The Guardian of Secrets and Her Deathly Pact

by Jana Petken

  “I don’t trust the rebel nationalists,” Ernesto finally told John. “And should they win, Spain could be drawn into a much bigger conflict within Europe and my lands could and almost certainly will be requisitioned by whatever government is in power, but better the devil you know.” He finished his drink and murmured, “And that would be my weak and indecisive government.”

  Coffee and brandy arrived, and both men sat back to listen to the band. Some people danced whilst others mouthed to the words of the haunting song sung by a young woman. Both men looked at each other,.

  “I know, it sounds just like her, doesn’t it?” Ernesto said.

  John nodded in agreement. “She had such a beautiful voice, like an angel.”

  Ernesto forced a smile. “Sometimes I think Marta was an angel, sent here for just a short while and then snatched back again to punish us in some way. God has a sense of humour, it would seem. I miss her so much. I miss all of them. My children, John, are so far away, and I am here useless and helpless.”

  John studied Ernesto’s face. His mouth was set in a thin line. His eyes were watery, and lines not there before were now deep with grief.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in God,” John said finally.

  “I believe in him, John. It’s his messengers here on Earth that I’m having trouble with. God would not have wanted my daughter to spend her beautiful life on her knees in a world of silence and without those she loved. God is not that cruel; only his Church is!”

  “I just wish there was something I could say, something I could do, to help you get through this,” John said.

  “There is. I’m going back to Spain, and you can tell me that you think I’m doing the right thing. Tell me you agree with my decision.”

  John nodded his head. “You’re doing the right thing, and if I were you, I would be going back too. But it’s not my approval you should be asking for.”

  After the long lunch with John, Ernesto went to the bank and took out sufficient funds to leave with Celia. He then went to the Spanish Medical Aid headquarters to check that his ambulance had been filled to the brim with medical supplies, cigarettes, and food. Now all he had to do was tell Celia that he was leaving. John was right; it was her approval he wanted.

  After the news of Marta’s death, Celia retreated to her room, refusing to speak to anyone except to her journals, in which she feverishly described her hatred towards her daughter’s murderers. Aunt Marie, solid and dependable as ever, spent her time cooking meals that lay uneaten, making cups of tea that no one drank, and trying for hours on end to get Celia to say something, anything. Rosa remained in her own room, turning it into a shrine to Marta, whom she now considered a saint. She prayed all day and was heard saying ‘Marta the holy martyr!’ at all hours of the day and night. She also refused to eat; however, in Aunt Marie’s opinion, Rosa starving herself to death would be the kindest favour she could do for all of them.

  Now Celia stood in the doorway. After days of crying, her eyes were swollen and surrounded by dark shadows, but they lit up when she saw Ernesto walk up the path towards her. She had awoken that morning realising that she hadn’t said more than two words to him in the last three days. She missed him, and they needed to talk now.

  “Where have you been? I’ve been so worried about you,” she said, running into his arms.

  “I’ve been with John, and I lost track of time. Sorry, darling.”

  “How is my cousin?”

  “He’s fine. We had a good talk. You know, politics as usual.”

  “Come inside and tell me. I’ll make some tea.”

  Ernesto stood perfectly still. If they went inside, he thought, Celia would break down and start crying. He couldn’t stand seeing her like that; it broke his heart. No, he thought again, better to tell her where they stood. She wouldn’t cry in the street.

  “I have something to tell you before we go in, and you’re not going to like it,” he told her.

  “Oh no, is this another ‘I know you’re going to be upset but don’t be’ way of telling me something?”

  “Celia, I love you, but you scare me sometimes. You are like a witch, and I wonder if there is anything that I can keep from you.”

  “Why would you want to? You never have up until now.” She smiled for the first time in days.

  Ernesto kissed her on the forehead,“I love you,” he said, kissing her again.

  “No, don’t give me ‘I love you’. Tell me what it is you want to tell me before I tell you that I know what it is.”

  “I’m going back to Spain.”

  “I thought so. I just knew it.”

  “Then it’s all right?”

  “Of course it’s not all right. Did you read María’s letter? The people who have overrun our house are on the same side as those who killed your daughter!” Celia pulled away from him and cried, shielding her face from him.

  “Listen to me!” he shouted suddenly, in a tone of voice that she wasn’t used to hearing. “I’m not going home. I’m going to take supplies to northern Spain, then I’ll come back, then maybe I’ll take some more supplies. I’m not going to La Glorieta, and I’m not going to pick up a gun. I’m just going to take some food and medicine to those who need it. For God’s sake, Celia, tell me you understand.”

  Celia turned her back on him and marched to the front door. She was angry. She knew that this time she would not get her own way, but what annoyed her most was that she actually did understand. He was Spanish, and he needed to do something to help his country, in his country. He needed to play an active role, now more than ever. She opened the door.

  “Are you coming in?” she asked and, with effort, forced a smile.

  Minutes later, Celia made some tea and poured it into his cup. “Drink this,” she said icily.

  “I still can’t get used to this tea and cake business,” he told her.

  “Don’t change the subject, Ernesto Martinéz. You do know you’re far too old to be going off to war, don’t you? Why can’t you just organise the supplies and let a younger man take them? Why do you have to go?”

  “Celia, I have been organising supplies, but it’s not enough. It’s not what I should be doing. I’m going. I’m sorry, but my mind is made up.”

  “But, darling …”

  “No, please don’t,” he said, interrupting her. “I hate having to look at your face all tear-stained and filled with grief when I know I’m making things worse for you. It’s tearing me apart! But I can’t sit here waiting for the end of the war, because I don’t believe it’s going to end anytime soon. I have to go. If I don’t, there will be no living with me. I have to, even if it’s just to drive a damned ambulance! It’s the only way I can contribute and the only way I can at least try to find our sons.”

  “But we don’t even know where they are,” Celia told him. “We haven’t heard a word from Pedro or Miguel, not a word! So tell me, how do you expect to find them? Are you going to put an advertisement in the newspaper? Or just drive around until you bloody well bump into them?”

  “My God, Celia, I’ve never heard you swear before,” Ernesto said, before kissing her soundly.

  “Well, you have now, and no kiss is going to appease me so don’t bother giving me another!”

  Celia couldn’t sleep – how could she? She hadn’t spent a single night away from Ernesto since 1919, the year she went to Merrill Farm alone. Her husband was lost to her. They were all lost! She realised that she felt lost too, and that this wasn’t her country now either. She felt like a tourist itching to get back home after a holiday that had gone on for too long. She thought about the oranges and how the season would just be starting. She pictured the grape vines, heavy now and at the peak of sweetness. She also realised that if she could go back, she would. If she had her husband’s courage, she would drive the next ambulance herself!

  She got up and went to her bureau. She opened her journal and read over what she’d written before getting into bed and decided that it wasn�
��t enough; she had more to say. She always felt Marta’s closeness more keenly in the small hours of the morning, more than at any other time of the day, and she particularly wanted to speak to her now, tell her that she loved her, thought of her all the time, and ask her to look after her father. She covered her nightgown with a warm blanket and sat at the window looking up at the night sky, which was devoid of stars.

  6 September 1936

  Ernesto has left and I will wait for news of him, patiently and without anger. I’m back where I started, with only my aunt Marie, London, and of course Rosa, who barely talks at all now, well, not to us here on Earth. Where have the years gone? Where are my children? Where is my life, my love, right now in the darkness, and where is Marta, my beautiful Marta?

  It is cold now, Marta, and the world’s such an empty place without you in it. The moon and stars cannot fill the void, the aching hole in my world. I try for all my worth to believe that you are in a better place now, but still all I believe in is the futility of your death and the agonising sorrow that will surely stop my heart from beating.

  Marta, my Marta … I miss you so much. I promise you that I will be strong for your father and for your sister and brothers too, but I cannot be strong for myself, for I am weak.

  I will pray that this terrible war ends and that your family come home safe. I shall also pray that your murderers come to their end in the most destructive and horrid way. I don’t care what God thinks about me now, for he has taken you from me. I don’t care if he sends me to hell for my thoughts. He has not been fair, so I wish your murderers dead and their bodies scattered like dust in the wind. There, I’ve said it! God no longer has my ear! Yet I shall pray to you and hope that you do have his ear and that you can speak to him and beg him to save our family

  Chapter 52

  Joseph Dobbs was tired of Paris and everything that went with it. He had come to the conclusion that after twenty-odd years, Paris, with its frogs’ legs, tarty French women, and overindulged men more interested in sex than a good poker game, was now more painful to bear than the hangman’s noose that he had so adroitly eluded.

  Most days he sat in the same old bar, drinking the same beer that left the bitter taste of failure in his mouth. His pockets were empty save for the few francs that remained from Suzanne’s money. The attic was gone, due to rent defaults, and his hangovers had stopped, as he never remained sober enough to get the alcohol out of his system.

  He lived in various places now. Sometimes he lived in a neighbour’s house, if the man and his wife were in a good mood, and sometimes he simply crawled into a ball at the end of the alleyway, too drunk even to think about a bed for the night. But his favourite home was on the vast platforms of the Gare du Nord railway station. There he breakfasted on half-eaten sandwiches from overflowing dustbins. On occasion, he drank hot sweet coffee and picked a pocket or two when he had his wits about him. He listened to an abundance of English voices travelling through the station, which was his favourite pastime now, listening to his mother tongue and reading about England in old and dirty English newspapers.

  Since Suzanne’s death, he’d spent most of his days thinking about his life before Paris. His happiest years had been his glory days at Merrill Farm. The hop pickers and farm labourers had revered him. He was famous back then for being the best poker player in the county, and lesser men feared him. Everything seemed so long ago now, and many memories were lost in a fog that never lifted from his mind, but he could never forget those days.

  Every day, without fail, he thought about the woman who was his reason for living. Over the years he had imagined a hundred different ways of killing Celia, had dreamed about her death by his hand. Those dreams were all that he lived for now. England was a distant, unreachable place for him. He could never go back; it was too dangerous, for even after twenty years, Marie Osborne would still be looking for him. But Celia was always close to him in thought.

  He was tired, older now, and it showed. He was no longer the handsome man that women fell for or the charismatic young poker player who in his day could get into any game and win against just about anyone. The money was gone. He was gone. And in his place was a broken-down old man in his forties with a leg that hurt in winter and a face that had more lines than the Gare du Nord.

  He finished his beer, got up, and threw the francs on the table. He’d walk to the railway station today. He’d noticed a lot of movement there in the last few months. Money was coming into the country from all over Europe in the pockets of do-gooders going off to fight a war that they probably didn’t even understand. He’d formed a habit of being at the station when the trains arrived. The stupid buggers from all over the place going to a mosquito-infested country to fight was a strange notion to him, but as long as they passed through with coins and notes in their pockets, he didn’t care what the fuck they were doing in Paris or where they were going!

  The Gare du Nord was teeming with men looking lost and unsure of what they were meant to be doing or where they were meant to be going. Some stood around the platform simply waiting for something to happen, whilst others wandered aimlessly through the station, hoping to be found by someone who could give them the information they needed.

  Joseph found his usual spot, just by the crowded turnpike, and waited for the next train to offload. The men that got off the train were usually poor, but they had enough money to get to Paris, and some had surprised him with just how much they carried on them. Anyway, he’d noted that the war-hungry bastards weren’t all poor.

  The rubbish bin was full to the brim with everything from half-eaten food to wet and dirty nappies in paper bags. He saw the newspaper, the Times, crumpled and dirty halfway down the metal-grilled bin, and he stuck his hand in to retrieve it. There was a half-eaten cheese sandwich sitting on top of it. Waste not, want not, he thought; never waste food, his mother had always told him.

  He sat down on a bench and lit a cigarette; it was the one luxury he refused to go without. The front pages were filled with stories about the war in Spain. The following was the usual stuff he’d become accustomed to reading about, such as politics and all the rich bastards that ruled the country from their town houses and country castles. As he turned the pages, he kept one eye out for the next train, and with the other, he caught sight of a heading in the newspaper that made his heart jump out of his chest. He stopped breathing, let out the air, and smiled, showing a mouthful of bare gums. Marie Osborne’s face and name stared back at him, and his deep-seated hatred boiled over, suffocating him, until he had trouble breathing.

  Marie Osborne was in London, no surprises there, but she was talking about Celia being married to a Spanish aristocrat and having children by him: two boys and two girls. The children still lived in Spain. They and their countrymen needed help from the British people. The children lived in Valencia, but they were fighting all over the place to save their country from ruin. He tore his eyes away from the print and looked upwards with a toothy grin. God and Lady Luck had delivered him! He couldn’t get to Celia, but he could get to her children. How difficult could it be?

  The men wandering around the station were going to Spain. He was sure of it. They tried to keep low profiles, but he’d been coming here often enough to know that the men that lurked in corners and toilets day after day, shaking hands with foreigners and escorting them out of the station, were probably arranging forward passage. Most of them were Russians. Nothing got past him; he was clever at these things.

  He crumpled the sandwich paper, aimed it, threw, and missed the bin. He’d go too, he decided, beginning to feel excited about something for the first time in years. He’d get fed, watered, and looked after. He wouldn’t fight. They wouldn’t expect him to, not at his age, and with a bad leg, but he’d find some safe and easy job. There were also bound to be poker games, what with all these men around and no women to distract them. Christ, he might even make a bundle along the way. Yes, he’d go, find Celia’s brats, and kill them one by one, and then his
dream would come true. He closed his eyes, forgetting about the next train. The dream that had kept him going all these years was finally going to come true. He, Joseph Dobbs, would destroy the woman who’d ruined his life.

  Chapter 53

  Pedro received a dinner invitation from Captain Mora, whose tent stood at the far side of the encampment just outside Toledo. Pedro swung his tired legs out of his makeshift bed of straw and cotton sheeting and yawned. He had been up all night on a probing mission and afterwards had walked seven kilometres, there and back, to cut some strategic telephone lines going into the town. He didn’t particularly want to eat or sit in company, he thought, getting dressed. All he wanted was some sleep and blissful forgetfulness of the killings and the slaughters he had seen.

  Captain Mora, who sat outside his tent at a small table with two chairs, welcomed him. His tent was twice as large as Pedro’s and luxuriously decorated inside, with a real bed and table and chairs. A couple of boiled rabbits and some potatoes had been brought, and for the first time in days, Pedro felt hungry.

  The night was balmy for late September. For a while, they ate and casually spoke about home, their families, and Lucia. Pedro had asked for her hand one day after some particularly fierce fighting, and they had celebrated with a bottle of red wine of a particularly good vintage, but now, as Pedro spoke about his plans, the atmosphere suddenly became tense. Captain Mora was cagey and began asking questions that Pedro instinctively felt would lead him into a dangerous trap for some unknown reason.

  Captain Mora struggled with his conscience every day; he didn’t particularly agree with the rebel nationalists’ cause. He was a soldier employed by the republican government and had been stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fate had dictated this for him, and now, as a point of honour, he would not desert his post.