Authors: Dave Boling
“He invented the illusion of the baguette,” Renée said. “It’s so simple and it never fails. You may have a sack spilling over
with pistols and ammunition, but if you have a loaf of bread sticking out the top, you’re nothing more than somebody out shopping.”
“I just noticed how many people on this side of the border walk around with bread, and how I never suspect them of anything
other than being hungry,” Dodo said. “It’s the cheapest disguise you can use.”
“And it’s edible,” Renée said. “Tell him about the sheep bells; my father will love this one.”
Dodo grinned. “We had tried to get some packages through several of our favorite passes but checkpoints had been set up,”
he said. “The last chance we had that night was to try to get past the guard shack at one of the ports that is popular with
herders moving between grazing lands.”
“How did you manage?”
“With sheep bells,” Renée broke in.
“It was cold and raining a little, so I suspected the guards in the shack would be patrolling their stove,” Dodo said. “I
borrowed a few neck bells from a friend’s flock. We walked slowly up to the shack, rattling the bells every few steps as if
we were grazing, and nobody ever looked out.”
To Justo, Miguel was guilty of unforgivable courtesy; to Miguel, Justo was cruel in his unrelenting thoughtfulness. It was
as uncomfortable as a formal dance between two strangers. One could not attempt the simplest task without the other wondering
if an offer of help would be an insult.
Except for the subdued joy they shared fishing, it became easier for them to avoid each other’s company. Justo went to the
new market once it was reestablished, just to hear others talk. Miguel would stay in the hills even after his logging was
done. Justo eventually took to sleeping in Miren’s old bed, and Miguel remained on the cot in the main room.
Both were habitual early risers, but Miguel generally heated weak tea and was gone before Justo left his room for the morning.
Justo worked at Errotabarri, trying to grow enough to sustain them but not so much that it would cause others to think there
was something worth confiscating. Miguel and Justo instinctively knew that the less contact they had with the plunderers,
the better were their chances of staying out of prison.
The two generally reconvened in the evening for an unsatisfying dinner of what ever they had been able to forage, kill, or
purchase with Miguel’s small income from logging. After several months, even the conspicuous courtesy faded, and days would
sometimes pass when all that was said between them was “Good night, Miguel” and “Good night, Justo.”
A knock on the door one night after dinner brought a change.
“Justo . . . Miguel . . . it’s Alaia,” they heard from outside. “Are you home? Can I come in?”
They rushed to the door. Justo pulled it open the first part of the way, and Miguel then helped push it fully aside. Alaia
had found her way to Errotabarri with her cane, having remembered the path.
“Have you eaten? We have some food left—if you want to call it that,” Justo offered.
“I’ve eaten already,” she said. “I don’t really eat that much anymore. Not like those huge meals Mariangeles and Miren used
to make, with the lamb and asparagus and peppers.”
“You did have a fine appetite,” Justo recalled. “Mariangeles loved feeding you because you took such joy in eating everything.
You wouldn’t even speak because you didn’t want to waste time talking when you could be eating.”
“Miren used to make fun of me all the time, but while she was busy gabbing away with her stories, I was putting away all that
good food,” Alaia said as Miguel guided her to a chair at the table. “And that flan, oh, God, that fl an.”
“That flan,” Justo and Miguel added in harmony. “Ohhh.”
Alaia had been at Errotabarri only a few moments, and the names “Mariangeles” and “Miren” had been spoken for the first time
in the months since Miguel and Justo had returned. While talking to Alaia, there was little discomfort. She somehow buffered
the connection between them; they could not say the words to each other but were able to talk about their loves and even remember
pleasant stories about them when she raised the topic.
“You gave me those wonderful bear hugs,” Alaia said, holding out her arms in Justo’s direction. Justo closed in and encircled
her as completely as he could with his right arm. She pulled him close.
“Justo, I hope you don’t mind, I brought something for you,” Alaia said, placing a small wrapped package on the table. “If
you don’t want it, I understand. I just thought it might be something you two might like to have around the house.”
Justo knew what it was at the sight of it. He unwrapped the waxed paper and removed one of perhaps half a dozen bars of soap.
“It’s their blend,” Alaia said, although she was sure that Justo and Miguel would recognize the scent. “The ingredients aren’t
as easy to get anymore, but I won’t make it for anyone else.”
Justo handed a bar to Miguel. Both held the soaps to their noses for a moment, inhaling deeply and staring at the young woman
who had brought the scent of life back into their house.
The sign over the main door of the derelict rectory read WELCOME NIÑOS. The thousands of displaced Basque children who spent
a year in the temporary Southampton camp were being redistributed across the British countryside in smaller groups, including
the one here at Pampisford. As the government had not relented in its stance against providing support to the orphans, local
citizens were recruited to help via a series of flyers and announcements in the newspapers. Those of a charitable nature began
arriving to prepare for the children.
Annie Bingham, a timorous young woman with short red hair and a constellation of freckles across her nose and cheeks, wanted
to help however she could. She was among more than a dozen volunteers working to clean and refurbish the building. By the
time Annie entered the cold, dusty rectory, it was throbbing with the rhythm of hammers and the melody of saws. Because it
burned like a beacon near the ceiling, she noticed the hair of a young man up a tall ladder. It curled out from under a painter’s
cap. Where hers was more copper, his was flame. The young man belonging to the hair edged nearer the top rung of a ladder
while fastening rods for curtains.
“Blast.” The red-haired young man dropped a bracket that clanked with an echo against the hardwood flooring. Annie stepped
to the base of the ladder, retrieved the bracket, and tossed it back to the young man so he didn’t have to make a full descent.
It took her three tries to get it close enough that it didn’t threaten to knock him off his perch or fall well below his reach.
“Cheers, red,” he said.
She nodded and smiled.
Charles Swan finished screwing in the bracket and climbed down to introduce himself.
“My friends call me Charley,” he said, offering a hand after wiping it clean on his pants.
“Annie Bingham,” she said, shaking the hand. “Of Pampis-ford.”
“And what brings you to this holy hovel?”
“I should say that it’s out of my charitable nature, and it is, in a way, but actually I hope to be an instructor of Spanish
someday.”
He smiled.
“I thought I could help out with the little ones and practice my language at the same time. I came today to see how things
were coming along here.”
“
Maravilloso
,” Charley said.
“
Usted habla bien.
”
“
Yo no hablo tan bien como usted.
”
“And you?” she asked, holding her palm up to gesture at all the work in progress.
“I just finished my first year reading engineering at Cambridge, but I’m going to take some time off to learn to fly,” he
said. “A friend at school told me about what was going on here and I offered to help them get the project off the ground.”
“Fly what?”
“What ever they’re willing to teach me,” he said. “I want to learn to fly something.”
“Who? The RAF?”
“They’re looking for young men with engineering backgrounds.”
Or with good vision and a pulse, she thought. “What if there’s war?” she asked.
Charley had considered the possibility, of course.
“I’ve always been interested in the science of it more than anything else, since I was little,” he told her. “That’s the biggest
attraction for me.”
“How a plane gets in the air?”
“And stays there.” He chuckled.
They shared brief biographies, and when volunteers arrived with a crock of hot soup and several plates of cold sandwiches,
they sat side by side on a bench, with vapors from the cups of soup rising in front of them.
“Will you be coming back once the building is ready and the children arrive?” Annie asked, her glasses fogged slightly.
“I hope to,” he said, although he had not previously considered it. He had planned to return to his parents’ home in London
those few months before starting reserve flight training school in Cambridge. “If I can work it out, I’d love to help these
children.”
“I would, too,” Annie said.
“Would you mind if I came by to see you from time to time?” Charley asked.
Annie Bingham had done nothing to attract the boys at school. But here was one who knew what he wanted. Besides, she liked
his hair.
She tapped her tin cup to his to toast the possibility.
Justo began disappearing. Now Miguel would awaken early and discover Justo was already gone for the day. Mendiola told Miguel
several times that he had seen Justo in town, just walking or quietly sitting on benches on side streets at odd times.
But rather than making him more distant, Justo’s sporadic disappearances made him more purposeful. He had regained some vigor
and was more engaged when he was at home. He was still subdued much of the day and was never as boastful and brash as he’d
been, but he was going about his work at Errotabarri with more energy.
“You have to get out more, Miguel,” Justo said one day. Miguel could not have been more surprised if Justo had suggested he
join the Guardia Civil.
“Get out more?”
“Yes, get out more. Get out of this house. Find some projects, something to keep you busy.”
“I’m out of the house from before dawn until after dark,” Miguel reminded him. “I’m working.”
“Here, smell this,” Justo said, handing Miguel a bar of soap from his pocket, as if that would explain his renewed vitality.
“Yes, I smell it,” he said. “I can’t go anywhere around here without smelling it.” And when he smelled it, he thought those
thoughts, the ones he already had enough trouble controlling. He wanted to tell Justo, Maybe it’s comforting to you, but it’s
killing me; everywhere I go in this house, finding those soaps, smelling that smell, thinking about where her neck met her
shoulder, how it smelled after she washed Catalina. To Miguel, it was just another reason to be gone from Errotabarri.
On one of his visits, Father Xabier noted Justo’s improved attitude. He complimented his brother on his well-being. He said
he would be sure to give Sister Incarnation a good report.
“Is he up to something?” Xabier asked Miguel when Justo was outside.
“He’s still quiet, but he keeps on the move; that’s made a difference for him,” Miguel said. “I haven’t heard that he’s spending
time with people in town, but he’s at least working here and getting out. It seems to help.”
“And you, how are you doing, Miguel?”
“I do my work.”
“Have you visited Miren’s friend Alaia?” the priest asked.
“She came here once, but that’s all I’ve seen of her.”
“Should I go and see her, Miguel? I know that Miren would want somebody to look in on her.”
The new Guernica town council took on a vastly different composition and mission after the bombing. The old supporters of
the Republic and Basque nationalism were exiled or in work camps, replaced by men new to the town or those with the talent
for politi-cal malleability and situational loyalty.
Angel Garmendia had been so vague in his political posture over the years that he had never allowed himself to be categorized
by party or beliefs. The sometime Carlist and occasional Basque loyalist was now a firm pro-Franco member of the new council.
Like most converts, Garmendia was keen to prove the strength of his conviction. He led the council to declare that several
of the businesses that remained standing in Guernica would need to be compulsorily surrendered to pro-Franco businessmen for
the good of the reconstruction.
“The future strength of our town depends on our association with the Nationalists,” Garmendia said before the gathered council,
having ceased calling Franco’s forces “rebels” or “Falange.”
Garmendia enjoyed his expanding influence in town, and in the cafés at night, over wine, he would conduct desultory seminars
on the wonders of the new Franco government, if, of course, his audience was not too filled with disgruntled loyalists or
scarred bombing victims.
Rules regarding the dumping of industrial wastes in the river needed to be relaxed, Garmendia preached. In these times, it
was important to make it easy for businesses to thrive. Confiscation of certain businesses was crucial, too, to rid the country
of the leftists and Reds who spurred the problems in the first place. Those were the people who invited socialism into the
country with their concerns for so-called workers’ rights.
Garmendia consumed a great deal of wine one night during such a discourse. He stumbled on the threshold of the café as he
set off alone in the darkness.
It surprised no one, then, when word traveled the following day that Angel Garmendia had met a tragic ending. Garmendia, of
the town council, who had so many ideas for the new Guernica that he loved to share, had fallen over the side of the Renteria
Bridge and drowned.
Since many had witnessed his public intoxication, no further investigation was needed when he was found dead on the rocks
slightly downstream of the bridge. Angel Garmendia had not been known as a particularly devout man, however, which made it
curious that he was found with a green religious scapular hanging from his broken neck. PRAY FOR US NOW AND AT THE HOUR OF
OUR DEATH, it read.
The children came from social-welfare homes in Bilbao. Many lost their fathers in the war or their mothers in the bombing.
They awed Annie Bingham with their sense of unity and spirit. She could not imagine the things they had seen, and yet they
remained happy and playful. They had jokes about the Fascist bombers over Bilbao, particularly the “Milk Man,” who visited
early each morning. They told Annie of the Basque air force, which consisted of a single plane so underpowered that the children
would race it with their bicycles as it struggled to take off.
Annie wondered how natives of a warm country would adapt to the rainy cool of the East Anglia environment. When she asked,
they voiced a unanimous love for the weather. An older child explained it. “The bombers could not fl y on rainy days,” he
said. “The clouds made it safe to play outside. We love rainy days.”
How different Annie’s life had been from what they experienced. It was all so quiet. Her town was quiet; her parents were
quiet; her house was quiet. In the evenings, the three would sometimes tune in the wireless to hear news and shows. But often
they sat in their parlor at the front of the house, her mother working on stitchery, her father reading the paper, Annie focused
on her studies, with the passage of time marked and stressed by the hypnotic ticking of the large Westminster mantel clock.
She could scarcely imagine, from this peaceful background, how little ones learned to cope with the effects of regularly falling
bombs.
Yet that was how they had developed the complaisance Annie so admired. The food there was plentiful but rather bland. No complaints;
it wasn’t chickpeas or rotting sardines. The loose iron headboards of the beds squeaked. No complaints; they had mattresses
and blankets with no lice or hungry bedbugs. The boys played
pelota
or soccer in the boggy courtyard. No complaints; bombs did not interrupt their games. The girls gathered to dance in the narrow
hallways and squealed when muddy boys chased them. No complaints; it was not the Guardia or the Falange. When the littlest
ones cried at night, a teen would join them in bed for comfort. No complaints; they were family.
Helping the small group of nurses and teachers who had accompanied the orphans, Annie cooked and cleaned and sought to maintain
order among the energetic children. She got on the floor with the little ones, counseled the older ones, and stood as a continual
amazement to all of them in one regard: her hair. The dark-haired and olive-skinned Basques had never seen such hair or freckles.
They gave her the name Rojo, which they shouted in unison when they saw her, making her feel as if she had been adopted into
their overflowing family. Annie left her home eagerly every morning because she knew she’d be greeted at the colony with several
dozen hugs and kisses from the appreciative children.
Some days, Annie brought her budgie, Edgar, in his cage.
When seeing Edgar the first time, many of the children twirled their thumbs and index fingers in front of their mouths as
if nibbling on an a tiny, invisible drumstick.
From the day she purchased Edgar, Annie had assaulted him with a stream of “Pretty bird . . . pretty bird . . . pretty bird”
in a nasal birdlike tone, trying to teach him the phrase as he perched in his cage in the family parlor. In two years, the
remedial budgie had responded to Annie’s rote recitation only by producing a clacking sound with his beak. Because Annie said
“pretty bird” so often, the children assumed that Pretty Bird was his name and shouted it each time he visited.
Edgar’s only response was “docka, docka.”
Annie Bingham anticipated her days at the children’s home for another reason. Charles Swan had decided to stay in Cambridge
and take summer classes rather than go home to London, as he had planned, to spend the time with his parents before beginning
active service. He often arrived at the end of her day to walk her home or take her to dinner in small neighborhood cafés.
They drew looks from the locals, these two with the pale skin and bright hair, taking their tea while conversing in rudimentary
Spanish. Very unusual Spaniards, it was decided.
But most in town knew they were helping with the Basque children, which was considered a good deed. Besides, they were young
and were drunk on infatuation, so they were expected to be strange.
Miguel knew Josepe Ansotegui from his earliest memories and considered him a man of high integrity. Since he was young, he
had heard Josepe talk about his big brother, Justo Ansotegui of Guernica, as if he were a giant, the strongest man with the
most beautiful wife. When he finally met Justo at Errotabarri, he was intimidated but a little disappointed that he was not
towering. He was stout and im mensely powerful, but Miguel was as tall as Justo.
As he came to know Justo, he understood why Josepe and Xa-bier held him in such regard. If anything, since his injury, Justo
impressed Miguel more. He still sought to accomplish more than any man with two arms, and he filled his days with chores even
if the state of the
baserri
didn’t require as much work. It was Justo’s resolve that most astonished Miguel. Although they still rarely mentioned Mariangeles
and Miren, and never Catalina, Justo stowed his grief somewhere it couldn’t seep into everything else. It was this that Miguel
wanted to tell Josepe when he visited Er-rotabarri.