A Long Petal of the Sea Page 6
The exodus from Barcelona was a Dantesque spectacle of thousands of people shivering with cold in a stampede that soon slowed to a straggling procession traveling at the speed of the amputees, the wounded, the old folks, and the children. Those hospital patients able to walk joined the exodus; others were taken by train as far as possible; the rest were left to face the Moors’ knives and bayonets.
They left the city behind and found themselves in open country. Peasants deserted their villages, some with their animals or wagons loaded down with baggage, and mingled with the slowly moving mass. Anyone with valuables bartered them for a place in the few vehicles on the road: money was worthless now. Mules and horses struggled under the weight of carts, and many of them fell gasping for breath. When they did so, men attached themselves to the harnesses and pulled, while the women pushed from behind. The route became strewn with objects that could no longer be carried, from crockery to pieces of furniture; the dead and wounded also lay where they fell; nobody stopped to attend to them. Any capacity for compassion had gone: everyone looked after only themselves and their loved ones. Warplanes swooped low overhead, spreading death and leaving in their wake a spattering of blood that mingled with the mud and ice. Many of the victims were children. Food was in short supply: the most farsighted had brought enough provisions to last a day or two; the rest went hungry, unless some farmer was willing to make an exchange for food. Aitor cursed himself for having left the hens behind.
Hundreds of thousands of terrified refugees were escaping to France, where a campaign of fear and hatred awaited them. Nobody wanted these foreigners—Reds, filthy fugitives, deserters, delinquents, as the French press labeled them. Repugnant beings who were going to spread epidemics, commit robberies and rape, and stir up a communist revolution. For three years there had been a trickle of Spaniards escaping the war: there was little sympathy for them, but they were dispersed throughout France and were almost invisible. After the Republican defeat, the authorities knew that the flow would increase; they were expecting an unknown number of refugees, possibly ten or fifteen thousand, a figure that already alarmed the French Right. No one imagined that within a few days there would be almost half a million Spaniards, in the last stages of confusion, terror, and misery, clamoring at the border. France’s first reaction was to close the ports of entry while the authorities reached an agreement as to how to deal with the problem.
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NIGHT CAME EARLY, BRINGING with it enough rain to soak their clothes and turn the ground into a quagmire. Then the temperature fell several degrees below freezing and a biting wind rose, chilling them to the bone. The lines of refugees came to a halt: there was no way they could continue in the darkness. They huddled together on the ground wherever they could, covered in wet blankets, the women hugging their children, the men trying to protect their families, the old people praying. Aitor Ibarra settled the two women in the sidecar, telling them to wait for him. Pulling a cable from the motorbike engine so that nobody could steal it, he stepped off the road a little way to relieve himself: he had been suffering from diarrhea for months, like almost all those who had been at the front. In a crack in the rocks his flashlight picked out a motionless mule, perhaps with broken legs or simply overcome with exhaustion. It was still alive. Aitor took out his pistol and shot it in the head. This single gunshot, different from the enemy strafing, attracted several onlookers. Aitor was trained to receive orders, not to give them, but at that moment an unexpected gift of command surfaced in him: he organized the men to butcher the animal, and the women to roast the meat in small fires that would not attract the attention of the warplanes. His idea quickly spread through the crowd, and soon single shots could be heard in different spots. Aitor took two pieces of this tough meat back to Carme and Roser, together with mugs of water heated on one of the campfires. “Imagine it’s a carajillo, all that’s missing is the coffee,” he told them, pouring a slug of brandy into each mug. He kept some of the meat, confident it would not go bad in the cold, and half a loaf of bread that he had bartered for with a pair of goggles that once belonged to a crashed Italian pilot. He thought those goggles must have passed from hand to hand twenty times before reaching him, and would continue going round the world until they fell apart.
Carme refused to eat the meat; she said she would break her teeth chewing on a leather sole like that, and gave her portion to Roser. She was already beginning to think she could take advantage of the darkness to slip away and vanish. The cold was making it hard for her to breathe; each time she drew breath she started coughing, her chest hurt and she felt she was suffocating.
“I wish I could catch pneumonia and that would be an end to it,” she muttered.
“Don’t say that, Doña Carme, think of your children,” answered Roser, who had overheard her.
If she didn’t die of pneumonia, to die frozen was a good option, Carme told herself; she had read that this was how old people at the North Pole committed suicide. She would have liked to get to know the grandson or granddaughter that was soon to be born, but this wish faded in her mind like a dream. All that mattered was for Roser to reach France safe and sound, for her to give birth there and be reunited with Guillem and Victor. Carme didn’t want to be a burden on the young people; at her age, she was an obstacle; without her they would go farther and more rapidly. Roser must have guessed her intentions, because she watched over Carme until she herself was overcome by tiredness and fell asleep curled up. She didn’t notice when Carme slipped away from her as stealthily as a cat.
Aitor was the first to discover her absence. It was still dark, and without waking Roser he set off to look for Carme in the midst of this mass of suffering humanity. He shone the flashlight on the ground to make sure he wasn’t treading on anyone; he calculated that Carme would have found it difficult to go far. Daylight found him wandering among the confusion of people and bundles, calling out to her along with others also shouting their relatives’ names. A girl who must have been about four years old, hoarse from so much crying, soaking wet and blue with cold, clung to one of his legs. Regretting he didn’t have anything to cover her with, he wiped her nose and lifted her onto his shoulders to see if anybody could identify her, but no one was interested in anybody else’s fate. “What’s your name, pretty one?”
“Nuria,” the little girl murmured, and he entertained her by singing the militiamen’s popular verses everyone knew by heart and that he had on the tip of his tongue for months. “Sing with me, Nuria, because singing helps you forget your sorrows,” he said, but she went on crying.
He walked with her on his shoulders for a good while, pushing his way through the crowd and calling out Carme’s name as he went. Finally he came across a truck pulled up by the roadside, where a couple of nurses were distributing milk and bread to a gaggle of children. He explained that Nuria was looking for her family, and they told him to leave her with them; the children in the truck were lost as well. An hour later, still not having found Carme, Aitor went back to where he had left Roser. When he arrived, he noticed that Carme had left without taking the Castilian blanket.
With the new day, the desperate mass began to spread out slowly like a huge stain. The rumor that the border had been closed and that more and more people were crowding at the crossings went from mouth to mouth, only increasing the panic. No one had eaten for hours, and the children, old folks, and wounded were growing weaker and weaker. Hundreds of vehicles, from carts to trucks, had been abandoned by the roadside, either because the draft animals couldn’t go on or for lack of fuel. Aitor decided to get off the main road, where the endless lines made it impossible to advance, and to risk heading into the mountains in search of a less well-guarded pass.
At first, Roser refused to leave without Carme, but he convinced her that Carme would be bound to reach the frontier with the rest of the column, and they could meet up again in France. They spent some time arguing, until Ai
tor lost patience and threatened to continue on his own and leave Roser stranded. Roser, who didn’t know him, thought he meant it.
As a boy, Aitor used to hike in the Pyrenees with his father; what he wouldn’t give to have the old man with him now, he thought. He wasn’t the only one with the idea: other groups were heading cross-country into the mountains. If the journey was going to be hard on Roser, with her heavy belly, swollen legs, and sciatica, it would be far worse for the families with children and grandparents, or soldiers with amputated limbs and bloody bandages. The motorcycle would only be useful as long as there was a track, and he doubted whether in her state Roser would be able to continue on foot.
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AS AITOR HAD CALCULATED, the motorcycle took them as far as the mountains, where it began coughing and pouring out smoke until it eventually stalled. From there they would have to travel on foot. Aitor gave a farewell kiss to the machine, which he considered more faithful than a devoted wife, before hiding it in some bushes, promising it he would return. Roser helped him organize and distribute their things, which they strapped on their backs. They had to leave most of their possessions behind and carry only the essentials: warm clothing, a spare pair of shoes, the small amount of food they had, and the French money that Victor, always thinking ahead, had given Aitor. Roser donned the Castilian blanket and two pairs of gloves, because she had to look after her hands if she was ever to play the piano again.
They began the climb. Roser was walking slowly but determinedly, and didn’t stop. Aitor pushed or pulled her up the steep parts, joking and singing all the way to encourage her, as if they were going on a picnic. The few other refugees who had chosen this route and had reached the same heights overtook them with a brief greeting.
Soon they were all alone. The narrow, icy goats’ track they had been following petered out. Their feet sank into the snow, and they had to avoid rocks and fallen tree trunks on the edge of the precipice. One false step and they would crash to the ground a hundred yards below. Aitor’s boots, which like the goggles had once belonged to an enemy officer fallen in battle, were worn out, but they protected his feet better than Roser’s thin city shoes. After a while, neither of them could feel their feet anymore. The enormous, snow-topped mountain loomed high above them, silhouetted against a purple sky. Aitor was afraid he had gotten lost, and realized that at best it would take them several days to reach France; if they couldn’t join a group, they would never succeed. He silently cursed his decision to leave the main road, but reassured Roser, promising her he knew the terrain like the back of his hand.
As night was falling they saw a dim glow in the distance, and with one last, desperate effort drew near to a tiny camp. From a distance they could make out human figures, and Aitor decided to run the risk of them being Nationalists, because the alternative was to spend the night buried in the snow. Leaving Roser behind, he crept closer, until by the light of a small campfire he could see four thin, bearded men dressed in rags. One of them had a bandaged head. They had no horses, uniforms, boots, or tents: they were a disheveled group that didn’t look like enemy soldiers, but could well be bandits. As a precaution, Aitor cocked the pistol he carried hidden beneath his overcoat, a German Luger he had acquired some months earlier in one of his miraculous exchanges. He approached them, arms raised in a conciliatory gesture. One of the men advanced, pointing his rifle, with another two close behind covering his back with shotguns. All three were as wary and suspicious as he was.
They came to a halt, sizing one another up. On a hunch, Aitor called out in Catalan and Basque: bona nit! kaixo! gabon! After a pause that to him seemed an eternity, the one who appeared to be their leader welcomed him with a brief ongi etorri burkide! Aitor realized they were fellow comrades, no doubt deserters. His knees buckled with relief. The men surrounded him, but seeing he was no threat, were soon patting him on the back in a friendly manner. “I’m Eki and these are Izan and his brother Julen,” the man with the rifle said. Aitor introduced himself in his turn and explained he had a pregnant woman with him, and so they all set off to get her. Two of the men almost carried her to the miserable camp that seemed the height of luxury to the new arrivals, because there was a canvas shelter, warmth, and food.
From then on they passed the time exchanging bad news and sharing cans of beans heated in the fire, as well as the small amount of liquor left in Aitor’s canteen. He also offered them the remaining meat from the mule and the hunk of bread he was carrying in his rucksack. “Keep your provisions, you’ll need them more than we do,” Eki declared. He added that the next day they were expecting a local guide who was bringing them food. Aitor insisted on repaying their generous hospitality by giving them his tobacco. For the past two years only the rich and political leaders had smoked cigarettes bought on the black market; everyone else had to make do with a mixture of dried grass and licorice that was consumed in a single puff. Aitor’s bag of English tobacco was received with religious solemnity. The men rolled cigarettes and smoked in silent ecstasy. They served Roser a portion of beans, then installed her in the improvised tent, settling her down with a hot water bottle for her frozen feet. While she was resting, Aitor told their hosts about the fall of Barcelona, the Republic’s imminent final defeat, and the chaos of the Retreat.
The four men received the news without reacting—they had been expecting it. Nearly two years earlier, they had escaped alive from Guernica when it was bombed by the much-feared Condor Legion planes that razed the historic Basque town and sowed death and destruction in their wake. Afterward, they had survived the fires started by incendiary bombs dropped in the nearby forests, where they had sought refuge, and went on to fight in the Euzkadi Army Corps until the final day of the battle for Bilbao. Before the city fell into enemy hands, the Basque high command organized the evacuation of the civilian population to France, while the soldiers continued fighting, dispersed among different battalions. A year after the defeat at Bilbao, Izan and Julen learned that their father and younger brother, prisoners in Nationalist jails, had been shot by firing squad. The two of them were the only ones left of a large family. It was then they decided to desert as soon as they got the chance: democracy, the Republic, and the war no longer meant anything; they no longer knew what they were fighting for. After that they wandered through forests and over steep mountainsides, staying in the same place for no more than a few days at a time, and tacitly following Eki, who knew the region well. In the previous few weeks, as the inevitable end of the war was approaching, they had come upon the other wounded man on the run. They weren’t safe anywhere. In France they wouldn’t be treated with the respect due to a vanquished army or retreating combatants, not even as refugees. They would be regarded as deserters, arrested, and deported back to Spain, into Franco’s clutches.
With nowhere to go, Republican deserters wandered about in small bands. Some hid in caves or the most inaccessible areas, hoping to lie low until the situation returned to normal; others were suicidal, determined to carry on fighting guerrilla warfare against the might of the conquering army. However, such was not the case of the brothers on the mountain. They were disillusioned with everything, as was Eki, who was only interested in surviving in order to one day return to his wife and children. The man with the bandaged head, who looked very young and took no part in the conversation, turned out to be from Asturias. His wound had left him deaf and confused. Jokingly, the others explained to Aitor that they couldn’t get rid of him as they would have wished, because he was such a good shot: he could hit a hare with his eyes closed, didn’t waste a single bullet, and it was thanks to him that they could occasionally eat meat. In fact, they had with them some rabbits they were planning to exchange for other provisions with the mountain guide when he arrived the next day. Aitor couldn’t help but notice the clumsy tenderness they showed the Asturian youth, as if he were a backward child. The men thought Aitor and Roser were married, and so obliged him to s
leep in the tent with his wife; that meant two of the men would have to stay out in the cold. “We’ll take turns,” they said, and refused to allow Aitor to take one as well: what kind of hospitality would that be, they protested.
Aitor settled down next to Roser, who was curled up protecting her belly. He lay behind her, hugging her to him for warmth. His bones were aching, he was numb with cold, and he was concerned not just for the safety but for the life of the mother-to-be. He had promised Victor he would be responsible for her. During the arduous climb up the mountainside, Roser had assured him she had strength to spare, and that he shouldn’t worry about her. “I grew up in the mountains looking after goats in winter and summer, Aitor. I’m used to the cold and rain, so don’t think I tire easily.”
As they lay together, she must have sensed his fear, because she took hold of his hand and placed it on her stomach so that he could feel the baby moving. “Don’t worry, Aitor, the child is safe and happy as can be,” she said, between two yawns. At this, the cheerful, valiant Basque who had witnessed so much death and suffering, so much violence and cruelty, secretly wept, head buried in the neck of the young woman, whose smell he would never forget. He shed tears for her, because she didn’t yet know she was a widow; for Guillem, who would never get to meet his child or ever again embrace his beloved; for Carme, who had vanished without saying goodbye; and for himself, because for the first time in his life he doubted his lucky star.