The Spanish Promise

by Karen Swan

  Leaving their mops with the fifty-eight others in the shed that had once been the school’s coal store, they began to walk back quickly to the apartment, Marta talking nineteen to the dozen: about the blister on her left index finger from holding the mop, a new hairstyle she had thought up herself, her date tomorrow night with the boy from the print shop . . .

  Marina smiled as she listened, loving the mundanity of it all. The thing she had learnt about war was that it flipped everything into reverse: making heroes out of ordinary people, making small lives extraordinary, and turning the trivial into the epic. When every day was a fight for survival and just living to see the sun both rise and set again was a victory in itself, these tiny day-to- day details assumed greater importance than they could ever achieve during peacetime.

  They were almost home and Marta had moved on to bemoaning the prospect of the meeting in the apartment. It wasn’t that her commitment to the cause was waning but all she wanted to do, she said, was to ‘fall on the bed and sleep for a week’.

  She stopped suddenly, looking shocked. ‘Oh! Oh no.’

  ‘What is it?’ Marina asked, feeling an immediate ripple of fear. Danger was only ever a heartbeat away these days: the muzzle of a gun pointing from a window; a mortar whistling through the sky.

  ‘I saw old Lopez earlier. He has got some tomatoes.’

  ‘Fresh tomatoes?’ Marina repeated, her mouth beginning to water.

  Marta nodded. ‘He promised to hold some for me.’

  ‘But how did they get past the blockade?’ Marina asked, her tummy giving a rumble for good measure.

  Marta shrugged.

  Food was growing harder and harder to come by. The Nationalists’ siege meant supplies from the country increasingly couldn’t get past the lines. Many Madrilenos had already packed up their families and relocated to the Valencian coast in anticipation of a further assault on the capital. The city was steadily shutting down and looting was beginning to be commonplace.

  Marina looked left and right. The apartment was another quarter-mile to their right. ‘But it’s in the opposite direction and we’re already late for the meeting.’

  ‘I know, but . . .’ Marta’s eyes brightened. ‘Fresh tomatoes, Marina.’

  Marina hesitated – to her stomach they were more urgently needed even than guns. ‘Okay, fine, let’s go. But we must run.’

  ‘No. We can’t both be late. Explain for me. I’ll hurry.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘It’s fine. I won’t be long!’ She was already tearing away. Marina thought she looked like she had lost weight. Perhaps they all had. Their days were long: working for the cause through the daylight hours and then keeping the team going after dark – cooking, washing and, increasingly, nursing comrades with injuries.

  She ran the rest of the way home and let herself into the apartment building, giving the special knock at the door.

  Luciana let her in.

  ‘Marta’s just getting some tomatoes. She’ll be ten minutes.’

  ‘Ssh, they have started,’ she said quietly, looking solemn.

  Marina hurried in, trying to slip unnoticed at the back, but she saw Sindo’s quick gaze catch sight of her, noting her tardiness: her lack of commitment to the cause?

  ‘. . . grave escalation of atrocities. I have personally had sight of a letter in which the devil Queipo de Llano wrote, the executions of our brothers must proceed with greater energy . . .’

  She looked over at the man talking. It was Sindo’s contact, Miguel Modesto. She knew him by sight and reputation, but that was enough; even Paloma called him a thug. A former blacksmith, he was tall and athletic with a high forehead and swept-back light-brown hair, a broken nose and bowed lips. Good-looking, some said, but tales of his savagery preceded him. He had been one of the men to lead the massacre at the Montana barracks in July and his appointment as chief interrogator for the Commissions of Investigation was scant cover for the kangaroo courts in which justice was merely a bit-part. Everyone knew about the sharp increase in ‘motorized crimes’ under his watch, in which Nationalist suspects were simply driven to the city outskirts and shot. If he had been a dangerous man before, he was even more threatening now that he was sanctioned with official powers. Was it good to have a man like him on their side? Certainly he was a dangerous enemy, but she had heard Paloma tell Sindo several times that he was an equally dangerous friend.

  ‘Greater energy?’ he repeated in disbelief. ‘What more can they do to us? We know that to prevent any rebellion, they are killing all prisoners, their wives and children too. We know what they do to our women that they allow to survive – violating them repeatedly, shaving off their hair, forcing them to ingest castor oil and then shaming them by making them parade through the towns as they soil themselves.’ He pointed a finger. ‘No! Do not look away. Hear my words. Feel them.’

  Marina felt the tears bud in her eyes. Was this true or propaganda? But she had seen some of the women herself, shorn and trying to disguise themselves under shawls, arriving in the great waves of refugees flooding the city.

  Her own ragged cut was already growing out, its shocking roughness softening into a messy style that now swung gently at her ears, though her neck was still bare; Marta had taken to brushing and styling it for her each morning, curling the ends under and pinning it in place by the temples. Unbeknownst to Marina at the time, it was her cut that had first caught Paloma’s eye in the crowd, assuming her to be one of the ‘unfortunate women’ caught and abused by fascist troops, and it had been many weeks before Marina had managed to convince them that she had unwittingly cut it herself by way of disguise.

  ‘Far from the worst being over, this is just the beginning. The columns are advancing and the repression is intensifying. In the north, Navarre and Toledo have fallen. In the east, Huesca has fallen. In the west, Coruña and Lugo, Salamanca and León have fallen. In the south, Cadiz, Huelva, Granada, Cordoba and Sevilla have fallen. Fallen! Our comrades annihilated.’

  Marina felt her blood chill, her heartbeat slow. Andalusia was down?

  ‘And now the Falangist dogs are heading here. For me. For you.’ His eyes tripped over every one of them, making it personal. ‘The fascist scum must be neutralized. There can be no mercy against an enemy that disregards the very humanity of its opponents. Only three days ago, there was a report from Malaga that our brave comrades were rounded up in the bullring – the bullring! – and slaughtered. They shot at them like fish in a barrel.’ He took a breath, contempt twisting his face. ‘This was not just the landowners’ revenge, this was their sport . . .’

  Marina felt an echo ring against the words – Malaga . . . Bullring . . .

  ‘Where, exactly?’ Her voice, refined and feminine, rang like a bell against the cannon-fire of his rhetoric. She felt a spike of fear as every head turned, Modesto’s gaze coming to rest upon her, for she hadn’t known the words were leaving her until she heard them in the room too.

  There was a pause, Modesto regarding her carefully. ‘. . . Ronda.’ She didn’t flinch, though it took everything in her not to react; Ronda was still three miles from La Ventilla; it could have been the Ordonez or Romeros . . .

  Modesto’s eyes narrowed, his stare weighing heavily upon her. ‘By every account I have heard, the braceros were starving, previous attempts at uprisings having been immediately and mercilessly staunched. But this summer, they reorganized themselves, invading the estate and reclaiming it for harvest; they slaughtered some of their bulls—’

  ‘Bulls?’ she queried again, but her heart was hammering now. She knew what he was going to say.

  ‘Mendoza bulls. Famous for their strength and courage. And, of course – meat.’ Modesto looked back around the room again. ‘Our brothers wanted merely to feed their families. No different to you or I. But for that audacity, they were rounded up and sent in to the bullring, in groups of five, for the landlords to pick them off, one by one. Even the beasts are granted more dignity than that.’

&nbs
p; A roar of disgust rumbled through the room, condemning her father, her brothers. She allowed her head to give a tiny nod, but she was shaking, violent tremors barely contained. Because she knew her family had done this in her name, as payback for losing her. Tit for tat. It would never end.

  ‘Why do you ask, señorita?’ Modesto’s attention was back on her again, his scrutiny upon her disconcerting for he was a man known for his interrogations, a man hired to read when people were lying.

  ‘I am from Seville,’ she replied, remembering her initial lie to Sindo. ‘I wondered if I might know them. If I could help.’

  ‘And do you?’

  She shook her head. ‘. . . No. I’m sorry.’

  He stared at her for longer than was necessary, the tension in the room growing like an overblown balloon. Did he believe her, or did her voice betray her? ‘Well, that is a shame.’

  He tore his gaze away and it was like being ripped from the arms of a monster. Luciana came and stood beside her. ‘What did you do that for?’ she whispered as he started up again, hatred inflecting off every word.

  ‘I wanted to help,’ she murmured back.

  ‘How? All you’ve done is brought yourself to his attention. You know what he’s like.’

  They looked back at him, holding the crowd with his dogma as he extrapolated on the fascist scum. His colour was high, hair flopping theatrically as he paced, expounding the need for vigilance and action. But every few moments now, his gaze came back to her again, like she was a resting post, somewhere he might tarry a while.

  She stared at the floor, knowing her curiosity had left her exposed. She would be remembered. But if she had had the chance to think it through, she would also have done it again, for she knew exactly who had organized their uprising this summer, who had finally dared them to succeed where they – and his father – had failed before. There’s no fire that burns so hot as a young man’s anger and she saw now that, far from being an end in itself, slaughtering Indigo had merely been the calling card that this was the beginning. In the four months she had been gone, she had missed out on Santi’s revolution and his full revenge upon her family. And what a revenge it had been: her mother had lost her only daughter, and then her father and brothers had lost their land. But his victory had been short and reprisal vengeance had been theirs once more, for didn’t the Mendozas always win in the end?

  And that meant only one thing, something that made her bones want to snap from sheer despair, even though she hated him now – Santi was dead.

  He was dead.

  Her old best friend, shot to death by her own family as he ran for his life in a closed-off bullring . . .

  Santi . . . She remembered how his eyes had burned the last time they had seen each other. How, for just a moment, she had thought she could reach him still. Until Arlo had spoken, redrawing the battle lines, and he had run, the bloodied knife in his hand—

  ‘Death to the Falangist dogs! Viva La Republica!’

  The cheer made her jolt and look up, drawing her out of the thoughts she had sunk into so deeply. How much had she missed?

  She saw that the meeting had come to a close, their supporters leaving with fresh fires blazing in their eyes; she remembered she was supposed to be handing out flyers with Luciana as they passed by. Remembering her duty, she went to run to her post by the door—

  A hand on her arm stopped her.

  ‘Marina, allow me to introduce you properly.’ It was Sindo, and beside him, a full head taller, tonight’s speaker. ‘Miguel Modesto.’

  Up close, he was even more imposing than on the speakers’ floor, the intensity he brought to his words carried through with a rough physicality: tobacco, sweat, stubble; cuts and bruises on his hands.

  ‘Hello,’ she said simply, still with a hesitation for it had been hard work to break the habit of using the formal introductions she had been raised with.

  ‘Señorita Marquez, I was grateful for your efforts tonight. It is good to see our womenfolk so committed to the cause.’

  ‘I believe many of us are, sir,’ she said, sweeping her gaze over Paloma and Luciana, who were still engaging the departing crowds, still exhorting them to rally their peers, their friends, their neighbours . . .

  ‘Sir?’ he queried. ‘There are no hierarchies in this room. We are all equals, are we not?’

  ‘I apologize. An old habit. My mother raised me to show deference.’

  ‘And what was your mother?’

  ‘A cook,’ she said quickly. ‘For the local landowners.’

  ‘Not the Mendozas?’ His eyebrow was arched but there was a playfulness to it, as though her questions about them somehow bonded them now. A shared joke perhaps.

  ‘No, señor. My people are in Seville.’

  He nodded. ‘It is tragic what has happened there.’

  ‘It is,’ she agreed.

  ‘Are your family safe?’

  ‘I have no family now.’ It was a truth, at least. Her heart ached for Arlo and her mother but they had neither one of them been strong enough to act decisively against her father, to make the changes she could not live without, and their apathy had been as effective as the others’ brutality in casting her out.

  ‘Well, I am sorry to hear that, though it is a common enough story.’ His eyes never moved off her and she could only imagine what it would be like to be questioned by this man with a revolver on the table. ‘Which is why it is all the more important to bind closely to our friends and comrades. I trust your supporters here tonight will have taken my words to their hearts and heard the warnings I am giving them. Conditions here are only going to get worse – a lot worse. It is imperative you know who you can trust, who can keep you safe in times like these.’

  He seemed to be saying something more than his words, a double-binded message. But was it a promise or a threat? She had heard too much about him to discount the rumours of his violent excesses, and if he was offering her safety, his protection, it was at what cost?

  ‘Marina! We need you here.’

  She looked over, to find Paloma and Luciana standing by the doors as the last of the followers filed past. Paloma beckoned her over.

  ‘I’m sorry, I must go. Will you excuse me?’

  Modesto smiled again. ‘You really do have fine manners for the daughter of a cook, señorita.’

  She inclined her head fractionally. ‘Then I shall take that as a compliment to my mama.’

  Something glittered in his eyes as she turned to leave and she hurried quickly to where the others were standing. ‘What is it?’ she asked breathlessly, feeling the adrenaline shoot through her limbs now she was free. She felt like a doe that had been released from the jaws of a leopard.

  ‘You looked like you needed rescuing,’ Paloma winked, handing her the leaflets to distribute with them.

  Modesto made a point of taking one from her on his way out, catching her eye with what seemed to be a meaningful look before he left. When the last guest had gone, they walked down to the bedroom together; Luciana collapsed down on her bed with a sigh – grateful for the brief respite before the work began for dinner. Paloma pulled a cigarette from inside her shirt – she kept them lined up in her bra – and offered one.

  Marina took it, feeling shaken. Distraught.

  ‘What was Modesto saying to you?’ Luciana asked.

  Her voice sounded far away and it was a moment before the words reached Marina’s ear. ‘. . . Oh. He was offering me protection, I think.’

  Paloma’s eyebrow arched. ‘Don’t fall for that. You know what he means, right? You are not such an innocent as to believe he would not want something in return.’

  ‘Of course not.’ But she didn’t know, nor did she care. It wasn’t Modesto who was on her mind. She went and sat on her mattress, feeling drained, the news of Santi’s death buzzing in her like a butterfly trapped in a bell jar. She took a deep drag of the cigarette, trying to ignore it. She should be happy he was dead. She would be. He had been no friend when he died, but
her enemy – he knew the enormity of what he had done when he took Indigo from her. No, it was just the shock, finding out like that, that was all. She would feel happy about it soon enough.

  She lay down, her arm outstretched with the cigarette over the floor. The mattress was scarcely fit for purpose, one of the springs pushing up against her ribs, a corner of the fabric torn, horsehair tufts spilling through it and God-only- knew what climbing in, for every morning she awoke scratching, her skin covered with hundreds of tiny red bites.

  She stared into the distance, at nothing, seeing not the panelled walls or her sisters in arms, but a boy with black eyes and a gap between his teeth. She hated him. She hated him. She would hate him. She would.

  Beside her bed was one of the boxes left by the previous owner – her godmother – and which they now used as tables. They had all long since been scavenged, torn through when Paloma and Sindo first requisitioned the space, looking for food, bedding, writing materials, anything that might assist them in their cause; but much of it was useless – extravagant balldresses that could possibly be converted into curtains if only they could sew, hats and ribbons, trinkets and photographs. Some of the candelabras had been deemed useful for the blackouts when the German Luftwaffe took to the skies and they had quickly grown accustomed to eating their peasants’ meals off long-pronged silver cutlery.

  Unlike the other girls, Marina had nothing on her ‘bedside table’: not a photograph of her family or beau, nor even a hairbrush. She had taken only food with her and a kitchen knife, just enough to keep her safe and alive on the journey to the capital. But beneath it, innocuous and seemingly irrelevant if anyone should chance upon it, was an irregularly heart-shaped pebble. She had found it in the pocket of the old trousers she had stolen from Arlo the night she escaped and it had become her last remaining tie to him, to the land she had once called home, to La Ventilla, to Santi: they were all interconnected, joined together by a shared childhood. She rubbed the stone, remembering the day she had stolen orchard oranges for Santi, when they had dangled happily in the oaks and watched the cork harvest come in, the same day they had found the dead bull in the field and Señor Martin had whipped him till he bled, the same day Arlo had saved her from their father’s wrath but could not save her friend.