Madrid, May 1941
The bells rang and dulled the voices that came from the grove. He recognized the man’s voice. Yes, he was sure of it. It was the American. Who was he with? It must be some woman: out here in this secluded spot, at this time of the day, after such a long party … He had tried that himself in the past, coming down into the trees to find a little intimacy, where he could run his hands over some girl’s body. But not this time. He was trying to find a place to be alone so he could vomit. He had drunk too much. It was hard for him to walk, and the wine was forcing its way up from his stomach to his mouth, pushing to be let out.
He leaned back against a tree. He was too dizzy to keep on walking and slumped to the ground. He heard the American, talking more loudly than usual, and thought he saw someone hiding among the nearby trees.
His head was spinning. He threw up, and feeling marginally better, got to his feet again and went cautiously over to the trees. He didn’t want to interrupt anything.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“Fernando” a voice replied.
Its urgent tone alarmed him. He stumbled towards it and lit a match, which chased away the shadows in the dark corner.
The American was holding Catalina’s body in his arms. He was supporting her head with one hand, and with the other was pulling down her skirt, trying to cover her bare legs.
She was saying something, but he couldn’t make out the words. He held onto the trunk of a nearby tree and stared at what was going on. Yes, the American was holding Catalina in his arms; and there, on the ground beside them, her stockings …
“What have you done to her?” Fernando asked in alarm.
“Nothing …”
Fernando bent down and lit another match, looking at the young woman’s face. There was a bruise bulging on her left cheek, her blouse was torn, and her skirt was all covered in mud.
“Jesus! What have you done to her?”
“Nothing, I’m telling you. Don’t worry; I think she’s fine …” the American said, as he stroked her face.
She opened her eyes, and then closed them again. He saw her lips bend into a smile, which was shortly followed by a grimace of pain. He didn’t understand a thing about what was going on … or maybe he did; his mind started to clear and he remembered that he had drunk so much because of her.
They had all gone to the Pradera de San Isidro to meet with some of their friends from the neighborhood. It was Antoñito’s birthday and he had invited them all to celebrate it with him, making the most of the fact that, although it was only May, spring was already in the air. Antoñito’s father, Don Antonio, sold goods on the black market. He had a general store, and throughout the war people had always been able to get food from him. Now he was proud of his close relationship with the victors, which meant that Antoñito had been able to promise that he would have a few bottles of wine for his twenty-fourth birthday party. Where had he gotten the links of chorizo from? And where, in fact, had the wine come from as well? It wasn’t very good wine, but it had let them relax for a while, and forget about the war. There was no one in the whole neighborhood who would have dared miss the party. And no one’s family, apart from Pablo Gómez’s, was not in debt to Don Antonio. Pablo Gómez’s father, Pedro, worked for the tax office. Antoñito and Pablo claimed to be friends, although in fact they fought over everything, especially Catalina.
He thought that he shouldn’t have gone to the party, that he had no right to have fun while his father was in prison, but he hadn’t been brave enough to tell Catalina that he wouldn’t go with her. He wanted to be with her, and he was afraid that someone would take her from him. He knew that Pablo and Antoñito were on the prowl.
Someone had given her a glass of wine; she had held back to start with, but the afternoon was warm and encouraged her to throw caution to the winds. He saw her drink two or three glasses of wine, and turn into a different woman. She danced with him and he felt her body pressed close against his, but then she danced with other men in the same forward way.
Most of all, she danced with the American. Yes. In fact, Catalina had only asked him to accompany her to the Pradera because she liked the American. She had said as much a while back. And now she was there, stretched out on the grass, drunk, no stockings on, and her dress pulled up, leaving her thighs uncovered, while the American tried to get her to stand up.
“Help me,” the American asked.
“Help you do what? Leave me alone …”
He heard Catalina speaking. It was hard for her to speak, or at least that’s how it seemed to him.
“Marvin … don’t leave me … it hurts …” she whispered.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you … but you’ve got to try to sit up … I’ll take you home … Fernando, why don’t you want to help me?”
No, he didn’t want to help him. It was hard for him to move, to tell the truth. He felt a wave of anger. How could they have done what they had just done? He had always thought that Catalina was such a good girl, and he knew that until that night she had not allowed anyone to do anything with her; she knew how to put the boys in their place, and even did as much to him, even though they’d known each other since they were children.
But here she was, half naked in the American’s arms. It was obvious what had gone on between the two of them. He felt a shudder in his breast and felt like crying.
Marvin managed to get her to stand up. He put his arm around her waist and made her walk alongside him.
He looked at them without moving. He felt like being sick again. Let her go. There was nothing he could do.
“Fernando! Fernando! Can you hear me? Stop …”
A few days had passed since that afternoon at the Pradera. He hadn’t seen her since, and had made no effort to do so. He hadn’t seen Marvin either, but that was easier. The American lived in Eulogio’s house, but never went out. The two of them—the American and Eulogio—were friends. A few months ago, the American had resurfaced, and Eulogio had opened his door to him. His friend had explained that he had met the American at the front, where the pair of them were wounded at the same time. Eulogio had come back from the front before the end of the war because he had been badly wounded while helping the American. It was at the battle of Jarama; he had almost lost his leg, and he was now crippled for life. When he came back home, he found out from his mother that his father had died fighting at the front in Aragon.
When the American showed up at his door, there was no need for him to remind Eulogio that they had met in the cold February of 1937, at the desperate battle that was Jarama; Eulogio had taken him in and waved away any attempt to pay for his lodging. Marvin said he was a poet. He had come to Madrid in the spring of 1936 to research Cervantes, but the war broke out and he decided to stay, thinking that the pain of war would be a good source of inspiration; he ended up working as a translator for American reporters who came to cover the conflict. He had become friends with Eulogio during those days at the front. Then everything that happened had happened, and Eulogio never thought that Marvin would be back. But there he was, ready to start working again on his Spanish Civil War Notebook.
“He’s a writer, a poet,” Eulogio explained to his friends. “He was at the front when the war started; he was a translator, not a soldier, but he was wounded at Jarama and he left,” he said, importantly, but he never said that it had been he who had saved the American’s life.
The thing that no one understood was why he had come back, and why Franco’s forces had ignored the fact that he had been on the Republican side. But Franco couldn’t have cared all that much about an American running around the streets of Madrid. Those streets belonged to the dictator now, and nothing could happen there without him hearing about it.
Fernando thought about all of this, and Catalina watched him. She didn’t usually interrupt his musings. They had respected each other’s silence ever since they were children, and she waited until she saw something in his face that gave a sign he was returning to the real world. Yes, he had been caught up in thoughts of Eulogio and the American, and had forgotten that she was there.
“They’ve told me that you’ve asked for a pardon for your father again. Do you think they’ll give it to him this time?” she asked with interest.
Fernando shrugged. That very morning, he had paid Don Alberto García again, a lawyer who said he had an in with the government when it came to getting people pardoned. But so far, all he had done was leech money from them. His mother had sold everything they had of value, apart from the books. She couldn’t do that. The books that filled the walls of the house were the things her husband loved most in the world, apart from his son and wife. Her husband, Lorenzo Garzo, was a scholar, as well as being a well-known editor and translator who worked as a director for the Editorial Clásica publishing house.
Fernando dreamed of following in his father’s footsteps and working for the same publishing house. Ever since he was a child, he had paid close attention to everything his father did, and it didn’t bother him in the least to come back from school, do his homework, and then spend two hours studying English with his father. “If you want to be a translator, then you need to know the language perfectly, and it’s best to learn languages when you’re still a child,” his father had told him. And Fernando got down to work, thinking that one day he would walk in through the doors of the Editorial Clásica and that they would treat him with the same respect and care that they treated his father. He couldn’t think of any better job than immersing himself in a sea of words.
Fernando was dreaming again. Catalina was patient, accustomed to her friend’s vague moments.
“My mother says that she’s just finished some crochet work that maybe you can sell. Tell your mother, but make sure my father doesn’t find out. You know how he is.”
Yes, he knew. Don Ernesto, Catalina’s father, had family lands in Huesca, and the rumor was that until the war they had provided a steady income. It’s not the case that the Vilamar family was very rich—at least, not as rich as some others—but they had been able to live well until 1936 came around. Don Ernesto was a shy man, Catholic and monarchist, and from the moment the war began, he had sympathized with the Nationalist side.
Don Ernesto had not gone to war because of his poor eyesight, and he had come down with a liver infection shortly after the war broke out and had had to stay in bed. And so he stayed in Madrid, waiting for fate to decide between the Republic and Franco, and hoping that the latter would win, as did eventually happen; no one in his district was surprised when he went out to cheer Franco’s troops as they entered the city.
“I’ll tell my mother,” Fernando said, coming back to the real world with a start.
“Fernando … about the other night …”
“Don’t say anything.”
“I’m in love with Marvin. I’m going to get married to him.”
“Has he asked you?”
“No, not yet … but he’ll marry me, don’t you think?”
“I don’t think any man will marry a girl who’s easy.”
Catalina slapped him in the face, looked at him angrily, and started to cry.
“How can you say that? I’m not easy, you know me.”
“No? Well, I think it’s only the easy girls that let the first man they meet do anything they want to them. I saw you, Catalina, you had your stockings off, your shirt was all in tatters, and your skirt … You could see your thighs and Marvin had his hands on your legs …”
“I … Well, you might not believe me, but I don’t remember it all that well …”
“You don’t say. Well, if you want me to help you bring it all back, let me remind you that you danced with everyone, especially Pablo and Antoñito. Pablo got a little insistent with you, and you asked me to get you out of there, and then, when I went to get a glass of wine, you disappeared with Marvin, who you’d been chasing all night.”
She said nothing, trying to find an answer, seemingly more for herself than for Fernando.
“I’ve told you I don’t remember much about what happened … But Antoñito and Pablo both insisted on dancing with me and taking me into dark corners. And I said no … but they got so pushy … It’s better that if anything did happen, it happened with Marvin.”
“So you don’t care about what you did! You should be ashamed of yourself!”
“Don’t talk to me like that! I won’t let you!”
“And what are you going to do? Talk to your father? If he finds out, he’ll slap you six ways from Sunday.”
“He wants me to go with Antoñito; he says he’s the only man in the district who has any future ahead of him,” she replied gloomily.
“Well, I don’t think Antoñito will be up for it, not if he’s seen you with Marvin.”
“I don’t care whether he saw me or not: I hate Antoñito, he’s a creep, he makes me feel sick. And I’ve told you, I want to marry Marvin. I hope he’ll take me far away from here. I’d like to live in America. Have you ever read any of Marvin’s poems?”
“No, I’m not interested.”
She was upset by this answer. She knew that Fernando liked reading and that there were more books in his house than in anyone else’s. Don Lorenzo was an editor and Catalina remembered what he used to say to all the neighborhood kids: “If you don’t read, you won’t understand life or even know who you are.” She’d never understood what he was trying to say, but she didn’t care. The war had interrupted her education, just as it had that of countless other children and young adults, even though her mother had tried to make sure that she kept on studying, “to finish herself,” which was how she had ended up taking interminable piano lessons at her aunt Petra’s house.
“Maybe what I teach you will come in use someday,” her aunt said, although she knew full well that her niece wasn’t all that talented when it came to music. But the classes were a form of entertainment for the pair of them. It was a way for Catalina to get out of the house without her father being worried, and for her aunt it was a way to gossip about the family. She had been widowed almost as soon as the war started, and although her husband, who had been a civil servant, had had some money saved somewhere, the war had eaten away at her capital. Doña Petra never stopped bemoaning the fact that her husband, without any need to do so, had joined the Nationalist troops and lost his life in the fighting in Aragon. But she was a resolute woman, and now that the war was over, she tried to earn a living in the hungry Madrid of those years by giving piano lessons and French classes at a convent school, the kind of place attended by the flighty daughters of black marketeers and all other kinds of crooks who thought that education could give their offspring at least a veneer of respectability, while their fellow citizens were barely able to feed themselves.
Catalina smiled to herself. She was losing herself in her own thoughts as well. This was the good thing about being with Fernando, that they didn’t have to talk to each other if they didn’t want to. They could sit in silence without the need to waste their words. Fernando was prone to introspection and even to forgetting that she was next to him, but she didn’t mind, and didn’t feel offended when he did so. There was no one more loyal to her than this clumsy young man.
They were silent for a while until Catalina grew tired of it, and coughed to bring him back to himself.
“When will you hear about the pardon?” she repeated.
Fernando shrugged again. He didn’t have an answer. The lawyer had asked him to be patient.
“When you go to the prison to see your father, I’ll come with you if you want. And don’t forget to come by my house to get my mother’s crochet work.”
“I don’t think that your father will let you come with me; he’s annoyed enough already that your mother and you even talk to us.”
“You know how he is … But he doesn’t want you to have a tough time of it; he just thinks that your father chose the wrong side.”
“And what about you? Do you think the same?” Fernando asked, his voice tense.
“I don’t know what I think, Fernando. I was very scared during the war, and everyone in the whole neighborhood, apart from us and a few other families, was very scared that the Nationalists would come to the city … and I’m not a red, like you are, but I don’t like Franco; I don’t like Don Antonio Sánchez or Don Pedro Gómez, or their children. And Marvin was on the Republican side, and he’s much more sensible than I am, so …”
“I thought you could think for yourself! Why do you care what Marvin thinks?” he broke in angrily.
“Of course I care what he thinks, he’s more sensible than I am, and sees things more clearly than we do. You should be happy that Marvin was on the side of the Republicans. The other night he told me that it was a catastrophe for Spain that Franco had won the war.”
“Leave me alone, Catalina, I don’t want to put up with you right now.”
Fernando turned his back on her and started to walk down to the Plaza de España, down to where the print shop was. He earned very little at this job, a few pesetas, nothing more; nowhere near enough to support himself and his mother. They had lost everything. His father’s savings had disappeared with the Republic’s now-worthless currency, and all they had left was the house. Don Antonio, the black marketeer, had said that he had a friend who was ready to buy it from them. But at the price he was offering, it would be better simply to make a gift of it.
And anyway, where could they go? He thought that his mother would die of the pain if she were ever forced to leave her house. She had inherited it from her parents and had lived in it her whole life. Fernando would have preferred to steal rather than force his mother out from those four walls that were her only point of support.
He worked as much as he could. In the morning, he did work for anybody who needed physical labor, hauling sacks and doing the most difficult jobs, and in the afternoon he worked at the print shop. In the evenings, he still found a couple of hours free to study. He wanted to be like his father, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to. He knew that the children of reds weren’t given the same opportunities.
He ran into Eulogio, who was dragging his injured leg behind him.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Eulogio asked.
“There’s a lot of work in the print shop,” Fernando said, not very eager to stop and chat.
“It looks like you’re running away from someone. Your face …” Eulogio said, looking at his friend.
“Don’t be silly! Who would I be running away from? You can’t run away from Franco’s supporters, anyway. They’re everywhere.”
“You’re going to tell me that?”
Fernando didn’t answer. Eulogio was right. When his friend came back from the war he had had to set aside his dream of being a great painter, and instead settle for a job that gave him enough to eat. And so by day, he painted, and by night, he worked as a night watchman at the warehouse of Don Antonio, the black marketeer. Don Antonio claimed to have hired him out of pity, because he had known him all his life, but he took advantage of the fact that he had fought on the Republican side to pay him only a few pennies, barely enough to live on. Eulogio gritted his teeth to suppress his anger, and told himself that any day now he’d go to the mountains to join the last few resistance fighters, for all that his mother had told him to accept the defeat: “We’ve lost the war, but because we’re still alive, we need to keep going. And we can be happy that Don Antonio doesn’t turn you in for being a red.” He had accepted the job. He had done so because he did not want to add more pain to his mother’s already great pain. And so they had sold the house that they lived in to Don Antonio, and they had moved into an attic. Eulogio consoled himself by thinking that the attic wasn’t as bad as it could have been, that there were worse places to live. The ceilings weren’t too low, they had three rooms as well as the kitchen, and they could see the walls of the Convent of La Encarnación from the windows. It was enough for him and for his mother.
“There are a lot of shameless people around … Don Antonio is getting his hands on the whole neighborhood: he buys houses for next to nothing and then sells them on for a tidy profit. Careful, because he’s got his eye on your house. And you see what happened to me,” Eulogio continued.
“I told you to hang in there,” Fernando reminded him.
“And what, let my mother starve? I have to be grateful to him for giving me a job as a night watchman in his warehouse. If you saw what he keeps there … I don’t know where he gets it, but a truckload of scrap iron comes in every day. He’s making a mint.”
“His wife fooled us all. She said she didn’t know where he was, and of course she did: he was a Falangist, so he could only be off at the front shooting people. I heard that when they took a town, he actually enjoyed executing the anti-fascists.”
“Yes, she was clever. She managed to keep the shop open and give us all loans. And she swore she knew nothing at all about her husband when the workers’ committee came to call. She tricked us all, pretending to be an abandoned wife, and turning her back on her husband. And then when he came back she met him with open arms.”
“He taught her well. They set it all up beforehand, and he told her that the only way for her not to lose the shop was to swear that she had been abandoned. And the people around here all behaved well, because they could have told any one of the committees that her husband was with the Falange.”
“But no one did, Fernando; I suppose it’s because, in spite of everything, we’ve known them all our lives. Although I should say that my father could never get along with them.”
“He could see through them … Bunch of bastards.”
“Well, and now Don Antonio is my boss and I’m the watchman at his warehouse.”
“Yeah, you make a great watchman, I bet.”
“How do you want me to earn a living?” Eulogio replied, upset by what Fernando had said.
Eulogio was twenty-eight years old, three years Fernando’s senior, but they had always gotten along well. They had gone to the front together during the earliest days of the war, when the Nationalists fought to take Madrid. Fernando had enlisted without telling his father, causing the only argument the two ever had.
Lorenzo Garzo thought that it was his job as a Republican to fight to defend the values of the Republic. Fernando wanted to follow in his footsteps, and so he had joined a militia without telling him. He and Eulogio and a few other friends had spontaneously decided to join up and help the troops who were trying to stop the Nationalists from taking Madrid. All he remembered of this time was chaos and confusion. That was the first time he had held a gun in his hand. But the enemy was nowhere near him, so he didn’t know if his shots had missed or hit the target.
When his father found out, he called his son to him and forbade him from returning to the front, saying: “Fernando, you shall not kill.” But his son insisted, and his father grew very serious, pointed a finger at him, and said: “Son, you shall not kill. No one can be the same after taking another man’s life.” He agreed to his father’s demand, and took part in the war as a member of the Popular Culture group. He risked his life taking newspapers and books to the trenches, as well as stocking libraries and hospitals and providing propaganda for the Frente Popular.
Don Lorenzo, Fernando’s father, liked Eulogio’s paintings and had spoken regularly about how good an artist he was. Fernando had adopted his father’s opinions on art, and he had also found in the painter someone with whom he could talk and, above all, regret the past without fear of being turned in to the authorities. Where had Franco found so many supporters? He had always thought that Madrid was almost completely dominated by the Republican cause, and that was why the city had held out as long as it had. But now there were Franco supporters everywhere, and anything a person said that could be interpreted as a criticism of the regime brought with it immediate consequences. Everyone’s biggest fear in those days was being reported to the authorities for having been on the Republican side. General Mola had told the truth when he threatened people with a “fifth column.”
“Why don’t you try to sell your paintings?” Fernando asked.
“These people don’t understand art,” his friend replied.
“Which people?”
“The ones who won the war. The ones who are now in charge. Marvin has promised to take a painting or two of mine to Paris with him when he goes. If it weren’t for my mother, I’d go too … They understand people there, they understand Picasso, Braque, Miró … They appreciate them, and most importantly, they buy their paintings.”
“Is Marvin going?”
“Well, not right away, but in about a month, I think. He says that since he’s been here he’s hardly been able to write. My mother has told me that she hears him writing all night long, and then cursing and throwing away everything he does write. The situation here doesn’t inspire him.”
“What kind of a poet is he?”
“I don’t know … But his work has been published in a couple of anthologies in Paris, and now he’s writing a Spanish Civil War Notebook.”
“I don’t like your friend,” Fernando admitted.
“What you don’t like is the fact that Catalina has fallen for him. You’re jealous, Fernando, you can see that from miles away. But it’s not Marvin’s fault that all the girls swoon over him, especially Catalina. Don’t worry; as soon as he goes she’ll come back to you, because there’s no one else around who’s worth the trouble. Pablo Gómez is sweet on her as well. Just look at the airs he puts on, just because his father works in a ministry. But Catalina doesn’t give him the time of day. I wouldn’t worry, because …” Eulogio suddenly fell silent.
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. Anyway, Marvin’s an attractive man, and although he doesn’t ever boast about it, you can see that he comes from a good family. Look at the clothes he wears …”
Eulogio’s brutal honesty hurt him, although Fernando knew that his friend wasn’t trying to offend him. He was just incapable of anything less than complete honesty, and that stopped him from weighing his words with care.
“Do you think that all the girls like that American?” Fernando asked intently.
“Haven’t you realized?” They think that he’s … I don’t know … different. He talks to them about abstract questions, about beauty, suffering, friendship, compromise … all that kind of stuff! And he’s not just doing it to string them along. He looks like he’s in torment, as well, which helps: all the girls want to save him. You have to admit that he’s handsome. How many Spaniards do you know who are blond with blue eyes? And he’s tall. And as far as we’re concerned, Fernando, all the girls from around here know us all too well. Your Catalina has fallen for him like all the others have.”
“She’s not ‘my’ Catalina. We’re childhood friends, you know that.”
“Yes, but you don’t think of her as a sister. You’ve been in love with her ever since you were kids. I remember when you were a little kid, always hanging around her. If she fell over, you’d go to pick her up, and you’d always carry her books to school. You can’t hide it, kiddo, you’re head over heels in love with her. We’ve always thought that you and Catalina would end up getting married. And there’s no one better than you, for all that her father wants her to marry Antoñito. I think she’d rather become a nun than marry the black marketeer’s son. He’s a wretched creature, isn’t he, just like his dad, helping run the family business. I can’t stand them, with their stupid mustaches. But you know, I’m supposed to be pleased, should thank them for not turning me in to the Falangists, for giving me a job.”
“They take advantage of you,” Fernando replied.
“Of course they do, but I try to take advantage of them as well. I grab something from them whenever I can. I lifted a bit of flour and some lentils today, as well as some cigarettes,” Eulogio said, very pleased with himself, as he offered one of the cigarettes to Fernando.
They had chatted for too long, and Fernando was going to arrive late at the print shop. As they said goodbye, Fernando promised to come up to the attic that evening and smoke the promised cigarette.
He arrived late, but by barely a minute. He enjoyed his work in the print shop. It was as close as he could get to editing books, and much better work than what he did in the mornings, carrying bricks and running pulleys. His hands were callused and his back hurt. But he didn’t complain. He didn’t want his mother to suffer. She was already suffering enough over the idea of what might happen to his father.
When he got back home that evening, he found Marvin in the doorway. The American held out his hand, and Fernando didn’t know how he could reject it.
“You left the other night, and it would have helped if you had given me a hand with Catalina.”
“Hey, leave me out of this. You’re not my problem,” Fernando replied forcefully.
Marvin looked at him, ignoring his annoyance, and offered him a cigarette. Fernando hesitated before taking it, but it was an American brand. He lit up.
“How’s your father?” Marvin asked.
“Same as always.”
“They’re executing a lot of people; I hope your father gets through all right.”
Fernando threw the cigarette to the floor and crushed it under his shoe. He couldn’t bear people talking about the fate that might befall his father.
“They won’t shoot him,” he replied angrily.
“It’s tough to live here … This country’s not what it used to be. I remember the first few months of the war … Everything was different.”
“Why did you come to Spain?” Fernando asked, intrigued. It was the first time they had been alone together.
“Why? Spain is the country of Don Quixote and of Lope de Vega, Santa Teresa, Góngora, of Jorge Manrique … Also, I didn’t want to miss what was going on here. I think my best poems are from those first days …”
“Did you send poems to any magazines?”
“No, I was a translator, but I also submitted a few articles, and whenever I had a moment free I wrote for myself. Then …”
“Then what?”
“I went to the front a few times … It was something I hadn’t thought would happen. But a friend of mine asked me to translate for some American comrades of his. You can’t imagine what it was like in Jarama … The Nationalists attacked on all sides, and a guy shoved a rifle in my hands and said: ‘Shoot, we don’t need spectators here.’ But I couldn’t shoot. It would have been a contradiction; a poet doesn’t shoot. Eulogio told me that you were at Jarama as well, that you took newspapers and books to the soldiers … that you were with the Popular Culture group. I met other militiamen who were with the cultural front …”
“But you didn’t stay there for the whole war,” Fernando said, reproachfully, shifting the focus of the conversation so that they would stop talking about him.
“No, I didn’t. I was wounded that same day … Eulogio saved my life and … I had to make a decision: if I stayed there, it would be to kill, and forget about poetry forever. It would make me into another person; I was already turning into something I didn’t want to be. I had the excuse of being wounded, and so I left.”
“And why’d you come back?”
“Because I want to finish my Spanish Civil War Notebook. I couldn’t stop thinking that if I came back then I’d be inspired, be able to forgive myself for having left.”
“And did you?” Fernando asked with interest.
“Not completely. But I’ve decided to leave again.”
“Forever?”
“Who knows? … I’m not sure. But I think I have to go back to France. That’s the one thing I know.”
“Where? The Nazis have taken over there. Why don’t you go home?”
“To New York? No, there’s nothing for me there. Everything important that’s taking place in the world is taking place in Europe, at least now, and I don’t want to miss it. Paris is the capital of the world, Fernando. You should go.”
Fernando laughed bitterly. Go to Paris! He wanted to tell Marvin how stupid he was. He couldn’t even let himself dream of making such a journey. His only wish was to get his father out of prison and earn enough money to support his mother. And when his father got out of prison, he wouldn’t be able to work as an editor. The Nationalists wouldn’t grant Republicans the power to edit and publish books.
“Yes, I guess I might go to Paris someday,” he said, just to say something.
“In spite of the Nazis, I think I’m going to try to go to Paris,” Marvin said, more to himself than to Fernando.
“Well, the Americans aren’t at war with them.”
“But we will be, I’m sure of that,” Marvin replied.
They said goodbye. Fernando didn’t want to speak to the American anymore, and anyway, his mother Isabel was waiting for him so they could eat. Soup made with a bone that gave it hardly any flavor at all, and a handful of rice.
“I’ve thought about working,” his mother said.
“Going out to work?” You? We don’t need it. We’ll get along all right.”
“I was talking to someone who owns a pharmacy, and they need someone to give them a hand with the house,” his mother said, as though Fernando hadn’t spoken.
“No! Get that idea out of your head, you’re not going to do anyone’s chores. And who is this pharmacist anyway, who can afford someone to clean his house?”
“He seems to be someone with very good connections. He has five kids and his wife is worn out. She needs someone to help her. I could do it, Fernando. I’ll go for a couple of hours, and the money will come in very handy.”
“No. I won’t let you humiliate yourself in this way.”
“Humiliate myself? You think that working is humiliating? There’s nothing humiliating about washing, ironing, or cooking. It’s all stuff I know how to do,” his mother replied, twisting her expression into something that was almost a smile.
“No, of course there’s nothing wrong with it, but you do it at home already, and when Father comes back he’ll need you here. Do you think he’ll put up with you working for a Franco suppporter? He’s suffering enough already, and this’ll just make things worse. Who told you about this job anyway?”
“Don Bernardo.”
“Of course, it would be the priest! Let him mind his own business and leave us in peace.”
“He’s a good man; he cares about his parishioners and … well, he’s been asking me for some time now why you don’t go to church.”
“Tell him the truth: I can’t bear to see the flag draped over the altar, and I can’t bear to see people bowing to it, and I can’t bear to see them being asked to pray for Franco. And all priests are fascists.”
“What are you saying? That’s not true, there are all sorts, just like in the rest of the world.”
“Oh, so how many priests do you know who supported the Republic?”
“Watch yourself, Fernando! Don’t be a little boy; the Nationalists have won, and we have to accept it.”
“I’m not going to accept it. I’ll keep my mouth shut, but only until Father gets home.”
“And then what do you think you’re going to do? You’ll put your life on the line by criticizing Franco? That’s your goal? You think it’s worthwhile? Your father won’t allow it.”
“My father risked his life for the Republic, and will never kneel to fascists.”
“Your father has always been a dignified man, but he can’t do anything now, nothing at all, not even if he wanted to.”
They sat in silence. Fernando didn’t want to argue with his mother, but he knew how stubborn she was, and it would be difficult for him to convince her not to take this job with the pharmacist.
“I’ll try to find another job,” he suggested.
“No. You have to be an editor and a translator, the same as your father and his father before him. Do you want to make your father even more unhappy? He wouldn’t want you to stop trying to do that, not for anything in the world.”
“Can’t you see what’s going on? Open your eyes, Mother: I was with Cultura Popular during the war, I was a militiaman at the front and no one is going to let me edit books, no one will let me be more than I am, carrying bricks in the mornings and setting type in the afternoons. I’ll never be more than that.”
“When your father comes back it’ll all get sorted out and you’ll see: they’ll find a way to make you an editor. Maybe Don Bernardo will help us. He could be our backer, tell the authorities that we’re decent people. You see how much he’s helping us.”
“To do what? To recommend you as a maid?”
“Fernando, all jobs have something worthy about them, and I won’t have to be at that house all day, just until lunch time. I’ll leave home at seven and I’ll be back by three. You won’t even know I’m gone. But don’t ask me to sit around and twiddle my thumbs while you break your back, out every day at work … You’re thinner every day … I can’t see you do this to yourself … and we’ve got nothing left to sell. Whatever I earn will help pay the lawyer as well … Come on, let’s not argue.”
He had to give in. He knew that his mother still thought of him as a little boy that she needed to protect. He felt angry and sad. Angry because he couldn’t look after his household. He also felt hatred, a deep hatred for the Franco supporters who had put his father in prison and ruined their lives. His mother didn’t complain, but he couldn’t stop himself from being upset at the future that had been taken away from them.
“When do you have to go?” he asked, submissively.
“Tomorrow. I’ll start work tomorrow. It’ll be fine.”
“They’re Nationalists,” Fernando said in disgust.
“Who isn’t these days? You think anyone will dare say what they really think? This is over, Fernando, get used to it. The things your father taught you … you don’t have to forget them, but you need to keep them to yourself.”
“I’ll come with you. They’ll know that you’re not alone.”
His mother stretched out a hand and stroked her son’s head.
“Run along. Go and smoke a cigarette with Eulogio before he has to leave for work.”
“No, I won’t go up today. Oh, Catalina told me that her mother has made some crochet cloths that she could give us to sell. Maybe Don Antonio will want to buy them.”
“It would be good, but … don’t call him Don Antonio, at least not when we’re alone. He doesn’t deserve our respect, doesn’t deserve for us to call him ‘Don’ when we talk about him. And not just because he used to be a shopkeeper …”
“Why, then? Because he never went to school?”
“Well, there’s that as well, but because he’s a scoundrel, like all black marketeers. He’s made himself rich by ruining other people. As soon as he can, he’ll throw us out of this house.”
“I won’t let him, Mother, I swear I won’t let him.”
They declared a truce by settling down to read together. Fernando was reading Cervantes’ Viaje del Parnaso, and Isabel was reading poetry.
“What are you reading, Mother?”
“‘This burning ice, this frozen fire, this wound which hurts and yet one cannot feel: it is a wondered dream, a present evil, a tiring pause, a rest which tires one more …’ You know who that is?” she asked with a smile.
“No …”
“Francisco de Quevedo. It’s a poem I like a lot. It’s called ‘Definition of Love.’”
“You’re a romantic, Mother.”
The Madrid nights were growing cooler. His mother’s persistent cough kept him awake and he was thinking that he should get a blanket from somewhere, just for her. It was an impossible dream. They didn’t have any money. They didn’t have anything left to sell, either, apart from their beds, a couple of armchairs and their dining table and chairs. His mother had said that she could sleep on the floor, but that they had to eat like civilized people. Also, when his father came back, he’d need somewhere to sit and write. And if he didn’t get a job in a publishing house, then maybe he could earn some money by tutoring. Yes, they’d have to be allowed to do that; they couldn’t be condemned to die of starvation, although they’d been hungry ever since the war started.
Fernando couldn’t forget his father.
“What does it feel like to kill someone?” he had asked him, on one of his brief visits back from the front.
He saw how his father had stiffened, how his fists had clenched, and how he had closed his eyes and breathed in deeply as though he had to fill his lungs in order to reply.
“Nothing. That’s the worst of it, you don’t feel a thing. You shall not kill, Fernando, you shall not. You feel nothing when you kill, and the hell of it comes later.”
“Lorenzo, what things you say!” his mother had exclaimed angrily, looking annoyed at both of them.
Then his father had gone back to the front and returned a defeated man.
When in November of 1936, the Republican government moved to Valencia, Fernando’s father had convinced him that the cultural front had moved there as well. After a year, Fernando returned to Madrid because tuberculosis, rather than a bullet, had almost put an end to his life. He only survived by a miracle. It was his mother’s miracle, really: she had looked after him with no fear that she herself would fall sick.
The days went by in the capital; the bombs howled and the reports came in that the Nationalist forces had Madrid surrounded, but that the Republicans were resisting strongly. He followed the news from his bed, unable to leave the house. Then the news spread that Colonel Casado was negotiating a surrender, and then one day Franco’s troops were in Madrid.
When the war ended, Lorenzo Garzo was imprisoned and sentenced to death. Fernando and his mother were sure that they would be able to get him pardoned and sent back home.
Fernando was barely able to sleep. He knew that his mother was also awake, but both of them lay silent. He got up before dawn. There was no better alarm clock than the bells of the Convent of La Encarnación. His mother usually went there on Sundays to hear Mass, or else to another nearby church, San Ginés. There, Quevedo had been baptized and Lope de Vega had gotten married. There were beautiful pictures there as well: one by El Greco, and others by Luca Gordano, Francisco Ricci, and Alonso Cano.
Taking care to make no noise, he went into the bathroom. The cold water of the shower cleared his head. He thought that it was almost a luxury to be living in this house, with a bathroom they didn’t have to share with anyone. Ever since Eulogio had moved to his attic, he had had to wash in a bucket, or at the sink in his tiny kitchen. Yes, he felt very lucky to have this little bathroom that his father had installed before the war had touched their lives. He suddenly had an idea and almost burst out laughing. They might be able to rent the bathroom out. Eulogio had told him that the American, with great forbearance, had gotten used to the inconveniences of the attic, but that every now and then he complained about not being able to have a shower like God intended.
When Eulogio got back from guarding Don Antonio’s warehouse, he’d go up and tell him that he could rent the shower to the American. If Eulogio wanted to take a shower, then Fernando wouldn’t charge him anything, because they were friends, but the American could pay, and would pay, because Americans have money, although he didn’t understand why the American had decided to stay in the attic when he could very well have afforded a room in a better class of lodgings.
He didn’t have any breakfast because there was nothing to have, apart from a bit of malt that he left for his mother.
“Fernando, don’t go out without having breakfast,” Isabel said.
“It’s early, Mother, you can sleep a little bit more.”
“It’s half past five and I need to get ready. It wouldn’t be good for me to be late my first day of work.”
Fernando got dressed and waited for his mother to get ready so that he could go with her. When they went out into the street, he held her arm. They walked fast. They reached the pharmacist’s house before seven o’clock.
The door was opened by a woman in a black dress and a white frilly maid’s apron.
“Doña Hortensia is waiting for you: there’s a lot to do. And who is this?” the maid asked.
“My son, Fernando.”
“Well, he can go.”
“All right … Son, you can go, I’ll see you later.”
“I’d like to say hello to Doña Hortensia,” Fernando replied, keen not to leave before he’d been able to judge the owners of the house for himself.
“The cheek of it! You really think that Doña Hortensia will waste her time on you? Go on, get out of here before she sends you and your mother away.”
An elderly man came out into the hall. The maid coughed anxiously, but Fernando held the man’s gaze.
“And you are …?” he asked.
“Fernando Garzo, and this is my mother …”
“Right, and what do you want?”
“She’s here for the ironing, Don Luis,” the maid interrupted.
“Ah, all right … Yes, my wife told me that someone would come to do the ironing and help a bit around the house … What’s your name?”
“Isabel,” she replied in embarrassment.
“Well, come on in, my wife’s been having trouble with the house for a while. And you, young fellow, you’d best be off …”
“I only came to see my mother safely to work and to see what kind of a place it was where she’d be working.”
Don Luis looked Fernando up and down. For a moment Fernando thought he was going to be thrown off the property, but Don Luis gave him a slap on the back and showed him to the door.
“She’ll be in good hands here. It’s a good thing for you to take such care of your mother. Now get along with you, back to whatever it is you do.”
Fernando left the house saying to himself that it might not be a bad place to work, but he hadn’t even reached the street before he was bemoaning his bad luck. This was a man who had won the war, and he had to be a bigwig in the new regime to be able to permit himself a maid and hire another woman, Fernando’s mother, to cook and iron. He felt a wave of hatred overcome him. His father was in prison, just because he was a Republican, and his mother, his dear mother, was forced to be a servant in that house. He spat on the ground. It was his way of getting the bitterness out.
When he got to the building site, his boss gave him a shove.
“You’re late,” he said.
“No, I’m not, Pascual. It’s not even eight yet.”
“And how are we going to put Spain back on her feet if we don’t work? Don’t be a slacker, and get those sacks of cement moving, over there where Pepe is … I bet you spent all night with your books. Ooh, look at you, wanting to be an editor! All you can do is lift and carry things, kid. You should be glad they don’t lock you up like your father.”
Fernando said nothing. Why should he? Pascual was a brute, who barely knew how to read and who thought that sheer force was enough for a man to get by. He had fought on the Nationalist side and liked to boast of the number of reds that he had killed at the front. When they heard him speak, there were a number of men on the building site who had to bite their tongues. They couldn’t permit themselves the luxury of talking back. It had been hard enough to get the job on the building site, as a way to make enough money to survive. It was better to keep quiet. Silence was a part of the punishment for the losing side.
“Don’t get worked up about it, kid,” one of the men said as Fernando brought him a sack of cement.
He went home at half past two. He was keen to see his mother and for her to tell him about how her first day at work had gone. He hurried back. He also wanted to speak to Eulogio about the shower.
He found his mother in the entrance to their house. She seemed happy, but tired.
“They seem like nice people. Doña Hortensia is very pleasant. She asks a lot of me, but there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“And what about the husband?”
“You’ve seen him, he’s a pharmacist. He seems to know lots of important people who seem to rate him highly.”
“He’s an old man.”
“Well, he’s older than his wife, a few years older. She can’t be more than forty, and he … well, he must be about seventy.”
“And their children?”
“They’ve got five of them, all ages, but Doña Hortensia runs the house like a barracks.”
“Did you get any food there?”
“No … I made them lunch, lentils and an omelet.”
“They could at least have given you something. Even just an egg.”
“They didn’t have to.”
“Bastards,” Fernando said.
“Please, don’t be so bitter,” his mother begged.
Fernando went up to see Eulogio and found him just out of bed. His friend had been napping, but now was up and ready to start painting. He heard Fernando’s proposal of getting the American to pay for using the shower with interest.
“He’s out at the moment, but I’ll tell him as soon as I see him. I’m sure he’ll say yes. Does your mother agree?”
“How could she not? Of course, we’ll have to tell him not to waste water.”
“Of course … And I’m going to take you up on it as well, your offer of showering for free. I’d like that, even if it’s only once a week. How is it going with Pascual?”
“He works me hard. He doesn’t like me much.”
“You’ve got to put up with him. He’s the site foreman and he takes advantage of lots of you, because he knows that you were Republicans. And you’re lucky that he gives you work to do instead of reporting you to the authorities.”
“I’m sick of him. He’s always going on about the war and the reds, just so there’s no doubt at all about what he thinks. And he takes advantage of the fact that my father’s a Republican and in prison, and he pays me much less than another kid who does the same work as I do but whose father joined up with the Falangists as soon as the war broke out.”
“I’ve told you, you’ve got to put up with it. Don’t cause me any trouble. It was tough for me to speak to Don Antonio and get him to get you this job. You don’t like Don Antonio, and neither do I. If he puts up with me it’s because he knows that I know how much of a scoundrel he is, and that his friend, the foreman, steals building materials and sells them to Don Antonio at a cut rate. But there are so many people like us around at the moment, doing whatever we can do to get a job for a few pennies … Look around you, Fernando, even the Nationalists are hungry.”
“Some people are hungrier than others.”
“Of course they are. But don’t fool, yourself, there are more people having a tough time than not. There are always sly people like Don Antonio around. But what can we do: they won the war.”
“We’re idiots to keep on calling him ‘Don Antonio.’ He used to be ‘Antonio, the guy who runs the shop,’ and now we’re calling him ‘Don’ this, and ‘Don’ that …”
“We may not like it, but we’ve got to go along with it. And he’s the one who puts food on our plates. And he might be a bastard, but he’s given me work and you’ve got work through him, indirectly.”
“But he threw you out of your house! Look at how you’re living now!”
“We lost the war, Fernando, accept it. Your father will explain it all when he gets out of prison. Don Antonio used to have a shop and now he trades on a much larger scale. He’s got the upper hand, and what can we do about it?”
“Well, I’ve got to go to the print shop now. Talk to the American and let me know what he decides about paying for the shower.”
Although he was upset in general with his situation, Fernando liked working as a typesetter. He had only been there for three months, but he was such a quick learner that Don Vicente, the shop manager, who was both severe and gruff, sometimes gave Fernando a pat on the back. And as for Don Víctor, who was the actual owner of the place, Fernando couldn’t deny that he had been good to him, which made the fact that he was right-wing all the more annoying.
“You’re good at this job,” his boss said to him one afternoon.
Yes, he was good at composing, and had even dared make suggestions a couple of times for how they could save paper.
They did everything at the print shop, from books to propaganda. Fernando sometimes asked himself if he was betraying his father when he set pamphlets glorifying Franco.
Marvin agreed to pay for the shower. Isabel gave in, resignedly. It would be useful for them to have a few pennies a day, and the American seemed a good enough fellow. They’d give him a key so that he could get into the house: not only because they thought he could be trusted, but also because there was nothing in the house worth stealing.
It was a large house, with three balconies facing onto the street. The living room, which was also the dining room, used to be very comfortable, but now was almost empty. There were two sliding doors, always left open, that led into a little room which they called the office, covered from floor to ceiling with Fernando’s father’s precious books. A couple of bedrooms, as well as the kitchen and the bathroom, made up the rest of the house.
Sometimes Isabel would imagine the moment when Lorenzo, her husband, would come home. He would come back exhausted, having spent so long locked away in prison without anything at all. She would explain to him that they’d had to sell their furniture, but at least they had kept the table and the office chair. Everything else – the coat rack and dressing mirror in the foyer, the plate rack in the dining room, the headboards of the beds, and so on – all these no longer belonged to them. She knew that Lorenzo would hug her and would say that she didn’t need to worry, that all those pieces of furniture were only objects, however much they had loved them. He would look over the shelves in the office and would sigh in silence to see that she had kept his books. For a man like Lorenzo, a lover of literature, books were part of his soul and he couldn’t understand himself without them. Yes, he would stroke the spines of the novels of Cervantes, he would sink into the poems of Góngora, he would smile to see the old volumes of Calderón. And he would sigh with relief to see that Romancero gitano by Lorca and so many other books were still there, books that had formed his life and the way he moved through the world. And he would certainly hold back a tear when he saw that on the table in the office, the book of poems would still be open just as he had left it, on the same page with the same poem by Gómez Manrique:
I leave you now, my maiden, against my will;
I leave your pure goodness
with great anguish.
I leave in great sorrow
for this sad departure,
and am weighed down by the thought that it will shorten my life.
Isabel was desperate for him to come home. She struggled to escape from the nightmare that came to her every night. Always the same nightmare. She saw her husband saying goodbye to her, but she did not hear his final words. Then there would be a deafening noise and the slumped body of Lorenzo would fall to the ground. Dead. When she reached this point in the dream she would wake up screaming.
Fernando would come over to her and hold her tight without saying anything. He didn’t need to. He also saw ghosts.
Isabel finished combing her hair. She looked into the mirror and smiled sadly. Her chestnut hair was already peppered with gray, and she was barely forty years old. She could not deny it. Her youth had disappeared in the war. Wrinkles across her face made her expression hard. The skin on her hands was rough and her skinny frame, the result of hunger, took all her beauty away from her. But she was sure that Lorenzo would still love her in the same way that she desperately loved the ruined and tortured body of her husband, paying no attention to his premature baldness, his sunken eyes, his arthritic fingers that had suffered in the cold during the years of the war.
She still saw her husband as the serious, dedicated youth who had lost track of time translating Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Daniel Defoe and Walter Scott, the boy who had seemed surprised that she would look twice at him, a girl who all the neighborhood boys chased after. Isabel had lived with her parents in a village in the sierra where her father worked as a vet, and where Lorenzo spent every summer with his parents.
Isabel was barely eighteen years old when they got married. She had been radiant that day, and that was how Lorenzo would always see her.
“Are you ready?” Fernando asked, bringing her back to reality.
“Yes, son, I’m ready. Let’s go.”
They walked quickly out of the house. It’s not that the prison was a long way away, but they always got there early on visiting day. The guards liked making things difficult for the families of the losers.
Fernando had dressed up as well. He knew that his father was upset by how ugly things were in prison, and he suffered enough with the ticks and fleas there.
When they arrived at the prison, they had to stand around for a while, whispering with the families of the other prisoners. They all knew each other, after so many weeks meeting at the gates to this building, which had once been a convent, and which was now a prison for Republican prisoners.
Both mother and son looked for familiar faces, and if there were people whom they did not see, this was usually because the father, the brother, the uncle or the friend in prison had been shot.
Fernando felt his stomach turn to see his father so gaunt and somehow absent. Why wasn’t he wearing his glasses? He didn’t see well without them.
“Dad, where are your glasses?” he asked, as soon as they had greeted each other.
“Don’t worry about that, son,” his father answered.
“Did they take them away from you?” Isabel insisted.
“Well … they got broken. The guard at the door said I was holding up the line and pushed me and they fell off and … he stepped on them. I’m sorry.”
Isabel held her husband’s hand and tried to keep back the tears. Fernando clenched his fists to hold in his rage.
“Dad, you mean Roque, right? Roque … We’ve heard that he’s a brute, and likes picking on people here,” Fernando said angrily.
“Let’s talk about other things. Are you getting any better food?” Isabel said, just to keep the conversation going.
“The same as usual. They call it ‘soup' and it’s always full of insects … We’re so hungry that the men eat without looking … But tell me about yourselves …”
“Dad, the lawyer promised me that he’ll give me some news in the next day or so. He says he’s almost sure that you’ll get the pardon. You’ll see, you’ll be home by Christmas.”
“I’m sure of it … Lorenzo, I’ve started working. Don Bernardo, the local priest, has recommended me at the house of one of his parishioners. Don Luis is a pharmacist, and Doña Hortensia, his wife, is a good woman. They’ve got five children and need help with everything …”
“They’re Falangists, Dad,” Fernando added.
Lorenzo looked down in shame. He felt deeply upset to imagine Isabel forced by necessity into washing and cleaning in someone else’s house. It’s not that he didn’t think that cleaning was a worthy job, but that she had to do it was just one more sign of the life that he had lost, perhaps forever.
“Do they treat you well?” he asked, stroking Isabel’s cheek.
“Yes, of course they do. They’re not bad people.”
“Of course they are!” Fernando said.
“Come on, son, don’t make your mother feel worse. Fernando, it’s not the case that everyone who thinks differently from us has to be bad. There are good people and bad people everywhere.”
“Well, when you get out, see for yourself how they behave and then you can tell me what you think,” Fernando said bitterly, and in a voice that was perhaps slightly louder than it needed to be.
“We’ve rented the shower to an American. I’ve spoken to you about him; he’s a poet and lives upstairs in the attic with Eulogio. He was dying for a proper shower, and Fernando had the idea of letting him come and shower, and paying for it. The money helps,” Isabel said, to shift the conversation onto a different topic.
“I see that you’re figuring out how things work. Good. Renting the shower is a good idea, I think,” Lorenzo said with a smile.
“We let Eulogio shower for free,” Fernando said.
They got him up to date with all the news of their neighborhood, and Lorenzo listened to everything attentively, as if he could really be interested in how Don Antonio the black marketeer was doing, or what was happening with the Vilamar family.
“And what about you and Catalina, eh?” Lorenzo said with a glance at his son.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Fernando protested.
“You know how the Vilamars are, Lorenzo: they aim high and want to secure their daughter’s future. I think that Ernesto Vilamar wants to link his family to Antonio the black marketeer’s. His son Antoñito is very keen on Catalina,” Isabel explained to her husband.
“Well, if that’s aiming high …” Lorenzo said with heavy irony.
“Antonio is dealing with a lot of money at the moment. He still has his shop, but if you could see the warehouse he’s rented for the black market things … You won’t recognize him when you see him, for all the airs he puts on.”
“Well, but Catalina’s always been very clear about doing what she wants; I don’t think that she likes Antoñito,” Lorenzo said.
“Maybe she doesn’t like Antoñito, but …” Fernando fell silent.
“What are you saying?” his father insisted.
“She likes the American. Marvin is a poet, and was there when the war broke out, working as a translator for some American journalists, then he left. I don’t know what it is about him, but all the girls seem to like him.”
His father smiled and looked at him tenderly. He saw the pain and stunned sensation of one’s first failure in love reflected on Fernando’s face. He knew that his son had been in love with Catalina ever since they were both children.
“Don’t worry about it, she’ll grow out of him. I’m sure that you’re very important to Catalina.”
“Yes, as a friend,” Fernando said, bitterly.
“You’ll see … Don’t get upset about it …” his father encouraged him.
The guards announced that it was time to go. Isabel gave her husband a loaf of bread and two hard-boiled eggs. She’d bought the eggs from Don Antonio the day before. She’d got the bread from the money she’d saved up from Marvin’s showers.
“The eggs will be good for you,” she said. “They’ll give you energy.”
“Of course they will. Look after yourselves. I love you.”
“You’ll be home soon, Dad.”
It wasn’t until they had left the prison that Isabel allowed herself to cry. Fernando put his arms around her shoulders, trying to console her.
“We’ll get him pardoned, you’ll see.”
“But he’s thinner every day, he’s just skin and bones, and now with his glasses … Your father can’t see anything without them. Lord, Fernando, we have to get him out of there.”
“We will, Mother, you’ll see. Dad hasn’t done anything bad.”
Isabel didn’t reply. The victors were cruel to the vanquished. They didn’t respect anyone, and most certainly didn’t respect the Republican soldiers. There were firing squads every day, and she shuddered to think that one day someone would come to her door to tell her that Lorenzo had been shot.