TE19 Iberian Adventure

San, the Book of Miracles

He could have gone home and come back in the morning, but for sometimenowtheWolf,whoinothertimes inhabitedonlylegends and frightening tales, had regained his kingdom. Marcelino often heard him howling, especially in winter, when the Wolf came to the villages in search of food - a hen, a calf, a sheep, even dogs were on the menu. So, although the night was warm and serene, he built a fire. He ate some blackberries that he collected from the edge of the meadow. He drank milk directly from the teat, his head next to the calf ’s. Then he smoked a cigarette. He fell into a deep sleep and woke up only twice to check that everything was still perfect. Sofia doesn’t know how old she is. She can guess, because she knows that she was born during the last of our wars, but neither is she entirely sure when that took place. Her birth certificatewas burnt in a fire orwas mislaid or her father didn’t register her because there were better things to do than to spend two days walking through the mountains to Rodiles and another two walking back just to tell them that he now had another child, when maybe this one wouldn’t last a few months either, so the date on her ID card was chosen at random. Her real birth certificate is a small, long, hairless scar on her right temple, which she shows whenever anyone asks her. She says that when “the Galicians and the Moors” arrived, her whole family escaped into the woods. She was a baby and her sister Remedios, who was no more than five years old, carried her in her arms. The Moors opened fire and the reds responded, nobody caring that the village had become the front line of combat in the middle 205 •