by Ruta Sepetys
“May God bless you,” replies the priest.
Rafa exits the confessional. He feels lighter, grateful to be absolved of sin.
Rafa loves confession.
47
Julia kneels in the confessional.
“Hail Mary the Purest.”
“Conceived without sin,” says the priest.
“It has been two weeks since my last confession. Padre, I am withholding truth from those I love in an effort to protect them.”
“And these truths you are withholding, do they relate to your own actions?”
“No, Padre. They relate to actions during the war . . . and current actions by those of authority in our beloved country of Spain. I have told no one what I suspect. The risk is too great. As a result I am forced to be dishonest with my siblings in order to protect them. But each lie leads to another lie. The pressure is mounting and soon it may all explode.”
“You are not alone, my child.”
“But, Padre,” says Julia. “The children of Republicans—we’ve been alone for years, frightened and hiding, punished for something we had no role in.”
“But you are not alone in your hardship. You are safe in the arms of Vallecas.”
Fear is Julia’s constant companion. But with Father Fernández, she feels peace and freedom to unburden all that troubles her. Since it is presumed difficult, some clergy avoid Vallecas. But so moved by the desperation and needs of the people, Father Fernández wrote to the bishop. He asked to delay his next assignment in order to stay with the flock in Vallecas.
The priest issues Julia’s penance of three Hail Marys.
She is grateful for Father Fernández.
Julia is grateful for confession.
48
Ana steps into the confessional.
“Hail Mary the Purest.”
“Conceived without sin,” replies Father Fernández.
Ana pauses. Could she ever be truthful about her sins? She imagines the confession:
Bless me, Padre, for I am full of rage. I am seen by many but understood by few. My heart, so capable of love, is instead lined with hatred for our country’s leader. I detest that the coins I earn bear his image and the phrase “Caudillo by the grace of God.” I detest that my future is determined by the past. I detest that I am made to feel unworthy and unable to pursue my heart’s desires. I dream constantly of leaving Spain, of being wanted, yet the hands that have reached for me have never loved me. My sole intimacy is with silence and the taste of tears. Where, dear Padre, is the Grace of God for the children of war, the children judged so unfairly? Am I allowed to ask that?
The priest clears his throat. “Shall you make a good confession today?”
His voice revives Ana from her daydream.
“Sí, Padre. I told two lies, gossiped once, and engaged in flirtatious behavior with an American boy.”
Ana is too frightened to confess her true feelings to anyone but herself.
Ana fears confession.
49
Puri parts the heavy drapes and enters the confessional of the Madrid church. She kneels and her pulse begins to tick. If faith is so easy, why is confession so difficult? She clears her throat.
“Hail Mary the Purest.”
“Conceived without sin,” responds the priest.
“It has been one month since my last confession.”
At the priest’s invitation she reluctantly begins.
“I judge the behavior of others. I am resentful of parents who forsake their children. It angers me when people are ungrateful for all that our great country offers them.” Puri prattles on until the priest interrupts her.
“You speak easily of the sins of others. And what of your own sins?”
Puri stares into her lap. She cannot bear to look at the shadow of the priest before her. She has tried so hard. Puri knows it is her sacred duty to defend purity. Those before her have confronted it successfully. Saint Francis of Assisi rolled in the snow, Saint Benedict threw himself into a thornbush, and Saint Bernard plunged into an icy pond. Why, oh why, thinks Puri, is it all so hard?
“I’ve had . . . impure thoughts,” she whispers to the priest.
Puri loves being a good Spaniard. Puri loves the Catholic Church.
Puri hates confession.
50
Staying at the hotel, instead of traveling to Toledo with his parents, is conditional upon his mother’s one requirement: Daniel must attend Mass on Sunday.
The concierge provides a list of three churches. Daniel selects the one closest to the hotel. He arrives before Mass in order to give confession.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last confession. I accuse myself of the following sins: I entered an argument that was not my own and caused bodily harm to two men while defending another. I opened a telegram with private information, I harbored anger toward my father, and”—he lowers his voice—“there’s a girl I can’t stop thinking about.”
“It is not for you to fight the battles of others,” says the priest. Following penance, the priest imparts absolution. “Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace. I absolve you of your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
“Amen,” says Daniel.
Daniel appreciates confession but feels most content when sharing truths with someone he feels close to.
As he parts the drapes and exits the wooden booth, Daniel has a strong feeling that what he’s about to do could send him back to the church.
Daniel may need confession.
Despite his success, Hernando remembers growing up in hunger-stricken post-war Spain as if it were yesterday. He lived in a tin-roofed shack in Vallecas, a working-class quarter of Madrid. “We were always hungry,” he says. “I had to rummage for food in the rubbish dump like the other children. I ate banana skins and cheese crusts from the bins outside the houses of the rich.” To feed his five children, his father hunted rabbits at the gates of Franco’s El Pardo palace; had he been caught he would have been beaten by the Guardia Civil.
—ALFONSO DANIELS
“Property in Spain: Castles in the Sand,”
The Telegraph, February 19, 2009
51
“Ay, no, señor, that area is not for tourists,” cautions the concierge with a wagging finger. “Do not go there. Instead, enjoy this Sunday weather and go to Retiro Park or the Prado Museum.”
The words of the hotel concierge are lost on Daniel. He looks at the directions from Nick and studies the route on the map. It’s not far. Perhaps twenty minutes.
“¡Ahí no! Do not go there. It’s not for you, señor.”
Daniel thinks of Ana. The way she looked at him in the embassy courtyard. He slings his bag over a shoulder and retrieves the keys to the rental car from his pocket. “I’ll be fine. This isn’t a tourist outing. I’m visiting someone.”
* * *
The black Buick is unnoticeable in the city center, but as Daniel reaches the outskirts of Madrid, the sedan becomes a boat in the desert. Luxury hotels and shops disappear. Manicured landscaping and paved lanes give way to dirt roads, scrubby bushes, and the occasional scoliotic tree. The roads wind through ashen landscape, dusty and bleached by the sun. There are no knife grinders or lottery vendors on the street, just tired men with frowning shoulders and sagging donkeys pulling wagons of terra-cotta pots.
Daniel approaches two Guardia Civil on horseback with rifles. Despite the heat, they wear black patent-leather hats and long capes. Their trancelike faces are instantly menacing. He grips the steering wheel as a distinct feeling emerges. He is venturing out of bounds. It’s a sensation that’s uncomfortable, foreboding. The nerves at the base of his neck ignite, sending caution signals to his mind.
Patent-leather men with patent-leather souls.
One wrong move and they’ll be on you. You’ll be dead in a dirt pit.
No. They’ve forgotten all about him by now. But he will find a way to photograph them for the contest. He drives past the Crows, tense, grateful that the car has air-cooling that allows him to keep the windows rolled up.
A few miles later and certain he must be lost, Daniel stops the car on a dusty road to consult his directions. He is well outside of Madrid amidst a large slum of squalid shacks. He checks the address that Nick gave him against the map.
Vallecas.
This can’t be it. Would Nick purposely send him to the wrong location?
Daniel glances repeatedly at the notes. The paper in his hand vibrates as a small patting swells to a pounding and hordes of children run toward the vehicle. In an instant, the car is surrounded, faces pressing against the glass, distorted, like reflections in a ghoulish fun house. The children shriek and wave, playful and exuberant. He waves back. Their faces are clean, but their clothes are faded and patched. Daniel looks out the windshield and sees a group of men walking toward the car. One carries a club. The sea of children parts for the men as they survey the Buick and walk to the driver’s side.
Daniel takes a deep breath. He rolls down the window.
“¿Qué haces aquí?” demands the largest of the group.
“I’m visiting a friend,” replies Daniel in Spanish.
“Trust me, you have no friends here. Leave,” says the man.
“I’m looking for Ana Torres Moreno. Does she live around here?”
The man pauses. “If you’re her friend, you would know where she lives.”
One man pulls another aside for an exchange of words and nods.
“Leave your car and come with us. We’ll take you to Ana and see if she knows you.”
Caution speaks, needling across the back of his neck.
He exits the car. The rabble of children, tempered by the man with the club, stand back with wide eyes. They whisper and point at Daniel’s large belt buckle, jeans, and boots.
“Americano?” gasps a small boy.
“Sí. Americano,” says Daniel. “Texas.”
The children give a collective “Ooh.”
Daniel locks the car and follows the men. He considers the possibility that he has completely lost his mind. What is he doing here and why isn’t he turning around?
Thoughts of Ana lasso and pull. He slips his camera bag over his head to hang across his body, leaving his scabbed fists free. He may need them.
The men, positioned on both sides of Daniel, begin their march. The three locals are all less than six feet tall, but he’s outnumbered. The procession of fledglings and whispers trails down the street laden with pits and holes. Daniel imagines the scene from overhead. He imagines the photo.
The pale dirt road is lined with small chabolas, crumbling barrio shacks, connected by crisscrossed clotheslines. Daylight shines through the threadbare clothes pinned to the lines. They look more like gauze than garments. Elderly residents with thick brows and faces engraved by hardship rest on chairs outside the doors. They watch as a savage-eyed cat scratches wildly at nothing in the hardened soil. A woman appears and dumps a bucket in a trench on the side of the road, sending streams of reeking sewage rolling down a well-worn canal. A naked infant sits in the dirt near the sewage trench, joyfully playing with a stick.
Snatches of flamenco guitar float over the crumbling roofs, interrupted by the irate screams of a woman. At the end of the dirt lane is a fountain, surrounded by people with buckets, jars, and galvanized tubs. A tiny girl with a raven plait down her back and holes in her shoes skips up to Daniel and takes his hand. After a few steps she stops, yanks off her shoe, and dumps out rocks.
The men continue on, finally halting at a squat cement shack. Its sole window is broken. The roof is in such collapsing decay it is nothing but a strainer for rain. The splintered door stands open, askew in a tired frame that has long given up. One of the men grabs Daniel and pushes him into the doorway.
He squints into the small space. A dull light gives the appearance of a conjurer’s cave. Bundles of dried herbs and aromatic roots hang suspended from a beam across the ceiling. A scowling young man with dark skin and blue-black hair stands shirtless, wearing the turquoise trousers of a matador. A woman, on her knees upon the dirt floor, works on the pants. Two men sit at a small table. The address is correct. He’s sure of it. Because barefoot in the corner is Ana. Daniel’s stomach seizes.
She is holding a baby.
She looks to him. The mixture of shock and shame on her face is evident.
They all turn and stare at him, standing in the crooked doorway, stealing their small bit of rationed light.
A small boy tucks in beside Daniel.
“Americano!” he announces.
Daniel knows he has made a terrible mistake. He wants to leave. To run.
But it’s too late.
52
The man with the club shoves Daniel aside and addresses Ana for validation. “Is it true? You know him?”
Ana nods silently.
Arguing briefly ensues, but a smiling young man with curly hair gives a broad wave. “Bienvenido, Americano! What is your name?”
Daniel takes a breath, trying to swallow enough regret in order to speak. “Daniel Matheson. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to intrude. I’m spending the day taking photographs and Nick assured me it was okay to stop by.”
“Nick?” says Ana from the corner.
“Photographs?” The young man beams. “Well, you are lucky, Americano. I’m Rafael and standing in front of you is the next great matador! We call him Fuga but soon he’ll have a new name.”
The shirtless Spaniard with hostile hair stares at Daniel, taking in his height and clothes. His black eyes drill holes, issuing an unspoken warning.
“I can see this is an imposition. I’ll leave. I’m parked just down the street,” says Daniel.
Rafa jumps from his chair. “You have a car?” He runs to Daniel’s side. “No need to leave so quickly. It’s not an imposition. You speak very good Spanish. Come, sit down.” Rafa steers him deeper into the shack.
Daniel stares at Ana and the baby. “I brought you a few things. I’ll leave them.”
From his bag, Daniel retrieves a bottle of wine, two packages of American cigarettes, and a small bundle of white paper tied with string.
Everyone stands in stunned silence until Rafa and Fuga lunge at the table. Rafa tears open the cigarettes and Fuga rips at the white bundle. Yelling and fighting continue until Ana speaks up.
“Stop!”
“Well, if the package is open it can’t be sold,” says Rafa.
“Sold?” says Daniel. “No, these are gifts. The dried meat is from Texas. It’s called beef jerky.”
“I love beef jerky!” bellows Rafa.
“You don’t even know what it is,” says Ana.
“It’s food, so I love it.” Rafa shrugs.
Ana emerges from the dark corner, her voice soft amidst the chaos. “It’s very kind of you, señor.”
Her faded dress hangs like a thin scarf on her petite frame. Despite the change in wardrobe and location, she is entirely the same girl from the hotel and the fashion show.
“Señor Matheson, this is my sister, Julia, and this is her daughter, Lali.” Ana hands the baby to Julia.
Daniel nods slowly. The baby is her sister’s.
The family resemblance between Julia and Ana is evident. The worry and responsibility Julia carries is also evident, appearing through deep lines on her forehead and around her mouth. Daniel notices Julia’s grated hands. They are hands of hard work, similar to those he’s photographed in the Texas oil fields.
Ana continues the introductions. “This is Julia’s husband, Antonio. And this is my impolite brother, Rafael, and his friend.”
“Fuga’s going to be famous. You should photograph him. We need pictures for promotion,” says Rafa.
Fuga says nothing.
“Lo siento, we weren’t prepared for guests,” says Julia flatly.
“No, soy yo el que lo lamenta,” says Daniel, apologizing. “I’ll be going. Nice to meet you all.” He reaches into his bag and takes out two small lavender boxes. “They’re from the shop you took me to,” he tells Ana. “You liked those clover candies so I brought some for you and your sister.” He sets the ribboned boxes on the table.
The quiet weight of awkwardness suddenly materializes, elbowing and crowding its way in. The silence is thunderous. Rafa digs at the dirt floor with the toe of his shoe. Fuga remains frozen, hands balled into fists by his side.
Ana stares at the beautiful boxes from La Violeta. She looks to Daniel. Her eyes fill with grateful, unspoken sadness. Her expression produces a heavy pressing upon his chest. Daniel knows she won’t accept them. He turns to leave before she can object.
“Rafael,” says Julia. “Take Señor Matheson to his car. Make sure it’s parked in a safe place. Take the buckets to the fountain for water. When you return, we’ll all have a glass of Señor Matheson’s wine together,” says Julia.
Rafa runs to grab the buckets. “Hurry, Americano, before she changes her mind.” He rustles Daniel toward the door. “And you will take the photographs?” asks Rafa.
“If that’s what your friend would like.”
Fuga remains silent.
“Of course he’d like that. Julia, don’t let anyone eat that beef jerky without me.”
Rafa leads Daniel out of the shack.
53
Rafael is a burst of energy. He talks nonstop of his matador friend.
When he pauses for breath, Daniel breaks in. “How long have you lived here?”
