Kerry Postle - A Forbidden Love

‘Oh, that reminds me,’ she said as an afterthought. ‘The Captain says that he wants you to draw up a list of troublemakers. Standard procedure. He wants to make sure that once secured, he leaves our village in good hands, disarms the bad. But, apparently, you know about this already.’

Summer in southern Spain, always hot, usually calm, often sleepy, turned into a screaming hell as rebel soldiers scourged it with their fire and brimstone rain. The region was hit hard, leaving troughs of devastation so deep that rivers of agony trailed in their wake. This too was standard procedure. The earth and people were scorched to ensure that once regained by the rebels the country would never fall back into left-wing hands. For every rebel killed, ten from the opposing side would be destroyed. And that was a promise.

Yet before this hell was let loose upon Fuentes a strange calm descended upon the village and its inhabitants. Many found it unsettling, oppressive. While for the owners of Cortijo del Bosque it heralded a return to the proper order of things, their workers were quiet. Some called it cowed. Little matter the word used to describe it. The point was that this was how Don Felipe (and Dona Sofίa, in spite of her occasional pangs of conscience) liked it. Troops – ‘our troops’ – were bringing with them a new future that, not just Felipe and Sofίa, but landowners all over Spain believed would be the heroic restoration of a golden past. All talk of reading and rights would soon evaporate, becoming nothing more substantial than a quivering mirage in the heat of the day.

As for Dona Sofίa’s pain triggered by concerns for her son, that too would be rendered equally insubstantial once replaced by the excitement elicited by the planning and preparation required for their ‘very special’ dinner party.

‘I really do believe that no guest will have been to a dinner as truly splendid as the one we’re having, Felipe!’ Dona Sofίa beamed as she clapped her hands together and brought her index fingers to rest on her chin.

Her husband nodded as he read an article about Britain and France and their policy of non-intervention in the war. Now here was something to celebrate. ‘Splendid! Truly splendid!’ he mumbled in his wife’s direction.

Dona Sofίa paced the room with anticipation and beamed with delight, clapping her hands some more.

‘There will be twelve at table. You, me, and – of course – darling Luis, then there will be the Captain, and …’ She paused, unable to think of another soul, despite having drawn up a list the day before, and the day before that … ‘You’ve been to all the planning meetings in the village Felipe, who else deserves an invitation? You decide,’ she said to her husband.

Yet while the landowners were in a celebratory mood, back in his house in the heart of the village, Doctor Alvaro was entering a state of mourning. He’d not slept at all the night before.

Not long after the rebellion had broken out, a little-known rebel general had taken to broadcasting daily updates on the progress of the army and Doctor Alvaro had taken to listening to them. Every evening he would sit next to his radio and guffaw at the colourful language, ludicrous claims and comic timing of this bombastic fool.

Queipo de Llano was the name of this trumped up little man, prone to lavish exaggeration, who had entertained the doctor so well. Until reports started reaching him from neighbouring towns and villages confirming that the General’s gruesome stories were true. It was true that working men were being killed for being part of a union, it was true that to have voted Republican was enough to make you a criminal, it was true that having an uncle who had a son who had a friend who had once spoken to a Republican was also a crime. The doctor shuddered at the loss of reason. The world, his world, hadn’t always been like this. He scratched his head. Was it his age that was making him see things this way? Had life always been this absurd? He didn’t believe so.

And last night he knew so when he tuned into the radio to listen to Queipo de Llano once more. Doctor Alvaro was not the one losing his moral sense. As he sat, crouched as if in pain, next to his transistor, he flinched. For one obsessed with purity the General surpassed himself in defining sin. The General’s little tales of appropriate punishments meted out to women struck the noble doctor repeatedly in the heart. Women seen talking to the ‘enemy’, women related to the ‘enemy’, Queipo de Llano shared his methods for converting them all. Shaved heads. Castor oil. And worse. Oh, how his soldiers would teach them a lesson they would never forget.

De Llano. Alvaro had thought him a caricature of a tyrant in an old melodrama, had found his radio broadcasts hugely entertaining, full of bombast and boasting. Until the doctor found out that all that the General threatened he meant.

Which was why, that night, Doctor Alvaro could not sleep. Every time he closed his eyes nightmarish images of punished women appeared to him, and every time they turned to look at him they had his daughter’s face.

The doctor got up, crept quietly to her room and looked at her in the darkness, fast asleep on her bed. She was curled up, her knees tight to her chest, her hands held together as in prayer. He moved closer to her, and the paternal feelings of love and protection became so strong as to cause a strain in his chest. Maria. His daughter. So perfect, so young. Life still hadn’t furrowed her brow. He thought of a time when age would wither this most vibrant of flowers. But the idea didn’t sadden him. He, more than most, knew how a body grows old. There were many trials worse than age, he said to himself. His only hope, as he looked at her at peace in an untroubled sleep, was that he would be able to help her navigate the troubles ahead.

She had health and youth on her side. He had experience.

He went back to his own bed and looked up at the ceiling, wide awake. Her affection for Seňor Suarez, her involvement with the reading programme, that she was his daughter (if his politics came out) – these were things that would all go against her, he feared, if the rebels came into their village and continued to ‘cleanse’ southern Spain.

But she was a child. Surely only the most inhuman of judges would condemn her well-intentioned misdemeanours. And as village doctor, Alvaro hoped that the care he’d shown the inhabitants of Fuentes without exception would be taken into account and sway even the most ardent of rebel supporters in his family’s favour. As he stared into the blackness he reminded himself that he would have to be more vigilant than ever to not ruffle any feathers from this moment on. And anything he did to help so-called enemies of the true Spain would have to be done in secret.

His heart hurt again as he thought of his daughter. Because she had no mother he’d allowed her to grow untethered. She was independent of spirit, unpredictable, outspoken. A wild bloom that knew no bounds. But now he needed her to curb her tongue, rein in her opinions. To persuade her to act with caution would prove difficult, he knew. And he blamed himself for this. He tossed and turned, thinking of ways to contain her.

By the time the sun crept under the shutters the poor man was exhausted. The doctor had wrestled with his conscience for hours over what to do for the best. He got up, pulled his clothes on and let out a sigh. The doctor had wanted to protect his daughter from the horrors of life. But it was no use – de Llano’s little radio chats had told him in the most lurid of terms what was coming to the village. He pulled open the shutters to let the light flood in. He’d made a decision.

It was late afternoon by the time Doctor Alvaro told her that he wanted her to listen to something on the radio.