Autumn in Catalonia (3 page)

‘Yes, in his own chair.’

A silence fell after this, and then Maria asked, ‘Where have you been yourself, Luis? Did you go back to Paris?’

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Ironically it was Vigo who insisted I should get away, because he believed there was a strong chance I wouldn’t even make it to prison if one or two people got hold of me.’ He waved a frustrated hand. ‘So I ended up back in Paris. I could write there, of course, and hopefully do a bit of good, but it was damnable to be away in exile among people who largely didn’t give a damn for Spain. But I met Elise,’ his face softened. ‘And then we moved down near to the border. We live in Catalonia again now – French Catalonia – just over the border. It has felt closer.’

‘And now you can come home.’

It was a statement rather than a question, again coming from Grandma. Maria said nothing, but to Josep it seemed
as though they were all somehow in suspense. He looked across at Joana again, and saw that she was holding her breath. Uncle Luis was married to a Frenchwoman now. Would he come home?

‘Yes,’ Uncle Luis said, and Josep saw Joana breathe again. ‘My newspaper bosses in Paris want me to write for them from Barcelona – they’re keen to have an inside view. And Elise,’ touching his wife on her shoulder, ‘my lovely Elise wants to make a go of life here if we can, and she’s even learning Catalan! We just need to wait for a few months – Elise is pregnant, and we’ll wait to have the baby in France. But after that, we’ll come home, and you Maria, and the children, you’ll come to live with us in Barcelona.’

There were endless exclamations after that, and fussing over Elise, and protestations from Maria that she couldn’t live off her brother, but Josep heard it only as background noise. He didn’t have much interest in babies, but it seemed Uncle Luis wanted them to go back to Barcelona. He turned the idea over in his head. What would that be like? The tall, blond, tousle-haired, laughing man that was their father would not be there. And he would have to leave behind all his friends in Sant Galdric.

Joana looked incredibly excited. Her eyes were fixed on the group at the table, and on Uncle Luis’s new wife, who was listening serenely to the three Catalan voices all raised excitedly in unison. They must be completely undecipherable to a new learner of the language, but she didn’t look fazed – she looked quite content. She looked nice.

‘Do you hear what they’re saying, Josep?’ Joana whispered, under cover of all the adult voices. ‘Can you believe it? Uncle Luis’s wife is happy for us to live with them in Barcelona! We can go back to our old school, and have proper teachers, and I can learn French again and I’ll be able to talk to her!’

Suddenly Joana moved towards Elise and stood just in front of her chair. Josep wondered what she was going to do.

‘Madame,’
she said, screwing up her face as she tried to remember the French she had learnt before Sant Galdric. Uncle Luis turned round to look at her, and the room fell silent.
‘Bienvenue en Catalogne et bienvenue dans notre maison,’
Joana continued, forcing her lips round the French words. Then she kind of gave up and spoke in Catalan again, so Josep could understand it. ‘We are very happy that you will come to live with us.
Merci.’

And to Josep’s surprise (and perhaps to Joana’s too) she gave a little curtsy, as Uncle Luis broke into applause, magicking from his pocket a little bedraggled passion flower, which he tucked behind Joana’s ear like he always used to, as he pulled her into his embrace.

The memory was surprisingly strong, and bitter-sweet, because they’d never seen Luis again after that visit. Just a few months later Franco and the other generals had declared war on the Republic, and Spain had descended into Civil War. Catalonia became a militarised zone, and Luis’s French wife must have felt it was too dangerous to come and live. They’d had the odd letter from Luis, saying
he was raising money for the Republican army in France, and would come soon, but he didn’t come, and Josep soon forgot him. Life was Sant Galdric, and he was content. And Joana was the prettiest girl in the village, with all the boys after her, and he’d thought she was content too.

Carla came out of the university the following Thursday floating on air. Her most recent essay had received high praise from her tutor, the only tutor she truly respected among the government-appointed, antiquated clerics who dominated the history faculty. In front of the full tutorial group he’d told her that she had written something researched, intelligent and thought-provoking, and that if she continued in this vein she would finish top of the year on graduation day next summer. It was heady stuff, and it was hard to refrain from gloating as she received the congratulations of her fellow students after class.

She wanted to tell Luc. He was consistently top of his year in accounting, and it was the first time she’d been able to equal him. Somehow girls didn’t seem to get the same marks as male students, even though their work was often visibly better. They were accused too often by the
exclusively male tutors of being irrational in thought. Well not this time! One up for me, Luc, she thought, with a grin. She’d buy them both a drink this evening to celebrate.

She walked through the town towards her hostel, buttoning her jacket as she went. The sunshine of last weekend had gone now, and there was an edge to the autumn air. She would make coffee when she got home, and eat that cake she hadn’t been able to finish at lunchtime. She was frugal despite her allowance – she was saving her money, and had tucked the half-eaten cake into her bag for later.

As she neared the hostel she was surprised to see her mother’s Mercedes parked in the street outside. She saw Toni at the wheel, and walked even faster towards him, as curiosity tinged with unease nipped at her senses. As she neared he got out of the car, and she walked right up and gave him a hug, as befitted a childhood playmate.

‘Well?’ she queried, as she saw the slight frown on his forehead. ‘What have they sent you here for, Toni? Is there anything wrong at home?’

He shook his head. ‘He wants to see you, Carla. Don’t ask me why but he’s hopping mad about something. He told me to come here and wait outside the hostel until you appeared, and to bring you to Girona straight away.’

Carla was surprised. The last time she’d seen Papa was in July, and relations had been strained as usual, but merely because her presence chafed at him, and she forgot to be always deferential. He’d been pleased with last year’s grades, in as far as they interested him, and had been happy to see her disappear back to summer school in Barcelona,
so that she didn’t have to go up to the hill house with them for the summer holiday.

‘What on earth does he want?’ she exclaimed.

Toni considered for a moment, and then asked, ‘Have you been doing something political? I thought I heard him mutter something about Bolsheviks. Would that be right?’

Carla froze. Oh help, had Papa heard about the student marches she’d been on? She’d never played a committee role, not like Luc, but she’d played a bit part in the various student actions this autumn, partly in support of the workers’ strikes, but mainly demanding changes to bring the university into the twentieth century.

But how could Papa know about that? She hadn’t been among any names reported to the authorities, or photographed in the papers. She was sure of that. With growing unease she went inside to collect some overnight things, and left a message in case Luc should ask for her. She was going to miss their evening out tonight, but there was no help for it. Papa paid for her studies, and she would have to go with Toni and appease him.

They occupied the two-hour drive talking about familiar things, catching up with family – his mother’s health problems, his sister’s problems with her husband, and from Carla’s side, all the latest news from Josep’s family. But as they neared Girona they fell silent, and Carla found her breathing going funny, as it so often did when she had to face Sergi Olivera in his angry moments. It was made worse by not knowing exactly what she was going to face, or how much he knew about her life. And the big question was how he knew about it at all.

It didn’t take long to find out. She was let into the big, four-square, old-fashioned house by the maid Mireia, who ushered her straight into the main sitting room, and there she found her parents waiting for her. They had glasses in front of them, and looked as though they’d been there some time, and from the look on her father’s face he’d been gnawing at what he wanted to say to her over more than one cocktail. Mama was usually the drinker, but tonight she had a glass of water in front of her, and a coffee cup in her hand. Was it in honour of her coming home, Carla wondered, with irony, or was Joana just taking care to avoid inflaming Sergi’s anger still further?

She greeted her parents, careful to show no sign of anxiety. ‘Toni said you wanted to see me?’ she said, with just the right tone of query in her voice.

Her father rose. ‘Oh yes, Carla, I wanted to see you. And, no, you needn’t bother to sit down. I’ll have you right there, thanks, where I can see into that deceitful little face.’

It was friends of her parents who’d spotted her, back in August, during a small demonstration outside the university chancellor’s building. Such a petty demonstration, that one, and ironic that it should be the one which set Sergi onto her. Since then he’d been having her watched. She shivered at the thought that he’d been tracking her movements – not every day, thankfully, but whenever he got wind of a march being planned, or any student action, of which there had been many this autumn. He’d had her followed, and even knew she’d been visiting Uncle Josep. ‘Your mother’s scumbag
family,’ he called him, and as his insults flowed he grew more and more angry.

Carla stood silent in front of him and tried to breathe normally, with her feet planted squarely on the silk rug, and arms held as if casually by her sides. Behind the folds of her skirt her right hand was clenched in a tight, nervous ball, but hopefully her father couldn’t see this. She knew her face was tight but she stopped her forehead from knotting, using the control reflexes she’d built up over years of confrontation, as her father’s anger engulfed her in torrents of outraged abuse.

‘I should never have let you go to that stupid university. You’re making a mockery of your family, and I won’t have it. Do you understand? I won’t have it.’

The tirade went on. She was to leave university, right now, and come home, since she couldn’t be trusted to behave herself when given the freedom to study. Didn’t she realise how privileged she was? How generous her parents had been in even allowing a daughter to study away from home? And yet she had to mix herself up in politics, make friends with a bunch of troublemakers who were just using her to get at her father. She was stupid, just stupid, and naïve if she thought any of that crowd of hers actually cared one iota for her. But it was just like her – she had no thought for her family, or for their position. She was without loyalty, without respect.

She let the words flow around her, and tried to detach herself, but Sergi’s solid frame stood just a couple of paces from her, and the naked ferocity of his anger made detachment difficult. Parents all over Spain might be having
such conversations with their children right now, but surely not with the same fury. It made his face turn purple, and as his anger grew she wondered if he would contain himself, or if he would lose control and strike her, as he had so often before. She tried not to flinch at the thought.

Behind Sergi, perched on the corner of the expensive leather sofa, Mama sat still and silent, slender and elegant as always, her face rather pale, but carefully turned away from Carla, studying the coffee cup with apparent concentration. Help me, Mama, Carla wanted to say, but there was no point – she knew better.

As the tirade blew on, she realised that Papa was serious – that he really intended to take her away from the university. This was not some fit of anger which would fizzle out once he’d had his say. He was in deadly earnest, and intended to remove her immediately from her studies. Her blood chilled at the thought. All that she’d been working towards hinged on that degree. Papa didn’t know it, but for a long time now she’d been planning never to return to his life. It was why she saved her allowance so carefully, and why she worked so hard. She wanted her degree, and then she would go her own way.

She’d been very careful recently when home for holidays, just getting by with her parents and hoping to finish her studies without major flashpoints. But she’d been spotted by some stupid family acquaintances, and now she was facing the ultimate flashpoint, and didn’t know how to get out of it.

Sergi was staring at Carla, and she realised suddenly that he’d stopped, and was waiting for an answer from her.
What to say? She longed to hurl her own anger at him as she had when she was a teenager, but there was too much to play for now, and she was no longer sixteen. If I can be conciliatory without giving everything up, then maybe it will be enough, she thought desperately, and made herself begin talking.

‘Papa,’ she said, and heard her voice quiver, then pulled herself together to continue more strongly. ‘Papa, it isn’t quite the way it has been painted to you. I haven’t done anything wrong, really I haven’t, and nothing that could create any problems for you. There’s a strong student movement just trying to make the universities more up to date, and allow us more access to the libraries, and to change some of the old staff. It’s not exactly subversive politics, and you know yourself that even the newspapers are beginning to talk about change, and modernising Spain. Students are just young, and want to be part of that change.’

Never had Sergi looked less convinced. ‘Rubbish!’ was his response. ‘You’re just proving how naïve you are! These new student unions are in cahoots with the communists and the anarchists, and you’re all being manipulated by anti-government forces that you haven’t got the common sense to understand. I’ve heard some of your ringleaders – what’s his name, Pujol, a dangerous subversive if ever there was one.’

‘But I’ve never even met Pujol!’

‘No, but don’t tell me you haven’t joined his rallies! I know, Carla! They’ve got you well and truly indoctrinated. There’s only one thing for it, and that’s to get you out of there. What do you need a degree for, anyway? It was only
that daft teacher of yours who convinced me to let you go.’

‘Yes, because you thought it would make me more marriageable!’ Carla couldn’t stop herself.

Sergi’s face loomed even closer into hers. ‘The only thing that will make you more marriageable is to teach you your place, you stupid girl.’

She forced herself not to back away, and looked into his eyes. ‘I haven’t done anything,’ she repeated. ‘Nothing you have to worry about, honestly.’ She kept her voice calm. ‘But you can’t force me to leave university. I’m less than a year away from graduation, and I’m not a child, I’m twenty-three years old.’

‘I can take away your money, girl, that’s what I can do. You have no means to live, and nothing to pay your fees with.’

A silence fell, and he stood back, with a smug expression on his face that made Carla want to strike out herself. She thought of her room in the hostel, paid monthly by Sergi, the tuition fees for her course, her generous quarterly allowance, which paid for food and all her living costs. A chill came over her as the implications of his words came home to her. She looked across at her mother again, in desperation this time.

‘Mama, won’t you tell him I’ve done nothing? I need to finish my degree!’

Joana looked up at her this time, but her eyes were veiled. Carla thought she saw an imperceptible shake in her mother’s blonde curls, but no more. It was Sergi who thundered, ‘Leave your mother out of this.’

So where do I go from here? Carla wondered, thinking
hard as her heart seemed to thump against her left lung, interrupting her breathing. Without her degree she had no future, or none outside her father’s narrowest plans. But nothing she could say here was going to change her father’s mind, that was clear. Could she find money to finish her studies without him? She couldn’t think straight – no one else in her family had any money, that was for sure.

Could she maybe stay with Uncle Josep if she lost her father’s support? Her mind was reeling and she didn’t know. His home was already crowded with three young boys. But somehow surely she could manage? Even if she had to sleep on someone’s floor and clean houses, or even defer her degree for a year while she earned some money. And she had her savings. That thought steadied her, and her mind came clearer. I will get my degree, she thought, with a return of courage, and she looked up into Sergi’s eyes with her old defiance.

‘All right, then I’ll pay my own way through the rest of my studies.’

Sergi’s lip curled. ‘And how then, little princess, without your precious allowance and all your fees paid? You know the second instalment of fees is still to be paid for this year?’

She nodded, and resisted the impulse to withdraw her eyes from his. She could see his brain working, trying to decide if she was serious, contemptuous of her but also deeply frustrated, as so often before, by this daughter who wouldn’t fall easily into his world of total control.

Her silence forced him into speech again. ‘This is all just stupid Carla, and you know it! You’ll go with Toni now
and collect your clothes from that hostel. It’s over, do you understand? You’re not a student anymore.’

She shook her head, again not saying anything. To speak would mean she had to defend her position, and what she wanted right now was just to leave, without surrendering, and find her way into that outside world where she could work out what to do.

‘Damn me, I’ve a good mind to lock you in your room!’ Sergi’s face had become alarmingly red again, and she realised he might even do so, in a fit of temper. It had been a favourite ploy of his when she was a child, but even he must realise that he couldn’t shut her up now, at least not forever, and that as a grown woman she could walk out of here if she wanted to – if she was prepared to give up her parents’ whole world. She braced herself to be seized, or shaken, but it didn’t happen. He was staring at her as though trying to work out where to go next, and she decided to make it easier for him. I want him to let me out of here, she thought, without any further struggle.