Golden Earrings (11 page)

D
earest Margarida,

After decades of silence, the past is like a new shoot determinedly making its way through cracked and ruined soil towards the light. I do not know what tree this shoot will become, or what fruit it will bear for me and Paloma — sweet-tasting and nutritious, or bitter and toxic? Yet I know that now I have commenced my story, I must continue. I have raised the dead and I cannot leave them vulnerable and without closure.

At first, I thought that I could tell Paloma everything and yet somehow not mention you. I discovered that this is impossible, my dear sister, for not only are you Xavier’s twin but you are part of my soul too. For while the Spanish émigrés here are in a state of great excitement about Juan Carlos beginning the process of transforming Spain into a constitutional monarchy, who would trust him? We have seen them all, haven’t we — monarchies, republics, benevolent dictators and monsters! No, Margarida, I will not reveal your whereabouts, not even to Paloma whom I love and trust.

There have been many times when I have missed you so much that I have longed to flee this place and be with you but my daughter and granddaughter needed me. One day I know that we will meet again … and then, dear sister, what a reunion we will have!

A
fter we had learned of Anastasio’s death, I often woke in the night to find that Ramón was not beside me. I would sit up, my heart racing and my head pounding with terror. Surely Ramón would not leave me too! It was only when I spotted him through the open window, sitting on a neighbour’s roof, bathed in the eerie light of the moon, that I could calm myself.

I kept my mother’s golden earrings in my pocket always, like a talisman, but I cringed whenever I touched them. The legend about the earrings frightened me, but with everyone except Ramón gone, they were all I had left of my family. Sometimes I wondered if I was doomed to lose everyone I loved, and whether it was perhaps better for me not to love anyone.

One morning in early September, when the sun stayed behind the clouds and the temperature reached a high long before midday, my worst nightmares were realised. Ramón and I were helping Teresa display the day’s flowers on her stall at the market, the oppressive humidity causing sweat to sting our eyes and drip down our backs.

‘Here,’ said Teresa, pointing her plant mister at us.

Ramón and I closed our eyes and spread out our arms, and Teresa spritzed us from head to foot as lovingly as she would her most precious blooms. The relief was magic. Ramón and I giggled. It was the first time we had laughed in a long time.
Teresa laughed too, and then suddenly stopped. The usual bustle and shouts of the flower market fell silent along with her.

I opened my eyes and turned to where Teresa was looking. Two policemen were making their way through the stalls towards us. A sickening sensation stirred in my stomach. It wasn’t as if we hadn’t seen policemen — plenty of them — on the streets since the week of the uprising, but there was something menacing about these two. Each flower vendor breathed a sigh of relief when the policemen passed them by. They came to a stop in front of our stall and fixed their gazes on Teresa. My feet shuffled, as if my body was telling me to run, but where was I supposed to go? Teresa stayed rooted to the spot, her hands clasped in front of her.

‘Teresa Flores García?’ one of the policeman asked. He was tall with sallow skin and eyes the colour of mushrooms.

Teresa nodded.

‘Show us your papers.’

She reached inside her blouse and produced her papers, passing them to the policeman. He unfolded the documents and studied them before handing them to his colleague, who did not return them to Teresa.

‘By order of the Minister of the Interior you are to accompany us to the police station to answer some questions,’ the first policeman said.

Teresa was baffled. ‘Am I being arrested?’ she asked. ‘Or am I being taken in to tell tales about someone else? If that’s the case, I have nothing to declare.’

‘I am sure you are right,’ answered the policeman, a condescending smile on his face. ‘But you must come just the same.’

Teresa’s mouth twitched but she quickly composed herself. She called to Delfina and asked if she could watch her stall for the day. Delfina nodded. Teresa then took Ramón’s and my hands in hers; I could feel her trembling.

When we arrived at the police station, we found others there who had received the same summons: Carme and Pilar from Damas Rojas, along with several teachers from rationalist schools, and other people who looked like shopkeepers and accountants. There were only three other children, all about Ramón’s age.

‘Núria denounced us,’ Pilar told Teresa, ‘in order to save her own skin.’

We waited in the hot sun in the courtyard of the police station for several hours. No one was questioned. When we asked for water, a policeman came out with a single cup to be shared between all of us.

Finally, in the mid-afternoon, a sergeant from the Civil Guard arrived. He smoothed his handlebar moustache and stood before us with his feet apart. His hooded eyes revealed no emotion when he read out in a Madrid accent a brief statement from the Governor of the Province of Barcelona: ‘
By virtue of the power conferred on me by the Law of Public Order, I deem that you and your kin are to be banished from the city of Barcelona, never to return within a radius of 245 kilometres. May God preserve you for many years!
’

A stunned silence was soon followed by cries of protest.

‘You can’t exile us without a trial!’ one of the teachers said, running his hand through his hair. ‘We have a right to prove our innocence!’

‘I wasn’t even in Barcelona to be burning any churches!’ a woman said. ‘I was in Málaga, visiting my parents!’

The sergeant shrugged. ‘In the light of recent events, all constitutional guarantees have been suspended,’ he answered matter-of-factly. He sounded like a shopkeeper telling customers his store was closed for the day, rather than an official who had just condemned over fifty people to be exiled from their homes. ‘A unit of the Civil Guard will be arriving shortly to escort you to the train station. From there you will be transported to Alcañiz.’

His statement caused more cries of protest and despair. One of the older women fainted.

‘Where is Alcañiz?’ Pilar asked the man next to her.

A young woman turned to the sergeant. ‘I’ve left my children in the care of a neighbour,’ she said. ‘I must go back to fetch them.’

‘That won’t be possible,’ he answered. ‘Your train for Alcañiz departs within the hour.’

People screamed. The teacher who had protested the lack of justice lunged towards the sergeant, but was pushed back by the tall policeman who had arrested Teresa.

‘My elderly mother is sitting in the kitchen, expecting me to come and feed her at any moment!’ the teacher screamed. ‘I am her only child. What is going to happen to her?’

‘The notice said that our kin was banished too,’ shouted Carme. ‘You should allow these people to go back and collect their families!’

The gathering cried out their agreement. Their desperation sent chills through me. The scope of what people were being forced to leave behind was terrifying: children who had not accompanied their parents to the police station; elderly relatives; animals; businesses; homes; and more.

‘We should at least be allowed to take our money from the bank,’ a man in a pinstriped suit said. ‘How are we going to feed ourselves?’

Their protests fell on deaf ears. Several people began to weep.

Ramón and I looked towards Teresa. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ she said, gathering us into her arms and putting on a brave face. ‘We’re together, that’s the main thing. One flower market is the same as another. In some ways it’s a blessing to not own too much.’

The unit of the Civil Guard arrived and the shell-shocked group was herded into single file. The woman who had left her children with her neighbour could barely stand. ‘My husband is
in Morocco,’ she wept. ‘What’s going to become of my babies?’ Carme gave her arm to help her.

The sergeant who had made the announcement checked off people’s names against the papers that had been confiscated when they were arrested. When we came before him, he looked me and Ramón up and down. ‘How old are they?’ he asked Teresa.

‘The boy is ten and the girl is eight,’ Teresa replied.

The sergeant opened his notebook and studied something in it for a long time. When he looked up again, he smiled. For one optimistic moment I thought there had been some mistake and he was going to let us go.

‘Ah, Teresa Flores García,’ he said, half-laughing. ‘A leading figure in Damas Rojas.’ The look in his eyes changed from apathy to one of ill intent. ‘Now, what are we going to do with you?’ he said, fixing his eyes on me. Suddenly he grabbed my arm and yanked me to the side. ‘She can’t go. She’s too young,’ he said.

Several people gasped. ‘What?’ screamed Teresa.

‘Children her age are to be placed in orphanages,’ the sergeant said.

Teresa staggered backwards. Her face turned grey and she struggled for breath. Chills ran through me as I remembered the story Teresa had told Paquita about what had happened to her sister in an orphanage. Everything around me turned white.

‘You can’t be serious!’ Carme said, stepping forwards. ‘There is nothing in the order that states that!’

‘No,’ said the sergeant. ‘I am the one who has decided the journey will be too arduous for this child. Look how skinny she is.’

‘Not an orphanage,’ said Teresa, barely able to get the words out. ‘If she can’t come with me then I have a friend who will take her.’

The sergeant lifted his eyebrows. ‘Oh, and what is this friend’s name?’

Despite the panic that must have been muddling Teresa’s thoughts, she realised that he was trying to trick her into revealing Juana’s name.

‘Maria,’ she said, looking pointedly at me. I knew she was hoping that I would understand that she meant Juana. ‘You remember the address, don’t you?’

In the confusion, Teresa must have forgotten that she had given Juana’s address to Ramón, not to me. All I could remember was that Juana lived somewhere called la Barceloneta.

‘Well, she can’t go to your friend anyway,’ the sergeant said. ‘She must go to a Church orphanage!’

Teresa cried out and made a grab for him. One of the Civil Guard lunged forwards and knocked her to the ground with the butt of his rifle. I had a flashback to the death of Papá and ran towards her. Ramón grabbed me and held me close to him. I could feel his heart beating furiously against mine.

The sergeant chuckled. ‘What are you afraid of, Teresa Flores García?’ he asked. ‘That I might send her to one of the convents you burned down? I’m sure the nuns there would be very happy to see her!’

Ramón and I clung to each other when two of the guards tried to pry us apart. But they were much stronger than us, and eventually one guard restrained Ramón while the other dragged me backwards.

‘Ramón! Ramón!’ I screamed, kicking my legs frantically.

‘I’ll find you, Celestina!’ Ramón cried out to me as he and the others were led away. ‘I’ll come back one day, Celestina! I will find you!’

I watched in horror as Ramón and Teresa, along with the others, were marched at gunpoint down the street. I kept my eyes on them until they disappeared around the corner. Each turned to give me one last, desperate look before disappearing from sight.

After that, I was left to sit alone, dazed and with a parched throat, in the courtyard for another hour. Although the weather was hot, I shivered violently.

The sergeant reappeared with a young policeman in tow. ‘The girl should have been sent with her mother,’ the younger man was saying. I realised that he was talking about me and had assumed Teresa was my mother.

‘The girl should have been sent with her mother,’ repeated the sergeant, mimicking the policeman’s Catalan accent. ‘The whole reason I am in Barcelona is because you milksops were too soft on the rioters! Now get her to the priest. He can decide where to send her.’

The policeman’s face turned dark. ‘Come,’ he said, directing me out the gate.

When we were a few blocks away from the station, he turned to me. ‘Listen, do you really know where your mother’s friend lives?’

I nodded although I didn’t know Juana’s exact address.

‘Do you need me to take you there?’ he asked.

I looked into his kind eyes. He reminded me of Anastasio, although he wasn’t quite as handsome. I should have trusted him: he probably could have found Juana in la Barceloneta for me. But after what I had been through, I didn’t trust anybody in a uniform.

‘It’s not far,’ I told him. ‘I can find her myself.’

He nodded and grimaced. ‘That bastard! I know he forgot you the moment we walked out of the gate.’ He gave me a gentle shove with his hand. ‘All right? Are you sure you know where it is?’

‘It’s not far,’ I reassured him.

The policeman watched me to the end of the street. When I turned the corner, I ran for my life. I didn’t think about where I was going, I only wanted to get away from the police station as quickly as possible. When my legs tired, I hid in a doorway
or under a cart until I got my breath back and I was ready to move again.

On one street, a unit of the Civil Guard marched by so I jumped into a courtyard garden. ‘Go away! Get lost!’ a woman yelled at me from a window. I scrambled out of the garden and continued down the street. Barcelona was full of homeless children. No one would have thought to help an eight-year-old girl any more than they would have taken in a stray cat.

I stopped on a corner. Could finding la Barceloneta be so difficult, I wondered. Wasn’t it near the port somewhere? I hurried down a street, past an Arab plying dusty Tabriz rugs, and a spice merchant whose multicoloured trays of saffron, oregano and Indian pepper tickled my nostrils. I must be heading in the right direction, I thought. But then the streets grew wider, and I started passing construction sites where magnificent apartment buildings were being erected. The large rooms and curved façades were very different from the cramped and dismal tenement buildings of the barri Xinès. With their stone, ceramic, wrought-iron and stained-glass embellishments, the buildings looked more like palaces for fairytale princesses and knights than anywhere real people might live.

I ran on, turning this way and that, becoming disoriented when I didn’t seem to be catching any glimpses of the sea. The houses became fewer, and I found myself in a field where a herd of goats and a lone cow were wandering around. What was this place? On the other side of the field was a structure that seemed to rise out of the earth, towering over everything around it. ‘Oh!’ was all I managed to say.

I continued towards the structure and saw from the piles of cement sand, and the workers moving to and fro on scaffolding, that the building was in the process of construction. Although it was still a shell, it was hauntingly, disturbingly beautiful. Gothic spires pointed towards the sky; the clouds moving past them made me dizzy. The structure seemed to be crumbling
even as it was being built: like a gingerbread house melting in the sun. There was a brick wall around the building site, and an assortment of people milling around it. Elegant women in kimono-shaped coats over tailored dress suits posed for men with cameras on tripods; artists sat at easels sketching the building’s progress; I overheard scholars and students debating its artistic, cultural and religious merits.