The Songs of Manolo Escobar

by Carlos Alba

  Papa grabbed hold of Pablito, still in a clinch with the friend, and pulled him away.

  ‘Oi, whit d’ye think yer daen?’ the friend shouted.

  I scampered over the seats into the back of the van and lay on top of the sleeping bag, pretending to be asleep.

  ‘Who the fuck d’ye think ye are, ya dago bastard?’ Suzi Quatro yelled.

  The doors opened and Papa and Pablito hurriedly climbed in. Pablito was clearly irritated at the turn of events.

  ‘What happened, Papa, what did you do to her?’ he asked.

  Papa turned the ignition and slammed the gearstick into reverse. The wheels skidded on the damp grass as the vehicle spun around.

  ‘I tell her she is drunk, and she stink like bitch that is fuck by all dogs in street.’

  Suzi Quatro came running towards the van as it pulled away and hammered her fists on the driver’s side window.

  ‘Gie’s ma sleepin bag, ya fuckin greasy cunt,’ she demanded.

  The van halted abruptly.

  ‘Give her this bag,’ Papa shouted angrily.

  Pablo leaned over and grabbed the bag from under me. He opened the door and threw it out on to the ground then Papa slammed his foot on the accelerator and the van tore off at speed, back to the fishing spot.

  I woke first the next morning. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was light and the birds were singing. I spent some time playing at the lochside, whittling sticks and throwing stones into the water before Papa and Pablito emerged from the tent looking groggy and sheepish. Papa boiled some hot water over the Primus to make tea, and then he announced that we were going home. There was to be no more fishing.

  The journey was almost entirely silent, except when we stopped at a public toilet in Tarbert. As the three of us stood at the urinals, I saw Papa catch Pablito’s eye and motion his head towards me. Papa then said he was going to buy cigarettes and left. As I was drying my hands, Pablito took me by the arm.

  ‘You know that what happens on fishing trips stays on fishing trips,’ he said, staring me in the eye.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean we don’t talk about it, like to Mama for instance.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  I knew it was wrong but I couldn’t help feeling a surge of pride. I’d been taken into Papa and Pablito’s confidence.

  11

  I hadn’t heard from Cheryl for weeks and I was desperate to see her, to stand in front of her, to find out who she was with and what she was doing. It was like an itch I needed to scratch, that consumed me day and night, dragging me down, making me unable to function properly. At work I found I couldn’t concentrate on anything for longer than a few minutes. In bed I lay tortured, conceiving alternative pasts for myself – if only I’d acted differently at particular junctures – and different possible futures too, speculating what lay ahead depending on the choices I could make. I couldn’t eat or sleep, and I had no energy. Even the most mundane task that took me out of my routine – such as collecting shirts from the laundry or finding somewhere to buy a tube of toothpaste – seemed like a monumental effort.

  Cheryl filled my every thought. I called her at work repeatedly and left messages on her voicemail, all of which went unanswered. I texted and emailed her without response. I called her friends and colleagues, but none had seen or head from her. Ben and Corrie claimed not to have had any contact with her, which I doubted, but I didn’t press them, especially Ben, who was only a few weeks away from his mock A-levels.

  Max Miller insisted he too hadn’t heard from her. I tried to gauge from the tone of his voice whether he was being truthful. He sounded sympathetic enough, but was it the tenor of deceit? I felt sure he’d never forgiven me for stealing Cheryl from him at university, and perhaps now, after all these years, he was exacting revenge. But no matter how hard I tried to convince myself of that possibility, I couldn’t make it ring true. Max Miller wasn’t like that: he was principled and honourable. Surely he wouldn’t steal my wife? It just wasn’t possible. Was it?

  I was about to embark on a crucial period at work; I was facing what I anticipated would be a captious and emotionally demanding divorce; and my father was dying. What I needed least at this time was the distraction of a wild goose chase going back seven decades into a corner of a country whose language and customs I barely knew. And yet, as though waking suddenly from a dream, I found myself back in Alguaire.

  Despite having spent only a few hours there when rescuing Papa from the police station, I sensed that it held clues about what made my father who he was. Somehow, I felt, by returning there I would have a clearer understanding of him. There was no point trying to explain something like that to Kevin, so I told him I had flu and wouldn’t be at work for a couple of days. He sighed with resigned disapproval. In the decade I’d worked with him I couldn’t remember him being off sick for a single day. A broken leg, pneumonia and rampant gastroenteritis – which involved clearing a runway from his desk to facilitate his routine shuttle sprints to the bog – had all failed to dent his untiring work ethic.

  I took a budget-airline flight to Barcelona and drove to Alguaire in a hire car. I parked on the edge of the village. The streets were cool and eerily quiet with a hint of morning mist. I wandered into the main square and sat outside at the pavement café. The only other customer was an old man, I guessed in his eighties or early nineties, wire-thin with tough, leathery skin and gun-dog eyes. He sat nursing a small glass of black coffee, smoking strong, toasted cigarettes, and greeted anyone who passed with a friendly ‘¿Qué tal?’ He reserved his most cheerful smiles for the pretty young mothers, dressed in colourful skirts, who meandered across the square with their children in pushchairs. A few migrant workers were congregated outside the telegraph office opposite. Occasionally one or two of them crossed the road and teased the old man about this or that, and he accepted their attentions with good humour.

  I wondered about his past, how long he’d lived in Alguaire and how he’d survived the war. Perhaps he’d known my grandparents; perhaps he was one of the villagers who’d betrayed them to the Falangists; perhaps he’d pointed to my grandmother and said, ‘She deserves to die.’ Perhaps he was one of the villagers who’d written to the Ajuntamente, objecting to Papa’s request to recover his parents’ remains from the field where they’d lain buried for the past seventy years.

  I left the café and wandered through the streets to the outer edge of the village, where I found a steep set of narrow steps leading on to a promontory on which a stone statue of Christ was perched, his extended arms seeming to embrace the village and the countryside beyond. On the side of the hill was a series of loudspeakers from which municipal messages were being relayed to villagers – times and dates of meetings and community events, I guessed.

  I climbed to the top and looked across the landscape, beyond the chaotic cluster of terracotta roofs below me, the olive and nectarine groves, and over the undulating plains. The green valleys, bordered by headlands of lime and red, marly sandstone, were interrupted occasionally by islets of yellow, parched scrub. In the distance, the craggy mountain range stood like a bold artistic statement. This was what had been fought over.

  Below, I saw the building with the bell tower that had caught my attention on my previous visit. From this distance it was even more unsightly than up close. No one, it seemed, was prepared to do anything about its ruin. No one wanted to talk about the war: the building remained scarred and the dead lay where they were buried, untouched.

  The thought made me suddenly and fiercely angry, and I wanted to do something about it. On my way back to the car I noticed the Ajuntamente office was open, so I went inside. It was attended by a pair of female clerks, attractive and smartly dressed, neither of whom had been there when I’d visited with Mama and Pablito. They both greeted me with a smile. I asked in faltering Spanish if there was someone around who might be able to answer some questions about the building opposite. They looked at me, puzzled.

>   ‘Momento,’ said one, and she disappeared through a door that looked as though it led on to other offices.

  She soon returned with a tall, grey-haired man dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt and camel cavalry-twill slacks that were pinched around a neat waist. He smoked a cigarette with urbane authority.

  ‘Yes sir, how may I help you?’ he said in English with just a trace of a Spanish accent.

  I told him of my interest in the damaged building.

  ‘Ah yes, el almacén de granos.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘In English it is the grain store. Or, at least, it was historically. Today it is a municipal building for concerts and meetings and so on.’

  ‘I wondered what had happened to it. Was it damaged during the Civil War?’

  He paused. ‘Umm, yes, that is correct.’

  ‘And why has it never been properly restored?’

  There was another, longer silence. ‘I don’t really know the answer to that Mr . . .’

  ‘Antonio,’ I said.

  ‘Well, Señor Antonio, it all happened a long time ago.’

  ‘How was it damaged exactly?’ I asked.

  ‘There is a lot of literature available in the public library in Lerida that will provide you with that kind of information,’ he said in a polite tone.

  ‘Don’t you have any information here?’ I pressed. ‘It seems odd that the local municipal office doesn’t hold any information on such a central building.’

  He breathed heavily, as though he’d been confronted with a matter of particular inconvenience. ‘I’m sure if you visit the library there will be a local historian who will be able to answer your inquiries.’

  His response provoked a sudden and disproportionate change in my mood. ‘Why is it that no one wants to talk about the war?’ I demanded.

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘All I’m asking for is some information about a public building. I can’t believe you’ve sat in your office opposite that monstrosity and never wondered what happened to it.’

  ‘Are you by any chance related to Señor Noguera from Scotland?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, he’s my father,’ I sighed.

  There was another long silence, and I thought he might try to usher me out of the door.

  ‘I am sorry I was not in the office the day your father called, because I could have given a proper explanation about why his request was denied.’

  ‘Yes, he was pretty angry about that.’

  ‘It was not, as he suggested, that we thought it unreasonable or that anyone in the village had objected.’

  ‘Oh really?’

  ‘No, on the contrary, we would have been pleased to facilitate his wish, but to do such a thing we must have evidence that these remains to which he referred exist, and unfortunately he was unable to provide us with that.’

  ‘What do you mean? My father says he knows where his parents are buried – is that not evidence enough?’

  ‘I am afraid not, Señor Noguera. The war ended seventy years ago, and, for the first forty of those years, no records were kept of those killed by the Nationalist side. The only evidence that exists is the recollections of the survivors, but those are, as I’m sure you can imagine, notoriously unreliable.’

  ‘So what are you saying, that my grandparents’ remains must stay dumped in a shallow grave forever because my father’s recollections are not reliable enough?’

  ‘No, that is not the case, but we do need supporting evidence.’

  ‘And where would he get that?’

  ‘I’m afraid that is a matter for you and your father, but I suggest you start by going to the library in Lerida.’

  His tone was equable, generous even, and I felt embarrassed and wrong-footed. It was typical of Papa to pile into such an issue half-cocked and accuse others when he didn’t get what he wanted. I should have been more cautious – I’d been stung too many times before to accept what he told me without question.

  Driving back to my hotel in Lerida I tried to phone Cheryl’s mobile again, but as usual it diverted to voicemail. After the tone I hesitated, unsure whether to leave another message. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing I was wondering where she was and what she was doing all the time.

  I decided to go for it. It shouldn’t be important what she thought about me, I told myself – I should be above all that. She might have been prepared to end our marriage without explanation, but I was not going to allow her to think she was unaccountable.

  ‘Hi, it’s me. I’ve been home, and I know you’re gone. I’m not interested in why or where. I just thought we should talk and make arrangements about where we go from here.’

  Apart from a hint of dryness in my mouth, my delivery was controlled and impassive. I should have been pleased, but the moment I hung up I had doubts. Did I really want to give up our marriage without a fight? Even if she was determined to go, why should I make it easy for her? I thought about phoning her again and leaving another message, but I didn’t want to seem too desperate either.

  Back at my hotel I asked the receptionist for directions to the local library and was told it was within walking distance on the Rambla de Aragon. It was called the Biblioteca Pública de la Maternitat, she explained, because it was housed in a former orphanage. When I arrived I immediately felt like one of its former charges. It was a cloistered, imposing structure whose nineteenth-century shell had been recast as a cathedral of high-Modern open-plan design. My sense of awe was intensified by the fact that all the signs were in Catalan. Shards of sunlight streamed through a glass roof, and my footsteps echoed across the granite flagstones as I approached a librarian seated in a central atrium behind a large semi-circular walnut table. I could tell by the way she squinted at me as I approached that she had sensed I was going to be problematic.

  ‘Si señor,’ she said tartly.

  I tried to explain what I was after, and, though she spoke a little English, she didn’t understand. After several failed attempts she directed me to a section of the library that dealt with Spanish history. I made my way to a collection of shelves, more to avoid the embarrassment of having to retreat sheepishly from the building than because I thought I’d find anything of use there.

  There were several multi-volume histories of Spain, each with a section, of varying size, on the Civil War. But these were general, academic treatises with none of the localised human dimension I was after. The only books dedicated entirely to the war seemed to be in a section chronicling the Catalan experience, with titles such as L’Intent Franquista de Genocidi Cultural Contra Catalunya and Traidors a Catalunya: La Cinquena Columna (1936–39).

  I took a few of the books to a reading table and thumbed through the pages, stopping at those which bore the now familiar wartime scenes – grainy stills of tired, middle-aged men in Homburg hats and old suits standing in bombed-out streets, looking hunted and angry; wagons of achingly naïve volunteers clutching ancient rifles with worn wooden stocks and rusting bolts; strutting, absurdly camp Fascist generals glad-handing cassocked clergy; dirty-faced feral youths scouring the rubbled ruins for signs of life or food or anything with a resale value.

  I heard the sound of sharp footsteps and looked up to see the librarian I’d spoken to approaching me along with a short man who appeared to have been summoned from some backroom function.

  ‘Hello sir,’ he said. ‘My name is Fermin. My colleague tells me you have a question about the Civil War.’

  As his colleague stood by I explained to him what I was after. Requesting decades-old information about an anonymous building in a middle-of-nowhere hamlet made me realise how nebulous my quest appeared to be. Had I really come all this way to find out about a grain store, I wondered to myself. I flushed with embarrassment and found myself recounting the detail of my grandparents’ death, as a way, I supposed, of legitimising my inquiry. Fermin listened politely.

  ‘I do not have any knowledge of the building in question, but I could make
some inquiries,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  He had a brief conversation with the other librarian in Catalan and she strode purposefully off.

  ‘I should also say that, as well as being an historian, I am a local member of La Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica. Have you heard of this organisation?’ he asked.

  I shook my head. The librarian returned and handed me a glossy brochure. On its cover was a black-and-white picture of a soldier crouched in a doorway, his rifle pointing towards a crowd huddled at the end of a narrow street.

  ‘It was set up a few years ago by a group of volunteers dedicated to recovering the remains of victims of Franco’s regime. To date it has exhumed the corpses of several thousand war dead. If your grandparents died in the circumstances you described, then this organisation may be able to help you. I could make some inquiries on your behalf if you will permit me. It would involve reviewing existing records and speaking to any surviving villagers in Alguaire who might recall the incident.’

  I noticed he was wearing a pair of rubber-soled house slippers. There were circular patches of damp under the arms of his short-sleeved shirt, and from the plumpness of his frame I guessed he would have some difficulty remembering the last time he had broken into a trot. He looked an unlikely hero, and yet I wanted to pull him towards me and kiss him. He was the first person who had given me, or Papa, anything like positive news regarding the search for my grandparents’ remains.

  ‘That would be fantastic,’ I said, grinning.

  Back in my hotel room I turned on my laptop and Googled the organisation Fermin had mentioned. In English it was the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory. Its website described it as a collection of volunteer archaeologists, anthropologists and forensic scientists who had come together to redress the historical anomaly that, until the turn of the millenium, the remains of victims of Republican atrocities only had been disinterred for reburial. Association members collected oral and written testimonies from friends, neighbours and relatives of Franco’s victims and exhumed and identified recovered remains, it said. Less than a decade after its formation, it had exhumed the bodies of four thousand supporters of the Republic who had been murdered and dumped in roadside ditches and mass graves. The website included a forum for families of war victims whose relatives were still missing, and for people who’d lost touch with family members and were now trying to trace them.