The sirens and explosions continued through the night, and it wasn’t until the following afternoon that quiet descended again. As soon as we returned upstairs, I picked up the telephone receiver but the line was dead.
‘Pare!’ I said to Xavier. ‘I must go and see if he is all right!’
‘You can’t go by yourself,’ he replied, taking our coats from the cupboard.
The horror we found out on the streets would remain in my nightmares forever. Buildings had been reduced to rubble. Those that remained standing had shattered windows. Shop grilles had been twisted out of shape; trams had been overturned. The air was thick with smoke. Soldiers and policemen with shovels and pickaxes were digging into the rubble. I wondered what they were doing, until I heard the screams coming from under the ruins.
Xavier grabbed my arm and steered me away. ‘The buildings are unstable,’ he said. ‘Stay in the middle of the street.’
Trucks were moving through the city, collecting bodies or body parts. I saw a policeman pick up a woman’s arm, its hand still clutching a purse.
‘The housewives were lining up for the food rations. They refused to go to the shelter because they didn’t want to lose their places in the line,’ a man standing nearby told us. He was covered in dust.
I moved as if in a dream. Was this Barcelona? Was this destruction possible? My understanding of the world and how things worked was turned upside down. The front was still far from Barcelona but the war was already here.
The trees, which had been coming into their spring leafiness, were hung with all kinds of things: clothes, tyres, a man’s leg torn from the thigh. The city stank of blood and charred flesh. We passed an orphanage where the bodies of dead children lay in lines on the pavement outside. Apart from the cuts and burns, they looked as though they were sleeping.
Xavier saw a colleague from the diplomatic committee standing in the doorway of his apartment building. ‘I can’t believe Franco did this!’ Xavier said to him. ‘I thought it was the people he hated. I thought he’d try to keep the city itself intact.’
‘It was Italian planes that did it,’ the man replied. ‘Continuously coming and going from Majorca. Mussolini wants to demoralise us.’
The damage became worse the closer we got to Pare’s factory. ‘Oh dear God!’ I said when I saw the main building. Half of it was gone. The rest was black from a fire that was still smouldering. The police were pulling bodies from the wreckage. A makeshift morgue had been set up in one of the storerooms on the site.
‘We are Xavier and Evelina Montella,’ my brother told the policeman standing in front of the storeroom.
The policeman shook his head. ‘I don’t know if your father is in there,’ he said. ‘With some of them it’s hard to tell if they are male or female.’
‘I’ll go in,’ Xavier said to me. ‘You stay here.’
My legs went weak. I crouched down on the pavement, not ashamed to be seen in that undignified position. Surely Pare could not be dead. We were supposed to leave the city before it became dangerous. I tried to imagine the best possible scenario. When the bombings first started, Pare had ordered shelters to be built around all his factories for the workers. I hoped he had used one of them himself the previous night.
Xavier was gone for a long time. Surely that must be a good sign?
I stood up as two policemen came out of the factory carrying a stretcher. The body on it was covered in white ash and at first I thought they were carrying a statue. They came closer and I recognised Pare’s broad forehead and moustache.
‘Oh God, no!’ I cried, running towards the stretcher. ‘Stop! Stop!’
‘Is it someone you know?’ one of the policemen asked as they lowered the stretcher to the ground.
I kneeled beside Pare, tearing my stockings on the rubble. He seemed unhurt apart from a gash above his eye. I took his hand. As I did, I was sure that his face twitched.
‘He’s still alive!’ I said. ‘Look! He moved!’
The policeman placed his hand on my shoulder. ‘Is it your father, senyoreta? I’m sorry but he is dead.’
Xavier came out of the storeroom. When he saw me next to the stretcher, his face dropped. He rushed towards me.
‘It’s Pare,’ I told him. ‘But I’m sure he moved.’ I peered again at Pare’s face for a sign of life.
‘Senyoreta,’ the policeman said softly, ‘it’s an illusion from the shock. I assure you that he is dead.’
I heard the other policeman whisper to Xavier, ‘The back of his head is missing. We had to leave his brain behind.’
Xavier crouched down beside me and wrapped me in his arms. ‘Come, Evelina,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘Pare wouldn’t want you to remember him this way.’
I couldn’t move. ‘Pare!’ I cried as Xavier gently lifted me to my feet.
He walked me towards a button shop whose proprietress was standing in the doorway and surveying the damage to the factory with a distressed look on her face.
‘Is it your father?’ she asked us. ‘He was a good man. I’ve done business with him for years.’
Xavier grimaced. ‘Can my sister stay here with you a moment? I have to go back and make arrangements.’
The woman nodded. ‘Can I get you anything?’ she asked, helping me to a chair. ‘I wanted to boil some water but there is no electricity.’
She talked about the raids and how the terrible whistling of the bombs as they dropped had broken her nerves. She praised my father for the air-raid shelters that he had funded for the neighbourhood.
‘He dug them alongside the women and children when they were constructed a few months ago,’ she said. ‘Did you know that?’
I shook my head. I hadn’t known that. My father wouldn’t have done something so egalitarian before the war. Obviously what was happening in Spain had changed him.
‘Those shelters saved our lives,’ the woman said. ‘But your father and his workers didn’t have enough warning before the main factory was hit. The pilots must have cut their engines and flown in silently. There was supposed to be a blackout, but unfortunately the factory was lit.’
The woman meant well but I barely heard her. All I could think about was that I would never see Pare again, and that the crypt at the Old Cemetery would have another Montella.
Pare’s death left us with a sense of solitude and anxiety, but no one more so than Mama. ‘I don’t want to live,’ she said. ‘There is no point to my life.’
‘Mama, think of your grandchildren,’ I told her. ‘You must be strong! They need you.’
I thought that Pare’s death would convince Mama to leave Barcelona. Instead, it made her refuse to do so. ‘I can’t leave Leopold,’ she said.
She insisted on visiting the cemetery every day, despite the danger from further air raids. I couldn’t justify asking one of the maids to risk her life by going with her, so I went instead, leaving Conchita in charge of the children. Every time we left the house, I kissed them knowing it might be the last time I would see them. One day, the sirens sounded as we were leaving the cemetery, and Mama and I had to spend three terrifying hours in a crowded, lice-ridden shelter with rats scurrying across the floor and the ground shaking. The whole time I wondered if we would return to see the house on the passeig de Gràcia in ruins.
With Xavier and Margarida away from home much of the time, and Mama unable to function from grief, I had to take charge as mistress of the house. While I could barely think for myself, I had become responsible for everybody.
‘Mama, we cannot go to the cemetery any more while the war is raging,’ I told her. ‘We have to look after the living.’
Mama’s face collapsed and she slumped in her chair as if I had punched her. I hated myself for being so cruel. To not visit Pare’s grave would make Mama feel disloyal. But what could I do? Although I grieved for Pare too, I had to think of the children.
In late spring that year, it was clear that things were getting worse.
‘What’s going on?�
� I asked Margarida. ‘There aren’t enough weapons to go around and now they are calling up young boys and fathers with children!’
Margarida looked exhausted. She was drained from the late nights she had been spending in parliamentary discussions and debates.
‘Our prime minister thinks that one last heroic effort on the part of the Republican army might finally persuade the allies to help us,’ she said. ‘The Republic’s northern army is going to cross the Ebro River in one massive offensive.’
‘But we don’t have the aeroplanes and weapons that the rebels do,’ I said, horrified. ‘It will be suicide!’
‘Exactly,’ she said bitterly. ‘We are going to send an army of babies and old men to their deaths to get the world’s attention!’
The crossing of the Ebro River turned out to be the final catastrophe for the Republic. After initial gains, the Loyalist army was driven back by the air power given to the rebels by the Germans and Italians. Our old planes and faulty weapons were no match for the ten thousand pounds of bombs that were dropped daily on Republican lines. The northern army of the Republic was wiped out. Then Republican Spain received the most humiliating blow of all: the British signed the Munich Pact with Nazi Germany. If Britain was prepared to sacrifice Czechoslovakia, there was no chance of her coming to our rescue.
Margarida came to see me the morning she received the news about the Munich Pact. She had a message from Xavier in Paris: It’s over for the Republic in Spain. The only thing to do is to continue the fight from across the border.
‘What does he mean?’ I asked her.
She leaned forwards and lowered her voice. ‘It means Xavier will be carrying out espionage work. He’s given up on the government but not on Spain. They will have to try to “remove” Franco and other top generals. It is the only way the Spanish people will be able to rise again.’
While I admired my brother, I was painfully aware that those who had attempted to assassinate Mussolini and Hitler had met horrific ends.
Conchita walked into room and began searching around for something. I would have continued the conversation but Margarida stopped until Conchita found the scarf she had been looking for and left again.
‘Be careful not to mention any of this to her,’ Margarida said. ‘I’m sure she was trying to listen in on us then.’
‘Conchita? She doesn’t understand the war. She probably hoped we were gossiping about something.’
‘Yes, but she might say something to one of her sisters. Don’t teach a parrot anything you don’t want it to repeat.’
I sighed. Margarida might not be going out of her way to antagonise Conchita any more, but she was never going to like her.
‘Listen,’ Margarida continued, ‘la Rusa is also involved in this plan. She’s been conveying messages across the border. Xavier is returning to Spain but he must stay in hiding. As la Rusa is more mobile, he has charged her with getting you, Mama, Conchita and the children out of Spain. When the time comes, make sure everyone cooperates with her, especially Conchita.’
‘When is she coming?’
‘I don’t know,’ Margarida said. ‘I can’t imagine it will be too soon. I only hope it won’t be too late.’
By winter, life in Barcelona was bleak. Coal could not be found anywhere. There was barely any food. Cats and pigeons began disappearing from the streets. People collapsed from hunger while waiting in line for rations. Feliu broke out in boils from a lack of nutrition. It seemed only thanks to Mama’s fervent prayers that he survived the infection.
I gave our servants money and told them to start making their way to the house in the Dordogne. Feliu’s governess listened to me, but the others returned to their villages. I was later to learn that returning to places where they were known proved fatal for them.
Word came that Franco’s forces were heading our way. The Republican general staff prepared for the attack on Catalonia. People were leaving the city by whatever means they could — in carts, on bicycles, on foot if necessary. Still there was no message from la Rusa. Then I learned that those fleeing were being fired upon by German planes. Perhaps la Rusa thought that method of getting out of Spain was too dangerous. Although I was now mistress of the house, I had no idea how to get three women and two children safely to France. Dear God, I prayed, don’t let la Rusa have been killed.
Margarida arrived to collect a few things. She was spending more and more time in government meetings. ‘You wouldn’t believe what President Roosevelt has announced to the American press,’ she said.
‘Oh God, what?’ I asked. ‘Are they going to attack us too?’
She shook her head. ‘Roosevelt says that now dark forces are descending on Europe it appears that the embargo forced on Republican Spain was a “grave mistake”. Despite all the treaties to avoid war, Hitler is set on invading Poland.’ She paced around the room. ‘The truth of what Xavier and the Republic’s diplomatic delegations have been trying to tell the Americans, French and British since 1936 seems to be finally dawning on them: the fall of Republican Spain will put them in a position where they are surrounded by hostile states.’
‘So they will help now?’ I asked hopefully. ‘All is not lost?’
Margarida shook her head. ‘They will be busy defending themselves now. It’s too late for the Republic. The bull has been forced to its knees and the matador is poised for the kill. We can’t escape the sword now.’
The rebel offensive on Barcelona was launched two days before Christmas, when the weather was bright and cold. Franco’s army advanced at a rapid speed. The fortifications that had been established fell quickly under the massive air attacks. The Republican government called up reserves and a week later ordered the mobilisation of all citizens of both sexes between seventeen and fifty-five years of age. But given the hopeless circumstances, who was going to fight? Especially when the government itself abandoned Barcelona in January to relocate to Figueres. Those who could flee the city then, did.
With the Republican government gone, the right-wing supporters and Falangists who had been lying low were free to come into the open. They looted shops and settled scores. The families of Republican soldiers were dragged out of their houses and shot or thrown into prison. One day, while out getting rations, I came across the corpse of a man who had been hacked to pieces. Who could have imagined such sights in Barcelona?
A few days away from entering the city, Franco issued a decree that anyone who had ‘actively or passively opposed the Nationalist movement’ was a criminal. That definition covered our entire family. Because Catalonia had been a stronghold of the Republic, it was to be humiliated in every way: the Catalan dialect was forbidden and replaced by Castilian, ‘the language of the Empire’, including within the churches; and even our folk dance, the sardana, was banned.
‘I’m ashamed ever to have been part of this government,’ Margarida said the day the last of the official Republican envoys left Barcelona. ‘They’ve told the citizens to defend the city with their lives while they are fleeing in their cars for their apartments in Paris!’ She beckoned me to follow her to the study. ‘I’ve made contact with la Rusa — she’s going to be here in a few hours. I’m taking some wives and children of Republican soldiers across the border, but I’ll meet up with you in Figueres. Are you packed?’
‘You aren’t going with the government officials?’ I asked.
She shook her head. ‘I’d be embarrassed to flee like that. I intend to help as many people as I can on my way out.’
I nodded, proud of my sister, but also fearful for her safety.
‘Right,’ she said, looking about the study, ‘we’d better get to it. We have to burn all evidence of my involvement in the Socialist Party, Xavier’s role in negotiations with France, and Pare’s pro-Catalan literature.’
‘But it’s obvious that you were in government,’ I said, watching her empty drawers and pile documents into the fireplace. ‘Your picture was in the newspapers.’
‘That’s not the point
,’ she said, glancing at me. ‘It’s to protect you. If for some reason you are stopped on your way to France, you and Mama must say how disappointed you were in me. That you didn’t approve of a single thing I did. You must disassociate yourselves from me and Xavier entirely.’
‘But I’m very proud of you,’ I told her. ‘You are a far better woman than I will ever be!’
Margarida straightened. ‘That’s not true, Evelina. You and I are different, that’s all. You have a strength all of your own. I could not have helped Mama, Conchita and the children the way you have been doing.’
I ran across the room and embraced my sister as though I would never let her go.
‘Come on,’ she said, touching my cheek. ‘We’d better get through this stuff before la Rusa arrives. She will want to leave as soon as possible.’
We threw file after file into the flames. When I saw Xavier’s Socialist Party card, I hesitated. ‘He was so proud,’ I said. ‘He wanted to do so much.’
‘He’s still doing something for his country,’ said Margarida. ‘He hasn’t given up or fled.’
When we were finished with the documents, Margarida hurried to the hall to grab her coat. ‘I won’t have time to say goodbye to Mama,’ she said, kissing me. ‘Tell her that we will meet again soon at the border.’
We embraced before she rushed out into the cold air. I didn’t budge from the doorway until I saw Margarida disappear around the corner. Even then, I hesitated before closing the door. I wished we were going with her, but she had important work to do and we had la Rusa to help us.
To my great relief, la Rusa finally appeared that evening. She wasn’t wearing her uniform but a black coat and hiking boots. She wore a navy beret over her hair and a navy scarf around her neck. I noticed the thick golden earrings: they stood out against the brownness of her skin.
‘I have a van waiting for us on the outskirts of the city,’ she said. ‘We are going to have to walk there. So bring only what you can carry.’
Mama and Conchita came down the stairs to see who had arrived. Conchita’s eyes narrowed when she recognised la Rusa. It was the first time, to my knowledge, that the two women had been in such close proximity to each other.
Golden Earrings Page 37
