The Poet's Wife (17 page)

Many of our neighbours do what the rebels ask, yet there are more still who don’t. Early the next morning fighter planes begin to fly low and open fire with machine-guns. The second we hear the first shower of bullets, we all rush down to the cellar where we sit in pitch darkness amongst vintage bottles of sherry and broken chests of drawers, our hands covering our ears and our hearts pounding against our chests. It seems to last an eternity and many more are forced to surrender during those long hours. It amazes me that we aren’t killed. When we finally go upstairs again, we are met with many shattered windows and broken ornaments, yet Carmen de las Estrellas has miraculously escaped any structural damage.

When the body and soul of the Albaicín finally falls to the nationalists, I cry out against it from the depths of my soul. But my nerves are so frayed after these days of fighting that I can’t deny it is almost a relief. For the time being at least, the sound of firearms has fallen silent, apart from the sporadic burst of gunfire. I stay in my room and sleep in fits and starts. One week later, the Republicans begin to bomb the city from the air in futile attempts to reclaim Granada and we start to exist in a living nightmare.

The Albaicín has become a ghost district – once full of the sounds of children playing and fruit and vegetable hawkers calling up to windows, there are almost no signs of life in the streets around our house. People have either been taken or they have been killed. But my uncle hasn’t lied – Carmen de las Estrellas has not been raided.

‘
I
’ve decided
to come with you.’

‘You
have
?’ Sara Rodriguez tears the hat from her head and flings it up to the sky. As she catches it, she whirls round to look at me, barely able to contain her joy. ‘I knew you’d say yes eventually.’

‘You did not.’

‘I did. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because the fact is we’re going!’ She throws her arms around me and begins talking in a hurried whisper. ‘My parents weren’t happy for me to go alone, but now they know you’re coming I’m sure they won’t mind. They think you’re far more sensible than me. Have you told your parents yet?’

I stare back at the exited face of my friend, made even more beautiful by her excitement. The mention of my parents hits me with a jolt. I have absolutely no idea how they’ll react. And then there is the other matter of being secretly terrified at the prospect of being a nurse. I know I have to do this – for my own sanity, for the Republic – but the truth is that I’m scared stiff. Looking at Sara’s face though, I know I can’t share this with her. Besides, staying in Granada wouldn’t be any better, because everything we have come to know and understand here has been turned upside down.

‘I’ll talk to them tonight. When are you thinking of going?’

Sara fixes me with her gaze, hands on hips. ‘Tomorrow night.’

‘Tomorrow night,
estás loca
? How can we possibly organise ourselves that quickly?’

‘What do you need to organise, Isabel? Just throw some clothes in a bag and say
adiós
.’

‘But—’

‘I know some people who are leaving tomorrow and I want to go with them. I’d feel happier going with a group than making our own way up there, don’t you agree?’

As I stare into Sara’s sincere face, I feel my stomach lurch.

I have seen Father cry before, but I could never have prepared myself for this. Mother even has to send everyone else out of the room so they don’t witness the sight of him on his knees, begging me to stay between sobs. As she closes the door behind her with a bang and leans heavily against it, my eyes flit anxiously back and forth between the two of them.

‘But why, Isabel?’ Father asks. ‘You are sixteen years of age. Sixteen. You’re still a child. And that aside, I don’t understand
why
you feel the need to leave us and care for men who are fighting for what? For nothing! The Republic is doomed. You’re chasing a dream.’

I am horrified. ‘You don’t believe that! You’re worried about me and I understand that but after
everything
you and Mother have taught me, I simply don’t believe you mean that.’

I’ve never argued with Father in my life. From the floor, he shakes his head and heaves himself into a nearby armchair, collapsing into it. Seeing the determination on my face, he tries a different trick.

‘You don’t know anything about nursing.’

‘I’ll learn.’

He looks me directly in the eye. ‘But you’re scared of blood, Isabel.’

‘I…’ My cheeks burn crimson and I’m furious with him for saying that, and even more furious that he knows. I force myself to reply, my voice small and tight. ‘I am
not
scared of blood, Father.’

‘You’ll learn how to amputate legs? To treat gangrenous wounds? To sew up severed flesh?’

I glance at Mother. She stands there, leaning against the door listening to our exchange and, for once, not commenting. I long for her opinion – to know whether she supports my decision or feels the same as Father – but she remains silent and I can read nothing in her face. I take a deep breath.

‘I’ll
learn
.’

Father stares at me. Then as he stands up and walks past Mother, I see her catch his hand and give it a gentle squeeze. He stops in his tracks, takes a deep breath and then exchanges a look with Mother. As he opens the door, Fernando falls forwards. Just before Father leaves the room, he turns to me and looks me straight in the eye. ‘I hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for, Isabel, because I fear you do not.’

I never imagined that Father could wound me like that. I read Mother’s silence as acceptance, yet the fact that I am travelling far from home without the blessing of both my parents affects me enormously. As I lie in bed, my bag packed beside me, I feel tears streaming down my face and want nothing more than for Father to come to me; for him to hold me in his arms and tell me he is proud of me.

I suddenly don’t feel like I’m a sixteen-year-old girl craving adventure, longing to break free from the restraints of my home and my virtual imprisonment – I am a five year old sitting under my orange tree on my father’s knee as he reads me a story; I am a seven-year-old child racing down the snow-covered mountain into his waiting arms; I am a ten-year-old girl reciting my favourite poem to his proud clapping; I am thirteen years old at the coast, skimming the shore for beautiful shells and stones and collecting them in a cap to put in the display cabinet back home. And in all these memories Father is by my side and I find myself crying even more because somehow I have wronged him again and again over the years, loving him but being embarrassed by him; never really accepting him. I regret it deeply and want, more than I’ve ever wanted anything before, for him to accept my decision now.

I believe that there are certain occasions in our lives when we desire something so passionately that the world can’t deny us that wish. And so he comes, pushing open the door quietly and sitting at the foot of my bed. I’m sure he thinks I’m asleep and all he wants to do is sit there and watch me. Even without opening my eyes, I can sense it’s Father and through my tears I blindly grope my way into his arms and we sit there for what feels like an eternity, silently crying on one another’s shoulders. But from that moment on I know without a shadow of a doubt that he supports me for what I am going to do. And that he is proud of me.

I
t would arouse
suspicion if everyone walks through the streets to see me off so eventually, it’s agreed that Mother and Joaquín will accompany me to the starting point of the convoy and I’ll say goodbye to everyone else at home. I’ve never had to consider farewells before; not properly, as I’ve never been away from Carmen de las Estrellas for more than a couple of nights. I find that I’m terrible at it and wonder if my heart might break as I go through my siblings, Mar and her children who have become like family to me, my beloved Abuela Aurelia who says nothing but merely smiles that knowing smile of hers, and Father. I realise for the first time that even with all my noble ideas and the adventure I think I want, now that I’m actually leaving I feel less sure of myself. I know I’m doing the right thing, but many times over the following days I ask myself if I’m really strong enough for all this. Because Father’s right of course – the sight of blood makes me feel dreadful. Yet here I am, leaving home to be a nurse. Am I mad?

Mother, Joaquín and I walk through the streets quietly, our heads bowed low so we won’t catch anyone’s eye. I think about all those hours I’ve spent in my room, dreaming of a new, free and exciting life for myself. I now ask myself if those dreams were so appealing because of the very fact they were unreal. For a girl with a vivid imagination, is there any more wonderful place than a beautiful big house with winding corridors and hidden nooks and crannies, or a garden filled with trees that have, over the years, become as familiar as friends? Or a view over the sloping roofs of the city and the Alhambra framed by the sierras? I have everything: love, affection, family, learning, encouragement, friends…and if I feel my courage slightly fail me, it is because I suddenly realise that everything I’ve taken for granted will no longer be within reach.

But the second I spot Sara leaning against a wall, I remember why we are doing this: to hold together all those strands of my life I realise are so important to me, we need to play our role in helping to re-establish democracy.

Just before I climb into the van, Joaquín hugs me for a long time, and standing back, his dark eyes solemnly scan my face. Then Mother says something to me that I’ll never forget.

‘If I were a bit younger, Isabel, if I did not have everyone to care for, you know I should come with you, don’t you?’

As she hugs me, I nod my head, biting my lip to stop myself from crying. I can’t identify a time in my life when I’ve loved my parents as much as I do at that moment and I vow to myself that, no matter what, I will make my family proud of me.

B
arcelona

10
^th
August 1936

D
earest Mother and Father
,

I am here! I have made it to Barcelona! We’ve been here two days and leave in another two. We’ll be going to a mountain location somewhere outside the city for intensive training before we’re divided up and taken to different parts of the Republican zone. I don’t mind where I go, I just hope with all my heart that Sara and I aren’t separated. I can’t tell you how fascinating it is to be in Barcelona and I’ll never forget this. I only wish you could see it too. First of all, the architecture is so completely different from anything I’ve seen in Andalucía
.
But then once you manage to tear your eyes from the gothic and modernist spires, you see something even more astonishing at ground level. I’d never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself, but this city is a thriving model of socialist ideals – it’s a living microcosm of Republican Spain!

Do you remember that book we used to have about communist Soviet Union? Well, this is exactly how I imagined it: men and women dressed in overalls, controlling public services and working in collectivised projects; people calling each other ‘comrade’ rather than using ‘
usted
’; loudspeakers booming out songs of revolution from every street corner and a great many barrel organs playing the ‘
Internationale
’. I tell you, things are functioning still in Barcelona in a way that they certainly aren’t back at home. I’ve seen people playing games of pelota and the theatres and cinemas are generally running.

But alongside all this, I can’t deny there are things I find difficult. I’m confused – is this the ultimate aim of socialist living, that there is no such thing as privilege or private ownership? The workers seem to be running the services efficiently and uncomplainingly and the atmosphere is charged with energy, but I keep thinking about our family and how wealthy we are. I believe in the Republic and, yes, I believe in democracy. Yet in the eyes of these workers we’d have to give up the privilege of living in such a luxurious home. There are many things I’m willing to part with in my life, but Carmen de las Estrellas? I must admit I’m both a little fascinated and horrified by this way of life. If I’d been brought up in a working-class family like many of the girls I’m now with, I might be able to accept it more easily.

Also, I’ve seen a darker side to Barcelona that doesn’t sit easily. There may be plenty of victorious slogans of comradeship and egalitarianism painted on walls, but I’ve also seen people forming queues literally miles long to be handed a single loaf of bread at the end of it. And right alongside collectivised cafés, I’ve seen a burnt-out church being gutted by a group of workers. I have to say I find the intensity of feeling against the church quite disturbing. Virtually every church has vanished and in their place stands black, smoking, burnt-out shells which the workers have pounced on. I know it’s not as though we’re practising Catholics, yet surely murdering priests and burning down churches isn’t the answer? And what has happened to all the paintings and statues from inside the churches? Clearly they’ve been looted, but where has everything been taken? One church’s front wall has been blown away and is being used as a refugee colony. The thin children huddled under the arches looked terrified. And though I’ve not seen them, many more I hear are being used to house (and torture?) nationalist prisoners. The very thought of it sends shivers down my spine.

But enough of me. I am fine and healthy and everything I’m seeing here is just fascinating. How is everyone at home? I do so miss you all and wish you could be here with me.

With all my love and I’ll write again as soon as I reach the centre,

Isabel

I
sleep
with the first letter we receive from Isabel beneath my pillow, my fingertips resting on the comforting coolness of the paper. Dear Isabel. Though she’s been away a short time, how I feel her absence terribly and know that her sweet presence would help calm my nerves. Not knowing when I shall next see her tears at my heart, but alongside this, I feel prouder than ever that my eldest child, with her youth and her fear of blood and injury, has left the comfort of our home to become a Republican nurse.

But just two days after this first letter arrives, I need her more than ever. I am awoken early one morning, too early an hour even for Aurelia, to loud and frenzied knocking on our front door. Eduardo has not heard it and, sensing that it is bad news, I leave him sleeping and hurriedly slip on my linen robe. The tiles of the floor feel cool under my bare feet as I run along the corridor and slip down the stairs. Everything is so still and quiet and I feel the silky coolness of the air before the cloying summer heat wraps itself around me. It is the kind of morning that should, on any normal day, be cause for rejoicing.

‘Who is it?’ I call through the door.

‘Vicente.’

The barricade has now come down but it still takes considerable time to unbolt the three locks we have constructed on the front door.

‘Luisa,’ he says, as he slips through. ‘Is Eduardo awake?’

I shake my head. ‘No, still sleeping. Vicente, what are you doing in Granada? Are you—’

He takes my arm and steers me through to the kitchen and closes the door behind him.

‘Luisa, we’re going to leave Spain. We’ve been staying with my parents for the past few days. They don’t think it’s necessary, but I do. Things are bad now, but they’re going to get worse,
much
worse.’ He runs a hand over his unshaven jaw and then grasps onto my wrist and speaks in hushed tones. ‘Have you heard the news yet about García Lorca?’

I feel myself stiffen. ‘No, what news?’

‘A couple of days ago he was taken by the
guardia
civil
. Nobody knows where he is for sure, the papers this morning are full of speculation. But Luisa, you need to know that they’re all saying he’s dead.’

Vicente’s hand on my wrist suddenly feels unbearably tight and I shake myself free. ‘What?’ I say weakly.

‘
Muerto
. Some are saying that he died of health problems, even though everyone knows he was fit as a fiddle, only thirty-eight.’ I lower myself into a wooden chair, the insistent tick-tock of the conservatory grandfather clock louder than ever. ‘Others are saying he had an accident and fell down the stairs. It’s lies, all lies.’

‘
Dios
,’ I breathe quietly. ‘Edu…’

‘I wanted to come and tell you, and to say goodbye.’

I look up and feel a rush of loathing and gratitude in equal measure for my brother-in-law who has brought such devastating news.

Vicente pulls another chair out from under the table and it scrapes across the floor. He sits down heavily. I stare hard at the table and notice for the first time small initials that my children have etched into its surface. Why have I never noticed these before?

‘Are you listening to me, Luisa?’

I nod weakly.

‘I advise you to leave, all of you. And take your…your extra family, whoever they are, with you. Do you hear? At the very least, get out of Granada. Go to the Republican zone, to Madrid or Barcelona.’

I look at Vicente and take it all in, the grey shadows, the black stubble on his chin and the fear in his hazel eyes.

‘Where will you go?’ I whisper.

‘I’ve secured passages to Argentina. We leave in two days’ time.’

‘Argentina? So far—’

‘Please say goodbye to Eduardo for me and convey my…my regret at the news of García Lorca. I know how highly he regarded him.’ Vicente pauses. ‘I must go.’ He pushes his chair back abruptly, stands up and makes his way towards the door.

‘Vicente,’ I call. He stops, hand on the door. ‘Won’t you stay and say goodbye to Eduardo yourself?’

He sighs deeply. ‘If he is sleeping,’ he holds up a hand, ‘let him sleep. He can remain in blissful ignorance a few minutes longer. I know Miguel has placed a safeguard on your house. But it won’t last, believe me. Either he or someone else will overturn it. Remember how many other right-wing groups there are in Granada, taking the law completely into their own hands.’ He looks at me grimly. ‘Forget about García Lorca, just get yourselves out of Granada.’ And with that, he is gone.

Within another couple of days, Federico García Lorca’s death is confirmed, though the details conveyed through the press are still unclear. Eduardo takes the news even worse than I fear. When Vicente leaves the house that morning, I sit at the kitchen table for what feels like an eternity, tracing my fingers over the grooves of childish graffiti that travel like delicate spider webs around the length of the table. I want him to hear it from me, not from the wireless or the papers that fling out a constant stream of contradictory messages. He takes the news quietly, which concerns me a great deal more than if he had flung his arms about and cried; at least then I could try to comfort him. Without even looking at me, or letting me near him, he leaves the kitchen, pushing past Pablo who is standing in the doorway. Pablo stares at me with his huge eyes – eyes that I always feel understand so much – and we listen as the front door bangs loudly and we hear Eduardo’s footsteps clatter down the street.

All that day, I am on edge, aware of every sound in the house as I wait for my husband to return. When Eduardo does eventually come back, late that night, he goes straight to our room, ignoring the group of us who have sat up in the kitchen awaiting him. Juan and Joaquín jump up from the table when they see him, but Aurelia mutters something under her breath to them and they slowly sit down again as I rush up the stairs.

As soon as I enter our bedroom, the smell of whisky is overpowering. I close the door behind me and stand for a moment, making out Eduardo’s slight frame slumped across the bed.

‘Edu,’ I say tentatively. He doesn’t reply and I reach a hand out and run my fingers over his hot cheek. He murmurs, and turns his face up slightly towards me.

‘Luisa,’ he whispers.

‘Edu, where have you been? We have been so worried about you.’

‘Luisa,’ he whispers again, his voice slightly stronger. ‘
Agua
. I need
agua
.’

I hurry round to the bedside table and fill up a large tumbler then return to the bed and help Eduardo to sit up. He drinks the whole glass of water in one, droplets escaping and running down his chin.

‘Where have you been?’ I ask again.

He hiccups and lets the glass fall limp in his hands. His head drops forwards and dark, sweaty curls fall down over his face.

‘I’ve been out,’ he mumbles.

‘
Dios
, Eduardo, do not play with me!’ I place both of my hands on either side of his face and tilt it backwards so that he is forced to look at me. ‘Talk to me. Tell me.’

He is clearly inebriated and finding it difficult to talk, but I am suddenly furious with him. I know he is suffering, but he has made us suffer in turn.

‘If you must know,’ he replies, trying to focus on me, ‘I have been to every single bookshop in Granada.’ He hiccups again and removes himself from my grasp, leans unsteadily over to re-fill his tumbler of water and takes small sips. I wait for him to continue.

‘But every bookshop told me the same thing
: No, we don’t sell García Lorca’s works here any more.
’ He puffs out his chest and deepens his voice, impersonating the booksellers. I frown. My husband already owns every single book that García Lorca has ever published, some even in several editions, but I know it would help not one bit to mention this to him. I too feel the anger deep in the pit of my stomach that García Lorca, who not so long ago was the celebrated son of Granada and probably one of the greatest poets of our country, has now been murdered and, as though matters cannot be worse, his books are probably all in the process of being destroyed.

I feel so tired all of a sudden. Where has all this hatred come from? True, I have never been as passionate about García Lorca as my husband, but the man was a gifted, gentle artist. I heard the murmurings of his sexual leanings, was
that
his crime? And so what if he did prefer men? García Lorca was a pacifist who believed in truth and beauty and freedom
and Granada should feel proud of him, not murder him. I feel my fists clenching and I look at Eduardo who has slumped back against the pillow, his mouth hanging open.

‘What did they all say when you asked them what had happened to his books?’ I ask quietly.

‘Nobody could give me a good reason,’ he replies slowly, his jaw slack. ‘They just said… that his poetry was… no longer deemed suitable for general reading.’ The effort of these final words seems to tip him over the edge and his head hangs heavily forward. At first I think he is crying, but peering down I realise he has fallen fast asleep. I sit there for a while, listening to his heavy, drunken breathing and the hushed footsteps along the corridor outside of everyone making their way to bed. Then I gently remove his shirt and his shoes and pull him down the bed by the ankles before placing a thin sheet over him. Without even having the energy to get undressed myself, I crawl into bed on the other side, pull the sheet up beneath my chin and stare open-eyed at the ceiling.

From the death of García Lorca onwards, one piece of shattering news after another makes its way to the doorstep of Carmen de las Estrellas. I become obsessed, I must confess, with counting the heads of my extended family, checking everyone is present and correct. More stories begin to reach me of the group of friends with whom I held all those lively meetings in the courtyard during the years of the Republic, many of whom I had continued to visit periodically, though far less frequently in recent months. True, they were on the whole far more voluble in their beliefs than I had ever been. Yet they were good, decent people. A few of them simply vanish, normally at night and without a trace, either with or without their children. One charismatic woman whose company I particularly enjoyed witnesses her husband being killed with a single shot to the head and then her eldest son is forced to watch as she is brutally raped before ‘Red whore’ is painted in large, angry letters on their front door. One month later, she commits suicide. Others I know flee across the border to France or even further afield to Mexico or the Soviet Union, whilst the wife of one of the teachers from the Republican school my children attended is forced into prostitution after her husband is seized and taken to prison.