November, 2016
Pau, France
Zari
Zari stared into the darkness. She shut her eyes again, burrowing into the duvet, longing for sleep. Laurence’s guest bed was comfortable and the cool air in the room was perfect for sleeping. As usual, she’d had no trouble drifting off. It was staying asleep that proved tricky.
The shutters rattled faintly, straining against their hinges in the wind that surged off the mountains. Zari was comforted by the idea of those massive granite peaks, stalwart against storms brewing in the autumn sky. She ached to return to the high country, to slip on a backpack and traverse ancient trails worn into the earth by pilgrims, traders, smugglers...by every stripe of traveler.
Thoughts of the mountains led her, as they usually did, to Wil. During their week of hiking and camping under the stars in the Pyrenees, she had reveled in the absolute joy he derived from adventure. I want to go where he’s going, she remembered thinking as she walked in his footsteps, watching his loping stride. He charged up steep slopes with agility and grace, gripping his hiking poles with easy confidence. He spun out an invisible thread of courage to Zari, inspiring her to push past fear and revel in the wilderness around them.
She still wanted to go where Wil was going, Zari admitted to herself. Even though they were straddling yet another separation, she never stopped wishing for his presence in her life, dreaming about the day when they could cohabitate and learn what it was to share the small pleasures and mundane tasks of domestic life. When? How? The necessary details floated just out of reach, maddening her.
She reached for her mobile on the nightstand and tapped out a quick message to him. No response came, not that she was expecting one at this hour. Instead, the device’s dark screen intensified her loneliness. Would there ever come a time when she could just roll over in bed and take comfort from the outline of his sleeping form in the night? When she could place her palm flat against his warm back and feel the rise and fall of his breathing?
Groaning, she slid out of bed and switched on the light.
The Mendieta family lore was in her roll-aboard, untouched since she had skimmed through it during her first night in Geneva. It was better to read for a while than listen to her brain prattle on.
She spread it all out on the bed, rubbing her eyes blearily. The faint rumble of thunder penetrated the windows. She glanced up, saw the silvery ping of raindrops against the glass. Wrapping her duvet around her shoulders like a cloak, Zari crossed her legs and stared at the photocopied pages.
The originals were in a locked safe in her brother Gus’s house with all the other critical documents of her family’s life. Birth certificates, wills, passports. And now the mysterious scribblings of Lena Mendieta, a capsule glimpse into the shadowy history of her mother’s Basque ancestors.
They’re my ancestors, too, Zari reminded herself. Why she had so much trouble embracing the concept of ancestral roots was a mystery. Or maybe not. Her childhood had been clouded by the turmoil of her parents’ unhappy marriage, by the abrupt disappearance of her father from their lives before she reached adolescence. Her relationship with him, shaky at best, had essentially vaporized when he left.
After much deliberation, she’d contacted him this summer when she was tracking down information about the Mendietas. Her mother had recalled that in the early days of their marriage, it was he who showed interest in family lore. At gatherings with her extended family, he had amassed a small folder of genealogical information. But rather than return Zari’s call and God forbid, speak to his daughter, he e-mailed her. A short, businesslike e-mail claiming he knew nothing of her mother’s family history, erasing the idea that he had ever been interested in their ancestry at all.
Whether her mother had remembered wrong or her father’s memory was failing—or if he preferred not to get involved in anything regarding his first family—the curt formality of his e-mail stung. Upon reading it, Zari was overcome with a swelling wave of anger that took hours to dispel. Only by running for five miles without stopping did she corral her rage and fold it back up into a neat little box somewhere in the very back of her mind.
Now she felt the box begin to buckle and twist, her anger threatening to explode again at the memory. She shook her head, resolved to put her father out of her mind. There was no need to reopen the wound of his indifference.
In truth, she was probably envious of the life he had built with his new wife after he left her mother. They had two teenaged daughters whom Zari and Gus scarcely knew. And her father was so disinterested in Jasper and Eva that he rarely acknowledged their birthdays or other special events. Not that this was out of character. Back when Gus was navigating the throes of addiction to drugs and alcohol in early adulthood, their father was nowhere to be found. Zari had been the rock Gus needed to survive those years. As much as their mother wanted to support her son, she worked an endless series of jobs to survive and simply did not have the luxury of time to spend helping him cope.
Zari put her face in her hands. Tears burned behind her eyelids. She took several deep breaths, holding them each for a count of four, and slowly let the air leak from her lungs.
Finally she was ready to focus on the documents Lena Mendieta had given her that scorching August day in Oregon.
She shuffled through the pages, pausing to study some sketches inked in ballpoint pen—designs that looked vaguely Celtic, she thought. One of them was particularly compelling, a composition of intersecting lines that curled in endless loops. Under it were the words ‘Mendieta mark.’ Next, she examined a piece of lined notepaper covered with a pencil sketch of a house. It was broad, its windows framed with shutters, its low-pitched roof made of curved tiles.
Zari collected all the pages that contained images, fanning them out at intervals on the bed. She then focused on a list of names. A wall of fatigue hit her as she stared at each name in turn. Itzel. Berat. Arai. Basque looked nothing like any of the European languages she was familiar with.
She lay back with the papers radiating out from her body like the translucent petals of a desiccated flower. Slowly her eyelids fluttered shut.
The image of a green meadow teeming with wildflowers materialized in her mind. On the edge of the meadow was a blocky whitewashed house with a red ceramic-tile roof, its windows framed with red-painted shutters. A typical Basque home. Nearby was an orchard of fruit trees. She let the scene dominate her thoughts, her body relaxing into the soft duvet. As if from a great distance she heard the crinkling of paper under her legs and arms.
I should really gather those pages up, she told herself.
But then golden light drifted over the house in her imagination, reflecting off the whitewashed walls with harsh intensity. The sun was hot on her face, penetrating her skin.
She was barely conscious now. In the wild place where logical thought ended and dreams began.
That’s it, she thought, letting out a contented sigh. Sleep has come to claim me.
Outside, the rain grew fierce.