by Kerry Postle
*
Lola had been waiting by the closed front door listening out for Richard, her hands ready to open the door as quickly as she could.
There it was, the knock. She pulled him in quickly, away from prying eyes, and covered his face with anxious kisses. He’d come back from Seville for her the day before the soldiers had returned, the ones who’d taken Paloma. He was risking his life again for her today. She’d known that he would.
This time it was to say goodbye. They both knew it. They both had played out what they wanted to say to each other many times over. ‘I have something to tell you,’ she said to him.
‘I know.’ But he didn’t. She placed her arm protectively across herself.
‘Don’t cry,’ he said, stroking her hair and cupping her face in his hands. Her eyes were red and her eyelids puffy. He placed his lips gently upon them. Lola went to speak.
‘I am leaving tonight.’ Richard cut across her, forcing his words out. They sounded more brutal than he’d planned.
Lola stiffened. ‘How can you leave me now?’
This was not the sweet sorrow Richard had anticipated on his way to make his farewells this afternoon. Did she not realise that it was agony for him to tear himself away from her? That he was risking his life to even be here? ‘Lola, my angel. You have made my life so very beautiful. I will never forget you.’ His words were making things worse.
‘I won’t be able to forget you either,’ she said, a hint of bitterness in her voice, ‘even if I wanted to.’ Her head drooped and her body withdrew from him, her arms folded. She wanted him to go, to save himself, but Lola could not find the words to release him, nor could she say things she needed to say without them now sounding desperate and needy.
She chose to say nothing. She’d already lost two of the people she’d loved most in the world. She was about to lose a third. She was heartbroken. Her sense of loss consumed her for a moment. She despised herself for her weakness as she grieved for herself. She tilted her face towards him, hoping to catch the light that shone from within his soul. Then she quickly looked away, afraid that her eyes might give away her secret.
‘I love you,’ Richard said to her. He had nothing else to say. He had to tell her because it was a feeling that was good and true, and he would be gone by tomorrow.
He held her hand. She looked down, her breath deep, her heart fluttering. ‘I love you,’ he whispered. She didn’t know what to say, how to tell him. She imagined a child with red-blond hair, an image so vivid she gasped. She rubbed her eyes to make the vision go away. She had to tell him. There was no greater proof of love. She opened her mouth. ‘I’m …’ Richard placed a gentle kiss on her soft, smooth forehead. ‘I will avenge Paloma. Those animals must pay.’ Lola closed her mouth without finishing. She couldn’t tell him now.
Within seconds he was gone. Lola watched him, a dark figure getting smaller and smaller until the distance swallowed him up completely.
She put her arms across herself once more and laughed in the face of the destiny that conspired against her. It would not defeat her. She was devastated at what had been taken away but in that moment she rejoiced at the life and hope that grew within her. She’d seen such wickedness in such a very short space of time. To create life out of love, how could that be so grave a sin? The image of the child with red-blond hair came to her once more. She smiled at the little piece of heaven that would soon replace what had been taken away. She was having Richard’s baby.
Lola dropped to the floor, her head bent, hair flowing down towards her knees. If only she could have found the words to tell him.
Chapter 35
The next morning, at the crack of dawn, Maria got up to watch Richard Johnson as he made his escape. He was wearing the garb of a man accustomed to working the land, his incriminating hair tucked tightly away under a straw hat. He moved quickly and furtively along the shadows.
Her ears pulled her eyes to look up the street in the opposite direction. There she could make out two soldiers heading the same way as Richard, though they had clearly not seen him yet. And she had to make sure they never would. Before reason could stop her, Maria was already outside, basket in hand. It was vaguely ridiculous that she should look as if she was off to buy food at this time in the morning when the only people likely to be around were Rebel soldiers and those looking to evade them. But there was no time to ponder over fool proof plans. Now there was no choice but to think on her feet, act on instinct. A dangerous strategy.
She threw herself before them.
‘You need to go back inside.’ Her knees buckled. The voice was sharp and cold, but she recognised it immediately as that of Luis de los Rios. ‘Although you don’t have to,’ his fellow soldier added, his voice deceptively soft. He made to relieve Maria of her basket with one hand, while going to squeeze her by the arm with the other.
‘Stop!’ Luis commanded as if to a wayward dog. The effect was immediate. Cowed, the soldier released his grip and lowered his eyes to the ground. ‘Go!’ Luis dispatched him to the end of the street with the point of a finger. The muscles in Maria’s face set in a smile which she beamed at Luis without thinking. All thoughts of Richard were gone. Thankfully, so was he.
Maria felt Luis’ arm wrap around her waist. It dragged her towards the open door of her house. Without saying a word, he pushed her inside, closing the door after her. She was safe once more.
*
Richard must have got away. Maria had watched him leave and Doctor Alvaro had heard no rumours to the contrary.
Life in the village went on. Even though its heart had been ripped out, it still pounded. Red, bleeding, its suffering on display for all to see. What had happened to it could never be undone, its loss could never be atoned for. But it was still alive. Its remaining inhabitants walked, talked, and breathed, even if some of them no longer wanted to.
Maria wished she’d been taken instead of Paloma that day. Her father thanked God that she hadn’t, though he knew God had had nothing to do with it. He was only too aware that it was down to Luis de los Rios that his daughter was still alive. And the realisation that the man who’d saved her life was the same man sent to spy on him caused him much consternation. He himself would be taking Maria away soon enough. But until then he felt torn. It had not escaped his notice that Luis walked past their house numerous times every day, looking up for a sight of Maria on the balcony – a sight which, her father observed, she took great pains to grant him, all the while pretending not to. If these weren’t times of war, Doctor Alvaro mused, how deliciously entertaining this behaviour would be. Instead, it took on a tragic hue.
Then there was the undeniable fact that this soldier who couldn’t help but protect his daughter was duty bound to spy and catch out the doctor himself.
Nevertheless, his instinct told him that if anyone was going to look out for Maria it was this boy from the other side. The doctor was certain in the knowledge that he could let his daughter go about the village and Luis de los Rios would be there to look over her. He’d proved himself on numerous occasions. Yet Alvaro felt compromised. He would have wished it otherwise. But he had to put Luis off the scent. Lives depended on it. He had people to meet with, loose ends to tie up, and, until he could finalise the details of their escape it was something that he had to do, regardless of where it might lead the two young people.
‘I won’t be long.’ The food stores were open when Maria next left the house with her basket. Doctor Alvaro watched his daughter as she walked down the street. Within seconds Luis de los Rios emerged from a side street, partner in tow. Alvaro nodded to himself, satisfied that his daughter would return. She would be some time, he knew, as food was growing scarce and the queues were getting worse, but the doctor breathed a sigh of relief that under the watchful eye of Luis de los Rios Maria would be safe. And that he would be able to carry on with the business of helping others, contacting the resistance, and making his own exit arrangements.
Maria no longer had any wish to
sit in a small room and pour out her innermost thoughts onto a piece of paper. She couldn’t face it. She was relieved to be out. And necessity had pushed other women to go about their daily tasks too. Standing in the bread queue with Lola, she enjoyed the silent companionship that she was coming to depend on. Both girls smiled at one another, Maria placing her basket on the ground while Lola clutched hers awkwardly, her arms threading under the handle, the body of the basket only accentuating what it was intended to conceal. Maria’s eyes were drawn to the roundness of Lola’s tummy when she heard raised voices coming from the butcher shop across the way. Both girls raised their eyebrows at one another in vague amusement. Who was it this time fighting over the last rabbit?
Lola lurched forward. Maria held her back.
‘I’m going to kill you, you traitor! You whore of fascists! And I don’t care what your vile friends do to me!’ It was Cecilia. The poor woman had gone off like a volcano, spewing out angry words like liquid stones of molten lava.
‘I thought she was at church! She’s not come near the shops since Pa … for a while now,’ Lola stuttered. ‘I’m going to kill that bitch for upsetting her.’
As Maria heard the patronising, smug sound of Seňora Gonzalez she felt an urge to kill her too.
‘I only said that I thought General Franco was making a good job of cleaning up the country of reds and gypsies!’ Captain Garcia’s good friend was explaining to the rest of the queue. She omitted to reveal that she’d also added ‘loose women’ (with no trace of irony) to the list. It was this that had caused Cecilia to go off like Krakatoa.
As Lola ran to her mother’s aid, the poor woman collapsed. Maria glowered at Seňora Gonzalez. ‘Shame on you! You disgust me.’ The woman raised her neck like a swan. Her eyes flashed a warning at the doctor’s daughter, but Maria looked straight back, unafraid. It was Seňora Gonzalez who turned away first, unable to withstand the glare of the young girl’s gaze as it scorched the surface of the woman’s soul, revealing it in all its corrupt and spiteful ugliness.
Soldiers appeared from all directions. Maria’s eyes scanned the length of the queue, eventually meeting the eyes of a shamefaced woman standing sheepishly by the meat counter, her hand outstretched towards the butcher. Caught. The disturbance had allowed her to secure the last rabbit for herself. She shrugged as she placed it quickly into her basket with a mumbled, ‘I have many mouths to feed.’
What had the war reduced people to?
‘At last!’ Maria turned to look back at Seňora Gonzalez of the incendiary tongue and hideous soul. The haughty woman was unashamedly upright once more. She seemed to turn her face towards Maria like a sunflower to the sun but their eyes did not meet. Instead they were directed at whoever it was standing behind Maria, a person who had the power to give this injured weed of a person the confidence to believe herself a magnificent bloom. Her eyes were all open, adoring. Maria followed to where they looked. She turned around, full of dread.
The relief she felt to see her own saviour, the soldier with the different-coloured eyes, was immense. It mattered little that he was the landowners’ son. She looked straight at him. Seňora Gonzalez had been in the wrong and, soldier or no soldier, Maria’s instinct was to trust the actions of this guardian angel she saw before her completely. He did not prove her wrong.
He brushed past the woman, his judgement clear, and went to assist Cecilia with all the gentleness that he could muster.
‘That’s a disgrace. The Captain will hear of this!’ Seňora Gonzalez complained, as Luis helped a broken Cecilia out of the butcher’s with the utmost care and respect.
Maria looked on. She could not deny that she was cheered by Luis’ attentions and the moments that she saw him, spent time with him, were a blessed reprieve for her. Oh, she felt conflicted when she wasn’t with him, felt guilt that she should experience such good fortune, but the fact remained that he had goodness within him, and it brought out the goodness within her too.
If she was playing with fire it didn’t feel like it.
With her father’s blessing and Luis’ protection, she went out to see Paloma’s mother the same time every day, to see if she needed anything. She helped with the chores, ran errands, prepared food … and sometimes even fed her. It broke her heart to see her friend’s mother so but she did it without complaint, she did it to ease the burden on Lola’s shoulders. And, perhaps most of all, she did it to alleviate her own guilt.
*
Piece by tiny piece, beauty was seeping back into Maria’s life. And before either Maria or Luis could do anything about it, they had nurtured a love that was both rare and beautiful. It was also forbidden.
‘I have to see you tonight,’ Luis said as he walked with Maria to her front door. They’d returned from Cecilia’s in silence, she lost in memories of Paloma, he thinking of a way to make the impossible possible.
‘But the curfew,’ she said, turning to look at him. ‘I can see you tomorrow.’
‘Maria. It’s important. It has to be tonight. I’ll be outside at nine.’ Before she had time to say no, he turned and ran to catch up with a group of soldiers marching in the other direction. She ran upstairs to watch him. Another group of soldiers marched by with purpose. Then another. And another.
She slipped back out without telling her father to see what was happening.
A group of soldiers had stopped a boy up ahead and were pushing him around like a ball. Maria hid behind a bush and watched in horror. ‘Hurry up lads!’ a voice called to the soldiers. They marched on, forced to abandon their play thing now lying in a heap on the ground.
‘Are you all right?’ Maria saw that it was a friend of Manu’s and she offered him her handkerchief to wipe away the blood streaming from his nose. He put his hand out and moved backwards. ‘Oh no! Oh no, no, no! Get away from me whore. Dirty soldiers’ whore. I know who you are. I’ve seen you, seen how you let them carry your basket, seen you laughing with them.’
Maria felt sick, her knees buckled. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘just take this.’ She tried to give him her handkerchief again.
‘Oh no, no. Get away. They say you’re the one they saved. They say Manu’s little sister’s dead because of you. Shame on you. Soldiers’ whore!’
*
Nine o’clock and Maria looked out from her upstairs window. Her eyes were red but in the dark no one would ever know. The incident earlier on with Manu’s friend had disturbed her. And now Luis was one, two … fifteen minutes late. He was never late. She wanted to see him so much that she felt sick. And she felt sick that this was so. She hated that she cared. But she did. Then she saw him, across the way, at the corner. She crept down the stairs.
Maria checked to make sure that no one was about in the street before pulling the door closed as quietly as she could. There in the shadows was Luis. She ran to him before following him down quiet alleys and ever darkening lanes.
A clandestine tryst. Out of character for Luis who upheld rules, did the right thing. And yet he’d suggested it. As for Maria, it was not the meeting up in secret that was the rub but the fact that Luis de los Rios was on the wrong side. She hated the Nationalists and the boy she loved was one of them. They should have been enemies.
Instead they were in love. She wanted what was best for him. He wanted what was best for her.
Unfortunately, Maria did not want what was best for herself.
She was still racked with guilt about Paloma and the incident with Manu’s friend that day had been a blow to her soul. That was why, as she followed Luis to the shepherd’s hut that night, she walked as if to her undoing. It was a wilful act. That she intended to ruin her life forever she had no doubt. And the thought dazzled her, shining blinding beams of light into every hidden crack and crevice in her mind. That she had found such joy with Luis made her feel guiltier than ever and so, with the destruction she craved, she hoped to leave no room for such feelings that threatened to overwhelm her. To be the author of her own downfall, what could be more just, more fi
tting. Her own life, ruined, to pay for the life of her friend. People would think she’d got her just desserts. And she exulted in it.
Walking through the darkness, an infernal beacon of moonlight illuminating their path, she gloried in what was to come. Disgrace? Hadn’t she already fallen into a bubbling vat of it? Let Fate decide.
Her skin was hot as the angry pounding of her heart pushed her on. Hurry. Hurry. Her veins on fire as blood scorched through them. Thoughts of Seňora Gonzalez pointing at her with a dirty fingernail, whispering, ‘There she is. Shameless whore!’ tap-danced about on the stage of her well-lit imagination with a click-click-clicking of the tongue. Maria appreciated the exaggerated eye roll that would accompany ‘The one who got her friend killed.’ Yes. The knife would go in. Repeatedly. Condemned to so many little deaths by heartless women stroking down the skirts of their own crease-free lives.
Maria was getting closer. Her breath shallower. The pounding of her heart pushed back the rising of her thoughts. She moved inexorably to her doom. She had no choice.
She looked at the back of Luis’ head, allowed herself to be pulled along by the one she had chosen as her executioner, Maria his willing sacrifice. Tonight she would pay for her sins. This might be her last chance. He’d been late. He might never be able to meet up with her like this again.
When they fell into the shepherd’s hut, Maria flung herself upon him, her moth to his flame, hoping for the end.
As she kissed him, she tasted guilt. She panted, eyes closed. That guilt could be so delicious made her weak at the knees. She trembled as she fluttered again and again towards him. Fumbling with his clothes, feeling the cool smoothness of his skin. Wanting more, embracing the danger, longing to find in ecstasy the key to her undoing. If the entire village condemned her as a whore, then she would not disappoint. Perhaps Luis thought her so too. Surely that was why he’d brought her here. With the zeal of the damned she thrust her hands around his buttocks, pulling him hungrily still closer to her. Flames of passion licked around him, threatening to sweep through every fibre of his being like a dry twig in a forest fire. For a moment he was powerless to resist.