The Return

by Victoria Hislop

  Ignacio continued to antagonise his family with his own reaction to events. About the total domination of the city and nearby villages by the Fascists, he did not bother to hide his triumphalism, but as time went on he would also rant and rave about atrocities reported to have been committed by those defending the Republic in towns such as Motril and Salobrena.

  ‘They dragged women into the sea,’ he shouted at Antonio and Emilio, who listened silently to their brother, ‘and murdered their children!’

  Whether this was true or merely rightist propaganda, they were not going to give Ignacio the satisfaction of a reaction.

  ‘And you presumably know they’ve destroyed the harvest - and killed the flocks!’ he added.

  Their silence infuriated him. He came right up to his brothers and Antonio could feel the heat of Ignacio’s anger as he spat his next words right into his face:‘If we all starve it won’t be Franco’s fault!’ he said, almost nose to nose with Antonio. ‘It’ll be the fault of you Republicans! Can’t you see it’s all over? The Republic is finished!’

  All over Granada people sat huddled around radios. Fingers were yellow with nicotine and nails were bitten down to the quick. Anxiety, tension and heat made the city rank with sweat. Rumours of mass executions in other parts of the country intensified the terror.

  People feared those who lived in the same street and even those who lived under the same roof. Across the country, families were being torn apart.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I GNACIO’S REPORTS OF Republican troops abandoning their weapons and fleeing from their positions in the villages up in the hills had more substance than the rest of his family wanted to admit.The effectiveness of Franco’s army in and around Granada had been swift and absolute.

  ‘I just can’t believe it!’ said Concha one morning, ill-concealed disgust in her voice. ‘Have you been out this morning?’ Her question was addressed to Antonio and Emilio. ‘Go down the street and look! Take a walk down to the cathedral. You won’t believe your eyes.’

  Emilio did not react, but Antonio got up and left the café. As he turned right, down Reyes Catolicos, he saw immediately what it was that had vexed his mother so much. Approaching the cathedral, the streets were decked in red and yellow bunting. It must have been put up very early that morning and now the city was dressed as for fiesta.

  It was 15 August. In another year, the date might have meant something to him but now it was meaningless. It was the Feast of the Assumption, the celebration of the day that the Virgin Mary was taken up to heaven, and for the hundreds of faithful that gathered around the cathedral doors, trying to hear the Mass that was being sung inside, this was one of the most revered days of the Church calendar; there simply was not enough room inside to accommodate them all.

  From within came the sound of clapping.The ripple of applause spread into the square and soon the crowd joined their hands in response.The appearance of the Archbishop’s procession at the main door was greeted by the perfectly timed blast of a military fanfare.

  Now blocked in by the dense-packed flock, Antonio struggled to extricate himself. He was sickened by this blatant display of military and ecclesiastical co-operation and pushed his way out of the square. As he turned back into the main street and up towards the Plaza Nueva he almost collided with a troop of legionaries, marching down towards the cathedral, their hard, chiselled faces streaked with sweat. His own step almost turned to a run as he sped back towards home. He was scarcely aware of the groups of elegantly dressed people standing on their flag-bedecked balconies, though some of them noticed him, a sole figure moving against the steady tide of soldiers.

  When he arrived back at the café, his parents were sitting together at a table. Pablo smoked, gazing into space.

  ‘Antonio,’ said Concha, with a smile for her eldest son, ‘you’re back. What’s happening out there now?’

  ‘People celebrating, that’s what,’ he said, almost choked with disgust. ‘Catholics and Fascists. It’s awful. I can’t stand it. That smug, fat-arsed Archbishop . . . God, I’d like to run him through like a pig!’

  ‘Ssh, Antonio,’ said his mother, noticing that a few people were now coming into the café. Mass was over and the bars would now fill with people. ‘Keep your voice down.’

  ‘But why, Mother?’ he hissed. ‘How can a man who is head of the Church here ignore all this killing . . . this murder? Where’s his compassion?’

  Antonio was right. Monsignor Agustin Parrado y García, Cardinal Archbishop of Granada, was one of many senior members of the Catholic Church who sided wholeheartedly with Franco. These people saw the insurrection of the army generals as a holy crusade and for that reason alone would not intervene to save the lives of anyone falsely imprisoned and sentenced by the Nationalists.

  Concha had tied her apron and was soon behind the bar, followed by her husband, and by the time they had taken orders, Antonio had disappeared out of the door.

  It may have been no real comfort to Antonio, but Franco soon began to make demands on those who supported him, to the tune of tens of thousands of pesetas. There were subscriptions for the army, the Red Cross and for the purchase of aircraft, and some even had to share their homes with senior army officials. The cost of war was not cheap for anyone and the banks themselves were in crisis. No one was depositing money. They were only making withdrawals and their vaults were being drained of their reserves.

  Pablo and Concha listened to the grumbles of their few wealthy customers. The café had always had a mixed clientele and the couple had worked hard to maintain their image of absolute neutrality. Anything else would have been suicidal in this climate and atmosphere.

  ‘They took away my husband’s Chrysler last week,’ said one well-coiffed woman of about fifty-five.

  ‘How dreadful,’ responded her friend. ‘And when do you think you’ll get it back?’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d want it now,’ she replied, the disdain evident in her voice. ‘I saw it only this morning - crammed full of Assault Guards.You can imagine what a filthy mess they’ll be making of it. It already has a big dent in its side!’

  Both sides were feeling the cost of this conflict. Many people had relatives in other cities and for some time now communication between Granada and the outside world had been restricted. No amount of brandy that they served could fully calm the anxiety of people who sat in the café fretting about the wellbeing of sons or daughters, uncles and parents in Córdoba, Madrid or distant Barcelona, from whom they had received no word. Mercedes was becoming desperate for news of Málaga.

  Now that Granada was firmly in their hands, the Nationalists were sending out troops to other towns. Antonio and his friends were heartened to hear that many of them were putting up strong resistance. Although the narrow passage between Sevilla and Granada was held by the Nationalists and heavily guarded, much of the rest of the region was still holding out against Franco’s troops, and fierce combat went on even in small towns that they had assumed could be taken without a fight.

  The sinister task of keeping watch over people in Granada was now shared with members of the fascist Falangist youth party, who happily participated in denouncing and persecuting anyone they suspected of being Republican. Crimes against the new regime could consist of anything from having communist propaganda daubed on your walls, which might even have been put there by the Falangists themselves to stir up trouble, to having voted for the socialist party in previous elections. The terror of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment was intense.

  For Emilio, the day after the Feast of the Assumption, 16 August, was the worst of the conflict so far. Within twenty-four hours, both his close friend Alejandro and his hero, Lorca, were arrested. The poet had travelled to Granada to stay with his family just before the coup, but realising the danger he might be in because of his socialist sympathies, he left his home and took refuge with a Falangist friend. Even being with someone who supported the right did not protect him. His detention took place on the same
day as the execution of his brother-in-law, the Mayor, Montesinos, who was shot against the cemetery wall.

  The news of Lorca’s arrest had got round quickly and for three days his family and all of those who loved him waited anxiously. He belonged to no political party so there was slim justification for his detention.

  Emilio was working in the café when he overheard two customers talking. At first he thought he must have been mistaken, when he realised who they were talking about.

  ‘So they shot him in the back, did they?’ asked one of the men.

  ‘No, in the backside . . .’ the other murmured. ‘For being a homosexual.’

  They were unaware that Emilio was listening to their every word.

  A moment before, Ignacio had come downstairs. He had caught the last words and could not resist joining in.

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly what happened - they shot him in the arse for being a queer, a maricón! There are too many of his type in this city.’

  Everyone in the room went completely silent. Even the ticking clock sounded embarrassed, but Ignacio could not resist another stab. This captive audience was irresistible.

  ‘We need real men in this country,’ he challenged. ‘Spain will never be strong while it’s full of poofters.’

  With those words he strode through the bar and disappeared into the street. His was a sentiment shared by many on the right. Manliness was a prerequisite for the true citizen.

  For a while no one spoke. Emilio stood, frozen to the spot, tears flowing down his face. At one point he wiped them away with his cloth but still they came. When Concha appeared she took her son’s arm, led him into the office behind the bar and shut the door. The muffled sound of sobbing was drowned out as customers resumed their discussions. Pablo appeared to take over at the bar. There had been no news of Alejandro, and for Emilio it was as though the situation could not get any worse.

  The death of Lorca was a landmark event in this conflict. Any residual belief in fairness and justice was destroyed. People across Spain were horrified.

  At the end of August, just when people in Granada were beginning to feel safe from airborne attack, Republican army planes reappeared. Some thirty bombs were dropped on the city, the anti-aircraft cannons doing absolutely nothing to prevent them. Although their action brought renewed fear and terror to everyone, including those who supported them, it showed that the Republican cause was not yet a lost one.

  ‘You see,’ said Antonio, appealing to his parents the next day, ‘we can still fight to restore the Republic!’

  ‘We all know that,’ interrupted Emilio, ‘apart from Ignacio, of course.’

  Concha sighed. This bitterness between her sons, which had brewed for so many years, now wearied her. She had struggled so hard not to take sides and to be even-tempered and even-handed.

  When the air strikes ceased, the city once again put on a display of normality.

  One day, at the end of the month, Ignacio came in looking more satisfied with life than ever.

  ‘There’s going to be a bullfight next week,’ he announced to the family. ‘My first here as a matador de toros.’

  Antonio could not resist a tart comment. ‘It’ll be good to see a bullring put to its proper use,’ he said. They all knew to what he was referring.

  Earlier in August, in the bullring at Badajoz, a town in the south-west, instead of the blood of bulls the huge ring of sand had soaked up the blood of thousands of Republicans, socialists and communists. They had been herded towards the neat white plaza de toros and through the gate where the parade usually entered, and into the ring. Machine guns were lined up for them and eighteen hundred men and women were mown down. Some of the bodies lay for days until they were dragged away and their blood turned black in the sand. Reports mentioned that passers-by had retched at the sickening smell of spilled blood and that the only thing the victims were spared was the sight of their town being ransacked and looted.

  ‘Whatever happened in Badajoz,’ retorted Ignacio defensively, ‘those rojos probably deserved it.’

  He pushed past Antonio and put his hands on his mother’s shoulders.

  ‘You will come, won’t you?’ he asked imploringly.

  ‘Of course I will,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t miss it. But I’m not sure your brothers will be there.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect them to be,’ he said, spinning round to look at Antonio. ‘Especially him upstairs.’

  The mood in the bullring the following week was euphoric.The stands hummed with excitement as the spectators, dressed in their best finery, talked animatedly and waved to friends across the crowd. For the predominantly conservative aficionados of this sport, the reopening of the ring symbolised a return to some form of normality and they savoured the moment.

  Pablo and Concha were there that afternoon to watch their son. Antonio, Emilio and Mercedes had chosen to stay at home.

  From where they sat on this late afternoon, securely enclosed in the perfect circle of the Plaza de Toros, the devastation that had taken place in parts of their city was out of sight. What mattered to the majority of people there at that moment was that they could enjoy the resumption of their old way of life, a sense of their élite position, a re-establishment of the old traditions and hierarchy. Even the choice of seat, in the sun or the shade, sol o sombra, reflected social standing in the city.

  ‘Whatever happens in the next few months,’ went one conversation overheard by Concha, ‘at least we’ve got rid of those awful lefties in the town council.’

  After that she tried not to listen to the two elderly men next to her, who clearly had no idea how brutally and thoroughly some of the socialist town councillors had been eliminated, but snatches of conversation kept drifting across to her and they were hard to ignore.

  ‘Let’s pray that the nation will see the light and give in to General Franco,’ said one of them.

  ‘We live in hope,’ responded the other.‘It would be much better for everyone. And the sooner it happens the better.’

  ‘Try not to listen to them,’ said Pablo, overhearing too. ‘There’s nothing we can do about the way these people think. Look! The parade is going to start . . .’

  The pageantry seemed more scintillating than ever, the men more handsome, the costumes more vivid. For the past hour, Ignacio had been preparing himself in his dressing room. He was laced into his trousers and his hair was dressed and pinned before he put on the smooth felt montera hat. He admired himself in the mirror and lifted his chin. The gleaming white of his costume accentuated his dark hair and tanned skin.

  As he emerged into the ring with the others and they bowed before the fight director and the local celebrities who sat in the box, he wondered how life could possibly get better than this.

  And everything is yet to come, he reflected, basking in the sheer joy of anticipation.

  Ignacio was the third of the matadors to make his entrance in the ring. Though they had been polite, the crowd had been unimpressed by the other fighters.The second had a false start when his first bull rammed the wooden barricade and smashed his horns. The creature’s carelessness earned him his freedom and a return to the rich pastureland where he had been reared. This matador played his next bull deftly before making a swift, clean kill, but there had been no showmanship, nothing that thrilled the crowd.

  They hoped for more drama with Ignacio. Many of them had seen him perform before and his reputation for deliberately breathtaking near misses with the bull had received plenty of coverage in the pages of the local newspapers.

  The crowd was ready for something that captured the imagination and they always expected the best to be last. For many, the amount of death and violence they had witnessed in the past month or so had merely whetted their appetite for more. They had seen plenty of blood spilled that afternoon but the twin pleasures of danger and catharsis had so far been lacking. These bulls had not so far presented any real risk to these young men.

  The cruelty of the crowd was palpable
. They did not want the bull to die too soon: the stages of his degradation before the final decisive blow must be slow and painstaking and his suffering must be drawn out.

  Most of the arena was now in shadow and the day was finally cooling. A shaft of low, late afternoon sunlight caught the dazzling gold embroidery of Ignacio’s jacket. This was the best time to fight.

  The bull thundered towards him and, as his horns came into contact with the cape, its forelegs left the ground. Despite the wounds from the picador and the banderilleros, the animal still had plenty of energy. The muleta cape brushed its back as Ignacio executed a deft flick.

  After he had executed his first few simple turns, Ignacio became more daring. He dazzled the crowd with the elegance of a ‘butterfly’ pass, sweeping the cape behind his back and then, to their astonishment, he knelt on the ground.