The Lady from Spain

A KNOCK ON THE DOOR No sound forewarns with more terror than does a rap on the door after midnight. Whoever knocks in a black hour never comes with good news. And when the knock is suspected, predicted — there have been rumors, weighted whispers, warnings, and there have been reports by others that at the edge of the neighborhood already some had heard such a knock — the sound enlarges, takes monstrous shape: a gargantuan specter, a protean haunt, a massive golem, a towering creature made of shadow and evil, and it knows your name. October, the seventeenth day, 1939, a quarter past the second hour, one such knock rings on a door. The people affected by that night, a night constituted by the pen in the hand of a little bureaucrat, changes everything for one family in mid-century Spain. Señora Dolores is ruined, Luna is conceived, Maria and Isabella are devastated, and the youngest, Mora, is propelled into wreckage and greed. And last affected, though not even born on that the night of ruination, is Lucia. The child is cast into an orphanage and savage life... until rescued by an American Naval man and his wife.

Website: www.charlesbechtel.com

Born: Spring Lake, North Carolina, April, 1953, fourth day, five minutes past midnight (thus late for my parents' anniversary, which set a behavioral standard for all such future events.)

Educated: A long while back, when colleges offered to improve human beings attending their classes, not merely dedicate themselves to making a person employable. Ahh, the good old days.

Undergraduate degree: English. Master degree: English.

Marriage: To Manuela, the finest woman on Earth, by the accounts of many more than myself. Two daughters: Elizabeth (Baby Beth) and Manuela (Meme), who each in turn delivered into my life some ladies of inestimable worth: Sky (b. 2003) Lucy (b. 2007) and Mia (b. 2008.) Though I gave to each huge chunks of my heart, doing so increased heart size.

Work History: Let's say I worked.

What I do for fun: Everything. If it is not fun, I quickly stop doing it. (see Work, above)

Writing Philosophy: Make sense by appealing to the senses.