Autumn in Catalonia (8 page)

It was a cloudless summer afternoon in Barcelona, the air heavy with a heat more sleepy than oppressive. Carla stood on the tiny balcony of Luc’s studio flat, languidly watching a plane going goodness knows where, full of tourists heading home. It left a long white trail in the deep blue of the sky.

‘It’s going to London,’ Luc said behind her.

‘Rubbish, it’s heading for Paris. I’ve always wanted to go to Paris.’

‘For the Moulin Rouge,
vida meva
?’

‘Not at all, you buffoon!’ Carla elbowed Luc in the ribs. ‘If I wanted that kind of titillation I could join the tourists on the Costa Brava! No, I want to watch the artists in Montmartre, and visit the Louvre, the Champs Elysées, Notre Dame, Orsay, the Eiffel Tower, oh everything!’

‘Then we’d better go for a month! A month in Paris for you, and a month in London for me!’

‘And where else?’

‘Wherever you lead me, little adventuress!’ Luc said, low into her ear. ‘“I want you, pure, free, irreducible you”,’ he murmured, ‘and before you ask me, that was Pedro Salinas, and he lived in Paris once, so you ought to appreciate him!’

He curved around her, his whole frame enveloping hers as he leant against the balcony rail. Carla could feel his breath on the nape of her neck as he bent to kiss her throat, and then his cheek against hers as he pulled her backwards so she leant against him.

She closed her eyes and protested, ‘It’s too hot for that out here.’

‘Then come inside! Come into my parlour and let me cool your heart.’

She had to laugh – he was full of so much nonsense! If man could live from tomfoolery alone, she thought, then Luc would be a millionaire! But his voice was melting, and his breath was hot against her skin as his arms moved up her body.

She gave a sigh. She had never in her previous life dared to imagine such happiness as this, something so simple and natural and untainted. They moved together into the bedroom, through the makeshift curtain, which shielded the room from the afternoon sun. Luc’s arms stayed locked around her body, and she giggled as his feet caught the sill. He wasn’t looking, and he nearly stumbled, and bubbles of laughter took her forward into the room.

But as the curtain fell behind them, her father was there. Stocky, stubby Sergi, beautifully dressed of course, flanked by two thugs in uniform. His sneer said it all. What do you
think you’re doing? You can’t get away, you can’t be free. Did you imagine you had the right to be happy?

Carla woke up, tears starting to her eyes as so often before. The dreams were different in detail, but always the same in essence. She could remember so vividly her moments on that tiny balcony with Luc, and in the little room, their secret place from where the Civil Guard had come to get him. Nowhere now felt safe. There were no secret places in her father’s Spain.

She lay still, choking back her anguish, waiting for the dream to subside. Next to her the bed was empty. Grandma was already up, and she could hear her moving around in the kitchen, preparing Victor’s breakfast before his day at the factory. Carla lay, unrefreshed by sleep, listening listlessly to the sounds through the thin wall. She heard Victor heading for the bathroom, and wondered whether to get up herself. But there was nothing she could do, nothing she could contribute to their morning routine, and with her huge belly she always felt that she occupied too much space in this small apartment, among all the rickety chairs, and the clutter of Grandma’s trinkets, the salvaged relics from another world.

The baby shifted inside her. It could no longer do somersaults – it was too tight now. Panic gripped her as she counted the days to giving birth – not much more than six weeks now, surely. She’d come to Grandma in search of shelter and nurturing, and together they were going to try to manage the birth at home, but what if something went wrong? Luc’s baby – nothing must happen to Luc’s
baby. One day he would make it out of prison and come looking for her, she knew, and she and the baby had to be waiting for him. Even her father couldn’t keep Luc forever, could he? But he could keep him for a very long time. All he needed to do was emphasise the political threat, and suggest that Luc was planning violent protest. That would be enough to keep him under lock and key for as long as Sergi wanted.

Politically I’m just as radical as Luc, thought Carla. She wanted to go and scream it in her father’s face. Take me too, if you have to have him. But Sergi didn’t want his daughter arrested, he only wanted her controlled.

She waited until the sounds outside indicated Victor was leaving for work. Normally she would get up to say goodbye, but today she couldn’t face his smiles. He had stayed up late last night talking to Martin, teasing out the boy’s character, looking for Luis. He was happy this morning – she could hear it in his voice as he spoke with Maria. She couldn’t handle that right now. Martin’s coming was a diversion, but in the end a diversion always left you inexorably back on the same dark road as before. She knew that she was often sharp, angry, unpleasant at the moment. It was the view along the road which left her in such hostile despair.

Eventually she rose wearily, and washed and dressed in the same old clothes, which Luc would have thrown on to the nearest fire. Another day, and another sixteen hours or more before she could again seek out her bed, and the fragile dreams of Luc.

They went out together that morning, Carla, Maria
and Martin, brought along to help carry a heavy load of washing. It was as they returned that she saw the black car, sitting on the corner of the street, with its two male passengers carefully not looking in their direction. She said nothing to Grandma or to Martin. Perhaps the men in the car wouldn’t think too much about the presence of a young man with them. It had been a while since she’d seen the black car with its black-suited driver, sometimes alone, sometimes with a companion. They were here to monitor her pregnancy, she knew. Sergi might know she was pregnant, but he couldn’t know exactly how far, and he wouldn’t want to miss the birth. He would have all the local hospitals and clinics primed, she was sure, but he would be watchful nevertheless, in case she slipped away.

As she walked past the car she fixed her gaze on the men inside. She didn’t know either of them, but they didn’t look like policemen, at least as far as she could see. Did Sergi have his own private army? A personal driver, like Toni, but one she didn’t know? And another – who was he? She smiled at the two men, a sweet smile of defiance, but they looked determinedly ahead.

It was later that day, after another afternoon walk with Martin, that she saw her father. This time her heart stopped. Never before, to her knowledge, had it been her father who trailed her. It was the silver Mercedes she spotted first, and at first she thought it was Toni driving. Both her mother and her father had a Mercedes, each one a ‘gift’ from the German entrepreneurs who were currently ploughing up the Catalan coast for their new tourist resorts.

But then she caught a glimpse of a tailored beige suit and
her father’s clipped, greying hair, and she knew it wasn’t Toni. He cruised slowly towards them, and as he got closer his eyes swept over them both. She caught hold of Martin’s arm.

‘Martin, we have a problem.’ she said.

He looked an enquiry.

‘Look to your left, a little ahead. That’s my father in the Mercedes.’

He looked startled, and shot a quick look in the direction of the car, then averted his eyes.

Now that she had got over the first shock, Carla felt a soaring anger at the man whose gaze grazed so contemptuously over them.

‘There’s no need to pretend you haven’t seen him,’ she told Martin. ‘He’s making no attempt to hide himself, is he?’

‘What is he doing here?’ Martin’s voice was understandably nervous.

‘Checking you out, I think. I didn’t say this morning, but two of his henchmen were in our street today, watching us. I didn’t think they would pay much attention to you, since you look like pretty much any young guy from around here. But my father is paranoid about who I might meet, and I think they went back and told him there was a young man with me, and lo and behold, here’s my loving father turning up to see us.’

The car had come to a near halt now, crawling past them as Sergi studied Martin from head to toe. Carla took a step towards the car, but it just glided past. She fixed her eyes on her father’s face, but he wasn’t even looking at her. All his attention was on Martin.

‘He thinks I’m your boyfriend?’ Martin’s hand gripped her sleeve convulsively.

Carla was almost amused. ‘Possibly, yes, and holding on to my arm won’t do anything to dissuade him!’

Martin withdrew his hand as though she had burnt him. The car had passed them now, and they stood and watched as it reached the end of the road and turned onto the main avenue. Neither of them moved. Carla felt suspended in time, continuing to gaze after the car long after it had disappeared from view. What might he do, she wondered? What would Sergi do now? There was a tight knot in her chest and her thoughts wouldn’t come clear.

She became aware of Martin by her side, nudging her urgently. ‘Should we go inside?’ he asked. ‘He may come back round again. I think we should move.’

Carla nodded. Her surge of defiance had faded, and she felt cold and afraid. She wanted to hide, from her father and from the world. All she wanted was to feel safe. But she never felt safe now, not even in her dreams.

They found Maria at the table mending one of Victor’s shirts. Beside her lay a pile of socks for darning, but when she saw the two white faces coming into the room she laid it all aside and came to greet them, an anxious question in her eyes. She held out her hands and Carla put one hand into them.

‘Little one?’ It was a term Grandma rarely used these days.

‘We just saw my father.’ She could never bring herself to call him Papa now, not since last year. ‘He drove by to check us out. I think he wants to know who Martin is.’

She sank into a chair, and leant her elbows on the table, reaching for a sock and winding it around her fingers. A little nerve throbbed at her temple, twitching her left eye. Martin sat opposite her, and she noticed his hands working in the same way. Shock, she thought. We’re both in shock. If Sergi could create this effect merely by driving past in his car, then what else could he do? Well she knew, didn’t she? Luc was behind bars.

Maria disappeared into the kitchen. She didn’t bother with exclamations or questions. Instead she reappeared a few minutes later with two cups of hot chocolate, dark and bitter, and placed these in front of Carla and Martin, neither of whom had moved at all.

The hot drink slid down Carla’s throat, and reached that cold knot in her chest. Her tight muscles eased, and she found she could think again. Grandma came to sit between them at the table, and her body seemed to give off a warmth as well.

‘So, my children?’ she said.

It was Martin who told her, how Sergi had slowed down to examine him, taking his time, scanning him with that raking stare, crawling past in the sleek Mercedes.

‘He’s an impressive man,’ he ventured, tentatively. ‘Commanding, if you see what I mean.’

‘Yes,’ said Maria. She looked at Carla. ‘What did you make of him this time?’

Carla looked at the wall, thinking back to Sergi, sitting so disdainfully behind the wheel of the car, checking them over. He’d hardly seemed to look at her, and yet she was sure he had noted everything about her, from her gaunt face
to her shabby clothes, to the bump he was seeing for the first time. She wondered if it gave him satisfaction to see her brought so low. He’d certainly been angry enough the last time they’d met, but the eyes that had skimmed her over just now had been clinical rather than vindictive. He wasn’t acting against her so much as to protect himself.

She brought her gaze back from the wall. Grandma was still watching her with troubled eyes.

‘I think he may well assume that Martin is a new boyfriend,’ she answered at last. ‘It seems mad, when you see my condition, but he’s not to know we’ve only just met. Maybe he thinks I’m so desperate I’ll seek any man’s protection. It’s the way he thinks about women, anyway.’

‘So what will he do now?’ asked Martin.

‘I don’t know. Since you’re not staying more than a day or two he may get the message not to worry. I guess he’ll have his henchmen patrol around here pretty regularly over the next couple of days, watching us. Once they see that I’m back on my own again he should leave us in peace, don’t you think?’ Peace! Now there’s a strange word to have used, she thought.

‘Well, no. No, I’m not so sure,’ Martin said, taking his time.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I know I’m new in on this situation, but I can’t see that he’ll just let it go. If I disappear, won’t he just assume that he’s frightened us and I’m making myself scarce? He won’t necessarily think I’ve gone for good, and he’ll still think I’m around somewhere as a threat to his plans.’

Maria nodded her head. ‘I’m afraid I think he’s right,
Carla. Your father is the most distrustful of men. Martin can leave us and he’ll be safe, but I have a terrible fear now that your father won’t any longer leave things to chance where you’re concerned.’

Carla knew what was coming next. She knew, too, that they were right.

‘You think he’ll take me away,’ she said, and was surprised at how matter of fact her voice sounded.

‘I fear so. He doesn’t know when the baby is due, but he has seen for himself today that it’s not too far away. He’ll want you somewhere secure and under his control for the next weeks, far from me and Victor, and far from any young man who may have taken up your cause.’

Damn him, damn him! Sergi’s iron-hard face came before her again, and she felt such a wave of hatred that it was frightening. He can’t make me so helpless! I won’t let him!

‘So I’ll go away too!’ She put her cup jerkily down on the table and some dregs of chocolate splattered the tablecloth. ‘I’ll go away to Barcelona. There must be someone who’ll hide me down there.’