by Kerry Postle
Don Felipe jumped to his wife’s defence. ‘My, my, Luis. You’re sounding like a socialist.’
‘I’m a Nationalist, father,’ Luis said. ‘Proud of my country, proud of my people.’ And with that he got up and walked out of the room. Maria looked at him, willing him to return her gaze. He did not.
She observed his parents’ response. That her soldier should be the son of such hard-hearted landowners perplexed Maria. There were no obvious physical similarities that she could discern. And as for his character, it was clear that it was not cut from the same unforgiving cloth as that of his parents.
‘He’s got a good heart,’ Dona Sofίa said apologetically to the Captain. ‘A soft heart,’ added his father, as if it were an affliction.
A strangely sadistic smile darkened Captain Garcia’s face. Maria’s blood ran cold. ‘Leave it to me,’ she heard him say. ‘I have a cure for that.’
On the other side of the door Cecilia had been pacing the corridor, waiting to push on with her plan. She knew she had to go in, but she was afraid to do so. Until she heard Luis. That boy. He’d always been a brave one.
‘Dona Sofίa, may I have a word?’ she asked, her voice a tremble. Her mistress looked up to check for sleeves, and, though thankful for small mercies, she marched her housekeeper back out into the corridor. Sounds of subservience wafted in, punctuated by sharp, shrill reprimands. The guests waited for their hostess to return with tales of how the evening was going from bad to worse but when Dona Sofίa came back in she wore a smile and announced that there would be ‘a little break before dessert.’
‘A splendid idea,’ the Captain said.
‘Indeed,’ agreed Seňora Gonzalez. ‘Perhaps we can present the Captain with our lists.’
Doctor Alvaro stood up. ‘Please excuse me, I’ve forgotten something,’ he mumbled, then quickly went outside. ‘See. He does have a list!’ Seňora Gonzalez purred. Maria slapped the woman about the face with her eyes before chasing after her father who had already disappeared out of the door and past the window.
Outside, Maria was surprised to find that the guard posted at the front of the house was nowhere to be seen. As she went round towards the back, the guard on duty there had gone off too. Her father must have gone to check on Cecilia. As she approached the kitchen, she saw through the half-open door the missing guards, sitting at the kitchen table and tucking into plates loaded with the food that had been left over from the dinner. No sign of her father. He must be somewhere else. As she wandered off, perplexed, a hand brushed her arm. It was Luis.
She looked into the beautiful strangeness of his eyes. For a moment it was as if he looked into her soul with one eye and let her look into his soul with the other.
‘It’s not her fault,’ he said, his voice tinged with sadness and affection. ‘She’s a good person deep down. Don’t think ill of her. She’s a product of her class.’ Maria was moved by the compassion of his feelings but she couldn’t help but notice the irony of his words. ‘Like you?’
Luis smiled at her sharpness. ‘Undoubtedly,’ he said, ‘but that doesn’t mean that I can’t see the good in people like you.’ Maria laughed at this mocking of Seňora Gonzalez’s words. Feelings of attraction flooded her body. She lowered her eyes so that he couldn’t tell.
‘Help! Someone’s taken the horse! Quick! Get the Captain! Call the guards!’ Her father’s cries, accompanied by the catching of hooves on stony ground galloping away, broke the spell and reminded her why she’d come outside to begin with.
Confusion followed.
Plates smashed on the kitchen floor, chairs clattered backwards, guards rushed out into the evening, arms outstretched, pistols cocked. Stray bullets shot through the air. Luis sheltered Maria.
The Captain made a brief appearance at the scene, shouted orders at the guards to go after the escaped animal, then, when satisfied that his guards were indeed running in the same direction, he returned inside to attend to Seňora Gonzalez.
As the red sky changed to a deep purple, the light dimmed and a stray figure crept out of the larder, a weighty bag on his back. Cecilia hugged the figure then pushed him on. He squeezed Lola’s arm for luck as he went outside praying for the mercy, and protection, of the fast-falling night. His shoulders hunched, he moved quickly, his eyes moving from side to side as he climbed onto the military motorcycle. He started it up. It roared into life.
‘Manuel!’ a voice shouted. Doctor Alvaro shuddered. Luis wasn’t meant to be there.
Manuel’s heart stopped for a moment as he looked into his childhood friend’s face. The young men remained silent, not moving for what seemed like an age but as Luis’ hand went down to his holster so Manuel’s foot pressed down on the accelerator. Maria looked on, horrified. Luis pointed the gun at the boy he’d once thought of as a brother then lifted his gun in the air with both hands. He let off three shots into the sky.
The Captain ran out again. This time to see a renegade escape on a military motorbike.
Doctor Alvaro, who’d been watching from the shadows, put a hand to his chest. He watched the bike as it disappeared out of sight, looked at Luis as he replaced his pistol in the holster. He blinked, then blinked again. He could not believe what he’d just seen.
Back inside the farmhouse Seňora Gonzalez was furious. The unexpected excitement of a runaway horse, a stolen motorcycle, and not one, not two, but three pistol shots, had made everyone leap out of their seats with wild abandon, arms flailing, legs spinning: an unpalatable sight for the woman whose hand, prior to the distraction, had been hovering above the piece of paper peeping out of her evening bag, poised to thrust it into the hand of the Captain. Yet though chaos surrounded her, she was determined to remain true to the cause. She would not lose her focus. She coughed, tapped her glass as if it were a bell, clapped her hands, then raised her voice to a pitch so shrill that animals outside pricked up their ears. ‘I hope you don’t think me indelicate, but when would you like to take a look at the lists?’ Though addressing the Captain, it was clear her words were intended as a prod to her fellow guests.
The mayor and his wife jumped to attention. He rifled through his pockets. ‘What have I done with it?’ he mumbled to himself. He blanched as he remembered putting it down on a table at home. His political opponents would be granted at least a reprieve whereas the shopkeeper who had inadvertently short-changed his wife would not. He was on the list that his wife had managed to locate at the bottom of her bag and that she was now clutching in a plump and clammy palm. Seňor Suarez was on it too. He’d asked her once if she’d spare some of her time to help teach the labourers to read. She’d found the strength to say no but he’d put her in a very uncomfortable position.
As for the rest of the party, it looked as though they would soon be heading off. The doctor had already taken his daughter by the arm and was waiting inside by the front door. And the soldiers who’d been lured away by Cecilia with food in the kitchen were now standing near the car, shamefaced and terribly sweaty, heralding the imminent departure of the guest of honour, Captain Garcia.
The Captain was pacing, tempted to go out and give the boys a good kicking for not capturing the horse. As for Luis, Garcia boiled with a desire to smash the fool’s witless brains in.
‘Come, Captain!’ Don Felipe said, slapping the disgruntled man on the back with exaggerated bonhomie in an attempt to breathe some life back into the flagging party. ‘Let us retire to the drawing room and have ourselves a large brandy! And who knows, perhaps we’ll find the name of the degenerate who stole away this evening on one of the lists we’ve drawn up for you. What do you say?’ And with that Don Felipe steered the man back inside and into the drawing room. The other guests followed.
‘Don’t say a word,’ Doctor Alvaro whispered into his daughter’s ear as he led her reluctantly back into the lions’ den. Maria looked at Lola as she topped up glasses and for a moment a look of understanding passed between the two girls. Then Lola moved swiftly on. ‘Would you like a drink
, Seňor? Seňora? Captain?’ Glasses replenished, a semblance of order had been restored.
The Captain took a cursory look at the lists, lingering on Seňora Gonzalez’s, before thrusting them at Luis. He would have liked to be able to add that boy’s name to the bottom of one of them at that very moment in time. He burped indecorously, unable to keep down his disgust at his hosts’ son. Seňora Gonzalez let out a soft giggle. As if to reward her, the Captain brought up the only name he could remember on her list.
‘So, tell me about this Seňor Suarez.’
The doctor inhaled deeply. His friend had escaped and he was glad of it. But Maria had no idea that her dear teacher was safe. Her head was still full of what she had witnessed in the courtyard and now this. Her nails pressed into the skin of her father’s forearm. The priest came to life at the name of a virtuous man. He’d been conspicuously quiet during the brouhaha outside, the only sound coming from him being a strange rumbling every now and again. His head had been jerked back and forth in the air as a consequence of the armchair he’d managed to find which offered no support for it. And this in spite of the large ring of fat that went round his neck that looked so puffed up you would be forgiven for taking it to be a pillow. It was not. He shook his head, jowls swaying, in a bid to free himself from the warm, welcoming waters of sleep into which he had slipped in order to defend his friend, whose name had disturbed him and summoned him back to the world of the living.
‘Seňor Suarez? He’s a charming man. A good man,’ he said, wiping away dribble from his chin. ‘A good Catholic, would you say?’ the Captain asked, looking at Seňora Gonzalez with a smile on his face. The priest paused for a moment. ‘He lives according to Christian principles,’ he answered. ‘He helps those in need, teaches the poor to read.’ The mayor’s wife fanned herself as words of self-justification flew from her mouth. ‘I never did it. I was asked. I would never have done such a thing. I said no.’ The priest looked around for someone to support his good friend. But not one adult came forward. Seňora Gonzalez arched her eyebrows at the Captain.
Alvaro remained silent: he sensed the menace in the room. In a world where wrong was right and goodness came across as the ramblings of a stupid old man who wore a cassock, the doctor knew better than to waste his breath. Besides, he knew that the teacher was already safe. There was little need or point in throwing a punch when the fight for Suarez had already been won.
The priest’s eyes darted round, searching. Was no one brave enough to stand up for Seňor Suarez?
Maria looked at the people gathered together at the dinner. They had arrived this evening presenting themselves as an armoured flank of powerful citizens, a solid wall of smart suits and elegant evening dresses united together to protect the people of the village from the rough uniforms and over-shiny boots of interrogating officers. But Doctor Alvaro’s daughter saw very clearly now the chinks in their facade, made by the corrosive effects of self-interest and village gossip. The word ‘vipers’ sprung to mind. Her father had advised her to stay quiet but her conscience would not let her.
‘After all he’s done for the village,’ she piped up. ‘Maria,’ her father said, hoping to stop her from saying more. But he could not. She looked at him, disappointment in her eyes, rage in her heart. ‘He’s a good person,’ she said, defiantly. ‘A good teacher.’
‘Never mind that. Who does he teach?’ Seňora Gonzalez spoke out, eyes narrowing, tongue flicking like the snake Maria now saw her as.
‘Me. The children in the village,’ Maria replied. ‘And?’ the older woman pushed. ‘Workers here. On the estate,’ Maria answered, her hand gesturing outwards as if they were standing in the room beside her. ‘They can read Marx and …’
Seňora Gonzalez, one of the main witnesses for the prosecution, gave a victory laugh. ‘Let me get this right, the man teaches them to read communist literature, is that what you’re saying?’ With the realisation that Maria herself had driven the last heavy nail into Seňor Suarez’s coffin, the blood rushed from the girl’s face. She fell back. A glass smashed on the floor. It was her father’s.
Chapter 21
The morning after the dinner party Maria had woken up to find that her father had already braved the patrolling soldiers in the streets to make a start on his rounds. He’d been awake all night, working out what to do, who to warn, and by the time Maria had stumbled down to the kitchen he had tipped off those most at risk, putting in place lines of communication and identifying hiding places. Lone dissenting voices were thus turned into one covert, but united resistance group as Doctor Alvaro shared his intelligence and welcomed these new members into the fold. ‘Together we’re stronger,’ he’d told them.
But Maria knew nothing of this.
She poured herself a glass of water and rubbed her eyes, still tired after her own restless night. Distant gunfire had punctuated her sleep, and any dreams she’d managed to have fluctuated between Manuel triumphant (ascending up and away into the night sky to twinkle like a star, helped on his way by an angel) and Manuel defeated (lying in an ever-widening pool of his own blood, body riddled with bullets from the pistol of a devil, the wheel of his motorcycle spinning round and round). Unfortunately, she’d woken up with memories of the latter in the forefront of her consciousness and she didn’t like it.
She let out a sound like a low growl. ‘But he got away,’ she told herself as she walked around touching familiar objects as if the physicality of the waking world could dispel her subconscious fears.
But the cloud created by her dreams only lifted to reveal the feeling of anger that she felt, that she could do nothing to shift. She was angry with the vipers for turning on Seňor Suarez the evening before. She was angry with her father for not having told her that the teacher had escaped. How many other secrets was he keeping from her, she wondered. And she was angry with herself. Why? She pushed the answer away for the moment and directed her thoughts to her father. ‘You are not to go out tomorrow. I forbid it, do you hear me Maria? Forbid it! Now go to your room. Get some sleep.’ He had never spoken to her like that before and a brooding resentment wriggled inside her at the memory of it.
She clanked around the kitchen, thumping down the chopping board, tearing through bread, slamming down her cup, and pouring out water so that it sprayed over the sides. He’d had no right to be cross with her, she told herself as she devoured her breakfast without tasting it, when he’d been the one in the wrong.
She chewed herself to a state of calm so her breath became steady, her mind less troubled. Her guard down, the landowners’ son crept into her consciousness. Anger flashed up within her once more only to be quelled by the immediate realisation that the greater part of her was happy he’d found his way in. The memory of looking into his eyes the evening before, all distance between them gone, caused her entire body to flush.
Ironic that the son of those bloodsuckers Don Felipe and Dona Sofίa should be the only other person who dared speak out in the name of fairness last night. Unsettling that she should find a soldier in the Nationalist army so attractive.
Conflicting thoughts struggled for supremacy in her mind, about who he was, his family, his uniform, about what she’d seen him do, heard him say. He had been loud in both word and action and, it seemed to Maria, last night he’d brought about some kind of miracle.
Luis de los Rios. Everything about him perplexed her, though she did not find the experience unpleasant. His eyes, the strength, the calmness, the sense of right and wrong, they shone for her. The soldier with different-coloured eyes had inveigled his way into her imagination and aroused feelings that were complicated, that she couldn’t explain. She’d experienced nothing like them before. They made her heart ache.
Unbidden, the image of Richard Johnson presented itself to her. Richard. She remembered telling herself when the English boy had first arrived in Fuentes that she would love him, and after only a few weeks that she did love him. But as she thought of him now, she accepted that she felt many fine feeli
ngs for him but not one of them was love. He roused none of the longing that the landowners’ son made her feel. Luis. The very thought of him filled her with light; it made every part of her tingle.
Maria flushed with confusion and joy.
For Doctor Alvaro’s daughter to experience such wondrous feelings and not to have a soul to talk about them with grieved her somewhat. She looked out of the window, watched the people milling round, saw pairs of patrolling soldiers. It appeared no different to how it had looked the day before when she had been allowed outside. She humphed as she pulled herself back in. She paced up and down, up and down, padding all around the room like a tiger in a cage. Lonely.
She went back to the window again, pulled up a chair and looked up and down the street, willing Luis de los Rios to appear. She waited and waited, her ankles changing colour in the heat of the sun. And then she saw him.
She withdrew hastily. From the shadows she watched him. He walked back and forth scouring the windows on her side of the street, looking for her.
Drawn into the light, Maria found herself pulled forward. Luis’ eyes found hers and the moment they did she instantly pulled away. Caught. Her heart pounded, back against the wall, in the shadows from where she watched him as he walked on down the street.
He turned back to look up at her, his strange, imperfectly beautiful eyes straining to find her in the darkness of the room. When he reached the end of the street he lingered a while, looking for her one last time. He put a finger by his neck as though to loosen his collar, gave it a pull. Then he was gone.
Maria slid down to the floor, bending her knees as she went. He’d come to find her. Her entire being was overwhelmed by a myriad of feelings so strong and exultant that she could not resist them. She put both hands to her chest and looked up at the ceiling. Awash with joy she started to laugh.