Quince

by David Rees

  ‘Queer?’ the bishop echoed. ‘You mean homosexual? How do you know that?’

  Miguel grinned. ‘I don’t just sit on my arse behind a desk all day long,’ he said. ‘I have eyes. And ears.’

  ‘Is it so very bad to be homosexual? They’re God’s children, just like you and me.’

  ‘You have the most peculiar ideas, Bishop! Are you a secret Mohammedan? A mason, perhaps? I hope you don’t tell Cardinal Hernandez your innermost thoughts. He’d have you exiled to the Canaries, like the Government did to General Franco.’

  ‘No … I… er … probably talk to you and José more freely than I do to His Eminence. I think … life is much more complex than any set of dogmas and doctrines would have us believe. I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, of course … but I doubt if it has a monopoly on truth.’

  Miguel sighed. ‘Sometimes, Tomás, you worry me as much as the anarchists do. I hope I’ll never have to put you inside on a charge of heresy.’

  ‘I don’t imagine one is thrown into a civil jail for that kind of thing … I’ll invite you, however, to the auto-da-fé.’

  ‘It’s auto-da-fés that are bothering me. The anarchists are up to something… If they start burning churches here, I don’t think the fire department is efficient enough to put out the flames.’ He looked gloomily at the cathedral’s west door. ‘I suppose I could have them all shot.’ he said.

  ‘Too much of that is going on already.’ The city’s clocks began to strike the three quarters, fifteen minutes to eleven. ‘I must leave you, Miguel; I have to say a Mass for Calvo Sotelo. I’d do the same for an anarchist pyromaniac.’

  ‘All God’s children?’

  ‘Yes. And if I were you, I’d try and discover what General Araquistain is up to. He’s a lot more dangerous than Pedro Badajoz.’ The chief of police stared at him. ‘I’ll! see you at José‘s, tomorrow night.’

  ‘I hadn’t forgotten. Cristina is an excellent cook.’

  Pedro had gone to Rojo de la Frontera ostensibly to see his grandfather, but in fact to co-ordinate the plans the Province of Zahara’s Anarchist Youth Movement and Socialist Youth Movement had decided upon in the event of a right-wing coup d’état. Before he left he told Pablo about Stephen, who, he thought, could be an embarrassment in the event of hostilities. It was his own feelings that worried him most: they would get in the way of what he really wanted ― to lead Anarchism to its moment of triumph.

  ‘Your English teacher is queer,’ he said.

  Pablo was amazed. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘We go up to the tower and fuck. Yes … really! But he’s getting too keen on me … it could be a problem. Why don’t you try him out for yourself?’

  This was even more interesting, Pablo thought, than his brother taking him to the Dos Toros and introducing him to the whole company. He acted almost at once. That night he went into Stephen’s room, and said, ‘Pedro told me you and he … go to the Arab fort… and … make love.’

  Stephen did not answer. He was very hurt that Pedro would say such a thing: it was another betrayal. ‘Why did he tell you that?’ he asked, eventually. ‘He had no right!’ What would Pablo do with the knowledge? inform José and Cristina? Have him thrown out of the house, sent back to England?

  ‘I’m queer. More so than Pedro … I think.’

  Stephen sat up, and switched on the light. It was bizarre, grotesque … there couldn’t surely be two in the same family! He’d never heard of such a thing. He’d had no inkling that Pablo, with whom he’d spent so much time this past month, could… They stared at each other for a moment.

  ‘Why are you saying this … now?’

  ‘I want to get into bed with you.’ Pablo put his hand under the sheet and touched Stephen’s leg.

  The boldness, the confidence was another surprise; Stephen would never have dared. ‘I don’t think we should,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m in love with your brother.’

  ‘But is he in love with you?’

  ‘Maybe he isn’t. You and I…’

  ‘Please,’ Pablo said ― almost pathetically. Whatever Stephen’s words might be telling him, he was aware his hand had not been pushed away.

  Stephen was, as always, easily aroused. And Pedro had failed him: to hell with it! ‘Lock the doors … Cristina and José…’

  It was lacking Pedro’s experience and maturity; was too quick. Not a couple of boys wanking, which was what Stephen had thought it would be ― Pablo wanted to penetrate. He’d never done so, he said; he needed to, had to. Stephen allowed him.

  They slept curled round each other. He’s like a … a rabbit, was Stephen’s last thought; a furry pet.

  In the morning he found he was alone in the bed. Pablo was in his own room, but was stirred by Stephen getting up. This is for tonight,’ he said, lifting the sheet. He was very erect.

  I don’t think I can cope with this, Stephen said to himself.

  Cristina’s first words as she poured coffee and passed him the bread rolls were, ‘I think you ought to go back to England.’

  His heart missed a beat. What had she discovered? She and José slept on the other side of the house; had she got up in the night and peered through the key-hole, heard their conversation, the gasps of orgasm? Pablo had made a great deal of noise.

  ‘Why?’ he said. ‘I don’t want to go back to England!’

  ‘What will you do if a war starts? I’ve been listening to the wireless. The Government has suspended the Cortes. There was shooting yesterday at Calvo Sotelo’s funeral — four people died and many were injured. The fascists have vowed to avenge the murder. Gil Robles says the cabinet has become an administration of blood, mud, and shame. These are our enemies talking! There will be violence.’

  ‘There already is.’ Stephen said.

  ‘I mean on a scale I’ve never known in the whole of my life!’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any danger for me. It’s not my quarrel.’

  ‘You could be caught up in the cross-fire.’

  ‘In Zahara? I don’t believe it!’

  ‘Your parents will be worried.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps I should phone, and tell them everything is all right. May I?’

  ‘Yes. But everything is not all right.’

  Pablo appeared, looking very pleased with himself. When his mother’s back was turned, he blew Stephen a kiss, winked, and mouthed, ‘Later!’ He gestured with his right hand, as if fucking.

  ‘Pablo, what are you doing?’ Cristina asked.

  ‘Pouring coffee.’ He was.

  Then José came in, buttoning up his shirt; on Saturday, he said, he was going to Rojo de la Frontera to see his father. Did the others want to come with him? He looked in the mirror, and adjusted a hair in his beard.

  ‘It will be too hot,’ Cristina answered. ‘I’d prefer to stay in the garden.’

  ‘I shall be at the plaza de toros.’ Pablo said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m taking Stephen to the bullfight.’ (This was news to Stephen.) ‘He’s never seen one.’

  José frowned. He didn’t approve of bullfights: they were cruel and pointless, and only served to inflame the bloodlust of the crowd. ‘There’s enough nastiness going on,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to rub your noses in it.’

  It’s a piece of our heritage and culture,’ Pablo answered. ‘Like football is in England. If I was ever invited to England, I’d want to see a football match. Ar-then-al. Thpurth. And your beard looks magnificent! Sex-y!!’

  Later that morning Stephen spoke to his mother. The line was bad, but he heard the anxiety in her voice; what was wrong, she demanded: something must be wrong for him to telephone all the way from Spain. Nothing, he said. Absolutely nothing. That was what he wanted to tell her. She was bewildered. She hadn’t imagined, before the call, that anything was wrong. Calvo Sotelo’s murder had been mentioned in the British newspapers, a brief paragraph on an inside page; there was no sugges
tion of how near the brink things were. A far-off country about which we know very little… Just Stephen’s conscience, she reassured herself; he was making up for sending her only one postcard since he’d arrived in Zahara. ‘I expect you’re enjoying a great deal of hot weather,’ she said. ‘It’s lousy here. The wind is spoiling the roses, and the rain! Lord! There’ll be hardly any fruit this year… Well, I mustn’t run up the Badajozes’ phone bill. Look after yourself. And write. Bye!’

  José was at work, Cristina out shopping. In the kitchen, Pablo undid Stephen’s trousers, then his own. I can’t cope with it, Stephen thought again, but he was already erect. Pablo was still too quick: nevertheless, Stephen said to himself, this is always good ― always a marvel, a miracle. As was this boy: exuberant and curious, rushing pell-mell into adulthood.

  It was only three times a year Zahara was able to experience the pleasures of a concert. In the winter the Seville Symphony Orchestra performed in Seville; in summertime they played in various Andalusian cities - a week in Cordoba, a week in Málaga, and so on: Zahara, being off the beaten track, was allotted only three nights. These concerts were out of doors, in the gardens of the mosque. (The mosque, of course, was not used as such, nor as a Christian church; it housed Zahara’s museum ― a collection of Roman, Visigothic and Arab artefacts,) The mayor was expected to attend in all his regalia, but José refused to dress ‘like a stuffed Napoleonic brigadier.’ he said. His choice of a dark suit initially caused some adverse comment― the audience was almost entirely the bourgeoisie, venturing out for the first time in two days ― but the presence of the mayor’s companions ― the bishop, and the chief of police and his wife, who had all just dined at the Casa Badajoz ― mollified opinion. The others in the official party were Cristina, who looked very smart, and Pablo and Stephen, ill at ease in suits. Stephen hadn’t brought a suit with him to Spain, but one of Pablo’s was found that fitted him ― they were the same height. It was reassuring, the audience eventually concluded, that in the current political situation Church, State, and Law were on such good terms; whatever happened, things wouldn’t go wrong in Zahara. In the interval they gave the official party, much to José‘s embarrassment and Miguel’s delight, a spontaneous ovation. ‘A pity the rest of the country can’t organize themselves as well as we do.’ Miguel said to Tomas, who nodded in agreement. They had forgotten General Araquistain, who was then in his barracks, on the phone to General Franco in Las Palmas.

  Stephen thought he had never been to anything more civilized. The citizens of Zahara, wearing their best clothes, quiet, absorbed, listening to music. The gardens, a blaze of summer colours, formal, neat: the scent of jasmine; the night sky above, star-studded. The little white mosque behind the orchestra ― a beautifully proportioned, elegant piece of architecture; it had not been ruined, as other Arab buildings had been ruined, by the Emperor Charles the Fifth, who liked to trot round Spain throwing dull Renaissance cathedrals and palaces into the middle of exquisite Moorish masterpieces, then saying later, ‘I’ve spoiled what was already perfect.’ The Haydn symphony with which the programme began did not interest Stephen much, but he loved the second work; Vivaldi’s Concerto in F for three violins. He had never heard it before; indeed the composer was to him merely a name in a history book. It was an adventurous choice; in 1936 Vivaldi was largely undiscovered. This music was like some of the best things in Zahara ― sunlight dancing on green creeper, the sparkling water of fountains in quiet, dusty squares. (The fountains in the gardens of the mosque had been switched off; the noise would interfere with the concert ― but to Stephen the Vivaldi was a perfect substitute.)

  When it finished he looked at Pablo and smiled. What did the Spanish boy make of it? ‘I don’t care much for classical music.’ Pablo said, as if reading Stephen’s thoughts.

  The second half was a performance of two works by Falla, Nights in the Gardens of Spain, and the suite from the ballet, The Three-Cornered Hat. Nothing, Stephen felt, could be more appropriate: his senses were filled with the rhythms of farrucas, bulerias, alegrias, sevillanas, fandangos, and the images of Spain these rhythms conjured in his mind ― albeit a foreigner’s Spain, a tourist’s illusions, though he was but dimly aware of that ― exotic dances and toreador costumes, castanets, mantillas, crowded flamenco café cantates; hot nights, assignations, smouldering passions.

  How does it compare with the London Symphony Orchestra?’ Tomás asked him. They were walking through the streets, to the Casa Goicoechea; Miguel had invited them home for a drink.

  ‘¡Viva España!’ Stephen answered, and, as the bishop looked puzzled, he added, ‘It’s so civilized. Spain is so civilized.’

  ‘You really think that?’ Tomás was amazed. ‘We were once. Centuries ago, under the Moors. Now…’ He shook his head. ‘This is a primitive country. Superstitious and barbaric. Do you know there are villages south of Granada where people exist without drains, electricity, running water, telephones, cars, even roads? Where life hasn’t changed in a thousand years! A man who marries a girl from the next pueblo is shunned for ever… A village will regularly burn the statue of the Virgin belonging to a neighbouring village… Why? God knows… There are whole pueblos where not a single person can read! There are places in the Province of Salamanca where Christianity has not yet arrived! Whole communities that have never heard of God!’

  ‘Drains,’ Stephen said. ‘Is that what civilization is all about?’

  ‘They help, don’t they?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘The national sport is tormenting and killing bulls. Is that civilized?’

  ‘Pablo is taking me to the bull-ring tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘I hope it makes you feel as sick as it makes me. Pablo, of course, will enjoy it. Is he what you call civilized?’

  Maybe not, Stephen said to himself, remembering last night in bed and this morning in the kitchen. Pablo, at the moment, was preoccupied with the human animal, obsessed with sexual sensations and possibilities. You couldn’t, of course, cut that out of your life. ‘Perhaps it’s different for a bishop,’ he said.

  Tomás laughed. ‘Not really. But we have a long tradition in Spain of ascetics and independent thinkers. And liberals. Well … the next few weeks will show whether there’s any room now for liberals.’

  ‘What do you ―’ He stopped; they had reached the Casa Goicoechea, and Don Miguel was saying he intended to open a very special bottle or two of plum brandy.

  The plum brandy was excellent, and the party did not break up till three in the morning. José complained about this when he and Cristina were in bed; he had to be up early to get off to Rojo de la Frontera. ‘I’ve more work to do there in one day,’ he said, ‘than during the busiest week in my office. The old man is too old … the roof of the house needs mending; the kitchen has to be whitewashed, and the garden is sure to be a wilderness.’

  The bishop, restless and very much awake ― plum brandy, he had noticed before, gave him indigestion, but he’d thought it impolite to refuse ― did some research. There wasn’t a great deal to find out about Englishmen in Zahara, but at four thirty he was able to add another card to his index.

  Stephen and Pablo didn’t sleep till five, but they could lie in till noon. Stephen the animal was no match for Pablo the animal: ‘It’s no use,’ he said; ‘there’s nothing left. I can’t come.’

  ‘I can,’ Pablo answered, and did so, yet again.

  Also at five a.m., in Spanish Morocco, army units disloyal to the Republic put into action the first stage of General Mola’s plot. They declared a state of war, occupied strategic buildings, and arrested left-wingers and trade unionists. There was some resistance in working-class areas, but the people were taken by surprise and they had no arms. All those captured ― including at least one general who refused join the revolt ― were shot. Franco, meanwhile, was doing the same thing in the Canary Islands. It took less than twenty-four hours for Spanish Morocco and the Canaries to be entirely in rebel hands. Similar revolts wer
e scheduled to occur in Spain itself on the following two day. This split timing was an error: it would give the Government breathing space to rally and hit back. But it was unavoidable― nobody could be sure that all army units would join the rebellion, and the generals had almost no aircraft to transport their troops across the Straits of Gibraltar

  Miguel Goicoechea was woken at seven by the telephone ringing. It was General Araquistain, who wanted an urgent meeting ― Now he said imperiously ― at the Café de los Cordobés, in the Plaza San Juan.

  ‘What on earth is the matter?’ Miguel asked. The plum brandy had given him an outsize hangover. Why did the general want to meet in a car instead of his office in the barracks? And that particular bar, an obscure dump in a poor quarter of the city?

  ‘I’ll see you in twenty minutes.’ Araquistain said, and rang off.

  José heard the news while he was having breakfast. He thought he would not go to Rojo de la Frontera in case anything happened in Zahara, but Cristina said he should. There was probably little danger, but it would be safer in the countryside, she thought; the socialist mayor of Mellila in Spanish Morocco, according to the news bulletin, had been executed. ‘No one, absolutely no one, on the Spanish mainland has taken part in this absurd plot.’ the radio stated. Reassured, José set off for Rojo. Perhaps it is an absurd plot, he said to himself, and he thought of the army’s last attempt to take over the country, General Sanjurjo’s abortive rising four years previously. Betrayed by a prostitute, who informed the Government of what was happening, Sanjurjo’s rebellion failed before it even began.

  General Araquistain was a thin, nervous, bespectacled chain-smoker. Seated in a dark corner of the empty Café de los Cordobeses, his face almost hidden by a huge pig’s thigh dangling from the ceiling, he looked like a conspirator from a third-rate musical ― or so Don Miguel thought. The police chief had some idea of what the general wanted to discuss; he, too, had listened to the radio before he left home. He bought himself a café con lecche, then heaved himself into a chair beside the general, who was lighting a cigarette from the end of the one he had just finished smoking.