The motor of the old Citroën car growled and threatened to stall at any moment, but it held steady through cities and towns, over bridges and mountains, all the while getting us closer to Bordeaux and taking us farther from our beloved country. My sisters played games with Mom in the back, and I passed the time studying the scenery and talking every now and then with Andrés.
“Boy,” he told me, “you’re luckier than you can even imagine. I’d love to go to the Americas. My dad says that, after Spain, the fascists are going to take over all of Europe, so there’ll be nothing left for us here. Were it me, I’d get on that boat in a heartbeat and never look back.”
“But I don’t want to leave my parents,” I said, embarrassed even as the words left my mouth. I didn’t want to seem like a child, but that’s what I was.
“I get it. You’re from Madrid, right? In my valley there’s nothing, just mountains and rivers. My dad told me not to come back, to go look for a better future. It hasn’t gone so bad up to now. Spain is already becoming a distant memory for me. Sometimes I go back to help people out, but I’m not sure I’ll keep doing that. It gets more and more dangerous each time.”
We got to the outskirts of the city during the night. During the last stretch, we passed by endless vineyards and idyllic towns with shiny churches and painted homes. I felt as though we had entered a different world.
Following the wide Garonne River into the city, we drove through a beautiful plaza and were amazed at the straight avenues, the carefully crafted buildings, and the well-dressed people who strolled along the streets without a care. It was a warm night. The reflections from windows and streetlights shone on the roads still wet from the hoses of the street-cleaners. The aromas of pastries, bread, and meat permeated everything, as if the city were from a fairy tale, all of it ready to be gobbled up.
Andrés stopped the car at a small hotel with red awnings and little balconies, and we thought surely he had made a mistake. We ran up the stairs and entered a fancy waiting room of finely crafted wood. A woman in a plaid suit who had her hair pulled back in a bun welcomed us with a smile. Andrés gave her a letter in French, and the woman took a key from a little box and handed it to Andrés, pointing to the stairs.
“Where will you sleep?” my mom asked Andrés.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll stay in the car. I’m used to sleeping any old place. Francisco wanted me to wait for you, so tomorrow, after we leave the children with their guardians, we’ll head back to Perpignan, if that’s all right.”
For the first time I saw my mother’s face grow dark. The moment of saying goodbye was growing closer and closer. The next morning, our paths would separate, and we’d have to leave for Mexico within a few days.
We went up to the room in silence. My mother helped Ana get ready for bed, tucked us all in, then went to the bathroom. She was there a long time. I was just drifting off to sleep when I heard the sound of her crying. I went to the door and opened it a crack. She was sitting on the floor, her head hung low. When she heard the creak of the door, she looked up and held out her arms to me. She held me in silence for a long time until I, too, began to weep. The tension of the trip, the uncertainty of the future, the fear of our impending separation—it all crashed down at once. The feelings were jammed up in my heart, and I felt like I was drowning.
“Don’t worry, Marco. I’d go to hell to find you if I had to.”
“I know,” I gasped between sobs.
“Sometimes mothers have to make the greatest sacrifice of all for love. I feel as if I’m being ripped apart inside, but at the same time I know this is the right thing to do. You’ll be all right. I hope this war will be over soon. If it lasts too long, I can promise you I’ll die from grief!”
There were no more words to say. Her arms cradled me for the last time, and I felt in my heart I would never again be embraced like that no matter how long I managed to live. I was alone in the world, and that sense of unease would follow me forever.
Part 2
Exile Bound
Chapter 11
Separation
Bordeaux
May 23, 1937
At that point I still did not know it takes a lifetime to learn how to really live. I was about to turn fourteen, and I was pretty sure I had learned everything there was to learn. I was unaware of how my parents had given me practically everything up to that point, and not just clothing and food but security and the peace of a happy home. That morning my sisters and I had to say goodbye to my mother and had no idea if we would ever see her again.
I was the last one to wake. I didn’t want morning to come; I didn’t want to see my mother walk away again. Finally, she came over to my bed. “Marco,” she said, kissing my forehead, “it’s time to get up.”
I stretched and turned a bit longer, and she hugged me. I remembered all the mornings of the world, the hundreds of times she had woken me up with kisses and snuggles. I knew I would miss that.
“Can’t I sleep a little longer?” I asked.
“No, we have to go to the hotel where the other children are staying. I don’t want you to miss the boat after coming all this way,” she said with a little smile, though her face could not help but reflect the anguish roiling within her.
“We could stay in France. I bet you’d find work easily enough. They have everything here—”
“We’ve gone over this a thousand times. You’re getting on that boat to Mexico,” she said, her eyebrows raised in sternness. I hadn’t meant to, but I was making this bitter pill even harder for her to swallow.
I took a long shower, then studied myself in the mirror. My blond hair was getting long and disheveled, and pockets of gray hung beneath my blue eyes. I got dressed listlessly, and when I came out of the bathroom, my mother and sisters were waiting for me at the door. We went downstairs for breakfast, and I ate until my stomach hurt. It had been so long since I’d been able to eat as much as I wanted that it felt like I was in a dream.
“Girls,” my mother began, “I want you to obey your brother. He’s the head of the family now. Don’t leave his side even for a minute. Don’t trust strangers. And please, be very prudent. You’re going to live in a foreign country, so you must be respectful toward what you encounter. I’ll send a letter as soon as I know where they’ll place you. I hope this war won’t last more than a year.”
We looked at her in silence. Ana guzzled her glass of milk, and Isabel hung her head to hide her tears.
“Don’t cry, darling,” Mom continued. “The trip will be like a long vacation, a true adventure. In a few years, you can tell your friends all about it, and you’ll miss living there.”
Mom was trying to cheer us up, but it was hopeless. We tried to mask our sadness so she wouldn’t feel worse. Then we gathered our suitcases and went toward the waiting room. It was a beautiful day, and the sun lit up the downtown streets. It seemed to me that I’d never seen anywhere as beautiful as Bordeaux. Andrés got out of the car he had parked by the front door and helped us get in. He drove to a nearby hotel, and we got out in silence. We walked in a line and stood waiting at the front desk. There, my mother asked for someone from the Ibero-American Committee for Aid to the Spanish Peoples.
The man at the front desk called for one of the bellhops, and soon a middle-aged man came out and greeted my mother politely, stroking Ana’s hair. Ana gave him a stern look, not wanting to be treated like a little girl.
“My name is Genaro Muñoz. How may I help you, ma’am?”
While my mother explained the long journey we’d made to Bordeaux, I noticed the first few of the Spaniard children that we would be traveling with. Half a dozen young kids, no older than six or seven, were playing marbles off in a corner. Beside them, three girls played with rag dolls while a teacher watched them from a short distance away.
“Don’t worry,” the man said. He took out a list and looked for our names. Once he confirmed that everything was in order, he assigned us to a room. At first he wanted to sepa
rate me and my sisters, but at my mother’s insistence he placed us all in the same place.
“When does the ship sail?” Mom asked.
“Well, it’s scheduled for May 26, but that could always change. We’re entirely dependent on the ship’s captain and any unforeseen events.”
We all went up to the room. It was large, with more than ten beds. Though it was clean and tidy, it was nothing like the hotel we’d stayed in the night before. Mom helped us settle our suitcases, then we followed her back downstairs to the hotel waiting room. We walked down the front steps and found Andrés already in the car, the motor idling.
Mom stopped beside the vehicle, and we all four had knots in our stomachs. The first one to cry was Isabel, clinging to my mother and sobbing. Then Ana threw herself onto them both with tears flooding her dark eyes. Finally, I joined the group embrace. I swallowed back my tears in an effort to cheer them up.
“God in heaven!” Mom exclaimed, blind with tears.
Ana wailed, “Don’t leave us!”
“It’s going to be okay,” Mom choked out. “I’ll bring you back. Every day I’ll dream about you and about bringing you back home.”
“Don’t leave!” Isabel cried, refusing to let go of our mother’s hands.
We were so sad that nothing in the world could have consoled us. My mother lifted her head. Her eyes were nestled into wrinkles, and she narrowed her gaze to steel herself from our anguish. “Remember me, and don’t cry. Please, don’t ever forget who your mother is.”
“We’ll never forget you! And soon we’ll be back together,” Isabel said, smothering Mom’s cheeks with kisses.
My mother’s words were engraved in my memory. I would never forget her until I was back in her arms. I was so scared that, when I saw her get into the car and wave, I tried to lock that moment away in my brain forever. I didn’t want the memory to disappear into some corner of my heart. I was terrified. Fear is the worst feeling in the world. It rules like a tyrant, takes advantage of us, and turns us into wretched beings.
My sisters hugged me, their island in the middle of a stormy ocean. I thought about how we always love whatever’s close at hand, but if our hearts are full of love, then what’s far away can also be near to us, regardless of the physical distance. Our mother would always be our mother; nothing and no one could change this truth.
“I’ll remember you,” I said as the car drove out of sight. Then I took my sisters back inside the hotel. Together we started the greatest adventure of our lives.
Chapter 12
The Hunt for Red Children
Bordeaux
May 24, 1937
The next morning I woke up feeling untethered, as if I were floating in the air. I had not before understood how my mother was the rock upon which our life as a family was built. She had taught us nearly everything we knew and about everything that actually mattered. Our attachments, expressions of love, and meanings of life in the present we owed to her. For me, the only son, my father was the model for the future, the person I wanted to emulate and be like when I grew up. And now they were both out of reach. I opened my eyes with the fear that comes from loneliness. I now belonged to the battalion of desperate souls, all the world’s orphans, exiles, and dead.
I looked at the bed beside me where my sisters were still asleep. The other children in the room were quiet. I went to the bathroom and took a shower. By the time I returned, most kids were making their beds, and my sisters had already gotten dressed and combed their hair.
“Let’s go eat breakfast,” I said, willing a calmness I didn’t feel into a smile. It’s impossible to ignore the pain of an open wound, and loneliness is one of the deepest gashes in the soul.
There were already over fifty children sitting around the tables when we got to the dining room, where women were serving toast, several flavors of jam, cheese, and milk. We gobbled our portions down, our stomachs still bearing the hunger from Spain.
One of the monitors called for silence and then gave instructions about the rest of our stay. “We’ll be leaving in a couple days, and we need to behave well while we’re here in the city. The good people of Bordeaux have been so kind and generous with us. Let’s not give them a reason to believe Spaniard children are rude and misbehaving. Even though you are all very young, you represent Spain and her Republic. The eyes of thousands of people are watching you. You’re a privileged group. Hundreds of people are dying every day in our beloved country, and most cannot enjoy the delicacies we have eaten this morning. The Mexican government is our host; they are paying for all of this. Therefore, we want the reports they receive about you to be excellent. Then people all over the world can sing the praises of Spaniard children.”
The short speech from Ms. Laura Serra—we were just starting to learn the names of our new guardians and teachers—made a big impression on us. There were five other groups of boys and girls in different parts of the city, all coming from different places in Spain: Basque Country, Catalonia, Valencia, Andalusia, Asturias, and several parts of Castile. Some spoke only their native languages, and when we were all talking at the same time, it sounded like a miniature Tower of Babel. Most of the children were very young, but we were with the group of older children. The age limit for traveling to Mexico was roughly between five and twelve years old, but those limits had not been strictly enforced. We saw kids as young as four and as old as seventeen.
Ms. Serra again called for silence. Behind her thick glasses, her small, dark eyes seemed to catch everything. “Don’t go far from the hotel, don’t walk alone, don’t go off with adults. The youngest children must always be with an adult. You can accept food and other things from the French, but be careful if they speak to you in Spanish. We are aware of fascists in the area who are trying to take children and send them back to Spain.”
As soon as Ms. Serra announced we could go outside, everyone forgot her instructions and ran to the door. Yet my sisters and I stayed seated. We didn’t know the city at all and had hardly spoken a word to any of the other children.
A hefty boy came up to our table and held out his hand. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Are you three new? I thought we were all here by now.”
“Our mom dropped us off yesterday,” I said, shaking his hand.
“Oh, sorry. It’s horrible to be separated from your parents, at least according to some.”
His words puzzled me. I couldn’t believe that some of the children wouldn’t care about losing their parents, but there were still many things I didn’t know about life.
“If you want, I can show you around the city.”
The three of us exchanged a glance and happily went out with our new friend.
“I’m Manuel,” he said. “I’m from Granada. I don’t know how I ended up here, but I guess I got lucky. As for my parents, well . . . I don’t know what’s happening with them. The fascists took my dad a few months ago. He was in the socialist party. My mom took me to Valencia and left me with my dad’s sister. Then she boarded a merchant ship headed for South America. I have a feeling I’ll never see her again.”
“I’m sorry,” I said as we went out to the street.
“We were never really very close. I figure someone has to bring you into the world, but for that person to love you—that’s a different story.”
We walked along narrow alleys. Our hotel was in the northern part of the city, a neighborhood called Chartrons. When we got to the river, we were surprised to see how wide it was. Huge boats traveled up and down like it was an ocean. On the dock, shipping agents loaded crates of wine and other merchandise into a boat. After poking around a little, we walked along the river for about half an hour. We went by several parks and gardens and then came to the Bourse Plaza right on the riverfront.
“It looks like Puerta del Sol back home,” Isabel said. She had not let go of Ana’s hand since we’d left the hotel.
“But it’s bigger and prettier,” Ana said, wriggling out of Isabel’s grip and taking off at a
run. Isabel called out and ran after her, and it turned into playful chase. Manuel and I watched from not far away.
“So how did you three get here?” Manuel asked.
I told him everything that had happened in Valencia, the trip to Barcelona, and our trek across France. My mother had left me a little bit of money, so we went up to a food stall and bought four pieces of candy. Though I didn’t understand how to count out the change, the lady at the stall was very kind and gave back all the extra.
We went down one street and came upon the cathedral. People were milling about enjoying the pleasant temperature, and for the first time in a long time we could look up at the sky and not be afraid of fascist airplanes flying overhead.
“How was your trip here?” I asked Manuel after calling for my sisters to come and get their candy.
“Rough. We left Valencia on a big boat. Not far out from the dock, a fascist boat started following us. We thought it was going to attack, but thanks to the captain’s skill, we managed to leave it behind. Most of us got horribly seasick, and some kids were really bad off, but people perked back up once we made it to Barcelona. We spent a couple nights in the Regina Hotel. Before supper, the people from the National Delegation of Evacuated Children gave us all a blue cardboard suitcase with clothes and shoes. They put nametags on us in case we got lost, so the police would know where to send us, and we got to enjoy the city.”
Ana and Isabel came over and sat on a sunny bench to eat their candy. Manuel and I wandered toward a big fountain.
“Then a couple days later, we all boarded a train at the Franca Station. We walked there in formation, like a little army. People stopped to stare at us, some shouting and applauding and cheering the Republic. Women were crying because I guess we looked pretty helpless, all in a line with our matching blue suitcases. Old ladies stepped forward to hug and kiss us. It felt like we were pretty important. But our guardians weren’t real happy. Rumor was, the fascists were going to bomb the train. I didn’t believe it, though. They’re horrible brutes, but even they know it’s not good press to kill a big group of kids.”
Remember Me Page 8