How Malen fell from the stars and landed among the ash
trees
The boy must have been fourteen or fifteen, his hands firmly gripping the cart’s handle. It was filled with heavy crates, a few more than he would have liked, but he made a point of disguising his grunts as he pushed it up and down the cobbled streets of Renteria. In his mind, he was all grown up, and he wanted to be seen as such.
It was raining. Of course, it was. The drops of xirimiri, the perpetual Basque rain, came from no discernible direction, with no pattern nor any indication it would ever stop. Beads of water were forming on the young man’s beret, his face, his tweed jacket, and his fingers—calloused well beyond his years.
As he started his descent down Goiko Kalea, he wiped his face with a wet sleeve.
Some thirty meters down the street, a woman briefly stopped, shielded by an umbrella. The Christmas of 1921 was just a few days away, and she was on her way to get the last missing pieces for the family dinner. Nothing heavy, due to her condition—just a few grapes and some txistorra. She would not end up buying them.
With her head tucked under the umbrella, she couldn’t see the boy and his cart above her. She couldn’t see his tired, wet fingers lose their grip on the cart, nor could she see him slip as he tried to run after it. And with the xirimiri steadily bouncing off the canopy, she couldn’t hear him scream as he realized where his cart was hurtling. She never knew what hit her, but in the brief moment before she passed out, she cried, for she knew that her baby was gone.
Thursday was the day Malen Izargain loved the most. She and her family would buy potatoes from local farmers and sell them in and around Renteria, serving the busy markets of the region. But she always looked forward to Thursdays, because that was when they went to Trintxerpe—and Trintxerpe was where she could see Pepe.
Trintxerpe, with its bustling port, narrow streets, and modest buildings, was home to hundreds of Galician sailors, experienced men who had come seeking work. Among them was Pepe, a dark-haired young man as fearless as he was magnetic. Pepe sailed to the freezing waters of Terra Nova and raced boats all the way to Cuba. And when he knew Malen was watching, he would dive from the highest mast in the port, as if defying gravity itself.
There was something about him that made Malen’s heart sing. It wasn’t just the dives or the voyages that pulled her in; it was the way he carried himself, as if the sea itself ran through his veins. She knew, without a doubt, that she would search no further. Pepe was the one, and she was going to marry him.
On a crisp November morning in 1946, Malen strode into Renteria’s City Hall with purpose. She introduced herself to the clerk and explained that she needed her birth certificate for her upcoming wedding.
But there was a problem—one she couldn’t possibly foresee.
Malen Izargain never existed.
“Go talk to your family,” the clerk said softly. Renteria was a small town, but it pulsed like a big village. People knew things about each other. She knew. “Go home, my dear,” she repeated. “They’ll explain.”
On her way home, Malen recalled one of her earliest memories: the day she turned six. There was no cake and no celebration. Instead, her parents dressed her in her Sunday clothes, and Carlos, her father, took her on a bus ride to the capital. She walked beside him, her small palm firmly tucked in one of his hands, her suitcase in his other. She remembered her mother standing in the doorway, her face hidden by her hands, tears streaming uncontrollably. Francisca couldn’t bring herself to step outside, much less accompany them. She had lost a child once already, and the thought of losing another was too much for her.
From its foundation in 1903 until its closure in 1994, the Fraisoro orphanage in the small community of Cizúrquil, some twenty kilometers from Renteria, saw more than 15,000 children pass through its doors. Among them were Carlos and Francisca, Malen’s parents.
When that fateful cart came hurtling toward her, silencing the life inside her, Francisca knew exactly what she had to do. At Fraisoro, she was united with Malen, who was only four months old when her tiny face first encountered the soothing warmth of Francisca’s nurturing breasts—the only mother she would ever remember.
And yet, Francisca and Carlos lived in perpetual fear that they might lose her if her biological parents were to appear and claim her. That fear lingered for more than five years, but when no claims were made before Malen turned six, it became certain: Malen was staying. They never spoke of it again.
Malen got her documents in Cizúrquil, and with them a new name.
The Basque Country is a land where magic hides itself in the names of its people. Where Meadow near a Rock will walk hand in hand with Wind, where Under the Cliff will live next to Valley of Laurels. A place where the past resonates forever.
For a quarter century, Malen roamed the Earth as Malen Izargain. Malen Above the Stars, lifted high by the unwavering love of a woman whose love surpassed even the bounds of the stars. But then a daring Galician sailor reached high, beyond the tallest mast he had ever climbed, and gently guided her descent. Malen Izargain became Malen Lizarreta, Malen Among the Ash Trees, where she learned that even among roots and branches, the echoes of the stars would never stop singing.