by Karen Swan
‘Now, collection into volte,’ the instructor commanded, his body tense and wired, primed to pick up the smallest deviation from form, the tiniest error, for a lot was hanging on their official performance. It was early June and her father was throwing a birthday party for her mother at the end of the month; he had invited all the grand Andalusian families, partly so that they might admire his wife’s beauty, and partly to show off Nene too, his eligible daughter who was rapidly coming of age. More than once, the ‘b’ word had passed his lips at the dinner table, causing her brothers to snigger and make quips about the ‘poor boy’ to be ‘burdened’ with her.
She felt Indigo’s carriage brace, his strides shorten and lighten as he headed towards the perimeter and began to walk the circle.
‘Now up to medium pace, taking the centre line,’ the instructor called. ‘Keep him soft and relaxed through the jaw. Don’t let him get excited.’
She gave a tiny twitch of the reins but Indigo needed barely any instruction, carrying her faultlessly through the handsome shapes, making her look good and knowing a surreptitious sugar cube would be his reward later. They both knew the flying changes were coming up, where he switched lead leg mid-canter; it was an exciting and advanced move they had been working on for seven weeks now and it was intended to be the centre-point of the routine, a display of the perfect symbiosis between girl and horse.
She clicked with her tongue, Indigo’s signal to ride more forward in the change, and she felt the slight pull in the lead rein as he went to switch legs. But a sudden shout – shouts – threw him off his stride. He tossed his head, pulling back into his hind quarters and rearing slightly. Nene instinctively threw her weight forward, shushing him with her voice and calming him down from the unexpected fright as the clamour quickly grew. Her heart went into a gallop of its own; the sound of angry men was becoming increasingly familiar. Most times it was their shouts and taunts and threats that made her recoil, but when her family drove into town for Mass these days, it was the silence of the campesinos that frightened her most, the resentment glinting in their eyes as the car swept past, throwing up dust clouds in its wake. Even those families she knew, and who knew her, now turned away whenever she approached, their old friendliness gone.
She squinted, trying to see through the narrow gap between the roof and the sand school walls to the fields beyond, but thanks to the angle of the setting sun, she could see nothing more than bleached-out rectangular strips.
Another flurry of shouts, growing in heat, made Indigo step back again, tossing his head agitatedly and getting ready to rear. Sliding off the saddle, she hurriedly led him to the far corner, away from the direction of the fracas, and tied him to the post, fishing in her skirt for his sugar cube. She fed him, shushing in his ear, but the clamour was only growing in intensity.
‘Take him back to the stable, please,’ she said to the instructor, beginning to stride out towards the fields.
‘But, señorita—’
‘Please. Get him to the stable before this gets any worse,’ she said sharply, breaking into a run.
As she approached, the glare dimmed, the sun sliding behind the tree-line and setting the melee into silhouette. There must have been twenty, maybe thirty, men there, all of them holding farming equipment – scythes, threshers, pitchforks – but which, in their hands here now, looked like weapons.
Señor Martin, her father’s foreman, was standing on the steps outside his office, his legs planted wide, his hands on his hips as he stared them down, seemingly unafraid of the mob. The more they bayed, the more still he seemed to become, and he made no attempts to placate or calm them, merely watching instead as though this were somehow ‘interesting’ – his eyes skating over them and taking in who were the leaders, who the muscle, who the stragglers.
‘. . . is our right!’ Juan Jose Perez was yelling, the sinews in his neck taut, his eyes bulging from a gaunt, leathery face. ‘The law is on our side and we have come to claim what is ours. You cannot keep this land as grazing for your bulls, when people are starving at your feet!’ His face was twisted with contempt, spittle flying as he spoke and landing on the parched ground.
From behind the pillar where she hid, Nene’s eyes rose up to the vista behind them. The lush and vividly green pastures were being watered, as they were every evening thanks to the new state-of- the-art irrigation system her father had invested in, the droplets catching the light in the sunset and throwing out prismatic rainbows. In the next field over, the hides of the velvet-flanked herd gleamed as the animals shuffled slowly in the dying heat, heads down, horns up. It might have been a bucolic scene but for this confrontation, shattering the crowning peace and throwing it down on the ground in great, jagged shards.
Still unseen from her hiding place behind the post, she watched as the men jostled on the spot, their arms jerking their weapons spasmodically but their feet rooted – for now – as they jeered and heckled, spitting towards Señor Martin’s feet, repeating their calls for the fields to be turned over. Anger twisted their faces, violence glittering in their eyes, but they were still yoked, still reined in – just. This was still a protest, not yet a mutiny.
Nene knew exactly what they wanted. Even as protected as she was, she had overheard the countless pleas for land on which to cultivate crops that would feed their families. People were starving through lack of land and lack of work too, for far from their rights being protected, anyone at La Ventilla found in possession of union papers was summarily dismissed from the Mendoza payroll.
Every time her father called a meeting with her brothers, she stood on the other side of the closed doors and listened to them talk business. She had heard them admit that by law the labourers should not work sixteen hours but eight, that they should get extra pay for extra hours, that union papers gave them protected rights. All of this was official decree, and yet the law appeared not to apply to them. The Civil Guard never enforced the new Republican government’s mandates and the estate guards were never punished for the extreme violence they meted out to anyone caught gathering acorns, windfall olives or collecting up firewood . . . Somehow, they were free to do as they pleased. The law didn’t apply to them.
Montez and Vale, her eldest brothers, now twenty and twenty-two, were only too eager to reinforce the status quo. Occasionally she heard Arlo try to speak up, to offer a com-prom ise viewpoint to their totalitarian position, but he never got more than a few sentences out before he was silenced, his opinion as the third son almost as unimportant as hers.
Almost, but not quite. As a girl, she had the least power of all – whenever she had tried intervening, beseeching her father to give up one field, just one to keep the peace, he swatted her away like a bothersome fly, even slapping her one time when she had been too forceful, telling her that this was men’s business, she couldn’t understand . . .
The building drum of hooves made her look up, and with a sinking heart she saw the plumes of dust herald the arrival of two riders, her brothers coming in from their final recce of the fields for the night. Everyone turned and watched as they pulled back from a canter into a trot, the wide brims of their Cordobes hats throwing their faces into shade but their nobility and prowess revealed by their upright seats and thrust chins.
The peasants lapsed into a sudden hush as the riders drew up, surveying the unusual scene with growing suspicion and displeasure.
‘What is going on here?’ Vale demanded, effortlessly dismounting the horse and throwing over the reins to a groom who had hitherto been hiding in the stable block. As the eldest and the heir apparent, he carried the full weight of his father’s authority and the pack of labourers took a step back as he walked provocatively between them and Señor Martin.
He looked back at his father’s conocedor for an explanation.
‘These men are demanding that you give them your fields.’ The wry tone in his voice intimated how ludicrous this proposal really was.
‘Are they indeed?’ Vale asked, his head tippi
ng to the side. ‘And when you say demanding, you mean to tell me, they are not even asking politely for such a gift? They simply expect it?’
‘I’m afraid so, Don Vale. As you can see, they have brought weapons with them in an attempt to threaten and intimidate us.’
Vale looked back to them again, his eyes narrowed. ‘Yes, I can see that is very intimidating,’ he agreed. ‘There are just the three of us here and we are vastly outnumbered by – how many men would you say? Fifty? Sixty?’
‘Sixty at least, Don Vale,’ Señor Martin agreed.
‘It looks like sixty to me,’ Montez said from his elevated perch. He was still on his horse, his arms crossed languidly at the wrists, the reins slack in his hands.
The peasants took another step back and Nene felt a deep stirring of unease in the pit of her stomach. She too retreated further into the shadows. Threat carried on the air like salt in the sea wind and she willed the men to give up their fight, to turn around and go back to their families.
Instead, one of them stepped forward: old Juan Esperanza, Santi’s father.
She stiffened, gripping the post harder. What was he doing?
‘What we are humbly requesting is not unreasonable, Señor Mendoza. We are hard workers. Many of us come from families that have worked your land for generations. But we are dying here, the drought is killing us, we cannot afford to eat, much less pay these new rents. Already, many of our menfolk have left for the north, where there is rain and where they can work around the year.’
‘Is that so?’ Vale asked. ‘So then why do you not go with them?’
‘I’m an old man, señor, too old to travel so far. And anyway, my heart is here. This is my home.’
‘Here?’ Vale pointed to the ground beneath his feet. ‘This, right here, is your home?’
Juan looked uncertain. ‘I meant—’
‘Are you trying to tell me that you are claiming this land as your own?’
‘No, señor—’
Nene swallowed.
‘When will it end?’ Vale cried suddenly, throwing his arms up as he wheeled around to his brother and the conocedor. ‘The impertinence of these people to think they have some right to something that is not theirs! Up and down the country, landowners like us – fair people, decent people – are being coerced into relinquishing land that was rightfully gained by our ancestors through hard work, grit, determination. And yet now we must suffer the insolence of parasites like these who simply want it to be given over, just because they want it?’
‘Our children and wives are dying, señor.’
‘And that is my fault?’ Vale cried. ‘You place this at my door that you cannot keep and protect your own family?’
‘We ask only that we might work some land off which to live. The bulls do not need all the pastures. The long field has been unused now for nearly five years.’
There was a tense silence and Nene felt the anger in her brother begin to roll, like a distant thunder. ‘Because we are resting the land,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘What you see as unused we know to be part of a longer-term strategy. Do you think our bulls attract a premium for no better reason than that they are pretty?’
‘Of course not, señor.’ Nene saw how the other men behind him were standing slumped now, their weapons slack in their hands. One of them dropped his hoe, a literal throwing down of arms, and turned to leave. Juan turned fractionally, watching him go; they had come here on a wave of righteous anger but with all talk and no action their threat was nullified. Impotent.
‘Of course not,’ Vale repeated sarcastically, bringing Juan’s attention back to him again. ‘And yet you dare to demand something that is not yours on the mistaken belief that you know about matters far above your station. Or intellect.’
Nene saw how the old man’s mouth flattened into a grim line at the insult and he shifted slightly, as though prodded by something from within. Unlike her brothers, she knew that some how, through sheer force of will and pride, Juan Esperanza had taught himself to read and then taught his children too.
He straightened up, lifting his chin and expanding his chest. ‘Above my station, yes perhaps,’ he nodded, gripping tighter the cap in his hand as his voice hardened. ‘But above my intellect? No.’ He raised his head up, the word as sharp as a blade. ‘I may be a poor man, señor, but I am no fool. The long pasture is unused and I am here to fight for my family. These men with me here are mad with hunger, we cannot go on without change; our requests must be met. Nothing works with you – not legal decrees, nor negotia—’
The gunshot rang out, cracking open the sky and sending them all reeling backwards. Nene found herself on her bottom on the ground, her hands in the sawdust as she braced from falling further, her eyes somehow pinned on Juan. He had spun backwards in the instant the bullet hit, turning a full revolution like a drunken dancer until he came back to where he had begun. He swayed for a moment, his head beginning to loll, the men around him all cowering on the ground, their hands over their heads.
Nene looked in horror back at her brothers – Vale and Señor Martin on the steps; Montez still on his horse with the rifle aimed level at Juan’s head. For a moment she was too terrified even to gasp, knowing there was another cartridge in the barrel, seeing how her brother’s finger twitched at the trigger.
She heard screams – shrill white sounds that shredded the air – and it was several full moments before she realized they were coming from her; that her feet were moving and she was scrambling up again, hurtling forwards and launching herself towards the slowly toppling figure of her best friend’s father.
‘Nene!’ Vale barked, looking shocked and then furious. ‘Get away from here!’
‘What have you done?’ she screamed, ragging her vocal cords as Juan Esperanza’s knees buckled and his full weight – though meagre for a man, still far more than hers – toppled forwards. She fell awkwardly, one leg pinned beneath her as she tried to grapple with him, to stop the hot blood flow that was now pumping onto her, the ground, everywhere.
Vale was there in a flash, throwing the dying man off her and roughly dragging her out as though the spectacle was unseemly. She thrashed and fought him, but even through her flailing arms and whip-crack hair, she saw Juan Esperanza on his back, one leg bent at a hideous angle, his breath coming in shallow rasps, his eyes fixed on an unseen point in the beautiful bruised sky.
Santi. What would she tell Santi? Who would tell him? He was in Oviedo still, working with his uncle, sending home the money his father had not been able to earn here. She had not seen him in four years and communication had been almost impossible, but they had exchanged a few letters, thanks to the help of a few men from his district when they travelled north for the harvest. In the last one, he had promised to place his beloved shark tooth in their secret hiding place as the signal he was back, and every day she checked it, and every day her loneliness grew. And now . . . Now the tears raged down her cheeks as she thought of his mother alone in their tiny shack in the pueblo blanco, waiting for her husband to return. She kicked and bit harder against her brother’s vice-like grip, knowing she had to go to her and tell her herself; his mother had to hear it from her – that she was sorry she hadn’t stopped it, sorry she hadn’t saved him, sorry she was a Mendoza.
She bit down hard on his arm, trying to get free, but Vale slapped her hard, once, across the cheek. ‘We had no choice, Nene. You heard him – he was a mad dog, he said it himself. He came here to fight.’
‘No!’ she shouted, shaking her head furiously. ‘That wasn’t what he meant.’
‘Those were his own words.’
‘You’re twisting them!’ Her body was shaking violently, the sobs and the fury and fear mixing within her; she felt herself growing hotter inside, the adrenaline becoming combustible, and she thought she might explode with rage. And shame.
‘Control yourself, Nene.’ Vale’s grip was tight on her upper arms as he roughly shook her, bruising the biceps. ‘These men are animals. They can
not be trusted to be civilized, to do what is right. Do you think they are your friends?’ He spat the last word as if it was itself toxic. ‘Ha! They would slaughter you for your dinner without a second thought.’
‘They are my friends,’ she screamed, the tears coming as sobs as she saw Señor Esperanza’s body lying inert on the ground, his chest still now and the blood flow slowly subsiding. Vale slapped her again, stunning her once again into momentary submission.
Why was no one else fighting? Why were they leaving him lying there?
And then she saw that Montez still had his gun raised and pointed towards the rest of the men – that none of them dared move, neither to save her nor join her. In a flash she understood why. There might be only one cartridge left in the rifle, but he and Vale and Señor Martin all had pistols in their belts too. The campesinos knew it as well. The reckoning wasn’t necessarily finished. Juan Esperanza might not be the only one.
‘Let them go,’ she said, sobering suddenly and understanding what Arlo had once said to her – that passion was the real enemy here. Volatility made trigger fingers twitchy and a pitchfork was no match for a bullet. She stood limp, falling still, dropping her head. Submitting. ‘You’re right, brother, they were animals. But you’ve made your point.’
She saw the campesinos’ heads turn in her direction, the inflection registering their shock as she switched side. But she saw now that if she wanted a voice, if she wanted to be heard, then she had to behave as one of them, a Mendoza. She tipped her head up slightly, nobly, knowing her riding habit gave her a gravitas she could never achieve in her normal clothes.
