Remember Me

by Mario Escobar

  “I don’t know. On the one hand, I’d hop on a boat to Mexico this very minute. I miss the people there. But at the same time, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want those murderers to steal my country.”

  “I know. You’re too young to really understand that they’ve already stolen it. It’s gone. The war took much more than hundreds of thousands of people; it stole our future. I’ve no idea how long Franco will be in power, but Spain will never, ever be the same. There will always be losers and winners, executioners and victims, brothers against brothers.”

  Perhaps it was youth that kept me from seeing what my mom could see, but even after everything that had happened, and even though I knew deep down that she was right, I didn’t want to give up hope.

  “There’s no future here,” she added. “I want you three to grow up believing you can do what you want to with your lives.”

  We drifted off eventually, and the exhaustion kept us in deep sleep until late morning. Jacinto made some calls to get us an appointment in the central offices of Social Aid downtown. Mom put on a nice outfit Jacinto pulled out of a closet, and I dressed in an elegant suit.

  “Thank you for everything, dear friend,” my mother said, sinking deep into Jacinto’s embrace before we left.

  “You can stay here as long as you need to, and you can work in the company again if you want. I’ll pay for the kids’ schooling.”

  She hugged him again. “Oh, thank God there are still a few noble souls in this world. I have to ask you for one more favor. I’ll need money for the trip, four train tickets plus passage on the boat. And—”

  “Don’t worry about anything,” he said. A moment later, he returned from his office with an envelope stuffed with cash.

  “I’ll pay it all back, I swear,” my mother said.

  “It’s not a loan; it’s a gift. Friendship is more than words. I wish you would stay, but I understand why you need to go.”

  They embraced again, and Angelines was crying as she held the door open for us. We waved goodbye one last time as we waited for the elevator.

  * * *

  The Social Aid office was nothing to speak of, just two floors crammed with old filing cabinets, scratched-up tables, and Falangist paper pushers who either felt some sense of calling or who hadn’t managed to get a better position in the new administration.

  A woman named Doña Ágata received us warmly and searched for my sisters’ files. She confirmed that they were still in the San Fernando de Henares orphanage and authorized their removal.

  “We’ve taken care of the girls in your absence. I do hope the whole family can be together again,” she said.

  I was tempted to describe all I had endured in one of her wretched orphanages, but it was better to hold my tongue. We wouldn’t be safe until we were far away from Spain.

  An hour later, we were in San Fernando de Henares, in an oddly shaped plaza. We knocked at the door. A nun dressed in black opened the gate and asked what we wanted.

  My mother said nothing but held out the letter from the central offices. The nun waved us in and took us to the Mother Superior while she went to find Isabel and Ana.

  The Mother Superior said, “Your daughters are very well-behaved. We’ve taught them to be good wives and mothers. Spain needs children and new life to overcome all the deaths.”

  We didn’t answer. The nun seemed uncomfortable in our silence but continued to smile.

  The door opened, and Ana’s voice resounded. “Mom!” They ran to each other, and Isabel to me, all of us weeping and hugging first one, then the next, then all at once in incredulous joy.

  “I wish you all the best,” the Mother Superior said after a while, putting an end to our time in the orphanage.

  We walked out under a blue sky so intense it reminded me of holidays in Madrid many years ago when we would walk the streets of our beautiful city.

  “Where’s Dad?” Isabel asked hesitantly.

  Mom looked at her, preparing her throat and mouth to say the dreaded words. “He’s no longer with us.” She made her voice as gentle as possible for the horrible news.

  My sisters stopped short, mute and unsure how to respond, until Ana began to cry and cling to Mom again. Isabel joined in, and then all four of us were once more a mess of tears and arms. I felt the hairs all over my body standing on end. Love can be experienced physically, and my body was responding to what it had longed for for so long. We walked to the bus stop holding one another’s hands. Our train would leave from Atocha Station, and we didn’t want to stay in Madrid one moment longer than necessary.

  My mother carried my sisters’ light bags and I carried the suitcase Angelines had packed for us, much larger and heavier, full of everything the good woman knew we would need. We looked for the train on the platform and waited impatiently for the departure time to come. We’d be traveling overnight.

  “Jacinto reserved an entire compartment for us,” Mom said. She was grateful to be able to spend those first few hours of being together again without other people around us. Our reunion felt incomplete, and it always would, even though we carried our father in our hearts.

  Isabel sat on one side of Mom and Ana on the other, as close as they could. It made me happy to see them snuggled up together. I felt like as long as we were all there at the same time and touching one another, no one could separate us again.

  “Mom, we were scared no one would ever come get us. Those nuns treated us well enough, though we had to work all day long. They said it was to teach us a trade, but I think they were just making a profit off our labor,” Isabel said.

  “You’ve got your brother to thank. He fought long and hard for us to all be together again.”

  Their eyes remained sad, but Isabel and Ana beamed at me. Soon they fell asleep leaning against our mother. I watched the countryside go by until it grew dark. The train made several stops, and the metaphorical parallel with life jumped out at me. Each of our experiences over the past few years had been a stop on the ride; the main difference is that in life we never know which stop will actually be the last. Madrid, San Martín de la Vega, Valencia, Barcelona, Perpignan, Bordeaux, Veracruz, Morelia, Mexico City, Lisbon, Bilbao, and Miranda de Ebro had been some of our train stations during those terrible years. I had left part of myself at each place and had learned something as well. At that moment, as I looked at my incomplete family, I felt like the long road had been worth it.

  At midnight, the train stopped at the border. The customs agents didn’t bother us, perhaps because we had a private compartment. I was both relieved and sad when we crossed the dividing line between countries. That mixture of ambivalence has stayed with me for decades: my heart always divided in half, never knowing which is my true self.

  We arrived in Lisbon the next morning. The city was more beautiful than the first time I’d seen it. People were moving from one place to the next, all in a frenzy. Though Portugal was also ruled by a dictator, we didn’t detect the same kind of gut-wrenching sadness that was so palpable in Spain.

  In the port, a huge transatlantic steamer was waiting to take us back to Mexico. We got there just in time. We walked up the long gangway, left our luggage in the cabin, and went out onto the main deck. We looked out at the city and then at the people there to bid farewell to their loved ones, perhaps for a trip from which they would never return. My mother hugged us, and the rock-solid feeling of safety returned.

  “Remember!” she said as the boat drifted away from land. “Remember, but don’t hate. Remember, so the memory of what you are doesn’t fade, so the nation you’ll always belong to stays stuck to the bottoms of your feet. They’ve stolen our future and our beloved country, but they’ll never be able to steal our memories.”

  Surrounded by the crystal waters, I thought of Dad. I recalled his mischievous smile, his ironic way of dealing with the world, his courage, and his self-possession. I swore that I would live as he had. I wanted to feel worthy of him and his sacrifice. I needed to be able to look at myself
in the mirror in a few years and say that my life had been worthwhile; that the ideals of the dying Republic still resounded in my heart; that its ideals, for which so many had died, would one day turn my country into a place where justice and truth would shine like the dawn, spilling over the blood and tears of all who had given their lives to make this world a better place.

  Epilogue

  Veracruz

  November 21, 1975

  The sun, the sea, and the flowers seemed to have stood still in time. My family settled in Mexico City after we left Spain. Mom found work in a theater and even earned a name for herself. We lived downtown, reconnected with Lisa, and studied at one of the schools for Spaniard immigrants. I went on to study law at a university but didn’t finish my degree. I worked in a publishing house until I returned to Spain. For some reason, I just needed to see it again. Isabel studied medicine and Ana, journalism. They married Mexican men and never crossed the Atlantic again. The first thing I did before settling back in Madrid was visit my father’s tomb in Miranda de Ebro. Since my mother and I had witnessed his death, this spared him the ignominy of being thrown into a mass grave as was the fate of so many. Arranging flowers over his simple grave marker, I recalled the day of his death and marveled again at how fate toys with us like pawns on the chessboard of life.

  I never married. A loner, I watched Madrid change little by little. My mother died in Mexico, and I didn’t make it back to say a final goodbye. My sisters and I wrote often, but I hadn’t met their children.

  That day in November I learned of Franco’s death. An era was over, leaving a wake of pain and suffering.

  I got off the boat in Veracruz and walked through the chaotic city full of color and every imaginable contrast. When I arrived at the train station, I thought back to my first time there, experiencing everything through the eyes of a child. The world felt new to me right then, and every little thing, no matter how insignificant, brought me joy. I glanced down again at the piece of paper in my hand with María Soledad de la Cruz’s address. I spent the whole trip to Mexico City thinking about how our reunion would be. I presumed she would be married and have a passel of children and grandchildren. Impatient, I walked through the city streets until I came to a small red villa in the shade of two huge trees.

  I knocked at the door, and a maid led me to the living room. I glanced at the clock and waited, my hands jittery with nerves. Finally, I heard footsteps. The door opened and revealed a beautiful, mature woman with large, dark eyes. She smiled and said in her strong Mexican accent, “Well, hello there, little Spaniard gentleman. Welcome home.”

  For the second time in my life, I felt like I had come home.

  Clarifications from History

  Remember Me is a work of fiction based on true stories. To discuss the period of the Second Spanish Republic and the Spanish Civil War is by definition to enter into controversy. Many of the events that occurred are interpreted differently by historians and the public in general, but everyone is in agreement that it was a human tragedy and a very sad and difficult period in Spanish history.

  The Second Republic sprang up somewhat spontaneously and with the near unanimous approval of all the political forces and social classes in the country. The world was going through a serious economic crisis, not to mention the particular structural and social deficiencies of a backward, uneducated country. The Second Republic tried in a very short time to repair massive inequalities and to secularize the state. The conservative reaction did not delay. The burning of convents and the social revolutions in different parts of the country threatened the peaceful way of life, unleashing partisan violence that would result in one of the worst civil wars of the twentieth century.

  Nor did the international political scene contribute to stability within the country. The triumph of the communist revolution in Russia and of fascism in Italy and Germany polarized Europe and questioned the viability of classic constitutional systems.

  The description in this book of the city of Madrid prior to the war and at the time of the coup d’état of July 17–18, 1936, is based on real events. The exciting night and the arming of working-class civilians, the assault on the Montaña Barracks, and the killings that occurred in University City and Casa de Campo are real.

  The bombings on Madrid are also real, as are the role of repressive chekas founded by some political groups, especially communists and anarchists, and the attempt to rescue the city’s cultural heritage, in particular the Prado Museum.

  The situation of towns on the outskirts of Madrid is also based on documents and testimony from survivors. Repression by the Nationalist or rebel band against teachers was brutal.

  It is true that many Republicans fled to Valencia and that Spaniard children were evacuated to different countries in Europe and the Americas.

  The stories of the Children of Morelia and their journey to Mexico are based on the testimonies of several of these children. The evacuation of between 450 and 470 Spaniard children (the exact number is difficult to determine) by boat from Bordeaux aboard the Mexique was carefully planned. The offer to provide protection came from Mexico at the insistence of the wife of President Lázaro Cárdenas and from the Ibero-American Committee for Aid to the Spanish Peoples. After the war, Mexico helped over twenty thousand Spaniards who found their second home in Mexico after they fled Franco’s repression.

  The portrayal of Morelia and the daily life of the Spaniard children while there, including their difficulties adapting to a country and to customs so different from their own, is realistic. Likewise based on real events are the attack on town churches, the death of a child through the school administration’s negligence, the first director’s degrading treatment of the children, the second director’s militaristic approach, the abuses committed by older students against younger children, and the gradual changes that occurred at the Spain–Mexico School.

  When the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939 and when Manuel Ávila Camacho assumed the presidency of Mexico in 1940, life for the Children of Morelia changed radically. Some were deported to Spain, and others were sent to convents or given to families in adoption.

  The refuge homes in Mexico City, the conflict between Spanish Republicans and Francoists in Mexico City, the kidnapping of minors, and other events in Mexico relayed herein are also based on real events, though some liberties have been taken with chronology. The refuge on Alfonso Herrera Street opened in 1943, and Rubén Landa did not become director of the Luis Vives School until 1942.

  The description of postwar Spain and the horrendous Francoist repression of Republicans is based on real testimonies and factual documents. There were over 108 concentration camps scattered throughout the country, most based on the design and functionality of Nazi concentration camps. The camp at Miranda de Ebro was one of the longest functioning, not closing until 1947. Over the years, over sixty thousand people passed through that camp, many of them foreigners who had fought in the International Brigades. One of the camp’s supervisors was the German Nazi Paul Winzer, who was an advisor to the camp’s director.

  The repression of Republican females was brutal. Many had their children taken from them to be given in adoption or forcibly placed in orphanages founded by Auxilio Social, the Social Aid department, or by institutions of the Catholic Church. By and large, children were treated very harshly in these orphanages. Besides enduring exploitation and abuse, they were often separated from living relatives and manipulated to forget their parents’ ideologies.

  Pardons for prisoners condemned to death became common starting in 1941, especially if the prisoners had not committed violent crimes.

  The Alcalde family is fictitious, though I have based them on testimony from several families and the real events that occurred in their lives; thus, the story of the Alcalde family is based on events that really happened.

  The teachers and caretakers of the Children of Morelia are real, though some names have been changed, as is also the case for most of the children mentioned in
this book.

  Timeline

  July 17–18, 1936

  Military uprising against the Republican government, beginning in Morocco and spreading throughout the peninsula. The only victory for the rebel Nationalists in major cities was in Seville. One of the first measures taken in response by the Republic was the arming of workers.

  July 20, 1936

  Anarchists, leftists, and armed workers groups defeat the rebel military at the Montaña Barracks in Madrid.

  July 25, 1936

  Franco seeks aid from Hitler through Nazi contacts in Northern Africa.

  August 14, 1936

  Badajoz falls to the Nationalists, who massacre the population.

  August 27–28, 1936

  Nationalist forces begin bombing Madrid.

  September 29, 1936

  Franco is named head of government and highest commanding general (Generalísimo) of the Nationalist armies. From that moment, he directs all military operations and the course of the war.

  November 6, 1936

  The Republican government moves from Madrid to Valencia.

  November 7, 1936

  The Republic murders thousands of political prisoners in the area of Paracuellos del Jarama to eliminate the risk of potential traitors. The massacre discredits the democratic government and leads to increased violence on both sides of the conflict.

  November 8, 1936

  The Siege of Madrid begins. With the help of the International Brigades, Madrid’s citizens withstand the siege for twenty-eight months.

  November 1936

  Artwork from the Prado Museum is transported to Valencia for safekeeping.

  November 20, 1936

  Alicante José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder and leader of the fascist political party Falange Española, is executed in jail. Franco then becomes the undisputed leader of all rebel factions.