Autumn in Catalonia Page 6

‘Of course I was, and from now on we take even more care. We finish our studies like good little students, and I go home quietly each night to Uncle Josep’s, and let my father’s spies watch me to their hearts’ content. No more visits here, even, and not even Uncle Josep must suspect I’m pregnant. I’ll just be the studious Carla Olivera, with my only concern to get my degree.’

  ‘The studious Carla Olivera indeed! All right, for the next while you’ll be like Lorca’s hidden treasure to me. But then,’ Luc leapt up from the bed and dropped to one knee. The bed creaked alarmingly and a pillow fell to the floor. ‘But then,’ he repeated magniloquently, ‘once the exams are over, Carla Olivera, will you consent to be my wife, and disappear with me into the night?’

  Carla rescued the pillow, and hugged it to her. ‘Only if you promise not to break all the furniture!’ she replied, sternly. ‘But yes, my clumsy idiot, when we finish the exams, then I’ll disappear with you to wherever you want to take me!’

  But three months later, when Carla stood at the railway station with her suitcase, waiting for Luc, he didn’t appear. And when she and Uncle Josep went fearfully together to the attic flat, the door was bashed in, and the bed had collapsed, and it certainly wasn’t Luc who had broken them.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Carla struggled along the broad Girona boulevard towards Grandma’s little side street, and paused for a moment to put down her shopping bag and ease her tired muscles. Just a few weeks now from giving birth, it was getting tougher to carry heavy loads, and the weight she’d lost since Luc’s disappearance didn’t help.

  The thought of a sit down and a coffee made her pick up the bag and plod on – just a few metres to go and she would be home, and Grandma would have lunch cooking. Carla had no appetite, but the smells which came out of Maria’s tiny kitchen turned their shabby apartment into the homeliest refuge in Girona.

  Carla had been in Girona for nearly four months now, having fled to Grandma and Uncle Victor’s arms soon after Luc was taken. It was the closest she could come to solace.

  As she turned the corner she was just in time to see Toni step out of her mother’s Mercedes. He had drawn up right outside Grandma and Victor’s house, and the car looked absurdly incongruous in the tight little street. The last time she had seen Toni he had come looking for her in Barcelona. Her blood chilled at the thought that he might also have come looking for her here today.

  She stopped to watch as Toni stepped towards the rear of the car, reaching out a hand to open the back door. The door opened before he could get there, though, and a young man got out whom Carla didn’t recognise. Toni stepped back from him, and then moved towards the front door of the apartment building. Oh my God, Carla thought, could Toni be taking one of her father’s men up to the apartment? They must indeed be looking for her! But could Toni really be helping one of her father’s men against her?

  She hurried towards the car, calling out as she went. ‘Toni, what are you doing here?’

  Both men stopped in their tracks. The young man turned, and she vaguely noted that he was about her own age, but her eyes were fixed on Toni. And Toni was gaping back at her, an expression of pure shock freezing his face.

  ‘Carla!’ was all he said, when he found his voice. But the single word was wonderful to hear.

  ‘You didn’t know I was here!’ she said, and felt her nerves relax a fraction.

  Toni shook his head, still staring incredulously at her. He hadn’t been told anything by her father, that was for sure. If he was on a mission from Sergi, he was flying blind.

  She kept her eyes on his. ‘And you didn’t know I was pregnant either?’ She rubbed her huge bump.

  He shook his head several times, as though taking the time to absorb what he was seeing. ‘No,’ was all he managed.

  ‘So you haven’t come here because of me?’

  ‘No, but Carla …’

  ‘Yes, I know. It must be a shock. Lord, the last time I saw you was a year ago, and I wasn’t pregnant then! Well things happen, Toni, including pregnancies. You’re still with my father, obviously.’ Her gaze took in the car and his uniform.

  ‘With your mother, at the moment, up at the hill house.’

  Carla was amazed. ‘She’s still there in October?’

  ‘Yes, this year she didn’t come back down to Girona with your father. In fact he hardly stayed there this summer. She’s on her own up there.’

  ‘My God! She must have a lover or something, to maroon herself up there all this time! And she didn’t send you to find me? No? So you’re looking for Grandma? How strange!’

  It was Carla’s turn to shake her head. A jumbled vision crowded her head of the hill house, mountain skies, and her mother sitting on the wide veranda, looking as elegant as ever, probably with a glass in her hand. It was a painful little picture, a barrier to coherent thought, and she tried to pull her mind back to the present. Toni had come to Girona, but not looking for her, so that meant Joana didn’t know she was at Grandma’s. Not that it changed anything, because her father knew exactly where she was, and was watching her more closely than ever. But for now, this visit by Toni had not come from Sergi. So who was the young man with him?

  She became aware of herself, of them all, standing there agape like frozen effigies in the street, and as she looked again at Toni she allowed herself a moment of emotion. She put her shopping down on the ground again, took a step towards him, and wrapped her arms around him.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Toni,’ she said, and was surprised to hear her voice shaking. She felt daily more isolated, and Toni’s was a friendly face from different days.

  Toni hugged her gingerly and then eased her gently away from him, looking down at her bump. ‘It’s good to see you too, Carla, but … is your husband staying here too?’ His voice was deeply troubled.

  ‘No, Toni, there’s no husband, although there should have been – was going to be until my father stepped in. Listen, Toni, I can’t explain about my pregnancy, not now, not here and not like this. But please, don’t tell my mother about it. Or anyone at all, come to that, and don’t even mention that you’ve seen me, all right?’

  She fixed her eyes on Toni’s face, his hands held in hers. Toni’s bachelor life had been sheltered so far from complications such as hers, and the troubled look lingered on his face, but eventually he nodded, and she gave him another hug.

  She turned towards the young man who had stepped from the car. ‘Is this a friend of yours, Toni? Tell me why you are both here. I’m completely at a loss.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Toni’s shrug was dismissive. ‘He’s been up seeing your mother, and she told me to bring him here. She said he was some kind of relative who wanted to see your grandmother.’

  ‘A relative?’ Carla was startled. She had no relatives of her own age, unless he was so distant as to be irrelevant. She looked a question at the stranger.

  ‘Your second cousin,’ he nodded. ‘My father was Luis Garriga, your grandmother’s brother.’

  ‘Indeed?’ she said, keeping her voice neutral while her mind flew back to what Josep had told her about his Uncle Luis, the journalist who’d gone off to exile in France. This young man was French, his funny way of speaking Catalan gave him away straight away. But Toni seemed to mistrust him, and he’d been with Joana. What had he been doing up there?

  ‘Have you come with some kind of mission from my mother?’ she shot at him.

  ‘Not at all,’ was his quick reply. ‘I only met your mother yesterday because I asked for Luis’s family in Sant Galdric, and no one there knew where my Aunt Maria and Uncle Victor were living, so they sent me up to your mother for directions. I’ve come from France. I have nothing to do with your mother.’ He seemed to sense it was important to make this understood.

  And the answer was reasonable, as far as it went. Carla bit her lip and made a decision. ‘You don’t need to tell me you’re from France – it’s pretty obvious that you don’t come from around here! And if that’s so, then I gu
ess it’s unlikely you’re in cahoots with them. You’d better come upstairs, anyway, and meet Grandma.’

  She turned to Toni. ‘Come and see Grandma too. Come up and have coffee. She’d love to see you.’

  Toni refused. ‘She gave me errands in Girona,’ he explained. ‘I have to buy some provisions before her favourite shop closes at one o’clock, and it’s nearly twelve now. I daren’t stay.’

  Carla nodded. It wouldn’t do for him to fail in an errand for her mother. She released Toni’s hand reluctantly, and stepped back to let him go.

  ‘Give your grandmother a hug for me,’ he asked her, before he got back into the car.

  ‘For sure. She will be sorry not to see you. And give our love to your mother. How is she?’

  ‘Not too good these days, but she’ll be glad you were asking for her.’

  ‘Give her a kiss from us all. And Toni?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘No word to anyone about me, promise!’

  ‘I promise, Carla. And take care of yourself.’ He gestured awkwardly at the bump.

  She grimaced. ‘I’ll try, Toni. I’ll try.’

  Carla waited until the Mercedes had pulled away before turning again to the young man.

  ‘Come then,’ was all she said. He picked up her shopping bag from behind her, and followed her meekly up the two flights of stairs. They entered the second-floor apartment, and Carla led the way down the narrow corridor to the living room.

  From inside the kitchen Grandma’s voice called, ‘Is that you, Carla? Did you get the bread?’

  ‘I did. I also picked up a young man, Avia! Come out and meet him. He has come to see you.’

  Maria emerged from the open door, a faded apron protecting her old black frock, and with her flowered headscarf covering her hair. She held a kitchen cloth in one hand and there was a little bead of sweat on her forehead.

  ‘A young man? What young man?’ she asked, puzzled.

  Carla pointed to him and heaved a tired sigh as she sat down on a wooden chair. ‘Here, here he is. He says he’s your nephew, Grandma. He’s come from France to see you, via Sant Galdric and my mother’s house. Toni brought him, and I met them outside.’

  Maria stopped short, working out Carla’s words.

  ‘My nephew?’ she repeated.

  Carla nodded. ‘He says he’s Uncle Luis’s son.’

  The old lady looked long, very long, at the visitor, and recognition and astonishment gradually registered in her eyes.

  ‘You are really Luis’s son?’ Maria asked finally, almost shyly.

  ‘Yes, Senyora.’

  There was another pause, and then a smile spread across her face, an infinitely tender smile, and tears sprang to her eyes as she surged suddenly across the room and took his hands in hers. She held him so, and scanned him, still a little shy, as she repeated again and again, incredulously, ‘Luis’s son, Luis’s son. Oh my God, Luis’s son!’

  The young man had tears in his eyes as well. Neither of them moved, and Carla watched from her chair, feeling as though she was witnessing something intimate which she shouldn’t be sharing. The two seemed to be on a different plane from her, and she felt like an intruder. Grandma, dear, sweet Avia, had never stopped thinking about Luis, her adored older brother, and now his son had walked into her home. Carla hoped and hoped again, for Grandma’s sake, that he was genuine.

  He certainly looked uncannily like the Garriga men she knew from photos, unmistakeable in his broad cheekbones, if nothing else. They all had these prominent cheekbones, the Garrigas, and they were striking, good-looking men, planed and olive-skinned and wide-shouldered, with aquiline noses and eyes that dominated the company. They had a potent appeal and by all accounts women loved them. Uncle Victor was a very mild version of this, but the pictures of Uncle Luis, and of his (and Victor and Maria’s) father, gave an unmistakeable impression, even in faded black and white, of the Garriga charm.

  This young man was the same, although his face was broader, and his frame was a little stockier. And he looked nice, although she couldn’t help reserving judgement. We’ll wait, she thought, and then caught Grandma’s eyes and thought again. Carla might wait judgement, but Maria had found a nephew, and in a life which had seen too much loss and sorrow, his place was ready prepared.

  ‘What is your name?’ Grandma asked.

  ‘Martin,’ was all he replied.

  ‘Martí!’ Grandma used the Catalan form of the name.

  There were endless questions over lunch. They ate together at the little table, and the whole while Maria sat next to Martin, often touching him, and while she served up their meal of black rice she kept him close, in the tiny space of the kitchen, getting him to pass her the utensils, the dishcloth, the plates – anything to make contact, and to make him hers.

  There was so much she wanted to know. Where had Martin come from? How had he got here? What had made him come here? And, more urgently, was Luis still alive?

  He shook his head. ‘No, I’m sorry. Luis died in 1944.’

  Carla watched Grandma, and thought she had gone far away, back to an earlier life. Some moments passed before she spoke again. She shook her head as if to shake off wraiths from the past, and asked him simply, ‘Will you just tell me? How did he die? It was in that same area of France that they were living in, in North Catalonia?’

  Martin nodded. ‘During your Civil War he wrote for the French newspapers, and helped Spanish refugees. Then in 1940, when the Germans invaded France, he started working for the Resistance, and then in 1944 the Germans found his camp and he was killed.’

  Maria made the sign of the cross. ‘And you still live in this village where he settled?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I’ve lived there all my life.’

  ‘So all this time Luis’s family has been living just across the border – so close to here!’ Maria’s voice was incredulous. ‘We didn’t know! We didn’t even know you existed! What made you come down to Spain after all this time?’

  ‘Old friends of my father in our village told me how he came to visit his Spanish family in Sant Galdric in 1936. They knew he had a brother and a sister – you, Aunt Maria – and your children, living with his mother in Sant Galdric. I only learnt about the existence of his Spanish family a few years ago, and as the years have gone by I found myself wanting to know more about where my father came from. My mother,’ this with a shake of the head, ‘was very unhappy about me making the journey. But I made it to here unscathed. I told her that I’d just be another tourist to Spain, but she thinks nothing has changed here, and she’s heard too many bad stories. She thinks the police are just waiting on every corner to arrest people here in Spain!’

  ‘I remember your mother well from that visit,’ Maria said, with a smile. ‘She was such a beautiful woman. It’s good that she decided to stay in the south after Luis died. She was from Paris, originally, wasn’t she?’

  Martin froze, and an odd haunted expression came to his face. Carla wondered what on earth for. She looked across at Grandma, whose head was turned full towards Martin. Her simple question hung in the air between them, and acquired an unintended significance as the minutes went by.

  And then the young man breathed in a large gulp of air, and seemed to launch himself into his next words.

  ‘You met Luis’s wife Elise in 1936,’ he said. ‘Well, Elise and Luis had two children, but during the war she had to flee France with them, leaving Luis behind. She never came back to France after that, and my sister and brother grew up in England. Elise died there.’

  He had Carla’s full attention now, as well as Maria’s. ‘And you?’ Carla asked.

  ‘I was born later, in 1944,’ he answered, swallowing hard. ‘Luis had an affair with my mother during the war, after his wife had left. He never even knew my mother was pregnant, and he died before I was born.’ He looked at them both with a plea in his eyes.

  ‘I only found out when I was thirteen that he was my real father, and I’ve been trying to make sens
e of it since then. I came here …’ He stopped, the words seeming to run dry in his throat.

  Maria closed her hand over his on the table. ‘You came here to find your family. And we saw Luis in you. You are a Garriga through and through, and you are the nephew who came to make Luis live again for us.’

  Carla was still staring, taking in his story. So he was Luis’s son indeed, but a bastard son that Luis never even knew existed. But he was a Garriga, just as Grandma said. Luis’s blood flowed through his veins, just as Luc’s blood would define the baby now kicking inside her womb, however illegitimate.

  She looked over to where Maria’s hand still enfolded Martin’s, and couldn’t help laughing.

  ‘If you have my grandmother on your side, Martin, then it seems like you are definitely one of us. How old are you? If you were born in 1944 you must be nineteen, no more! Well you look a whole lot older, but it seems strange that my Great Uncle Luis should have a son who’s younger than me.’ She eased herself out from the table. ‘Do you drink coffee, cousin Martin? Well, if I sit here any longer my back will seize up, so you stay here, and talk to your new found aunt, and coffee you shall both have. I think you two have a lot more to say to one another!’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They lingered over coffee. The coffee Grandma and Victor could afford was always as bitter as hell, despite the sugar they added in spoonfuls, but it was the one thing which Carla seemed to be able to swallow easily, and it burnt a path through her gullet and the sugar and caffeine kicked her tired body awake. God knows what it was doing to her nerves, but they were shot already, and Carla loved its assault on her senses.

  As the coffee warmed her she nodded at her new-found cousin. ‘I can tell you one person who will be delighted to meet you,’ she said, ‘and that’s Victor. Just wait till he comes home! He gets fed up living with two women, and he’ll be dragging you off to drink with him, I’m sure! But he’ll never accept calling you Martin. You’ll be Martí to him – just like you already are to Grandma.’