Caminos Page 9

  * * *

  Las Cepas, Asturias

  August 1913

  Mercedes had not received a letter since she was a girl, when her brother would write her from Cuba. The West Virginia return address confused and concerned her, because she knew Antonio could neither read nor write.

  “Dear Ms. González Conde,” the letter began, in the handwriting of an unschooled person. “I am writing you for my friend, Antonio Ribas.” Mercedes did not understand why Antonio’s supposed friend had misspelled his last name. “He sends his fondest greetings and hopes that you are healthy and well.” A wave of emotion crashed over her. She nearly had given up hope of hearing from Antonio.

  “He is well here in West Virginia,” the letter continued, “and Antonio says he misses you very much. His work has been good, and he can buy one of the houses in Graselli that the company has built for the workers. But he says that he does not need a house just to live alone, and he would be happiest if he could share it with you. Antonio apologizes for doing this by mail and through me, but he asks you if you would consider marrying him and moving to live with him here. He waits for your response and hopes you will accept his proposal. Sincerely yours, Jávier Gómez Díaz.”

  Without a word, Mercedes handed the letter to María, who was sewing in a chair across from her in the little parlour. María read the letter and said: “Well, my dear rabbit, it appears you have a difficult decision to make. But at least, for once, your fate rests in your own hands. How do you feel about it?”

  “I … I … I don’t know. I don’t know what I feel.” For so long, Mercedes had prayed that she could make a life with Antonio. The year and a half since he left had been the most difficult of her life, and she was no stranger to angst and disappointment. But was this an answer to prayer? To choose between Antonio and her homeland and family? “I feel … overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by joy and sadness. In equal parts.”

  María understood in the way that only one who had faced the same stark choice could understand.

  “How can I say no?” Mercedes said, then added: “But how can I go?”

  “Yes,” María said. She kneaded absently at the fabric in her hands. “These men always subject us to such painful dilemmas.” Again, she did not tell Mercedes of her own struggle when Antonio González Conde wanted to stay in Cuba.

  “I’ll take a walk,” Mercedes said abruptly. “I always think clearer out in the fresh air, among the eucalyptus trees.”

  “You do that, rabbit. Nature is a good advisor. And you may want to go down to Naveces, to San Román, and talk to God about it as well.”

  “Yes, yes. That’s a good suggestion,” Mercedes said, brimming with nervous excitement. “Thank you, María. Oh, my. I certainly didn’t expect the day held this when I woke this morning and went out to milk the cows!”

  María watched Mercedes through the window as she started across the pasture toward the woods. She walked quickly, erect and with a purpose. Then she stopped suddenly, pulled the letter from her apron pocket and read it again. A cow wandered up and nudged her. Mercedes stroked its muzzle lightly as she read. She dropped the hand clutching the letter to her side and looked up at the sky. Then Mercedes looked at the cow, for what seemed like an eternity to María as she observed from her seat in the parlour, before patting the animal lovingly on its jowl and marching off toward the eucalyptus grove.

  * * *

  A fit old Asturian man, dressed in a well-worn vested suit and Asturian beret called a boina, with the stub of a cigar clenched in the corner of his mouth, tugged a reluctant calf by a chain lead into the Avilés livestock market at the Plaza de Carbayedo.

  “That one appears to have a lively spirit,” Antonio González Conde said to Mercedes when he noticed the man with the calf. Their milk and sausages had sold well at the Monday markets all spring and into the summer, and Antonio had decided to invest the proceeds in more livestock.

  “I don’t know that’s such a desirable quality in a milk cow,” Mercedes said, “especially if we have to drag it all the way home.”

  “You make a valid point, sister. But I always have a soft spot for an animal with some spunk!”

  Mercedes smiled and shook her head. She adored her brother for the world he had given her. He and María had made her feel loved, wanted and accepted for the first time in her life. With them and the children, for thirteen years now, she’d had a home. She felt rooted at Las Cepas, as if she were one of the apple trees or the camellias, reaching deep into the soil and rising from it, drawing strength and sustenance from the Asturian ground.

  Her stomach went hollow and her chest filled with anxiety when she thought of leaving her family and land. But she also longed for a home and children of her own with Antonio Ribas. This desire had multiplied exponentially since she received his letter. His proposal overpowered the sense of security and joy she had derived from her life at Las Cepas.

  “It is awfully hot today, even for August,” Antonio said. The Asturians loved to complain about the weather, and the turbulent climate provided them with many opportunities. He removed his straw hat and said, patting his forehead dry with a linen handkerchief: “They seem to be selling cool drinks at that house over there by the arcade. What say we refresh ourselves and survey the field from up on the sidewalk.”

  The compact, two-storey house from which the refreshments were being sold resembled a small fortress with its thick walls of uncut stones, small windows and narrow wooden door. It was one of the first houses constructed on the Plaza de Carbayedo in the latesixteenth century. From the beginning, it had been the residence of the family which ran the livestock market. On sweltering days like this one, the single sidewalk-level window was perfect for selling beer and cider from the perpetually dark and cool interior of the house’s ground floor.

  “That would be delightful,” Mercedes said. They each took a small glass of beer and stood in the shadow of the house examining the cattle out in the marketplace.

  Mercedes was so ambivalent about the declaration she was about to make, and the unknown path down which it would lead, that she could hardly breathe. Her heart felt constricted, and there was a constant high-pitched ringing in her right ear. She had to tell him, now, and make her decision concrete. “Antonio,” Mercedes said. She could not organize the words to continue.

  “What is it, Mercedes?” Antonio asked. “Do you feel ill from the heat?”

  “No, no.” Mercedes took a small sip from her glass. “I … I have something important to tell you.” María had agreed to keep the letter from Antonio Ribas between them until Mercedes made her choice and told her brother herself.

  “What? What?” Antonio pressed.

  After another long pause, Mercedes said: “Nearly a month ago, I received a letter from Antonio. Well, a letter from a friend of Antonio’s in West Virginia, writing to me for him.”

  “I told that man he needed to learn to read and write,” Antonio started, then caught himself before he ran off on the tangent. “Sorry. Sorry. That is very good news Mercedes. Very good.” When she continued to look more pained than happy, he asked: “It is, is it not, good news? He is not having some sort of difficulty, is he?” Referring again to his dishonest business partner in Cuba, Antonio added: “There do seem to be an inordinate number of swindlers over on that side of the Atlantic.”

  “No, he’s well. Very well, in fact. He’s even getting a mortgage from the company to buy one of the houses they’ve built for the workers.”

  “And he has asked you to marry him and go to the United States,” Antonio surmised.

  “That he has,” Mercedes said. Now it was real, and she was again doused with doubt.

  “And you will accept his proposal and go,” Antonio said evenly.

  Mercedes did not know whether it was a question or an order. She scrutinized the barns and little houses running up the other two sides of the tree-canopied square, and at the hilly countryside beyond. How can I leave this? she thought for the hundredth time. A
fter another long pause, she looked again at her brother and said: “I believe I will, yes.”

  Antonio drank the remainder of his beer and wiped his moustache with his handkerchief.

  “What do you think, Antonio?” Mercedes asked. “Do you believe that’s the right decision?”

  “Well, you know I have very mixed feelings about the United States,” Antonio said. “Clearly, it has been good to Ramón, and now to Segundo. But I cannot ever forgive them for taking Cuba and the rest of the empire from us, or for the friends I lost in the war. But for you? Yes. Absolutely, I will support your decision if you wish to marry Antonio and go to him there.”

  With her brother’s unhesitating endorsement, the anxiety ebbed and excitement rushed in. Mercedes hugged him tightly, her face brightened by an enthusiastic smile. “Oh, Antonio, thank you. You always have been so kind to me.”

  Patting her lightly on the back, Antonio said: “Of course I have. You are my only sister, and I love you. And I want you to be happy, rabbit, especially after what our father put you through.”

  “You can’t know how happy you’ve made me, Antonio,” Mercedes said. “You and María and the children …” Out washed the excitement and in surged an excruciating sense of loss. Her smile twisted into a grimace and her brow furrowed. “But how can I leave, Antonio? I never could feel at home any place else.”

  “It does not have to be forever, you know,” Antonio said tenderly. “There are thousands of Indianos here who stayed over there just long enough to make their fortunes and then came home. Ramón seems to have become permanently rooted in San Luís, but he always had that tendency. Had the United States not stolen Cuba, he still would be in Havana instead. But Segundo? You know how that Gallego is. Once he has filled the poor orphan’s need to make enough money to feel secure, he will tire of life among the Yanquis and begin to pine for home.”

  Mercedes was not so sure. “Do you really believe it, Antonio? That he could want to come back?”

  “Perhaps not to Las Cepas, especially if he has enough money of his own. But certainly to Galicia,” he said. “A person does not need much of a fortune to buy a large piece of land and house there, the times are so difficult in Galicia, and that would be close enough. We could see each other every year at Christmas and Easter, and you would feel at home there as much as you do here. Particularly after a few years in that United States.”

  Mercedes felt herself righting, like a boat that has been rolled sail to water by a fierce sea. “I’ll do it, then, Antonio. I’ll marry Antonio Ribas and go to West Virginia and start a family of my own. You know how much I love Ramón, Pilar and Pepe …”

  “Of course I do, rabbit. And they you. Sometimes, I think they love you more than they do María and me.”

  “… but I have wanted children of my own for so long,” Mercedes continued. “Every time I help bring a new baby into the world, every time I sit at your table with your happy family, I want my own little ones, my own happy family, even more desperately.”

  “And now you shall have it, my dear rabbit.” He then returned his attention to the purpose of their visit to the Plaza de Carbayedo. “Let’s buy one of those fine animals out there and get ourselves back to Las Cepas. We have a bit of celebrating to do!”

  Despite Mercedes’ renewed protests, Antonio could not help himself. He found the old man in the boina and bought the strong willed calf. It was a long walk back to the farm.

  * * *

  Long before the Romans came, Celts settled in Asturias. Celtic artistic and cultural traditions remain a fundamental part of Asturian culture, and like other Celtic places, bagpipes are deeply rooted in Asturian life. Many towns even maintain municipal bagpipe corps to this day. Their high pitched tunes—the Asturian instrument has only two pipes, so its sound is less robust than the better-known Scottish bagpipes—accompany nearly every public event of any significance. Weddings are no exception. The gaiteros, as they are called, greet the bride and groom as they arrive at the church, and then pipe them off to the marriage feast after the mass.

  * * *

  Naveces, Asturias

  August 1914

  María made a final adjustment to the simple white dress. It was her own creation. “You look beautiful,” she said to Mercedes. “Absolutely beautiful. Radiant. It is such a pity that Antonio cannot be here to see you.”

  “Well, I can’t have everything, I suppose,” Mercedes said. “I know he’s here in spirit, and that’s what matters most.”

  There was a knock at the bedroom door. “I know I am supposed to wait downstairs,” Antonio González Conde shouted through the closed door from out in the hallway. “But I have never been skilled at waiting.”

  “You may enter,” María told her husband. “The bride is ready for viewing.”

  “Glorious!” he bellowed. “I have not seen such a vision of beauty since María on our wedding day.”

  “Thank you,” Mercedes said. “It still doesn’t seem real that I’ll marry Antonio today.” As the two months had passed, and the anticipation of this day grew more intense, Mercedes’ apprehension and sadness about leaving diminished bit by bit, and a glowing optimism rose in their place. She still could not imagine living so far away from her family, but the fact that she would soon be making a family of her own eased the pain of contemplating her separation from them and from Asturias. And she clung tightly to the hope that she, Antonio Ribas and their children would return to Spain one day.

  “Well, we must move along,” María said, making two more minor adjustments to Mercedes’ dress, “or you will be late for your own wedding!”

  They rounded up the children and hurriedly walked the threequarters of a mile to Naveces. As they appeared around the corner of the medieval rectory across the lane from San Román Church, the five bagpipers—dressed in black knee pants, white shirts and brightgreen vests, with wide, gold sashes tied around their waists—began to play.

  The rotund parish priest, Father José Lama, was waiting for them just inside the door of the church. The two witnesses, both neighbors and old friends of Antonio González Conde, also stood there, as did the Castrillón district court secretary, Don Justo Álvarez y Álvarez, sent by the judge at the municipal hall in Piedras Blancas to record the details of the proceedings for the civil record.

  María and the children took a seat in the front pew. They exchanged quiet greetings with Bernardo’s sister Carmen and her husband Manuel, who were among the handful of guests. “What a beautiful day,” Carmen said, “and what a blessing that the path which began here with such sadness and pain returns to this place with such jubilation.”

  “Yes,” María said, “at last, I believe Mercedes is able to put that dreadful chapter of her life behind her.”

  At the rear of the church, Father José welcomed Mercedes as he sorted through the paperwork with the lithe, black-suited Álvarez y Álvarez. “This is a blissful afternoon, Miss González. And given the important role he his has played in your life, it is appropriate and fortuitous that your brother can stand in for your fiancé today.”

  Antonio Ribas was 4,500 miles away, working at the zinc smelter in West Virginia. Antonio González Conde had insisted, on the day he and Mercedes bought the calf, that they stop at the telegraph office in Avilés so she could wire her acceptance of Antonio Ribas’ marriage proposal. Antonio Segundo had gone to a notary public in Clarksburg the next day to have proxy documents drafted for Antonio Primero to represent him at the ceremony.

  “Yes,” Mercedes told Father José, “I’m very lucky that God has given me these two Antonios.” All morning, as she prepared for the wedding, her mind reeled through images of the many days she had spent with Antonio Ribas, and the many without him, good and bad. But now she stood in this church where nearly every person she knew had been baptized and nearly every couple she knew had married, and her mind was filled only with this moment and her heart with joy.

  After Álvarez y Álvarez read through the proxy document and gav
e his assent, he and the witnesses took their seats, and the ceremony began. Mercedes processed up the aisle behind Don José and the altar boys. Despite the groom’s absence, the priest celebrated the full marriage mass before the Baroque altar, under the silent gaze of the solemn saints and the corpulent putti.

  As Mercedes and the guests emerged from the church after the mass, the bagpipers broke into “Asturias, Patria Querida,” the hymn of the principality. Every person stood tall and sang with pride:

  Asturias, my beloved fatherland,

  My loved one Asturias,

  Ah, lucky he who could be in Asturias

  For all times …

  The sun shone, and swallows fluttered from the massive old oak tree whose branches spread over the forecourt. Mercedes felt born anew.

  Chapter 11

  Asturias

  October 1914

  Mercedes and ten-year-old Pilar shared a love of chestnuts. In the autumn, the spiny pods covered the Asturian hillsides. Their favourite spot was about a thirty-minute walk from Las Cepas, where the chestnuts piled a foot deep under the boughs of two grand old trees. Two weeks before she departed for the U.S., Mercedes took Pilar on one last expedition.

  “So, you’re really leaving us, Aunt Mercedes?” Pilar asked as they carefully pried open the pods and added another handful of the mahogany coloured chestnuts to their bulging bag. The girl had been quiet and withdrawn all day.

  “You shouldn’t think of it that way, Pilar,” Mercedes replied. She had wondered whether her niece would open up about how she felt. She did not want to force it from her like a chestnut from its thorny husk. Pilar had not said a word about Mercedes leaving since she sat the children down in the kitchen and told them, as if not verbalizing it would make it go away.