by Kerry Postle
He watched her turn the corner. She was gone.
‘Oh. It’s you!’ Lola had nothing to laugh about and so, when she opened the door to see a giggling Maria with dancing eyes, she was surprised and more irritated than usual at the sight of her sister’s friend.
‘Paloma. It’s Maria for you,’ she shouted into the darkness behind her. ‘She can’t come out,’ she added with a lazy wave of her hand as she disappeared into the back of the house giving her sister a push as they passed each other by.
‘But you’ve got to,’ Maria said to her friend in frustration as she emerged into the light.
‘I can’t,’ Paloma replied, her eyes scouring the floor in front of her.
‘But I have something to tell you.’
‘I really can’t. Mother will beat me,’ her young friend said, her voice starting to break under the pressure. Maria puffed her cheeks out. It was true, Cecilia was formidable by anyone’s reckoning. It was no use hoping that Paloma would be able to talk her mother round.
Lola watched the two girls silhouetted in the doorway. Their whispers grew louder, their gestures more animated. Maria laughed. Lola couldn’t stand it any longer.
‘Paloma! Mother says you’ve got to come in now,’ Lola shouted. ‘And that you—’ she wagged her finger at Maria ‘—should get yourself off home. Your father won’t be happy when he knows you’re out and when he does find out he’ll be needing a doctor himself as he’ll be worried sick, she says.’
Lola came closer and stood behind her sister, arms folded, one leg bent, leaning against the wall. The friends’ time was up. There would be no further secrets discussed, not unless Maria wished to share them with Lola too. And she didn’t.
Paloma gave her friend a disappointed wave goodbye. Lola, satisfied that her spoiling task was done, walked back into the house.
‘Paloma!’ An angry voice screeched down from upstairs. And with that Maria’s faithful friend, and Cecilia’s dutiful daughter, closed the door.
Maria crossed back over the square. There were tens of soldiers all there together and for a moment she thought her perfect book reading soldier with the alabaster skin had gone. Her eyes searched every wall, squinted under every tree, until they found him, this time sitting on the floor, his head stuck like glue in his book. She looked at him, hunched over its pages and willed him to put it down, to look up at her. But he didn’t. Another soldier, shorter, with heavier brows, a more pronounced jaw and a thick neck caught her eye and flashed her a smile. Her eyes creased in grateful response. Then he turned, laughing, to his bookish friend, and, with hands like hams and fingers like sausages he pointed in Maria’s direction. Her perfect soldier held his head down, listening as if in pain, his sausage-fingered friend’s mouth close to his ear. When he eventually looked up, Maria felt a blush of pleasure explode through every pore of her face in expectation of the admiring look he would surely cast her way. Her eyes danced all the way to meet his.
But when he looked at her, the boy with the perfect features, his eyes delivered a message so alien to the one she was anticipating as to turn all her pleasure into shame.
With thrusting eyes, he shoo-ed her away – his look gave her a warning. Maria felt an iciness run through her veins. She felt silly. Judged.
His ham-handed companion leered at her with a smack of his lips. Poor Maria shuddered. Lowered her eyes. She didn’t raise them again. If she had done, she would have seen her bookish soldier remonstrate with his squat friend over such despicable behaviour, then drag him away by the collar to talk to him about respect, honour, good conduct.
Maria held her now stilled basket tightly to her chest to press against the pounding of her confused heart. She walked quickly on, beads of cold sweat breaking out all over her body at her own naivety. She picked up her pace. Broke into a trot. Then a run. Luis looked on, until he was secure in the knowledge that she had made it safely home.
Chapter 14
Don Felipe had the most magnificent wine cellar, he produced the most delicious olive oil and his larder had the sweetest smelling hams and sausages, all strung up from the ceiling, probably anywhere in the world. Cecilia had worked at the farm house for nearly thirty years and had been cook and housekeeper there for the past sixteen. These had been some of the best years of her working life. Especially as Don Felipe and his wife had taken to spending more and more time at their preferred residence in Biarritz with the smart set while their son was away at boarding school somewhere in England.
But now they were back.
This had irked Cecilia nearly as much as it irked her employers. But the kitchen was still very much her domain and she felt blessed that this was so. She called the larder ‘el catedral’ and each time she entered its hallowed space she stopped still, if only for a moment, to breath in ‘el aroma del paraíso’, as she liked to call it. She could taste the salty sweetness at the back of her throat, touch its richness in the air. It made her feel that life was good.
And so, even though there were Rebel troops in the village, Manuel might lose his job, and Lola was behaving strangely, Cecilia still had the dutiful Paloma to be thankful for, and she still had the kitchen and larder to spark joy.
Not that the landowners were good employers. They were not. But she’d grown accustomed to the pettiness. She had seen all too clearly how covetously they’d guarded what they considered theirs over the years. When their workers sought to educate themselves Don Felipe and Dona Sofίa saw this as an affront not to be tolerated. And, of course, they were right. It would spell out the beginning of the end, it would help peasants break free of the chains of servitude that had kept them on their bellies and close to the earth for so many centuries. Workers: they had come from the earth and to the earth they would always return without ever really moving very far away from it. Birth, a life of toil, death. With a handful of pesetas thrown at them for their sacrifice. To teach them to read and write would be to equip them with the tools to see, understand, learn, question, and ultimately challenge. Reading, writing – they could spell out many words yet the one that Cecilia feared most was trouble. And Manu might bring it down on his mother’s head. But, Dona Sofίa knew a good thing when she saw it. Cecilia was worth her not inconsiderable weight in gold. She was the best cook the family had ever had and the envy of many a guest to the estate. Although it wouldn’t do to tell her so.
The day of Dona Sofίa’s dinner party was nearly here. The dinner party she’d starting planning even before she’d left Biarritz. That for which so many royalists, landowners and clerics had been working towards was finally coming to pass. Republicanism was about to be smashed into a million bloody pieces. And that was cause for very serious celebration. And discussion of how to smash it still further.
Now that the army had arrived in Fuentes the date of the dinner could finally be set. And that date was 14th August 1936. Dona Sofίa was thrilled beyond words to be holding a party for those she saw as saviours of the true Spain. And news that her own son was part of the regiment that had come to save them all sent her – eventually – into still greater paroxysms of delight. Could he be billeted at home? No? Well, the least she could expect was that he should be allowed to attend the dinner. Good. It was decided. Oh, how simply marvellous.
‘He’s coming home. Our brave son will be here. Luis. Can you believe it? Sitting with us. Soon. So soon.’ Dona Sofίa babbled on to Cecilia in between choosing the menu and finalising the guest list.
‘Luis will be so pleased to see you,’ she said to Cecilia, and in truth, he probably would. ‘I remember how our boys used to play together,’ she waxed, acknowledging their shared past with rare candour. ‘You’ll be so proud of him.’
Luis had been a rare and special gift. Cecilia still remembered when Don Felipe and Dona Sofίa had come back with him from Madrid as a baby eighteen years ago. She looked into the eyes of the woman who called herself his mother and recognised no trace of him there. They looked so unalike.
Dona Sofίa b
linked, sensing the intrusion. She quickly changed the subject. ‘But now back to the dinner!’ Dona Sofίa exclaimed with a clap of her small soft hands. ‘It has to be marvellous, Cecilia! Quick, I’m having an idea for the main course, get me a scrap of paper, anything will do, so that I can write it down.’
Cecilia rummaged round in the pocket of her apron and pulled out a pamphlet that she’d taken from Manuel. She blanched at the sight of it but it was too late; Dona Sofίa had already recognized what it was and her eyes registered irritation. Cecilia held her breath waiting for the accusations to fly.
Instead, her mistress said, ‘Duck à l’orange.’ She snatched the paper out of her housekeeper’s fingers, irritated now at having to write it down herself. Nothing, it seemed, was as important as this.
Everyone involved in the planning of Dona Sofίa’s big dinner was either excited or fraught. That was because Dona Sofίa was one moment excited, the next fraught, on occasion both. It had to be marvellous, wonderful, perfect. She had held important dinners in Biarritz and there, she told anyone who would listen, ‘we had an excellent cook. French.’ Cecilia was excellent too. But she wasn’t French.
The guest list had been decided at last. ‘What do you think of this, Cecilia? It’s the final list. The invitations have to be dispatched today!’ Dona Sofίa put down her pen, picked up a sheet of paper and started to read out the names of the chosen. ‘Captain Garcia, his aide – whatever his name is – Seňor Gonzalez, you know who he is, don’t you? He’s the businessman, he’s made a lot of money and made many generous donations to the Nationalist cause, then there’s his wife Seňora Gonzalez, I’ve not met her yet, have you? No? Well, we just have to invite the priest Father Anselmo though I’m not completely happy with some of the masses, but he is a man of God, and God is on our side, and then there’s Doctor Alvaro. He’s been to all the meetings at the town hall with the mayor and although he’s a little too wishy-washy for Felipe’s tastes, he is what you’d call a good man, but sadly he has no wife. Died. Though how a doctor can let such a thing happen is beyond me, makes me question what sort of doctor he is. What was I saying? Where was I? Ah, yes, Doctor Alvaro. No wife. What’s the name I’ve got down here. Maria. His daughter. You must know who she is, Cecilia. Tiresome to have a child at the table, but what can you do? But isn’t she the one involved in the reading? Can’t be the same. Ah well. Never mind. It’s decided now, her name’s on this list. Funny if she turns up on the other one too. Oh, you don’t know about that list, Cecilia? Pretend I never mentioned it. And we’re allowed to have Luis with us too,’ she cried. She stopped to draw breath and tot up how many guests she’d listed so far. ‘That makes, how many? Ten? Oh, and I nearly forgot. We’ll have to have the mayor and his wife. That brings the total to thirteen. Oh goodness me no. I mean twelve. Twelve, twelve, twelve. A much better number. We were going to have the teacher too – see, I’ve written Seňor Suarez: teacher here but I’ve had to scribble it out. But then you of all people must know by now why we can’t have him. He is on the other list,’ Dona Sofίa said obliquely.
Cecilia stood, waited and watched while Dona Sofίa wrote the names of the fortunate few on envelopes in her finest handwriting. ‘And there will be three cars and Luis will be on one of those military motorbikes. I don’t suppose you’ve seen one Cecilia, but you might have heard of them. Powerful beasts by all accounts.’ Cecilia was trapped. She asked herself what the mysterious other list was and felt concern that the teacher was on it. Seňor Suarez was not a bad person, she thought to herself. Misguided. But not bad. Confusion careered around Cecilia’s mind like one of those powerful beasts that Dona Sofίa assumed she’d not heard of.
‘Perfect!’ Her mistress added the final flourish to the last envelope. ‘Here!’ And with that, she handed them to Cecilia and directed the woman out of the room with the tip of her index finger.
The door to Don Felipe’s study was wide open and as Cecilia made her way along the corridor towards it she saw her master with a sheet of paper in his hand. ‘The girl doesn’t count,’ she heard him say to someone she couldn’t see. ‘Everybody will laugh if we put the name of a child on the list. You’ve given me Suarez. Now who else was involved?’ he demanded. Guido’s voice started up from behind the door. ‘There were two brothers, I’ve already dismissed them, called—’ Before he could say any more Cecilia coughed loudly. Don Felipe looked up and dismissed his estate manager with a frown and a snappily muttered, ‘Later. And close the door after you.’
When Guido stepped out of the study and into the unlit corridor Cecilia thrust the invitations into his face. ‘The mistress needs you to deliver these.’ She looked at him with an expression intended to look into his soul and make him do the same. He was a snake and he squirmed uncomfortably in her sight as he took the sealed envelopes and walked quickly away.
Chapter 15
The List was starting to give Don Felipe a headache. He envied his wife that she’d only had to compile a list of dinner guests. He’d e had to draw up a list of enemies of the new regime and it was proving to be more problematic than he’d anticipated. When General Queipo de Llano, Commander of the South, had issued his banda de Guerra – Edict of War – at the very start of the uprising, the landowner had nodded at the rightness of it. ‘Anyone who opposes the uprising should be shot. Sound idea.’ And prior to drawing up the list, Don Felipe had always believed himself to be as vindictive as the next man. But now he wasn’t so sure. The problem was that he didn’t really know many of the accused. And he certainly was not going to be adding the names of any women. Let alone girls. Perhaps he was getting soft in his old age. He wanted to punish subversives but death? A little final, wasn’t it?
And now he was faced with a dilemma: Guido had just given him another name. As he sat in his study he weighed up the crimes of the suspect on his personal scales of justice.
He looked at the pamphlet on his desk that Guido had given to him as evidence. His eyes skimmed it and stopped on the word ‘revolution.’ He breathed in deeply then read on. ‘You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to win.’ He’d read enough. With a batting of an eyelid the scales of justice crashed down heavily to ‘crushed’. Anyone involved with this Marxist muck deserved a place on the list but could he trust Guido to have given him the right name?
He marched into the living room where his wife was flicking through another fashion magazine. He brandished his paltry list around in one hand and the incriminating pamphlet in the other. ‘What’s that in your hand?’ she asked, pointing at the leaflet. ‘I do believe I’ve seen it before.’ She let her magazine drop as she rooted around in her box of ideas. She picked out a torn corner of a matching pamphlet upon which she herself had written ‘Duck à l’orange’, Cecilia had given it to her. ‘Give me your list,’ Dona Sofίa said, delighted with her own finely tuned powers of deduction. Her husband did as he was told and his wife picked up her pen and in her own fair hand wrote down the name of their housekeeper’s only son. ‘Done,’ she said, with a little laugh at her own cleverness. ‘Now that didn’t hurt.’
‘He can’t work here anymore,’ she added, pointing to ‘Manuel’, relieved that her son’s childhood friend would be departing before her beloved Luis came home. He would only try to revive an old friendship, and that was something he couldn’t be allowed to do. Not now.
‘We’ll have to let Cecilia go too,’ Don Felipe said, following his wife’s deductive thread. ‘Really? I don’t see why,’ she replied. Cecilia couldn’t be dismissed. Not before the big dinner.
‘Cecilia! Cecilia!’ she called out. Don Felipe looked puzzled.
The poor woman rushed in looking worn. She hoped she would not be required to make any further minor adjustments to the menu or root out different serving platters.
‘Haven’t we always provided for you, Cecilia?’ Dona Sofίa asked, her tone one of long suffering.
‘Yes, Dona Sofίa.’
‘Then why, Cecilia? Why? Answer me
that?’
The poor woman didn’t know how to. She’d seen many men and women braver than her dare to respond with an ‘I might be able to give you an answer if you asked me a proper question,’ or a ‘Why what?’ Even an ‘I’m sorry but I don’t know what you want me to say.’ But Cecilia was infinitely respectful, the way her employers liked it. And so she waited. Silent. Subservient. Confused. After what seemed like an eternity Don Felipe let out an exasperated, ‘Your son, damn it! After all we did for him.’ He waited for her to nod.
‘Didn’t we give him honest employment on our land?’ He waited for her to agree. ‘And this is how he repays us.’
With that Don Felipe thrust the leaflet in Cecilia’s face. She looked at him to see what she should do with it, not prepared to take one move without her employer’s sanction. He nodded. She took it. She looked at it. She’d seen it before. She knew what it was. She scoured every shape and mark upon it trying to wrestle all meaning from it. But she couldn’t.
‘She can’t read,’ Dona Sofίa said wearily, a languid derision seeping through. Don Felipe snatched the leaflet out of her hands. He shook it. ‘She can’t read!’ he exclaimed in triumph.
‘You see my point?’ he asked Cecilia. ‘You can’t read,’ he said, summoning a note of praise in his voice, though unable to suppress the smirk that travelled like lightning across his face.
‘It’s precisely because of this sort of thing,’ he said, waving the leaflet up and down, ‘that we’ve been dragged back here in the first place.’ He paused. The poor woman’s arms were now covered but her sleeves shook like leaves in the breeze. ‘So why did your son need to read and write when he knew that he had a job here with us? Was it not good, honest work we offered him, Cecilia?’