Remember Me

by Mario Escobar

  “My father isn’t a murderer,” I blurted out without even thinking.

  He slapped me hard across the face. “Your father is exactly what I say he is,” he hissed.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered, my cheek on fire.

  “You have two younger sisters and a mother who was an actress and also a red, a harlot like all actresses. But you could leave all that behind, you know. We need smart boys, boys who are brave and have life experience. I’ll be watching you closely.”

  I had goosebumps, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

  “Mexico, one of our conquests . . . I’d like to see it someday. Well, we’re building Social Aid centers outside the country, starting with Cuba, I believe. Maybe I’ll request a transfer. I imagine the Americas are very beautiful.”

  “They are, Mr. Rufián. I’ve been to Havana.”

  He raised his eyes as if to say he could just imagine it. “Very well, go on. We’ll talk again later.”

  I stood up and went to the door, but before I closed it behind me, he said, “Oh, I forgot to mention, your father’s been condemned to death. All the murderers must be purged from our new society. To start fresh, we’ll do away with all the evil that led our beloved country to the brink of disaster. Kill the dog, and the rabies disappears.”

  My heart stopped at his words. I held myself together until I got outside, when the tears came out in suffocating gasps. My father had survived the long, hard war; he had escaped Spain; and it was our fault he’d come back to Spain only to be killed like an animal.

  The rest of the day was chaotic. I couldn’t pay attention to anything, my mind locked onto Rufián’s closing words. After finishing in the workshop but just before supper, it was time for confession. The only good part was that meant we got to stop working a little early. We were allowed to be outside, and even though it was freezing cold, being outside at dusk was better than being bent over our work.

  A boy came up and sat beside me. “What I wouldn’t give for a cigarette right now,” he said wistfully.

  “You smoke?” I asked. I had tried cigarettes a couple times in Morelia but hadn’t liked the taste.

  “Yeah, it calms my nerves. It’s impossible to get them in here. Sometimes Chema gives me one, but not often. The pigs say we’re supposed to lead clean lives. But if they really believed that, then they would give us decent food instead of that hogwash.”

  The food was scant and awful, but even worse was our constant thirst. We weren’t given enough water, and there was never coffee. Lots of the boys collected snow and drank it once it melted.

  “What are your nerves so worked up about?” I asked.

  “Confession,” he said, looking at me in surprise. “I hate it.”

  “Why? Aren’t you Catholic?”

  The boy grimaced, then cupped his hands around some snow and started drinking it as it melted.

  “You’ll see for yourself. Just . . . just beware the priest.”

  That put me on edge. The boy in front of me in roll call came out of the chapel, and it was my turn. I went in with my hands stuffed deep in my pockets. I’d never gone to confession and hadn’t even been baptized.

  The chapel was dark and smelled damp and sweaty. It was austere, nearly spartan, but my eyes landed on a huge crucifix and two wooden statues of the Virgin. There was a confessional along one wall. I went up hesitantly and knelt down.

  “Hello, son.”

  “Hello, F-father,” I stuttered.

  “You have to make the sign of the cross,” the priest said, the ghostly voice issuing from the other side of the lattice through which he was hardly visible.

  I made the motions that I remembered seeing in the church in Morelia when I would go to Mass to see María Soledad.

  “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” he said, annoyed. “Have you never been to confession?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Have you been baptized?” His voice raised a bit more each time he spoke to me.

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “So you’ve never had communion. You’re a pagan, like a Saracen. Heaven help me, how much damage these atheist reds have done. We’ll have to take care of that. Go on, tell me your sins.”

  “Well, I’m not sure what sins you’re talking about.”

  “Everything you tell me is confidential. Thanks to the secrecy of confession, what you tell me stays between God and us.”

  I hesitated. They’d warned me about this revolting man.

  “I try to be honest and good, I don’t wish harm on anyone, I try to help other people . . .”

  “Those aren’t sins. Have you had impure thoughts? Have you touched yourself?”

  “What? No!” I said, recoiling from the lattice.

  “At your age, that’s impossible. If you’re not sincere, I cannot help you.”

  “All we do here is work. The only thing I think about is getting out and finding my family.”

  The priest pulled back the lattice and said, “God will punish you with eternal fire unless you confess!”

  I looked at him in fear, and he slapped my face.

  “Get out of here!” he yelled. “I’ll make my report to the director, and you’ll get what you deserve.”

  I ran out of the chapel, scared and confused. I couldn’t understand anything that had just happened. Why would I talk about my life to a stranger? If God existed—a matter I was not at all sure about—I’d take care of telling him what I wanted to tell him.

  I spent the night in a small closet where they locked up boys who misbehaved. I could hardly even sit down, and there was no light and nothing to eat. All I could do was think. I tried to sleep, to forget everything and give myself over to the world of dreams, but Rufián’s words kept tearing through me like machine-gun fire: my father had been condemned to die. The world I knew and loved had almost completely fallen apart. The dark, macabre place we’d returned to was so different from the country I remembered that it was hardly recognizable, even though I’d only been gone a few years. Never in my worst nightmares had I imagined Spain becoming hell on earth where a man’s life was worthless and Franco’s black crows sought to rule people’s souls. With my shattered heart, I tried to recall happy moments, to think about our small apartment so full of love. I wept bitterly. I had lost it all. All of it. I could no longer hope things might go back to how they used to be.

  Chapter 42

  Hell

  Paracuellos

  December 28, 1940

  They let me out of confinement the next day. My whole body throbbed in pain, and I was hungry and thirsty beyond description. The boys in my group gave me some of the black bread they kept hidden to help mitigate their constant hunger, and their kindness touched me. I was allowed to wash up and then sent to class. It was hard to pay attention, but I tried my best.

  Our teacher, José María Pérez, whom most of the boys called Chema, was one of the few adults at the orphanage who treated us with any degree of humanity. He announced, “Tomorrow, Sunday, the Social Aid national delegate will be making a visit to the school. His name is Don Manuel Martínez de Tena, and I expect you all to be on your best behavior. We must make a good impression. Due to her duties as a wife, our founder, Mercedes Sanz-Bachiller, can no longer fulfill her role, but the fact that there’s a roof over your heads this winter and food on your plates every day is due to her.” He paused and looked at me. “Marco, you’re not looking well. Go back to your room. I’ll let the director know.”

  I did feel truly horrible. I gathered my things and went straight to my dorm, where I fell immediately into a deep sleep. I’d been asleep maybe an hour when some noises woke me. I was scared, because no one was supposed to be in our rooms right then. I crept to the bathroom and heard Blondie’s voice.

  “No, please, Father Onésimo, please stop,” he cried in distress. I nudged the door open just a crack. The priest’s back was to me, and Blondie was in front of him. That’s all I saw. I close
d the door and went back to bed, buried my head under my pillow, and sobbed.

  The next morning, as promised, we had the day off. It was almost like a holiday, though we did have to go to Mass. As the vile priest spoke, I couldn’t stop thinking about the scene I’d witnessed the day before in the bathroom. Though I wasn’t quite sure what I had seen, it made me feel sick nonetheless. I glanced at Blondie. Deep gray bags under his eyes dimmed their crystal blue. He met my gaze for a second. He knew I’d seen them.

  “Dear children of God, despite the sins of your parents, God loves you. The most holy Virgin watches over you as a mother from heaven, and Franco, the Caudillo of Spain, provides your daily bread. The forces of evil seek to destroy our beloved country, the spiritual stronghold of the West, but providence has saved us from communism. Now our comrades in Germany and Italy are waging their crusade against atheism. Very soon that terrible and malevolent ideology of the demon Marx will be wiped off the face of the earth. Let us pray for those who govern us, that God would impart his wisdom and prudence to them.” He droned on and on.

  When Mass was over, Chema came up to me. “Can I trust you to wait on the director’s table? If you do a good job, I’ll give you a prize afterward.”

  “What kind of prize?” I asked, dubious.

  “You’ll see,” was all he said.

  At one o’clock, a luxury Mercedes-Benz drove into the orphanage. A chauffeur opened the back door, and a man in a gray coat and hat stepped out. He was not wearing a Falangist uniform. Rufián stood ready to greet him at the orphanage door. He bowed several times, and he led them all to the teachers’ dining room.

  Two of my classmates and I were dressed as waiters. We poured wine, then served three different dishes before bringing out the dessert. It had been years since I’d seen some of the delicacies the teachers ate that Sunday.

  “Thank you for welcoming me into your home so lavishly,” Manuel Martínez de Tena said.

  “It is our great honor to host the national delegate,” Rufián answered.

  “Oh, come off it, Rufián, call me Manuel. We’ve known each other for years. How I miss José Antonio—he would’ve built a real Falangist Spain, none of this nonsense like paquita la culona has brought us.”

  Everyone guffawed. Despite Franco’s purge of Falangist leadership in creating the unified JONS party of which he was the unquestioned leader, many longed for Hitler’s help to oust him so they could implement a truly fascist regime.

  “Oh, things are bad, comrade,” Rufián quipped. “Serrano Suñer, the Cuñadísimo, does whatever he pleases. You saw what happened with Mercedes—the woman was a true saint! But of course Hermanísima Pilar wants to control the entire Falangist women’s division. What does that pig know about being feminine?”

  “The important thing is that the reds are under control. Thousands are being taken out for a little walk, but we can’t kill them all. Some will have to go back to the factories. Marxism deceived them, but we’ll show them a better life with the Falangists.” Manuel raised his glass to toast. “To the return of the Spanish Empire! Down with communism; viva the Falange!”

  They all shouted as one. Cocktails followed dessert, and soon they were singing patriotic songs. Rufián waved me over.

  “This little red was one of the Morelia rats,” he told his boss.

  “We’re working on getting the rest of the minors transferred. The sons of the fatherland need to come back home. Those blasted reds even set up an embassy in Mexico and are trying to keep their government going—in exile! If it weren’t so pathetic it might be an offense to the regime,” Manuel said, the flush of his face showing the number of drinks he’d consumed.

  “This little squirt came back on his own with his sisters,” Rufián said, clapping me on the shoulder and letting out a hoot.

  “Well done, my boy. If only others would follow your example! There are thousands of Spaniard children all over Russia, France, England, Belgium, Argentina, and Mexico. They’re Spaniards stolen by the reds,” Manuel mused.

  “You can go now,” Rufián said, shooing me away.

  An hour later the visit was over, and it was time to clean everything up. It was late when we finished, but before I headed up to bed, Chema called me over.

  “Well, I think you’ve earned it. I wanted to tell you that your sisters are in an orphanage outside Madrid, in San Fernando de Henares. They’re fine, and they’re together. You don’t need to worry about them. When you come of age and if you have a job, you can request guardianship over them. That won’t be hard for a bright boy like you. You officially come of age at twenty-one, but if you’re able to provide for yourself before then, they’ll let you see them.”

  I was breathless. “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it. Perhaps, just perhaps, there was a chance to see at least part of my family again.

  I went up to our room, where most of the boys were already asleep. I got my clothes and went to the bathroom to wash up. The first thing that surprised me was a light that was already on. I set my clothes down and got ready to shower in the ice-cold water. Then I saw the blood, trickling out from one of the bathroom stalls. I didn’t know what to do. My heart raced, but my body was paralyzed. I forced myself to go up to the door, and I pushed it open slowly. I didn’t want to look, but I had to know if the person inside was dead or alive.

  Chapter 43

  Lies

  Paracuellos

  December 29, 1940

  My screams echoed throughout the entire building. I jumped back and started to retch. All the boys raced in, and a boy named Daniel threw a sheet over the body while Fermín went to get the director. Rufián ran up in his bathrobe, wearing a ridiculous hairnet on his head. They asked me what happened, but I couldn’t speak. Everything was swimming in my head, and I heard their voices like noises underwater from far away. Finally, Chema showed up and managed to get through to me.

  He put his hands on my shoulders and asked, “What happened, Marco?” I couldn’t stop crying and saying Blondie’s name over and over.

  “What happened to him?” Chema asked again.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know. I just found him there, dead, with blood everywhere.”

  I couldn’t get the image of my friend’s pale face out of my mind, his wrists slit and the blood all around him.

  “Suicide,” the director concluded after confirming that Blondie was dead. “What a disgrace.”

  Father Onésimo appeared and rubbed some sort of oil on the dead body. Then he turned to us and said, “This little angel is in the presence of our Lord and Savior.”

  I couldn’t stop myself: I retched again, this time all over his feet. The director sent everyone else away.

  “Well, Marco, things have turned ugly. We’d better clear up the facts before the inspection comes. The poor boy suffered a terrible accident, and that’s what the doctor will record. If they ask you, you’re to say you found him with his neck broken. Is that understood?”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “But—” Chema started to say.

  “Don José María Pérez, there are worse positions than here at the orphanage, I assure you. If you wish to avoid reports about your incompetence, I suggest you not make things more difficult. The child has died as a result of a terrible accident.”

  “He took his own life,” Chema said, very serious.

  “Suicide, accident, natural death—they’re all ways of saying the same thing. The boy died. I don’t want our institution to be disgraced. The church is already leery of our centers, and they want exclusive control over the education of the children. The only thing Carmen Polo cares about is making the priests happy, and we all know how influential Franco’s wife is in the government. Now, get Marco calmed down and send him to bed.”

  Rufián left the bathroom. Blondie’s body still lay there on the floor, as if no one cared what had happened to him.

  “Don’t worry, they’ll come take him away and clean everything up,” Chema
said, reading my thoughts. “I’m really sorry, Marco. I really am.”

  “I know what happened,” I croaked, my voice hoarse from the tears and vomit.

  “Did you see something?” he asked, curious.

  “No, he was already like that when I found him, but the priest, Father Onésimo, he . . . he was abusing Blondie, and probably some of the other boys too. Poor Blondie couldn’t take it anymore and—”

  “What you’re saying is extremely serious. Do you realize that? You’re accusing a servant of God of committing terrible sins.”

  “I saw it myself the other day, when you let me come back to bed to rest.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “I saw it. They were here, in the bathroom. The priest—”

  “Stop, stop it right now! You heard the director. It was all a tragic accident. You have to learn that to survive in this world you’ve just got to look the other way sometimes. Do you think I’ve always been a Falangist? My father was the captain of a Republican group, a red, and they know it. I’ll always be an intruder in this world. But if you learn how to adapt, you can get along.” Pain and rage were at war on his face. In the new Spain, we had to learn our place or else the regime would devour us all.

  I shook for a long, long time after I crawled into bed, and I couldn’t sleep at all that night. I swore to myself I would get out of that hellhole the first chance I got. I couldn’t stand it one day more.

  In the morning, they lined everyone up to give them the news. It was the second-to-last day of the year, and to make us keep our mouths shut, they promised us a party on New Year’s Eve.

  Once the doctor wrote his falsified report, the director wanted to bury Blondie as soon as possible. The boy’s mother was in prison and would have no way of finding out, so Rufián knew no one would come for the boy.