The Return (20 page)
Authors: Victoria Hislop
Tags: #British - Spain, #Psychological Fiction, #Family, #British, #Spain - History - Civil War; 1936-1939 - Social Aspects, #General, #Granada (Spain), #Historical, #War & Military, #Families, #Fiction, #Spain
Concha realised then that watching her son in the ring was not going to get any easier, and that, however many times she did it, she would always have a premonition of her beautiful slim-hipped son being gored to death. She tortured herself with this. Occasionally Pablo attempted to reassure her with statistics on how few fighters were ever killed in the ring, but he could not allay her fears.
Chapter Thirteen
A FEW MONTHS after the arrival of the Republic, a certain amount of disillusion began to set in. Conversation in El Barril soon turned to the rumours that divisions on the left were beginning to develop and there were mutterings that the socialist-dominated Republican government were not bringing the swift end to poverty that they had promised. Even before the end of 1931 there were clashes between security forces and protesting workers who felt their interests were not being represented.
There were plenty who yearned for a return to rule by the wealthy and privileged, and many loathed the new liberalism, blaming it for a wave of permissive behaviour that they found hard to stomach. Over the next few years they opposed the Republic at every possible opportunity.The new government had swiftly made itself unpopular among conservatives by interfering with the Catholic Church, and restricting its religious processions and celebrations. This was seen as a severe threat to a traditional way of life. The power of the Church had also been weakened by the opening of new schools that were not religiously affiliated. The Church united with the landed and the wealthy in resenting the new regime, bemoaning the removal of their unchallenged power.
Even within the government itself divisions began to open up, a situation exploited by those who were keen to bring it down. At the beginning of 1933, as part of a wave of violence in the province of Cádiz, a group of anarchists besieged the Civil Guard post in the town of Casas Viejas and declared the arrival of libertarian communism. Inevitably, fighting broke out.
‘But aren’t these people meant to be on the same side?’ commented Concha. ‘I don’t understand it. If they start fighting each other, we might as well go back to a dictatorship!’ She was looking over Antonio’s shoulder at that day’s newspaper headlines.
‘That’s the theory,’ he responded. ‘But I’m sure these workers don’t feel as though the government is on their side. Most of them have been unemployed for a year.’
Antonio was right. These starving ‘revolutionaries’ had been living on the edge of desperation, eking out a living by begging, poaching and hoping for the occasional hand-out.The announcement of an increase in bread prices had finally spurred them to action.
Within days the news worsened. Civil Guard and Assault Guard reinforcements arrived from Cádiz to put down the insurrection. They surrounded the house of a six-fingered anarchist known as Seisdedos, and orders were eventually given for the building to be burned down. As well as those who died in the flames, other anarchists who had previously been arrested were shot in cold blood.
‘That’s brutal!’ commented Ignacio, when he saw the report that a dozen men had died in this repression. ‘What does the government think it’s doing?’
Ignacio was not someone who naturally sided with peasants and revolutionaries, but for those like him who did not support the Republican-Socialist government that was in power, it was an opportunity to criticise the Prime Minister, Manuel Azaña. The incident had shocked the country, and the right wing saw a situation that could be exploited to its own advantage, quickly accusing the government of barbarism.
‘I think the days of the coalition might be numbered,’ Ignacio said in the innocent but knowing tone that he knew would annoy his older brother.
‘We’ll see, shall we?’ responded Antonio, determined not to lose his temper.
The two brothers were often at loggerheads, and politics became a growing source of contention. In Antonio’s view Ignacio had no firm political beliefs. He just liked trouble. Sometimes he was just not worth arguing with.
In elections held late in 1933, Antonio desperately hoped that the liberals would stay in power. To his dismay, a conservative government was elected and any reforms that the left had brought in were now threatened. Rumblings of anger erupted into explosions of discontent. Strikes and protests were staged. Both the socialists and Fascists had burgeoning youth movements and the highly politicised young men of Antonio’s generation were in the vanguard, on both sides.
The situation worsened the following year and in October 1934, there was an abortive attempt by the left to stage a general strike. It failed but an armed rebellion in Asturias, the northern coal-mining area, continued for two weeks, with far-reaching consequences.Villages were bombed and coastal towns shelled.
The centre of the action was a long way from Granada, but the Ramírez family followed events closely.
‘Listen to this,’ said Antonio, his tone one of outrage as he read that day’s newspaper. ‘They’ve executed some of the ringleaders!’
‘Why does that surprise you?’ Ignacio responded. ‘They can’t have that sort of thing happening.’
Antonio decided not to react.
‘Serves those leftists right for burning down churches!’ Ignacio continued, determined to provoke his brother.
The Spanish foreign legionaries brought in to deal with the situation had not only executed some of the leaders, they had also killed innocent women and children. Large areas of the region’s principal towns of Gijón and Oviedo were bombed and burned out.
‘Mother, look at these pictures.’
‘I know, I know, I’ve seen them. They say everything . . .’
The destruction of the buildings was not the last revenge. The people were now brutally repressed.Thirty thousand workers were imprisoned and torture was commonplace in the gaols.The socialist presses were silent.
The atmosphere in the country changed. Even in El Barril, where Pablo and Concha did what they could not to seem biased towards any political party, they could feel distrust between people beginning to set in. Some of their customers openly supported the socialists, others clearly welcomed the conservatives into government and at times there was animosity between them.There was a subtle shift of ambience in the bar.The halcyon days of the Republic seemed to be coming to an end.
Whatever the changes and upheavals going on in politics, Concha was concerned that any of the privileges that had been won for ordinary people were being eroded. Most importantly of all, she would lament the disappearance of any improvements for women. For the first time in Spain’s history, women had been getting into public office and participating in politics. Thousands of them were now going to university too, and taking part in sport, even bullfighting.
Concha and her friends flippantly called the new freedoms for women ‘liberation and lingerie’ because of the exciting new undergarments that they now sometimes saw advertised in the newspapers. Having moved out of rural poverty herself when she married Pablo, she wanted to see Mercedes improve her life too, and had been pleased at the prospect of her daughter growing up in a society full of opportunity. With women now in the professions and reaching positions of power and influence, Concha hoped that life for Mercedes would have more to it than polishing glasses and lining them up neatly along the bar.Though Mercedes seemed to think of nothing but dance her mother regarded it as something of a childish pastime.
She did not worry about her sons. They had already-evolving careers and their futures looked promising.
‘Granada is full of opportunities,’ she said to Mercedes, ‘so imagine what it must be like in the rest of Spain!’
Mercedes had only a limited idea of what the rest of her country was like but she nodded with agreement. It was usually the best thing to do with her mother. She knew that Concha did not take her dancing seriously enough. As the months and years passed by, she knew it was all she would ever want to do, but it was hard to convince her parents. All of her brothers appreciated this ambition of hers. They had watched her dancing from the days of her first flamenco shoes, the smallest anyone made, to the present time when she was a match for anyone in Granada, and Mercedes knew that they understood her desire.
When tales had begun to filter through from Concha’s family in the countryside that landless farm workers were once again being ill-treated, she lectured her family on the unfairness of it all.
‘This is not what the Republic was meant to stand for!’ she would rant. ‘Is it?’
She expected a response from her children even if her husband remained studiedly neutral. Pablo found this by far the best position to take, given that his business relied on the need to welcome anyone who cared to come in the door. He did not want El Barril to be too firmly identified with politics of any colour, unlike several bars in Granada that had become meeting places of very specific cliques.
Antonio muttered in agreement. He was more keenly aware of the political shifts taking place than anyone else in his family. He was following events in the Spanish parliament, the Cortes, closely, and read the newspapers voraciously and retentively. Though the city of Granada had a strongly conservative bias, Antonio, like his mother, was naturally drawn towards the left. The family could have remained unaware of this, but for the fights he used to have with Ignacio. The two boys lived on the edge of conflict.
As children they had fought over practically everything from toys and books to who should have the last piece of bread in the basket. Ignacio would never acknowledge that age and precedence should have any connection. Now the disagreement between them extended into the more serious business of politics and, though with fewer physical bruises and scratches than before, it was with hatred that they fought.
Emilio always remained silent when his brothers argued. He did not want to get drawn in, knowing that Ignacio was more than likely to pick on him. Mercedes occasionally interjected.The vehemence of their arguments upset her. She wanted them to love each other and for her this dislike seemed an unnatural state of affairs between brothers.
Another reason for their current polarisation was Ignacio’s entrenchment in the bullfighting crowd. The people who were drawn to this sport - or, rather art, as so many people thought of it - tended to be the most conservative of Granadinos. They were the landowners and the wealthy, and Ignacio happily adopted their attitudes. Pablo and Concha accepted these inclinations and hoped that maturity might make him see that reason lay more in the middle ground. Meanwhile, Antonio found Ignacio’s swaggering hard to stomach and never bothered to conceal it.
The household seemed to be relaxed only when Ignacio was away for a
corrida
. His days as a banderillero were behind him now and he had completed his apprenticeship as a
novillero
, a period during which he could fight only young bulls. He was now a fully fledged
matador de toros
and at his
alternativa
, the ceremony where this transition was formalised, the experts noted his precocious talent.Wherever he went, not just in Granada, but in Sevilla, Málaga and Córdoba too, Ignacio’s reputation grew with every appearance.
corrida
. His days as a banderillero were behind him now and he had completed his apprenticeship as a
novillero
, a period during which he could fight only young bulls. He was now a fully fledged
matador de toros
and at his
alternativa
, the ceremony where this transition was formalised, the experts noted his precocious talent.Wherever he went, not just in Granada, but in Sevilla, Málaga and Córdoba too, Ignacio’s reputation grew with every appearance.
As Emilio grew up, he began to develop an antipathy to his brother that surpassed even Antonio’s. They were instinctively polarised on all matters. Ignacio taunted Emilio on several counts: for his passion for the guitar, for his lack of interest in women, and that he was not, as his older brother described it ‘a real man’. Unlike Antonio, who could spar with words even better than Ignacio, Emilio would retreat into silence and then into his music. His lack of desire to retaliate and to fight back with Ignacio in one of the ways he understood, through fists or a clever turn of phrase, infuriated his brother all the more.
Although she was a much more sociable creature than her brother, Mercedes was immersed in the solipsistic world of music and dance. Nothing much had changed for her from the age of five to fifteen. She still spent much of her time in the attic listening to her brother or visiting her favourite shop behind the Plaza Bib Rambla, which made the best flamenco dresses in the city, talking to the owner, fingering the fabrics and feeling their folds, letting the extravagant ruffles run through her fingers, as though she was a soon-to-be-bride selecting her trousseau.
The shop, run by Señora Ruiz, was her private paradise. Racks of dresses hung from the ceiling in both adult and child sizes, and there were even tiny costumes for babies who could not yet walk, let alone dance. All of them were made with the same attention to detail, and their tiers of ruffles edged with ribbon or lace were all meticulously starched. Every single one was different and no two fabrics repeated.There were simple skirts for lessons and plain white shirts, embroidered shawls with silky tassels, hair combs and rows of shiny castanets. Boys were not forgotten and there were suits in every size, from toddler to adult, with black hats to complete the outfit.
Other books
Tagged by Eric Walters
The Portable Door (1987) by Tom Holt
Dreadful Summit by Stanley Ellin
Origin ARS 3 (Origin A.R.S.) by Scottie Futch
The Morels by Christopher Hacker
Riley's Torment, A Moon's Glow Novel #2 by Christina Smith
Stolen Moment [Enslaved & Enticed] (Siren Publishing Classic) by Tatum Throne
A Silver Lining by Christine Murray
A Dangerous Damsel (The Countess Scandals) by Kimberly Bell