The Winemaker (36 page)

The church filled rapidly; Santa Eulália was a village that turned out for funerals and weddings. Before the service began, he saw Nivaldo slip in—it seemed to him Nivaldo was limping—and take a seat in the last row of benches.

Standing before Padre Pio, Josep scarcely heard the intoned words, almost overcome by the realization of his great good fortune, but soon he was brought to attention when the priest took two candles and instructed each of them to light one. The tapers represented their individual lives, Padre Pio told them. Then he took the candles and gave them a third candle to light together, the symbol that they were joined. He extinguished the first two candles and announced that from that moment, their lives had been merged.

Then the priest blessed them and pronounced them husband and wife, and Marimar placed her bouquet at the feet of Santa Eulália.

As they walked up the aisle from the altar, Josep glanced at the place where Nivaldo had sat, and saw that the seat was already empty.

Marimar had prepared food in advance and had thought to spend the first day of her marriage in quiet contentment with her husband and son, but the villagers would not have that. Eduardo set off firecrackers in the placa as they emerged from the church, and the crackling noises followed the wagon as Josep drove them home.

Four borrowed tables had been set up in Marimar’s vineyard, already laden with the donations of their friends and neighbors—tortillas, salads, chorizo, and a myriad of chicken and meat dishes. Soon people began to turn into her path and gather around them. The castell musicians left their drums and grallas at home but two of them brought their guitars. Within half an hour the heat had driven Marimar into the house to exchange her fancy new costume for ordinary clothing, and Josep had rid himself of his jacket and tie and had rolled up his sleeves.

He watched her face, alternating excitement with joyous repose, and he knew that Maria del Mar was having the wedding for which she had yearned.

Their well-wishers came and left, some to come again. It was late in the evening before the last of them drifted away with final hugs and kisses. Francesc had long since fallen asleep, and when Josep moved him onto his mat, he was slumbering soundly.

They walked together to the bedchamber and shed their clothing. He left the lamp lit near the bed and they inspected each other with eyes and touching and wet kisses, and then fell on one another, quietly but with hunger. They were each aware that it was different this time; when she sensed his climax was near she held him, pressing him into her with her hands to prevent the withdrawal they had previously felt necessary.

It was an hour before he left her and went to check the sleeping child.

When he returned to the bed, he still wasn’t ready for sleep, and she laughed softly as he turned to her and made love again slowly. It was a powerful joining, somehow made more intensely their own by their inability to thrash and shout, in complete silence except for the renewal of the rhythms of mating and one stifled groan, like the sound of a prolonged and jubilant dying, that didn’t waken the boy.

56

Changes

Maria del Mar had no great affection for the house to which Ferran Valls had brought her and her child after their marriage. It took very little time for her to move her belongings into Josep’s masia. Her kitchen table was better than his, slightly larger and more strongly made, and they switched the tables. Admiring the French clock and the carved pieces in Josep’s bedroom, she took no other furniture from the Valls house, carrying off only three knives, some dishes, a few pots and pans, and her clothing and Francesc’s.

She left all her tools. When she or Josep needed a hoe or a spade, they would go to whichever one was closest to where they happened to be working. “We are rich in tools,” she told him with satisfaction.

The changed patterns of their lives occurred naturally. The second morning after the wedding she left the house after breakfast and walked to her own vineyard and began to hoe weeds. In a while Josep came with his hoe and began to work nearby. In the afternoon they moved together to the Torras piece, to prune young bunches of grapes from a row he had not managed to reach when he had debudded vines earlier in the spring, activity he continued the following day while she moved into the Alvarez vineyard to work.

Without any discussion, working together and separately to do whatever needed to be done, they made the united bodega theirs.

Several days after his marriage, Josep went to the grocery. He knew he would have to continue to shop there. It was unthinkable to travel afar for food and staples, nor did he wish to stimulate gossip by allowing the village to observe any change in his relationship with Nivaldo.

They exchanged evening greetings like strangers, and Josep placed his order. It was the first time he was buying food and staples for a family instead of for only one person, but neither he nor Nivaldo made a comment. He carried the things to his wagon as Nivaldo placed them on the counter—lard, salt, a bag of flour, a bag of beans, a sack of millet, a sack of coffee, a bit of candy for the boy.

He noted that Nivaldo’s face was pale and pasty and his limping was more pronounced as he filled the order, but Josep didn’t ask the older man about his health.

Nivaldo brought out a small waxed round of cheese from Toledo. “Congratulations,” he said stiffly.

A wedding gift.

It was on Josep’s tongue to refuse it, but he knew he should not. Some small gesture would have been normal, and Marimar would think it strange if Nivaldo offered them nothing.

“Thank you,” he forced himself to say.

He paid his bill and accepted his change with a nod.

On the way home he was torn by conflicting feelings.

Peña had been evil, and Josep was glad he was gone and no longer to be feared. But he was implicated deeply in the death of the man. He believed that if he and Nivaldo
were discovered, their punishment would be shared. He no longer suffered terrible dreams about the murder of General Prim, but now he experienced other horrifying moments while awake. In his imagination he saw hordes of policemen descending on his vineyard, ripping open the walls of his cellar while Maria del Mar and Francesc witnessed his shame and guilt.

They garroted murderers in Barcelona, or hanged them from gallows erected in the Placa Sant Jaume.

He skipped his selling trips to the Sitges market during the heat of the summer, not wanting to cook the wine in the hot sun, but he continued to bottle wine in the cool gloom of his cellar, and as the bottles accumulated on the dirt floor he realized the need for shelving. He had a good supply of salvaged lumber from the disassembled vats but not enough nails. Early one morning he rode Hinny through the darkness at a leisurely pace and spent a morning in Sitges culling old wine bottles, of which he bought ten, as well as buying ink powder and paper for more labels, and a bag of nails.

Passing an outdoor café, he saw abandoned on one of the tables a copy of
El Cascabel,
and at once he hobbled Hinny in a nearby patch of shade. He sorely missed having access to Nivaldo’s newspaper, and now he ordered coffee and eagerly sat to read.

The news held his attention long after the coffee cup was dry. As he had known, the war had been over for a time, now. The Carlists had not persevered, and things seemed to have quieted down all across the nation.

There was still bitter fighting in Cuba.

Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, the prime minister, had formed a government in Madrid that was a coalition of the moderates of the conservative and liberal parties, oppressive to all its rivals. On his own he had established a commission that had drawn up a new constitution, subsequently ratified by the cortes and supported by the throne. Alfonso XII wanted to rule a stable constitutional monarchy, and that was what had been achieved. An editorial in the paper observed that while not everyone agreed with Cánovas, people were relieved to turn away from bloodshed and strife. Another editorial commented on the popularity of the king.

That evening as dusk fell, Josep stood in the village placa with Eduardo and discussed some of the political changes. “Cánovas has pushed through a new annual tax on landowners and business people,” Josep said. “Now farmers must pay 25 pesetas, and shopkeepers 50 pesetas, in order to be allowed to vote.”

“One can imagine how popular that will be,” Eduardo said drily, and Josep smiled.

Eduardo also had noticed that Nivaldo looked as though his health was poor, and he mentioned it to Josep.

“The older generation of the village is fast disappearing,” he said. “Angel Casals suffers greatly these days. His gout involves both of his legs now, and it gives him terrible pain.

He looked at Josep uncomfortably. “I had an interesting talk with him a few days ago. He believes it is time for him to step down as alcalde.”

Josep was shocked. Angel Casals was the only alcalde of San Eulália that he had known in his lifetime.

“It is forty-four years since he succeeded his father as alcalde. He would like to remain alcalde one more year. But he realizes his sons are not old enough or experienced enough to succeed him.” Eduardo’s face reddened. “Josep…he would like me to succeed him as alcalde.”

“But that would be perfect!” Josep said.

“You would not be offended?” Eduardo asked anxiously.

“Of course I would not.”

“Angel admires you greatly. He said he struggled for a long time, trying to choose between us, and that finally he arrived at me because I am older than you.” Eduardo smiled. “Which, he hopes, may indicate that I may be a bit more mature.

“But Josep, we do not have to allow Angel to choose his successor. If you would like to be alcalde of the village, I would support you with the greatest contentment,” Eduardo said, and Josep knew he was sincere.

He smiled at Eduardo and shook his head.

“He made me promise I would serve for at least five years,” Eduardo said. “After that, he said, perhaps you would take a turn, or one of his sons…”

“I need you to promise me that you will serve at least forty-five years. I would like to remain on the village council for that long, for it is my pleasure to work with you,” Josep said, and he and Eduardo embraced.

Their encounter lifted Josep’s spirits. He was genuinely happy that Eduardo would become the alcalde. He had come to see that whether someone was the owner of a
great mill or a small grower of grapes, the very food and flavor of life depended on whether there was a good alcalde, a competent governor, an honest cortes, and a prime minister and a king who were truly concerned about the condition and future of their people.

Josep built cellar shelving that was strong enough to support several hundred bottles of wine, but without any attempt to make a piece of attractive furniture. He shelved the bottles next to one another on their sides, and he loved the sight of the array, the dark wine gleaming richly within the glass in the lantern light.

One day he was working among the vines late in the afternoon when a horseman turned his mount into the vineyard from the lane.

“Is this Josep’s vineyard?”

“It is.”

“You are Josep?”

“I am.”

Dismounting, the man announced that he was Bru Fuxá of the village of Villanueva. He was on his way to Sitges to visit his relatives there.

“The last time I visited my cousin Frederic Fuxá, whom you know, together we finished the last drops of a bottle of your beautiful wine, and now I would dearly like to buy four bottles as gifts for my cousins.”

It was not an overly hot day, but Josep cast a worried glance at the sun. It was already was low in the sky, but still, heat and wine…

“Why don’t you linger for a bit, relax with me for an hour? Then you can ride on to Sitges in the pleasantness of early evening, when cooling breezes blow along the Barcelona road.”

Bru Fuxá shrugged and smiled, and tied his horse next to Hinny in the shaded overhang of the roof.

He sat on the vineyard bench and Josef brought cool water. The visitor revealed that he was an olive grower, and they talked companionably about the raising of olives. Josep brought him to inspect the old trees on the Vall piece, which Senyor Fuxá declared to be beautifully maintained.

When the sun was sufficiently down, Josep brought him into the cellar and carefully wrapped four bottles in part of his dwindling supply of old newspaper, and they stowed the wine in his saddle bags.

Fuxá paid and mounted. As he saluted and turned his horse, he flashed a smile.

“A beautiful bodega, senyor. A beautiful bodega. But…” He leaned forward.

“It lacks a sign.”

The next morning Josep cut a square piece of oak planking and fastened it to a short length of narrow post. He asked Marimar to do the lettering, not confident that he could perform with the required neatness. The result was a sign that was not at all fancy, bearing resemblance to the For Sale sign that Donat had erected and he had destroyed. But the new sign performed its function well, which was to tell a stranger exactly where it was that he had arrived.