A power to charm, p.9
A Power to Charm, page 9
“There would be the camp for protection,” said Juan-José.
“And this valley is very fertile,” added Roberto. “Andreas Arcilla's farm is the best in the district. A villa would be by good land.”
“Why build it across a mule-track?” asked Maria Perno.
“The people who built it may have started the mule-track,” suggested Simon. “It would be the nearest way to the village. Shorter than going by the road, perhaps?”
“And where would the road be?” asked Agnes.
Simon shifted the light further under the light and peered. The electricity was on but Juan-José was mean in this, if in nothing else, and bought nothing but forty-watt bulbs. Simon studied the contours and traced a line from the main road exactly where Luis had suggested, from the gate into Juan Cabreras' pasture, along the sloping ledge by the line of olive trees and so to join the Calle Ancha (if one forgot the shed where Concepción, Juan's wife, made the cheese).
“I am prepared to bet” said Simon and he grinned at his uncle, “my next year's salary that under there you will find a road.”
“It would be better than our road out there and could be made much wider,” suggested Agnes. “Much easier for cars and motos, not anything like so steep.”
“But would they build on such an antiquity?” asked Maria Perno.
“My dear Maria,” said Roberto, “half the roads in Europe are built over Roman roads. They were an arrogant, brutal crew, the Romans, but as road engineers they had no equal. They found the best routes and they built to last. The antiquarians...”
This with a derisive look at his nephew,
“...will wish to record it but they will not care if it is covered over again with another road. Why should they? A road is a road. It is where it goes which matters. But down there...”
He pointed in the direction of the shelter-shed.
“.... that could be a very different matter. What would you do, Simon, were it proposed to build a road across it?”
“Yell my head off,” said his nephew, “ and tell all the big archaeological guns I know what vandalism was being proposed. I might even go to the media.”
“Perish the thought,” said Roberto and laughed.
“I have been unhappy all day at the thought of losing my land,” said Juan-José, “all day I have been miserable. Money in return is not enough. It is hard to lose something you have cared for, something, which has been yours, and your family's for so long that it is a part of your very existence. Will it not be just as hard on Juan Cabreras if they build the road on his land?”
“It is clear, my son,” said his mother, “that you have a memory of the very shortest. That land was never Juan's. He is a gypsy. He used to pasture his goats by the roadside or wherever he could get grazing he didn't have to pay for. Your father and I have chased his beasts out of that field down there often enough for me to remember. No, no no, the field was Conception’s. It was her doté. I should not say this, but he married her for that field. She will not mind if Juan can keep fewer goats. She is older than me by twenty years and weary of cheese making and with the pension from the Government there is no need any longer to make poor sour cheese and sell it to the people at the coast who know no better than to buy it. Also, if there is a good road there people will wish to live by it and they may lease plots for building as Paco Albanil did on the other side of the village and that will make more money than ever the goats did.”
“True,” agreed Juan-José and he cheered up considerably. “All true. I had forgotten.”
“Juan is Juana Pan's uncle and she was named for him. That is how she came to the village in the first place, more's the pity. So.... there will be no trouble from that quarter. No, no, my son, Juan will not suffer and Concepción will be happy to see that shed demolished the goats sold and her pans and dishes thrown on the rubbish dump.”
She nodded and smiled at the company and lifted the huge coffee pot from by the fire.
“Tomorrow,” said Roberto and took another of Agnes's shortbread biscuits, “I will telephone some friends of mine and Email a number of others. Simon, what do you mean to do?”
“The same,” said Simon. “But different friends, I daresay.”
They grinned at one another and for a moment looked uncannily alike.
Monday morning started peacefully. Juan-José saw to his beasts, collected three bombonas from the depot in the Calle Espagna and loaded them on to Trompetero. They were to be delivered to the Calle Alta. There the mule received his customary welcome. Juan-José loaded the empties, left them at the back of the church for the bombona lorry to collect them and set off across the Plaza to Anna-Maria Comestibles. She had telephoned that there were some cartons of groceries to be delivered in the Pueblo Alto. He was half way there when he was stopped in his tracks by Juana Pan herself. She was flushed and angry and waving a paper which Juan-José could now see was the print-out of an Email.
“You have had the letter from the Junta about rebuilding the road?” she asked.
“Good morning, Alcaldesa,” he said. “Yes, it came on Friday.”
“The work is due to start today. The contractors, I understand are already on the way.”
“Very possibly, Alcaldesa.”
“So what does this mean?”
She waved the print-out in his face. Trompetero, who disliked voices as loud as his own as well as fat women waving papers, brayed and lashed out, missing Juana Pan by a hairsbreadth. She yelled and the noise attracted attention and people started to gather about them. There were always people in the Plaza.
“How should I know what it means?” asked Juan-José and he patted Trompetero's rump, “I have not seen it.”
“It is from the Junta and it says....” Juana Pan's face was almost purple with fury, “' we have had to stop all work on the south road into the village until further notice as we have been informed of a major archaeological discovery which will be affected by the work. What major discovery is this? When was it discovered? Who discovered it? Where is it? Why was I not informed?”
“How should I know? I did not find it! Am I an archaeologist to go digging in my field with paintbrushes?”
This sally caused the gathering crowd to laugh.
“I ask you again, where is it?”
“Under my shelter-shed.”
“How was it found?” yelled Juana Pan, “and much more important, Juan-José, why was it found?”
Juan-José shrugged.
“This could hold us up for months, if not years! It is an outrage! And it is you who have done this so that you may continue to make money with that vicious brute of a mule! You are greedy and obstructive, Juan-José, and I will find a way to end your scheming.”
There was more laughter and voice from the crowd remarked.
“Oh, he will certainly flourish on a crust of bread and a sugar-lump. Your bread at that. But doubtless Trompetero enjoyed the sugar-lump if he spat out the crust!”
There was more laughter and then José-Pedro Polizia who was on holiday from college and was working in Anna-Maria Comestibles to make money to pay for the repairs to his moto shouted out,
“Not one centimo, does he charge, Alcaldesa, This I know. Some may offer when he delivers but us he does not charge. Not one centimo. This is true.”
“Then why this?” yelled Juana Pan and flourished the printout in Juan-José's face. “Why, just after I have arranged to have the road mended and widened for the benefit of you all does he have to unearth this.... this...”
Trompetero stretched out his neck and snatched the paper from her hand, narrowly missing her thumb. He then munched it reflectively while the crowd rocked with glee and the younger members ran to inform their families what had occurred and why. Juana Pan jumped back from this display of large yellow teeth and she glared at Juan-José.
“I will lay my life that this is all your doing! Just because they were to take a paltry couple of metres of your field. Pah! I tell you, I will not stand for it! I was to show them this paper to stop the work. Now it is gone. How shall I do that?”
“You may easily print out another copy,” said a voice from the back of the crowd. “In fact I will go now and do it.”
José Boligrapho worked in the Town Hall and had charge of the computer, which had been installed by the Junta to cut the cost of administration (in the teeth of Juana Pan's resistance). He pushed his way out of the crowd and started in the direction of the Town Hall. He was stopped in his tracks by a bellow from Juana Pan, which would have halted a Panzer unit.
“Why?” she demanded, “Why should another sheet of municipal paper be wasted because this disgusting smelly brute has eaten an important message? No! You...”
She stabbed a finger at Juan-José's face.
“...you may go and tell them and I hope they throw you in the ditch! I hope this so-called invaluable site is ruined and destroyed because of this vicious beast. It is all your doing and |I will not be a message-runner for anybody let alone a thieving, horse-trading gypsy!”
At this the crowd protested, somewhat confusedly. Some said that Juan-José was as honest as any horse-trader could be and cheated no one, well, not more than was reasonable. Some people, and it was clear whom they meant, deserved to be cheated. Others declared (at more or less the same time) that Juan-José was no gypsy, that his fathers and father's fathers had lived in the village for as long as anyone could remember and certainly longer than Juana Pan who had been raised in some Algeciras back-alley before she was discovered by Paco Pan, the poor henpecked fellow. The rest of the crowd were demanding to know how it was that Juan-José could have made arrangements with his ancestors to leave something important to find to prevent the Alcalde thieving his land. Such an idea!
Juan-José said nothing. He took Trompetero by the bridle and turned him towards the Caminete de las Cabreras. However, he was, as one must remind you, a wizard, and a wizard with animals at that. Something of the fury which he was feeling may have been shared by his friend and colleague, Trompetero, because as he was being urged into motion the mule lashed out for the second time at Juana Pan and this time his hoof came so close that she started back, tripped over one of the paving stones which had been displaced by a root and fell, rocking to and fro in the dust on her ample backside. No one went to assist. When she struggled to her feet, dusty and bedraggled, her hair wildly displaced from Maria el Secador's concrete set, she did not shout. She said, rather breathlessly,
“I will have you in court for this, Juan-José. And I will report to the Junta and they will listen to me. You will find it does not do to have dangerous vicious animals so near a village. If it takes all I have I will have you, your sly bitch of a mother, your English stick of a wife and your stinking filthy beasts out of my village.”
Juan-José turned about and faced her. The crowd fell silent.
“As to that, Alcaldesa, we, me and my village, we will see what you have,” said Juan-José so quietly that it was strange that everyone who was there could hear.
She glared him for another few seconds and then retreated to the bakery and slammed the door. Trompetero brayed derisively. The crowd fell silent and went back to whatever they had been doing before Juana Pan emerged from the Town Hall. José-Pedro turned and ran to the Comisaria to tell his father. Most people seemed a little subdued as they reported events to those who had not been there. One thing was clear. War had been declared. Trouble was on the way.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Disaster Averted
Juan-José vaulted on to Trompetero's back and made for the Caminete de las Cabreras. The mule clattered and slithered on his rump down the steep cobbled slope. Startled faces appeared at doors and windows. The Caminete ended in a narrow grass-grown path between two hen houses and then spread out into the steep slope at the top of Juan-José's own pasture. It was so steep that even mules found it difficult to graze and Trompetero was sent down it at a wicked pace and ended almost sitting on his haunches in a haze of dust and dead grass, snorting a protest. Juan-José gave him no time to recover but kicked him into a gallop to the corner of the field where he could see an ominous group. There was a red bulldozer, two low-loaders, a large double-ended yellow excavator and a battered people-carrier. There was also a small Ford car, abandoned rather than parked, the driver's door hanging open. Juan-José reached the corner, went through the gate and came to a sliding halt. Trompetero snorted with indignation and Juan-José jumped down and said, rather breathlessly,
“The Junta says that all work on the road is to be stopped. At once.”
Between the back wall of the shelter-shed and the bulldozer were three people. One was large and muscular and was wearing shorts, a ragged T-shirt with a snarling lynx printed on the front and a faded baseball cap from under which escaped curling black hair. The other was small, rather slender and considerably older. He was wearing ancient shorts, a grimy sweatshirt and a battered straw hat. His hair was neat and short and barbered. The third was a young Moroccan wearing once-blue jeans, which seemed to have become part of him so worn and dirty were they. He wore a plastic tennis eyeshade over a shaven skull and cigarette stuck to his lower lip.
The smaller man turned to Juan-José in evident relief and said,
“That's just what I was trying to tell him. I'm from the University. The Department of Archaeology. We're briefed to start an emergency dig here, today and the team are on the way. I only heard about it yesterday. Then someone telephoned me earlier to say there was a road gang due to start work right over the site and I drove here right away as fast as I could. But he he keeps asking me for something to prove what I tell him and I haven't got anything. I had to leave in a hell of a hurry to get here on time. Have you got something|?”
“The Alcaldesa had an Email this morning,” Juan-José panted. “It said all work on the road was to stop.”
The foreman held out his hand.
“Well, where is it?” he demanded.
“Trompetero ate it,” said Juan-José.
There was a short incredulous silence and they all looked at the mule who raised his lip at them in what looked uncommonly like a laugh. The foreman banged his forehead with the flat of his hand.
“If you think I'm going to halt contracted work, just on your say-so, you're mad. Who are you, anyway?”
“I am Señor Galvan-Arriaga, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Archaeology at the University....” said the smaller man.
“University!”
It was clear that the foreman had little regard for tertiary education. He did not spit but looked as if, given other circumstances, he might have done so.
“Load of old cobblers. You with the mule, who are you?”
“He is Juan-José los Caballos,” said the Moroccan. “I saw him at the Horse Fair.”
“I don't care if he is King Juan-Carlos himself. If he hasn't got anything on paper for me to show the boss, we go ahead and the first thing to come down is this wreck here.”
He indicated the shelter-shed.
“But you can't!” protested the senior lecturer, “that is right over the site. You could do irreparable harm. You mustn't, really, you must not!”
The foreman made a rude noise.
“This is my field,” said Juan-José, “and that is my shelter-shed and I say if you damage either you will be in trouble.”
“And I say if you don't get out of my way you'll be flatter than a platter. My orders say that the land and the shed are now the property of the Junta. No one said anything to me about any Arkywhatsit. I have my orders and if I want to keep my job I have to obey them,” returned the foreman and turned about. “Marrueco, get back in the cab.”
The Moroccan spat out his cigarette-end and climbed back up. He pressed a button and the engine started with a deafening clatter. The shining blade came down. The foreman waved him to come on and the tracks ground into the road surface. Galvan-Arriaga dashed forward and flattened himself against the rear wall of the shelter-shed. Marrueco put the 'dozer out of gear. The foreman advanced, grabbed the senior lecturer by the arm and effortlessly hauled him away and dropped him into the drainage ditch. Juan-José quickly took his place and as he still had Trompetero's rein in his hand Trompetero came too. The foreman said something extremely rude and came to give Juan-José the same treatment. He was confronted by a set of large yellow teeth inches from his face. He retreated. Mule-bites are not a trivial matter. He signalled to Marrueco to come on and the machine roared and inched forward with the foreman standing to one side, waving it on. Trompetero did not care for the noise and retreated to the length of his rein, braying like the trumpet of doom and he lashed out with both hind feet at the foreman, catching him right under his waving arm. The sound of the blow could be heard even above the din of the machine. The foreman staggered back, wheezing and clutching at his side and toppled backwards, while Juan-José hauled at the rein, thrust the mule through the gate with instructions to go as far away as he could. Trompetero obeyed, cantering off to the centre of the field where he turned and brayed defiantly.
Marrueco with an unconcealed grin put the machine out of gear again and waited upon events, which promised to be entertaining. So did the rest of the gang who had been set to clearing the drainage ditches of the sand that had been washed into them. The digger-driver was watching from his cab, the two men set to digging a space for the digger to start work were standing waist deep in the ditch on the far side of the road, watching events, their shovels at rest. The two men who had been set to divert the traffic appeared hugely diverted themselves. One cannot be popular and foreman of a road gang. The cheer that had greeted Trompetero’s kick dwindled away when the foreman got to his feet and walked, rather unsteadily, in the direction of Juan-José who stood his ground.
“My mule,” said Juan-José, “does not like engines. I hope your ribs are not broken.”
The foreman was not amused.
“Marrueco!” he bellowed. “Get that machine moving and push that wreck down or you'll have your cards at the end of the week. And if anyone stands in the way, TAKE NO NOTICE!!”
