A Most Uncivil War

by Nicolas Lalaguna

  *

  Juanico quietly opens the bedroom door and tiptoes barefoot down the corridor, slowing as he passes the other bedroom doors. He holds his jacket bundled tightly to his chest. The darkness flattens the colours in the house before his eyes. He holds one hand out, searching to find the banister of the staircase. The snoring of his relatives, muffled behind the wooden doors, reassures him of his own silence. He carefully lowers himself down the stairs on the balls of his feet, each creak of wooden trim on the steps clenching at his heart as he goes. Reaching the front hall of the house, he looks at the clock in the corner of the room: ten minutes to three, it reads. He pulls on his sandals, takes a key from the side table and slowly unlocks the front door. The tumblers of the lock echo in the graveyard silence of the house. Slowly opening the door, his heightened awareness of the creaking hinges grips at his stomach. He tiptoes out of the house and softly clicks the door back into place behind him.

  In the pantry Marianela half opens one eye, thinking that she heard something. She lies silently, listening for a few moments, her eyes barely able to focus in the dark room. The moon outside cuts shafts of light across the room through the gaps in the shutters. She lies for a few moments listening before sleep once again takes her. Outside the front door Juanico looks up and down the empty street. The moonlight casts shadows of the buildings across the dirt road. The darkness behind the shutters of the houses reassures him that he is invisible. He pulls on his jacket and hurries towards the main square. When he reaches it he stops momentarily in the shadow of the covered walkway running along the side of the square.

  The only movement in the building-lined square is that of the high branches of the trees in the middle swaying in the gentle breeze. He waits for a few moments before his gaze is drawn to a light. Two men are standing by the guard’s office; one of them is in the easily recognisable green uniform, the other is the older of the twins. The guard lights a cigarette off the match. Juanico stands still, hidden beneath the shadow of the overhanging building. He watches the two figures talking.

  After a few moments they stop and the guard returns to the office, the lit end of the cigarette tracing his journey as he goes. The twin walks down the side of the casino. Juanico, feeling scared and excited, hurries down the side of the square, past the closed shops and bars, darting from shadow to shadow. In the distance he can hear a dog barking. Closer to the casino he can see that there are still a few of the lights on inside.

  He hurries along the side of the building and follows it around to the back. He turns the final corner and sees the other four boys standing by the flatbed trailer. The oldest of the twins is pouring petrol into bottles from a ten litre can. There are five green wine bottles standing in a line on the trailer when he reaches the other boys. The oldest of the twins looks up first with a broad smile on his face. The younger twin hands Juanico a black and red bandana. “Just in case we are seen,” he says. Juanico notices that the others have tied them around their necks. He quickly ties his in the same way.

  The older of the two brothers dips rags into the can of petrol and then pushes them into the top of each of the bottles before handing one to each of the boys. “I have spoken to the guards, we will burn the unionists’ bar to the ground,” he says. Juanico looks at the bottle. He feels a dizzy cocktail of fear and excitement sprinting through his mind.

  The younger brother hands each of the boys a pickaxe handle. “For anyone that escapes,” he says as he hands one to Juanico. The boy looks at the items in each of his hands; his soft skin holds on tightly to the worked wood of the handle and the smell of petrol overwhelms his senses.

  The sound of breaking bottles from in front of the casino jerks all the boys’ heads towards the corner of the building. The oldest of the twins pulls the bandana up over his mouth and nose and holds his finger to his lips. The five boys stand frozen in silence, listening to the bar manager emptying the bins in front of the building. The boys wait. After several minutes silence once again blankets the square. The oldest of the twins walks slowly to the corner of the building and peers around it. He holds one hand up behind him; fingers spread and palm facing the others. He then disappears around the corner.

  The four remaining boys look at one another questioningly. The younger twin pulls the bandana up over his mouth and nose and walks towards the corner of the building. The others follow him. The older boy beckons them across to the corner of the building, looking out across the square. “They’ve gone for the night now. You and Juanico, go down to the back of the buildings and take the back door, you two come with me,” he says. The younger of the twins looks at Juanico and then gestures towards the back of the guard’s station.

  The handle and the bottle feel heavy in Juanico’s hands. He notices the sleeve closest to the bottle is soaked through with petrol and damp against his skin. He edges silently behind the younger twin to the back of the guard’s office. The boy turns to Juanico as they get to the back of the building. “We will wait for their first bottle to smash before we light ours. If anyone leaves the building we shall teach them a lesson. Do you understand?” he asks. Juanico nods and then they both run quietly along the rear of the buildings. The fields stretching far into the distance to their right are bathed in moonlight. They take position crouching behind the final building, the back of the union bar.

  Juanico looks at the two storey building; on the ground floor there is one wooden door and a window. He allows his gaze to track up the side of the building until it reaches the shuttered windows on the first floor. He tries to stop himself imagining who is sleeping there. It doesn’t work. The twin leans across to him and whispers through the bandana, “When we hear the window break at the front, I will light the two bottles and then break this window. Put one through the window and then throw one against the door.” Juanico nods, the excitement and the fear squirming in his stomach. The boy continues, “Then get a few yards back and we wait for anyone to come through the door. If any of them make it out, give it to them as hard as you can. Do you understand?” Juanico nods and lays the handle on the ground. With a bottle in each hand he crouches beside the other boy. The seconds pass terrifyingly slowly. Terrified that the cacophony of cicadas in the fields, his thumping heart and the dog barking in the distance threaten to wake the whole village, he closes his eyes and prays.

  The sound of glass smashing at the front of the building ignites them both into action. The other boy lights the two rags hanging from the bottles, stands up and smashes the glass of the window closest to him. The shards spray outwards in a firework of flashing moonlight. Juanico stands up and pushes the first bottle through the window. The sound of glass and bottles smashing crashes from inside the building like a cymbal. He steps back and launches the second bottle at the door. The bottle smashes and the flaming liquid explodes across the ageing wood, spitting fire as it climaxes. Juanico stumbles backwards, grasping at the handle as he falls towards his accomplice. Both boys stand shaking with the handles gripped firmly in both hands. They wait for what seems like an eternity.

  The flames climb up the door and blacken the white walls surrounding it. The red hue of flames inside the building glows through the broken window. From inside the building there is the sound of thumping steps crashing down the stairs. A baby’s cries seem to pierce high above the other sounds as Juanico, paralysed, stares at the flaming door. He grips the handle tightly and his knuckles turn white. The smell of sun-brittled wood burning quickly begins to overpower the fumes of the petrol. Screams emanate from inside the house and from the front of the building a clamour erupts. The two boys continue standing, staring at the door; the heat from the fire warming their clenched fists. The cracking of wood and exploding glass inside the building slowly drowns out the noises of the people at the front of the building.

  The two boys, locked like statues, stand nervously anticipating the door opening at any minute. It doesn’t. Their concentration is finally br
oken when the oldest of the two twins runs around the corner of the building with the two others following quickly behind. “Quick!” he shouts as they run along the back of the buildings towards the Civil Guard’s office.

  “We are done,” the boy cries back.

  Juanico and the younger twin stand rooted to the ground for a moment as they look back at the door and then at each other. The shutters in the first floor windows are starting to glow orange and through the gaps thin wisps of smoke are leaking. The two boys turn and sprint after the other three. They catch up with them as they slow to a halt behind the guard’s office. The same guard that Juanico had seen earlier stands in the doorway taking the axe handles and bandanas from the boys. As each piece of wood is handed to him he passes it back into the building. Juanico pulls the bandana from his face and hands it with the handle to the guard.

  The guard takes the cigarette from his mouth and before turning and going back into the office says, “Now go through the fields and come back around by the river. You have done a good thing tonight.” The older of the twins allows a broad grin to break across his face as he turns and jogs towards the cornfields behind them. The boys follow him towards the swaying field. Juanico notices flecks of black on the shirts and faces of the three boys who were at the front of the bar. The exhilaration, adrenalin, fumes and guilt mix in his stomach and head. When he reaches the cover of the high corn stems he doubles over and the contents of his stomach cough their way up and out and onto the moonlit earth beneath his feet. His vision blurs and time seems to stand still as he splutters liquid onto the ground and his sandals. He feels the hand of one of the other boys between his shoulder blades.

  Chapter 17

  The following morning Juanico is woken up by the sound of his father bellowing his name from downstairs. Still only half awake, he tries to ground his mind. His eyes start to focus and the memories of the events only a few short hours previous begin piecing together. He glances around the room to make sure there is no evidence of his complicity. His father shouts again. He clambers out of the bed and hastily pulls on his trousers and shirt. Hopping across the room, he struggles to get his feet into his sandals. He runs down the hallway to the staircase.

  His father’s voice rumbles through the house like distant thunder, “Juan Nicolas, get down here now.” Juanico takes three stairs at a time, the increasing urgency of his father and his own guilt pushing him faster. He reaches the bottom of the stairs and sees his father standing in the middle of the hallway with the jacket he was wearing the night before in his clenched fist. Behind him at the dining room table his grandmother and great aunt are sitting in silence, staring at the breakfast laid out before them.

  Pedro stares at his son, his anger barely masking his own feelings of failure. The boy stares back at him helplessly. With his free hand he grabs his son by the ear and drags him out to the garden. Feeling like his ear will tear at the root, the pain slams Juanico’s eyes shut. Struggling to keep up, he is dragged into the storehouse at the back of the garden and thrown to the floor, smashing his shoulder against the stone wall as he falls. Juanico’s mind is still, in shock at the speed and ferocity of the preceding ten seconds.

  Pedro looms over him with the jacket in his clenched fist. “What did you do last night?” he shouts. Terrified, Juanico opens his mouth but no words come out. Pedro leans down and grabs the boy’s shirt, pulling him up from the floor. He pushes the jacket into his face. He shouts again and the force of the hot breath and spit is like an oven opening, “Tell me what you did last night. I know you were there.” Mute with fear and muffled by the coarse cloth of the jacket, his voice continues to fail him. Pedro pushes him to the floor and the jacket into his face. He undoes his belt and pulls it out of the belt loops on his trousers. “You will tell me what part you played in this or I swear I will kill you here and now,” he shouts as he wraps the belt around his hand.

  Juanico pulls the jacket from his face and musters a whisper, “But, Father—”

  “Enough,” the man shouts as the buckle comes crashing down on his chest. The pain screams through the boy’s nervous system and into his brain. “What have you done?” he bellows as the buckle comes crashing down again. The boy tries to plead with him but can only manage a whimper as the buckle keeps crashing down against him. The buckle lashes across his chest and arms another five times. Fear numbs the boy’s senses. His muscles relax and he surrenders to the inevitable. His body goes limp and he tastes the salty tears rolling down his face.

  Pedro pauses and the belt falls to his side. He leans down and grabs the boy’s shirt in his clenched fist and pulls his face towards him. In a more controlled tone he enunciates every word, “The barman, his wife and their oldest son have been beaten almost dead. Their youngest, the little girl, died in the fire. Do you understand?”

  Without comprehending the gravity of what he has been told Juanico finally musters a defence, “I was not there. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  The blinding rage dilates Pedro’s pupils as he leans in closer, thrusting the jacket back into the boy’s face. “Your jacket stinks of petrol and fire. You were with those sons of bitches last night. I saw you with my own eyes. It is not sufficient to be one of these bastard animals, but now you lie to me as well,” he screams at him.

  Standing in the doorway of the storehouse Soledad finally finds the courage to speak, “My son, we don’t know that he was there. Give him a chance to—”

  Pedro half turns to his mother. “Don’t you dare speak. This is as much your fault as it is his. If you don’t shut up you will be next, as God is my witness. Go back to the house,” he shouts at her. The out of control anger in his eyes silences the woman almost immediately and like a scolded dog she scurries back to the house with her eyes filling with tears.

  He turns back to his son and with his belt wrapped around his fist grabs another bunch of shirt. “You will tell me exactly what part you played in this and who was involved,” he says.

  Juanico, in fear for his life, starts talking, “I was there, Father, but I did not do anything. It was the others.”

  “And why the petrol then?” Pedro asks.

  The boy continues, almost babbling, “I just held the bombs for the others. I didn’t know what they were doing. I didn’t know there was anyone in the—”

  Pedro cuts him short, “That is your answer. You are telling me that you’re an imbecile. That you didn’t know the family lived there, that you didn’t know what the bombs would do.”

  With the fist wrapped tight in the leather belt he punches the boy hard in the face, forcing his head back. The pain explodes across the boy’s face. Pedro pulls him back up. “This is your answer; that I raised an imbecile.” He punches him hard across the face again. The splintering pain across one half of his face forces his eyes closed and overwhelms the pain now coursing through the rest of his body.

  He mumbles almost unintelligibly, “No, Father. I am sorry. I did not mean to disrespect.” Pedro leans back and punches the boy in the face with all his strength, jerking the boy’s head back and thumping it into the wall behind it with a dull thud that knocks him unconscious.

  Unaware that the boy has slipped into unconsciousness Pedro continues shouting at his son, “I will give you to the guards myself so you can rot in a jail for this.” He stands up straight, “Do you hear me, boy? After what I have done, my father before him and his father before him. You, my imbecile son, have destroyed everything this family has ever built. We have dragged ourselves from the mud of the fields for you to destroy everything in one night.” He kicks him in the stomach; the unconscious mass barely reacts. Sweating from every pore, heart racing and breathing laboured, Pedro stands over his child with his white-knuckled fists shaking. He stands over the boy, watching the bloodstains on his shirt spreading and the cuts beneath his eye pumping thick, rich blood onto his cheek and the earth beneath it.
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br />   He turns away in disgust; disgust with the boy, with his own mother and with the whole godforsaken village. He stands with his back to his son for a brief moment, as the recognition of his own failure as a father begins to dawn on him. He begins to see he has failed everyone. He strides through the garden and into the house. Marianela stands silently in the kitchen feeling the anger emanating from him like the sunsoaked walls in the midday heat. He throws his belt at her. “Fetch me another belt and clean the blood off this one.”

  He stamps into the dining room. Marianela hurriedly picks up the belt and runs upstairs to get him another. The two old women look up from the table in silence. The great aunt quickly looks back down at her plate. “Don’t think I don’t blame you and that child-fucking priest of yours for this. I warned you,” he says in a deliberate and measured tone.

  Soledad starts to respond, “You do not know what—”

  Pedro takes one step forwards towards her menacingly and cuts her off, “Do not answer me back. You old women fluttering around that faggot priest are like carrion feeding on this village. Look at what you have done to my son with your Roman witchcraft. You drove my father to his death and now my son. Look at what you have done to my family.”

  He looks down at his bloodied hands. He holds them out towards his mother. “Look at what you have reduced this family to,” he cries. His mother stares back at him blankly. Marianela comes down the stairs behind him. He hears her and holds out his hand. She places the belt in it. He starts pushing it through the loops on his trousers and tucks his shirt back in. “I’m going to get the guard to hand him over myself. And if you let him leave before I return…” He closes his eyes and shakes his head from side to side. “Before God I swear that you will all need a priest when I am finished with you,” he vows.