Hunger Town (54 page)

Marie slumped on her stool. ‘My imagination, Judith.
Mon Dieu
. What I didn't think of. And behold it seems they are friendly. Only doing some routine task.'

We watched their progress down the road. Marie poured us a cup of coffee from our vacuum flask and we sat in the sun confident and relaxed.

Then it happened. Two of the soldiers stopped at one of the houses. There were no fences so they simply tramped across the small garden, kicking aside the plants. They hammered on the door and when there was no response butted it open with their rifles. There were shouts and screams from inside and they emerged dragging a young boy between them. He was gangling and thin and must have been no more than fifteen. Several women pursued them sobbing and pleading. One clutched a soldier's arm and he flung her off. She fell and lay on the ground beating the earth with her fists and weeping hysterically. The other women still followed hurling shouts and abuse until one of the soldiers swung around and pointed his gun at the woman on the road. He snarled something and Marie gasped.

‘What did he say?'

‘He said if they didn't shut their mouths he'd come and use their pretty daughters.'

More women had now emerged from their houses and as the soldiers manhandled the struggling crying boy down the road they stood a silent accusing line of witnesses.

The boy's mother had now struggled to her feet and was running after them, screaming.

Again they turned on her levelling their guns. She halted and cringed, her whole body crouched over with despair. The boy still wept as they dragged him along. He didn't fight any more but was limp and lifeless as a rag doll.

Halfway down the street they released him and stood back. A sigh went up from the women. It had all been just a terrible game. His mother took a faltering step towards him. He hesitated a second, glancing briefly and fearfully at his captors. They were smiling. He ran. They raised their rifles and shot him twice in the back. He threw up his arms and fell and a shaft of sunlight impaled him.

Shock drove me to my feet as I prepared to run toward the boy. Marie grabbed me. ‘No, Judith.' She clutched my arm. ‘Sit. You can do nothing.'

‘It's Harry,' I gasped, ‘in Victoria Square. He looked like that, Marie.'

‘It's not Harry, Judith. Nothing like.'

‘Yes,' I sobbed. ‘You're wrong, Marie. It's Harry.'

‘You can do nothing,' she insisted. ‘Nothing.'

So we just sat there, shivering uncontrollably while the women silently brought a wooden hurdle, lifted the boy onto it, and carried his body into one of the houses. We were ashamed to be so frightened for ourselves and confused as to whether it was more precarious to stay or dare leaving. There was a hideous menace in the power we had seen so suddenly unleashed and a cold-blooded brutality beyond our comprehension.

We felt defenceless.

The soldiers were still occupied searching houses but now they were at the far end of the village.

We determined to risk creeping away as unobtrusively as possible, grabbed our belongings and, on legs boneless and unsteady, stumbled back towards our car. We passed the soldiers' truck but avoided looking at the driver. With trembling fingers Marie unlocked our car door and we tumbled in, grateful for the illusion of safety.

Marie drove a little faster than usual jolting the car nerve-rackingly over the potholes.

It felt strange, even grotesque, to return to the normality of our hotel and the benign smiles of the plump proprietor who inquired casually whether we had enjoyed our day. We couldn't tell him that we had had a glimpse of hell.

That night we lay awake for a long time. Eventually I heard Marie's steady breathing but still the vision of the boy, strangely fair for a Spaniard, reminded me of Harry. I sat up and with apologies to sleeping Marie put on the dim electric light. I took a piece of paper and began to draw.

The boy was spread-eagled on the ground, impaled, as I had seen him, in that shaft of sunlight. Circling him was a band of soldiers but it was their boots that I emphasised—those hellish leather boots that strode the earth with inhuman possessiveness. The boots were monstrous but the bodies above them were miniscule and the faces were the faces of slavering wolves. I wrote FASCISM below the drawing and let it speak for itself.

Marie stirred and woke. ‘Whatever are you doing, Judith?'

‘Something I must.'

She got up, came to my side and looked down at my drawing. It was rough but she saw its Goya-style brutality. ‘Judith, you must destroy that. If anyone here found it,
mon Dieu
 …'

I continued to refine it and she sat beside me silent and anxious. I only had pencils and without fine pens had to be satisfied. Although less than perfect it still had the force of my passionate anger—the same anger that had driven me to draw Harry crucified against the palings of Victoria Square.

‘It is wonderful, Judith. Wonderful. But you must destroy it.'

For a minute I said nothing, studying my cartoon. I recognised her good sense, knew with almost a physical pain how much she had done for me and for Harry and how much I was risking. ‘No, Marie,' I said. ‘I'm sending it to the editor of the
Daily Herald.
'

‘Are you mad?'

‘No,' I said, ‘not completely indiscreet. I won't send it to the office but to the editor's home address and I'll fold it and send it as a small letter rather than in a large flat envelope. But I must send it, Marie.'

I hesitated, fearing to sound self-indulgently dramatic. Then I said in a rush, ‘To not protest would leave a wound on my soul that might never heal. It would continue to weep, Marie, like the tears of that distraught mother and I would know that the one thing I had power to do I was too afraid to do. I could make rescuing Harry an excuse but …' I stopped and looked at her helplessly.

She put her hand over mine and gazed at the cartoon. ‘Yes, Judith, you are right. We must not make excuses. Send your work but at the same time send your letters to your mother and father and Winnie so that letters to Australia might cover any suspicion about a letter to England.'

I had drawn it on lighter paper and now folded it and slipped it into an envelope. I searched out the home address of the editor, which he had given me along with his phone number. By the time it reached London and he published it we would be gone from Spain with Harry.

The next morning we went out to our nearby cafe for coffee and breakfast. Neither of us felt hungry but it was necessary to behave normally. Whether many people knew about the tragic event in the village, we didn't know. We should at least appear to struggle out like tourists, even if shocked ones.

But the news had reached Sotrondio. A few coffee drinkers glanced at us uneasily and, when they left, avoided looking at us. However a couple approached us: ‘We are very sorry, English ladies,' they apologised. ‘What terrible things you will think of Spain.'

It was hard to respond appropriately. To say we were appalled and devastated by such barbarity would only increase their unhappiness on our behalf. To pretend it had not affected us would be a lie and present us as heartless. We compromised. As Marie understood their Spanish she acknowledged their distress and thanked them for their concern but she made no comment on the shooting.

We lingered in the cafe, undecided about what to do next. We were afraid to visit another village and yet our drawing excursions gave us the excuse we needed to stay in Sotrondio. Already we had detected a slight surprise that we stayed on. Packing up and leaving immediately was what most people would do after such a fearful experience in a foreign country. If we didn't have to stay, why did we?

So in a quandary we sat on sipping our third cup of coffee. How I longed for an Australian cup of tea. The cafe emptied.

But there was one man left. He read a paper in a far corner and we sensed that he watched us. I looked at Marie uneasily: ‘Should we leave?'

From where she sat she could observe him clearly. ‘No, I don't think so. He doesn't look threatening.'

We drank the remainder of our coffee, making it last. He folded his paper, put on his hat and stood up, deliberately, it seemed. He made his way between the tables so that he might pass us. He doffed his hat and murmured, in English: ‘Good morning, ladies. A lovely day.'

Marie narrowed her eyes slightly and assessed him. I saw a short, spare man with a square face and receding hair. His eyes behind steel-rimmed glasses were tired but sharply intelligent.

‘Artists, I believe.' He smiled down at us.

‘Yes.' Marie was cautious.

He looked regretful. ‘But Spain is not a good place for artists these days.'

Was he going to make the ubiquitous apology for our experience, just like the others? I felt disappointed.

‘I believe,' he continued, ‘that you are fortunate in having a friend here to help you.'

Marie took another sip of the dregs of her coffee and watched him over the rim of her cup. She was still suspicious and I was nervous. She didn't hurry to reply and at last gave a brittle laugh: ‘Not really a friend. An old lover. Garcia was his name I think. It's so long ago. But I've had second thoughts. Maybe it's not good to dig up the past. His wife mightn't welcome my sudden arrival.'

He looked at her with amusement. Clearly, he didn't believe her. But for some strange reason his disbelief seemed to please him.

‘Maybe you have other friends here … beside Garcia. The young make so many friends and so quickly.'

There was something odd about this conversation that disturbed me. It wasn't the words—they were innocuous enough—it was something I couldn't quite define.

His expression remained bland. ‘I'm sure you'll enjoy catching up with … old friends.'

‘Up to now it's been a futile search,' Marie sounded resigned.

‘Futile, you say? That's frustrating. And sad.' He looked sympathetic. ‘I'm sure that need not be the case. Oh, excuse me, ladies, I didn't introduce myself. I'm the local doctor.' He offered his hand and we each shook it. Was I mistaken or did he press my hand a little too firmly? And look too keenly at the wedding ring on my other hand?

He waited expectantly. I took the initiative: ‘I'm Judith,' I said, ‘and this is my friend Marie. We're Australians.'

Briefly he looked taken aback. Then he said, ‘It's a pleasure, ladies. My best wishes for all your endeavours. I hope you find your friend.'

He moved away and out the door.

‘Judith,' Marie was breathless with hope, ‘he knows something.'

‘Yes,' I said and then was silent.

My thoughts in turmoil tumbled over each other. I hardly dared to let myself hope. I had lived so long in doubt and fear about Harry that this abnormal state of suspended life had become my real world, everything else a mere dream. In my worst moments I had seen myself like the ghostly figures of my childhood flitting along the wharf doomed to endless futile searching.

At last I managed to ask, ‘Can we trust him? There are eyes everywhere watching us. It could be a trap.'

‘Imagination, Judith!' She was brisk. ‘There are no eyes, just a lot of people trying to go about their normal business. We're peripheral to their struggles. Come, let's post your letters. The sooner one of them leaves your handbag the better.'

We paid the bill and walked out into the sunshine. We had been lucky with the weather. It would have been hard to justify hanging around pretending to draw if it had rained all day.

‘Do you think he'll contact us again? It would be terrible if we had read too much into an innocent conversation.'

‘No.' Marie was certain. ‘Not innocent, Judith. Not innocent at all.'

When we returned to the hotel there was a message waiting for us. The proprietor said the doctor had called to say he would visit the un-well English woman in the evening.

I started to deny that either of us was sick but Marie kicked me surreptitiously in the ankle. ‘Yes, you do look very pale, Judith,' she said quickly.

The overweight proprietor nodded wisely. He had little twinkling eyes embedded in folds of flesh and when he laughed his whole face quivered jovially. ‘English ladies,' he pronounced, in perfect English, ‘always get sick in Spain. It is the food or the water or both. We're not as clean as the English. The doctor will come at about eight o'clock after his rounds. He does many rounds at night. Often poor people in the villages need him. He's a good man. He goes twice a week and stays there. He rides a mule.'

This was another odd conversation and I wondered what secret assignations might be going on. ‘He's not afraid of the bears?' I asked innocently.

For a second he looked blank. ‘Bears?' He seemed puzzled. And then, ‘Oh, yes, bears. No, the village people come and protect him with lanterns and staves. He's not afraid of bears. Our doctor's a very brave man. He's braver than the soldiers. They're afraid of bears.' He chuckled. ‘You look most un-well Mrs Grenville. So pale. And those purple rings under your eyes.' He was overdoing it a little.

‘I'll rest,' I said.

He beamed approvingly. ‘Yes. You should lie down in your room and wait for the doctor. I'll send the maid with some coffee for you both.'

For a time we lay on our beds and read. Marie ventured out for some rolls, cheese and fruit for lunch. The proprietor kept us supplied with plenty of coffee and, panting up and down the stairs, knocked on our door a couple of times to inquire about our welfare and my ‘sickness'. He suppressed his excitement and I felt sad for him. Was this small act of defiance in helping us his means of retaining self-respect? Did all suppressed and victimised people assert their power and dignity through little tricks, glorying in miniscule victories? He would have liked us to share more of our secret but we remained cautious and he had to be satisfied with being the liaison.