Blood in the Valencian Soil (Secrets of Spain) (15 page)

“Do I get one?” Luna asked.

“Only if you’re a good girl. Which I doubt.” He smirked at the face that Luna pulled at him, and the boys both giggled. “Why don’t you all take a look around, and I will go and see if Father Murillo has any news for us? I spoke to him on the phone yesterday, and he seemed confident he might be able to help us with baptism records.”

As Cayetano left them, Luna took the boys to wan
der the spaces of the cathedral. They walked and took in the stained glass windows, and the only sounds Luna could hear were her high heels shoes on the stone floor, and the excited whispers of the ghost-hunters next to her. Luna always freely confessed to being a fanatical lover of history. She had lost track of how many cathedrals she had seen in Spain, but had lost her faith in God when Fabrizio died.

Cayetano seemed to
take a long time, so Luna took the boys in search of their new friend. The place was empty, but he was nowhere to be found. She sat the boys down on a wooden bench seat and took few steps around the confessional towards the altar. There he was. He sat a few rows from the front, his hands clasped in front of him and leaned on the seat in front. She glanced at the golden altar, complete with the obligatory Jesus on the cross in the centre. From the huge vaulted ceiling above them down to the ground was an architectural marvel. Huge stone pillars encased the altar in the centre, which allowed worshipers to sit in a pocket of privacy as the tourists trailed around the outer edges of the masterpiece. She could see that Cayetano had rosary beads between his fingers. He had unrolled his sleeves but hadn’t done up the buttons, and the sleeves hung on his taut arms. He hadn’t done up the three buttons of his shirt either, and just a faintest hint of chest hair peeked out. Bloody hell, Luna. You are lusting after a man while he prays. That had to be a new low. Look at him, with his curl on his forehead, his eyes closed in concentration while he mouthed something to himself. It certainly wasn’t something she imagined from him.

Luna took a deep breath and tried to purge the image from her mind. Lusting in church. Cayetano Beltrán had no idea what he did to her.
“Señora Montgomery?”

Luna spun round the see the middle-aged priest there.
“¿Sí?”

“I’m Father Murillo. Are you here to look at historic baptism records? Would you like to come through to my office to take a look at what I found for you and Cayetano?”

“I… my friend isn’t quite ready.”

The priest looked over Luna’s shoulder, to see Cayetano, and then looked back to Luna with a smile. “You are the woman with him. Now I can see what he was talking about.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing,” he
dismissed her, but his smile remained. “I just spoke with him a moment ago, that’s all. Ah, here he is.”

Lu
na turned to see Cayetano come towards the group again, while he pushed his rosary beads in his jeans pocket. “Ready?” he asked to Luna and Father Murillo.

The group headed through in
to the priest’s private office, where a large book sat open. Surely now they had something.

“I’m sorry,” Father Murillo said and sat down behind his desk. “I had a look right through 1914 and 1915, and no babies named Cayetano Ortega were baptised here.”

“Are you sure?” Cayetano asked, and looked at Luna and the boys.

“There were a few
Cayetano’s baptised, but none fit what you called and asked me to look for.”

Luna sighed. “Maybe he was baptised at another church…”

“Not many churches have records. They were destroyed during the war. Could I suggest hospital records for births?”

“No, already tried that. Nothing.”

“Makes sense, many babies weren’t born in the hospital during the time period. People lived in a very different world back then.”

“So what do you have here?” Cayetano asked.

“You asked me to look up the baptism of Luna Beltrán Caño? I have found her.”

“Wow,” Cayetano said and looked at Luna.
“I just wondered about my family… I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. I think it’s amazing that our families lived here together.”

The priest ran his finger down the page to find Luna’s name. “Luna Beltrán Caño, born January 3, 1919, and baptised here on January 29, 1919.”

Cayetano lifted himself from his seat and rounded the desk to look at the entry. Sure enough, Juan Pablo Beltrán Moreno and Isabel Caño Saenz baptised their baby in this very church. The priest also showed him the baptism of her brother, Alejandro, five years earlier. “It’s amazing,” Cayetano said. “A piece of my history sits right here. People I know nothing about, yet are part of me, were once here.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help you with Cayetano Ortega,” the priest said, and looked up at Luna. She had an encouraging smile for Cayetano, but she looked disappointed. “As you know, the first 40 years of the last century were tough times here for the cathedral. Much damage… and then the… war… so only a handful of records made by the priests of the time remain. Most were destroyed.”

“It’s al
l right,” Luna sighed. “I just thought that he might be here. At least I know he lived in the town.”

Once Cayetano had copied all the information on his family, they all trailed back out into the warm sunshine on the steps to the cathedral. “I wish you all the best with your search, L
una,” Father Murillo said. He looked at Cayetano who stood with to Giacomo and Enzo, who were having a turn each with his cane. “Cayetano tells me that you have been through much pain in the last few years.”

“Did he?”

“While you were taking your children through the halls, Cayetano spoke to me about his accident. He is lucky to be healing well.”

“I agree.”

“I reminded him that all things happen for a reason. Even though he prays before every performance in the ring, he did fall to the bull. God did allow this to happen, but he knows that his angel got sent to watch over him. And don’t worry, any concerns you have about late husband, or Cayetano’s wife should be able to be smoothed out if you want to marry in the church again.”

Luna raised her eyebrows. Okay, that came from nowhere. “Ah…
gracias, for everything.”

The priest went back inside and left Luna with Cayetano
and the weary-looking children. “So,” Cayetano said full of enthusiasm, “what does the rest of our day hold?”

“I might take the kids back to the
parador. They’re tired.”

“Oh,” Cayetano replied, and looked at the little redheaded darlings
next to him. She was right. “Maybe we could have dinner at the parador? They have the best Manchego cheese here, and I hear they make a dish with it and that purple garlic from Las Pedroñeras, and they mix it with loads of saffron, and…”

“I would like a break. Let’s just walk back to the
parador, please.”

“Is everything al
l right?”

“Did you talk to the priest about my marriage?”

“Only in passing. He asked about you and me.”

“How
was our relationship status a factor? Whether I can remarry in the Catholic church? I only met you a month ago. What did you ask, ‘the first husband is dead, so what are my chances?’”

“No!” Cayetano cried. They were walking through a tunnel, an archway cut through the stone of a building that led them down to the path back to the bridge across the gorge. His deep voice echoed when he tried to defend himself.

“Father Murillo caught me off guard with that. He spoke as if I needed assurance that I could marry again. I don’t want to get married ever again! I have had my love. After your true love, others are just people to pass the time with.”

“Thank you
very much! So, what, you are just passing time with me? You won’t get married again?”

“No.”

They stopped on the edge to the bridge, and Luna placed a hand on each of the boys’ shoulders when they leaned over to take a look into the gorge. One of the great icons of Cuenca, the Casas Colgadas, the hanging houses, sat perched out over the edge of the cliff just behind them. Cayetano knew there would be no more sightseeing today. “You know what? I have had a really crappy year,” he said. “All my life things have gone my way, and then just after the new year I found that my wife cheated on me. All I had tried to build with her was gone. Then, my parents, who I love, and my sister, who is my best friend, had a huge fight. I’ve been stuck into the middle for months, and it’s miserable. Then, I get gored at a premiere event, which hurt my entire reputation! But I have always been told that things happen for a reason.”

“So, you are deeply religious all of a sudden?”

“No, I’m not. I pray to La Macarena, the patron saint of toreros before a fight. It’s a tradition. Beyond that, I’m not a strict Catholic, or I would burn in hell. But after so much trouble, I thought ‘what-if?’ What if fate threw you into my path right when I needed you?”

“We just met!”

“I know, and Father Murillo just jumped to conclusions.”

“Or you gave him the wrong idea.”

“So, what are we doing there then?” Cayetano asked. “You know I’m interested in you. If you aren’t interested in me, are you using me to get what you need?”

“That is a really shitty thing to say,” she fired back.

“I suddenly have a really shitty feeling about all of this!”

“I don’t believe God has a grand plan, Cayetano. People cheat, they get hurt, and they get killed. There is no reason why. You just have to accept that sometimes life doesn’t go well. God can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. If you think that I would use you
for a few fucking pieces of paper from the Registro Civil, maybe I should just go home to Valencia and accept Darren’s proposal.”

“What? Are you marrying
Darren? You just said you wouldn’t marry again.”

“Who is getting married?” Enzo asked.

“No one, sweetheart. Let’s go back to the hotel, shall we? Say goodbye to Cayetano.”

“Goodbye, Cayetano,” they both said. “I hope you get better soon. I hope that the angel leaves you alone,” Giacomo added.

“That’s exactly what she is doing,” he said. “Hasta luego, chicos.”

Cayetano stood on the spot and watched Luna take the boys over the bridge towards the
parador. She was right; he had asked the priest about marrying again. Clearly that was a fatal mistake.

13

Cuenca, España ~ marzo de 1939

It started to rain as Cayetano, Luna and Scarlett scrambled up the sets of stairs of the Barrio San Martín in the dark. Luna could see why Scarlett wore those heavy boots; Scarlett was able to move much quicker than her. Her mind was in a panic – to be caught in bed with a man was humiliating, but her sister-in-law and her precious child were in peril. Scarlett had Sofía’s blood splattered on her; it was a sign. A fatal mistake must have been made.

Scarlett was stone-cold silent. She knew her way through the narrow streets in the dark, and was afraid of nothing when she moved in the night. Other women were tucked away in the safety of their homes when Scarlett was out on her own. She walked a few steps ahead of Cayetano and Luna, and couldn’t bring herself to look at either of them. She wasn’t surprised; he never shut up about Luna Beltrán.
So when, on a lonely night while out on the road just prior to Christmas, when he came to her tent to spend the night, Scarlett had been very surprised. She wasn’t going to deny him; no one could deny Cayetano Ortega anything. The man left a trail of broken hearts that could light up the entire road from Madrid to Valencia and back again. He was everything her broken heart longed for – affection and company. Her own husband was killed in the Battle of the Ebro only six months ago. Scarlett had gone to work in a new field hospital, set up in a natural cave at La Bisbal de Falset, under the instruction of a top doctor from Nueva Zelanda. Ulrich was positioned at the front not far away, and she had worried for him. When all in the International Brigade were called to leave España in the October of 1938, Scarlett thought it was her chance to leave with her husband while they still could. But it was too late for Ulrich, who was killed at Ebro before the Brigade retreated. Scarlett buried his body by herself by the Ebro river outside the town of Mequinenza. Only a few people knew she had even married Ulrich, a German man who had come to España in search of adventure. So when Cayetano, who knew about what happened to Ulrich, wanted to be with her that cold night near the town of Requena, her loneliness gave in to what he wanted. Now that night was going to haunt her forever. She wouldn’t be able to hide the evidence much longer.

“What can we do to help Sofía?” Cayetano asked Scarlett while he climbed the stairs behind her.

“We need witnesses.”

“This is all women’s business.”

Scarlett glanced over her shoulder at him and Luna. “You have no idea what goes on, do you, Caya?”

“Where is Alejandro?” Luna asked.

“I left him at the back entrance to the hospital with a packet of cigarettes.”

“Shouldn’t he be with Sofía?”

Scarlett stopped and turned around. In the faint light that came from the window of the building that they stood against, they could see that Scarlett’s flaming-red hair had started to go frizzy in the rain. “Okay, I don’t know what España you have been living in, princesa, but let me fill you in with some facts. When a young woman comes in to give birth, if she is deemed ‘unsuitable’ by the nuns who work there, they will take the baby and tell the mother that her child died. The priest then sells the baby to a family that’s deemed ‘suitable’.”

“Should have shot the rest of the nuns,” Cayetano muttered.

Luna looked at Cayetano and then back to Scarlett. “Who decides who is suitable? That baby belongs to Sofía!”

“I know, and that is why I am trying to help,” Scarlett said. She turned and started up the wet path again, and her companions followed. “Sofía is my best friend, and that is the only reason I was even allowed in to see her while she is giving birth. Alejandro is banned from being in the hospital completely.”

“Did you know about this?” Luna asked Cayetano.

“I have heard about this going on in different places, but I don’t know of anyone who has had it happen to them,” he said.

“That you know of,” Scarlett said.

“Why would they say Sofía is uns
uitable to be a mother?” Luna asked. “They know her, she works there.”

“Exactly, they know her. They know she was pregnant to
Alejandro before they married. She’s only 20, young and stupid.”

“She married Alejandro!”

“Yes, she married Alejandro. A man with a reputation and an anarchist soldier, and the son of Juan Pablo Beltrán, a well-known Republicano activist. The baby could be given to a family that supports Franco. Probably sent off to Zaragoza and then sold on.”

“They wouldn’t do this,” Luna pleaded. “The priest…”

“The priest who has been lucky not to have been shot?” Scarlett bit back. “Oh yes, he’s into this. The Republicans denounced Catholicism. Franco sides with them and the church will get all their power back – and soon. We are about to be on the losing side of the war. Our army is dead after what happened in Ebro, and we can’t fight. The church will do anything it has to in order to appease the man who will be our dictator soon. Franco would love ‘undesirable’ babies to be sold off and given ‘better’ lives with his own sympathisers, in ‘good’ Catholic families.”

“How long has this been going on?”

“I don’t know, but I bet once the war ends, this will keep happening.”

“And you are sure this is what is going to happen with Sofía?” Cayetano asked.

“I don’t know. It could be fine, but the question is, am I willing to sit back and hope for the best? I have to help. They let me in because I used to work there. Soon after the labour began, she started bleeding. There is so much blood.”

“Will they do a caesarean?”
Luna asked. “That would terrify Sofía.”

“I fear they might,” Scarlett said as the group rounded the final corner. The hospital was now in sight. “Something is wrong. I think the placenta has burst. Sofía and the baby are in real danger. If they want to take that baby, they will easily sacrifice her in order to get it.”

“So why is Alejandro out the back of the hospital?” Cayetano asked. “His wife could be dying!”

“In case they take the baby and slip out the back. They have many times before.” They were outside the front of the hospital now, a stark stone building that was in darkness. “Cayetano, you should go around the back and wait there with Alejandro. Tell him that we’re with Sofía and we will take care of her and the baby.”

Cayetano nodded. “But will she be all right?”

“I hope so. I will do all I can for them.”

“We can trust you, Scarlett.” He placed one hand on her shoulder. “You’re extraordinario.”

Scarlett just scoffed. “Go. I will take Luna in to see Sofía.”

Luna watched Cayetano disappear down a dark alley, and turned back to Scarlett. “Are you sure they will let us in?”

“They aren’t letting us in,” Scarlett said, and beckoned her to follow her up the front stairs. “We are sneaking in.”

“But we can’t!”

“Do you want your brother to be a widower by morning?”

“Of course not!”

“Then we are sneaking in,” Scarlett whispered as the women went in the front entrance. She had jammed the lock when she had left earlier to
ensure they could get in later. Normally the hospital got locked at night. “Unless this is all too dangerous for a princesa like you.”

“Stop calling me princesa.”

“With the Medina ring on your hand, you practically are a princess.” Scarlett glanced at Luna. “He didn’t tell you where the ring came from, did he?”

Luna glanced at the ring on her finger. “Where did it come from?”

“That is a long story, best left for Cayetano to tell you. The payment from Sergio Medina tells a lot about Cayetano’s status in life.”

“What you do mean? Cayetano is no one. He is like us.”

“Cayetano isn’t like us, Luna, trust me. We are all very different people. You are the privileged daughter of a once-wealthy businessman, and your brother is the stereotypical rebel to his father’s empire. Sofía is a whore who thinks she fools everyone by playing the sweet young wife…”

“And you are the foreigner with eyes as cold as her heart.”

“Do have any idea what I would give in order to be who I was when I came to España? To think I could help, or make a difference in this war? I crossed the entire world on a ship to come and try to save your country. I would love to change all that has happened and to have never seen what I have. Do you know what it’s like to see men blown apart by air-raids? To see bodies that have had their eyes gouged out by Falange members, for no reason? To see bodies of pregnant women with smashed skulls and the unborn babies sliced from the womb? To see young girls gang raped? To see the man you love gunned down?”

Luna had no answer to that. “I’m sorry, Scarlett. I suppose that’s why Cayetano said that you’re leaving España.”

“I have my reasons. I’m not surprised that Cayetano didn’t tell you the details. I take it that he asked you to marry him?”

“He did, yes.”

“Well, I won’t ruin that for you,” she said coldly. “I hope he didn’t suggest you had to sleep with him because he asked…”

“No! It was my idea.”

“Yours?”

“Yes, mine. Who knows what the future holds. I’m no fool, Scarlett. I took my chance while I had it.”

“I assume that was the first time for you.”

“So?”

“Are you all right? Cayetano… sometimes he can be rough with women. If you need anything, you don’t have to see a doctor. I can help you.”

“I’m fine.” Rough? Need a doctor? He wasn’t cold and cruel like those
fascist soldiers who had raped their way through towns. She wondered briefly if Scarlett had escaped that fate. Women were the spoils of victory, and the rapists had claimed most of the nation. “How do you know what kind of lover he is?”

“You aren’t his first, Luna.”

“I know that.”

“We are on the road together a lot, and we stop in towns. He meets women a lot. Sometimes, h
e has them in his tent when we’re camped, and I hear what happens. Other times it’s a quick one out the back of a bar with some girl who works there and her father isn’t watching. It’s not information that I wish to possess.”

Luna glanced at the ring again. She was a woman who thought it best not to pry into what a man did in his own time. Never mind, he loved her. “We aren’t innocents.”

“You certainly aren’t, Señorita Beltrán. I never thought you would be one of those women. You could pray for forgiveness to your priest, if he isn’t busy stealing your brother’s child.” The conversation halted when they heard the sound of voices. Sofía was screaming. “She’s alive. We are going to storm in and assess the situation. If it’s under control and we think we can trust them, we will step out, unless Sofía wants us to stay. If it looks bad, you will be with Sofía, and I will see to the baby. Are we clear?”

Luna nodded. “How many people are in there? This is a hospital room, not a war zone.”

“You may re-think that when we go inside. Right… go!” Scarlett pushed the door and open, and the women ran into the small room. Scarlett was right; it was a war zone. Sofía was on her back on the bed in the centre of the room, covered in her own blood. The bed was soaked. It was all over the floor. The sound of Sofía’s screaming overwhelmed her senses.

“Scarlett!” the nurse exclaimed. “What are you doing back here?”

“I went to fetch Sofía’s sister-in-law… to comfort her,” Scarlett said, and they both approached the bedside. Sofía was extreme weak and pale. Luna rushed to her and took her hand, which was bloody. “That is not a problem, is it?” Scarlett asked the nurse.

The woman looked at the nun assisting her, Sister Rosa. Scarlett had run into her many times when she worked at the hospital. She was a sour-faced old woman. “Nurse Blanca has Sofía in good care,” the old nun muttered.

“She has no such thing,” Scarlett replied. She had delivered babies before. She knew the difference between a birth and a disaster. “Her placenta has burst, hasn’t it?”

“
We think so, and the baby is breech.”

Scarlett stepped forward to see nothing more than a foot poking from its mother’s bloodied body. “We must get this baby out! It will stop breathing!”

“We have called for the doctor. He will be here in the morning.”

“The morning?” Luna cried. “It’s not even close to midnight!”

“The doctors aren’t here tonight.”

Scarlett stood for
a moment in the blood, to assess the situation. Sofía moaned, a deep, primal groan that only came from a woman when she gave birth. She had lost a lot of blood. There was no way that the baby would slip out. “We need to take care of this ourselves. We need to get the forceps, and she needs blood. Lots of it.”

“We can’t do that!” Nurse Blanca interrupted. “Certainly not. Let nature take its course.”

Scarlett watched the two women share a look. They had no interest whatsoever in helping Sofía. A young mother, another faceless girl in a sea of women who were not going to get the care they deserved. It only took her a second to reach under her shirt and into the back of her trousers where she kept her gun.

Luna glanced up from Sofía when she saw Scarlett make a sharp movement, and her eyes bulged in panic. “Scarlett!” she cried. “What are you doing?”