A Most Uncivil War

by Nicolas Lalaguna

  Almost every night the anger would build up inside him. It was the same triggers each night. First, the family would sit in a thick, angry silence as they ate. Then his father would leave the table and the house without so much as an acknowledgement of their presence. Then as the maid cleaned away the table, the women made their way onto the street to sit in judgement on everyone but themselves. The final straw was inevitably the sound of the older boys from the choir running past the house and laughing. As he sat at the dining table with his work laid out in front of him, he recognised just how alone he was. He listened to the old women’s anger and blame, he watched the maid silently and obediently working, he felt the vacancy of human warmth in the building around him. Each night Juan Nicolas would watch his life play out in front of him and each night he grew more lonely, bitter and angry.

  Many mornings he woke up with the resolve to change his situation. He jealously listened in to the older boys’ bragging between classes of how they had taught some peasant boy who his master was or some gypsy girl what she was good for. On several occasions his resolve maintained itself until the evening and he asked his grandmother if he could leave the house to see his friends. On each occasion she burst open with the same frantic response, “So you can spend time with the whore’s son and catch one of their diseases? Or perhaps you would prefer to run through the streets like the stray dogs, condemned to a lifetime of drinking and fornicating in the village? No, you will take your lessons and grow into the man that your father and I need you to be.” Whether he asked or not, the outcome was always the same. After dinner Juan Nicolas sat at the dining table, hunched over some Catholic treatise, struggling to read it by candlelight. Most nights he went to bed muttering malcontent towards his family, the village and the world.

  *

  It is late September and the last of the harvest is being brought in. Raul and Salvador are working sixteen hour days and returning home each night barely strong enough to eat before they fall asleep. This night, just as the two men reach the house, one of the railway guards from the station steps out from the shadows. He takes a step towards them, holding out a letter in his hand. Raul leans into his jacket while holding his other hand across Salvador’s chest. The man speaks, “I have been waiting for you. There is urgent news from Barcelona.” He hands the letter to Raul. Salvador looks up and down the dirt track as he opens the door and ushers the two men in. Raul lights a candle, projecting their three silhouettes against the wall and starts opening the letter.

  While unfolding the message inside, he motions the station worker towards the wineskin hanging on the wall. “Please sit down and have some wine,” he says.

  The train guard takes the wineskin and sits at the small table in the corner of the room. Salvador lights a second candle from the first before putting several logs and some wood shavings into the fireplace. He lights the fire from the candle. Salvador stands by the fire watching Raul read the letter. He watches his eyes flicking across and down the message. The men remain silent; the crackling of the kindling and the hissing of the moisture in the logs turning to steam are the only sounds in the room.

  Raul sits down at the table and gestures to Salvador, “Give me a paper and pencil.” Salvador quickly gets the items from his knapsack in the corner and hands them to him. Raul starts writing and at the same time says to the station guard without looking up from the paper, “This message has to go out on the first train of the morning. Send it with the post office guard; he will know what to do with it at the other end.” The station guard lifts the wineskin into the air and the wine arcs between nozzle and mouth.

  Salvador watches Raul’s brow furrow as he folds the note and seals it with wax. After writing a name and address on the front he hands it back to the guard who is readying himself to leave. Without letting go of the note Raul puts his other hand on the man’s shoulder. “Thank you, Carlos, you are a fine comrade. Tomorrow I have to get to Zaragoza without anyone here knowing.”

  The man nods his head in appreciation. “Speak to me when you get to the station and you can wait in the office to catch the Barcelona train as far as Caspe. From there you will have to wait for an hour, there is a Casa Del Pueblo five minutes from the station that you can wait at. Then the Pamplona train will stop to collect post and you can jump on the train from there. On that train the post carriage will be the best way for you to travel. You should be in Zaragoza by lunchtime.”

  Raul holds the man by the hand and shoulder for several seconds before speaking again, “This message cannot get into the wrong hands, do you understand?” The man nods and half smiles a knowing response. “Good. Thank you again,” says Raul as he opens the door for him. The man leaves and Raul closes the door behind him. He sits back down at the table and rests his head in his hands in silence.

  Salvador notices the pot of broth beside the fire that his mother has left for them. “Mother has left a meal for us,” he says, trying to alleviate the tension.

  Raul looks up at him and nods with an air of exhaustion. “Get it on the fire then. We deserve to eat, no?”

  As Marianela opens the door to the house she is greeted by the sight of the two men sitting at the table in the corner with their bowls empty and the fire radiating warmth around the room. Both of them look up to greet her with a smile. She looks forward to this moment every day. She wants to run across the room and throw her arms around both of them, but as always she holds her feelings in check. She puts the half-filled bucket of water down and drops splash onto her skirt and the earth around her feet. “I’ve come to clean away your meal,” she says. Salvador smiles warmly.

  Raul stands up. “Please sit down, I need to speak to both of you.” Marianela sits down as asked with the scrubbing brush still in her hands. She feels fear grip her stomach, a fear that this might be the day that Raul leaves as abruptly as he had arrived. She holds the brush in her lap, drawing comfort from the familiar feeling of wood and horse hair bristles against the calloused skin of her hands.

  Raul stands beside Salvador and puts his hand on his shoulder, shifting his gaze from the boy to his mother and back again as he speaks. “I need to leave first thing tomorrow.” He pauses as he tries to find a way to lessen the impact of what he is about to say. In the briefest of silences Marianela’s fear finds time to establish itself in her mind. Her eyes fill with tears, sensing what is about to come. He continues, “I have to get the first train to Barcelona. I don’t know when.” He pauses and looks deep into Marianela’s eyes which are beginning to sparkle as her tears reflect the flickering of the flames in the fire. “I don’t know if I will be coming back,” he continues nervously.

  Unable to stop herself, the tears starts rolling down her ruddy cheeks; her breathing becomes shallow and accelerated. Salvador watches the other man looking at his mother as he speaks. Salvador’s jaw tightens and his back teeth start grinding together as the anxiety builds within him. He feels the grip of the man’s hand on his shoulder squeezing, and a wave of reassurance washes over him. Raul wraps his hand around the back of the young man’s neck and gently pats it. Marianela drops the brush into her aproned lap and lets her head fall forwards into her outstretched hands, the tears building into a rhythmic sobbing.

  Raul looks down at Salvador and lifts one finger to his lips before standing beside her and putting his arms around her shoulders. Sal forces a smile back. Raul rests his lips against the top of Marianela’s head as he slowly strokes her back. Between sobs she tries to speak, “Why must you? What is so important? You can’t leave us. What will we do?”

  He answers her softly, his voice muffled by the hair pressing against his lips, “You knew that I would have to go at some point. You know that I go to make all of our lives better. You know I wouldn’t leave if there was any other way.” She grips on tightly to his arm wrapped around her. She never wants to let him go. She worries what will become of her son without his guidance. Most of all she fe
ars that she will never get the chance to grow old with him.

  After a few minutes the crying subsides as she struggles to regain control of herself. Raul uncoils his arms, leaving one hand resting gently against the back of her neck. In a slow and measured tone he continues, “I have union work to do in Barcelona. What I have to do is dangerous and they won’t like what we have planned.” Marianela’s gaze shifts between his eyes and lips as he speaks. “I promise you I will do everything I can to return.” Marianela looks imploringly at Salvador, willing him to say something to stop Raul from going. Salvador offers a sympathetic shrug of the shoulders. She looks back at Raul. “I promise you I will return if I can,” he says. From her seated position she puts her arms around his waist and pulls his stomach tight to her face. She can feel his ribcage pressing hard against her forehead. He strokes the hair on the back of her head.

  As she turns in the chair the scrubbing brush falls from her lap to the floor. “Don’t worry, Marianela, you are in good hands. Your son will look after you. And he can get word to me if he needs,” Raul assures her. She tightens her embrace around him and in her mind she begs for the world to stop, just for a moment.

  Once they have all calmed down the two men walk her back to the storehouse door behind Don Pedro’s house. Raul and Marianela stand facing each other, holding both hands tightly. Raul breaks the silence, “Remember, when they ask, you know nothing about this. If anything happens, your son can contact me.”

  Marianela feels her stomach tighten and her eyes beginning to well up again. “Please take care of yourself. We both need you to come back,” she tells him in a voice faltering with sadness.

  He kisses her on both cheeks and pulls her tight against him. His arms wrap around her comfortingly. He whispers softly in her ear, “If there had been any other way I promise I would have stayed here for the rest of my life.” She feels the fractures in her heart starting to prise themselves open again. She breathes in the smell of his sweat and the earth from the fields hanging on his clothes. The taut, wiry muscles of his arms encompass her and she feels his chest rise and fall against her breasts. She closes her eyes and tries to submit every feeling, smell and noise to her memory so that she will never forget this moment.

  Raul pulls away from her and she feels a part of herself pulling away with him. She tries to imagine a small part of herself staying connected to him wherever his life takes him. She fails. He smiles gently and then turns to leave. Salvador takes her hand in his. “I must go now, but I promise I will see you tomorrow.” She looks up vacantly at her son and nods. He kisses her on both cheeks and turns away to join Raul walking towards the square. She stands watching the two men walking away. Her hand reaches out behind her back for the security of the storehouse door. Its ageing timber is reassuring against her fingertips.

  The two men walk to the square in silence. Once they reach it Raul stops for a moment to scan the view. The church bell rings the first peel of the eleventh hour. There are only a few people on the terraces of the bars around the square. The harvest exhausted those with jobs and the desperation depressed those without.

  Raul turns to Salvador, “Tonight, you listen; but you say nothing. Do you understand?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “By joining us at the table they will know that I trust and rely on you here. Do you understand?” This time he waits for a reply. Salvador’s youth has been slowly but consistently disappearing over the last few months. Raul has watched overexcited and emotional reactions being slowly replaced by measured and rational responses. The young man looks the other in the eyes and nods his head.

  At the corner table the union organisers are sitting talking. The two men cross the room and join them. Without looking up, one of the men deals them into the card game. Raul picks up his hand and fans out the cards. He waits for the bar owner to leave the two empty glasses on the table and return to his position behind the bar before speaking.

  Raul leans forwards to the older men sitting beside Salvador. “I am leaving on the first train tomorrow. I am going to Pamplona to help organise the strike there and on to Asturias if I have time. Our brothers in the mines have armed themselves and are pushing to take the region.” The older man puts one card face up in the middle of the table. Raul doesn’t look at it, he just keeps talking. “Salvador is staying here and will be able to get word to me if anything happens. The call to strike will become public in a week’s time; have a vote and if you get a consensus you are to shut down the village entirely. If you need support from Barcelona send Salvador in person no later than three days before the strike. He will be able to get comrades and guns. It is not safe to send telegrams now.” The old man watches him speak over the top of his cards, almost imperceptibly nodding his head.

  The bar is thick with smoke. Raul empties the glass and puts it back down on the table, wincing slightly at the bitter aftertaste. One of the other men refills his glass from the unlabelled brandy bottle in the middle of the table. Salvador rolls and lights a cigarette. Raul put his hand over the older man’s hand as he fumbles with his tobacco tin. “If you don’t think you can hold the village, do not call our comrades out. I think that this has come too soon for us here and we are not ready. Do you understand?” he asks.

  The old man nods his head and looks to Salvador. “Do not worry yourself about the village, Raul; I will keep the boy informed of what we are doing,” the old man says.

  Raul sits back in his chair and stares through his cards. The old man orders one of the others at the table to retrieve something for him. They sat in silence, taking it in turns to lay down cards in the middle of the table. A few moments pass before the man returns to the table with a knapsack which he pushes under the table. Raul leans under and pulls the pack between his feet.

  Across the square the captain of the Civil Guard is sitting at his usual terrace table with the estate manager and Pedro. He watches Raul and Salvador walk towards the bar in silence. He nods his head towards the bar on the opposite side of the square to draw his companions’ attention to it. Both of the men turn their heads and look over their shoulders in time to see Raul and Salvador entering the workers’ bar. Pedro feels a nagging discomfort in the pit of his stomach.

  The captain puts his cigarette out in the ashtray and without looking up asks the estate manager, “Have you heard anything from Barcelona that should worry me?” The estate manager shakes his head and draws on his cigar. The captain looks at Pedro. “And you. Are your workers planning anything?” Pedro shakes his head while the nagging in his stomach tightens.

  The captain lights another cigarette and draws the smoke deep into his chest. Smoke escapes his mouth and nostrils as he starts speaking, “The telegrams from Madrid are telling us to prepare for something big. The whore unions are planning a general strike across the country.”

  Pedro scrutinises the captain’s face carefully while the estate manager nonchalantly blows on the lit end of the cigar without looking up. The captain continues, “There are no reinforcements available so my men will be fully armed and I expect you to keep the factory and your fields in control. Let me know if you need rifles.”

  The estate manager allows himself a short grin as he responds, “We have several men we can rely on and the duke’s property is not a problem. We could always arm the CEDA youth; there’s at least ten of them. The priest and his harem should at least be able to keep the women in line.”

  The captain allows himself a snigger. The estate manager continues, “The duke would be happy for me to speak to them on his behalf and arm them with our own guns if you think that would help.”

  The nagging feeling turns into a beating drum behind Pedro’s forehead. He notices the palms of his hands are sweating. He tries to dry one of them on the thigh of his trousers under the table without being noticed. He rolls the brandy around in its glass with the other hand, watching the liquid undulate. In his peripheral vision he sees the captain t
urn his head to face him and then the estate manager follow. In the few seconds that pass in silence Pedro feels the pounding behind his eyes blurring his vision.

  He closes his eyes for a moment and then reopens them. The glass in his hand comes back into focus. He looks up at the two men. “I will speak to the Basque and the boy first thing tomorrow. If there are to be any problems in my fields, dealing with him will deal with the problem. I’ll speak to the gardeners as well tomorrow. They are old, stupid and hungry. They will be easy to keep in line,” he says, trying to sound confident.

  The captain noisily pushes his chair back and stands up. “I trust you will keep the duke informed,” he exclaims. The estate manager doesn’t grace his impertinence with a response.

  *

  Shortly after the church bell rings midnight Raul and Salvador find themselves back at the house. Salvador is sitting at the table drinking coffee from the pot on the fire and smoking. He flicks the ash into a metal ashtray stolen from the casino. Raul is packing the knapsack. Salvador watches him, all the time making a mental list of what he is putting in the bag: a quarter litre wineskin, maps, train timetables, revolver, box of ammunition, four inches of chorizo, a quarter of a stick of bread and bandages.

  Raul ties the knapsack shut and sits down at the table facing Salvador. The man takes off his glasses and begins cleaning them with his neckerchief. The boy watches his every slightest movement. Eventually, he speaks, “I will be leaving while it is still dark so that I can ready myself at the station.” Salvador nods in response. “You go to the fields as if everything is normal. When anyone asks, I left before you woke up and didn’t say anything,” he continues. Salvador breathes deeply and nods again.