by Carlos Alba
He looked at me disdainfully, as though I had committed an unpardonable act of disloyalty, but then he began to talk, slowly and quietly.
‘We go to Barcelona, me and Paco, and everywhere is ruin,’ he said. ‘The shops they are empty and people they are starving. Everywhere is how you say sacos de arena . . .’
I looked at him blankly.
‘You know, this bags tae stop the bullets.’
‘Oh, sandbags.’
‘Si, sandbags. Like big walls at the end of every street.’ He sighed. ‘We try find unit tae fight but we nae find nothing. Everywhere is communistas, Russians who nae like anarchistas.’
I nodded appreciatively.
‘We are in café, and soldier he say “Who you fight for?” We tell him anarchistas in Lerida, and he pull us close.’ Papa leaned closer to me. His voice dropped and his eyes widened. ‘He say “You nae say this tae anyone or you shot.” He say, “Where your paper?” We say “In our bag.” He say “You destroy paper. If communistas find them, they say you are Franquistas.” He say, “You leave Barcelona, there is only trouble for you here,” but we have naewhere tae go. We have nae food or transport and we spend months here, nae know what tae do.’
‘Where did you live? Where did you sleep?’ I asked.
‘We sleep in shops where owner they go away and in factories that nae make nothing. In buildings that are bombed. We look for food in rubbish and in bins of restaurants. We eat what we can – the skins of onion, fishes’ head, seaweed, seagulls, and we smoke shells of nuts and leaves from trees. The worst is when we sleep on ground that is frozen, because when we wake our bones is so sore we cannae move.’
I’d seen recently, on websites and in books, pictures of deserted streets, their buildings pockmarked with bulletholes and shell damage, festooned with faded posters of muscular, square-jawed workers manning barricades and bearing standards of the peoples’ struggle. I’d read about the foreign volunteers from Poland, Britain, America and Canada who’d come to fight the Fascists.
‘We stand in La Rambla and the Plaça de Catalunya and we meet militia. We know them because they are dressed in blue monos, how you say, this uniform with name of party sewed on. They tell us wha happen in war and they give us cigarettes and sometimes coffee or chocolate.
‘We talk with this people and they tell us news of the Franquistas and when they attack but we have tae be careful because we nae know are these people, how you say . . . informantes?’
‘Informers.’
‘Si, informer who go tae the Guardia Civil or the Guardia de Asalto.’
‘So when did the Francoists attack Barcelona?’ I asked.
He waved his hand at me in annoyance. ‘I nae know dates, you nae ask me dates,’ he said angrily. ‘I live this. You listen to me and I tell you wha happen. You nae ask me dates.’
‘Okay, I’m sorry. Just tell me about it the way you want to.’
He sighed. ‘In the buildings where we sleep there is Gypsies. They are scared because they know when the Franquistas come they will be shot. They start tae leave, hiding on the ships at Barcelonetta, or they try walk across Pyrenees intae France, tae Marseille where there is ships that go Mexico where republicanos they are welcome.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘We hear German plane overhead, same sound as in Lerida. At this time we are sleeping in cave in Parc Güell and we say, “We must go, we cannae stay any longer.” Paco, he say, “I go in city and look for food tae eat on journey.” He leave in evening and I wait for him in park.’ His face took on a troubled, resigned expression. ‘I wait for him in cave for three hours, four hours, and he nae come. I sit and sit, nae able tae sleep. When is light, still he nae come, and I say, “I must look for Paco.” I leave park and go tae the Carrer de Padilla, where I see Gypsy girl who sleep in our cave. She say, “Pablo, I see your brother, he is arrest by Guardia. They ask him where he live, and he say, ‘I nae tell you,’ so they hit him on head with rifle, and they say, ‘You tell us hijo bastardo de puta anarquista,’ but still he say nothing and they push him in truck and drive away.”’
‘What happened then?’
‘I say to Gypsy girl, “I go look for my brother,” but she stop me, she say, “You nae go, Pablo, or you are kill.” She hold me back with all strength in her small body. She say, “You come with me tae Tangier where I have cousin. He say every Spaniard in Morocco is stranger and is easy tae hide.” I never see Paco again.’
‘But how do you know he’s dead?’ I asked.
‘I know.’
‘But he may have survived, Papa. You can’t know for sure that he was killed.’
‘He is dead, this I know,’ he said emphatically.
The next morning I rose early to fly back to London. Mama had already left the house to attend morning Mass. I said I’d take a taxi to the airport, but Papa insisted he would drive me. He finished his breakfast, put on his sheepskin coat and led the way out into the cold morning, where the frozen wind stung my ears.
He opened the passenger door first and I climbed in. Then he reached past me and fished about in the glove compartment, retrieving the same small block of wood, planed to an acute angle and lacquered, that he’d used as a windscreen scraper since I was a child. It was one of a dozen relics, everyday items practical from which Papa continued to wring every last penny’s-worth of value. On the driver’s side of the window he proceeded to scrape a small patch of visibility in the layer of frost that covered the windscreen.
When he was finished, he lowered himself into the driver’s seat alongside me. There was the sound of cracking bones and laboured wheezing. His breath clouded what little visibility he’d managed to create. He rubbed the inside of the windscreen with the back of his hand, but as soon as he’d cleared it it misted over again.
He put the key in the ignition and turned it. The engine jolted and coughed like a consumptive patient, but failed to spark into life. He tried again and again, but the engine wouldn’t start. Stubbornly, Papa continued to turn the key until the battery was drained of power. Each cycle of the starter motor turned slower and with less conviction until it stuttered to a faltering halt. It reminded me of being a child, when the dark, freezing winter months were made longer and less hospitable by the grinding unreliability of Papa’s car – I had grown up thinking that all cars failed to start nine times out of ten.
I took out my mobile phone and rang directory inquiries to ask for the number of a local mini-cab firm. He reached over and grabbed the phone from my hand.
‘You nae take taxi, I have spare battery.’
‘Look, this is ridiculous, Papa,’ I said, but he was already out of the car and hobbling down the garden path.
To Papa, taxis were an outlandish indulgence beyond the means of people like us. We had no business pampering ourselves with such needless extravagance, hiring the labour of others to provide goods and services we could provide for ourselves. With the conspicuous exception of his clothes, he was of the belief that spending money on anything that could be home-made, self-provided or improvised was a waste. He never employed a professional if there was the remotest chance he could do the job himself. He never bought a stick of furniture, an appliance or a replacement fitting if he could mend the old one. Throughout my childhood we lived with a cracked toilet bowl, periodically patched up with duct tape and grout. Every room was painted with a covering of lime undercoat – large, standard-issue tins of which he’d liberated from the facilities room at the airport. When Mama ran out of cupboard space in the kitchen and requested a wall rack to hang her saucepans, he improvised with an uneven row of six-inch nails. At varying times, dining chairs doubled as deckchairs and deckchairs doubled as easy chairs; and redundant bed linen doubled as towels. When the element of our antediluvian boiler finally gave up the ghost, Papa refused to accept the problem was electrical, and we went without a bath for six weeks while he indulged an irrational conviction that our hot water was being stolen by the neighbours.
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sp; When I was younger, Papa’s prudence had been a habit dictated by necessity, a fact I understood and tolerated. Circumstances were different now, but his attitude towards money had become so entrenched it was impossible to break. And still, I couldn’t help thinking there was more to his attitude than frugality borne out of poverty. There was obstinacy in his refusal to accept that I’d grown up, that our relative circumstances had changed, that his role in our relationship had become equal and sometimes subordinate. He never asked me how much money I earned, but he knew it was enough to afford a taxi. He knew how much more comfortable his life and Mama’s could be if he were to accept, even occasionally, my offers of financial help, but he never did.
He disappeared into the house and emerged a few moments later, bent double and gripping an oil-stained car battery. He edged his way along the garden path an inch at a time, the battery hanging tentatively between the tips of his brittle, twig-like fingers. I jumped out of the car to help him.
‘Let me carry that, Papa,’ I said, hastening towards him.
He brushed past me, his face scarlet and puffed. ‘I dae, I dae,’ he panted.
When he reached the car he let go of the battery, which dropped to the pavement with a dull thud, and he opened the driver’s door to pull the seat forward. I’d forgotten that the battery was housed under the rear passenger seat, rather than next to the engine. He took a screwdriver and a single, tarnished spanner from the pocket of his coat and slowly bent forward to manoeuvre himself into the rear of the car, groaning with the effort. I stepped forward to help but he pushed me away. Despite his slight build and lack of power, his gentle shove was enough to wrong-foot me on the slippery surface, and I had to grab on to the roof of the car to stop myself falling over.
‘Wha you dae?’ he snapped when he saw me stumble.
‘Let me do it,’ I said. ‘You’re not fit enough to clamber about in the back of the car on a day like this.’
‘Who isnae fit?’ he demanded angrily.
He crouched in the gap between the driver’s door and the back seat, breathing heavily as he attempted to fit the head of the spanner around one of the terminal bolts. As he crawled further inside, the tail of his sheepskin coat rode up his back, and, in this awkward, undignified position his frail, skinny frame was plainly visible. His entire weight was resting on his fragile, angular knees, which rocked uncertainly on the running-board, and he squirmed in discomfort. His thighs and buttocks were emaciated, the sharp points of his pelvis jutting beneath the folds of his expensive trousers.
After several minutes of shuffling and snorting, he managed to loosen the connecting wire around one of the terminals. He allowed himself a moment’s rest to mark this minor triumph and then moved on to the next terminal. This proved more stubborn, as acid had leaked on to the surface of the battery, creating a white crust around the terminal head, and he didn’t have the strength or purchase to loosen it. Whenever he applied any pressure, the spanner snapped loose. The more it happened, the more frustrated he became, and my offers of help only made him more irritated.
After several more failed attempts he relented partially, agreeing only to allow me to attempt to loosen the nut. I crawled into the tight space and manoeuvred myself over the battery. I was expecting a struggle, but after no more than a reasonably stiff turn of the spanner, the bolt loosened. He insisted on finishing the job himself, and we swapped places again so that he could prise the battery from its casing. Reversing out of the tight space, he manoeuvred an inch at a time, dragging the heavy block with him along the floor of the car until it was resting, precariously, on the running-board. I stepped forward and offered to take over, but as before he brushed me aside.
With the smooth soles of his shoes now resting on the uncertainty of the icy pavement, he stood up slowly and relaxed his weight against the side of the car. His body trembled as clouds of white, frosty breath escaped from his mouth and nostrils, hanging above his head. Small beads of sweat gathered along his hairline and trembled, threatening to launch themselves down his forehead.
After a few moments he took a deep breath and bent over to lift the battery, his red fingers clutching the oily, plastic surface uncertainly. As he tried to straighten up, the weight of the battery visibly pulled down on the base of his spine, and there was a dull snap, like a bar of chocolate being broken. Papa let out a deep groan and the battery slipped from his grasp. Instinctively I launched myself forward to catch it, but I was too far away.
There was an anguished yell as the battery landed square across the toes of Papa’s right foot. His eyes creased and filled with tears as his face contorted into an ugly grimace. He hobbled on the frozen pavement and reached down to clutch his foot, and as he did so his back snapped again.
Everything happened in surreal slow-motion. I tried to grab him, but even as I was edging towards him I knew I’d be too late. The smooth leather soles of his handmade Italian shoes glided across the icy surface beneath him, propelling his body into midair. For a moment he seemed to be suspended, motionless, before he collapsed with thudding brutality.
His head smashed on the concrete surface and bounced, then landed again almost as hard. A small pool of blood appeared around the circumference of his head like a halo. For a couple of seconds serene silence descended, and I thought he was dead, I really did, but then he groaned and sat bolt upright, trying to wrest himself from the cold surface. I caught him before he was able to put any weight on his legs and held him down.
‘Don’t get up, Papa, you’ve had a shock.’
He ignored me and tried to force himself up, but I pulled him back and placed my hand at the back of his head.
‘Papa, stay down for a moment!’ I shouted. ‘You’ve hit your head, it’s bleeding. If you try to stand up too quickly you’ll fall over again.’
He looked at me, dazed and angry, and tried to speak, but he was too disorientated. Tears trickled down his rough cheeks and mixed with his blood. He turned away from me and buried his head in his hands. Then his resistance weakened, and his body went limp.
I carried him into the house and placed him on the sofa, where he sat hunched and small. The cut was not as deep as I’d feared. The bleeding had stemmed itself, but his scalp was grazed and his face was already starting to swell around his eyes. I was afraid he might have damaged his skull, and I gently tried to suggest taking him to hospital.
‘I nae see doctor. I okay,’ he said huffily, like a child refusing to eat.
I found some disinfectant and cotton wool in the bathroom and tried to dab his head, but he brushed me aside. Part of me couldn’t help thinking he wanted to leave the wound open and bloody, in full view, as a coup de théâtre for Mama’s arrival. Instead, he demanded that I hand him the telephone so he could call my brother.
‘If you don’t think you’re injured badly enough to see a doctor, why do you need to bother Pablito?’ I asked.
His eyes flitted evasively. ‘You give me phone,’ he demanded.
He grabbed the receiver and held it in his shaking hand, then he dialled uncertainly. After a couple of rings Pablito answered, and they proceeded to hold an animated conversation in Spanish, Papa breathlessly recounting what had happened. I knew it would be no objective depiction; rather he was building a case, putting forward his partisan interpretation of developments, with blame being unambiguously assigned.
‘Let me speak to him,’ I demanded, but Papa ignored me. After a few minutes’ more talking to Pablito, he hung up.
I looked at my watch. My flight was due to leave in thirty minutes. It would have to go without me. There was another flight at midday which would still get me into City Airport at lunchtime. I rang Kevin and told him I’d be in the office by the early afternoon.
I made Papa a cup of sweet tea and he began to calm down a little. His hands stopped shaking quite so violently, and his voice lost its tremor. I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. He looked up at me and managed a brief, flickering smile.
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nbsp; When he heard the sound of Mama’s key in the door he appeared to suffer a sudden relapse. He placed his cup on the floor, to allow himself to tremble without the inconvenience of drenching himself with tea, and began to wail with melodramatic élan. Mama stood before him and threw her hand over her mouth.
‘¿Díos mío, que pasa?’ she demanded. ‘Oh my God, what’s happened?’
I tried to explain, but before I could utter a syllable Papa had leapt in to offer his take on events. It was the same diatribe he had proffered to Pablito, I suspected, but its tone was more intense, its delivery more compelling. Mama remained silent and attentive, save for the occasional glance of rebuke in my direction.
‘He’s fine,’ I said several times, to no response.
Eventually, after another few rounds of Papa’s breathless testimony, she broke in. ‘Could you not at least have done something about his injury?’ she asked.
‘I tried, he wouldn’t let me near him.’
Mama spun on her heel and marched from the room, removing her coat and throwing it on to the sofa. ‘iMadre mía, yo no puedo salir la casa por diez minutos!’ she exclaimed angrily. ‘Mother of God, I can’t leave the house for ten minutes!’
I heard her march up the stairs and rummage about in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. ‘¿Dónde está el desinfectante?’ she asked herself loudly.
I stood at the foot of the stairway, holding the items I knew she was looking for.
‘The disinfectant is down here, Mama, along with the cotton wool.’
She came marching back down the stairs and grabbed them from me.