Guernica (11 page)

“I’m afraid that’s not very comforting,” Xabier said.

“All I know for certain is that everywhere else on the continent where there’s been a power struggle like this, it’s made
it easier for the Fascists to take over.”

A brace of tan oxen, cloaked in sheepskin shawls, with flower garlands threaded through their horns, led the pro cession.
Neck bells ringing as they stepped in unison, they pulled a two-wheeled cart bearing Miren’s dowry and possessions. Copper
pots clanged as the cart rumbled across the cobbles. A wood-and-leather fire bellows, attached by one handle, made small syncopated
exhalations whenever the cart bounced. A large crucifix destined for the bedroom wall was propped reverentially in one corner,
with a heavy rosary draped around its vertical axis like a necklace on a scarecrow.

Players of the
txistu
, drum, and tambourine followed, adding musical form to the rising clatter. The pro cession followed in pairs, not unlike
the oxen: Miren and Miguel, her parents, his parents, family members, and then friends, with each woman carrying a wicker
basket of presents or flowers.

Given the increasing difficulty of the times, the gifts were mostly handmade or homegrown, sometimes as ornate as heirloom
embroidery, sometimes as simple as a fresh skein of wool that might have been newly spun and dyed a pleasing color.

Miguel would not be able to recall much of Father Xabier’s wedding mass and nuptial readings, as he was focused almost entirely
on Miren. Mrs. Arana had made her dress of white satin, with pearl beads decorating the tailored Basque bodice that accentuated
Miren’s slender waist. At the lowest point of the bodice in the back, just before it gave way to the spreading skirts, Mrs.
Arana had embroidered a small silver butterfly, in honor of the nickname she had given Miren. Miguel saw the butterfly, and
his mind was continually drawn to it.

With his brother Dodo unavailable for duty, Miguel enlisted his father to be his witness, a position he proudly filled for
several reasons: He could not have been happier for his son, but he also delighted in assisting the witness for the bride,
Alaia Aldecoa, down the aisle to the altar. For weeks, Mariangeles and Miren had taken Alaia to Arana’s, where they selected
fabric, executed repeated fittings, and constructed her first tailored garment. It, too, had a tight waist, on the theme of
Miren’s dress, but it was an autumn rust color, and it served to flatter Alaia’s lighter hair and generous figure.

Father Xabier’s message included personal references to Miren and a tribute to the powerful marriage bond between Justo and
Mariangeles that had shaped her. Xabier smiled at them as he spoke; Justo grinned beneath his mustache.

“Sending him to the seminary was worth it for this moment if no other,” Justo whispered to Mariangeles.

Miren, a month from her twentieth birthday, had as much trouble as Miguel focusing on the proceedings. At one point, when
protocol caused the assembly to rise, she glanced back at her parents. Her mother, beautiful, happy, and immaculately dressed,
leaned into her scrubbed but rumpled father. Without Justo noticing, Mariangeles reached behind him, curled his collar back
down into place, and lightly pulled the tail of his coat so it would be more comfortable for him when he once again sat. In
that moment, Miren saw the kind of wife she wished to be. It was not instilled in her by the mass or the vows or Father Xabier’s
incantations; she wanted to care so much for her husband, even after more than two de cades of marriage, that she still would
attend to his upturned collar and crumpled jacket. She wanted that concern to be second nature. That was the vow she made
to herself at the altar that day.

The first dance at the wedding party did not involve the bride and groom but was a man’s dance executed in honor of the couple.
Domingo Abaitua, one of the dancers in Miren’s old group, stepped forward and bowed before the newlyweds as others cleared
the dance area. Straightening, he removed his beret with a flourish and sent it sailing toward the couple. Music began and
he executed a series of spins and kicks that grew higher and faster as the gathering cheered louder with each. He finished
with a deep bow to the couple and vacated the floor.

Miren held her groom at arm’s length. She’d worried about this for weeks. Against slight resistance, Miguel pulled her tight,
encircling her with his right arm. Four notes were struck, and on the next beat, Miguel confidently stepped forward with his
left foot, catching Miren unprepared. He had brought his feet together to conclude his first three waltz steps before she
caught up to him. Her smile slackened in shock as Miguel used firm pressure from his right hand on her lower back to guide
her into the turns. Gliding through spirals inside a circle, they flowed across the floor. He counted his steps aloud, but
he could dance.

“How? When?” Miren could barely form the questions. “Who?”

Miguel ignored them, content to grin at her amazement. And answering would have disrupted his counting.

Moving in unison, they were alone. They didn’t hear the cheers of their families and barely noticed when the music finished,
coasting gently to a stop rather than ending abruptly. How long had they danced? Had they ever not been dancing?

Without the benefit of a running start, and despite the constrictions of dress and decorum, Miren leaped onto Miguel, her
arms clasped behind his neck, and kissed him on the mouth with a force that whiplashed his neck. She threw her head back,
her veil dipping to the floor, and unleashed an
irrintzi
scream. After the first shriek, Justo joined her, as did Josepe and Father Xabier, and then the rest of the guests.

When the first notes of a
jota
were played, Miguel pried his bride loose and withdrew a few steps to give them space.

“What?” Miren stood motionless.

Kicks, spins, snaps. If Miguel’s
jota
performance was more studied than natural, it was notable for its absence of bruising and bloodshed. Miren joined him, as
did a grinning Mariangeles.

“Where did we get this dancer who looks so much like my new husband?” Miren asked her mother.

“It was a slow process,” Mariangeles answered.

“
Kuttuna
, your kind and patient and fearless mother has been giving me lessons for months,” Miguel said, slightly out of breath.

“Mother . . . you must be . . . the world’s greatest . . . dance teacher,” Miren said between spins.

“He asked me so sincerely, there was no way I could refuse,” Mariangeles said. “And he tried so hard. I had to lie to your
father to protect the secret.”

Miguel pulled his mother-in-law into a tight hug. “Thank you,” he whispered into her ear, inhaling the same scent as his wife’s.
That soap. “Sorry about the all damage to your feet.”

“It was worth it,” Mariangeles said, standing back to let them dance again.

“Any other surprises for me,
astokilo
?” Miren asked when they started another waltz.

“I hope there will be many.”

Miguel pulled back slightly to look in her eyes.

“I have something I better say since I believe we should build our marriage on nothing but truth.”

Miren stilled.

“I have to confess, I never really knew a Gypsy fortune-teller named Vanka.”

“You fool!” she shrieked, giving him a pretend slap on the head. “I would be rid of you now,” she said, grabbing his arm,
“if you weren’t such a fine dancer.”

With his parents dancing and Miren bouncing between friends and meeting her obligation to dance with every man in attendance,
Miguel joined the brothers of his father-in-law.

As Miren danced with Simone, the chorizo maker, who was redolent of garlic, and then with Aitor, the corpulent baker, Miguel
could not stop watching her.

Josepe and Father Xabier lifted their wineglasses toward Miguel.

“
Osasuna
,” they toasted.

“
Osasuna
,” he said.

“You are a lucky man, Miguel,” Josepe said.

“I know that, my friend,” Miguel responded, still focused on his bride’s movements. “Could you have ever foreseen in all those
years as your neighbor that I would one day join your family?”

“I think it’s wonderful; she couldn’t have found a better husband,” Josepe said. “And so, neighbor, now that you are officially
part of the family, do you want to know all the old secrets? Ask us anything. Father Xabier here is used to answering questions,
so there’s not much he hasn’t heard.”

“Oh, you would not believe the things I hear in that box . . .”

“Does Justo confess to you?” Miguel asked, wondering for the first time if he would be obliged to start taking his confessions
to the uncle of his wife.

“Justo does not come to me officially, no,” Xabier said. “I’m certain he worries that I might issue undue penance because
he once held my head underwater in the stock trough.”

“Go ahead, Miguel, ask,” Josepe said.

“All right, here is what I need to know,” Miguel pressed. “I believe he likes me and we have a good relationship. He calls
me ‘son,’ which I take as a good sign. Should I still be in fear for my life?”

His concern amused both brothers.

“If you promise not to pass this along to our brother, I’ll tell you the secret to Justo Ansotegui,” Xabier said. “He’s no
different than everybody else. Everyone is driven by what they want most. Figure out what that is, and you have the answer
to who that person is. Most of the time it’s obvious, but all of us are usually too concerned about the things
we
want to ever stop and look at anybody else’s motives.”

Miguel nodded, if only to hurry Xabier past the philosophy.

“We can see what makes you happy; you haven’t taken your eyes off your bride since you sat down, even when you’ve tried to
look us in the eye. You’ve found what you want, whether you knew it was what you wanted all along or not.”

Miguel nodded. He had been accurately diagnosed. “How does this apply to Justo? You were going to tell me the great secret.”

Xabier took another drink of wine before starting. “When our father died, Justo took it as his duty to become the father.
To little ones, the father is the biggest and smartest and strongest, the man in control of all situations. Most people grow
up to learn that their parents are just people with the same weaknesses we all have. Justo never got the chance to see that.
In some ways, he’s still fifteen, trying to live up to his image of what a father is supposed to be. After a while, he felt
he could be everybody’s father . . . father of the whole town.”

Miguel nodded; it made sense. “I’ll admit that I am much less threatened by him now than I was at first. But I still don’t
want to anger a man who killed a wolf with his bare hands.”

Josepe and Xabier squinted in unison. “What wolf?”

“The wolf,” Miguel said. “The one that chewed his ear off.”

Miguel joined his four fingers and snapped them against his thumb in the vicinity of his right ear, pantomiming the jaws of
a vicious wolf. “You know . . . the wolf.”

“Wolf . . . there was no wolf!” Josepe shouted. “Justo lost that part of his ear when he was young and tried to shoot down
an eagle with a rusted-out rifle. The thing exploded on him and jammed the stock back into his head. He’s been without that
part of his ear for more than thirty years.”

“A wolf, eh?” Father Xabier said, flashing a priestly scowl. “He’ll need at least ten Our Fathers to work his way out of a
lie like that.”

Miguel was in parts relieved and saddened by the debunking of a classic Justo Ansotegui myth.

“Did he kill the eagle, at least?”

“No,” Josepe said solemnly. “It came out of nowhere and there was nothing he could do. We were all so little.”

Josepe and Xabier smiled at each other, thinking, That’s Justo. It was just a story, of course, but both were certain that
if a wolf actually had attacked Justo, he might very easily have throttled it with his bare hands, even as it chewed off part
of his ear. It may have been fiction only because the situation never arose.

José María Navarro waited for a moment when his son was neither dancing nor visiting with new relatives to pull him aside
and express his happiness and his pride. He also had news from France.

“Eduardo sends his love and his great jealousy over your fine catch of a wife,” the father said. “I told him about Miren,
how she is Josepe’s niece and what a perfect match she is for you.”

Miguel smiled at the mention of Dodo. “Was there any chance he could have come to the wedding?”

“No, none,” the father said. “He wanted to, and he knew how important it was to you, but you would be surprised to know that
he has learned to become cautious in many matters. He sends word to me occasionally through fishermen from Saint-Jean, or
at times he’s on a boat that we meet at sea.”

“So he’s fishing?”

“No, he is staying active in the mountains,” José María said. “But we sometimes make arrangements to meet and he comes out
on the boat of some friends he’s made in France.”

“In the mountains? Is he farming, herding sheep?” Miguel asked incredulously. “That doesn’t sound like Dodo.”

“No, not herding sheep.” José María leaned in close. “He’s in with a group of smugglers.”

Miguel laughed so loudly the sound rose above the music, and many turned in his direction. His father gave him a sharp, tight-lipped
shush.

“Fine,” Miguel said in a lowered voice. “But that’s perfect for Dodo; I’m sure he is having a wonderful time and he’s very
good at it, if he can keep himself from taunting too many border guards.”

“Well, it sounds as if he’s at least being smart enough to keep himself unseen. This is a dangerous business, and some of
his friends have been captured and thrown in prison. If he got caught and they connected his identity to that business at
home, it might lead to a bad outcome.”

“I’m stunned to hear that he’s being cautious or careful about anything. How long will that last?”

“That, I don’t know,” José María said. “But he better behave himself.”