to die for ETA. The girls are even more fierce than the boys. Killers in miniskirts.’
Her lips were pink and wet from the txacolli. ‘I see it as my task to maybe steer them away from ETA, from violence, and the self-destruction of terrorism. So I teach them the literature of revolution: Orwell on the Civil War, Yeats on the Irish rebellion. I try to teach them the tragedy as well as the romance of a violent nationalist struggle.’
‘And that’s why Miguel hates you? He thinks you are working against ETA.’
‘Yes. I knew he’d been abroad for a while, though I did hear a rumour he was back. But I thought it was safe to go see my friends in the Bilbo. But he must have been in the bar already. Hanging out in one of the back rooms, with his ETA comrades…’
‘Then he heard the row.’
‘Yes. And he walked out. Saw me. With you.’ She grimaced. ‘And did his favourite thing.’
The explanation was good, if not perfect. David still felt the echo of an unexplained space, a dark blur on the image. What else was she not telling him? What about the scar on her scalp?
He stopped thinking as the waitress placed some olives on their table.
‘Gracias,’ he said. The girl nodded and bobbed and replied in that thick guttural Spanish accent: kakatazjaka…Then she waved to a friend across the cobbled plaza, and made her way back to the bar.
‘You know it’s funny,’ said David, half turning to Amy. ‘I’ve not heard any Basque being spoken. Not yet.’
‘Sorry?’
‘I’ve been in the Basque Country for two days. I’ve seen it written on signs everywhere. But not heard anyone speaking it.’
She gazed at him from under her blonde fringe – as if he was retarded.
‘That girl spoke Basque just then.’
‘…She did?’
‘Yep.’
Amy’s denim jacket was off; David noticed the golden hairs on her suntanned arms as she reached again for her glass of wine.
‘And all the guys in Lesaka,’ she said, tilting her glass. ‘They were all speaking Basque. Hence their anger when you tried talking Spanish.’
David cocked an ear, listening to the chatter of the waitress. Kazakatchazaka.
Amy was right. This was surely Basque. And yet it sounded like they were talking a very bizarre Spanish. And he’d been hearing it all along without realizing.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘it took me a while, when I first came here, to realize I was surrounded by Basque speakers. I just thought they had over-the-top Spanish accents.’ She looked beyond him – at the whitewashed church walls. ‘I think it’s because Basque is so strange, the ear and the mind can’t entirely comprehend what’s being heard.’
‘Have you learned any?’
‘I’ve tried, of course! But it’s just impossible, weird clauses, unique syntax.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Here’s an example of how mad Basque is. What’s the first phrase you learn in any foreign language?’
‘“Do you speak English?”’
‘Comedy genius. What else?’
‘…“Can I have a beer?”’
‘Exactly. Une bière s’il vous plaît. Ein bier bitte.’
‘So how do you say “Can I have a beer” – in Basque?’
Amy looked at him.
‘Garagardoa nahi nuke.’
They sat there in the sun, in tense but companionable silence. And then a gust of wind rippled the parasol. David looked left: clouds were scudding in from the west, thicker clouds were rolling down the nearest Pyrenean slope, like a white sheepskin coat slowly falling from the shoulders.
‘OK,’ said David. ‘How do we know Miguel isn’t going to just turn up here, and follow you? And hurt you. I don’t get it. You seem calm. Fairly calm anyway.’
‘He was drunk. He’s only ever hit me once before.’
‘He’s done it before?’
She blushed. Then she quickly added: ‘He usually hangs out in Bilbao or Bayonne – with the other ETA leaders. He rarely comes to Navarre, might get seen. We were just very very unlucky. And anyhow I’m not going to let that bastard chase me away.’
Her final words were defiant: the slender nose uptilted, eyes wide and angry.
David saw the conviction and the sense in her statement; but he still felt queasy and tense. Just sitting here in the autumn breeze. Doing nothing.
‘OK. Let’s go and see the churches on my map.’
Amy nodded, and rose; when they climbed in the car the first flickers of drizzle were spitting on the windscreen.
‘How quickly it changes. In the autumn.’
The rain was a majorette’s drum-roll on the car roof. David reached in the glovebox and took out the precious paper; carefully unfolding the leaves, he showed her the map that had brought