Tell Me Who I Am

by Julia Navarro

  “He’s also been very ill. He has anemia. We’ve been so hungry! And we still are,” Doña Elena said.

  “And Papa, where is Papa?” Amelia asked in a very low voice.

  “They shot your father a week ago,” Doña Elena murmured, “and your mother, my poor sister-in-law... I’m sorry, Amelia, but your mother died of tuberculosis before the war ended. Thanks be to God, Antonietta looks like she is getting better, even though she is still very weak.”

  Amelia had an attack of hysteria. She started to shout that all the Nationalists were bloody fascists and that Franco would be damned, and that she herself would take revenge for her father. Her cousin Laura and Antonietta begged her to calm down.

  “For God’s sake, if they hear you they’ll shoot you too!” Doña Elena said in anguish, imploring that she lower her voice.

  “But why? Why? My father was the best man in the whole world!”

  “We lost the war,” Antonietta said, in tears.

  “We tried to do everything possible to get him a pardon,” Laura explained, ‘but it was useless. You can’t know how many letters we wrote asking for mercy; we asked our Nationalist friends for help, but even they couldn’t do anything.”

  Then Amelia collapsed, she threw herself to the floor and, sitting there, she held her knees up against her chest and cried even harder. This time it was Laura and Jesús who pulled her upright and helped her across to a sofa. Doña Elena dried her tears with a handkerchief and I held Edurne’s hand, because I felt lost in this drama that seemed to have no end, now that Laura was explaining to her sister that grandmother Margot had also died.

  “Grandmother had a weak heart, but I think she died of sorrow. Her maid Yvonne told us that she died in her sleep, that they found her dead in bed.”

  When Amelia seemed to be more in control of herself, Doña Elena explained to her what had happened.

  “We had it very bad, with no food and hardly any medicine... Antonietta fell ill and your mother looked after her night and day and fell ill herself. Your mother suffered from anemia, she was very weak, and whenever there was food she gave it to Antonietta. She never complained, she stayed firm right to the end. She also had to cope with your father’s imprisonment, which was the worst. She went to take him something every day but she wasn’t always allowed to see him.”

  “But why did they put him in prison?” Amelia asked, her voice hoarse.

  “Someone denounced him, we don’t know who. Your father was at the front, just like your Uncle Armando, and they were both wounded and went back to Madrid,” Doña Elena explained.

  “My father is in prison,” Laura added.

  “In prison? Why?” Amelia seemed to be getting worked up once again.

  “For the same as your father, because someone denounced him for being a red,” Laura explained.

  “My father was never a red, and neither was my uncle, they were with the Republican Left,” Amelia said, knowing as she did so that this was an obvious point to everyone.

  “It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter anymore, the only thing that counts for Franco is which side you were on,” Laura said.

  “They’re murderers,” Amelia said.

  “Murderers? Yes, there are lots of murderers in this country, not just among the Nationalists, no, the other side killed lots of innocents as well,” Doña Elena said as she looked around for another handkerchief.

  Amelia said nothing, and waited without understanding what her aunt had just said.

  “I am a monarchist, like my whole family, like your poor mother was. Do you want to know how my older brother died? I’ll tell you: You know that Luis was lame and that they didn’t call him up. One day a group of militia came to the village, asked where the Fascists were, and had my brother’s house signaled out to them. Luis was never a Fascist; he was a right-winger and a monarchist, but never a Fascist. They didn’t care, they went to his house and killed him in front of his wife and his son, they took him and shot him in a ditch. His son Amancio heard the shot and ran out of the house and found his father with a bullet in his head. You know what the leader of this group said to my nephew? That this was the fate that was waiting for all Nationalists, and that he should take care. Yes, they said that to a kid of twelve.”

  Doña Elena sighed and drank a sip of water from the glass that Edurne had brought.

  “But I’ll tell you more, Amelia, because I’m sure you remember my cousin Remedios, the nun. When you were young we took you to see her one day in the convent, near Toledo. Do you think that my cousin has ever hurt anyone? She had been in the convent from the age of eighteen... One night a group of militiamen, irregulars, came to the convent and raped the twelve nuns that were there and then killed them. Why did they do this? I’ll tell you: because they were nuns, just for that.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Amelia said.

  “It’s true, what my mother says is true,” Laura said.

  “I can tell you more, people who were closer to you, your Aunt Montse for example, your mother’s sister.”

  Amelia jerked upright and went tense. Aunt Montse was her mother’s only sister, and Antonietta and she both loved her very much. She had never married and she regularly come to visit them in Madrid. Antonietta and Amelia liked her visits because she spoiled them and let them do more than their parents would.

  “Montse went to Palamos, to take shelter in her friends’ country house. She thought that at least she wouldn’t be hungry in the country. You don’t know this, Amelia, but we have been so hungry here, so needy. Your Catalan family suffered because they weren’t Communists or Socialists or Anarchists or supporters of Companys... Oh, poor them, to be on the Right! Yes, right-wingers, but good people, hardworking and honest. But the people who shot them didn’t care. You can guess what happened by now, militiamen turned up in the village and asked their ‘comrades’ if there were any Nationalists around. And someone pointed out to them the country house where your mother’s cousins and Montse were living. They killed them all there, the old married couple, their three children and your Aunt Montse, who had gone there for safety. Tell me, Amelia, was that a murder?”

  “Mother, don’t speak like that!” Laura said, aghast at her mother’s harsh tone.

  “I just want you to know that lots of people have been killed here, that the Nationalists have killed the reds and the reds have killed the Nationalists, and not just at the front, but far away from any actual battle. Whom should I hate, Amelia? Tell me. The Nationalists have got my husband, my brother was killed by the reds, whom should I hate more? You know what? I hate them all,” Doña Elena said.

  “Where is Uncle Armando?” Amelia asked, affected by having heard so much.

  “In Ocaña prison. He has been condemned to death just like your father was and we have asked for his sentence to be quashed, we’ve sent all kinds of begging letters to Franco. If it were necessary, I would go down on my knees and beg for my husband’s life; if that’s what they want then I’ll do it.”

  “Mother, calm down!” Jesús said, grasping his mother’s hand.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I...”

  “You went off and now you have no idea about what has happened here. I don’t know if you’ve been happy or wretched, but I assure you that whatever you’ve lived through, it has been no worse than what we have lived through here.”

  Amelia bent her head, ashamed at her aunt’s reproaches. It was not hard to guess that she felt guilty for having lived in the safety of Buenos Aires, where only echoes of the war reached them.

  “And my son? Do you know anything about Javier?” she asked, looking at Laura because she could not bear her aunt’s inquisitive stare.

  “Javier is well. Águeda looks after him and loves him a great deal. Now he is living with his grandparents Don Manuel and Doña Blanca. They... well, you know that they were always more to the right, and now they’re in no danger, but Santiago...”

  It seemed that Laura dare not continue. She knew that her
cousin was at the very limit of her resources, that she could not bear to carry on receiving bad news, and to tell her that Santiago was in prison as well would be another harsh blow for her.

  “Santiago is a prisoner as well,” Laura said, finally.

  “You see, the country has gone mad. Santiago’s political ideas, your husband’s political ideas, were like your father’s and my Armando’s, he was never a radical, never a Communist, but that hasn’t stopped them throwing him in prison,” Aunt Elena added.

  “Is he in Ocaña as well?” Amelia asked, having gone even paler.

  “Yes, that’s where he is,” Laura replied.

  “And his parents can’t do anything for him? They’ve got friends... ,” Amelia inquired.

  “You think they’re not moving heaven and earth for Santiago? Of course they are. They took Don Manuel to a secret police headquarters and it was only by some miracle that he got out alive. I think they tortured him. His wife, Doña Blanca, managed to get a message to Santiago to say that his father was taken prisoner. Santiago at that moment was at the front with the rank of major, much appreciated by his superiors, who pulled strings to get Don Manuel out of prison. Don’t you think it was easy. But you see how things were: the son at the front fighting for the Republic and the father arrested at home by those who said they were defending it. We don’t know anything directly, but Águeda has been telling us what happened,” Aunt Elena explained.

  “Your son is beautiful, and very friendly. We convinced Águeda to let us see him when she takes him out into the street; she used to take him round by your parents’ house, so that they could pretend to bump into her and see the child. But now that he’s older and can talk the hind leg off a donkey, we only see him from a distance. Águeda is scared that Javier will tell his grandparents that he sees other people. And we don’t want to get her into trouble. Javier is very attached to her,” Laura explained.

  “I want to see him, can you help me?” Amelia begged.

  “I’ll send Edurne to wait near your in-laws’ house, and when she sees Águeda coming out she can ask when you can see your son,” Laura suggested.

  It was lunchtime when Doña Elena said that the conversation should come to an end. I had been very quiet the whole time, sitting next to Edurne and not daring to make a sound. Even though I was only an adolescent I could see Amelia’s immense suffering.

  We ate potatoes with a tiny scrap of bacon. Amelia didn’t try even a mouthful, and Elena had to force Antonietta to eat.

  “Come on, you have to eat, you won’t get better if you don’t.”

  Amelia explained that she was working with an American journalist and that they had got across the border without many problems thanks to him. She also told them that she was looking for Lola to leave me with her.

  “That woman was the source of all your problems,” Aunt Elena said. ‘If you had never met her you would never have got your head filled with all those revolutionary ideas and you would never have left.”

  “No, Aunt, it’s not Lola’s fault; I am the only person responsible for my actions. I know that I did bad, I was selfish, I did whatever I wanted without thinking about my family or the consequences of my actions. Lola didn’t make me do what I did, it was me.”

  “That woman stirred up devils in your head, she’s envious, bitter, she always hated you, or do you think that she felt any sympathy for you, who represented everything that she was fighting against?” Doña Elena insisted.

  “I don’t blame her for that,” Amelia replied.

  Laura looked at me and begged her mother to change the subject. Elena bridled, but obeyed.

  “I haven’t asked about cousin Melita, where is she?”

  “Your cousin has gotten married. You weren’t here, and that’s why you don’t know.”

  “Whom did she marry?”

  “Rodrigo, do you remember him? He’s a good kid, he ended up on the Nationalist side.”

  “When did they get married?”

  “Just after the war started. They went to live in Burgos, which is where he comes from. He has some land and a chemist’s shop. It’ll all go well for them.”

  “And what did you say my cousin’s husband was named?”

  “Rodrigo Losada.”

  “Do they have children?”

  “Yes, a daughter.”

  “They haven’t named her Amelia, I suppose...”

  “She’s named Isabel, like her husband’s mother. We haven’t met her yet, she’s a year old,” Laura explained.

  “Well, what are you going to do now?” Doña Elena asked.

  “I don’t know, it’s so horrible, everything that’s happened... I couldn’t have thought that my parents might be dead, or that any of what you’ve told me might have happened.”

  “We’ve been through a war,” Doña Elena said, tartly.

  “I know, and I understand how you feel. Don’t think that I don’t feel guilty for not being here and going through all this suffering with you. I will never forgive myself for my mother being dead and for not having done anything to stop my father from being shot. I will look after Antonietta, we’ll go and live in my house, I suppose it is still ours?”

  “You think that you can take responsibility for your sister? Well, I don’t. Antonietta needs help, full-time care that I don’t think you will be able to give her.” Doña Elena was hard as iron.

  “I will work to help my sister, which is what my parents would have wanted.”

  “No, Amelia, your mother made me swear that I would look after Antonietta and that she would live here with us. I swore it to her the day she died. I asked her what we should do if you ever did come back, and she said that even if you did so then Antonietta should stay with us, to have a family that would look after her.”

  Amelia got up from the table in tears. She couldn’t bear her aunt’s judgments, which were like knives against her skin. Laura and Antonietta went with her, and I stayed behind, very quiet, without daring to lift my eyes off my plate. I was scared that at any moment Doña Elena would start on me. When they came back, Amelia was still crying.

  “Aunt, I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for us. I can understand that my mother wouldn’t have put all her trust in me, and would have been worried about Antonietta, so she should stay here until I can prove to you that I am capable of looking after my sister.”

  Doña Elena said nothing. She was thoughtful because she realized that she had hurt Amelia. She loved her niece, but the war had stripped her of that veil of sweetness that had previously covered her.

  “Mama, Amelia needs your support, she’s got a lot of trouble of her own at the moment,” Laura said.

  “I am sorry, I should have spoken to you differently. You’ve lost your parents and are upset, and I... I am very sorry, Amelia. You know that we love you and that you can rely on us for anything you need...”

  “I know, I do know,” Amelia replied through her tears.

  “We’ll go and visit your Uncle Armando tomorrow,” Antonietta said, trying to change the subject.

  “To the prison?” Amelia asked.

  “Yes, to the prison, and I will go too. I haven’t gone out yet at all because I haven’t been well, but Aunt Elena says that she’ll allow me to go out tomorrow. You could come too... ,” Antonietta suggested.

  “Of course I’ll come!”

  Doña Elena asked what Amelia’s plans were. She wanted to know if she was going to stay in Madrid and if so, where, and then, generous as always, she offered her a bedroom. Amelia said that as she was working for an American journalist who didn’t speak Spanish very well, he probably wouldn’t be too happy to be left alone in the pension. Laura had the idea that Albert James should stay in the house as well.

  “We can rent him a room. Instead of paying the pension he can pay us. We need the money, now that we need to do whatever we can to keep body and soul together,” Laura suggested.

  Doña Elena seemed to be mulling over her daughter’s proposal.
She was of course uncomfortable not to be able simply to invite the journalist to stay in her house, as she would have done before the war, but necessity and previous troubles had turned her into a practical woman.

  “He could sleep in Melita’s room, which we’ve had shut up since she got married... And the boy can sleep in the maid’s room, we don’t really have servants anymore, only Edurne. I would put him in with Jesús, but the boy is still ill and needs his rest. Yes, we’ve got more than enough space to fit you all in,” Doña Elena accepted.

  Amelia promised to suggest this to Albert James. It was a relief for her to be with her family, especially at such a time, when misery was feeding on them all.

  Laura took us to Rosario’s pension to help with our luggage. We met Albert James at the door and he was quite angry.

  “I’ve been waiting for you since midday!” he said as soon as he saw us.

  “I’m sorry... So much has happened in these few hours.”

  Amelia told him, through her tears, what had happened: her parents’ deaths, her sister’s illness, the misery that was feeding on them all. He seemed to be calmed by this news, but was not happy to hear about the move to Doña Elena’s house.

  “Look, it’s normal that you want to be with your family, but I need to have a certain amount of independence, and I’ll be fine here, or else I can go to a hotel. Given how bad the Florida is, I could go to the Ritz.”

  It was Laura who overcame the shame she felt to explain to James that it would be a great help for them to rent the room, and that he would not be disturbed and could feel himself just as independent as he did in Doña Rosario’s house.

  He hesitated, but in the end he allowed himself to be convinced by Laura’s arguments. It was not difficult to see that even previously well-off families were now having difficulties in keeping themselves.

  So we went with our suitcases in our hands once again to Amelia’s aunt’s house.

  It was already late when we arrived there and unpacked, but Albert James suggested that he and Amelia should go to Lola’s house in order to leave me with her.