The Return (27 page)

Read The Return Online

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

BOOK: The Return
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The takeover of Radio Granada gave the Nationalist cause a perfect medium to broadcast their version of the previous day’s events.
El Ideal
reinforced the same news stories and gloated over the easily won success of the rebel army forces and the fact that so many middle-class citizens of Granada had come out in support of Franco.
 
The Ramírez family stayed indoors, the café doors firmly bolted and the wooden shutters fastened.They took it in turns to watch from the first-floor windows, and the day was broken up with the passing of truckloads of troops and the regular sound of a voice crying out: ‘Long live Spain! Death to the Republic!’
 
Emilio sat on his bed strumming chords. Apparently indifferent to the events going on outside, his stomach nevertheless churned with fear. He played until his fingers were sore, drowning out the sound of gunfire with his passionate
seguiriyas
and
soleares
.
 
Even Antonio, usually patient with his brother, was dismayed by Emilio’s convincingly feigned lack of interest in the military coup.
 
‘Doesn’t he know what this could mean?’ he pleaded to his father as they toyed with lunch that day, a meagre meal of cheese and olives.They had decided not to risk a potentially fruitless and dangerous outing to find bread that day. Emilio was not hungry and had stayed in his room.
 
‘Of course he doesn’t,’ sneered Ignacio. ‘He’s in his own little
fairy
-tale world as usual.’
 
Everyone in the family but Ignacio turned a blind eye to Emilio’s homosexuality so no one reacted to his jibe. Just once, a few months before, Concha and Pablo had finally discussed their concerns with each other. Even in the more liberal climate of the early days of the Republic, attitudes to homosexuality had not changed in Granada.
 
‘Let’s just hope he grows out of it,’ Pablo had said.
 
Concha had nodded. Her husband assumed this was in affirmation and the subject was never raised again.
 
Like everyone on the side of the Republic in the city, they had lost their appetite for food, if not for news. On the radio they picked up that the aerodrome at Armilla had been taken and that the big explosives factory on the road to Murcia was now in the hands of the Nationalists. Both were considered of huge strategic importance, and those who wanted life to revert to normal now began to resign themselves to the idea of a new regime in their city.
 
Mercedes opened her window at dusk that day and leaned out to catch a breath of air. Swifts crossed the sky in front of her and bats darted to and fro. The events of the previous night - the sounds of gunshots and the sight of their neighbours being taken away - lingered with her, but her thoughts were elsewhere.
 
‘Javier, Javier, Javier,’ she whispered into the night. The yellow light from the gaslamp below her window flickered with the gusts of warm air and a moth twirled in its momentary brightness. She yearned to dance and could think of nothing except when she might see her
guitarrista
again. If only this emergency could end so that they could be together, she thought.
 
Faintly, escaping through the roof tiles and into the creamy atmosphere, she could hear the sound of Emilio’s playing. She climbed the stairs for the first time in a while, drawn to the comforting sound of his music. Only now did it occur to her that he might have felt abandoned when she had started dancing with Javier, and she was unsure whether he would welcome her intrusion.
 
He said nothing when she entered the room but he continued to play, which had always been his way when, as a little girl, she had first invaded his privacy. The hours passed. Dawn broke. Mercedes woke to find herself lying on Emilio’s bed. Her brother was asleep in his chair, his arms still wrapped around his guitar.
 
Concha opened up the café the next day. After a day of having the doors and shutters tightly closed, it was a relief to throw them open again and replace the stale air.
 
There seemed no particular reason not to open up, and the bar became the focus of intense discussions about what might happen next. Stories abounded about people being brutalised in order to betray friends or neighbours, and everyone had seen arrests taking place. Arrests were being made for a huge range of so-called crimes. What was lacking was hard information and a dearth of knowledge about the bigger picture in the country as a whole. Uncertainty and fear mingled.
 
In Granada there was one area that was still resolutely holding out against Franco’s troops - the Albaicín. From their café on the edge of this old quarter, the Ramírez family now had good cause to fear for the fabric of their own home and livelihood.
 
Theoretically, this
barrio
should have been able to defend itself. It occupied a steep hillside and even had a moat, in the form of the River Darro, running along its lower boundary.
 
Barricades had been erected to block entry into the Albaicín, and from their superior vantage point the inhabitants there were in a strong position to defend their ‘castle’ against the troops. For several days there was incessant fighting, and the Ramírez family watched many members of the Civil Guard and several Assault Guards being carried away wounded.
 
Radio Granada gave regular warnings that anyone resisting the Assault Guard would be fired on, but still the siege continued. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the determination of those holding out in the Albaicín would win over.
 
They might have had a better chance if the army had not already occupied the Alhambra, which loomed above them. One afternoon, as Concha watched from her window, it was as though mortars rained from the heavens. Ammunition poured down on the Albaicín, blasting roofs and walls. After the rebel soldiers had wreaked this comprehensive destruction, the dust settled briefly. Moments later, the low moan of an aeroplane was then heard and aerial bombardment began.The people of the Albaicín were sitting targets.
 
For some hours, resistance continued but then Concha saw a stream of people starting to emerge from the still-rising dust. Women, children, and elderly men, all with bundles of clothing and handfuls of possessions that they had rescued from their homes, began to descend the hill. It was hard to hear much above the noise of the machine-gun fire that now sprayed the rooftops, and the thud of artillery, but every so often between the silences could be heard the sound of children crying and the soft moan of the women as they hurried towards the barricades.
 
The last few men, as they ran out of ammunition and realised the game was up, climbed on to rooftops and waved white sheets to signal their surrender. They had put up a brave struggle but knew that the Fascists had enough ammunition to raze every home in their
barrio
to the ground.
 
The most fortunate managed to escape towards Republican lines, but the majority were caught.
 
Antonio appeared that afternoon, pale with anxiety, his hair peppered with the dust that seemed to hang in the still air.
 
‘They’re just shooting them -’ he said to his parents - ‘anyone from the Albaicín that they catch - just shooting them. In cold blood.’
 
Coming to terms with their own powerlessness was a terrifying moment for them all.
 
‘They’re completely ruthless,’ said Concha, almost inaudibly.
 
‘I think they’ve well and truly proved that,’ agreed her husband.
 
Although the initial takeover had been accomplished with impressive stealth and bloodless efficiency, the days following it brought a wave of resistance and violence. There was continuous shooting that night and machine guns were in action from dawn till dusk.
 
Five days after the initial takeover of the garrison, and once the bombardment of the Albaicín had come to an end, it became quieter. The workers were now on strike, which was the only safe means to register immediate protest against events.
 
With bread and milk easy to obtain, no one was going hungry, and El Barril could be run reasonably normally. The Ramírez family stayed close to the café, with the exception of Ignacio, who came and went with a smile on his face.
 
Elvira Delgado’s husband had been in Sevilla when the army had taken over there and his firmly held right-wing position made him fearful of moving across the territory in between, which was still held by the Republic. His absence from Granada made Ignacio even more jubilant about the military coup than ever. He had bought a copy of
El Ideal
, which now lay on a table in the bar and, with its references to ‘Glorious General Franco’, there was no doubting its politics. Emilio came down late morning and saw it there, its taunting headline an offence to anyone who supported the Republic.
 
‘Fascist bastard!’ he said, hurling it across the room, its pages separating out across the floor like a carpet.
 
‘Emilio, please!’ shouted his mother. ‘All you do is make things worse.’
 
‘They couldn’t be worse than they already are, could they?’
 
‘But once things settle down, General Franco might not turn out to be such a bad thing,’ she responded. Emilio knew as well as she did that these were words neither of them believed.
 
‘I’m not talking about Franco, Mother. I’m talking about my brother.’ He picked up one of the loose sheets of newsprint and waved it in front of his mother’s face. ‘How dare he bring this filth into the house?’
 
‘It’s just a newspaper.’ Even if it was looking unrealistic in the country as a whole, Concha’s yearning for peace in her own family obliged her to try to be conciliatory. Emilio knew that his mother hated what Franco was trying to do as much as he did.
 
‘It’s not just a newspaper. It’s propaganda. Can’t you see that?’
 
‘But it’s the only one on sale now, as far as I know.’
 
‘Look, Mother, it’s about time you faced up to something about Ignacio.’
 
‘Emilio!’ said Pablo, drawn into the room by the sound of raised voices. ‘That’s quite enough. We don’t want to hear any more . . .’
 
‘Your father’s right. There’s quite enough fighting going on outside, without everyone in here shouting at each other too.’
 
By now Antonio had appeared too. He knew that the old-established dislike between his two younger brothers had intensified. It was linked with the conflict that was rumbling like an earthquake across their entire country. The divisions of politics had entered their home. The hard-line conservative attitudes of those who wished to take over the country were a serious personal threat to Emilio, and the hatred between these two young men was now as real as that between the Republicans and the Fascist troops that patrolled in the streets of Granada.
 
Emilio stormed out of the room and no one spoke until the sound of his feet thumping up the stairs to the attic had receded.
 
 
News reports on the radio and in the newspapers were often no more accurate than rumours on the street, but the overall picture was becoming clear: Franco’s troops were not having the success they had hoped for throughout the region and though some towns had surrendered, many others were putting up fierce resistance and were able to remain loyal to the government. The country carried on in a state of uncertainty.
 
In Granada, as though to force men to declare which side they were on, the Nationalists now asked for people to sign up for guard duty. These volunteers wore blue shirts and became part of the tyranny. There were numerous other ways to show support and shirt colour indicated which particular right-wing group you were affiliated with - blue, green or white. The right wing loved the discipline and order of uniform.
 
By the end of July, Antonio could see it was effectively all over in Granada. The strike came to an end and for a short while it was as though nothing had happened. Taxis stood in their usual positions, shops opened, cafés rolled out their awnings. The sun still shone, and the heat was not as fierce as it had been the previous week.
 
Everything appeared the same, but everything had changed. Even if much of the country was fighting back, Granada was now undisputedly under martial law. Civilians were forbidden to drive vehicles, the right to strike was abolished and the possession of firearms was banned.
 
Concha was still in her nightgown one morning, sipping her early morning coffee, when Ignacio came in through the front door of the café.
 
‘Hello, my darling,’ she said, relieved to see him and refraining, as usual, from asking where he had been all night.
 
He bent down to kiss her on the top of her tousled hair and wrapped his arms around her neck. The unmistakable smell of a woman’s perfume almost overwhelmed her. It was lily of the valley, or was it damask rose? She could not quite tell as it was all mixed up with the familiar smell of her son’s body and perhaps a cigar or two that he had smoked the previous evening.

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