Tell Me Who I Am

by Julia Navarro

  Amelia was overjoyed to hear that they would be returning to Spain. She had asked if she could go to Madrid to try to see her son, and Pierre decided not to say no directly, even though he had not the slightest intention of allowing this to happen.

  “Well, well, well, here’s the happy couple again!” Doña Anita said by way of welcome. “How many days can we expect to enjoy your presence here this time?”

  “Three or four. I have to see a client who says that he has found a volume that I have been looking for for years. If things go well, then we might even be able to go to Madrid,” Pierre replied.

  “And you, Amelia, will you see your friend Lola García? She was here a few days ago with Josep; he’s a good man, and so proud of his little brat of a son.”

  Amelia agreed without much enthusiasm. After their argument she had no desire at all to see Lola. She was starting to feel repelled by her old friend, whom she blamed for the sudden transformation that had taken place in her life.

  The next day, when Pierre had said goodbye and gone off to carry out his tasks, Amelia told Doña Anita that she was going off to buy some items that would be necessary for her on her journey to Buenos Aires. The widow wondered if she should let her go off alone, as Pierre had told her that Amelia needed to be watched, but an order of books had come in that morning, and although there was a boy who helped her she did not want to leave the bookshop, so she allowed Amelia to go alone.

  “But don’t be too long or I’ll be worried,” she warned Amelia.

  “Don’t worry, Doña Anita, I won’t get lost. I’m sure I’ll find all the fabrics I need in the neighborhood.”

  “Yes, the English Silkworks is just two blocks away, and you can find all the fabrics you need there.”

  In fact Amelia had another plan, to go to the Central Telegraph Office and call her cousin Laura. She wanted to have news of her family, and of little Javier. Since her flight she had not been in touch with Laura, and she had not even dared send her parents a letter begging their forgiveness.

  She had not dared call from Paris for fear that Pierre would stop her. She realized that for the first time since her escape she had some time to herself, alone.

  She left Doña Anita’s bookshop and started to walk, knowing that she was about to break the trust that Pierre had in her. But she was sure that, just as he had his secrets, she would have hers.

  Little did Amelia know that luck was not to be on her side. When she was in the office, she went up to an employee and asked him to connect her with her uncle and aunt’s house in Madrid. She did not realize that this man was looking at her in surprise. She did not remember him, but he remembered her. In her previous stay in Barcelona, Amelia had gone with Pierre to a meeting of the local party, and among the attendees was this man, a well-situated local activist. The man was surprised to see her alone and so agitated.

  Amelia twisted her hands anxiously as she waited to be put through, and the man convinced his colleague behind the desk that she should take a break, as it looked like it would take a while to establish the connection.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks, I’ve needed to go to the bathroom for an hour.”

  The man had decided not to miss a word of Amelia’s conversation, so he passed her call through his own telephone.

  Then, when the Madrid operator confirmed that a connection had been made, he told Amelia to go into a booth where she could speak. She still seemed extremely anxious.

  “You can speak now,” the Madrid operator said.

  “Laura? I’d like to speak with Laura,” Amelia muttered.

  “Who shall I say is calling?” the maid who’d answered the phone asked.

  “Amelia.”

  “Señorita Amelia?” the maid asked in alarm.

  “Please, hurry up! Tell my cousin, I don’t have much time.”

  A couple of minutes later Amelia heard the voice of her Aunt Elena.

  “Amelia, thank God! Where are you?”

  “I don’t have much time to explain... Where is Laura?”

  “At this time of the day she’s in class, you know that very well. But what about you? Where are you? Are you going to come back?”

  “I... I can’t explain... I’m sorry about what happened... How’s my little child? How are my parents?”

  “Your son is well. Águeda looks after him like she was his mother, but we haven’t seen him again. Santiago... well, Santiago has cut off all contact with the family. Your parents call Águeda to find out about the child.”

  “And my father? What about my father? Does he know anything about Herr Itzhak?”

  “Your father... Well, he had a heart attack when you left, but don’t worry, it wasn’t anything serious, the doctor said it was his blood pressure, he’s better now.”

  Amelia burst into tears. Suddenly she realized the consequences of what she had set in motion with her departure. She had not wanted to think about all she’d left behind, she preferred to think that everything would remain as it had been, that nothing would change. And now she found out that Santiago had stopped her parents from seeing Javier, that her father had suffered a heart attack... and it was all her fault.

  “My God, what have I done? You’ll never be able to forgive me!” she said between sobs.

  “Why not come home? If you come, then everything will be sorted out... I am sure that Santiago still loves you, and if you ask his forgiveness... You have a son... he can’t refuse to forgive his son’s mother. Come back, Amelia, come back... Your parents will be so happy, they miss you every day, as do we. Laura has been ill as well, from the shock... I am sure that no one will blame you if you come back. Do you remember the parable of the prodigal son?”

  “And what about Edurne?” Amelia managed to ask.

  “She’s with us, your cousin Laura insisted that she stay here... Santiago did not want to have her...”

  “What have I done? What have I done?”

  “It wasn’t your fault, it was the company you got mixed up in. That Lola, those Communists... Leave them, Amelia, leave them and come home.”

  The man decided to cut the connection. He realized that this young woman, Comrade Pierre’s lover, was about to give in to her aunt’s appeals. The best thing was to stop them from talking and to call Doña Anita immediately. She would know what to do.

  “Hey, I’ve been cut off!” Amelia called, trying to attract his attention.

  “One moment, Madam, I’ll see if I can get it set up again, stay in the booth.”

  But instead he called Doña Anita, to whom he explained quickly what he had heard.

  “Keep her there, I won’t be a minute. These bourgeois women think that life is just a game.”

  Amelia stayed impatiently in the booth waiting for the line to her aunt’s house to be set up again. She would have preferred to have spoken with Laura, but her aunt had been loving and understanding. If she went home... maybe they’d forgive her.

  Suddenly she felt cold eyes drilling into her. Doña Anita headed toward the booth that held her.

  “Amelia, darling, what a coincidence! I had to go out on an errand and I thought I saw you from the street. Who were you waiting to talk to, my dear?”

  She wanted to run away, to escape, but Doña Anita had already seized her arm.

  “I wanted to talk to my family,” she said, in tears.

  “Of course, of course! Well, I’ll wait while they make the connection.”

  “No, don’t worry, there are problems with the line, and I’ll call again.”

  “But you don’t have to come all the way here, there’s a telephone in the bookshop, it’s one of my few luxuries.”

  “It was so as not to bother you... ,” Amelia offered as an excuse.

  “You? Bother me? Impossible, you and Pierre are both welcome in my house. We have common goals. You don’t know how lucky you were when Pierre fell in love with you. How many woman wanted to be the chosen one! And he’s so kind and such
a gentleman with you... Take advantage of what life offers you and don’t give up this great love... Listen to me, I know what I’m talking about.”

  Amelia paid for the phone call and left the Central Telegraph Office with Doña Anita, who still held her arm tightly.

  “Now I’ll come with you and buy your fabric, is that alright? And stop crying, you’ve made your nose as red as a pepper, and your eyes are all shrunken. What a shock if Pierre were to see you like this! Come on, we’ll go and see your friend Lola this afternoon, she’ll know how to cheer you up.”

  Doña Anita did not leave her alone for another minute. She hid the annoyance she felt in having to be the “guardian” for the “little bourgeois girl,” which was how she thought of Amelia, and spent the rest of the day accompanying her on a pointless ramble through the city. When they met Pierre in the afternoon, Doña Anita hid her annoyance with great difficulty, and Amelia made no effort to hide the depression that had overcome her since her conversation with her aunt.

  Pierre had already been informed by the telegraph office employee about the conversation between Amelia and Doña Elena.

  “How was your day?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

  “Very good, we went shopping, Amelia needed some things for your trip to Buenos Aires,” Doña Anita replied.

  “Well, I’d like to invite you to dinner. I met Josep and he will bring Lola and Pablo with him. The best thing after a day of work is to eat with friends. Come on Amelia, wipe away that frown and tidy yourself up a bit; I need to speak with Doña Anita about the book I came here to buy: I need her expert opinion.”

  Amelia obediently shut herself up in the room she shared with Pierre. It was difficult for her to think about seeing Lola, especially when she was so downcast. But she did not dare to contradict Pierre, so she opened the wardrobe and looked for something to wear. Meanwhile, Pierre and Doña Anita spoke in the bookshop, far from Amelia’s ears.

  “I know what happened, Comrade López told me the same time he told you. As far as I can tell, it was an unimportant conversation,” Pierre said.

  “He wasn’t able to tell me exactly what they were talking about, but the girl has spent all day whining and moaning about her son. I don’t know, I think you’ll have problems with her. She’s very young, and I think she regrets leaving her family,” Doña Anita replied.

  “If she becomes a problem I’ll send her back to Madrid myself.”

  “Oh, you seemed to love her so much!”

  Pierre did not reply. It annoyed him to lose control over Amelia. He was sick of pretending to be head over heels in love, sick of having to pretend to be a great seducer, sick of having to pay attention to every single one of her grimaces. He was almost hoping she would say that she was returning to Madrid. If he hadn’t already planned his cover in Buenos Aires with her, he would have left her there, in Barcelona, to make her way back to Madrid as best she could.

  Amelia came down to find them and everything about her suggested apathy: her gestures, her walk, her absent attitude.

  They walked to the Barrio Gótico, where there was a little restaurant owned by a comrade, and where Josep, Lola, and Pablo were already waiting for them.

  “You’re late,” Lola complained. “We’ve been here for half an hour already. Pablo is starving.”

  We sat down at a table a little distance from the rest of the customers, and Pierre, making an effort, tried to liven up the meeting a little. But neither Amelia nor Lola wanted to play along, and Doña Anita was a nervous wreck after spending the whole day with Amelia.

  Josep tried to help Pierre in his distress and made great efforts to cheer everyone up. In the end, the two men decided to give way to the women, and they got involved in a conversation about the latest political events, in particular the evidence, growing stronger by the day, that a sector of the army wanted to bring the Republican experiment to an end. Everyone was talking about General Mola.

  Amelia scarcely touched a mouthful; Lola and Doña Anita always had good appetites.

  When the meal was over, Josep offered to accompany them part of the way back to Doña Anita’s house. Pierre and Amelia walked in front, and even though they spoke in low voices I was able to hear parts of their conversation.

  “What’s wrong, Amelia, why are you sad?”

  “No reason.”

  “Come on, don’t try to lie to me, I know that something’s getting to you.”

  She burst into tears and covered her face with her hands while Pierre put his hand on her shoulder in a protective gesture.

  “I love you, but... I think I’ve been very selfish, I’ve only thought about myself, about how I want to be with you, and I haven’t behaved well, I haven’t behaved well,” she repeated.

  “Where does all this come from, Amelia? We’ve spoken about this before. You yourself said that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. I know that it’s not easy to break with your family, you think I don’t understand that? You don’t get on well with my mother, but she’s my mother and I love her, and I think we should give ourselves the chance of starting a new life: Just as you abandoned your family, so I have left mine, as well as leaving my business and my future.”

  “But you don’t have a son!”

  “No, I don’t have a son, but I would like to have one as soon as our relation is firm and permanent. Nothing would make me happier. It is my sole regret, that you cannot bring Javier with you, at least for now, but let’s not set aside the idea that we may be able to have him with us in the future.”

  “That will never happen! Santiago will not allow it; he won’t even let my parents see the baby.”

  “How do you know that? Have you spoken to your parents?”

  Amelia blushed. She realized that she had let the cat out of the bag, but then she thought that Doña Anita would have told Pierre anyway.

  “I have spoken to my Aunt Elena. I called to speak to my cousin Laura but she was not there, and my aunt took the call.”

  “That’s good, you shouldn’t lose touch with your family. I know that you will be calmer if you know how things are with them,” Pierre said, hiding the fact that he felt the exact opposite. “Tell me what your aunt said.”

  “She knows from Águeda, the nurse, that Javier is well. Santiago doesn’t want to have anything to do with my family and won’t let them see the child. My father fell ill when I left, his heart... my fault... He could have died.”

  “This I cannot permit! I will not allow you to blame yourself for your father’s illness. Be rational, nobody gets heart disease from shock; if your father had a heart attack, you were not the reason for it. Insofar as your husband won’t let them see your son, that seems to me cruel, it doesn’t speak well of him, and it doesn’t seem fair to punish your parents in this way. No, Amelia, your husband is not behaving well.”

  Pierre’s words made Amelia sob all the more, as she tried to justify her husband’s behavior.

  “He’s a good man and he’s not unfair, it’s just that seeing my parents reminds him of me, and he has his reasons for wanting to forget me. I behaved so badly! Santiago did not deserve to be treated like that!”

  Pierre spent that night consoling Amelia, trying to soothe the pain of the open wound in her conscience.

  The next day was July 13, which would turn out to be a key date in Spanish history: José Calvo Sotelo, leader of the monarchist Right, was assassinated.

  Pierre decided to go to Madrid, even though he did not have specific orders to do so; this was a sufficiently serious occurrence for him to go to the capital and make contact with some of the comrades who regularly gave him news about the Azaña government. Although there were rezidentura agents in Madrid, Pierre wanted to evaluate the situation himself and send an accurate report to Moscow.

  Amelia was overjoyed to hear that they would travel to Madrid. Pierre deceived her by saying that he had decided to travel because of the pain she was obviously feeling. The truth was that he did not dare to leave her
with Doña Anita, and Lola and Amelia were distant with each other for the time being, something that he would have to work out the reasons for in due course.

  The train journey seemed to last forever. When they finally reached Madrid, they found the capital buzzing with all kinds of rumors. Pierre decided to set up base in La Carmela, a boardinghouse on Calle Calderón de la Barca, near the parliament. The owners of La Carmela kept a clean house, and looked after their guests very well. They were proud that these guests had even included a member of parliament or two. They only had four rooms, and Amelia and Pierre were lucky that one of them happened to be available.

  “Don José left yesterday, you know him, the commercial traveler from Valencia who comes once a month. I think your paths might have crossed once or twice,” said Doña Carmela, the landlady.

  “Yes, I think so,” Pierre replied, without much desire to talk.

  “I didn’t know you were married,” Doña Carmela said.

  “Well, you see... ,” Pierre answered ambiguously.

  Pierre worried about what to do with Amelia during their stay in Madrid. He could not take her everywhere with him, he had to meet agents and have private conversations, which would be impossible with Amelia present. But if he left her alone he was sure that she would end up giving in to her desire to see her family, and who knows what the consequences of that might be. So he decided to take the initiative, to set up the meeting himself and to be there when it happened.

  “Maybe you should talk to Doña Laura. She can tell you better than I can what happened during those days in Madrid. Then come back and we can carry on talking,” Pablo Soler concluded with a satisfied smile.

  Pablo Soler smiled at me in satisfaction. He had been speaking for more than four hours and not once had I opened my mouth. I could not overcome my surprise: My great-grandmother had run away with a Frenchman, a Soviet agent, and she had joined the French Communist Party. Such a sweet-seeming thing, and then all of a sudden she turns out to be a budding Mata Hari.

  “Did you see Amelia again?”