Death of a Nationalist

by Rebecca Pawel

  “Sergeant?” Moscoso flushed slightly. Jiménez had bragged insufferably at dinner, about being chosen to go on patrol with Tejada Alonso y León. This might be a good chance to pay Jiménez back.

  “Where are you from, Moscoso?”

  “Here, sir,” Moscoso smiled, relieved, and wondered why he had been so tense before. Feeling that this response might be inadequate, he added. “I’m a Madrileño. But we were in Mall-orca when the war broke out, so my parents are all right, God be thanked.”

  “Ahh. Summer vacation?”

  “Yes, sir. I had just finished my first year at the institute, sir.”

  Tejada said, “I’m sure you were devastated to leave school.”

  Moscoso grinned. “You want an honest answer, sir?”

  “This isn’t an interrogation. But if you’re local, I would like to ask you a few questions about the lie of the land. I think the lieutenant might, as well.”

  “Anything I can do to help, sir.” Moscoso had forgotten his nervousness.

  Tejada hesitated. “Well . . . I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of a primary school called Leopoldo Alas?”

  The recruit blinked in surprise. “Why, yes, sir. I think I have. It’s a public school, isn’t it?”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “It’s up near the Plaza de Colón,” Moscoso answered readily. “Well, it was. It may have been moved because of the bombing.”

  “Thank you.” Tejada’s voice was warmer than Moscoso had ever heard it before. “I’ll mention to Lieutenant Ramos that you have special knowledge that may be useful.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “It’s nothing.” Tejada retired, secure in the knowledge that the post patrol routes were scheduled by him. He was fairly sure that his own route was going to take him to the Plaza de Colón within the next few days.

  Chapter 3

  Gonzalo Llorente opened his eyes and wished that he were dead. It was hard to believe that less than two weeks ago he’d been happy to wake up.

  A nurse with a white wimple was bending over him. He thought that she was the same one who had brought him a glass of water that first Monday, when he had awakened drenched with sweat and conscious only of being thirsty. She had not worn a wimple then.

  “Are you awake, sir?” she asked, her voice polite and professional. “Your sister is here.”

  That first Monday she had smiled at him and said, “Congratulations, soldier. Looks like you’ve turned the corner.”

  “Yes, thank you.” He spoke the polite words because Car-men was there, and Carmen wanted him to be polite. Not to use the familiar tú. To survive. It had been Carmen who had hastily spoken of a congenital heart defect, and of weakness as a child, to the strange doctor who had appeared three days ago. It had been Carmen, he was sure, who had pleaded with the staff: “Don’t trouble him while he’s still weak.” So he had convalesced slowly until the afternoon the strange doctor appeared, and his siesta was ended by the sound of shooting in the plaza.

  “What’s happening?” he had asked. “What’s happening?” And his sister had said, “Shh-shh, it’s nothing.” And then, with a glance at the doctor, “Don’t worry. There’s nothing to fear now.”

  “But the shooting,” he had protested. “If they’re fighting house to house. . . .”

  It was Viviana who had taken his hand and said quietly. “It’s over, Gonzalo. The carbineros are disbanded.”

  He stared dumbly, wondering for a moment if they were humoring him, pretending that a miracle had happened, and that the war was over. The war could not be over. Winning was impossible, and losing was unthinkable. It must still be going on. “The shooting . . . ,” he had repeated.

  “Executions.” The doctor had spoken then. “It’s necessary to set an example, you know. You’re a lucky man,” he had continued, apparently changing the subject to Gonzalo’s health. “That was a bad fever.”

  Gonzalo had let the words wash over him, hearing only the bursts of gunfire. Lying here, staring up at the whitewashed ceiling, it almost sounded like the front. But the noise was too regular. A round of firing; many men, shooting together. Then a short silence. Then firing again. On the front, the firing was ragged. Men reloaded as quickly as they could, and the rhythm was as erratic as waves on a shore. Viviana had sat by him, holding his hand, and he had noticed vaguely that she was wearing a dress, and that the doctor addressed her as “Señora” and referred to “your husband’s illness.” And that every time the sounds of firing filtered through the windows she squeezed his hand a little harder and shivered. Carmen had said something about his being well enough to come home soon. The doctor had asked him how he felt, and he had answered that he felt fine, just a little tired. Was that normal?

  The doctor had assured him that it was normal. Carmen had spoken of how glad Aleja would be to see him. “She asks about Tío Gonzalo every day.” The doctor had said that it was a fine recovery; Gonzalo and his country could make a new beginning together. They had agreed that he would go home that Saturday. Doctors and nurses had hovered during each visit. There had been no chance to talk to Viviana alone, to ask her what was really going on, and if she knew what had happened to Manuel and Jorge and Pilar.

  He tried to be glad that he was going home today. He would be able to talk to Viviana. He could find out what had been happening. But why did a dead man need to talk, or to know what was happening? It was kind, or perhaps selfish, of Carmen to try to keep him alive, but he was a dead man now, for all that she might try to protect him. Better to have died in the plaza, with the compañeros. This pretending to be alive while he waited for the Guardia to catch up with him took effort. Car-men was there now, offering him his clothes, civilian clothes, that had belonged to him before the war.

  Gonzalo allowed Carmen to take care of the formalities of signing him out of the hospital and thanking the staff. Walking upright after so much time required concentration. He would gladly have collapsed in a heap on the threshold but Carmen guided him firmly with one hand, dragging a bag with the other, until they were out of the door, and walking down the Gran Vía. With mild, academic interest he watched the guardias civiles lining the street. The majority of them were standing along the sidewalks, regulating—or obstructing— pedestrian traffic. Some appeared to be fiddling with wires. One was leaning out a third-story window in a most undignified manner, apparently fixing a loudspeaker attached to the side of the building. None of them took any interest in him. But he knew it was only a matter of time. The sky seemed to match his mood. It was gray, and overcast, but it did not seem to think that raining was worth the trouble.

  He realized that Carmen was talking. She had talked almost nonstop since they had left the hospital, in the high, shrill, voice of a record played too fast. He wondered, with a flicker, if something was troubling her. It did not occur to him that he might be the problem. After all, he was dead. “How’s Aleja?” he asked, for the sake of interrupting her.

  “Aleja.” Her voice died. “Aleja’s . . . well, thank God.”

  “Did you leave her with Viviana?” Gonzalo spoke with only nominal interest.

  “Viviana. . . .” For a moment his sister sounded dead as well. Then she rallied. “Aleja loved Viviana from the first, you know. Really. I was the one who had doubts about her. But she was such a blessing to me when you were ill. And so good with Aleja. I never realized what a treasure she was. Do you know, after we left the hospital on Wednesday, Viviana said to me that she supposed now you’d have to get married. She said she wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it, but that she was willing to be married in a church if that was the only way to stay with you. She loved you, you know. She was crazy about you.”

  Gonzalo’s numbed brain registered something odd about his sister’s speech, but it took him a while to figure out what it was. Then it dawned on him. The verb tenses were wrong. He wondered if perhaps this was a narrative defect. If so, a simple correction was in order. He tried one. “I haven’t thought a
bout marriage,” he said. “But yes, I suppose we’ll have to discuss it, if that’s what she wants.”

  This gentle reminder of the existence of the present tense did not have the desired effect. “I’m so sorry, Gonzalo,” Car-men whispered. “I . . . you mustn’t blame Aleja.”

  A clanging of bells distracted Gonzalo for a moment. It was noon. Church bells were ringing, all over the city. Gonzalo realized that some of the ringing sounds were coming from the loudspeakers along the street as well. The guardias must have rigged them to broadcast the church bells. “What mustn’t I blame her for?” Gonzalo asked, when it was possible to talk without shouting.

  “She lost her notebook.” Carmen was crying now. “Viviana went out to look for it, and . . . she must have run into the Guardia Civil. I only knew this morning. I’m sorry, Gonzalo.”

  “She’s been arrested?” It wasn’t surprising. The only thing left now was for the soldiers to come and take him away. He wondered wearily if it would be worth the effort of raising his fist as they shot him.

  “Manuela found her this morning.” Carmen was looking at the sidewalk, perhaps because it was uneven and she was guiding their steps, or perhaps because she did not want to meet his eyes. “She was in front of the Arcé house. Manuela said she heard a shot yesterday evening. That must have been it. She looked out and saw some guardias so she didn’t come out.”

  “Don’t tell me she’s dead?” Gonzalo had once suffered from frostbitten feet. He remembered the way they had hurt when feeling returned. He felt now as if his entire body were recovering from frostbite, and he understood suddenly why people died in blizzards. It was not because they were cold and fell asleep. It was because it hurt too much to come back to life.

  If Viviana had been arrested, tried, condemned, past saving, he would have comprehended. But she could not be dead already. Not without some kind of warning. His sister’s hand was on his arm, and he dimly realized that without her support he would have stumbled and fallen. Carmen was still talking. “Manuela says it was probably very quick. It doesn’t look as if they hurt her or . . . or anything. Just an execution, Gonzalo.”

  The words were like cold water for frostbitten feet. They mingled with an interior voice that said: A soldier’s death. No worse than dying in the plaza. You can’t believe all the stories you’ve heard about what they do to captured women. Well, there was Mercedes, but that was an exception. This isn’t the front. A girl can’t be raped in broad daylight in the streets of Madrid. The loudspeakers squawked and Gonzalo realized that they had gone dead for a few moments. A tinny voice was saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, His Excellency, Generalíssimo Francisco Franco,” and then there was a burst of static that might have been wild applause.

  “Why?” he asked in an undertone, as the loudspeakers hissed and squeaked an announcement about the coming of peace and prosperity, and the great destiny of the nation.

  “There was a guardia civil, dead in the street,” Carmen replied softly. “They must have thought she had something to do with that.”

  Gonzalo would have liked to cry, or vomit, or best of all hit something. He concentrated on walking, with each footstep echoing softly to the beat. Viviana’s dead. Viviana’s dead.

  They turned to leave the Gran Vía, and found their way barred. “You want to hear the end of the Generalíssimo’s speech,” a guardia civil said, holding a rifle across his chest. It was a statement, not a question.

  So they stood there, listening to a speech so distorted by amplifiers that it was nearly impossible to understand. When another burst of static marked applause, the guardias civiles shouted together: “Viva Franco! Arriba España!” A few prods with rifle butts gave the civilians on the Gran Vía the correct idea. “Viva,” the echo rose from the street like a sigh. “Viva, viva.”

  “Vivi,” Gonzalo whispered the pet name hoarsely, unable to believe that she would never answer it again. “Oh, Vivi.” The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur for him. Somehow, Car-men got him home and warned him away from the folding bed behind the curtain in the living room before he collapsed onto it. The undertakers were closed today, in honor of the first day of peace, so there had been no coffin available. Viviana had been laid out on their bed and covered with a sheet. Gonzalo pulled it back for a moment and felt the obscenity of his sister’s words of comfort: “They didn’t hurt her.”

  That night, curled up on the couch, his brain began to work clearly for the first time in days. His reasons for living were about as great as his chances. Sooner or later a neighbor would whisper a denunciation. Or the Guardia Civil would review the lists of the carbineros and realize that he had originally been hospitalized with a wound, and that only infection had caused the fever. He could stay here, with Carmen and Aleja, and without Viviana, waiting for the Guardia to come and rectify their mistake. He could go up to the nearest guardia in the street, shout, “Viva la República!” and die with his fist in the air. Or he could spend the free time he had left looking for the man who had killed Viviana. Killing one guardia wouldn’t make a difference now. On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt. Carmen said there was a guardia found dead near her. Just one guardia, though, and they always go in pairs.

  So, start with the man who was murdered. Find his partner, and he’s the man you’re looking for.

  Chapter 4

  Lieutenant Ramos had told the truth when he had said there would be no time off over the next few days. In addition to the patrols, there were prisoners by the hundreds who had to be either executed or registered and housed and so-called civilians looking for family members who had to be taken down to the cells to look at prisoners or directed to the morgue to identify bodies. Ramos had received a memo from Burgos stating that all houses were to be checked for firearms (“Maybe they’d like an inventory of rat holes, too!” the lieutenant had exclaimed. “What the hell do they think this is— some mountain village? Where are we going to get the manpower for that?”). Then there were denunciations, written and oral, to be received and acted upon. The corps worked through Palm Sunday, stopping to hear the mass that inaugurated Holy Week with relief or impatience, depending on individual temperament. Jiménez and some of the other new recruits dutifully prayed for the health of General Franco, so that he might continue to do God’s work in Spain. Ramos, who was preoccupied with God’s work on a more immediate basis, prayed for a consignment of trucks or a train designated to remove the prisoners, or else for speedy trials and sentencings, so that the prison would not be so dangerously overcrowded. After some consideration, he decided that praying for an honest and efficient quartermaster was also an unselfish prayer, and he requested that as well. Tejada prayed for the soul of Paco López. And for understanding, he thought. I don’t question the need. Not my will, Lord, but thy will. But please, if there was an earthly reason, for my comfort, I’d like to find it.

  Tejada did not have time to search for an earthly reason until two days later. A memo had been sent around to all posts, asking if one was missing a Corporal Francisco López Pérez. But other commanders were overworked as well, and a dead man whose murderer had already been executed was a low priority. No reply had arrived when Sergeant Tejada and First Corporal Loredo set out on a routine patrol, one whose route had been carefully planned by Tejada the night before.

  He would have preferred patrolling with Jiménez, who knew of the strange piece of evidence he had found by Paco’s body, or even with one of the other enlisted men. They were all younger than he was, and none of them would have thought to question his judgment. Loredo was in his midthirties, a career guardia, who would never rise beyond his present rank. He would obey orders, but was apt to resent them, especially if given by someone several years his junior. However, there was no help for it. Jiménez was on his way to Toledo, along with ten other guardias, with a trainload of prisoners. Moscoso had been commandeered by Lieutenant Ramos to update maps. Loredo would do.

  As Tejada had arranged, they were making a circuit of the Plaza de Colón. As
they walked down one of the side streets south of the plaza, they passed a high whitewashed wall. The shrill cries of children at play could be heard from the other side. The wall was pierced by a wrought-iron gate adorned with a plaque proclaiming, LEOPOLDO ALAS ELEMEN-TARY SCHOOL. Tejada read the sign with satisfaction. “Shall we take a look, Corporal?” he asked.

  Loredo shrugged. “What for?”

  Tejada had his answer planned. “We’re supposed to get to know the neighborhood. Besides, we should get a register of the older boys. They’ll be forming groups of Falangist Youth here. We want to know who to sign up for the movement.”

  Loredo grunted. This was typical of Tejada. This was the sort of idea that men with university educations had. This was the sort of idea that had gotten Tejada promoted. Loredo looked on such ideas with profound suspicion. Tejada was the sergeant, though. “Yes, sir.”

  Tejada rang the bell beside the gate. It took a few minutes for someone to come out of the main building and down the path to open the gate. Long before their guide arrived, the gym class in the courtyard had become aware of the silent scrutiny of the two guardias civiles. The shouts died to whispers, and the children bunched together, clustering around an elderly man who seemed a most unlikely instructor in physical education. The ball they had been playing with rolled away toward the gate. Someone in the class whimpered.

  There was some low-voiced conversation and then the teacher shuffled after the ball. He was not so old, Tejada realized, looking at him more closely. Perhaps in his early fifties. It was his slight limp and frail appearance that gave the impression of age. He stooped awkwardly to pick up the ball, muttered, “Gentlemen,” and turned away, without meeting their eyes.