The Return (26 page)
Authors: Victoria Hislop
Tags: #British - Spain, #Psychological Fiction, #Family, #British, #Spain - History - Civil War; 1936-1939 - Social Aspects, #General, #Granada (Spain), #Historical, #War & Military, #Families, #Fiction, #Spain
They were mostly manual workers and, without the lethargy-inducing heat, their anger would have tipped them into earlier action. People were desperate for weapons. Anything would do. In order to arm themselves, men wiped dust from the oldest of pistols. Soon, the streets were full of boys and men ready to fight, and even those who had never given more than a passing nod to politics found themselves whipped up into a frenzy of sympathy for the Republic.
Antonio and his two friends Salvador and Francisco went to the Plaza del Carmen to see what was going on. Everywhere they looked they saw men brandishing weapons, even up on the rooftops. At this point the troops were still confined to their barracks. No one knew where the power lay or what was going to happen but the city was brimful of tension and fear.
In the early hours of 20 July, the plans for the rebellion in Granada were finalised. Captain Álvarez committed the support of his Assault Guards to the leader of the rebels within the army garrison.
Right up to that very afternoon, the members of the civil government had been unaware of what was brewing. Martínez was meeting with some of his supporters, including Antonio Rus Romero, Secretary of the Popular Front, and also the head of the Civil Guard. At some point a message came through to Romero that the troops were lining up in the barracks and getting ready to march. Campins received a phone call telling him the situation and was incredulous. He maintained that the troops had sworn they would be loyal, but he would visit the barracks immediately to see for himself. When he arrived, he was shocked to find that not only had the artillery troops rebelled but that the infantry regiment, the Civil Guard and the Assault Guard had also come out against the Republic.
Campins was now a prisoner and, worse, was forced to sign a document drawn up for him that declared a state of war. The papers also outlined the punishments for anyone who did not comply with the new regime, crimes ranging from possessing firearms to gathering in groups of more than three people.
The citizens of Granada had no real information, but late in the afternoon, when the city was quiet and all the shops were still shut for siesta, some trucks trundled through the sleepy streets, with stern-faced army troops, eyes focused neither to right nor left. Behind them came artillery. Some people misunderstood the reason for their presence in the street, believing them to have come out to fight against the Fascists, and a few naïvely saluted them.
It was the sound of these trucks and the grating of their gears that disturbed Concha’s siesta. She was dozing in her darkened bedroom overlooking the street, and immediately awoke Pablo. They opened one of the shutters just enough to observe what was going on below their window and stood close enough to feel each other’s hot breath in the dark room. If the soldiers looked up they would have seen them, though the roar of the engines would have drowned out the sound of Concha’s voice.
‘Holy Mary,’ she whispered, her fingers tightening around her husband’s arm. ‘It’s happening. It’s really happening.’
Something was taking place in front of them that had been rumoured for days. Concha felt panic rise inside her.
‘Where are the children? Where are they? We need to find them.’
Concha’s immediate response was to gather her family together and her anxiety was scarcely concealed. The sight of these armed brigades, whoever they supported and whatever their orders, meant that no one’s safety was guaranteed.
‘Antonio is out somewhere - maybe Ignacio too. But the others are in their rooms, I think,’ Pablo replied, running out onto the landing to begin checking the bedrooms.
Though the children were all stronger and sturdier than their parents, the need to know the whereabouts of their offspring was primitive and compelling for Pablo and Concha. They ran from room to room, waking both Mercedes and Emilio, before they found Ignacio’s bed was empty.
‘I can tell you where he is . . .’ muttered Emilio sleepily, stumbling down the stairs from his attic room.
‘Where?
Where
do you think he is?’ asked his mother anxiously.
Where
do you think he is?’ asked his mother anxiously.
‘With that Elvira woman probably.’
‘I don’t want to know that, Emilio. Now isn’t the time for talking like that about your brother.’
Elvira was the wife of one of Granada’s most celebrated matadors, Pedro Delgado, and Ignacio’s long afternoons with her had been the subject of much gossip. According to Ignacio, the older man was as aware as anyone of the situation and, when he was out of town, he more or less left her to be taken care of by his protégé, the young Ramírez. This did not validate the situation. Before marrying, Elvira had been a prostitute, albeit a high-class one and, whatever else Concha Ramírez thought of her son’s behaviour, this was what appalled her most.
‘All right then,’ answered Emilio snappily. ‘But that’s where you’ll find him if you want to.’
Even with Fascist troops beginning to fill the streets, Emilio could not allow an opportunity to denigrate his brother to slip by.
Antonio was not at home either. No one had seen him that day.
They all gathered round the narrow gap between the long shutters in the master bedroom. Mercedes stood on the bed, a hand on each of her father’s shoulders to balance, eager to catch a glimpse of what was happening down in the square. The last of the troops had gone by and now it seemed unnervingly still.
‘What’s going on, Emilio? Are they still out there?’ Mercedes’ voice was all too audible in the silence. ‘I can’t see. I can’t see!’
‘Ssh, Merche,’ said her father, gesticulating that she should keep her mouth shut.
He had made out the sound of muffled voices only a few doors up the street from them, and now they all heard the unmistakable sound of gunshots.
One-two-three.
Inwardly, they all counted the rhythmic, even, bullet beats. At that moment, their world began to alter. The sound of firing would punctuate their waking hours and penetrate their sleep for a long time to come.
Voices came from down in the street right below them, outside the café itself, but unless they leaned out it was impossible to identify the speakers. Before long their curiosity was satisfied. Two men were marched out across the square, arms raised in the air.
‘They’ve come from the Pérez house. It’s Luis and one of the boys! It’s Luis and Julio!’ gasped Concha. ‘My God. Look, they’re taking them away. They’re actually taking them away . . .’
Her voice trailed off. It was hard for all of them to take in the sight of innocent men under arrest and being led away by soldiers. It was with some disbelief that they faced the significance of this moment.
‘They’ve done it, haven’t they? The army have taken over,’ said Emilio flatly.
It was a situation that those who had been unimpressed by the Republican government had long since hoped for, but for supporters of a democratically elected party it was almost beyond belief that the rule of law should have been overturned before their very eyes.
With horror, the Ramírez family watched their friends being marched away. Once they were out of sight, the family withdrew from the window and stood around in the semidarkness.
Concha closed the shutters and sank onto the bed. ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked, looking around at the silhouetted forms of her husband and children.
The question was rhetorical. There was no action they could sensibly take, apart from to stay in their home and wait to see what happened next.
Not long afterwards Antonio returned. He listened with disbelief as they described how Luis Pérez and his son had been taken away.
‘But why have they taken them? On what grounds?’
‘Who knows?’ answered his father.‘But we had better go round and see María and Francisco later.’
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ asked Concha, a note of cautious self-preservation creeping in.
Antonio then told his family what he had seen out on the streets that day, and especially of the moment when he realised that the army had rebelled.
Along with Francisco and Salvador, he had been in the crowd that had amassed in the Plaza del Carmen. He described the moment of confusion when news had reached them that the troops were out of their quarters and marching towards the square.
‘We assumed that the soldiers coming in our direction were there to ensure public order and defend the Republic,’ he said. ‘But we soon realised our mistake.’
The intentions of the military became all too clear. With a cannon and machine guns now in position in front of the town hall, the crowd had had two options: to disperse or to be fired on.
‘We just weren’t ready to face anything like that,’ Antonio continued.‘Francisco thought we were a bunch of cowards running away, but we wouldn’t have had a chance!’
‘So what happened?’ asked Mercedes.
‘We fled down a side street and then all we heard was the sound of gunfire.’
‘I think we probably heard it too,’ Emilio said.
‘And now,’ concluded Antonio, ‘there are artillery batteries occupying every strategic point around the town: the Plaza del Carmen, the Puerta Real and the Plaza de la Trinidad. And you didn’t believe me this morning, Father! If only we’d been given some weapons, we could have stopped all this!’
Both his parents shook their heads.
‘It’s awful, it’s awful,’ said Pablo, looking at the floor. ‘We just didn’t think it could really happen.’
Antonio told them everything else that he had heard. Torres Martínez was apparently under house arrest - ‘If he had been more on top of the situation,’ grumbled Antonio, ‘we might not be in this mess’ - and Valdes had taken over the post of Civil Governor. All of this seemed to have been achieved without the slightest resistance. Antonio had also heard the rumour that the town hall had been taken over and the mayor, Manuel Fernandez-Montesinos, who was Lorca’s brother-in-law, had been dramatically arrested during a meeting with fellow councillors and locked up.
They sat and puzzled over what the humble locksmith, Luis Pérez, and his son had in common with the well-connected socialist mayor of the city, but people from all walks of life were being marched from their homes for arbitrary reasons. Intellectuals, artists, workers and freemasons were among the six thousand or so of those arrested in the first week. Being a known left-wing supporter or a member of a trade union now put a person’s life in danger. Antonio decided to keep to himself what he knew about the politics of Francisco’s older brother, Julio. Even Luis himself might not have known of his son’s membership of a communist organisation.
‘The worst thing of all,’ declared Pablo, ‘is that both the Civil Guard
and
the Assault Guard are now on the rebels’ side.’
and
the Assault Guard are now on the rebels’ side.’
‘You keep saying that, Pablo, but I don’t believe you,’ Concha protested.
‘I’m afraid he’s right, Mother. I’ve seen a few of them out there in the street talking to groups of soldiers. They certainly didn’t look as though they were on different sides,’ confirmed Antonio.
Antonio now sought to reassure his mother about what seemed to worry her most of all: that Ignacio was safe.
‘He’ll be back soon,’ he told them. ‘I’m quite sure of that.’
At around midnight, when everyone but Concha had fallen into a fitful sleep,Antonio was proved right. Ignacio arrived home.
‘You’re back,’ said his mother, appearing at her bedroom door. ‘We’ve been so worried about you. You wouldn’t believe what’s been going on today - here in this very street.’
‘Everything’s going to be fine,’ said Ignacio blithely, taking his mother into his arms and planting a kiss on her forehead. ‘Really it is.’
Though he could not see it in the darkness, her face registered some confusion. Had Ignacio been so entwined with his lover that the events of the day had passed him by? She did not have the chance to ask him. He had taken the stairs two by two and closed his door behind him. There was always the morning, she thought to herself. Nothing would have changed by then.
Chapter Sixteen
NEXT MORNING, THE streets were deserted. Shops and cafés kept their doors locked and the tension inside every home spread eerily into the empty streets.
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