A sun shower; a warm soft rain on a hot August afternoon falling lightly on a bright umbrella, settling the dust in the road in front of the saddlemakers shop in the village. The saddlemaker, about to close up for siesta, sees the woman under the umbrella through one of the windows of his shop where a saddle is displayed along with the pocketbooks and satchels, wallets, and soft leather rucksacks he makes to sell to the occasional tourist, and watches her as she stops to look at the cart full of cork bark across the way on its high wooden wheels. A donkey stands patient in the traces, head down and ears twitching. The rain falling softly on him makes his back glisten darkly and leaves thin dark trails where it drips down his dusty sides.
A man with a mustache, not an old man, not young, wearing a broad brimmed straw hat, sweat stained and losing its shape, steps out of a doorway across the road and walks up to the donkey. He sees the woman watching him and their eyes meet for a second but then both look away. She turns and walks toward the display window of the saddlemaker’s shop. The man with the mustache clucks to the donkey and rubs its neck. He begins to walk and the high wheels turn as the donkey follows him. He walks slowly and the donkey takes a few quick steps to catch up to him and when they’re side by side, slows his pace and they walk along together.
There is the rhythmic squeak of harness and a slow thump… thump… as one of the wheels lifts slightly on each turn and the cart rises and falls just a little on that side, giving it a rocking motion. The man murmurs something to the donkey and slows down. The donkey continues and the man drops back to walk alongside the wheel. He reaches into the cart and pulls out a stick of wood and then watches the rotation of the wheel and knocks something off its rim with the stick and then tosses the stick back into the cart. The thumping stops and the rocking motion of the cart stops. The man turns and looks back at the woman under the umbrella. She has been watching all this and their eyes meet once more and then both look away again. They look as if, perhaps distantly, they could be related, but her life has nothing to do with him and his has nothing to do with her. They both feel that they’ve been, vaguely, impolite.
She walks toward the saddlemaker’s shop and, under the eave, closes her umbrella. She shakes it and leans it against the building, then steps through the bead curtain in the doorway of the shop between the two display windows. It’s cooler inside and there is the fragrance of wood and leather and of oils and beeswax. The saddlemaker greets her with a slight bow and says “Buenas Tardes.’ She smiles and says hello and looks around her, and then steps over to the window where she can see the man and the donkey pulling the cart. They are rounding a bend in the road passing under a tall tree and she watches until they are gone from sight. She continues to watch for a minute and she realizes that the sunshower has passed.
The woman turns back and the saddlemaker can see that her eyes have not yet adjusted to the light in the shop after the bright sunlight outside. She pushes her hair back with her hand and the saddlemaker notices a blue smear on the edge of her palm and yellow on her fingertips. An artist, he thinks. She smiles at him again and makes a gesture as if she is wafting a fragrance to her nose. She breathes deeply and nods her head and closes her eyes and he understands that she has told him she likes the smells of his shop. He nods and smiles. “Si.” he says.
She looks around. Through an open doorway she can see into another room with windows all around. In the center of the room next to a workbench with a number of tools on it, is an unfinished saddle on a wooden frame, pale and raw looking. On another frame is a finished saddle. She steps to the doorway and looks back at the saddlemaker. He nods and gestures for her to enter the room. She walks over to the finished saddle. It’s a working saddle, not fancy or ornate, but beautifully made, she can see. She reaches out to touch it and then looks back at the saddlemaker once more. “Si” he says, gesturing for her to go ahead, “Por favor.” She runs her fingers along the precise stitching, surprised at the complexity of a saddle’s construction. “Beautiful,” she says. “Gracias, Señora”, he says.
Then she returns to the front room and looks around at the items hanging from pegs on the walls. She reaches up and takes a rucksack from its peg. The leather is heavy but soft and fragrant. It’s a simple rucksack, just a sack with a rawhide drawstring at its top for a closure and a wide leather flap over that which fastens with a strap and buckle. It has two wide shoulder straps also with buckles. She asks the saddlemaker how much and he gives her a price. She knows she is expected to bargain with him, but doesn’t like doing it and finds the process uncomfortable. How much should she offer? Half that amount? Less? She’s not sure, and she looks at the rucksack and says nothing for a few moments.
The saddlemaker, either thinking that this is a bargaining ploy, or perhaps realizing why she hesitates, claps a hand to his brow and says “Momento. No.” and he waves his hands as if to dismiss or erase the price he’d quoted her and he points to another rucksack on the wall and repeats the price he’d given her for the one she’s holding. He touches the one she’s holding and smiles and gives her another price. Lower, as if he’d made a mistake and the one on the wall was that price, but the one she was holding was less.
The woman pays him and as she’s putting the money in his hand, notices the paint on her fingers and edge of her palm and says “Oh” and looks up at him and smiles. He smiles at her and says “Pintora?. She nods. She puts the small pocketbook she’d been carrying into the rucksack and slings one strap over her shoulder. “Goodbye”, she says. “Thank you.” He says “De nada. ‘Dios”. and she steps out through the beaded doorway into the sunlight. She looks to her right where the cartwheel tracks on the road disappear around the bend, and then looks to her left and walks that way.
The saddlemaker steps out through the beads in the doorway after her and sees her brightly colored umbrella leaning against the front of the building. He reaches down for it just as she realizes she’s forgotten it. She walks back and he hands her the umbrella with a nod. She smiles, says “Thank you” and turns back. The saddlemaker watches her and then sees the auto parked down the road by the Bodega. A man wearing sunglasses is standing by the auto, gesturing for her to hurry, a sweeping impatient arm movement. She walks toward him. The road has already begun to dry after the sun shower and her footsteps raise little puffs of dust.