María Dueñas - The Time in Between

“We’ll see about that,” he spat between his teeth.

He moved away from me and sat back down.

“I don’t like the person you’ve become, Ignacio,” I whispered behind him.

He gave a bitter laugh.

“And who are you to judge me? Maybe you think you’re superior because you spent the war in Africa and now you’ve come back with all the airs of a fine lady? You think you’re a better person than me because you take rogue ministers into your house and allow yourself to be fawned upon with candies while everyone else has even their black bread and lentils rationed?”

“I’m judging you because you matter to me, and because I want the best for you,” I said. My voice barely came out.

He replied with another laugh. Even more bitter than the one that had come before. More sincere, too.

“You don’t care about anyone but yourself, Sira. It’s all about me, myself, I. I’ve worked, I’ve suffered, I’ve paid for my guilt: just me me me. You’re not interested in anyone else—anyone. Have you even bothered to find out what became of your people after the war? Did it ever occur to you to go back to your neighborhood, in one of those elegant suits of yours, to ask after them all, to see if anyone could use a little help? Do you know what became of your neighbors and your friends during all these years?”

His questions echoed like heavy blows to my conscience, like a fistful of salt thrown deliberately into my open eyes. I had no answer to that: I didn’t know anything because I’d chosen not to know. I’d respected my orders, I’d been disciplined. They told me not to leave a certain area and I hadn’t. I’d made an effort not to see the other Madrid, the authentic one, the real one. I focused my movements within the limits of an idyllic city and forced myself not to look at its other face: the one whose streets were filled with holes, craters in the buildings, windows without glass, and empty fountains. I preferred not to let my gaze light on whole families who rummaged through the trash in the hope of finding some potato peelings; not to look at the women in mourning who wandered the pavements with babies hanging from their shriveled breasts; I didn’t even spare a glance for the hordes of dirty, barefoot children who swarmed around there, and who, with their faces covered in dry snot and their little shaved heads covered in scabs, tugged at the sleeves of pedestrians and asked for some charity, please, señor, alms, I beg of you, señorita, some charity, señorita, God will repay your kindness. I’d been an excellent and obedient agent in the service of British intelligence. Scrupulously obedient. Disgustingly obedient. I’d followed the instructions they’d given me to the letter: I hadn’t returned to my neighborhood or set foot on the paving stones of my past. I’d avoided finding out what had become of my people, of the girlfriends from my childhood. I didn’t go to seek out my square, didn’t step into my narrow little street or go up my staircase. I didn’t knock at my neighbors’ doors, I didn’t want to know how they were doing, what had become of their families during the war or since. I didn’t try to discover how many of them had died, how many were in prison, how the ones who were still alive had managed to make it through. I wasn’t interested in hearing what rotten scraps they’d filled their cooking pots with, or whether their children were consumptive, malnourished, or barefoot. I didn’t worry about their wretched lives, filled with lice and chilblains. I belonged to another world now, a world of international conspiracies, lavish hotels, luxury hairdressers, and cocktails at aperitif time. That other wretched universe, rat grey, smelling of urine and boiled chard, had nothing to do with me. Or at least, that’s what I thought.

“You don’t know anything about them, do you?” Ignacio went on slowly. “Well then, you pay attention now, because I’m going to tell you. Your neighbor Norberto fell at Brunete; his elder son was shot the moment the Nationalist troops entered Madrid, although if you believe what people were saying he had also been involved in political repression on the other side. The middle one is breaking rocks in Cuelgamuros and the youngest is in the El Dueso prison: he joined the Communist Party, so he probably won’t be getting out any time soon, that is if they don’t just execute him one of these days. Their mother, Señora Engracia, the one who used to look after you and treated you like her daughter when your mother went to work when you were just a kid, she’s on her own now: she’s gone half blind and wanders the streets as though deranged, turning over whatever she finds with a stick. There are no longer any pigeons or cats left in your neighborhood, they’ve eaten them all. And you want to know what happened to the girlfriends you used to play with on the Plaza de la Paja? I can tell you about them, too: Andreíta was blown up by a shell one evening as she was crossing Calle Fuencarral on her way to the workshop where she had a job—”

“I don’t want to know any more, Ignacio, I get the idea,” I said, trying to hide my agitation. He didn’t seem to hear me; he just went on enumerating these horrors.

“As for Sole, the one from the dairy, she became pregnant with twins by a militiaman who disappeared without leaving them so much as his surname; since she couldn’t look after the children because she didn’t have enough to support them, the people from the foundling hospital took them away and she never heard about them again. They say that she goes around offering herself up to the men who do the unloading in the Cebada market, asking one peseta for each act that she does right there up against the tiles of the wall; they say she goes over there without any panties, lifting up her skirt as the trucks start arriving in the early morning.”

Tears were beginning to stream down my cheeks.

“Shut up, Ignacio, shut up now, for God’s sake,” I whispered. He ignored me.

“Agustina and Nati, the poulterer’s daughters, they joined a group of nurses and spent the war working in the San Carlos hospital. When it all came to an end they were picked up at their house, put into a van, and from there taken to Las Ventas prison; they were tried in Las Salesas and sentenced to thirty years and a day. As for Trini, the baker—”

“Shut up, Ignacio, let it go,” I begged.

At last he yielded.

“I could tell you a lot more stories, I’ve heard almost all of them. People come daily to see me, people who knew us back then. All of them show up with the same refrain: I talked to you once, Don Ignacio, back when you were engaged to Sirita, the daughter of Señora Dolores, the seamstress who lived on the Calle de la Redondilla…”

“What do they come to you for?” I managed to ask through my tears.

“They all want the same things: to ask me to get some relative of theirs out of prison, to see if I can use my contacts to spare someone the death penalty, to help them find a job, no matter how mean… You can’t imagine what day-to-day life is like in the General Directorate—in the lobbies, along the corridors, on the staircases, a fearful crowd pile-up waiting to be seen, ready to bear anything for a crumb of what they’ve come for: for someone to listen to them, for someone to attend to them, to give them some clue about somebody close to them who’s missing, to tell them whom they should beg for a relative’s freedom… A lot of women come, especially—an awful lot of them. They have nothing to live for, they’ve been left alone with their children and can’t find any way to get ahead.”

“And is there anything you can do for them?” I asked, trying to overcome my distress.

“Very little. Almost nothing. The military tribunals handle the crimes relating to the war. These people come to me out of desperation, just like they approach anyone they know who works for the administration.”