Bartolomé Read online

  In his corner, Bartolomé made himself even smaller. For the first time in his life, he hoped that his parents wouldn’t notice him. If he listened, he could impress Joaquín later with his information. He’d make his brother promise, in return, to carry him through the streets of Madrid on his back, so that he could see for himself all the wonders of the city.

  Bartolomé crawled under the bed. It wasn’t really necessary. Isabel was so distracted, she never gave him so much as a thought.

  ‘What about the house?’ she asked. ‘We can’t just leave it empty.’

  ‘I’m going to settle that this evening,’ said Juan calmly. ‘Tomáz has been wanting to have a proper tavern on the village square for ages.’

  ‘He hasn’t got the money to rent a house!’

  ‘I know. So he’ll have to do me a favour instead.’

  ‘What kind of a favour?’

  ‘He’ll have to look after Bartolomé.’

  ‘Bartolomé!’ The blood drained from Isabel’s face, as it did from Bartolomé’s, where he was hiding under the bed.

  ‘We can’t take him with us,’ Juan explained quickly. ‘You told me yourself, the last time I came home, what happens when a stranger sees him. Ana is going to need a husband soon. She’s clever and pretty and strong. She’ll make a good match in Madrid. With a bit of luck, she could even marry a merchant or a master craftsman. And I need to find an apprenticeship for Joaquín. But the masters don’t take on just anyone. They demand good money. And if Bartolomé stays on here with Tomáz, that’s one less mouth to feed in Madrid.

  Under the bed, Bartolomé reddened with shame and anger. How could his father talk about him as if he were not his son but some worthless object!

  ‘But he’s our son too!’ cried Isabel loudly. She knew that Juan disliked Bartolomé, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

  Juan looked his wife in the eye. Why did she love this particular child so much?

  ‘I know that,’ he said. ‘But he’ll be better off with Tomáz than in Madrid. Cripples are forced to beg at the church gates there. People trample on them and jeer them.’

  ‘But we wouldn’t let that happen,’ protested Isabel.

  ‘Some day we’ll be old, and then we wouldn’t be able to protect him. And we can’t ask Joaquín to take on such a responsibility. With Tomáz, he can make himself useful in the tavern. Tomáz has no children of his own. He’ll get fond of Bartolomé and he’ll soon think of him as his own son,’ said Juan, but his voice had a hard edge to it. Isabel should be sensible, he told her.

  ‘It would break my heart to leave him behind. He’s still so small.’

  ‘He’s ten years old. At that age, Joaquín was already herding the goats. You have to think of your other, healthy children now. You can’t spoil their chances of a better life.’ Juan stood up from the bed and took Isabel in his arms. ‘This is the best way, believe me,’ he said reassuringly.

  Bartolomé was listening, waiting for his mother to fight his corner. He wanted to go to Madrid with the others. Tomáz would work him like a slave and would make no allowances for his poor, weak, crooked body. Bartolomé went rigid with fear. Why didn’t his mother say something?

  In the end, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He crawled out from under the bed, pulled himself up on a chest and screeched like an abandoned young goat for his mother. Tears streamed down his face. Isabel pulled out of Juan’s embrace and ran to her son. She knelt down in front of him, trying to dry his tears with the corner of her apron.

  ‘He heard it all,’ she stammered.

  Juan turned around, opened the door and stood on the threshold. Outside, he could see Joaquín, with the donkey and cart, surrounded by a crowd of amazed friends. His pretty Ana was standing among the girls at the well. For him, she was the loveliest of them all. Beatríz was sitting a few metres from him on the ground. She was playing with Manuel, telling him about the king, whom they were sure to see every day.

  There was a better future for everyone in Madrid. Only not for Bartolomé. How was Juan going to make his wife understand that, in the big city, cripples were mocked and abused – not just stared at, the way they were in the village, but spat on and humiliated by the indifferent masses. Behind his back, he could hear the despairing tears of the child.

  ‘Take me with you, take me with you,’ Bartolomé cried again and again.

  Isabel tried in vain to comfort him.

  In the end, Juan could bear it no longer. He turned around and said, ‘If we take you with us, nobody must see you. You’ll have to stay in our apartment, day in, day out.’

  ‘Yes, Papa.’

  ‘And if anyone comes to visit, you’ll have to go into the back room.’

  ‘Yes, Papa.’ Bartolomé would promise anything, if only he could go with them to Madrid.

  Juan tried once more to persuade his son. ‘You’d be better off here in the village.’

  But Bartolomé only shook his head silently. He didn’t want to stay behind alone in the village. He belonged with his family. He was a Carrasco too.

  Departure

  VERY early next morning, they left the village. Isabel wondered if it was to be a parting for ever. She’d spent her whole life in this little place with its white houses and its stony fields and its olive and orange groves. How would her family get on in the big city?

  Joaquín and Ana went ahead and led the donkey, which patiently pulled the heavily laden cart. Isabel and Juan followed behind the cart, Isabel with Manuel wrapped up in a bundle on her back, and Juan holding Beatríz by the hand. When the little girl got tired and cranky from all the walking, Juan lifted her up for a while on to the donkey’s back. Bartolomé was being shaken from side to side as he sat on the cart, stuck in among the family’s possessions: the bed, the table, the chairs, their household things and clothes.

  They’d started out early in the morning, but now the hot sun was beating down on the little caravan. They planned to stop at the next inn, in the next village, for a rest and to let the noonday heat pass. Bartolomé stared longingly down the road, watching out for a church spire. His tongue felt like a leather cloth in his dry mouth. He didn’t dare to ask for water. The water in the canteen was for the other children and for his mother, who had to walk. At last he spied, in the shimmering heat, the outline of a spire and several roofs.

  ‘A village!’ he called, stretching out his arm.

  Joaquín and Ana hastened their steps. They could hardly wait to rest in the shade. Ana smacked the donkey impatiently on its sweat-drenched flank to hurry it up.

  ‘Whoa!’ called Juan suddenly from behind. The donkey stood stock still and the cart creaked to a halt. Ana and Joaquín turned around, wondering what was going on. Juan approached the cart and reached for the reins.

  ‘Does anyone want a drink?’ he asked.

  They all shook their heads. The water in the leather waterbag was lukewarm by now and tasted brackish. Soon they’d get ice-cold fresh water from a deep village well.

  Juan took a slug himself and wiped the drops of water from his chin with the back of his hand. Then he offered the waterbag to Bartolomé.

  ‘Drink up,’ he ordered him. ‘Drink till you’re no longer thirsty.’

  Bartolomé did as he was told, though he didn’t understand why he had to finish the stale-tasting water. Juan waited patiently. After Bartolomé had given him back the water-bag, Juan opened one of the chests. It was empty, except for one blanket.

  ‘Climb in,’ he commanded.

  Bartolomé gave his father a horrified look. Was he supposed to crawl into this little chest?

  ‘Go on!’ said Juan curtly.

  ‘Juan,’ protested Isabel softly.

  ‘From now on, he’ll have to stick to the rule: he mustn’t let any stranger see him. If he doesn’t co-operate, then I can always send him back to Tomáz.’

  With clenched teeth, Bartolomé crawled into the chest. The lid slammed over him. Daylight squeezed into the dark through cracks in the wood, but the
heat was almost unbearable. Perspiration rolled off him in bucketfuls.

  Bartolomé could feel the donkey starting to move again and the slow, wobbly forward movement of the cart over the uneven road surface. He tried to lie in such a way that his mouth was as near as possible to the biggest crack, so that he could breathe fresh air. The rough woollen blanket scratched his sweaty skin. But when his father had made a decision, he stuck to it.

  The village was much like their home place. A few houses and a church around a dusty village square with a well. At the edge of the village was a little tavern. A farmer had set up a few tables in the shade of his olive trees. Here Juan stopped. He treated himself to a glass of wine. Isabel went with the children to the square to get water. Bartolomé stayed in his prison and listened to the conversation between his father and the owner of the little bar.

  ‘I’m on my way to Madrid,’ said Juan, ‘together with my family.’

  ‘If only I could do that!’ said the tavern-keeper with a sigh. ‘But my wife is afraid I would find no work there, and that she and our daughters would starve in the streets. Here we have a farm, and the bar brings in a bit of money. Only a fool would give that up, she says.’

  ‘I have work,’ said Juan proudly. ‘I am coachman to the Infanta of Spain. I have taken an apartment in Madrid, and my sons will have a better future there. They’ll learn a trade.’

  Bartolomé’s heart leapt. His father had plans for him, then. He was to learn a trade. If that was really possible, he’d go the whole way to Madrid in the chest without a word.

  ‘Sons. We hoped for that. But it was not to be,’ said the tavern-keeper sadly.

  Juan nodded thoughtfully. He was glad he had been spared that fate.

  ‘Both my sons will do well in Madrid, if they work hard. And I’ll make sure they do!’

  Both his sons?

  But he has three sons, thought Bartolomé. Did he not count? Bartolomé pressed his fists to his ears. He didn’t want to hear his father’s voice any more.

  Isabel came back with the children and the freshly filled water-bag.

  ‘I drank so much water,’ cried Beatríz, ‘that my stomach is ice-cold and it’s gurgling.’

  Juan laughed. ‘Then we’ll eat,’ he announced.

  Isabel got the basket from the cart and shared out bread, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, tomatoes, olives and peppers. Once, when the bar-owner had gone into the house to pour Juan another mug of wine, Isabel snuck the lid of the chest open and pushed in a piece of bread.

  ‘You’ll get more once we’re clear of the village,’ she promised Bartolomé.

  Let me out! Bartolomé wanted to yell. But he didn’t do it. Instead, he stuffed the bread in big wodges into his mouth and chewed angrily. It tasted salty.

  As the midday heat abated, they moved on. As soon as the cart was out of sight of the village, they stopped. Juan lifted Bartolomé out of the chest. He was dripping with sweat, and he had a heat rash on his legs, arms and face.

  ‘I don’t want to go back to the village,’ said Bartolomé, although Juan hadn’t said a word about that.

  Juan put him back in his place between the chests and the bed. The leftovers from lunch were waiting for him there, wrapped up in a cloth – another piece of bread, some cheese, olives, an egg and a few fresh figs.

  ‘I didn’t get any figs,’ moaned Beatríz, watching from the donkey’s back as Bartolomé was about to put one of the sweet fruits into his mouth.

  ‘Those are Bartolomé’s figs,’ her father said sharply. He felt guilty that the midday rest had lasted so long.

  Bartolomé hesitated. There were only a few fruits, and he could smell their sweet, heavy fragrance. He struggled with himself.

  ‘Beatríz and Manuel can have them,’ he said at last.

  Juan nodded and took the figs. Bartolomé tried to see if there was an acknowledging look in his father’s eyes, but he had turned away and was sticking a fig into Manuel’s mouth.

  He held the other two out to Beatríz. ‘You can have them if you’ll walk a bit now,’ he said.

  Beatríz pulled a face.

  Maybe she’ll refuse, and I’ll get the figs back, Bartolomé hoped.

  ‘He’s allowed to sit the whole time,’ whinged Beatríz. ‘And he’s much older than me.’

  Juan lifted Beatríz down immediately from the donkey’s back.

  ‘You’ll walk now,’ he said, putting her down roughly on the stony road. He pressed the figs into her hand. ‘You should be thankful that you have two strong, healthy legs, and that you aren’t a cripple.’

  The Mill

  THE afternoon went on for ever. They were still on the road when dusk began to fall. Juan had miscalculated. He had expected to make better progress. Now he had to hold Beatríz steady on the donkey so that she wouldn’t fall down from tiredness. He used the other hand to lead the animal.

  Joaquín had fallen behind ages ago and was dragging along, exhausted, behind the others. Ana held on with one hand to the side of the cart and allowed herself to be pulled along, her eyes half-closed, rather than really walking herself. Isabel did not complain, but Manuel seemed to get heavier with every step.

  ‘We can’t sleep out of doors!’

  ‘There’s a mill at the next bridge. We’ll spend the night there. It’s not far.’ Juan urged his family to get a move on. The only weapon he had was a dagger, and it was dangerous to travel after sunset without protection. Everyone had heard stories of vagabonds or robbers who wouldn’t think twice about murdering travellers in order to get hold of their goods and chattels, no matter how little they were worth.

  The first stars were already twinkling in the sky when at last they saw the grey silhouette of the mill on the horizon between a long row of pine trees, stretching up against the sky like black torches.

  Joaquín, Ana and Isabel were too tired to be happy about it. They stumbled forward, too tired to think. Bartolomé, however, was wide awake. He had slept for a while after he’d eaten, and now he was sitting with his hump leaning against the bed, looking at the astonishing universe above his head.

  If I were up there, he thought, then I would be able to see everything: the village, the road, the mill between the pines, even Madrid, without being seen myself.

  When they reached a point where there was only the bridge between them and the mill, Juan bent over Bartolomé and opened the chest. Bartolomé took one last look at the mill. In spite of the dark sky, it seemed to him now to be more white than grey. Perhaps that was because the pines behind it were so black, or because the stars shone so brightly over it. With this image before his eyes, he allowed himself to be bundled into the chest.

  Juan locked the lid carefully.

  As if he’s afraid I won’t stay in here, thought Bartolomé angrily. In fact he would never disobey his father’s orders. If his father could not love him as he loved Joaquín and Manuel, Bartolomé could at least get his attention by being obedient.

  Juan led his family over the bridge, through a gate in the fence to the door of the mill, and knocked.

  ‘You can’t leave Bartolomé outside all by himself,’ hissed Isabel.

  ‘We’ll take the chest in,’ answered Juan curtly. He’d decided that, apart from in their own village, Bartolomé would have to remain hidden from strangers. A man stood by his decisions.

  The miller opened the door cautiously, but when Juan explained what he wanted and said that he would pay cash for their lodgings and a pot of warm soup, he became more hospitable. He showed Juan the stable, where the donkey and cart would be safe.

  Joaquín unloaded the sleeping mats and blankets, the chest and the little wooden box with Isabel’s jewellery from the cart. The miller indicated a place where they could sleep in the grain loft. Joaquín and Ana had to carry the bedding and the jewellery box up, and Juan lifted the chest onto his back and, before the eyes of the curious miller family, he climbed carefully up the steep ladder with his burden.

  They’ll think I keep gold and s
ilver in it, Juan thought, setting the chest down beside the millstone. In the meantime, Isabel had made a sleeping place with the mats and blankets.

  ‘You’ll stay in the chest till we’re all up,’ Juan warned Bartolomé, without opening the lid. Then he went downstairs to eat the soup that the miller’s wife had hurriedly stretched with water and bulked out with eggs and tomatoes.

  Beatríz was too tired to spoon up the hot liquid. Isabel ladled a little of it into her and then carried her up the narrow ladder.

  Before her head had touched the pillow, Bartolomé could hear her soft, even breathing. He waited patiently. A little later, Ana and Joaquín came. Joaquín knocked on the chest.

  ‘It was a thick vegetable soup with eggs,’ he announced through the lid. ‘Pity you won’t get any. But you can’t be hungry anyway. You didn’t have to bestir yourself today.’

  Joaquín’s feet hurt. Having pulled off his patched boots, he could see that they were swollen and fiery red. Why should Bartolomé get soup, when he’d ridden on the cart all day?

  Ana rebuked him: ‘He can’t help it. He’s a cripple and he can’t walk like us.’

  But she was too exhausted to make Joaquín apologise to Bartolomé. Tears sprang to her eyes when she took off her shoes and found big blisters on her heels and toes. She couldn’t imagine how she’d be able to walk the next day. She crept under her blanket without saying anything more.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Joaquín, lying down beside her.

  Bartolomé wasn’t allowed out of his prison until his parents came up to the loft, carrying the peacefully sleeping Manuel. Then he found himself a place between his sleeping brothers and sisters.

  ‘Are you still hungry?’ asked Isabel in a tired whisper. Bartolomé shook his head.

  In the morning, they were awoken by the grinding and grating sounds of beams, wheels and millstones. The miller had opened the millrace outside and the great millwheel was starting to creak and turn. He’d be up the ladder any minute now to grind the corn and fill it into sacks.