Blood in the Valencian Soil (Secrets of Spain)

by Caroline Angus Baker

  Luna turned around, a frown on her face. “I needed just a second to think about it. Things have been hard.”

  “It crossed my mind that you would go to Italy and not come back.”

  Luna wrapped her arms around his waist, which sent a shot of excitement through him. “I have plenty of reasons to say no to you, but none of them would make us happy. And just this once, I want to be happy.” He felt her soft lips come to his neck and whisper, “I love you. I missed you.”

  “I’m back now.” The moment they kissed, Cayetano felt the pain he had been going through fall away. A deep feeling of lust seared through his body instead. It hurt to be away from Luna, and his body throbbed when his greedy kiss engulfed her mouth. A weight had been lifted. He could feel her hands claw at his back as she tried to keep up with him. He had already experienced all the release he needed, and when she pulled away from him there was a hot pain in his chest.

  “Preciosa, I need to ask you something.”

  “Okay.”

  “Is it true that cyclists don’t wear underwear?”

  A cheeky smile spread over her face. “Yes, it’s true.”

  Cayetano turned her in his arms so they both faced the mirror. “So you have nothing underneath your clothes?”

  “Not much, no.”

  Her jersey was easy to peel off. He admired her figure in the mirror, nothing more than skin tight lycra pants and her bra. But it simply wasn’t good enough. He did away with the bra. “Getting closer,” he muttered.

  “To what? Do you have some fantasy where you’re in your suit and you have a naked woman against you?”

  “I do now!” He watched the mirror, to see her peel off her cycling pants to stand there totally naked, not an ounce shy. His throat had gone dry before she leant against him, her eyes on his in the reflection. His gaze couldn’t stay there, instead it wandered up and down the lustful image. He barely saw the smile she had while she watched his desire take over his expression. He slid one hand up her body to clutch at a breast, the other one free to roam wherever it liked, and it caused her confident stance to buckle under the urge that shot through her. Cayetano wanted to touch her until she felt dizzy. She tilted her head back to let him kiss her, happy to surrender to what he wanted to give her. When she turned back into him, and her hands pushed his jacket from his shoulders, he felt a shot of need power through him.

  “You once told me that you only let women call you ‘El Valiente’ in the two places you like to be passionate. You would never allow a woman in the ring with you, but I have you here, in your suit so close to my bedroom…”

  “Say no more.”

  His suit had never felt more cumbersome as he fought it from his body while Luna led him to her bedroom. He watched her look at his naked body for a moment, scarred all over, but fully healed at last. With one quick sweep, he picked her up and carried her over to the unmade bed, and placed her down softly on the white sheets. It was obvious she was stunned as he was at the spontaneous emotions that they invoked in each other. He knew that he should slow down, but the awakening she brought in him must have rushed through her as well. Time was lost as he was swept away by the power she drained from him with her attentions.

  Cayetano had no idea how long he had been in bed with her, and didn’t care until Luna tried to leave him. “Maybe I should just stay here?” he teased.

  “I need to get the kids from school. I felt bad for sending them today, it’s supposed to be their holidays. Plus, let’s not forget that Darren lives here.”

  “Can I come with you to the school?”

  “I guess so. I assume you have regular clothes.”

  “I do.”

  “Are you planning on going home anytime soon?”

  Cayetano shrugged. “Don’t know.”

  “I might have to keep you here forever.”

  “You may be able to entice me. As you can see, this trip didn’t have any planning involved.”

  “I’m going up to Escondrijo later, to see Alejandro. Would you like to come with me?”

  “I don’t know. Would he want to see me?”

  “Maybe. Only one way to find out.”

  40

  Valencia, España ~ diciembre de 2009

  Luna was struck by how much she loved Cayetano when Giacomo and Enzo emerged from the school gym. They ran over for a hug, eager to say hello to their Madrileño friend. They genuinely liked the guy. He genuinely liked them. She couldn’t take a second look at Cayetano if she didn’t have the twins’ approval, but she had it and everything else had to stand back, because no more obstacles were going to get in the way. There was no Luna and Cayetano curse, and there never had been.

  On the way up to Escondrijo, the Medina diamond sat within Luna’s line of sight, on the hand that rested on top of the steering wheel as she navigated the winding tree-lined roads. Surely the ring would stir memories for Alejandro. He knew it had been his sister’s ring. He had said she could have Escondrijo, but only if she had made sure she had done her best to see through what was going on with Cayetano. Now Luna was going to present the man with his biological grandson, the bullfighter that he followed with keen interest. Maybe Paco would even want to meet his father. But one step at a time; things had already moved fast enough.

  “Wow, you want to live up here?” Cayetano asked as they pulled up to the house.

  “It’s so cool,” Giacomo said from the back seat. “We have walked out here with Alejandro and there is so much stuff to see.”

  “Mummy, look, the goats are here!” Enzo said.

  The foursome exited the car, and noticed that the small herd of goats wandered around by the house, and Luna frowned. Normally Alejandro kept a tight rein on the animals when by the house, but they seemed to have made themselves at home wherever they liked. The house was closed up. “I will see if he is here.” She left the boys with Cayetano by the car.

  She turned the handle on the wooden door and cracked it open a little, not wanting to be rude. But the moment she opened it, she felt how chilly it was in the house. Ice cold. The most explosive moments in life weren’t tangible, they existed in the air. A feeling of something good or bad had no face or name, it was only a sensation. Luna had suffered a few hard moments in life, and she could feel a numbness the moment she poked her head in the door. The feeling of total emptiness. She remembered as a child when her mother was gone, the family home was cold and confusing. When her father had died in his bed at home, the air was filled with a cold, solemn emptiness that could not be identified. Her own home in Valencia had been filled with the same, an ache that hung in the air, reminding her that Fabrizio would never come home. Now, across the room, lay Alejandro in his bed. She didn’t need to go inside, she knew he was dead. Death wasn’t a tangible entity; it hung in the air, a hollow feeling that engulfed all the senses.

  She turned and looked at Cayetano over by the car; she had no idea what her expression was, but she saw him frown in an instant. “Why don’t we play outside for a minute and let Mamá talk to Alejandro?” she heard him ask the boys, who nodded. They looked eager to chase a few goats who had wandered in their direction.

  Luna stepped inside and shut the door behind her. This couldn’t happen; after everything that had gone on, was the man who had unlocked all the answers to the mystery dead before the past and its demons were laid to rest? She moved towards the small single bed against the opposite wall, her eyes locked on him. Alejandro was on his side with his face grey and lifeless. To her relief, his eyes were half closed.

  “Oh, Alejandro, what happened?” she whispered. She sat down on the floor next to him and placed a hand on his cold shoulder. He had been dead a while. She knew he was sick; that was obvious, but he wouldn’t speak about it. How long had he been there, on his own? How had he died? Cold, alone, in pain? Had he been in bed, and hoped she would arrive? She was off on holiday, and then taking stupid photos for work. She could have been here with him. Instead, he was dying on his own, with no way of c
ontacting her or anyone.

  Luna sobbed as she looked around his single room home. The place seemed spotless, a contrast to how it usually was. There was no food anywhere; he hadn’t eaten in some time. The fire was long out, nothing more than a few grey ashes. No one had been here, no hint of what had gone on. She looked back at him through a veil of tears, and imagined the horror of having to die alone. She had seen her father die, a terrifying sight, and she hoped it was more peaceful for Alejandro. His body was old and weak, and with some luck, it put up no fight as his last breath came. What would he have thought about, who would have been with him in his mind – Luna would never know. She would never get to speak to him again. Never get to go for a walk with him. She had only met him two months ago, and now he was gone.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, and rubbed his back gently. It seemed so stupid to rub a man who was dead. The last few months of his life had been confronting, and all because of Luna. She could only hope it brought him some closure, to talk about what went on in the early years of his long life. The diamond on her hand sat on his shoulder; their families had come full circle and he would never know. He would never meet his son, or grandson. But he was finally with his Sofía, the woman he had never been able to get over.

  Luna glanced up at the windowsill high above the bed, to see an envelope. She stood up, wiped her tears and picked it up.

  It is a great punishment to be consumed with desire and not be

  able to do anything about it

  What a strange thing to write on the front of a letter. But it resonated in the Beltrán family so much. No one ever seemed to be allowed to follow their desires, only doing what they had to – or felt they had no other choice but to do.

  La chispa

  Soon I will be dead. There are some things a man cannot beat. You are young and have suffered enough troubles, so you do not need to know mine. I want to be alone in my final moments, so please do not be angry at my decision. You are a proud and stubborn girl, who pushes me on things I would rather not talk about, and for that, I am grateful. You are the only person I can trust with Escondrijo and my Sofía’s resting place. I have made a will, and the place is yours. If you check on the table, all you need to take over will be there.

  Don’t be like me, Luna. Don’t hide up here. Don’t sit alone and grieve for a life that you have lost. I don’t ask you to listen to this, I demand it. A long life with pain and regret is the cruellest mistreatment I have suffered. To have died at the hands of another man would not hurt an ounce as much as the pain that I inflicted on myself. In the end, you have nothing but what is inside you. Fill it with what makes you happy, and if that is Cayetano, please forgive him for his mistakes and live your life. If my sister could forgive, so could you. But only if that is what you want.

  Please, tell Paco what became of me, but spare him the details. He has had a happy life, and it is not my place to be part of it. I never deserved to know him, and I have always known this. To know that Scarlett and Caya’s granddaughter is in love with Paco’s boy is the greatest gift you could give me. Take those little boys of yours, and live a decent life. Please, I beg you.

  Enclosed is a confession, one I have written and destroyed many times throughout my life. It is my greatest sin laid bare. I prayed one day I would be punished for what I did in a moment of confusion and anger. There is no redemption for what I did. There is no forgiveness. Please, Luna, do not hate me, but I cannot explain myself to you, because there is no answer. Read it, and throw it away. Do not hold on to the misery that lies on the page.

  Alejandro Beltrán Caño

  Luna smiled. He signed his whole name, a formal end to such a personal note. Paco had done the same thing when he had written a note to her. She looked into the envelope; the other letter still folded up. Instead of reading, she slipped the first note back inside the envelope and wiped more tears from her face. She had to face the boys and Cayetano who were outside.

  “Hey,” Cayetano said the moment she emerged from the house. “Are you all right?”

  Luna just her shook her head, not sure what to tell him.

  “You started to worry me. My mind started to panic when I saw the look on your face just before.”

  “Whatever you imagined, imagine worse. Much worse.”

  Cayetano left the children and wandered over to her at the door. “What’s wrong?”

  “He’s… um… he’s dead in there.”

  “How dead? I mean… how long…”

  “How many types of dead are there?” she shot back. “He died in there! Alone!”

  Cayetano wrapped his arms around her as she began to weep again. She didn’t care if the kids saw; she wasn’t able to hold it in. This was not how the story was meant to end.

  ~~~

  It all seemed surreal. Luna had gone to introduce Alejandro to his grandson, and instead she had helped load his body into the back of the ambulance that Cayetano had called. They told her that he had not been dead long, most likely had died in the night. A quick look through his things neatly lined up on the table yielded his oncologist’s phone number. Alejandro had died while she was at home, reading Scarlett’s letters. He had stomach cancer, had done for some time. He had been to the city for a hospital visit while she had been away. He knew what was coming, and Luna hadn’t been there for him. Maybe that was what he wanted. But it didn’t comfort her at all.

  She was at a loss once he was gone. She wondered if she should have gone with his body, but there were still the kids to look after. Cayetano sat in the car with them, to keep them out of the way, for their own sake. To watch their mother cry over another dead man would do them no favours. The drive back down to Valencia was a sombre one. This wasn’t how the day your soulmate proposes to you should feel like.

  The beauty of having children was that Luna always needed to be practical and level-headed for their sakes. She didn’t have the opportunity to get upset, she needed to take them home and wait until they were in bed before she could talk to Cayetano about what had happened. Darren had been at home in their absence and had left a note to say he was not going to be home tonight. The conversation between the two of them about her engagement would have to wait quite some time.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Cayetano shrugged when they sat together in the living room, the apartment silent.

  “I’m sorry; you probably wondered why you came here now.”

  “I know why I came. I came to ask you to marry me. I came to put an end to all this drama and sadness. And yet we have the opposite.”

  “I liked the guy. I did. I’m glad I met him. He knew he was going to die; it’s me who is getting the information only now. But that aside, I’m glad I knew him when I had the chance.”

  “Alejandro was 95 years old; he wasn’t going to live forever. Knowing that he met you and could leave Escondrijo with you would have given him a lot of comfort. Maybe even a little release from the pain he was obviously hanging on to.”

  “He wrote me a letter begging me to move on with my life.”

  “He is pretty insistent. Good thing you agreed to marry me.”

  “He doesn’t know that. He will never know that. To him, all this is unresolved. I think that’s the worst part – he will never know that you and I worked everything out. He will never meet you, or Paco.”

  “I don’t think he really wanted to.”

  “I think he didn’t ever contact Paco, not just for Paco’s sake, but also as a way of continuously punishing himself for abandoning his son.”

  “Well, there is nothing we can do. Some questions don’t get answered.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Luna sighed. She had run out of tears at last.

  “The facts are the facts. Alejandro filled in so much for us. We know who our real families are, and how they interacted. We know the whole story about our grandparents and their doomed relationship.”

  “Cayetano Ortega is still a mystery. Maybe he is in one of the fosas, the burial pits, nea
r the cemetery in Serra. Maybe I should join that fight to have it dug up and reburied with dignity. At least now I know where he died… more or less.”

  “There is no dignity in death, only in life.”

  “True. I did talk to Alejandro a few times about the reburial argument going on in Serra. He asked me to stay away from it.”

  “Then maybe you should honour that. Are you going to read the other letter he gave you?”

  Luna shrugged. “He wants to admit something he has done, something he has never told anyone. Why would I want to know? Maybe I should just burn the letter; if it hurt him, maybe its truth is better left unsaid.”

  “Alejandro wanted you to know. There has to be a reason why he wants to tell you. Maybe it’s about Cayetano, or Scarlett. Maybe it will help you to know. He wouldn’t tell you if it might hurt you.”

  “I think enough harm has been done.”

  “Then let this be the end. Read the note.”

  41

  Valencia, España ~ marzo de 1939

  Luna wondered if Valencia was always loud. Maybe it was just today; maybe it was the knowledge that fascist rebel troops would march through Plaza de Emilio Castelar. Maybe it was part of the adjustment to city life. Luna had spent the night in a building on Calle las Barcas in the centre of the city, a once-grand building now in need of repair. The ceilings were so high; they were on the second floor, but the room height must have been four metres, and the ceiling was black with soot. Families had gathered in these rooms and cooked in there, after they came from surrounding villages and in need of a place to stay. Luna slept with Cayetano and the baby on a floor covered in mosaic tiles. Today, she woke up on a cool morning, in a strange building, with a hungry baby, and it made her wonder what came next.