Golden Earrings (9 page)

Papá nodded. He was about to leave when Juana arrived. Her complexion was wan. She turned even greener when she saw Papá.

‘What is it?’ Teresa asked her. ‘Has someone else been arrested?’

Juana shook her head. ‘I’ve heard the most terrible rumour,’ she said. ‘When the troops arrived in Morocco after that incident at the port, they took ten men off the ship who had thrown their religious medals into the water and shot them as a warning to the others.’

Papá reeled back. His fingers gripped Teresa’s stand, as if he were trying to steady himself. A sick feeling rose in my stomach. Juana’s husband had thrown his medal into the water, but so had a lot of the men. It was Anastasio who did it first: the other men had followed his example. Was it possible that Anastasio had been executed?

‘If those hypocritical bitches hadn’t been at the port that day, none of this would have happened!’ sobbed Juana. ‘They were the ones that set everyone off with their two-faced blessings.’

A look that frightened me fell over Papá’s face. His pupils dilated like those of a crazy man.

Teresa grabbed his shoulders. ‘José, it’s only a rumour! And we’ve heard nothing but lies all week. We risked our lives believing the whole country was behind us.
Estupideces
! This is probably another trick to get us back onto the streets! Why would they be shooting soldiers they have just transported over to Morocco? It sounds like they need everyone they can get!’

Teresa’s logic calmed Papá. He stood up and straightened his clothes. If no other blow had come to my father that day, then perhaps he would have gone quietly to his work at the factory and normal life would have resumed. But then Laieta arrived with more bad news.

‘That bloody Santiago,’ she said. ‘He is thumbing his nose at us. He’s going to march the Saboya Infantry to the wharf today and ship them off to Morocco, as he did Anastasio’s battalion.’

Papá didn’t go back to the factory that day. Instead, we joined the crowd of spectators who watched in silence as the Saboya Infantry was marched down las Ramblas with a guard of troops and mounted policemen. We had risked our lives and gone hungry to show our opposition to the war. Who would take up our cause now? Did we have anyone to represent us in the Cortes? The Radical leaders and Republicans had not been prepared to lead us to revolution; they had been more concerned
with protecting their own political ambitions. The only action available to us — to strike and to rebel — had failed. The footsteps of the marching soldiers stamped out the obvious: we were the downtrodden and always would be.

Ramón hoisted me onto a parked cart so I could see better. I turned to my father, and cringed when I noticed that the mad look had returned to his eyes.

Despite the overwhelming numbers of the police escort, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted out to the soldiers: ‘You are allowing yourselves to be led off to the slaughterhouse!’

No one in the crowd said anything. No one seconded his cry. But Papá wasn’t to be stopped. He shoved his way past the spectators and into the midst of the battalion.

‘Refuse!’ he shouted. ‘You are going to your deaths!’

The soldiers marched on, impervious to my father’s entreaties. He grabbed one man’s shoulder. ‘Young man, is your life not as precious as anybody else’s?’

The soldier’s face remained blank as he shoved Papá away with the butt of his rifle. I had the sense that the soldier’s action was not so much out of anger but for Papá’s own safety. The guards had been ordered to arrest any dissenters.

Teresa pushed through the crowd, trying to reach Papá. ‘José! José!’ she called.

Ramón tried to get through too, but the crowd was packed together. I knew that I had to reach Papá. I had to bring him back.

I jumped off the cart and struggled between the sea of legs, my size to my advantage, and out into the parade. A soldier bumped into me and I fell backwards.

‘Papá!’

I saw him running ahead of me. ‘Don’t go! Don’t go!’ he was shouting to the soldiers.

A policeman grabbed him and flung him into a crowd of women spectators. The women tried to hold on to him but he wrestled himself free.

I struggled to my feet. ‘Papá! Papá!’ My legs were trembling beneath me although I had gained some ground.

But before I could reach him, Papá grabbed the reins of a horse carrying a guard. The horse whinnied and pranced backwards with fear. The guard pulled out his revolver and pointed it at Papá.

‘
Vete, cerdo
! Let go, scumbag!’

‘Papá!’ I tried to scream, but there was no air left in my lungs.

‘You’re a pack of murderers!’ my father shouted at the guard. ‘Nothing but a cheap bunch of murderers!’

The guard tried to kick my father away, but he held onto the reins. The horse reared. A shot rang through the air. Suddenly the spectators were screaming and reeling backwards.

I saw my father clutch his neck and fall to his knees. I ran towards him. When I reached him, he was lying on his back. Blood was spurting from his neck. I pressed my hand to the wound and tried to stem the bleeding, but I could feel the blood pumping out.

A crowd gathered around. The gun had not been fired by the mounted guard but by an officer a few yards away. I remembered Papá’s words:
He’s brought in new troops — a lot of them — from Valencia and Zaragoza. These soldiers will not shoot above our heads.

Papá looked into my eyes. He tried to say something but the words wouldn’t come. His eyes glazed over and I knew that he was gone.

S
aturday was our busiest day for classes at Mamie’s ballet school, so in the evening we’d usually eat a simple meal of chicory leaf salad and saffron rice with pine nuts and bell peppers. ‘Our pick-me-up-gently meal’ Mamie called it. Afterwards we would sit on the sofa in the living room, massaging each other’s feet and watching
Numéro 1
, the Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier variety show, on television. The week that I had started flamenco lessons at the Académie de Flamenco, Mamie seemed perturbed. She sat with her arms folded and pursed her lips. I had an uneasy feeling that she might have found out that I was up to something behind her back. Had she run into Gaby and discovered that we didn’t go and see a film together? I did my best to look innocent, dangling my tired legs over the side of the sofa and playing with my hair. Joe Dassin was singing his hit ‘
L’été indien
’ against a backdrop of shimmering lights. I was humming along with him when Mamie rose and turned off the television. I sat up with a start. But Mamie wasn’t about to remonstrate with me for learning flamenco. She had something else on her mind.

‘I want to tell you about my family,’ she said, her frown lines deepening. ‘The Montellas.’

She stared at me, studying my reaction. There it was again: ‘the Montellas’. What was so significant about the family? I
placed my hands in my lap, letting her know that she had my attention. Mamie cleared her throat.

‘Your grandfather once made me promise never to tell you this …’ She hesitated and fidgeted with her hands. I knew that talking about the past was difficult for her; she had kept her silence for so long. But I didn’t want her to stop now she had built up the courage.

‘Go on,’ I prompted her.

Mamie sucked in a breath. ‘My brother, Xavier, was thirty-nine when he was executed by Franco’s forces,’ she said with measured calm, as if she had been rehearsing this opening for some time. ‘He had been betrayed by someone he loved; someone for whom he had sacrificed himself but who turned on him like a wild animal one foolishly believes has been tamed. Your grandfather and I had to flee Spain, along with my sister, Margarida.’

Mamie paused for a moment, to see if her words were making sense. I found it hard to meet her gaze. I was battling with a sense of shame at my own self-absorption. Why had I always assumed that Mamie was an only child, like myself and my mother? It had never occurred to me that she might have had siblings. I realised it was because I’d only ever seen Mamie in relation to myself, as my grandmother. Not as a person who might have once had parents, brothers and sisters, and youthful ambitions of her own.

‘But that is the end of the story,’ Mamie said, coming to sit beside me. ‘And I must tell you it from the beginning. But before I can do that, there is something else I have to tell you; something that might come as a bit of shock.’

My jaw clenched. I dreaded what I might hear. But hadn’t I asked for this? Hadn’t I been the one to beg for stories about Spain? There was nothing for me to do but nod for Mamie to continue.

Mamie rubbed her hands and glanced at the wedding ring she still wore on her finger. ‘Conchita isn’t a friend of the family,’ she said. ‘She was once my sister-in-law: Xavier’s wife.’

I felt as though I’d been struck by a hammer. I tried to comprehend what Mamie had just said. I saw Conchita as I held her in my head: a beautifully groomed, eccentric old lady who gave me sweets and whom Mamie looked after. Now I found the image shaken up. So the Spanish husband who was never spoken about had been Mamie’s brother? That made reticent Feliu Mamie’s nephew — and my cousin! I thought of him in his brown leather bomber jacket, sitting quietly with Mamie over a cup of coffee and never staying more than half an hour. Questions ran around in my head, but then I remembered I wasn’t allowed to ask them. Instead I made sure I had the facts right.

‘So Conchita was your brother’s wife?’ I asked. ‘She was Conchita Montella by marriage, and you were Evelina Montella before you married Avi?’

Mamie nodded and touched my knee, as if she was trying to soothe me. ‘So you might understand better, I’m going to tell you a story,’ she said. ‘It’s about something that seemed ordinary the day it happened, but soon came to carry great significance. I think it will help you understand the Montellas and our place in Catalan society.’

It was 1927: the fourth year of the rule of General Primo de Rivera. He was the dictator who had overthrown the Cortes, Spain’s parliament, and made Spain prosperous again, lining the pockets of the ‘good families’ of Barcelona, including my own, the Montellas. It was November, and these families had gathered in the Old Cemetery for the Feast of All Souls. The section of the cemetery where our procession was headed had not been part of the architect’s original plan for an egalitarian burial ground that was to be symmetrically laid out, divided by broad, tree-lined avenues, like a well-planned city. We passed under an arched portico and into an empire of neo-gothic and neo-classical mausolea and crypts with monuments that had
been created by famous sculptors. It was where the rich of Barcelona buried their dead.

I cast my eye over the gathering. It was the same collection of faces that I saw everywhere: at church, at the opera, at any significant social event. These were the elite who had controlled the Catalan economy for almost two centuries. They kept their wealth intact through intermarriage and the custom of a single heir, so family fortunes were never diluted. It seemed everyone there that day was only a step or two removed from a Güell, a López or a Girona. Even the tombs bore the names of the families who still influenced Barcelona: the Nadals; the Serras; the Formigueras. Except my family, of course: the Montellas. We were the
nous rics
, the ‘newly rich’— something Pare hoped to correct by marrying me off to a son of an established family whose declining fortune might cause him to find me attractive not only for my youthful charms but also my substantial dowry.

The gathering separated, with each family heading in the direction of their mausoleum. I linked arms with my mother and we followed Pare to the part of the cemetery where the Montella family’s tomb had been built. It was as grand as any other in the section, fashioned from Carrara marble and covered in carvings of beautiful doves, but so far it contained only two coffins. It had been commissioned by my grandfather, Ignaci Montella, who had made his fortune in Puerto Rico. He now lay at peace there with his wife, Elvira, who had died young and left my father an only child.

While Pare strolled ahead, enjoying the parklike atmosphere of the cemetery, my mother and I took a detour to look at our favourite sculpture. It was a reproduction of Federico Fabiani’s famous statue of a winged angel lifting the soul of a young woman heavenwards. There were many beautiful sculptures in the cemetery, but this one held a special attraction for me: it was somehow comforting and I didn’t fear death when I gazed
at it. But what did I know of death? I was only eighteen and had no inkling of the carnage that was to come.

‘Excuse me, senyora Montella. May I take a picture of you with your daughter?’

We turned to see the society writer from
Diario de Barcelona
smiling at us from beneath his hooked moustache. Before my mother had a chance to answer, he signalled to his photographer, but my mother raised her hand to cover my face.

‘That is out of the question,’ she told the reporter firmly. ‘My daughter isn’t out in society yet.’

At my age, I should have already made my debut. But Pare said I needed to learn to ‘talk without stuttering and stammering’ before he would give my mother permission to bring me out. That was why he had finally agreed to Olga. My ballet teacher had arrived at our house the week before in a cloud of Guerlain’s Shalimar perfume and with a Fabergé pendant dangling from her swan-like throat. She had been a dancer in St Petersburg and had fled the city during the Revolution, escaping on a steamer bound for Sweden. Olga had already filled my head with such romantic stories that even if she didn’t build my confidence, she would at least make my life infinitely more interesting. Her presence inspired terror and adoration in people: a combination Pare had hoped would shock me out of my silence. Whether it would or not I didn’t know, or care. I was simply happy to be studying ballet at last.

The reporter and his photographer mumbled their apologies and scurried away, and Mama and I continued on to the family tomb. When Pare heard us approaching, he turned around and lifted his eyebrows as if to ask where Xavier and Margarida were. I shrugged in reply. I hadn’t seen them since the entrance gate. They were twins and from childhood had often disappeared together for private conversations or shared adventures.

Pare had just lit the candles in the doorway of the mausoleum when donya Elisa de Figueroa, Xavier’s mother-
in-law, came to greet us, along with donya Esperanza de Figueroa, the ninety-year-old matriarch of the de Figueroa family, and donya Josefa Manzano, whose husband owned a shipping company.

‘Where is Xavier?’ asked donya Josefa. ‘I must congratulate him. He played so beautifully at my soirée the other evening. I knew that he was talented, but his touch … well, it is simply sublime. He plays as well as any pianist I have heard in Paris or Vienna.’

‘He showed a talent for music from a young age,’ my mother said, lowering her eyes humbly but smiling at the compliment.

‘Hah!’ said donya Esperanza, waving her bejewelled hand. ‘It is more than a talent. It is a gift!’

‘He paints beautifully too,’ added donya Elisa. ‘It’s a pity that such a talent is wasted on a man. If he had been a daughter, donya Rosita, you could have married him off into royalty without so much as a curtsey.’

The women laughed together. It was what Margarida would have called the ‘society lady’ laugh’: a bit too forced and a bit too shrill.

‘Xavier won’t have much time for those pursuits any more, I’m afraid,’ said Pare, walking down the steps of the mausoleum to greet the women. ‘We are going to invest in banking. I’ll need his help in the business more than ever next year.’

Donya Josefa nodded her approval at my father’s policy of diversification. Out of the women, she was the one who best understood the business world because she had helped her husband build his company from the ground up. I had heard her say to Xavier once: ‘If your father hadn’t taken Ignaci Montella’s fortune and invested it in textiles, iron ore mines and machinery, the whole lot would have disappeared when Spain lost the colonies.’

‘Yes, I suppose he will have less time for artistic pursuits,’ said donya Esperanza, with a wink at my mother. ‘Newlyweds
are usually kept very busy … and we are so hoping for the patter of little feet before long.’

‘Here comes the beautiful bride with her father now,’ said Pare, nodding in the direction of the path.

We all turned to see Conchita making her way towards us with don Carles de Figueroa. The late morning sun glinting off her glossy black hair and her porcelain skin made it easy to see why many considered her the most beautiful woman in Barcelona. She was stylish too. While the other society wives of her age were still being dressed by the houses of Vionnet and Patou, she had discovered the couturière Coco Chanel. Conchita was looking impossibly chic in her
poverty de luxe
wool jersey dress.

‘So simple, so elegant … so French,’ said donya Josefa, admiring the tailoring of the dress.

Don Carles and Pare stepped away from the gathering and were soon involved in a lively discussion.

‘What are they talking about?’ asked donya Josefa.

‘The demands of the workers, unfortunately,’ said my mother.

Donya Esperanza shook her head. ‘I will never forget that terrible time in 1909, and those heathens who burned the churches.’

Donya Elisa put her hand on her heart. ‘I was terrified of the mobs shouting “All or None!” in the streets. It was ludicrous! If we had sent our sons to Cuba, who would have been left to run the factories and create jobs? The country would have collapsed.’

My mother flinched, recalling a bad memory. ‘I never made it to the wharf that day the trouble started. Evelina was only a baby and she had come down with a terrible fever. I sent my maid and housekeeper instead to give those brave young men our support … but they threw the medals into the water and horribly abused my servants.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ said donya Esperanza. ‘Poor Maria Parreño was pushed over by one of their brutish women. It gave her such a shock.’

‘It irks me what they write in their “workers’” newspapers about our husbands and families,’ said my mother. ‘It’s as if we are monsters. But when a man in one of our factories was badly hurt, Leopold and Xavier were the first to line up to offer their blood for a transfusion. Besides, who do they think is funding the construction of the Sagrada Família, the parks, charitable schools and other public works?’

‘They don’t understand,’ said donya Elisa. ‘If we gave them all our money, it would be gone on gambling, drink and whores in a week. They don’t know how to handle wealth any more than they know how to eat properly with a knife and fork. They don’t understand the responsibility we bear … and I guarantee that if we gave it to them, they wouldn’t want it.’

‘The Socialists say that the workers should run the factories,’ said donya Josefa. ‘Tell me, is Russia better off now that the workers run the factories and riffraff has taken over the palace?’

Donya Esperanza laughed. ‘Well, as my dear late husband used to say: “Even the cats want shoes nowadays!”’

Conchita, who had no head for politics, stifled a yawn and leaned towards me. ‘What do you think of la senyoreta Dalmau’s dress?’ she asked, nodding her head in the direction of the Dalmau family’s tomb, where the youngest daughter of the family was standing on the steps with her brother. Senyoreta Dalmau was wearing a printed knit dress. It seemed perfectly respectable to me.

‘You’d think with the amount of money her family has, she’d dress better,’ Conchita said. ‘That olive colour and those big flowers make her look like a sofa.’