Chapter 2

In the late-1800s, many industrial workers across Asturias were shedding their faith as they embraced socialism and rose up against the established powers. The centuries-long holy war to reconquer the Iberian peninsula from the Umayyad Muslims had fostered a particularly conservative brand of Catholicism in Spain. Thereafter, the Spanish Church had maintained strong ties with the monarchy and ruling classes. That relationship fueled a bilateral animosity between the Church and frustrated nineteenth-century laborers, but the farmers of Castrillón generally remained devout.

The cabildo was a fixture of the church or chapel in most Spanish villages and towns. Sometimes it was located within, at the back of the nave, sometimes under a roof off the side of the building, as it was at San Román, with stone-block benches around the perimeter. Either way, seated around the cabildo, the villagers collectively decided their community affairs. Government appointees administered the law in the district capitals, but in the thousands of tiny settlements scattered throughout the countryside, there were no regular representatives of officialdom. The parishioners essentially governed themselves by direct democracy at the cabildos.

* * *

As always for the Sunday high mass at San Román, worshippers packed every pew. The church was small, but its baroque interior was lavish. The trumpeting angels, corpulent putti and haloed saints gazed out toward the nave from the gilded altar filling the apse.

On this Sunday, two days after Casilda’s funeral, Carmen and Anselmo presented Mercedes for baptism. The medieval stone font was shaped like a giant egg cup. Bernardo had elected not to attend. The parishioners, who so recently were mourners, smiled and applauded when the priest lifted the newly-christened Mercedes before the altar and then walked up the aisle, hoisting her high for them to welcome into the Church.

“That scoundrel, Bernardo,” Anselmo hissed as he and Carmen stood beside the church receiving congratulations on Mercedes’ baptism from their neighbors. Most of them were related in one way or another.

“Oh, Anselmo, don’t taint this beautiful day with bitterness,” Carmen said. She had begun to regain her sense of balance, and the joyous occasion of Mercedes’ baptism further lifted the gloom which had descended with Casilda’s death.

“Well, I would say,” interjected an old cousin who had overheard Anselmo’s comment, “that everyone else here agrees with your husband’s assessment. It’s a scandal for the whole village. Inexcusable.”

Anselmo turned to the old man. “But what are we to do about it?” he asked. Smacking one of the church’s limestone quoins with the palm of his hand, he added: “My wife’s brother’s heart is harder than this block on the issue. He will not take her back.” Anselmo always referred to Bernardo as “my wife’s brother.” After twenty years of marriage, he still could not stomach calling Bernardo his brother-in-law.

“I’ve called a village meeting,” the old man, Juan, informed them. “We’ll arrange for her to live for a while with each of the families who can afford to take her in. We all know it would be a great burden for you to bear alone, given your own new baby to care for and the troubles this year at your farm.”

It was true. They were struggling. The floods brought on by the abnormally long and heavy rains the summer before had hit their corn and hay crops particularly hard. Anselmo was forced to sell half their cattle and hogs when their low-lying pastures were swampy for weeks on end. Much of their money went to feeding the remaining livestock. Fewer cows and hogs meant less milk, butter and sausages to sell at the market in Avilés for much needed cash. Still, Anselmo began to protest, his pride bruised.

“No, no,” Juan said, waving his hand in a gesture more conciliatory than dismissive. “As a village and a family, we all must share in compensating for our cousin’s latest sin. Father Agustín and the others are waiting in the cabildo for us. We’ll meet there now to sort out the details.”

Relieved to have some assistance, Anselmo and Carmen walked with Juan around the corner of the church to the cabildo. Juan quieted their neighbors and began. “We have not gathered here to cast aspersions upon Bernardo, though we legitimately could spend the remainder of the afternoon doing so. His behavior is reprehensible. This, we all know.” Pointing toward sleeping Mercedes in Carmen’s arms, he added: “Now, we must focus our attention on this child and committing ourselves to providing for her.”

There was murmuring and shuffling. They were all farmers with large families of their own. Most lived ten or a fifteen people to a rustic house. A six-acre farm was considered a significant patrimony. Many families subsisted on plots of an acre or two, with a couple of cows for milk, a few hens for eggs and a pen of rabbits for stewing. Grandparents, parents, children and unmarried aunts worked long days growing fruits, vegetables and greens, and making sausages and cheese for the table and to sell at the market in town. Taking on Mercedes for years would be a challenge for any of them. Bernardo had a bigger, more prosperous farm than most in the area, which fed the resentment that they were being asked to make this sacrifice.

As the discussions rumbled among the people crowded on the stone benches, a tall, bearded man stood and stepped forward into the middle of the cabildo. “God has been good to me. My animals have flourished, and I have the means to bring this girl into my household, at least for the next year. We will be the first.”

“Thank you, Manolo. Thank you very much,” Juan said. “I have no doubt that God will note this great kindness.”

“You’re a good man,” Carmen said to Manolo as she handed Mercedes to his wife, Noelia. Carmen stroked Mercedes’ bald little head. “I wish with all my heart that we could keep her ourselves, but … but …” She was unable to continue. It all was so unfair, Carmen thought again, as she had repeatedly over the past days. That Casilda died. That Bernardo was taking the tragedy out on this innocent child. That she and Anselmo were having so much trouble when they worked so hard and remained ardently faithful to God and the Church. At the least, they should have been able to take in her niece.

“Now, now,” Noelia said. “We all understand that you would keep her if you could. We’ll attend to her needs, but you always will be her mother on this Earth now that Casilda is gone.”

Carmen nodded quickly. She sniffed and wiped away her tears with her fingertips. It was so unfair. Anselmo put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. Carmen pressed her head against his thick chest.

“Very well,” Juan said. He was not much for sentiment. “Our work here today is done. I propose we meet again, in a year, to assess the circumstances and determine which household can best afford to relieve Manolo and Noelia, if need be.”

The group dispersed quickly into the lane, and then home to their farms and dinners. Sunday was their one day of rest, when they could take it. Each family passed the afternoons following the mass feasting as heartily as they could manage and whiling away the hours in relaxed conversation.

Only Carmen, Anselmo, Juan and Father Agustín remained in the cabildo. “Come with me for a libation before you go home,” the priest said, motioning toward the seventeenth-century rectory across the lane. The house was half as large as the church itself. They followed as the aristocratic priest strode over to the rectory, through the arched doorway and across the wide, waxed floorboards of the spacious parlour.

“I’ve never seen so many books in my life,” Carmen whispered to Anselmo as they stood in the center of the room surveying Father Agustín’s wall of walnut shelves filled with leather-bound volumes. The youngest son of a noble family which had held onto its wealth— unlike many of the impoverished titled in late-nineteenth-century Spain—the priest was an educated and cultured man.

“Please, sit,” Father Agustín said as he turned from a richly-carved chestnut cabinet. Carrying a silver tray bearing a bottle of wine and four glasses, he nodded toward an upholstered settee and armchairs near the open parlour windows.

“You have comported yourselves as well as anyone, including the good Lord, could expect in this trying time,” Father Agustín said as he poured them each a glass of the rich Aragonese red he preferred.

“Thank you, Father,” Carmen said, taking a deep drink of the dark-purple wine. “I hope that we’ll be able to take her back next year, or the next. She belongs with us.”

“I know,” Father Agustín assured her. “And there always is the chance that God will provide some correction to Bernardo—”

“Oh, Father,” Anselmo interrupted the young priest, grimacing. “Even you’ll be mouldering over there in the cemetery before my wife’s brother grows any basic human decency. No, we have to be prepared for that girl to wander from family to family, an orphan with her father living fat up the road, until she’s old enough to fend for herself.”

Father Agustín nodded slowly and took a sip from his glass. “This may well be true. If it is, it will be as God intends. And in this world or the next, Bernardo will pay for his sins. Our part is to see that Mercedes suffers as little as possible.”

They sat silently for a while, sipping their wine, feeling the breeze through the windows and listening to the birdsong. Carmen contemplated Bernardo’s long list of calumnies.

Juan broke the silence. “We’ve made a good start,” he said. “I’d hoped Manolo and Noelia would accept the duty, but I didn’t want to push them. They had to decide for it themselves. I’m thankful that they did.” Draining off his wine and slowly rising to his feet, Juan added to Carmen: “Don’t worry, Carmelita. We’re all with you, and with that little girl.” Glancing around the room and leaning on his cane, Juan declared: “Now, I believe there’s a pot of fabada waiting for me at home, and this old body is famished.”

Carmen and Anselmo also took their leave and walked the three-quarters of a mile back to their farm. Carmen appreciated their cousins’ generosity, and the kind words from Juan and Father Agustín, but she was still sad and angry.

When Carmen and Anselmo arrived home, their boys were running around the barnyard, tormenting a chicken. The weather had broken not long after dawn, dark clouds and cold rain yielding to blue sky and the bright, warm autumn sun. The dusky scent from the eucalyptus trees covering the hillsides floated on the breeze as Carmen herded the boys into the house and began to lay out the family’s Sunday dinner.

Mercedes was oblivious, at least consciously, to her new surroundings as she entered her third home in less than a week of life. The six children of Manolo and Noelia were intrigued and excited to suddenly have a seventh in the house, especially the three girls. As Noelia prepared a cradle for Mercedes, their oldest daughter, Covadonga, carried the baby around, talking animatedly to this living doll and pointing out items around the room.