Lavinia Learns a Lesson (1/2) (L2.19)

The past is never the past. Who wrote that? Or not that but something else? And was the statement true?

These questions and others kept running through Lavinia’s mind and were beginning to keep her up at night. She was waking up with dark circles under eyes and sometimes had to wipe away the last cobwebs, not of sleep but of nightmares. She knew she had to do something…

It had all started, this sense of the unsettled, the uncertain, when Lavinia had what some call a crisis, although she just thought of as a moment of reckoning. True, it wasn’t “a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger,” as one definition states. There was none if that. No, what was happening was she had entered a new stage in life; that was the crisis, as in the definition “a time when a difficult or important decision must be made.” She knew it was a critical decision. That was why she’d been asking so many questions, hoping for answers.

In this global society, people weren’t often asking the important questions. Nor did they know much about the histories new arrivals bring with them. They see young, old, disabled, skin color, condition of clothing. The ones who see the new arrivals make many assumptions. This might not seem related to Lavinia, but she couldn’t overlook the fact that coming to a new country to live is far more difficult for people than most realize.

Lavinia didn’t stand out in Compostela, but she knew some people made assumptions about her involvement with A Nosa Biblioteca. 

[Author’s note: see stories about Our Library elsewhere on Reedsy. The library had been tended to in secret by women for centuries, in Santiago de Compostela, and held books as well as artifacts of other sorts, created by women from many places. The group of caretakers was the Graystockings. Lavinia had worked with this group.]

Foreigners weren’t always to be trusted, thought at least one of the Graystockings. There had even been some attempts to make Lavinia uncomfortable: a comment on her ability to communicate in the Galician language; an insinuation she had gaps in her knowledge of the culture; a comment on whether she might try to remove some of the items in the library, like so many foreign researchers before her. As the weeks went by, they had been successful, although the methods used to undermine her hope of being able to work with the group had taken some time to discourage her completely.

Lavinia decided she couldn’t go through another experience like her previous one in the States, and so told her friend Pilar as well as Pilar the librarian that she was going back to the States for a while, not knowing how long that would be and choosing not to reveal her fear that she would never return. She wasn’t going to return to academe at least, but would seek out something in her field outside of it, such as a library or a museum. Just something to support herself and have time to think.

The college in town had arranged a lecture by Quintin Ames, Professor of History at a university in Kittery. He specialized in transatlantic diasporas and especially to the Northeast. In this lecture he was speaking on immigrants in Maine in the nineteenth century. Prior to 1820, Maine had been part of Massachusetts, so there had been some interesting events before and after that date. The biggest industry that had drawn people from Europe for decades was stone in all its forms, practical and artistic. Many stone-cutters had worked the granite for walls, headstones, paths, houses. Many languages had been spoken and disappeared.

The other industry was shipping, much of which was to and from the Caribbean, source of molasses for sugar and alcohol. As a state with a very long coast, Maine had its sights on Cuba and other islands.

Dr. Ames mentioned numerous groups of workers: Scots, Finns, Swedes, Italians, and so on. Yet he never mentioned Spanish or Portuguese, although he seemed to a great deal of knowledge on the other groups. Lavinia had looked a little for Galicians in the state, but was aware they were probably always listed as Spaniards when most likely they didn’t. Know the language. She had to speak afterward with the lecturer, in case he had any suggestions for Galicians in Maine.

Ames agreed that it was likely some had come, as stone-cutters or sailors, but that he hadn’t located any information on the topic yet. He confessed to being very intrigued by the possibility and this made Lavinia wonder why he was interested in this particular aspect of Maine history? She asked him.

Dr Ames replied: “I’ll tell you if you have time another day. I need to get home right now, sorry.” Lavinia thought he sounded curt, but she might be wrong, she conceded.

They had agreed to meet the next Friday at a local bistro, and their conversation, in a much-abbreviated form, was as follows:

“I have a personal connection,” he said.

“So do I,” she said, not certain if the confession surprised her or not.

“Mine is vague, because I don’t have a lot of details, and it feels a bit childish or romantic,” he said, looking embarrassed, as well he might, considering it was related to his research in history.

“Mine isn’t either of those things, it’s not childish or romantic, but I need answers and can’t find them or haven’t so far,” was the answer, also very vague.

“Mine has to de with a relative, maybe my grandmother,” he said. He was looking upset at not knowing. He hadn’t figured out yet where to start.

“Ah, she emigrated,” said his listener.

“Not exactly, no,” he answered slowly.

Lavinia waited for him to go on, wondering if he was going to tell her something too personal or too tragic. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it now. However, the secret, for it was a secret, was obviously a very sad one and she saw how he felt real pain at the story he’d inherited. Her own secret side, the Galician one, was only a secret when she was back in the States, where nobody knew anything about the place. That was entirely different. She had no family there.

Quintin (they were obviously on first name basis now, having dropped the academic pose) proceeded to explain, but in very fragmented form, the main story of his family, one of whose lines was Galician. There was an emigrant from a tiny village. He had gone to Cuba but ended up in Maine. At some point a daughter had been born and she in turn had had a daughter whose father was unnamed. There were a few first names, but not everyone’s surname was known. There was also a portrait of somebody that was significant. 

“I’ll help you,” Lavinia said, suddenly. “I can speak the language and know how to locate things. (She was being very modest.) I can help you get oriented. I’m sure you’ll find the information you need, because Galicia has the longest memory of any country in the world.”

She didn’t know why she’d blurted that out. Did she mean it? Did it sound like she was trying to… to what? To find an excuse to go back? She thought that wasn’t the case, that she wasn’t using him. She frowned, nevertheless. She still hadn’t found an answer to her own doubts as to whether she could return to Compostela to stay.

“Really? Would you? I have a sabbatical soon, but I can always come up with a research project for the department chair. Or there’s the summer.” Quintin was clearly enthusiastic about the idea and rattled off all the ways he knew to make the trip.

“Yes, she said, I would.” But she didn’t know why she said it, although while she was offering, she must have known that her willingness to return, that lack of even a minute drop of hesitation, was the first step toward the answer she needed.

[Author’s note: the next story, “Lavinia Returns to Compostela,” is the follow-up to this one. It may also be the final installment to the larger cycle, Lavinia in Compostela. That decision is not yet final.]