Vaca Hermano of Córdoba Álava

The Split Glove Company of Splitsko-Dalmatinska fashioned high-end women’s gloves from sheep’s stomach and Berber leather. They were known the world over for using only the highest grade sheep’s stomach and Berber leather. The sheep’s stomach they imported from the Kafka Brothers of Prague, the Berber leather from the Vaca Hermano of Córdoba Álava. Their gloves were fancied by beehived woman and ducktailed men and by those who admired good craftsmanship and soft undersides. There was a rumor that the Split Glove Company also made slatternly things, gloves and scarves, headwraps and muffs, things that were best kept hidden away in a cupboard or a chest. One day out walking the aqueduct the man in the hat came across a Berber muff cobbled in the mud beneath a fichus tree.

The muff was rank with stale urine and cloves, the fingertips caked in dead leaves. He breathed in, the pong of cloves and stale piss stinging his eyes, the morning air thick with bluebottles and flies. The smell reminded him of his grandmamma’s raccoon coat, the one she wore to church with her black kitchen shoes and almond shaped bonnet. He remembered pressing his face into his grandmamma’s coat, breathing in the musty odor of the tanned skin and rubbed salt. The label read, Split Glove Company, Splitsko-Dalmatinska, hand stitched with the finest Arabian thread. He shoved the muff into his greatcoat pocket and headed for home, his thoughts tanned with boyhood memories and his grandmamma’s raspberry tarts.