4

“He’s gone? It can’t be! No, he can’t have gone, you can’t do this to me.” “Come in and calm down,” Eulogio said to Catalina, who was about to burst into tears.

Eulogio had arrived home at nine in the morning after his night shift in the warehouse. He was tired and had gone to bed as soon as he could, but before he could fall asleep, he heard the doorbell and his mother talking to someone who turned out to be Catalina. He got up and pulled on his pants, then went to see what was happening.

Piedad had just told her that Marvin had left four days ago and she, incredulous, was starting to raise her voice and deny that such a thing was possible.

Catalina was frozen in the doorway, and Piedad held out her hand to invite her in. If she stayed there, then the whole building would hear what was going on.

“Sit down, I’ll get you a glass of water. And put your shirt on, son,” Piedad ordered.

“There must have been a mistake,” Catalina said as she sat down.

“He had to go sooner than he expected. Apparently, one of the diplomats from the British Embassy had to travel now, and invited him to go with him. Marvin accepted because it was the safest way to travel. He would have liked to say goodbye to everyone he knew in Madrid, but he wasn’t able to,” explained Piedad.

“But he should have told me. He can’t have gone without me!” Catalina replied, unable to hold back her tears.

“He’ll write to you, don’t you worry,” Eulogio said, coming into the room fully dressed.

“I have to go to Paris … You have to give me his address … I have to go.” Catalina wasn’t listening.

“What are you saying? Paris is controlled by the German army. It’s not easy to travel, with things as they are, and who would go with you on such a trip? Your father’s not in the best of health, and your mother … well, I don’t think she’ll leave your father alone to come with you on a trip like that. And there’s one more thing: Marvin hasn’t gone to Paris, he’s gone to London to see his parents,” Eulogio said.

“Didn’t he leave a letter for me?” Catalina asked hopefully.

“No … No, he didn’t leave anything. He had to go so quickly …” Piedad said, moved by Catalina’s tears.

“And now what am I going to do …?” she said.

“Wait, and stop behaving like a little girl,” Eulogio said severely.

“It’s just that … well, you don’t know, but Marvin and I … he promised that he’d take me to Paris, that he’d look after me, that he and I. …”

“You know what? I don’t think Marvin promised anything at all, apart from to behave like a good host if you happened to come to Paris one day. And to do that, the war needs to come to an end. The Germans are in control of half of France, and they are in Paris. But you know that already. I think you’ve gone off on a flight of fancy, not that Marvin has encouraged you.” Eulogio was not looking at her as he spoke.

“But you can’t say things like that,” Piedad protested.

“Mother, you know how close Marvin and I were; I know that the only feeling he has for Catalina is friendship, and there’s no doubt about it,” Eulogio replied angrily.

“You don’t know anything! Nothing at all! Marvin and I are going to get married, I tell you! And if he has gone, then it’s because of something that has come up and forced him to go. His father might have made him go to London because he has something important to tell him. Yes, that must be what’s happened,” Catalina replied, convincing herself with her own words.

“Believe what you want, it’s your funeral,” Eulogio replied, shrugging.

Catalina stood up and went to the door, followed by Piedad.

“Thank you for being so kind …”

“Don’t mention it, and try to stay calm: you’ll see how everything will sort itself out,” Piedad replied.

When mother and son were alone together, Piedad reproached Eulogio for having spoken so harshly.

“You didn’t need to be so tough on her. She’s a good girl.”

“A good girl, but a very flighty one. To hear her speak, you’d think that Marvin had agreed to marry her, and I know better than anyone that he’s done no such thing.”

“She must have been confused by Marvin’s friendliness …” Piedad admitted.

“I know I wasn’t kind, but I wanted her to snap out of it.”

“Poor Fernando,” Piedad said.

“Yes, he’s still in love with Catalina. I hope she comes to her senses: she deserves someone who really loves her,” Eulogio said, still a little angry.

Catalina walked quickly and did nothing to hold back her tears. She refused to accept that Marvin could have left without saying anything to her. Not only did he love her, he was also a gentleman, and after all that had happened between them at the Pradera de San Isidro, he couldn’t just abandon her. Another man could, perhaps, but not him.

She blamed herself for not having stopped his departure. Now she thought that she should have realized that Marvin’s silence had a cause. But they had met a couple of times in the street, and once he had walked with her for a good long time without telling her that he was leaving soon. She remembered that Marvin had mentioned his father’s letter, but that he hadn’t once said that he was going to travel alone, without her.

She stopped for a moment to fight back nausea. She had been feeling sick for two weeks and had often been forced to stay in bed in the mornings for longer than usual.

That very afternoon she was due to go to the doctor with her mother. She didn’t care what he told her; she even fantasized about being diagnosed with a serious illness, for then Marvin would have to come back for her. Then she abandoned the thought. No. That wasn’t good. It wasn’t worthy of her, even though she said to herself that she would be willing to do anything to make him come back.

She passed the black marketeer’s wife in the street and didn’t say a word to her. She disliked her as much as her son. Antoñito came to their house every evening and stayed for at least an hour. Her mother kept an eye on him as she came in and out of the salon.

She and Antoñito barely spoke. She would have a cup of coffee, the same coffee that he brought as a gift every week, and they would trade a couple of banal observations. Neither of them felt happy in the company of the other, but she could see in Antoñito’s eyes that he wanted her to belong to him. She shuddered to think what he might be capable of. He spoke to her with a powerful sense of resentment, as though it was her fault for having been born into a family that had a place in the world, while he was simply the son of a shopkeeper.

“You have to get ready for when we’re married; you’ll cook and clean like my mother does,” he warned her constantly. “I don’t like layabouts; if you think you’re going to get up any later than eight o’clock, then you’re sorely mistaken.” “Don’t look at me so openly; well-brought-up women don’t look men in the face; they look down to the ground.” “You won’t have any opinions; you’ll think what I tell you to think about everything. That’s the least of it.” His words painted a picture for her of how her life would be once they were married.

Catalina didn’t care, because she knew it would never happen, for all that her father was insisting that she marry Antoñito. She had allowed him to come and visit so as not to upset her father, but she was tired of it now, and would inform him of his mistake very shortly. She was not going to marry the black marketeer’s son.

When she got home, she went to her room and slumped on the bed. She was tired and her nausea exhausted her.

Her mother and father came into the room, surprised that she hadn’t come to greet them when she got back.

“What’s wrong?” her mother asked, putting her palm on her daughter’s forehead.

“She’s got a stomach upset. Let’s see if the doctor can give us some medicine his afternoon. Don Antonio wants the wedding to take place at the end of the year, and I’ve told him that this is a little hasty, but if that’s how it has to be, then that’s how it has to be,” Don Ernesto said.

“That’s not important now; we need to find out what’s happening to the child. She hasn’t been right for a couple of months now. Look how pale she is,” Doña Asunción replied.

Catalina didn’t say anything to either of them. They always just said the same things anyway.

“She looks all right; she’s even put on weight,” Don Ernesto said.

“You go back to your office, Ernesto, and I’ll stay with her. I’ll boil up some herbs that Petra gave me.”

When they were alone, Doña Asunción looked at her daughter more worriedly than even she would have liked to admit to herself.

They went to Don Juan Segovia’s office that afternoon. Asunción and he had known one another since they were children, because their parents had been friends. If her husband had had any say in the matter, she would have changed her doctor, because Don Juan had always been on the side of the Azañistas, and even though he didn’t get involved in politics, he had been unable to escape the effects of the war.

The doctor examined Catalina, asked her a few questions, and when he was finished told her to sit down.

“Well, if I’m not mistaken, and I don’t think I’m mistaken, your problem is that you are pregnant. Am I right?”

Doña Asunción cried out and protested, looking fearfully at the doctor.

“What are you saying? Good Lord, Juan, how can you think that the girl might be pregnant? It’s just that everything she eats makes her feel bad … And she’s getting married, I don’t know if you knew: at the end of the year Catalina’s going to get married to Antoñito Sánchez.”

“Right, the black marketeer’s son … I heard something about it, but didn’t want to believe it. Catalina and that boy … I don’t know … Well, it looks like they’ve been a little hasty in doing things that they should have left until after the wedding, and that’s had consequences.”

“No, no, no! That’s impossible! How can you suggest that my daughter …?”

“Come on, tell me, girl: am I right or am I wrong?” Don Juan asked Catalina.

She was stunned. When Don Juan and her mother spoke, it was as though their words came from far away, as though they weren’t right next to her, looking at her.

“Catalina, say something, for God’s sake!” Asunción demanded.

“Give her a chance to rest for a second. I’ll get her a glass of water; it’s only natural for her to be in shock.”

Don Juan left the room and Doña Asunción stood in front of her daughter.

“It’s not possible … tell me that … you …”

Catalina said nothing, and her mother grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, trying to get her to come around.

Don Juan came back with a glass of water which he gave Catalina and made her drink.

“Right, the best thing is for you to tell your parents what happened. You must have been pregnant for a couple of months at least. When did your periods stop?”

Both women blushed at the direct question, but Don Juan was a doctor, and had been through a war, and had no scruples at all when it came to speaking to a young girl who had behaved in an unbecoming manner.

Catalina swallowed while she thought. She could not accept what Don Juan had said, but the doctor was right: it was a couple of months since she had last bled.

“Catalina, listen to me: if you want me to help you then you have to tell me the truth. I understand that you weren’t expecting it, but when you do things like that, then … well … these things happen. You and Antoñito should have waited until the wedding; it was only a couple of months, but what’s done is done. If you don’t want to be showing too much when you get married, you have to bring the wedding forward to September or October at the latest; you’re thin and don’t eat much, which is very easy these days, and then no one will notice it at the wedding.”

“Juan, don’t say such things! Catalina isn’t … Catalina wouldn’t … she’s not … she’s not …”

“She’s pregnant, Asunción. I know that it’s a big shock for you, and I don’t want to think what you’ll say to your husband, but these things happen: they’ve happened before, they happen now, and they’ll carry on happening in the future. All you have to do is get them married as soon as possible: problem solved. I’ll make sure that Catalina stays healthy.”

“Please, tell him he’s mistaken!” Doña Asunción begged Catalina.

The doctor looked at her with sympathy and Catalina started to cry in despair. He made a gesture to Doña Asunción indicating that she should say nothing and to let the girl unleash her feelings. After a while, when it seemed as though the girl had no tears left to cry, the doctor spoke again:

“The best thing is for you to tell your parents everything. They’re going to be surprised and upset, but you’re their daughter, the apple of their eye, and they’ll sort things out for you in the best possible way. As for Antoñito … he’ll have to be a man and step up to sort out the situation.”

“It wasn’t him,” Catalina murmured.

“What did you say?” Don Juan said, unsure that he’d heard correctly.

“It wasn’t Antoñito.” And Catalina burst out crying again.

Doña Asunción fainted, and the doctor and Catalina had to help her. Her daughter held her up and fanned her, and Don Juan went to get another glass of water.

The tables had been turned, and it was now Doña Asunción who cried in despair, upset by what she was going through.

Don Juan had to wait quite a while for mother and daughter to be calm enough for him to start the conversation again.

“It’s not my business to ask who it was that you did things with that you shouldn’t have done, but the sooner you tell your parents, the better. I suppose it must have been some young man you know, and that he’ll take care of things, eh?” the doctor asked.

“Fernando! It was Fernando!” Doña Asunción shouted, apparently in the grip of a revelation.

“Fernando Garzo? The editor’s son?” Don Juan asked.

“No, it wasn’t him … It was … Marvin. It was with Marvin.”

Her voice breaking, Catalina explained to Don Juan who Marvin was, and how they had become boyfriend and girlfriend without telling anyone, and how one night at the Pradera de San Isidro what had happened had happened, but that now he had gone to London without telling her, but that she was sure that as soon as he found out he would come back to marry her.

“But you have to get married to Antoñito! What will your father say?” Doña Asunción groaned.

“The important thing is for her to marry the father of her child, don’t you think, Asunción? And anyway, I don’t think that Antoñito is going to want to take charge of a child that isn’t his …”

They left Don Juan’s office supporting each other as they went: both of them seemed to lack the strength to walk unaided. Mother and daughter were both in a state of shock, incredulous at what the doctor had told them.

“But how could you have done such a thing?” Doña Asunción asked, in tears.

“Mama, I don’t know … It was Antoñito’s birthday, when we all were invited to the Pradera … I drank wine and it went to my head … I didn’t realize what was happening; I don’t even remember it all that well … But let me say, I am happy that it was with Marvin. I love him. I hate Antoñito. I won’t marry him, whatever Father says.”

Doña Asunción squeezed her daughter’s arm, unable to say that it was Antoñito now who wouldn’t want to marry her.

She shuddered when she thought about what would happen if the American didn’t come back, or if he refused to take responsibility for Catalina and the child they were to have together. He was a foreigner, and there was no way to pressure him into fulfilling his obligations. She trembled when she thought about what her husband’s reaction would be: she knew he was a good man, but he was overwhelmed at the moment by his debts. For him, the wedding had become a solution for the difficult situation they found themselves in.

“I don’t know how we’re going to tell your father. The shock could kill him,” Doña Asunción said.

“I’m sorry, Mama, I’d never forgive myself if anything were to happen to Papa because of me: what can I do?” Catalina asked worriedly.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Mother and daughter both walked slowly, knowing that from this moment on, their lives would never be the same again.

It was hard for Catalina to cope with the idea that she was to be a mother. She said that maybe Don Juan had made a mistake, and she plucked up the courage to ask her mother if a woman could ever get pregnant if she had only done “it” once.

“Yes, my dear, yes, that’s our lot in life,” Doña Asunción said, almost overcome with worry.

Don Ernesto was in his office, talking to Don Antonio. Catalina and her mother came in and greeted the two men, who looked at them in surprise, as they could see that the women had been crying. Their eyes were red, their faces were puffy, and they couldn’t hide the fact that something had happened.

“You look tired. Go and rest while I finish talking to Don Antonio,” Don Ernesto said.

“Yes … it’s hot … you know that the heat in Madrid is difficult to bear,” Doña Asunción replied.

“It must be really something today,” Don Antonio murmured, surprised by how bad the two women looked.

As soon as the black marketeer had gone, Don Ernesto called for his wife to come and tell him how the trip to the doctor’s had gone. Doña Asunción burst into tears, unable to tell her husband the truth.

“What is it? Asunción, if the girl's sick, tell me …” Don Ernesto said in great distress.

But his wife was unable to reply and started crying even harder, so Don Ernesto called for his daughter. Given how much his wife was crying, he was starting to worry that Catalina was suffering from some fatal disease.

When they had managed to calm Doña Asunción, Don Ernesto, unusually for him, sat down next to his daughter and took her hand, as though he were trying to encourage her, and insisted to his wife that she tell them what had happened.

Doña Asunción looked at her daughter, not knowing what to say, and Catalina, shocked by her mother’s tears, decided that she should tell the truth herself. She didn’t know where she managed to get the strength, but she managed to tell her father directly.

“I’m pregnant. Don Juan says I’m two months gone. It’s not Antoñito’s child; the father is Marvin, the American.” She said all this while looking her father in the eye, watching as his expression changed. He moved from incredulity to anguish to anger.

Don Ernesto stood in front of his daughter and gave her a slap that knocked her to her heels. Catalina took a step back, trying to keep her balance, and cowered against the wall with her hands in front of her face as her father raised his hand again.

“Ernesto, for God’s sake! Leave her be! I’m begging you, Ernesto!” Doña Asunción cried out, trying to get between her husband and her daughter.

But Don Ernesto’s anger was such that he pushed his wife out of the way and slapped Catalina’s face again and again.

“You slut! You whore! How could you have done something like this! You bitch! Harlot!”

Catalina listened to him in terror. She had never seen her father like this before. He was always so upright, such a gentleman, incapable of raising his voice, and now he was unrecognizable: red in the face, his eyes bulging, spit flying from his lips with each new insult.

She withstood her father’s blows as best she could, but finally she doubled over and fell to the floor as her mother begged her father not to hit her any more.

Doña Asunción bent down, trying to protect her daughter with her own body as her husband started to kick his daughter.

“I’ll pull that bastard out of you with my own hands! You won’t have this child, I swear to God you won’t have it!” Don Ernesto shouted.

Both mother and daughter were beaten again and again until Don Ernesto felt faint and had to grab the back of a chair to steady himself.

Crying, Doña Asunción tried to pick Catalina up off the floor.

“My girl, please get up … please … my girl …”

One of Catalina’s eyes was so swollen she could barely see out of it, but she could sense that her father was recovering from his moment of weakness, so she made an effort and stood up. Then, held in her mother’s arms, she let herself be led to her room. Once she was inside, Doña Asunción pulled the bolt across and helped her to lie down on her bed.

“Don’t worry, Mama,” Catalina said, more upset by her mother’s distress than by the pain of her father’s blows.

“We’ll go to the doctor: he can’t have … My poor daughter! Forgive your father … forgive him …”

“Forgive him? Never! Never!” Catalina said, unable to hide her anger.

“You have to forgive him … forgive him … men are like that; honor is the most important thing for them,” Doña Asunción begged, wiping her daughter’s forehead with a perfumed handkerchief.

Catalina’s nose was bleeding and, besides her eye, she had other bruises all over her body. Doña Asunción was in no better shape, but she didn’t complain: her only concern was for her daughter.

“Stay here. I’ll go get some water and something to eat. When I leave, lock the door and don’t open it to anyone until I come back.”

“Mother, stay here … Papa is capable of anything …” Catalina said, terrified.

“No, he won’t do anything to me … he’s a good man … Forgive him, please, it was just the shock of the news. We have to let him get used to it … It’ll all get sorted out, you see; your father loves you; you’re the apple of his eye …”

Catalina didn’t reply. She hadn’t recognized that raging animal as her father. She had expected to be scolded and punished, but not subjected to the violence that he had used against the pair of them.

When her mother left the room, she pushed the bolt across. Suddenly she felt deeply afraid of her father, and put her ear to the door to listen in case her mother should start screaming, ready to run and help her.

But she heard nothing and threw herself down on the bed in despair. She closed her eyes and tried not to think, but it was impossible. She said to herself that maybe she had been a little blunt in how she had informed her father; perhaps she should have broken it some other way, or have let her mother explain things that night, when she and Don Ernesto were alone in their room together. But there was no going back. The worst of it was that she would have to face her father again.

Suddenly she sat up with a start. What if she were unable to get in touch with Marvin? She didn’t know where to write to him. Only Eulogio had his address, and he wouldn’t give it to her unless she explained why it was so urgent that she speak to him. But if she told Eulogio that she was expecting Marvin’s child, then he wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut, and sooner or later the whole neighborhood would know it, which would be terrible. They would gossip about her behind her back; she could just imagine the things they would say. It was only then that she realized the gravity of the situation.

She lay back to wait for her mother to return, running her hand over her belly. She felt nothing. Was it really possible that she had Marvin’s child inside her? “A child,” she thought for the first time. She was going to have a child that she didn’t want. She immediately regretted the thought. Of course she wanted to have children with Marvin, but only when they were married, not just whenever. But what about him? Would he be angry when he found out that he was going to become a father? Would he think that it had been her fault? No, he couldn’t think that: what had happened in the Pradera had been pure chance, and he knew that. And it had been Marvin who had been unable to hold himself back, anyway, because she had drunk so much that she didn’t know what she was doing; the wine had gone to her head and removed all her willpower.

Her back hurt where her father had kicked her, and her vision was still blurry from the blow to her eye; she could feel one of her teeth wiggle loosely as well. She didn’t want to look at herself in the mirror, as she was afraid of what she might see.

She lay drowsily on her bed until a couple of soft knocks at the door brought her back to herself. She heard her mother whisper her name.

She opened the door and Doña Asunción came in quickly. She had a tray in her hands with a glass of milk and a piece of bread.

“I’m not hungry,” Catalina said.

“You have to eat: if not for you then for the child,” Doña Asunción said, looking at her daughter’s belly.

“Did Papa … did he say anything?” Catalina said.

“I had to make him an herbal tea. He’s very upset; it was a big shock for him.”

“It wasn’t my fault,” Catalina said.

“It doesn’t matter … What’s done is done. Now we all have to face up to it.”

“But you’re not so angry with me.” Catalina looked almost pleadingly at her mother.

“Angry? I don’t know what I feel … I still can’t get my head around the idea that you’re … well, that you’re pregnant. I haven’t had a chance to think about it and I’m … well, I’m surprised. I’d never have thought that you … I showed you how to behave around boys and then this foreigner turns up and you let him seduce you …”

“Mother, please help me!”

“Of course I’ll help you, but I don’t know what we need to do. As soon as your father has calmed down we’ll talk to him and make some decisions. The only thing I’m sure of is that the American will have to come and take responsibility. If it’s necessary, I myself will go and tell him as much. Isn’t he in Eulogio’s house? Piedad is a good woman and I don’t think that she’ll tell everyone you’re pregnant. But the sooner you get married, the better. It’s a shame we won’t be able to organize a proper wedding.”

“Mama … Marvin left. Eulogio told me that he’s gone to London, and I don’t have his address. If Eulogio doesn’t give it to me, I won’t know how to find him …”

“What do you mean? How can he have left without telling you where he was going?”

“He left without saying goodbye.” Catalina started to cry again.

“What a disaster!”

Doña Asunción sat on the edge of the bed and wrung her hands. Her lower lip was trembling. Catalina folded herself into her mother’s arms and stayed there for long time.

“Wherever he is, we need to find him and make sure he comes back as soon as possible,” Doña Asunción said.

“Eulogio knows his address, but he won’t tell us how to find Marvin in London if we don’t tell him why we want to find him,” Catalina said.

“Why should he care? We shouldn’t have to give explanations. Maybe Fernando could give you a hand: isn’t he Eulogio’s friend?”

“And what? Should I tell Fernando that I’m … that I’m expecting Marvin’s child? I can’t do that, Mama, I just can’t.”

“You don’t need to explain everything,” Doña Asunción said doubtfully.

Catalina burst into inconsolable tears once again. The realization had dawned that her life was no longer just her own.

Her mother made her drink the milk and eat the bread, and then left her alone. She needed to put her thoughts in order as well, and struggled to hold back her tears as she walked to her room.

Her husband was sitting in an armchair by the balcony, the window wide open. It was very hot. The mug of herbal tea was on a table near where he sat, and Doña Asunción saw with relief that it was empty. She sat in a chair.

“She has to have an abortion,” her husband whispered.

Doña Asunción gave a jolt, shocked by what she heard. She didn’t dare say anything, but looked worriedly at her husband.

“I’m not going to let her marry that American. She’s engaged to Antoñito, and she will marry him. But she needs to get rid of what she’s carrying in her belly first. Let’s find someone who can sort out the problem for us. There has to be someone in Madrid who can deal with such things. No one must find out, not that she’s pregnant, nor that she’s gotten rid of it.” These last words came as a warning to his wife.

“But we can’t … it’s not possible … we’re Catholics … Catalina won’t allow it: she’s in love with the American and wants to marry him … Good Lord, Ernesto, how can you even contemplate something so monstrous!”

Don Ernesto slammed his fist down onto the table and the cup fell to the floor and broke.

“Are you as mad as your daughter? We are ruined, hadn’t you noticed? I owe a lot of money to Don Antonio, and without his help we won’t even be able to eat. Don Antonio wants his son to marry a real lady, and Catalina is the woman closest to hand.”

“And you don’t care about handing your daughter over to that yokel?” his wife said.

“What kind of a world do you think we’re living in, Asunción? The war destroyed your father’s business; all we have are debts. My brother isn’t doing that much better; he’s trying to get the farm working, but for the time being, they’re only making enough to live on. There’s no other way out; Catalina isn’t used to going without, and Antoñito will give her all she needs.”

“But she doesn’t love him. She hates him …”

“Did we love each other when we got married? Our parents arranged our marriage because it was the best thing for both of us, and here we are now, and has anything bad happened? You’ve been an exemplary wife and I’ve been a faithful husband, and what more could you ask for?”

“But we can’t force her … The American could come and ask for his child back …”

“What child? There won’t be any child: I’ll make sure of it. She’ll have an abortion.”

“I will not allow my daughter to commit a mortal sin!” Doña Asunción got to her feet and stared defiantly at her husband.

“And what, isn’t it a mortal sin to commit impure acts? She’ll go to Hell just the same.”

“What are you saying? Ernesto, you need to rest, and we’ll talk about this tomorrow. We’re on edge and saying things we don’t mean … God forgive us!”

“Yes, God forgive us, but the girl will have an abortion.”

Catalina rose just after dawn. She washed herself quickly and went out of the house without making any noise, keen to see Eulogio on his way back from the warehouse. She met Fernando instead: he was on his way to work.

“What are you doing out at this hour of the morning?” he asked in surprise.

“I have to see Eulogio,” Catalina said without thinking.

“So early? He’s just about to come back, but why do you need to see him so urgently? What’s going on? You’ve got a black eye and your arm is bruised … Did you fall down?”

Catalina said nothing, but bit her lower lip until it bled.

“Hey, if you don’t want to tell me, don’t tell me, I don’t care. Goodbye.” And Fernando turned away moodily.

“Don’t go … It’s not that I don’t want to tell you … it’s just that …” And she burst out crying.

Fernando stopped dead in surprise. He had never seen her cry, not even when she was a little girl and fell over and scraped her knees.

“What happened?” he said, putting an arm around her shoulder.

Catalina cried all the harder; Fernando was scared.

“I’ll take you home now; I don’t think you should be wandering around the streets like this. And tell me what’s happened; you know you can trust me.”

“Whatever it is?” she moaned.

“Yes, anything,” he said.

She still didn’t know whether to speak. She needed to confide in someone, and there was no one better than her beloved childhood friend, but she was too ashamed to tell him that she was pregnant.

Fernando grew impatient, but he didn’t want to leave her alone in the street in such a state. He’d get to work late, and the site manager was likely to fire him. But even so, he knew that she was the most important thing to him in the entire world, and that if he lost his job because of her it wouldn’t matter. He loved her so much that he was willing to give his life for her.

Catalina burrowed into his arms looking for comfort, and he couldn’t help feeling deeply uneasy.

“Come on, let’s sit down on a bench and you can tell me everything.”

They walked the short distance to the Plaza de la Encarnación and sat very close to each other on a bench. He took her by the hands and smiled.

“Whatever’s happened, I’ll help you sort it out.”

“You promise?” she said, pleading.

“I swear.”

“You’re so good to me!”

“All right, tell me what’s happened.”

“Well …”

“Come on, Catalina, if there’s someone you can trust, then it’s me,” he insisted.

“I’m pregnant.” She spoke in a whisper, and wiped away the tears that ran down her cheeks.

Fernando let go of her hands. His eyes must have revealed a great deal of pain and despair, along with indignation, because at that moment, Catalina regretted having confided in him. They sat still for a few seconds, looking at one another without truly seeing each other, despairing, unable to give each other support.

Finally Fernando recovered a bit of control over himself and, fighting against the rage that he felt, said:

“Who was it?”

“You know who it was … You remember that day in the Pradera?”

“Marvin.”

“Yes.”

Fernando clenched his fist and hit the bench. He didn’t feel any pain, even though he had taken the skin off his knuckles. He was so angry that if Marvin had been in front of him at that moment, he would have crushed him like an egg.

“How could you …” he said.

“I … I don’t know what happened … I don’t even remember it … I’m sorry, Fernando, I’m so sorry …”

And her sorrow was sincere. She looked worriedly at Fernando: she couldn’t bear from him to think less of her, much less for him to decide to turn his back on her forever. In that instant, she realized the depth of the bond they shared, and how deep it would always be. She knew that he loved her and that she had ignored his love, but whatever she did, he would love her completely and generously, as he always had.

She sat very quietly, while Fernando, his eyes staring into the distance, tried to control his emotions.

“What are you going to do?” he asked in a tired voice, as though he were an old man.

“I’m going to ask Eulogio to give me Marvin’s address. I’ll write to him in London and in Paris, and tell him what has happened and … well, I hope he’ll take care of things, and come back to marry me.”

Catalina’s words were agony, like salt on an open wound.

“Are you sure he’ll come back?”

“Yes, he can’t leave me like this …”

“Right … So you’re going to tell Eulogio that you’re pregnant …”

“I don’t have a choice; he’s the only one who knows where Marvin is. I’m ashamed of telling him, and worried that he’ll tell everybody else, but what else can I do?”

“I could ask him.”

“You? You think he’d give you the address?”

“Eulogio is my friend, the best friend I have, and I’m sure that he can keep a secret, but it would be best if, until Marvin comes back, you didn’t tell anyone that … that you’re …”

Catalina lowered her head in shame. She knew that Fernando was trying to protect her, and that made her feel even more guilty.

He passed his hand over his face, and then looked at her so intently that she looked down at the ground.

“My father hit me,” she confessed.

“Those bruises, was that him?”

“Yes, he got furious; I thought he was going to have a heart attack or something; I’ve never seen him like that, screaming … I’m scared of him now.”

“I won’t let him hit you. I’ll speak to him,” Fernando said, certain that he would.

“No, no … it’s better that you don’t come to the house; I don’t know what he might do.”

“And he doesn’t know what I might do if anyone hurts you,” Fernando replied, very seriously.

“Will you help me?”

“I have no choice. Now go home, and I’ll talk with Eulogio today.”

Fernando spent the rest of the morning thinking about Catalina, his concentration fractured. Pascual, the foreman, shouted at him a couple of times for being distracted; his big mistake was to give Fernando a shove to make him concentrate, to which Fernando replied with a haymaker that left the man sprawled on the ground.

The rest of the workers looked at Fernando in shock. How had he dared to hit an older man, the foreman of the whole project? He’d be fired for sure; and anyway, the shove hadn’t been strong enough to merit a punch in return.

The foreman got up, wiped the blood from his lip, and turned to Fernando.

“You’re fired, and I will turn you in to the authorities. The children of reds deserve no compassion. You’ll end up in prison like your father, and then they’ll shoot the pair of you.”

One of the workers held Fernando back as he tried to punch the foreman again.

“Come on, kid, don’t make it worse. Get your stuff and get out of here and don’t do anything stupid.”

That’s what he did. He left the building site with no remorse in his heart. The foreman was a nasty piece of work, and would have gotten the punch he deserved sooner or later.

He wandered around the city with no clear goal in mind. His part-time at the print shop didn’t earn them enough to live on. For the first time in his life he was not sorry that his mother had gone to work at Don Luis’ house. At noon, before he went home, he went up to Eulogio’s attic. Piedad opened the door.

“He’s still asleep; he got back very tired today. I’ll tell him that you stopped by.”

When he got home, his mother realized that something had happened, but she didn’t ask what.

They ate potatoes with a little bit of paprika, and then shared an apple that Doña Hortensia, the pharmacist’s wife, had given Isabel.

His mother waited for the frugal meal to be over before she asked what had happened.

“I punched Pascual and he fired me.”

“Why on earth would you punch the foreman? There could be consequences … What did he do?”

“He pushed me.”

“Right, and was that a good reason to punch him?”

“Everyone has his own idea of his dignity, and I’m not going to let people raise their hands to me, foreman or no.”

Isabel looked at her son and knew that the fight with the foreman had been the result of something else. Fernando wasn’t violent – quite the opposite in fact – so it must have been something more than a push that had provoked such an excessive reaction.

“What else?” his mother asked.

“What else? What do you mean?”

“What else happened?” his mother insisted, a serious expression on her face.

“Nothing.”

“You can’t fool me, Fernando. I’m upset if you don’t trust me, but don’t lie to me.”

His mother’s worried face touched his heart. He didn’t have the right to put any more weight on her shoulders.

“I don’t want to lie to you, Mother, you’re right: today wasn’t a good day.”

Isabel sat in silence waiting for him to speak.

“Mother, I’m going to say something that has to stay between you and me.”

“You think I’m a gossip?”

“No, of course you’re not, but it’s not about me; it’s about someone else.”

Fernando swallowed. He trusted his mother, but it was hard for him to tell her about Catalina. Isabel had always been kind to her, but he had the feeling that they weren’t really on good terms, probably because it was no secret that Catalina was not in love with him.

“Catalina is pregnant,” he said bluntly and looked at his mother, waiting for her reaction.

“Who’s the father?” she asked, emotionlessly.

“Do you think it’s me?”

“No, I know it isn’t you.”

His mother’s reply upset him. It made him sad that it was so clear to everyone that for Catalina, he had never been more than her childhood playmate.

“Marvin,” he replied. “The American.”

“The American … Yes, it must have been him,” she said, without a single sign of surprise.

“You seem so certain: why did it have to be him? It could just as well have been me.”

“You? Of course not. She doesn’t love you like you want to be loved. Catalina is a good girl, but you know she’s got her head in the clouds, and so it’s only natural that the American entranced her. She has to be smarter now, and not do things she shouldn’t.”

“Her father gave her quite the beating.”

“Lord preserve us from the fury of peaceful men. And her mother?”

“Her mother is trying to protect her, but she wants her to write to Marvin and tell him what’s happened so that he can come back right away from London.”

“He won’t come back,” Isabel said.

“How do you know? I’m sure that he left without knowing that Catalina is pregnant; he’s not my friend, but I think he’s a good man and he’ll do his duty.”

“I’m not saying that the American is a bad person, but he’s got his own problems. From what you told me, and the very little I’ve spoken with him, he came back to Spain looking for a way to forgive himself, and I think he left the same way he came. I don’t think he can deal with anything that isn’t his own pain. But I may be wrong. I hope I am, for Catalina’s sake.”

“I can’t bear seeing her so defenseless.”

“You’ll have to accept that Catalina isn’t for you. She’ll never love you like you deserve, like you need. She’s fond of you, I’m sure of it, but she doesn’t see you as the man you are. Did she ask for your help?”

“I offered to get Marvin’s address for her from Eulogio. If she went to ask for it, then she’d have to tell him what she needed it for.”

“And what excuse are you going to use with Eulogio?”

“I don’t know, maybe that he left some books and papers and if he wants me to send them on to him? I don’t know.”

“It’s a good excuse. Credible.”

“Mother, why are you being so harsh?”

“Harsh? No, I’m not being harsh; it’s just that Catalina’s problem is the consequence of her own stupidity and confusion. I still cry, my son, I still cry for your father in prison, for the uncertainty of not knowing if he’ll ever come back to us … I cry for all those women and children and brothers who wait for the door to be opened, for such a short length of time, so that they can see their families. I cry for what Franco and his crowd are doing to our country. But don’t ask me to cry for a girl who has been stupid enough as to let herself be seduced.”

“What have you got against her?”

“She’s a good girl, but she’s selfish and flirtatious. She knows that you love her, and how you love her, and she leads you on just to keep you tied to her; it’s very useful for her to know that you are always there for her, unquestioningly, and she doesn’t care how much you will suffer just because you love her,” Isabel said.

Fernando said nothing. He knew that his mother was right, but even so he was still prepared, with no prospect of any reward, to be Catalina’s knight in shining armor.

Eulogio scribbled down the address of Marvin’s apartment in Paris.

“But he’s not there; I told you that he’s gone to London to see his parents who have come to Europe to try to convince him to come back to New York. I don’t know where he’s staying in London. But if you want to send the books to Paris … Of course, the most likely thing is that they’ll never arrive. And if you leave some books behind when you leave the country, they’re not likely to be all that important to you. Although one never knows with Marvin … He’s not all there; he’s a poet, unstable.”

With the address in his pocket. Fernando sighed with relief that he had managed to complete the mission that he had set himself for Catalina. He had to help her, he said, even if this meant losing her forever. He could not bear to see her suffer, pregnant and cast out by society for her condition.

That afternoon, in the print shop, Don Vicente asked him what was worrying him.

“You look preoccupied; have you had any news about your father?”

“We’ve got a meeting with the lawyer tomorrow. I hope he gives us some good news.”

Then he told Don Vicente that he had been fired from the building site, and why.

“Oh, you’re a little firebrand, you are … hitting the boss … Well, I’d better be careful not to upset you, or I’ll get my block knocked off,” Don Vicente said with a smile.

“You’re not like Pascual: he’s a fascist and a bad man. I’m not going to let anyone get away with insulting my father,” Fernando replied.

“But you have to hold yourself back. The right way to solve a problem isn’t with your fists. Your father would have said the same thing. And be careful what you say, the walls have ears, even though Don Víctor is a good person; he was on the side that won the war, for all that he respects your father. We published and keep on producing some of the Editorial Clásica books that Don Lorenzo was working on before the war.”

“I know that, Don Vicente. My father spoke very highly of you as well, and I’m very glad that Don Víctor gave me a job.”

“I’ve told you before, Don Víctor is a good man, one of those who helps everyone without wondering if they were reds or blues. And stop calling me “Don Vicente”: I may be in charge of the print shop, but I’m only a typesetter, and proud of it.”

“It’s just out of respect …”

“I know that you respect me; I wouldn’t have it any other way. But just call me by my name.”

“Yes, Don Vicente.”

“What did I just say?” The typesetter chuckled at Fernando’s face.

“Yes … yes …”

“Look, let’s work something out. Why don’t you come in the mornings as well and I’ll ask Don Víctor to pay you a bit more …”

“Do you think he’ll want to?”

“There’s no harm in asking. You know what? Maybe it’s good that you left the building site. It wasn’t for you, even though nowadays we always have to work at what we can get, not what we want, and we have to be happy about it, because there’s no choice.”

“Thank you, Don Vicente.”

“Really? Really? Vicente, just call me plain Vicente, it’s not that hard.”

The next day, when Fernando got into the print shop, Vicente told him that he should go to Don Víctor’s office.

Fernando felt suddenly nervous. Don Víctor had always been friendly towards him, but he was a man who compelled respect. He knocked at the door and waited to be invited in.

“Come in, son … Sit down.”

“Thank you, Don Víctor.”

“So, Vicente has told me that you’d like to work a few more hours at the print shop.”

“Yes … Yes, it would be very useful.”

“And what about the building site?”

“Well … I had a problem with the foreman.”

“What kind of problem?” Don Víctor looked closely at him and seemed almost able to read his thoughts.

“I’m not going to lie to you. We had an argument and … well, I punched him … I know it’s not right, but he was rude about my father.”

“Right … I understand you. I wouldn’t have let anyone insult mine either. But don’t get into the habit of swinging your fists all over the place. Your father, Fernando, is a true gentleman, an upright and educated man. I’ve always liked him, in spite of our political differences. A good editor, one of the best. I can still remember our conversations. He liked very much to bring in the texts personally. He would say: ‘Víctor, treat this one with kid gloves; it’s very special.’ He liked poetry and history best.”

“Thank you, Don Víctor.” Fernando was surprised and relieved at Don Víctor’s reaction.

“Don’t thank me. This war … we should have found a way to avoid it.”

“You won,” Fernando plucked up the courage to say.

“Won? Well, one side beat the other, but what of it? Will we ever learn to look at one another without hatred or anger? Will we be able to grow past the things we’ve done? I … Well, I don’t like revolutionary leftists, and don’t think that they had the solution to Spain’s problems in their hands; I think they were making them worse, to be honest. I argued about this with your father. I’m a Catholic and I like order, that’s it. But I don’t need to give you explanations, do I? Tell me how your father is …”

“He’s suffering, Don Víctor. He’s not complaining, but he gets thinner every day. He’s in a tiny cell with thirty other men. They’re packed in like sardines. The food is nothing more than garbage. But he doesn’t give up hope.”

“I’ll go and see him this week. Is he still at Las Comendadoras?”

“Yes, that’s where they’re keeping him.”

“Well, I’ll go and take him a book; I hope they let him read. And … well, I’m not promising anything, but I’ll talk to some friends of mine, to see if there’s anything that can be done.”

“If you could, I’d be eternally grateful. I still don’t understand why they’ve sentenced him to death. Our only hope is for them to commute the sentence.”

“I’ll see what I can do. And now go and speak to Vicente: he’ll tell you what your new hours should be and what you have to do.”

“Thank you, Don Víctor.”

“Don’t mention it. Really.”

When he left the print shop it was after nine o’clock, but it was still light in the streets. He went home, hoping to find Catalina there: she only lived two doors down from him, so there was every chance they might meet each other. But instead he saw Antoñito and Mari, who had just closed up the store for the night. They said hello to one another but did not stop to talk. He also saw Piedad and two local boys he had been in the same class with at school.

He walked up and down the street, and eventually attracting the attention of the doorwoman, who knew him and started chatting with him.

“What’s up? You’re not going upstairs? Prefer to stay out in the cool?” This was Pepita, the doorwoman for his building, a fat woman in spite of the fact that everyone in the neighborhood was hungry.

“It’s too darn hot, and I want to stretch my legs …” he apologized.

“Your mother’s home. She got back a while ago.”

“All right … Fine … I’ll go up now …”

He didn’t like having to explain himself to the doorwoman. She wasn’t a bad person – he’d known Pepita since he was a child – but she kept a sharp eye on the comings and goings at the building. While Madrid was Republican she had seemed to support the Republic, but when Franco’s troops came into the city, she had no trouble adapting to the new situation. If anything, she seemed even more conformist than before.

He decided to go upstairs. Isabel was darning her best blouse, the white one, the one she wore to go to see the lawyer, as they planned to do the next day.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Are you feeling better?” she asked worriedly.

“Yes … And I spoke to Don Víctor. Don Vicente recommended that they give me more work to do in the mornings: the salary isn’t much better, but it will give me something to do until I find something else.”

He also said that Don Víctor had offered to try to do something for their father. Isabel’s heart swelled with hope.

“I wish he could do something. I know that his brother-inlaw is with the Falange. Your father and he always got on well together in spite of their political differences.”

“He doesn’t seem to be a bad egg. He gave me work because Don Vicente explained our situation to him.”

“Yes, he gave you work because of your father. We have to go to the lawyer tomorrow afternoon,” she reminded him.

“I know. I hope he gives us some good news and that we can have father home soon.”

The doorbell rang and Fernando went to open the door. It was Eulogio, who wanted to have a smoke with him before going to the warehouse.

Eulogio knew that Fernando couldn’t afford to spend a penny on cigarettes, and neither could he, but Don Antonio gave him some on occasion, and when he didn’t, then Eulogio helped himself to them as required.

“Smoke?”

“Of course, come in.”

They chatted for a while about nothing much. Then Eulogio said goodbye and went off to work.

Meanwhile, the pre-dinner hour at the Vilamar house was far less harmonious.

Don Ernesto had just come home after spending a large part of the day out, and neither Doña Asunción nor his daughter knew where he had been. When they heard his key turn in the lock, Catalina ran to hide in her room, and her mother prepared to face the wrath of her husband.

“Tell the girl to come to my office,” he said, without even saying hello to her.

Doña Asunción didn’t dare ask her husband anything, and went to find her daughter.

“I’m not going to see him. What if he hits me again?” she asked fearfully.

“You’ve got to go, or I’ll be worse,” her mother begged.

The two women went into the office together. He was sitting behind the oak desk that he had inherited from his father, and which his father had inherited from his father, and so on down the generations.

Don Ernesto waved them to the monastic-style chairs in front of the desk. They sat down without protest.

“A friend has told me about a woman who helps get rid of bastard children. She lives in the center of town, in La Corredera. You’ll go to see her tomorrow morning. She costs one hundred pesetas. Here they are.”

“But Ernesto, it’s a mortal sin; you’re condemning our daughter to the flames,” Doña Asunción moaned.

“I don’t care about her soul. She is the one who has endangered it, not me. We have a problem now, and as for the Hereafter, we’ll have to face it when it comes. We can’t face the shame or the consequences of this pregnancy. Antoñito won’t want to marry her, and as for Don Antonio … No, we can’t let it happen.”

“But Ernesto, you’re a Catholic: are you going to confess to Don Bernardo that you made your daughter get an abortion? I would die of shame, and I’d have to confess it too. And as for Catalina, when she dies she’ll go straight to Hell.”

“Then let her, let her, let her!” Don Ernesto shouted, slamming his fist onto the table. His face reddened and a vein in his forehead started to pulse so alarmingly that he put his hands to his temples.

Doña Asunción fell silent in shock, and Catalina, pale, was hardly able to breathe. When Don Ernesto recovered from the intense burst of pain in his forehead, he looked at them with such hatred that he scared them all the more.

“If you are ashamed to confess to Don Bernardo, then find yourself another priest, and if Catalina goes to Hell, as she very well might, then that’s where she has to be to atone for all that she has done. I will not allow her to ruin this family. We survived the war in this city surrounded by Reds, terrified that every day those scum from the Popular Front would come and dig us out of our house to shoot us. We can’t let this slut destroy us now.”

“But, Ernesto …”

“Silence! You have to obey me. You will go with her to this woman’s house tomorrow, and when you return, we’ll be able to put all this behind us.”

“But what about the danger? There are lots of girls who die when they do this …”

“I’d rather she was dead than dishonored,” Don Ernesto spat.

“Good God, the things you say!”

“Don’t argue with me anymore, Asunción, or it’ll end badly.”

His wife lowered her head, and the tears that she had held back until that moment started to flow. Catalina squeezed her hand to thank her for her defense. She swallowed, then spoke.

“I’m not going to go to Hell, not for you and not for anyone. I have committed a mortal sin, that’s true, but the Lord can forgive me; what no one can forgive is murder. You can hit me as much as you want, Father, but I will not go to that woman’s house, and I will have this child, and if the Lord wills it I will marry Marvin. By tomorrow at the latest I will have his address and I will write to him; I am sure that he will write back, because he loves me as much as I love him. This is what I will do, and if you prefer me not to be seen while all this is happening, then I will leave the house.” She said all this in a single breath, with no pauses, controlling the fear that fluttered in her stomach.

Her father stood up, and before she could realize what was happening, he slapped her so hard that she fell to the ground. Doña Asunción bent over to protect her daughter with her own body, and so she was given another blow intended for Catalina.

“Whore! You’re a whore! And still you dare tell me that you’re going to disobey me! If I need to I will beat you to death, but this bastard will never be born! I swear it on my life!”

Catalina did not cry this time. She swallowed her tears and stood, with her mother’s help. Once upright, she went over to her father and stared at him with the same hate that she saw in his eyes. She held back her own desires, to slap him, kick him, spit in his face. She stood very still, ready to take as many blows as he was going to give her.

But her mother stood between the two of them, and pulled her to the door before Don Ernesto could do anything else.

“Go to your room, and I’ll be along in a moment. I have to speak to your father.”

When they were alone in the room, Don Ernesto sat back down behind his desk, and she sat down in one of the chairs.

“Ernesto, you can’t carry on hitting her. She’s our daughter, our only daughter, blood of our blood, for all that she has made a mistake now. She’s not the first woman to make a mistake, and she won’t be the last,” she said, as she felt the burning pain of the blow that her husband had given her as she protected her daughter with her own body.

“Mistake?” her husband shouted. “You call getting knocked up a mistake?”

“I know that Catalina has done a bad thing, but we can’t add sin onto sin. I will not let you condemn her to Hell.”

“What? You won’t let me? How dare you!” Don Ernesto stood up, his eyes bloodshot.

Doña Asunción looked at her husband, worried that he was going to hit her. This man, so taciturn and frail, so modest, had turned into a different person, one it was hard for her to recognize.

“We went to see my sister Petra this afternoon. We told her what’s happened, and she’s given us a solution,” she replied to her husband in a trembling voice.

“How dare you air our dirty laundry with your sister? Now the whole world will hear about it!” he shouted.

“You know that Petra is discreet, but she’s also my sister and she loves Catalina like a daughter, her only niece. From the outside she saw things much more clearly,” Doña Asunción said apologetically.

“And what has your clever sister told you?” Don Ernesto asked scornfully.

“When Catalina starts to show, she should go to Petra’s house, if the American hasn’t shown up by then. If Marvin turns up in time, then they can get married, quietly, and that’s that; she won’t be the first or last woman to get married when she’s pregnant. But if he doesn’t come, then … well, Catalina will spend her pregnancy there, and when she’s had the child, then … well, it will be hard, but Petra will take it to the orphanage. And so Catalina will be able to come back to her life as though nothing has happened. All you have to do is delay the wedding to Antoñito. Tell Don Antonio that we’re taking her out of town for a while because she’s sick, or because my sister is sick and she needs to be looked after. Whatever seems best to you. If Marvin comes, we end the engagement, and if he does not, then all we need to do is wait.”

“And … Well, who’ll help deliver the child? I don’t think that you or Petra are likely to be good midwives.”

“I’ll go to see Don Juan: he may know someone who can help us when the time comes; he’s our doctor and has known Catalina since she was a child. It was he who realized she was pregnant.”

Don Ernesto thought for a while. He had never paid his wife too much attention; he didn’t think she was all that bright, but she and her sister Petra might have hit on something this time. He definitely felt uneasy committing a crime against this infant who was yet to be born. He was a good Catholic and knew that God would keep score. But they needed to make time somehow. The problem was convincing Don Antonio. He was a brute, accustomed to everyone doing what he wanted, especially when people owed him money: Don Ernesto owed him more than he could ever pay back.

His wife waited, expectantly, praying silently that her husband would agree to the plan.

“How many months along is she?” he asked, quietly.

“Almost three …”

“So she’ll start to show pretty soon.”

“Yes, one more month.”

“It’s now August, so the bastard will be along around February.”

“Yes.”

“Don Antonio won’t want to wait so long …”

“We’ll make excuses. Catalina can write to Antoñito while she waits, string him along.”

“All right. Let’s do it. But while she’s with us, I don’t want her leaving the house except to go to Mass. And the same when she’s with your sister Petra.”

“Don’t worry; we want to leave some gifts with the baby at the orphanage, so we’ll have a lot of sewing to do.”

“Has Catalina agreed?”

“To begin with, no, she cried and resisted, but my sister convinced her that it was the best thing to do. And it’s a solution in case the American doesn’t turn up, even though we hope he will.”

Her husband sat in silence for a while, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the surface of the table. Doña Asunción prayed once again, this time for her husband not to change his mind.

Don Ernesto, although he was a stubborn man, was also a good Catholic, and Petra’s solution was starting to seem better than his own.

“How could she have done this to us?” he asked his wife, calm now.

“She’s a silly girl. She doesn’t remember what happened. It was Antoñito’s birthday. And you agreed that she could go with him and the other kids from the neighborhood to La Pradera. I remember that I thought it was a bad idea.” Doña Asunción justified her own position.

“And how was I going to refuse? Don Antonio insisted that Catalina go to his son’s party.”

“Some party! People celebrate their birthdays at home, not out in a park with a few bottles of wine. But of course, you can’t expect anything from those people,” Doña Asunción said cuttingly.

“People go to the Pradera de San Isidro to spend Sunday afternoons with their families. I don’t think there was anything wrong with letting the girl go.”

“Ernesto, you know that Catalina is very innocent and isn’t used to drinking. Apparently Antoñito insisted that she drink straight out of the wineskin. Just think! I mean, children from other neighborhoods might do that, but she …”

“Don Antonio gave me his word that Antoñito would look after her,” Don Ernesto said.

“Well, he didn’t.”

“At the very least, if she was going to sin, she could have sinned with Antoñito,” Don Ernesto muttered.

“God forgive you! How can you say such a thing?”

“I don’t know if the Lord will forgive me, but I do know that Don Antonio won’t forgive me a single peseta of what I’ve borrowed from him.”

“Oh, we have sunk so low,” Doña Asunción said, and couldn’t help giving him a disappointed glance.

The next day, Fernando and his mother arrived at the office of Alberto García, the lawyer, half an hour before their appointment. He was not a bad man, although they suspected that he took advantage of the desperation of the people whose family members were in prison. There were so many prisoners that he could make a good living from it. More often than not he didn’t manage to achieve anything, but the families paid, pawning and selling everything they owned.

This time he gave them the same excuses as always. Lorenzo Garzo’s case was being processed; they had to wait and be patient. Oh, but they did need to bring in a letter from the local priest to say that Don Lorenzo had always been a good Catholic.

Fernando lowered his head and his mother spoke.

“My husband has always been a good man, beloved and respected by the people who knew him. An upright man. Nothing more than an editor. Is that a crime?” Isabel insisted.

“I’m sure it’s not, madam, but you don’t need to convince me. You still need to include a letter from the priest in your husband’s file.”

Isabel knew that the battle was as good as lost. Don Bernardo would refuse to give them a letter guaranteeing that Don Lorenzo was a good Catholic. He only knew Lorenzo from walking past him in the street, and Fernando’s father had never set foot in a church. The priest suspected that Lorenzo was a Freemason, and had said as much more than once to Isabel, who herself was definitely a good Catholic.

“If Don Bernardo doesn’t give us the letter, what will happen?” Fernando asked.

“Well, things might get difficult. We need someone from the Falange, as well as a priest, to write in support of your father.”

“And what do the Falange and the Church know about my father? Who are they to certify anyone’s goodness?”

“Jesus, Fernando, don’t get your back up; Don Alberto’s only trying to help us.” Isabel held her son’s hand worriedly, fearing the consequences of his outburst.

“Look, kid, there are a lot of traitors in Spain, and it’s only logical that Franco doesn’t trust them, and so we have to prove that your father isn’t one of the people who are poisoning the country. It’s a question of sorting the wheat from the chaff.”

“So anyone who’s not a Falangist, or who doesn’t go to church, is worthless?” Fernando said aggressively.

The lawyer looked him up and down, bored, before replying:

“Well, if you ask me straight out, then the answer, these days at least, is yes.”

“You’re wrong,” Fernando said, looking him straight in the eyes.

“Look at the big man! I’d be careful what you say, there are people out there who might get the wrong idea. Look, I’m an honest man and I’m just stating the facts: if you get these two letters than you’ll probably save your father, and if you don’t, then … Lord only knows.”

They paid him the twenty-five pesetas that each visit cost them. It wasn’t right, and it made them save their last pennies and end up hungrier than they needed to be.

They left, almost despairing. Isabel had tears in her eyes, and Fernando’s face was clenched in anger.

“What are we going to do?” Isabel asked her son.

“I’ll go and see Don Bernardo, given that he doesn’t pay you any attention. What a terrible priest; it’s a shame that no one got rid of him in the war.”

“What are you saying? Don Bernardo has helped us; it’s thanks to him that I’ve got a job in Don Luis and Doña Hortensia’s house. He recommended me and we need the few pesetas I earn.”

“Yes, he helps you, but you’re nearly a saint. He wants my father to be shot simply because he didn’t go to church and everyone knew he was a Republican. Say what you want, but he’s a scoundrel.”

“Fernando, I forbid you from going to see Don Bernardo. I’ll go, I’ll get down on my knees, I’ll beg. He’ll listen to me this time. I’ll do all the penance he tells me to.”

“Like you always do, though I don’t know why. You spend days praying the rosary: I suppose it’s the penance the priest gives you for having married someone who was a Republican.”

“Oh, be quiet, son, you say such silly things … We’d better hurry to be at the prison in time to see your father. Where’s the package?”

Isabel had wrapped a few crackers, a couple of apples and a piece of potato omelet in a napkin. She hoped that they wouldn’t confiscate it at the prison gates. She was particularly worried about the potato omelet: she had tried to make it since she knew her husband liked it.

Lorenzo Garzo walked with short steps, as though in spite of his extreme thinness his feet were still too heavy for him. Fernando saw that without his glasses his father looked vague, almost absent.

The three of them started to speak all at once, wanting to know how things were going.

“Okay, let’s take turns, or else we’ll never understand each other,” Don Lorenzo said, raising his hand to silence his family.

“We’ve just come from the lawyer: he doesn’t promise anything, but he’s not saying it’s impossible either.”

“That’s a good sign, Fernando,” Don Lorenzo replied, trying to cheer up his son.

“You’ll see, they’ll let you out soon … You didn’t do anything,” Isabel said, with more conviction than she actually felt.

“Of course, of course … Don’t worry, it’ll all turn out fine in the end. And now tell me what you’re doing and what’s going on in the world.”

They said nothing of how hungry they were; it would have been cruel, when he was all skin and bones himself. Fernando told him how he had been fired from the building site, and how with Don Vicente’s help, Don Víctor had taken him on to work in the mornings as well.

“Don Víctor is an upright man, one of the good ones, and as for Vicente … Learn from him, Fernando, he can teach you a lot. Typesetting is an honorable trade, better than many. And I’m afraid that our dream of your becoming an editor like me …”

“Don’t say that, Lorenzo, Fernando will be an editor: why on earth wouldn’t they let him study?” Isabel said, although she knew that they didn’t have enough money even to try such a thing.

“Well, we shall see. The important thing is that Fernando is a good person. Things should have worked out differently, but there’s not much we can do about it at the moment, so we should be realists. That doesn’t mean give up, my son, but think about things realistically.”

“I’m not going to give up, and we still have your books. I’ll be able to prepare myself for anything and everything.”

“Look after my books, Fernando, they are my greatest treasure, apart from you two.”

“You can trust me.”

“Of course I trust you. Of course.”

Isabel insisted that he try to eat a bit of the potato omelet; she wanted to see her husband enjoying the food himself. Lorenzo obeyed his wife, but even though he was starving, he couldn’t eat it.

“You don’t like it?” his wife asked, disappointed.

“Of course I like it! But my stomach is somehow blocked … It’s been hurting a lot recently.”

“You have to see a doctor,” his wife said, as though this were even a possibility.

“When I get out of here, don’t you worry.”

But they were worried. Don Lorenzo seemed to be getting worse by the day.

“I have to do something,” Fernando murmured.

“What are you going to do? The only thing left for us is to get Don Bernardo to give us the letter the lawyer’s asking for. I’ll go to his house right away. And as for a certificate of good conduct from the Falange … I don’t know, maybe Don Antonio …”

“The black marketeer? We’ve never dealt with him. He won’t give it to us.”

“Well, but you know Antoñito, you went to school with him, you could talk to him. And he seems like a good kid: he invited you to the Pradera de San Isidro for his birthday, remember?”

“And I went because you made me.”

“We can’t do anything to upset them, Fernando, we owe them so much at the moment …”

“And we’re paying them well.”

“Look, now’s not the time to be proud; we need to do whatever it takes to get your father out of prison. If you don’t want to talk to Antoñito, then I’ll talk to Don Antonio.”

“Don’t even think about it! I don’t want you on your knees to that fascist.”

“Fascist or not, he can give us the letter that the lawyer’s asking for. And if I have to go down on my knees to him, then I will. Don’t you think that your father’s life is worth more than that?”

“Your dignity is worth more,” Fernando replied.

“I’m not going to abandon your father. Maybe you could speak to Eulogio: he might be able to help us.”

“How?”

“Doesn’t he work for Don Antonio? He could be the gobetween … Don’t be so proud, child, we can’t afford it.”

His mother was right: he’d talk to Eulogio. His friend always gave him good advice, and he knew the score with Don Antonio. He was also very aware of the contempt in which Eulogio held his boss, from whom he openly stole goods, without any remorse.

He went up to his friend’s attic, but Eulogio had already left to go to the warehouse, so he decided to go and see him there after dinner.

When he arrived, he had to wait for Eulogio to finish stacking some sacks of potatoes that had come in that afternoon, as well as a few boxes of cheap wine and more sacks of rice and lentils.

Eulogio paid Fernando no attention until he had finished stacking the sacks. When the last box of wine was in place, he waved him to sit down on a sack of lentils.

“Shall I roll a cigarette? I haven’t stopped working since I got here. You see these boxes? Don Antonio told me to stack them so that tomorrow he can fill them with something, I don’t know what, that he’s going to take over to the barracks where his brother Prudencio works. It’s got to be a bribe. We sent a box with a few bottles of wine across there a few days ago.”

“He’s a generous man, your boss,” Fernando replied.

“Generous? Don’t think so. Whenever he gives something, it’s because he hopes to get much more in return.”

“I need you to do me a favor,” Fernando said impatiently.

“Of course, what do you need?”

“I need your boss to sign a letter stating that my father is a good man. The lawyer’s told us that there’s nothing to be done without a letter from the Falange and one from a priest.”

Eulogio sat in silence for a moment. Fernando wasn’t asking him for a favor; he was asking him for a miracle. Don Antonio hated the reds, and he thought that Fernando’s father was one of them. And Don Lorenzo had never spoken to the black marketeer; he was one of the people in the neighborhood who even he found it difficult to greet when they met in the street.

“Impossible,” he said to his friend.

“Will you ask him?” Fernando’s voice was shaking.

“Yes, I’ll ask him, but I don’t think he’ll want to write the letter. You must know that Don Antonio never liked your father. I’ve heard him speak out against him lots of times. He said that they’ll knock some of the namby-pamby intellectualism out of him in prison. He’s a brute, Fernando, and you know that very well.”

“Yes, I know,” Fernando agreed heavily.

“And Don Bernardo, will he write the letter?”

“I don’t know: my mother’s going to talk to him. We got home late, so she’ll have to go tomorrow. I hope that he’ll feel a little bit of compassion, being a priest and all.”

“Don Bernardo? I don’t want to upset you, but I have my doubts. He lost two brothers in the war, and the militia came to his village and shot all the fascists … It’s difficult for him to forgive,” Eulogio said.

“But he’s a priest,” Fernando insisted.

“I’ll never forgive the people who killed my father, even if it was in the war. All Fascists are the same to me, so I can understand the Fascists when they say that all reds are the same. We never forgive blood crimes; even a priest wouldn’t.” Eulogio knew that his words would hurt Fernando, but he didn’t want to give him false hope.

“I have to try,” Fernando said in despair.

“I’ll help you as much as I can. I’ll ask him tomorrow. Now take a sack and put some potatoes in it. There are tomatoes as well, and a couple of onions, and put some lentils and chickpeas in too.”

“Don Antonio will know they’re gone.”

Eulogio shrugged. He was prepared to get a dressing-down from the black marketeer if it meant helping his friend. He put a bit of bacon in the sack as well.

“But he’ll know it’s missing!” Fernando protested.

“No, not him. This isn’t very much, after all; I pocket something myself every day.”

“Your mother doesn’t care?” Fernando asked, intrigued as to how Piedad might react.

“I don’t think so. She wouldn’t be able to steal herself, but she doesn’t say anything to me and I don’t think we should feel guilty about stealing from people who have ruined our lives. I lost my father and yours is in prison. We don’t owe them anything, Fernando.”

“We owe them our shame, Eulogio. We owe them that.”

As he walked home, Fernando was thinking about how to get Marvin’s address to Catalina. He hadn’t been able to see her that day or the day before, but he couldn’t wait any longer, given the seriousness of the situation. He had no choice than to ask his mother for help. He couldn’t go to the Vilamars’ house because Don Ernesto would throw him out on his ear, but his mother could go over with some excuse quite easily.

When he asked her, Isabel looked worriedly at her son.

“So you want me to go to the Vilamars’ house and slip this paper to Catalina, and if she’s not there, then to her mother.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m asking.”

“And what’s written on this paper?” Isabel asked severely.

“An address, the American’s address.”

“Right. And what is my excuse for going to their house?”

“Say you need to speak to Doña Asunción … something like that …”

“I’ll go tomorrow when I get off work; I could do it first thing, but Don Ernesto would be surprised if I turned up at his house at eight in the morning asking for his wife.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

“You’re a good boy.”

“Me? Why?”

“Because you’re helping the girl you’re in love with marry someone else.”

“Mother!”

“Fernando, you’ve never managed to fool me. You’re head over heels for Catalina, and have been since you were both children. I know that you’ve been very upset, deeply hurt to know that she’s in love with another man.”

Fernando lowered his head in shame. His mother was right. His soul hurt him, at least the part of his soul that lay closest to his heart, pressing down on him so hard that the pain was almost unbearable. This was his soul, the part of him that roamed his dreams at night and made sleep unbearable, impossible.

“Everyone falls in love with the one they want, and there has never been anything between me and Catalina, nor any hint that anything might happen,” he said, his heart breaking.

“She’s a flirt, and you’ve been too silly to see it, but she’s always leading you on. I’m not saying that she does it maliciously, but she’s like all flirts, and likes to have a group of admirers around her to pay court.”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” he said, upset by his mother’s accuracy.

“I’ll do what you ask of me, Fernando, but not for her. I’ll do it for you.”

“Doesn’t the situation affect you?” he asked, surprised by her harsh words.

“I don’t wish her any harm,” she replied.

“Catalina is a good person and deserves the best,” he said.

Isabel shrugged and paused for a few seconds before answering her son. She didn’t want to make him any sadder than he was already.

“I’ve known her since she was a child and have nothing against her. I just don’t like to see you suffering for her. You think she’s worth more than she’s actually worth, that’s all.”

Fernando preferred not to say anything. The important thing was that the note with Marvin’s address would get to the Vilamars’ house and into the hands of Catalina or her mother.

“And where did you get all this from?” Isabel asked nervously, pointing at the sack with the tomatoes peeping from its top.

“Eulogio gave it to me. Six potatoes, three tomatoes, two onions and a head of garlic, a fistful of lentils, a fistful of chickpeas and, best of all, a piece of bacon.” Fernando smiled slightly.

“Good heavens! If Don Antonio finds out … I don’t know if we should accept them …” Isabel wondered.

“Of course we should. Eulogio says that the fascists have ruined our life and he’s right. Don Antonio is a fascist, and one of the worst of them, a black marketeer.”

“Yes, but we’re not like him, and I don’t think it’s right for Eulogio to take things that don’t belong to him, even if it is food …”

“Mother, Don Antonio isn’t going to notice that he’s missing a few potatoes, and we are very hungry.”

“But it’s not ours,” Isabel insisted.

“It is now. Don Antonio takes advantage of everyone and sells his products at prices we can’t afford, even though he knows that here in the neighborhood, like in the rest of Spain, everyone’s very hungry. Look, think of it as a present from Eulogio, and there’s an end to it. You make very good potatoes fried in bacon fat. Come on …”

Fernando took the sack into the little kitchen and emptied it. Isabel seemed to hesitate, and then accepted.

“He’s given you a good load of bacon, we’ll have food for two or three days. But the best thing now is to make a salad: the tomatoes are very ripe and won’t last another day.”

Isabel would have liked to be firm in her refusal of Eulogio’s gift, but she felt hungry from dusk till dawn with no respite, while that fascist Don Antonio got rich at the expense of other people’s hunger. She still didn’t like it that poverty and hunger could steal even a grain of her dignity. She knew that her husband would not have accepted those tomatoes or those potatoes, or even the garlic. She hesitated again, but Fernando brought her back to reality:

“Come on, Mother, stop thinking so much: we’re both hungry.”

Isabel started to wash and cut the tomatoes. At least they would not go to bed hungry that night.

The next day, when she got out of work, Isabel went to the Vilamars’ house to carry out her son’s request. She felt uncomfortable going at this time, around two in the afternoon, when she might very well barge in on the family sitting down to eat.

Catalina herself opened the door to her and asked her in.

“No … I’m not going to stay; I just wanted to find out how your mother is … I haven’t seen her at church for days now … but it might be because we go to different services,” she said, excusing her visit as she secretly slid the piece of paper that Fernando had given her into Catalina’s hand.

Catalina clenched her fist tight and smiled, sure that the paper contained Marvin’s address, the address she had begged Fernando to find for her.

“Doña Isabel, please come in … I’ll tell my mother …”

“No, I don’t have time … Tell her that I stopped by …”

“My father isn’t home, although we’re expecting him for lunch,” Catalina said, encouraging Isabel to step in.

Doña Asunción came out into the hall to see who was talking to her daughter, and she too insisted that Isabel come in.

“Just for a second … How’s your husband’s case coming along?”

“The lawyer is noncommittal; he says we need to get some letters of recommendation. But it’s not easy to get them, although Don Bernardo might be able to give us some help.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Catalina asked, anxious to help.

“I don’t know,” Isabel replied uneasily.

Doña Asunción looked worriedly at her daughter. She didn’t think that her husband was in the best of moods for someone to come and ask him to intercede in the Lorenzo Garzo case. Even so, as she was a kind woman, she offered to try.

“Look, Isabel, Ernesto is about to get back; if you’d like, why not stay and explain the situation to him and see if he’ll help?”

But Isabel decided not to try her luck, and to avoid a face-toface meeting with Ernesto Vilamar. She wasn’t afraid of him, but she’d never felt all that comfortable around him. She was sure that he’d find her presence in his house, at this hour, confusing.

As soon as Isabel left, Catalina ran to her room and unrolled the paper. Fernando had carefully written down the address she longed for: Marvin Brian; Apt. 3; 25, rue de la Boucherie; Paris (V).

And a note: “Marvin is in London and I’m not sure he’ll go to Paris.”

Catalina went to find her mother, who was mashing potatoes.

“I’ve got it! Fernando got it for me!” she said enthusiastically.

“What are you talking about, dear?” her mother said distractedly.

“Marvin’s address. I’ll write to him at once to tell him that … well, I’m sure it’ll be a surprise for him, but he’s a gentleman and I don’t think he’ll let me go through this alone. And he’s in love with me, of course.”

Doña Asunción looked at her daughter with a degree of anxiety. The number of alleged gentlemen who had abandoned girls after having their way with them was not a small one. She didn’t know Marvin, and didn’t know if he was in love with her daughter, for all her daughter’s own insistence.

“Yes, write to him, but don’t get your hopes up too much … He might not want to hear about the whole thing, or the letter might not even get to him. The Germans are in Paris, and he might want to steer clear of France, because of those liberal ideas of his you were telling me about …”

Catalina didn’t want to imagine that this might happen. She had become convinced that after Marvin met with his parents in London, he would return to Paris. It was the city he loved and he had promised her that he would show it to her, all of it.

When Don Ernesto got home, he found his daughter in a good mood, less listless than on previous days, although she still avoided him. He greeted her with a nod and did not try to kiss her, although he usually would have. She had not forgiven him for beating her, but he was sure that the anger would pass with time. Which father would not have done the same, if his daughter had told him that she had dishonored herself?

He told them over lunch that he would take the train that afternoon. He needed to talk with his brother.

When he came back two days later, Doña Asunción found her husband in a very grim mood. He had been depressed every time he came back from Huesca recently. She tried to cheer him up.

“How was Andrés?” she asked worriedly.

“You know how things are … My brother’s life has been destroyed.”

“And Amparo?” she asked, although she already knew the answer.

“She’s still not all there.”

“Maybe with time …” she said, unconvinced.

“You know that’s not going to happen. She’s completely crazy and has good reason to be. Imagine if such a thing had happened to us … Those bastards turned up at the farm and weren’t happy with just burning everything, they ordered everyone to come out into the courtyard. My brother asked them at least to treat the three farmhands well, but those bastards just laughed at him and said that they worked for landowners, so they were as guilty as the rest. And then, as well as insulting them and beating up my brother … they took …”

“No! I know what happened. Don’t tell me again! Don’t keep on reminding me of it! What’s done is done, and we can’t change it.”

“How can you say that?” her husband said.

“The war brought out the worst in people and they committed many atrocities,” she said.

“They killed my father and Andresito! My brother’s only son. When a militia man pushed his mother and he tried to help her the bastard shot him right between the eyes. He didn’t even have a chance to defend himself,” Don Ernesto continued, bringing to mind memories that broke his heart.

“Good God, Ernesto, don’t talk about it anymore!” Doña Asunción took her husband’s hands and held them between her own.

“They laughed about it … then they pretended they were going to shoot them all … and that’s when Amparo lost her mind. And you want me to forget it all? Never! I’ll never forgive them. I hope that one of our side sent them to Hell.”

It wasn’t the first time that Don Ernesto had recalled what had happened on his family farm. But he seemed very affected, and told the story as though for the first time.

“We have to forgive them, Ernesto … It isn’t Christian to feel hate.”

“Let the priests say what they like! I’m not going to forgive the people who killed my father and my only nephew, and who ruined my brother’s life!”

“But Ernesto, we were at war … there were bad people on both sides … We have to forget about it.”

“You can forget if you want. All I want is for them to shoot all the reds they’ve got locked up in their prisons.”

“But they weren’t all murderers … there are people who were on the other side but who didn’t hurt anyone. What about Lorenzo Garzo? He was a good man,” she said, plucking up her courage.

“A Freemason! That’s what he was. You’re silly, Asunción, and think that everything can be fixed by praying. Don’t you care that they killed my father and my nephew, that they killed your sister’s husband? I don’t think Petra would like to hear you talking like this.”

“Petra’s husband was killed at the front and … well, I’m sure he killed other people as well. Let God forgive them all.”

“Right, let God forgive them, because I’m not going to forgive anyone. Have you forgotten how frightened we were all through the war? I was scared every day that they were going to take us to one of their police headquarters. Or is it that you don’t want to remember how one of my brothers never came out of the police station on Calle Fomento?”

“But God protected us,” Doña Asunción said stubbornly.

“And why did he protect us? Look, let’s not keep on talking, or it’ll only be worse.”

“But we have to forgive each other, because the anger will poison our blood otherwise.”

“Asunción, I don’t know if you’re stupid or what, but I won’t let you say that we all need to forgive one another. I am not going to forgive the murderers of my father or of Andresito, or the people who assaulted my brother and his wife.”

“You know that I am very fond of your brother and his wife and that I am always praying for the souls of your father and of Andresito … and of your other brothers who died at the front.”

“Well, keep on praying,” he said, grumpily.

“Isabel came by earlier. She’s worried about her husband … You know that Lorenzo Garzo is a good man and a good editor … You praised his editions of the classics.”

“People seem to be one thing and then are something else. Lorenzo Garzo is a Republican, a Socialist and a Freemason.”

“Well, a Republican and a Socialist, perhaps, but a Freemason … we don’t know that … Let’s not let ourselves be swayed by rumor. Isabel told us that they’re working on getting her husband a pardon and that the lawyer said that it would help to have some letters of recommendation to say that he is a good man. I thought you could write one …”

“Don’t be ridiculous! What are you saying! I’m not going to ask for clemency for a red. How can you ask me that, knowing what they did to my family?”

Doña Asunción was scared to see her husband so agitated. She was worried that he might have a fit, and she blamed herself for pressing him to intercede for Isabel’s husband when he had just got back from visiting his brother Andrés. She tried to calm him down by changing the subject:

“I was speaking to Catalina …”

“Don’t talk to me now about that hussy: her job now is to have the brat as soon as possible and then marry Antoñito. Don Antonio sent me a note to tell me that he wants to make the engagement official this Christmas. His wife wants them to get married in the spring.”

“They can’t have an engagement party this Christmas! Catalina will be seven months gone by then.”

“She’ll have to have it earlier. I’ve told you, the engagement will be announced at Christmas.”

That afternoon, while Don Ernesto was locked up in his office going over papers covered with sums, and Catalina was sitting by the balcony letting out one of her dresses, Doña Asunción went to visit Don Juan.

This was not just because he was the family doctor, but because she trusted his good judgment.

Don Juan had spent the morning in the hospital dealing with all kinds of patients; in the afternoons, he opened his house to friends and acquaintances who were looking for medical help.

He was not expecting Doña Asunción, and was surprised when his elderly housekeeper announced her arrival.

“Well, well, well, Asunción … What a surprise! I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Is Catalina well? And Ernesto? Don’t tell me it’s you who’s feeling under the weather …”

“I’m as healthy as I can be, given the circumstances. I’ve come to ask for your help and advice.”

“Well, sit down and I’ll get the maid to bring in some coffee.”

She looked at him in thanks and couldn’t help letting out a light sigh of relief. Given that they had known each other since childhood, it wasn’t strange that the two families saw each other every now and then. She had even been a little sweet on him, but had never dared to confess it, not even to her mother. And so when her parents had told her that they were arranging a marriage between Ernesto, the Vilamars’ boy, and herself, she had not been brave enough to refuse.

Ernesto had started to visit the house on a daily basis while members of the two families sewed the wedding gown.

She could still remember the day when her parents and the Vilamars had organized a meal to announce to their closest friends that their children were going to get married. Juan congratulated her, without even suspecting that she was secretly in love with him.

Juan Segovia had married a very beautiful woman, Pilar, who he had always loved very much.

“You look thoughtful,” he said when he came back into the little room that served as his doctor’s office. “And, now that I get a good look at you, what’s that bruise on your left cheek? Let me take a look …”

“No, it’s nothing, Juan … he hit me … it’s been a difficult few days … Ernesto … well, you can imagine that it’s been hard for him to find out that Catalina was pregnant.”

“And he … Good Lord! He hit you?”

“No, of course not … but he tried to slap Catalina and I got between them …”

“Ernesto is my patient and your husband, but even so … Oh, I won’t say anything I might regret.”

“My sister Petra has had an idea about how she can help Catalina.”

“What is it?”

“She should have the child and then hand it over to an orphanage. It’s for the best. Ernesto wanted … he wanted her to have an abortion.”

“But he’s crazy! How could he think of anything like that? Catalina hasn’t behaved perfectly, but sending her to get an abortion … it’s not just that it violates God’s law, but where would she even get one? From some woman in an attic? Do you know how many women die trying to get an abortion?”

“That’s why Petra thinks the best solution is to take the child to an orphanage.”

“But what about the young man who put Catalina in this way?”

“Well, he’s an American who has left Spain. He used to live in Paris and now … well, we don’t really know where he is: he went to meet his parents in London, and then … I don’t know, Juan, I don’t know if he’s going to go back to the States with his parents, or if he’ll go back to Paris or somewhere else. But Catalina has written him a letter and when I leave here I’ll take it to the post office. I’ll send it to the Paris address, but heaven knows if it will get to him.”

“And what do you want me to do?”

The maid came in with a tray and two cups of coffee, and the two of them sat in silence until she left.

“To get back to what I was saying, I want you to look after Catalina until the day of the birth. I want you to visit her at my sister’s house, for her to be your patient as she has been all this time, and for you to recommend us a midwife or some woman who knows how to bring a child into the world. And … well, you know a lot of people: maybe there’s a couple that can’t have children who would like to adopt the baby … That would be the best. I think it would be better for Catalina to know that the child is in good hands.”

The doctor said nothing for a few seconds. He couldn’t refuse Asunción anything. He would help her, of course he would help her.

“I’m your family doctor, and so Catalina will carry on as my patient. I’ll go to visit her at Petra’s house. I’ll look after her pregnancy and bring in a good midwife for when the moment comes. But tell me, does Catalina want to hand her child over to an orphanage?”

“No, Catalina doesn’t, but Ernesto is inflexible. The war … We’ve lost a lot, Juan, and things aren’t like they were before. I know that Ernesto would be angry if he found out I’d told you, but … we’ve got problems …”

“And who doesn’t have problems, after going through a war? We’ve all got problems, Asunción.”

“Things aren’t going well for Ernesto … Money troubles … He had promises to keep. The shopkeeper, Don Antonio Sánchez, who’s making a mint on the black market … he loaned us some cash …”

“Since when have shopkeepers done that?”

“Well, Don Antonio is an important man now. He was in the war and he’s got some friends in very high places, and Ernesto had to go to him to sort out some problems, and the solution ended up being worse than the problem. But he has a son, Antoñito, and Ernesto and Don Antonio want the boy to marry Catalina. But of course, he won’t marry her if he finds out that she’s expecting another man’s child.”

“And does she want to marry him?”

“She doesn’t like it, but she’ll have to go along with it. It’s a law of this life that one has to obey one’s parents. You know that.”

“Did you obey yours, or did you marry Ernesto because you were in love?”

Asunción blushed. The question caught her off guard, with no time for her to prepare to defend herself as she should.

“You’re blushing.” Don Juan’s eyes twinkled.

“Well … I did what my parents thought was best for me.”

“And what would you have liked to do?”

“Juan, don’t ask me such things! I’ve been married for a long time now. I was seventeen when I got engaged, and eighteen when I was married off …”

The doctor came over to her and took her by the hand, bringing the blush back to Asunción’s cheeks.

“I remember, I remember … I came to your wedding with my parents. You were very beautiful. But you could have waited,” he insisted.

“Why do you say that? I … I didn’t make any decisions … Waiting … What was there to wait for?”

“To find a man you fell in love with. I married Pilar because I loved her and she loved me, but I have to admit that my parents weren’t very happy with the match. They had another girl in mind for me. But I couldn’t have been happy with anyone but Pilar.”

“But you were able to influence your parents, which I never could. And so you had an advantage that I didn’t,” Asunción dared to say.

“Haven’t you been happy?”

“I’m probably too romantic, that’s what Ernesto always says. I have been a good wife, and I am a good wife, and I have grown used to the marriage, to not wanting anything apart from what I’ve got.”

“That’s not quite the same as being happy,” he said.

“It was enough for me, and it is still enough. My father was sick and was worried about what might become of me when he wasn’t there. He wanted to see me married and looked after.”

“Well, you are lucky to still have Ernesto. I’ve had two years, two interminable years, where I’ve not been able to think of anything other than the loss of Pilar and my daughter. I lost them both. The hardest part was not being able to do anything to prevent it. You can’t imagine how frustrating it is for a doctor not to be able to do anything to save the lives of the people he loves. Oh, the damn war!”

“Damn tuberculosis.”

“The war, Asunción, the war: I was at the front and they were here, suffering all kinds of deprivations, just like everyone else. They got sick, and when I came back on leave the disease had advanced so far that it was impossible to do anything. Little Pilarín died first, and you can’t imagine what it was like for Pilar and me to have to bury our daughter. Pilar gave up, and followed after her.”

“Well, let’s be thankful that it is all over. Things aren’t easy, but Ernesto says that Franco will know what to do.”

“But what does that fool know about anything?”

“Juan, how dare you! You fought with the Nationalists,” Asunción said.

“Shush, Isabel! Your husband is how he is … I’m not surprised that he would have started supporting Franco after being a monarchist, but you …”

“I’m pleased that Franco won the war. What did you want, a revolution? No, Juan, I was scared of the idea of people rioting in the streets … communists, anarchists, the followers of Largo Caballero … all of them full of hate and ready to fight against anyone who didn’t think like them.”

“Things aren’t that simple, Asunción. People were sick, sick of corruption, sick of politicians who couldn’t deal with the country’s problems, sick that a few people had everything while the rest of us had barely enough to eat.”

“But you’re not a revolutionary … You fought against them …”

“No, Asunción, I’m not a revolutionary, and I don’t like revolutionaries, much less the chaos that they spread throughout any country they touch. I’m speaking about the people, the good people who scrape by day after day just as they always do.”

“You sound like you support the reds!” Asunción was scandalized.

“What I’m saying is that things don’t just happen. If Spain had been a prosperous country with politicians who were capable of giving the people enough to eat, then no one would have even wanted a revolution.”

“If you didn’t agree with the Nationalists, then why did you fight with them?”

“I’ve told you that I didn’t like the Popular Front, but the war caught me in the middle of a Nationalist zone. I was serving as a military doctor when it all started, don’t you remember? And my regiment was one of the ones that joined the coup. And I thought, just like you, that the revolutionaries didn’t look like they had the solution for Spain. But I would have wanted to remain loyal to the Republic. You know how much I supported Azaña.”

“Ernesto says that Azaña has to take a lot of the blame for what happened.”

“Your husband’s a … well, no, it’s his opinion. I’m not going to argue with Ernesto via you; we argue enough whenever he comes in to see me himself.”

“And so you don’t like Franco?”

“I don’t like anyone, Asunción, I don’t like anyone, and Franco least of all. But I also know that the solution for Spain isn’t to have a revolution or turn ourselves into Russia. If they’d just let Azaña do his job … The only thing that’s left to us now is to wait and see what happens, but I don’t like that there are so many people still in prison, or being shot, and that people are worried about being turned in if they speak a word against Franco. I’m a man of order, an upper-class man, and if the revolutionaries had won they might have killed me, just for that, for being one of the bourgeoisie, as they used to say before the war. Do you know what I was most scared of during my years at the front?”

“No.”

“I was scared that I might come face-to-face with my brother. He was with the Republicans, and I was with the Nationalists, and I didn’t know where he was. I asked myself what would happen if we met on the field of battle. Would we have killed each other? Would I have fired first or would he? That’s the nightmare I had throughout the whole war.”

“I’m sorry they killed José Mari.”

“Yes, they got him at the Battle of the Ebro, and I grieved for him as my parents grieved for him, and as other brothers and other parents grieved for the men who killed my brother. There is nothing to be proud of in a war, nothing. Nothing at all.”

“The reds killed Ernesto’s brothers and attacked the convent of his sister the nun …” Asunción said.

“Yes, and what do you think the Nationalists did when they got to a village? They rounded up the reds and killed them and threw them into a ditch. War is an atrocity that brings out the worst in all men, for all that it hides behind the idea that it is justice to kill one’s enemies, which is only a smokescreen to keep you from despair when you see your hands covered with blood, the blood of other men.”

“But now it’s all over; we’ve won the war. You too, Juan.”

“Me? No, I haven’t won any war; no one’s won the war; we all lost. How much time will have to pass before we forgive one another? It won’t be easy, Asunción. Don’t be naive and think that we’re at peace now. No one gets out of a civil war unscathed. No one trusts anyone anymore: the man you meet in the street, red or nationalist, might be the person who shot your son, or your brother, or your father. I’m a doctor, but I’ve fired a gun as well. I’ve killed. Maybe I killed the husband of one of the women who comes into the surgery to see me. It’s only wicked people who can feel happy after a war is over. There’s nothing to be proud of, nothing.”

“Would you rather the other side had won?” Asunción asked the question, but was afraid of what the answer might be.

“I would rather no one lit the fuse that led us to kill each other. That’s what I would have wanted. But I’m a contradictory man, a selfish man, and I also want to be sure that Spain won’t become the next Russia. I don’t believe in revolution, if that’s what’s worrying you. Let’s stop talking about this. You’ve got enough problems without me worrying you with politics.”

“You know you can talk to me.”

“I’ve been a widower for two years, I feel lonely and don’t have anyone. My parents are dead, my brother is dead, my wife is dead and my daughter too. I’ve got nothing to be happy about. But let’s get back to Catalina’s problem: you don’t need to worry; although there are too many orphans here at the moment, I’ll ask around and find out if there is a good family that can take care of her child.”

“Thank you, Juan.”

Asunción was flustered when she left Juan Segovia’s office. The conversation had upset her.

She wander aimlessly for a while; she had no desire to go home, even though she knew that Ernesto might get annoyed if she were late. But she needed to be alone for a while, to put herself back together inside, and return to her role as the subservient wife when she crossed over the threshold of her home.

When she at last came home, her husband was still in his office doing the accounts and Catalina was in her room letting out another dress for later on in the pregnancy.

“Will I get very fat? I don’t have a dress with enough spare fabric to let out.”

“That’s not your problem now; also, when you’re in Petra’s house you should try to avoid going out so that no one can see you, so it doesn’t really matter what your clothes are like. I went to see Don Juan and he’s promised that he’s going to find a family to take care of the child you’re going to bring into the world.”

“But I don’t want to give my baby away!”

“I know, and it will be hard for you, but there’s no other way out of it. You can’t bring up a child by yourself. It’ll be a scarlet letter, and no one will want to marry you.”

“But Marvin will come. Did you take the letter to the post office?”

“Of course I did, but we need to think about what will happen if he doesn’t get it, or even if he doesn’t want to have anything more to do with you.”

“Don’t say that! I told you, Marvin loves me.”

“Child, men are men, and they run away from women who cause them problems. There are a lot of men who will seduce a woman and then leave her without thinking about the consequences.”

“Mother!”

“My child, pray that Marvin will come back, but if he doesn’t, then you’ll have to give the child away and marry Antoñito.”

“I’ll never marry him! I hate him; he always smells of sweat, and his breath … No, no, I’ll never marry him.”

“You’ll have to do it, Catalina. You’re not a child anymore and … well, there are things you need to know even though your father and I don’t want to trouble you with our problems.”

“What problems, Mother?” Catalina asked worriedly.

“The war’s over and we’ve been left with almost nothing; we’re ruined, and it’s only thanks to Don Antonio that we’re surviving … He loaned money to your father, but things aren’t going well and there’s no way to pay him back.”

“And that means I’ve got to marry his son? My father’s put me up for sale?”

“What are you saying?” You father thinks that Antoñito is a good match, and that he’s got enough money to give you a good life and make sure you never want for anything.”

“I’d sooner starve than marry him.”

“Catalina, children have to obey their parents, who always know what’s best for them.”

“And isn’t this what’s best for my father? That Don Antonio forgives his debts?”

“How dare you say such impertinent things! We owe Don Antonio a great deal, and if it weren’t for him then we wouldn’t even be able to put food on the table, so it is only right to be grateful. Let’s not talk about this anymore. I’m going to make supper, and so you should come to the kitchen and help me. You see what it means to be ruined: we’ve had to get rid of the maid.”