A Most Uncivil War

by Nicolas Lalaguna

  “Stop your prattling, woman. I am the boy’s father and only I will say when he has learnt,” he replies. Nervously, Soledad holds her ground with her hands still outstretched. Juan Nicolas, having pushed himself into the corner between the wall and floor, shuts his eyes, anticipating another torrent of pain. Soledad’s sister watches the two adults facing one another. The seconds pass in silence, the only noise the laboured breathing of the boy who with each gasp of air welcomes new throbs of pain shooting through his nervous system.

  Pedro speaks, “Get him to his room, nurse him and lock it. He is not to leave the house.”

  Soledad’s brow furrows and she asks, “And what of the police?”

  Pedro feels his temper locking the muscles in his jaws, “The police do not want him.” Soledad’s stance visibly relaxes and she lowers her arms. The pain pulsing through Juanico’s body deafens him from the conversation occurring in front of him. “Your god and his bastards may be finished with him, but mark my words, I am not. I will not have my only son taking part in this hell that your church and their fascist whores want for us. He is my son. This is my house. It was my blood and sweat that gave us this life and I will be damned before I have my name dragged into this hell. Do you understand?” he says, poking her in the chest.

  Feeling what little authority she has over her son slipping away, dejected, she hangs her head. Her shoulders visibly slump. She replies quietly, “Of course, my son. Forgive me.”

  Seeing his mother shrinking in both form and strength before him, he wrestles with his guilt and new-found authority. “Clean him up and get him to his room,” he says as he turns and walks away.

  *

  In the station a train screeches to a halt. One of the doors flings open, crashing against the side of the carriage and Raul throws a sack down onto the earth. The midmorning sun warms his face. Raul carefully lowers himself down from the train with a crutch under one arm. He weighs nearly half what he did when he last looked upon this platform. His body aches terribly as he holds tightly to the hand rail. Noticing the crutch, the platform guard rushes over to help him down from the train. “Thank you, Comrade,” Raul says as he steadies himself between the crutch and the man’s shoulder.

  The railway worker picks up the sack with his free hand. He looks into the man’s face and recognition slowly dawns on him. “Raul, is that you?” he asks.

  “Yes, Comrade, bruised but not broken,” he replies, allowing himself a small smile. He takes the sack from the other man and starts making his way to the platform.

  “It is good to see you again, Comrade. The last thing we heard was that you had been imprisoned,” the man says, slamming the door of the carriage shut. Raul hops forward, the barely cushioned wooden crutch handle digs deep into his armpit. The guard looks up and down the train to make sure all the doors are closed and blows hard and long on his whistle.

  The steam engine at the front of the train lets out a loud exhalation before shunting the hulk forward. The connections between each carriage strain under the pressure and cry out over the din of the engine. The metal wheels scream as they grind against the metal tracks and thick, grey smoke billows out from the funnel at the front. The line of carriages chugs painfully forwards, dragging against their will out of the station and across the valley.

  Raul leans against the crutch and watches the train pull away. The smoke from the engine and the dust from the train blanket the area. The other man walks across to him, “It is good to see you well. And now when we need you most.”

  The man’s voice is tempered with worry and Raul picks up on it immediately. “What is wrong? Actually, before you tell me let us sit down somewhere. My legs are older than they used to be. Sit me down, give me a coffee and tell me what has been going on,” he says. The other man takes the crutch away and leans Raul on his shoulder. One man half carrying the other’s weight, they make their way slowly to the platform. Raul’s fragile form weighs little more than a child. He lowers him onto a chair. “Thank you, friend,” says Raul. The station guard pours him a cup of coffee and hands it to him. He then sits down by the ticket window and begins telling him what has happened since he has been gone.

  *

  Cati and Salvador stay in Poble Sec with her family. They stay awake most of the night, holding each other through the openings in their bedrolls. With Cati’s sister sleeping only a few feet away, they dare not make love. Drifting in and out of sleep, for hours they whisper, caress and reassure one another. They speak of deeply held emotions and of shared dreams, they fantasise of a happy future in a carefree place and in a time without want. Excitedly, they chatter about raising children and creating a new world. They close their eyes and weave a fabric of dreams between them. For those few hours their present and their future are positive, fulfilling and full of love.

  The pre-dawn light flattens the depth in the room. Sal recognises that it is time for him to start moving. He gets up from the bedroll, takes his arms out of his overalls and ties them around his waist like a belt. From on top of his bag he takes the vest and pulls it over his head. Cati stands up still wearing his shirt and starts to unbutton it. He puts his hand over hers, “Keep it. I won’t need it where I am going, and I would rather think of you wearing it.” She wraps her arms around his waist and kisses him on the lips. He pulls his mouth away when he starts to feel her tongue pushing between his lips, “Not here. Come downstairs with me.” She pulls on her overalls, ties the sleeves around her waist and slips on her sandals. He picks up his knapsack and the two of them tiptoe out of the room.

  *

  Within an hour Salvador is sitting on the floor of the covered truck amongst the crates. The man driving the van has given him his instructions: which box needs to be unloaded at which stop. The boxes containing arms and tractor parts are bound for villages between Barcelona and Teruel. He sits back against the crates with his feet stretched out in front of him and settles in for the long journey. The memory of recent intimacies, still fresh, warms his mind. He watches the streets of Poble Sec, then the city and finally the outlying villages fade into the distance as they rattle along the roads.

  As the morning sun makes its way high into the sky, the temperature follows it. The van idles along at what, in the full glare of the sun, feels only marginally faster than a walking pace. Salvador ties the sleeves of his overalls around his waist and pulls the flat cap down over his eyes. Every time he feels himself starting to nod, the front wheels hit a bump in the road, throwing the cab and his head into the air. A moment later the back wheels hit the same bump, throwing the back of the lorry and his feet into the air. Time after time he feels his eyelids growing heavy and time after time he is lifted into the air and then dropped with a thud onto the wooden floor of the lorry.

  After travelling all day and what feels like countless deliveries Salvador finally hears the van slowing to a stop in Teruel. He looks out from the flatbed of the lorry at the people in the streets hurrying home from work while the children play. Salvador hears the door of the cab slam and a few moments later the driver appears at the back of the lorry. He points to a bundle of axle rods tied in a blanket and only loudly enough for Salvador to hear says, “There are five rifles in there, and several boxes of ammunition in the crate behind them. Take ten boxes of the ammunition and the bundle for your village.”

  Salvador gets up from the blankets and opens the crate behind the bundle. It is filled with small card boxes of bullets. He takes out ten and packs them carefully into his knapsack before putting it over his shoulders. He picks up the bundle and brings it to the back of the truck. He hands the bundle to the driver and jumps down. The driver points at the tips of the rods and says, “See the difference. If you get stopped show them the right ones, and remember they are rods for a tractor’s axle struts. Can you remember that?”

  Salvador tightens the rope on the bundle and lifts it onto his shoulders.

 
“Don’t worry. I will be fine. Where is the station from here?” he asks, adjusting the bundle onto his shoulders.

  The driver points to the front of the van. “No more than ten minutes straight down the road. Good luck, Comrade,” he says and kisses him on both cheeks.

  Salvador nods and half smiles. “Good luck to you, Comrade.”

  *

  At the station office in the village Raul sits with both of the station staff. The platform outside is empty. One of the guards refills Raul’s cup. “Thank you,” he says as he carefully sips at the warm liquid.

  “All things considered, you look much better than we imagined,” the other man says reassuringly.

  Raul smiles at him and shrugs his shoulders. “Thank you. You are both kind and very bad liars.” The two men watching him sympathetically laugh. Raul puts down the cup. “I need to get word to Antonio, Esteban’s brother and the other organisers. Will they be in the bar tonight?” The two men look at one another and shift uncomfortably in their chairs. Raul immediately senses that something is wrong. “What aren’t you telling me?” he asks.

  The older of the two men replies, “These past years have been hard on us also. The fascist whores have struck the union hard here.” Raul waits for him to continue. The man carries on, “They have imprisoned all of the organisers and others. Even Esteban’s family is in the prison outside Teruel. I think most of the organisers are being held in Zaragoza. Even Salvador has not returned from Barcelona. We have had no word from him in weeks. It is not safe in the village for CNT’istas. Only last night the Casa Del Pueblo was destroyed.”

  Raul leans across the table and takes a cigarette from the packet. “Salvador is fine. He is in Barcelona with our comrades. What do you mean it was destroyed?” he asks.

  The younger of the two men hangs his head and shakes it from side to side. “Terrible things have been happening.”

  The older man talks across him, “The bar was burned down and Pablo and his family were attacked. They killed his youngest child. The little girl was killed. Assassins. They killed the little girl.” The muscles in Raul’s jaws start twitching as he clenches his teeth together. He looks down at the table in silence for a few moments.

  “What about Salvador’s mother? How is Marianela?” he asks.

  The man replies, “She appears to be all right. She has little contact with anyone outside of the house now. Her spirit looks broken.”

  Raul flicks the ash from the cigarette into the ashtray and asks, “Have we opened the prison in Teruel yet?”

  The younger man answers him, “Teruel was opened a few days ago. We have had no word from Zaragoza.”

  Raul sits thinking for a few moments. He recognises the years have been hard on his body and he wonders what use he will be in the future that awaits them all. Eventually, he responds, “I need to get word to Barcelona and Teruel.” He pauses for a few moments before continuing, “I also need somewhere to rest.”

  The older man tells the younger man to get a blanket before turning back to Raul and saying, “You can stay at mine, my wife will take care of you. It is close.” Raul forces a slow smile and rocks his head backwards and forwards gratefully. The older man continues, “Let us get you comfortable first and then we will send word.”

  Chapter 18

  The first train of the morning pulls out of the village. Salvador rests the bundle of rifles and rods against his chest and looks down the dusty road towards the village where he was born. The climbing summer sun is expanding the mercury in the thermometers and he feels the cotton overalls, cold and damp, cling to his shoulders. The platform quickly empties. The station guard walks slowly back to the office, pauses and looks back over his shoulder at the man standing in the clouds of dust. He focuses on him for a second and, not recognising him, continues onto the cool shade of the platform. Salvador lifts the bundle from the floor and with a heave lifts it onto his bruised shoulder. He follows the man back towards the platform.

  When Sal reaches the platform the other man is already sitting down. The man looks up at Salvador. Salvador smiles and his yellowing teeth contrast against the brown, patchy, short beard surrounding them. The station guard recognises him, stands up and throws his arms around him. “Good news. One by one you return to defend the village.” Salvador kisses him on both cheeks before lowering the bundle carefully to his side.

  “Have the years changed me so much?” he asks. The guard picks up the bundle and leans it against the wall.

  “My eyes have got worse. This is heavier than it looks,” he says quizzically.

  “Be careful with that, it is a present for the fascists,” Salvador says with a smile. The man nods his head smiling and gestures towards the other chair. Salvador sits down.

  The other station worker comes out of the ticket office carrying two cups of coffee and hands one to his colleague. He recognises Sal immediately. “We were just talking about you and your friends a few days ago and here you are. Do you want a coffee?” Sal smiles at him and shakes his head. “Raul returned a little while ago. He is at my house. He is not strong. The years have been hard on him,” the man sitting down tells him. Sal lets his eyes pass across the fields and distant hills while the men are speaking. He turns back to the two men.

  “I need to see him now,” he replies. The younger man puts his cup down on the window ledge and picks up the bundle.

  “Of course, I will take you to him now,” he tells him.

  The house is not far. At the end of the dirt track, running parallel to the train lines, the station manager’s home sits low and lonely with its back to a cornfield. The ageing adobe has crumbled and cracked, and its whitewash has lost its battle with the sun many years earlier.

  The door opens and a woman steps out of it with a bundle of blankets. The younger man greets her, “Good morning, good lady. I bring another guest at the command of the boss.”

  The woman looks up at the two men approaching and shakes her head. “Don’t you have any work to do or will you pass another day bothering me?” she asks.

  Uncomfortable, Salvador greets her, “Good morning, I am sorry to bother you. I promise that I will not take any of your time.”

  The station guard picks up from where he left off, “Are you already so unwelcoming, woman? It is not even nine o’clock and you already have the attitude of someone that has done a day’s work.”

  The woman looks angrily at her husband’s colleague, “Some of us already have done a day’s work, but you, of course, already find the time to bother me. And don’t you get any funny ideas or my husband will beat you again.”

  The woman turns and walks quickly away from the house. The two men stand by the half-open door watching her hanging the blankets out. With a reluctant acceptance he explains over his shoulder, “A misunderstanding after too much to drink. Nothing more.”

  After hanging the blankets she returns to pick up the cane carpet beater from by the door. “What are you waiting for? Is this your idea of a cabaret? I have work to do,” she says, her patience visibly diminishing.

  He replies curtly, “We are not here to watch you, woman, we are here to see your guest. Do you not recognise Salvador, the son of the groundskeeper’s maid?”

  The woman pauses to look at the other man’s face. After a few seconds she recognises him and she starts talking very quickly, “Forgive my rudeness, it is my only defence against this fool’s bothering. You have grown into a fine-looking man. Have you seen your mother yet? You will send her my regards. I will come to see—”

  And just as quickly as she starts, so she is cut off by Sal. “I have just got off the train. I need to see your guest and then I will visit with my mother, I promise,” he says.

  “Of course, of course. Please do go in. He is resting after his breakfast,” she says, gesturing inside.

  Salvador walks into the building fir
st. In the time it takes for his eyes to become accustomed to the windowless dark of the room he hears the blankets begin to receive their daily thrashing outside. A corner of the room is sectioned off by a line tied across it and a blanket hanging from it. The guard puts down the bundle by the table and says to no one in particular, “Good morning. You have a visitor.” Salvador doesn’t move, he just watches the blanket hanging still and listens to the rustling of movement coming from behind it, not knowing what to expect.

  The sound of wood scrapes dully across the dirt floor as Raul comes from behind the stained, brown blanket. He looks up and sees Salvador. On recognising him immediately, a broad smile lights up his drawn, grey face. He hastily hobbles across the room. Salvador rushes to meet him halfway and throws his arms around him. “How long has it been, brother?” Sal asks, scared to let go.

  Raul feels his own bony frame jabbing into the young man’s muscles. “Too long. And look at you,” he says as he struggles to pull himself from the embrace. Salvador keeps his hands under the man’s armpits to hold him steady.

  The station guard turns to leave, saying over his shoulder, “I will be back later with some food.” Neither of them acknowledges the other man’s departure, they just continue smiling broadly at one another.

  Salvador takes the crutch and helps Raul to the table. “The years have not been kind to me,” he says as he allows himself to be helped into the chair.

  Salvador pulls a chair around and sits down beside him. “All you need is a good meal,” Sal replies reassuringly.

  Raul starts firing questions at his friend, “Tell me of the city, I have heard much already. No, first tell me of Caterina and my friend Juan Antonio and his beautiful family. No, better yet, tell me about the plan first. There was talk in the prison that the fighting is coming soon. Tell me about that first, we will have time soon enough for the rest. No, first tell me about your mother. How is — ?”