فصل نهم

9

Milk and Medicine

Of course, there would be enough food for the capitán’s dinner guests. His soldiers made sure of that and everyone in the kitchen knew how. Some local families would go hungry for a few days, but what was there to say when soldiers knocked on the door to claim the last chicken or the potatoes a farmer had hidden for his children? Mercedes felt so ashamed as she and the other maids chopped vegetables. That was the use of knives for women: to cut food for the men who killed with their knives . . . who killed those women’s husbands, their sons, and their daughters.

The knife she sliced onions with was the same most kitchen maids kept in the folds of their aprons, right below the belly, safe and always handy: it had a short blade, roughly three inches in length, made of cheap steel and a worn wooden handle.

Mercedes couldn’t take her eyes off the blade. She still remembered the capitán’s hand on her arm. What if he wouldn’t let her go one day? The others for sure didn’t guess her thoughts when she folded her stained apron around the slim blade. They were laughing and gossiping to make themselves forget the uniforms outside and that their sons were fighting each other. And maybe they were right. Maybe life was still more than that. There was still the silence of the forest and the warmth of the sun, the light of the moon. Mercedes yearned to join in the laughter, but her heart was so tired. It had been afraid for too long.

“Make sure those chickens are cleaned properly,” she said. “And don’t forget the beans.” Her voice sounded harsher than she had intended, but the others weren’t paying attention to her anyway. They were all smiling looking at Ofelia, who was standing in the kitchen doorway wearing the green dress and the white apron Mercedes had ironed with the same care Ofelia’s mother had put into making them. The clothes made the girl look like a character from a book Mercedes had loved as a child. Her mother had often brought books home for her and her brother. She’d been a teacher, but all her books couldn’t protect her when soldiers burned their village. The flames had eaten both her mother and her books.

“You look wonderful, girl!” the cook exclaimed. “Just beautiful.”

“Yes! That’s such a beautiful dress!” Rosa said, her face soft with tenderness. She had a daughter Ofelia’s age. The girl reminded them all of their children and grandchildren—and of the girls they had once been themselves.

“Get back to work! Stop wasting time,” Mercedes told them off, although she felt the tenderness in her heart too.

She walked over to Ofelia and gently straightened the collar of her dress. Her mother was really a talented seamstress and for a moment the dress she’d made for her daughter cast a spell in the old mill’s kitchen—the dress and the girl’s beaming face, so bright with happiness and beauty like a freshly opened flower. Yes, for a moment it made them all believe the world to be peaceful and whole again.

“Do you want some milk with honey?”

Ofelia nodded and Mercedes took her outside where the brown cow was standing under the trees, her udder firm with milk. It ran warm and white over Mercedes’s fingers as she filled a bucket with it.

“Move back,” she softly said to Ofelia. “We can’t have you getting milk on your dress. It makes you look like a princess.” Ofelia hesitantly took a step back.

“Do you believe in Fairies, Mercedes?” she asked as she caressed the cow’s smooth flank.

Mercedes squeezed the cow’s teats once more. “No. But when I was a little girl I did. I believed in a lot of things I don’t believe anymore.” The cow mooed impatiently. She wanted to feed calves, not men. Mercedes calmed her with her hands and a few soft words.

Ofelia forgot about the dress and the milk and stepped to her side.

“Last night a Fairy visited me,” she said softly.

“Really?” Mercedes dipped a small bowl into the bucket and filled it with the warm milk.

Ofelia nodded, wide-eyed. “Yes. And she wasn’t alone! There were three of them. And a Faun, too!” “A Faun?” Mercedes straightened up.

“Yes. He was so old . . . and very tall and thin.” Ofelia traced a huge figure in the air with her hands. “He looked old and smelled old . . . musty. Like earth when it’s wet with rain. And a little bit like this cow.” And I want you to know, she seemed to say with her eyes. Please believe me, Mercedes! It is hard to have secrets one cannot share, or to believe in a truth that others don’t want to see. Mercedes knew all about it.

“A Faun,” she repeated. “My mother warned me to be wary of Fauns. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they’re not. . . .” The memory brought a smile to her lips—the memory and the girl. But it faded when she saw the capitán walking toward her with one of his officers by his side. The world immediately filled with shadows.

“Mercedes!”

He ignored the girl so completely that for a moment he made Mercedes almost believe Ofelia wasn’t there.

“Follow me. I need you at the barn.”

She went with him. Of course. Although she would have loved to stay with the girl and the warm milk and the breath of the cow on her skin.

A few soldiers were unloading a truck in front of the barn.

Lieutenant Medem, the officer in command, saluted Vidal.

“We brought everything, Capitán. As promised.” The lieutenant’s uniform was as stiff and clean as a toy soldier’s. “Flour, salt, oil, medicine,” he listed, while leading the way into the barn. “Olives, bacon . . .” He pointed proudly at the baskets and cartons. The dusty shelves were filled with packages and cans.

Vidal sniffed at a small package wrapped in brown paper. He liked his tobacco. And his liquor.

“And here are the ration cards.” The few dozen vouchers Lieutenant Medem handed Vidal were precious property at a time when the war had burned harvests and even the farmers couldn’t feed their children, because the army controlled what was left. The boxes Medem’s men had brought to the mill could have fed more than one village. But Mercedes didn’t look at the boxes that contained food. She had stopped at a stack whose labels depicted a red cross. Medicine. More than enough to heal almost every wound. Including a leg wound.

“Mercedes.” Vidal was inspecting the lock on the barn door. “The key.”

She took a key from the key ring in her pocket and handed it to him.

“Is this the only one?”

She nodded.

“From now on I’ll carry it.”

There was that glance again. What did he know?

“Capitán!” Garces, the officer who called from outside, was as lean as a weasel and always had a smile for the maids.

Vidal ignored him. He continued to look at Mercedes, the key in his hand, his gaze both threatening and teasing, playing his favorite game: the game of fear.

He knows, she thought once again. No, he doesn’t, Mercedes. It’s the way he looks at everyone. She exhaled deeply when he finally turned and stepped outside. Breathe, Mercedes.

Vidal joined Garces, who was scrutinizing the forest through his binoculars.

“Maybe it’s nothing, Capitán,” Mercedes heard him say as he handed the binoculars to Vidal, but she could see it with her bare eyes: a fine, almost invisible trace of smoke was rising from the canopy of the trees, drawing a treacherous line into the blue sky.

Vidal lowered the binoculars. “No. It’s them. I am sure.”

They were astride their horses within moments. Mercedes watched them ride off into the forest. Only men lit fires, men the soldiers had come to hunt.

Breathe, Mercedes.