"I'm the sea of all your ports. The talisman of your skin has promised me that your destiny lies at my door." Rosana,
El Talisman
.
**********
19-year-old Ezequiel Galindo Muñoz was setting the table for dinner.
Alejandra, his sister of 22, was preparing the arroz con leche; a pudding of rice, sugar and spiced goat's milk that everybody ate during Holy Week.
Today was April 13th, one of the last days of Holy Week. Lent would soon be over. There'd been a Pasos through the streets of Jerez that afternoon, with the plaintive singing of the saeta floating through the alleyways, and the crowd joining the prayers.
They had attended the procession, then returned home to this pueblo, a big collection of dwellings inhabited by jornaleros--people who toiled the land on nearby latifundios. Those vast tracts owned by the upper classes.
With dinner to be made as soon as they'd come home to the pueblo, Alejandra had taken off her mantilla, changed from her only black lace gown into a housedress, and joined their mother in the kitchen. She had made a fish salad as a starter, and was now making the arroz con leche for dessert. Their mother Soledad was making the main course; a vegetable stew cooked in olive oil.
Soledad and Alejandra did all the housework themselves, with help from Ezequiel when it was asked of him. The Galindo family had never been able to afford help at home. Nobody living in this pueblo 3 miles from the Torrejón latifundio could afford paid help. At times, affording fish could be difficult for a jornalero.
The Torrejón latifundio had been a vineyard since 1896, when Don José-Miguel Torrejón had decided that his 527 hectares of albariza soil was better suited to planting grapes, not almonds. That was 72 years ago now.
Now, in 1968, Casa Torrejón was a successful vineyard, all things considered. Ezequiel would know, seeing as he and his father Laureano were among the jornaleros there.
It wasn't much money, but it was enough to put fish salad, vegetable stew and arroz con leche on the table during Holy Week.
And it gave him his only opportunities to see Esperanza, the girl he loved. 19-year-old Esperanza Torrejón Lagares, the only child of Don Cipriano Torrejón y Reguera and Angela-Maria Lagares.
Esperanza...
She was
his
Esperanza, although nobody knew it except the two of them. They had belonged to each other for 4 months now, since she'd returned home from getting her fancy education in Madrid. That first night of her return to Andalucía, under the stars in the Torrejón
cortijo
, they had experienced physical love. It had been the first time for the both of them, and they'd shared it with each other.
Ezequiel smiled to himself, continuing to lay the table.
He laid places for five people; himself, his sister Alejandra, their mother Soledad, and their father Laureano. The fifth place was for Fermin Jurado, Alejandra's fiancé who was currently out on the veranda, watering the potted herbs.
"Don't let that burn," Soledad said to Alejandra.
Alejandra, who'd been looking thoughtful, lowered the heat on the arroz con leche, stirring slowly.
"In two minutes, you should take it off the heat, add the cinnamon and put it in the lower room to cool," Soledad continued.
Alejandra shot their mother a look. "I know that, Mama. I've been making this since I was 12." She poured the pudding into five bowls, sprinkled each with cinnamon and took the bowls down a short stairwell to the larder.
Soledad turned to Ezequiel. "When you finish setting that table, go tell your father that dinner will soon be served. I don't know what that man is always doing in that salon these days."
Ezequiel only nodded. Once the last dish was laid, he left the kitchen to find his father, going along a low-ceilinged corridor with white-painted walls.
This house had belonged to their family for three generations. It was one of four pueblo houses built around a central courtyard; a humble version of the grand single-owned
cortijos
. Like the kind Esperanza lived in on the Torrejón vineyard.
Ezequiel walked to his father's small salon. As soon as they'd all gotten home from the Pasos procession, his father had retreated to the salon, shutting the door behind him. He'd seemed more distracted than usual of late. It might just be one of his moods, but then it might also be something serious.
The salon was a cool south-facing room where they stored their few valuables and a small wine collection. Ezequiel knocked on the closed door.
It was several seconds before his father responded from within. "Come in," Laureano called.
Ezequiel opened the door, hesitating on the threshold. His father Laureano Galindo sat in his chair, a man of 56 with silver strands in his black hair. There was an open bottle of wine in front of him.
"Mama said to tell you dinner's almost ready," Ezequiel said.
Laureano nodded.
Ezequiel made to turn away, but changed his mind. Better to be sure than keep wondering. "Is something wrong?"
Laureano regarded him some time. Without replying, he turned to the window overlooking swathes of other pueblo houses--these dwellings of jornaleros and itinerant workers that made up their crowded, nondescript Andalucían pueblo. It was that fleeting period between sunset and dusk, where there was just light enough to make out the shape of the distant wine-growing hills.
A full minute passed without a reply from Laureano.
"Papa?" Ezequiel prompted.
Laureano's eyes remained fixed out the window. "This summer will mark the 50th year that our family has lived in this house and worked in the Torrejón bodegas."
"Yes. And?"
"I think it's time we left."
The words reverberated in Ezequiel. His instinctive response was disbelief, but the look in his father's eyes confirmed the truth of it. "Leave?! Leave to where?"
"Sevilla, most likely. Fermin has completed his pharmaceutical studies. He came to me last week to tell me that his plan is to open a pharmacy in Sevilla. Of course, he'll take your sister with him once they're married next month. It occurred to me that we might well join them. I can help add capital to what Fermin already has, and we'll all help run the pharmacy. It would be a family venture. That would certainly be a better life than the one we have here in this pueblo. Fermin agrees."
Ezequiel stared at his father. Leave this place where his own grandfather had lived and toiled? Leave this land? Leave his Esperanza? No!
"Fermin agrees?" Ezequiel couldn't help a sneer. "Of course Fermin agrees. He doesn't have ties to this land. Not like you and I do. He doesn't understand."
"But that doesn't make him wrong on this, Ezequiel."
Ezequiel entered the salon, pulled the chair across from Laureano and sat. He leaned forward, a thick mop of black waves falling over his forehead. His dark eyes burned. "Papa, I know things haven't been good in these recent times, but to just leave...?"
Laureano smiled bitterly. "Why not? Everybody else seems to be. It's not just in recent times either. Ever since that godforsaken Franco took over and destroyed our Spain, everybody in Andalucía has been leaving for Madrid and Barcelona and Alava. There's no reason we can't leave only for Sevilla."
Sevilla was still in Andalucía, but it was 55 miles away from here in Cádiz. 55 miles away from Esperanza.
"But there's no reason we can't--"
"Whatever you're about to suggest, I've already thought about it," Laureano cut in. "I considered everything before I considered leaving. Do you think I'd abandon the trade my father spent his life doing if I believed there might be some other way? I want to work in a bodega, not in a pharmacy, but we have no choice now. There's no money."
"There has to be something we can do. Maybe you can talk to Don Cipriano about paying you more. After all, your father worked in the bodega for years. There must be a way."
"Don Cipriano would laugh me out of the room if I made such a request. He wouldn't pay me a single
peseta
more than he already does. These times are tough on everyone. It's hard for any landowner to keep salaried workers at all. We're lucky as it is."
This silenced Ezequiel for half a minute. He looked down at his hands. Callused, scraped hands. Hands that hauled wine barrels, hefted to fill criaderas, and operated bottlers. They were not the hands of a pharmacist or a shopkeeper. They were the hands that created wine.
Specifically,
this
open bottle of wine on his father's table. It was a black glass amontillado bottle with a gold label printed: 'Casa Torrejón.'
The bottle was a gift from Don Cipriano himself; Esperanza's father. Every year, Don Cipriano gifted the bodega staff with a bottle.
From the open top, the wine's fragrance teased Ezequiel's nostrils. He already knew what it tasted like. He'd begun drinking Casa Torrejón amontillado before he'd begun drinking water. It was a medium-dry amber colored liquid that sat perfectly on the palate, with notes of brine, caramel, almond and oak. Aged under flor for 7 years and oxidized for another 8 years.
The finest amontillado in the world. And it wasn't only because his labors helped produce it.
Ezequiel stared hard at the bottle of amontillado. To leave the skills he'd been bequeathed by his grandfather? To leave the only life and land he knew? To leave Esperanza?
He looked from the bottle to his father's face. "Don Cipriano isn't a completely unreasonable man, Papa. At least I don't think so. It can't hurt for you to just ask him for more money. The worst he can do is refuse."
Laureano's eyes were hard. The line of his mouth was harder. "No. I won't beg for more from a man hardly older than myself. A man whose father respected mine. I'll talk to Don Cipriano alright, but only to tell him my plans to leave."
"You wouldn't be begging. Only asking your due. Just think about it. If he agrees, we wouldn't need to leave."
Laureano didn't reply for a moment, then he sighed. "We'll see." He pushed his chair back. "We shouldn't keep your Mama waiting any longer. You know how she gets."
Soon, they were all seated around the dinner table. As was their usual, their meal lasted well into the night. Ezequiel, who had been relieved that his father hadn't dismissed his idea outright again, was pleased to see that the thoughtful frown didn't leave his father's face throughout the evening.
Laureano said no more on the subject the next day, or the next.
