Margen
Previously: in the freezer at the bar Rosalía pulled out forty more bags in Ovidio's handwriting, fifty-one seeds in total from eighty burned orchards, and admitted she had kept quiet for twenty years.
On day 8 before the truck, Elsa Trigo, beekeeper, loads the fifty-one bags into two apple crates and drives down to the district nursery of Sorbeda. Julián Trigo, her father, stays at the house with the eight hives still to check and a list.
The nursery is a long shed with a fibre-cement roof, eight greenhouses in a row and an office at the back with a computer and a filing cabinet. She's seen by Damián Rebolledo, agronomist at the district nursery, fifty-two, grey shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
«Fifty-one bags. Twelve different varieties. Winter pear from Sorbeda, reineta apple from La Peral, early cherry from El Rebollar, black claudia plum from the highlands, quince from Ceceda…»
«Are they all labelled?»
«Ovidio wrote variety, orchard and year on every bag. Eighty orchards burned, fifty-one seeds kept. Twenty-nine varieties lost for good.»
Damián opens the first bag, tips four pips onto a white sheet, holds them up to the fluorescent light and closes the bag with a clip.
«Elsa, this goes through the regional plant-material register. I can accept them today and give you an entry slip. But the register only covers them if they're planted in agricultural land before the date on the record. On the record, not on your goodwill.»
«Five days.»
«From record to truck, five. On paper: if they're in the ground on the twenty-ninth, they become part of the district's plant heritage. If they're in a box on the thirtieth, they're fifty-one bags of old seed with no owner. And the plant-health order from 1994 is still active in the archive.»
«Can I plant them in any orchard?»
«In any plot classed as agricultural. The eight orchards still standing out of the eighty can. The meadows can't. The eighty burned ones were reclassified as forestry in 1996: they can't.»
«Eight orchards and fifty-one seeds.»
«Spread the varieties across the orchards so you don't lose them all if something goes wrong next year. For each variety, put three seeds in the same hole: if one takes, all three take; if none takes, the plot wasn't right.»
Damián gives her a stamped entry slip, a map of the district's eight agricultural plots, and a plastic bag with white markers numbered 1 to 60.
«One marker per hole, with the variety written on top. Photo of the marker and the hole before you fill it in. The photos are archived here at the nursery. If any inspector comes next year, that's the one thing that saves them.»
«And the twenty-nine varieties that aren't there?»
«They were lost in 1994. No one fixes that.»
At the door Damián hands her a headtorch.
«Dig the deep holes in the morning or late afternoon, never at midday. The August sun dries out the seed before you can cover it. And if there's heavy rain, the clay holes fill up: move that variety to your father's plot, it drains.»
Elsa walks back home with the fifty-one bags, the stamped slip and the map. On the kitchen table, Julián Trigo, retired fruit grower, is waiting with the twelfth box open and two more bags on the tablecloth: they turned up folded behind the inner partition, in Ovidio's handwriting, «early apricot from Sorbeda, 1994» and «muscat pear from El Rebollar, 1994». That makes fifty-three.
«Thirteen varieties then,» he says. «And still half of them missing.»
Elsa unfolds the map on the table, marks the eight plots in pencil and writes the owners' names in the margin: Amaro, Rosalía, Julián, Balbina, Aquilino, Nieves, Herminio, Sinesio. She spreads the thirteen varieties across the plots, three seeds per hole, and does the sums on paper: fifty-three holes, sixty white markers, seven to spare. Balbina Losa's plot is half an hour on foot and faces south; her father's is behind the house. They start with those two today before the sun goes down.
Julián takes the headtorch and a hoe from the shed. Elsa folds the map into four and slips it into her trouser pocket.