Kerry Postle - A Forbidden Love

In truth Maria was excited about the war. Life in a village could be dull, uneventful. Richard Johnson had stirred things up for a while, made her think of love – but not for long. Besides, he would be leaving soon.

And so the idea that battles would be fought, wrongs righted, roused her. Workers of Spain would rise up, united, as they’d done in Russia. That was what she believed. War was coming and it would be good.

Richard Johnson, too, felt the blood pump passionately through his veins at the thought of armies marching towards Fuentes. He had spent a happy time here but that it might soon buzz and crackle into life of a different sort thrilled him. He’d come to Spain hoping to see the strikes and demonstrations he’d read about in the newspapers back in England. But these were happening in the big cities and his parents had had other plans for him. And so now he considered himself fortunate indeed to have war come to the quiet village they’d chosen for him. A war was on its way. He prayed it would arrive soon, before he’d left.

There was a knock on the door. The doctor had asked Richard round: he wanted the boy to hear the broadcast too.

‘Come, children.’ Maria winced and let out a tut while Richard pulled his shoulders back. He opened the heavy wooden door to his study, a grave smile on his face, and ushered them inside, aware of their displeasure and wishing that this could be the only unpleasant blow he was called upon to dish out to the pair.

‘Please, sit,’ he said, careful not to repeat the offence. His daughter smiled at her friend. Her shrug told him she had no idea what was going on. It struck her father how firm and strong the two young people were as they followed him in, whereas the certain knowledge of the disturbing nature of what they were about to hear aged Alvaro beyond his already advanced years. His back appeared rounded, head collapsed forward, legs buckled. ‘It’s nearly time,’ he said.

Richard and Maria arranged themselves on the floor in front of a large wooden cabinet that was home to a transistor radio with shiny knobs. It was clear that some radio address was about to start. Maria’s hand span out on the floor, her head giddy with the thrill of expectation at what she was about to listen to. Richard fidgeted as he tried to get comfortable.

Doctor Alvaro crouched over the cabinet and twiddled with the radio knobs, catching then losing tunes and foreign voices. ‘The reception is not good,’ Maria complained as she wound her arms in and placed her hands together in her lap. Eventually the voice her father was looking for crackled into life, freed from the soaring, discordant sounds either side of the wavelength. ‘Russian interference,’ he said jokingly. Maria and Richard laughed. Neither of them had any idea that it would be a long time before they laughed again.

Alvaro took a last fleeting look at them. There sat Richard, cross-legged in front of the radio, his hair sticking up from his head in tufts, his colour high, face eager. Alvaro noticed for the first time that the boy was attempting to cultivate some sort of beard on his chin but it only made him seem younger, so unnatural did it look. And there sat his daughter, legs folded to her left, hair braided to the side, her expression serious. Alvaro ached to protect them. But they had to know. He braced himself for the attack on their innocence they were about to receive. He smiled at Maria, gave her a knowing nod. She smiled back, behind her eyes a look that said I’m ready although she had no idea for what.

Maria’s father waited, head in hands.

Maria and Richard glanced at each other. Their excitement tinged with the first signs of fear.

Then the great General began. He spoke of ‘my triumph, my heroism’. He was not just a man, he was ‘an emissary sent by God to save Seville … to save Spain … to save Western civilisation.’

Maria sniggered. Richard arched his eyebrows.

‘Pacification’ was coming their way, the shrill voice promised over the radio waves, and, he assured them it would be ‘brutal.’

Maria’s father pushed his fingers against his skull, a need to reach into his own mind and stop this madman with a microphone from sullying everything good within but the excited, angry little voice continued. It threw up fervour, passion, bloodlust. Talked of God and country. Threatened punishment. Promised annihilation.

The harsh voice blasted out of the radio and shrieked in their ears.

Maria shivered. Richard felt a chill. Alvaro got up, unable to bear it. He turned the radio off.

‘Can’t we hear the rest?’ she asked, strangely drawn into the darkness of de Llano’s vile world. Richard nodded to show that he too needed to listen. Alvaro turned the radio back on and walked out. He’d heard enough over the past days and no longer had the stomach for tales of squealing Red women with kicking legs. He didn’t want his daughter to know about them either. But war was always evil, ugly. And she had a right to know how evil and ugly it was becoming.

The young pair sat and listened. When the broadcast had finished neither of them said a word, did not even exchange a glance because they could not bear to look at one another. Maria’s body had lost its youthful, hopeful tingle of only minutes before; Richard felt sickened at the memory of his. De Llano had banished them from paradise.

The English boy got up and left the house. It was perfectly understandable that he should go out and get some air.

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