The Winemaker Read Free Page B

table, next to dirty dishes that contained mouse speckles and the remnants of old meals. Josep had been walking for days on end and was too weary for thought or act. Upstairs, it didn’t occur to him to use his father’s room, his father’s bed. He kicked off his shoes, dropped onto the thin, lumpy sleeping mat his body hadn’t touched for four years, and almost immediately knew nothing.
    He slept through that day and the night, awakening late the next morning with a terrible hunger. There was no sign of Donat. Josep had only enough water left in his bottle for a swallow. When he carried an empty basket and a pail toward the placa, the alcalde’s three sons were in Angel Casal’s field. The two older ones, Tonio and Jaume, were spreading manure and the third, the youngest one—Josep couldn’t remember his name—was plowing with a mule. Working, they didn’t take notice as he passed them and went to the grocery. In the gloom within the small shop was Nivaldo Machado, almost but not quite the same as Josep had remembered. He was skinnier if that was possible, and balder; the hair that remained had turned more completely grey. He was pouring beans from a large sack into small bags, and he stopped and stared with his good eye. The bad eye, the left one, was half shut.
    “Josep? Praise be to God! Josep, you’re alive ! Damn my soul, is it you, Tigre?” he said, using the nickname he, and only he, had used all of Josep’s life.
    Josep was warmed by the joy in his voice, moved by tears in Nivaldo’s eyes. The leathery lips gave two kisses, the wiry old arms wrapped him in abracada.
    “It’s me, Nivaldo. How are you?”
    “I’m fine as ever. Are you still a soldier? We all thought you were dead, for certain. Were you wounded? Did you kill half the army of Spain?”
    “The army of Spain and the Carlists have both been safe from me, Nivaldo. I haven’t been a soldier. I’ve been making wine in France. In Languedoc.”
    “Truly, in Languedoc? How was it there?”
    “Very French. The food was fine. Right now, I’m half starved, Nivaldo.”
    Nivaldo smiled, visibly happy. The old man threw two sticks on the fire and set the stewpot on the small stove. “Sit.”
    Josep took one of the two rickety chairs as Nivaldo set two cups on the tiny table and poured from a pitcher. “Salud. Welcome back.”
    “Thank you. Salud.”
    Not so bad, Josep told himself as he drank the wine. Well…as thin and sour and harsh as he remembered, yet comfortingly familiar.
    “It’s your father’s wine.”
    “Yes… How did he die, Nivaldo?”
    “Marcel just…seemed to become very tired, his last few months. Then one evening we were sitting right here, playing draughts. He got a pain in his arm. He waited until he won the game and then said he was going home. He must have dropped dead on the way. Donat found him in the road.”
    Josep nodded soberly, drank his wine. “Donat. Where is Donat?”
    “Barcelona.”
    “What is he doing there?”
    “Lives there. Married. He took a woman he met where they both work, in one of the textile mills.” Nivaldo looked at him. “Your father always said that when the time came, Donat would accept his responsibilities in the vineyard. Well, the time came, but Donat doesn’t want the vineyard, Josep. You know he never liked that kind of work.”
    The smell of the heating stew made Josep swallow. “So, what’s she like? The woman he married?”
    “A nice enough female. Her name is Rosa Sert. What can a man tell about another man’s woman, just by looking? Quiet, a little homely. She came here with him several times.”
    “He’s really serious about selling?”
    “He wants money.” Nivaldo shrugged. “A body feels the lack of money when he takes a wife.” He took the pot from the stove, lifted off the cover, and spooned a generous portion of stew onto the plate. By the time he served a hunk of bread and added wine to the glasses, Josep was already shoveling food into his mouth,