Blood in the Valencian Soil (Secrets of Spain) (29 page)

“Paco has done well. I have followed his career. He did well marrying that
Morales girl.”

“Inés. I hear they’re happy. They have a daughter, Sofía.”

“I didn’t know that,” Alejandro whispered.

“Sofía likes to stay away from the family business.”

“You know much about the Beltrán family.”

“Yes… well… Cayetano and I…”

Alejandro watched the woman across the tiny table from him. “How well do you know Cayetano?”

“Pretty well.”

“Like I said, my body is old, but my mind isn’t. The boy…”

“He’s hardly a boy.”

“He is when you’re my age. I thought you were married. So is he.”

“I was. I am.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me that there is nothing going on with Cayetano Beltrán.”

“Nothing is going on,” Luna said sternly. “Anymore.”

“So, your end has as many secrets as mine. You won’t even look up at the boy in the paper here. Did he break your heart? I doubt you’re the first.”

“I’m not.” The moment she said it, Luna realised she had given herself away.

“I see. You have had a rough time.”

“So don’t chastise me for wanting to come out here. From the cavemen of the Bronze Age, to the Romans to the Muslims to the
Christians, hiding out here has been popular.”

“Are you as eager to leave you
r mark as them?”

“No. I want a bit of peace.”

“It’s not out here, Luna.” Alejandro wished he could say something to the woman to make her feel better, but he knew the same pain she was going through. “As the saying goes… we are all curious about the things that can hurt us.”

“Your nephew’s son doesn’t need to take the blame. None of it was Cayetano’s fault.”

“Paco isn’t my nephew.”

Luna finally looked up at the old man. “Luna had a baby…”

“My sister had a baby? With who? Ignacio was gay. That’s why we married her off to him, because we knew he wouldn’t touch her. It was all part of a kind of ‘insurance’ deal, somewhere to hide her if we lost the war.”

“I mean Paco. He knows that Ignacio isn’t his real father…”

“I knew that Luna would tell him the truth about that. But we can’t deny that Ignacio provided for my sister and the baby, even if he was a Nationalist. Gave my sister to a Falange member,” he muttered to himself. “Our father, what a fool. He sealed his own fate.”

“It’s the problem of Cayetano Ortega being my
abuelo, and also being Cayetano Beltrán’s abuelo…”

“Cayetano wasn’t Paco’s father.” Alejandro looked at her as if she were stupid.

“Luna Beltrán and Cayetano Ortega’s baby is Paco. Paco told us.”

“Paco is wrong. I think I need to tell you the whole truth.”

29

Valencia, España ~ marzo de 1939

Luna stopped for a moment outside a church, the Santa María del Mar. “What happened here?” It was a mess. “Was it bombed?”

“They used
the bell tower as a point of defence,” Scarlett said. “Made the church a target.”

They carried on past the damaged church that sat at the end of Avenida del Puerto where they had left the truck. A white building stood at the port, a beautiful clock on top.
It too had been bombed; rubble sat around the largely roofless building. There were people everywhere. “Is that where we’re going?” Luna asked. The baby in her arms cried out in protest; the sun was in his eyes, and he rubbed his little face against her coat in an attempt to get away from it.

“Sí, that’s where you go to get a ticket to get on a boat from the Valencia port,” Alejandro said as they walked down the crowded street. “But there are no tickets or boats to be had anymore.”

Cayetano couldn’t waste any time. He left Scarlett and Luna outside in the sun, and he and Alejandro pushed their way through the busy crowd and into a room in the damaged building, all seemingly patched up after its destruction. They found the man at a desk, a cigarette in his hand. He looked exhausted.

“Back so soon,” he said to the pair, who loo
ked as desperate as the tired man. “You know there are no ships coming into Valencia port. I told you that on your last trip. Whoever you have in your truck, you need to send them to Gandia.”

“Is anything getting out of the port in Gandia? Jávea? Alicante?” Cayetano asked.

“No, not that I know of.”

“It’s different this time,” Cayetano said and pulled a chair out from under the filthy table. “This time we need to get ourselves out.”

“You?” Antonio looked at Cayetano’s face across from him. He watched Alejandro sit next to his friend, the man was dirty and worn out. Normally these two good-time guys looked their best. “Why?”

“We don’t want
to live in a country ruled by Franco and his ultra-conservative religious pigs.”

“We need to get used to it. Madrid yesterday, Valencia tomorrow. They have won this war.”

“Doesn’t mean we have to like it,” Alejandro snapped.

“Yes it does, or you will get a bullet. I’m surprised that you two men aren’t dead already. Everyone knows which side you’re on. It’s a miracle that you weren’t marched from your home in the night, shot and dumped in a ditch.”

“We weren’t home often enough,” Cayetano quipped.

“How many poor families from Madrid did you transport to Valencia? Around 100? More?”

“Don’t know,” Cayetano shrugged. “We want on the Stanland. We know it’s the Británico ship ready to leave Valencia.”

“It’s carrying aid, it’s not taking passengers.”

“Surely there’s room for four of us.”

“And why should I get you on there and not many of the others who would like to leave the country? Franco
might open the ports to ships again, I don’t know. Maybe you can wait…”

Alej
andro looked at his friend for a moment and turned back to Antonio. “What about just two people? My sister Luna has a child, and Scarlett, you remember her…”

“The redhead with the icy eyes. We all remember her.”

“She’s pregnant. Surely we could slip the pair of them onto the ship. Scarlett is Inglés, she wouldn’t stick out on the ship. And Luna, bless her, she is still young…”

“What about your wife, Sofía?” Antonio asked with a frown.

“She passed away,” Cayetano answered for his friend. “It’s very sad, but now we can only think of the other women in our lives.”

“Luna is the one you like
d, ¿no?” Antonio asked. “Is the baby yours?”

“No, Scarlett’s baby is mine.”

Antonio rolled his eyes. “Anyone else and I would be surprised, but not you, Ortega.”

“Can you help us, or not?” Alejandro asked. “And if you want money, I’ll pay.”

“Why do you think I can convince a ship captain to help you?” Antonio asked.

“We don’t, we know you can
sneak us on that ship. Hide somewhere on board if we have to.”

“The four of you? I doubt it.” He took a long drag on his cigarette. “I might know someone who is working
on the ship. Maybe we can get the girls on… but no guarantees.”

The air was fresh back outside the office, but the streets were filled with worry. People hurried everywhere, and Cayetano was at a loss. If he told Luna and Scarlett that they were going alone, he wasn’t sure what their reaction was going to be. Scarlett needed to go home; he wouldn’t see her again after that ship left port. The spring sun may have held a little warmth, but Cayetano couldn’t feel it on his skin. There was too much on his mind – Sofía’s bloody death, Alejandro’s grief, Scarlett’s worry, Luna’s anger.

“Caya,” Alejandro said. “Caya, are we doing the right thing here?”

“What do you mean?” He squinted in the sun at his friend.

“I mean, do we need to run? Maybe we will be okay.”

“It was you just yesterday going on about getting your son out of España for good.”

“I know… but…”

“But?”

“Do you want to send Scarlett and Luna away?”

“I want to get Scarlett safely home. She deserves that. What I’ve done to her, and the rest of her life, is unforgivable.”

“Had it been easier to travel to Barcelona, she could have got rid of that baby.”

“It would be safer to stand on the front line and get shot than to take up one of those abortions in Barcelona. There is only so much pain a woman can, and should ever have to, take.”

“And Luna?”

“You know how I feel about your sister.”

“That’s a subject we don’t need to discuss.”

“I want her to be safe. She’s got my diamond. That could get her a long way.”

“But where? It’s one thing for Scarlett to travel to Nueva Zelanda, but what about Luna? It’s not that simple. She doesn’t even own a passport or anything to identify herself. Who knows where that would leave her.”

“I don’t know, Ale!” Cayetano cried. “I don’t know what to do here!”

“What if we go back up to Escondrijo in the mountains and just hold tight. Scarlett can still go home.”

“Let’s go to Francia. The Medina’s told us that any time we needed help, they would take us in. Pilar is my mother. Luna would be safer there in Pau than here.”

“Pau is a long way from here! We would need to get over the Pyrenees and head a long way west to get there. If we get there at all.”

“We have the truck.”

“And need to drive it through regions all already captured by Franco’s troops. And what about the rumours o
f refugees being arrested and imprisoned in camps, in Francia, for the sole crime of being from España?”

“That is in the east, not in the west.”

“That we know of. Plus, there’s all those rumours that now that Hitler has practiced bombing our magnificent country that he’s going to take on the rest of Europe. Nowhere is safe.”

“Maybe the suggestion of Argentina isn’t so stupid. This is the kind of thing we have been saving up for
. There is a lot of cash in the chest that Luna is sitting on with Scarlett right now.”

“And no ships leaving port here!”

“Do you want to die?” Cayetano asked. “You haven’t come up with anything.”

“Everything I hold dear is already dead and hidden away on a mountain. I loved Sofía, and if I can find a safe place for her baby, then I’ll do it.”

“Ale, I’m not saying what you have suffered with Sofía isn’t important.”

“Then stop pushing me. I can’t make a decision. I don’t want to leave. Let Scarlett go, and Luna, but only if she wants to. We don’t need to make decisions for these girls; they’re perfectly capable of looking after
themselves.”

Cayetano turned and looked through the crowds, to see Scarlett standing there with the camera out of the chest. What had she been taking photos of? Hopefully not the desperate look on his face.

“Going to enlighten me on what happened during this meeting I’m not even allowed to sit in on?” Scarlett asked the pair when they approached them at their spot against the wall of one of tinglados, the work buildings along the water’s edge.

“It’s still
a big maybe,” Cayetano said to the women.

“This is stupid,” Luna said. She
sat on her chest, and tried to calm the fussing baby.

“That saves asking her what she wants to do,” Alejandro scoffed.

“We are better off leaving the country. After all, what do we all have to stay for?” Cayetano asked the group.

They all looked at each other; he was right. They had nothing. Scarlett was a foreigner, Alejandro had lost his wife, and Luna had no family left with her father off to Madrid and her mother dead. The man she was in love with had betrayed her, so nothing was enough to keep her there.

“You know I love you all...” Scarlett began.

“You need to go home,” Cayetano said. “Please, don’t feel as if you have to stay.”

“I want to stay,” Luna said.

“Preciosa…” Cayetano replied.

“Don’t call me that!”

“Luna, stop being so difficult,” Alejandro said.

“I thought that Republican women were supposed to be treated equal to men,” she replied. “I thought the role of women was considered essential. So stop telling me what to do!”

“Fine,” Alejandro sighed. “Tell us, where will you go? Will you go home to Cuenca? Alone, unable to find your way, let alone have an
income to look after yourself? Cuenca will be full of Franco supporters, full of men ready to tear apart a girl like you, one cock at a time.”

“Fuck, Ale, calm down,” Cayetano interrupted him.

“I don’t know what I will do,” Luna said. “I can figure it out.”

“You’re young and have never looked beyond being married, you can’t look after yourself.”

“Ale,” Scarlett interrupted. “Don’t speak to her as if she’s a fool. I didn’t hear you complain while she played nurse to your mother, or cared for the household you live in. You were more than happy to accept her cooking, washing, housekeeping skills then. Don’t judge her now.”

“I don’t need you to tell me what to do,” Luna said.

“You know what?” Scarlett fired back at her. “I’m leaving España, one way or another. As a foreigner, I’m in less danger than the rest of you. I will go home. My country’s government knows I’m here and expect my return. I have sponsors through the New Zealand Spanish Medical Aid Committee who will assist me in any way I need. I broke the non-intervention agreement my country has with other European nations, so my whereabouts are well-documented. I will go home, and you won’t see me again. I won’t get in the way of you and Cayetano, so don’t be so indignant. Life is short – way too short. If Cayetano wants to run away with you, then do it!”

“Cayetano!”

They all turned to the sound of the voice, to see Antonio through the crowd. The heavy-set man was sweating by the time he reached the despondent group. “You want on this ship?” he said, his voice lowered.

“Yes,” Cayetano said.

“Right now.”

“Now?”

“They have unloaded the aid off the ship. You will have to go in the hold of the ship, but you will all be able to fit. I don’t know where the ship is bound for, because the ship is unsure themselves. They’re waiting for clearance to leave without being stopped by the Mar Negro off the coast. But they won’t be stopping in España again. This is your chance. Now or never.”

“Luna,” Cayetano said and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Don’t let the anger you have now endanger our lives. Please. Come with us.”

Luna looked at her brother. “Only if I can take the baby.”

“No, the baby needs to go with Scarlett,
” Alejandro replied.

“Well?” Antonio asked. “I j
ust got a message.” The group huddled together. The people around them all wanted out of Valencia one way or another, and there was no reason to panic them. “They told me that Valencia has surrendered. Troops will be here tomorrow. There are no ships in Alicante. There are 20,000 Republicans trapped at the port there. Reports of people committing suicide, all sorts going on. For all we know, they will round us all up and shoot us. If you don’t get on this aid ship, you could die.”

“Don’t you want on this ship?” Luna asked.

“I can’t leave, I have five young children and a sick wife, I have to stay. When the church bells toll to announce Franco’s victory over España, I will be here to hear them.”

“If things are getting out of hand in Alicante then things could go wrong here – and fast,” Cayetano said. “We have to leave this place.”

“Come.” Antonio gestured towards his office. “All of you. Let’s see what we can do.”

They pushed their wa
y through the crowds and back to the broken and sorry building, which was surrounded by women who sat with their children. The faces told of their despondency. Of their fear. Of wondering what would be their fate. Cayetano stopped when he saw Luna lag behind them with the baby in her arms. He put the chest down and went back for her. “Luna, what is it?”