Tell the Moon to Come Out Read online

  He led the way. He walked with a pronounced limp. Half the men in Spain seemed wounded, one way or another. The apartment was small, consisting only of a bedroom and a living-room with a small kitchenette off. The window was wide open, letting in the noise of city traffic and the children shouting in the street below. In spite of that it was very close in the room.

  Straight away Nick said, ‘Salvador, I wonder if you can help me? I’m trying to trace my father. Would you have any news of him?’

  ‘Not recently, I’m afraid. The last time I saw him was at the battle of the River Ebro. I was there when he was wounded.’

  ‘He was wounded?’ Nick felt his heart begin to race.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down, both of you, and I’ll make us some coffee, or what passes for it these days. Chicory and sawdust, I think. At best. You look as if you need a pick-up.’

  ‘I don’t think we should sit,’ said Isabel, looking down at her skirt.

  ‘One moment.’ Salvador disappeared into the bedroom and came back with trousers and a shirt for Nick, and a skirt and blouse for Isabel. ‘These are my wife’s. She is not as tall as you but perhaps they will do.’ He showed them the bathroom. ‘We have no hot water but at least we do have water. There have been times when we have not.’

  They took turns to wash and change, and to rid themselves of some more fleas. Isabel went first. By the time Nick had dressed the coffee was waiting for them.

  Salvador said he hoped his wife would bring some food when she came home. She’d gone to the market on her way to work. ‘I’ve not been able to find work myself.’ He made a wry face. ‘For men like me who fought on the wrong side it’s almost impossible.’

  ‘So you were with my father?’ prompted Nick, who could wait no longer. ‘At the battle of the Ebro, you said? When was that?’

  ‘Last autumn sometime. October, yes, I think it began in October.’ Salvador pursed his lips. ‘It was a battle we looked like winning for a while. That’s how it goes. Then the Nationalists came back on the offensive. They bombarded us mercilessly. They had more guns, more aircraft, more everything. They had Italian support. We didn’t have much chance but we fought on into November. Then the first of the winter snows came. It was grim.’ His voice cracked. He drank a mouthful of coffee and looked broodingly over the rim of his mug into space, forgetting them for a moment.

  Nick waited, daring almost not to breathe, his eyes fixed on Salvador’s face.

  ‘There weren’t many of us left,’ Salvador went on. ‘We were cold and hungry. Morale was low. What could you expect? Before long we had to withdraw from the right bank of the river. We knew the game was up at that point. It was during the retreat that Sebastián was wounded.’

  ‘Badly?’

  ‘Quite badly.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘His right leg was shot up and it looked like he had chest injuries. Whole place was going mad. It was sheer chaos. Shells were exploding all round us. Our emergency hospital was trying to evacuate. Ambulances were doing their best to take the wounded off, but they couldn’t cope. There were hundreds of them, thousands. It was a nightmare.’

  ‘And my father –’ Nick swallowed. ‘What happened to him after that?’

  ‘Another soldier and myself, between us, we managed to drag him off the field.’

  ‘So you saved his life, Salvador?’

  ‘I don’t know that, Nicolás. I’m not sure if he will have survived his injuries. We did manage to get him into an ambulance. It was the last I saw of him, being driven off.’

  ‘You heard nothing after that?’

  ‘There was no way to find out.’

  ‘I suppose you wouldn’t know anyone else who was in the ambulance? The driver, even?’

  ‘Oh yes, I knew the driver. Carlos Cortes was his name. He was an old mate of mine. That was how I persuaded him to take Sebastián. He had a full load as it was. He let me put your father on the floor.’

  ‘And Carlos?’

  ‘We’ve not been in touch since the war ended. Who knows if he’ll be alive or dead. So many didn’t make it.’

  They’d been so absorbed that they’d not heard the outer door of the apartment opening. A small stocky woman came bustling into the room and Salvador introduced his wife Eugenia. She set down her shopping bags to offer them her hand. It was a strong hand. This was a woman who would not let herself be pushed around. She took over. She dumped their filthy clothes straight into a sinkful of water and began to scrub them on a board with a bar of hard yellow soap, waving aside their protests. When she’d finished, she put the clothes through a mangle and, after giving them a good shake, pegged them on to a line and strung them out of the window to dangle above the street.

  ‘They’ll be dry by morning. You are going to stay, of course! We can only offer you the floor, though.’

  Nick relaxed. It was good to be for a while in the company of someone who was taking charge and making decisions. And this little flat high above the street felt like a safe haven.

  Meanwhile, Salvador had been unpacking Eugenia’s shopping bags and was laying out the food on the big well-scrubbed wooden table in the centre of the living-room. Bread, cheese, sausage, olives, tomatoes. Isabel and Nick could scarcely believe their eyes. It was a feast.

  ‘My wife is a wonderful shopper. If there is anything going in the market, she will be sure to find it. And to sweet-talk the stall holders into selling it to her!’

  ‘He can talk sweetly himself, can’t you hear him, my Salvador?’ Eugenia smiled, then invited Nick and Isabel to take seats at the table.

  Salvador filled their glasses with red wine from a pottery pitcher. ‘Salud!’ He raised his glass and they echoed the toast. Good health. ‘We are delighted to have you here as our guests.’

  ‘We are very grateful,’ said Nick.

  ‘Eat, eat!’ urged Eugenia.

  They obeyed.

  Salvador brought up the name of Carlos Cortes.

  ‘Ah yes, Carlos,’ mused Eugenia. ‘We have many good memories of him. He’d come to Madrid for a weekend sometimes and he’d stay with us. He liked a bit of nightlife, did Carlos. We’d have a few drinks in the bars and then go dancing till morning. All that is gone now.’ She sighed.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d have any idea where I could find him?’ asked Nick.

  ‘He lives in Málaga,’ said Salvador. ‘Or he did, before the war. I don’t know if we’d still have his address, do you, Eugenia?’

  ‘I’m fairly sure I could find it.’

  ‘Really?’ Nick felt like throwing his arms round her.

  ‘Eugenia never throws anything away,’ said Salvador. ‘She is the most practical woman I have ever known in my whole life.’

  ‘You had better not let your mother hear you say that!’ retorted Eugenia.

  After they’d eaten she brought out an old chocolate box with a flamenco dancer on its cover. ‘It was Carlos who brought me these chocolates. Good ones they were, too.’ She rummaged among a number of cards. ‘Here we are, the address of Señor Carlos Cortes. I told you I’d find it!’

  ‘Does he live on his own?’ asked Nick.

  ‘No, with his mother. Your father must have told you that Spanish men love their mothers so much they find it difficult to leave home?’

  Nick laughed. It was good to laugh even though, deep down, he was trying to come to terms with the knowledge that his father might not still be alive.

  ‘Nick’s father left his mother,’ Isabel pointed out. ‘He went all the way to Scotland to marry his bride.’

  ‘He was brave,’ said Eugenia, which made them laugh again.

  They had a good evening with Eugenia and Salvador, who said they were welcome to stay as long as they liked. Nick wished they could spend a few more days with these kind people but it was out of the question, for him, at least. He had to press on. He must head south, to Málaga, to find Carlos Cortes.

  For Isabel, it was a different matter. The journey was his, not hers. He would
not blame her if she were to opt for staying in Madrid in the shelter of her favourite aunt’s home.

  Eighteen

  The night was stiflingly hot again and on such a night sleep did not come easily. Nick wondered if Isabel was awake. She lay on the other side of the room, under the open window, where there was a slight, a very slight, breeze. The sounds of the streets carried on into the small hours. This city never seemed to stop. Nick lay listening to the hourly, and sometimes quarter-hourly, striking of church clocks, the buzz and backfiring of motor cycles, the blare of horns, the shouts of people still abroad, the banging of doors, the clattering of feet on stairways. He lay, half listening, and thinking about his father. His mother, too.

  In the morning he would write to her. He had no idea if the letter would get through to her or not, but he would try, anyway. The postal service must be in disarray. They had heard only once from his father during the war. The envelope had been creased and dirty, as if it had been in battle itself. The message inside had said, ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry.’ Nick’s mother had said, ‘What else would he say?’ But, even so, receiving the letter had been important. It had been a link between him and them.

  ‘Nick?’ Isabel’s voice reached him. ‘Are you asleep?’

  ‘No. I thought you were?’

  ‘It’s difficult. I keep thinking.’

  ‘Me, too.’

  They each had their separate thoughts, their separate worries. And perhaps soon they would have to go their separate ways.

  He wondered how she felt, being among Republicans, people who had fought on the opposite side to her family. Her brother might have been killed in battle by Salvador. Or by Nick’s own father. Had that thought occurred to her? Perhaps it had. When they had been talking about the war, he and Salvador and Eugenia, Isabel had been very quiet.

  ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ she said. ‘But he may be all right, you know. The ambulance may have got him to a hospital.’

  Nick knew that there would not have been much chance of that. His father had been in a Republican ambulance. The Republicans had been on the retreat, fleeing for their lives. The hospitals at that stage would have been in the hands of the victors, the Nationalists.

  ‘Don’t give up hope,’ urged Isabel.

  ‘No.’

  He could not bring himself to say, ‘Will you come with me to Málaga to look for Carlos Cortes?’ It seemed too much to ask. Instead he said, ‘I expect you would like to see your aunt?’

  ‘Very much,’ she said. ‘I am very fond of her. Try to sleep now, Nick.’

  ‘You too.’

  They said good-night and he turned over and managed, after a while, to sleep.

  In the morning, at breakfast, he told his hosts that he must move on.

  ‘And how do you propose to get to Málaga?’ asked Eugenia, who was on late shift today at the shoe factory where she worked.

  ‘Get a lift perhaps.’

  ‘Not so easy,’ said Salvador. ‘There aren’t all that many trucks on the road and the Guard search most of them.’

  ‘Walk then, if necessary.’

  ‘It’s more than an afternoon’s walk! It’s several hundred kilometres.’

  ‘What about the train?’ suggested Eugenia. The railways were not very reliable at present, parts of the track had suffered bomb damage, but it might be worth trying. Some trains did appear to be running. The problem was papers. Anyone travelling by train would certainly be asked to produce them.

  ‘Leave it with me.’ Salvador got up. ‘I’ll be gone for a couple of hours.’

  ‘Be careful now, Salvador!’ warned Eugenia.

  ‘Am I not always careful?’ He gave her a smile and left before she could answer.

  ‘Where has he gone, Eugenia?’ asked Nick. ‘I hope he won’t be taking a risk on our behalf.’

  ‘Ask no questions. It’s better that way.’

  Nick asked Eugenia if she could let him have a sheet of paper and envelope. ‘I want to write to my mother.’

  ‘Of course.’ She fetched it for him.

  He wrote a brief note, telling his mother that he was on his way south, that he was fine, and she was not to worry. Eugenia gave him a stamp.

  ‘I’m going out to do a little shopping. If you would like to, you could come with me, Nicolás, and post your letter. Perhaps Isabel can stay and look after the apartment? I think it might be too noticeable if I were to go out with both of you.’

  Isabel said that she did not mind at all. Eugenia lifted her shopping bag and Nick followed her down the stairs. On the second flight they met a neighbour, a woman with a stooped back and frizzled grey hair.

  ‘Ah, Eugenia, so you do have visitors staying with you!’ The woman’s little button eyes raked Nick. ‘We thought we heard voices in your apartment. I said to Alberto, “I wonder who can that be with Eugenia and Salvador?” You see, my hearing is not too bad yet!’

  ‘Your hearing is excellent, Lidia. As good as a little child’s.’

  ‘So, who is this handsome young man?’

  ‘The son of an old friend from Toledo.’

  ‘Which old friend is that?’

  ‘You would not know her. We must go now, Lidia, or there will be nothing left in the market.’

  The neighbour stood aside reluctantly.

  ‘Nosey old so-and-so,’ muttered Eugenia as they continued down the stairs. ‘Nothing much goes past her or Alberto. They keep their door ajar half the day in case they might miss anything.’

  ‘Can you trust them?’ Nick asked when they were out in the street.

  Eugenia raised her arms in a shrug. ‘Who knows?’ After they had walked a little way she said, ‘How long have you known Isabel?’

  ‘Not long, I suppose, in terms of days or weeks. Though it feels like ages.’ It feels like I’ve always known her, he thought. ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘I was just wondering. I noticed that she was very quiet when we spoke of the war. Once or twice she frowned and looked away.’

  ‘She is totally trustworthy,’ he said swiftly.

  ‘I will take your word for it.’

  ‘You can!’

  ‘Don’t be annoyed with me, Nicolás. It is best to question everyone.’

  ‘I know.’

  Nick posted his letter and Eugenia did her shopping and then they returned to the apartment to find Isabel cleaning the kitchenette. Eugenia chided her, saying she didn’t have to do that, she was a guest.

  ‘I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit here. And I was glad to do it.’

  There was still no sign of Salvador though he had been gone for more than two hours.

  ‘He’ll be talking,’ said Eugenia. ‘I know him. They say women gossip, but men are good at it too!’

  Nevertheless, when his key was heard in the lock, she was obviously relieved.

  ‘I’ve had a successful outing,’ he announced, looking well pleased with himself. He produced an envelope from his pocket. ‘Papers for the two of you.’

  ‘Salvador!’ Nick shook his head with admiration. ‘How on earth did you manage it?’

  ‘I have friends. We help each other.’

  Salvador gave a set each to Nick and Isabel.

  ‘Not bad likenesses,’ commented Eugenia, taking a look at the photographs.

  ‘My friend had a few to choose from. Young men and women with dark hair are not too difficult. The quality of the pictures is poor so no one would know the difference unless they were to study them under a magnifying glass, which is not very likely.’

  Nick was to take on the identity of Rinaldo Rosso, aged eighteen, native of Borges, a factory worker. Isabel was to become his sister Claudia, aged seventeen. Were they real people, Nick wondered. If so, what had happened to them? Better not to ask.

  ‘You can both pass for a year or two older,’ said Salvador. ‘If you are asked if you fought in the war, Nick, you can say you were badly wounded at Teruel, on the Nationalist side, of course, and sent home.’

  �
�And if they ask why we’re going to Málaga?’

  ‘You are going to visit your grandparents, Juan and Sofía Rosso. I have an address here for you to memorize.’

  ‘What if they were to check it?’

  ‘Records like that are not easy to check. So many were lost in the air raids. And Málaga is a long way from here.’

  ‘I have Carlos’s address for you to memorize as well,’ put in Eugenia.

  ‘It may not still be standing, of course,’ warned Salvador. ‘Málaga was staunchly Republican and so was heavily bombed by the Italians. We heard that thousands fled during the raids and took the coast road eastwards.’

  ‘What a state our poor country is in!’ Eugenia shook her head. ‘Our side did its share of destruction, too, though – we shouldn’t forget that – burning convents and churches.’

  ‘That was terrible!’ exclaimed Isabel. ‘Desecrating holy places.’

  ‘It wasn’t good,’ agreed Eugenia, ‘but, as you know, the Church was supporting the Fascist Nationalists.’

  ‘That doesn’t excuse it,’ Isabel came back sharply.

  ‘No, of course not. But in war people do things they would not do in peace.’

  ‘So,’ said Salvador, coming in to defuse the argument, ‘you are travelling to Málaga to find out if your grandparents are all right. You are clear about that?’

  ‘You’ve thought of everything!’ said Nick.

  ‘One has to. You can come unstuck so easily on details. Stick to your story and don’t vary it. While I was out I went to the station and found that there should be a train going to Seville tonight. Not guaranteed, of course, but it seems probable.’

  ‘Seville?’ said Eugenia.

  ‘From Seville it’s not too far to Málaga. I managed to get a couple of tickets.’ Salvador produced them from his pocket.

  ‘You’re like a magician, Salvador,’ said Nick.

  ‘No more tricks.’ Salvador slapped his pockets. ‘They are empty now.’

  ‘I don’t know how I can ever thank you.’

  ‘Don’t try.’

  ‘The only thing,’ Nick said, hesitating, ‘is, well, I’m not very sure if Isabel’ – he turned to look at her – ‘will want to come with me or not.’