By The Book

GIVE me three months,” Magdalena told her husband. “I am going to sort out this library and give Canfortesa a facility of real use!”

Matias kissed her.

“I am sure of it,” he replied.

It was 1977 and they were new in Canfortesa, a pretty town in the hills north of Seville, with almond trees lining the slopes and orange trees lining the streets.

Matias had a job in local administration, and Magdalena had been delighted to find one, too.

The Canfortesa librarian, Camila Marin, was about to retire when the young couple arrived in town.

Magdalena was a qualified librarian, trained in Madrid and very keen.

When she got the job, Senora Marin offered a two-week overlap to show her the ropes.

On her first day, Magdalena was dismayed to find that Canfortesa’s library was not run properly at all.

Camila Marin was a round, smiling, chatty woman, and though clearly devoted to the library and the town archive attached to it, she had no idea how to manage either of them.

“Oh, yes, we have a catalogue,” Camila told her. “Come and see.”

The “catalogue’” was two large and wobbly filing cabinets, inside which were record cards for books and other stock, but in no particular order.

There was no regard for consistency, detail or convention.

“Most people come and ask me when they want something,” Camila explained cheerfully.

“I know what’s here and I know what people like.

“Anita Lopez wants books on wildlife, Señor Tomas comes in for his war stories.”

Magdalena was horrified. It appeared that there were only records for some of the books!

Camila didn’t seem apologetic.

“There’s only me,” she said, “and sometimes a book is borrowed as soon as it arrives.”

It seemed to Magdalena that the only thing to do was begin again. It was a daunting prospect, but Magdalena was a born librarian and had to have order and accuracy.

“Do you have circulation records stored somewhere else?” she asked Camila. “Circulation?”

“The record of who has borrowed the books?” Magdalena dreaded the reply.

“Oh, the people of Canfortesa are very good at returning things,” Camila said proudly. Magdalena stared. “How can you possibly know?”

“I know, more or less.” Camila smiled. “Now, I’ll show you where to make coffee. Coffee is important.”

Magdalena began to make a library out of what she saw as chaos. The citizens of Canfortesa were only a little puzzled.

“Senora Camila used to fetch me a nice novel,” the ladies would say.

“She knew what I liked and what I’d already read.”

Magdalena knew they would appreciate her work in the end.

If there wasn’t a proper record, how did anyone really know what was in the library?

She would tackle the archive, which was stored in a room at the back, when the library was ship-shape.

Sorting through a folder stuffed with old newspaper clippings, Magdalena discovered that Canfortesa had a certain relationship with a town in the USA that shared its name.

“Oh, yes, Canfortesa, Idaho.” Camila nodded.

She was still helping Magdalena, which was a help (Camila knew the stock) and a hindrance (she never stopped talking).

“A Spaniard went there in 1899 from our town and founded the new town over there. Wasn’t that nice?”

Magdalena agreed – it was wonderful to have such a cultural connection.

Camila knew a lot about the USA Canfortesa.

During the Spanish Civil War its citizens had been very kind and charitable, sending packages and letters to their suffering, besieged and hungry counterparts in Andalusia.

“Lovely people,” Camila remarked. “There will always be a bond.”

She paused in her work. “In fact, we must arrange another visit back and forth. It’s been far too long.

“Now we have aeroplanes crossing the Atlantic all the time it will be easier.

“The librarian has always been central to this relationship.”

Magdalena looked at the piles of books and

Magdalena was a stickler for order and accuracy. Where would the world be without it?

magazines that she had to tackle that day and sighed.

But the idea of international cultural exchange was interesting.

Magdalena had a strong interest in America and a secret fondness for “Charlie’s Angels” and “Bonanza” on the television.

She looked up Canfortesa in the library’s atlas. The tiny town lay in the narrow chimney of land that joined the state of Idaho to Canada.

It looked green and cool and misty, and Magdalena longed to go there.

She mentioned to Camila that she might volunteer if an exchange was arranged.

“You must!” Camila exclaimed. “Young people should follow their dreams.”

Matias was enthusiastic. They had married young, and both of them cherished fantasies of going abroad.

A town discussion took place, and nobody seemed to mind that the newcomers wanted to represent them.

A letter was sent by Camila to a lady she knew there, and a delighted invitation came back.

The homes of Canfortesa, Idaho, were open (the lady said) to their Spanish friends!

Two months later they were all set. A bus would take them to Seville airport.

Magdalena felt bad about abandoning the library so soon, but Camila would be caring for it (in her own special way).

“You will renew the friendship between the two Canfortesas!” the mayor commented during an over-elaborate send-off in the town square.

Camila pressed a book into Magdalena’s free hand as they awaited the bus, and Magdalena looked down to see it was a guidebook to Boise, Idaho, an edition published in 1959 that Magdalena had been about to throw away.

“Thank you,” she told her.

The capital of Idaho was not on the itinerary, but it was a kind thought.

“And you will see the tree!” someone cried out as the bus pulled up.

“Tree?” Magdalena asked.

“Oh, yes . . .” Camila looked at the mayor and he smiled back. “Yes, the olive tree we sent.

“When was that? The late Fifties. Santiago Ramirez will remember. Where is Santiago?”

Senor Ramirez gave a speedy potted history while the bus idled.

Apparently Canfortesa had sent a sapling to Idaho as a special gift in gratitude for the help given in the Thirties.

“An olive!” Magdalena cried. “How Andalusian! I look forward to seeing it. In thirty years it will have grown to a decent size.”

The olive tree was a slow-grower, but a lovely thing once it took on its unique shape.

As the bus set off down the hill, Camila and Matias looked out at the groves of citrus, almonds and olives, and gripped each other’s hands with excitement.

The hospitality in the other Canfortesa was warm and unfettered. Magdalena had seen a great many television cop shows, and her images of the USA were of concrete housing projects and alleys with barbed wire.

North Idaho was a place of lakes, broad rivers and endless conifers, lush and ringed with low mountains.

The people were delightful, and initial embarrassing stumbles with language quickly turned into laughter and mutual understanding.

There was a short concert of American folk music on their first evening, and a simple supper in the “plantation saloon”, where men and women in real cowboy hats shook their hands and offered them American drinks like root beer.

A local dignitary gave a witty and touching speech about the history of the relationship, and they retired to a comfortable room in the home of a kind host.

The people of this remote part of the United States were simple, uncomplicated people, but they cared and they knew about hospitality.

The following day was appointed for a tour of Canfortesa.

Magdalena walked with a tall, silver-haired lady, the widow of a previous mayor.

Darleen Farland was Camila’s correspondent and a historian of the towns’ relationship.

She was proud of her Spanish heritage and also of her town, and she gave Magdalena a fascinating look around, trailed by a cheerful posse of Idahoans.

“There are many towns in the US that forget their cultural links and their immigrant history,” Darleen remarked, “but not here.

“On my shelf at home I have so many photographs from visits and they all tell the story. We must hold hands across oceans.”

Magdalena was pleased she had come.

The welcome had been even better than she and Matias had hoped for, and they were having a marvellous time.

Matias was taking rolls and rolls of photographs on his new camera, and she anticipated adding to the archive in their own Canfortesa, but properly labelled, stored, crossreferenced and indexed in a professional manner.

“It is so important for future generations,” she told Matias, “to preserve with accuracy.”

The little procession arrived in front of a tilehung public building.

It was dusk now, and cold in an Idaho early spring.

Magdalena wrapped around her the parka that her host had pressed on her that morning.

There was a fountain, a children’s playground to one side and a modest circular flower-bed in the middle with benches at some distance.

In the centre of the flower-bed was a shrubby tree with a leaning trunk and pointed, sage-coloured leaves.

“How pretty,” Magdalena declared.

“Ah!” Darleen said as Matias joined them. She smiled, looking right at Magdalena.

“Our olive, all the way from sunny Spain!”

Magdalena felt Matias grow still beside her. Both of them walked up to the tree slowly, with fixed smiles on their faces.

“It had a metal fence around it for many years

The welcome had been even better than Magdalena had hoped

while it grew,” Darleen explained. “I recall the very day the tree came and feeling emotional about it.”

It was not an olive tree. There was no doubt in Magdalena’s mind, and Marias had clearly noticed, too.

Whatever it was, it was not an olive of any sort.

Back in 1947, the good people of Canfortesa, the loyal, grateful folks who had made them local huckleberry ice-cream and sang them songs, had been given a dud.

To make matters worse, a plaque protruded from the soil at the base of the tree, proclaiming,

Olea europaea; European olive.

Magdalena was appalled. Every instinct in her – as a librarian and a guest – rose up in distress at the deception played upon an innocent town.

The label was bad enough without the lie that brought it about!

She thought in that moment of the Canfortesa library, and she fumed.

Camila was not only happy to run a sloppy library: she and her peers didn’t give a hoot what present they sent across the world to their American sisters and brothers!

She pleaded fatigue and made her way with Matias back to their hosts’ home, where they sat on the bed and talked about the tree.

Matias was less upset, but he sympathised. “What is the tree?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It looks like an olive. That makes it worse, Mati – someone in Canfortesa made some effort to con them!” “Why?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to tell Darleen!”

Matias stopped her as she rose from the bed.

“I’m not sure,” he began. “Should we really spoil this visit? It would be terrible – embarrassing, excruciating – to let the cat out of the bag now.”

Magdalena thought about it.

“It is only a part of the special relationship,” she said quietly, her teeth clenched. “Everything about this makes me cross.”

The rest of the trip passed with no mishaps, while Magdalena’s unease grew. She felt like a fraud and a conspirator.

Matias reminded her that it had not been her doing, and she seethed about how patronising it was of the Spanish Canfortesa, how wrong.

“These people have to know,” she told Matias.

“But later,” he said gently. “I say we go home and tackle the issue there.”

“We could send a real olive!” Magdalena cried.

They went home, and the morning after their plane landed, Magdalena marched into the library to speak to Camila.

“That tree,” she said in a steady voice.

“Which tree?” Camila asked, blinking several times.

“It is not an olive, Camila. I have researched the tree that is there in the illustrated books of trees we have in the library.” She frowned at Camila.

“I am confident it is an elaeagnus ‘Quicksilver’, its leaves silvery and willowlike.”

She leaned towards Camila.

“Was it a cheaper specimen? Did you forget to order an olive in time for it to be sent?

“Did somebody mess up but decide it didn’t really matter, that any tree would do?”

Camila regarded Magdalena calmly. “Come.”

She led Magdalena into the archive room and slid open a cabinet. She drew out a thick photograph album.

“Look.” She pointed. For a moment Magdalena did not move, but then she bent her head reluctantly to see what was inside.

“See the friendship here,” Camila began as she turned the stiff pages, lifting away the transparent papers between.

“See the relief at the end of war, the pleasure in the company of new and strange people who are not strange at all, but just like us,” she continued.

Photographs were stuck to every page, too close together and starting to fade.

There were images of fun being had in both towns, of hot dogs being handed over, flamenco attempted, souvenirs exchanged.

In the Spanish photographs, tall Idahoans joined in the almond harvest, spreading the nets beneath the trees, laughing.

Magdalena saw two sets of people brought together for a moment by history and the need to connect.

“But you told them they were getting an olive, an important symbol of our beautiful land, a tree of the Bible, of peace and plenty, a thing of ancient Spain!” Camila closed the album. “An olive would have died after one winter,” she explained. “It seemed a great idea at the time, but quickly we all realised it was silly. You went there; it is cold!”

“Yes, but –” “Magdalena, you are a girl who needs everything to be labelled correctly.

“You cannot bear for the dictionaries not to be in alphabetical order, or the cine films not to be stored with every detail of length and provenance. I see that.

“But in this case we talked, once the present had been decided on, and knew we had to find a way around.”

“But I have to tell them,” Magdalena said. “They have a right to –”

“Darleen,” Camila interrupted, smiling at a memory. “Señora Darleen Farland who is a little bit Spanish but looks like a Viking! What a woman! You met Darleen?” Magdalena nodded. “She knows that the tree is an elaeagnus, or an oleaster if we use its common name.”

“She knows?” Magdalena was shocked.

“We wrote. I think I tore a page out of a trees and shrubs book to show her the oleaster.” Camila smiled.

“We found a tree that could thrive in that cold, damp and exposed place, and also be a reminder of the love between us.

“Tell me it is not still doing its work, child.”

Magdalena was silent, and Camila smiled again.

“It was quite an effort to source the tree because nobody grows it here.

“I think it was shipped from Holland or somewhere.

“Darleen managed the receiving of it, and the removing of labels so the people there would not fret.

“Oh, Magdalena, such sins against librarians and accuracy were committed!

“But listen,” she went on. “You can see that it was about the connection, the gesture, and the fact that we were one in God’s eyes and one in our hearts.

“Tell me: how important is the type of tree?”

Before Camila had finished speaking, Magdalena knew she was right.

She said she was sorry, then she sat down to tell Camila all about the trip, and to describe the pictures which Matias would be fetching from the chemist.

She warmed to her story and the tree faded in her mind.

It grew late, and Camila reminded her it was no use going on and on about Canfortesa, Idaho, to Camila Marin only; a slideshow had to be organised and an outdoor fiesta planned to rekindle the knowledge of every citizen here.

They locked up the archive room and went to brew some of Camila’s excellent coffee.

“But I am still going to revolutionise this library,” Magdalena confessed. “Tear apart the archive and put it back together.”

“Of course you are,” Camila replied, patting her hand, “and quite right, too.

“I keep wondering where all the Barbara Cartland novels are shelved – now that I am retired and want to read them!” ■