Domingo's Angel

Chapter 2

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 colours 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 Garccia 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. He told her about the old priest who mumbled the mass so that no-one could understand a word he said, but it didn't matter because the mass was in Latin and nobody understood that either. He told her about the goats, how they would eat absolutely anything, including washing left out to dry. But they would not eat the oleander plants because, as all the world knows, it is deadly poisonous.

Angela watched his lips as he spoke, struggling to understand the words and every so often asking him to say it again, only more slowly. On her journey through Spain she had picked up a great deal of the language, but in every place there were different words and different accents and she couldn't always make out what he was saying.

Domingo laughed at her, showing strong white teeth in his brown face, and mimicked the action of the story he was telling. When he did an exquisite enactment of a goat eating the long underpants of Salva the baker and of Salva's mother wrestling with the goat to pull back the garment from its stomach, Angela collapsed into helpless laughter, holding her own stomach, tears streaming from her eyes.

Domingo smiled with satisfaction, delighted with her appreciation of his histrionic talents.

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.