The Summer of Katya

“Enchanted,” she said in a thin breathy voice with the accent of the north.

“Mlle Nobody is visiting us from the great world of Paris,” Paul explained. “She and a company of friends have borrowed the handsome motorcar of one of their rich fathers to make this trek into the hinterlands from the relatively civilized outpost of Biarritz. Their trip here was dusty and uneventful, save for a little fun they had hectoring local rustics along the way by frightening their horses… isn’t that right, Mlle Whocares?”

She giggled, obviously not recognizing Paul and me.

“And that fellow over there,” Paul made a vague gesture towards an athletic-looking young man glaring at us from the shelter of the next doorway, “he was the driver of the vehicle in question. We may also assume he had anticipated being Mlle Nothing’s escort—if not more—and at this moment he is smoldering with jealousy in a most gratifying way. Isn’t that so, you insipid little charmer?” He hugged her to his side, and she rolled her eyes at me as though asking if ever in my born days I had met the likes of this outrageous rogue.

I kept my face set in a smile as I asked, “Will there be trouble?”

“If I have any luck at all, there will.”

“Remember your shoulder.”

He laughed. “My dear fellow, a kick-boxer uses his shoulders only to shrug, after it’s all over.”

“Shall I stay close by?”

“And spoil my fun? I’m beginning to enjoy myself for the first time in several years, aren’t I, Mlle Featherhead?” He kissed her cheek, and I could almost hear the young Parisian man grind his teeth.

“Do you think I could manage this dance?” Paul asked.

Another Kax Karot was just beginning to form its confronting lines out in the square. “I don’t see why not. It’s quite simple,” I said.

“Good! Come, Echobrain, let’s dance!” And Paul dragged his adoring bit of fluff out into the throng.

As I pressed on towards the place where I had left Katya, the young man from Paris caught up with me and clapped his heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Sir?” I asked, turning around and gripping my bottle of citronade by the neck, for the fellow was bigger than I and much bigger than Paul.

“Who was that man?” he demanded.

“Which man?” I asked gazing blandly over the crowd. “There are rather many.”

“The one you were talking with, damn it!”

“Oh-h, him. I haven’t the slightest idea. He was asking if I had come across any snot-nosed Parisian dandies at the fкte, and I told him that I doubted any such would dare show his face here.” I smiled broadly and held his eyes with mine mockingly, though I should have been ashamed to revert so quickly to the infantile pugnacious ways of the Basque.

The young man glared at me for a second; then he tossed his head haughtily as though it were beneath his dignity to bother with me, and he departed.

When I had edged around the square back to the place I had left Katya, she was not there. But almost immediately I caught the swirl of her white dress out in the circle of dancers, and I pressed forward to watch her do the rapid, intricate steps of the porrusanda, a vigorous version of the fandango danced with both arms raised and the hands gracefully curved overhead, while the feet execute the quick, stamping steps. She danced the porrusanda as though she had been born to it, her face radiant, her eyes shining, her body delighting in the opportunity for athletic expression. I smiled with proprietary pleasure as I looked on, not feeling the slightest twinge of jealousy over the handsome young Basque lad who danced before her. He wore the white duck trousers and full white shirt of a jai alai player, and the red sash about his waist indicated that his team had won in that afternoon’s contest at the village fronton. Their matching white costumes and their exceptional strength and grace gave them the appearance of a pair of professional dancers among the variegated crowd, and some of the people standing near me muttered praises as they clapped in time with the music.

The tune ended with a twirling flutter of the txitsu flute, and the jai alai player escorted Katya back to where I was standing and returned her to me with an extravagant and slightly taunting bow.

“You look charming when you dance,” I told her.

“Thank you. I love to dance. Is that for me?”

“What? Oh, yes. Here you are.” I opened the citronade and poured it for her.

The band began a slower melody to which the older people could dance a passo, and women of a certain age were begged out into the dancing circle by friends and family. After the obligatory refusals and shruggings away, they allowed themselves to be prevailed upon and they danced soberly—pairs of middle-aged women and some quite old; widows and spinsters who cut vegetables in the farm kitchens of their luckier married sisters; several stiff old men with their ten— or eleven-year-old granddaughters—their eyes slyly searching out acquaintances in the crowd to make sure they were being watched, as they should be. Anyone familiar with the rhythms of rural Basque fetes would know that this dance marked the end of the evening for the older women and the younger children, as it was nearly ten o’clock. After all, there would be a fкte again next year, God permitting, and one needn’t spend out all his allotment of joy at one time. The responsible middle-aged men, heads of etche households, would have one last txikiteo around the buvettes with friends, then they, too, would begin to slip away to their carts and carriages to make the slow ride to their outlying farms, to look in on the animals before sleep. This would leave only the young and the very old men to revel until midnight; the Young because they were full of energy and joy, and youth is a brief visitor to one’s life, while old age remains with you until death, like a visiting in-law; and the Old because they had served their many years of toil and merited their few years of relaxation in the knowledge that each hour wounds, and the last kills.

I offered Katya my arm and we strolled through the thinning crowd towards the bridge and the lower end of the village. She was pleased to hear that I had seen her father engaged in close talk with local elders, presumably gathering folktales for his studies.

“And the men accepted him, even though he’s an outsider?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “He’s an avid listener—a rare find in a land noted for its indefatigable storytellers. Then too, he is buying Izarra for the table, and that cannot fail to endear him to the Basque heart. They love their Izarra almost as much as they loathe parting with a sou.”

“And Paul? Did you see Paul?”

“Ah-m-m… yes.”

“Is he enjoying himself?”

“Ah-m-m… yes. In fact, there he is. Over there.”

“Where? I don’t see— Oh yes, there he is! What a pretty girl… the one he’s dancing with. Wait a minute, wasn’t she in the motorcar that…?”

“Yes, she was.”

“And those two brawny young men watching Paul so intently, aren’t they the ones who drove us off the road?”

“They are.”

Her expression grew troubled. “I do hope there isn’t going to be any trouble. Paul can be a trifle… provocative.”

“Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed. But I thought you were looking forward to a little bagarre basque.”

“But not with my brother as one of the principals. Wait. Listen.” We stopped before the door of a cafй/bar within which a group of old men were singing in the plaintive high warble of Basque song with its haunting harmonies. “What a sad melody,” she said, after listening for a time.

“All Basque songs are tugged towards the minor key.”

“Do you know the song?”

“Yes. It’s a traditional ballad: ‘Maritxu Nora Zoaz.’ I should warn you that it’s considered a little off- color.”

“Oh? How do the words go?”

I had to consider for a moment, for I had no experience in translating Basque. When I spoke Basque, I thought in Basque; and I found it difficult to find French equivalents for—not the words, as they were simple enough—but for the meanings and implications of the words. “Well, literally the song asks: Marie, where are you going? And she answers: To the fountain, Bartholomeo. Where white wine flows. Where we can drink as much as we want.”