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Theo did find a way to come back, but it was not of his making. He returned to the village the following summer because his mother insisted on going back, overriding the advice of her doctors and her husband. And when the opportunity came, he rode on her coattails, supporting her desperate desire to return to Spain because he longed to go back too.

He thought he was in love, although he admitted it to no one, realizing that his school friends would find the idea absurd when he had met the girl for less than five minutes! So instead he nursed his desire in secret, taking it out when he was alone to examine, as if it was a jewel that he had found by accident, lying in his path.

Although that, of course, was untrue. It was Andalusia that had enraptured him: wild and primitive and so utterly foreign, separated from all he had ever known by a barrier not of language but of experience. A city boy in a new world, he had been filled with an amorphous longing from the day of his arrival, when he sat on the roof terrace of his stepfather’s house under the glittering stars and listened to the faint sound of guitars. All summer long he had watched the village girls in the square, walking the paseo arm in arm in the evening twilight, throwing sidelong glances that felt like arrows from under their black eyelashes, until that last day when he met Maria, the most beautiful of them all. And in that brief moment she crystallized his yearning, focusing it in one place, and captured his heart.

Elena sank into a dangerous lethargy after she got back to London, eating almost nothing and paying no heed to Andrew’s pleas to preserve her strength, while he sat distraught at her bedside, powerless to arrest her slow but steady decline. Theo was given special leave to come home on alternate weekends from Saint Gregory’s, but she was unresponsive to him, too, and he began to make excuses to stay away, throwing his energies into running and rugby and schoolwork as a way of distracting himself from his gnawing anxiety.

In March, a crisis was reached, and Theo was summoned home by telegram. Sitting alone in the night train as the sleeping towns rolled slowly by, he shut his eyes to force back the tears, sure that he would not arrive in time to say goodbye. But then when he got to the house, he was astonished to find his mother sitting up in an armchair, sipping tea.

“I need to go back,” she said. She didn’t need to say where. “God is waiting for me there. I know it.”

She looked at her husband, but he dropped his eyes, and so she turned to Theo, who took her outstretched hand and answered her look of appeal without hesitation. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what we must do.”

Now it was Andrew’s turn to stand on the outside, looking in. He felt an immense gratitude to God that Elena had rallied, but he was unsure of whether the divine command to return to Spain should be obeyed. The religious fervor and hatred of the godless Reds whipped up by Don Vincente and his acolytes had precipitated his wife’s illness, and wouldn’t the same occur if she went back? But how could he stop her if she was so determined? Wouldn’t that have the same effect, or worse?

Elena recovered just as she had in New York three years earlier. It was as if she had reached the crossing point, looked over the Styx, and decided to turn back. She possessed a fierce will to survive when she wanted to exercise it, the same fire that fueled her faith. But it consumed her, too, and she returned to the land of the living more spirit than flesh. Her skin was so pale now as to be almost translucent, stretched tight across the delicate bones of her face, and her eyes shone with an unnatural brightness. She was like an old star, Andrew thought, burning up from within.

She was weaker in body but stronger in will, and he could not oppose her, and in June they returned to the village.

Andrew lost no time in going to visit Don Vincente. Within an hour of their arrival, he was knocking on the priest’s door with a bottle of the finest Campion sherry in his hand. He held Don Vincente personally responsible for Elena’s illness, and he would have been happy to receive news that the meddlesome priest had been pushed off Santa Leticia’s cliff by the Anarchists, but he knew that he had to make his peace with his enemy without delay, given that he was not prepared to do the deed himself.

He had remained true to his word and was still paying his workers subsistence out-of-season wages without telling Elena, and he ran the risk that, unbribed, the priest would inflame her against him just as he had before, and with the same disastrous result.

Andrew was not naive, and he knew that it would take considerably more than a bottle of vintage sherry to buy Don Vincente’s compliance, but a handsome check, made out to the chapel restoration fund and slid across the priest’s lacquered coffee table, had more than the desired effect.

“My wife has been very sick,” he said, “and she needs calm. Nothing must agitate her. Nothing. I hope you understand me.”

“Perfectly. I have prayed for Donna Elena’s safe recovery every day since she left, and I give thanks that the Lord has answered my prayers and returned her to us,” said Don Vincente, joining his hands together and looking piously up at the ceiling. “The Church will offer her the peace of God, which passeth all understanding. You can rely on me for that, Don Andrés,” he added, glancing down at the check.

“Thank you,” said Andrew, getting up to leave and just about maintaining a rictus smile of goodwill until he was outside, when he took aim and hit the metal footscraper a terrific blow with his walking stick as a vent for his bottled-up frustration.

Don Vincente was true to his word, but he couldn’t deliver the “peace that passeth all understanding.” Spain had changed while Elena had been away. In October, the Left had risen in rebellion, inflamed by the new government’s lurch to the right. Risings in Barcelona and Madrid had been quickly suppressed, but in the northern province of Asturias the fighting had been brutal on both sides, and General Franco had brought in the Moors and the Foreign Legion to defeat the rebels. Now, nearly a year later, the events in Asturias were still the main topic of conversation on both sides of the political divide, and Elena couldn’t help but hear about them from the devout ladies who looked after the church, with whom she had become fast friends the previous summer.

They relished the opportunity to whisper the worst atrocity stories to a fresh audience, and hardly a day passed without Elena coming home from Mass trembling with outrage.

“I can’t bear it,” she cried. “I can’t bear what they did. They hung the naked body of the priest of Sama upside down in a butcher’s shop window with a placard advertising pig meat for sale. Pig meat!” She began to weep—great, heaving sobs, and Andrew took her hand to try to comfort her.

“It’s not true,” he said. “The newspapers made it up. There was an investigation that proved they did. It was just propaganda. Both sides do it. You know that.”

But his attempt to calm Elena down had the opposite effect.

“Whose side are you on?” she shouted, pulling away from him. “In New York you brought us Father Miguel Pro’s blood. You gave me a photograph of his martyrdom. You made me weep. But now, when I show you pictures of the De La Salle Brothers and their priest, whom the Reds shot in Turón, you turn away. You don’t want to know. You’ve changed. You’re not the man I married.”

“It’s not true, Elena. I’m still that man. I promise you I am,” said Andrew, putting his hand over his heart. “But Spain isn’t Mexico. You have to understand that. The rebels are in prison, and the government is on your side. They have everything under control.” He was making every effort to keep his voice calm and level, but Theo could see that he was frightened, and he felt the same fear, too, remembering what had happened to his mother when she became hysterical in this same room the previous year.

“We don’t need to stay here, you know,” Andrew went on. “We can go back to London anytime if you don’t feel safe.”

“No!” she shouted, banging her glass down on the table so hard that the wine in it spilled out over the cloth. “I know that’s what you want, but I won’t leave. This is where my home is now. This is where God wants me to be.”

“Of course. It’s your decision,” said Andrew, putting up his hands.

Elena was calmer now, but she was staring fixedly at her husband with an icy look that Theo had not seen on her face before. He tensed, unsure of what was coming next.

“You’re paying them, aren’t you?” she said, and her voice was quiet, hard with accusation.

“Who?”

“The Reds. Your workers. They’re all the same.”

Andrew met her eyes and shook his head. “I’m not paying any Reds,” he said.

Elena held her gaze and then laughed contemptuously, swiveling her head to look at her son. “And you too!” she said. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you did.”

“What? What did I do?” asked Theo, taken aback by his mother’s sudden hostility.

“Went with them to that demonstration and fought the police. Almost got yourself expelled from school. You said you’ve turned over a new leaf. But have you? Who are these friends you spend your time with in the village? You think I don’t notice, but I do. I see you sneaking out.”

“I’m not sneaking,” said Theo defensively. “And it’s just Antonio. There’s nothing wrong with him.”

Elena continued to glare at him, and he looked away. He was lying, and he hated doing it, but he had no choice. Maria was an Anarchist through and through, and he had spent every hour that he could with her since his return.

She was always with the same group of friends: Antonio and Primitivo, whom Antonio despised, and Primitivo’s friend, Jesús, who was thin and nervous, worried that his given name undermined his Anarchist credentials. Theo made a fifth after Maria had made short work of Primitivo’s objections, telling him that he could find himself some new friends if he didn’t like it.

There were no girls except Maria, but the constant presence of her brother kept this from being a scandal. Not that Maria cared about scandals, having escaped from her grandmother’s clutches in Málaga by a systematic campaign of outrageous behavior, culminating in the proudest moment of her life, as she referred to it, when she had stood up in the middle of High Mass in the cathedral and begun singing “The Internationale” at the top of her voice. That had been the final straw for the old lady as she stared social ostracism in the eye, and Maria had been dispatched home on the morning train.

The group spent most of their time in the café and shop that Jesús’s father ran in the square that Theo had passed through with Andrew and his mother on the day of his first arrival in the village. All the previous summer, he had never been back, and it seemed to him strange but symmetrical that he should be returning there now at the start of a new one. He remembered how he had felt that he was glimpsing the real Spain that day in the car, and here he was now, entered in behind the facade.

The bloodred Anarchist graffiti on the wall had been painted over, but the square was otherwise the same, with the dilapidated fountain dripping slow gray water down into the tin troughs and the hot summer sun beating down on the dirty cobblestones.

The café was a much poorer version of the thriving business that Bernardo Alvarez was running in the main square up above. Here there were never more than a few drinkers at the rickety tables outside, and Jesús’s father kept a small shop in the front room of his house around the corner to help make ends meet. It was dark and cool inside, with ancient tinned goods lining the shelves, gathering dust, and the friends often met there, with Jesús waiting on the occasional customer that came in.

They could talk freely in the shop, except when Jesús’s mother passed through on her way to church, crossing herself with fluttering hands to ward off the Anarchist contagion that she was powerless to prevent her son’s friends from bringing into the house. Maria mocked her behind her back, perfectly imitating her reedy, querulous voice: “Oh, Jesús,” she wailed. “That Jezebel has ensnared you with her honeyed words and darting looks. Come back to Jesús, Jesús. Come back and save your soul before it’s too late.”

Jesús laughed with the others, not because he found the parody of his mother funny, but because he had to if he was to avoid becoming the butt of the joke too. Mockery came easily to Maria, and she had a sharp tongue.

But not for Theo. From the outset, she seemed fascinated by him, asking endless questions about his life and comparing its glamour and variety to her own meager experience. And in response, he made it a rule to always tell her the truth. It was a way to give himself to her without declaring himself, while it also helped him to remain grounded when the effect that she had on him was so unsettling.

He told her about his father’s suicide and the slum tenement where his mother almost died, and she cried in sympathy, but then a minute later she was asking him about the skyscrapers and the Statue of Liberty and the great boat in which he had crossed the ocean and whether it was like the Titanic . He told her everything, far more than he had told Antonio, who watched and listened with a half smile on his face, saying nothing, while Primitivo glowered in the corner, enraged at being so eclipsed by this scrawny newcomer with whom he could not hope to verbally compete.

When Theo got to the part about Olympia, Maria slowed him down and made him tell everything twice, and the rapt attention in her beautiful eyes fastened on his own inspired Theo to a vivid description of the events worthy of a journalist.

“Were you scared?” she asked.

“Yes, I was,” he said. “Terrified really, because I’d seen the beating the Blackshirts gave to the others who stood up, and we had to wait until it was our time. I don’t know how long it was, but it felt like forever. And I was scared of backing out too. I didn’t want to have to look in the mirror the next day and know that I’d failed.”

“But you didn’t. You made people see those Fascists for who they really are. Oh, I wish I could have been there.”

“I don’t. There was a girl there ...” He stopped, closing his eyes to shut out his recollection of the girl in the blue-flowered dress being attacked by Mosley’s louts. Her torn dress, her head forced back. “I couldn’t bear to see you hurt like that.”

For a moment she was silent, and it was as if there was no one else in the shop. He felt the connection between them, running tense like an electrical current. He could see how her lip trembled and he wanted to put out his hand to touch her, to allow her to be still. But then she turned away, as if from danger, and the moment was gone, as quickly as it had come.

“See!” she said, rounding on Primitivo. “Theo’s done something that matters. He had the guts to stand up and take a beating for what he believed in, and it made a real difference to the world.”

“No, it didn’t,” said Primitivo angrily. “England doesn’t matter. It has nothing to do with us. And, anyway, I’ve done things too.”

“Like what? Written slogans on walls and statues when no one’s looking? That’s brave.” Maria laughed and Antonio joined in. Behind the counter, Jesús looked more than usually nervous, shooting fretful glances at Primitivo, wondering what was coming next.

Theo could see Primitivo clench his fists, although it was unclear whom he was going to hit. Theo hoped that he wouldn’t be the target, but feared the worst. Primitivo had openly declared that he loved Maria and claimed to be her novio when she wasn’t present to correct him, and he was always going to hate any boy whom she showed any interest in, particularly one who was richer and cleverer than him and came from New York.

Theo didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he was frightened of Primitivo. He could feel the coiled-up animal rage inside him, straining to get out. He’d sensed it when he first saw him from a distance in the square the previous year, and now, up close, it was as if he could smell it too. It crossed his mind that Primitivo’s violence was the price he was going to have to pay for getting close to Maria. He really would have to earn her love.

Glancing over at her, Theo was surprised to see that she was flushed and excited, and he realized that she’d provoked Primitivo deliberately, as if for her own entertainment. But then, just as Primitivo was about to lose control, she used her power to stop what she had started. “Don’t be a fool,” she told him. “I swear I’ll never speak to you again if you start anything.”

He looked at her defiantly, keeping his fists clenched, and then abruptly dropped his eyes, turning to Jesús. “I’m hot,” he said. “Give me a beer.”

Jesús hesitated—he was under strict instructions from his father not to take anything out of the shop—and Primitivo pushed him hard on the shoulder, causing him to lose his balance. He laughed as Jesús got to his feet, then helped himself to the beer.

Now there was an ugly atmosphere in the shop. Theo felt a pressure in the air, rendering him tongue-tied when before he had been speaking freely, telling his life story to Maria. He edged to the door, muttered a goodbye, and began to walk home.

Halfway across the square, he heard pounding feet behind him and panicked, thinking it was Primitivo, come to exact revenge. His legs were weak and he felt a shrinking at the base of his spine and in his shoulders, which stopped him running away. He turned and almost collapsed with relief when he saw it was Antonio.

“Damn you!” he said. “You did that deliberately.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Antonio, laughing.

“Liar!”

“All right, I’m sorry,” said Antonio, falling into step beside his friend. “Primitivo’s nuts, isn’t he? All that anger he’s got locked up inside. It can’t be good for him.”

“He looks like he could kill somebody.”

“Yes, I’d say it’s only a matter of time, if he hasn’t done it already.”

“Well, I don’t want it to be me, that’s all.”

“Then I suggest you stop making eyes at my sister,” said Antonio. “Primitivo’s a jealous bastard, and he’s crazy about Maria.”

“But she’s not crazy about him, is she?”

“No, he’s too stupid. She despises fools. She always has.”

“So why does she keep him around?”

“Because she enjoys the power that she has over him, turning it on and off like a tap. You saw what she just did.”

“Yes, but it’s more than that,” said Theo thoughtfully. “I was watching her. She likes his violence. It excites her.”

Antonio turned to look at his friend and nodded. “Yes, you’re right,” he said. “I didn’t know you’d seen that. It’s the Anarchist in her, I suppose. She’s a true believer.”

“And you’re not?”

“No. And you neither. You haven’t got it in you.”

“I’ve got other things,” said Theo defensively.

“That my sister will like, you mean?” asked Antonio, smiling.

“Maybe.”

They passed through the square where the Guardia had rescued Theo from the starving man. Theo walked slightly ahead with his eyes on the ground, lost in his turbulent thoughts.

Antonio laughed. “You know your way now,” he said. “So I suppose you think you don’t need guiding anymore.”