The Tale-Teller by Susan Glickman

As an adult he had refused to go to Mass with his mother; yet another way he’d disappointed her. In his last memory of her, she was standing fixed as a statue in the doorway, pleading with him not to go to sea. When he insisted that he had to go, she flung her apron over her head and started moaning that she would lose him as she had his father. Her behaviour had irritated him so much he’d left without kissing her goodbye. This was surely his worst sin.
    For though he had filched oranges from his fat neighbour to the east and olives from his thin neighbour to the west, though he had told plenty of girls he loved them in order to steal kisses sweeter than oranges and more bitter than unripe olives, he had committed no major crimes. His conscience was clear of robbery, adultery, and murder, though there had been plenty of temptation — and opportunity (that freckled young wife behind the chicken coop, for example). And he’d been generous with what he had, sharing with others less fortunate even when he knew they couldn’t pay him back.
    Rehearsing these small villainies and smaller heroisms reminded Joaquin that one’s whole life is supposed to flash before one’s eyes at the moment of death. So I am dead! he thought, relieved to have at least one mystery resolved. Then he heard footsteps, and the next thing he knew, a gentle hand caressed his face and a woman’s voice murmured something vaguely familiar close to his ear. His panic subsided, and he lay there waiting for his fate to unfold.
    A wooden beaker was held to his lips and he drank the sweet water eagerly. The sodden remnants of his clothes were stripped from his body and his wounds were dressed with fragrant ointments. Then he was lifted onto some kind of hammock and carried, swaying between two poles, for a great distance.
    How long he was carried he couldn’t say, as he passed in and out of consciousness, lulled by exhaustion and the incessant movement of his conveyance. He could tell that the ground was rocky, and for a long time they definitely walked uphill. Once someone stumbled and he was almost dropped; when he cried out in pain and alarm, there was a flurry of apologetic voices in that vaguely familiar tongue. He also heard many birds; some, like seagulls, he recognized immediately; others were unknown to him. The wind sang in the trees, and when they moved into the open, the sun beat down on his unprotected face. He was everywhere and nowhere, saved and lost, alone among strangers.
    Days might have passed, or hours. Time no longer had any meaning. There was only movement and then stillness; drinking and then sleeping. He had become an infant again, strapped to his mother’s chest. He was oddly content in this unaccustomed passivity.
    Eventually they entered a cool darkness. His hammock was suspended above ground to keep the weight off his injured leg, so that he continued to sway slightly as though his journey had not yet ended. Then someone spoke kindly to him and spooned thick soup into his mouth. It was full of some kind of grain, and beans, and chunks of tender fish, aromatically seasoned. Smelling of comfort, this was the best meal he had tasted since he left Spain, but he could eat only a little, his belly heaving from having swallowed so much salt water. His mind also was overwhelmed by his experience. Too exhausted to grapple further with the mystery of his rescuers’ identity, he gave himself up to sleep, confident that he was among those who would not hurt him. Around him were the sounds of laughter, the high voices of women and children, and delicious smells. Wherever he was it was infinitely better than the floating hell of the
Imperio
.
    Many days passed before he was well enough to get up, leaning on a stick because of his broken ankle, but he had not regained his vision. His hearing was unimpaired however, and it confirmed his impression that the language around him resembled Spanish, so he assumed