El bautizo

Yesterday in the early afternoon here in Espinosa the extended family set off from the house and walked together through the village to the church. Maite carried the star of the occasion, baby Sara, who was turned out in a pretty pink and white dress and a thick head of dark hair. Beside them walked Sergio in dark suit and sunglasses, and all around them were cousins and siblings and aunts and uncles and parents and grandparents and great-grandparents—gathered to witness Sara´s baptism.

At the large stone and adobe church, we lingered outside while townspeople slowly filtered out the big double-doors after mass. When the church was finally empty, the family went in, following Maite and the priest (aka The Man from South Dakota) to a small nave in the back, a whitewashed room lit only by a bare lightbulb hung from the high ceiling. The priest stood under a painting of Jesus and Mary with a child walking between them, and behind a stone baptismal font big enough to bathe in. Next to the priest stood Maite holding Sara, then Sergio, then the two padrinos (godparents)—one of Sergio´s brothers, and Maite´s cousin, Emma. The rest of us crowded around the wide door of the nave.

Sara was compliant and well-behaved during the twenty minute ceremony, often smiling at Montse who was in her line of sight. The priest repeatedly drew crosses on Sara´s small head, and of course, for the denouement, doused her with a bit of holy water, as Maite held her over the font. Emma then stepped forward with a white towel and rubbed at the baby´s wet hair. Sara emerged with a look of confusion on her small face but made no audible complaint.

Back outside in the stone courtyard, the candy throwing began. The night before Maite had poured bag after bag of “dulces” and “caramelos”—mostly hard candies—into a plastic tub, mixed them all together, then poured the mix into several large plastic bags. Outside the church, she and Emma reached into these plastic bags and grabbed handfuls of candy, flinging them up in the air. The candies came down, pelting people on heads and noses and shoulders, and fell onto the flagstones—from where children dashing in quickly collected them.

Maite put Sara in her stroller, and we all began walking slowly back to the house. The candy flinging continued along the way, and kids came running from all over the village. Soon a crowd of shouting and stooping kids formed a vanguard, backing up slowly as they filled pockets and small plastic bags with candy. Maite began flinging twenty-cent pieces, and a yell of re-doubled excitement went up.

We finally reached the house, where Maite and Emma stood throwing candy until there was no more candy to throw. By the end, some of the older kids held substantial bags of loot.

Inside the house, the smell of the women´s collective perfume was overwhelming. Manolo found me and said, “vamos,” come have a drink at the town bar. I thought he meant just a few of the men, but actually most of the family and a number of locals crowded into the small, noisy room. A few people spoke to me briefly, but I have a particularly hard time understanding when in crowds. Manolo gave me a glass of wine and I found a wall to lean against. Femo, Manolo´s brother-in-law, also stood solo nearby; he occasionally reached me a dish of green olives from the bar. Children squeezed between the adults in the room, pulling candies from their pockets. Alberto, Sergio´s four-year-old nephew, paused for a good stare at me, while upending a bottle of coke into his mouth, his eyes watering.

Eventually the family all returned to the house for a meal in the attached tiled garage (a large room, in former times a granary). Tables had been set up in a big U to accommodate thirty some people. Mariscos, or seafood, dominated the early section of the long feast. Earlier that morning, Montse had begun preparations in the kitchen, thawing five pink octopi (pulpos), each on its own plate, and several cookie sheets covered with crabs (necoras), and shelling a big box of large shrimp (langostinos).

When we sat down at the table, each setting included a small bowl of salad with shrimp and a dollop of thousand island, and two crabs on a plate. Bottles of wine were scattered about, of course, and chunks of bread too. Montse and her beautiful sisters soon carried out platters of unshelled shrimp, as well as numerous plates of octopus, the fat tentacles now sliced into pink and white medallions and doused with a thin, reddish juice. I sat with the older people, the parents and grandparents, and there were many questions about the Camino. Manolo helped me out, telling them what I had been telling him over the last two days. Mostly, though, I was left to myself to eat—and eat and eat. I had a second bowl of the salad. I kept reaching for more shrimp. Another piece of bread, another glass of wine, yes, of course.

And yet the very best part of the meal was still to come—the lechazos. The roasted lamb finally appeared on huge flat pans, and Montse cut it up into manageable chunks and her sisters distributed platters to the tables. I know I´ve been a quasi-vegetarian for some time now, and for good reason, but this lechazos, it is my new favorite food in the world. This meat tastes good.

I had two substantial chunks of the tender lamb. Manolo, ever solicitous, gestured for me to hold my plate up, and he spooned dark juice from the platter of lechazos onto my portion.

But still we were not done. Yet another set of platters arrived, these wrapped up in paper as if they were gifts. The sisters untied the strings and revealed collections of small pastries (pasteles), no two alike. I´m afraid I don´t have the language to adequately describe these, but I´ll have a go—a lemony mousse, flaky tarts, cakey things topped with fruit or something whipped, a miniature chocolate horn o´plenty, sort of like a little ice cream cone…. I ate about ten. That´s not an exaggeration. No one seemed to be paying attention to me, and there were plenty, and I just kept eating them. Maybe more than ten.

I finally rose from the table, some hours after I had sat down. Some of the others had stepped outside to smoke. The sisters were cleaning up. I thanked Montse and went inside for some post-prandial reading. Soon I took my book upstairs, and soon I fell happily asleep.

When I came back down hours later, everyone had gone, even Maite and Sergio, who had returned to Valladolid (Maite had to work the next day). Manolo said, “la cena,” and gestured for me to follow him to the kitchen. Maybe I looked skeptical, because he added, “un poco.” We sat down, and Montse put out a bowl of pineapple chunks and a plate of shrimp. I didn´t think I could eat, but then I could.

Afterwards the three of us sat together in the living room and looked at photo albums, one of Maite´s two-month visit to the States in 1996, one of Naomi´s stay in Espinosa that same year. Afterwards I consulted my dictionary, then said, “estos fotos, tengo morriña” (the pictures make me homesick). Manolo nodded, yes, he understood, then suggested we call Naomi, which we did.