Secrets of Spain Trilogy

by Caroline Angus Baker

  “He deserved it.” José paused and glanced at Luna. “Sorry, but he did. Here, in the old town, at least people could climb the stairs to safety, even if their apartment flooded, they had the luxury of height. Over the bridges in Campanar, so much seemed washed away.”

  “I guess that’s how the area received that massive expansion with the construction boom in the sixties.”

  “The city needed housing, and there was their chance for all new apartment blocks. I see they are all still there now. But destruction and death came near the mouth of the river. Nazaret, Malvarrosa, El Grau, El Cabanyal. Simple single level homes filled with water and mud and all the debris washed downstream collected there as it rushed into the sea. The water spared no one; I even saw kids being pulled from their coffins of mud. Some whole buildings became buried in mud. I read that the following year, the area had a minor flood because the drains and gutters were still full of mud. Draining and diverting the river was a splendid idea.”

  “So, as we drove here, and you looked into the Turia park in the old riverbed, you can imagine a far different scene.”

  “Even though the city relied on the river, and even though the river had a massive presence in the city’s long history, diversion was the right choice. I remember a young King Juan Carlos visiting here in the mid-seventies. It was in all the papers. Valencia was to be a model for the future.”

  “And then the politicians corrupted the entire province,” Luna scoffed.

  “Some had admirable intentions. My son, Jaime, came here in the seventies with the intentions of getting into politics. That’s another story, though.”

  “Perhaps Valencia is the centre of the universe.”

  “I hope not.” José looked up at the door that had once led to his home. “Luna, Caya will now come and live in Valencia with you. Because of your accident, he wants to change everything to please you. It’s not what he wants for his life, but he wants to be loyal to you. Don’t let his guilt about your accident change everything.”

  “What guilt?”

  “Caya thinks he could have done better for you, and the accident wouldn’t have happened. Don’t let him throw away who he is because of one accident.”

  “What are you scared of, José?” Luna asked as she leaned heavily on the walking cane.

  “You mean with Caya?”

  “No, I know what you’re scared of in that regard. You’re scared your grandson will choose a new path in life, one you didn’t plan. I mean, what are you scared of here in Valencia?”

  “Do you want to know?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I’m scared that the man I used to be will walk around that corner, like a ghost. I’m scared that the ghosts of the people I hurt will find me!”

  “Who did you hurt?”

  “That’s the thing about hurting someone, Luna. It doesn’t hurt one person; it has an enormous ripple effect and hurts many people. Take Aná, for example. Aná lived here, on the bottom floor. When the flood hit, she wasn’t home. They presumed Aná got washed away and out to sea with debris! She had eight children, aged from sixteen years down to just a newborn. Their mother’s death ruined their lives. I enquired about them, a few years after the flood. They were living together in a chabola, a slum shack. That’s the ripple effect. Also, a doctor and his wife… you would have liked them, they were pigs – socialists. They weren’t home at the time of the flood, and their bottom floor apartment flooded, drowning four of their five daughters. That’s another example of the ripple effect. If one person dies, many people get hurt.”

  “I understand the ripple effect of someone’s death,” Luna replied, her voice low and annoyed. “Don’t treat me like a fool, José. I’ve suffered enough fools. I want to go back to the car, I didn’t get out of the hospital to get yelled at in an alleyway in the middle of the night.”

  “Of course, let’s get you back to the car. I don’t want you to die in the street. Cayetano would be devastated.”

  Luna and José wandered back to the Mercedes parked on the edge of Plaza de la Virgen. Luna got in and rested her head on the headrest, and the dizziness began to subside. Perhaps it was the baby, not the head injury; she had all that fun still to contend with at a later date.

  They drove through the old town, José eager to take a look at everything they passed in the dark silent streets. He pulled onto the deserted Puente de Real bridge, but came to a stop, right between the identical statues of San Vicente Ferrer and San Vicente Martir. Their 400 year-old expressions looked as cold as the stone that formed them. Without a word, José got of the car and stepped onto the small footpath on the edge of the bridge. Luna hauled herself out of her seat just in time to see José lean right over the stone parapet.

  “José, what are you doing? You’ll fall.”

  “I’m just looking, that’s all. This bridge didn’t break in the flood. It has stood for 700 years; I remember them telling me when I was working here after the flood. Many floods passed under here, and this bridge stood strong.” He leaned over the stone structure and pointed across the riverbed. “The stairs down to the water are gone.”

  “They got destroyed during the bridge widening of ‘68,” Luna replied. “They tried to save them, to no avail. These statues here got destroyed in the civil war, but here they are, all repaired. That should make a God-fearing man like you happy to see saints restored.”

  José looked across the bridge, lit up with orange streetlights. He pointed to an ugly brown apartment block on the other side of the bridge. “The palace is gone.”

  “What palace?”

  “The Palacio Ripalda. It was a beautiful castle that sat right there. It got built well over 100 years ago now, for a Countess. They reckoned the interior was a mess, but the outside made it look like a fairy tale. It was Cinderella’s castle.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Probably pulled it down at the request of an idiot politician or foreigner.” José grinned and looked back at Luna. “No offence.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not a politician,” she joked and they both smiled.

  “Here,” José said with a deep sigh. “Here I spent three days pulling mud and logs out from under this bridge with my own hands.”

  “Once, Cayetano came to Valencia to surprise me, and kissed me under this bridge.”

  José half-smiled at Luna. “I’m glad it has at least one happy memory. I climbed down the broken stairs and dug until my arms hurt. There, I found the body of my friend, Fermín.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  José shrugged. “These things happen. Fermín got swept away in the flood. I was trying to save a young girl and Fermín came to my aid. The girl survived, and grew up to be a nun, of all things. I received a medal for saving a child, and Fermín drowned in a torrent of mud.”

  “I don’t know what to say…”

  “There is nothing to be said. After Fermín died, a chapter closed in my life, and I moved home to Madrid. As I said earlier, he is buried at the Valencia cemetery. Do you know there are about 27,000 bodies in six giant fosas outside the cemetery? If you want to disturb dead Republicans, you should start there, not in the mountains.”

  “What’s so bad about digging in the mountains?”

  “It’s hard to gain closure when people die, no matter how they perish. You of all women would know that. Sometimes, even out of something bad, something good can flourish. People put the past behind them. My sons have a link to those mountains, and I don’t want you to find it.”

  “Now, with my head injury, digging might have to stop… plus one day, I’ll be busy with more children.”

  José snapped his head towards Luna, and he stood up straight. “Cayetano never said anything.”

  “I’m not saying I’m having a baby now, just in the future.” Luna hadn’t told Giacomo and Enzo yet. They had to know first.

  “I would die a happy man if you had a child with my Caya. A child, from the line of my daughter and grandson.”

&nb
sp; “You’ll be a happy man, I promise.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I bet you never planned on saying those words to me.”

  “No, I didn’t. Maybe this is what we need, to leave all the ghosts of the past alone.”

  “Maybe you’re right. But first, tell me about meeting Franco.”

  42

  Valencia, España ~ Noviembre de 1957

  José wished he was in uniform. He felt like an officer upholding Spain’s laws when he wore it. Instead, he wore the finest grey suit he had ever owned. Consuela smoothed her hands over it dozens of times as she fussed over her husband. But surely uniform was the better option?

  “Are you sure you don’t need your uniform?” Consuela asked as she stood next to her husband.

  “How did you know I thought that?”

  “I know my husband.”

  José looked down at Consuela, jammed in the crowd around them. Voices cried out over Plaza del Caudillo as they stood in front of the Town Hall building, one of the most beautiful spots in the city. Girls in their traditional Valencian fallera dresses shivered as they stood on the roadside while thousands of people waited with impatience.

  “They must be close now,” Consuela said over the noise. She wound her arm around her husband’s waist, and José experienced the warmth of her chocolate brown fur coat. His wife looked like a million pesetas. Today would be the greatest of José’s life.

  The crowd began to scream on the other side of the huge plaza, and José looked over those shorter than him. In the distance, Franco’s car had entered the plaza, to the cheers of the locals. Signs praising the consummate leader waved in a frenzy as people of all ages cheered and clapped. White handkerchiefs waved to him, just as they had when he first came to the city in 1939, when he won the war.

  José’s heart pounded as the car drew closer to the Town Hall building, its final destination. He stood right near the entrance to the building, with the group of men considered notable enough to be allowed inside to meet the Caudillo. Nearby stood Teniente Roig from the Campanar barrio. He mentioned earlier that he had received a promotion for his bravery. While his area was widely damaged, Roig had survived unscathed inside the church after pulling the young girl to safety. He had then gone on to save many more locals before the second flood hit the city. Roig joked to José and Consuela that he needed the promotion and pay-rise; his wife had just given birth to a son, and she wanted the boy to become a surgeon one day. Roig was so relieved that his wife and son survived the flood; the barracks near the port where they lived was badly damaged.

  José felt Consuela tighten her grip on him as the massive open top car approached, and José got a pain in his side. The flood may have been ten days ago now, but his injuries remained. Stitches still scarred his forehead, and the vast bruise, which ran diagonally along his face, continued to hurt José. The rope had pulled him off the statue of José Ribera and into the government building window, saving his life. But it left him with a bruise that hadn’t healed before he met Franco. The blow to the head as he fell against the building still made him dizzy. But nothing could keep him away, not even a broken and battered body… or soul.

  “If only Fermín could be here,” Consuela said as she waved to Franco. The car was just meters away and came to a stop outside the shining white pillars outside the grand building. “You gave such a beautiful speech at his funeral last week, my darling.”

  José smiled, but no emotion sat behind it. José’s mind filled with hideous images every time he blinked, but finding Fermín’s body was the worst. His body, swollen with water, his skin greasy and wrinkled, mud oozing from his mouth, nose, ears, his eyes bulging…

  José snapped from his internal ordeal and focused on the moment before him. There he was, Caudillo Francisco Franco himself. He stood in the back of the open-top car as he waved to the crowds around him. He wore a perfect white military suit, decorated with all his accolades. His ever present green military hat covered his baldness, and he wore dark sunglasses. The late autumn Valencian sun had come out over its inhabitants despite the cool temperatures. José stood still with Consuela as Franco got out of the car and was ushered into the enormous double doors of the building by many aides and guards. Many of them had been accompanying the procession on motorbikes.

  “Llegar,” said a man who stood near José. He wore one of the green uniforms owned by Franco’s guards. “You can come inside now if you wish. Caudillo Franco will address the crowd and then you can line up to meet him.”

  The small group of around thirty people all eagerly followed the man inside. The chants of ‘Franco, Franco’ were a little less deafening when they entered the grand entrance of the building. José watched Consuela look around in amazement as they climbed the wide white granite staircase, which wound itself way up to the second level. Franco was ready to speak to his beloved population, from the all-important high-ceiling second floor balcony, which lorded over the plaza with the flags of Spain flying in the autumn breeze.

  “Señora?” a woman said as they walked into the large ballroom that led out to Franco on the balcony. José watched Consuela be led away, to stand back with other wives in the far corner. José got shuffled into a line, ready to meet his idol. Through the double glass doors, Franco stood with his back to José and waved to the masses. The chanting, ‘Franco, Franco’ endured as the Caudillo addressed the crowd. Plaza del Caudillo was picture-perfect for Franco; the water had receded and the mud scrubbed away. The flower market below ground level would recover in time. The buildings and shops in the plaza needed to be clean and dry for Franco’s arrival, and the people had rallied. They stood there, proud of their country, the city, optimistic in the face of the tragedy thrust upon them a week and a half earlier. For the first time, José was proud to be in Valencia.

  Minutes passed in a flash for José. He could hear Franco speak, but was too spellbound to listen. The moment Franco waved goodbye to the masses, he turned and got directed to shake hands with the two dozen men to be given an audience. José kept his eyes fixed on Franco, unable to hear the conversations going on, but assumed they discussed gratitude for service to Valencia. José stood last in line, and prayed he wouldn’t be rushed. This was his moment.

  Franco stepped forward and put out his hand to José. The man, the great leader, was a tiny person of five-foot-three and José self-consciously hunched his tall frame as he shook Franco’s small wrinkled hand. José hoped he didn’t smell like cigarette smoke; he knew Franco forbade smoking in his presence. Without his sunglasses, he seemed less intimidating, less authoritative, less threatening. José noticed how greasy what little hair Franco had looked around his hat. His short moustache was almost entirely grey, and it covered his thin top lip.

  “Your name?” Franco asked, his voice croaky. The loud speech must have hurt the 65-year-old’s surprisingly gentle voice.

  “Teniente José Morales Ruiz.”

  An aide, a tall bald man in a Guardia Civil uniform, stepped forward and spoke in Franco’s ear. “This officer is to be awarded the bravery medal, for his actions during the flood.”

  “I see,” Franco said and glanced at the medal the aide held in his hands. The bore a symbol for the state of Valencia, along with the Spanish flag, and José’s name, with the fabric striped in appropriate red and yellow. “Teniente,” Franco said as he inspected the medal. “I suspect you will gain a promotion. Perhaps we shall see you as a Capitán or Comandante soon.”

  “I will do my duty in any role I am given the opportunity to serve, Caudillo,” José said with nerves in his voice.

  Franco fumbled to pin the medal on José’s lapel. He resisted the urge to help frail old man. “Tell me, Teniente Morales, what did you do to deserve such a medal?”

  “Many things, Caudillo,” the aide said for José. “Teniente Morales was over the river in Campanar, a small district obliterated by the flood. He helped Teniente Roig, whom you just met, rescue a drowning child, the daughter of one of Valenci
a’s richest businessmen. During the rescue operation, he got swept into the flood waters. Teniente Morales sustained a head injury when climbing a rope into the top floor of a building on the edge of the river.”

  “I can see,” Franco said and gestured to José’s battered face. “Are you recovering, Teniente?”

  “I am, gracias, Caudillo.”

  “Teniente Morales, despite his injury, awoke from his pain as the torrent dropped and went straight into the flooded streets to see if anyone needed help. He located the body of one of Valencia’s most praised priests. Teniente Morales shielded civilians from the pain of finding such a sight. He then went on to rescue eight children trapped in a flooded house.”

  “Amazing,” Franco said, but his brown eyes didn’t express any happiness. “Eight children rescued? You are truly brave.”

  “Teniente Morales then spent just two days recovering from his injuries before getting out to clear the streets of mud and stabilise bridges over the river. He searched for the body of his missing Guardia Civil partner, scooping up mud with his bare hands.”

  “Did you find the man?” Franco asked José.

  “Sí, Caudillo. I found him in the riverbed under a bridge. We buried Teniente Belasco a few days ago, with full honours.”

  “You have done your city a great service.”

  “In fact, Madrid is my home city.”

  “Oh?”

  “I arrived here after a few years in Albacete. I serve where I’m needed.”

  Franco nodded as José spoke, and José couldn’t believe the man’s interest in his humble tales. But José had heard that Franco was a listener, not a talker. “Tell me, Teniente, what are your plans for the future?”

  This was José’s one and only chance. “Caudillo, I one day want to return to Madrid, to serve in the Guardia Civil. Perhaps one day I could work my way up to the Brigada Especial.”

  “You wish to work in my special forces?”

  “Maybe one day I will be ready for the job, Caudillo.”

  “That’s very ambitious. Tell me what you think about Communism.”