Secrets of Spain Trilogy

by Caroline Angus Baker

  “Wow, Papá…” Paco was always so hard on Cayetano; now he spoke all the words he ever needed to hear.

  “No need for soppy words, Caya. I must admit I’m nervous about seeing you retire this year. I’ve never wanted to see that day. I retired, and it was hard, but you took over. Training you soothed me. If you retire, then I’m retiring too. What a weight on my shoulders. I didn’t think I would live to see the day. Now, you’re fighting at Las Ventas, killing all six bulls. That happens once in a decade. It’s momentous.”

  “I want you to cut off my ponytail, Papá. I want you there.”

  “I’ll be there, Caya. We will be okay; the family will be okay. Make everything right, for your mother’s sake. Even if Pedro and Jaime and Luis have a rough time, you have to smooth the waters for everyone, for your mother’s sake.”

  “Family is everything, Papá, I know that.”

  “Things were always so strained between us, but that was to make you great, a maestro.”

  Cayetano turned from the view to his ageing father. “I love you, Papá. You’re a powerful man, charming, intelligent, stubborn as hell, mean when you want to be, but I love you.”

  “You just described yourself, my boy.”

  “Then I’m my father’s son.”

  Paco’s face folded into a shroud of confusion. “I’m a little dizzy,” he said and blinked a few times.

  “Is it your headache?” Cayetano placed a hand on his father’s shoulder.

  Paco took few short, deep breaths and drew his hand to his chest. His golden wedding ring caught the light as he swayed a little. “Please, I need to sit down,” he panted.

  Paco fell against Cayetano, who struggled to catch his father’s weight. The pair stumbled onto the Valencian dust, and Cayetano did his best to rest Paco in his back. Just like that, Paco was unresponsive.

  “LUNA!” Cayetano yelled, which broke the sustained silence of Escondrijo. Paco looked ashen, flat on his back. Cayetano put his hand to his father’s neck to feel his pulse; it couldn’t be a heart attack, there had been no pain, no warning signs.

  Luna darted to the doorway of the house with a frown at the panicked call. She saw Cayetano over Paco and raced to the spot in the dust, skidding against the stones and scattered flowers amongst the rocks. “What the hell happened?” she shrieked.

  “Papá was just talking, and then he fell against me. I can’t find his pulse!” Cayetano couldn’t even understand his voice over his panic. The one thing he heard was his high pitched cry for help.

  “Call an ambulance,” Luna said as she moved Paco’s face to start the mouth to mouth, something Cayetano had never done. Cayetano pulled Luna’s phone from her back pocket as she leaned over Paco’s lifeless body, his fingers on a silent mission to dial 112. An ambulance from Serra took twenty minutes; Cayetano knew that after Luna’s fall four years ago.

  “Tell them Paco collapsed, and he’s not breathing,” Luna said as she started compressions on Paco’s chest. Luna had known the skill of resuscitation for years but had only ever tried to resuscitate mannequins in first aid classes. But it seemed to be working; Paco’s chest would inflate when she breathed for him, the chest compressions didn’t seem too difficult. But Paco remained utterly lifeless.

  Cayetano reached an operator but didn’t know what to say, his father already looked dead. Luna grabbed the phone off her husband and put in on speakerphone. She tossed it in the dust and continued to compress Paco’s chest as she gave the address of Escondrijo and a rundown of the problem into the phone. Cayetano felt frozen on the spot. He heard the woman on the phone say twenty minutes and Luna’s resuscitation would need to last that whole time if Paco were to have any chance of survival. Possible cardiac arrest, he heard the operator say to Luna.

  “What’s cardiac arrest?” Cayetano asked his wife, sweat on her brow, her cheeks pink as she blew into Paco’s mouth. “Is that a heart attack?”

  “No, it’s different; cardiac arrest is caused by poor blood circulation which causes a lack of oxygen.” Luna paused from breathing into Paco’s mouth. “Don’t worry, Paco,” she said, “I’ll do this all day if I have to, I promise.”

  But it seemed futile. Paco’s body wobbled as Luna pounded on his chest, to get his heart beating until the ambulance arrived. Every second felt like an hour; his heart pumping in his chest seemed so loud that Cayetano couldn’t hear anything else. Cayetano wanted to throw up; he wanted to lie down and cry, but instead he sat on his knees and watched Luna fight for Paco’s life. As she compressed his chest for the umpteenth time, Cayetano placed his fingers on Paco’s neck and tried for a pulse. Nothing. “Preciosa.” Seconds passed, but Luna didn’t reply. “He’s gone,” Cayetano heard himself say.

  “I won’t stop,” Luna replied, and shoved her hair back from her face. She put her pink lips against Paco’s lifeless blue lips and blew again and again. “I won’t let Paco die. I won’t let your father die, Caya.”

  “Luna…”

  “No, I won’t stop!”

  “Let him go.”

  Luna paused for a second and looked to Caya. The pair had matching tears on their cheeks, Luna’s face flushed from all the work she put in to save Paco. She didn’t say a word while she tried to catch her breath, and every second passed as if part of some inescapable nightmare.

  “Papá’s gone,” Cayetano’s voice squeaked out, and he watched Luna’s terrified blue eyes look down at Paco. Luna shook her head, and Cayetano grabbed her hands. “Let him rest.”

  “How…?”

  “How can we? Preciosa, he didn’t have a pulse before you started.”

  “But we have to keep going…”

  Luna wouldn’t stop working on Paco. A force inside her wouldn’t allow her to stop. Cayetano watched as the ambulance came up the driveway, with Luna still trying to get Paco’s heart started. Only when the ambulance officers ran to the scene, ready to give Paco a shock with the defibrillator, did Luna relent. The pair sat in each other’s arms, unable to do anything as two total strangers attempted to save Paco’s life. The pair asked questions – their names, their relationship to Paco, Paco’s age, but Cayetano sat in the silence as Luna answered for him.

  The paramedic, a stout man in his fifties with a sorrow-filled face, looked up at Cayetano. “I’m sorry, Señor, there’s no heartbeat.”

  “He’s my father,” Cayetano pleaded. “Papá was fine, he’s never sick…”

  “Cardiac arrest can affect anyone,” the other paramedic said, a young woman, about 25. She had a severe ponytail, which pulled back her entire face. “We got told of a cardiac arrest, did he just collapse?”

  Cayetano nodded and sniffed, his tears unavoidable. “Papá had a headache; he seemed short of breath and he got dizzy…”

  The older paramedic, still over Paco, nodded his head. He listened through a stethoscope, nothing to be found. “What is your father’s name?”

  “Paco.”

  “Full name Francisco?”

  “No, his name is Paco. Paco Beltrán. That’s his name on his birth certificate like his parents wanted. Paco Beltrán Caño.”

  “We’ll leave you to have a moment with your father, Señor Beltrán. We will get the ambulance necessary to transfer your father to Valencia.”

  As the two paramedics slipped back to the ambulance parked behind the car, Cayetano fell against his wife, stunned into a state of shock. Silent tears ran down his face, unable to move, to think, to look at anything but his lifeless father. Luna held Cayetano against her; her own heart beating wildly against her husband. She had seen her father die, a slow, agonising, painful death right to the last second, so that no doubt played a role in her desperation to save Paco.

  “How?” Cayetano whispered as he held Luna against him. “How can the world just be missing a man after a few moments?” He placed a hand on his father’s chest, and for a second thought he saw it rise as if breathing. Imagination was a powerful force. The yellow Valencian dust had powdered itself on his fingers, now
smudged on Paco’s shirt. For such a panicked moment, Paco seemed to have died in an instant, something anyone could be grateful for, unlike a painful bloody death in the bullring.

  “Caya, I’m sorry,” Luna whispered.

  Cayetano let out agonising tears and fell against his father’s lifeless body. He felt Luna rest her head on his limp shoulder as he bawled. The sun had set on the greatest force in Cayetano’s life.

  38

  Valencia, España ~ Noviembre de 1975

  The prison cell smelled like piss. How predictable. Jaime had sat on the concrete floor of the cell all night; he didn’t dare lie down anywhere near the suspicious damp patches on the floor. There was nothing in the cell, not even a window. Through the bars of the tiny cell was the only light, from the hallway which passed the cells like an illuminated pathway to freedom. The silence scared Jaime the most; surely others were in the other cells, but no one made the slightest noise. He had been handcuffed all the way to Valencia in the back of the police car, which wasn’t much more than a beaten-up piece of crap. Now thrown in the cell with no explanation. No wonder the cell smelt like piss – people got left to their own devices in here, in the bowels of the central police station.

  Daylight appeared through the doorway at the end of the hall. Finally, time had defeated the night. By now, Jaime didn’t care who came through the door – all night the carceleros, the cell guards, paraded along, not making eye contact as they poked torches in each cell. Jaime glanced down at his wrinkled, pale blue shirt and sighed. This was a mistake. Jaime came from a good family. José would get him out of here. But why hadn’t José said anything during the arrest? José could have gotten the police off his back with one phone call. But he didn’t.

  “Jaime Morales Pena.”

  Jaime looked up; a guard, an overweight man, his disgusting belly hanging over his belt, stood there, a handful of keys in his grasp. Jaime wondered how anyone could get themselves into that state. Though while sitting in a cell filled with piss, Jaime couldn’t judge anyone. “Sí, soy Jaime.”

  The guard pulled open the cell, and Jaime noticed the greasy hair on the guard as he stood over the short man. “You gitano bastards are all the same,” the carcelero said and pulled Jaime by the arm.

  “Shut up, I’m no gypsy,” Jaime spat at the man, who shoved him along the hallway.

  “You look dark enough to be one.”

  “So?” Racist bastard. Pedro’s new wife Jovana was from the south, her parents both gitano. If anyone threw racist slurs at her, the entire Morales family would go after them.

  The heavy, metal door at the end of the hall opened and another officer stood there; a stark change from the fat racist. The officer stood with his hands behind his back, his chest out, his brown hair slicked back. The officer’s dark uniform bore three stars on the shoulders, decorating him a Colonel, with a large gun on his belt.

  “Leave him with me, Pozos,” the Colonel said to the carcelero.

  “But…”

  “Don’t question me.” The tall Colonel took Jaime’s arm and led him away from the irate fat man. Jaime didn’t bother to look back; the light in the room stung his eyes and what came next was enough of a nightmare.

  The Colonel took Jaime down another hallway to another room; this one far more sumptuous. The office was clean, though simple, but the smell of coffee and a pastry on the desk made the room feel like the fluffy clouds of heaven.

  “Sit, eat,” the man instructed, and let Jaime go. No invitation needed; Jaime fell into the leather seat and stuffed warm pastry into his mouth. “I am Coronel Roig Galba, but you can call me Laturo, as your father did.”

  “So you know my father?” Jaime said and gulped coffee, which spilled onto his shirt. Jaime didn’t care in the least.

  “Yes, José and I, we worked together, many years ago. Do you know the story of the 1957 Valencia flood?”

  “Sí, Coronel.” Jaime decided it was better to address the man by rank, rather than by first name.

  “Your father and I worked together that night, to save a young girl from the flood waters.”

  “The girl who is a nun now?”

  “Yes, indeed. So you’ve heard the story.” Colonel Roig shifted in his seat, his green uniform a little too tight, which seemed to irritate him. The wrinkles around his eyes told Jaime that Roig was probably about his father’s age. He had the same sneaking greys in his hair as José.

  “When the flood hit, you were just a baby, Jaime. I had a young son too, then. Now he is in university, going to be a brain surgeon, he reckons.”

  “Congratulations, Coronel.”

  “Gracias. Now, I have spoken to your father, Jaime. I’m aware of the details of your arrest. How does the son of an affluent and decorated man like José Morales end up here in this predicament?”

  “This incident is a mistake.”

  “I’m sure you realise every political prisoner, in fact, any prisoner we get, says that. ‘It’s a mistake’. Or ‘you’ve got the wrong man’, and my personal favourite, ‘I was just holding it for a friend’. A man was murdered, Jaime, and your suitcase was found at the crime scene.”

  “Yes, I was there, and I ran in panic and left my bag behind, but I never killed Apolinar.”

  “So you know the murdered man?”

  “That is a long story.”

  “Shorten it for me. How do you know Alonso Santos de la Rosa?”

  “Apolinar.”

  “His legal name is Alonso. But we can call him Apolinar if you wish.”

  “I was in Valencia to see another friend and she…”

  “You mean Alazne Mariñelarena Belasco?”

  “Yes! Alazne was staying at Apolinar’s house, and I went to see her.”

  “Do you realise these people are wanted terrorists? Well, not Señor Santos de la Rosa anymore, but Señorita Mariñelarena most certainly. She is wanted for setting off a bomb in Calle de Ruzafa back in September.”

  “I thought that was a fire and gas leak.”

  “Your father mentioned you were in Valencia with Paco Beltrán on the night of the bombing. How long have you known Señorita Mariñelarena?”

  “Coronel, I had nothing to do with any of this! Alazne, she is the daughter of a man named Fermín Belasco, he was Guardia Civil too, with my father.”

  “I knew Belasco, drowned that night in the flood, when we saved the little girl.”

  “Yes, him! That’s Alazne’s father!”

  “Jaime, I realise this, your father told me. José has been taking pity on the girl, with a dead father and a whore of a mother. It’s sweet of you to care for this unfortunate, but she is a criminal.”

  “There is a simpler explanation.”

  “Jaime, the girl has been spending time with known political terrorists. Alonso - Apolinar – Santos de la Rosa was planning to bomb the Valencia Town Hall before he died; he was an associate with the GRAPO terrorist network. Señorita Mariñelarena was part of that. To help yourself and the girl, tell me what happened to Santos de la Rosa.”

  “We were in his apartment.” Jaime’s hands were cold; sweat ran down the back of his neck. Why hadn’t his father come to save the day? At least the Colonel was a friend. But still, Jaime shivered with fear. “I was going get Alazne, who couldn’t stay there. Alazne is pregnant, you see... To me…”

  “Is José aware of this?”

  “Yes, he knows.”

  Colonel Roig nodded and gestured to Jaime to continue, a gentle smile on his face. Why so smug?

  “I was there to help Alazne, and I refused to stay in the decrepit apartment. I left with my suitcase and Alazne came with me. We just sat outside, and I wanted a cigarette. Suddenly, a group of men appeared, all dressed in black, their faces covered. We ran and hid…”

  “You and the girl?”

  “Yes, me and Alazne. We ran and hid behind a car parked in the plaza. We saw the men charge inside, and they came out a minute later with Apolinar. He got dragged as if in pain. The gunmen thre
w him to the ground and took turns beating him. No one said a thing. Then, he was shot. They all had guns; I’m not sure which one shot him.”

  “What type of weapon did they use?”

  “It was dark, I can’t be sure. Something small…”

  “How many men?”

  “About six of them.”

  “Then what?”

  “The men left, the same way they came, down a tiny side street. Alazne and I… We ran away, left everything we owned behind because we didn’t want to get implicated. We didn’t want to be next.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “We slept on the ground outside the train station and got on the first morning train to Madrid. Then we went home to Rebelión where my family lives. Alazne had been staying with us since then. She left Rebelión on November 22.”

  “The day Franco passed away.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any particular reason that day? Did she have a plan?”

  “The date was a coincidence; Alazne didn’t leave because of some grand scheme.”

  “Terrorists have been active the past few years, and we expect far more violence. The King got crowned just yesterday, and the city has been awash with protestors on both sides of the political divide. We want peace in Valencia. We want peace in Spain.”

  “So do I, Coronel. Where is Alazne now?”

  “She was arrested here in Valencia yesterday morning. She informed us of her pregnancy when she got put in her cell.”

  “Is she here?”

  “No, in the women’s prison by the old riverbed. Don’t worry about the baby, Jaime; it got taken care of last night.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Jaime, you don’t want a baby with a terrorist, do you? I’m sure your father doesn’t want that fate for you.”

  “Did you hurt Alazne?”

  “Don’t raise your voice, boy! You are in a lot of trouble, do you know that?”

  “Of course! Did Alazne get an abortion?”