A Thunderous Whisper (22 page)

“Convince him not to leave and go fight?” My voice carried the unmistakable traces of hope.

Señora Garza’s lips twitched before she muttered, “Well, something like that.”

I wasn’t reassured.

FORTY-ONE

T
he day flew by, barely giving me a moment to catch my breath, let alone think. The few minutes I’d had to myself were used to write the hardest letter I’d ever imagined. It took me several tries to come up with the right words to tell Papá that Mamá was gone. In the end, the letter was short. It simply said that I was fine and staying with the Garzas, but that Mamá had not survived. I didn’t explain about our apartment being destroyed or how Mamá had died.… Those details would come later. I just wanted him to know.

The night didn’t bring much of a reprieve from the day’s hard work either. Carmita and Mirentxu had both insisted on sleeping with me on the bed formerly occupied by Diego’s mother, and between their tossing and turning, my own restlessness, and baby duty, I barely slept. By the next day, even though the sun was at its peak, I was fighting a losing battle to keep my eyes open.

Then I heard it. A horse neighing loudly followed by the crackling sound of Garza’s cart grinding over the gravel path. My sleepiness evaporated. Mathias was back!

My first instinct was to rush outside, but I stopped myself.

Mathias would come to me … when he was ready.

I stuck my hand in my left pocket, searching for the acorn, but instead my fingers found Mamá’s brass weight, smooth and cold to the touch. I’d forgotten that it now shared the pocket along with the silk pouch.

The sadness I’d tried to push aside with nonstop work quickly came back. Mamá had said that everyone leaves.… It was something we all had to get used to. But I didn’t want to ever get used to it. I wanted to expect that people would come back.

I dug deeper into the skirt pocket, feeling for the silk pouch that Papá had given me. I held both objects in my hand. An acorn and a weight, all I had left of my parents.

I gave the seed a soft squeeze, closed my eyes, and wished for the one thing I wanted most in the world … for Papá to be safe and to come back.

“We’ll plant this seed … one day,” I murmured.

“Ani! Ani!” Mathias yelled, plowing through the front door.

“What?” I asked, popping my eyes open and realizing that he’d woken two of the sleeping babies.

“Señora Garza!” he yelled as the old woman came out from Julián’s room. “Ani and I have to go back to town! Garza has some more children that he’s taking up to the Eguiguren
farm, but he’ll be back later.” He hobbled over to me and grabbed my hand. “We have to go … right now!”

“¿Qué?”
Señora Garza asked, still folding the blanket she had in her hands.

“Mathias, what are you talking about?” I asked.

He tapped his
makila
impatiently on the ground. “The Basque soldiers!” He stopped me from going toward one of the crying babies and spun me around so I’d face him. “Some of them are in town. The front seems to be breaking, and some soldiers are looking for relatives as they retreat. C’mon. We have to go!”

Mathias’s words hit me like a tidal wave.

Papá. He might be back.

“Just go!
¡No me esperes!
” Mathias yelled from behind me on the mountain path.

I had already slowed down twice to let him catch up a little, but I couldn’t take the chance of missing Papá.

“I’ll meet you at the church!” I shouted, running faster than I could have imagined. I knew that the soldiers would go there to find out about their families.

Soon I was jumping over piles of bricks, avoiding the pits and craters left by the bombs, rounding the corner of what had once been my street, and making a dash for the center of town. I tripped, fell, and got right back up. A skinned knee or elbow would not slow me down.

What had once been Guernica was gone. All that remained was a shell—a broken and shattered shell. There were no
comforting smells or familiar sounds. It reeked of war, but I didn’t care. I was focused on only one thing.

As I approached the church, I saw more and more soldiers. My eyes scanned each one before quickly dismissing them. There was only one face I wanted to find … needed to see.

Bolting into the church, I saw Padre Iñaki talking to one of the soldiers in the corner.

“Padre, Padre!” I ran to the priest, pausing only for a moment to genuflect before the altar as I crossed to the other side of the church.

The two men stopped talking and waited for me to come closer.

“¿Qué pasó?”
Padre Iñaki asked.

I glanced at the soldier. His eyes were red and watery. I suddenly realized that he was probably getting bad news about his own family.
“Perdonen la interrupción,”
I muttered, rubbing the sides of my hands against my skirt, the feel of the bump from the acorn pushing me to continue speaking regardless of what I might be interrupting. “I heard that some of the soldiers are back.… I need to know if you’ve seen my father.”

“No,
hija
.” Padre Iñaki shook his head and placed his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, but I just got here a little while ago myself. He could’ve been by here earlier, though. Let me find out.” Padre Iñaki walked over to one of the men working near the shattered stained-glass window.

I turned to the soldier standing next to me. “His name is José Largazabalaga. Do you know him?”

The soldier mulled over the name for a few moments.
“Older man? Mostly gray hair? About this tall?” He raised his hand a few inches above me.

“Yes!” I nodded.

“I met him a few weeks ago, but I haven’t seen him since. Nice man, though.”

I gave him a slight smile at the compliment, but I was wasting time if Papá wasn’t there. “Please, if you see my father again, can you tell him that I’m staying at the Garza farmhouse?” My eyes were already darting around the church, trying to see who else to ask.

“Claro,”
the soldier said, nodding and pointing to Padre Iñaki, who was now walking back toward us. I rushed over to meet him, broken glass making a crunching sound under my feet.

“Was he here?” I asked.

“Some soldiers did come by this morning, but no one knows if your father was with them. They were headed to the hospital to try and find their families. Miguel over there”—he pointed to the man by the broken window—“wrote down your name on our children’s list … in case your father comes to ask about you.”

“The hospital? I’ll go there next.
¡Gracias!
” I turned and ran down the center aisle past several rows of people kneeling in the pews.

In one of the pews at the back of the church was a couple, hugging and smiling. A happy reunion in the middle of all the tears. There was still a chance I could have a moment like that.

FORTY-TWO

T
he sun was dropping, and long shadows covered the streets and rubble of Guernica. I hadn’t seen Mathias all afternoon, and the guilt of not waiting for him at the church was starting to eat at me. I thought I’d run into him as I crisscrossed the streets outside the hospital, asking everyone if they’d seen Papá and leaving word that I was staying with the Garzas.

As I trudged up the mountain path, resigned to the fact that I’d looked everywhere and asked everyone, I saw the familiar silhouette of a tall boy wearing a beret, leaning on a
makila
, standing by my tree.

I darted across the field toward him.

“How long have you been here?” I asked, slightly out of breath.

“For a while. I figured I’d just meet up with you on the way back.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot. “You want to stay here for a while and talk?”

I looked around. The memories of the bombing and hiding
in the foxhole were so vivid. I shook my head. “No. It doesn’t feel the same anymore.”

We started walking back to the main road.

“Did you find out anything about your father?” he asked.

“No. I left word where I was staying, though.”

“Oh, that’s good.”

We walked in silence for a little longer, the sun hovering over the horizon.

“He’ll come back,” Mathias said after a while.

“I hope so,” I muttered.

“Ani.” Mathias stopped for a moment.

“What?” I asked over my shoulder, still walking toward the Garza farm.

He took a deep breath and sighed. “I saw where they buried my parents.”

I stopped. The entire time, I had been so focused on my own feelings and on searching for my father that I’d forgotten all about what Mathias might be going through.

Turning around, I didn’t know what to say.

“They had no way of knowing where I was, so I wasn’t told about the burial. It happened yesterday … but they showed me the grave.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, wanting to say or do more for him.

“Yeah.” Mathias shuffled his feet.

I studied his face. He looked different from just two days ago. There was something in the way he stood, the look in his eyes, that made him seem … older.

“It just feels … final. Like they’re really gone.”

“Do you want to go back? I’ll go with you.”

“No. I said my goodbyes, but, um … I want to give you this.” He held out a torn piece of paper. “It’s my grandmother’s address in Germany. So you can write to me once I leave.”

“Write to you? Are you still thinking of going there to kill Hitler?” I rolled my eyes and most definitely did not take the paper.

“I know that probably won’t happen … but I believe I can make a difference.” He took my hand and put the paper in my palm. “I want to continue the work my father was doing.”

He was serious.

“Ani, my family’s there,” he said.

I listened as he now spoke plainly, without the anger he’d had before. “I need to help them. Things are getting really bad for all the Jews over there.”

I closed my fingers around the piece of paper and slipped it into my pocket.

This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. I thought Garza would talk him into staying and working on the farm. We started walking again.

“Why don’t you have that side of your family move here? You’re as much Basque as you are German.”

He shook his head. “They can’t just move, and why should they have to abandon their home … their country? People have to stand up against hatred like that or else things will get even worse.”

I stared at some passing birds, doing a quick double take to make sure they were actually birds and not planes. “But from what you’ve told me, things are already out of control over there. It’s dangerous.”

Mathias used his
makila
to point back toward the city. “Um, where have you been? It’s dangerous everywhere.”

I sighed. Even in the dimming light of dusk, the wreckage of the bombed buildings could be seen from where we stood. “I know it’s not safe here either, but there’s plenty to do. We could fight what’s happening here … together,” I said.

“I can’t. Germany is where I have family, where my father had his contacts.… It’s where I belong.” He paused. “I promise to write back and tell you what’s going on over there. Didn’t the blind boy call you Storyteller?”

“You mean Diego?” I asked, knowing exactly who he meant.

“Yeah, him.” He waved off his name like an annoying bug. “You can make sure people here know what’s happening. We can still work together.”

I kicked a small rock toward the edge of the road. I thought about being Mathias’s storyteller. “I guess. But who’d listen?”

“Kids, the Garzas, Padre Iñaki … you,” Mathias said. “The important thing is that the stories get out.”

“I guess,” I muttered. “When do you plan on leaving?”

“While I was in Bilbao, I met some soldiers who—”

“Look!” I said, pointing at a pair of headlights slowly backing away from the front of the Garza farm. My heart
sank as I thought these were the soldiers Mathias was just talking about. Was he going to leave
right now
?

I glanced over at him. “Are you—” I never finished my thought because the jeep’s brakes screeched as it abruptly stopped in front of us, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone jump out of the back.

“¡Preciosa!”

FORTY-THREE

F
or a moment, time stopped. Silence filled the air, and it was all I could do to breathe. Then, as if God had restarted the movie that was our lives, noise surrounded me, and Papá had me in his arms, covering my cheeks with kisses and tears.

“I didn’t think I’d get to see you,” he said, squeezing me. He pushed me back and scanned me from head to toe. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No, Papá,” I said, barely able to catch my breath.

He hugged me again and whispered, “I’m so sorry that I wasn’t here. To protect you … your mother. The Garzas told me that she—”

I wrapped my arms around his waist even tighter. I didn’t want him to say it out loud.

The sound of the jeep’s horn startled me.

“¡Nos tenemos que ir!”
one of the soldiers shouted.

Papá held up his hand. “I know, I know. Give me one
minute.” He looked me squarely in the eye. “I don’t have much time, but—” Papá stopped speaking. His eyes welled up with tears, and he hugged me tight once again.
“Preciosa,”
he whispered into my hair. “You’re all I have left.” He sighed. “That’s why I’m sending you somewhere safe … until this war is over.”