The Return (35 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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Salvador cleared the table of a variety of cups and plates, and they sat down. He set a pan of water on the gas stove and found a small bag of coffee. Francisco was already using a dirty plate as an ashtray and the smoke coiled its way up to the high ceiling, clinging to the yellowing walls.
 
They were gathered at the table to make plans together but there was a sense of unease, not only because the neighbour, a thin-faced book-keeper, had opened his door to peer at them when they had passed, but because resentment was simmering between them. The air had to be cleared.
 
Like all of those who opposed Franco, the three of them had accepted that there had never been any real means of resistance to the coup in Granada. Nationalist troops had been received into this city’s strongly conservative heartland with almost open arms and it was too late to do anything about it now, since to show yourself an enemy of the new regime was tantamount to suicide.
 
Though Franco’s men were firmly in charge of Granada, it did not mean that all those who opposed the
alzamiento
- the uprising - were apathetic. Francisco had certainly not been idle. He now knew that the charges against his father and brother had been the mere possession of trade union cards and had lost no time in seeking revenge for their deaths. He did not care how. His only desire was for the sour smell of Nationalist blood. Although the Fascists held the city of Granada with a firm fist, their grip on many of the surrounding rural areas was still tenuous. Francisco had become part of a campaign of resistance and subversion. In some places, Civil Guard garrisons that had betrayed the Republic were easily overcome and once they were out of the way, there were plenty of young men like Francisco overflowing with anger to unleash against the landowners and priests who supported Franco.
 
Landworkers and trade unionists had then set about collectivising some of the great estates, and the storehouses of the landowners were broken open. Malnourished peasants waited outside, desperate for anything with which to feed their families. Bulls, that had been bred and grazed on the finest pastures, were slaughtered and eaten. It was the first meat that many of them had tasted in years.
 
It was not only the blood of the bulls that Francisco spilled. Violence was perpetrated against individuals too. Priests, landowners and their families paid the price that many of those who supported the Republic felt they deserved.
 
Antonio, who clung on to the ideals of justice and fairness, balked at these random and uncoordinated acts.
 
‘It does more harm than good,’ he said bluntly, churned up with a mixture of disgust and admiration at what his friend was capable of. ‘You know what your priest-killings and your nun-burnings mean to the Fascists, don’t you?’
 
‘Yes. I do,’ responded Francisco.‘I know exactly what they mean to them. They show them we mean business. That we’re going to run them out of the country, rather than stand by and let them stamp all over us.’
 
‘The Fascists don’t care about those old priests and a few nuns - but you know what they do give a damn about?’ he said.
 
For a moment Antonio had abandoned the use of sign language. He sometimes found it hard to express himself that way. Salvador put his finger to his lips, urging his friend to keep his voice down. There was every danger that someone could be listening at the door.
 
‘What?’ said Francisco, unable to contain himself to a whisper.
 
‘They want support from outside Spain and they use your actions for propaganda. Are you too stupid to see that? For every priest that dies, they probably win a dozen more foreign troops. Is that what you want?’
 
Antonio’s blood was raised as well as his voice. He could hear himself sounding like a schoolteacher, didactic, patronising even, and yet, just as when he was in the classroom, he was completely certain of his rectitude. He had to impress this on his friend. He sympathised with Francisco’s thirst for blood and for action, but he wanted his friend to make good use of this passion, in a way that was not counterproductive. Reserving their energies for a united onslaught against the enemy was how Antonio felt it should be done. It was the only chance any of them had.
 
Francisco sat in silence and Antonio carried on haranguing him, ignoring the appeals of Salvador to leave him alone but reverting now to signing.
 
‘So how do you think they react in Italy? What does the Pope say when they tell him what’s happening to priests here? No wonder Mussolini is sending troops to support Franco! Your actions are giving us
less
chance of winning this war, not more! It’s hardly winning sympathy for the Republic.’
 
For his part, Francisco had no regrets. Even if his friend Antonio was right and retribution followed, his sanity had been saved by the momentary release he felt when he pulled a trigger.The satisfaction of seeing the target of his well-directed bullet folding over and sinking slowly to the ground was immense. He had needed ten such moments to feel that his father and brother were avenged.
 
In spite of these words to one of his oldest friends, a small part of Antonio despised his own inaction. His family was fragmented, his brothers killed, his father imprisoned, and what had he done? Though he disapproved of the way in which Francisco had gone about it, he quietly envied that he had enemy blood on his hands.
 
Salvador added his support to Antonio’s appeal.‘And the massacre of all those prisoners too,’ he signed. ‘They’ve hardly helped our cause either, have they?’
 
Even Francisco had to agree with this. The execution of the Nationalist prisoners in Madrid had been an atrocity and he conceded that it was not a moment for them to be proud of. Most importantly for Antonio’s argument, the event had been used by the Nationalists to illustrate the barbarism of the left and had cost the Republicans dearly in terms of the support they so desperately needed.
 
Whatever the differences of opinion that might have existed between these three friends, there was one thing that now united them: they were all ready to break out of the prison that Granada had become, not to take part in isolated acts of barbarism, but to join a more co-ordinated campaign.
 
‘Whatever we agree or disagree about, we can’t hang around here, can we?’ urged Francisco. ‘It’s too late for Granada, but that’s not the whole of Spain. Look at Barcelona!’
 
‘I know.You’re right. And Valencia and Bilbao and Cuenca . . . And all the rest. They’re resisting. We can’t just sit here.’
 
In spite of everything, there was a wave of optimism sweeping across Republican territory trapped under Fascist control that this uprising could be crushed. The resistance met by Franco’s troops was only just the beginning. Given time, they could organise themselves.
 
Salvador, listening, involved and gesticulating agreement, now signed the word that had not yet been stated: ‘Madrid.’
 
Antonio had left this off his list. This was the place to which they must go. The symbolic heart of Spain that must be fought for at all costs.
 
Four hundred kilometres north of where they sat in the semi-darkness of Salvador’s apartment, Madrid was effectively under siege and if anywhere needed to resist the Fascists, it was the capital city. A popular army had been established the previous autumn to unite the portion of the army that remained loyal to the Republic along with volunteer militia to form some kind of unified force with central command. All three friends yearned to join the action and to be part of the struggle. Unless they went soon it might be too late.
 
For some months, with the volume turned so low that the listener had to sit with his ear pressed up against it, Antonio had been using the radio in Salvador’s apartment to pick up news of the situation in Madrid. The capital city had been suffering bombardment by Franco’s troops since November but, with the help of Russian tanks, had held out. Madrid continued to put up stronger resistance than the Nationalists had expected, but there was now a rumour that another great battle was about to begin.
 
Antonio and his friends may have stood by and watched their own city fall into Franco’s hands, but the significance of allowing Madrid to go the same way was not lost on any of them. This had to be the moment, and the compulsion to leave was now strong. Franco had to be stopped. They had heard that there were young men coming from all over Europe: England, France and even Germany, to help the cause. The notion of this war being fought for them by foreigners spurred them to action.
 
Throughout the previous few days Antonio had thought only of Franco’s growing dominance in Spain and the way in which his troops seemed to be spreading unstoppably throughout the region. The fact that they were meeting substantial resistance in the north of the country gave those that supported the Republic some hope. If he and his friends did not join the fight against fascism, they might forever regret their inaction.
 
‘We must go,’ said Antonio. ‘It’s time.’
 
Resolute, he set off home to make preparations for departure.
 
Chapter Twenty-one
 
BY THE TIME Antonio went to tell his mother he was leaving, Mercedes had been on the road for some hours. From Granada, she took the mountain road rather than the main route south, thinking she would meet fewer people that way. Though it was February and the snow was still thick on the mountain tops around her, she had taken off her thick woollen coat. She walked for five hours that day and, but for the extremities of her gloveless fingers, she was almost too warm.
 
For a short distance between Ventas and Alhama a farmer gave her a lift on his cart. He had just sold two dozen chickens at market and now had space to accommodate a passenger.The smell of livestock hung heavily about him, and Mercedes tried hard not to show her revulsion at the odour of him and the mangy dog that sat between them. There was a comforting normality about riding along next to this weather-beaten man whose hands were raw with cold and crisscrossed with deep tears and scratches.
 
Mercedes had regularly spent part of her summertime in the countryside outside Granada, and visits to her aunt and uncle in the sierras had been a happy aspect of her childhood. She was familiar enough with the landscape when the trees were in leaf and the meadows flirtatious with wild flowers, but in winter it was chilled and bare. The fields were a greyish brown, waiting for spring crops to be sown, and the road was stony and rutted. The mule’s hoofs regularly slipped on loose shale, which slowed its already lazy pace. The weak afternoon sunlight provided no warmth.
 
Mercedes knew to trust no one and made little conversation, answering the old man’s questions in monosyllables. She came from Granada and was going to visit her aunt in a village outside Málaga. That was about all she volunteered.
 
He was no doubt equally untrusting of her, and gave little information about himself.
 
Once during the journey they were stopped by a Civil Guard patrol.
 
‘Purpose of journey?’ the interrogator demanded.
 
Mercedes held her breath. She had prepared herself for this but now that she was faced with the moment, her mouth dried.
 
‘My daughter and I are on our way back to our farm in Periana. We’ve been to market in Ventas,’ the farmer said cheerfully. ‘Chickens were fetching a good price today.’
 
There was nothing to suggest that he was lying.An empty cage, the faint whiff of chicken excrement, a girl. They waved him on.
 
‘
Gracias
,’ she said quietly when the patrol was well out of earshot. She looked down at the pattern of the road’s rough surface as it moved under the big wooden wheels. She told herself she must still not trust this man and should stick to her fictitious story even if he now appeared to be a friend and knew that she needed some protection.
 
They travelled on for another hour or so until it was time for the farmer to turn off. His farm was up in the hills; he indicated somewhere in the direction of a wooded area on the horizon.
 
‘Do you want to stop with us for the night? There would be a warm bed for you and my wife makes a decent enough supper.’
 
In her exhausted state she was, for a moment, tempted. But what did that invitation convey? Though he had been kind to her, she had no idea who this man was and, wife or no wife, she suddenly felt the full force of her vulnerability. She must keep going towards Málaga.
 
‘Thank you. But I should press on.’
 
‘Well, have this anyway,’ he said, reaching behind his seat.‘I shall be enjoying my wife’s cooking in an hour or so. I won’t be needing it.’
 
She now stood in the road beneath him and reached up to take a small hessian bag. She could feel the reassuring bulk of a small loaf inside and knew that she would be grateful for this the next day. She had nearly run out of the supplies she had stashed away in her pockets and was grateful for replenishments.

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