‘Alberto,’ said Mimi gently, ‘do you remember anything about the day you went missing?’
The old man shook his head. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to remember. That day had changed the course of his life. He could have been part of that comfortable family in the photo. Instead, he had been on his own, all through the years at the orphanage and then his young adult life. Until María Luisa.
Taking a deep breath, Alberto looked at Mimi. This was why he had come on this journey. This was the memory that had been missing for most of his life. Mimi was the only person who could tell him. It had been sixty-five years. It was time.
‘Please,’ Alberto said hoarsely, ‘can you tell me?’
Mimi nodded at Alberto, then topped up his glass of wine. The boy had gone to bed, and Vito was curled up outside his bedroom door. The house was quiet and calm.
Mimi chewed her lip absent-mindedly, as if trying to decide where to begin. Alberto waited.
‘Well,’ she started carefully, ‘you and your father went for a drive. He had a big, old car that he adored. It was late afternoon, and you both left in the car. But you never came back.’
‘Where were we going?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mimi. She stumbled a little over the words.
Alberto looked at Mimi. She shook her head and sighed.
‘We were playing. You, me and Néstor. There was an argument and you and Néstor had a fight. Your father came and took you off for a drive – to ease the situation.’
‘What was the argument about?’
‘Oh, nothing. Childish things,’ said Mimi. She looked into her glass.
Alberto looked at Mimi and recalled that his friend had always been a terrible liar. ‘Mimi, I’ve come so far for this. Please tell me the truth.’
Mimi looked at him and gave a deep sigh. Reluctantly, she began to speak again. ‘Néstor was not a nice child. He was jealous of our friendship – you and me. Being a little bit younger, he was always trying to keep up with us. My parents, too, must take some of the blame. My father always wanted a boy, and he and my mother spoilt Néstor.’ Mimi took a sip of her wine, then continued, ‘He was mean to me that day. And you defended me.’
As Alberto listened to Mimi talk, he saw images in his mind’s eye to match the words. He saw the courtyard dappled in light. He saw Néstor push Mimi to the ground. He saw his own reaction.
‘I hit him,’ said Alberto softly.
‘You remember?’ asked Mimi quickly.
Alberto nodded. He saw Néstor sitting on the ground, blood dripping from his nose onto his white shirt. He saw Néstor say something, saw his mouth move, but he couldn’t hear the words. He sensed a rage; then he was standing over Néstor, punching and kicking him with all his strength. Then large hands grasped him and pulled him away from the boy.
‘What did he say’ – Alberto looked at Mimi – ‘to make me so angry?’
She paused, unsure whether to speak.
‘Mimi, he said something to me. What was it?’
Mimi breathed in deeply. ‘He said that your father was not your real father.’
Alberto saw the scene again, and this time he could hear Néstor’s words as they came from his mouth.
You’re a bastard.
The old man caught his breath. He winced and closed his eyes. As Mimi watched him, Alberto rubbed his chest distractedly.
‘Are you all right?’ said Mimi, concerned.
Alberto opened his eyes and looked at her. ‘I’m fine,’ he whispered. He leant back in his chair.
‘After you left, we never spoke of it again. Néstor hid in his room for days. And although my parents asked repeatedly, neither of us said a word.’
Mimi continued, ‘A soldier came the next day to say your father’s car had been found. It had crashed and then caught fire. They gave my father your father’s papers. They were half burnt, but they were definitely his. The soldier said your father had been thrown from the vehicle and had died in the blaze. When my father asked about you, the soldier said you must have perished too.
‘My father wanted to go and look for himself – just in case. But the soldier said the area was very dangerous – the fighting was spreading. And he said no one inside the car could have possibly survived. My mother pleaded with Papá not to go, and in the end he agreed.
‘I’m so sorry, Alberto. They truly thought you had died in the car. If I’d known, I would have begged my father to go and search for you. And he would have. He adored you.
‘Instead, we learnt to live with the fact that you and your father were dead. Even Néstor was upset – he blamed himself. He was only a boy. Who could have known a moment of childish spitefulness would have such repercussions?’
Alberto frowned. Memories suddenly overwhelmed him – not just the argument, but the drive with his father and more.
Mimi reached across the table and put her hand on top of his.
Alberto looked up at her and said, ‘You wouldn’t have found me anyway.’
‘What?’ said Mimi.
‘If you and your father had come to the car to look for me, I wouldn’t have been there.’
Now he could see it. All of it. The memories were crystal clear, as if they’d been sealed in a vacuum and now released.
Alberto took a deep breath and started to speak.
‘After the fight with Néstor, my father took me to his car. We drove in silence. We were heading in the direction of the river, where he used to take us fishing.
‘But then we started talking. He asked why I hit your brother. For a long time I was silent, but he kept asking. I think he knew the answer, but he wanted me to say it. In the end, I did. I said that Néstor had called me a bastard.
‘It was then that we missed the turning for the river. I don’t think my father noticed until we were quite a long way past it. And then he just carried on, whichever way the road took us. He just drove. And we talked.
‘He said that it was true. That he wasn’t my real father. But that he was proud to be the man I called “Papá”. He said he had treated me as his own son, and intended to as long as God gave him breath in his body.
‘Of course, I asked him who my father was. He said he didn’t know. My mother had had an affair, and it was a man she loved deeply, but he had left her. She had turned to my father then, and was only a few months pregnant when he married her. He told me my mother never spoke of the man again. She had never spoken to anyone of him.
‘He said he was sorry. He was sorry about the way I had found out. He was sorry I had never been able to meet my mother or talk to her about it. He said he hoped it would not tarnish my thoughts of my mother. He told me what a wonderful woman she was: clever and beautiful and capable of huge love.
‘I told him he was my papá. That I could never consider anyone else my father. He looked at me. He had tears in his eyes. He couldn’t speak, he was so overwhelmed with emotion.
‘That’s when it happened. A tyre burst. You remember how old that car was? We weren’t travelling very fast, but when the tyre blew, my father wasn’t looking at the road. He was looking at me. It all happened so fast. The car swerved, and although he tried, my father couldn’t regain control. We veered into the ditch, then bounced out and spun. That’s when we hit the tree.
‘When we stopped, Papá was lying across the wheel, and his head was bleeding. I could smell petrol. I couldn’t open the door, so I climbed out of the window. I ran to my father’s door and started pulling at it, but it was stuck. The smell of petrol was strong, and I remembered Papá had been to the village when the last fuel delivery had been made. The car had nearly a full tank. Under the battered bonnet, I could see a flicker. I knew it was a flame.
‘I realized I had to get my father out of the car. I was screaming and shouting at him to wake up. After what seemed like an eternity, he lifted his head and turned to me. I shouted at him to open the door. He moved so slowly I was frantic. But he reached down to the handle on the inside, and as I pulled on the door, it flew open.
‘Right at that moment, the front of the car burst into flames. Papá was too groggy to move, so I pulled him from the front seat and onto the road. I was still dragging him when the car exploded. The force blew both of us backwards. I hit my head and must have been unconscious for a while. I don’t know how long it was, but when I woke up, Papá was on top of me.
‘I wriggled out from under him, calling his name. But the moment I saw him, I knew he was dead. He had taken the brunt of the blast, and his body had shielded me. He was horribly burnt. I could barely look at him.
‘I think I screamed. I remember calling for help – I don’t know how long for. But the road was completely empty. We had been driving for hours, and I had no idea where we were or how I could get help.
‘Then I realized no one could help my father now anyway. I sat down beside him and lifted his bloody head onto my lap. I put my arms around him and held his burnt body. I cried. I sobbed and I rocked his poor, broken body. I grieved for everything I had lost – all the family I would never know, and the one man who was truly my father.’
Alberto can see his father lying in his arms. He can feel his arms, stiff and sore. His father has been dead for some time. It’s late and the sun is sinking in the sky. With one last kiss on his father’s head, he stands and turns. He walks away from the road and into the bushes. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he has to get away from this terrible scene.
Through the bushes and across the fields the child Alberto walks. He doesn’t stop. The gorse scratches his legs, and he stumbles many times, but he keeps walking. The night becomes black and he can barely see his feet, but he keeps going.
His mind is a whirl. His father is dead. But he wasn’t his father. Who is his father? Should he go home? It isn’t his home anymore. Not now his father is dead. He has no mother and no father. He is an orphan.
He shakes his head as he walks, but the thoughts refuse to go away; instead, they shout at him, and the longer he walks, the more confused the thoughts become.
He finally stops for a moment and shuts his eyes. He takes himself inside his head. He sees his thoughts. They clatter and crash into each other. He realizes he doesn’t want to think these thoughts anymore. He doesn’t want to think about anything anymore. He screws his eyes very tight and looks at the thoughts. As he concentrates, the thoughts soften and swirl around his head. And then, quite purposefully, he sends them away. One by one, they disappear into a mist. His mind becomes blank. Now he doesn’t know what to think, what to feel.
Suddenly, he hears talking. He realizes he is near a road and he creeps behind a bush and kneels down. He keeps very still. It is a group of men, soldiers, passing by. They are talking about food. He wonders if he is hungry but can’t feel anything.
Waiting for the men to pass by, he is aware of leaves and twigs rubbing against his bare legs. He is just about to stand after the men have passed by when he hears more footsteps. He puts his head down and remains as still as he can.
Suddenly, something lands on his head. He senses more than feels his hair singeing and realizes it is a cigarette. Instinctively, he flicks it off his head. Then he holds his breath, staying as still as he can. He knows his life depends on it.
‘Show yourself,’ instructs a man’s voice. He doesn’t move. What should he do? His mind is blank. He does what he is told.
He clambers out of the bushes. He follows the orders and stands where he is instructed. With a sharp click, a flame lights up all their faces. He sees a pale man with freckles and a young man pointing a gun at him. They both wear black hats and dark uniforms.
‘What’s your name?’ demands the pale man. The way he talks is strange. He doesn’t sound the same as people Alberto knows.
‘Alberto.’
‘How did you get here?’
‘I walked.’
‘Where from?’
Thoughts try to return. They force against the thin wall he has formed to keep them out. They push and push trying to get back in. Where from? they insist. Where are you from? Who are you, and where are you from?
With all the effort he can muster, Alberto pushes them out of his mind. He will not think of those things again. He will never let those thoughts back.
And suddenly the soldier is holding him. He realizes he is crying, and with a sense of relief, he collapses into the man’s body.
When he has cried his fill, the pale man gives the young soldier an instruction. The young soldier takes his hand, and as he looks up, he sees the pale soldier smile, even in the dark. Obediently, he is led away.
After a short time walking, the young man says to him, ‘Alberto, eh? What’s your second name?’
‘Romero.’ He can say that without letting the thoughts back in, but he knows he can’t say – can’t remember – anything more or else the thoughts will return.
Then more questions. Where does he live? Where was he going? Where are his family? What was he doing walking in the dark?
He has a dim memory of a car, but he says nothing.
The memory skips and he is walking again. This time he is with the one they call El Rubio. They are walking in comfortable silence.
He listens to the quiet stamp of their footsteps and the swishing of the grass as it flicks past their legs. He is enjoying each moment, concentrating on all of his senses and filling his mind with this peaceful moment.
‘Alberto, are you sure you can’t remember anything about your home?’ the soldier asks.
He finds he cannot. He tries gently to see if there are any memories, but with relief, he realizes they have gone. Completely gone.
‘No, nothing,’ he says.
‘Not even your mamá?’
Suddenly, he hears his own voice shout, Mimi! The memories bubble up again, but he stamps down on them, before they can grow.
The soldier pushes him with more questions. But he finds the more he is prodded for information, the more doors close in his mind. Everything is carefully locked away.
The soldier gives up and for a while they talk easily about his home in England, his strange accent and his sunshine-yellow hair. The Englishman tries to explain why he is fighting in the war. As he listens to talk of a battle for fairness against cruelty, he sees a boy push a girl over. He flies at the boy and hits him in the face.
He realizes he is standing still, and the soldier is talking to him. With reluctance he explains, ‘I just had a memory.’
‘What was it?’
‘I hit another boy,’ he replies.
‘Why?’
He sees the boy push the girl again, but this time she falls and falls and disappears into black. There’s nothing there. The memory has gone.
‘I don’t know,’ he says honestly.
The soldier is talking, but he isn’t listening. For the first time, he is trying to remember. He tries to see the scene where he hit another boy. But it’s not there. He tries to find something else in his memory – names, places, a home. But there’s nothing there. He has dispelled them all. It’s not quite as comforting as it should be.
Now the Englishman is talking about fighting and throws an easy punch at his shoulder. He punches the man half-heartedly in the leg. The soldier then shows him how to hit properly, how to hold his hand in a fist.
Remember this, he thinks then. Remember this moment with the Englishman – this is something to remember. This is a new memory.
Time skips by again. He is standing in a churchyard. A door is open, flooding light onto him and the soldier. They both stand in front of a priest. He is tall and bespectacled. The priest gives the Englishman a long look, turns to him, then back to the soldier.
In his long robes, the cleric steps forward and puts a hand on his head. He in turn looks to Rubio. After a moment, the man with the yellow hair smiles and winks at him. He relaxes. He is leaving one man he trusts and is in the care of another. He smiles at the Englishman before the priest leads him into the church.
The church feels safe and warm. The priest introduces himself as Father Francisco. Then, without speaking, the priest takes him to a tiny bedroom. There, he pulls back the covers on the bed, takes off the boy’s jacket and boots, and helps him climb in. Then all is black.
When the sunlight reappears, he sees another soldier. This soldier is wearing an officer’s khaki uniform. The officer and Father Francisco are having a discussion – it’s very heated; they both seem angry. As he watches, the officer spits in the priest’s face.
Fury rises in him and he sees himself running towards the soldier. He remembers Rubio’s lesson in how to hit and curls his hand into a fist. With all his might, he punches the officer’s leg. He is just about to hit him again when a hand flies towards him and strikes him across the face. He hurtles back and falls to the ground.
Father Francisco rushes to him and kneels down beside him. The officer storms away.
‘Alberto,’ says the priest, looking into his face, ‘you shouldn’t have done that. I understand why you did, but these are dangerous times. Take great care of becoming involved in other people’s arguments. Captain García could have killed you – and just for the sake of a priest’s pride.
‘When you are older,’ Francisco continues, ‘you will understand that there are times when you should get involved, and times when it is better to stand back.’
He watches the priest wipe the spit from his cheek with his sleeve.
‘Why did he spit on you, Father?’
The priest looks at him and smiles. ‘Because I am still learning when to stand back.’
The memory flitters and stutters forward in a staccato fashion, revealing emotions and images. He feels fear as he says goodbye to Father Francisco and climbs into a soldier’s truck. He experiences an intense stab of grief as the truck passes fallen fighters and he sees the blond mop of El Rubio. He feels himself sink into a dark, deep hole and sees nothing. Then far away, he hears his name.
‘Alberto,’ says a woman’s voice.
‘Alberto.’
He blinks. He is holding a chunk of bread. The warm, sweet smell of chocolate wafts from it, and he is just about to take a bite when he hears his name again.
‘Alberto.’
He looks up and sees a young woman. She is wearing an apron, and her dark hair is tied up – she has a serious look on her face. She holds a piece of paper in her hand. It is the piece of paper on which El Rubio wrote his name.
He smells the chocolate and feels the warm bread in his hand.
‘Alberto.’
The old man looked up. Mimi sat in front of him. She held his hand tightly in hers.
‘Alberto,’ she said again softly.
Gruffly, he said, ‘I saw it, Mimi. I saw it. Everything that happened. The memories are coming back.’
‘It looks as if they are difficult memories,’ said Mimi gently.
Alberto nodded.
Mimi put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said quietly.
The old man looked at her and gave a sad smile. He lifted his glass of water to take a drink, but the glass shook with the trembling of his hand. Embarrassed, Alberto set the glass back down.
‘Brandy?’ asked Mimi.
Alberto smiled and nodded.
‘Come with me,’ said Mimi. ‘I’ll show you the collection and you can choose a brandy.’
Alberto raised his eyebrows at his friend.
‘There is no one else I would rather share these wines with,’ said Mimi.
Alberto smiled at her appreciatively.
Mimi led him out the back of the house to some stairs. At the bottom was a large oak door, which Mimi opened with a key.
‘We had this cellar built for the collection,’ she explained as she pushed the heavy door open, found a light switch and flicked it on.
The cool, stone room was lined with shelves, each filled with dusty bottles. Alberto breathed in the dry, musty air as he followed Mimi inside.
‘The ones by the door are the more recent wines, including those sent by Javier. You see this marker here? This signifies the death of my father. To be honest, I’m not very interested in the wines after that. But here’ – she waved her hand at the shelves of bottles – ‘is the wine that my father and our ancestors before him made.’
Alberto peered at the bottles but was frightened to touch them, conscious of their value.
‘There are more than five generations of our family’s wines here. Some are better than others; some have not aged well. But there are some outstanding wines. My father was always very careful to maintain the collection, and I still have the log of all the wines stored here.’
‘It must make you proud of your family,’ said Alberto, taking in the scene.
‘Yes,’ said Mimi softly. ‘Yes, it does. I’m still trying to decide what to do with the collection when I’m gone. My children don’t want it – they don’t have the historical links. And Néstor’s children are even less interested than my brother.
‘Of course, it’s worth quite a lot of money. Maybe I should just sell the collection, even though the thought pains me, and split the profit in my inheritance. I know I have to make a decision soon, but I keep putting it off,’ Mimi sighed.
Alberto nodded uncomfortably. He had barely anything to leave his children and grandchildren.
‘Now,’ said Mimi, brightening up and rubbing her hands together. ‘The brandy collection is down here at the end.’
They crossed to the deepest part of the room, where the single bulb threw only a little light, and the shelves here were densely filled with the stout bottles.
‘Our brandy became very popular locally,’ explained Mimi. ‘My father was always very proud of it, and the fact that he had expanded the business.’ She reached up and brought down a bottle. She wiped the dust off the label and showed it to Alberto.
‘This was a good year,’ she said. ‘My father really had a chance to develop the flavours. He and your father learnt a great deal from those first few years.’
‘Did you say he and my father began the brandy production together?’ asked Alberto thoughtfully. There was a memory fluttering around his mind.
‘Yes,’ said Mimi. She paused. She was remembering too: there was something significant about the beginning of the brandy production.
‘Could we see an early bottle?’ asked Alberto.
Mimi nodded and stepped to the corner of the room. There, she knelt down and wiped the tiny brass labels attached to the bottom shelf.
As she did, Alberto gasped. ‘The first brandy,’ he said. ‘I remember our fathers talking about it. It was a celebration.’
‘Yes,’ said Mimi, turning to him. ‘I remember too. The first bottle – it was dedicated to your mother!’
‘And the label on the bottle . . .’ said Alberto.
‘. . . shows the years of her birth and her death. Oh, Alberto, she died on your birthday.’
Alberto nodded, suddenly unable to speak. He reached for the wall and placed his hand on the cool stones to steady himself. After all these years of not knowing, he was about to find his birthday.
Mimi reached for one of the bottles and slid it out of its shelf, then handed it to Alberto. Holding it carefully, he stepped towards the light. Mimi joined him, standing close beside him.
Alberto blew hard and a cloud of dust surrounded them. Then he wiped his hand over the label, revealing the Quintero family crest and, in heavy red letters beneath, the words Quintero Brandy. As Alberto squinted at the faded ink, he saw words appear out of what he had first thought was a decorative flourish. It formed two dates.
At the sight of them, the old man smiled at the familiarity of his birthday.
Alberto turned to Mimi. ‘Just wait until we tell the boy,’ he said.