So I imagined Gonzalo as a social worker, basing him in part on several actual social workers I know, all of them older gentlemen, who use their lifetimes’ of experience to care for extremely difficult youth with humor and empathy. Once I had placed Gonzalo in Puerto Rico it was easy to decide that he was there because he had married a Puerto Rican, and easy to imagine how they had met in New York. I was sure that Carlito’s last conversation with his grandfather in “Hostages” had left an impression on him, so I decided that the mature Gonzalo would ultimately use his professional expertise to explain his world view to the young, earnest, and slightly naïve Carlito.
The neighborhoods mentioned in San Juan are real, but I have invented the Boys’ Club in La Perla (although there is in fact currently one in Santurce, where Gonzalo lives). They do work with gang members, among other things, and those who know the gangs will know that both the Nietos and the Latin Kings are real and feared organizations. However, Spanish speakers will recognize that the word nieto means “grandson” or “grandchild.” Thus, Gonzalo’s first words to Carlito “I thought you were a nieto,” turn out to be literally true, although not in the sense that Gonzalo intends. The irony is intentional.
*****
Last Twenty Four Hours
She was already in her nightgown when the phone call came. Toño’s voice sounded disjointed, almost childlike: “My father...they think maybe another stroke...at La Paz...wanted to tell you...can you come?” Already marked by the self-absorption of the bereaved, he did not apologize for calling her so late. He was on his mobile phone, and the connection was poor, hollow and echoing like the long distance calls of their youth. When he ended the call she was not sure if she had agreed to come, or if, his family’s arrogance surfacing in a crisis, he had not even waited for her answer.
She dressed with unhurried speed, remembering to call a taxi before taking out her curlers, so that the short wait would be put to good use. The driver knew his business, and he skirted the city center, still crowded with revelers, and made a broad loop until he reached the Castellana. As they sped past the darkened office buildings, Alejandra wondered why she had - tacitly - agreed to come. Was it just because at her age reminders of mortality softened the heart and brain? Or had she finally managed to remember the good he had done her, and throw away the evil like so much chaff? Was she unwilling to let him die alone and uncomforted, as so many others had died? And was that pity or forgiveness? It didn’t matter. Toño had called her because he had known she would come.
The fountain at the Plaza de Castilla was lighted at night. Reflections of the golden white spray sparkled on the black glass sides of the Caja Madrid buildings, leaning over the plaza in an ominous near arch. The light at the end of the tunnel, Alejandra thought, as the taxi circled the fountain and continued northward. The skyscraper lined boulevard had been countryside in her childhood. And the smoothly paved highway was taking her closer to a man who had helped turn it from farmland to battlefield to graveyard. But that had been nearly a lifetime ago.
The Hospital La Paz was like all other modern hospitals. It had bright fluorescent lights that made it impossible to guess the time of day inside, and smelled of floor polish and stale coffee. People spoke quietly, or not at all, and only if you made eye contact with them would you realize that they were weeping. At two a.m. the emergency room was as crowded as a disco. She made her way to the desk and asked for information with a quiet politeness that brought some return from the harried young woman on call. Tejada? Moved to a private room. On the sixth floor. Most of the family was there already.
As Alejandra stepped into the elevator, it occurred to her that the young woman had assumed that she was family also. Her lips curled, and she thought for a moment that she understood why she had come. There was no chance of the captain dying alone, in pain and despairing, the way her father and Viviana had died before she could remember. There was no chance of him dying before his time, his dreams broken and his loved ones distant the way so many of her family and friends had died. When he breathed his last breath, he would be surrounded by grieving family, reconciled with the church he believed in, and eased by the painkillers money could so easily buy now. But she had come, so she would be there, as a last thorn in his path, to remind him of all the times others had died, and of all the reasons why he did not deserve his peaceful end.
The hallway was quiet and dim. The nurse on call waved her in the right direction, to the one open door, where light spilled into the corridor. The captain’s grandson was standing outside the door, one finger in his ear, speaking softly into his phone. “The doctor says he’s tough. But it’s hard to say....no, he’s delirious, it’s kind of hard...Yes...No...Yes. I love you, too.” He clicked the phone shut, looked up, and recognized her. “Hi. My dad called you?”
She nodded, and they embraced briefly in greeting. As she pulled away from him she saw that his eyes were tear-bright. “How is he?”
“He keeps asking for my grandmother,” the young man’s voice was ragged. “It’s as if he doesn’t remember...”
She looked at him and remembered him as a baby, and as an eager, happy child, and a serious, idealistic boy. He was a decent man now, a history teacher who tried to teach the truth. She doubted that her presence comforted him, but she hoped that at least it caused him no pain. “I’m sorry, Carlito.”
He shrugged, his mouth twisting, and gestured toward the doorway. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.”
She did not know if he was referring to his father or his grandfather, but she moved diffidently into the room, as befitted a humble stranger among family members. It was spacious for a hospital room, with a window that probably had a view in the daytime. Now it was lit only by a lamp on the bedside table, that threw shadows that would have been cozy, had they not turned the tall IV into a spider with grotesquely elongated arms. Captain Tejada’s daughter Pilar sat on a high stool by one corner of the window. Her husband and daughter stood on either side of her, their arms around her shoulders, but she looked as if she was only half-aware of them. Her face was turned towards the bed, utterly immobile, except for the tears that flowed steadily and silently down her cheeks and dripped under her chin. A few steps away from them, like one who was not quite sure of her welcome in the family, the captain’s daughter-in-law stood, looking at her husband.
Toño was sitting in the chair by the bedside, his hand resting lightly over the blue-veined immobile one on the bed, almost invisible in gauze. He turned as Alejandra entered, and attempted a travesty of a smile. “Look, Papa. Alejandra’s come to see you. Alejandra, isn’t that nice.”
She moved slowly toward the bed, because this was what she had come for. “Hello, Captain.”
The figure on the bed was gaunt, one side unnaturally still. The captain’s eyes looked like black holes in his face, and she wondered for a terrified moment if he would be able to speak. “Aleja?” His voice was hoarse and soft, but intelligible.
“How are you, Captain?” She forced herself to lean over the bed, and lightly brush her cheek against the gray stubble, because his family were there and would expect it.
“It’s good of you to come so far.”
“It’s only twenty minutes by taxi.”
For a moment his eyes turned dull, and when he spoke he sounded nervous. “Why, where do you live, now?”
“In Madrid.”
“Of course,” his face flickered, and she realized he was attempting to smile. “Madrid, of course, it’s always been Madrid. The capital of Spain has always been Madrid.” The smile was more definite now. “Do you remember that?”
She hesitated, uncertain what to say. Toño leaned forward. “Papa...”
“It’s what you said when we first met,” the captain ignored his son. “You don’t remember?”
“I-I guess not.” She had forgotten why she had agreed to come.
“I asked you because I thought you had a concussion,” he was patient. “You were confused. And now I’
m the one lying here...confused. So you have the last laugh. You don’t remember?”
Everything she had ever felt toward him, hatred and gratitude and reluctant respect was drowned in a horrible generic pity. “It was quite a few years ago,” she whispered.
His eyes dulled again, and when he spoke his voice quavered. “H-how many years?”
“More than sixty.”
“You were very young.”
“Yes.”
“I remember, I’d never held a child before. You were crying, and I didn’t know what to do. It was before Toño and Pilar were born. But they were always glad when I held them.”
The captain’s son covered his face with his hands.
The old man kept speaking in a thin whisper. “Elena always knew what to do better than I did. Elena...” he broke off, coughing.
“Papa,” Toño’s voice was agonized, and for the first time Alejandra thought he looked old for his sixty years. “Papa, please, don’t talk. You’ll tire yourself. Don’t talk.”
“Why not?” Again a flash of nervousness. “It’s been twenty-four hours hasn’t it?”
Toño patted his father’s hand, uncomprehending, and said nothing. Perhaps he was unable to speak. Alejandra put one hand on his shoulder, and knew again why she had come. She felt only a gentle sadness as she said. “This is a hospital, Captain. No one will hurt you here.”
“That’s right,” the whisper was approving. “That’s right. I can talk if I want to.”
“Of course, Papa,” Toño’s voice was soothing. “I only meant -- “
The captain’s hand twitched, an abbreviated version of a dismissive gesture. “You don’t understand, Toño. Aleja knows. And...and...” he groped for words. “The boy. Pilar’s boy. Writer who’ll end up in jail.”
“Ricardo, Don Carlos.” The captain’s son-in-law supplied his own name from the corner, apparently uninsulted by the designation.
“Yes. Ricardo.”
There was silence for a few moments, and then the captain spoke again. “What was I saying?”
“That Ricardo and I understand about twenty four hours.”
“Ricardo. No. He’s too young.” The captain spoke very slowly, spacing the words to pronounce them correctly. “But you know. You were a child, but your uncle, Llorente, and his people, they understood about holding out for twenty four hours.”
In her corner, the captain’s daughter-in-law stirred and murmured something angrily, but the old man ignored her. “They’d last twenty four hours, and then they could talk. They all talked eventually.” For a moment she thought he had nothing more to say and then he added slowly. “They were stupid. Talking doesn’t make the pain go away.”
Toño stood, only half-understanding. “If you’re not comfortable I’ll call a nurse.”
No, the words echoed inside Alejandra’s head and she had to bite her lips to keep from saying them aloud. No. He’s losing the present. Let him die in the past, terrified and alone like everyone else.
“No,” the captain spoke for her. “No, I just want you and Pilar. Just my children.”
It was both summons and dismissal. Pilar rose and moved towards her father, still silently weeping, and Alejandra faded into the background. She saw the captain’s granddaughter stare, unblinking at Pilar and Toño as they bent over the bed, and then move quickly toward the door of the room, the muscles in her throat working. Instinctively, Alejandra followed her into the corridor. “Anita.”
The captain’s granddaughter faced her with frightened eyes. “Please. I can’t go back in yet,” she whispered. “He doesn’t need me in there. He asked for Mama and Toño.”
The girl’s relief made Alejandra aware of her own angry regret. She had not come for the captain, she realized. She had come for herself, because she had only learned of her uncle’s death the following afternoon “because it was four in the morning your time, and too late to call you with the time difference.” She had come because she had no memory of her own father’s death. But the captain had neatly destroyed her hopes of stealing the last words that rightfully belonged to Toño and Pilar, or even of making him aware of her loss by her presence. He had won again, one last time.
Anita and Carlito huddled together, not talking, merely excluding her with their youth and their blood relationship. She did not try to move closer to them. She had time to feel her total isolation, if not to articulate it, before the door opened again, and Anita’s father slipped out, followed by Toño’s wife, Mercedes. The captain’s daughter-in-law walked quickly toward the nurse’s station, while Ricardo leaned against the wall, and fished in his coat pocket.
“Is he - ?” Anita began.
“He’s asking for a priest,” Ricardo took out a PDA and began to tap it with a stylus, his mouth grim.
The incongruity of the words and the device struck a buried chord of amusement in Alejandra. “You have a priest’s phone number in that thing?”
He looked up and gave her a sardonic smile that -- along with his slightly overlong hair -- made him look younger than his fifty odd years. “Mercedes went to ask the nurse to call a priest. I’m looking up a friend at ABC. Pilar will like a nice obituary.”
“Your own paper wouldn’t print one?”
“For an old Falangist like him? Are you joking?”
She smiled back, thinking what a nice young man he was. “Even one with left-wing in-laws?”
“One in-law,” he corrected. “I don’t know if Mercedes counts.”
“His wife’s parents, too,” Alejandra pointed out.
“Really? I didn’t know,” he was only mildly interested.
“A piece of information for your friend,” Alejandra felt a flicker of anger at the dismissal of long dead leftists.
Ricardo nodded. “We’ll do an announcement, of course. But ABC can play up the Guardia angle.” There was a pause, and then he added softly. “He’d like that.”
“Yes.”
The priest arrived, along with a doctor. Alejandra stayed in the hallway, with first one family member and then another. The doctor took Toño aside at dawn. Onward, with faces toward the sunrise, Alejandra remembered the falangists anthem from her childhood. It was still a song of hatred and fear. And now a song of grief, as well. She had brought several packs of tissues, and she ended up giving one to Carlito, one to his parents, and one to Pilar. She took a taxi home, when she was sure there was nothing more she could do. The morning paper was lying on her doormat.
The obituary Ricardo had promised was published twenty-four hours later, in the following day’s ABC. It was long, generous, and no more inaccurate than most obituaries, but Alejandra had known the captain too well to recognize his life from the columns of a newspaper. She preferred the unadorned announcement Ricardo’s own paper printed. It appeared the following day too, a modest black-bordered rectangle, the size of a business card, topped with a plain black cross, and surrounded by many others like it:
R.I.P.
DN CARLOS TEJADA ALONSO Y LEÓN
Capt. Guardia Civil (Ret.)
September 16, 1910
October 9, 2002
Beloved father of Carlos Antonio and Maria Pilar,
and grandfather of Carlos Felipe, Luis, and Ana
It was as much information as he would have wanted to give within twenty-four hours.
*****
Notes on “Last Twenty Four Hours”
Appropriately enough, this story was written after all of the others. In fact, I wrote it after The Summer Snow was published, when I decided to end the series, and I wanted final closure for myself. “Last Twenty Four Hours” not only ends with the death of the last of the major (adult) characters in Death of a Nationalist, but also brings the series full circle with more explicit references to dialogue in Death of a Nationalist than any of the other stories.
Unlike the historical portions of the Tejada stories, “Last Twenty Four Hours” takes place in a setting that I know personally, and was in fact partly inspired by
passing the enormous, flood-lighted emergency room of the La Paz hospital complex while driving into northern Madrid on a Sunday night. The new residential area just south of the hospital, around Chamartín (where Tejada and his wife live in “Hostages”), is a fairly wealthy neighborhood, and many people who live there go away for the weekend. So coming down the highway from the north onto the Paseo de la Castellana on Sunday nights usually involves terrible traffic. I was crawling through a traffic jam when I passed the Hospital La Paz, so I had a chance to look closely at the outside, and it occurred to me it would be the local hospital for Tejada, given that he lived close by, and that given his age, he would probably have spent time there recently.
Ironically, Tejada the character dies just a few months before Death of a Nationalist, the first installment of what one might call his biography, appeared in print. I cried a little writing the end of “Last Twenty Four Hours” but I finished it with a feeling of having given his story an honest ending, sad but also satisfying. I hope that all those readers who have followed his story this far feel that it is a sad but satisfying ending as well.
# # #
About the Author
Rebecca Pawel was born and raised in New York City. She grew up traveling between New York and Puerto Rico, and began studying Spanish seriously in high school. A summer spent studying in Madrid (at a dormitory that is suspiciously close to the fictional barracks where Tejada is quartered in Death of a Nationalist) cemented a life-long love of Spain, and laid the foundation for a major in Spanish Language and Literature at Columbia University.
What Happened When the War Was Over is designed as a companion volume to the four novels Pawel has published set in the immediate aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. These books begin with Death of a Nationalist (2003) which won an Edgar® for best first novel by an American author. Death of a Nationalist was followed by Law of Return (2004), The Watcher in the Pine (2005) and The Summer Snow, which was listed as one of Publisher’s Weekly’s best mysteries of 2006.
What Happened When the War Was Over; further stories of Gonzalo Llorente and Carlos Tejada Alonso y Leon Page 10
