Harold would drive into Malaga in order to bring back supplies. He said some shops and bars would be open, whilst others were closed, and the trains and buses would mysteriously cease their timetables with no warning. Nothing was stable, no one was even wearing neckties any more, for such flourishes were taken as a sign of bourgeois tendency and might make you a target for the reds. Harold hoped the worst the Anarchists might do was steal his car, vehicles requisitioned ‘for the cause’, petrol siphoned off for trucks, elegant motors left to rust.
The days were bearable; the worst was the nights. The family lay awake in the finca as gunshots peppered the fields, ever nearer. Each side of the growing battle saw the other as a faceless, viral mass contaminating the body politic, requiring excision from society. Right-wing and left-wing gangs were taking the law into their own hands, removing opponents from their homes, leaving them in unmarked graves amongst the hills and groves.
In many instances, politics was the cover for personal vendetta and family feud. Most of the right-wing terror was directed against those who had influenced the violence against the priests and the factory owners back in 1934 – union leaders, prominent anti-clericals, several Republican mayors. And yet – mechanics, butchers, doctors, builders, labourers, barbers, they too were ‘taken for a walk’, as the phrase came to be known. And it wasn’t just men. Certain women who had become teachers under the Republic were removed, as were known anarchist’s wives. None of it was legal, of course, and there seemed no means of stopping it, when hate and power were in play.
As for the rogue elements on the left – despite the posters Harold had seen plastered around Malaga, imploring them to stop shaming their political and trade organizations and to cease their brutalities – they went for retired civil guards, Catholic sympathizers, people they knew to be rich, people they believed to be rich. Their houses were looted, their property damaged – and it was this that often struck first into the fearful imagination of the middle classes, rather than the chance they would be shot.
The Schlosses did not fear for themselves. They thought no one would touch them, as foreigners. They were nothing do with all this. Death was taking place beyond their villages, outside municipal authority and the sight of the people. The violence in the country – against both the body of a village and a villager’s bullet-riddled corpse – was concealed, although everyone knew it was there. But because you couldn’t see it, you carried on. It was odd, Olive thought – how you could live alongside this; how you could know all this was happening, and still not want to leave.
She had long ago abandoned trying to listen to the BBC to seek the facts, for it offered little more than an improbable-sounding hybrid of information from Madrid and Seville, adding it together and dividing it by London. Yet the Republican government stations were one long barrage of victory speeches and claims of triumph, which were rather undermined by actual events. Granada’s frequency always crackled, not a word could be heard – and the same applied to the northern cities, whose radio waves could not penetrate the southern mountains.
The city of Malaga, however, was constantly broadcasting denials, rumours and myths; Republican calls to arms, meeting times and orders to build a new Spain, free of fascists. And on the other side, the alarming nationalist invective was a frequency in Seville. In the daytime, it would play music and personal announcements, as if there was no conflict going on at all. But by night, the insurgents would broadcast, and although there was still much bombast and warmongering in it, Olive used it to deduce the changing state of her adopted country’s fortunes. She listened as Queipo de Llano, the general who had first broadcast from Seville, maintained his unrelenting bloodthirstiness, crying out that there was a cancer in Spain, a body of infidels that only death would remove.
IT WAS UNNERVING, ALL OF it; and yet there were heartening stories of people refusing to do exactly what the generals wanted. Teresa reported how a priest in the neighbouring village prevented a Falangist gang from shooting the atheists in his parish. She had also heard rumours of leftists reprimanding Anarchists for trying to burn down the local church, even hiding right-wing neighbours in their bread ovens, protecting them from certain death when the radicals turned up.
Olive, listening to these tales, could see how most people were massed in the middle. They wanted no disturbance, desperate just to live their lives away from these demonstrations of power, talks of purge, of brutality sprayed in blood against a whitewashed wall. But their desire couldn’t change the truth of Arazuelo’s atmosphere. She would walk into the village and see people’s pinched faces, worrying who was going to defend whom when Arazuelo’s day of reckoning finally came.
ISAAC PURCHASED A RIFLE IN Malaga from a trade-union contact, who was fond of poaching his boss’s boar. He reinforced the bolt across the cottage door, but he knew this would mean nothing to someone determined to get him. More ‘people of interest’ to the nationalist rebels had left their villages to hide out in the countryside, or join the militias run by the Communist party in Malaga. But this wasn’t far enough for Teresa. She wanted him to leave.
‘I think you should go north,’ she said. ‘You’ve made too many enemies here. You don’t fit. The left won’t trust you because of our father, and the right don’t trust you for not being his legitimate son.’
Isaac regarded his sister. The new severity in her face was an unwelcome development. ‘You don’t fit here either, Tere,’ he said.
‘But you’re the one who put a bullet through the Madonna. You’re the one who’s spent his life teaching peasants their rights. You’re the one—’
‘All right, all right. But you think they’re only going for men? You’d have to come with me.’
‘I won’t leave.’
‘Jesus, you’re as stubborn as the Schlosses.’
‘Well, we all know why they won’t leave. Because of you. If you think about it, Isa, you’re endangering them too.’
•
The British Consulate in Malaga had sent letters out to any of His Majesty’s registered subjects it knew of in the region. Wide-eyed, Teresa handed over the consul’s letter, which was addressed to Sarah. After a thin breakfast, bread being scarcer and the goat milk drying up, the Schlosses discussed whether they should stay or go.
The letter informed them that warships were waiting to take them off Spanish soil into Gibraltar – and on, if they wished, to England. The threat, it said, was not from these nationalist insurgents and their foreign troops, but from those on the Spanish far left, the reds – who might soon loot these British-rented fincas, and confiscate any private property.
Olive was determined that they should stay. ‘We can’t just leave when it doesn’t suit us. What sort of example is that?’
‘Liebling,’ said Harold. ‘It’s dangerous.’
‘You’re the one still driving into Malaga like a man possessed. We’re foreigners. They won’t come for us.’
‘That’s exactly why they will come for us,’ said Harold, pointing at the letter. ‘That’s what the consul said.’
‘Liv’s right,’ said Sarah. ‘I don’t think we should leave.’
Harold looked at his two womenfolk in bemusement. ‘You both want to stay?’
Sarah got up and walked to the window. ‘London is over for us.’
‘I’m confused,’ said Harold. ‘Only two months ago, you were clamouring to leave.’ Sarah ignored him. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that we should leave if it gets any worse, but invite Isaac to come with us.’
The women turned to look at him. ‘It’s my duty,’ said Harold. ‘He’s too valuable.’
‘Isaac won’t leave,’ said Sarah. ‘He’ll fight.’
‘What would you know about it?’
‘It’s obvious. He feels great loyalty to this place.’
‘As do I,’ said Olive, still on the sofa, reaching over to
light one of their dwindling supply of cigarettes. Her parents did not stop her. ‘Mr Robles isn’t a coward,’ she said, exhaling deeply, surveying them both. ‘But if you’re planning to take him, then quite frankly, you should take Teresa too.’
Teresa was skulking in the corner. ‘Well, Teresa?’ said Harold. ‘If we left, would you want to come too?’
‘Thank you, señor. I do not know.’
‘Has he nearly finished this Rufina painting?’ asked Harold. ‘I keep dangling the bait for Peggy, but have not been given any news.’
‘I do not know, señor,’ said Teresa.
‘You normally know everything, Teresa,’ Sarah said, and the girl blushed.
‘He has nearly finished,’ said Olive. ‘It won’t be long, I’m sure.’
‘When you next go to Malaga, darling,’ Sarah said to her husband, ‘buy a Union Jack.’
‘What?’
‘I want to hoist the Union Jack. So whatever bastard comes along to shoot us up, they know that we are neutral.’
‘We’re hardly neutral, Mother,’ said Olive. ‘Have you even looked at the newspapers?’
‘You know I don’t like the newspapers, Olive.’
‘Unless you’re in them.’
‘Liv,’ said her father, a warning in his voice.
‘Well, what? She lives in a bubble. Our government has refused to get involved. So have the French. They’re saying that defending the Spanish Republic is tantamount to a defence of Bolshevism.’
‘They’re worried, liebling,’ said Harold. ‘They fear revolution, that the situation here will spread to France, up and up across the Channel, into Regent Street, along the Strand and the Pennine Way.’
‘Baldwin’s so scared of Hitler, he won’t do anything.’
‘I don’t think he is,’ said Harold. ‘The Prime Minister is buying time rather than German favour.’
‘Either way – where does that leave you, Mr Vienna?’ said Sarah. ‘Better for you – for all of us – if we stay in Spain.’
•
Rufina and the Lion was in fact completed, but Olive hadn’t painted anything since. She’d never experienced this lack of willingness to approach a canvas, and she didn’t like it at all – feeling useless, and frightened by her lack of confidence. She didn’t want to connect it directly to Isaac’s lack of interest in her – she wanted to work independently of him, of any factor outside her own creative impulse – but it was proving impossible. She had begged Isaac to present Rufina and the Lion to Harold, but he wouldn’t do it. ‘I’ve got more important things to worry about,’ he’d said.
‘But you could just hand it over. My father’s waiting. Peggy Guggenheim’s waiting.’
‘I do not care if the Pope is waiting,’ he snapped.
Olive started to feel that Rufina was clogging up her mind. Its power over her had become a reflection, not just of her relationships with Isaac and Teresa, but of the political situation that was swirling around them. Fear was stoppering her. She had painted it as a purge; now she needed it gone. When Isaac wouldn’t take it, Olive suggested that Teresa take the panel down to the pantry, out of her sight.
Teresa refused. ‘It is too cold in there, señorita,’ she said. ‘It might be damaged.’
‘But I can’t paint anything now.’
‘Tranquila, señorita,’ said Teresa. ‘It will come and go.’
‘Well, it’s never gone anywhere before. What if that’s it? What if it’s just been these paintings, and that’s it?’
ONE EVENING IN EARLY OCTOBER, the Schlosses invited Isaac for dinner. He was quiet throughout, and afterwards Olive caught him alone, staring into the darkness of the orchard. She slipped her hand in his, but he did not take hers, his own resting there like a dead man’s. She tried to cajole him again, saying that surely he could do with more money for the Republican side, and that giving Harold Rufina and the Lion would be the ideal way.
‘The Soviets have promised us arms,’ he said. ‘We may lose Malaga. We may lose Madrid and half of Catalonia, but we will win the war.’
She leaned over to plant a kiss on his cheek. ‘You’re so brave,’ she said.
He seemed not to notice her kiss at all, as he ground the cigarette under his heel, ash smearing black on the veranda. ‘Teresa thinks I should go north. Our father is becoming more and more . . . loud, about those on the left. I represent something that holds him back. He’s ambitious. Ambitious men do well in times like these.’
‘Will he hurt you, Isa?’
‘He will not get his hands dirty. Those days are over. But someone else might.’
‘Isaac, no.’
‘They’re bombing Malaga again. You should leave, Olive. You all should go.’
‘But we live here.’
‘Imagine if you stayed. You might never paint again, all because you wanted to be brave.’
‘If I was dead, I don’t suppose I’d much care. Besides, I haven’t painted a thing since finishing Rufina.’
He turned to her in surprise. ‘Is that true?’
‘Yes, that’s why I keep asking. I know it’s selfish, Isa, I know.’ She could feel a cry coming, but she swallowed it down. ‘Without you I’m stuck.’ He did not respond, and she turned away to the blackness of the orchard.
‘You don’t need me, Olive,’ he said, eventually. ‘You just need to pick up your brush. Why do you insist so much on involving us? Is it so that you can blame us if it goes wrong?’
‘No.’
‘If I had half your skill, I wouldn’t care who loved me.’
She gave a dry laugh. ‘That’s what I thought too. But I’d rather be happy.’
‘Being allowed to paint is what makes you happy. I know that about you at least.’ She smiled. ‘I like you, Olive,’ Isaac went on. ‘You are a very special girl. But you are so young to be thinking of for ever.’
Olive swallowed again, tears pricking at her eyes. ‘I’m not young. You and me – why can’t this be for ever?’
He waved his arm towards the darkness. ‘War or no war, you were never going to stay here.’
‘You don’t see, do you?’
‘What don’t I see?’
‘That I love you.’
‘You love an idea of me.’
‘It’s the same thing.’
They were silent. ‘I have been useful to you,’ he said. ‘That is all.’
‘What is it, Isa? What’s changed?’
He closed his eyes and shivered. ‘Nothing’s changed. It’s always been the same.’
She pounded the veranda sill with her fist. ‘You should want to be with me. You should—’
A muffled explosion from beyond the valley silenced them both. ‘What the hell was that?’ said Isaac, looking at the horizon.
‘Teresa said they’ve started to bomb bridges again. Is it true your father is helping them?’
Isaac eyes were so dark with anger, she moved back. ‘I need to go to Malaga,’ he said.
‘At midnight? What use will you be now?’
‘More useful than standing here.’
‘So that’s it, is it? Us?’
‘Our ideas of what this is have always been different. You know that.’
‘What am I supposed to do with that painting?’
‘Give it to your father. I must deal with my own.’
‘What do you mean? I won’t give up on this—’
‘You’re mixing things up, Olive. You’re frustrated you cannot paint—’
She grabbed his arms. ‘I need you. I can’t paint without you.’
‘You painted before me.’
‘Isaac, don’t leave me – please.’
‘Goodbye, Olive.’
‘No!’
Isaac stepped down the veranda and walked towards the orchard. He turned
back to the house, his face half-illuminated by the moon. Behind her, Olive could sense her mother had appeared at the kitchen door.
‘Where’s he going?’ Sarah said.
‘Suerte,’ Isaac called over his shoulder, before slipping between the trees.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Sarah.
Olive could feel her tears coming, but she refused to let her mother see her cry. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Olive, tell me what he said.’
Olive turned to Sarah, struck by the expression of worry on her face. ‘All it means, Mother,’ she said, ‘is good luck.’
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A few hours after Isaac slipped away from the Schloss women and into the darkness, Don Alfonso’s finca was attacked with fire and a second salvo was launched upon the church of Santa Rufina in the centre of Arazuelo. Later, people whispered that yes, they’d seen a disrobed Padre Lorenzo, running away from the flames into the village square, with a naked woman fast on his heels. Some said there hadn’t been a woman at all, just the priest in a white smock, the bump of his private part visible under the cotton. Others swore on the Holy Bible there’d been a woman – a vision of Rufina herself, running from the godlessness behind her before she took flight into the air.
The only truth Arazuelo could attest to was that by dawn, the church was a shell and Don Alfonso’s estate a blackened skeleton. Wood smoke hung over the air, smarting the eyes of those trying to go about their business, until the whole village fell into an uneasy stupor, knowing full well that retaliation for something like this would eventually come.
When Teresa came running through the grey dawn light, bashing on the front of the finca door, Olive knew something was very wrong.
‘Isaac has done something stupid—’
‘What’s he done? Where is he?’
Teresa looked stricken. ‘I don’t know. The church is gone.’
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