Blood in the Valencian Soil (Secrets of Spain) (35 page)

“I will wait forever on a maybe.”

35

Madrid,
España ~ diciembre de 2009

December 24. Christmas Eve at the Beltrán
Morales home in La Moraleja. Cayetano was at his parents’ place, along with his grandparents for lunch. He didn’t want to be there, but at least it kept him away from María. She hadn’t dared show her face since her bombshell a few weeks ago, but he had received a message to say she wanted him to go to her ultrasound. Screw that.

Pac
o looked over at him. He knew that life had broken open for his only son. Cayetano sat across the room with his shoulders slumped, his mood despondent. He wanted to avoid conversation with everyone. Paco had been hard on Cayetano his whole life, he argued that he and his son were too different, but Inés argued that they were too alike. Maybe his mother was right. Right now, Cayetano ached with the agony of being away from Luna; he hadn’t heard from her in nearly three weeks.

Paco turned to his father-in-law, José. The man was only 10 years older than him, and they were close friends.
“Padre.” He leaned over to speak to José, who he had always addressed so formally, as his wife did. “Padre, I need your help with the boy.”

José
Morales Ruiz was a strict man, imposing in attitude and stature, even at 80 years old. That was part of the reason he always got along so well with the stubborn Paco Beltrán. The old man glanced away from his son-in-law to his grandson. He loved Cayetano, had done everything he could for him, and was so proud of all his achievements. If Cayetano suffered, so did José. He possessed all the pride that the man half his age did but was far softer with Cayetano than Paco. When Cayetano had fallen in the ring back in August, it had taken a toll on his grandfather. “What’s wrong? Is he sulking over the girl that Inés told me about?”

Paco nodded. “We need to talk with him.” He turned in his seat, to see his wife and her mother Consuela in the kitchen, gossiping as usual. “
Princesa,” he called to his wife. “We are just going down to my office for a moment. Work to discuss.”

“What work?” Inés stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips. She glanced toward her son in the corner. “Can’t it wait for another day?”

“It can’t wait one more day. I’ve wasted enough days.” Paco stood up from his seat and kissed her on the cheek. “Go and do your womanly things.”

Cayetano heard his mother scoff, and he smiled. He never did understand why she put up with Paco. “You don’t need me,” he mumbled towards his father.

“I need you.” José stood up, and gestured for his grandson to do the same. “Come and talk with me.”

The three men trailed down the hallway and closed themselves in Paco’s office. The Beltrán chest
still sat in the corner, with its broken lock, and it looked sad. It looked as miserable as Cayetano did. They sat down, Paco behind his desk, José on the dark leather couch across the room. Cayetano sat down on a single chair by the window in the sun, the hard seat better for his sore leg.

“Right, from the beginning, Caya. Tell me everything,
nieto,” José said.

“About what?” Cayetano shrugged.

“The girl, Cayetano,” Paco’s sharp tone said. “The thing that’s making you fucking miserable.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I didn’t ask if you wanted to talk about it,” José said.

Cayetano took a breath. He still hadn’t told anyone that María was pregnant. He was surprised that she hadn’t rung Inés and told her. He had expected it. In fact, for someone so keen to split him and Luna up, María had been quiet. She must not have expected his respons
e to the bad news. Probably expected him to cave in and take her back.

“I will start,” Paco said
. “Cayetano met a young girl, Luna. They went out a few times, and in his eagerness to impress her, he made some rather grandiose errors.”

“Whatever,” Cayetano muttered.

“The way I hear it, Cayetano fell in love with this girl and ended up with his leg injury. But she is also the reason he has been so keen to recover.”

“Every man needs a vice, and beautiful girls are the most dangerous, but most enjoyable option,” José said.

“Luna is a New Zealand girl, here looking for her Spanish grandfather. He died in the civil war, ¿no?” Paco asked.

“Sí,”
Cayetano replied.

“Luna’s family lived across the street from my family in Cuenca, in the
1930’s,” Paco told José.

“¡Oh!
That is interesting. You never mention the Beltrán family, Paco.”

“I know. That’s the problem.” Paco took a pause. “I have been keeping secrets, and it has accidentally hurt Cayetano. For that, I’m sorry. I never thought it would happen.”

Cayetano looked up to his father. He hadn’t seen that coming. He wasn’t sure his father had ever uttered the word ‘sorry’ in his life.

“Maybe it’s time you told us everything,” José said. “The dead can’t argue with you.”

“My mother and father, Luna and Ignacio, are the problem.” Paco swallowed hard. “Ignacio isn’t my real father.”

“I see. I assumed it was because he died when you were young that you never spoke of him.”

“Ignacio died when I was only four. Pneumonia got him.”

“Are you sure?” Cayetano asked. “I mean, have you ever seen a death certificate?”

“No, but my mother told me. She wouldn’t lie.”

“Oh yes she would,” Cayetano snorted. He turned to José. “Ignacio was gay.”

José cocked one eyebrow. “That explains why he isn’t your father then, Paco.”

“How do you know he wasn’t just dragged from his home in the night by his fascist comrades and shot for his sexuality? Being gay was seriously out of step with the perilous conse
rvative stronghold of the time.”

José gave his grandson a stern look. “Caya, that’s enough.”

“I call it as I see it.”

“Not on so
mething so sensitive you don’t. Don’t speak so ill of Falange members.”

“I’m sorry, what? Are we defending fascists now?”

“Just ignore him, Caya,” Paco interrupted.

“It seems like all people do is lie to suit themselves! My opinions don’t need to be censored! I never agreed to any pact of f
orgetting.”

“You shouldn’t judge what you don’t understand,” José sighed. “I was only a child
during the war. Life was hard, I hid all the time amongst the Republicans who held the city. Madrid was surrounded on three sides by Nationalist troops, who tried to rescue the city, and we were trapped for years, and had to live amongst so much hate. Hate was the only survivor in those times.”

“And yet you prospered under the following dictatorship, didn’t you, Papí?” Cayetano watched his grandfather shift uncomfortably in his seat. “You were always safe, weren’t you? Deeply religious your whole life, and you support Spain as one nation – none of that autonomy rubbish would agree with you, would it? You had Rebelión,
which made you a landowner, something many only would have dreamed of. There were no years of hunger for your family, were there? People who only thought of themselves flourished under the regime. Like Papá here, fighting in the ring, loved by Franco himself.”

“Cayetano, you have lived your life in this family, why is any of this news to you?” José asked.

“Our family has never denied who we are,” Paco said.

“Yes, but it’s the
Morales family who believe all these things, isn’t it, Papá? I have never seen you force your opinions on me, not political opinions anyway. Please tell me, why is that?”

“Caya, you are dragging up remarkably old issues. Grievances long lost.”

“Not that old. This happened all in my lifetime.”

“What’s the point here? I thought this was about the girl,” José said. “Did she find her family?”

“Her grandmother was a member of the International Brigade, and her grandfather was an anarchist.”

José raised his eyebrows. “I see. You shouldn’t need to worry about that. It’s old news now.”

“I’m not put off Luna because of the beliefs of her family. She was raised in New Zealand, free of hate and the shackles of old ideas.”

“I’m still lost on where all this is going.”

“You see, Papá’s mother, Luna, had an affair with a man named Cayetano.”

José watched his grandson sit back in his seat. “The fact you have the same name as the man worries me.”

“It should, Papí. This other Cayetano was her lover.”

José’s eyes flicked from Cayetano to Paco. “Boys will be boys. We have all had lovers.”

“True,” Cayetano continued. “But the problem for Paco is that the Beltrán family were anarchists, as was this Cayetano. Papá seems ashamed of this.”

“I’m not ashamed that the Beltrán’s were Republican supporters,” Paco said. “But I have nothing to do with it. My mother was not an anarchist, her family was, but in her heart she was conservative. She happily left her family and moved to Madrid to live in a fascist family.”

“Is that so?” José asked. “How fascinating. She had extraordinary courage. Let me guess, you’re the bastard child of your mother and this rojo bastard that she slept with?”

Paco nodded. “I’m not proud of it, but that’s the case. She married Ignacio, but he died. I can assure you that my mother was right-wing in her political and religious beliefs.”

“She turned her back on the whole family?” Cayetano asked.

“She told me that she did. The trouble is that this girl of Caya’s, this Luna, is also the grandchild of Cayetano Ortega. Luna’s father is my half-brother.”

José looked between the two men. “Jesucristo. The rojo bastard was obviously trouble. I hope he got a bullet.”

“He did, in a concentration camp after the war,” Cayetano said.

“Good.”

“How do you know?” Paco asked his son,
while he watched the indignant look Cayetano gave José.

“Luna told me,” Cayetano said without a look
at his father. “Papí, how can you be so callous? You were a child during the war. You were poisoned by the misguided opinions fed to you.”

“I know what I believe,” José said. “Call me
Falangist, conservative, Carlist, monarchist, I don’t care. I know what I wanted for Spain, and we won the war. We prospered as a result of the dictatorship. You are, as a result, rich and successful. You are who you are, Cayetano, because of what I have done. My hard work was handed to your father, and now to you.”

“You mean by breeding bulls and horses?”

“Where do you think I earned the money to buy Rebelión?”

Cayetano swallowed hard. Did he want the answer?

“José, I have asked you all of Cayetano’s life not to tell him what you used to do for a living,” Paco said.

“Maybe it’s time he knew,” José replied. “And it wasn’t just a job, it was something I believed in. It was my contribution to our country.”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Cayetano said. “What was it that you did?”

“I started out as a member of Guardia Civil, but then was asked to join a special brigade. Franco wa
nted to flush out all those who had defied him. So many bastards thought that they could defy the regime, even long after Franco took power. They were enemies of the State. We were paid well to find these people.”

“And do what with them?”
Murder, torture, rape? Fuck, this was about to go down as the worst Christmas in history.

“The dissidents needed to be taught a lesson.”

“Dissidents? You mean anyone with left-wing views?”

“I think this discussion has gone too far off-course,” Paco said.

“No, I want to hear more,” Cayetano said. “Please, Papí, tell me.”

“No.
” Paco’s voice showed his anger.

“I have a right to know i
f my grandfather is a murderer.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I’m not ashamed of anything I have done,” José said. “Yes, Caya, I did have to kill people. It was part of the job. These rojos are so disgusting that even now, the ground that we dumped them in, it rejects them. And now, people have the nerve to think they can dig these pigs up.”

“They are people.
Husbands, fathers, children, siblings, lovers,” Cayetano said. “Other people cared about those you hurt.”

“L
ovely little wives may have wanted to see their husbands while they were in prison, but we taught those girls a lesson. You should have heard them cry when we stripped them and…”

“That’s enough,” Cayetano butted in, and jumped from his seat. The thought of his grandfather raping girls was too much to bear. He
could have gone his whole life without knowing the truth. Now it was too late. The ghosts of the past had woken up. “What about Alejandro Beltrán?” He was riled up enough to tell them some truths of his own now. “Would you round up innocent men like him?”

“Who?” José asked.