Secrets of Spain Trilogy

by Caroline Angus Baker

  “Go with him,” Luna said to Cayetano, who darted after his father. Paco disappeared inside the house, through the rickety wooden door, banging the heavy stonework. Cayetano followed straight after, without looking back to the burial site.

  “I have many relatives panic at the moment of exhumation,” Jorge said and dabbed his forehead with his arm, just above his clear rubber glove. He brushed his dark hair behind his ear and put his hands on his hips; Jorge’s clothes were already filthy. “I’ve had people panic and scream at me; I’ve had people throw themselves into the burial pit in despair, tears and wailing. I’ve seen it all. When a person is of your blood, everything changes.”

  “Paco is still grieving for his wife, like his father would have been doing when Sofía was buried here,” Luna said, and glanced at the double storey house, which sat in silence. Rubén and Alicia stood behind the truck, having a drink of water. They, too, understood discretion at these times.

  Jorge gestured to his assistants to return and, with Luna in attendance, they slipped the coffin lid onto the ground. “Luna, you can wait elsewhere, if you need.”

  “One of my earliest memories is of my mother being taken away after she died. Years later, my father died in my arms. I had to help load his body onto a trolley to get put in the hearse. A few years later, I saw my husband’s body, all scraped and battered after being hit by a car. At the risk of sounding disrespectful, this doesn’t compare to what I’ve already seen.”

  Jorge nodded and motioned to Luna, to gaze inside the coffin. The body seemed at peace; Sofía lay with her hands on her chest, her arms folded with care. The wedding ring sat on the bone of her finger. This woman had given birth to Paco, with Luna’s grandmother, Scarlett, in attendance. Scarlett had watched Sofía die, and had murdered the two women who had refused to help Sofía during her labour. Of all the lies, secrets and murders that had crossed between the Beltrán and Montgomery families, just Sofía had truly clean hands. The death of this poor young woman started off a vicious ending for everyone she knew.

  “It’s rare to find a body so intact, so tenderly buried. We see such violence when digging up mass graves; injuries, bullet wounds, carelessness…” Jorge said, his voice quiet.

  “I think we should move the coffin into the truck,” Luna suggested. “Let’s make this easy for Paco.”

  By the time Cayetano and Paco returned from the house, Sofía Perez was in the safety of the truck, ready for a slow journey to Madrid. Digging was well underway for the body of Cayetano Ortega, as the bullfighting father and son duo came back to the dig. Luna hovered nearby for an hour, as the three experts unearthed a skeleton with brushes and tiny shovels. Paco had eyes red from crying, but Luna didn’t mention it; the conversation in the house could wait for another time.

  “The body is lying face down,” Paco commented as he and Cayetano took in the sight of Luna’s grandfather.

  “Indeed,” Jorge muttered as he examined the body at close quarters. Alicia continued to brush at the skull while Rubén photographed the grave site. “The association finds many buried face down. Probably because their killers considered the people they murdered to be nothing, to be vile and worthy of a cheap death.” Jorge stood next to Luna. “So many killed during the civil war got treated like stray dogs. Some rolled as they were forced into a shared graves and landed face down. Sometimes bodies are laid out as if given some care, but many got dragged and dumped. It depends on who did the actual burial – the killers and their minions, or relatives or strangers who came across the bodies. I can’t see any obvious cause of death yet.”

  “Cayetano Ortega was shot in the back at close range,” Luna reminded Jorge. “Alejandro shot him in the back and he fell against Luna and baby Paco. Luna rolled him over and saw the bullet hole in his chest.”

  “Okay, well, once we have got Señor Ortega uncovered, we may find clues in the bones around the chest. He was once a Republican soldier?”

  “Yep, my grandparents were both anarchists,” Luna replied.

  “I half-expected to find his boots; they wore heavy black boots, but Señor Ortega was barefoot when he died.”

  “Or Alejandro took the boots, and anything he thought he might need,” Paco said, his arms folded over his chest.

  “This is the man I got named after,” Cayetano said with raised eyebrows.

  “This is the man my biological father murdered in cold blood,” Paco added.

  “More a case of grief, panic and drunkenness, not cold, hard murder,” Luna sighed.

  “Murder is murder.”

  “What happens now?” Cayetano asked Jorge. “Surely we can’t just dig people up and move them. One has bullet wounds. Isn’t it a murder investigation? Don’t we need to call the police or someone?”

  “We can register this dig as one orchestrated by the association, a civil war killing. It’s not a lie – Señor Beltrán shot Señor Ortega during the war. Señora Perez died giving birth, and the family couldn’t bury her in a cemetery at the difficult time. The ‘pact of forgetting’ covers bodies we find killed during the civil war and dictatorship period. Revenge and justice get denied to these people. It’s the same with the other four bodies in the grave up the mountain; even if you could prove José Morales was the murderer, nothing can be done. The killers are dead. All those who need notifying will get contacted through the association.”

  “I suppose this dig is a drop in the ocean for you,” Paco commented to Jorge. “You dig up mass graves; people torn from their homes in the middle of the night and killed on the outskirts of town. People sentenced to die for no wrong-doing at all. Men and women killed for things as serious as perceived treason, to unrestrained vengeances against one another.”

  “I want to give justice to everyone I can,” Jorge said. “Families have been denied the truth, bodies, funerals, death certificates. Children of those people should not have grown old with evil in their histories. This man, Señor Ortega, fought in the war and was killed by a fellow man, a close friend, as they panicked while Francoism grasped onto Spain. Everyone is equally important.”

  “Thank you, Jorge. This man here changed my life, by accident,” Luna said. “I wish my father could have lived to see the moment his own father’s body got exhumed.”

  “In this case, I suggest we dig out a large chunk of the earth and move the remains to Madrid,” Jorge explained. “Because we know the details of the death, and the fact we don’t need to be looking for a bullet or any clues as to the identity. We should photograph the body in exact detail, as we did with Señora Perez’s grave, and then move Señor Ortega’s in the dirt to preserve this state until we reach the lab. We have equipment to achieve this. You can have your land grave-free today.”

  “Wow, so simple after 75 years of hiding,” Luna said.

  “We’ll take good care of Señor Ortega and Señora Perez, I can assure you.”

  “Jorge, we trust you all,” Cayetano said. “How long before the paperwork gets done, and we can rebury the bodies in Madrid?”

  “Bureaucracy,” Jorge replied with a forced smile, and Alicia and Rubén nodded with sarcastic grins. “I’ll let you know, but you can carry on with normal life while we carry out the paperwork necessary.”

  “I’m sure you need to get back to your dig outside Cuenca. How many bodies?” Luna asked.

  “Fourteen,” Jorge sighed. “But we had trouble arranging the bulldozer and digger but all will be on track next week.”

  “I can hurry through my donation to the association if you need money right away.”

  “No, no, it’s not money, but thanks for saving the association. We’ll have a party in your honour, in Madrid.”

  “That isn’t necessary,” Luna dismissed Jorge and touched the finger of her grandfather. Through her rubber glove, she could feel the bumps in the bone of a man with large hands. Her grandfather. Cayetano Ortega Medina, a man who never had the chance to live. The bastard child of an exiled King, who found a home in anarchism, only to get kil
led in a war that his side could never win.

  “Are you all right?” Cayetano asked Luna.

  “I want the world to know what happened out here,” she replied to her husband and looked up to Cayetano and Paco. “These people, our relatives, and the other bodies at Escondrijo. Justice may never get served, but they don’t need to be forgotten either. The vicious attack on Sofía Perez while in labour. How, pregnant, Scarlett Montgomery got chased from Spain. How Cayetano Ortega got shot in the back. How Alejandro Beltrán got forced into a concentration camp and then lived as a scared hermit until death. How Luna Beltrán got forced to marry a gay Falangist for their mutual safety and then died young after raising her brother’s baby. That baby and his son went on to rule bullfighting. The story needs to be heard. And the story of the four others found here - of Adán, Rosalía, Aná and Carmelita. Everyone’s story needs to be heard. It’s the only justice they will ever get.”

  29

  Valencia, España ~ Octobre de 1975

  The train rumbled into Estacio del Norte just after midnight. Jaime had spent the journey from Madrid in the first-class carriage, but even the plush seating didn’t make him even a little comfortable. Jose thought Jaime was in Madrid; there to help with the work on Paco’s new home in La Moraleja. Paco was kind enough to cover for his younger brother-in-law, and Jaime grabbed the first train to Valencia. He had most of the carriage to himself for the long journey, which had stopped in more towns than Jaime cared to recall. As the train rattled along the tracks in the darkness, Jaime had wanted to cry like a little kid. He felt lost; this was why Jose and Consuela controlled so much of his life. Jaime was just a boy; the family steered his education and now his career, they picked his future bride and mother of his children. So many things could go wrong, but Jaime had the protection of his family and didn’t realise its worth until now. Now, a girl he barely knew was pregnant with his baby. The safe, if dull, planned marriage to Isadora was gone; it was Luis who loved her, who would have that life if Jose allowed it to happen. Ines married Paco; they had success, love and two children. Pedro almost got killed in a bomb blast and met and married Jovana Campos. Luis was in love with the girl next door. Not you, Jaime. You’ve got nothing. You’ve fallen for a girl who thinks nothing of you and will kill your baby.

  What does a terrorist dress like? Jaime stood outside the splendid white train station, next to the bullring where Paco had performed just two months ago. Valencia didn’t have Madrid’s chill. The wind didn’t blow through his wide lapel blue jacket, making him shiver, and the flares on the bottoms of his jeans didn’t move and make the hairs on his legs stand up. It was mid-autumn, but Valencia seemed still, at least in terms of weather. Like the rest of the country, Valencia was ready to stand up and voice their opposition to the uncertainty facing its inhabitants as Franco lay on his death bed.

  Bomb the Town Hall. What an idiotic notion. Jaime sat in the back of a dusty taxi, one of many out on the streets of the city. The car passed the Town Hall in Plaza del Caudillo; the tall white curved turrets lit up against the night sky. The whopping wooden doors looked shut tight, guards on the marble stairs. The second-floor balcony had a single light on as if waiting for someone of note to come and give a speech. Bomb this place? What would be the point? Jaime hadn’t even asked Alazne her aims or intentions. Perhaps she had none; just a desire to do something stupid and reckless. But for the first time in his life, as he drove through the labyrinth of Valencia, Jaime felt lost. Life had been so easy until now. Perhaps Alazne had always felt this lost.

  Jaime pulled his little brown suitcase from the taxi, which dropped him in Plaza del Carmen, outside a shut church. The square was still full of people, sitting around between the trees, talking. Men smoked with one hand in their pocket. Women huddled in groups, their voices loud and perky; children ran between the adults. Even with summer long gone, people had come out of their homes to see one another. Someone would know where to find Calle de Cabrito.

  “Are you lost, little rich boy?”

  Jaime turned to the sound of Alazne’s voice, and there she stood, her hands in her pockets, a smile on her face. She still wore Inés’ enormous grey sweater. For a girl who had just discovered she was pregnant to a practical stranger, Alazne looked quite relaxed, her blonde hair seemed slicked back, and she stood like a girl going for a stroll, not planning a bombing.

  “I saw you get out of the taxi,” Alazne continued. “Come on, I’ll show you where Apolinar lives.”

  The pair started their walk down narrow Calle de Museo, against the back of the grey stone church. The crowd of locals fell away, and Jaime shivered in the sudden cold between the three and four storey buildings. “Does Apolinar mind me coming to stay?” Jaime asked. “I don’t know him.”

  “Apolinar is a friend of mine; he will accept anyone ready to help the project.”

  “The bombing.”

  “The bombing. We have four; me, Apolinar, and two friends, Raul and Davíd. They arrive tomorrow. You’re the only other person who knows the plan.”

  “Why invite me?”

  “Why not?”

  “If you just wanted me here with you, because, you know…”

  “Because of the accident?” Alazne gestured at her stomach as they turned into a tiny alleyway that smelled most unpleasant. “I can take care of the accident.”

  “I can pay. What does a nun charge for an illegal abortion these days?”

  “Keep your voice down,” Alazne chastised him. “The nuns charge 1000 pesetas.”

  “What?” Jaime squealed.

  “Don’t worry, Apolinar can pay, since he has the gift of pickpocketing. He can raise that much that pay for the abortion. After all, he raises enough to pay for this apartment each week.”

  “I can give you the money. I get paid a lot for working for Paco, though…” Jaime paused, unsure of what to say.

  “You’re saving for a wedding? Buying a home and living the perfect, comfortable lifestyle of the far-right?”

  “Don’t judge me on the beliefs of my father. Our fathers were friends, so your father could have just as fanatical as Jose, you offspring of a Guardia Civil and his prostitute.”

  “You look at me as if I’m nothing.” Alazne unlocked the door to the stairwell of the building, an old wooden door that squeaked on the hinges. No light showed the way. “You judge me.”

  “Why don’t we agree to stop being so judgemental then.”

  “If only life was that simple, Jaime-boy.”

  Up the dim staircase, Jaime went into an apartment, which was just a room. A single light dangled from the centre of the ceiling; the room surrounded with couches, which looked like makeshift beds. Everything looked old and filthy; the stench suggested the bathroom, presumably through the sole door of the room, had trouble with the plumbing. One wall had a sink and table next to it, a kitchen area. This place would be where Alazne would come home to after killing her baby.

  “I realise this doesn’t look like much,” Apolinar said as he lifted himself from the green couch, which sported a huge tear on the arm. He put his cigarette in an ashtray on the coffee table and stood up. Jaime shook his hand, unable to remember the man from the one and only fleeting meeting months ago. “The Movimiento treats people like Alazne and me as criminals, vigilantes. We have to make do with what we can afford.”

  Get a job, shower on occasion, respect yourself. Jaime didn’t vocalise his thoughts. Apolinar was a tall, thin man, and lack of food and decent living showed in his gaunt features. He hadn’t shaved in days and smelled putrid. Both his orange button-up shirt and jeans were dirty, like his fingernails.

  “I can stay at a hotel,” Jaime began as Alazne gestured for him to sit down on the couch. Jaime looked at the grey blanket strewn over the tattered fabric with suspicion. “This is your place, Apolinar.”

  “Nonsense, comrade, you will stay with us. We have four couches. Once Raul and Davíd arrive, someone may need to sleep on the floor unless Alazne wants to sleep
with me.”

  Alazne shook her head with a grin as she sat down, and Jaime copied. Apolinar knew she was pregnant, but obviously didn’t now the baby belonged to Jaime.

  “So, Jaime, tell me about yourself. Alazne told me you were a member of a far-right family, and you’ve defected?” Apolinar asked.

  “Ahh…” Jaime threw a look to Alazne, who grinned. What the hell had he walked into here? “I’ve been apolitical to most of my life.”

  “Jaime is new to far-left politics,” Alazne rescued him. “But he had the connections to get me out of Valencia prison back in September, so he is a handy man to have on our side.”

  “I’m sure,” Apolinar nodded and puffed on his cigarette. “I must admit, I’ve been a member GRAPO for just a few days.”

  “GRAPO? The Grupos de Resistencia Antifascista Primero de Octubre? They’re a new group, as the name, first of October, suggests. Isn’t everyone a new member?”

  “GRAPO has roots way back to ‘68, in Paris when Lenin-Marxists split from the Communists. There have been killings in Spain this year attributed to the group. But it was the four policemen murdered in Madrid in October First which cemented the group as an anti-fascist resistance organisation in Spain.”

  “Those four men had done nothing wrong, the ones killed the street riots,” slipped from Jaime’s mouth.

  “Police attack people, they kill people. They got what they deserved. Are you sure you want to be part of GRAPO here in Valencia?” Apolinar eyed Jaime.

  “Jaime just needs help,” Alazne said. “I would like him here.”

  “We are a resistance campaign, fighting for a socialist Republic, not a romance story.” Apolinar stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray in front of him.

  “ETA are fighting the government as are FRAP after the September executions. GRAPO need to mobilise,” Alazne said.

  Apolinar nodded as she spoke. “Raul and Davíd arrive in the morning with the gear. I can prepare the bomb, a mix of dynamite and metal, and Jaime, you and Alazne will come with me to the Town Hall to detonate. Don’t worry, we won’t be close by when the bombs explode. With luck, no innocents will get harmed, just guards, aides, an important person or two in the government.”