John Masters (39 page)

"Quiet," he said, "lower your voice. Keep calm. You children ... No, stay. You'll have to know. I've been shot at."

"With a rifle? Or a machine gun?" Saul, the eldest asked. He was sixteen and like her father but taller, and he didn't have a droopy mustache.

Her father said, "As I was coming up from the river. Wheeling the bicycle, of course. Someone fired two shots from the bushes, quite close.... I heard them running away, so I kept on up the road."

"Have you told the
cabo?"
her mother said.

"Yes, and that's the worst part of it. He said he had other things to do than worry about the safety of Jews and Communists. My God, I'm not a Communist and never have been and never will be." He tore off a piece of bread and went into the sitting room, calling, "Saul, bring me some wine." The radio was clicked on, and soon the air was full of squeaks, shrieks, and shouts.

She was asleep, but a tapping on the side window nearly opposite her bed awakened her. Her father and mother were talking in the living room, but in low voices. They stopped. The tapping came again. Her father came out and muttered, "Who is it?"

"A friend." Susana, listening intently now, recognized Senor Porras' voice and wondered why he didn't knock at the front door and come in. "Listen. They are going to kill you tonight. Take your family and leave Castellar at once."

"But …"

"Don't ask questions. Do you think I'm not risking my neck for you? Not because of your politics, God knows. Because you've spoken up for Spain. Don't go south, the road's picketed. But go!"

She didn't hear him leaving then, but he must have. Her father and mother stood in the passage, almost over her. The light from the living room slanted across the floor and up the wall behind them.

"It's ... it's unbelievable! That was Fernando Porras! Who's 'they'? Why...?"

Her mother said, "Someone shot at you, didn't they? I'll get the children up. Where are we going? And take some money, hidden."

Her father repeated, "Where are we going? With Spain become mad? People you've known all your life shooting at you from the dark? There's only one place to go. Only one sanctuary—the Rock!" He burst into a terrible laughing, until she jumped out of bed and said, "Move, papa, you're standing on my shoes."

She was ready in three minutes in her best dress, in spite of dressing in the dark, but then her mother made her change into her oldest and wear her worst, raggediest shoes. She heard her telling the boys the same and understood that it was like a game, they were all to dress up like tinkers, and then her mother called her, and she helped pack bread, onions, and sausage into little sacks.

Her father came into the living room. She nearly cried out, putting her hand over her mouth, for he had shaved off his mustache. Then they all dirtied their faces, and her mother let out her hair from the pigtails and shook out her own.

They gathered in the parlor. Her father began to speak, choked, tried again. He said, "We must be brave. Keep together. Make no noise. If anyone asks, our name is Garcia, and we are a poor family, laborers, from Ronda, going to join relatives in Algeciras, where we hear there's work. Our identity papers were burned in our house by a mob. Now open the back door, Saul. No, leave the lamp. Someone may be watching to see when we put it out."

Ruy, her middle brother, who was redhaired and gawky, because his voice was breaking, said, "Susana can't take the bird cage, can she?"

Susana cried out, "I will, I will! Prince shall come to the Rock!"

Her mother began to argue with her, but her father said, "Leave her be. She can free him when she gets tired. He will be no worse off than he will be here."

Then they left the house and the village, and after a short pause at the orchard where their hired man kept the donkey, on northward along the ridge top, on a broad path now, Ruy leading the loaded donkey.

Susana looked over her shoulder. Castellar was dark; beyond it Gibraltar glittered and sparkled, the enchanted castle and palace of her dreams. And now she was going there at last, even though they had to start out in the wrong direction. Prince in the cage would meet the Red Prince of the Rock: and the Red Prince would talk to her. She felt thrilled and frightened together and muttered to the bird, "Be brave, Prince."

They walked all night, slowly, along the sierra, curving steadily left-handed until when light came they were nearly level with Castellar but on the next ridge to the west and facing Gibraltar. They crept in under the bushes, tethered the donkey, and lay down to rest.

The sum rose, and her father said in a troubled voice, "It's going to be hot, Leah." Her mother didn't like the heat, nor did David.

The sun climbed. It was always hot in the middle of July, but this was the hottest day she remembered. By noon her mother was beginning to moan, and David said he had a headache. Her own tongue hurt, and there was no water or spit in her mouth.

"Water, Papa," David croaked. "I want water."

Later in the afternoon her father said, "Load the donkey. We must go down to the river." They started down the side of the ridge, among the holly oaks and gorse, but came to a cliff the donkey could not get down, so had to go back. Then Saul thought he saw men with guns, and they waited, keeping still, till it was dark, then tried again. At last they came to water and though it was still and rank, they all drank, then lay down. Susana gave Prince water and then slept.

In the morning she did not feel well, but her father said, "None of us do, little daughter. But we must get up the ridge again." They started back up, and soon Gibraltar climbed above the middle hills, and she looked at it longingly, set there in the blue and silver bay; but it did not seem any closer, for all the hours they had been struggling.

Then she felt a gripe at her belly and rushed into the bushes and pulled down her underpants. In a moment she was vomiting, too, and crying, for she had dirtied her clothes.

When she had finished, they moved a hundred paces, then her father had to go. A hundred paces on, and it was David. The next time it was her mother, and herself again. Her mother said, "We must stop here, Simon, until all this is over. It was the water."

"We can't stop here," he said. "We must go on, or we'll never get there." He was looking very tired. He was not fat, but he did not go out of doors much, either here or in Madrid, and he was not used to the exertion.

They moved on thus all day, southward, stopping every few minutes for one or another of them to strain at their empty bowels or retch and moan at an empty stomach. It was as hot as the day before. By afternoon Susana felt strangely light and stumbled sometimes, though she thought she had raised her feet high. Her mother could not walk anymore and rode on the donkey. Her father walked very slowly, his face shiny and white. Sometimes they would stop because one or another of them saw trails of dust moving along the roads in the valley floor below or men going out to the fields, for her father said, "We can trust no one now—after a lifetime of trusting everyone!"

Darkness came before they had found any more water, and they stopped. Gibraltar shone there ahead, and Susana cried, "Let's go on, Papa. I'm not tired."

"You're fainting, little daughter," he said. "We must stop."

"I must have water," her mother said. "There's water in the valley just down there. That's where the river comes in."

Her father hesitated, but her mother began to moan, so he said, "Very well. Lead, Saul. I will hold your mother secure."

They moved on. For the last hour clouds had hidden the sun, and it was close and dark. They wound downhill, over uneven rock, over steep-sided water runnels—but dry—and along the side of a hill with lights below; and suddenly something jumped out of the gorse and dashed through the line of them. Susana thought it was a fox or a wild pig—but by then the donkey had snorted and broken free and vanished with her mother in the dark. Her father ran after it. Saul cried "Stop!" and there was a crashing, thump, repeated, another crash. Her mother screamed, cut off like a hiccup.

She went forward and found the boys on the lip of a quarry. She heard faint sounds from below. They hurried round the side and down. Her mother was lying on her side in the quarry, making a strange noise as she breathed. The donkey lay twenty feet away, and Saul said it was dead.

Her father crouched beside her mother, whispering to her, but she did not answer. After a time Saul said, "Take the food off the donkey. We must carry it now. The water jar is smashed."

Then they huddled together under the cliff and ate a little. Susana went to sleep, and when she awoke it was daylight. David slept beside her. Her father, Saul, and Ruy were coming back from a group of bushes at the far side of the quarry. All three were crying.

"Your mother's dead," her father said.

Susana jumped up and hugged him. Her own tears mingled with his on her cheek, but she did not truly feel sad, for this was all too strange, too different from the time when Granny had died, slowly in bed. Then she had cried every day for many days. Now she said, "I can cook for you until you marry again, Papa."

Her father sat down, and she curled up in the crook of his arm. Saul said, "We can't stay here, Papa. We must cross the valley and get onto the sierra the other side."

"Very well," her father said dully. They moved off, but now it was Saul who gave the orders, and her father walked like a man in a dream, holding Susana's hand.

A rough road, used by the stone carts, led from the quarry out to the road a quarter of a mile away. Before they reached it, Saul crept on ahead and came back to tell them that they could cross safely, as no one was in sight. When she reached the road, Susana saw that it ran straight in both directions for a long way, the hill on one side and a forest of cork oaks on the other. Opposite the track from the quarry a footpath led into the cork forest, and Saul took that, saying, "This is going the right way, Papa." Susana liked it among the corks, for there was a good shade, and there were no bushes or thorns under them. Prince in his cage had felt very heavy yesterday and had made her arms stiff from carrying him; but now he felt light, and she talked to him as they walked along. At noon her father fainted, and Saul said, "He is tired. He didn't sleep all night. We must rest here until this evening."

They rested where they were, and Prince ate some bread, and Susana slept some more. Then her father sat up, saying, "I can go on now," and they started walking again. After sunset, in the dull twilight, Ruy said, "This path is coming to a cork factory, Saul," and her father said, "Better turn right."

Saul said, "But that's the road again. It's curved round, and we've gone straight. We're going to join it just before a bridge and ... soldiers!"

He stopped and turned. Her father said, "They've seen us ... keep on ... remember what I said."

Susana saw the soldiers clearly; two men in brown and black with rifles and fixed bayonets. "They're not real soldiers," her father muttered.

The path left the cork oaks and led up a little bank to the bridge. The other side of the bridge there was a roadmen's hut, with half a dozen more men lounging about outside and smoke curling from the chimney. The nearest sentry held up his hand. "Stop!"

Her father said, "What is this? We are going to Alceciras." He spoke in a thick imitation of the accent the ordinary people of Castellar spoke in.

A man from among the loungers outside the hut came across the bridge to them. A few of the men were really boys, no older than Ruy or Saul; the rest were as old as her father. They wore ordinary clothes, but mostly good, not peasants'; and they had ties on, and all wore a red and yellow armband on the left arm. The new soldier, who had a pistol, said, "This is a Falange picket. Have you see any bands of Reds? Where are you going?"

Her father began his story. She and the boys stood close together, a little behind him. The men outside the hut had gone back to their cards, but another man had come out and was standing in the doorway, staring at them and listening.

"We have no papers," her father said. "They were burned. We lost everything, everything.... Because we are churchgoers! What can one do with such a government?"

"Well spoken," the interrogator said. "All right, move on. Keep your eyes open, and if you see or hear of any bands of Reds, tell the first army or Falange picket you come to.
Arriba Espana!

"Arriba Espana!"
her father responded. He beckoned to them. "Come." They walked out onto the bridge. It was almost dark now. The man from the hut doorway was standing there, waiting for them. He was wearing a military uniform, but it hung loose on him, as though he had been bigger when it was made. He was tall, old, with gray hair and dark eyes and a very long, mournful face.

As they came up to him, he peered closely and said, "It's Senor Toledano, the lawyer and journalist, isn't it?"

"Toledano?" her father muttered. "No, no—Garcia. A laborer with no labor." He made to pass by.

"Wait!" the officer said. "You have shaved off your mustache, but I know you. We were on the platform together two years ago at the Gibraltar Protest Meeting in Madrid. I am the Count of Grazalema."

The sergeant had joined them by then. "Did you say this man was Senor Toledano, Count? The Jew Communist from Castellar?"

"I'm not a Communist," her father shouted.

The sergeant drew his pistol and said, "We won't bother to…"

A shot cracked out by her ear. She jerked round and saw that Saul had grabbed the rifle from one of the bridge sentries and fired. The sergeant's brains spattered the road, and his body lay half over the parapet. "Run!" Saul shrieked. "Into the woods!" He fired again, and the other sentry collapsed. By then she was running hard and did not look round till she reached the edge of the cork woods beyond the roadmen's hut. Her father and Saul were coining, running. It was too dark to see where the soldiers were, but a flurry of shots exploded around the roadmen's hut, and she heard bullets clattering overhead and slamming into the tree trunks. Beside her, David gasped, "Someone hit me!" Her father stumbled out of the dark, crying, "Where are you?"