The Awakening

by Allen Johnson

There was a war cry of approval, and Juanito swept his arm in the air, urging the men to follow him.

  There were tens of thousands who marched from the stadium to the center of town that morning. Juanito was at the front, bigger than life, with Diego marching proudly at his side.

  “Are you with us, little brother?” Juanito said, wrapping his arm around his friend.

  “I am with you.” Diego pulled his shoulders back and marched step for step with the union leader.

  Juanito’s head was raised high, his eyes ablaze, and what he shouted was what the men shouted: “Equal rights, equal share!”

  Diego looked intently at Juanito; his friend amazed him. He knew about his kindness, his fondness for a good laugh, and his agility at turning a clever phrase, but this was something new. He was a man possessed with a vision. Although Diego did not fully understand his friend’s passion, he was willingly swept up by its momentum.

  Diego shouted as loudly as any man. And when the proud, angry men filed past the cathedral, and Diego saw his brother Francisco at the top of the stairs, he bellowed even louder and poked his fist toward heaven.

  At the end of the day, Diego pulled Juanito aside and asked his friend to explain the meaning of the day.

  “You know that the Popular Front won the election in February.”

  “Yes.”

  “What you may not know is that there is division within the party. And where there is division, there is weakness. There are forces that do not want the Republic to succeed.”

  “What forces?”

  “Forces like the church, the landowners, and factions of the military. These are difficult days, Diego, and if we do not stand up for the Republic, we will be crushed like grapes.

  “There is a Kenyan proverb that teaches ‘Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable.’ That is why we marched today—the farmers, the factory workers, the street cleaners, the shop clerks; we are all part of that bundle of solidarity. We must never give up the fight.”

  A little more than four months later, Juanito’s impassioned words were silenced by the military strength of Franco’s rebels. On Monday, July 20, the Nationalist military, as they called themselves—bolstered by the soldiers of the Granada garrison, most of whom sided with the fascist leader—marched into Granada, overtaking the city hall and arresting the civil governor and staff without opposition.

  By nightfall, the entire center of the city was captured. After that, if there was to be any resistance, it would be left to the working-class men within the steep and narrow streets of the Arab Quarter who had already dug ditches or built barricades across the roads to stop the encroachment of armored vehicles.

  The battle began on July 21. The Republican civilians positioned themselves at the windows and balconies of their tightly packed houses, but they were poorly armed. By the end of the day, many had either been killed or surrendered, which in most cases meant a summary judgment and execution.

  Diego and Lupe stayed huddled in their apartment during the shooting. Diego had no weapon and would not have known how to use it if he had. He had only one interest: Protecting the life of his wife and his unborn child.

  Then, on the early morning of July 22, Radio Granada announced an ultimatum. The women and children were to leave the quarter and gather at specified assembly points. The men were to attach a white flag of surrender to their windows or balconies, throw down their arms in the center of the street, and stand in the doorways of their homes. In the event of non- compliance, the quarter would be unmercifully bombed.

  “What do we do?” Lupe asked, her round eyes charged with fear.

  “I do not know.”

  Diego crawled to a window and stole a glance at their narrow street below. The women and children were filing out of the quarter. However, there was not a single man in the doorways; they would give it a fight.

  “What is happening?”

  “The women and children are leaving.”

  “Should I go?”

  Diego paused. It was the most difficult question of his life. “I do not think so. I think you are safer here than in the hands of the Black Squads.”

  “What are the Black Squads?”

  “Juanito has told me about them. They are savages who take obscene pleasure in killing. Their sole purpose is to create fear in the city. They have no conscience. No, I cannot place you in their hands. Forgive me, Lupe; I cannot be sure it is the right decision, but it is what I think.”

  “Then that is what we will do.”

  At 2:30 p.m., the bombing began. Supplied by the Nazi Luftwaffe, Heinkel He 112 fighter planes buzzed the quarter and machine-gunned the pockets of Republican resistance. The Heinkels were single-winged fighters with retractable running gear and a bubble canopy. They were sleek, fast, and horrifying. They strafed the streets and squares with bolts of thunderous lead.

  The couple could hear grenades exploding throughout the night and even more fiercely the next morning. Finally, just before noon, the shooting subsided, and Diego could see white flags appearing in the windows of the surrounding houses.

  “I think it is over,” Diego said from the window. Then a moment later: “Oh, God, here they come.”

  “Who?”

  “The Black Squads. They are searching all the houses.”

  “Maybe they will not come here.”

  “We cannot be sure of that.”

  Diego was terrified, and he was not at all sure that he was thinking clearly. They had to hide, but where? With the exception of the bed, there was practically nothing in the room. “Under the bed.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to hide under the bed. They are not going to take a lot of time; there are too many houses to search.”

  “But if they find me?”

  “We have no other choice,” Diego said, embracing his wife, who was now trembling with fear.

  “Diego, I am frightened.”

  “I am frightened too, sweetheart, but we will get through this.”

  “Where will you hide?”

  “Do not worry about me.”

  Diego lifted the sideboard, giving Lupe space to slide on her back under the bed. It was a tight fit, the slats pressing against her rounded stomach. Then, Diego raced to the half-panel door that opened into an unfinished storage space and retrieved their two small suitcases. He stuffed the suitcases and random pieces of clothing under the sideboard of the bed; the camouflage was makeshift, but it was all he had.

  Diego crouched at the window. The squad was coming. He unlocked the door and set it ajar, reasoning that the soldiers might conclude that the apartment was already abandoned.

  Heavy feet were moving up the stairs.

  Diego raced to the balcony opposite the front door, climbed over the railing, and choosing a spot where his hands were shielded by a large terracotta pot, hung like a marionette from the balcony edge.

  A man crashed into the house, his bayoneted rifle swinging full circle. He kicked open the door to the bathroom. Finding nothing, he turned to the bed. Then, as if preparing to dig a posthole, he lifted his rifle overhead with both hands. With an angry grunt, he thrust his bayonet into the center of the mattress once, twice, three times. Diego could hear the sound from the balcony ledge, and he was filled with horror.

  The first bayonet puncture streaked past Lupe’s side, piercing a fold in her dress. She sealed herself to the wall. The second stab hit a slat directly above Lupe’s face, and the third sliced just over her shoulder.

  For a moment, Lupe thought that she might be safe, but it was not over yet. In the solitude of the storage room, a scrawny grey rat had gnawed his way into one of the cardboard suitcases and nested there. Now, the rat peered out from his disturbed shelter, crawled over Lupe’s legs, and scurried along the wedge between the wall and the length of her body. The rodent inched his way over Lupe’s neck, stopping to look into her eyes. Lupe’s face shriveled in horror; she sealed her hand over her mouth, but could not hold back a gagged cry.

 
The soldier cocked his head.

  Lupe backhanded the rat, and it scuttled out from under the bed and across the soldier’s boot. “Shit!” The man jumped back and stabbed at the rodent, ultimately hitting the squealing target. He held the skewered rat above his head and then flung it out the balcony door.

  Diego saw the bloodied rat sail through the air and strike the stone wall on the opposite side of the alley. He squeezed his eyes shut and silently repeated Lupe’s name.

  “I have found one! I have found one!”

  At first, Diego thought it was the voice of the man hovering over Lupe. It was not. Another soldier on the second floor was calling out from the landing, and the soldier left Lupe’s hiding place and scrambled down the stairs.

  Diego continued to hold on to the balcony ledge, but his arms were quickly giving out, and he was afraid that other soldiers would see him from the backside of his apartment. He managed to lift one foot onto the balcony lip and, then, with a last surge of effort, grabbed for the iron railing. His grip held, and he pulled himself onto the ledge and over the railing.

  Diego stood sideways behind the open door and heard the soldiers dragging a screaming man into the street. Meanwhile, he peered into the room, making out the pool of rat blood and the sliced mattress, the down rising off the bed from the cross draft.

  A moment later, there was a report and a round of laughter from the street.

  Diego charged into the room and tore back the mattress. He could see Lupe through the slats, pinned against the wall. Although she was silently sobbing, there was no sign of blood. He reached through the slats and caressed her face.

  “Are you all right?”

  Lupe nodded, too afraid to speak.

  “They are gone.”

  Diego lifted the bed frame and helped Lupe to her feet. They cried in each other’s arms, emotion bursting with both terror and relief.

  “I hate rats,” Lupe said, her voice quivering. “I really hate rats.”

  Diego had made the right decision. The men and women who were captured were either imprisoned or placed in internment camps outside the city. In the months to follow, hundreds of them were trucked in the early morning to the municipal cemetery southwest of the Alhambra—a vantage point that offers a commanding view of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the city of Granada. It would be the defenders’ last glimpse of Spain.

  The executions were quickly carried out. The Republicans were lined up with their faces to the cemetery wall. The firing squad was two-deep, the first line kneeling. The officer would raise his saber overhead and then, as a command to fire, slash the sword down at his side. Finally, each defender of Granada was shot in the head at close range to ensure his or her death—a mercy since many were not killed by the first volley. Diego and Lupe heard those early morning shots, and they were sickened.

  The Albaicín, with its maze of narrow cobblestoned streets and small squares, had become a ghost town. For days, Diego and Lupe dared not move from the apartment. The heat was stifling; Diego stripped to the waist, and Lupe took to wearing one of her husband’s ribbed tank-top undershirts. When the heat was the most unbearable, Lupe would dampen a washcloth and pass it across her chest and the back of her neck, repeating the process for her husband.

  When they had eaten everything they had, Diego crept down the stairs to the second-floor apartment and took whatever food he could find.

  It was an eerie existence: waiting for time to pass in the half-hearted hope that another dawn might dispel the nightmare. The hours of darkness were hellish, their sleep interrupted by the oppressive heat and the echoes of gunshots, sometimes at a distance, sometimes terrifyingly close. The couple measured time, not by the slow steeple tolls, but by reports in the night.

  At last, the nights quieted—not all at once, but gradually, like a music box winding down and giving up its tune. Diego became restless. He was haunted by images of his friend, Juanito—a heavy feeling of dread that he could not shake. He had to see him.

  “I am sure he is in danger,” he said to Lupe.

  “And we are in danger.”

  “Yes, but we are alive. What if he is wounded?”

  Lupe could see that her husband would not be dissuaded. “Do what you must do, but please come back to me.”

  “I will, Lupe. I promise.”

  “Say it again.”

  “I promise.”

  Despite a citywide curfew, Diego left the house at 2:00 a.m. He estimated that he could make it to Juanito’s apartment in fifteen minutes. At midpoint, he spotted a Nationalist soldier and backed into a doorway. He held his breath, but his heart was pounding like a bass drum, and he was sure that if the soldier passed, he would be discovered.

  Then the rebel stopped and inclined his head, as if trying to remember a detail or listen to a strange sound. He spun around, spotted another soldier, and called out to him the way friends greet each other across a crowded room. He reset his rifle shoulder strap and hurried down a side street.

  Diego held his position. Suddenly, he realized that his plan was lunacy and decided to steal back to his apartment. Then, he heard a noise behind him, a footstep he thought, and, looking over his shoulder as he rounded a corner, he collided into the chest of one of three Black Squad soldiers.

  “Hey!” the rebel blustered, waving an uncorked bottle of wine. “What are you doing here, you Republican hyena?”

  Diego seized the first answer that came to his head. “I am . . . I am trying to get to my mother’s house. She is terribly sick.”

  “No one is in the Albaicín.”

  “But I am afraid my mother is still here. I am afraid she was too sick to leave when ordered.”

  “And where does she live?” another soldier asked, his speech slurred from too much alcohol.

  “Not far from here.”

  “Then take us to her. I would like to meet this sick mother of yours. Maybe we can help her.”

  The third soldier was distinguished by a fresh and badly stitched scar that ran from the outside corner of his sightless right eye, down his cheek, and along the ridge of his jaw. When he spoke, his words were pure sarcasm. “Yes, perhaps she needs someone to hold her hand. Or spread her legs.”

  All three men laughed and backhanded each other on the chest.

  “All right,” Diego said, pointing down a long and dark side street. “It is this way.”

  Diego pretended to take the first step forward, then, whipping around on the rebels, he hooked his foot behind the boot of the scarred-face man and shoved him into the two other soldiers. The man toppled over like a domino, and Diego bolted down the familiar street toward Juanito’s apartment.

  “Halt!”

  A bullet zinged past Diego’s head. He started to zigzag, bouncing off one side of the narrow street to the other.

  The soldiers were drunk and much slower than Diego, but he still needed an advantage. Running frantically in and out of the shadows, he spotted a loose brick at a doorway and hurled it through a window, hoping that it might serve as a momentary diversion.

  Again, he lunged forward, when, almost knocking him off his feet, someone hooked his arm and yanked him through an open doorway.

  Diego fought back wildly, swinging both arms at the shadowy man.

  The man locked his arms around Diego in a bear hug. “Diego. It is me,” he whispered.

  It was Juanito.

  “Follow me,” Juanito said, swiftly closing and latching the street door.

  The two men bounded up the two flights of stairs and lunged into Juanito’s apartment, quickly easing the door shut behind them. They stood with their backs to the door, gasping for breath.

  “You are alive,” Diego said.

  “Yes.”

  “But how?”

  Juanito shook off the question and pressed his ear against the door, straining to hear the sounds from the street.

  “Are they gone?” Diego whispered.

  Juanito held his finger across Diego’s lips. First, there was s
ilence and then the unmistakable sound of a gunstock pounding against the ground-level door. “Damn. We have to get out of here.”

  “But . . .”

  “Now, Diego!”

  Juanito ran headlong to the facing side of the studio apartment. He quickly opened the doors and shutters that swung onto a small balcony. Attached to the balcony railing was a coil of rope that Juanito threw over the side to the street below.

  Seeing the rope, Diego looked questioningly at his friend.

  Juanito pointed to a bombed-out hovel directly opposite his apartment. “Run to that house! Jump the barricade and hide in the cellar. It is open.”

  The men heard the soldiers breach the street door and scramble up the stairs.

  “Hurry,” Juanito said. “You first.”

  “No . . .”

  “Listen to me, Diego! I have to collect some papers. Now go!”

  The soldiers were now pummeling the front door. Diego swung over the railing and quickly let himself down, while Juanito rushed to his desk and furiously stuffed papers into his shirt. He then charged for the balcony. He had one leg over the railing when the soldiers broke through the door.

  “Halt!”

  Juanito froze, knowing that if he moved a muscle, he was dead. Diego, who was now on the ground, signaled for his friend to come, but it was too late. Using his leg as a shield, Juanito flicked his outside hand, motioning Diego to take flight. But Diego did not run—not until the soldiers rushed to the balcony and, seeing Diego, opened fire. Diego dove over a six-foot barricade, a bullet blasting into the wall under his leg. He ran along the backside of the wall, working his way to the street corner, and then circled back to the front of Juanito’s building. He hid in a darkened doorway two doors down on the opposite side of the street. Then he waited.

  A few minutes later, the three soldiers came out of the apartment, the scarred-face man carrying a lantern, another sporting Juanito’s black fedora. Juanito was surrounded by the rebels, being shoved along at gunpoint. His head was bleeding from his scalp and trickling down his face. Watching this, Diego felt helpless and, for the first time in his life, wished he had a gun.

  Juanito asked the Black Squad where they were taking him, and the man with the fedora responded by planting the butt of his rifle in the middle of his lower back, which dropped Juanito to his knees and made Diego groan in sympathy. Both Juanito and the scarred-face soldier heard the sound, but it was Juanito who actually spotted Diego in the darkened doorway.