A Forbidden Love

by Kerry Postle

  The front door banged shut. It was her father.

  ‘Can I go out now?’ she shouted down the stairs, oblivious to the black mood he’d brought into the house. ‘People are panicking!’ he called back to her. ‘Can I go out?’ she asked again – she had not heard the word ‘no’. ‘MARIA!’ he cried, blasting the myriad feelings that surrounded her to the four winds. She started. Her father’s voice had broken the spell that Luis de los Rios had cast upon her as she clattered down the stairs. She rushed into the kitchen. There, standing in the middle of the room, a worn look upon his face, was her father. She stepped back for a moment. He looked grey.

  Fury raged behind his drooping eyes and he slapped a dead weight wrapped in paper onto the kitchen table as if to prove it. He looked up and glowered at her. She would ask him if she could go out no more.

  Maria blinked to bring herself back to the here and now. A shaft of sunlight struck the kitchen table, illuminating her father’s offerings while making her momentarily conscious of the band of sun kissed skin across her ankles. They glowed with a warmth that brought a smile to her face as she bent down to touch them, a silent acknowledgement that her feelings for Luis glimmered within.

  ‘The food queues are getting worse,’ her father exclaimed, his head full of the complaints and worries that he’d been subjected to while waiting in them. There on the table was a loaf of bread and a rabbit wrapped in paper. Maria sniffed. The smell of meat left hanging too long in the heat invaded her nostrils, causing her nose to wrinkle in revolt. ‘I know,’ her father said. ‘But the chickpeas will help,’ he said, pointing to the sack of them next to the stove. She sniffed some more. This time with derision. If he thought she believed he’d done nothing but buy food and visit a few patients all the hours he’d been out he was very much mistaken.

  ‘I popped in on old Lopez … then on Rodriguez. You’ll be pleased to know Salva is on the mend. Pedro asked me to take a look at his mule. His mule! Incredible …’

  Maria gave a snort as she arched her eyebrows. ‘You’ve been busy,’ she said, still not placated. He was keeping something from her, she told herself.

  And she was right.

  The teacher was safe. The Espinoza boys had gone, as arranged. And the doctor had witnessed with his own eyes Manuel’s escape. But these small and not so small victories would have repercussions, and the tension in the atmosphere told him that it wouldn’t be long in coming. He’d talked it through with Father Anselmo but neither man had much time left. After last night even the priest would be under suspicion.

  ‘Many sick people in Fuentes,’ Maria’s father answered her vaguely. Yet all the while Doctor Alvaro burned with the knowledge that danger was fast approaching. He could almost taste its acrid tang at the back of his throat, and try as he might he could do nothing to stop it getting worse.

  ‘Oh, I saw the Redondo boys again this morning,’ he said, trying to lighten his tone and knowing that his daughter had a soft spot for the village menaces. ‘They were out?’ Maria said. Her father gave a forced laugh and should have left it there if he’d wanted to persuade his daughter that everything was fine outside. Instead he answered, ‘mucking about near the soldiers.’ The words came out of his mouth like a torrent of despair and Maria sensed it. The brothers the doctor had stopped from getting trampled underfoot had, apart from a few mornings, been out trying to draw attention to themselves ever since. And they had succeeded. One or two of the soldiers had kicked a ball about with them, while others had ruffled the boys’ hair and pushed them affectionately on their way when they’d ventured too close. For a while even Doctor Alvaro had seen this as a good sign, an indication that everything was going to be all right. But now, after last night, everything had changed. And to see the children throwing themselves at these men with rifles was for him like watching moths flapping around a deadly and all-consuming flame that threatened to flare up at any second. The panic that the doctor had accused his fellow villagers of was in truth his own, and it was increasing all the time. He had come in with the intention of not alarming his daughter, but he was finding it hard.

  ‘The boys might love the soldiers, their father might support the army, but that fool shouldn’t be as naïve as to believe that gives him and his children protection. After last night anyone might make it onto one of those lists.’ And with that he cut himself some bread and sank his teeth into it hungrily. ‘I didn’t know Seňor Redondo supported the army,’ Maria said. The colour ran from her father’s face. He’d said too much again.

  Doctor Alvaro continued to gnaw away at the stale dry bread until his teeth ached and his gums bled. Seňor Redondo. If not even a sympathiser like him could promise protection to his own children, how could someone like Doctor Alvaro? As Maria watched him she couldn’t remain angry with him for long. The sight of her father moved her to pity. He was still keeping something from her, she knew it. But she had never seen her father so preoccupied, and it frightened her. She would not ask if she could go out again today. She placed her hand on his arm and it went rigid to the touch. Then he looked her in the eyes and embraced her. ‘My girl. I’ve got you, my dear sweet girl,’ he cried. And as she felt his tears on her shoulder then she cried too.

  Chapter 22

  Over the following days the atmosphere set. Or rather, congealed. Like fat. On the surface all was heavy, quiet, eerily calm, while below, unpredictably dark sulphurous waters swirled and spat in hellish lakes, bubbling away, getting ready to explode.

  Maria felt it too, though thoughts of Luis created pockets of sunshine in her heart and put a smile on her face and colour in her cheeks, as well as her ankles, as she looked out for him at the window upstairs. Alvaro knew, had known ever since the night of the dinner. In normal circumstances he would have been glad of it. His daughter’s singing drifted around each room of the house, lifted the mood. Love’s hopeful melody lit up each sombre space with bursts of optimism. It would not have mattered a jot to him who the boy’s parents were (Maria’s father was the last person to condemn someone because of where they came from). The boy had shown himself to be courageous beyond words. But these were not normal circumstances.

  The undeniable truth, the stumbling block, the forbidding mountain Maria’s father couldn’t get round, was the fact that this brave young man was a soldier in the Nationalist army. Put simply, Luis de los Rios was the enemy. And there wasn’t a single thing anybody could do about it. There would be no future, no happy ending. Any feelings Luis and Maria had for one another were doomed.

  But for the moment, he was relieved to let the singing continue. Storm clouds were up ahead for them all and he could not begrudge his daughter her few moments of pleasure. Forces greater than the ones he had at his disposal would soon be marching their way to stamp out any flame that might have ignited in the heart of his daughter. And Luis de los Rios, no matter how heroic, no matter how strong the flame burning within his own soul, would have no choice but to march along with them.

  Which was why Alvaro could not let his daughter out.

  Doctor Alvaro’s meetings with Father Anselmo since the outbreak of war had gone from weekly, to daily, to sometimes hourly, as the threat it posed became ever more urgent. An odd couple, their friendship had not gone unnoticed.

  Doctor and priest got on well. Unusual for a self-proclaimed atheist and a man of God. However, on points of principle the two men agreed on much and on what to do to protect the villagers they agreed on everything. The priest had his contacts, Doctor Alvaro had his, and together they tightened their network. Ever since the start of the troubles they had done all that they could to help the most vulnerable citizens flee to parts of Spain that had yet to be ‘pacified’ by the Nationalist forces, parts of Spain that were still Republican. And they had taken great risks to do so.

  ‘Better to die following your conscience than live without freedom, virtue and God.’ So said Father Anselmo, and the doctor, for the most part, agreed. But as the idea of a glorious demise crept ever clos
er towards becoming a reality, a thought less edifying occurred to him, one that had been gestating ever since the dinner party and it was turning into a monster in his mind. If he were to be killed, what would happen to his daughter? They had no family. At least not in Fuentes.

  And there was the glaring problem that his daughter had created at the dinner. He let out a groan. In standing up for Seňor Suarez, she had stood against Seňora Gonzalez. The memory of Seňora Gonzalez’s twisted face loomed large in his mind, plots for revenge showing in a tic above the woman’s left eye and the grinding of her teeth as they set in a grimace. Maria had put her own life in danger as well as his when she decided to make an enemy of that treacherous woman that night. Mad times, he acknowledged to himself with regret, when a father feels angry with a daughter for staying true, fighting for justice.

  It was nearly four long days after the dinner and Doctor Alvaro had not let his daughter out. Not once. Not to help him out, not to get food, let alone to enjoy the warmth of companionship with a friend. A songbird in a cage.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, Father,’ he said to his friend. ‘I can’t trust her not to get herself in more trouble with that loose tongue of hers. She can’t keep her opinions to herself.’

  ‘Oh to have a high-minded child,’ Father Anselmo chuckled. ‘Their path is never easy in our world. That’s the nature of things. Rejoice Alvaro for God has given you a battling angel.’

  The briefest of smiles flashed across the doctor’s face before the look of fear returned. ‘That’s why I’m afraid to let her out. Especially now,’ he said.

  ‘Ah. So that’s why I’ve not had the pleasure of encountering her while I’ve been out and about these last few days. Come now,’ he said, patting Alvaro gently on the back. ‘She’s a spirited child. Ingenious. And she needs the water of human companionship to grow. If you don’t let her out to see people she will find a way. It’s in her nature and her will is strong. She won’t be tethered. You, Alvaro, know that more than anyone.’ The doctor nodded.

  ‘Let her live. God will protect her and if He has His hands busy elsewhere then … we will.’ With that the priest placed a large, hairy hand on the piece of paper on the pew next to him. ‘Give her the names,’ he urged as he picked it up and offered it to Maria’s father. ‘Trust her with them.’

  *

  The following day Maria clattered round the kitchen once more. Caged up, she was beginning to feel frustrated. She could read. She could write. But she wasn’t going to do any of that. She threw herself down onto the chair and chewed away on cold cooked rabbit, furiously dipping stale chunks of bread into a cup of olive oil in an attempt to make them if not completely edible then at least soft enough to put in her mouth without feeling as though she was sucking on blades.

  ‘Vale,’ her father said.

  ‘Papa?’ Maria asked.

  ‘Vale!’ her father repeated as he turned a folded piece of paper round and round between his thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Vale?’ his daughter repeated, not daring to believe that this meant what she hoped it meant.

  ‘Oh, vale! Yes. You can go out!’ he answered, his words saying yes, his tone still expressing his reservations.

  ‘Outside? In the village?’ she checked.

  He wished he could change his mind but it was no good. His words were out and they had made the childlike innocence of his daughter’s shine with wondrous delight.

  ‘Now?’ she ventured, still cautious but still Maria. She was not going to let this opportunity pass her by.

  ‘But only to buy food,’ he cautioned, his head nodding sombrely. ‘The queues are long, so you’ll get to chat,’ he said with a frightened laugh. ‘But no hanging around. Just straight there and straight back.’

  Maria nodded back with delight. Oh, how excited she was to have the chance to be outside again after days of incarceration. Queues. She couldn’t wait to join them. The longer the better.

  She bent down to sweep up her basket and went to go.

  ‘But wait,’ her father said. ‘I want you to have this.’ And with that he placed the piece of paper given to him by Father Anselmo into his daughter’s hand. ‘Guard it well as the names on this list will guard you.’ And with that he gave his daughter the gentlest of kisses on the cheek. He had much to do.

  Chapter 23

  Strange how life goes on. That’s what everyone says. Whether in the dirtiest war, after the most horrific accident, or the most heinous crime. Why is that? Probably because it does. For those still left alive. What they don’t say is that it’s never the same. Oh, people marvel that the sun still shines, the sky’s blue, they still eat, drink, breathe, sleep. But it’s what’s beneath that’s changed, what’s inside that has been transformed forever. And it’s what’s hidden that you need to be on your guard against.

  But sometimes, to try and find it and face it when you do, is far too hard a task.

  Perhaps it’s better to believe that life goes on as normal, to allow yourself to become blinded by the mesmerising effects of habit. Indeed, when the truth seems too onerous to bear, it might even be the only thing to do.

  And so it was for Alvaro and his daughter. Five minutes after allowing Maria to go out to buy some food the good Doctor also took himself off into the streets. Inside, standing and staring at four walls worrying about Maria and how to protect her was making him feel anxious. Walls. They made an unwelcome blank slate against which to plot out his worst fears.

  Outside, he could lose himself a little. He hooked a finger over his neckline and trailed it back and forth. He walked down the streets of Fuentes, saw shutters open, heard plates clatter. He felt lulled by the seeming normality of his existence, thanked whatever deity had created this illusion. Without it, he feared he might lose his mind. Oh, how to protect his daughter. As he walked past ordinary citizens going about their usual business he grew distracted, felt less uncomfortable. As he saw soldiers sitting in cafes and hanging around on street corners it seemed that they had been there forever. How long had these invaders been in Fuentes? Days? Weeks? Yet somehow even he was getting used to them.

  Yet how to protect his daughter.

  ‘Doctor Alvaro!’ One of the soldiers posted on sentry duty at the landowners’ the other evening stopped to greet him with a salute, though he did not look the older man in the eye. He had an embarrassed look on his face and something else, though Alvaro found it hard to place.

  ‘Buenos dias,’ Alvaro replied, returning the very slightest of bows back. He wanted to reach out his hand and put it on the boy’s shoulders, so uneasy and strangely exhausted did he look. Here was somebody’s son. ‘Not sleeping?’ the doctor asked. The boy looked up, his eyes red. Gratitude then fear flashed behind them. He turned and went on his way. Who’s going to protect you? Alvaro sighed to himself.

  Alvaro watched the poor boy who looked as if he’d had a bad night walk away. He looked as though he’d had the most terrifying of dreams. Coming in the opposite direction was the Captain. He gave his subordinate a supercilious leer.

  ‘Doctor. Doctor Alvaro. Where are you off to on this gloriously sunny day?’ he asked, a smile animating every part of his face. The sinister thread that traced itself through the fabric of the Captain’s charming and self-satisfied façade was subtle. But undeniable. As the Captain placed his still smiling face close to his, the doctor could smell the danger. Alvaro’s instinct told him to nod politely, walk on by. That way self-preservation lay. Yet the urge to protect others won the day once more.

  Stubborn old fool, Alvaro thought to himself, as he recognised the weathered old man coming along the road, pulling his cart along behind him, slow, plodding. His head was down, like a bull, and he was heading straight for them, again like a bull, albeit a very old and decrepit one. Juan Rueda. No wonder his name and address were on one of the lists in the Captain’s possession. Stubborn, determined, hungry for a confrontation, there was no way Juan Rueda was going to lead his cart round them. Alvaro studie
d the Captain’s eyes. They betrayed not a flicker of recognition as the grey-haired peasant grew ever closer, had no idea he was looking for a fight.

  Alvaro took a chance.

  ‘Rueda!’ he shouted as he threw his arms around the frail body of the man, stopping the would-be bull from attacking his unsuspecting quarry and turning his well-worn cart handles into fierce, attacking horns. ‘Come Captain. This man here has the finest chickpeas in all of Spain. Look!’ With that he pulled Garcia to one side, lifted his arm, then thrust it into one of the many baskets of produce in the back of the cart. Both Rueda and Garcia were so stunned by Alvaro’s behaviour that they said nothing, simply watched him, as if he’d had a strange turn.

  The doctor, heartened by their mutual silence, continued, slapping Rueda enthusiastically on the back. ‘Adios! Adios, my dear friend. I will come to see how you’re getting on soon. Now look after yourself.’ Then, turning to the Captain, he added, ‘Fine chickpeas, the best in the country, the best in the world, Captain Garcia.’

  Five long minutes later the doctor turned to see the old man disappear, step by painstakingly slow step, into the distance. The discomfort of making small talk with the devil had been worth it.

  Meanwhile, two streets away, his daughter had been engaged in conversation with a person equally foul.

  ‘Why, Maria! Maria! Buenos Dias!’ The shrill voice of Seňora Gonzalez pierced the ears of the doctor’s daughter. ‘Such a wonderful dinner at the Cortijo del Bosque,’ she exclaimed, overjoyed to be able to share anecdotes with someone who had been there too, even if it was someone she considered a child, and a treacherous one at that. ‘You were no doubt overwhelmed by the setting … and the guests. But that’s only to be expected. I would have felt the same at your age. Probably.’

  ‘Yes, Seňora Gonzalez,’ Maria replied, her voice flat. She had no intention of playing the grateful, fawning guest, that much was evident.