Guernica Read Free Page A

animals onto walls in the nearby Santima-miñe caves.
    Bequesting the farm to the eldest carried no guarantees. He who inherits the farm may never leave to discover other opportunities,
     to go to sea, perhaps, or to a city like Bilbao. But to run the baserri was to shepherd the family trust, Justo believed. Still, he expected a period of apprenticeship to learn. For another year
     or so after the lamb’s slaughter, Pascual Ansotegui unenthusiastically attended mass each morning, mouthing the responses.
     He returned to church to pray in silence again in the evening, wandering unseen in between. Eventually, he stopped attending
     mass, and one day he drifted off.
    It took several days before Justo realized his father had gone missing. He alerted the neighbors, and small groups searched
     the hillsides. When no evidence of death or life surfaced, the boys assumed that he had been swallowed up by a crevice or
     a sinkhole, or that he just forgot to stop wandering.
    Although the boys loved and missed their father, their affection for him was more out of habit than true sentiment. They noticed
     little difference in his absence: They still performed the same chores and played the same games. Justo was now in charge.
    “Here, this is yours now,” Josepe said to Justo, handing him the ruffled apron.
    “ Eskerrik asko ,” Justo said, thanking his brother. He lifted the strap over his head and tied the worn sash behind his back in solemn ceremony.
     “Wash up for dinner.”
    He had the family baserri to run. He was fifteen.
    When they were very young, the boys learned the history of Guernica and of Errotabarri. They learned it from their father,
     before he drifted off, and from the people of the town who were proud of their heritage. From medieval times, Guernica was
     a crossroads of the old Roman Way and the Fish and Wine Route that wound through the hills inland from the sea. Intersecting
     them both was the pilgrims’ route to Santiago de Compostela. For centuries, representatives of the region met under the Guernica
     oak to shape laws that outlawed torture and unwarranted arrest and granted unprece dented privileges to women. Although aligned
     with the kingdom of Castile, they maintained their own legal system and demanded that the series of Castilian monarchs from
     the time of Ferdinand and Isabella come stand, in person, beneath the oak of Guernica and swear to protect the Basque laws.
     Because the economy of the region hadn’t evolved under the feudal system, the Basques owned their own land and were never
     divided into sovereigns and serfs, merely farmers, fishermen, and craftsmen, free and in dependent of any overlord.
    A baserri in Biscaya often came to have a name, which sometimes served as a surname for those living there, as if the land and the home
     were the real ancestors. The home, after all, would outlive the inhabitants and maybe even the family name. They presumed
     that a well-structured building, like family relationships, genuine love, and one’s reputation, would be timeless if protected
     and properly maintained.
    At the time Justo Ansotegui assumed control of Errotabarri, a thorny hedgerow outlined the lower perimeter of the farm, and
     a platoon of poplars flanked the northern, windward edge. Crops were cultivated on the southern side of the house, bordered
     by several rows of fruit trees. Pastureland spread above the home, rising to a patchy stand of burly oaks, cypress, and waxy
     blue-gray eucalyptus. The trees thinned out just beneath a granite outcrop that marked the upper border of the property.
    The house resembled others near Guernica. It required the boys to annually whitewash the stucco sides above a stone-and-mortar
     base and to restain the oxblood wooden trim and shutters. Each stone-silled window accommodated planter boxes of geraniums,
     providing dashes of red across both levels and all aspects. Even as a young, single man, Justo sustained these floral touches
     that had been