresco for hours and still find something new to admire.

“Is it okay if I come again to have another look?”

“Si. Yes, come soon any time you like in case Brother Anselm escapes and takes a paint brush and covers it all over!”

“Escapes?” said Padraig fearfully. “Is he meant to be locked up?”

“No, he’s not dangerous but he sometimes gets forgetful and wanders off. Why only last week we found him wandering down near the Blue Madonna with a hammer.”

Padraig made a mental note to keep the bedroom door shut and stay well out of Brother Anselm’s way.

Miss Carmichael took a slow walk down the mountain track towards the hamlet. She was truly enjoying herself, she felt so alive, so happy; she had removed her stockings and garters and the cool breeze felt wonderful on her bare legs. She hadn’t gone about with bare legs since she was a very small child.