The rumour reached Felix. Kitty heard it from Unity, who’d been talking to Charlie.
‘Could it have been Dolores? Have you heard where the body was found?’ Kitty asked Felix.
‘No, I haven’t. Just that there was a body.’
‘Charlie said it was at the bottom of a barranco. Near Mas de las Matas. Isn’t that where you were working before? I’m sure that’s what he told me,’ said Unity.
‘You’re certain it was there?’ Felix looked up sharply. Her skin felt clammy, guilt oozing from its pores. She kept remembering what George had said to her, months ago, at El Escorial. How do you know what to believe?
‘How?’ wondered Kitty. ‘Why?’
‘And did you hear there were two Brigaders caught trying to desert, not far from here? Maybe . . . Oh, do move over, Felix, you’re hogging the stove.’
‘Sorry.’
‘British?’
‘Yes. They were shot. Court-martialled first. Then shot. Executed that is. They had to be, didn’t they? They had a map, you see. They were going to give it to the Fascists. That’s what Charlie told me. They were traitors.’
Executed, thought Felix. Executed.
Kitty swirled her coffee thoughtfully. ‘What if it was Dolores? What if she was trying to stop them?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Felix. I don’t know, she told herself.
‘Or help them, come to that? Who knows? She was a dark horse,’ said Kitty, shaking her head.
‘Who?’ asked Unity.
‘A chica we worked with. She just disappeared one day. Just before we came here. You don’t suppose she was a deserter too? Tell Unity about her, Felix, you knew her best.’
‘I don’t know what to say. I trusted Dolores.’ And I trusted him.
‘We all did. We all did. And maybe we weren’t wrong.’ Kitty’s eyes squeezed tight shut, and her face briefly contorted into a grimace. She took her spectacles off and wiped them on her apron and Felix turned away. She didn’t trust herself.
‘I’m going to check dressings.’
Felix could feel Unity’s stare boring into her back as she retreated. She thought she heard a sigh from Kitty.
So, Nat hadn’t even buried her. But then, how could he, in that frozen earth? With all his men waiting, and another job to do? Had he checked her pockets? What had she been holding in there? Why had she gone on walking, walking, out of town? Leading her up, up, up the hillside. What if . . . ?
She couldn’t let herself pursue these thoughts. And soon exhaustion made her like an ant, without thoughts. Scurrying, hurrying, fixed on the job in hand, whatever it was that needed to be done next. Above the anthill was the shadow of the enemy’s great boot, coming closer and closer. The skies were rarely silent.
The Republicans could take Teruel, but they couldn’t hold it. Courage and cunning were no match for the machinery of war.
The town fell back to Franco the day Felix went down with typhoid.
In her delirium, she couldn’t tell what was real and what was not. Even afterwards, little was clear. The retreat was chaotic and her convalescence was slow. Felix spent much of it worrying what she might have said in her fever, and trying to remember what had really happened.