Page 34

The days passed and everything remained the same. Stagnant and inert like the summer heat. It was as if they were all balanced equally against each other, requiring some outside force to precipitate a change in their relationships.

And when it came, it was from an unexpected source.

Theo arrived at the shop one morning, pulled the blanket back from the door, and stopped, rooted to the threshold, as he came face-to-face with Carlos, the Anarchist whom he and Antonio had met in the mountains the summer before.

Carlos looked the same. Black hair and beard and eyes smoldering in a thin, pale face, hollowed behind high cheekbones that exaggerated its length. And just like at the inn, he dominated the room with a natural charisma that kept everyone’s eyes fixed upon him, even though he was sitting in a low chair in front of the counter while everyone else, including Maria, was standing. He reminded Theo of Mosley on the rostrum at Olympia, waiting to speak.

But something was missing.

“Where’s Pablo?” Theo asked, the question coming out of his mouth rude and unbidden, before he’d spoken any words of greeting. Because it struck him as so strange to see Carlos alone. He and his friend had seemed such a pair in the mountains, united by the utter contrast of their appearance and temperament.

“He’s dead,” said Carlos, staring Theo in the eye, as if daring him to look away.

Theo was shocked. He hadn’t met Pablo for long, but he remembered how he had seemed so alive: joking and laughing and drinking, filling the big barnlike inn with his noise. It didn’t seem possible that he was dead.

“How?” he asked. “How did it happen?”

“We were prisoners in Asturias,” said Carlos, looking around the room now to capture everyone’s attention. “We went there to help the miners. They were brave and fought with all they had—sticks of dynamite they use in the mines when there were no more bullets—but it was hopeless. Franco sent in the Moors and they went through the villages, raping and looting and murdering. They hacked the workers to death like they were animals, which is what Franco thinks we are, of course. Those of us that were left were rounded up and sent to detention centers run by the Guardia Civil. The one we were in was a converted convent, and they tortured everyone. With rods, with water, with electricity. They were quite ingenious. And they made no exceptions. I think they went through the prisoners alphabetically, and when they got to Z , they started again. They wanted to know where we had hidden our arms and the money stolen from the Bank of Oviedo, but that was just an excuse. They tortured us because they wanted to, because that is their nature. Until one day they got careless and we escaped. They came after us, firing their guns. Pablo was hit, I wasn’t.”

The matter-of-fact voice in which Carlos had been speaking made what he was saying even more horrifying, and after he’d finished, everyone was silent, except Primitivo, who slammed his hand down on the counter. “We have to do something,” he shouted. “We have to fight back.”

“Yes,” said Carlos evenly. “We do. And that’s why I’m here. Tell me this, friends—what is wrong with our country? What is the root of the evil?”

“Capitalism,” said Primitivo straightaway. “The latifundistas treating the braceros like slaves.”

“Yes,” said Carlos. “But how do they do it?”

“They own the land, they set the wages ...” said Primitivo, tailing off uncertainly. He was like a kid in school, Theo thought. Wanting to give the right answer to a favorite teacher, but anxious that he’d got it wrong.

But he needn’t have worried. Carlos had got exactly the answer he was looking for. “That’s right!” he said, snapping his fingers. “ They own. Or they say they do. And their false claim to property is what the whole rotten edifice of money exploitation and suffering is built upon, and so we must destroy it. In this village and in all the villages.”

“You mean, burn the property records? In the ayuntamiento?” said Maria excitedly. Theo looked over at her and saw that she was gazing at Carlos with rapt admiration, as if he were some kind of higher being. It struck fear into his heart to see how with just a few sentences, this cold-blooded fanatic could hold her in the palm of his hand.

“Yes,” said Carlos. “I do mean that. But it’s not enough to break a window and throw in an esparto torch and hope for the best. You need to find the records where they’re locked away and destroy them, every last one of them, because you’ll only have one chance. You have to get inside the building. Your mother works there as a cleaner, doesn’t she?” he asked, turning unexpectedly to Jesús, who had been standing behind the counter, saying nothing up to now.

Jesús nodded, surprised to be the sudden focus of attention.

“So, she must have keys?”

Jesús swallowed. “Yes,” he stammered.

“Will you get them for us?”

Jesús took a deep breath and then committed himself. “Yes,” he said. “And I’ll go inside, too, and do the burning. You can rely on me, sir.”

“Good boy,” said Carlos. “Now, who else? Jesús can’t do it on his own.”

“I’ll do it,” said Primitivo and Theo both at the same time and then stopped, glowering at each other across the room.

Theo was surprised at himself. He’d spoken without thinking, without knowing what he was going to say before he said it. Why? Because he believed, like the Anarchists, that property should be abolished and everything should be owned in common? No, he didn’t believe that, or at least he didn’t think he did.

Maria was the reason he had volunteered. Because he’d understood in that moment that all that had passed between them—the conversations and half declarations, the seeds from which he’d promised himself that love would grow—would become an irrelevance, swallowed up and forgotten in Carlos’s call to action. Unless he followed her down the path that she had chosen. But was that a good enough reason to risk everything to commit such a crime, when he had everything to lose and she had nothing?

He felt confused, but there was no time to think because Primitivo was attacking him. “He’s never worked,” he told Carlos furiously, jabbing his finger in Theo’s direction. “He’s not one of us. He’s not to be trusted.”

“Yes, I am,” said Theo, stung by the accusation. “Just because I’m not stupid and ask questions doesn’t mean I’m not—” He broke off, seeing the doubt written on Maria’s face.

“Not what?” said Carlos. “An Anarchist?”

Theo nodded.

“Show me your hands,” said Carlos.

Theo thought of refusing, but then held them out reluctantly, hating how soft they were, hating Primitivo’s contemptuous laugh. As if hands proved anything.

But Carlos didn’t laugh. “Now look at mine,” he said.

Theo went closer. The backs were beautiful—artist’s hands, with long, thin fingers tapering to their ends, but turned over, they were red and raw, with the palms crisscrossed with multiple tiny lesions. Theo recoiled, sensing how painful they must be, and wondered why he hadn’t noticed them in the mountains, but then recalled how Carlos had hardly eaten, leaving Pablo to finish his share of the food. Pablo, the life of the party, now lying dead in some unmarked grave in the North.

“Is it a disease?” Theo asked.

“It’s life,” said Carlos. “My life. When I was a boy, I lived in a village like this one, but closer to the sea. And every day except Sunday I got up with my father in the middle of the night, and we walked the road to the beach to buy cod from the fishermen when they returned with their catch in the dawn. Others, too, were there, standing ready with their coins. We had baskets on our back held in place with halters on our heads like we were oxen, and once we had the fish, we ran. Racing up the hills to get back to the village because if we got there first, we could sell all we had on the street corner in a few minutes, but if we were last, we were lucky to sell half, and that for next to nothing. Sometimes the baskets broke open as we ran and the brine seeped onto our backs and down our arms to our hands, poisoning the skin. But we still ran. On and on until the blood came out of our eyes. And then one day my father crested a hill and fell down dead. After that I didn’t run anymore. I just starved.”

Carlos looked down at his hands and then at Theo’s and smiled. “The boy’s right. You’re not one of us,” he said. “You should go home. This is not your fight.”

Theo wanted to argue, but no words came. He felt like a man who had been sentenced and had no right of appeal. All that was left was to leave.

“So it’s settled then,” said Carlos, looking around the room. “Jesús and Primitivo will go in, and all you need is someone to stand lookout outside. Can you do that?” he asked, turning to Antonio, who’d been standing at the back up to now, watching but saying nothing.

“No,” said Antonio. “I want no part of it.”

“Very well, but will you keep silent?”

“Yes.”

Carlos stared at Antonio for a moment and then nodded and looked at Maria. “You then,” he said. “Agree on a flashlight signal with the others for if there’s trouble.”

“What about him?” asked Primitivo, pointing at Theo. “Do you trust him? Like you said, he’s not one of us.”

“He won’t talk,” said Carlos, getting up.

It was as if Carlos knew him better than he knew himself, thought Theo as he trudged away up the hill. Once again, he felt that sense of not belonging that had haunted him throughout his life. He could shake it off for a while—at school or here—but sooner or later it seemed to always come back to find him, leaving him standing in the same place: on the outside, looking in.

Volunteering wasn’t enough. He could deny it all he wanted, but the truth was he did ask too many questions. Why? Because he was too clever for his own good. Carlos had known from the beginning, up in the mountains, that he was no true believer, and so had rightly pushed him away, preferring to use a vicious thug like Primitivo and a yes-man like Jesús to carry out his plans.

But what mattered to Theo now was that Maria had witnessed this rejection and would adopt it as her own. He had seen how she’d hung on Carlos’s every word. He was a born leader, and she was as committed to her faith as Theo’s mother was to hers. All his tall tales of Broadway and the Bowery couldn’t save him now. Maria would throw in her lot with Primitivo and leave him behind without a backward glance.

Theo stopped to catch his breath. He had been walking fast to keep pace with his thoughts and now, at the entrance to the main square, he caught sight of Maria’s father standing proprietorially in his white apron outside his café. Theo was tempted to go over and tell him what his daughter had got herself into. That would put an end to Carlos’s plans once and for all. But in the next moment, he knew he couldn’t. Carlos had been right about that too. Whatever Theo was, he was no rat.

In frustration, he smacked his hand against the wall beside which he’d been standing and immediately remembered that Primitivo had done the same thing half an hour before. He felt like an idiot, and that made him hate Carlos even more. But there was nothing he could do and so he turned around and went home, just as Carlos had told him to.

The next morning Antonio came to the house, and they talked outside in the garden.

“We need to do something,” Antonio said. “Before it’s too late.”

“About what?” asked Theo morosely. He’d hardly slept and was in no mood for visitors.

“About my sister, of course. She’s going to be ruined if she goes through with this.”

“What can I do? She won’t listen to me.”

“Maybe she will. She thinks a lot of you. I know that.”

“Not anymore!” said Theo bitterly. “Our friend Carlos has seen to that. And you seem to forget that I volunteered to do the burning, so I don’t see how I can start telling her that it’s all a bad idea now that I’m not needed. Can you?”

“You volunteered because you wanted to impress her, not because you thought it was right. You need to admit that and start thinking about her and what she needs. Not everything is about you, you know.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” said Theo peevishly.

“For Christ’s sake, stop feeling sorry for yourself, Theo,” Antonio shouted in exasperation. “It’s too bad if my sister doesn’t love you. I told you not to go down that road, but you wouldn’t listen.”

He stopped, breathing heavily as he fought to bring his temper under control. And then, once he was calm, he turned to go. “If you really cared about Maria, you’d try and help me,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “But it seems like the only person you’re interested in is yourself.”

Theo watched his friend walk away through the gate, anchored in place by pride and indecision. He knew that Antonio was right, but he didn’t want to lose what he had left of Maria’s good opinion by telling her to desert the cause. And yet doing nothing was worse. Standing alone on the outside was what he couldn’t bear and Antonio had offered him a way back in, at least to talk to Maria and try to save her from herself. He had to take it and so, without further thought, he set off at a run and caught up with Antonio in the shadow of the church.

They didn’t speak. Antonio just nodded, and they walked quickly on through the narrow twisting streets, side by side.

As they approached Jesús’s father’s shop, Theo wondered whether their march across town would turn out to be in vain. Perhaps the conspirators had already laid their plans and were waiting somewhere else for night to fall so that they could carry out Carlos’s orders.

But they were inside. All three of them, looking up in surprise as Antonio came purposefully through the door, followed by Theo, who hung back, feeling much less sure of himself.

“What do you want?” demanded Primitivo, his voice brimming with hostility.

“To talk with my sister,” said Antonio defiantly.

“Whatever you want to say, you can say in front of them,” said Maria. She seemed as angry as Primitivo and almost spat out her words.

But then, just as Antonio was about to speak, she cut him off. “If you two have come here to try and get me to pull out, then you’re wasting your time. Is that why you’re here, Theo?” she demanded, rounding on him.

Theo hesitated, faced with an impossible choice. If he said yes, she’d hate him; if he said no, then he’d be letting her down.

She laughed, and he fancied that for the first time he could see contempt in her eyes when she looked at him. It took the wind out of him, wounding him with a new pain that he had not felt before.

“You heard your sister. You’re wasting your time. And ours,” said Primitivo, taking a step toward Antonio. “Now why don’t you just fuck off?”

Behind Primitivo, Jesús joined in. “Get out of my store!” he told Theo and Antonio. “You’re not welcome here.”

“Your father’s store, you mean?” Antonio shot back. “It’s you who’ll need to get out, Jesús, when he finds out that you’ve burnt his title deeds.”

“If you tell him, I’ll ...” Primitivo had his fists clenched now.

“Kill me?” asked Antonio.

“Yeah,” said Primitivo, lowering his voice so that it was icy now. “You can count on it.”

“Good to know,” said Antonio. “But fortunately you can save yourself the trouble and the garotte, because I’ve got no intention of telling anyone. I already told your fisherman friend that.”

“Maybe you did,” said Primitivo. “But I still don’t trust you. You’re going to join the army. That makes you the enemy in my book.”

“Your book!” said Antonio, laughing. “You haven’t read a book in your life. And you never will. You’re too stupid. And you’re not even a real Anarchist. You don’t want freedom; you want power—the power to own my sister and tell people what to do.”

Primitivo had heard enough. Jumping forward, he hit Antonio with a sucker punch to the stomach, following it up with a quick, vicious uppercut to the chin that sent him crashing to the floor.

Theo didn’t think. Just as before on that first day at Saint Gregory’s, he hurled himself forward and threw the bully to the ground. He was bigger now and had developed tackling skills on the rugby field, but Primitivo was a stronger adversary than Barker, and it might have gone badly for Theo if Maria hadn’t intervened.

“Stop!” She screamed the word at the top of her voice and with an unexpected authority that caused everyone to freeze.

Slowly, they got up from the floor. Primitivo and Theo dusting themselves off, and Antonio still crouched over with both hands holding his stomach.

“Are you all right?” Maria asked him, and he nodded, even though his face was a rictus of pain.

“Okay,” she said, and turned her attention to Primitivo, looking him hard in the eye. “Don’t do that again!” she told him. “Not to either of them. Not ever. Do you hear me?” Her voice was like a whip, lashing against him.

Primitivo looked defiant for a moment, as if he was going to argue, but then he dropped his eyes and nodded.

But that wasn’t enough. “Promise!” she ordered, taking his arm.

And again, he obeyed. “I promise,” he said, and then turned away and spat on the ground.

“Now get out,” she told her brother. “And don’t come back.”

“Maria—” he began, but she cut him off.

“Go!” she said. “It’s my life, not yours.”

Theo watched Antonio as he reluctantly went out. Grief had replaced pain on his already swollen face.

Theo looked back at Maria. “You too,” she told him, but softly this time. And then, just as he was passing through the door, she spoke his name, causing him to turn around.

“Thank you for stopping him,” she said.

And he smiled for the first time in a long time. “You’re welcome,” he said, speaking softly, too, and dropped the blanket.

“Idiot!” said Antonio furiously.

“Who? Me?” asked Theo.

“No. Not you. Me.” Antonio was standing, bent over the trickling fountain in the middle of the square, splashing water on his face, although whether to ease his physical pain or to try to wake up from his nightmare experience inside the shop wasn’t clear.

“Why? What did you do?”

“I allowed myself to get distracted by that oaf. I lost my temper with him when I should have been talking to my sister, trying to make her see sense.”

“But you seemed in control,” said Theo, surprised. “I thought you were brave, the way you talked back to him. You showed him up for who he is. An oaf, like you said.”

“I wasn’t brave. I was scared. That’s why I said those things. They were just what came into my head to keep me going.”

“Well, I’m glad you did say them,” said Theo. “Somebody needed to, and maybe Maria will think about it now.”

“Think about what? Primitivo? Well, I can see how that might help you. But it’s not going to stop her burning down the ayuntamiento, is it? That’s Carlos’s idea, and as far as she’s concerned, he walks on water.”

“She’s not burning it,” said Theo. “She’s just the lookout.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Antonio. “She’s part of it, and if the Guardia get one of them, they’ll get them all.”