by Steve Hawe
Empowerment is born from facing challenges and adversity. Caralyn is no stranger to adversity; she has survived traumas, including a sexual assault, a suicide attempt, and In the end, it’s off to the vineyard to play “uno, dos, tres, momia es,” a new and exciting game from the schoolyard back home in Montilla. Marta goes first, forehead pressed against a wooden upright, dark curls wild and free. She closes her eyes to count and is hurled into the bottomless well of magic that lurks behind the shuttered lids of a child.
“Uno …” The rhythmic tappity-tap of autumn-raddled leaves upon rusted support wires becomes the leathery squelch of deerskin moccasins. Marina risks a glance before primping her floral pinny. Her heart hammers. She knows it’s only the fairest of the gypsy maidens that Apache braves carry off to their tepees. “Dos …” From the trees along the creek comes the chittered warble of the golden oriole. She sings the bewitching songs of sirens to lure the pirates' galleons. “Tres …”There are terrifying harpies too, each tick of the clock one step closer. One careless peek at their hideous faces and she will be turned to stone. “Cuatro …” The distant throb of Don Vazquez’s tractor plowing the fields is the roar of Puff the Magic dragon – a pall of fine gray dust, the ocean spray along the seashore, far away in the land of Honah Lee. “Cinco …” A dragonfly buzzing past is the slowpoke of the tiny fairies who weave the webs between the rows. Quickly! Rapido! Before the sun burns her wings to a crisp.
“… cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez, momia es!”
But games are so much better with three. When uncle plays, there are skipped numbers and cheating, and wild chases and terror and shrieks amongst the vines. Alas, today he sleeps till noon.
When Marina peers beneath the vines for sight of her sister’s pink and white camiseta she remembers her grandfather’s disapproving glance at their uncle’s empty seat at the breakfast table. Also, her grandmother’s dismissive wave. “He sprouts wings, no Papa?” Mama Luz snapped, “… then plays with the fairies at night while the rest of the villa sleeps.” Papa Lorenzo is too big for his bottom to be smacked. Even so, with pouty lips as he had packed his pipe, he had looked smacked. “Perhaps,” Mama Luz said to the twins, “… your uncle will be there to help with el aperitivo this evening.”
Soon, with the dew gone from the sheltered hollows amongst the vines, and the sun a burning disc in cobalt skies, it is off to the fermenting house. From the top of the ridge amongst the vines, the twins hear the sputter of Papa Lorenzo’s tractor, set to idle outside the loading bay. It is, after all, Fiesta de la Vendimia. He will be sanitizing the oaken fermentation tanks.
The fermentation house holds a special fascination for the twins. A sanctuary away from the midday swelter, it instills in them the awe and reverence one feels upon passing through the nave of the old, stone abbey overlooking El Pueblo del Colinas Dormidas. After all, is it not the sacred place where Papa Lorenzo consults with the gods? Have not his tales hinted at the ancient arts of Dionysus? With thick, moldy walls of stone, the fermentation house is dim and musty, a place of spiders and geckoes and mice. Here, the creatures of the old building age gracefully and live for a century, intoxicated with yeast and the bready smells of winemaking. Here, they share a magical place where time is only measured by the slow and careful blending of the must.
For the twins at age six, the fermentation house beckons when the sun beats down, perfect sanctuary from the sweltering Cordobian sun. With a myriad of nooks and crannies and a forest of oaken barrels, it’s perfect for hide-and-seek. When the twins tire, they cool their sweaty backs against wine-filled fermentation tanks, sipping cool water from Papa’s tasting mugs. Through the filtered light of esparto-grass curtains, they act like drunks. They laugh and slur arm in arm, then lurch from the cantinas in the moonlight, mimicking bawdy songs along the darkened alleys of El Pueblo del Colinas Dormidas.
But not today. Today is tidy-up, stack and sweep before Papa Antonio spills water on cobblestones for the humidity. Today is work, for tomorrow is the beginning of harvest. All too soon the icy breath of Sierra Morena will sweep the leaves from the vines, then Villa Baladí will sleep tillspring.
…
Late that afternoon, the twins skip and chatter along the rows beside their uncle. Each swing small plastic buckets and wear matching floral frocks and red ribbons for their plaits – today, a dab of their abuela’s precious lavender upon the pallor of their wrists. Mama Lola has dressed them beautifully for aperitivo on the eve of Fiesta de la Vendimia.
“At the very top of the ridge,” their uncle tells them, “… we’ll find the sweetest and plumpest of the harvest. Come, mis pollitas, it’s a long way for little legs, but it’s where the luckiest of Papa’s precious children thrive. That is where the first and last of the sun’s magic fingers put a blush on tiny verdant cloaks.”
When they crest the ridge, Ana skips ahead. She swings her bucket high, flouncing and pirouetting in her new clothes for the magical beings that hide amongst the vines. In the late afternoon chill, she is El Sen᷉or Vázquez’s newborn palomino filly, snorting ribbons of steam as she prances around her plodding, sway-backed madre. She will be the first to seek out the special ones - the grapes that Papa Lorenzo has promised will taste like a kiss. In her childish mind, she hears her parting words. “Look for a golden smile in a sea of green,she whispered in her ear, folding her tiny fingers around the handle of the red bucket. For the grapes of el aperitivo, she will beat her sister. After all, she is older by two minutes.
The moment Ana’s darting hands and bobbing head disappear from view, their uncle takes Marta’s hand in his, then bends to her with a smile. Ah, at last,Marta thinks, her pulse racing, … our favorite uncle will now reveal what his eyes and gentle touches have promised these last few days. A new game perhaps … a promise to show me where the fairies sing and dance in the moonlight? Perhaps we’ll share in the prize of the best of the sun-ripened fruit for aperitivo?
“Have you ever watched a romantic movie, Marta?”
“Yes, with Ana. We watched Pretty Woman.”
“Have you seen how they kiss each other on the lips?”
“Yes.”
“It’s nice, isn’t it?”
“No, Uncle… I think it’s disgusting.”
“Ah… someday you will know how nice it is. Do you want to know now?”
“Umm …”
“I could teach you how to kiss like that, so you will know for the future.”
“I think it’s not good.”
“What’s bad in a kiss? It’s only a kiss.”
“How would you teach me?”
“You only have to close your eyes.”
…
For Marta, there’s neither pain nor the sweetness promised. But when their lips touch, there comes a sound she has never heard before. A sudden hush; a silence so profound it belts her eardrums like the alarm clock that sits on the chest of drawers beside Mama Lola’s bed. In that terrible moment when the very earth holds its breath, she feels a wistful pang of regret at something lost forever. A whisper of silken sheets - the desperate flutter of a moth to the flame - it cascades to the ground, tickling the backs of her sun-browned legs.
When at last she dares open her eyes, the soft, autumn glow of moments ago - alive with earthy perfumes of decaying leaves, humus, and rotted fruit-fall, has morphed to a ruddy summer haze, and reeks of chemical sprays. Gone from the vineyard are the shouts of pirates and the creaks and groans of galleons upon the seas, gone, the fire-breathing dragons, the drone and shimmer of fairy wings. From thickets of brambles down by the creek, the chittering warble of the golden oriole has become dull and lifeless, yet no less melodious. Stripped of its enchantment, its song fades beneath the maternal skepticism she imagines from her keen and judicious abuela. Already, the back of her throat burns with the bitter aftertaste of swallowed truths. What’s bad in a kiss? she reasons, It’s just a kiss.
…
“Qué, mi pequen᷉o pollo? Speak!” Mama Luz frowns. “‘Why so glum when it’s aperitivo? Did you fall and skin your shins? Did you fight yet again with your sister? Dios mio, what now, child?”
“No Mama Lola, it … was ... our uncle … he …”
“Que? Your uncle? That lovable devil. With his long legs, did he beat you to the winning post at hide-and-seek? Did he skip numbers, as he always does at uno, dos, tres, momia es? Did he forsake his two little shadows to go where the best of Papa’s grapes lay hidden?”
“No … yes, no. It’s … nothing. Just that he made us walk and walk and walk until our legs could no longer carry our smiles. And … and …”
At six, Marta is too young to know that in the building of walls, where child abuse is the aggregate, swallowed truths are the binding powder. Or that dark secrets within such bastions fester and grow and tick like timebombs, and are never lonely. Or that over the coming months and years, her grandmother’s ‘lovable devil’ would help her to heap layer upon layer until her laughter no longer reaches her eyes.
…
Unable to speak, Marta steps quickly away from her uncle, just in time to see her sister hurrying towards them. Gone is the bright-eyed, equine skittishness of moments ago, instead, she sees a tragic parody of their drunken, bumbling selves in the fermenting-house, stepping blindly amongst clods of earth and piles of prunings. With one hand, Ana clutches the handle of her red bucket, her fingers numb, her knuckles white. All but forgotten, it hangs limp, emptied of its laughter and yet, a heavy burden. With the other hand, she pins damp and matted curls to her forehead.
When Marina sees her sister’s eyes are puffy and swollen, she summons a comforting smile like she has so often seen upon the face of their mama. Arms held wide, she draws her sister into a tight embrace. It‘s then that she sees in Ana’s brimming eyes not only the reflection of her own uncertainty and despair, but the ties that bind. For when one strand of a woolen twine is frayed, the other must be twice as strong.
“What, Ana? Did you fall and spill your bucket?”
“No. Did you not hear it?”
“Que? What did you hear?”
“Umm, nothing … nothing at all.”
“It’s impossible. How did you hear nothing? What was it like?”
“It was like the sky fell.”
Soon, their uncle calls to them to follow along towards the lights of the villa. But as they clutch each other for the warmth and comfort of tiny hands, something at their feet gives them pause. At first glance, it seems a melding of their shadows, their “silly selves”: the joyful chubby companion that mirrors the times when they walked together as they once did in the womb. But when they fall into step, and set it dancing merrily before them, it hisses like a nest of vipers. At their feet lies an autumn cloak of gray and raddled, windblown leaves.
In mute astonishment, they huddle close, catching for a moment a shimmer of magic that reeks of summers past and springtime vines in bud. A will-o-the-wisp, it darts like quicksilver around their ankles, leaving trails of viridescent fairy dust upon the autumn fall. When they blink and look once more, there’s nothing but the gathering dusk, and the musty smell of rotted leaves.