Chapter Eleven
NEAT ROWS OF olive trees, strong vines and ripening vegetables chequer-boarded the fields. High in the mountains, snows had gently melted through the last few weeks of March and into April, supplying steady streams of moisture for germination, and now the rich soils were dense with crops. Sunshine, growing in intensity almost by the day, began to ripen strawberries and tomatoes from green to scarlet. Craggy mountains, rolling hills, smudges of white-washed pueblos dotted amongst them and great spreads of cultivation - through the murky aeroplane window, Sonia peered at this landscape, transformed since she last saw it by the early summer warmth.
The air-conditioned aircraft left her unprepared for the blast of heat that greeted her as its doors were opened. She blinked as she emerged into the late afternoon sunshine, gusts of warm air circling round her on the tarmac as though a giant hair dryer was targeting her with its hot blast. In that moment, she felt herself begin to thaw. The icy English weather of the past few months had chilled her to the core.
A taxi whisked Sonia into Granada’s city centre, giving her a glimpse of the Alhambra as she passed. The driver was in a hurry, swerving between other cars in the rush-hour traffic, impatient to return to the airport for another flat-fare passenger.
‘I can’t take you there,’ he had told her grumpily when she showed him the address. He had the manner of someone who thrived on the pleasure of being unhelpful. ‘It’s not possible.’
Maggie was living in the Albaicín, the old Arab quarter where the winding cobbled streets were barely wide enough for pedestrians, let alone cars, and the taxi driver peremptorily dropped Sonia off in the Plaza Nueva.
She stood in the square and looked about her. One side was lined with cafés, all of them now crowded with people, mostly tourists refreshing themselves with soft drinks and ice creams in a forest of colourful umbrellas advertising beer or Coke. Following Maggie’s directions, she walked up to the church at the far end and climbed some broad stone steps to the side of it.
A group of dreadlocked travellers lay across her path, one strumming a guitar, another playing a flute, while a third tossed a ball for his mangy dog. Struggling with her heavy bag, Sonia knocked over one of their cans of beer, spilling its contents down the steps. The guitarist leaped up.
Before she had time to react, he wrested the bag from her hands and began to run. Her stomach somersaulted with panic. She started after him, only to find that, at the top of the steps, he stopped dead.
‘Please . . .’ he said, with a heavy accent. To her relief and surprise, he carefully set the bag down on the smooth stones.
‘Gracias,’ she said, covered with confusion, realising now that his intentions were entirely noble.
‘De nada,’ he said, his handsome, bearded face suffused with a smile.
Sonia noted that he could have been little more than eighteen. The bristles hid angelic, almost childlike features.
It was only another twenty metres to her destination and the wheels of her bag rattled noisily on the cobbles as she made her way along the Calle Santa Ana, hugging a slim strip of shade. She rang the doorbell to flat 8, at number 32. Beyond the ornate iron-work and the glass of the outer door she could see a hallway tiled from floor to ceiling with bright blue and white tiles. High above her she heard her name. She stepped away from the doorway and looked up.
Almost dazzled by the brightness of an azure sky, she saw a silhouette. It was Maggie, leaning precariously over a balcony.
‘Sonia!’ she called. ‘Here! Catch!’
A bunch of keys landed noisily on the stones.
‘It’s the silver one! I’m on the fifth floor!’
Sonia let herself in and began to climb the stairs. There was no cherubic boy here.
By the time she reached the right floor, she was panting. Maggie stood in the doorway, smiling, exotic in a bright printed kaftan, eyes luminous in her tanned face.
‘Sonia! It’s lovely to see you,’ she cried, taking her friend’s suitcase. ‘Come in.’
After the brightness of the tiled stairwell, the flat seemed dark. A low-voltage light bulb in the hallway gave out a dim glow and Sonia’s eyes struggled to adjust to the gloom.
Maggie’s sitting room was kitted out in Moorish style, with rugs and throws, Arabic lanterns and mobiles of coloured glass that jangled in a breeze that blew lightly through the apartment. Sonia was as charmed by it as by the view out of the huge floor-to-ceiling windows of the River Darro, which ran just below the building, carving a divide between the clustered buildings of Granada’s oldest barrio.
‘It’s heavenly,’ said Sonia. ‘How on earth did you find a place like this?’
‘Through a friend of a friend of this gorgeous man I met when I went into the estate agency to find somewhere to rent.’
‘Gorgeous man?’ enquired Sonia, immediately picking up on something in Maggie’s tone of voice.
‘Oh, yes, Carlos,’ she replied, not quite blushing. ‘He owns the estate agency.’
‘But what about Paco?’
‘I’m sure you can guess. He came to meet me at the airport when I arrived and we spent a couple of nights together. And then after that it was excuses, excuses, excuses. But really, in the end I didn’t mind,’ she said philosophically. ‘I sort of owe it to him for making me come out here.’
‘So it’s OK, is it?’ Sonia said cautiously.
‘OK?’ exclaimed Maggie breathlessly. ‘It’s so much more than OK.They really know how to live life here. It’s quite exhausting, though, going to bed at three every night when you have to get up to work. But I love it. I absolutely love everything about it.’
‘And what about this Carlos?’ asked Sonia teasingly.
‘Well, he seems quite keen.We’ve seen quite a lot of each other. And he likes dancing . . .’ Maggie mentioned the latter as though it was the most important of all.
For several hours they lounged on low, bright cushions and drank mint tea. They had so much to tell each other, having spoken only once on the telephone since Maggie had moved to Granada. Sonia mentioned James’s worsening drink habit and his resentment of her dancing, but she did not reveal how fragile things had become.
The sun had gone down by the time they went off into the city in search of tapas.
Later that evening, leaving Maggie to meet her new boyfriend, Sonia went to El Barril. She hoped to catch Miguel before he closed for the night. She smiled to herself as she thought of the conclusion James had jumped to when she had received that postcard all those weeks ago.
It was almost eleven thirty when Sonia turned up there, and she decided to go inside to find him. She could see on his face an immediate flash of recognition.
‘Yes, yes!’ he exclaimed. ‘You are the beautiful English lady.You have come back!’
‘Of course. And thank you for the postcard.’
‘It reached you!’
‘How did you know my name?’ she said, holding out her hand for him to shake, which he did with great enthusiasm.
‘I caught a glimpse of your signature when you were writing a postcard,’ he admitted guiltily. ‘It stuck in my mind.’
‘Oh!’ she said, rather surprised.
He seemed to have slowed down a little in the weeks since she had been there. She was warmed by his welcome and settled herself on to a stool at the bar. All the other customers had gone.
‘Are you here to do more dancing?’ he asked. ‘You must want coffee - and a brandy?’ Before Sonia had replied to either question, steam was gurgling noisily through a jug of milk and conversation was temporarily precluded.
While Miguel was busy, she got up and strolled as nonchalantly as she could towards the display of pictures on the wall. There they were, just as before, the proud bullfighter and, next to him, the dancer. Sonia went up close and stared into the girl’s eyes. No, she could not be absolutely certain. The features were similar to those of the woman in the photo she had squirrelled away in her wallet but they did not appear identic
al.The dress in her own photo was reminiscent of those in the framed pictures, and yet not exactly the same.
Miguel came up behind her with her coffee and handed it to her.
‘You like these pictures, don’t you?’ he said.
Sonia hesitated. ‘Like’ wasn’t really adequate to describe the effect they had on her, but she couldn’t tell Miguel the truth. It would sound so far-fetched.
‘I’m fascinated by them,’ she said. ‘They’re real period pieces.’
‘They are certainly that,’ agreed Miguel.
‘Perhaps it’s because they’re in black and white,’ she said hastily. ‘It makes them seem from a distant era. They couldn’t have been taken last week, could they?’
‘No, that’s right. They capture a particular time,’ responded Miguel. ‘A very specific moment in history.’
His statement seemed heavily loaded and Sonia sensed that the pictures meant as much to Miguel as they might to her. She could not help pursuing the conversation.
‘So,’ she said casually, concerned not to betray the depth of her interest, ‘tell me how Granada has changed.’
She was sitting at the bar. She picked up a slender sachet of sugar from a glass dish and poured it into her coffee. Miguel was polishing glasses and lining them up neatly.
‘I took the bar over in the nineteen fifties,’ he began. ‘It was quite run down then, but in the late twenties and early thirties it had been a great focal point. Everyone from workmen to university professors came here. People didn’t invite each other into their homes; they met in bars and cafés instead. There weren’t many tourists to speak of in those days, just the occasional intrepid Englishman, perhaps, who had heard stories of the Alhambra.’
‘You make it sound like a golden age,’ commented Sonia.
‘It was,’ he said, ‘throughout the whole country.’
Sonia then noticed a picture at the end of the wall. ‘They look like the Ku Klux Klan,’ she exclaimed. ‘They’re really sinister!’
The image showed a group of several dozen figures clad in white robes, with small round eyeholes cut out of their pointed, witch-like headdresses. They were processing down a street, some of them engaged in the labour of carrying a cross.
‘That’s a typical Holy Week procession,’ said Miguel, folding his arms.
‘It’s very dramatic,’ said Sonia.
‘That’s right. It’s just like theatre.Today you’re spoiled for entertainment, but we didn’t have very much in those days and we loved it. I still do. Every day in the week before Easter these huge icons of the Virgin or Christ are carried around the town. Have you ever been in Spain for that week?’
‘No, I haven’t,’ replied Sonia.
‘It’s in a few weeks’ time. It’s an unforgettable experience, if you haven’t seen the pasos before.You should stay.’
‘That’s a lovely thought,’ said Sonia, ‘but I’ll have to come back for Easter another year.’
‘The icons are huge and it takes over a dozen men hidden underneath to carry each one through the streets.They’re accompanied by the brotherhood from their church and a band.’
Sonia peered at the photograph. ‘Semana Santa 1931,’ she read aloud. ‘Was that a special year?’
The old man paused.
‘Yes. The King abdicated just after Easter of that year and the country got rid of its dictatorship. The Second Republic was declared.’
‘That sounds like a major event,’ said Sonia, now more ashamed than ever of her ignorance of Spain’s history. ‘Was it violent?’
‘No,’ said Miguel. ‘It was bloodless. There had been plenty of unrest beforehand, but for most people this marked a new beginning. There had been eight years of dictatorship under Miguel Primo de Rivera, and throughout that time we had retained the monarchy. It was the worst of all worlds. As far as most people were concerned, the dictatorship had done nothing to benefit ordinary people. All I can really remember is my parents moaning about some of the laws they passed, like banning crowds and making cafés close early.’
‘I can imagine that was unpopular!’ interjected Sonia. It was hard to imagine Spain without its bars and cafés being open all hours.
‘And anyway,’ continued Miguel, ‘the dictatorship had done nothing to help the poor, so when King Alfonso XIII abdicated and the Republic began, millions of people knew life would improve. There were big celebrations that day and the bars and cafés were overflowing with people.’
The excitement in Miguel’s voice could not have been greater if these events had happened only the day before. The memory of them was vivid.
It was almost poetic, Sonia thought, the way he talked about it.
‘It was a magical moment,’ Miguel said. ‘Everything seemed full of promise. Even at the age of sixteen I sensed that. We were breathing the fresh air of democracy and from then on there would be many more people who would have a say in how the country should be governed. The power of the landlords who had subjected millions of peasants to a life of poverty was reduced at long last.’
‘I can’t believe those things were still going on in the nineteen thirties!’ exclaimed Sonia. ‘It sounds so primitive - peasants . . . landlords!’
‘That’s a good word for it,’ said Miguel. ‘Primitive.’
He had poured two generous brandies, explaining he always had one at the end of each day and was happy to have company.
‘There’s one thing I remember very vividly. Everyone seemed to be smiling. They were so happy.’
‘Why would that have stuck in your mind?’
‘I think some people had gone through a time of great hardship and anxiety. As children we probably just accepted the way things were, but I think our parents’ lives had been tough.’
Miguel glanced at the clock and registered some surprise. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said apologetically. ‘I hadn’t realised the time. I really should be closing up.’
Sonia felt panic rising inside her. Perhaps she had missed the moment to ask him more questions about the pictures on the wall and might never be given another opportunity to solve her nagging doubt about the photograph tucked away in her bag. She said the first thing that came into her head, anything to detain the old man for a little longer.
‘But you still haven’t really explained what happened,’ she said quickly. ‘Why did you end up taking over the café?’
‘The shortest answer I can give you is this: the Civil War.’ He held his glass to his lips but, before taking another sip, lowered it again and his eyes met her expectant gaze. ‘But if you like, I’ll give you a longer version.’
Sonia beamed at him.‘Would you?’ she said.‘Do you have time?’
‘I’ll make time,’ he said, nodding in affirmation.
‘Thanks. I’d love you to tell me more. And will you tell me more about the Ramírez family?’ she asked.
‘If you like. Most people just aren’t interested in the old days. But I’ll tell you what I can. My memory is better than most.’
‘And will you tell me about the dancer and the bullfighter?’ she asked, trying to conceal her enthusiasm.
‘I could even take you round the city if you’d like. I do sometimes close on Wednesdays at this time of year. I need the occasional day off at my age,’ he chuckled.
‘It’s really kind of you,’ said Sonia, now slightly hesitant. ‘But are you sure?’
‘Of course. I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t mean it. Why don’t you meet me, mañana . . . ? Tomorrow at ten. Outside here.’
It was an enchanting prospect, to be shown the city by someone who knew it so well. She knew that Maggie had no interest in Granada’s history or culture, even if she now had encyclopaedic knowledge of its tapas bars.
Sonia said good night to Miguel and went back to Maggie’s flat. She needed a good night’s sleep.
Sonia was there to meet Miguel at precisely ten o’clock the next morning. It was strange to see him out of context and without his apron. Today he
was dressed in a smart olive-green jacket and highly polished leather shoes. She looked at him slightly differently and realised for the first time that he must once have been extremely handsome.
‘Buenos días,’ he said, kissing her on both cheeks.‘Let’s go somewhere for a coffee before I take you on a tour. I have a favourite place.’
A few minutes’ walk away was a small square, dominated by the statue of a woman.
‘It’s Mariana Piñeda,’ explained Miguel. ‘I’ll tell you about her later, if you are interested. She was a feminist heroine.’