Secrets of Spain Trilogy

by Caroline Angus Baker

  Luna glanced up and saw Cayetano peek through the gap in the door. Her face stuck in a hard blank expression before she reached out and touched Giacomo’s forehead and she shook her head. Cayetano stepped back, and she came through the door a moment later, but left it open. Without a word, she walked around him and out into the living room. Cayetano took a deep breath and followed her, to find Luna on the couch with her eyes closed.

  “I can’t pretend I know how you feel right now,” Luna began. “But as long as you don’t want me, I can’t help you.”

  “No, you can’t understand the humiliation I suffered. I saw you cry, you felt ashamed, just like me.”

  “I was upset and angry that other people have the power to treat you with such disrespect. I didn’t feel ashamed of you. Not one of those crowd members could do what you do. Yet they sit and laugh, and we take the blows.”

  “We argued tonight, and I couldn’t concentrate. I broke my rhythm. I broke my near-perfect record. I have had to stab a bull twice a few times, never four times, and never at home. I have already been criticised for taking a whopping pay-cheque during a financial crisis. How will I book fights for next year after all this?”

  “I guess my mere existence is a problem for you.”

  “Right now, yes!”

  “Don’t raise your voice to me,” Luna warned. “If you wake my sick boys then your tantrum tonight will be minor in comparison to my anger.”

  “Tantrum? I’m suffering right now!”

  “What do you want me to do about it? Be your punching bag?”

  “I don’t even want to see you.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Caya. I came to tell you that I would move to Madrid, and that I had found a solution to all our recent problems. I don’t even know why I bothered. You promised to make the move easy, and yet you humiliated me in front of everyone tonight. Gilberto, who gave me a ride home, by the way, filmed the whole thing.”

  “Your humiliation is minor compared to what I’m going through now.”

  “Is that why you’re being a colossal asshole to me right now? What do you want me to say?”

  “I want you to say sorry for ruining everything for me!”

  “Fine. Sorry I ruined your fight. I didn’t realise my presence, my sacrifices, would ruin your fight. I wouldn’t have come to Madrid had I known. If you don’t want me to be part of your life, I won’t move here. I can stay out of your way.”

  Cayetano swallowed hard and a lump, probably of ego, got caught in his throat. She sounded sincere; he had succeeded in making her feel like shit for what she had done. “I need space from you, Luna. I can’t think straight right now. I’m going to bed.”

  “Bed? Caya, it’s nine-thirty. We haven’t even had dinner.”

  “I couldn’t eat anything, not with you.” Cayetano turned and headed for the door to the hallway. “If I want to lie in bed and think about my demise tonight, that’s my choice. You have to sleep out there. I want to stay away from you.”

  Hours. It took hours before Cayetano fell asleep. He thought of Luna lying on the couch on her own, hopefully remorseful for how she had ruined his night. She needed to learn her place. She couldn’t go and do things that went against all he knew, like arguing with his family. Digging up bodies needed to stay hidden, if only to keep the peace at home. He woke alone several times in the night to hear footsteps in the hallway; Luna must have been with the feverish and sad little ones.

  When Cayetano woke, light shone around the edge of his curtain; the sun had risen after the night from hell. With a heavy heart, he hauled himself from the bed and looked at himself in the mirror. Tired, battered. What would he find in the living room? The children, their fevers broken? Luna alone, still asleep on the couch? Only one way to find out.

  The living room sat in silence. A blanket sat folded on the couch; Cayetano picked it up and smelled Luna’s perfume against the fabric. Giacomo and Enzo must have still been in bed, odd for them at nine in the morning, sick or not. Cayetano ventured down the hallway and popped his head in the door. The room was soulless. Their beds were made, with no sign of life.

  Cayetano went back into the living room and looked for Luna’s things; bag, keys, shoes, anything. Nothing. He noticed a piece of paper on the table.

  The boys need to see the doctor at home. That should give you all the space you need

  Cayetano looked around the silent apartment. As he slept in, Luna had got the boys up and gone home without a word. The worst part was that Cayetano didn’t care. All the fighting had finally run its course. He didn’t want Giacomo and Enzo to be unwell, but it was the perfect excuse to get away from Luna. How Luna felt about having space, Cayetano didn’t care.

  30

  Madrid, España ~ Mayo de 2010

  “If I had done well, no one would have written a thing. But since I failed, it’s prominent news.”

  Cayetano tossed the newspaper down on his parents’ coffee table in the conservatory and looked out over the swimming pool, empty as the cleaners gave it a scrub in preparation for summer.

  “Caya,” Paco said to gain his attention, to no avail. “Cayetano, you need to stop sulking like a little kid.”

  “Men fail in the ring at times,” José added. “At least you didn’t need someone to come and finish the bull off for you. That would be humiliating.”

  “And a crowd of 25,000 people jeering at me wasn’t humiliating?” Cayetano kept his eyes fixed on the pool cleaners. Bet they never had days like this one.

  “You got through the first fight without any problems. It wasn’t ear-worthy, but it was expedient,” José said. “It was when you lost your nerve with the second bull that things got out of hand. That bull was one corpulent asshole. Strong, and angry as hell.”

  “Cayetano should be able to deal with them,” Paco said. “He is better than what he did last night.”

  “Thanks, Papá, rub in the pain,” Cayetano muttered.

  “Caya, look at your father,” José ordered.

  Cayetano shifted in his white armchair and looked at Paco. Through the doorway, he could see his mother in the kitchen, pretending not to listen in on the chat. “I am 40 years old. Did you have people bossing you around at my age?”

  “No,” Paco snapped. “My parents were long dead. José’s parents got blown to pieces by bombers flying over this city. Don’t be such a fucking smart-ass. You’re of the generation of Spaniard who had everything handed to them.”

  “Life wasn’t always simple.”

  “No, it wasn’t. God knows how tough things were when you were young, especially in the seventies,” Paco commented. “Remember when Jaime was in prison?”

  “How could I forget?” José replied. “My son locked up for stupid political charges.”

  “Luckily we had the right connections to get him released.”

  “I didn’t know uncle Jaime was in jail,” Cayetano commented.

  “That has nothing to do with right now,” José said. “Caya, we understand how serious this pathetic fight is in terms of your career. But people make mistakes. They recover. Yes, money is an issue, with bullfighters finding it harder to get decent pay-outs for performing. You’ve been paid for this one, so for now, things are okay.”

  Cayetano pointed at a copy of El Mundo on the coffee table. “Yes, but they are poking fun at the fact I ‘syphoned’ €400,000 from the Town Hall for my shit performance. That won’t go away.”

  “This will go away,” Paco said. “I’m very disappointed in you, Caya. I can’t pretend otherwise. But all professionals have lousy days in their chosen fields.”

  “Shit happens,” José added. “It’s not as if you were dragging murdered bodies. Trust me; that sticks with you.”

  They paused for a moment as the sound of the doorbell echoed through the huge house. Cayetano noticed his mother go in the direction of the entrance way.

  Paco glanced over his shoulder and turned back. “Cayetano, did you apologise to Luna? Your mother was lo
oking forward to having Luna try on her wedding dress here today. You’re one bride short.”

  “Maybe that’s for the best,” José quipped. “The woman is a curse. Women tend to be.”

  “No, I didn’t apologise. She went home this morning with the boys. I asked for space, and she gave it to me.”

  “That’s because you’re an asshole,” a voice said behind them.

  Cayetano glanced up to see his sister Sofía behind Paco and José.

  “Gracias, Sofía, that helps.”

  “I didn’t come here to help you, you mouthy sack of shit.” Sofía sat down on the couch next to her father. “I came here because I’m the bridesmaid in this stupid wedding, and when I texted the bride, she told me that she was alone in Valencia with sick children. You haven’t called her. The boys both have ear infections, by the way. Thanks for not checking in with them.”

  Cayetano sighed so much he almost sucked all the oxygen from the sunlit room. “Of course I care about Giacomo and Enzo.”

  “When you adopt children, you have to treat them like your own,” José warned. “It’s hard, but true.”

  “Thanks, Papí. One minute you hate my life choices, next telling me to try harder. You make no sense. Besides, I haven’t adopted them yet, that’s for after the wedding.”

  Sofía slapped a magazine down on the coffee table before her brother. “Thought you might like a copy of this one.”

  Cayetano scooped up the glossy magazine. On the front cover was the photo of him, ‘naked’ under his cape, lying in the centre of the Rebelión ring. Luna lay ‘naked’ against him, cleverly covered by the cape. The fire in his eyes, if only he had that today.

  “At least this article has been released,” Paco mentioned as Cayetano skimmed through the eight-page spread. “Takes the heat off last night a little bit. Everyone will forget about the fight after looking at provocative photos.”

  “The aficionados, the people I need to impress, won’t think much of this,” Cayetano mumbled without looking up from the page.

  “Yes, your fiancé does look like a million Euros. She reads well, too. Intelligent and knowledgeable. Sailed through the questions. Spoke her mind on many subjects, including her dislike for naked photos in magazines. Stop looking at yourself all the time, Caya,” Sofía interrupted.

  Cayetano pursed his lips and glanced over the page, emblazoned with Luna’s shining smile, and looked at his angry sister. “Have you become Luna’s best friend? Where’s the love, Sofía?”

  “I want to know what happened that drove Luna back to Valencia. She said you had words after your fight, but she was very diplomatic. You know how she is; she couldn’t bear to share something private.”

  “Caya was an asshole to her last night. We all got an earful, but Luna took more blows than most,” Paco said to his daughter.

  “Women are the curse of the torero,” José said. “And plenty of other things, too.”

  “Yes, Papí,” Sofía shot back. “Here we are, penis-free and ruining the world with ‘ideas’ and ‘freedoms’.”

  “Don’t speak like that, Sofía,” Inés said as she appeared in the doorway.

  “Why do you hate Luna so much, Papí?” Sofía asked.

  “I don’t hate Luna. I hate her digging into things that aren’t her business.”

  “I was nasty to Luna at first,” Paco added. “That was a mistake. Luna may poke her nose into the past, but it has to be done.”

  “And these new bodies at Escondrijo? What the hell has she done?” José asked.

  “She will have the bodies removed. Hopefully they can find a living relative or somewhere where they can be reburied nearby. The cemetery at Náquera or Serra I guess,” Cayetano said. His eyes remained fixed on the magazine in his hands.

  “Maybe you should let her do that,” Paco said.

  “Let her? I don’t get an opinion!”

  “Why should you?” Sofía argued. “It’s none of your business.”

  “It was our family she unearthed a few months ago,” José added.

  “She was interested in the Beltrán history, not the Morales family,” Cayetano corrected him.

  José glanced over at his granddaughter. She sat there, her dark brown eyes full of fire, her dark hair long and tied back. She was the spitting image of Inés when she was young. “Sofía, my dearest, why don’t you go and say hello to your abuela? She is in bed, but I’m sure she would like your company. Your mother will go with you.”

  “You mean everyone with a vagina needs to leave,” Sofía whispered as she got up, and Cayetano smiled at his sister.

  José waited until his daughter and granddaughter had gone. “I don’t hate women. I just don’t like them sticking their noses in where they don’t belong.”

  “Welcome to the 21st century, Papí,” Cayetano replied. “Women, like this one right here,” he paused and pointed to a glowing Luna on the cover of the magazine, “have plenty to say and do.”

  “Let me tell you a story,” José said and sat back in his armchair. “When we first left that shithole of Valencia, I got a job in the special forces, working to uncover this country’s most filthy bastards. The easiest way to get at these men was to hurt the women who crawled into bed with them at night. Once you had these girls in the cells, stripped naked for searches before prison visitation, they belonged to me, and they gave up their secrets. I learned no woman can be trusted.”

  Cayetano paused and thought of the day José told him he had been recruited to hurt women; rape, murder, torture. The details were still unclear. “How could you do that to people? I don’t understand…”

  “What would you do, if someone threatened Luna?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Then you’re marrying the wrong girl. If she doesn’t produce a fire in your belly, she’s not strong enough for marriage.”

  ‘Thanks, Papí. I have been married before, a whole decade if you remember. I have it right this time, I’m sure. I just don’t feel the need to express my masculinity by hurting people to defend Luna.”

  “Women love that,” Paco remarked.

  “Maybe some of them do. Luna wouldn’t,” Cayetano replied.

  “Modern women are too complicated. One day you will find you can be pushed further than you think, my boy,” José said with a smug smile. “Once you get the hang of a job, everything is fine. I always said I had been born late. Had I been in the forces during the forties, I could have lined up rojos, rebel sympathisers, and shot them. By the time I had my face before Franco in Madrid, most of them were already dead, or as good as. In the early sixties, a new breed of defectors were coming out of the woodwork; assassinations, coups, terrorism. I was proud to be part of the solution to these problems. Franco reigned another decade even after I left to run Rebelión.”

  “So, with all you’ve seen and done, what does it matter about Luna digging up old bodies? What are you scared of her finding at Escondrijo?”

  “Old grievances lie in the dirt all over Spain, Cayetano. They need to stay there. You are embarking on becoming a husband and father. Why does it matter what happened in the past? Why should it matter to your foreign wife? Why doesn’t she care enough about her sons to leave it alone?”

  “She cares about her boys, very much. And foreign? Luna’s grandfather was Spanish, the son of the King himself.”

  “Yes, but her grandfather was on the wrong side of the war. Spain belongs to people like us. We just need to get those dirty socialists out of the government and things can return to normal.”

  Paco rolled his eyes, and Cayetano tried not to smile. Poor Paco, living his whole life in a Falangist family, harbouring secret dreams of exercising his own beliefs. “I understand you, Papí, I do. I too think things need to be left alone. No good can come from digging up these people. But when you look at Luna, so desperate to find her grandfather, or at least his body… how could you deny her that part of her family? Everyone else was already dead, and she needed peace. She found it. T
his new grave could do that for someone else.”

  “You need to put individual peace aside for the greater good,” José replied.

  “This argument is like a broken record,” Paco said. “Padre, leave the boy be, would you? He agrees with you; the past should stay buried. The fact is, the bickering is hurting the present, it’s hurting Luna, and Cayetano’s life with her.”

  “There will be bodies all over the bloody hillside in Valencia. Who knows who she will find next,” José retorted.

  “Are you scared of what she will find?” Cayetano asked.

  “I’m scared she will interrupt the peace we enjoy.”

  Paco shook his head. “Can we stop this now? While I love anything that distracts you from sulking about last night, can we move on from this subject? The girl is digging up the bodies, and they will be stored away and forgotten. It’s not worth the drama. But, Caya, you need to apologise to Luna about last night. We can get Gilberto to replay what he filmed if you like, maybe it will make you feel more guilty. Luna didn’t do anything. From what your mother told me, she was trying to bend over backwards for you, for us, for the business.”

  “I have a fight in Salamanca at the end of the week. I’ll go and see her after that.”

  “And before that? I wouldn’t go a day without speaking to your mother, before and after we married.”

  “Look how that worked out, getting my only daughter pregnant behind my back,” José commented.

  “I wasn’t going to get her pregnant while you watched,” Paco fired back, and Cayetano cringed. Yuck.

  “Imagine how much trouble Luna will get into while you’re away,” José mused. “More cycling drug scandals? More dead bodies? And what’s this about her and Miguel?’