by Carlos Alba
Pablito seemed close to tears and said he was going straight to bed. Mama didn’t want him to be alone, so she volunteered to sit with him. Neither Papa nor I had eaten all day and we were both hungry. I suggested we dine in the hotel restaurant, which was almost empty, but he wanted to go into the town.
The narrow lanes were bustling with people shopping before closing time. Elegant boutiques hawked expensive jewellery, designer clothes and handbags, and in the windows of smart dulcerias and pastelerías there were elaborate displays of hand-made sweets and pastries. We strolled across the main plaza, which sat in the shadow of a baroque cathedral. The night was pleasantly mild without a hint of a breeze, and chic couples and students sat at café terraces, nursing glasses of wine, chattering loudly in hypnotic, quickfire Catalan. It was a modern, affluent centre, difficult to reconcile with Papa’s impoverished background.
His progress was slow, but he looked relaxed as he breathed the sweet, balmy air. We settled on a small back-street café and sat at one of a handful of pavement tables. The waiter arrived and I deferred to Papa, who ordered tapas. It was the usual selection of gambas, calamares, albóndigas, chipirones and tortillas, served in small terracotta dishes, nothing that wasn’t available in any number of the tapas bars that had sprung up in London in recent years, but Papa knew little of that world, and he marvelled at the authenticity it all.
He was starving, and he ate voraciously. I was keen to quiz him about his behaviour in Alguaire, but I was prepared to wait until there were no distractions. After a few minutes all the dishes were empty.
‘So, do you want to tell me what all that was about back there?’ I asked.
He sat back in his chair, looking small and hunted.
‘Come on, Papa, you didn’t think you could get away with something like that without at least an effort at explaining what it was all about?’
He raised his head slightly and his eyes turned upwards, white with defiance.
‘Wha you say explain? I nae explain nothin.’
My body tensed. I leaned across the table and grabbed hold of his arm. He winced and tried to pull away from me, but I grabbed it tighter. He scowled.
‘Do you hear what I’m saying?’
‘Si, I hear,’ he said through the pain.
The waiter came over to collect the empty dishes, so I let go of Papa’s arm and ordered two carajillos – small glasses of coffee fortified with harsh country brandy. Papa protested – he hadn’t touched alcohol for years.
‘Come on, Papa. It will do you good.’
The waiter stood by patiently until Papa backed down.
The drinks arrived and Papa ventured a sip, wincing, but he continued to drink, a small amount at a time, until it was finished. When the waiter passed our table, I ordered another two. After a while Papa’s shoulders relaxed, and his face acquired an opiated grin.
‘Any time you’re ready,’ I said.
We sat in silence for another few minutes, and I was beginning to doubt whether the message had got through to him, whether he understood that I was serious, but then suddenly he spoke.
‘Is cold – 1937 is coldest winter ever in Alguaire,’ he said airily.
This wasn’t what I had been expecting, but I kept quiet and let him continue.
‘The gasolina in trucks it freeze, and the ground is so hard we use dynamite tae dig trenches. The Fascist bombs they grow louder. All the time the German planes they fly over and cause explosion but all we can think is tae keep warm and eat.’
‘Who’s we?’ I asked.
He looked at me impatiently.
‘My mama, my papa and my two brothers.’
‘So you had a family?’ I asked.
He nodded.
‘What were their names?’
‘Your grandfather, he is called Antonio, this is how you get your name.’ He smiled warmly. ‘And your grandmother, she is called Josefa.’
‘And your brothers?’
‘Paco and Josepe, who we call Pepe.’
‘What were they like?’
He smiled. ‘Paco is good shot. In fields he shoot rabbits. Very quick.’
‘How old was Paco in 1937?’
He waved a hand dismissively in my direction.
‘Ach, I nae remember this,’ he said irritably.
I felt anxious, determined to get as much information from him as I could during this brief opportunity when he was feeling relaxed.
‘Come on, Papa, try to remember.’
‘Pepe, he is oldest.’
‘How old was he, then?’
He reclined and arched his neck, staring at the sky, which was peppered with millions of dots, as though he was contemplating an issue of great importance. Then he looked at me with a grin. ‘He is very handsome. Very good-looking. All the girls, they like Pepe.’
My gentle approach wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I decided to be more direct. ‘Why were you digging in a field today?’
The grin dropped from his face.
‘Why did you come here today, Papa, what did you think you were going to achieve?’
He said nothing.
‘Even if you had come across the remains of your parents, what did you plan to do with them – pack them in your suitcase and take them home?’
He looked at me with a hard, accusing stare.
‘How you know this?’
‘Mama told me. How else would I know?’
‘She have nae right.’
‘Well, she didn’t have much option. How else was she to explain the fact that you were in a police cell after threatening to brain a farmer whose land you were trying to dig up?’
He squirmed and flapped a hand, as though he was trying to get rid of me. ‘What else she tell you?’
‘Nothing, she didn’t tell me anything else, other than that you were looking for the bodies of your parents. You’re lucky you have such a loyal wife.’
‘You nae tell me this. I know how lucky I am.’ He bowed his head and his shoulders dropped. He looked frail.
‘What did your father do?’ I asked.
‘He work in olive fields, for a how you say, latifundista.’
‘A landowner.’
‘Si, landowner. But when war start, this landowner he disappear because Anarchists they say they will kill him. So my father he have nae job and we are hungry. We have small house, only two rooms, with no water.’
‘So how did your parents end up dead and buried on a farm?’
‘They are kill by Falange, by soldiers of Franco,’ he said bluntly.
Finally I felt as though I was getting somewhere.
‘Why were they killed? Did they fight for the other side, for the Republicans?’
‘Si, they fight. We all fight. Even my mama, she learn to use Mauser.’
‘A rifle?’
‘Si, she use a rifle with no training. My brothers and me, we go to Lerida to fight with Anarchist militia.’
I made a quick mental calculation and established that my father would have been thirteen.
‘We stay in old building that is used to store grain with rats and mice. We fight in trenches outside to town. On one day the Franquistas, they plan big attack, aeroplanes they come low over trenches, lots of bullets and bombs . . . boom, boom . . . I no know wha happen. Everyone around is dead, and I nae even know how tae work gun. I nae see Pepe. He is with me but then I nae see him and everywhere is smoke and blood on ground. The soldiers, they scream and cry, and I am pull tae ground by my friend who say we must go. I say I nae go, I look for Pepe, but one soldier say “I see him, and he is shot. Your brother is dead”.’
There was a look of incredulity on his face, as though even after all of this time he was still unable to believe what had happened. I wanted to comfort him.
‘I’m sorry, Papa, I had no idea.’
‘I run intae town and everyone they look for shelter but I go tae look for Paco. After two hours I find him in centre, nae far from here.’
He pointed to th
e end of the lane in which we were sitting.
‘He is injure but he can walk, and I say we go tae Alguaire tae find Mama and Papa.’
‘So what happened, did you find them?’ I asked.
‘We find two bicycles and we ride but when we are near to village we meet neighbour, a friend of my papa, who say “You nae go, the Falange they are there and they kill all rojos and anarchistas.” I say, “Where is our parents?” and he say, “Your parents, they are dead.”’
A tear trembled in the corner of his eye and tumbled out over the creases of his red face. I lifted a napkin from the table and handed it to him.
‘How did they die?’
‘The Franquistas, they line up everyone in village and they say you take off shirt, even women. Everyone who have bruise on neck and shoulders, they say “You use rifle tae shoot us because of, how you say . . .”’ He mimed the force of a rifle recoiling.
‘The kickback.”
‘Si, kickback. They shoot both my parents in back of head and they bury them in ground.’
‘In the olive field?’
He nodded.
‘Why did you try to dig them up today? What did you expect?’
‘I nae expect nothin. I dae it tae say tae people who wanna leave my mama and papa in ground, I say “You look at me, you watch me dig, you cannae ignore me, I will make noise until you listen tae me.”’
‘But there are ways of protesting, Papa, and that’s not one of them. You have to go through the proper channels, and, if you come up against resistance, you argue your case. That’s how you get things done.’
He laughed out loud, but not in anger; it was a laugh of despair.
‘You nae know wha you talk about. This is nae Britain, this is Spain, they nae wanna know about wha is done in history. They wanna forget.’
There was a perceptiveness about his comment, a reminder that, although he rarely talked about this country, he never stopped thinking about it.
‘What happened to your brother Paco?’
‘He die,’ Papa said curtly.
‘How did he die?’
‘I nae say. He die, this is all.’
I thought about pressing him, but I felt he’d been put through enough for one day. He’d told me more over two carajillos than he had in the past forty years, so I figured it could wait.
I paid the bill and we wandered back along a narrow street with shops and upper-storey apartments crowded in on either side. After a few yards Papa stopped at a cloistered passage to the right that climbed steeply before disappearing into the darkness.
‘You wait here,’ he ordered as he turned.
He took a few steps and then his pace quickened. After several minutes, when he hadn’t returned, I began to worry. I was about to go after him when I heard him calling me. I turned around and saw him approaching from the other direction at a canter.
‘I remember this,’ he said laughing. ‘I play here as boy, and I remember where it come out. I nae here for seventy years, but I remember this road.’
We returned to our hotel rooms and I lay on the bed, restless and alert well into the early hours. Every time I tried to force myself to sleep, events resurfaced and unnerved me. So many things had happened, even before the previous day, that I felt overwhelmed. I was also troubled by a recurring idea that had entered my mind immediately after learning about Papa’s illness. It was fleeting, almost negligible, and even referring to it as a fully formulated thought wasn’t quite right: Perhaps it’s a good thing he’s dying. At least when he dies he won’t be able to cause us any more heartache.
In the morning I found Mama, Papa and Pablito in the hotel restaurant, eating breakfast. Together they’d agreed that they didn’t want to stay in Spain any longer. I offered to book us all into a nicer hotel in a quieter resort, but Pablito became agitated at the suggestion, insisting he wanted to go home.
Mama asked if I could book us all on to the next available flight back to Britain. I went into the hotel lobby to use one of the computers. There were no charter flights until the end of the week, so I booked us all on a scheduled flight from Barcelona to Gatwick for early the following morning, and then bought tickets for the three of them to fly on to Glasgow.
Then I decided to phone Cheryl. I’d been putting off the call since I’d arrived in Spain. My intention had been to delay it until after I’d returned to London, to leave her with the impression I’d only just got round to squeezing her into my tight schedule, but I couldn’t wait until then. By the fourth ring I knew she wasn’t going to answer. I hung up and dialled our home number. My heart raced in anticipation and I had difficulty breathing. Still clutching the phone tightly against my ear, I paced back and forward. After eight rings, the familiar answer-machine message clicked in.
‘Hello, I’m afraid that neither Cheryl, Antonio nor Ben can come to the phone at the moment. Please leave a message and one of us will get back to you.’
It pained me to hear her voice and not to be able to speak to her. I remembered when she’d recorded the message. I wasn’t happy with her first attempt – she’d said none of us was in, which, I pointed out, would let potential burglars know the house was empty. I’d made her change it, which led to a fight. She said I was being ridiculous.
I thought about leaving a message, but I couldn’t trust that my voice wouldn’t have a note of desperation. I hung up when I heard the beep. Then it occurred to me that I could phone Connie. Not that I expected Cheryl to be with her, but I hoped she might know where her sister was. She answered after a couple of rings, but when I spoke she seemed surprised and nervous.
‘I’m really sorry, Tony,’ she said.
I liked it when Connie called me Tony. When other people used it, they made me feel like an Italian chip-shop owner, but with her it sounded clannish and familiar.
‘What about?’ I asked.
There was another silence.
‘What are you sorry about, Connie?’
‘Where are you?’ she asked.
‘I’m in Spain, with my parents.’
‘You haven’t been home?’
‘No, not for a couple of days. I had to come away at short notice.’
There was another lengthy silence.
‘What’s going on, Connie? I phoned to see if you knew where Cheryl was. I can’t get hold of her.’
‘Oh, right, no, I don’t know where she is.’
I was becoming agitated at her cryptic tone.
‘What’s going on, Connie? Why did you ask me if I’d been home?’
‘There’s nothing going on, I just wanted to know where you were.’
I felt tears well up, and I wanted to ask her straight out the question that had been nagging at me for weeks, that I could have put to Cheryl countless times but had avoided. Perhaps it would be easier for me if it came from Connie. And if anyone was likely to know, it was her. She and Cheryl were stiflingly close and told one another everything.
‘Are you all right, Tony?’
I fought to hold back the tears. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
I closed my eyes tight and pinched the bridge of my nose. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’
6
Mama and Papa were arguing loudly in Spanish when I asked her to write a letter to Mr McKendry, my music teacher. I wanted to take clarinet lessons. Sandy Bryson had got clarinet lessons after his dad sent a long letter to McKendry, saying how he’d had to stop work because of his asbestosis and how they couldn’t afford to pay for private tuition and how Sandy had a musical gift and how it would really mean a lot to them. I asked Mama to do the same thing for me. She always took care of important things like writing letters to teachers or signing forms or helping with homework. But she looked past me, as though she was preoccupied, and I thought she hadn’t heard me. ‘Your father will write it for you,’ she said scathingly.
Papa scrambled around the house for a notepad, but he couldn’t find one, so he ended up tearing a page out of my arithm
etic jotter. I knew it was inappropriate to write a formal letter on squared paper, but I decided not to make a fuss – better to have a substandard letter than none at all, I reasoned. He spent ages thinking about what he was going to write, with the Biro hovering a couple of inches above the page. Several times he appealed to Mama for help, but she told him to do it himself. That only made him angrier and more frustrated. When finally he’d finished, he folded the page into quarters and said I would just have to deliver it like that because he didn’t have an envelope.
On the way to school the next day I took out the letter and read it. The writing was thin and spidery and covered no more than a single line, which tailed off in a downward curve as it neared the edge of the page.
Dir Mr Mikenri, I wil lik my sun to ply in the clarinet. from Pablo Noguera.
I wanted to cry. I tore the letter into pieces and shoved them through the bars of a drain cover at the end of our street.
After school, I didn’t feel like going home. I hung around the playground for a bit until it emptied, then I sat on a bench at a bus stop, avoiding the gaze of anyone walking past. I thought about catching the first bus that came along and staying on it as far as it went, then walking and walking until it was dark, but I didn’t have any money for the fare, and it was cold and getting dark, so I decided to go home. Besides, I was starving, and it was fried fish for tea.
When I got home, Mama was on the telephone, speaking Spanish. ‘¿Franco ha muerto?’ She said with a look of incredulity. I guessed that whatever these words meant, they were important, because the colour drained from her face, and her arms dropped to her sides, the receiver still clutched tightly in her hand.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked Papa and Pablito.
They remained silent.
‘What does that mean, Franco ha mawerto?’ I demanded.
‘It means Franco’s dead,’ Pablito murmured.
‘Who’s Franco?’
No one responded. Everyone sat down as though the responsibility of standing had suddenly become unbearable, and they stared ahead, silent and open-mouthed.
‘What’s going on? Who’s Franco? How did he die?’