Christmas Day was quiet. We didn’t go to church like many people, but we walked through the streets of the old town and down the Ramblas. I was happy to see that Laia was wearing the earrings I’d given her. The shops were closed, but many of the restaurants were open, and we stopped frequently for snacks. In the afternoon we went out to Gaudí’s Parc Güell and strolled among the weird buildings and walkways decorated with brightly colored mosaics. The sun was shining, and it was very different from gray, snowy Canada.
“It will be warmer in Seville,” Sofia commented, “and Felip will look after you well.” I found the mention of Laia’s father mildly uncomfortable, but Sofia continued without concern. “I think Felip is where Laia gets her interest in history. I prefer the present to the past. Perhaps that is why Felip and I were, how you say, incompatible.”
“Felip works for the government,” Laia said. “His department is in charge of helping all Spaniards become comfortable with our past.”
“Reconciliation,” I suggested.
“Yes, so that those on both sides of the war can feel a part of the same Spain.”
“And not just the war,” Sofia added. “Terrible things happened after the fighting was over. We are only just discovering that thousands of newborn babies were stolen from their mothers by the nuns and priests who ran Spain’s hospitals under General Franco and given to childless Fascist couples. The mothers were poor or politically suspect and were often told that their babies had died. There were even funerals, but when the graves are dug up now, the coffins are filled with stones. All across Spain, children are trying to trace their real mothers, and mothers their lost children.”
“That’s horrible,” I said.
Sofia shrugged. “It’s Spain. After Franco died, everyone wanted to forget, but it’s not possible to forget. We must remember everything, the good and the bad.”
“And that’s what Felip is doing?” I asked.
“Yes,” Laia replied. “I am sure he will tell us more when we see him.”
As we sat on a winding bench that was really a colorful decorated dragon, Sofia said, “My grandmother, Maria, never talked much about your grandfather, but I think she loved him.”
“I think she did too,” I replied, “and I think he loved her, but they were very young. He certainly never forgot her.” I had let Sofia read Grandfather’s diary before I’d flown back to Canada in the summer.
“What was he like?” Sofia asked.
“That’s difficult to answer, “ I said. “I always knew him as an old man, and I still find it hard to think he’s the same person as the boy who wrote the diary in the war. DJ and my mom both almost worshipped Grandfather, and I think I rebelled against that. No one could be that wonderful. Certainly he was extraordinary and did many amazing things, but he was more complex and certainly more secretive than we thought. There were things in his past, like his fighting in Spain, that he kept hidden from his family throughout his life. Perhaps there were other things that we still don’t know about. Perhaps we’ll never know.”
I had surprised myself with this speech. I didn’t want to leave them with the idea that Grandfather was a dark, mysterious, secretive person though. “One thing’s for certain,” I went on. “He treasured and loved his family above everything. That’s why he gave us our tasks: to help us get started in life.”
“I wish I could have met him,” Laia and Sofia said at the same time.
“I wish I could have met Maria,” I said. “What was she like?”
Sofia spoke first. “She was extraordinary. If one word could describe her, it would be passionate.” Laia nodded her agreement. “I think she found it very frustrating having to keep silent while Spain was a dictatorship, but, living under a false identity, she had to keep a very low profile.”
“A false identity?” I asked.
“Yes,” Laia said. “At the end of the Second World War in 1945, Maria wanted to come back to Spain from France, where she had fled as a refugee when Barcelona fell to the Fascists at the end of the war. She wanted her baby, my grandmother, to grow up in this land, even if it was under military rule. She couldn’t come back under her real name. The government was making lists of those who had helped the Republic during our war, and many were disappearing into labor camps.”
“Or unmarked graves,” Sofia interjected.
“Many, probably thousands, were shot,” Laia agreed. “Maria had worked with the Resistance in France, helping crashed Allied fliers escape. It took quite a long time, but her contacts there gave her false documents. Until General Franco died in 1975, Maria had to lead a false life, swallowing her anger at what she saw going on and pretending to be okay with a government she hated.”
“I think it was a tremendous relief to her when Spain became a democracy again,” Sofia went on. “She could be herself at last, and she threw herself into all kinds of social causes, from helping single mothers like herself to protesting the presence of American military bases in Spain. She also struggled to get us to remember our past. She told me once that a country was nothing without a past—a complete past, with all the good and bad out in the open.”
“So Felip is continuing her work?” I said.
“In a way, yes,” Sofia replied. “Although he works within the system, it is very slow, and there are many political pressures that determine what he can and cannot do.”
“But he tries,” Laia interrupted. She sounded surprisingly abrupt, and I caught a look that Sofia gave her. Did they disagree about Felip’s work? “He’s working to get the Americans to pay for proper cleanup at Palomares.”
“I know,” Sofia said. “It’s just that the process is so slow. Maria would have been out on the streets demonstrating.”
Before Laia could say anything else, I asked, “What’s Palomares?”
Sofia let Laia explain. “Early in 1966, an American B-52 bomber carrying four nuclear weapons exploded over the village of Palomares. Two of the bombs exploded and—”
“What?” I interrupted. “Two nuclear bombs exploded! Here?”
“They weren’t nuclear explosions,” Laia explained. “Just the conventional explosives in the bombs went off, but radioactive material was scattered over a wide area. The Americans collected all the bits they could find and dug up a lot of contaminated earth to ship back to the US, but most people don’t think they did a very thorough job. Much of the soil around Palomares is still contaminated. Apart from the health hazards, the local farmers can’t sell their crops. Even all these years later, the Americans still refuse to do a proper cleanup. That’s one thing Felip’s working on.”
“Wow,” I said. “I’ve never heard of that.”
“It was big news at the time,” Sofia added, “but now it’s only a Spanish problem. That’s why we need demonstrations, to make more people aware.”
“You said there were four bombs on the B-52,” I said. “If two exploded, what happened to the other two?”
“One landed in a stream and was found quickly,” Laia said. “The fourth one landed in the sea. It took months to find it. When the Americans did bring it up, they made a big fuss, saying the problem was solved. And then, gradually, everyone forgot.”
“I had no idea,” I said. “I thought that sort of thing only happened in the movies.”
Laia smiled. “Sometimes the real world is more exciting than movies. But let’s not spend Christmas Day talking about bombs and radioactive contamination. There’ll be plenty of time to ask Felip about all this in Seville.”
“I agree,” Sofia said, standing. “I know a nice little tapas bar where, so the story goes, Ernest Hemingway spent time during the war. I think we should go there, have something to eat and pay our respects.”
Despite Laia’s words, as we strolled out of Parc Güell I thought about nuclear bombs and accidents. I would certainly talk to Felip about it in a day or two.