“Bien,” Inés replied in her little voice.
“What did you do today?”
“Mercado.”
“You went to the market? That sounds fun. Is Mamá cooking?”
“Sí,” Inés said and pointed towards the kitchen.
José took the few steps from the door, past the tiny dining table, into the small kitchen. There stood Consuela, her short dark hair stuck to her skin as the steam from the pan rose up to her face.
“Buenas noches, mi amante.” José kissed his wife’s cheek and watched her smile. “My darling, it’s so hot, you don’t have to cook. Some bread, some chorizo… it’s all we need.”
“You have been so unhappy, José,” Consuela replied, and wiped her hands on the old greasy apron bound tight around her tiny waist. “I cannot make you happy in some ways, but I can cook for you.”
José gave his wife a false smile; rice with fish. The usual. Still, better than nothing. She tried so hard to please; Consuela was young and yet looked much older than her years. He worried she was sick, but perhaps it was just the average living conditions and food rations that caused the trouble. If she got sick, José doubted he would be able to afford care for her. “One day I will be happy, my love, no need for you to worry. I have my two favourite ladies here, and that is all I need.”
“You want to go home to Madrid, ¿no?” Consuela asked as she pulled the pan from the heat. At least the stove worked today.
“Claro, it’s our home, until, of course, we move to a place of our own in the country.”
“Ah, the dream of country life,” Consuela smiled and glanced out the tiny kitchen window to the narrow street four floors below them. “I like Valencia, José. It’s so different to back home in Madrid. More alive.”
“Well, we don’t know what the future holds, so let’s wait and see.”
Consuela’s gaze dropped to the floor, and José knew what that meant. She had distressing news. He put Inés down and let her scurry off in the direction of the sole bedroom. “Consuela, what’s wrong?”
“I’m… I’m afraid that time of the month has come…”
“You’re not pregnant,” José whispered.
Consuela shook her head, her eyes wet with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
José sighed and pulled his wife into his arms. He listened to her sob against his chest, the two of them together making him feel hotter under his cumbersome uniform. “Don’t be sorry. God will give us the baby we deserve when the time is right.”
“I want the time to be right now,” Consuela sniffed. “We have only one child, why can’t we do it again?”
“I don’t know how these things work.” José looked down at his crestfallen wife.
“Out here in Valencia, the food is better, the air is better, the weather is warmer, and yet back home in Madrid I managed to conceive a child.”
“I don’t think the city has much to do with it,” José half-smiled.
“Something is wrong with me… isn’t it? Three years since I had a child. Aná down on the ground floor, she has eight children now.”
“And now no husband and no way of feeding her brood. You must be careful what you wish for.”
“I suppose.” Consuela wiped her tears on the back of her hand. “God gave me a lovely husband, a beautiful daughter, a safe home, good friends. Perhaps I shouldn’t ask for more.”
“You can have more, and we will have more. One day all this will be a distant memory, and we will have a large family, I promise. Let me get changed, and then we can sit down and enjoy the family we have for now.”
“Aren’t you going to the bullring with Fermín tonight?”
“I look at his ugly face all day; I want to be at home with you.”
~~~
Teniente Fermín Belasco stood in the morning shade of the police station, cigarette in hand. He tossed it onto the uneven cobbles and stood on it when he saw his partner Morales arrive.
“Where were you last night?” Fermín asked. “You never showed up at the bullring.”
José shrugged. “I had things to do.”
“Things to do, women to do,” Fermín chuckled.
José just shook his head. “We aren’t all cabronazos like you.”
“Scumbags? Nice way to talk to the only friend you have.”
“You can see why I want to go home to Madrid if you’re all I have.”
Fermín laughed at his partner’s jests. “You didn’t miss much at the corrida. It’s disappointing. The bulls, they weren’t robust enough for the job. Small, skinny, weak. Could be money in bull breeding for fights, you know, Morales. Franco wants the tourists to come to our country, to show them the bullfighting, the flamenco girls, the food. Yet the food is shit, the girls are thin, and the bulls are crap at fighting!”
“Well, if these new rules come in the next year about cracking down on tax evasion, there will even less money to be spent on these things.”
“And we will be stuck helping catch these ‘evaders’. Bullshit.”
“They are breaking the law. Franco’s laws, which we uphold,” José replied.
“Sí, sí,” Fermín said slowly. “You were looking for more action… maybe chasing tourist dollars is better than government work.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“Qué?”
“You’re thinking about keeping a harem of flamenco girls who are all yours, and then push them out to dance for tourists and keep all the money.”
“How did you know?”
“Amigo, those women would tear you to shreds.”
“What a way to die,” Fermín sighed. “Hey, you could breed bulls on this magical farm you dream of owning.”
“Maybe I could.”
“Moving to a rural area is an outdated idea,” Fermín said and folded his arms. “Rural areas are losing people to the cities at colossal rates.”
“España has all this land, and it’s not being correctly irrigated or utilised. That’s where I come in, to save the land.”
“Great idea… with zero pesetas to spend and no experience, that should work out brilliantly.”
“Fuck you.”
“No thanks, I bought myself a quick one after the bullfight last night.”
“Charming, as always.”
“I tell you, ñaño, what I saw last night… I was off-duty, so I turned a blind eye, but…”
“What?”
“Late last night, I was in the Barrio del Carmen district, and I tell you, there are so many young girls out on the streets. So many pregnant. You can tell they’re whores. Fuck knows where they hide in the day, and fuck knows who hires them. If I’m giving out my pesetas, it’s going to a girl who doesn’t have a bastard child in her stomach.”
“That is rather disgusting.” Quick sex in an alley with a pregnant prostitute. That was the downside of being in the Guardia Civil. José knew about the side of society that civilised people didn’t see, or wanted to see. Valencia was a pleasant place, but like all cities, had its criminal element. Desperate element more like; no girl ever chose that life.
“Disgusting, yes, but… remember what you were saying yesterday, about stealing babies to order?”
José looked over his shoulder, to check that they were alone. They were standing right outside their station. “What about it?”
“You said you could act as a middleman to selling these babies to foreigners, or Spaniards, I suppose. No sense in cutting out potential local customers. We could lure all these single girls in with the promise of help, take the kids and sell them, and no one would blame us. We are the police, they’re nothing.”
“Cruel… but I like it,” José smiled. “I mean, it’s easier than stealing from married couples. More lying involved with them. We take in disgraced young girls, ones who have no support, no friends or family, and manipulate them into trusting us.”
“This is ludicrous, yet we could pull this off.”
“Is it plausible? We would need a loca
tion, a doctor and nurses, equipment, and the church would need to know because we need them to sign off the births as legitimate.”
“Couldn’t our doctor do that?”
“I suppose. I don’t know. The law states that a doctor can put adoptive parents on the birth certificate as the biological parents to make sure there can be no trail back to the natural parents.”
“We get nuns in to help deliver the babies, and have a doctor on hand… you know… just in case. The church pays us a fee for handing over the babies, and then the babies are gone. No record of the woman in a hospital, no record back to us. We would be doing God’s work. Franco’s work. We would help unfortunate babies, bastard children, socialist children, by sending them off to loving Catholic homes, maybe even overseas.”
“This is insanity.”
“Is it? Is it any different to what is going in hospitals, and will probably continue?”
“A home for pregnant women? It will look suspicious.”
“Are you worried what your wife would think?”
“I would never tell her.”
“Then don’t. Want to get rich on stolen babies?”
The conversation halted when another Teniente came out the front door. “What are you ladies doing out here?” he asked the pair.
“Shut up, López,” Fermín said. “It’s not as if we have much to do this morning.”
“How’s your son?” José asked López. He knew his infant son had been ill since birth.
“Good, good. Got some new medication and he is much better.”
“How did you afford that?” Fermín asked. “It’s not the like hospital to be of much help.”
“I got hold of medication at a good price. The boy is doing much better. I have a doctor who can get whatever we need. He steals hospital supplies and sells them from his house.”
“Shouldn’t you be arresting him for that?” José frowned.
“He helped my son. Why would I bother arresting him?”
“You could get in the shit if you get caught for that.”
“The doctor won’t tell. He was a doctor for the fucking anarchists here during the war. He is wanted for a few old crimes, and if they arrested him, he would get a bullet. But, if he gets us what we want, he goes free. If you need a doctor for anything, he’s your man.”
Fermín threw José a look. A doctor who had to keep his mouth shut for his own survival. Jackpot.
6
Valencia, España ~ Marzo de 2010
A favour. Paco made it sound like something minor. Luna’s blue eyes burned while the makeup artist put on yet more eyeliner. She had never worn so much makeup and it made her face hard. With luck, the task wouldn’t require smiling.
“Luna, you’re stunning, you know that, I’m sure,” Hector said.
Luna blinked a few times and looked over at Cayetano’s cousin and assistant. Hector stood next to her, impeccably dressed in the sharpest grey suit she had ever seen. Spanish men knew how to style themselves, and as a gay stylist, Hector was sophistication personified. “I hate this, you know that, I’m sure,” Luna mimicked him. They had taken over a simple dressing room tucked away in the halls of Valencia’s bullring. Luna hadn’t spent this much time getting ready for her own wedding.
“This photoshoot is for Spain’s biggest fashion magazine. It will come out right before your wedding and in time for San Isidro fiesta in Madrid, in May, and will boost Cayetano’s profile.”
Luna nodded while the hairdresser touched up her hair, which had been tied back tight, with the traditional fallera braids pinned on either side, which covered most of her ears. Huge gold earrings dripped from her lobes. The elaborate hairstyle consisted of two spiralled buns placed on the either side of her head, and two braids, which wound around the back of her head. She had a headache, but there was no denying the beauty of the style. Luna stood dressed in her traditional bright Las Fallas dress, with its detailed gold and red traditional design; everything she had wanted. Even a tomboy like her could appreciate this type of dress. Luna looked like a princess, and had to admit she rather liked it, even with all its layers of heavy petticoats.
Cayetano appeared in the small room in full bullfighting dress, holding his montero, his torero’s hat. “Stop fussing with my fiancé, she couldn’t be any more beautiful.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she replied.
Cayetano twirled his hat in his hands and popped it on his slicked- back hair. “Are we ready?”
“Yes,” Luna replied and dodged the lipstick touch-up coming in her direction. “Caya, I hate this.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” He stepped into the room; his bullfighting costume glistened against the light coming from the small window. The royal blue fabric, covering in its elaborate gold embroidery was so perfect that it looked as if it had been made while he wore it. Perhaps it had been.
“Are you kidding, this is fantastic!” Hector said. “Madrid’s favourite son, ‘El Valiente’ Beltrán comes to Valencia to conquer their fiesta, and take home one of their fallera girls.”
“Great, I’m a trophy now,” Luna joked.
“Don’t make this more than it is,” Cayetano said and took Luna’s hand. “This is just promos for the fashion house in return for all the free traje de luces that they make me.”
“But it’s so much more than that,” Hector said. “Madrid, the spiritual and literal ruler of Spain sends its best to Valencia to perform at Las Fallas. He is marrying a Valencian girl, a girl whose family has a long history with this beautiful little city, and is famous in her own right. Valencia sets up a cycling team to win one of the world’s biggest sporting events, and yet one of its staff marries one of Madrid’s most loved.”
“Fuck me, you blew this out of proportion,” Cayetano replied.
“None of that is going in the magazine, I hope,” Luna said. “This should showcase Cayetano, his work, his business, and his need to fulfill sponsor’s duties. I can stand here in my dress and add a bit of ‘occasion’ for the bullfight, but that’s as far as this goes. This isn’t about bloodlines, or central versus regional culture or politics.”
“Everything is, Luna. Everything the Morales family do is a symbol on some level,” Hector said.
Luna sighed. Ridiculous. “In that case, I will marry the Beltrán half of Caya.”
“And which half is that?”
“The bottom half.”
“Sweetheart, you’re doing fine,” Cayetano said. They had completed all the studio shots, he and Luna together in various poses, a series of serious and casual shots. They needed to show off the beauty and tradition of the two events the shots represented – Las Fallas and its bullfights. Now were the shots out in the bullring.
“Just get through this, and I will tell you about the big surprise I have for you,” Hector said. “I need to wait for Paco to arrive first.”
They dutifully followed the pompous and self-important photographer out into the sunshine that bathed in the silent bullring. The poses needed were all arranged, and Hector stood back while Cayetano did his duty, instructing his wife along the way. Cayetano had no problem, standing there, his shoulders back, chest out, with his sword in hand, to look like a moment stolen from his faena, his dance with the bull. Luna stood on the other side of the sword, her long arms spread back behind her, her head back, submissive in reply. No doubt when the photo got published, there would be a feminist argument or two. They provided more poses before Paco arrived to see them finishing the shoot.
“Please tell me that you have come to rescue me,” Luna said to Paco when he approached the group.
“Now, now, you will be written up as a difficult model to work with if you aren’t careful.” Paco kissed his future daughter-in-law on the cheek. “I come bearing gifts.”
“What about for me, Papá?” Cayetano joked as he draped the red cape over his arm, careful not to catch its soft fabric against the embroidery on his chaquetilla sleeve.
“Your whole life
is a gift, boy,” Paco shot back.
Luna heard Cayetano take a deep breath. When he exhaled he was angry, much like a bull in the ring. The egos of the father and son bullfighting team were too much for any ring…. or house… or anywhere.
“Do you mean the surprise?” Hector asked.
“Not that, something for the lady.” Paco paused while the photographer and his assistant began to carry their equipment away. “Luna, I got an offer this morning, to give you a designer wedding gown. Especially made for you. The designer saw your article at Christmas about the engagement and came up with a design. I saw your face while you looked at the dresses that Inés suggested. Don’t worry, I won’t tell her that you hate them.”
“Preciosa, you hate Mamá’s choices?” Cayetano asked her.
“Who is the designer?” Hector asked.
“I’m confused by who is trying to be my manager here,” Luna said.
“I assumed Papá would be, he is my manager,” Cayetano said.
“Caya, I was joking! I’m not a torero, I’m a regular, non-famous person.”
“You’re a member of our family now,” Hector said. “We will look after you. Please tell this dress has a fitted bodice to show off Luna’s tiny waist.”
“That was a gay thing to say,” Paco quipped. “What would I know about dresses? It was red, tight, frilly at the bottom.”
“We can work with this!” Hector shrieked.
“Yes, and you will look beautiful in it,” Luna said. “I want to get out of my fallera dress, so it’s perfect for the parade on Saturday. I will leave you ladies to your dress discussions.”
“Luna, wait,” Hector said. “There is one more thing.”
“I have to collect the boys from school, and Darren’s bike needs a brake pad change once he gets back from his training ride. I was supposed to be out on the course with him as it was. Kids, job, normal life, remember?”
“We are going to be in a movie, though!” Hector interjected.
“Calm down, Hector, you aren’t going to be in a movie,” Paco said. “A production company approached me, to make a documentary. A show about Cayetano; they will film his performances this year, along with interviews. Plus they will talk about my career, as well as José and his work in the breeding industry.”
Secrets of Spain Trilogy Page 47