Derek Lambert - The Gate of the Sun

‘Do you think the Fascists know about that?’ Ana asked, and the priest said, ‘We are all God’s people,’ and Salvador said, ‘So why are we fighting each other?’

Ana and Salvador looked deeply at each other but they did not speak about Antonio, their brother who had betrayed them. Had he managed to reach Fascist armies in the north or south? It was possible: certainly Republicans trapped behind Fascist lines were reaching Madrid. Salvador pushed back the top of his blue monos exposing his right shoulder. ‘Do you know what that is?’ pointing at bruised flesh.

‘Of course,’ said Ana who knew that he wanted a distraction from their brother. ‘The recoil of a rifle butt.’

‘The badge of death,’ Salvador said. ‘That’s what the Fascists look for when they capture a town. Anyone with these bruises has been fighting against them and they kill them. In Badajoz they herded hundreds with these bruises into the bullring and mowed them down with machine-guns.’

‘You have been firing a rifle?’ Ana looked at him with disbelief. ‘With one eye?’

‘Think about it,’ Salvador said. ‘When you fire a rifle do you not close one eye?’

‘Where have you been firing a rifle?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Not, who have I been shooting?’ He smiled, one eye mocking. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not a murderer. Not yet. There’s a range on the Casa de Campo and I have been practising.’

From the other side of the wall they heard a moan.

Ana, followed by Salvador, went to their father who was dying from tuberculosis. He looked like an autumn leaf lying there, Ana thought. His grey hair grew in tufts, his deep-set eyes gazed placidly at death. On the table beside him stood a bottle of mineral water and a bowl in which to spit. His prized possession, a stick with an ivory handle shaped like a dog’s head, lay on the stiff clean sheet beside him. He was 67 years old and he looked 80; his mother-in-law, who walked in that moment, would outlive him.

He acknowledged his children with a slight nod of his head and stared beyond them.

‘Is there anything you want?’ Ana asked.

A slight shake of his head.

Salvador took one of his hands, a cluster of bones covered with loose skin, and pressed it gently. ‘We are winning the war,’ he said but the old man didn’t care about wars. He closed his eyes, kept them shut for a few moments, then opened them. Some of his lost expression returned and there was an angle to his mouth that might have been a smile. Ana turned. The priest stood behind them. Salvador rounded on him but Ana put her finger to her lips. He stretched out one hand and the priest who had taken away his living for stealing a few expiring blossoms held it.

‘May God be with you,’ the priest said.

Back in the living-room the priest said, ‘I think it would be a good thing if I stayed. I can administer the last rites.’

Salvador wet one finger, drew it across his own throat, and said, ‘But who will administer them to you?’

Ana’s sister-in-law, Antonio’s wife, came to her home one late September day. She had discarded the elegant clothes that Ana associated with girls in Estampa and her permanent waves had spent themselves; she was pregnant, her ankles were swollen. Ana regarded her with hostility.

‘Slumming, Martine Ruiz?’ she demanded at the door. Not that the shanty was a slum; it might not have electric light or running water but Jesús left no dust on the photographs of stern ancestors on the walls of the living-room, and the nursery, if that’s what you could call one half of a partitioned bedroom, still smelled of babies, and the marble slab of the sink was scoured clean. But it was very different from Antonio’s house to the south of the Retiro which was built on three floors with two balconies.

‘Please let me in,’ Martine said. Ana hesitated but there was a hunted look about the French woman and, noting the swell of her belly, she opened the door wider.

Jesús was stirring a bubbling stew with a wooden ladle. Food was becoming scarcer as the Fascists advanced on Madrid but he always managed to provide. He greeted Martine without animosity and continued to stir.

Martine sat on a chair, upholstered in red brocade, that Jesús had found on a rubbish dump, the expensive leather of her shoes biting the flesh above her ankles.

Ana said, ‘Take them off, if you wish.’ Martine eased the shoes off, sighing. ‘So what can we poor revolutionaries do for you?’ Ana asked.

Martine spoke in fluent Spanish. Jesús should leave, she said. Ana shrugged. Everyone suspected everyone these days. She said to Jesús, ‘I hear there are some potatoes in the market; see if you can get some.’

‘Very well, querida . Take care of the stew.’ He wiped his hands on a cloth and, smiling gently, walked into the lambent sunshine.

‘He is a kind man,’ Martine said. ‘A gentle man.’

Born in the wrong time, Ana thought. ‘You never thought much of him in the past.’

‘I don’t understand politics. They are not a woman’s business.’

‘Tell that to La Pasionaria. She is our leader, our inspiration.’

‘Really? I thought Manuel Azaña was the leader.’

‘He is president,’ Ana said. ‘That is different. He is a figurehead: Dolores is our lifeblood.’ Martine leaned back in the chair. Ana noticed muddy stains beneath her eyes. ‘So what is it you want?’ she asked her.

Martine arranged her hands across her belly. She stared at Ana. Whatever was coming needed courage. When she finally spoke the words were a blizzard.

‘The police came yesterday,’ she said. ‘SIM, the Secret Police. They asked many questions about Antonio. When had I last seen him? When was I going to see him? Trick questions … Did he give your daughter a present when you saw him? Why did my father help him to escape? Then they went to see my father. As you know, he has a weak heart.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Ana said. She poured Martine a glass of mineral water and handed it to her.

‘He was very distressed. Another interrogation could kill him.’ She sipped her mineral water and stared at the bubbles spiralling to the surface. ‘The police came to my house again this morning. They asked questions about Marisa.’ She blinked away tears. ‘Not threats exactly but hints … What a pretty little girl my daughter was, intelligent … They hoped that no harm would befall her.’

Ana said firmly, ‘The police would not harm Marisa.’

‘If they took me away it would harm her. And what of her brother or sister?’ pointing at her belly. ‘What if I were thrown into prison? I wouldn’t be the first. Then they wait, the SIM, until the husband hears that his wife is in gaol, that his child is starving. Then he gives himself up. Then he is questioned, tortured and shot in one of the execution pits.’

‘Has Antonio contacted you?’

Martine looked away furtively. ‘I don’t know where he is,’ she said, voice strumming with the lie.

‘That wasn’t what I asked you.’

‘I had a message,’ she said. ‘Through a friend.’

‘Is he well?’

‘He is full of spirit.’

‘He is a fool,’ Ana said. Martine said nothing. ‘So how can I help you?’

‘You can move about Madrid. Meet people, talk to them.’

‘And you can’t?’

‘None of us can.’

‘Us?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Ana said. ‘Fascists.’

‘Anyone with any property or position. Old scores are being settled.’

‘But not with pregnant women. When is the baby due?’

‘I am followed wherever I go,’ Martine said. ‘They want Antonio badly. He knew many things. The baby is due in February,’ she said.