Autumn in Catalonia

by Jane MacKenzie

  Martin grinned at Carla. ‘I’d struggle to imagine you in their place, I have to admit. I think your father failed in your education!’

  ‘Maybe because he’s not really my father.’ Carla sipped her juice through the coloured straw, and studied it with careful attention. ‘Tell me, Martin,’ she said after a while, ‘How come you knew all about my father? How come my mother told you the whole story when she’d kept it so well buttoned up all these years?’

  Martin took time to answer, as though he was working out for himself what the answer was.

  ‘It was when I told her about you, about you being pregnant,’ he said eventually. ‘And about how Luc had disappeared leaving you in such a desperate situation. It was so close to her own experience, and it took her right back to when she was seventeen, and in the same situation. I can’t remember when I’ve seen anyone look so stricken. What was it she said? “It’s such a dreadful thing, that fear.” I don’t think she knew what she was saying, but it was clear she was talking about herself.’

  ‘And she went on to tell you everything?’

  ‘I asked her if it had happened to her, and she broke down.’

  Carla looked at him pensively. ‘She seems to trust you, though, my mother. She’s lowered the barricades with you.’

  ‘I’m new in your lives, Carla – I’m family, but I don’t have any part in the history you’ve lived together. It’s easier for you all to trust me, and of course I’m Luis’s son as well, and he was everyone’s darling, it seems!’

  ‘Does she know that you’re like me – that you were Luis’s love child? That he didn’t even know you existed? That you were taken on by another man as his son? A man who hated you like my supposed father hated me?’

  Why am I throwing this at him, Carla asked herself? Her words had come out like bullets – but she wanted to hear him talk about it – he’d lived longer with the knowledge of illegitimacy than she had. Help me, was what she was actually saying.

  A cloud seemed to settle on his face, though, as she spoke, and she worried that she’d pushed too far into sensitive territory. She waited, watching his face as it sat in the dark cloud, and after a moment she reached out and touched his hand. He looked up and she smiled at him, and he gave her a smile back.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘But I was young and vulnerable when I found out, and unlike you I’ve got legitimate siblings on both sides who stand on much more solid ground than I do – they don’t have to manoeuvre through the same minefield of identity. You know, the similarities between us two are less relevant than the similarity between you and your mother. Whatever happens to you, you know that Luc loves you and that he loves and wants your baby. And your real father truly loved Joana and would have loved and wanted you. The difference is that you’re now heading for a happy ending, and your baby will be raised by its real father.’

  She looked at him with contrition. ‘Do you think Luis would not have wanted you? He loved your mother, surely?’

  ‘He cared about her, I’m sure, but his real love was his wife, and he already had a family he adored. His affair with my mother was a temporary blip in his life at a time when they were both lonely, and the arrival of a child would have caused him terrible complications. No, he wouldn’t have wanted me – he would just have felt obliged to be honourable.’

  ‘We want you, though,’ she said, reaching for his hand.

  ‘I know. I’ve felt that acceptance ever since I arrived here. It’s what I’ve been looking for, these last few years.’

  ‘You’ve succeeded, believe me.’

  ‘Thank you. I feel as though I’ve finally been entitled to my father since I came here. And, Carla, you could do the same thing if you wanted. If your mother will agree, you could go to Alex Figarola’s family and tell them who you are. They lost their son very cruelly back in 1939, and I bet they would be very happy to know they have a grandchild, and that Alex had left a part of himself behind.’

  Carla looked doubtful, but Martin was insistent.

  ‘Think how your grandmother received me,’ he urged her. ‘She was just happy to have a part of Luis in her home.’

  ‘Yes, darling Martin, but you looked at her with those dark-brown eyes and long lashes of yours and she was lost! You play the same trick on everyone! I’m not sure I have your charm.’

  ‘You’re the image of your father – that’s what your mother says.’

  ‘Poor Papa! Or poor Mama, rather, when she’s so beautiful!’

  ‘You’re pretty stunning yourself when you’re dressed up like this, Carla! And what about your Luc, is he beautiful as well, your fiancé?’

  Carla gave a ripple of laughter, and shook her head.

  ‘Oh no! My Luc is a great big lump, as you’ll see when you meet him!’ A little quiver of excitement shook her. ‘God, Martin, I can’t believe I may soon have him back! Do you truly, honestly think my ex-father will really have him released?’

  ‘Yes,’ he affirmed, raising his glass and tossing off the last of his beer. ‘Oh yes, I believe you’ll have your Luc back very soon, Carla! I told you, the little people have won this time.’

  ‘Not so little, when you meet my Luc!’

  There had been a shower of rain while they were in the bar, and there was an autumnal chill in the air when they emerged. They strolled back through the streets together away from the elegant Rambla towards the much less picturesque streets where Maria and Victor lived. Maria would be anxious, they knew, and Carla felt a twinge of guilt at having stayed out so long, when they’d left her in such anxiety when they set off for the lion’s den. But she would forgive them when she heard their news, she knew. Martin delayed them even further by stopping to buy two beers for himself and Victor. A festive mood had come over them at last, and as they came out of the shop Martin took her arm in mute companionship, and she smiled at him, and squeezed his elbow.

  ‘Thinking of Luc?’ he teased.

  ‘Mmm!’ she grinned. ‘And you?’

  ‘Me?’ He jumped boyishly to touch an overhanging shop sign, and it rocked and spattered them with a sprinkle of raindrops. He laughed delightedly as Carla protested.

  ‘Me, I’m hungry! We toppled a giant today, and now I want my dinner!’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  She was driving Josep and Neus mad. She’d arrived on Sunday afternoon and for the hours since she had been prowling around the house, restive and unsettled enough to cause even placid Neus to beg her to sit still for a while. Only Josep’s strongest interdiction stopped her from going on Monday morning to stand outside the men’s prison, watching the door for Luc to appear. She didn’t even know that’s where Luc was being held, Josep argued, and if they’d imprisoned him outside Barcelona, as might well be the case, then it could be days before he found his way to her, whatever threats she’d given to Sergi. He might even make his way to his parents’ home first. In the meantime, the best place for her to be was here, inside this house, since here was where Luc would come looking for her as soon as he was able to.

  Carla refused to think about delays. Luc would be in Barcelona – she wanted to believe it, it was the easiest thing to believe, and in her troubled dreams that was always where she saw him. But whatever was the reality, Uncle Josep was right, she knew, and she had to wait for Luc here, in the house where he’d left her last. So she acquiesced because there was no choice, but the passive waiting was almost unbearable. Josep was her distraction – there was so much to tell him, so much to ask him as well.

  Sergi had indeed visited Josep, it seemed, but he’d failed to intimidate him. Josep had been outside talking to a couple of his neighbours when Sergi turned up with his tough-looking little posse. However mild-mannered Josep might be he was a fit man under forty, used to physical work, and his neighbours were burly men with no love for the authorities. Between them they represented quite a challenge for Sergi’s team of four, which included the lumbering, unimpressive Felip.

  To avoid a public disturbance Jo
sep had agreed to show Sergi over the house to prove that Carla wasn’t there, but the neighbours had kept the rest of the band outside, inviting them to show their official documents if they all wanted to invade the house.

  ‘He had probably been watching the building for a while,’ Josep surmised, as he told her the story, ‘and there’d been no sign of you leaving the house, so when he came in and all he found were the kids doing their homework he had to accept that this wasn’t the place to come looking for you. Neus wasn’t even here – she was off at her sister’s. I think she was disappointed afterwards that she hadn’t been here to give him a piece of her mind. You know my Neus – she speaks as she finds, and she’s been rankling for years at your father’s treatment of you!’

  Not really her father, though, and when she shared this most recent news with Josep he whistled, and then whistled even more when she told him what Sergi had been up to by way of murder, how his political life had become so complicated, what that was doing to his character, and how Joana was banished to the hill house. And when she told him of Sergi’s claim to have eliminated Alex Figarola himself, he just shook his head in horror.

  ‘Dear heavens above, my poor sister!’ The words came out in a low hiss. ‘It never occurred to any of us back then to suspect that she hadn’t gone off with Sergi simply for a better life, and what was said about her in the village doesn’t bear repeating. What a monster! What a bloody, evil monster!’

  ‘I know, and I’m not looking forward to telling her of his latest claims. But you know, she did enjoy the trappings of that fancy life,’ was Carla’s rejoinder. ‘She did like the life he gave her, in those early years, and she despised the life she’d left behind, didn’t she?’

  Josep reflected for a moment, and then slowly shook his head. ‘It’s maybe not as simple as that,’ he answered eventually. ‘It’s like I told you – she always hated that we had to go back to Sant Galdric after our father died. It’s hard to explain the difference now between those two lives. I always assumed she was happy enough when I was a kid – I didn’t really think too much about it, I suppose. She was just my big sister. But looking back I can see how much she lost. I can remember times when she would get really angry, and rail at how Mama – your Grandma – had become nothing but a drudge, and insist she wasn’t going to have that life herself.’

  ‘Not an easy woman, my mother!’ Carla commented, with a wry smile.

  ‘Not easy, no – complex, for sure, and formidable in many ways – but she was always loyal, and caring, and a lot of fun, believe me – she could mimic anyone, and she and I used to get ourselves into hot water together for some of our fooling around. She was ambitious, yes, but her ambitions were for all of us, and not for money, just for a different life. She wasn’t always understood in the village, and when she chose Sergi there were many who said it was just typical of her, but for me the cynicism of her choice was a surprise, a real shock. But then she disappeared from our lives completely, and her subsequent behaviour seemed to suggest she’d chosen her path very willingly, so I didn’t think much more about it. Now … well, now I know why.’ He sighed, ‘I was right, back then. Poor Joana, she must have been more desperate than I can even imagine.’

  ‘I can!’ Carla rubbed her stomach ruefully.

  ‘Yes, well hopefully what you’ve gone through will help you to understand her better, and stop you judging her so hard. And that monster, that bastard is responsible for all of this suffering! You know, it’s a good job I didn’t know all this when he came here the other day – I can’t tell you what I’d like to do to him!’ His hands flexed as he spoke, and little hard lines creased his mouth and eyes. This was a new Uncle Josep, oozing a deep Catalan rage which Carla had never seen in him. But after a few moments his expression lightened, and he said, in a tone of deep gratification, ‘But your story is going to end well, Carla! You’ll get your Luc back, and by God, you took on Sergi Olivera and beat him at his own game!’

  ‘I couldn’t have done it on my own – Martin came with me, and I couldn’t have managed without him!’

  ‘Yes, Luis’s son! Who’d have thought he’d turn up like that out of the blue? He sounds like a very interesting young man, and he seems to have leapt in to help us all out. I’d like to meet him and shake his hand.’

  ‘He’d like that, he’d love to know you – but you’ve no need to thank him. Your own mother has him in her care right now, and she’s fawning over him as though Luis himself had returned to her! You’d better not visit my grandmother soon, Josep – you’ll be nothing to her now compared with our Martí!’

  All Sunday evening Carla could think of nothing but Luc. The hours stretched, passing painfully slowly. There’s no way he can possibly be released over the weekend, she told herself, trying desperately not to fidget as she waded through piles of Neus’s darning just to pass the time. In the back of her mind the fear remained, whatever Martin might think, that Sergi would change his mind, or find a way to get back at them all, and she would find herself back in his net. The confrontation at his house played over and over in her mind, and she found herself repeating her words to him as though she was re-enacting a play. Was this to exorcise the fear she’d felt, she wondered? It would be a long time, she could see, before she would wake up each day in peaceful security.

  By Monday she was on hot coals, glued to the window, waiting and waiting. She went outside and walked up and down the pavement until her feet ached, keeping the door to the building always in sight. And when she was too tired to walk any more she returned to her post by the window.

  But when he finally came she wasn’t looking, having been enticed away to eat with Neus and the boys, home for lunch from school. A tap at the door took them all by surprise, and it was actually Neus, nearest to the door, who answered it, leaving Carla standing by the table, clutching her chair, her gaze fixed painfully on the hall door.

  Beyond it she heard voices, Neus and who? A male voice, surely Luc’s? It must be! And then the door opened and he was there, thinner, dirty, with a stale smell, his hair shaven short, and a hesitance about him that she attributed to the suddenness of his release, but it was Luc, and she ran to him and his arms came round her, and she clung to him so he couldn’t disappear.

  They said nothing, nothing but hushed little exclamations, while Neus brought food for him, and then shooed the children out and went to fill a bath for him.

  ‘Look at you!’

  ‘And you!’

  ‘You’ve got so thin!’

  ‘And you!’

  ‘And how have you been?’

  ‘Fine – and you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  Luc was strangely tongue-tied, and his normal exuberance was absent from his eyes. Carla could tell he marvelled to see her, but there was a part of him that struggled. He answered her enquiries stiltedly, and she stopped questioning, and simply sat close and touched him, and he gripped her hand as it grazed his cheek, and brought it down so they touched her belly together.

  ‘The baby?’

  ‘The baby’s fine too!’

  Later Neus went out to the market and they sneaked off to Carla’s room, and there she lay in his arms and studied the furrows around his eyes, and the new strange lines etched around a mouth that had never worried, had always laughed in pleasure at life. Now they lay with their faces turned to each other on the long pillow, and pulled the covers around themselves for comfort, and she talked to him, since for now it seemed he couldn’t talk to her.

  She told him about the last four months – how she’d looked for him, how she’d longed for him, about staying with Grandma and their worries for the baby, about Martin, Joana, the truth about her father. And he watched her while she spoke, studying her eyes, her mouth, the whole time. When she smiled he smiled, but otherwise he just lay watching, until at last she fell silent.

  ‘Luc,’ she whispered finally. ‘What have they done to you, my love?’

  And then he wept, silent tears that rolled slowl
y along the ridge of his nose, and dropped onto the pillow beside him.

  ‘Carla …’ the word was an appeal, and she gathered him to her, too appalled to release her own tears, and held his head to her chest so that his tears soaked her dress.

  ‘I love you, Luc,’ she repeated again and again, and the words stayed between them. Long minutes passed by, and eventually his tears ceased, and he lay still, his head held in the crook of her arm. She kissed the shaven head.

  ‘They cut off all your lovely curls!’ she said, and deliberately put a smile in her voice.

  ‘I’m an ugly mess.’ His own voice was wretched.

  ‘Well, you’re MY ugly mess!’ She put her hand over his on her belly. ‘And his, of course!’

  ‘Hers!’

  The words were an invitation, and she almost chuckled with relief. Ever since she’d fallen pregnant he’d been calling the baby Joaquima, while she insisted it was a boy, Joaquim.

  ‘No, dear heart – not hers. This is no girl inside me. I feel it and I know it, and I want my baby boy. I want another Luc.’

  ‘But there’s only one Luc!’

  ‘We’re making another,’ she assured him, and held his hand in place as the baby kicked inside her.

  He moved his hand gently over her, the merest stroke to rediscover her, and she reached for him and brought it up to cup her breast. He turned in her arms and his lips found hers, and she had her Luc back at last.

  He’d been in solitary confinement for four months. It took all day to get the story from lips that had frozen from lack of speech. They’d kept him in a cell reserved for the most dangerous prisoners, away from the groups of trade unionists and political activists who shared exercise and work routines, and who could have communicated his whereabouts to the outside world. When he asked his guards why he was kept alone they shrugged, and one replied, ‘Someone doesn’t like you, son, that’s all. It happens all the time.’