The Return (51 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
‘I wonder where they’re taking us.’
Antonio was thinking aloud. There had been rumours that the French, though unwilling to let them inside their country, had prepared somewhere for them to stay.Anywhere to rest their heads would be a relief after these days of shuffling along in freezing temperatures.
As they came down towards the sea, the dampness penetrated their bones.Victor did not respond to his companion and the two men walked along in silence. They were almost paralysed with cold, and perhaps this numbed their reaction to what they now faced.
Antonio had assumed that they would turn inland, away from the cruel space of the sea, but soon they were approaching the vast expanse of beach whose sands stretched further than the eye could see.They saw huge enclosures marked out with barbed wire and did not immediately realise that these areas were their destination. Surely these were pens for animals, not human beings? In some places the fencing stretched out into the sea itself.
‘This can’t be where they’re going to keep us . . .’ Victor allowed himself to say the unsayable. He looked across to the line of black guards who were now guiding people with the blunt ends of their rifles into the enclosures.
‘We’ve swapped the Moors for these bastards? Holy Mary . . .’
Antonio could sense his friend’s rage building. He shared his disgust that the French were using their Senegalese troops to keep the Spanish exiles in order. Many of them had experienced the brutality of Franco’s Moorish soldiers, the cruellest of all the Fascist forces, and they thought they recognised the same heartless expression on these black faces.
They did not listen to the appeals of families who were keen to stay together, separating them according to the rules of arithmetic rather than kindness. All they cared about was the efficient subdivision of this massive horde of people, and to divide strictly according to numbers was the only way they knew to keep control. The French feared that their small border towns were going to be swamped by refugees and their concern was not without foundation. The town of St Cyprien, which had a population of little over one thousand, would soon find itself home to more than seventy-five thousand strangers, and the only place this town had for them was the huge expanse of unusable land right by the sea: the beach. It was the same for the other towns further along the Côte Vermeille at Argelès, Barcarès and Septfonds too. The only place they could find for the refugees was on the sand.
Living conditions were appalling.To begin with, the refugees were housed in improvised tents made out of wooden stakes and blankets, with no protection from the elements. In the first weeks the beaches were battered by rain and gales. Antonio would volunteer each night to keep watch for an hour, otherwise people would get buried alive in the sand, the loose particles whipped up by the wind to form mounds over the weak and vulnerable. On these desolate wastelands, sand filled eyes, nostrils, mouths and ears. People ate sand, breathed it and were blinded by it, and the relentless exposure drove some men mad.
There was very little food and one small spring to serve the first twenty thousand who arrived. There was no proper treatment for the sick. Thousands of severely wounded had been evacuated from the hospitals of Barcelona, and in many of them gangrene had taken hold. The guards separated out those who showed symptoms of dysentery; the repellent stench was usually enough to identify them and they were left to rot in a makeshift quarantine. Other diseases were rife too. Tuberculosis and pneumonia were all common and each day the dead were entombed deep in the sand.
Perhaps the thing Antonio hated most of all was the way in which they were led en masse to defecate. Certain areas by the sea had been designated for the purpose and he dreaded the moment when his turn came to strain into the sea under the contemptuous glare of the guards.To be taken to this foul area of the beach where the wind sent soiled scraps of paper and sand flying into the air was the most degrading thing of all.
Apart from certain daily routines such as this, there was a sense of utter timelessness on the beaches. The continual washing in and out of the waves and their relentless pounding rhythm echoed nature’s disregard for the human tragedy being played out on these sands. The days turned into weeks. For most people time passed unmeasured, but Antonio kept tally by cutting notches on a stick. For him it alleviated the agonisingly slow passage of time. Some, fearing they might go mad with boredom, devised ways of combating it - games of cards, dominoes and wood carving all helped. A few even made sculptures out of the scraps of barbed wire they found sticking out of the sand. Occasionally in the evenings there would be poetry readings and from time to time, at the dead of night, the dark, piercing sound of
cante jondo
could be heard coming from one of the tents. This was the most primitive form of flamenco song and its pathos made Antonio’s hairs stand on end.
cante jondo
could be heard coming from one of the tents. This was the most primitive form of flamenco song and its pathos made Antonio’s hairs stand on end.
Then one night, there was a dance performance. The guards looked on, bemused at first and then mesmerised by the spectacle. It was dusk. A small area of solid dance floor had been constructed from old crates that someone had found by a food tent, and a young woman had begun to dance. There was no music to accompany her, just the sound of rhythmic clapping which grew and swelled and became an orchestra of palms, some soft, some sharp, rising in a crescendo and fading away as the strikes of the woman’s feet on the boards guided them.
The dancer was scrawny, once more buxom perhaps, but months of near starvation had melted away her curves.The sense of rhythm, which lived in the untouchable part of her, remained and the sinuous movements of her arms and fingers were accentuated by their painful thinness. Strands of her dark hair, matted with salty spray, adhered to her face like snakes and she made no attempt to brush them away.
She may not have had the heavy tiers of a flamenco skirt swirling about her ankles or the accompaniment of a guitar, but in her mind she had both of these and the audience felt and heard them too. Her best fine-fringed silk shawl had been incinerated, along with everything else she owned, when her house had been struck in an air raid. What she twirled around her now were the tattered remains of a headscarf, its fraying hem a distant echo of an expensively tasselled edge. The audience gathered quickly, and men, women and children witnessed an incongruous display of sensuality and passion in these heartless surroundings. The dance made them forget and for its duration drowned out the sound of the waves. She danced on and on in the cool of the night, hardly perspiring. When she seemed to have no more to offer the audience, she would begin again with the gentle tapping of a heel. The spectacle summoned memories in every spectator, of the
ferias
and other happy times that had comprised the now annihilated normality of their lives. In their own minds, every member of the audience was somewhere far away, over the mountains, in a home village or town, with friends or family.
ferias
and other happy times that had comprised the now annihilated normality of their lives. In their own minds, every member of the audience was somewhere far away, over the mountains, in a home village or town, with friends or family.
Antonio thought of his sister. Where was Mercedes now? he wondered. There was no means of getting news. He still occasionally sent heavily coded letters to his aunt Rosita in case there was a possibility that she could pass them on to his mother. For all he knew Mercedes could be somewhere on these beaches. He wondered if she had found Javier and if she was still dancing. For a moment Mercedes seemed more real to him than the woman who danced before him. The furrowed brow that scored a deep trench in this woman’s face reminded him of how his sister used to concentrate while she danced. There the similarity ended, though, unless the picture of Mercedes that he carried in his mind was out of date. Perhaps she had lost the childlike roundness of her features and now looked as birdlike as this gaunt creature in front of him. He wished he knew.
At the end of a
bulería
, the joyful dance that seemed so out of place here, a small child, his face plastered with dirt and snot, had pushed his way to the front of the crowd.
bulería
, the joyful dance that seemed so out of place here, a small child, his face plastered with dirt and snot, had pushed his way to the front of the crowd.
‘
Mamá! Mamá!
’ he snivelled, before the
bailaora
swept him up into her arms and disappeared again into one of the far huts, mindful once again of where she was.
Mamá! Mamá!
’ he snivelled, before the
bailaora
swept him up into her arms and disappeared again into one of the far huts, mindful once again of where she was.
After a few weeks went by, the French announced a rebuilding programme.There was a surge of new purpose. Able-bodied men such as Antonio and Victor were instructed to begin dismantling the shanty town of ragged tents and to start constructing wooden huts in ordered rows. Being occupied with manual work engaged both their minds and bodies, but it disturbed them too. Even the burning of the old rugs, some of which had been dragged across the mountains by those who sheltered beneath them, was a painful separation from the past.The new
barracas
might give them better protection, but there was a depressing sense of permanence about them.
barracas
might give them better protection, but there was a depressing sense of permanence about them.
‘So this is home now, is it?’ many of them mumbled.
They had perceived this camp as somewhere temporary, a place to pass through before finding somewhere else more amenable to live. Suddenly it seemed as though it might be for ever.
‘We’re not exiles, we’re prisoners,’ Victor said with determination. ‘We have to get out.’
‘I’m sure they’ll work out what to do with us soon,’ Antonio reassured him, even though he agreed with him entirely.
‘But we can’t go on pretending that this is some kind of safe haven!’ continued Victor, his youthful fighting spirit refusing to wane. ‘Shouldn’t we be trying to get back to Spain? We’re just sitting here playing cards, listening to people reading Machado’s poetry, for God’s sake!’
He was right. They were captives in this outdoor prison. Currently the only way of getting out was to volunteer to become part of a working party. Having been loaded onto a cattle truck and driven to an unknown destination many miles away, men were then inspected for strength like livestock and hired out for heavy-duty manual tasks such as repairing roads and railways, and farming. It hardly constituted liberation. It was more like slavery.
Like many fighting men, Antonio calculated that staying in the camp might put them in a better position to escape back over the mountains and resume the struggle against Franco. He also felt committed to teaching a small group of children who gathered each day to watch him draw letters in the sand. At all costs he wanted to avoid the possibility of finding himself hundreds of kilometres away in an unknown French village, the unpaid labourer of a hostile nation which just about tolerated his presence but no more.
He had enough regrets over being out of Spain as it was.When he had fled Barcelona all those weeks earlier, he had followed the northward-fleeing crowd. Since then he had agonised. Perhaps he should have headed south to Madrid. What had seemed like a safety net had become a noose that had closed in tightly around him.
In many of the militia there was a residual belief that while Madrid still stood everything was not quite lost, and they should be there to protect what remained. For some, survival was about resignation. They began to watch the sunrise and to appreciate the brief but intense moment of beauty when they could look across the landscape and see their own country emerge through the mist. It seemed close enough to touch.
For a few months they retreated into the safety of routine and a pattern of rituals that helped them map out their days. They gave street names to the rows of
barracas
, and even hotel names to the huts themselves. In ways such as this they tried to make their lives worth living.
barracas
, and even hotel names to the huts themselves. In ways such as this they tried to make their lives worth living.
For some it was about small acts of rebellion and subversion, such as the carving of a sand bust of Franco that was coated in syrup to attract the flies. Victor had been one of the instigators of this and his confrontational attitude had already been noticed. The guards knew he was one of the troublemakers and they were waiting for him to step out of line again. His slowness to join the queue for dinner one day was all it took. He was buried that night, right up to his neck, in the sand. It filled his eyes, ears and nostrils and almost choked him to death. Even the guard took pity and at three in the morning gracelessly held a cup of water to his lips.
Antonio nursed Victor when he staggered back to the hut that night. The boy was half demented, crazy with thirst and rage. His body could scarcely accommodate the hatred he felt for these guards and his anger was murderous.
‘Try to think of something else,’ said Antonio calmly, sitting at the end of his bed. ‘Don’t let them have the satisfaction of your anger. Keep it stored up for later.’
This was easy to say, but an act of such sadism had provoked deep hatred in this fiery youth.
In the spring, the skies became bluer and when the sun emerged fully, the grey sands turned gold and the sea reflected the bright sky. It was only then that they remembered how they used to love beaches. Once places of recreation where the children had splashed in the surf, this coastline now mocked all those happy memories.
But the spring brought with it the worst day of all. News reached them that the Nationalists had entered Madrid.What had been inevitable for many months had become a reality. On 1 April 1939, Franco announced his victory. He received a congratulatory telegram from the Pope.
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