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As spring turned to summer, Theo wandered his stepfather’s house in Los Olivos, alone with his memories. His mind kept returning to that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday as he retraced his steps from the church to the stone calvary at the entrance to the village, walking behind the statue of the Virgin on her golden throne. He remembered her meeting with her risen son, the sheaf of barley in his hand, and the sound of the church bells up above. The beat of the drums, the rifle shots, the wild taratantara of the trumpets celebrating a resurrection to which even an unbeliever like himself could not be indifferent. But then the murder: the invisible thrust of the blade right there amid the joy and the glory, and fat Pedrito stretched out on the ground, staring lifeless up at the sun, his crimson blood seeping out over the starched white of his shirtfront.

Theo remembered the robe and hood hanging in the tree, the sharp press of the cobblestones into the soles of his feet as he ran up through the empty streets and squares, and the beat of his heart as he stretched every sinew of his body to get to her before she left the village forever.

He’d got there in time. Enough to see the blood on Primitivo’s hands as he held his horse’s reins, enough to witness the ecstatic look in Maria’s eyes, and to feel the touch of her finger on his face as she leaned down to him from her saddle. “ Don’t forget me! ” she’d told him.

He couldn’t even if he had wanted to. It had been different during the long months in England and later in the village when Maria had been immured in the convent in the North. Despite his best efforts to keep her vivid in his mind, she had faded, becoming more an idea than a living person, and the lock of her hair a relic of a past he couldn’t touch.

But now everything had changed. The meeting in the lane had lasted less than a minute, but its effect on him had been like an electrical charge. He didn’t even need to close his eyes to see her face, hear her voice, feel the touch of her hand. He thought of her constantly and of Primitivo, who had saved her from a foul marriage when he couldn’t. The boy was vicious; if Theo hadn’t known that before, he knew it now. Primitivo hadn’t needed to kill Pedrito. He’d done it because he wanted to, and because he knew the effect it would have on Maria.

The murder was the ultimate expression of the Anarchists’ “propaganda of the deed.” Death at Easter; religious parade transformed into stampeding terror; the arrogant cacique and Alvarez, his sidekick, struck to the heart. It was an act of grand theater and showed imagination and daring that Theo hadn’t credited Primitivo with possessing.

And afterward, to cap it all, the killer had run off with his victim’s intended bride. Vanished into the ether without a trace. The Civil Guard had tracked them through the mountain villages, but after that the trail had gone cold. Impatient for results, Don Fadrique and Maria’s father had hired their own detectives, who had searched as far as Barcelona, but the bloodhounds found no scent, even though they were convinced that the city was the fugitives’ likely destination. For decades, the starving braceros had been leaving the Andalusian countryside for the Catalan capital, hoping to find work in the mills and factories. They had taken their Anarchist creed with them, and the city was now the home of the CNT, the Anarchist trade union. It provided a refuge and support system for Anarchist outlaws who could disappear into the teeming backstreet tenements.

Theo didn’t need to guess at Maria’s and Primitivo’s whereabouts. He knew they were in Barcelona, because Maria had told him that that was where they were going. He reminded himself that she had trusted him, told him that he was “one of us,” but that was cold comfort if he could not follow her. And how could he do that when he had no money for the enterprise and his mother had become so nervous since the murder that she started to panic if he was gone from the house for more than a few hours?

Like it or not, he was reliant on his stepfather for financial support, and he couldn’t ask him for help without telling him what he intended. Unless he lied, but he couldn’t bring himself to do that. Not after all that had passed between them. He lived in dread of the day when Andrew would ask about the watch that he had given to Maria.

So he stayed where he was, tortured with an aching jealousy and sense of loss, made worse by having no one to confide in. He missed Antonio and he missed Saint Gregory’s. The school had given him structure and purpose, whereas now the hours stretched out interminably, offering him no distraction from his pain. Only running helped. Pounding the paths and roads in the early morning before the sun rose too high and sent him home, he could forget himself, at least for a while.

It wasn’t just Theo; everyone was restless. Night and day, the villagers argued and speculated. In the cafés where frenzied radio announcers broadcast news of violent clashes breaking out on city streets all over Spain, and in the church where Elena went every day to hear Don Vincente calling down the fires of heaven to punish the godless Reds. Everywhere he went, Theo could feel the festering hatred and division, hanging like the heat in the still, stagnant early-summer air.

He felt trapped. As if he were locked up in an airless room from which he had no means of escape, until a day came when the door unexpectedly opened and everything that he wanted seemed to drop down into his outstretched hand.

Since Pedrito’s murder, Andrew had remained in the village, unwilling to leave Elena, who had become more obdurate than ever in her determination to stay put. But now something had to give. Strikes and industrial unrest were jeopardizing Andrew’s business interests in Barcelona, and he knew he had to go there to deal with the problems in person.

“I can’t let this go any longer,” he told Elena at lunch one day in June. “And I don’t want to leave you here alone. Not with everything that’s happening. Barcelona is a beautiful city, and it’s a crying shame that you’ve never seen it. I didn’t marry you with the intention of keeping you holed up in a remote village halfway up a mountain with Don Vincente and a group of gossiping black widows for company. Hiding your light under a bushel.”

“I like my bushel,” Elena said tartly.

“No, you don’t,” he shot back. “The atmosphere here is toxic and you know it. You need a change. It’ll be good for you. And for all of us. It isn’t doing Theo any good sitting here with nothing to do all day. You’d like to go to Barcelona, wouldn’t you, Theo?”

“Yes. More than anything,” said Theo fervently, shocked into candor by his heart’s desire suddenly being offered to him on a plate.

“I don’t want to go,” said Elena, clenching her small hands and pushing out her chin with that look of childlike defiance that Theo knew so well.

“You’re just saying that because you’re nervous of trying something new,” said Andrew. “But this isn’t like going to London. We can come back as soon as I’ve finished my business, which shouldn’t take much more than a week. And once you’re there, you won’t want to leave. Barcelona is magical at this time of year. In the mornings, you wake up to the pealing of a hundred church bells, and in the afternoons, you can go shopping in the Paseo de Gracia, which makes Oxford Street look shabby and gray, and in the evenings we’ll go to the opera on the Ramblas, and you and Theo can go to the seaside too. At Sitges, the sand is golden brown and the sea is ...” Andrew stopped, out of breath, as he searched for the right jewel to compare in color to the Mediterranean just south of Barcelona.

And Elena laughed in spite of herself, unable to resist her husband’s enthusiasm, which made Andrew laugh too. “Say yes,” he pleaded, getting up from the table and going down theatrically on one knee beside his wife, just as Constanza came in with the coffee.

“I’ll think about it,” Elena said. “But only if you get up and stop playing the fool. I’m sorry, Constanza. What must you think of us?”

Barcelona didn’t disappoint. They stayed at the Hotel Colón in palatial rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the great main square, Placa de Catalunya, in which crowds of well-dressed people walked this way and that, passing amid the statues and fountains, while on the outer hub, cars and trucks stopped and started and blew their horns at each other as they came and went through the myriad of roads leading off the square in all directions: arteries running out from the city’s beating heart.

The morning after their arrival, Theo stood in his room looking out, amazed by the sheer numbers of people down below. They were as anonymous to him and to each other as the flocks of pigeons that took off and wheeled and swooped and settled back down onto the marble walkways in a constant flurry of quick gray movement. He felt bewildered and energized in equal measure. The city had no connection to the slow-moving life of the village, where everyone knew everyone and nothing ever changed. It was as if he had been taken back in a time machine to the New York of his childhood.

After breakfast, he walked with his mother across the plaza and into the boulevard called the Ramblas, which sloped gently down toward the sea. Everywhere was a blur of vibrant color. In the flower market, where dahlias and tulips and white black-eyed orchids vied for the eye’s attention; in the bird market, where green-and-yellow canaries sang in their tiny cages, as if yearning for a freedom they would never attain; and under the striped awnings of the cafés, where girls in pastel dresses sat with their lovers sipping ice-cold drinks through wax straws.

Waiters in tuxedos moved like dancers between the tables, silver trays balanced high on their upturned hands; sailors with their arms linked and the wide ends of their blue trousers flapping walked arm in arm up from the port; and, under the spreading canopies of the plane trees on the central walkway, performers in leotards juggled rings and clubs or swallowed fire or walked on their hands while their assistants held out their hats to passersby in hopes of reward.

The noise jangled in Theo’s ears: not just the traffic but the bells of the yellow streetcars rattling under their contact lines, the barrel organs churning out popular songs, people shouting to make themselves heard. He was entranced, but the sensory overload gave Elena a headache, and she soon asked him to take her back to the hotel to rest.

Left to his own devices for the afternoon, Theo went to the concierge desk and obtained directions to Antonio’s barracks from a round-faced, thick-lipped official in resplendent uniform who bore an unfortunate but remarkable resemblance to the pictures of Al Capone that used to regularly appear in Theo’s father’s newspaper at the time of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, and which had given him such terrible nightmares when he was a boy. Up close, Theo saw that the man even had a name tag above his breast pocket, giving his name as Alfonso, and he had to turn away and hold his breath hard for a moment to stop himself from laughing.

But the concierge was too polite to notice, or perhaps was just used to such reactions from American tourists, and he couldn’t have been more helpful as he took out a map of the city and showed Theo how to get to the Tarragona Street barracks. At the end, Theo felt so grateful that he made the mistake of putting his hand out to thank Alfonso, only remembering when it was too late that that might not be the right etiquette for how guests were supposed to deal with employees at the Colón. However, the concierge was only too happy to shake Theo’s hand and even came out from behind his desk to escort him through the revolving door of the hotel, rendering him a formal bow before he retreated back inside. Out in the plaza in the sunshine, Theo felt suddenly buoyed, having made his first friend in Barcelona.

He still managed to get lost on the way, but it didn’t seem to matter, and eventually he found himself standing outside a stone gateway manned by a sentry, who stepped out in front of him and told him “No visitors!” in a commanding voice when Theo tried to walk through into the big empty courtyard beyond. At the back Theo could see the long gray wall of a building with square windows set in symmetrical rows, surmounted by a clock tower. But there was no sign of life. The place looked to him more like a prison than a barracks.

Theo told the sentry Antonio’s name, said he was a friend who was just in town for a few days, and asked when it would be a good time to come back, but he soon realized he was wasting his time. “No visitors!” the sentry repeated in exactly the same peremptory tone of voice, as if these were the only words in his vocabulary, until Theo turned away disconsolately with his earlier sense of euphoria punctured like air escaping from a child’s balloon.

He started to walk back down the road the way he’d come, but he stopped halfway, watching as a troop of khaki-clad soldiers appeared around the corner, led by an officer on horseback with a thin mustache and a swagger stick. He reminded Theo of Barker, even though he didn’t in the least look like him. The ramrod-straight back, the sneering expression, the polished boots and buttons, took Theo back to the parade ground at Saint Gregory’s and Barker shouting ridiculous commands at him and the other terrorized cadets.

The soldiers marched four abreast and Theo checked their faces as they went past, each a blank until the last row, when he caught sight of Antonio on the far side. He was gone in a moment, wheeling toward the barracks gate, but as Theo watched from behind, Antonio held out the fingers of one of his swinging hands.

Theo felt sure it was a signal of some kind. Five minutes, perhaps. And he went back and waited close to the gate, but out of view of the sentry.

Five minutes passed and then fifteen more and Theo started to wilt in the heat. He closed his eyes, wishing he’d brought water, and felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Hello, old friend,” said Antonio. He hugged Theo briefly and then leaned back against the barracks wall and lit a cigarette. He looked weary, Theo thought. And not the kind of weary Theo was feeling, but a fatigue that went to the core, sucking away hope.

“You look rotten,” Theo said. “Is soldiering that bad?”

“Worse than bad. And don’t say ‘I told you so’ or I’ll shoot you with my rifle, if I can get it to fire,” said Antonio with a wan smile that was at least familiar.

“All right. I won’t,” said Theo, smiling too. “What’s so terrible about it?”

“Never being alone, never getting to spend time with anyone I like, never seeing trees or grass or girls. Bad food, stupid orders that make no sense and aren’t intended to ... Do you want me to go on?”

“You make it sound like my old school.”

“Except that you learned to like your school, didn’t you?” said Antonio bitterly. “I’m never going to like the army.”

“I’m sorry,” said Theo. He didn’t know what else to say, because part of him did think that Antonio had only himself to blame. He’d always acted like he had no choice about his career because he had to obey his father, but maybe he should have tried showing some backbone, like Maria. Anyone could see that he wasn’t cut out to be a soldier.

Antonio looked at Theo and suddenly grinned with that look of wry amusement Theo knew so well. “I know what you’re thinking and you’re right. It is my fault. I should have realized what I was letting myself in for. My father was a Fascist before Mussolini came up with the idea, and he loves the army because it’s run by Fascists like that captain you saw up on his horse. Darnell’s his name and he calls me Rat and makes my life hell because he says he can smell me.”

“Smell you?”

“Smell a rat, smell that I’m not one of them. And that’s true, of course. I’m not. I’m no Anarchist, but I believe that the poor have rights, and that’s enough to make me a Red in their book. And there’s nothing worse than a Red in the army. Not even a Jew!” Antonio laughed harshly.

“How does he know what you are?” asked Theo. “He can’t smell you. That’s ridiculous.”

“Probably heard me talking to one of the other recruits,” said Antonio. “Or got to hear about my sister and Primitivo and made the connection. News like that travels fast. It’s been in all the papers.”

“Is she here?” asked Theo, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice.

“Maybe. I’ve looked. It would’ve been the logical place for them to go. There are more Anarchists here than in Andalusia, but if she’s here, I don’t think she wants me to find her. She probably thinks I’d tell our father. Which is a joke, of course, although she’s not to know that. I’d like to run away, too, but unlike her, I’ve got nowhere to hide.” Antonio laughed. A hollow, humorless laugh that was like a window opening on his despair. It frightened Theo and grieved him, too, because he felt powerless to help his friend.

“Have you heard anything?” Antonio asked.

Theo shook his head. He didn’t want to lie, but he thought that revealing his conversation with Maria in the lane would make it seem like he’d been a part of what had happened with Pedrito, and he didn’t want Antonio to think of him as involved.

“I have to go back,” said Antonio, grinding his cigarette out under his foot—Theo noticed that he had smoked it right down to the butt so that it had almost burned his fingers. “Are you here next weekend?”

Theo nodded.