Hostage to Fortune

by Carolyn McCrae

  “How come?”

  “Back in the seventies Harry and I lived in London. Harry had a long period of leave so we came down here, to Spain, for a fortnight, 1977 it was. We weren’t really beach people so we hired a car and explored a bit of the countryside. One day Harry got into conversation with an old man in a bar. These were the dying days of Franco’s dictatorship, Spain was changing, people were talking openly about subjects that had been taboo for years. It was a time when wounds that had stayed raw from the thirties were beginning to be healed. Men whose lives had been devastated in the Civil War were in their old age and wanted answers to unanswered, and probably unanswerable, questions.”

  “And this man you met in the bar was one of them?” Diane asked after Pat had been silent for a few seconds.

  “His name was Luis. He heard us talking in English, not that common in those days more than five miles from the coast. His English was poor but Harry’s Spanish was good; he’d spent time in South America when he first joined the service, you see. Anyway, they fell into a long and involved conversation during which Harry let slip that he worked for the British government. Luis asked for his help and Harry said he would do what he could. For half an hour Harry listened to Luis’s story. It was tragic. He had been a young man with a beautiful wife and a son when the Civil War began. When Luis inevitably became involved in fighting for the doomed Republicans he sent Maria and his son, Federico, to what he thought would be safety in the north.”

  “That must have been terribly difficult.”

  “He heard nothing about them for years. He had to assume they were dead though in his heart of hearts he knew they would have had no way to find him, no way to tell him they were alive. After the Civil War ended he married again and had three sons but it always worried him that those boys would be bastards in the eyes of God. He had to find out if it was possible that Maria had survived the war and was still his wife.”

  “How awful for him, imagining himself a bigamist and his sons illegitimate,” Diane said sympathetically, wondering how this all related to Patrick O’Donnell and the Edens.

  “I couldn’t understand what he was saying at the time, Harry explained it all later, but I could see the pain on the old man’s face as he talked of ‘Maria’ and ‘Federico’.”

  “What did he ask Harry to do?”

  “As Franco’s hold over newspapers diminished and as Spain opened up to foreigners Luis had learned about the Niños, the children who escaped the war to England. It took hold in his mind that Maria and Federico had made it to Bilbao, and had been taken to England. He begged Harry to find out if that could have been possible and carefully wrote out his wife and son’s names.”

  “And did Harry find out?”

  “He did. When we got back to England he investigated what we thought would be a completely forlorn hope, though it was absolutely fascinating. I had known nothing about a ship called the Habana and the fates of four thousand children. We eventually discovered a Federico Jiménez Rodriguez was listed as one of those arriving in Southampton in May 1937 and a Maria Rodriguez Garcia de Jiménez was listed as one of the helpers. Now, those names are not exactly unique in Spain and we had no way of knowing whether this Federico was related to this Maria but there were photographs and we had got so involved with the story that we headed back here to show Luis what we had found”

  “Did he recognise them?”

  “No, he didn’t. The pictures were very grainy, the subjects of the cameras small and far away. He couldn’t see either but the names and the ages convinced him.”

  “So he thought his second family was not legitimate?”

  “That was where we had to give him some bad news along with the good, if you see what I mean. Maria had died in 1937 almost as soon as she had arrived in Southampton.”

  “And the boy, Federico?”

  “He was one of the ones who stayed behind in England. He went to live with an English family and probably has lost all memory of his Spanish roots.”

  “And what has this to do with Warwick and Barford?” Diane asked, though she knew what the answer had to be.

  “The couple Federico went to live with – he was never formally adopted because he was too old – they gave him the name Stratford Eden.”

  Pat stopped and glanced at Diane to see how she had taken this information but Diane’s face gave nothing away.

  “Shall I get some drinks? A coffee?” Diane asked. She needed time to think, to let the implications sink in.

  Guy was this old Spaniard’s great-grandson. Had he known? Was that why he had come to Spain? Had Warwick and Barford known anything of their father’s heritage?

  Or did Pat’s story of Luis, Maria and Federico have nothing whatsoever to do with anything?

  “Why did you move out here?” she asked as she placed the mugs of coffee on the table in front of Pat.

  “We liked it, it was warm and we could.”

  It seemed a simple enough answer to a simple question but Diane wondered if there was more to it than just liking the climate.

  “Did you ever see the old man again?”

  “Luis? Yes. We became quite good friends. He was a very intelligent, well-educated and interesting man. There was nothing of the peasant or the fisherman about him, he came from a good southern family. It was the Civil War that had changed everything for him.”

  “As it must have done for many millions of others.”

  “Absolutely. One thing I have learned not to ask, even now, is what side anyone was on.”

  “Tell me about Luis,” Diane suggested as she settled into the comfortable chair. “I’d love to hear about him.”

  As Pat began Luis’s story she knew she could not tell Diane everything.

  She could never tell anyone everything.

  Chapter 24: Luis Jiménez Martinez

  Luis Jiménez Martinez, the only son in a rich and privileged family, married his cousin, Maria, in 1929. When their son, Federico, was born in the autumn the following year life should have been perfect for them but, although Maria was content, Luis was not. He lived, with Maria and Federico, in a wing of his father’s house and he did not get on with his father.

  It wasn’t that they disagreed on politics and the monarchy, it wasn’t that Luis believed himself to be an atheist in his high Catholic family; it was that he was deeply afraid of his father’s friends and his father was suspicious and afraid of his.

  From his school days Luis had been in awe of, and at times fancied himself in love with, a fellow pupil, Federico Garcia Lorca. While Luis conformed to his obligations to his family by marrying and having a son to carry on their line, Federico rebelled, travelling the world, developing his talents as a writer and a poet, mixing with artists and actors. Despite their very different lives, and the unrelenting opposition of Luis’s father, who did everything in his power to diminish the influence the renegade homosexual had over his son, they remained close friends. By the time it became clear that civil war was inevitable father and son had not been on speaking terms for months.

  Luis watched with dread as the atmosphere changed in their village near Granada. Bars were no longer pleasant places in which to spend time as they were frequented by vigilante thugs who would torture and kill the men they had grown up with as soon as drink wine with them. Luis knew his father was close to the men who manipulated those thugs and he had heard strong rumours that brothers were already informing on each other and fathers on their sons.

  “We have to leave,” Luis told Maria one night in July 1936. “It is too dangerous to stay.”

  “Dangerous for you maybe.”

  “And for Federico.”

  “Which Federico?” Maria had always been jealous, and suspicious, of her husband’s affection for his poet friend.

  “How can you ask? Do not argue. We have to go.”

  “Go? Go where?�
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  “I don’t know. North? Away from Granada. It’s too dangerous for people like me. And you are my wife and Federico is my son; they would have no qualms about raping and killing you both because of that.”

  “Your father, my uncle, would not allow it.” Not for the first time she argued against her husband.

  “You believe that? You really believe that? Then you are a fool and I know you are not a fool, Maria.”

  Reluctantly she agreed and began to think about what necessities she could pack into bags small enough to be carried.

  That night Luis did not join her for one last night in their comfortable bed.

  She did not sleep for wondering where he was, what he was doing, who he was with and when, if ever, they would sleep in a bed together again.

  She was dozing when he lay down beside her. It was not yet dawn though there were signs that the sky was lightening.

  “Where have you…?” she began.

  “I have burned our bridges,” he whispered. “I have stolen my father’s gold and my mother’s jewellery. Everything that was in his safe is now in a chest buried in the corner of the garden by the olive grove.”

  “That’s taken you all night?” she asked, unsure why she felt so angry.

  “I had help.”

  “Lorca?” she asked, knowing that she was right.

  “He fears for his life. He is famous, he is a target. He helped me and I helped him.”

  “You helped him?”

  “He gave me a case to bury.”

  “A case?”

  “A writing case with his notebooks, papers, drafts of his writings. He was fatalistic. He knows he will be dead soon and he did not want all his works destroyed. Now, we must get dressed for the road. You have packed bags? Good. Now fetch Federico, we must be off before the household wakes.”

  Progress was slow as they travelled south to the coast. They could walk no farther in a day than a confused five-year-old Federico could and there were many days they could go nowhere as Maria’s feet ached, or she was tired, or she felt ill.

  By early September they had travelled under two hundred miles, reaching a village just to the north of Cartagena on Federico’s sixth birthday.

  There they had a fateful argument.

  “No farther, Luis, no farther. Find me somewhere safe to stay but I cannot and will not go one step more.”

  “Cartagena will be safe. Our navy is there. Cartagena will never fall to the Nationalists.”

  “How far is that?”

  “A day. No more than a day. I promise you.”

  “Then I want to settle. No more of this begging farmers to let us sleep in their barns. I cannot imagine what your mother would say about how you are making your wife and son live.”

  “What did you want to do then? Stay? You would be a widow by now if not dead yourself leaving Federico an orphan, assuming they did not slit his throat too.”

  The argument was bitter.

  Maria felt resentful, she was not even sure she agreed with her husband that the Nationalists were the enemies of the people. She had left her comfortable home because he had told her there was a danger she herself had seen no sign of. Her resentment had fuelled itself more every day as they had walked, dirty and dishevelled, and her resentment made her tongue sharp.

  Luis was fearful that he was not going to be able to keep his wife and son safe. There would be fighting and he would be part of it. Perhaps, after all, he should have left Maria and Federico in their home. He worried that he had been selfish in bringing them with him and his worry and fear made his anger sharper.

  He had never before hit his wife.

  In their seven years of marriage they had had their disagreements and their rows but he had never felt so impotent that violence had been the only answer.

  But when Maria said he had failed her and their son he slapped her hard across the face, his heavy gold ring cutting into her cheek.

  The last he saw of her, as he turned and strode away, was her look of shock that he could do such a thing and the last he saw of his son was the boy’s fists pushing away the tears from his eyes.

  Luis walked for an hour. Shocked, frightened at his actions, afraid to turn back to apologise and beg forgiveness he walked on, head down, watching his feet place themselves one in front of the other, each step taking him farther from the two beings he loved most in the world.

  He heard the train just in time.

  He had not realised he was walking alongside a railway track until the locomotive was only a few yards away from him. He jumped out of the way, running into a small grove of trees, out of sight. He could not know who might be on the train and what threat they might imagine he might represent.

  He watched as the steam locomotive struggled to pull the six brown passenger carriages and the three goods wagons up the steep incline. Luis stayed behind the gnarled trunk of an ancient olive tree, scared to show himself until the train had passed but peeping around the trunk to watch.

  At first he could not be sure what was happening.

  Two boxes fell from the van, as if in slow motion. He could see they were heavy and he supposed they would contain guns or ammunition. Then two men jumped down from the train. Luis thought they might be robbers but he was close enough to see they were wearing the green uniform of the more regular Republican forces. The men tried to move the boxes but the train was picking up speed. Luis watched as they were pulled back onto the train, leaving the boxes where they had fallen.

  It seemed to Luis to be an age but was probably no more than two or three minutes before the train disappeared into the distance and there was silence. He stood up and looked around him. There was no road that he could see, no farm, not even a shepherds’ shelter. There was nothing, no one, anywhere near him.

  He was in the middle of nowhere.

  Cautiously he moved out of the grove of trees and moved furtively, crouching close to the ground, towards the boxes.

  They had spilled open and on the ground lay gold bars and coins. Far more gold than even his father had had in his safe.

  He looked around him.

  Surely someone would come to retrieve such treasure.

  Furtively, prepared to run at the first sight of movement, Luis dug into the dark red soil.

  The sun was setting as he smoothed over the infilled pit. He noted the kilometre marker by the railway, he noted the line of the mountain ridge. He wanted to be able to find this spot again when he had help, or a van or a truck, to carry the riches away.

  For two hours he had thought of nothing but digging into the rock-hard ground and hiding the gold but with his task complete his thoughts turned to Maria and Federico. He had to return, apologise, explain, but looking around him in the gathering dark he realised he had no idea in which direction to walk.

  He tried to retrace his steps, back to the grove of trees where he had hidden, back to the railway line where he had first heard the approach of the train, then where? He hadn’t been looking where he was going. He had no idea where a road was. He had no idea where to find them.

  Regardless of his safety he leant his head back as far as it would go and let out an animal roar of frustration, rage and fear.

  But there was no one to hear him.

  There was a full moon that night so Luis walked, hoping against hope that he would find his wife and son but he had no idea whether he was walking towards them or away.

  He was exhausted but he couldn’t think about lying down, resting, sleeping, not while Maria and Federico were alone.

  Just before dawn he walked into a village.

  Women were already up and about and wary of a strange, bedraggled man of fighting age.

  “Have you seen a woman and child?” he asked everyone he saw. “Have you seen my son? He was six yesterday. It was his birthday.”

 
But they turned away from him saying nothing.

  “Which way to Cartagena?” he asked an old woman in black.

  She said nothing but pointed back in the direction from which he had come.

  He turned and trudged back along the road.

  Perhaps Maria had stayed where she was for the day and the night, waiting for him to return and when he did not arrive she would go to Cartagena. He had told her it was safe there.

  Perhaps he would catch her up on the road and all would be well.

  But Luis did not find Maria.

  He thought to see her and Federico around every corner of the road; with every hill he prayed that she would be the other side; with every village he passed he hoped to see her sitting in the shade, with Federico at her side. And he prayed they would be happy to see him.

  It was only as he reached the harbourside in Cartagena that he knew he had lost her.

  She would always think he had abandoned her. She would remember him, if she did, with contempt and possibly hatred. Federico would never know his father and would simply be told that he had been abandoned.

  He soon gave up asking strangers if they had seen a woman and her six-year-old son; there were too many refugees, too many lost wives and too many lost children.

  He was still in Cartagena a month later when the bombing started. He had to forget Maria and Federico. He had to fight for his cause against those who would bomb helpless and defenceless civilians.

  Luis fought for two years as the fascist Nationalists gradually reduced the area controlled by the loyal Republicans.

  He witnessed dreadful atrocities which seared themselves in his memory. He saw too many dead mothers with their children in their arms; every one he saw he expected to be Maria. On too many roads he came across groups of bewildered, defenceless children; every one he expected to include Federico. The sight of too many old women, their black dresses caked in dried blood, could have broken him but they served only to make him more resolved to fight in what became increasingly obviously a hopeless cause.