Domingo’s Angel by Jenny Twist

When Domingo walked into the square, all the world was there. The tables and chairs from the Plaza Bar were all occupied and the people living round about had brought their own tables and chairs outside. Even so, there were people sitting on the church steps and on the rim of the troughs for the washhouse.

“What is happening?” asked Domingo, but nobody took any notice.

He walked into the bar.

“What is happening?” he asked.

Limping Pepe looked up and grinned with delight at Domingo. Abandoning the customers at the other end of the bar, he came over and said, “The strange woman came into the village today. The foreigner who has bought the smallest casita of Guillermo the mayor for 200 thousand pesetas. She is as tall as a house and her skin is so white she looks like a dead person, and her hair is the colour of oranges, AND…” here he paused for effect, happily ignoring the customers at the other end of the bar, who were becoming a little restless, “she cannot speak like a proper human being, but barks like a dog!”

Domingo blinked, but did not comment.

“She went into the shop of Rosalba and began to bark at her. Rosalba did not know what to do.”

Briefly, Domingo struggled with the concept of Rosalba not knowing what to do, then dismissed the thought for later consideration.

“And then, you cannot guess what she did next”. Giving Domingo no opportunity to guess, he went on. “She got out a book of spells and began to enchant Rosalba, and Rosalba threw her apron over her head and ran out into the street!”

He stood back and folded his arms with a self-satisfied smirk. “What do you think of that?”

Doming did not know what to think. “I will have a vino del terreno,” he said.

Outside in the square Rosalba was clearly telling her story for the umpteenth time, miming throwing her apron over her head and assuming an expression of absolute terror. She was surrounded by admiring villagers wearing satisfyingly horrified expressions. At the next table were Pepe the water, Salva the baker and Rafa the fish.

“I tell you she has to be a dead person”, said Rafa. “No living person could have skin so white. She is either a ghost, or a corpse, or a mantequero who will come in the night and suck all the fat from our bodies.”

“Perhaps she is a fairy”, remarked Salva. “They cannot speak the language of mortal men. If she is a dead person why can’t she speak like a Christian?”

Rafa gave him a withering look. “I don’t know where you get all this rubbish from. Whoever said fairies can’t speak?”

Salva subsided for a moment whilst he desperately tried to remember where he had heard it.

“More likely,” said Pepe the water, “she is a witch. Otherwise how do you account for the book of spells?”

Domingo sat on the corner of the horse trough only half-listening. He was thinking of the 200 thousand pesetas. He himself owned three very fine casitas, each one larger and more beautiful than the smallest casita of Guillermo the mayor. He was thinking of what he could buy with 200 thousand pesetas.

****

The next day he took his goats to the top of the ridge near the pass and looked down on the smallest casita of Guillermo the mayor. There was a mule tethered outside and a string of washing had been hung between two almond trees. Otherwise there was no sign of life. Halfway down the slope was a large algarrobo tree. He decided it would be an ideal place for lunch.

But although he sat and watched the little house all the time as he ate his bread and cheese and olives and drank his wine, nobody came out and nothing happened. Only the mule moved along the side of the house to keep in the shade as the sun moved round. So he went to sleep.

When he woke up, someone was calling him. “Hola, goatherd!”

He squinted up into the sun and there, standing before him was an angel. It was very tall and thin and there was a fiery halo round its head. “Hello,” it said, “Soy Ángela – I am angel. I am delighted to meet you! Who are you?”

In absolute panic, Domingo shot up into a sitting position and shuffled backwards into the algarrobo tree. His head hit the hard trunk with a resounding crack and he subsided, and slumped back down, feeling a little stunned.

The angel came forward into the shadow of the algarrobo tree and he realised that the halo was, in fact, hair – very long hair – falling in waves down beyond her shoulders and almost to her waist. It was exactly the colour of oranges that have dried on the tree. Her skin was so white it was almost blue and her eyes were so pale they had no colour at all. “How could they think she was a dead person?” he thought in a confused fashion. “She is obviously an angel.”

****

Later that evening he went into the shop of Rosalba.

“I have met the foreign woman.” He announced. “She is not a dead person or a witch. She does not bark like a dog, but is trying to speak like a human being. She is, in fact, an angel.”

Rosalba glared at him from behind the counter. “You are a very stupid boy,” she said, “and you do not know what you are talking about.”

However, that Sunday after mass, Rosalba was seen to be scrutinising very closely the statue of the angel at the right hand side of the altar. It was very tall and thin, had long, waving hair streaming out behind it and it was carrying an open book.

“Hmmph!” said Rosalba, pretending not to be impressed, and stalked out of the church. As she passed Domingo, she asked, loud enough for the whole world to hear, “If she is an angel, why does she not go to mass like a proper Christian?”

Domingo hung his head in shame and confusion. He had been asking himself the same question.

****

All week he wondered about the angel. He wondered whether she was one of those angels who had turned against God and been thrown down from heaven. He did not want this to be the case. He felt that she was his own special angel and he did not want her to be inferior in any way. He kept thinking about her orange hair and her white skin and her strange, colourless eyes. He could, in fact, think of nothing else.

When the next Sunday she did not come to mass again, he endured the triumphant gaze of Rosalba and vowed that he would look for his angel and ask her.

****

When he came down the ridge, she was standing behind the little house, digging with a mattock. She didn’t seem to be making much impression. It was July and the ground was like iron.

Nervously, he cleared his throat. “Hola, Angel!” he cried.

The angel looked up and waved. He carried on down the slope to the casita.

“I have brought some wine,” he said, and pulled a full wineskin out of his pouch.

“How nice,” said the angel. “I would like to thank you, but, although you know my name, I do not know yours. Last time we met you left without introducing yourself.”

Domingo looked down at his feet and felt his skin go hot. “I am sorry,” he said. “But now I have brought you wine and we will drink together, no?” He thrust the wineskin at the angel and she laughed and said. “I would love to, but come round to the front and we will drink from glasses.”

He followed her docilely round the side of the house, carrying his wineskin. When she laughed, she did not sound like a dog barking, but like a little silver bell. Her teeth were tiny and very white, like pearls, and her eyes, he noticed, were not colourless at all but were the colour of the sea moving in sunlight, blue and green and grey, with little flecks of sunshine on the surface.

They sat down and she brought glasses, and when the wine had been poured, she laughed again, raised her glass and said, “Good health to you, stranger.”

He looked round, wondering who she was talking to, and then realised she meant him.

“But you are the stranger,” he began to say, before he realised what she meant and began to laugh himself.

“My name is Domingo García Guerrero,” he said, “but I am known as Domingo goatherd because there are three other Domingos in the village.”

“Really?” she was fascinated, “and what do they call the other three?”

“Domingo mule driver, Domingo two fingers and Domingo of the valley,” he said.

She laughed again. “That is wonderful, Domingo goatherd,” she said. I am very pleased to meet you. Would you like to stay to lunch?”

****

They ate bread and cheese and olives and the angel brought out sausage and tomatoes and onions from the house, and all the time they ate they talked. Domingo told her about the people of the village, about Rosalba, who ran the shop and who was really in charge of everything else, whatever the mayor might think. About Limping Pepe, who was lame in his left leg because his wife caught him in bed with the wife of the blacksmith one day and thrashed them both with a pitchfork handle. The blacksmith’s wife had run screaming from the village and was never seen again.

At one point the angel went into the house and brought out a book. Domingo shrank back in terror and she put out a hand to restrain him.

“What is the matter, Domingo? Why are you afraid?”

Domingo covered his eyes with both hands and cried, “Please, Angel, do not cast a spell on me!”

The angel gave him an incredulous look and then repeated what he said very slowly and carefully – “Hechizo?”

She opened her book and muttered to herself, “It doesn’t begin with E, it must be H. Ah, yes, here it is. Spell! A spell! Domingo, you think this is a book of spells?”

Domingo nodded dumbly.

The angel explained. “This book has all the words in Angelish and Spanish. When I do not know the word in Spanish, I look in the book and it tells me. Do you see? Look!”

She held the book towards him and he gave it a quick, nervous peek. Inside were white sheets with tiny black shapes on them, like insects. It did not seem to talk at all.

“Yes,” he said, “I see. “

****

Eventually, when they were both a little sleepy with the wine and the food, he asked her.

“Angel,” he said, “are you the kind of angel that has fallen down from heaven and come to live among mortal men?”

She turned to him, and a soft pink blush rose from her neck and spread across her cheeks. “Why, Domingo, what a lovely thing to say!”

He was so confused by this peculiar answer that he relapsed into silence. And he found that he was looking into her eyes, those strange watery eyes, swirling greens and blues and greys, and he felt that he was drowning in them. She leaned toward him and he could smell her hair. It smelt of citrus blossom. “Oranges,” he thought, “It smells of oranges.” But he did not speak, and afterwards he could not remember whether she came to him or he to her, only that he realised that she might be a witch or a fairy, but she was certainly not a dead person. And he suspected he might be wrong about the angel as well.