January, 2016
Nay, France
Zari
Zari stepped off the bus by a stone bridge that arched over a swiftly-flowing, narrow river in the town of Nay. A light rain fell as she walked over the bridge and onto the glittering wet cobblestones of the ancient streets. The air was chillier here than in Pau, even though the bus ride had taken less than an hour. She thrust her hands in the pockets of her jacket, wishing she had remembered to bring gloves.
Steep foothills rose up just behind the town, which was nestled at the base of the Pyrenees. The medieval character of the central square was perfectly intact, dominated by a town hall that faced north and surrounded by buildings with half-timbered facades. A long arcade with graceful Romanesque arches wrapped around the entire square.
Zari approached the wide double oak doors of the Sacazars’ home and paid her entry fee to a woman in a glassed-in kiosk. Crossing the threshold into the courtyard, she was confronted with the sight of three stories of arcaded stone balconies. The balconies were supported by columns carved with decorative flourishes. Under her feet, rocks in various shades of gray, black, and white formed complex patterns on the courtyard floor.
A series of descriptive placards were affixed to one of the walls next to a pair of faces carved in stone that were identified as Carlo and Flora Sacazar. According to the text, the Sacazars had been a family of importance in the late 1400s and early 1500s both in Aragón and Béarn. Their ancestral home had been in Zaragoza. They had two daughters and had risen to prominence as traders of wool and makers of fine fabric.
Apparently the Sacazars had taken advantage of their status as sheep-breeders in Aragón by shipping fleeces over the mountains and having them processed in Nay, then selling the fabric in the town market to buyers from the north. They also traded in oil, wine, olives, and iron from Spain.
One of the placards listed the items in Flora Sacazar’s will. Zari stared at the words for some time, her lips moving as she worked out the English equivalents. The list was mostly made up of clothing items: dresses of silk and wool, sleeves, hats. Then there was some jewelry, followed by other items she could not decipher.
Near the bottom of the placard she made out the words, ‘Two portraits painted in oil.’
Her heartbeat ticked up a notch. She took photos of the placards and texted them to Laurence.
Zari’s eyes were drawn to the carved faces on the wall again. The stone was stained and darkened, and the features of the couple were blurry, pocked with deep pits and grooves. The man’s face, particularly, was nearly flattened in places, as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. His nose was missing entirely.
She scaled each set of stairs, slowly wandering the rooms. The only sound was the gentle slap of her shoes on the cold stone floor. The exhibits traced the growth of Nay’s industries. The town had become a hotbed of fine wool fabric finishing in the Renaissance era, and dye houses had sprung up along the riverbanks. Satellite industries had taken root: notions, ribbons, lace, buttons. Meanwhile a burgeoning woodworking industry developed, with the seemingly endless forests of the Pyrenees providing the foundation for high-quality furniture making.
She saw massive wooden looms, spindles and distaffs, mannequins dressed in replicas of eighteenth-century peasant garb. All the tools and trappings of the region’s wool fabric industry were laid out before her, housed in glass-fronted cabinets, or presented in tableau fashion behind cords of rough rope.
On the third floor, she went outside to the balcony. The sun had broken through the clouds and a flood of light illuminated the courtyard below. A group of schoolchildren was massed below her, chattering excitedly. Several of them formed a line and, balancing on their toes, they followed the patterns laid out in the stones. Zari watched the children hop from one stone to the next, drinking in their energy and unselfconscious exuberance. Her thoughts turned to her niece and nephew. She missed the high, clear timbre of their voices, the immensity of their hugs.
After a few moments, the teachers managed to corral their charges into a line and they trooped inside the building. The courtyard was suddenly silent. An orange cat appeared below her, stepping daintily across the stones. Zari watched it, transfixed. Then she took a photo of the cat and its shadow.
Sitting at a café on the edge of the square, Zari sipped a tiny cup of espresso, watching clouds move across the sky. She loved this kind of weather—dark and rainy one moment, sunny the next.
When her mobile buzzed, Zari jumped.
Laurence wasted no time with pleasantries.
“You understood most of the text?”
“Yes.”
“The part about three silken dresses, two fine wool dresses? The sleeves?”
“Yes, I got that part. I didn’t understand the specifics about Flora Sacazar’s jewelry or the paintings.”
“She had pearl necklaces. A gold and ruby necklace. Ruby and gold rings. Silver plate. Jeweled caps.”
Laurence drew in a breath. Zari knew she had gotten to the important part.
“Two portraits made in oil on panel,” Laurence read slowly. “With gilt frames.”
“Portraits of whom?”
“It says nothing else about them.”
Zari drained her espresso. “We need to see that will. The entire document.”
“Absolument.”
“I’m going back to the museum.”
The woman in the museum kiosk shook her head. “Those paintings? They are not here. Nothing belonging to the Sacazars is here. This is a museum of industry now. The building is just a space for museum exhibits.”
“Still, I would like to see the will.”
“It is impossible for a tourist to see such documents.”
Zari fished through her bag for a business card. “I am not a tourist.”
The woman peered at Zari’s card, frowning.
“My colleague Laurence Ceravet is helping me with this research,” Zari added. “She is with the university in Pau.”
“Have her contact the museum director, then,” the woman said carelessly, pushing Zari’s card back through the slot in the glass window that separated them.
Zari turned away, frustrated once again by her reliance on Laurence as ‘fixer’ for every bureaucratic maze she entered. It rankled her to be so dependent on someone else.
She ambled out to the center of the square and fixed her eyes on the Sacazars’ home. In her mind, the square was transformed into a bustling market, full of townspeople doing their weekly errands. She ran her eyes along the empty arcades that faced out toward the square, imagining them filled with the stalls of various artisans. Purveyors of wool, wood, grain, oil, wine. All hawking their wares to the people of Nay and the itinerant merchants who traveled up and down the pilgrim’s route of the Camino de Santiago.
She saw the merchant Carlo Sacazar leaving his home, making his way through the crowded square to the wool stalls, examining the quality of the fleeces brought by his competitors, comparing it to the fibers of his own wool, from his flocks raised in Aragón.
A bank of gray storm clouds moved in, obscuring the high peaks of the mountains that rose up to the south. Rain softened the sounds of traffic and people in the maze of narrow streets that radiated away from the central square.
Zari stood motionless, raindrops rolling down her face, immersed in the world she had conjured up. Imaginary scenarios rippled through her mind. She closed her eyes, going over the stops on the Camino from north to south and back again. She saw Béatrice of Belarac’s parchment mortuary roll, the signatures of Carlo and Flora Sacazar in the long list of mourners.
For a moment her shoulders sagged. She felt the pessimism that had gripped her in Toulouse flooding back. Why had she ever believed that she could resurrect Mira from history’s sealed-off archives? What use was there in pinning her hopes on a five-hundred-year-old will from an Aragónese merchant?
Then her eyes flew open. The Sacazars’ ancestral home had been in Zaragoza. If there was anything valuable preserved about them in the historical record, it was likely to be there.
She wheeled and strode quickly back to the bus stop.