Daughter of Catalonia

by Jane MacKenzie

  ‘You’re surely not going to stay here once the baby is born?’

  ‘But Tante Louise, you surely don’t expect us to move now? What would we do with everything?’ Elise waved a hand vaguely around the apartment’s one main room, in which every corner was crammed with books and papers.

  ‘But if you had a bigger apartment you needn’t have the mess! There’d be room for all this!’

  Elise laughed. ‘Yes, but how long do you think it would be before Luis filled the extra space, and it all looked the same? If we can’t go to Spain, we may as well stay here!’

  Then she laughed again at Louise’s expression. For Louise nothing could be worse than to think of them moving to Spain. Elise allowed her mind to drift back to that too short visit, just when everything had come right again, and the Popular Front had united and beaten the right wing in the elections, and Catalonia had been declared free again. Luis had been so hopeful for a while, and so happy not to be an exile. They had roamed the streets of Barcelona together hand in hand, Luis introducing her to friends, buildings, shopkeepers, landmarks, comrades, and Elise sometimes hardly knowing which was which, depending on who he was speaking to and in which language. It was exciting, Barcelona, always moving, edgily political. This was the spring of hope, and everyone wanted to believe.

  ‘Could you live here, vida meva?’ His eyes had coaxed.

  ‘If you help me, I could live anywhere. But you’d have to teach me Catalan, cariňo! And I haven’t exactly been gifted so far.’

  He smiled, and his hand just touched her belly. There was no sign of the pregnancy yet, but the baby was there, a bud of hope, he called it. Their love child, Elise called it.

  They walked along the beach by the port, and the early winds of spring pulled at her hair and made her want to run, and pull Luis down onto the sand. But there were morning walkers, and the city moved behind them, so she leant back into him, reaching her hands up and behind her to cradle his head, and he nuzzled her neck, touching his lips just where her hair met the back of her ears.

  ‘Temptress!’

  Elise chuckled. ‘Wait a few months and I may tempt you less!’ She drew his hands around her stomach, and he trailed them from her breasts to the line of her thighs.

  ‘What would your mother say?’

  ‘That the siren had corrupted her son.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to be a siren!’

  ‘Well you failed, my temptress, for you are Hera, and you bring nothing but love.’

  They visited his mother, in the mountain village of Sant Galdric, where their car was the only transport except for the baker’s van. One long, steep street bordered by faded stone houses, and brown, blistered paintwork which Luis swore had never changed since his childhood. Children played in front of open doorways, but otherwise the place seemed lifeless to Elise. Where was everyone, she wondered? In France, in Vermeilla, everyone moved, and met outside, and gossiped, and intrigued.

  ‘Oh, there’s plenty of that here, don’t worry!’ Luis told her. ‘But times have been troubled, and nobody knows who to trust. People have learnt to do their gossiping indoors.’

  His mother, thin and wiry, with his deep eyes, shed tears and clung to him, touching him compulsively throughout their visit.

  ‘Now you can come home,’ she repeated again and again, fluttering around him, and around Elise, talking about the baby, the future. ‘But keep him away from politics. It does no good, and these Republicans, they just want to close our churches, and nothing is any better than the old days.’

  ‘No, Mòmia,’ Luis’s voice caressed her as he disagreed. ‘Don’t be fooled into thinking that way. That’s what the right-wing parties in Madrid want you to believe. No real Republican will ever interfere with your religion, but they want the people to run the country, not the clergy and the army. We’ll make mistakes in the Republic, but they’re honest ones, and we will always put people first, and Catalonia first.’

  ‘He always spoke like that,’ Señora Garriga told Elise. She touched her son again and smiled. ‘Always so passionate and so political! Maybe one day you’ll be proved right, my son. Your brother seems to think so, but all I can say is, it didn’t do your sister any good, all that politics.’

  A shadow crossed Luis’s face. As they’d roamed the Barcelona streets a few days before, he’d told Elise they had to find Vigo’s ghost. ‘He’ll be here somewhere,’ he’d insisted – the comrade and best friend who’d married his sister Maria. While Luis escaped Barcelona in 1934, Vigo had been captured, and soon after his release his heart had failed. When they passed the apartment where Vigo and Maria used to live, Luis held Elise’s hand compulsively, letting it go with a long breath as they turned the corner. ‘They tell me he died at home,’ he explained.

  And now Maria was in Sant Galdric, and appeared at her mother’s house, trailed by her two children. Luis reached out to hold his niece and nephew, and the children looked up at him with a yearning in their eyes which seemed to Elise to sum up Spain for her.

  Luis gave Maria money, such as he had, and talked to her about a future together here in Spain. Maria smiled, her intelligent eyes almost teasing her brother as his infectious enthusiasm rained down on her.

  ‘Elise is with me in thinking we could move back to Barcelona,’ he urged. ‘And then you could come back to join us, you and Joana and Josep here.’ Luis caressed his niece Joana, a budding blonde beauty who gazed silently at Elise with large, questioning blue eyes. And Elise, who understood only parts of what she heard, smiled back at her and thought, if we come to live in Barcelona, these are people I could learn to love. Together they ate rice soup and mountain cheese, and amid the noise of talk she couldn’t follow, Elise felt the peace of Luis’s homecoming …

  ‘You won’t go to Spain now, will you?’ Tante Louise’s anxious voice penetrated Elise’s reverie, and brought her back to the present. She shook her head to clear the memories, and reached down to feel her swollen belly.

  ‘No, don’t worry. Six months ago we would have gone, but Luis had work to do here so we had to wait, and now … what to do now that Franco has declared war on the Republic? It’s Civil War, and in two weeks I’ll have a baby. Luis would go still, but I won’t go.’

  ‘Thank God!’

  ‘Yes, but it’s tough for Luis, finding himself an exile again. So we won’t disturb his mess and his books, and we’ll let him stay in his little apartment! And now, it’s too hot and I’m too fat to cook, so we’re eating at the café this lunchtime, meeting Luis and Philippe. But Tante Louise?’

  ‘Yes, my love?’

  ‘Don’t pester Luis about moving house. Please?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I know when I’m wasting my time. I’m outnumbered by a bunch of idealistic fools, and there’s no point in appealing to your friends either. Philippe is as bad as the rest of you! But I won’t drink their hellish local wine at that café!’

  Elise enfolded her in a hug.

  ‘Don’t worry, ma Tante, Philippe told me he was going to buy you champagne.’

  ‘Tonton Philippe,’ murmured Madeleine, smiling.

  ‘You remember?’ asked Louise. ‘Your Tonton Philippe? How he loved you, child. You were never off his knee. Such a kind, lovable man. He was deeply in love with your mother, of course. Oh, no need to look like that. She wasn’t even aware of it. He was just like a brother to her always, but I could see it in the way he looked at her.’

  ‘Who was Philippe?’ Madeleine asked. ‘I remember him, his face, and his brown jacket and tie, and he had brown hair and he seemed really tall to me, almost bent and very thin. But I don’t know what he did, where he came from, whether he was married, or anything.’

  ‘He was the schoolmaster in Vermeilla,’ Louise explained. ‘He was your father’s greatest friend there. They were both passionately intellectual, and I think Philippe had been a bit starved of such company before your father came to the town. It was just a village, really, but it was big enough to have its own primary schoo
l, and Philippe was the headmaster. He wasn’t from Vermeilla. He was from Burgundy, I remember, and had discovered Vermeilla while on a painting holiday, and said he never again wanted to live without the light of Catalogne. That whole coast always attracted artists. Anyway, I think Philippe had come to the village a few years before Luis and Elise. He wasn’t married, but I often wondered if he was having an affair with the owner of the Café de Catalogne. I can’t remember her name.’

  ‘Colette,’ cut in Solange. ‘I’m sure she was called Colette, and her husband had been injured on the railways.’

  ‘That’s right, it was Colette. A real Catalan woman. Handsome, rather than pretty, and olive-skinned. But a nice woman, I thought.’

  Madeleine stared at the table, conjuring up images in her mind.

  ‘Was there a floor of brown and yellow tiles with green flowers on them?’ she asked.

  ‘My goodness, I don’t know! It was certainly very Catalan. Spanish in style, rather than French, really. Can you remember it?’ Louise was surprised.

  ‘I don’t know. I remember a long bar, and I couldn’t see over the counter. It must have been above my head. I don’t remember people in it, funnily.’ She shook her head. ‘Was it a busy place?’

  ‘As busy as every bar, I suppose, my dear. I only went there once or twice. In those days not many women went to the café.’

  ‘Except Colette.’

  ‘Except Colette, of course. And I’m sure that’s why people talked about her. It should have been her husband running the bar, of course, but he was an invalid. I think that’s why they took on the café, to provide an income after he was injured. Do you remember Colette’s little boy? He would have been a couple of years older than you.’

  ‘I don’t remember anyone except Uncle Philippe. Even Papa is really vague to me, and I think I mainly remember him from Maman’s photo of him on her dressing table. I do remember holding his hand, though. I think we must have been walking along the street, and then I remember him helping me up the stairs. Was our apartment up some windy stairs?’

  ‘Too many stairs!’ Louise’s voice was eloquent.

  ‘Then that’s it. And we had a stove that burnt wood. Tell Robert we had a stove, because he doesn’t believe me!’

  ‘Yes, my dear, there was a stove. It could be pretty cold in that street in winter. And the winds! The Tramontane blows down from the Pyrenees, and freezes the bones. Or the sea wind comes off the Mediterranean and brings rain and everything gets damp, even inside the house.’ Tante Louise shivered. ‘I was always glad to get back to Paris.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Maman!’ Solange was indignant. ‘When we went down for the wedding it was September and it was beautiful, after the summer heat, and everyone so happy, with the grape-picking under way, and a good harvest. And there were no smelly fishermen because they were all in the vineyards helping out! There were even some holidaymakers, remember? And artists painting by the beach.’

  Louise smiled. ‘Solange is right, of course. It was later that I was there in winter. It’s a beautiful place, and you all had a real life there. I just used to worry about Elise and you children, but I knew I had no right to interfere.’

  Madeleine watched them, smiling in return. Elise and Luis, Philippe and Colette; they were all so near, it seemed.

  ‘How old would Philippe have been?’ she asked.

  Solange considered. ‘Around the same age as your father, I suppose, or no, perhaps a few years more. Maybe in his mid thirties by then, or a little more. Why?’

  ‘That means that he must be in his late fifties now. He may be still working as a teacher, and perhaps still in the same school. He’ll be someone we can find. Philippe and Colette!’ Madeleine felt a growing excitement. ‘I bet they’re still alive and still in Vermeilla. And it’s just a village. They’ll be easy to find.’

  ‘Find?’ Louise was stunned. ‘You want to find them?’

  ‘Of course we want to find them! We’ve spent our whole lives to date in ignorance about what happened to our parents. We left France in a hurry in the war and left Papa behind, and all we know is that he was killed. As Robert said, Maman didn’t even leave any letters. Robert and I need to know, Tante Louise. We need to know about our father. Please, you must understand. Robert has to go back to England soon, but after he leaves, I want to go down to Vermeilla, just me, on my own, and find our past so that we can simply know.’ The room was silent. Louise’s hands were suddenly still and her eyes frozen in what could have been horror, while Solange just gazed at Madeleine, her face emptied of all expression. Then Bernard leant forward, shifting his comfortable weight in his chair, and spoke for the first time since serving the cognac.

  ‘Of course you must, my child. I can quite see why you want to go,’ he said, his voice interested and thoughtful. ‘It is quite normal that you should want to know more. Louise, I think we should help the child.’

  Louise turned on him.

  ‘What are you saying, Bernard? You call her a child, and that’s the only sensible thing you’ve said. Madeleine, my dear, you have just today arrived in Paris, and your grandparents kept you tied very close to their home, didn’t they? You’ve been very protected and I don’t think you understand anything about what you’re saying. You can’t just head off, a girl alone at your age, to look for people who may no longer exist, without any contacts or invitation. It’s such a strange idea! Stay here with us. You can discover Paris, make some friends – even work, if you like. But to head down to Vermeilla now? It’s just not feasible. Wait a while, if you like, and maybe Bernard could go down with you, when he has time, or better still, we could write to the village mayor at Vermeilla to ask if Philippe is still in the village. But to go down there now, on your own? My dear, it just won’t do!’

  Madeleine felt her heart sink. Tante Louise’s view of her didn’t seem to differ much from her grandfather’s. Was she really so useless, so unformed, so incapable? The glow of the evening, and its easy, companionable reminiscences, shrivelled cold before her. Cousin Cicely came to mind, with her worldly independent life in London. And Peter, with his serenely arrogant assurance. Madeleine felt like a silly child caught trying to buy cigarettes, unfit to join the adult world.

  Was it so stupid to want to go to Vermeilla? But why not? Why was this so difficult? To Tante Louise Vermeilla was an insignificant, coarse fishing village a thousand kilometres from the sophistications of Paris, but for Madeleine Vermeilla was her birthplace, her only real past, and she felt more strongly than ever that she needed to stand on its soil in order to grow.

  You want me to grow up? Then let me go. And let me go now, while I have escaped from England and no one is looking for me. I’ve been imprisoned – don’t do it to me again.

  She struggled for the words to make them understand.

  ‘Tante Louise, I would love to discover Paris. I don’t mean to be ungrateful. But I have something else I need to discover first, for me and for Robert. It has become very important to us now that Maman is gone. And I know I am inexperienced, but I can as easily take a train as anyone else and visit a small village which holds my roots.’

  ‘And if they don’t want to know you?’ The question was from Solange, not hostile, but concerned. ‘If after all these years the Garriga family has been forgotten in Vermeilla, since your mother never returned there? What will you do then?’

  ‘Why, then I’ll come back! I’ll behave like a tourist for a few days, see the area where I was born, and then return to Paris. I only have money to go for a short while, anyway. I’m not planning to set up house!’

  It was Bernard who spoke up again now, measured and reflective as before.

  ‘I don’t think a small village will quite have forgotten your family. After all, it has only been fourteen years since the liberation. But they may not know anything much about how Luis died, if he was up in the hills with the resistance, as I think he was. You say it was Philippe who wrote to tell your mother? Then they know at least the bare
bones, and to my mind enough people will still be there in Vermeilla to talk to you about your parents. Your father did a lot of high-profile work down there. It’s that you want, I think, more than anything else – to hear about your parents, and to feel your roots again? Well, I think you’re right.’

  Louise shook her head in dismay, and Bernard moved smoothly on to change the subject. But later, as Bernard and Solange were leaving, Madeleine overheard more agitated discussion in the hallway. Bernard’s very rounded tones sounded loud and clear.

  ‘Those two children have been deprived of all the history and background most people take for granted. And that girl has eyes which are shaded for fear of defeat. But in this she has determination, and that’s why we need to help her. You’ve got a couple of weeks to work on her if you want to, but I don’t advise it. She’ll go anyway. But if you help her to go, she’ll come back to you, and who knows, she may have some of the light of the Mediterranean about her.’

  Through the open doorway Madeleine caught a glimpse of Bernard holding Solange’s coat for her to step into, and then Solange turned her head, and said with wry amusement, ‘The light of the Mediterranean seems to have got into you tonight, Bernard! But I am glad you have fallen for Elise’s daughter. If we can make her smile like Elise, then you’ll be right and I’ll be grateful. So we’ll do as you suggest, and if she falls into the sea, we can always send you down to fish her out! Bonne nuit, Maman. Have fun with the children. We’ll make the most of these two weeks, and then we’ll be very brave and let the little Madeleine follow her mother, n’est-ce pas?’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The little, old-fashioned train rattled through the hills of southern France, wending its way past deep canyons and strange rock formations, opening out to give broader views of the mountains occasionally, green and hazy in the late afternoon sun. They had passed Toulouse, and Carcassonne, with its medieval city, and according to Madeleine’s map she should soon be able to see the sea. She had been travelling since dawn, and had become almost part of the rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat of the train’s motion, bracing herself with her fellow passengers automatically when they swung corners around the mountains, shifting her buttocks uncomfortably from time to time on the hard, leather bench.