The Poet's Wife (8 page)

After the birth of Alejandro, Conchi does most of the shopping for our family. But occasionally, if he is calm and sleeping, Mother hands my baby brother over to Conchi and takes my sister María and I to the city to shop. Less frequently, she takes me alone and I love these snatched moments of intimacy with Mother more than anything. They mean more to me even than when we dress in the morning, for I have her out of the house, all to myself, where she doesn’t need to worry about María’s questioning, Alejandro’s crying or Father’s fussing. We buy sweetmeats from the Santa Catalina de Zafra Convent and at the market Mother shows me where to buy the best
chorizo
and how to tell if it is good quality flour by how quickly it runs through your fingers. One thing I notice, however, is that these trips to the convent to buy sweet delicacies are becoming more infrequent and that Mother is buying less flour, eggs and coffee than before. I don’t know much about Primo de Rivera who rules the country, except that I don’t like the look of him one bit from the posters I see everywhere; he has cold eyes and dark bags underneath them running into sagging cheeks. But what I do know is that everything seems far more costly. On one occasion when Mother and I are in the city, we see young people marching and shouting outside the government buildings, waving banners.

‘Who are they, Mother?’ I ask breathlessly as the young people march past us.

‘Students,’ she replies.

‘But what are they shouting about?’ I turn to look at Mother and I can see excitement in her face too, though the face she turns back to me is far more serious.

‘They’re calling for democracy. Away with Primo de Rivera. Quite right.’ A small smile dances on her lips. ‘Come, let us hurry to the market before all the best fruit goes.’

‘But what exactly is wrong with him?’ I persist as I hurry behind her. I always have difficulty keeping up with Mother; with her long legs she walks far too fast for me.

‘The rich are suffering. The poor are suffering. What’s right with him!’ she calls back over her shoulder and I laugh happily, understanding nothing.

W
hen I am
ten years old, the king dismisses Primo de Rivera. But this is the extent of my political understanding; my world revolves around games in the courtyards and garden of Carmen de las Estrellas, meals with my family, lessons in the attic and hours spent reading and dreaming in the shade of my orange tree.

Every so often Mother takes us to visit Aurelia and her family. I long for these excursions because they are so alien to our everyday activities. My family must be such a curious sight, winding our way over the mountain paths with Mother at the helm and an assortment of youngsters trailing behind. We spend a few hours there in the yard of Abuela Aurelia’s cave, playing with her grandchildren and helping her to collect bits of twine and esparto grass she crafts chairs from.

Pablo is a few years older than me. He is the most serious boy I’ve ever met but he intrigues me. He has a clear talent for drawing, but I’m also fascinated by the walls of silence he’s pencilled around himself and forbidden anyone to enter. Whilst the little ones noisily race around the yard after the chickens, I like to sit beside Pablo on the roof of the cave watching him draw. I always sit at a slight distance so he’s not uncomfortable, and I never feel he objects to my presence.

On the way home from visiting our friends, we pass a small chapel on a lonely mountain pass. Mother’s hand instinctively flickers up to cross herself and we all follow suit, a fumble of fingers. My parents are officially Catholic, yet they both strongly feel we shouldn’t receive our worldly education in an institution that Mother describes as being riddled with Catholic dogma and disease. So several years ago Father converted the attic into a schoolroom with wooden desks and chairs and a blackboard, convinced that without the distraction of windows to gaze through, we’d daydream less. His plan failed of course, because when a child doesn’t want to listen to their teacher, the setting is irrelevant.

We’ve had tutor after tutor, a number of them cracking under the pressure. Fernando constantly clowns about, rarely taking lessons seriously at all, and what with Alejandro forever staring into space and Juan looking like he’ll break into a hundred pieces if asked a question, I’m frankly unsurprised that several of our tutors barely last a month.

One morning, Fernando manages to squeeze himself into the back cupboard filled with notebooks and chalk sticks. Giggling away, the rest of us close the door on him and return to our seats to wait for the tutor to arrive. When he does appear, he eyes us all suspiciously because we’re seated so quietly at our desks staring up at him. The poor man’s downfall is his failure to notice that one child is absent and he proceeds with the lesson whilst we bend our heads over our arithmetic. Moments later, the soft mewing sound of a kitten comes from the back cupboard. The tutor glances round, but as the noise stops, he continues writing sums on the blackboard. After a while, the mewing resumes. Bewildered, the tutor pulls dust-laden boxes away from the wall, searching for a lost cat. María flicks her hair and innocently suggests that perhaps it has become trapped in the back cupboard.

Bending down, the tutor unlatches the door and as it swings open on its hinges, a skinny boy jumps out, chuckling like a little ghoul. The tutor is given such a fright that he lets out the most high-pitched scream I’ve ever heard from a man in my life, leaving him mortified and blushing the shade of ripe tomatoes. Mother hears the commotion,
claro
– she hears
everything
– and flies up the stairs as fast as her long legs can take her. The tutor takes the rest of the day off with a migraine and Mother sits at the front of the classroom, taking his place, demanding complete silence. The glint of humour in her eye is, however, unmistakable. After this, in order to instil some kind of discipline into Fernando, he is assigned with menial household tasks for each misdemeanour reported, no matter how small. But my brother takes to these duties with the same energy he does to his classroom pranks, quite unexpectedly delighting in weeding the garden and dusting the skirting boards, and we must all concede that he is, simply, a law unto himself.

One day, Fernando even offers to polish the guitar that my brother Joaquín was given for his eighth birthday and has not been separated from ever since. Joaquín looks at Fernando suspiciously before agreeing to part with it and stands over him as he sits on the patio step shining the rich ochre body with a rag. When he hands it back, Joaquín smiles, tucks it under his arm and begins to play a tune that he has been learning. María and I are helping Conchi to hang clothes out to dry in the garden but the minute we hear the music, we both stop pegging; I to listen to the wonderful sounds my brother is capable of making and María to pout. My sister, you see, dislikes nothing more than attention being diverted away from her and feels that Joaquín should be devoting all his time to her and not his guitar.

She flings the pegs petulantly to the floor and marches over to Joaquín, hands on her hips. ‘Joaquín,’ she says. ‘You know Mother doesn’t like you playing your guitar too early in the morning.’

Fernando scrunches his face up to her. ‘
No
,
María. It’s you who doesn’t like it, not Mother. At any time, for that matter.’

I stifle a snigger behind a long, billowing dress.

‘Fernando!’ María chides, her voice quavering. ‘That’s a horrid thing to say.’

Joaquín jumps up and, without saying a word, begins to improvise a song about María. I shake my head, both in wonder at the talent of my musical brother and his ability to always charm her childish affections back.

A long time ago, Mother explained to us all, including Joaquín himself, that his papá is not a good man but his mamá is wonderful and kind yet she isn’t able to look after him. We all accepted this without asking any questions and Joaquín is treated whole-heartedly as our brother and María’s twin.

In hindsight, it’s a curious decision Mother made to let us in on this family secret. After all, children are children, and it wouldn’t have been surprising for this information to slip out to a grandparent, aunt or cousin, resulting in a huge scandal. Yet it must have been something to do with the way Mother told us; that despite our youth we implicitly understood that it was a secret that must never leave the walls of Carmen de las Estrellas. Instead, we’ve always guarded it like a valuable treasure, not even discussing it amongst ourselves. It’s just the way it is, and we all like the fact we can be trusted.

Besides our lessons which crawl by, Carmen de las Estrellas watches us grow as free and flighty as birds. Being educated at home, we don’t really have any friends with the exception of cousins and a few close neighbours. But I don’t think any of us feel we are missing out. There’s always someone close by to chase around the garden, or to play hide and seek with in one of the secret corners of our rambling house.

One year after Primo de Rivera is sent away, I catch pneumonia. I spend day after day in bed whilst Mother brings me endless cups of elderflower tea she insists will sweat out the toxins. I share a bedroom with María who reads me stories of priceless treasures, maidens locked in towers and valiant princes on horseback. I know my sister isn’t genuinely concerned for me; I’m sure the fact Mother lets her miss an hour of classes every day so she can keep me company plays a far greater part.

On certain days of confinement to my bed, I run such a high fever that it distorts my sense of reality. When Fernando rushes into my room one day and announces, ‘The king has gone to exile!’ because I almost feel delirious, I’m not sure which of us is going mad.

‘No silly, you mean gone
into
exile. Exile’s not a place,’ says Joaquín, who is sitting on the window ledge.

Fernando shrugs. ‘Same thing.’

‘But what does it mean?’ asks María.

‘It
means
,’ Joaquín declares, ‘that Spain’s doesn’t want a king any more.’

Fernando snorts. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re just pretending.’

Joaquín shoots Fernando a dark look and hurries out of the room to fetch Mother and Father. They soon come in and, after placing a damp cloth on my forehead, spend a while fiddling around with the wireless to listen to the king’s official statement due to be broadcast at midday.

‘Who is it?’ Fernando whispers as a faint voice starts to come through.

‘Shhh!’ Mother swats him on the back of his head and we all fall deadly silent as we make out the weak murmur of a solemn voice.

‘
After the results of last week’s election, I see that I can no longer claim the love and support of my people. It would be possible for me to fight against this turning tide to retain my royal powers; however, I fear this would be futile. It seems that my people are determined to set themselves against one another and I foresee that there is now more than a faint possibility of civil war. My desire is to play no role in this ugly reckoning and thus, until the nation speaks again, I herewith renounce my throne and my crown
.’

With this, the voice dies away and we all look at the faces of Mother and Father who are staring at one another with a mixed expression of shock and excitement. Seconds later, the disbelief in their faces melts away as they break into enormous smiles and fling their arms around one another. Father tunes into a tango on the wireless and Mother hitches up her skirt and they dance around the room as all my siblings hurl themselves onto my bed and bounce up and down. I still find it strange that somebody who once held so much power now has none, but the fact that my parents are so happy is cause enough for celebration.

Later that same night, my fever has dropped sufficiently to allow me to join my family out on the terrace in the spring warmth, enjoying an enormous feast prepared as a special celebration. The sweet fragrance from the fruit tree blossoms combined with the
vino de la costa
Mother gives me a sip of makes me giddy. As we mop up spicy olive oil with thick hunks of bread, María asks from the end of the table what civil war means. Mother looks up from her plate, the cheerful atmosphere momentarily freezing.

‘Where did you hear that?’

‘It’s what the king said.’

‘But he’s not king any more,’ Fernando says at the same time as successfully catapulting a forkful of chicken into the mouth of one of the hovering cats. Mother looks at him grimly and then glances at Father who is coughing nervously. I’m intrigued to know how they’ll reply. Moments later, Mother walks over to Father, whispers something in his ear and the two of them walk over to one of the walnut trees in the far corner of the garden.

My youngest brother Alejandro is only small and he’s far more interested in playing with his food than worrying about what has happened with the king. But the fact remains that we can hear the cheers in the streets and the fireworks exploding in the sky and my parents know they have to give us at least some kind of explanation as to what is going on beyond the walls of Carmen de las Estrellas. By the time they return to the table, Fernando has miscalculated a further forkful of food meant for the cats and a large amount has landed in María’s hair. She’s wailing, sauce dripping down onto her shoulders. Mother pulls my sister onto her lap and picks out pieces of chicken from the top of her head before Eduardo clears his throat and begins to talk.

‘Children, something very important has happened today. We’ve had a king for a very long time but the truth is that he hasn’t done a very good job of ruling our country. So today he has admitted that he can’t rule any longer and he’s going to leave Spain.’

‘So who’s going to take over?’ I ask.

Father grins and stands up straight. ‘Children, we are living in great times. We have born witness to the second Spanish Republic and you will all grow up in a liberal, egalitarian democracy!’

‘
Language
,
Edu!’ Mother hisses.

Father’s cheeks glow and he gives a little cough. ‘
Sí
. Well, what I mean to say is that everything shall improve from now on. We’ve moved into the twentieth century, children. We can finally join our European neighbours. And civil war.
Pues
…it’s…’ Father frowns and scratches beneath his chin.