Winter in Madrid

by C. J. Sansom

  ‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting,’ he said.

  ‘I was early. You are on time.’ There was something different in her smile. It was open and friendly but there was something knowing in it too.

  ‘Let me get you a fresh coffee.’

  He fetched the drinks.

  ‘Enrique is much better,’ she said as he sat down. ‘He is going out to look for work next week.’

  He smiled wryly. ‘Different work.’

  ‘Oh yes. Labouring if he can get it.’

  ‘Did the – the ministry pay him while he was sick?’

  Her smile became cynical for a moment. ‘No.’

  ‘I’ve got the receipt.’ Harry had visited the surgery and paid the doctor’s bill, as he said he would.

  ‘Thank you.’ Sofia folded it carefully and put it in her pocket.

  ‘If he has any more problems, I’d be happy to help.’

  ‘He will be all right now.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘As I said in my letter, you saved his life. We will always be grateful.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ Harry smiled, then dried up suddenly, he couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Has he been – ’ Sofia raised her eyebrows a little – ‘replaced?’

  ‘No, thank goodness. I’m being left alone. I’m not at all important, you know. Just a translator.’

  She lit a cigarette, then leaned back, studying him. Her expression was enquiring but not hostile or suspicious. She was far more relaxed away from the flat.

  ‘Will you be going home to England?’ she asked. ‘For Christmas?’

  ‘Christmas.’ He laughed. ‘I hadn’t thought about it.’

  ‘It is only six weeks away. You make a lot of the celebration in England, I believe.’

  ‘Yes. But I doubt I’ll be going home. They need everyone at the embassy. You know, the way things are. Diplomatically.’ He wondered how she knew about the English Christmas. That boy from Leeds she had met in the Civil War, perhaps. He wondered again if he had been her lover. How old was she? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?

  ‘So you will not be able to spend it with your parents.’

  ‘My parents are dead.’

  ‘That is sad.’

  ‘My father died in the First War. My mother died in the influenza epidemic just after.’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Spain did not fight in the First War, though we suffered in the epidemic afterwards. It is sad to lose both parents.’

  ‘I have aunts and an uncle, a cousin. He keeps me in touch with what’s happening at home.’

  ‘The air raids?’

  ‘Yes. They’re bad, but not quite as bad as the propaganda makes out here.’ He saw her look quickly around at those words, and cursed himself for forgetting they were in a country full of spies, where you had to take care what you said. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  She gave that sardonic smile again. It was strangely attractive. ‘There is no one in earshot. I deliberately chose a seat at the back of the restaurant.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And do you have anyone else back home?’ she asked. ‘A wife, perhaps?’

  He was taken aback by her directness. ‘No. Nobody. Nobody at all.’

  ‘Forgive my question. It must seem bold. You will be thinking, it is not the sort of question Spanish women ask.’

  ‘I don’t mind directness,’ he said. He looked into her large brown eyes. ‘It makes a change from the embassy. I went to a party given by a government minister a couple of weeks ago, for his daughter’s eighteenth. The formality was stifling. Poor girl,’ he added.

  Sofia blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘I come from a different tradition.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘The Republican tradition. My father and his family before him were Republicans. Rich foreigners think of Spain in terms of ancient churches and bullfights and women in lacy mantillas, but there is a whole different tradition here. In my family we believed women should be equal. I was brought up to believe I was as good as any man. By my mother, at least – my father had old-fashioned notions. But he had the grace to be ashamed of them sometimes.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He worked in a warehouse. He worked long hours for little money, like me.’

  ‘I think the family I met when I was here in 1931 were a part of that tradition as well. I didn’t see it in those terms, though.’ He thought of Barbara’s story, Carmela and her donkey.

  ‘You were fond of them,’ Sofia said.

  ‘Yes, they were good people.’ He smiled. ‘Your family, were they Socialists too?’

  She shook her head. ‘We had Socialist friends, and Anarchists, and Left Republicans. But not everyone joined a party. The parties talked of Communist and Anarchist utopias but all most people want is peace, bread on the table, self-respect. Is it not so?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She leaned forward, an intent look in her eyes. ‘You don’t know what it was like for people like us when the Republic came, what it meant. All of a sudden we mattered. I got a place in medical school. I had to work as well in a bar, but everyone was so hopeful, change was coming at last, the chance of a decent life.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘I am sorry, Señor Brett, my tongue runs away with me. I do not often get the chance to talk about those times.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. It helps me understand.’

  ‘Understand what?’

  ‘Spain.’ He hesitated. ‘You.’

  She dropped her eyes to the table, reached for her cigarettes and lit another. When she looked up there was uncertainty in her eyes.

  ‘Perhaps you may have to leave Spain sooner than you planned. If Franco joins the war.’

  ‘We’re hoping he won’t.’

  ‘Everyone says England will give Franco anything he wants to stay out of this war. And what happens to us then?’

  Harry sighed. ‘I suppose my masters would say we have to do what we do to keep Spain out of the war, but – we haven’t much to be proud of, I know.’

  Unexpectedly Sofia smiled. ‘Oh, I am sorry, you look so sad. You have done so much to help us and I argue with you, I am sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. Look, can I get you another coffee?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I am afraid I have to get back. Mother and Paco are expecting me. I have to buy some food. Try to find some olive oil.’

  Harry hesitated. But he had seen an advertisement in the evening paper and had decided he would ask her, unless this evening went badly. ‘Do you like the theatre?’ he asked, suddenly, clumsily, so that Sofia looked at him in puzzlement for a moment. ‘I’m sorry,’ he continued hastily. ‘Only Macbeth is on at the Zara theatre tomorrow night. I wondered if you’d like to go. I’d like to see it in Spanish.’

  She hesitated, looking at him with those large brown eyes. ‘Thank you, señor, but I think perhaps not.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Harry said. ‘I just meant – I’d like us to be friends. I haven’t any Spanish friends.’

  She smiled, but shook her head. ‘Señor, it has been good to talk to you, but we live in very different worlds.’

  ‘Are we so different? Am I too bourgeois?’

  ‘They will all be dressed up in their best for the Zara. I have no clothes like theirs.’ She sighed, looked at him again. ‘I would not have let that bother me a few years ago.’

  Harry smiled. ‘Well, then.’

  ‘I have one dress that would do.’

  ‘Please come.’

  She smiled back. ‘Very well, Señor Brett.’ She blushed. ‘But as friends, yes?’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  IT HAD RAINED A LOT during the last week, a cold rain that sometimes turned to sleet. On the path to the quarry the prisoners squelched through clinging red mud; each day the snowline on the distant mountains descended a little lower.

  That morning it was raw and damp. The work detail stood in lines by the quarry, stamping their feet to keep warm as a pair of army sappers carefully placed stic
ks of dynamite in a long crack running the length of a twenty-foot rockface. Sergeant Molina, back from leave, stood talking to the driver of the army truck that had brought the explosives up from Cuenca.

  Bernie thought about Agustín. A few days before he had gone on leave. He left during morning roll-call; Bernie saw him walking across the yard, kitbag over his shoulder. Agustín met his eye for a second before quickly turning his head away. The gate was opened and he disappeared up the road to Cuenca.

  ‘That is a big charge,’ Pablo muttered. Bernie’s fellow-Communist was on the quarry detail with him now. He was an ex-miner from Asturias and knew about explosives. ‘We should stand further back, there will be splinters flying all over the place.’

  ‘They should have got you to set the charges, amigo.’

  ‘They’d be afraid I’d set them under their truck, like we did in Oviedo in ’36.’

  ‘If we could get our hands on it, eh, Vicente?’

  ‘Yes.’ The lawyer sat slumped beside them on a rock. He had been helping Molina with paperwork that morning – the sergeant, a plump lazy man promoted beyond his abilities, could barely write and the lawyer was a godsend – but he had been sent to wait with the others while the charges were set. Vicente sat with his head in his hands. His nasal condition was worse; the discharge had stopped but now the poison seemed to be trapped inside his sinuses. He couldn’t breathe through his nose and to sniff or swallow was painful.

  ‘Stand back! Further away!’ Molina called. The detail shuffled backwards as the sappers ran back to the truck; Molina and the driver joined them behind it.

  There was a dull explosion and Bernie flinched but no chips of stone flew out. Instead the whole rock face collapsed, crumbling like a sandcastle hit by a wave. A cloud of dust fanned outwards, making them cough. A herd of the little deer that inhabited the Tierra Muerta ran down the hillside, bounding and leaping in terror.

  As the dust subsided they saw the collapse had revealed a cave, four or five feet high, behind the rockface. The crevice evidently broadened out behind, running into the hillside. The sappers walked up to the cave. They produced torches and, crouching down, cautiously stepped in. There was a moment’s silence, then a sudden yell and the two men reappeared, running back down to the truck with terrified expressions on their faces. Prisoners and guards alike watched astonished.

  The sappers spoke to Molina in low urgent tones. The fat sergeant laughed.

  ‘¿Qué diceis? ¡No es posible! ¡Estáis loco!’

  ‘It’s true! It’s true! Go and see!’

  Molina frowned, evidently nonplussed, then led the sappers over to where Bernie and the others stood. The sergeant nodded at Vicente and he stood up groggily.

  ‘Ay, abogado, you are a man of learning, no? Perhaps you can make sense of this fool.’ He gestured to the nearest sapper, a thin young man with acne. ‘Tell him what you saw.’

  The man swallowed. ‘In that cave, there are paintings. Men chasing animals, deer and even elephants. It is mad but we saw it!’

  A flicker of interest came into Vicente’s face. ‘Where?’

  ‘On the wall, on the wall!’

  ‘Something similar was found in France a few years ago. Cave paintings by prehistoric men.’

  The young soldier crossed himself. ‘It was like looking at the walls of Hell.’

  Molina’s eyes lit up. ‘Could they be valuable?’

  ‘Only to scientists I think, sargento.’

  ‘May we see?’ Bernie asked. ‘I have a degree from Cambridge University,’ he added untruthfully. Molina considered a moment, then nodded. Bernie and Vicente followed him back to the cave. The sappers hung back. Molina gestured brusquely to the man who had spoken. ‘Show them.’ The man swallowed, then took his colleague’s torch and passed it to Bernie before reluctantly leading the way back to the entrance. The prisoners watched with interest.

  The cave was narrow and thick with dust, making Vicente cough painfully. Ten feet in it broadened into a wide, circular cavern. Ahead, in the beams of the torches, they saw figures on the wall, stick-like men chasing huge animals, elephants with thick fur and high domed heads, rhinos, deer. Painted in bright reds and blacks, they seemed to leap and dance in the torchlight. One whole side of the cave wall was covered with them.

  ‘Wow,’ Bernie breathed.

  ‘It’s like in France,’ Vicente said quietly. ‘I saw pictures in a magazine. I had no idea the paintings could seem so – alive. You have made an important find, señor.’

  ‘Who painted them?’ the soldier asked nervously. ‘Why paint pictures here in the darkness?’

  ‘No one knows, soldado. Perhaps it was for their religious ceremonies.’

  The sapper cast his torch uneasily round the cave, lighting stalagmites and bare rock. ‘But there is no way in here,’ he said uneasily.

  Bernie gestured to a jumbled pile of rocks in a corner of the cave. ‘See, perhaps there was an entrance there once, and it became blocked.’

  ‘And these have been in darkness for thousands of years,’ Vicente whispered. ‘Older than the Catholic Church, older than Christ.’

  Bernie studied the paintings. ‘They’re wonderful,’ he said. ‘It’s as though they were painted yesterday. Look, a woolly mammoth. They’re hunting mammoths.’ He laughed at the wonder of it.

  ‘I would like to go now.’ The sapper turned, clattering back to the entrance. Bernie cast a last beam of light over a group of sticklike men running after an immense stag, then turned away.

  Outside the sapper and Vicente went to talk to Molina. A guard gestured with his rifle for Bernie to return to the prisoners, still standing in ragged lines, many shivering now in the cold damp air.

  ‘¿Que pasó?’ Pablo asked Bernie.

  ‘Cave paintings,’ he said. ‘By prehistoric men.’

  ‘¿De verdad? What are they like?’

  ‘Amazing. Thousands of years old.’

  ‘The time of primitive communism,’ Pablo said. ‘Before social classes formed. They should be studied.’

  Vicente rejoined them, his breath rasping like sandpaper as he crossed the uneven ground.

  ‘What did Molina say?’ Bernie asked.

  ‘He’s going to report to the comandante. They’re moving us round the hill, they’re going to blast somewhere else.’ He coughed and more sweat stood out on his brow. ‘Agh, I feel as if I’m on fire. If only I had some water.’

  A soldier climbed to the cave mouth. He crossed himself, then stood at the entrance, guarding it.

  THAT NIGHT at supper Vicente was worse. In the dim light of the oil lamps Bernie could see he was sweating heavily, shivering. He winced at every swallow of the chickpea gruel.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Vicente didn’t answer. He laid down his spoon and put his head in his hands.

  The door of the mess hut opened. Aranda appeared, followed by Molina. The sergeant had a hangdog look. After them came Father Jaime, tall and stern in his sotana, thick iron-grey hair swept back from his high forehead. The men at the trestle tables shifted uneasily as Aranda faced them, his expression stern.

  ‘Today at the quarry,’ he said in a ringing voice, ‘a discovery was made by Sergeant Molina’s detail. Father Jaime wishes to address you about it.’

  The priest nodded. ‘These scribblings by cavemen on rock walls are pagan things, made before Christ’s light shone on the world. They are to be shunned and avoided. Tomorrow fresh charges will be laid in that cave and the pictures destroyed. Anyone who even mentions them will be punished. That is all.’ He nodded to Aranda, gave Molina a look of disfavour, and swept out again, followed by the officers.

  Pablo leaned across to Bernie. ‘The bastard. They’re part of Spain’s heritage.’

  ‘These people are like the Goths and Vandals, eh, Vicente?’ Bernie nudged the lawyer.

  Vicente gave a groan then slid forward, his head striking the table. His tin plate crashed to the floor, bringing a guard rushing over. It was Arias, a carele
ssly brutal young conscript.

  ‘¿Que pasa aquá?’ He shook Vicente’s shoulder. The lawyer groaned.

  ‘He passed out,’ Bernie said. ‘He’s ill, he needs attention.’

  Arias grunted. ‘Take him to his hut. Come on, bring him. I’ll have to go out in the cold now.’ He pulled his poncho over his head as he complained.

  Bernie lifted Vicente. He was light, a bag of bones. The lawyer tried to stand but his legs were shaking too much. Bernie supported him out of the mess hut, the guard following. They went across the yard, stumbling through puddles where ice was forming, glinting in the spotlights from the watchtowers.

  In the hut Bernie laid Vicente on his pallet. He lay semiconscious, covered with sweat, breathing heavily. Arias studied the lawyer’s face.

  ‘I think it is time to call the priest for this one.’

  ‘No. He’s not that bad,’ Bernie said. ‘He’s been like this before.’

  ‘I have to call the priest if a man looks as though he is dying.’

  ‘He’s just ill. Call Father Jaime if you like, but you saw what mood he’s in.’

  Arias hesitated. ‘All right. Leave him, come on. Back to the canteen.’

  When they trooped back to the hut after the meal Vicente was awake again, though he looked worse than ever.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Did I faint?’

  ‘Yes. You should rest now.’

  ‘My head is on fire. It is full of poison.’

  In the opposite bunk Establo lay watching them, his yellow scabbed face monstrous in the light of a tallow candle. He called across. ‘¡Ay, compadre! You saw the paintings, the prehistoric men. What were they like? Fine men, eh? Primitive communists.’

  ‘Yes, Establo, they were fine men. They were hunting furry elephants.’

  Establo looked at him sharply. ‘How could elephants be furry? Do not mock me, Piper.’

  NEXT DAY was Sunday. There was a compulsory service in the hut that served as a church, a white cloth placed over a trestle table for an altar. The prisoners sat through it as usual, many dozing off. Father Jaime would have told the guard to jab them awake but Father Eduardo was taking the service and he let them sleep. Jaime’s sermons were usually full of hell fire and vengeance but Eduardo spoke of Christ’s light and the joys repentance could bring, with something almost pleading in his tone. Bernie studied him carefully.