The Songs of Manolo Escobar (16 page)

‘Momento,'
said one, and she disappeared through a door that looked as though it led on to other offices.

She soon returned with a tall, grey-haired man dressed in a white short-sleeved shirt and camel cavalry-twill slacks that were pinched around a neat waist. He smoked a cigarette with urbane authority.

‘Yes sir, how may I help you?' he said in English with just a trace of a Spanish accent.

I told him of my interest in the damaged building.

‘Ah yes,
el almacén de granos.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘In English it is the grain store. Or, at least, it was historically. Today it is a municipal building for concerts and meetings and so on.'

‘I wondered what had happened to it. Was it damaged during the Civil War?'

He paused. ‘Umm, yes, that is correct.'

‘And why has it never been properly restored?'

There was another, longer silence. ‘I don't really know the answer to that Mr . . .'

‘Antonio,' I said.

‘Well, Señor Antonio, it all happened a long time ago.'

‘How was it damaged exactly?' I asked.

‘There is a lot of literature available in the public library in Lerida that will provide you with that kind of information,' he said in a polite tone.

‘Don't you have any information here?' I pressed. ‘It seems odd that the local municipal office doesn't hold any information on such a central building.'

He breathed heavily, as though he'd been confronted with a matter of particular inconvenience. ‘I'm sure if you visit the library there will be a local historian who will be able to answer your inquiries.'

His response provoked a sudden and disproportionate change in my mood. ‘Why is it that no one wants to talk about the war?' I demanded.

He didn't respond.

‘All I'm asking for is some information about a public building. I can't believe you've sat in your office opposite that monstrosity and never wondered what happened to it.'

‘Are you by any chance related to Señor Noguera from Scotland?' he asked.

‘Yes, he's my father,' I sighed.

There was another long silence, and I thought he might try to usher me out of the door.

‘I am sorry I was not in the office the day your father called, because I could have given a proper explanation about why his request was denied.'

‘Yes, he was pretty angry about that.'

‘It was not, as he suggested, that we thought it unreasonable or that anyone in the village had objected.'

‘Oh really?'

‘No, on the contrary, we would have been pleased to facilitate his wish, but to do such a thing we must have evidence that these remains to which he referred exist, and unfortunately he was unable to provide us with that.'

‘What do you mean? My father says he knows where his parents are buried – is that not evidence enough?'

‘I am afraid not, Señor Noguera. The war ended seventy years ago, and, for the first forty of those years, no records were kept of those killed by the Nationalist side. The only evidence that exists is the recollections of the survivors, but those are, as I'm sure you can imagine, notoriously unreliable.'

‘So what are you saying, that my grandparents' remains must stay dumped in a shallow grave forever because my father's recollections are not reliable enough?'

‘No, that is not the case, but we do need supporting evidence.'

‘And where would he get that?'

‘I'm afraid that is a matter for you and your father, but I suggest you start by going to the library in Lerida.'

His tone was equable, generous even, and I felt embarrassed and wrong-footed. It was typical of Papa to pile into such an issue half-cocked and accuse others when he didn't get what he wanted. I should have been more cautious – I'd been stung too many times before to accept what he told me without question.

Driving back to my hotel in Lerida I tried to phone Cheryl's mobile again, but as usual it diverted to voicemail. After the tone I hesitated, unsure whether to leave another message. I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing I was wondering where she was and what she was doing all the time.

I decided to go for it. It shouldn't be important what she thought about me, I told myself – I should be above all that. She might have been prepared to end our marriage without explanation, but I was not going to allow her to think she was unaccountable.

‘Hi, it's me. I've been home, and I know you're gone. I'm not interested in why or where. I just thought we should talk and make arrangements about where we go from here.'

Apart from a hint of dryness in my mouth, my delivery was controlled and impassive. I should have been pleased, but the moment I hung up I had doubts. Did I really want to give up our marriage without a fight? Even if she was determined to go, why should I make it easy for her? I thought about phoning her again and leaving another message, but I didn't want to seem too desperate either.

Back at my hotel I asked the receptionist for directions to the local library and was told it was within walking distance on the Rambla de Aragon. It was called the Biblioteca Pública de la Maternitat, she explained, because it was housed in a former orphanage. When I arrived I immediately felt like one of its former charges. It was a cloistered, imposing structure whose nineteenth-century shell had been recast as a cathedral of
high-Modern open-plan design. My sense of awe was intensified by the fact that all the signs were in Catalan. Shards of sunlight streamed through a glass roof, and my footsteps echoed across the granite flagstones as I approached a librarian seated in a central atrium behind a large semi-circular walnut table. I could tell by the way she squinted at me as I approached that she had sensed I was going to be problematic.

‘Si señor,'
she said tartly.

I tried to explain what I was after, and, though she spoke a little English, she didn't understand. After several failed attempts she directed me to a section of the library that dealt with Spanish history. I made my way to a collection of shelves, more to avoid the embarrassment of having to retreat sheepishly from the building than because I thought I'd find anything of use there.

There were several multi-volume histories of Spain, each with a section, of varying size, on the Civil War. But these were general, academic treatises with none of the localised human dimension I was after. The only books dedicated entirely to the war seemed to be in a section chronicling the Catalan experience, with titles such as
L'Intent Franquista de Genocidi Cultural Contra Catalunya
and
Traidors a Catalunya: La Cinquena Columna (1936–39).

I took a few of the books to a reading table and thumbed through the pages, stopping at those which bore the now familiar wartime scenes – grainy stills of tired, middle-aged men in Homburg hats and old suits standing in bombed-out streets, looking hunted and angry; wagons of achingly naïve volunteers clutching ancient rifles with worn wooden stocks and rusting bolts; strutting, absurdly camp Fascist generals glad-handing cassocked clergy; dirty-faced feral youths scouring the rubbled ruins for signs of life or food or anything with a resale value.

I heard the sound of sharp footsteps and looked up to see the librarian I'd spoken to approaching me along with a short man
who appeared to have been summoned from some backroom function.

‘Hello sir,' he said. ‘My name is Fermin. My colleague tells me you have a question about the Civil War.'

As his colleague stood by I explained to him what I was after. Requesting decades-old information about an anonymous building in a middle-of-nowhere hamlet made me realise how nebulous my quest appeared to be. Had I really come all this way to find out about a grain store, I wondered to myself. I flushed with embarrassment and found myself recounting the detail of my grandparents' death, as a way, I supposed, of legitimising my inquiry. Fermin listened politely.

‘I do not have any knowledge of the building in question, but I could make some inquiries,' he said matter-of-factly.

He had a brief conversation with the other librarian in Catalan and she strode purposefully off.

‘I should also say that, as well as being an historian, I am a local member of La Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica. Have you heard of this organisation?' he asked.

I shook my head. The librarian returned and handed me a glossy brochure. On its cover was a black-and-white picture of a soldier crouched in a doorway, his rifle pointing towards a crowd huddled at the end of a narrow street.

‘It was set up a few years ago by a group of volunteers dedicated to recovering the remains of victims of Franco's regime. To date it has exhumed the corpses of several thousand war dead. If your grandparents died in the circumstances you described, then this organisation may be able to help you. I could make some inquiries on your behalf if you will permit me. It would involve reviewing existing records and speaking to any surviving villagers in Alguaire who might recall the incident.'

I noticed he was wearing a pair of rubber-soled house slippers. There were circular patches of damp under the arms of his short-sleeved shirt, and from the plumpness of his frame I guessed he would have some difficulty remembering the last time he had
broken into a trot. He looked an unlikely hero, and yet I wanted to pull him towards me and kiss him. He was the first person who had given me, or Papa, anything like positive news regarding the search for my grandparents' remains.

‘That would be fantastic,' I said, grinning.

Back in my hotel room I turned on my laptop and Googled the organisation Fermin had mentioned. In English it was the Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory. Its website described it as a collection of volunteer archaeologists, anthropologists and forensic scientists who had come together to redress the historical anomaly that, until the turn of the millenium, the remains of victims of Republican atrocities only had been disinterred for reburial. Association members collected oral and written testimonies from friends, neighbours and relatives of Franco's victims and exhumed and identified recovered remains, it said. Less than a decade after its formation, it had exhumed the bodies of four thousand supporters of the Republic who had been murdered and dumped in roadside ditches and mass graves. The website included a forum for families of war victims whose relatives were still missing, and for people who'd lost touch with family members and were now trying to trace them.

I was struck by its remote sadness, the random desperation of the people who continued to mourn and who still held out hope of information about those they'd lost. Plaintive messages filled its pages, from mothers whose babies were taken at birth as retribution because their husbands were
rojos;
children whose birth records were destroyed and who were raised by strangers in loveless institutions; sisters who had lost brothers; wives who had lost husbands; grandchildren who'd grown up knowing only that their grandparents had ‘disappeared'. One of the entries was headed
‘Setenta años sin Miguel'
– ‘Seventy years without Miguel'; another sought information about a father who'd disappeared while fighting at the Battle of the Ebro; another who'd lost track of his brother, whose last known whereabouts was a hospital in El Escorial where he was being treated for a leg wound.

I stared at the screen with the possibilities racing through my mind. Did this have any relevance to me? Should it have any relevance? Papa had lost his parents and siblings in the war, but I had lost nothing. I had never known these people, so why should it be my responsibility, a generation removed, to get involved in seeking some kind of ill-defined justice on their behalf? Anyway, quite apart from the fact that I had other things on my mind, like saving my marriage, I didn't know if I could trust Papa's account of what had happened. It wasn't just that the alleged events had taken place so long ago and that he had a child's memory of them. More troubling was the question of his honesty, as much with himself as with others. He had a worrying ability to convince himself of the significance of partial truths. Moreover, if I did want to take this further, I would need his approval and co-operation, and I knew that would be my biggest challenge.

‘B
obby never told me you were Spanish.' Cheryl's height-of-summer smile lit up her gemstone eyes. It was the first time I could recall anyone referring to my nationality without it sounding like an accusation. If Max Miller hadn't told her that I was Spanish, then who had? Had she been asking about me?

‘Eh, yes, that's right, I am,' I replied, resisting the urge to qualify my response.

‘Are you interested in the Civil War at all?'

I hesitated – I couldn't tell her that all I knew about the Spanish Civil War was that there had been one. ‘Eh, yes, I am, in a way,' I said.

In a way.
What the hell did that mean?

I had first spotted Cheryl at the Freshers' Week Fair, and I'd been admiring her from a consistently retreating distance ever since. She'd been over at the Socialist Workers' Society stand, her head thrown back, laughing loudly, clothed simply in a pair of tight jeans and a baggy white t-shirt. Her skin was smooth, like polished new wood, and her long, cornfield-blonde hair was held in place at the back with a simple red ribbon. I had approached to talk to Max Miller, who was chatting to the people running the stand, and fleetingly my eyes had met hers. Then she'd returned to the conversation she'd been having with some friends. It was the briefest of glances, and yet it was enough to convince me I was in love.

I was now into my second term at university, and I continued to slope in the shadows, looking as though I didn't belong. Mama's constant refrain, that I'd be the first Noguera to have a
university degree, only added to the pressure. Between lectures I wandered alone, trying to look purposeful and hide the fact that I felt friendless and out of place. Max Miller, in contrast, had adapted readily to student life, making friends effortlessly. By the third week he was on first-name terms with all of his tutors, he'd started playing football for the first eleven and had been elected treasurer of the Socialist Workers' Society. He knew Cheryl, but he called her Dolores. It was some kind of SWS nickname, an in-joke that only the members shared, and I wasn't going to reveal my ignorance of all things political by asking him about it. Recently I'd seen them together a lot, handing out fliers, drumming up support for society meetings and sitting together in the union bar. That had made me even less confident about ever speaking to her. But now here she was, sitting down right next to me in the lecture theatre, looking earnestly into my eyes.