For some hours, resistance continued but then Concha saw a stream of people starting to emerge from the still-rising dust. Women, children, and elderly men, all with bundles of clothing and handfuls of possessions that they had rescued from their homes, began to descend the hill. It was hard to hear much above the noise of the machine-gun fire that now sprayed the rooftops, and the thud of artillery, but every so often between the silences could be heard the sound of children crying and the soft moan of the women as they hurried towards the barricades.
The last few men, as they ran out of ammunition and realised the game was up, climbed on to rooftops and waved white sheets to signal their surrender. They had put up a brave struggle but knew that the Fascists had enough ammunition to raze every home in their barrio to the ground.
The most fortunate managed to escape towards Republican lines, but the majority were caught.
Antonio appeared that afternoon, pale with anxiety, his hair peppered with the dust that seemed to hang in the still air.
‘They’re just shooting them -’ he said to his parents - ‘anyone from the Albaicín that they catch - just shooting them. In cold blood.’
Coming to terms with their own powerlessness was a terrifying moment for them all.
‘They’re completely ruthless,’ said Concha, almost inaudibly.
‘I think they’ve well and truly proved that,’ agreed her husband.
Although the initial takeover had been accomplished with impressive stealth and bloodless efficiency, the days following it brought a wave of resistance and violence. There was continuous shooting that night and machine guns were in action from dawn till dusk.
Five days after the initial takeover of the garrison, and once the bombardment of the Albaicín had come to an end, it became quieter. The workers were now on strike, which was the only safe means to register immediate protest against events.
With bread and milk easy to obtain, no one was going hungry, and El Barril could be run reasonably normally. The Ramírez family stayed close to the café, with the exception of Ignacio, who came and went with a smile on his face.
Elvira Delgado’s husband had been in Sevilla when the army had taken over there and his firmly held right-wing position made him fearful of moving across the territory in between, which was still held by the Republic. His absence from Granada made Ignacio even more jubilant about the military coup than ever. He had bought a copy of El Ideal, which now lay on a table in the bar and, with its references to ‘Glorious General Franco’, there was no doubting its politics. Emilio came down late morning and saw it there, its taunting headline an offence to anyone who supported the Republic.
‘Fascist bastard!’ he said, hurling it across the room, its pages separating out across the floor like a carpet.
‘Emilio, please!’ shouted his mother. ‘All you do is make things worse.’
‘They couldn’t be worse than they already are, could they?’
‘But once things settle down, General Franco might not turn out to be such a bad thing,’ she responded. Emilio knew as well as she did that these were words neither of them believed.
‘I’m not talking about Franco, Mother. I’m talking about my brother.’ He picked up one of the loose sheets of newsprint and waved it in front of his mother’s face. ‘How dare he bring this filth into the house?’
‘It’s just a newspaper.’ Even if it was looking unrealistic in the country as a whole, Concha’s yearning for peace in her own family obliged her to try to be conciliatory. Emilio knew that his mother hated what Franco was trying to do as much as he did.
‘It’s not just a newspaper. It’s propaganda. Can’t you see that?’
‘But it’s the only one on sale now, as far as I know.’
‘Look, Mother, it’s about time you faced up to something about Ignacio.’
‘Emilio!’ said Pablo, drawn into the room by the sound of raised voices. ‘That’s quite enough. We don’t want to hear any more . . .’
‘Your father’s right. There’s quite enough fighting going on outside, without everyone in here shouting at each other too.’
By now Antonio had appeared too. He knew that the old-established dislike between his two younger brothers had intensified. It was linked with the conflict that was rumbling like an earthquake across their entire country. The divisions of politics had entered their home. The hard-line conservative attitudes of those who wished to take over the country were a serious personal threat to Emilio, and the hatred between these two young men was now as real as that between the Republicans and the Fascist troops that patrolled in the streets of Granada.
Emilio stormed out of the room and no one spoke until the sound of his feet thumping up the stairs to the attic had receded.
News reports on the radio and in the newspapers were often no more accurate than rumours on the street, but the overall picture was becoming clear: Franco’s troops were not having the success they had hoped for throughout the region and though some towns had surrendered, many others were putting up fierce resistance and were able to remain loyal to the government. The country carried on in a state of uncertainty.
In Granada, as though to force men to declare which side they were on, the Nationalists now asked for people to sign up for guard duty. These volunteers wore blue shirts and became part of the tyranny. There were numerous other ways to show support and shirt colour indicated which particular right-wing group you were affiliated with - blue, green or white. The right wing loved the discipline and order of uniform.
By the end of July, Antonio could see it was effectively all over in Granada. The strike came to an end and for a short while it was as though nothing had happened. Taxis stood in their usual positions, shops opened, cafés rolled out their awnings. The sun still shone, and the heat was not as fierce as it had been the previous week.
Everything appeared the same, but everything had changed. Even if much of the country was fighting back, Granada was now undisputedly under martial law. Civilians were forbidden to drive vehicles, the right to strike was abolished and the possession of firearms was banned.
Concha was still in her nightgown one morning, sipping her early morning coffee, when Ignacio came in through the front door of the café.
‘Hello, my darling,’ she said, relieved to see him and refraining, as usual, from asking where he had been all night.
He bent down to kiss her on the top of her tousled hair and wrapped his arms around her neck. The unmistakable smell of a woman’s perfume almost overwhelmed her. It was lily of the valley, or was it damask rose? She could not quite tell as it was all mixed up with the familiar smell of her son’s body and perhaps a cigar or two that he had smoked the previous evening.
He pulled out the chair next to her, sat down and took her hands in his. For years, Concha had been the practice ground for her son’s now famed charm. She did not have a favourite son, but she did have one whose ability to win her round far surpassed that of the other two.
Ignacio had been due to appear in a number of bullfights that summer; for a while at least, the season was suspended and this meant he was a man at leisure. He seemed positively at ease with life and with himself.
‘It isn’t going to be so awful, is it?’ he said. ‘What did I tell you?’
‘I wish I believed it, Ignacio,’ she said, holding him at arm’s length and looking into his eyes. His dark, seductive pupils swam with affection.
A week or so of this conflict had been more than enough to fray her nerves right to the very edge, and even the sound of a door banging was enough to make her jump out of her skin. She was still haunted by the sight of their neighbours being dragged away from their home.The previous day they had heard that both Luis and Julio had been shot, and the Pérez home was looted on the same night. Poor María now lived in fear of her life and would not leave her home. Concha had visited every day since the arrests of her loved ones and that morning the woman had been beyond consolation. Francisco was too angry to be able to c
omfort his mother and Antonio spent the day with him trying to keep the lid on his friend’s fury. Now Ignacio was trying to tell her that things were not going to be ‘so awful’.
In some ways, their nerves had yet to be tested. First thing in the morning on 29 July, an aerial bombardment of Granada began that was to last on and off until the end of August. The worst thing about it was not the wanton destruction of their city. It was the fact that many of them were on the same side of this conflict as the Republican planes now bombing them.
Occasionally, the bombers’ targets met the approval of those who still supported the legal government.
Antonio was out on the street one morning with his father and saw Republican planes flying overhead. They opened their machine-gun fire on the cathedral tower.Though it was the most beautiful and celebrated of holy places, the damage to Isabella and Ferdinand’s great edifice and burial place did not stir either of them. Like most people who supported the rightful Republican government, they had long since stopped kneeling down in front of the altar, so disgusted were they with the collusion of the priests in this rebellion. Right from the beginning, the Catholic Church had sided with the army in this coup.
Newspapers continued to play their role in stirring up aggravation in the Ramírez household.
‘It’s that fascist rag again,’ said Emilio, casting a disdainful look at the newspaper that lay on the bar. ‘Why does he have to bring it here?’
On that morning it provided detailed coverage of a victory for the Nationalist troops.The Republicans had landed some of their planes at Armilla, not realising that it had already been taken by the army.When they descended from their planes they were taken prisoner and the Fascists gleefully celebrated the ‘delivery’ of some magnificent new aircraft.
‘What a gift for Franco,’ commented Antonio, under his breath.
Such stories did nothing for the morale of anyone who supported the Republic.Though they were battling to retain their ground, it seemed that things could still go either way.
For the next few days, Granada continued to be bombed from the air and more innocent people died, their houses collapsing around them. Sirens sounded the alert, but even though the arrival of planes was advertised, there was no real place of refuge. Occasionally a member of the Civil Guard might be buried in the rubble, but it was mostly the innocent citizens of Granada who were terrorised by the daily routine of bombs that seemed to increase in destructive power as the day went on.
On 6 August, a bomb fell close to the café in the Plaza Nueva. One of the upstairs windows shattered, spraying the room with shards of glass, and everything in the building was violently shaken. Glasses fell off shelves in the bar and bottles crashed to the ground; brandy flowed across the floor in a dark river.
Concha cleared up the mess, helped by Emilio and Mercedes. For the first time in their lives they saw their mother weep and were disconcerted by the sight of her despair.
‘I hate all this,’ she began tearfully.
Her children exchanged glances. They could see that she was about to launch into one of her occasional tirades.
‘Our country’s a mess! Our city’s a mess - and now our café . . . just look at it!’ she cried.
There was no doubt that these catastrophes were all linked but the only one they could resolve was the one in front of them.
‘Look, we’ll all help clear this up,’ said Emilio, balancing on his haunches to pick up the jagged remains of a dozen or so bottles. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks.’
Mercedes went to find a broom. For the first time in weeks, something had distracted her from thinking of Javier. He had occupied the central-most part of her mind for almost every waking moment since the coup but the proximity of the bomb had jolted her.
But as she swept the floor, even the musical jangling of the shards of glass brought her mind back to the man she loved.What had dominated her mind before she met him? She hated this wretched conflict for separating them.
Antonio had appeared and made his mother sit down. He was now pouring her a drink from the only surviving bottle.
‘I don’t know how long we can carry on . . .’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Antonio, anxious to calm his mother down.
‘. . . running the café. It’s all so . . .’
Antonio could tell his mother was tired, but they all needed to keep going. Each day everyone looked for signs that the situation in the city might be getting more stable and there was a determination on Antonio’s part to ensure that some part of their lives continued without disruption. At this point, supplies of food were still relatively plentiful in the city so there was no difficulty feeding their customers; fish was the only thing that they could not get hold of as the city was cut off from the coast at present, but meat, bread, vegetables and fruit were easy to obtain.
‘Look, we need to try and carry on as normal, otherwise they really have won, haven’t they?’ he coaxed his mother.
She nodded with weary resignation.
Bombs had fallen on the Plaza Cristo and on the Washington Hotel, close to the Alhambra, where people had taken refuge from machine-gun fire. Nine people died in the city that day, the majority of them women, and there were numerous serious casualties. At the same time as the deaths of these innocents, other equally blameless people were being tried.The rumble of Republican bombers passing overhead had only increased the resolve of the Fascists to pass sentence on those who still supported the government. Even before the ink dried on the signatures authorising these deaths, their executions were carried out.
The first people to stand trial were the Civil Governor, Martínez, the president of the local council, a lawyer named Enrique Martín Forero, and two trade unionists, Antonio Rus Romero and José Alcantara. From their appearance in front of a jury on 31 July to their court martial, sentence and execution at dawn against the cemetery wall, it was a mere four days. For these men and for their families and friends, these were days of fear and disbelief that such unlawful decisions could be happening in the name of justice.
In the days that followed, numerous other key figures in Granada faced the firing squad - politicians, doctors, journalists. The news of these deaths horrified the Ramírez family.
‘It means that no one is safe,’ said Pablo. ‘Absolutely no one.’
‘If they can justify killing those men, then you’re right,’ said Antonio, who had always sought to reassure his parents.
Even he had now lost hope that this conflict might reach a swift conclusion once the parts of the army that had remained loyal to the Republican government had retaliated and gained control. The ruthlessness of the troops who were carrying out Franco’s orders was breathtaking and without compromise. Idealists like Antonio were only just beginning to realise the nature of their enemy.
By the second week of August, both the heat and the bombing had intensified, but the former now ceased to be a topic of conversation. It was strange how one day, a whole building could be devastated and everyone would emerge miraculously unscathed, and then the next day a single explosion could kill half a dozen people in the street. Such an ill-fated group were the women who died when the Calle de Real Cartuja was targeted. Their deaths were as random as the roll of dice.
For over a fortnight now, Granada had been an island of fascism in a sea of loyal Republicanism. Antonio had held on to the hope that this relatively small area of land could be taken back but he was losing faith. News began to drift in of Nationalist successes in various other places including Antequera and Marbella.
The Nationalist force had now organised its defence against air bombardment of Granada. German cannons were in strategic positions to deter Republican planes, so air raids stopped.
Once the bombs ceased to drop, the streets of Granada were again full of activity. There were more people around than was usual for the time of year. Many would normally have left the city for the duration of the summer but had been afraid to do so because of the uncertainty of
the political situation. Combined with the influx of people from surrounding villages the population had swelled.
The atmosphere was clearly not one of celebration, but at certain times of day, the teeming streets and squares were redolent of fiesta.The cafés were full. People sat close to share precious shade, and young women moved about between the tables collecting coins for Red Cross hospitals that had been set up around the city to treat the wounded.
Cinemas were open as usual but were obliged endlessly to repeat the few films that they had in stock, and entertainment-starved audiences had no choice but to tolerate the repetition and to watch the newsreels, which were alarming whichever side of the political spectrum the audience was on.