Daughter of Catalonia (13 page)

‘We’re building him a proper vault for his grave now, and that’s why we came at this time. I’m a member of the Friends of Machado, and we’ve got permission and money to build a fitting memorial for him. You wouldn’t believe the people who are involved: Pablo Casals, who is still here in exile, you know, from Franco’s Spain, and André Malraux – you know of Malraux, of course? So many senior figures of literature, music, art and even politics. And all giving freely
and campaigning for this grave. They’re building it now in Collioure, and we are going along tomorrow to be part of it.’

His passion struck Madeleine as odd for a Frenchman on behalf of a Spanish poet whose name was not exactly an international household name. She asked him why Machado was so important. His reply was both political and emotive. Machado had stood for Republicanism, had fled north ahead of Franco’s troops to stay in free Spain, had left his country finally only when Barcelona was within hours of falling, and he himself exhausted and in poor health. He had loved France, had lived in Paris during his life, but for him to end up in France in exile and defeat, to die just weeks later, was a part of the whole tragedy of Spain.

‘He was their greatest poet, you have to understand that, and he suffered so much personal loss that it comes through in his poetry. His brother became a fervent supporter of Franco, which was such a bitter blow, and he lost his wife, and his mistress, and everything he owned. When you read his poems they speak about every war and every separation and every destroyed life. Someone who has meant so much to his country is always worth studying.’

Madame Curelée seemed to be very proud to have the young intellectuals in her little hotel. Like all the Catalans Madeleine had met, she could be reserved but quickly caught the mood when passions were inflamed. Not only, she said, did she have the daughter of Luis Garriga staying with her, whom the whole village was now talking about, but also she had a scholar who had come to work with
Pablo Casals. As they sat together, she scurried about them, bringing a second cup of coffee, and then some tiny glasses of a local brandy. The mood in the room mellowed from passionate to relaxed, and Madeleine felt her own mood lifting as well.

An hour later, as they headed for bed, the young man lent her a volume of Machado’s poems translated into French, and as she lay in bed waiting for sleep to come, reading the rather lyrical and often elaborate verse, her eyes lit on a line she remembered her mother quoting to her.

De mer en mer entre nous deux la guerre, plus profonde que la guerre
– From sea to sea between us two is war, deeper than war.

Her mother’s unhappiness, her father’s death, their separation; it was all there in Machado’s verse. His life and theirs were all part of the same history, which had been bigger than them all. She found the thought strangely comforting, and as Machado’s verse revolved slowly round her tired brain she finally fell asleep, with her window open to the sound of the waves.

The road to Amélie-les-Bains took them inland through the Roussillon plains to the foothills of the Pyrenees. Avenues of plane trees bordered the road between the villages on the way, and as they drove slowly along in Philippe’s battered 2CV, he joked that the trees were there to show his old car where to go.

‘Citroën began making these ten years ago,’ he told Madeleine, ‘to bring motorised transport to the peasants. I was one of the first to buy. But the old thing is showing her years a little now, and she creaks when we go round corners. She likes this straight bit, and hates those hills up ahead!’

He pointed out Canigou, French Catalonia’s own little mountain standing distinct on the horizon from wherever you looked, its peak still tipped with snow.

‘They say no man is a real Catalan who hasn’t climbed
Canigou. So I’ve climbed it once a year for the last thirty years, and still no one thinks I’m a Catalan!’

They had set off early. Philippe had told her he wanted to pick someone up by eight o’clock in Céret, but he wouldn’t tell her who it was. The sky above them was blue and clear, but the air was still fresh, and the early May sunshine had not yet touched the land, which was a dark, deep green all around them. An intense sense of expectation stilled Madeleine’s tongue. She felt alert, aware, watchful almost, and was content to let Philippe chatter on as she sat beside him and watched the flat, cultivated fields and vineyards slip by.

Céret was a surprise after the narrow streets of Vermeilla and its brightly painted houses. Céret was a dream of yellow stone, with gently elegant streets leading into a centre of little squares and cool fountains. They passed the new Museum of Modern Art, which had been created just a few years before in the old town prison buildings. Picasso was a patron, and had gifted them numerous pieces of his work. Just five years earlier, she knew, he had given them a major series of painted pottery pieces. Paris might have its amazing art collections, but this place had a personal connection to Picasso, Matisse, Chagall and others, and she longed to visit the museum.

Now was not the moment, however. Philippe passed by the museum and turned into a narrower street. He stopped almost immediately in front of a shuttered shop front, with the legend
Objets d’Art Catalans
above it.

‘We’re here.’ announced Philippe, and leapt out of his side of the car. Madeleine followed more slowly, and by the time she had waited for a car to squeeze past her, Philippe
had already disappeared down a side passage. She hurried after him, and arrived to see the side door open, and a young man shaking hands with Philippe. Philippe waved to her impatiently.

‘Come, come, Madeleine, and meet Jordi. Jordi, this is Luis Garriga’s daughter, the girl I spoke to you about. Are you ready, Jordi? We should be on our way, no point in us coming inside. I can explain everything to Madeleine as we drive.’

Jordi held out his hand perfunctorily to Madeleine. He was a big, strongly built man of about thirty who might have been a rugby player, and the hand he extended was broad, with cracked, slightly discoloured nails. He was dressed in loose cotton trousers and a shirt which needed ironing, and his longish hair looked as though he only ever ran a finger or two through it, scorning scissors and hairbrush.

He seemed to find her evident bewilderment amusing, but didn’t bother explaining. His tone was curt as he greeted her.

‘Good morning, Mademoiselle. It seems we’re in Philippe’s hands. And yes, Philippe, we should go now. I can afford to keep the gallery closed on a quiet Monday morning, but I’ll need to open this afternoon, and I don’t have any help this week.’

Back in the 2CV, this time squashed into the rear seat, Madeleine craned her neck to hear as Philippe shot information at her over his shoulder.

‘Jordi’s father was shot alongside your father,’ he yelled, looking briefly back at her and then at the road, narrowly
avoiding an oncoming car. ‘There were only the two of them in the camp at the time, so the Germans didn’t time their raid very well. Your father was killed outright, and Jordi’s father was shot and captured, but survived. I wanted you to meet Jordi. I think it may help you.’

Madeleine’s heart leapt. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might meet the son of one of her father’s comrades; that she might be able to talk to him. And his father had survived the war. Had he shared his experiences with Jordi, she wondered?

The back of his head gave her no clues. Jordi looked fixedly at the road ahead as though to make up for Philippe’s inattention, and a long silence followed Philippe’s words. Then Jordi spoke, still without turning his head, and his voice came back to Madeleine like a cold shower. The words were correct, but the tone was crushing.

‘I gather my job this morning is to show you where your father died. I am prepared to do so. I am not sure whether it will help you, as Philippe thinks, but I can understand that you may think it important to go there.’

His whole demeanour was stony and unwelcoming, and Madeleine shrank further back in the rear seat. She sat in total silence as they continued their journey. She had come this morning with Philippe to visit her father’s grave. That was one thing. But the idea of actually visiting the resistance camp with this man set her nerves on edge. She hadn’t come prepared for the next step, and to go there with someone so overtly hostile made it a still harder step to take. And yet she wanted to learn: she had come here for that sole purpose.

Stomach knotted, she sat out the rest of the journey, half listening to Philippe and Jordi as they talked about some bullfight due to take place in Céret, and almost oblivious to the striking landscape emerging around them as they made their slow progress up to Amélie-les-Bains.

Amélie-les-Bains itself was a beautiful place, set in the hillside, a medieval spa town with dramatic views over the valley below. The River Tech ran beside the town, its shallow waters broad under a gracious bridge, preparing to drop into the valley of trees, and from wherever you looked you could see Canigou, standing guard on the horizon. To Madeleine’s relief Jordi chose not to accompany her and Philippe to her father’s grave. She and Philippe left him sitting at a café table next to the marketplace, where stalls were doing brisk trade, even on a Monday morning. He hadn’t had breakfast, he told them, and would wait for them here.

As they left Jordi, and walked away through the bustle of the market, the tension which had constricted Madeleine’s throat eased a little. Philippe walked at his usual brisk pace, his long, gangly legs ahead of Madeleine’s by several yards. At a corner he turned, and seeing her set, pale face he stopped, and took her arm.

‘This is all a bit too much for you all in one go, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘I should have told you that I had telephoned to Jordi. I’m not quite sure why I didn’t; perhaps because I know that last step is going to be difficult for you, and yet I really think you should make it. If you don’t want to go, just tell me, and we can cancel the whole thing.’

‘No, no. I don’t want to cancel. I want to see the place.’
Madeleine put her hand over Philippe’s as it lay on her sleeve. ‘You don’t know the way there yourself, no?’

‘No, I never knew. Luis didn’t want to compromise me in any way. There were schoolteachers during the occupation whose pupils were threatened at gunpoint to make them divulge information. I lived too close, and too many people knew he visited me, he used to say. Why do you ask? Did you want me to go with you?’ He paused, and studied Madeleine’s face. ‘Is it Jordi who worries you, then?’

She nodded, saying nothing.

‘Yes, I see. He can be a bit intimidating, although not normally as much so as this morning. You know, Jordi’s father was shot three times by the Germans that day. But more importantly, he was captured and taken to their cells in Perpignan, where he was tortured for three days to make him talk about his fellow Maquis and their operations. I don’t know what he told them, but there were no arrests made as a result, so he must have put on a very good act. Once they had finished with him he was sent to the concentration camp at Rivesaltes, and if the occupation hadn’t ended so soon afterwards I am sure he would have been shot.

‘I knew him quite well after the war, but he would never talk about those days. He had a misshapen arm that no one ever mentioned, and he was always weak, and I know he had problems sleeping. But his biggest problem was with drink. After his wife died Jordi looked after him. He only died three or four years ago, and until then Jordi had done little else but take care of him. It isn’t easy for Jordi
to take you up there to where it all happened, but I believe it’s good for him to go there too, otherwise I wouldn’t have suggested it.’

Madeleine was silent, aghast. The lines from Machado came back to her, the war deeper yet than war. They were all, it seemed, part of a history that was bigger than themselves, and hers was only a small part. All those years that she had spent interred in the cold house in Forsham, Jordi had been struggling to support and take care of his damaged father. How old would he have been when his father was shot? Fifteen? Sixteen? Old enough to take on the burden but not old enough to do so without damage. No wonder if he didn’t want to go back to the site with her. She looked up at Philippe.

‘I think I have more to learn than I realised,’ she said.

‘You’re doing just fine,’ he reassured her. ‘None of it is easy, for either of you.’ He removed her hand gently from where it clung to his arm, and they went on hand in hand.

The cemetery was ornate, full of marble mausoleums reflecting the sunlight, framed by the cypress trees, but Luis’s grave was very simple; a white stone cross on a square stone base. The inscription read only ‘
Luis Garriga
,
1903–1944. Mort pour la France
’.

‘He should really have been buried in the military cemetery,’ murmured Philippe, as they stood together facing the headstone. ‘But it was all I could do to have him buried at all at that time. I only put the headstone on after the war. And of course, Luis wasn’t French, or in the army. It would all have been a bit complicated back then.’

Madeleine traced the inscription with her finger. ‘I
prefer it like this. Papa wasn’t a military man. He was a writer who was forced into action by two wars, one which destroyed his country, and one which destroyed him. He would have liked that he was buried simply by a few friends, as close as possible to Spain.’

‘That’s probably the best epitaph he could have, Madeleine,
ma petite
. I even queried whether I should really give him a cross, knowing how he felt about religion. But I did want him to be honoured like a real soldier, so I chose the same headstone as they all have.’

‘He wouldn’t have minded.’ It was true, Madeleine thought. Luis was far too humorous to be bothered by a mere cross. Being close to Spain would have been far more important.

‘How far are we here from the border with Spain?’ she asked.

‘As the crow flies? Maybe seven or eight kilometres. That’s why
passeurs
like Enric worked from the Vallespir.’

‘Enric?’

‘Jordi’s father. That’s what he did during the war – helped people over the border to Spain. Your father worked with him for years. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, it was he who took you over from near Céret in November 1942.’

This second revelation took Madeleine’s breath away once and for all, and she acquiesced dumbly when Philippe suggested they should move on.

Jordi was still sitting where they had left him by the market square, a cigarette in his hand, and a second or perhaps third cup of coffee in front of him. A few crumbs
remained on a plate beside him, and Madeleine was relieved to see that he looked a little less forbidding. Indeed, as they approached he smiled, and signalled to the waiter.

‘You must be needing a coffee,’ he suggested, and Philippe nodded and sat down with obvious relief. Jordi took coffee too. Perhaps it was the caffeine which had lifted his mood, Madeleine mused. She wondered how long it had been since he last visited the site where the Maquis had lived. Surely he must have been back since the war? As she drank her
café crème
she hoped that Philippe was right, and that this visit would be helpful to Jordi, and not just an ordeal.

She was less tense as they drove out of the town, on a narrow road which snaked up into the hills above, and was able to appreciate better the spectacular view of Amélie-les-Bains and the river below. The hillsides were green with a forest of trees which hugged the road, but occasionally the road would open out, and new valleys would appear. It was very beautiful now, but it might not be quite so lovely in winter, she thought, and she wondered what sort of accommodation the men who lived out here in hiding had had.

They only had three kilometres or so to travel to where they would leave the car. Jordi signed to Philippe to draw over by a small lay-by, and then the roles were reversed.

‘I’ll leave you two to do this one on your own,’ Philippe announced. ‘I’ll take a walk around here and wait for you. But take your time. There’s no need to hurry.’

‘We’ll only need an hour, no more.’ Jordi looked down at Madeleine’s feet, and nodded approval at her flat
walking shoes. ‘It’s not far,’ he told her, ‘but it’s a rough track in places.’

It was not only rough, but a steep climb as well through endless trees, the ground carpeted with dead leaves which masked the track, which grew increasingly narrow as they climbed. Here there were no spectacular views and the track was not overlooked from anywhere. Madeleine trudged behind Jordi, who made no conversation, and just pushed ahead and left her to follow. After about twenty minutes he branched off the track, and led her along a very narrow path which was almost indistinguishable between the trees, and they then emerged onto a rough, uneven plateau, almost completely surrounded by a miniature red cliff of shale and earth, with trees perched uncertainly above, their roots poking through the shale, and presumably binding the cliff sides together. Here Jordi stopped, and turned to Madeleine.