Jesus Speaks Galician

Penny castigated herself later for her response, automatic, unthinking. "You were married, Millie. You didn't tell us."

Millie's eyes went dull, she muttered, "You wouldn't have cared if I did," and she turned her face to the wall and was unconscious.

Sitting there on the side of the bed, the frail body of her older sister still in her embrace, Penny began to cry silently. She rocked her sister's inert body back and forth, murmuring over and over again, "I would have cared. I would have cared." Getting control of herself, she worked her way from underneath Millie and arranged her sister as comfortably as she could be in the bed.

Standing, she looked down at Millie as she smoothed down the flanks of her nightdress. "Oh, Millie, Millie, Millie. What has become of our family?" she murmured.

Not that there would be a family for her for very much longer. She already felt the loneliness slicing through her.

* * * *

A couple of hours later, Penny groped her way into the main room and over to the kitchen area, set up by an island counter. She stared, with regret, at the collapsed, obviously empty, coffee packet and electric coffeepot, unusable with the power still being off. She barely had time to open the unpowered refrigerator to scout out if there was anything that resembled breakfast for her that hadn't spoiled, when there was a knock at the door. When she opened it, Xesús breezed past her with a cardboard box filled with groceries. She caught up with him in time to retrieve the package of ground coffee from on top.

"Xesús forgot to tell you where the nearest market was," he said. "So Xesús got a few things for you."

"Would it help to know where the grocery store is?" Penny asked. "How would I get there?" She recognized that she sounded a bit petulant. She couldn't help it. Everyone else blamed morning grouch on the lack of coffee; she do so with the best of them. Was she the only one to realize how marooned and out of her element she was here?

"There's the Renault. You can drive when you've found the way."

"The Renault?"

"Yes, under the terrace. The garage. Do you know how to drive?"

"Yes. Of course."

"The refrigerator isn't working," he said, the door open, the light inside not on.

"No, the power hasn't come back on," Penny said.

"Come back on? How did it go off?"

"You don't lose power at night in the village? It's been off since last night."

"No, we don't lose power at night. Do you have your power cut at night in England?"

"No, of course not."

"We don't either. Here. Xesús will be back soon." He handed her the half-unloaded box and disappeared through the front door. Penny barely had time to unload the rest of the groceries before he was back with a short, grizzled-looking, middle-aged man. The lights had already come back on right before the two men showed up.

"Bad fuse," Xesús explained. "Viter fixed. This is Viter." Penny and the Spaniard acknowledged each other, while Xesús continued. "Viter lives two houses down. He did the work on this house. He can finish for you, if you want. You have any trouble like power going out, just go get Viter. Viter is Xesús' father's cousin."

"Are you all related in this village?" Penny asked, as a joke.

"Mostly, yes," Xesús answered seriously.

At that moment there was another knock at the door. When she opened the door, she could have hugged Dores and pulled her inside. As far as Penny knew Dores had been finished here last night and Penny was entirely on her own now. It only took the one time having to medicate Millie for Penny to know how ill prepared she was to take over totally. Millie was a much more difficult patient than Penny's father had been—and so frail that Penny was afraid she'd break each time Penny touched her.

Penny didn't hug the woman, though, not only because Dores was still taking on a stern countenance, but also because the old woman was holding a basket in front of her. Behind her was another woman, thinner and taller than Dores, but still elderly. She held a large oblong loaf of bread.

Handing Penny the basket, Dores marched past her and straight to the bedroom, where, on cue, Millie was rousing and beginning to moan in pain. The other woman stopped in front of Penny, smiled shyly, perched the loaf of bread on top of the contents of the basket, and then continued on past to the kitchen counter.

"Maria," Xesús explained to Penny. "She'll help tidy up the house." And, after another shy bob, Maria started doing just that, giving the door into Millie's bedroom a wide berth.

"Now, Xesús will be back this afternoon to show you where your fincas are. Wear something you can work in a garden in. The weather has been strange this year. Whereas you were getting winter in England, winter hasn't appeared here yet this year. We haven't had a frost yet and the weeds know that."

"But I'll have my sister to take care of."

"This is not a sprint, Senora Stanley. Dores will go soon, but she'll be back after lunch to watch Senora de Peres for a few hours. You need to have breaks."

"Dores will come back?"

"Yes, as long as she is needed and you need breaks. We are all family here. We will do this together."

Penny stood at the door, almost in tears, as she waved Xesús and Viter down the narrow street toward where Viter's house must be located.

* * * *

"You are a good worker," Xesús said, as they arrived back at the Fiat parked at the end of a row of grape vine frames and he brought out a bottle of wine. "You work fast and don't complain."

"When you told me we would be weeding in the vineyard and garden finca, I thought the job would be too big to tackle," Penny said, as she collapsed against the car and gratefully received a glass of wine. "My sister must have been in the hospital for some time and not have been able to tend to the fields for quite some time before that."

"The whole village took on the work," Xesús answered.

"Ah, that part about you being one big family."

"Yes."

"Tell me—I haven't really seen my sister for a long time—did she get along well in the village?"

"You sister was . . . she was a difficult woman to get along with."

"Ah, I'm not surprised. But the village is treating her like family anyway? I've seen how good and patient Dores is with her, even though I don't discern any affection for Millie there. Is it her sense of treating everyone in the village as family?"

"Yes, of course, why not—because she is family."

"I don't understand."

"Dores Varela is Rodrigo's mother. She did her duty correctly to your sister as Rodrigo's wife, and she is helping to care for your sister because she is family. She could not hold her head up in the village if she didn't do what she could for family. Dores does it for Rodrigo, though, not for your sister. It is complicated. It was clear that Rodrigo loved your sister and that she loved him. But . . ."

"But what, Xesús?"

"But Maria is Dores' best friend in the world, and her cousin, so she has always been reserved with your sister."

"Maria? The woman who came with Dores this morning to clean? I noticed that she didn't come close to my sister's bedroom. Did she and my sister not get along?"

"At some distance. They were family too, but—"

Penny laughed. "This family business seems quite incestuous. How is Maria family to Millie?"

"Rodrigo's first wife, Antía, was Maria's daughter. But once she had died and Rodrigo married your sister, even though they had been living together for some time already, your sister became family too. There is no choice in who is family and who isn't." He looked like he thought Penny was going to dispute that assertion and that he'd have to repeat it more forcefully. Penny didn't challenge him, though. As Millie's sister, she realized she had to respond to any of this family business gently and with sensitivity.

"And you, where do you fit into this family, Xesús?" she asked, assuming she had reached the end of this string at last, flabbergasted at how interrelated the villagers were—and that Millie could become—and couldn't escape—being accepted into their family simply by marrying Rodrigo.

"Maria is my mother; Antía was my sister."

The conversation paused there as Penny tried to catch her breath at this revelation. This man, who had been so kind and supportive of her was the brother of the woman Penny's sister had wronged for so many years. Penny was breathless at the mind-set of the strength of family and of the simple goodness of these Galician people.

"I'm so sorry, Xesús. I didn't realize. You can't have liked my sister very much—and you can't have wanted to help me very much either, as I am her sister."

"As I said, your sister is a difficult woman," Xesús said, but then he smiled. "I don't find you a difficult woman, though, at all, and I would help you even if I did, because . . ."

"Because I'm family," Penny finished for him, and they both laughed, clinked glasses, and took a long drag on their wine. "I must say you people extend the concept of family quite a bit. Let's see, I'm the sister to Rodrigo's second wife and you are the brother of his first, the relationship of all of us to Rodrigo makes you and me family."

"If you think about it, all of us on earth are family," Xesús answered, "and wouldn't it be well if we all thought in those terms?"

There wasn't anything Penny could say to that. She just smiled, comforted by the thought and wishing that it could be so.

Later that night, after she had managed to settle Millie down, Penny went back to the secretary in the studio and picked up the will again. This time, under stronger light of the candle in addition to the desk lamp, she looked more closely at the three separate bequests that had been made. The first set, this house, the fincas Xesús had taken her to today, the Renault under the terrace, and the surrender value of Millie's annuity from her job as a writer were being left to her. A house in the village, presumably Rodrigo's family home, a few parcels of land, and half of the liquid assets went to a Dores Varela. Rodrigo's mother. Dores also was to receive Rodrigo's paintings, with the exception of a small one, a portrait of Millie showing a rare smile and now hanging in Millie's bedroom. This painting was to be buried with Millie along with photographs of Rodrigo. The third bequest, yet another village house, parcels of land, and half of the liquid assets went to a Maria Cela. The mother of Rodrigo's first wife and sister of Xesús.

Then, and only then, did Penny reach for the envelope with her name on it that she hadn't opened the previous night when the power went out. The letter, as well as the envelope, was addressed to her. She read the short note.

I at last am facing the reality of going to the hospital with this cancer and chances are good I won't be coming out again. There isn't much to say to you now other than I'm sorry we are apart and I wish you well, Penny.

I am leaving you a small house in a village that has become both hell and paradise to me. I hope that the bequest will be enough to draw you here and give you the family that neither of us were provided in England. It was tough going for me here, especially after I lost Rodrigo. I brought it on myself, but Rodrigo was worth every moment of it. I hope you can find the inner joy I have from this slice of paradise and a man as good as my Rodrigo. There is a family here for you if you want one. These people never give up. I'm sure they will be surprised as hell, though, that I'm giving most of Rodrigo back to them. I only hope that I am giving you to them as well—and them to you. If you stay, please try to be a better family member than I was. I wish I at least was a better sister than I was and brought you away with me in the first place. I know you will find this hard to believe, but I would have come to Father's funeral if I could have. It would have been for you—and me—though, not for him.

* * * *

Millie's note had touched Penny. Not that it didn't have the same hurt and bitter flare of the woman Penny had known in previous written exchanges with her—their actual face-to-face time was too buried in the past and in family conflict for Penny to remember it. It was, rather, the recognition in the note that family could have beneficial power and that, in the end, Millie was giving back to her Galician family and showing them some, albeit begrudged, appreciation.

This knowledge made it easier for Penny to care for Millie, who was drifting off but too stubborn to give up yet. Penny found that she could hold Millie more tenderly and competently through the rough periods, which were decreasing in frequency and intensity as Millie's body lost strength and she floated ever further away from the present world. Millie didn't fight her when Penny cleansed her with a wet washcloth and there was less whimpering in Millie's unconsciousness. Millie hadn't uttered another word to Penny, though, since that first one about not caring, and there was no recognition given that Penny was even there.

In the same circumstances, Penny had resented the bitter, almost judgmental, response from her father as he was dying. But now, with Millie, because of the note and Millie's reverting of her husband's property to his family—other than the property given to Penny with the stated purpose that Penny could, at last, find family herself—Penny could let all of the resentment and hurt feelings evaporate. She was better prepared now just make her sister's last days as comfortable for her and loving for both of them as possible.

Each day Dores and Maria appeared in the afternoon to relieve Penny for a couple of hours. Penny came to see Dores' stiffness as just her way and Dores was nothing but kind toward both Penny and her sister. With each visit, Penny was picking up another Galician word to use in communication with Dores and Dores was managing an added English word herself. It wasn't lost on Penny that in all the years Millie was with Rodrigo, Dores must have resisted learning any English to aid communication with Millie and yet she was making an effort to meet Penny halfway.

Maria frequently attended with Dores and puttered around the house, cleaning what hadn't gotten dirty, and giving Penny shy, but friendly looks—but not going near the room where Millie was drifting away. This also wasn't lost on Penny—that Maria had such strong ties with Dores that she wouldn't let her friend handle this alone and that she openly accepted Penny even though Penny was the sister to the woman who had snatched the husband of Maria's daughter away from her.

Xesús appeared daily, too, always with some new way to pull Penny's mind and body away from caring for her sister, if only for an hour or two. Thus it was that he appeared early Friday evening, with Dores and Maria in tow, and declared that Penny was going with him into the nearest town of any size, Monforte de Lemos, to join in a regular meeting of English-speaking residents of the region for cultural pursuits in that language.

"Or, rather, you'll be taking Xesús," he said. "We'll take the Renault. You'll drive. So, this is really to get you used to driving the car here. Although it will be good for you to meet with others who wish to exercise their English."

"Is that why your English is so good?" Penny asked, with a chuckle. "Because you meet with this group."

"But, of course. You do not think Xesús' English is excellent?"

"Yes, it certainly is," Penny responded—especially the quaint way of substituting your name for "I" much of the time, she thought.

The English speakers, not many more than a dozen of them beyond Penny and Xesús, met inside a café in Monforte de Lemos, while, thanks to the unseasonably warm spell, the outdoor tables were still active and a guitarist was entertaining out there. The café was decorated for Christmas both inside and outside, and a portable heater warmed those outside, Galicians were fighting the march into the coldness of winter for as long as they could. Penny found the muffled sound of the Spanish guitar to be a mellowing influence on the buzz of English being spoken in the room, and she couldn't remain untouched by the decorations of the season. Those present constituted an almost equal proportion of Galicians honing their language skills and foreigners who already spoke English.

She was especially smitten with a handsome man with a wavy mane of salt-and-pepper-hued hair who appeared to be in his mid forties and who stood tall and straight and confident, commanding the room as he positioned himself by the fire and a Christmas tree. People were being drawn to him to bask in his smile and easy laughter, as he naturally became the focus of attention without consciously monopolizing attention.

"Would you like to meet him?" Xesús said, leaning over to whisper in Penny's ear.

"Who? Oh, the man over there with the books under his arm?"

"Yes. That's Paulo, the one giving the readings this evening."

Before Penny could say whether or not she wanted to meet him, Xesús had dragged her over to Paulo and was introducing her. The man turned a winning and interested smile on Penny, and she, like everyone else in the room had done, melted to him.

"So, you have come to hear love poetry?" he asked. His voice was a rich baritone. He went on before she could answer, "I'm glad cousin Xesús has brought new, and oh so lovely, blood into the group. We are usually quite sparse on poetry evening."

"Poetry?" Penny asked, blushing because he had taken one of her hands in his and she could feel a tingling sensation running up her arm.

"Yes," he said, taking the books from under his arm and holding them up. "First our own Galician romance poet, Roselíta de Castro, from her Cantares Gallegos. And then because Roselíta can be so melancholy and because this is an English-speaking group, from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese. So much more hopeful, don't you think? I'll read them both in Galician and English versions. I love the sound of the Galician language, but I don't want the English speakers to miss the power of the words. Roselíta was the first one who wrote in our regional language, you know, and she was heavily criticized in Madrid for doing so. But now she's recognized as a national treasure. I hope you will love the sound of the poetry in Galician as well."

"Yes, of course," Penny murmured, having no idea who De Castro was, but not wanting to disagree with anything this fabulous man beside her said. Then she laughed, and, eyes twinkling, Paulo laughed too, before a women put a hand on his shoulder, saying she wanted to show him something about the lectern from which he'd be reading. Penny hadn't laughed about poetry, though, but because it had just hit her that Xesús had said he was a cousin. Yet more family.

"Who is that fascinating man?" Penny asked Xesús as Paulo moved away from them. "You said he was a cousin."

"That's Paulo Peres Varela, Rodrigo's younger brother. He teaches English literature at the University of Santiago de Compostela."

"Rodrigo's brother?" Penny asked. "And is he as good as Rodrigo was?"

Xesús laughed. "They were both very good men, Penny. But in different ways. Rodrigo was the better painter and Paulo the better poet. But, as men, both good—very good, yes. Very good family."

Xesús, of course, didn't realize what Penny was really referring too, and only now, causing her to laugh a happy, tinkling laugh again, did Penny herself realize why she'd asked that question. She remembered now the sentence in Millie's letter hoping that Penny could find as good a man here as Rodrigo had been.

"Is he married?" she blurted out.

Xesús laughed again. "Only to his poetry at this point. But he is a widower and it's high time he found another worthy wife." Penny turned to look into Xesús' face to see that he was giving her a sharp look—amusement with something else in it, as well. Hope perhaps? Perhaps this outing to meet with other English speakers wasn't as random a choice of Xesús' as she'd assumed.