Autumn in Catalonia

by Jane MacKenzie

  ‘Papa,’ she began again, in the gentler voice she’d used earlier. ‘You can’t just keep me chained up, you know that. And I am going to finish my studies. But don’t worry, I’ll do it on my own, and I won’t make any waves, or cause you any embarrassment. I won’t even go on any more student marches. I’ll be the quietest student in Barcelona, and you have nothing to worry about.’

  She stepped back and turned to pick up her handbag and the overnight holdall she’d brought with her following his summons. She shot him one more look, and he was standing rigid, disbelieving.

  ‘If you walk out of that door now it’s for good,’ he said. ‘You’ll never enter this house again!’

  She didn’t answer. She shot one more look at her mother, sitting staring at her, her face completely void of expression, and then she made her way towards the hallway and the exit, trying not to look rattled or distressed. The maid Mireia was standing beside the telephone table in the hallway, bobbing nervously, her uniform strangely stark against the flock wallpaper, which looked to Carla suddenly more absurd than any decoration she had ever seen. She nodded at Mireia, determined not to cry, and stepped towards the door. Behind her came Sergi’s voice, one final bellow, like an angry boar.

  ‘Watch what you do there in Barcelona, my girl. I’ll be watching you, all the time! You’re a shame to my name and I wish you didn’t bear it. But while you’re known to be my daughter you’ll toe the line or I’ll simply make you! Don’t forget it. If you ever overstep the line I’ll come for you, and next time you won’t walk away so easily.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Carla walked away from the house as quickly as possible, looking back just once at the high stone wall with its carefully guarded gate, hiding the house where she had grown up, and played with friends in the garden with its old swing – long removed, and part of a distant past which only the child in her could still view with pleasure. Tears were hot at the back of her eyes, but she was determined not to give in to them. It was no hardship to say goodbye to the house – if she never set foot there again it would make her very happy, and she’d been alone in it for years. The focus now must be on working out how to survive and finish her studies.

  She wanted to see Grandma. Suddenly it was all she wanted, and she turned off the manicured, residential street into the park, empty at this hour of the mothers and their playing children, inhabited only by pedestrian commuters scuttling home, and by one old lady trailing a bag of shopping. Ahead of her rose the magical old town of Girona, medieval and Roman stone buildings side by side, dark now against the deepening blue of a lovely November evening.

  She turned onto the busy thoroughfare that led past the old town and towards Grandma and Uncle Victor’s apartment. New utilitarian buildings juggled here for space alongside older, more gracious facades, which had lined this broad boulevard for nearly two hundred years. They were darkened now by years of grime, so that they looked better in this evening light than in the full light of day, but they bore witness nonetheless to more elegant times, when men in top hats had held parasols for long-skirted ladies as they promenaded towards the park.

  As she turned off the boulevard and made her way through the sprawling network of backstreets all vestige of elegance faded. So many of the poor from the villages who had poured into Girona in the last twenty years were crowded together here, in mean tenements with washing hanging from every leaky window. When Uncle Josep had first brought her here to meet her grandmother, she had been shocked to her bourgeois core by the squalor and neglect, worse than any of the areas she knew in Barcelona, but now she walked through without even looking.

  She turned in at Uncle Victor’s building, and climbed the narrow stairs to the apartment, knocking and then entering without waiting, calling out a ‘Holà’ as she shut the door behind her. Nobody was expecting her here, but in a way, as she knew, she was always expected.

  Hugging her travel bag to her she went down the narrow corridor to a small living room. There was a bare, brown-tiled floor, walls covered with a worn, patched floral wallpaper, some ill-assorted chairs, a sideboard, and a central dining table covered with a beautifully ironed, flowered cloth, and all around were Grandma’s knick-knacks, her small treasures brought from a previous life, crowding every available space. And of course the picture of the Mother Mary in pride of place above the table.

  Over by the sideboard Uncle Victor was bent over an ancient radio, trying to get better reception through the crackle. He didn’t seem to have heard Carla coming in, and she took the time to study his gentle, lined face, cocooned and content after his day’s work, fully concentrated on his task. There was no sign of Grandma, but a rich, savoury cooking smell pervaded the entire apartment, and Carla guessed that she was in the tiny little kitchen which led off from the living area.

  She stood waiting until Uncle Victor raised a tune from the radio – a lively piano piece which Carla vaguely recognised, and which had hints of flamenco in it. Victor would know it, she was sure. After a moment he looked up, and took in Carla’s presence with a little surprised shake of the head.

  ‘Carla! My dear! Welcome, dear child. Com estàs?’

  He came across towards her as he spoke, and she dropped her bag to step into his arms. It was typical of Uncle Victor that he didn’t even ask her why she was there. It was a simple, embracing welcome from a man of few words, who had spent most of his life in the silence of the hills. Carla held him and breathed in the soap smell from his neck, newly washed before Grandma would let him sit down to eat.

  ‘Maria!’ Victor called, from just above her shoulder. ‘Come see who is here!’ He would hand her over to Grandma for questioning, Carla thought, with a half smile. And Maria emerged from the kitchen, rubbing her hands on a cloth, and stood still for a moment watching them as Carla slowly drew back to face her.

  ‘Carla! Carinyo! What are you doing in Girona?’

  She bustled forward and took Carla by the shoulders, looking anxiously into her face.

  ‘Avia!’ was all Carla answered – Grandma. And surprised herself in a flood of unbidden tears. Grandma said nothing, and just held Carla close until her tears subsided, which wasn’t long. After a few minutes she shook herself and raised a rueful face from Grandma’s shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ she said. ‘That was stupid! I just had a bit of a bruising encounter with Papa!’

  Grandma smiled at her, and drew her forward to the table, pushing her gently into a chair.

  ‘Bring the child some brandy or something, Victor,’ she said over her shoulder, and then took a seat opposite Carla. She was like her brother Victor, darkly Catalan in colouring, with high cheekbones and clear, amber brown eyes that watched the world from deep within her. The age lines around them only drew your gaze to them more, Carla thought, but there was nothing challenging about those eyes. They were intelligent but tranquil, and you felt they saw you without judging. And there was a serenity about her which clad her every movement.

  Carla reached out her hand to stroke back some grey strands that had escaped from Grandma’s flowered scarf, and then took the glass which Victor was holding out to her.

  ‘I don’t need this, really I don’t!’ she protested, but took a sip anyway. She nearly choked on the rough brandy, and put the glass down in a hurry.

  ‘Phew! No more of that or I won’t be able to think!’ she expelled. ‘I’m all right, really I am! I just needed somewhere to come after getting away from Papa, and I need to get my head in order. I’ve just been disowned, and I don’t even have anywhere to sleep tonight!’

  Grandma muttered what might have been an oath in anyone else.

  ‘Heavens above! You poor child! But you certainly have somewhere to sleep, for as long as you need it, and in this house we haven’t disowned you, carinyo. You’ll tell us all about it, but first we’ll eat. Dinner is ready, and you look as though you need it.’

  Grandma was always trying to feed Carla, fretting at her natural leanness, and now Carla let
herself be waited on, sitting between Grandma and Victor as a huge bowl of pork and beans was placed before her. She set to and ate as greedily as Uncle Victor, as she realised just how famished she was.

  And while she ate she talked, compulsively. ‘He didn’t mention Luc,’ she said. ‘Thank God, at least he didn’t mention Luc! He doesn’t know about us, because if he did there would have been no holding him back.’ She took another spoonful of beans, fretting all the time at what Sergi had said, to extract what he knew. ‘He knows about me seeing Josep, because he told me I’d been seen visiting, but he didn’t mention you, Avia, or Uncle Victor. He can’t know that I come here to see you in Girona.’

  Grandma responded placidly. ‘But, Carla, how would he know? You haven’t been to visit us since you went back to university for summer school, and you say he only started having you followed at the end of August. We haven’t seen you since! And anyway, even if he knew, what further harm would it do? If he didn’t want you to know your mother’s family, then as soon as you made contact with Josep the damage was done. Josep could give you some rebellious ideas – but you’re unlikely to find any here! We’re not people your father would worry about!’

  ‘He’s been worried enough to exclude you from my life all through my childhood.’

  It was Victor who interjected here, with unaccustomed bitterness. ‘If it was he that excluded us, and not our own Joana.’

  Carla grimaced, gripping hard onto her fork. ‘Do you know, Mama just sat there throughout Papa’s whole tirade, and never said a word – not one word! And when I appealed to her she just stared through me.’

  ‘Do you think she was scared?’

  ‘No, Grandma, I don’t think so. She was just cold. There wasn’t any emotion there at all – no feeling for me, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Oh dear, what has happened to her? If there was one thing that used to reassure me, when you were little and we couldn’t see you, it was that Toni’s mother always said you were well cared for. She told us Joana was so proud of you!’

  So Grandma and Victor had followed her progress as a child? And cared what happened to her? Carla’s throat knotted tight.

  ‘I don’t know whether she was proud of me, but I was certainly proud of her! You know Avia, I used to worship her, when I was a child – she was always so beautiful, in her lovely dresses, and kind of caressing, and she would look at me as though I mattered. All my school friends admired her, and it did make me proud that I had such a mother, especially when I was so, so scrubby!’

  Grandma tut-tutted, and shook her head, but she let Carla continue.

  ‘But I was! You don’t know, Grandma! I was always kind of gangly, and my hair wouldn’t curl, and Mama would buy me pretty dresses which hung off me, and then I would tear them and stuff! Papa hated it. He would call me in to curtsy to his visitors, and I would be all a mess, and never know what I was supposed to say! Mama was good to me then, though, and told me not to worry, because I had Papa’s brain.’

  It was Victor who interceded here, musing. ‘Well he certainly had that, did Sergi. I wouldn’t have thought it, when he was a young man, but he proved us wrong, the way he climbed his way up in politics. He runs a huge department now, doesn’t he? Well, there was nothing in his own father to make us think that of him.’

  ‘You knew Papa when he was a child?’ Carla was surprised.

  ‘Not really, not well, anyway, because his father left the village when he married, and Sergi was raised in Girona, but he used to come back to see his grandmother, and hang around with the village boys. Nobody liked him much, even then. He had a swagger to him, and thought he was better than everyone because he lived in the city. But his father was nothing, meagre and shifty, and kind of crafty, if you know what I mean. We all felt sorry for the old grandmother, because her son was such a little prick.’

  He used the word cabró, which was brutal to Carla’s ears. She tried to conjure up an image of her grandfather, Papa’s father, who had died when she was young, but all that came to mind was a little man, smaller than Papa, well dressed in a showy kind of way. Papa was showy too, but he was imposing, and had money and an excellent tailor. He impressed, and prevailed, and his assurance was unshakeable. Carla shivered.

  ‘That’s enough talking about the child’s family like that, Victor!’ Grandma moved quickly to sweep up the plates, and disappeared into the kitchen. Victor looked apologetically at Carla, and she smiled.

  ‘It’s fine, Uncle, I’m not under any illusions!’ she reassured him, and placed a kiss on his full head of greying hair before carrying the remaining dishes to the kitchen.

  There Grandma was laying out fruit and making coffee. ‘Now child,’ she said, as she stood waiting for the stove-top cafetière, ‘never mind for today worrying about why your parents are how they are. What matters now is making sure you can finish your studies. How much money do you think you will need?’

  Carla named a sum which made her grandmother blink. ‘It’s the fees,’ she explained. ‘Papa hasn’t paid the second instalment yet for the year. But I can use my savings to pay the fees, if I’ve got enough – I need to check how much is owed. And then I can manage otherwise, I think. I’ll have to leave the hostel, of course, but if worst comes to worst I can sleep on someone’s floor.’

  ‘You’ll move in with Josep,’ Grandma said, decisively. ‘He won’t have it any other way – and don’t protest! Among family there is always room.’

  Carla didn’t protest. If Josep would have her, she would be only too grateful to have one problem removed. ‘I can work,’ she said. ‘I can give tuition to schoolchildren. Some of my friends already do it, but of course I didn’t need to while my rich father was paying for me. You can normally make enough money to pay for food and so on, so I’ll be able to give that to Josep and Neus. It’s the fees that worry me. I’ll need to find out if I’ve got enough saved, and if I can get an extension to pay, if needs be.’

  ‘Well all the money you earn can go towards your fees. Josep won’t take your money, carinyo, so if you can earn some money gradually and pay off any remaining fees, then maybe the university will give you some time. You don’t think your father will try to get you removed from the university by other means? He couldn’t have you expelled?’

  Carla gulped – this hadn’t occurred to her. But on reflection she thought she was safe there. Sergi Olivera had huge influence in the regional government, with the police and even the militia, but the venerable University of Barcelona, with its centuries of history, was a bit beyond his reach. Intellectual people made him feel uncomfortable, she knew, and she doubted very much that he would approach the senior university staff who could have his daughter removed.

  ‘He could have me arrested, though!’ she told Maria. ‘Not that he’d want to – his daughter in prison isn’t the package he’s looking for!’ She felt suddenly really hopeful, and positive that she could make things work. ‘I’ll just have to be careful not to show myself politically from now onwards.’

  Both Grandma and Uncle Victor concurred with that. For most of their adult lives they had lived in fear of the Franco regime. People in Spain had learnt not to talk, not to blink at the regime for fear of arrest, and now that things were opening up a little, and the younger generation was flexing its muscles, their elders held their breath in sober foreboding.

  ‘I’ve done nothing much,’ Carla reassured them. ‘And from now onwards I’m not going to get involved at all! And anyway, if I have to earn my living as well as studying then I won’t have time for all that! Did I tell you my best tutor thinks I’m going to graduate with top marks? It’s all that matters now.’

  She slept with Grandma in Grandma’s bed, and rose at dawn to get the first bus back to Barcelona. There was no time to waste in sorting out her life. To her surprise she found Grandma packing a little bag to come with her.

  ‘I’m going to make a visit to that son of mine,’ Maria told her, ‘and I want to see your young man as well! It’s all ve
ry well my Josep having vetted him, but if you’re planning a life with him I want to meet this Luc for myself!’

  It was clear she was determined to be involved, and to make sure Carla was all right.

  ‘What about Uncle Victor?’ Carla protested. ‘You’re going to leave him to manage for himself?’

  ‘What do you think he did when he first came down to work in Girona? I was still looking after our own mother then, up in the village, and he was on his own down here. Well I’m not saying he did a good job, but he didn’t starve! There’s stew left in the kitchen, and when that’s finished he’ll go out to the local bar. No, carinyo, I’m coming with you, just for a couple of days, and we’ll see you settled with Josep and Neus before I leave you there in Barcelona!’

  So bang goes the weekend with Luc’s family, Carla thought, but with some amusement. They would do it another time, and meanwhile Luc had better set about charming her grandmother. If he did so then she would adopt him with her usual serenity, but for now Grandma was less serene than determined.

  Well, at least Josep would now be able to ask Maria where his father was buried, and perhaps fill some of the gaps in those nagging memories of his. It was funny to think of Grandma going to busy Barcelona, and even stranger to think of her living there in the past, young and grave and in love with a passionate young journalist, supporting his work, seeking him out in prison, negotiating his release, holding on resolutely to her young family as bad turned to desperate. She looked at Grandma, her face still surprisingly young despite the lines around her eyes. It was unassuming women like Maria Garriga who had kept families going throughout the tough years after the war, and you miscalculated their gentle stoicism at your peril.