Late wedding in Andalusia(Dill McLain) Encarna sat in front of her dressing table trying to fix the Spanish mantilla with the high comb in her hair. It was the morning of the day of their second wedding, as she called it, the repetition of the promise of marriage they gave each other 28 years ago. She felt great excitement for what was coming up and she intended to surprise her husband with the new Spanish mantilla and the wonderful dark grey lace dress. The preparation for the ceremony was for her actually part of the upcoming act.

Manolo was the vice mayor of the next town and the chances that he would be elected mayor in the next round were intact. This would mean that she would also be an important person in town, well estimated by all the citizens, by the world and she would be invited to all those exciting events and her photo would then and again appear in the local newspaper. Of course, she would also get involved in charity projects and women groups.

She sat there, sighing full of joy, when thinking about all these prospects coming up in the near future, while adjusting the Spanish mantilla. It looked beautiful, dramatic and noble.

They had bought a small piece of land in this hamlet on the coast, about ten minutes from the next town, and built a nice house in the local style. The house had three floors, two balconies, offered a stunning view and was surrounded by a pleasant garden with palm trees and many other plants. The plan was to move to the house and sell the apartment they had lived in so far. Their two sons were living in Barcelona and Madrid, both with their respective family. Encarna and Manolo had four sweet grandchildren. Their life was full and wonderful.

Encarna smiled full of pride at her face in the mirror. She did not want to walk around or move, by no way to put the whole construct in danger of collapse. No, she wanted to wait for Manolo arriving with the flowers. And then slowly walk down the stairs like the grand dame and surprise him. She sat there upright, breathing deeply and feeling like a countess.

She heard the door slamming and then steps on the stairs. Then Manolo appeared on the doorstep and showed a very serious face. When he noticed her Spanish mantilla with the high comb, he almost fell over and shouted completely derailed:

‘What the hell is this masquerade?’

Before Encarna, who was absolutely shocked about his sudden shouting, could say a word, he continued loudly:

‘There will be no ceremony. I must tell you finally the truth. For over eight years I have had a relation with my secretary. Today we will leave for Argentina, where we will live together. She is expecting our first child. It’s all my fault, I know. You can keep this house and live here. I have already informed our lawyer and the divorce papers are under way. I am sorry, Encarna. Good luck!’

Manolo turned around and left.

Encarna sat there at her dressing table upright like a statue. She could not sort out her thoughts, nor his words. She just sat there and stared at the place where Manolo had just stood.

After an hour she slowly turned to the mirror, looked at her face and then with both fists hit at the face in the mirror until the mirror broke.

She was lucky not to hurt her hands. Then she stood up and walked over to the chest of drawers with the figure of the Virgen del Carmen on top. This was in a way her personal altar and she often used to express her thoughts in front of this piece of furniture.

Encarna stood there and shouted angrily at the Virgen del Carmen: ‘Why do you do this to me, why did you let this happen?’

She was so angry that she started to cry and storm around wildly in the bedroom. She tore the bedspread apart, threw the pillows around, crashed the night tables to the wall and smashed the antique lamps. It was a wild ride. Her four dogs, which were famous in the village for their choir singing in various wonderful voices, accompanied the whole scene with their heartbreaking and at the same time miraculous howling. They really gave their best. Two dogs sung staccato while the other two held their tones like opera singers. This helped her tremendously to get through her terrible pain. Each time she paused for a second, the bloodcurdling howling concert pushed her on further in her destructive action.

Finally she sat down on the floor and looked at herself in a piece of the broken mirror. Her hair was in total disorder, the comb of the Spanish mantilla was hanging halfway over her left ear and her precious lace veil was torn apart, one piece hanging over the left part of her face and another piece frayed over her right shoulder. Her makeup was terribly smeared all over her face. She really looked ugly. Almost like a witch.

Encarna fell to the ground over the pieces of the large mirror and started to sob, extensively and dreadfully, for several hours up to the point of exhaustion.


Towards evening Encarna stood up and started to clean up the mess. She restored the bedroom and replaced the broken furniture by pieces from other rooms. She found another large mirror in the basement, which she placed provisionally on the chest drawer.

Then she took a bath, put on her new evening dress planned for the second wedding, and prepared a small dinner for herself. She sat there at the dinner table trying to enjoy her dinner and did enjoy several glasses of the champagne that was actually reserved for the cocktail after the second wedding.

Encarna felt the champagne move through her body and went upstairs to the Virgen del Carmen to have another dialogue.

Tears were running again over Encarnas face when she stood there in front of the statue. The howling dogs gave a short introduction. Then she threw a cascade of words and phrases at the Virgen del Carmen finally asking desperately and with all passion she could gather:

‘Please give me advice! Please tell me what to do! There must be some providence for me, you must know it, please tell me!'

And she looked with begging eyes at the Virgen del Carmen finally loudly stating:

‘It was you who sent my husband away to follow a new life with a younger woman on the other side of the world. Because you gave my husband to another woman, you also must have a clear plan for me. I have known you since I was a child, I knew I could always trust you. You know all my thoughts and desires. So your justice must be to give me another man! Now, where is your new man for me? I know you never really talk, but this time it would indeed be an advantage if you could make an exception, and talk to me! Tell me which man you mean.’

After addressing these words to the Virgen del Carmen, Encarna felt encouraged to know for sure that the Virgen del Carmen promised to deliver a new man soon. Relief came over her and she relaxed. Then she straightened up, looked at the Virgen del Carmen and said solemnly:

‘Yes, I will wait for your sign and take the man you will send me!’

This helped relieve her sorrow. Encarna walked over to the bed, let herself fall on the bed and slept until early morning.

She took a shower and dressed with black pants and a blue silk top. She tied her hair in the Spanish style, went down to the kitchen and prepared fresh orange juice. She heard some light pleasant sounds like bells from outside and looked through the small window in the left wall of the kitchen.

‘Oh, how wonderful, the goats are back!’ she exclaimed.

The whole meadow behind the house belonging to the municipality was full of grazing goats of various sizes and different colours. They were all peacefully chewing on tufts of grass.

Encarna took a sip of her freshly pressed orange juice and her glance fell to the other side through the other small window. She could perceive the silhouette of a dark haired man, leaning against the fig tree and smoking. For a moment she looked at the man through the window. Then she turned around and walked to the door leading to the dining room, when thunder and a flash of light struck her. She turned back and looked at the man and screamed:

‘The goatherd! This is the sign! The Virgen del Carmen wants me to marry the goatherd!’

Encarna took a second glass, filled it with orange juice and rushed out of the house to the man leaning against the fig tree, offering him the juice with the words:

‘Good morning, please have some juice!’

He was quite handsome, a bit younger than herself, dressed in jeans and a dark blue shirt, wearing a three days beard and smoking a cigarillo. He smiled and with a friendly voice greeted her:

‘Good morning Mrs. De la Vega. Isn’t it a wonderful morning?’

He smiled at her and drank the juice. Over the rim of the glass he observed her.

And then Encarna asked him out of the blue: ‘Are you married?’

He seemed amused and shook his head stating:

‘No, she left me when I lost my job at the insurance company because of the crisis and I started with the goats. She does not like the goats. But you see, the goats rescued me. My small salary from the owner of the herd means that I can keep my head over water. Well, I am divorced since a couple of weeks.’

Encarna immediately threw in: ‘I will be divorced too, soon.’

And then she could not hold back anymore. She sank on the feet of the goatherd and expressed full of passion:

‘Then we two could marry, what do you think?’

The goatherd almost dropped his cigarillo. This was all very unexpected and then he thought by himself: ‘Is this the modern way women approach men, maybe? How exciting!’

He reached out his hand and said ‘my name is Angel’ and helped her up. For a moment they stood there looking at each other in the middle of the crowd of goats.

‘Why not! It is all very fast but let us try it anyway!’ came his voice. He lifted her on his arms and carried her to the house.

His dog and her four dogs jumped up and howled cheeringly all together and then took over their task guarding the herd of goats.

Angel led Encarna into a wonderful cloud of love and emotions. Two hours were over in no time. Exhausted they were lying in the mountain of pillows on the double bed, stretching out their legs and arms and breathing joyfully. They smiled at each other with shiny eyes. And they knew that they were made for each other.

From then on they met regularly and when the goats stayed in their stalls in the hills nearby, Angel stayed with Encarna who had buried her dream of being an important figure in the next town. This, what the Virgen del Carmen had brought her to, was much better. When her divorce finally was over, Angel asked Encarna to marry him and he presented her a tiny jewellery box with a beautiful diamond ring. Encarna was open-mouthed and speechless.

Angel was no longer a poor goatherd. During the time after he took over the herd of goats, he used to write scripts. He had enough time and inspiration was flowing. A producer accepted two of his longer works and he got paid a reasonable amount. Furthermore, it was planned to produce a TV series.

At the presentation of the first film Encarna and Angel were sitting in the front row as star guests. All cameras were flashing. All eyes were looking at them.

And at the other end of the world in a small town in Argentina, Manolo was sitting in front of the television watching the news while holding two small kids on his knees. When he saw his ex-wife in her radiant outfit with the good-looking goatherd, he was pressing his teeth together and his eyes became very small. He looked tired and out of shape. The kids started blubbering and his young wife appeared on the doorstep wishing him a good time. Because it was her day off.

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