The Guardian of Secrets

by Jana Petken

  When Marta approached the recreation hall, she altered her veil again, tucked in her blouse, checked at least a dozen times that her bloomers were not bulging under her skirt, and opened the door.

  Her mother sat underneath the window looking tense, sitting upright and stiff in her chair. Her father was looking around him, studying the great shelves of books that seemed to fill the whole room, making everything and everybody in it look so small and insignificant. María sat opposite her mother with a horrified look on her face, which read, God, what is my sister doing here? She knew her so well. She wanted to run into their arms, but she had given up that part of her life, so instead, she walked slowly and sedately towards them.

  “Hello, everyone,” she said, kissing them all in turn. “You’re all looking well.”

  “And you, darling. Are you well?” Celia said, trying to hold on to her for as long as she could.

  “Are you happy?” Ernesto asked, searching her eyes.

  “Yes, I’m very happy. I’ve never been happier.”

  María grunted with thinly disguised disapproval. “Well, I think you look a little pale, but that may be because of the colour of your outfit. It’s very white …”

  “Are you eating well?” Celia asked, ignoring María completely.

  “Yes, very well.”

  “So, darling, what do you do all day?” Ernesto joined in.

  Marta watched their expectant faces drill into her own.

  “Well, I sew and do a lot of housework. My sewing has really improved.”

  “Really?” Celia said, not quite understanding what sewing had to do with being a bride of Christ.

  “Yes, and of course I spend a lot of my time in the chapel. There’s meditation, three examinations of conscience, a rosary, evening prayer, spiritual readings … Oh, and that’s not counting office. It’s all so fulfilling,” Marta finished proudly.

  Marta looked expectantly at all three faces. Her father shook his head, her mother and sister made faces at each other, and she felt as though she ought to say something else to break the uneasy silence. How could they understand? How could they know what it was like to be so close to God’s spiritual being that sometimes she felt he was her entire universe?

  “I’m really very happy,” she protested, resenting the pity she neither wanted nor needed.

  “Don’t you get a little bored saying all those prayers every day?” Celia asked her, clearly hoping to make Marta believe it was so.

  “It is hard sometimes, Mama,” Marta told her honestly. “But then I just keep trying, and even when I feel I’ve prayed long enough, I try harder. It’s the only way to be.”

  “It doesn’t have to be the only way. You could come home with us and pray whenever you liked, couldn’t she, Ernesto?” Celia said, turning to Ernesto for help.

  “Yes, Marta, yes, you could, quite easily. I’ll even build you your own chapel and we’ll have it blessed by the bishop,” he told Marta in desperation.

  “I don’t want to come home. I am home.” Marta hoped that she sounded convincing. She wanted them to stop asking her questions. She wished the visit were over so that she could block them out of her mind and get on with her life, but the questions just kept coming.

  “So what time do you get up?”

  “Do you have a regular bath?”

  “Are you sure you’re eating enough?”

  By the time the visit neared its end, Marta was exhausted. She wasn’t used to talking this much after all her long silences, and she was actually glad that she’d been given two nights’ recreational silence as punishment for breaking the silence rule.

  “Can we not persuade you to come home?” she heard her father ask from some distant place.

  Once again, Marta looked at the three of them in turn. She couldn’t bear to see the sadness in their eyes, but she knew she had to confront them.

  “No, you can’t, Father. I won’t be going home with you at all, not today, not tomorrow or the day after. I wish you’d all stop trying to persuade me. You see, I really am happy. I really am. This is what I want.”

  Celia let her tears trail down her sad face and tried one more time. “I think I’m making myself ill with worry. Oh, I know I’m being silly, but I really need you at home. Please reconsider, Marta. This is breaking my heart. Please just tell me you’ll think about it.”

  “Mother, don’t do this to yourself. Don’t cry for me and don’t have any false hopes. I don’t want you to have hope. Please don’t make this any more difficult for me. Try to be happy for me. I’m not dead. I’m living a full life. I’ve never felt so alive. I need your blessing.”

  Marta sighed with relief when the bell rang and her family were forcibly removed from the convent by etiquette and solid rules. As Marta watched them walk towards the outer walls, she felt herself about to give way to tears, but that would not be acceptable. She sighed and went to the chapel, where she found the ever-comforting hand of God.

  Chapter 43

  Miguel sat at the corner of the bar and read about the latest violence to erupt on the streets of Valladolid. Things were going well for him, and he was now very much inside his leaders’ circle of trust. He had rented an apartment with Gregorio Serrano on the corner of the main square, and there he had planned his future, with endless ideas and speeches that he would use to ingratiate himself even further with the Phalanx hierarchy. Since his arrival, he’d worked hard, not only in a legal capacity as a Phalanx counsel but also in the streets at the core of their military operations. He’d frequently travelled between Valladolid and Madrid, gathering information and reporting to headquarters, and the more involved he became in the web of intrigue, and retaliation killings, the more his lust for power grew.

  On 17 April, representatives of the Phalanx movement attended the funeral of the Guardía civil officer shot and killed after a bomb attack on the president. The attack had failed, and the Guardia Civil officer was innocent, but he was going to die for the cause and had not given up the name of the real perpetrator.

  Tension filled the street where the mourners gathered. Young socialists spat at them and threw empty bottles at the coffin. A running street battle ensued between the Phalanx and the opposition. Shots rained in the spring air and turned a blue sky into a thick grey mist of hatred. The Phalanx had come well prepared. They machine-gunned labourers, killing some and wounding dozens, and they would have carried on had the Asaltos not intervened.

  The next day, it became clear that the government’s toleration towards the Phalanx had ended, and things began to close down around them. Miguel was forced to hide in fear of his life. Daily street battles took place, normally at night. Miguel was a target now, a leading Phalanx member whose terror exploits had become well documented.

  Miguel’s goal was to remain at the forefront of the party and eventually make a name for himself and make his family proud. After all, he was doing glorious work for Spain and, more importantly, doing more than his brother, Pedro, who marched up and down all day like a duck without doing a damned thing to change the course of Spain’s history.

  On 1 May, Miguel travelled to the May Day parade in Madrid, although it was more of a spying mission for the Valladolid base than for any violent intent. His sole purpose, he’d been told, was to report to his superiors as soon as it was over. This in turn would ensure that they had their version of the truth in print before the socialist newspaper had a chance to spread its lies.

  When he and Gregorio arrived, the scene was worse than they could have imagined. Red banners lined every street and flew into the cloudless blue sky. Portraits of Lenin, Stalin, and Caballero were on every lamp post and in the hand of every raised arm. The atmosphere was one of confidence, of arrogance, of victory. Thousands of women were present, and their blatant air of haughtiness disgusted him. They walked around freely, flaunting convention and shouting, “Children yes, husbands no!”

  Their clothes were a disgrace to any decent Spanish woman, with berets sitting cockily o
n their heads, trousers showing every curve of hip and rear, and shirts rolled up to the elbows. They drank beer, sang revolutionary songs, and mounted trucks with the men, wrapping their arms around their waists in a public display of disrespect. It was, to Miguel, both repulsive and worrying. He was horrified, and his determination to destroy what he was witnessing grew because of it.

  That night, on the way back to Valladolid, Miguel kept thinking about the leftist women, the way they were dressed and the things that they were saying. He told Gregorio, “If my sisters ever behaved in that way, I’d kill them both.”

  He thought about María and Marta. It was, he admitted, the first time they had come to mind since leaving Valencia. Of his two sisters, Marta was the one he favoured. She was a good girl, meek and conservative, just as Spanish women should be. María disturbed him greatly with her trousers and her belief that she could equal a man in conversation, in the fields and in politics. The thought struck him that she did not resemble in any way the type of women he’d come to know in Valladolid. And he thought that when the day of reckoning arrived, María would not be on the same side as him.

  On 1 June, Miguel and another hundred or so members of the Phalanx went back to Madrid, travelling by road in cars and trucks that hid their deadly weapons. The reason for this particular assault was due to a strike that had been called by tens of thousands of Madrid construction workers, and the Phalanx orders had been clear and left nothing to the imagination. They were there to cause mayhem, kill as many leftists as possible, and send a clear message to the enemy.

  The mass demonstration began with an orderly street parade of all sections of the Spanish workforce, but violent disorder grew as the day coursed towards nightfall. Miguel entered the city with Gregorio. They drove at high speed through working-class districts, shooting people indiscriminately, and the only thought in Miguel’s mind was that the people he was shooting at were those who wanted to ruin Spain.

  Miguel raced along the embattled streets, feeling the rush of adrenaline and excitement course through his body. He had never felt so alive, so committed, or been so determined to succeed. He opened fire at just about everyone he saw loyal to the government, spurred on by the desire to kill every single member of the opposition all by himself. He shot and reloaded his weapon as fast as he could in order not to miss a single soul. This is the day of reckoning, he told himself repeatedly. This was the moment he’d been waiting for; open warfare had begun.

  Late in the afternoon, the Phalanx cars sped off to regroup on the outskirts of the city. At nightfall, they went back to the centre and congregated in a well-known Phalanx cafe in the Salamanca district, where there was already an atmosphere of celebration. The air was blue with smoke. Jokes about the events of the day brought howls of laughter. Some men tallied up the number of kills they believed they’d delivered, and as the night went on, they screamed battle plans for the future.

  Don Jaime Serrano’s son, Gregorio, bought Miguel a drink. He handed it to him, slapped him on the back, congratulated him, and then cupped Miguel’s face in his hands and kissed him.

  “You did well today. I’m proud of you, my brother,” he told Miguel.

  Miguel nodded his head and raised his glass, knocked it against Gregorio’s glass, and drank the whisky shot in one. Gregorio really was like a brother, Miguel thought just then. He was a much older man than he was, but they got on well and believed in the same Phalanx gospel according to José Antonio Primo De Rivera. Gregorio had taken him under his wing years ago. He was his mentor, not in a great position of power within the movement but respected and welcomed in the higher ranks due to his father’s generous monetary donations.

  Miguel looked around him at some familiar faces from his base in Valladolid and studied the faces of others he’d never seen before. He was happy, happier than he’d been in a very long time. He began a conversation with Gregorio about the Phalanx hierarchy and had already drunk three beers and a couple of whiskies. They heard a lone voice singing the Phalanx anthem and joined him, and then the whole bar rose in a chorus, heard streets away.

  When the first sound of gunfire rang out, the room grew silent beneath the loud explosions. Beer glasses froze midway between hands and mouths. Miguel sank to the floor and watched, helpless and stunned at the bloodbath assaulting his eyes. Dancing bodies vibrated with bullets, spouting blood on to the bar surface, floor, and clothes. He lay flat on his stomach and put his hand to his face, now covered in blood. The blood wasn’t his; he hadn’t been hit.

  Miguel screamed when Gregorio suddenly took a step backwards. He looked up at him, and Gregorio smiled, then falling over a chair and landing beside him on the floor. A pillow of blood surrounded his head, which was lying at a distorted angle. His eyes were still wide open, displaying the shock from the moment before death. Miguel crawled over to him, took him by the shoulders, and shook him hard.

  “Gregorio, get up!” he shouted above the noise. “Get up!”

  He put his hands on both sides of Gregorio’s head. It flopped from side to side, backwards and forwards like a rag doll, and he screamed again.

  Miguel fled back to Valladolid, to the well-guarded offices of the Phalanx, and wrote his report to the party’s hierarchy, in which he maintained that apart from the party members who’d died in the cafe, the attack on Madrid had been one of the most successful victories so far.

  Late into the night, he drank champagne and danced with a prostitute in a well-known gentleman’s club. He toasted Gregorio, a hero and a loyal friend. He boasted his own success to all who’d listen, and he set about convincing them that his promotion was now imminent.

  After the destruction in Madrid, Miguel ceased to be a man of the law. Instead, he had become a man hunted by the law. He wrote only once in three months to his parents and divulged nothing of his new occupation, save that he was involved in the legal side of the political party. He had become an autonomous assassin whose only goal was to maim without conscience or regret. His motivation had increased since the Madrid attacks that had taken the life of his friend, and his only cause now was to destroy the republican Popular Front with whatever means necessary. He was now a soldier of righteousness and good old-fashioned morals, and nothing and nobody was going to stop him achieving his goals.

  It was also just after the massacre in the Madrid cafe that he met Mónica Cardona, a leading socialite and fierce supporter of the Phalanx movement. He decided to make his move on her the day he heard her speak at a rally. His first thought was that her looks and his brains would make a powerful alliance, and it would not go unnoticed by the leaders of the party. She was a member of Mercedes Sanz-Bachiller’s inner circle of friends. Mercedes was the wife of Onésimo Redondo, the Valladolid Phalanx leader, and that put her in a very healthy position.

  Miguel also liked Mónica’s style. She spoke well and supported the party in any way she could. She was even known to throw stones and break windows of local leftists’ houses. She came from good stock, and her credentials were undeniably attractive. She was Catholic and adhered to the rules and regulations set down by the Phalanx agenda. She dressed with the correct amount of protective modesty. She didn’t smoke or wear make-up. Her arms were covered, and her skirts were full and long, which showed her commitment to the Phalanx teachings. Miguel was tiring of the Valladolid prostitutes who seemed to be swelling in numbers on a daily basis. He was fed up with his lodgings, bereft of company, and he realised for the first time in months that he was lonely.

  Chapter 44

  Ernesto paced up and down the length of the salon with an angry scowl and a stride twice as long as normal. “Pedro, why in God’s name do you have to go back there?” he asked Pedro, who was leaning against the wall in quiet acceptance of his fate. “I thought they’d accepted your request to stay in Valencia.”

  “Father, I don’t know why my orders were changed. I was told only that I have to report to the garrison in Morocco and that it will be a permanent transfer.”

&
nbsp; Ernesto raised his eyes to the ceiling, and unable to contain his anger any longer, he shouted, “My God, my family has fallen apart! We don’t know how your sister is, we can only imagine what Miguel is up to, your mother is beside herself with worry and won’t eat, and María is doing the work of ten men because of last month’s strike, which, I may add, has cost us dearly! Almost half my workers haven’t returned to work since. Civil war is coming very soon, and it’s going to rip this country apart seam by seam, and this family with it. Pedro, tell them you can’t go.”

  Pedro looked at Ernesto with sympathetic eyes but they also displayed defeat and sadness, also present in his words. “Father, you know I have to go. Orders are orders, and to disobey them now would be dangerous and foolhardy. Even your power and your name can’t get me out of this one. Do you really want me to disobey my commanding officer? Tell him I’m not going? Be honest.”

  “No, of course I don’t, but your mother was so happy that you were staying in Valencia. It’s going to be a shock, and you know how she gets. It’s a bloody shame. Spanish Morocco: Moorish bastards! You weren’t trained for all that barbarism down there. You’re an office officer! You teach in a classroom and go on the odd exercise, for God’s sake! I know you are a soldier, son, but I never thought you’d ever have to be in harm’s way. When do you leave?”

  “Tomorrow. That’s why I’ve come home tonight. I wanted to say goodbye properly and not on the telephone. Father, don’t take this the wrong way, but there’s no such thing as an office officer. How can I be in the army and not be in harm’s way at some time or the other? You know as well as I do that there’s always something going on in this country of ours, whether it’s strikes, civil unrest, or uprisings. I’ve been lucky so far, when you think about it.”