by Orca Various
I stood up. “There. We’re friends.” I hit the log hard, twice.
“Perfect,” Sofia said, whipping the blanket off Tió. There was a pile of brightly wrapped packages behind the log. Like three excited children, we distributed the presents and began unwrapping them. I had bought Sofia some First Nations art from the west coast. Laia had been tougher to buy for. She had told me she would like something about Canadian history, but I had wanted to get her something more romantic. DJ had suggested a book about Canadian spies that he was reading, but I didn’t think Laia was into spies. After a long search, I had settled on a book of photographs and quotes called Canada: Our Century, which gave an idea of Canada’s history in the twentieth century, and a pair of silver First Nations earrings.
Sofia gave me a Barcelona Football Club shirt and a book of poems by some guy called Federico García Lorca—fortunately, an English translation. Laia gave me a beautiful history of the Civil War, with hundreds of photographs from the time Grandfather had been in Spain.
I felt part of a second family and went to bed deliriously happy. Before I sank into a deep sleep, I managed to email Mom to say I had arrived safely and text DJ to wish him a Merry Christmas and tell him I hoped the snow wasn’t too deep.
THREE
Christmas Day was quiet. We didn’t go to church like many people, but we walked through the streets of the old town and down the Ramblas. I was happy to see that Laia was wearing the earrings I’d given her. The shops were closed, but many of the restaurants were open, and we stopped frequently for snacks. In the afternoon we went out to Gaudí’s Parc Güell and strolled among the weird buildings and walkways decorated with brightly colored mosaics. The sun was shining, and it was very different from gray, snowy Canada.
“It will be warmer in Seville,” Sofia commented, “and Felip will look after you well.” I found the mention of Laia’s father mildly uncomfortable, but Sofia continued without concern. “I think Felip is where Laia gets her interest in history. I prefer the present to the past. Perhaps that is why Felip and I were, how you say, incompatible.”
“Felip works for the government,” Laia said. “His department is in charge of helping all Spaniards become comfortable with our past.”
“Reconciliation,” I suggested.
“Yes, so that those on both sides of the war can feel a part of the same Spain.”
“And not just the war,” Sofia added. “Terrible things happened after the fighting was over. We are only just discovering that thousands of newborn babies were stolen from their mothers by the nuns and priests who ran Spain’s hospitals under General Franco and given to childless Fascist couples. The mothers were poor or politically suspect and were often told that their babies had died. There were even funerals, but when the graves are dug up now, the coffins are filled with stones. All across Spain, children are trying to trace their real mothers, and mothers their lost children.”
“That’s horrible,” I said.
Sofia shrugged. “It’s Spain. After Franco died, everyone wanted to forget, but it’s not possible to forget. We must remember everything, the good and the bad.”
“And that’s what Felip is doing?” I asked.
“Yes,” Laia replied. “I am sure he will tell us more when we see him.”
As we sat on a winding bench that was really a colorful decorated dragon, Sofia said, “My grandmother, Maria, never talked much about your grandfather, but I think she loved him.”
“I think she did too,” I replied, “and I think he loved her, but they were very young. He certainly never forgot her.” I had let Sofia read Grandfather’s diary before I’d flown back to Canada in the summer.
“What was he like?” Sofia asked.
“That’s difficult to answer, “ I said. “I always knew him as an old man, and I still find it hard to think he’s the same person as the boy who wrote the diary in the war. DJ and my mom both almost worshipped Grandfather, and I think I rebelled against that. No one could be that wonderful. Certainly he was extraordinary and did many amazing things, but he was more complex and certainly more secretive than we thought. There were things in his past, like his fighting in Spain, that he kept hidden from his family throughout his life. Perhaps there were other things that we still don’t know about. Perhaps we’ll never know.”
I had surprised myself with this speech. I didn’t want to leave them with the idea that Grandfather was a dark, mysterious, secretive person though. “One thing’s for certain,” I went on. “He treasured and loved his family above everything. That’s why he gave us our tasks: to help us get started in life.”
“I wish I could have met him,” Laia and Sofia said at the same time.
“I wish I could have met Maria,” I said. “What was she like?”
Sofia spoke first. “She was extraordinary. If one word could describe her, it would be passionate.” Laia nodded her agreement. “I think she found it very frustrating having to keep silent while Spain was a dictatorship, but, living under a false identity, she had to keep a very low profile.”
“A false identity?” I asked.
“Yes,” Laia said. “At the end of the Second World War in 1945, Maria wanted to come back to Spain from France, where she had fled as a refugee when Barcelona fell to the Fascists at the end of the war. She wanted her baby, my grandmother, to grow up in this land, even if it was under military rule. She couldn’t come back under her real name. The government was making lists of those who had helped the Republic during our war, and many were disappearing into labor camps.”
“Or unmarked graves,” Sofia interjected.
“Many, probably thousands, were shot,” Laia agreed. “Maria had worked with the Resistance in France, helping crashed Allied fliers escape. It took quite a long time, but her contacts there gave her false documents. Until General Franco died in 1975, Maria had to lead a false life, swallowing her anger at what she saw going on and pretending to be okay with a government she hated.”
“I think it was a tremendous relief to her when Spain became a democracy again,” Sofia went on. “She could be herself at last, and she threw herself into all kinds of social causes, from helping single mothers like herself to protesting the presence of American military bases in Spain. She also struggled to get us to remember our past. She told me once that a country was nothing without a past—a complete past, with all the good and bad out in the open.”
“So Felip is continuing her work?” I said.
“In a way, yes,” Sofia replied. “Although he works within the system, it is very slow, and there are many political pressures that determine what he can and cannot do.”
“But he tries,” Laia interrupted. She sounded surprisingly abrupt, and I caught a look that Sofia gave her. Did they disagree about Felip’s work? “He’s working to get the Americans to pay for proper cleanup at Palomares.”
“I know,” Sofia said. “It’s just that the process is so slow. Maria would have been out on the streets demonstrating.”
Before Laia could say anything else, I asked, “What’s Palomares?”
Sofia let Laia explain. “Early in 1966, an American B-52 bomber carrying four nuclear weapons exploded over the village of Palomares. Two of the bombs exploded and—”
“What?” I interrupted. “Two nuclear bombs exploded! Here?”
“They weren’t nuclear explosions,” Laia explained. “Just the conventional explosives in the bombs went off, but radioactive material was scattered over a wide area. The Americans collected all the bits they could find and dug up a lot of contaminated earth to ship back to the US, but most people don’t think they did a very thorough job. Much of the soil around Palomares is still contaminated. Apart from the health hazards, the local farmers can’t sell their crops. Even all these years later, the Americans still refuse to do a proper cleanup. That’s one thing Felip’s working on.”
“Wow,” I said. “I’ve never heard of that.”
“It was big news at the time,” Sofia added, �
�but now it’s only a Spanish problem. That’s why we need demonstrations, to make more people aware.”
“You said there were four bombs on the B-52,” I said. “If two exploded, what happened to the other two?”
“One landed in a stream and was found quickly,” Laia said. “The fourth one landed in the sea. It took months to find it. When the Americans did bring it up, they made a big fuss, saying the problem was solved. And then, gradually, everyone forgot.”
“I had no idea,” I said. “I thought that sort of thing only happened in the movies.”
Laia smiled. “Sometimes the real world is more exciting than movies. But let’s not spend Christmas Day talking about bombs and radioactive contamination. There’ll be plenty of time to ask Felip about all this in Seville.”
“I agree,” Sofia said, standing. “I know a nice little tapas bar where, so the story goes, Ernest Hemingway spent time during the war. I think we should go there, have something to eat and pay our respects.”
Despite Laia’s words, as we strolled out of Parc Güell I thought about nuclear bombs and accidents. I would certainly talk to Felip about it in a day or two.
FOUR
“Why did your parents split up?” It was late evening on December 26, and we had been on the AVE, Spain’s superfast train, for five hours. We were only about half an hour out of Seville’s Santa Justa station, and it had taken me this long to get around to asking a question I had wanted to know the answer to ever since I had seen Sofia give Laia that look in Parc Güell.
Laia thought for a long moment, gazing out the window at the olive groves speeding by. “They separated three years ago,” she said. “What triggered it was Felip being transferred to Seville. Sofia didn’t want to leave Barcelona and take me away from my school, but there was more to it than that.” Laia used her parents’ first names as comfortably as if they were close friends from school. It seemed odd. I couldn’t imagine calling Mom anything other than Mom, but Laia had introduced me to a lot of habits I found strange.
“The whole process was very polite and civilized,” Laia went on. “Of course, I was upset at the time, but there were no arguments that I ever heard and neither blamed the other. Felip has always been the rational intellectual, taking time to think things through before making a decision. Sofia is much more emotional and tends to react immediately. I think they simply grew apart over the years. They’re still friends.”
“Which are you?” I asked, “emotional or intellectual?”
“A bit of both,” Laia said with a smile.
“But you miss Felip,” I said.
“Yes, very much. We used to have wonderful long conversations about all kinds of things, from politics and religion to football and mystery novels. Now that he’s in Seville, that doesn’t happen so often. I miss our conversations.”
“I love mystery novels,” I said.
“There is no shortage of mysteries in Spain.” Laia tilted her head and looked at me in that quizzical way she had. “I think you are very like Felip. You think about things and try to work them out.”
I was pleased by the compliment. “I hope that’s not the only reason you hang out with me.”
Laia laughed and punched me playfully in the ribs. “Of course not.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I hang out with you because surrounding myself with dumb people makes me seem smarter.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting Felip,” I said, grinning like a fool.
My phone pinged with a text from DJ. I checked my watch: 9 PM. That would make it 3 PM in Ontario, so it was probably to tell me he’d arrived at Grandfather’s cottage. It was, but it said something else as well.
Arrived at the cabin. Discovered stuff. Need to think. Will email tomorrow. DJ.
“Is DJ stuck in a snowdrift?” Laia asked.
“He’s at the cabin,” I said, my thumbs working the keypad of my phone. W@ u mean discovered stuff? W@ stuff?
“He says they’ve discovered something at the cottage,” I explained as I sent my text.
“What?” Laia asked.
“That’s what I’ve asked him. The only thing you might find at the cottage would be a nest of mice.”
“Sounds delightful,” Laia said. “Maybe it is just something like a mouse nest.”
I shook my head. “DJ said he had to think about what he’d found and that he’ll email me tomorrow. If DJ has to think about something, it’s important.”
My phone pinged again. Money, fake passports, coded messages. I will send scans of Spanish stuff tomorrow. DJ
I stared at my phone screen for a long time. What was going on? Was this a joke? I turned the phone so Laia could see the screen. She looked at me questioningly. I shrugged. “It must be some kind of joke DJ and the others have cooked up.”
LOL :-D Spencer’s idea? I replied.
A response came back almost immediately. No joke. Weird stuff. Grandpa was a spy. We need to figure it out. More tomorrow.
Dnt lve me hanging, bro, I texted. A SPY?????
“What does it mean?” Laia asked. “Was your grandfather really a spy?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “We know better than anyone that Grandfather did things in his youth that he didn’t tell anyone about.” I felt my brow furrow as I concentrated, trying to remember anything that would help make sense of what little information I was being fed by DJ.
“After I got home from Spain last summer, I told Mom all about Grandfather’s time in Spain. I also asked her a whole bunch of questions. I only knew him as an old man, but I also got to know him as a teenager through his war journal, and I wanted to fill in the bit between.”
“Did your Mom think he might have been a spy?”
“No. This is the first anyone’s mentioned that. Maybe DJ’s got it wrong,” I said, but I didn’t believe it. DJ didn’t get things wrong. “Mom said he was away a lot when she and her sisters were growing up. She didn’t know what he did exactly, just that he was a businessman in some kind of import/export company.” The phrase import/export rang a bell in my brain, but I couldn’t place it, and I had too many things to think about now to follow that train of thought. In any case, my phone was pinging.
Too much to send in text and I need to scan Spanish passport and codes. I will also send cash to your PayPal account. Letter says Grandpa was a traitor. It must be a lie. We need to clear his name. MTC. DJ
Both Laia and I stared at the screen, but could think of nothing to say before another text came through.
We’ve each chosen a place Grandpa was and the pages from his code book that seem to fit. Spain is one place and since you’re there and like codes and mysteries, I’ll send that to you. See what you can do. We’ve got a week to clear his name. Email tomorrow. DJ.
Laia and I stared at each other, and I blurted out, “I don’t want anything to do with this.”
Laia regarded me curiously for a moment. “Why not?”
I took a few seconds to organize my feelings into words. “Because I feel invaded. I’m on holiday, with you. I didn’t ask to be involved in whatever DJ and the others have found. DJ’s being overly dramatic. A week to clear his name? What does that mean? It’s DJ not wanting the wonderful image he has of Grandfather to be tarnished. I just want to meet your father and have a holiday with you, not go running off on some wild-goose chase.” I was surprised by my reaction and by how strongly I felt, surprised that I really didn’t want DJ intruding on my life this much.
Laia looked at me thoughtfully. “You are involved now, whether you want to be or not,” she said. “Maybe DJ is overreacting, but false passports, codes, money and someone calling your grandfather a traitor? It doesn’t sound as if DJ’s making stuff up.”
“Maybe not,” I agreed reluctantly, “but I don’t want this to overwhelm our holiday.”
“It won’t,” Laia said with a smile, “and isn’t there a tiny part of you that wants to know what it all means? After all, you do love mysteries. And didn’t we have a wonderf
ul time finding out what your grandfather did in the war?” I nodded. “Did that interfere with our time together?”
“No,” I replied. “It gave us a chance to get to know each other. But it’s different now.”
“Yes, it’s different now, and part of that difference is that through the journal and what we did last summer, I have come to know your grandfather. Because of his love for my great-grandmother, he’s part of my past as well. I don’t want to think of him as a traitor, and if he came back to Spain, even as a spy with a false name, I want to know about it.”
“I suppose so,” I said. “And if I’m honest, there’s a part of me that is intrigued by what DJ says.”
“Okay,” Laia said. “Let’s see what DJ sends tomorrow. If he is exaggerating, we can ignore it. If the code is meaningless and we can’t see anything that makes sense, then that’s an end as well. But if it interests us, we can do some digging. It might be fun, and we’ll be doing it together.”
Laia squeezed my hand and gave me a smile that made me feel weak. “Okay,” I agreed. The train slowed and pulled under the curving glass arches of Santa Justa station. I tried to push DJ’s texts into the back of my mind. I would worry about all that tomorrow; now it was time to meet Laia’s father.
FIVE
“We in Spain have created a culture of forgetting,” Felip said. He was a short, intense man with black hair, olive skin and dark eyes that seemed to bore into me when he spoke. The intensity made everything he said sound important. “Half a million people filed past Franco’s coffin when he lay in state in 1975. Now it is impossible to find anyone who admired or supported him.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” I asked. Felip’s bright, open, modern apartment in the center of Seville was the opposite of Sofia’s centuries-old place in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. We sat at a polished aluminum table, breakfasting on croissants and drinking the best latte I’d ever tasted.