Aunt Pomba and the Swiss Ghost

201. Aunt Pomba and the Swiss Ghost

“You helped me find this idiot and now it’s my turn to  help you find yours,” said Uncle Wildgale. “One thing we already know. Alpin is not in there. They would have doused him with water by now.”

“You are the idiot,” said Uncle Richearth, “you ridiculous, handwringing doomsayer! How you like to raise tempests in teapots, make mountains out of molehills and drown in glasses of water! You’ve alarmed our sister and dragged her out here, poor thing, for no reason at all. And you’ve shamed me in front of my friends. By the way, Arley, since I am not angry with you, I will help you find Alpin. He has left you a note. It´s stuck on that tree. Maybe it says where he has gone.”

The note Alpin had left read as follows:

“To whom it may concern. Know that I have business in Santiago and tired of waiting for the clod who has holed himself up inside the monastery to turn himself in and come out of there once and for all, I have gone off to call on Aunt Pomba by myself, because my time is gold. Alpin Dullahan signs this missive.”

“No respite ever,” I muttered. “One problem after another.”  

In truth, our old problem was not even over yet, because my uncles had just come to blows and it looked like they were about to kill each other. Uncle Richearth is the hardiest looking of Mum's brother’s. Uncle Wildgale is the lightest, airiest of them, and even looks fragile, but though all of Mum's brothers are of delicate aspect, when enraged they turn into hideous monsters. Mum is just like that too. On occasions this is a good thing, and this was one of those times. She whacked one of her brothers right on the mouth with her large capacity travel cosmetic bag and then did the exact same thing to the other one. That was the end of that, at least for the timebeing. It is curious that I have never come to blows myself with my sisters or brothers, nor, for the matter, with anyone, I think. That must be something grown ups do, or maybe it is a generational compulsion.

“Nobody called me, Richie, I came because I couldn’t get in touch with you,” said Mum. “I don´t want anyone to hear about this, because we are really going to look ridiculous if this gets in the news. Do me the favor of accompanying my son on his quest for the little pest that got away from him. See if you can cooperate with Arley on this because he always cooperates with everyone. And now I´m leaving.”

“Mum, can you take the horses and the mules home? They are from your stables. I have a lot of gifts for everybody but I suppose I will give them out tomorrow. We will fly off now.”

Mum flew off before we did, taking with her the twins, all our steeds and baggage and even Frostine, Alpin’s fridge.

“Who is Aunt Pomba? Is she nice to look at?” asked Uncle Richearth.

Uncle Wildgale made intimation of striking his brother but managed to contain himself.

I looked in my crystal ball.

“She’s a granny,” sighed Uncle Richearth. “We´ll have to respect her.”

Uncle Wildgale rolled his eyes up to heaven like giving thanks.

But what I was seeing in the crystal ball did not bode anything good.

Aunt Pomba was a woman in her seventies who should have been combing gray hair, except that she had dyed it an intense black. She had several kissmes on her forehead and like a dozen rings on her fingers. But she was the least of my worries.

“It’s happening!” I shouted. “The Holy Company has caught Alpin!”

We all flew off like mad, my uncles, Don Alonso, Michael and I and in a question of minutes we appeared before a decrepit house surrounded by dovecotes. In the dead of the night, the doves were screeching and yelling, and so was Aunt Pomba.

“Pull, lad, pull! It´s practically yours already!”

She meant a cauldron that Alpin was trying to tear from a man with an Andalusian hat who was cursing in German.

“Let go of it, Alpin!” I yelled  myself, convinced this was the Holy Company’s fatal cauldron of holy water. “You can still free yourself!”

“Now, why is that fellow invoking the hosts of Odin?” asked Uncle Richearth. “They are allies of the Holy Company? And why hasn’t his hat fallen off his head? Is it stuck with glue? Blow on it, Val, I want to know.”

“What do you know?” said Uncle Val. “The souls must have trapped one of those Germans that immigrated to Spain. And a stupid one at that. He doesn't want to be liberated. All he has to do is let go of that pot and Alpin will take his place. I'm thinking, maybe we shouldn't intervene." 

"Our nephew is in charge of that kid, Val."

"Have you any holy water from the monastery? Do you think that guy will writhe and vanish if we throw it at him?”

I grabbed the neck of Alpin’s t-shirt and began to pull myself. Don Alonso caught Alpin by the waist and began to pull too, while Michael scratched at Alpin’s hands to make him let go of the cauldron. Suddenly, the contents of the pot spilled to the ground. This was not holy water. Lying on the ground were diamonds and solid gold coins.

“You, sir!” exclaimed Michael. “I know who you are! You are the ghost of the Swiss treasure hunter who was after a hoard from Brazil.”

Both the ghost and Aunt Pomba were on all fours trying to gather all the diamonds and coins they could. Before they could come to blows too, Uncle Wildgale blew each of them to a different corner of that place.

“We are going to pick all this up and return it to this gentleman,” said Michael. “It must have taken him terrible trouble to claim this.”

“No way!” shouted Alpin, still blandishing the cauldron. But I tore it from him and threw it to Don Alonso.

Uncle Richearth, like the gentleman he really is, had gone off to help Aunt Pomba get on her feet.

“But what a pretty boy you are, rapaziño!” said Aunt Pomba, studying him from head to toe.

“Aren’t I?” said Uncle Richearth beaming, which made him look even handsomer, for that is what happens when he smiles. “And you know what? I also happen to be loaded. You are very nice to look at yourself, Ma´m. Those that have, retain.” 

Before he could say more, Uncle Val blew him against the wall of a dovecote.

Michael and Don Alonso had picked up all the contents of the pot and they were inside it again.

I, who only a while ago had bragged of never having gotten into a fight, was scuffling with Alpin so he couldn’t recover the cauldron.

“You know this person?” Uncle Val asked Michael.

“He’s famous!” said Michael.

“We know him from a bestseller we read at our book club,” said Don Alonso.

“I have read it too,” said Uncle Richearth. This did not surprise me. Before I had learned that Uncle Rich suffered what had to be occasional fits of madness, my image of him was of a man sitting under a tree in a field reading a book. “If that pot is not his, it should be. Give the man the pot, Val, he deserves it.”

“Well, here you are, sir. I hope it is worth the trouble!” Uncle Val gave the pot to the Swiss treasure hunter and then said to us, “We’re off!” And he blew all of our group all the way to the front door of my parents’ palace.

Darcy, who was there seeing to the horses and to Frostine, took charge of Alpin. He had to ask his brother to shut up, because Alpin was swearing worse than the Swiss ghost had been.

The next day, at breakfast, Alpin told me what all the trouble the night before was about. He had visited the fortuneteller Aunt Pomba so she could tell him where he could find a treasure to take back home with him. She said she would indeed tell him where he could get hold of a treasure that very night if he promised to give her his magic fridge in exchange for the information. Alpin said he had no intention of giving this woman Frostine, so he crossed his fingers behind his back when he promised her to. She said a ghost would pass by her house in a few minutes. He would be carrying a pot full of gold and diamonds. All Alpin had to do was snatch it from him.

"It wasn't his, anyway," said Alpin, "it belonged to two soldiers who had stolen the gold and the diamonds from someone else. And through your fault I have returned from Galicia emptyhanded, loaded as that land is with hidden treasures. You owe me a treasure, Arley." 

After breakfast, I took the relic of St. Caralampio back to its rightful owner and thus reached the conclusion of our Galician adventure.