Golden Earrings

by Belinda Alexandra

  ‘What about la Rusa?’ I asked Conchita. ‘Do you know what happened to her?’

  Conchita’s eyes flashed. ‘Don’t be so stupid as to worry about her!’ she spat. ‘Who do you think betrayed us? Your la Rusa led us straight into a trap!’

  ‘No,’ I protested. ‘La Rusa would not do something like that.’

  ‘Truly? Well, according to my father’s friend, she is a spy — for the Nationalists!’

  I knew what she was saying was ridiculous, but I was too tired and weak to argue with Conchita further. I had to think about getting everyone to safety. Despite the warning from her father’s friend, I couldn’t see any choice for the moment but for us to return to our home.

  Barcelona was a charnel house; the streets around the rail yards were splattered with blood and the stench of death was everywhere. We passed a church that was pockmarked with bullet holes and I wondered if perhaps Xavier had been killed there rather than at the rail yards. I realised that I would never know.

  We passed the body of woman lying in a doorway with her baby in her arms. They looked and smelled as if they had been there a week. I was sure the authorities had left them there on purpose to terrorise the population. But as we got closer to the passeig de Gràcia, the atmosphere changed. Banners hung across the streets and from the windows proclaiming: Franco, Saviour and Father! Priests and nuns were everywhere, as were men with the Falange insignia embroidered on their coats. A truck holding women and children drove past; the women were giving the fascist salute and cheering. Their hair was clean and curled and they wore lipstick. They looked healthy and well fed, not at all like people who had been living on rations. Where had these Franco supporters been hiding? I recognised Soledad Manzano and Maria Dalmau’s younger sister and looked away, although it was doubtful they would have recognised us in our starved and dirty state. So the ‘good families’ of Barcelona could rest in peace again now that all had been restored to normal. The poor would always be poor and they were free to exploit them once again.

  I thought of Xavier. He had been one of the most privileged men in Spain and yet he had given his life trying to create a fairer country. The realisation that he was now lying in a mass grave somewhere, while the vacuous and self-interested were parading around in victory, was perhaps the bitterest of all the pills I’d had to swallow since the Republic had lost the war.

  As soon as we entered the house, I regretted returning to it. The chandeliers had been smashed to smithereens; someone had taken an axe to the piano; and obscene words had been scrawled over the paintings, although many of them were priceless originals.

  ‘It must have been the Moors,’ said Mama. ‘Those savages don’t have a clue.’

  The desecration of our home was the final blow for her. She sat down on the bottom step of the staircase and refused to move.

  ‘Quickly,’ I told Conchita, ‘grab some necessities and some warm clothes. We’d better hide in the pantry and make our way to the border tonight.’

  ‘We are in no fit state to walk to the next town, let alone the border!’ she said.

  I was in no mood for her to be difficult. ‘We just have to. We either take the chance or die here.’

  Most of our clothes had been stolen, but I found some woollen dresses and coats in the maids’ cupboards. All our money from the safe had gone too, but by rummaging through desk drawers, handbags and coat pockets we managed to collect a few pesetas each.

  ‘I hope this is still worth something. Inflation could have got much worse, or they might even have changed the currency already,’ I said.

  I tidied myself as best I could and tucked my hair under a hat before going back out to see what food I could buy. I avoided the shops of our neighbourhood, where I might be recognised. My legs were swollen from a lack of food, but I did my best to appear well and to keep moving. I found some women lining up for food. I checked to make sure they weren’t using Nationalist ration cards before standing with them. The prices were black-market ones and all I was able to purchase was a loaf of bread and some olives.

  Conchita’s incredulity that we were going to try to reach the French border had been justified. The roads were probably blockaded now. We could be shot on sight. And yet the thought of going back to prison was far worse. If only I could think clearly, I lamented. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not concentrate. Poor la Rusa, I thought. She would have been able to help us.

  On my way to the next store to buy matches, I saw a car turning the corner. I recognised it straight away and stepped back to hide in a doorway. There were so few cars left in Barcelona anyway, but this one could not be mistaken. It was a Bentley with wood-panelled doors. A sick feeling rose in my stomach when I saw the driver in his Nationalist army uniform. The passenger was a beautiful woman in a white mink coat. The car passed slowly by and I was sure that I must be hallucinating. But the dark hair and tawny skin were unmistakable. It was la Rusa.

  I stood with my mouth open, feeling like the victim of an appalling joke. Conchita’s words came back to me: ‘She is a spy — for the Nationalists.’ For a long time after the car had passed, I couldn’t move. Did I need any more evidence that la Rusa had handed us over to the authorities? She had intended to send Julieta and Feliu to their deaths! Rage exploded in my body, worsened by my awareness of my impotence to do anything to change what had happened. We had trusted that whore! La Rusa had betrayed us; but even worse, she had betrayed Xavier, who had adored her. I finally saw la Rusa for what she was and what she had always been: a beast in the guise of a woman.

  I don’t know how I found my way back to the house. I was overcome with pain and anger. Parts of my body seized up with hatred and fury, as if I were a corpse going through the process of rigor mortis. The only thing that kept me putting one foot in front of the other was my desire to be with my family again, to protect Julieta and Feliu, to stay alive even if only to spite all those who wanted us dead.

  As I approached the house, I spotted a man in a black coat and hat crouching near the servants’ entrance. He must be one of the Falangists, I thought. My blood froze. He hadn’t seen me, but I couldn’t turn and walk away from my family. I had no choice but to confront him.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I demanded.

  He straightened and his eyes flew open with surprise. ‘Evelina?’

  I stared at the man’s unshaven face and straggly hair without recognition, and then our eyes met. He was gaunt and pale like me, but that alert gaze was unmistakable. Gaspar! I ran to him and he clutched me in his arms.

  ‘Evelina,’ he said over and over as he kissed me. Then he took my face between his palms, suddenly sad. ‘You know that Xavier is dead?’

  I nodded, too worn out to cry.

  ‘I heard you’d been put in prison. I came here every day to wait for you in case you were released. I thought that when they executed Xavier … well, you are here now.’

  ‘Oh, Gaspar,’ I cried, ‘you should have left. It’s too dangerous for you to be in Barcelona now.’

  He shook his head. ‘Life without you would have no purpose. I’m glad I took my chances. Where is your family?’

  ‘Inside the house,’ I told him. ‘Except for Pare. He died in the air raids.’

  Gaspar clasped me to him again. I understood then how the kisses of those who have survived a terrible ordeal are much more intoxicating than those of ardent lovers.

  ‘We must wait until nightfall,’ he told me, ‘but I know a way out of the city and a route that will take us past Figueres. We will get to France that way.’

  When Mama saw Gaspar, she rose to her feet. ‘Thank you for coming to help us,’ she wept as she kissed his hands. ‘We have been through a nightmare. Are you taking us to Xavier?’

  Gaspar glanced at me. I shook my head.

  ‘Yes, senyora Montella,’ Gaspar said, helping her to one of the few unbroken chairs. ‘Xavier is already in France. Could you eat some of the food Evelina has brought and then rest? We have a difficult jour
ney ahead of us and we must begin tonight.’

  After Mama had eaten some of the bread and olives, I went up to her room to see if I could find any blankets. By some miracle, Mama and Pare’s bedroom had not been ransacked.

  ‘I want to rest here,’ Mama said, coming in behind me.

  I turned around in surprise. ‘But you can’t, Mama. We must all hide together downstairs.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m tired of being frightened. Let them take me if they want.’

  I was too exhausted to argue. I helped her take off her shoes and slip under the covers. Her feet and hands were icy cold so I rubbed them for a while.

  ‘I gave birth to all of you in this room,’ she said. ‘Xavier and Margarida together, and then you.’

  ‘Sleep, Mama,’ I said, kissing her forehead. ‘I’ll come and get you when we have to go.’

  When I returned downstairs, Conchita and Feliu were already asleep in the pantry. They had gathered material from the ripped cushions in the drawing room as mattresses and were using the coats we had found as blankets. It was freezing in the house, but they slept apart from each other. You would imagine in these circumstances, Conchita might try to comfort her son and put her arm around him, I thought.

  Gaspar was sitting in the kitchen, bouncing Julieta on his knee. She gurgled with delight when he tickled her cheeks.

  He looked up at me. ‘Francesc wrote and told me everything,’ he said.

  ‘That Julieta is yours?’

  ‘Ours,’ Gaspar corrected me with a grin.

  His face had lost all its boyish ease, but it made me happy to see him smile nonetheless. I sat down next to him and rested my head on his shoulder. ‘I wasn’t sure if you got his letter.’

  ‘I wrote to you many times, but I suspect most of the letters the soldiers wrote never reached their families. The planes were shooting at every vehicle, even the mail trucks. I saw la Rusa once when I was on the front. She was driving an ambulance that was full of holes …’ He noticed my frown. ‘What is it?’

  ‘La Rusa is the one who betrayed Xavier,’ I said. ‘She told the police where he was hiding.’

  Gaspar stared at me and shook his head. ‘It’s not possible. She wouldn’t do that. La Rusa lived for Xavier.’ He shivered before adding, ‘Unless they got that information from her under torture.’

  I told him about the Bentley that had followed us the night of our arrest and how la Rusa had disappeared. Then I told him about what I had seen that morning. Gaspar flinched as he wrestled with his disbelief. But then his doubt became realisation.

  ‘She was the only one who knew his whereabouts,’ he said, his hands clenching into fists. ‘She’s the only one who could have betrayed Xavier.’

  We lapsed into silence for a long time. Julieta fell asleep against Gaspar’s chest.

  ‘She’s our hope,’ he said, kissing the top of her head. ‘She’s the one who will give us a reason to go on.’

  As night fell, I went upstairs to wake Mama. I touched her shoulder but she didn’t respond. ‘Mama?’ I said.

  She slowly opened her eyes and smiled at me. ‘Evelina,’ she whispered. ‘Promise me that you will marry Gaspar and be happy. He’s a good man.’

  I kissed her cheek. ‘I promise, Mama. But now we must go.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m so tired, Evelina,’ she said, before inhaling sharply. She gasped as if the air had caught in her throat. Her eyes froze and then half-closed. Her body went limp.

  ‘Mama! Mama!’ I screamed.

  Gaspar rushed into the room. I watched as he tried to revive Mama by wrapping her warmly and breathing into her mouth. I stared at her face for any sign of life. But it was too late.

  When I realised my mother was dead, my legs gave way beneath me and I sank to the floor. ‘Mama!’ I sobbed. ‘Poor Mama.’

  Gaspar kneeled beside me and held me in his arms. ‘We have to leave her, Evelina,’ he said gently. ‘We can’t approach a priest and there is no time to put her in the crypt.’

  Later, I would see that Gaspar had made the right decision: the Montella family crypt had been demolished by the new regime and the bodies of my family were thrown into a mass grave. But that night, the only comfort I could take was that we were leaving Mama tucked up in bed in the home she had loved.

  I was so distressed by Mama’s death that Gaspar had to help me down the stairs. He opened the front door for me and we joined Feliu and Conchita, who was holding Julieta, in the laneway. Together we started the long and dangerous journey to France. I turned back only once to catch a glimpse of the passeig de Gràcia and the city that had been my home. I whispered a prayer for all the souls that had perished there. I hoped that one day they would rise again and dispel the darkness that had descended on Spain.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Paloma

  Mamie was exhausted after telling her story. I kneeled in front of her and stroked her hands. Her skin was ice cold. Now I understood why she had never wanted to talk about Spain before. The tragedy of what happened was too overwhelming.

  ‘Mamie?’ I said. She was so pale I thought that she might faint.

  ‘If it wasn’t for your grandfather being such a good talker, I doubt any of us would have survived,’ Mamie suddenly began again. ‘The French would have put us in one of their barbaric refugee camps, where people dropped dead like flies. We lived in the house in the Dordogne for a while, but then we sold it and tried to start our lives again in Paris where Gaspar could get work playing the piano … Well, that was until the Germans invaded.’

  I shook my head. ‘No wonder Conchita lost her mind.’

  Mamie shrugged. ‘She tried to reunite with her family in Portugal, but her father rejected her. He said Xavier had brought too much shame on them all. She did her best to make a new life in Paris: she remarried and tried to be a better mother to the twins than she had been to Feliu. But then, of course, there was the accident. I think Feliu leaving home at fourteen made her realise that there are some things about the past that can never be fixed. She sort of gave up on life after that.’

  ‘I’m sorry for that,’ I said. ‘I wish that Feliu had been more a part of our family.’

  Mamie nodded. ‘His father would have wanted that … but everyone has to make their own decisions. I think Feliu wants to forget his childhood.’

  I got up and sat next to her. ‘I still don’t understand why la Rusa betrayed Xavier … or why she turned against the Republic and joined the Nationalists.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ said Mamie, staring into the distance. ‘It’s because deep down she had always hated my family, even though she tried to make it appear otherwise. She blamed us for the death of her father, a revolutionary who was killed in the riots over Morocco in 1909, and the death of her brother who was sent there to defend the mines. When the Republic turned against the revolutionaries, she turned against it. She was treacherous and full of anger.’

  ‘But she too came to live in Paris after the war,’ I said. ‘Did she ever try to contact you?’

  Mamie looked at her hands. ‘She wrote to me many times wanting to see me “to explain”.’ My grandmother shook her head in disgust. ‘Can you imagine? She wanted me to assuage the guilt she suffered. The woman had my brother’s blood on her hands! I never replied. Then, many years later, she committed suicide.’

  The whole tragic story burned itself into my heart. I had never met Xavier or Mamie’s parents, yet I felt deep sorrow at their fates. I wished that I had known all these things earlier, and that I had talked to Avi more about his life. Maybe I would have made a greater effort with Feliu if I had understood the cause of his reticence.

  I glanced at Mamie. I saw her in a different light now. Her dignity, her kindness and tranquillity had always been qualities I’d admired, but knowing that she had retained them despite having suffered so many horrors made me love her even more.

  ‘Mamie, I’m so proud of you,’ I said.

  My praise seemed to alarm her.

&nbs
p; ‘No,’ she said, refusing my compliment, ‘I am proud of you. Just as Julieta was the reason your grandfather and I could go on, you are the reason that I get out of bed every day. Seeing you happy is the most important thing in my life. As long as I have you, I can bear everything else.’

  I pressed my cheek to Mamie’s, and we sat on the sofa together until the sunrise began to dance over the rooftops of Paris.

  ‘That’s how I feel too,’ I said. ‘As long as I have you, Mamie, I can bear everything else.’

  I would have stayed with Mamie that morning, but my lesson with Mademoiselle Louvet was scheduled for nine o’clock and I couldn’t miss it. While rushing around getting myself ready for the day, I checked in periodically on Mamie who remained in the living room. She was so still and quiet. I wondered what she was thinking.

  ‘I love you, Mamie,’ I told her, when it was time for me to leave. I gave her a hug. ‘I’ll see you this afternoon.’

  Out on the street, I noticed a brown BMW Longue parked opposite our building. The window was wound down and I noticed there was a man sitting in it smoking a cigarette. It reminded me of the day I had gone to see the place where la Rusa had committed suicide. I was still intrigued about why she had betrayed Xavier. Despite Mamie’s explanation, something niggled at me. I couldn’t help thinking that an important part of the story was still missing.

  Although I’d had no sleep, I felt strangely enlivened as I made my way to the Métro station. The colours and shapes around me were more vivid than they ever had been before. The windows of the patisseries and dress shops shone like crystal; commuters rushing for their trains were more animated and noisy; the golden sand and turquoise water of a travel advertisement for the Caribbean leaped out at me. In the train, I observed the other passengers with interest instead of ignoring them as I usually did. I wondered about the lives behind their impassive faces — the joys, the tragedies, the secrets.