The beginning of 'THERE GOES GABRIEL SÁNCHEZ'  
by June Whitaker
CHAPTER 1
Aguazán, a mountain village in the south of Spain,
Tuesday, May 13th 1952

 
In the main square of Aguazán, swifts made their last sweep round the church tower and went to roost. Bats came out, skimming sun-warmed roof tiles and flitting through the pueblo'slabyrinthine streets, their little squeaks echoing from stone walls thickened by nine centuries of lime wash. And, outside the Sánchez house in the street called calle Morera, three black cats moved through the shadows.

In the upstairs room of the Sánchez house, the midwife, Pili Jurado, laid aside the plait she was weaving from esparto grass. ‘Let me feel again.’ She stuck her fingers into the girl. ‘You’re fully open. The child's ready.’

‘What hour is it?’

‘Ay, María. Midnight won’t come any sooner for you asking every few minutes. Are you in much pain?’

‘Some.’

Pili wiped beads of sweat from María’s forehead and brushed back some tendrils of damp hair. Poor girl. Not yet nineteen, with no family of her own. And that jealous harridan, Angustias, for a sister-in-law. ‘I know why you’re holding back. They say, “On Tuesday, never marry or take a trip,” no?’ She didn´t go on to point out that, on Tuesday the thirteenth, no one would put a hen to mate, slaughter a pig, or sow seeds. ‘But with a birth, there’s no choice. It’s dangerous, trying to hold back. You’ll make yourself feverish.’

The girl’s eyes were big with fear.

‘Just think,’ Pili went on more gently, ‘how many babies must have been born in this room – including some on Tuesdays. I bet this old sheet’s welcomed a few.’ The birthing sheet was the least threadbare portions of several old sheets joined together, mottled by rust-coloured stains. Pili attempted a half-laugh. ‘You’re still a novice! Wait till you’re having your tenth or twelfth, you won’t even remember this birth.’

                            For herself, Pili was sure she’d never forget it.