White Blossom on the Bend

The eve of the spring equinox dawned still and clear over the Valley of Oreb. During the night a warm southern breeze had burst open all at once the buds of the old cherry trees in the garden, and the petals drifted slowly down onto the backwater until they covered it like a snowfall that refused to melt.

Inside the teahouse, the freshly planed pine tables shone under a very thin coat of beeswax. Julián had set in the middle of the room the great walnut table, ten yards long, made from two solid planks his grandfather had kept in the woodshed for an occasion that would bring the valley's craftspeople together. On a runner of raw linen embroidered with olive branches and cherries by Aunt Matilde, Rosalía laid out the five porcelain cups from the sideboard.

"They look as if they'd just come out of the potter's kiln," he said, resting his knuckles on the back of a chestnut chair newly upholstered in green cloth.

"It isn't just that they're clean, Julián," Rosalía answered, running her finger along the gilded rim of the first cup. "Each one stands for a season, a fire and a trade of this river. If whoever sits at the table doesn't tell a whole truth, with no tricks, the freshly boiled tea goes cold in two seconds. You know that already: you found out the first day."

Julián came over to the table and stopped beside her. The morning light, filtered through the flowering branches, cast shadows that moved across the terracotta floor. No saws or hammers sounded in the house any more; there was only the calm of a finished job. Half joking, Julián poured two fingers of tea into the barge cup and said out loud that he hadn't missed her a single day in six years. The porcelain frosted over on the outside before he could finish the sentence, and Rosalía burst out laughing for the first time since she had come back.

"The silence between two people is only comfortable when they no longer need to invent excuses to look at each other," Julián said, very quietly.

Rosalía felt the heat rise to her cheeks. For three days they had shared bread, work and the ash of the hearth, and the house had grown around them like a nest. Outside, on the backwater, a heron stood motionless among the petals, waiting for some careless fish to swim by.

"And what truth are you going to tell when it's your turn to raise your cup in front of all the neighbours, carpenter?"

"I'll say I spent six years building boats on the coast thinking every night about your laugh on this wooden floor," he answered without hesitating, and so there could be no doubt, he poured himself two fingers of tea in the barge cup and drank it in one gulp, still steaming. "And you, mistress of the cups?"

"I'll say there wasn't a single Sunday in these six winters when I didn't look toward the bend in the river hoping to see your boat come out from among the willows. And that the day you came back, when I saw you leaning in that doorway with your carpenter's plane, I very nearly threw you in the water."

Rosalía took a fine linen cloth and went over the five porcelain cups one by one. The first showed ears of rye; the second, two bronze bells crossed beneath a crescent moon; the third, a steaming still among mint flowers; the fourth, a tall-sailed barge on indigo water; the fifth, two cherry trees entwined in blossom. They were the trades that held the valley up; the fifth belonged to no guild, and Aunt Matilde had never wanted to say who she was keeping it for. Julián came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.

On the rosewood sideboard, beside the five cups, Julián set a small carving in cherry wood: two river herons with their wings entwined, which he had carved in secret during his lonely nights in the shipyards on the coast. Rosalía took it in her hands and admired the fineness of the feathers.

"I made it one night when I couldn't sleep," he said. "Then I made twelve more. This is the only one that came out right."

A distant murmur of voices, river songs and the ring of a little bell over the water broke that silence. Through the mist of petals, the black outline of the barge La Noria was rounding the bend, decked out with paper lanterns and festive pennants. The whole Valley of Oreb was coming. Rosalía looked at the five cups and her mouth went dry: within the hour, ten people would have to tell a whole truth in front of the entire valley, and a single cup of tea going cold would be enough to mean no accord, no licence and no teahouse.