The Guardian of Secrets: And Her Deathly Pact (46 page)

Chapter 43

M
iguel sat at the corner of the bar and read about the latest violence to erupt on the streets of Valladolid. Things were going well for him, and he was now very much inside his leaders’ circle of trust. He had rented an apartment with Gregorio Serrano on the corner of the main square, and there he had planned his future, with endless ideas and speeches that he would use to ingratiate himself even further with the Phalanx hierarchy. Since his arrival, he’d worked hard, not only in a legal capacity as a Phalanx counsel but also in the streets at the core of their military operations. He’d frequently travelled between Valladolid and Madrid, gathering information and reporting to headquarters, and the more involved he became in the web of intrigue, and retaliation killings, the more his lust for power grew.

On 17 April, representatives of the Phalanx movement attended the funeral of the Guardía civil officer shot and killed after a bomb attack on the president. The attack had failed, and the Guardia Civil officer was innocent, but he was going to die for the cause and had not given up the name of the real perpetrator.

Tension filled the street where the mourners gathered. Young socialists spat at them and threw empty bottles at the coffin. A running street battle ensued between the Phalanx and the opposition. Shots rained in the spring air and turned a blue sky into a thick grey mist of hatred. The Phalanx had come well prepared. They machine-gunned labourers, killing some and wounding dozens, and they would have carried on had the Asaltos not intervened.

The next day, it became clear that the government’s toleration towards the Phalanx had ended, and things began to close down around them. Miguel was forced to hide in fear of his life. Daily street battles took place, normally at night. Miguel was a target now, a leading Phalanx member whose terror exploits had become well documented.

Miguel’s goal was to remain at the forefront of the party and eventually make a name for himself and make his family proud. After all, he was doing glorious work for Spain and, more importantly, doing more than his brother, Pedro, who marched up and down all day like a duck without doing a damned thing to change the course of Spain’s history.

On 1 May, Miguel travelled to the May Day parade in Madrid, although it was more of a spying mission for the Valladolid base than for any violent intent. His sole purpose, he’d been told, was to report to his superiors as soon as it was over. This in turn would ensure that they had their version of the truth in print before the socialist newspaper had a chance to spread its lies.

When he and Gregorio arrived, the scene was worse than they could have imagined. Red banners lined every street and flew into the cloudless blue sky. Portraits of Lenin, Stalin, and Caballero were on every lamp post and in the hand of every raised arm. The atmosphere was one of confidence, of arrogance, of victory. Thousands of women were present, and their blatant air of haughtiness disgusted him. They walked around freely, flaunting convention and shouting, “Children yes, husbands no!”

Their clothes were a disgrace to any decent Spanish woman, with berets sitting cockily on their heads, trousers showing every curve of hip and rear, and shirts rolled up to the elbows. They drank beer, sang revolutionary songs, and mounted trucks with the men, wrapping their arms around their waists in a public display of disrespect. It was, to Miguel, both repulsive and worrying. He was horrified, and his determination to destroy what he was witnessing grew because of it.

That night, on the way back to Valladolid, Miguel kept thinking about the leftist women, the way they were dressed and the things that they were saying. He told Gregorio, “If my sisters ever behaved in that way, I’d kill them both.”

He thought about María and Marta. It was, he admitted, the first time they had come to mind since leaving Valencia. Of his two sisters, Marta was the one he favoured. She was a good girl, meek and conservative, just as Spanish women should be. María disturbed him greatly with her trousers and her belief that she could equal a man in conversation, in the fields and in politics. The thought struck him that she did not resemble in any way the type of women he’d come to know in Valladolid. And he thought that when the day of reckoning arrived, María would not be on the same side as him.

On 1 June, Miguel and another hundred or so members of the Phalanx went back to Madrid, travelling by road in cars and trucks that hid their deadly weapons. The reason for this particular assault was due to a strike that had been called by tens of thousands of Madrid construction workers, and the Phalanx orders had been clear and left nothing to the imagination. They were there to cause mayhem, kill as many leftists as possible, and send a clear message to the enemy.

The mass demonstration began with an orderly street parade of all sections of the Spanish workforce, but violent disorder grew as the day coursed towards nightfall. Miguel entered the city with Gregorio. They drove at high speed through working-class districts, shooting people indiscriminately, and the only thought in Miguel’s mind was that the people he was shooting at were those who wanted to ruin Spain.

Miguel raced along the embattled streets, feeling the rush of adrenaline and excitement course through his body. He had never felt so alive, so committed, or been so determined to succeed. He opened fire at just about everyone he saw loyal to the government, spurred on by the desire to kill every single member of the opposition all by himself. He shot and reloaded his weapon as fast as he could in order not to miss a single soul. This is the day of reckoning, he told himself repeatedly. This was the moment he’d been waiting for; open warfare had begun.

Late in the afternoon, the Phalanx cars sped off to regroup on the outskirts of the city. At nightfall, they went back to the centre and congregated in a well-known Phalanx cafe in the Salamanca district, where there was already an atmosphere of celebration. The air was blue with smoke. Jokes about the events of the day brought howls of laughter. Some men tallied up the number of kills they believed they’d delivered, and as the night went on, they screamed battle plans for the future.

Don Jaime Serrano’s son, Gregorio, bought Miguel a drink. He handed it to him, slapped him on the back, congratulated him, and then cupped Miguel’s face in his hands and kissed him.

“You did well today. I’m proud of you, my brother,” he told Miguel.

Miguel nodded his head and raised his glass, knocked it against Gregorio’s glass, and drank the whisky shot in one. Gregorio really was like a brother, Miguel thought just then. He was a much older man than he was, but they got on well and believed in the same Phalanx gospel according to José Antonio Primo De Rivera. Gregorio had taken him under his wing years ago. He was his mentor, not in a great position of power within the movement but respected and welcomed in the higher ranks due to his father’s generous monetary donations.

Miguel looked around him at some familiar faces from his base in Valladolid and studied the faces of others he’d never seen before. He was happy, happier than he’d been in a very long time. He began a conversation with Gregorio about the Phalanx hierarchy and had already drunk three beers and a couple of whiskies. They heard a lone voice singing the Phalanx anthem and joined him, and then the whole bar rose in a chorus, heard streets away.

When the first sound of gunfire rang out, the room grew silent beneath the loud explosions. Beer glasses froze midway between hands and mouths. Miguel sank to the floor and watched, helpless and stunned at the bloodbath assaulting his eyes. Dancing bodies vibrated with bullets, spouting blood on to the bar surface, floor, and clothes. He lay flat on his stomach and put his hand to his face, now covered in blood. The blood wasn’t his; he hadn’t been hit.

Miguel screamed when Gregorio suddenly took a step backwards. He looked up at him, and Gregorio smiled, then falling over a chair and landing beside him on the floor. A pillow of blood surrounded his head, which was lying at a distorted angle. His eyes were still wide open, displaying the shock from the moment before death. Miguel crawled over to him, took him by the shoulders, and shook him hard.

“Gregorio, get up!” he shouted above the noise. “Get up!”

He put his hands on both sides of Gregorio’s head. It flopped from side to side, backwards and forwards like a rag doll, and he screamed again.

Miguel fled back to Valladolid, to the well-guarded offices of the Phalanx, and wrote his report to the party’s hierarchy, in which he maintained that apart from the party members who’d died in the cafe, the attack on Madrid had been one of the most successful victories so far.

Late into the night, he drank champagne and danced with a prostitute in a well-known gentleman’s club. He toasted Gregorio, a hero and a loyal friend. He boasted his own success to all who’d listen, and he set about convincing them that his promotion was now imminent.

After the destruction in Madrid, Miguel ceased to be a man of the law. Instead, he had become a man hunted by the law. He wrote only once in three months to his parents and divulged nothing of his new occupation, save that he was involved in the legal side of the political party. He had become an autonomous assassin whose only goal was to maim without conscience or regret. His motivation had increased since the Madrid attacks that had taken the life of his friend, and his only cause now was to destroy the republican Popular Front with whatever means necessary. He was now a soldier of righteousness and good old-fashioned morals, and nothing and nobody was going to stop him achieving his goals.

It was also just after the massacre in the Madrid cafe that he met Mónica Cardona, a leading socialite and fierce supporter of the Phalanx movement. He decided to make his move on her the day he heard her speak at a rally. His first thought was that her looks and his brains would make a powerful alliance, and it would not go unnoticed by the leaders of the party. She was a member of Mercedes Sanz-Bachiller’s inner circle of friends. Mercedes was the wife of Onésimo Redondo, the Valladolid Phalanx leader, and that put her in a very healthy position.

Miguel also liked Mónica’s style. She spoke well and supported the party in any way she could. She was even known to throw stones and break windows of local leftists’ houses. She came from good stock, and her credentials were undeniably attractive. She was Catholic and adhered to the rules and regulations set down by the Phalanx agenda. She dressed with the correct amount of protective modesty. She didn’t smoke or wear make-up. Her arms were covered, and her skirts were full and long, which showed her commitment to the Phalanx teachings. Miguel was tiring of the Valladolid prostitutes who seemed to be swelling in numbers on a daily basis. He was fed up with his lodgings, bereft of company, and he realised for the first time in months that he was lonely.

Chapter 44

E
rnesto paced up and down the length of the salon with an angry scowl and a stride twice as long as normal. “Pedro, why in God’s name do you have to go back there?” he asked Pedro, who was leaning against the wall in quiet acceptance of his fate. “I thought they’d accepted your request to stay in Valencia.”

“Father, I don’t know why my orders were changed. I was told only that I have to report to the garrison in Morocco and that it will be a permanent transfer.”

Ernesto raised his eyes to the ceiling, and unable to contain his anger any longer, he shouted, “My God, my family has fallen apart! We don’t know how your sister is, we can only imagine what Miguel is up to, your mother is beside herself with worry and won’t eat, and María is doing the work of ten men because of last month’s strike, which, I may add, has cost us dearly! Almost half my workers haven’t returned to work since. Civil war is coming very soon, and it’s going to rip this country apart seam by seam, and this family with it. Pedro, tell them you can’t go.”

Pedro looked at Ernesto with sympathetic eyes but they also displayed defeat and sadness, also present in his words. “Father, you know I have to go. Orders are orders, and to disobey them now would be dangerous and foolhardy. Even your power and your name can’t get me out of this one. Do you really want me to disobey my commanding officer? Tell him I’m not going? Be honest.”

“No, of course I don’t, but your mother was so happy that you were staying in Valencia. It’s going to be a shock, and you know how she gets. It’s a bloody shame. Spanish Morocco: Moorish bastards! You weren’t trained for all that barbarism down there. You’re an office officer! You teach in a classroom and go on the odd exercise, for God’s sake! I know you are a soldier, son, but I never thought you’d ever have to be in harm’s way. When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow. That’s why I’ve come home tonight. I wanted to say goodbye properly and not on the telephone. Father, don’t take this the wrong way, but there’s no such thing as an office officer. How can I be in the army and not be in harm’s way at some time or the other? You know as well as I do that there’s always something going on in this country of ours, whether it’s strikes, civil unrest, or uprisings. I’ve been lucky so far, when you think about it.”

Ernesto stopped dead in his tracks. The only word he had heard was ‘tomorrow’. He had thought maybe a week or two. “Tomorrow? So soon? It’ll kill your mother. You know that, don’t you?”

“Mother is strong, though we all seem to wrap her up in tissue paper, believing she’ll break at life’s slightest obstacle. She’ll get over it, and it’s not as if I haven’t been there before.”

“What’s going on, you two? I can smell a conspiracy in the air,” Celia said, appearing from nowhere.

Ernesto took her by the arm and sat her on the couch. Then he went to the drinks cabinet and poured her a sherry. She would have to be told right now, he decided.

Celia said nothing, but her suspicious eyes stared into Pedro’s face, and she just knew that something was terribly wrong. She continued to watch him, remembering the last time she saw him like this; it was when he told her he was going to Morocco.

“What is it? Tell me,” she said in a dead voice.

“I don’t want you getting all upset,” Ernesto said.

“Well, now I am upset. Whenever you say not to get upset, it’s because you know I’m going to get upset!”

“I’ve been posted back to Morocco,” Pedro told Celia without looking at her.

“No! I won’t allow it. Tell them you can’t go. You’ve spent enough time down there. Tell them to send someone else. Ernesto, talk to him.” She began to sob.

“He’s got to go,” Aunt Marie said, stepping out of the shadows in the doorway after listening to the entire conversation. “Celia, he’s in the army, for God’s sake. It’s his job.”

“And I’m his mother and I say no, categorically no!” Celia shouted angrily.

Pedro listened to the raised voices. No one was taking any notice of him, and he made a quick exit on to the patio. Outside, he thought about his mother. There was no point talking to her when she was having one of her episodes. He knew her so well and that look in her eyes that said,
I
don’t
want
to
discuss
it
further.
Make
it
go
away
. She’d never been good at coping with anything that encroached on her perfect, uncomplicated world, but this time she would have to. There was going to be many changes in her world, and she would not be able to ignore them any longer. He thought about the changes to come, and his heart went out to her. He would be the third child to leave her this year. Marta would never come back home, and Miguel was lost to an obsession that could last for years. He’d have to be very tactful if he were to get through the evening without upsetting her further.

He lit a cigarette and rested his head against the patio’s stone wall. The army wasn’t the only thing on his mind tonight. He had so much to do, other people to see. Lucia came floating into his head and danced in front of his eyes. Lucia Mora. He’d met her at his garrison two months previously, at a dinner party hosted by Captain Salvador Mora, his captain and, her father. Salvador was a military man through and through but had not wished to climb the ranks beyond captain for various reasons, the most prevalent being that he didn’t want to sit at tables with men who were soldiers yet equally insistent that they were the political answer to Spain’s problems. Captain Mora was not a politician; he was just a soldier doing his job.

Pedro secretly believed that Mora was a strong supporter of the republican government. He’d overheard him speaking one night to another officer in his office and it was clear that Mora thought the republican government was the only way forward, democratically and in gaining closer ties to Europe. Personally, Pedro agreed with this sentiment and had admired him ever since then. Since that dinner party, where he’d first met Lucia, he’d spent many evenings at Captain Mora’s house. Lucia was the most enchanting girl he’d ever met. She was beautiful outside and inside. She made him laugh and experience longings so strong that they kept him awake at night. She was clever too, he thought with pride. She had just graduated from her nursing course, and her caring nature would make her an excellent nurse. His career had always been his priority. Women and marriage had always been at the bottom of his list, but Lucia had come into his life just after his return from Spanish Morocco and had washed away his ambitions into insignificance. He had planned to tell his parents about her and had even thought about bringing her home tonight for a formal introduction, but he knew that his mother wasn’t up to hearing any more news of any kind. He was going to marry Lucia one day, and had it not been for the dangerous and unpredictable times they were living in, he would have asked for her hand already. He smiled. This spate of uncertainty would be over soon, and then he’d bring her home.

Pedro walked over to the window and peered inside. His mother was standing in the corner of the room, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, and María was talking to her. His sister was strong, free-spirited, intelligent, and so level-headed. He had often thought that should things erupt, it wouldn’t be his father or his mother who would hold the family together. It would be María. María knew all about Lucia. He’d shown Lucia’s photograph to her on his last visit home. María thought her pretty, although she also said that beauty was only skin-deep and that she would have to meet her in person before giving him her blessing, typical of María, Pedro thought. For as long as he could remember, María was always asking why, never accepting things at face value. She digested every piece of information given to her, still questioning, until she had absolute proof that the information was correct. She would have made a great soldier.

Pedro waved to María through the glass, and she spotted him and waved back before continuing to give their mother her full attention. María was having a hard time of it. He could see from his vantage point that his mother was becoming more and more agitated. He had talked to María for hours about what was going to happen and sharing their mutual disappointment in Miguel, who had run off to become a fascist. She was probably the one who would suffer most in the coming weeks; she was the only one left. Miguel and Marta had already gone, and now he was leaving home at a potentially dangerous time, and it was more than his mother, any mother, should have to bear. Through the window, Pedro could also see his father talking to Aunt Marie. “Don’t upset Celia,” he imagined his great-aunt saying right about now. His father’s indignant reply would be, “Of course I won’t upset her. I know how fragile she is.”

Pedro went back inside, crossed to the drinks cabinet in the far corner of the room, and poured himself a sherry. He looked at his mother and thought, again, that she had the uncanny knack of being able to shut things away in the back of her mind and pretend that they weren’t there. He never really knew what she thought about anything, as she had so little opinion about most things. She was simply a mother of four, six if he included Aunt Marie and Auntie Rosa. He smiled, correcting his mistake. His mother was the most sensitive woman he’d ever met. She was like a tiny fragile bird that had to be protected at all costs. He would play her game tonight, the ‘Let’s pretend everything is all right’ game. He continued to watch her and was filled with love and pity. He wondered how she was going to take the war when it came. She’d been through so much in her life already.

He suddenly recalled the night she had told him about Joseph Dobbs. He’d been about eight years old at the time and had walked into her room unannounced whilst she was dressing for dinner. She had been naked, with her back to him, and he had walked silently over to where she stood. It was then that he saw the scars on her back for the first time. He’d gasped aloud in shock, and then he’d cried. No, more than that, his body had trembled with loud, painful sobs. The scars looked as though they were painted on, deep red in colour and surrounding raised white-tipped skin. They travelled from her shoulders right down to the small of her back, criss-crossing in perfectly straight lines. She’d turned, aware of him, and he would never forget the look on her face.

They sat on the bed, and she told him everything. They cried together for a long time, but she told him over and over again that no matter what had happened between them, Joseph Dobbs was his father, and he’d loved him right up to when he died—was executed, more like.

“You are staying for dinner, aren’t you, darling?” Pedro heard his mother say, appearing in front of him.

“Yes, of course, Mother. I’m starving, and I’m not going back until morning.”

“Wonderful. But I don’t want to hear any talk on nasty subjects such as strikes, or gunfire, or peasants’ risings, or you going back to that godforsaken place. Is that clear, everyone?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Yes, dear,” Ernesto told her.

Pedro decided to enjoy the evening, make his mother happy or happier if he could, hold on the his father’s every word and badger, laugh and chat with Maria, whom he adored. The conversation settled on mundane everyday things like the price of oranges, the latest gossip from Valencia, a planned holiday his parents were taking to the South of France, and of course Marta’s ceremony on 4 August.

Pedro noted that his mother did most of the talking, probably afraid to still her tongue for fear of hearing anything that would upset her even more. Even his Aunt Marie found it difficult to get a word in edgeways.

Heand his father listened, smiled, and frowned when they thought they ought to, looking astounded when that particular expression was called for. But Pedro guessed that his father’s mind was on different matters entirely; he knew his own was.

He laughed with María, she was her usual bubbly self, and he listened to her when she read a letter that she’d recently received from Marta, informing the family about her days and underlining the part where it stated that she was in a small earthly corner of heaven and loved her new life.

Pedro was glad when his Auntie Rosa refused to stay for the meal. Rosa told everyone at the table that she would prefer to go to her room and quietly contemplate the mysteries of the universe, or words to that effect. She had become intolerable, Pedro thought, watching her leave the dining room. Ever since Marta had left, it was as though all her preaching and praying had finally paid off, and she never let them forget it. According to her, she had personally given Marta to God as a gift, and because of that, she would receive everlasting life and thanks for her act of kindness. He knew that his father had grown to hate his own sister, although he did his best to hide his feelings. Maybe, Pedro thought, trying to hide a smile, God’s one act of kindness towards his Aunt Rosa would be to throw her to the anarchists. That would be doing them all a favour!

At around midnight, Celia, María, and Aunt Marie decided to retire for the night. At the door, the three women stopped in their tracks. Celia cried openly for the second time that evening and, unable to stop herself, ran once more into Pedro’s arms.

“I love you. Write to me and don’t stay away for too long. And promise me you’ll stay safe and that you won’t volunteer for anything dangerous.”

Pedro promised, and after his mother had left the room, still sobbing, he turned to his Aunt Marie.

“Auntie, look after her for me,” he said with a catch in his voice.

Marie whispered in his ear, “God bless you, darling. I know you won’t be back for a long time so listen very carefully. I want you to watch your back, keep your head down, and for God’s sake, don’t give an opinion. Opinions are dangerous in this madness, and madmen might not like them. Do you understand me?”

Pedro nodded to indicate that he did. He understood completely.

Pedro and Ernesto faced each other, sitting in the high-back leather armchairs in Don Miguel’s salon. Each had a brandy and cigar in his hands, and each wore serious, anxious frowns. Pedro had been thinking a lot about La Glorieta, specifically about the family’s continuing residence there. Would they remain safe with angry mobs roaming the countryside? he wondered.