The Guardian of Secrets: And Her Deathly Pact (76 page)

María watched the trees that lined the driveway, swaying noisily in the wind. Trees never ceased to hypnotise her. Their branches, filling with spring leaves, danced in unison, mesmerising her with their natural, rhythmic elegance, and the orchestra of sound coming from the branches was like that of soft violins. She closed her eyes and sighed contentedly until the soft violins began sounding more like a rumble of thunder.

María opened her eyes, shaded them from the white sunlight sparkling between the branches of the trees with the palm of her hand, and looked down the long curving drive.

The noise of the motor vehicle alerted her first to an imminent arrival, and then she saw the dust kick up in front of and behind an army jeep.

“Pedro!” Lucia said, jumping up and smoothing her hair. “I can’t see properly for the dust. How do I look? María, can you see?”

María ignored the question and instead walked to the patio steps, where she had a better view. She now saw more clearly that there was not just one vehicle but four and that it was not her brother arriving but something else, something that made her skin crawl and her stomach lurch in panic.

She stood shakily on legs that she was sure were about to give way at any time. Lucia shrank in the chair and for once said nothing.

“It seems we will not have our quiet moment after all,” María said.

The unit of Guardía Civil arrived at the house and consisted of three truckloads of men and a jeep carrying what looked like an important officer, who, after stepping resolutely from the jeep, strode towards them with an arrogant, patronising expression that only a victorious soldier could display.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” the officer said without smiling, “Captain Morales at your service.”

María nodded, thinking at the same time that what they wanted was clear by the armed guards standing nonchalantly by his jeep.

“Good afternoon, Captain,” she said calmly. “What can I do for you?”

Captain Morales put his foot on the first patio step and took his time lighting a cigarette. María watched his slow, methodical hand movements. He was so young, she thought, yet he had an aristocratic and snobbish air about him, reminding her of her brother Miguel, who at times had an air of superiority that was cold and thoughtless. “To what do I owe this honour? Is there something I can do for you?” she asked again.

“Yes, Señorita, there is, actually. I need to see your papers and those of your peasants outside and inside the house. The entire estate must be investigated. You will see to this.” He gestured to María with his fingers, making it clear that he wouldn’t wait for a response.

María stood, walked slowly into the house, and picked up the two identity papers lying on top of her father’s desk in the conservatory. A million and one thoughts were going through her mind. Ramón had left her not one hour ago. Had he left the village yet? Had the others left with him? She prayed that this was the case, for if they had been delayed for some reason, this captain would waste no time in rounding them up.

Once outside, she handed Lucia’s and her own papers to Captain Morales. The one-page documents stated family name, address, and profession. María waited for Captain Morales to finish studying them and then said, “We are alone here, and as you can see, there are no peasants in sight, inside or outside. We don’t have house servants anymore.”

“Where is the rest of your family? You have two brothers, do you not?” he asked her suspiciously.

María endured a moment of panic, which she was sure they would detect in her voice, but she strove to hide it with her words.

“My brother Miguel was with a Phalanx unit in Madrid, but I have not heard from him in over a year, and my other brother, Pedro, was with General Franco’s army somewhere in the north, although I believe my brother may be home soon. My father and mother went into exile under the threat of death from republican mobs, and my sister, a nun, was murdered at her convent.”

There was a marked change in the captain’s attitude, and his haughty, superior arrogance was immediately replaced by exaggerated sympathy and admiration.

“I am so sorry for your loss, Señorita,” he gushed. “But let me assure you that you are now quite safe and that we are here for your protection, just as we have always been. Many great families have perished under the sword of communist and anarchist barbarism, but they will pay dearly for their crimes, and I will personally make sure that your family is avenged for your sister’s death.”

“Thank you, Captain. I feel much better now,” María lied.

“You may rely on the sincerity of my words but forgive me for saying, Señorita, that you must understand that we cannot allow you to protect communists and traitors, misguided though your allegiance to them may be. They can’t be allowed to roam free. They have to be reined in and disposed of so that order can be restored.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Thank you,” María said before blowing her nose once more for good measure and thinking that she hated the fascist swine.

“You will be seeing a lot of us from now on,” the captain continued, “but for now, I would appreciate your cooperation.”

“My cooperation?” María said innocently.

“Yes, in assisting us in the capture of any remaining republican scum, in order to punish them for their crimes. I’m sure you will be happy to see this done, Señorita.”

María nodded her head.

“Do you have a list of La Glorieta’s workers, those involved in the communist movement, perhaps?”

Lucia’s sharp intake of breath prompted María into immediate action.

“Why, no, not at this moment. You see, my father’s library and all his records were burned,” she told the captain between sniffs. “All his papers were destroyed, and I really don’t know where anything is anymore. My father, Don Ernesto, will be back tomorrow from London, and I’m sure he will be able to supply you with all the information that you need about the estate’s workers. Maybe you can come back then?”

“Yes, we will, but in the meantime, we’ll be taking up residence in the village, sharing the offices of the
comisaría
. Can you give me any names, any at all?”

“No, not offhand,” María told him innocently. “I never knew their names. First names, maybe, but certainly not their family names. I am only a woman, Captain. I never got involved with the peasants, but I am sure you’ll find who you’re looking for in the village; after all, it’s not that big.”

María sat and pulled her skirt down, covering her bare legs. She could see that the captain had not finished with her, and she dreaded his next question.

“Is there anything else?” she asked him, wishing he would leave.

“No. Actually, yes, just one more thing. Do you know of two men by the name of Pons, specifically Ramón Pons and his son, Carlos Pons?”

“Yes,” she told him, remembering what Ramón had told her to say. “Yes, of course. Ramón Pons was one of my father’s managers, and his son Carlos used to work on the estate. He looked after the horses, but he is dead. Killed at the Ebro, I believe. Why do you ask?”

Captain Morales walked toward his truck and then turned again to face her with an arrogant smirk that turned María’s stomach.

“Tell your father when he returns that he will need a new manager. You will not be seeing Ramón Pons again. We found him and his communist whore of a wife trying to skip out of the village. They have both been arrested for activities against our great leader.”

María’s demeanour changed slightly. Her stomach lurched, and she found it hard to swallow. She nodded her head.

“I see. I will pass this information on.” Ramón had remained until the very last minute for her sake. It was her fault. She had probably caused the incarceration or death of Carlos’s parents because of her own selfishness. She stared straight ahead, unable to meet Captain Morales’s eyes. Her lie about not knowing the names of La Glorieta’s workers had not fooled him, for he he’d suspected her all along. He had tricked her.

“Do you have proof of Carlos Pons’s death?” he asked her, now with a new harshness in his tone.

María stood once more and lifted her head to Captain Morales in defiance.

“Yes, that I may have. I believe the republican officer in charge here kept the death certificates of all registered soldiers from La Glorieta. If you give me a minute, I will go to his office and look for you.”

“Interesting… Yes, you do that.” He ordered one of his men to accompany her.

María knew exactly where to look for the paper in question, but she fumbled through a pile of papers, knowing that Carlos’s death certificate was not amongst them. The man who accompanied her looked bored and was growing impatient, so she prolonged the search no further. “This is it, I believe,” she said.

Captain Morales took the death certificate from her hands. He read it, looked at her once more, and then handed it back to her. “When your father returns, tell him to have all papers ready for inspection. Tell him I want the names of troublemakers, living and dead.” With that final command, he ordered his men to get back into the vehicles. “I will not detain you any further; my condolences once again for your sister,” he said.

Chapter 86

T
he family walked up to the peak of the bluff that overlooked the great weeping willow tree standing tall and proud above Marta’s grave. The women, dressed in black with veils covering their heads and faces, walked in front of the men who wore black suits and black silk ties. They carried flowers, and no one spoke as they climbed over and then down the other side of jagged rocks and crevasses to walk along the dirt path bordered by cactus and geraniums. They came to the grave and gathered around the small rock with Marta’s name engraved upon it. One by one, they placed the flowers beside the rock and on top of the stone mound that housed Marta’s body.

María placed her sleeping baby in the carrycot beside her and then stood quietly next to her mother, Aunt Marie, and Lucia. After some moments of silence, Ernesto and Pedro walked the short distance to a heavy rock that sat at a peculiar angle and slightly apart from the other rocks nearby. They lifted it between them and staggered under its weight before resting it beside Marta’s grave. Carved upon it was one word:
Miguel.

They prayed for Marta and Miguel. Miguel’s remains lay somewhere on a rocky mountainside hundreds of kilometres from the gravestone that sat in front of them now. They had not been informed of the exact location or cause of death; there was no time for such formalities in a country where hundreds of thousands of bodies lay in unmarked graves stretching from northern Cataluña to the North African colonies, Pedro had reminded them.

Ernesto opened his eyes and gazed lovingly at the sleeping baby, his grandson. A smile lit his face; war had brought death, but it had also sent the gift of new and innocent life, a life, he prayed, that would never experience what they had lived through.

On their return home from England, Ernesto had been shocked to witness the scale of chaos and degradation in Valencia. The Rawlings ship had remained offshore, having been refused entry into the port of Gandía, which had been turned into a refugee camp for tens of thousands of fleeing republicans. He would never forget the faces of the vanquished, he thought. Men, women, and children desperately trying to get out of their own country, all attempting to board boats of any kind that would take them out of the victor’s vengeful path. Some ships had attempted to dock, but the stampede of thousands had driven them away again before the ropes had even been tied to the jetties. Some people, he witnessed, had jumped off rocks and swum to ‘nowhere’. Others had thrown themselves onto rocks rather than allowing themselves to be arrested.

When their small motor boat drew up alongside the jetty, six nationalist soldiers had escorted them to waiting cars. The soldiers had accompanied them all the way home, with rifles and machine guns ready to kill anyone who threatened them; thus was the New Spain.

Ernesto stared again at Marta and Miguel’s crude graves until he couldn’t bear to look or think any longer. He turned from them and walked a short distance, casting his eyes over the landscape as he did so. War could not defeat nature, he thought just then. Nature would grow the orange trees back to fruition. It would produce the oranges, grapes, and vegetables on his burnt-out land. It would be powerful enough to rebuild the lives of the workers who remained, for nature would nourish them. It would take a lot of money to put things right, but money he had, he reminded himself. It would take years to return the land to fruition and its rich, colourful, and profitable state, but he would do it with nature’s help. This would be his war and he would win.

“Let’s go home,” he said to the others.

Celia was the last to move. She felt unable to take her eyes off her son’s and daughter’s graves. She felt her legs tremble beneath her skirt and instinctively held out her hand to Ernesto, who kissed it. She gave him a weak, loving smile and went into his arms.

“Yes, let’s go home,” she said.

Chapter 87

M
aría sat down beside the two marked rocks. She wasn’t ready to leave her sister and brother just yet. She still had so many things to say to Marta, things she couldn’t say to the living. She knelt in front of the graves, and she had just begun to rearrange the newly laid flowers when the first tear fell from her misty eyes. She wiped it away with her veil lying on the ground beside her feet and hung her head. Everything was so perfect, she reminded herself. Her parents, Aunt Marie, and Pedro had returned, yet she was miserable. She hated the way she felt, shrouded in a great dark shadow that followed her everywhere she went. She had thought that the homecoming would lift her spirits, that she’d be happy for all that she had instead of wishing for what was gone forever. But the shadow wouldn’t leave her. A memory surfaced: the day that she and Carlos put Marta in the ground at the start of the war. Carlos had held her, promising that he would always be by her side, no matter what. Her anger towards Carlos had long since gone, and she admitted now that it was never really anger in the first place; it was missing him, loving him so much that his absence hurt. It was desire, need, and a greed for him, which had nothing to do with anger. Tears now fell unheeded. The intensity of pain grew with each passing day, and sometimes it was so terrible that she could hardly take a breath…

He stood behind her as he had so often in the early days when he accompanied her to the grave. He was afraid to frighten her now, to shock her with his presence. He’d thought about this moment for so long, had ached for it, but now he hesitated.

María sensed rather than saw. She shivered in the sun’s warm rays and turned around slowly. Her body froze as she stared into the face of the ghost that had haunted her for so long. Her mind was a jumble of unanswered questions. He was dead, yet there he was, standing tall above her. She had his death certificate, yet there he stood, smiling, crying, and trembling just as she did.

She stood up, closed her eyes, and then opened them again, expecting to see nothing, but he was still there, still smiling, still crying. She didn’t know how or why it was possible, and she didn’t even want to ask the question. Instead, her head spun with his name on her lips: Carlos. Carlos was alive, here with her, and as she threw herself into his arms, she could only believe that some miracle had brought him back to life.

He pushed her gently away, and they gazed at each other like two strangers, each afraid to make the first move or say the first words. All of María’s dreams stood with the man smiling in front of her, and she found herself smiling as well. He had been lost to her so many times before, and now she saw with absolute clarity the reason for the anger she’d felt on the news of his death. She had mourned his loss, but she’d also unconsciously waited for him to come back to her, just as she’d always waited, with indignation at his long and silent absences.

Now they held on to one another, both overcome with such happiness that only comes once in a lifetime to a lucky few.

“I have a son? Are you going to introduce me?” Carlos finally said, looking over at the baby.

“You have. His name is Carlos, Carlos Pons Martinéz.”

Carlos cried, picked the baby up, and kissed his tiny head. They sat together beneath the tree, holding hands, kissing, and drinking in the sight of each other. After a while, Carlos told her about his escape from the rocky hillside on the river Ebro. He was, for the first time, honest and generous with the truth and left nothing out.

“There will be no more secrets between us both,” he told her.

María’s eyes filled with tears as he vividly described the way in which he’d swapped his identity tags and papers with a dead Spaniard in the trench before escaping into the hills. He was shot in the leg and in the shoulder. He had lost a lot of blood but had somehow managed to crawl out of the trench before the enemy tanks and soldiers saw him. At the river, he’d disguised himself amongst hundreds of dead and wounded. Then, after a while, he’d grabbed on to a floating log that had been swept onto the banks by a torrent of water. He didn’t know which direction to take, so he allowed the water to be his guide. He was later found near a republican field hospital, where they saved his life. He couldn’t remember being moved to a hospital near Valencia afterwards, but he spent almost three months there, recovering from his injuries.

He had made the rest of the long journey home on foot, dodging nationalist patrols and resting in houses of people who’d suffered so much yet who had found the time to help him. His knowledge of the countryside had meant the difference between life and death, he told her, and although it had taken him weeks to walk the long road, he had made it home at last.

“I have been here since yesterday afternoon,” he told María when he’d finished his story. “I slept under this tree, waiting for you. I knew you would come, and when I saw you with the baby, I wanted to run out from the trees and take you in my arms. But I couldn’t allow your family see me. No one else knows I’m here, not even my mother and father.” He grew quiet, lay down, and rested his head on María’s lap.

María stroked his head and ran her fingers through his matted hair and unkempt bearded face. She had to tell him about his parents, but the words wouldn’t leave her mouth. She just couldn’t do it, not yet. She wondered whether to ask him why he hadn’t let her know that he was alive, but in the silence between them, she knew the answer to that question and she understood; that was all that mattered now. She also reflected that Carlos’s war had been no more and no less evil, turbulent, and painful than it had been for any general, soldier, nurse, or civilian. One day, she thought, he would come to realise that and eventually forgive himself. The blood of fellow countrymen tainted all Spaniards, as it did those who watched passively from afar, and no one had been left unscathed by it.

“I almost didn’t come back,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “I thought that maybe it would be better, that it would be safer for you and for everyone else to believe me dead, but I had to see you again one last time.”

María’s body stiffened, and her terrified eyes looked down on the top of his head. He was going to leave her again!

“What do you mean, one last time?”

He sat up and looked into her eyes filling with tears. “María, I can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous for me, as well as for you and the baby. They will be looking for me, and they’ll find me.”

María sobbed now. “No, they won’t. I told them you were dead. I showed the Guardía Civil your death certificate. So you see, they won’t look for you anymore. You have been crossed off their lists.” She watched his mind at work and his silence gave her hope.

Then he spoke. “How long do you think I can remain hidden before someone sees me and recognises me? María, I won’t be able to remain a ghost for long. I’m known here, and someone or other will report me. They will do it to save their own skin. I have to leave again, for both your sakes.”

María wiped her eyes and felt the pain of sadness wash over her, but with that pain came anger and determination. She had made up her mind the moment Carlos told her he was leaving, and this time she would get her way.

“If you think I’m going to let you walk away from me again, you’re very much mistaken,” she snapped. “Miracles happen for a reason, and they shouldn’t be wasted. You are alive when I thought you were dead. You are here when I thought I would never see you again. If you leave, your son and I go with you. I won’t be parted from you again, not for a single day. Do you hear me? Not one day more!”

Carlos cupped her face and smiled at her determination, but still he didn’t speak.

“Carlos, please say something,” María said more gently.

He kissed her, and she forgot his terrifying words for a moment. He stopped suddenly, drew away, and she watched his inner struggle.

“María, I could survive alone in the mountains, but you and the baby couldn’t. You don’t deserve to live like fugitives, begging for food and sleeping behind rocks and in derelict houses like animals. I can’t ask this of you. I love you too much to take you with me.”

“We can go to England, to Merrill Farm.” The words came out of María’s mouth, but she didn’t know where they had come from. She had never thought about England, had never been interested in visiting her mother’s country. But going there now seemed the only option, even if it meant going into exile and leaving her family behind. Merrill Farm would allow them to have a life without fear.

Carlos pushed her gently away. He stood up, leaned against the tree trunk, and pushed his hands through his hair. María watched him, waiting for his reaction, but his stony face gave nothing away.

“Carlos?” she said, urging him to give her some kind of response. Still he said nothing.

She went to him, encircled his waist with her arms, and rested her face against his chest. She felt his quick panicked breathing and the thumping of his heart ringing in her ears. At last, he tilted her chin and stared into her weepy eyes.

“María, my mother and father, your family? We can’t leave Spain. England is so far away. Think about it; we could be exiled for years.”

“Yes, but we could also be happy together with our son,” she parried back. “Rawlings’s ship is still at anchor off Gandía Port. George Rawlings promised to remain there until my father told him otherwise. My father didn’t know what he would find here. It was a precaution.” She paused, her eyes widened, and she gripped Carlos’s collar with her fingers. “This is fate!” she told him excitedly. “This is meant to be. My father will get us to the ship, Carlos. We can go today, the three of us! You are my world, you always have been, and it doesn’t matter where we go, just as long as we’re together. You can’t leave me again. I won’t let you!”

While he thought about her words, she took a deep breath and prepared herself to tell him about his parents. She couldn’t keep it from him any longer:

“Carlos, your parents… They were arrested four days ago.”

His body stiffened, and he pulled her to him, so tightly that she could hardly breathe. “Where are they?” he asked her with a catch in his voice.

“Your mother was taken to a prison camp, an old school just outside Valencia. Your father is in the Valencia prison. Thousands have been taken, Carlos, thousands… I’m so sorry.”

“Can anything be done?” he asked her.

“I don’t think so. My father went to the
comisaría
only this morning. He tried everything to get them freed, but no one would listen to him. His name means nothing to the authorities now. They’ve taken half the village, Carlos, anyone who doesn’t fit the right profile, and those that have been taken have not been returned. Your father thought he would get out in time, before they came for him. He remained with me for as long as he could…”

“Then they’re lost to me,” Carlos said. “Have you seen my brother?”

“No. He hasn’t been seen for more than a year now.” She tried to speak again, but he squeezed her hand and begged her to listen.

“María, my parents mustn’t find out about me. The bastards will torture them if it becomes known that I’m alive. They’ll torture them for information until they kill them both. I know how it works.”

María looked into his bloodshot eyes, wanting to share his grief, but that grief was his and his alone. He was right, she admitted to herself. Whatever happened, wherever he decided to go, it had to be now. She watched him pick up the baby and hold him his arms, and the first tear fell from his eyes.

“I have a son,” he said so simply.

“Carlos… England?” she asked him again.

“Yes,” he said, kissing the baby again. “We’ll go to England.”

Celia
Merrill,
12
June
1939

My
babies
have
gone,
all
gone
but
one,
yet
I
still
feel
their
presence
in
my
every
waking
moment.
My
Miguel,
Marta,
and
now
María
have
left
me
forever,
and
as
I
sit
watching
the
last
sliver
of
sun
slip
quietly
behind
the
mountain
peaks,
I
can
only
wonder
at
God’s
great
plan.
He
gives
only
to
take
away,
yet
his
gifts
are
not
lost,
for
the
joy
of
them
will
linger
in
my
mind
and
heart
forever
.

I
am
home
now
with
my
memories
and
with
my
beloved
Ernesto,
whom
God
deemed
fit
to
spare.
He
is
my
world,
my
rock,
and
my
future,
a
future
without
my
beloved
three
children,
taken
from
me,
in
reality,
not
by
God
but
by
the
destructive
evil
of
man
himself!