Encarnita's Journey Read online

  She rinsed her mouth with a small cupful of water and spat it out in the yard. Then she lifted a small canvas sack and set off again. She was going out to look for fallen fruit, whatever she could find, olives, an orange or two, perhaps even an avocado, if she would be lucky enough to find a ripe one. She would share her pickings with Sofia. Sofia had a nephew who was a fishermen; he would sometimes bring her a fish which she would then share with Encarnita. They helped each other out. The baker gave them the ends of stale loaves. Life would be a little easier, come summer, for then she might be able to find work in the fields.

  She took a street that led down to the plaza. Before she reached it she stepped back into a doorway and waited. There seemed to be no sign of the guards. Moving quickly and quietly, she crossed the square.

  Once she reached the edge of the village and could see the campo in front of her she began to feel a little easier. She was about to cross the road when she heard the sound of traffic. An open-backed army truck came into view, the rear packed with soldiers, each clutching a rifle close to his body, looking as if he were ready to spring out and fire the moment an order was given. The vehicle slowed and the driver spoke to her through his open window. Had she seen any strangers in the area?

  ‘No, no one,’ she said.

  The army was conducting regular searches over wide sweeps of country, their quarry Republicans on the run. Sometimes, lying awake in the dark, Encarnita would hear shots. They carried out their executions at night and buried their victims in mass graves in the campo. It was said that the poet Lorca lay in one such grave somewhere outside Granada but no one knew where. He had been executed early in the war. It was the not knowing that the relatives of the missing found the most difficult thing to bear. Sofia had been able to put her son to rest and so could mourn him.

  ‘If you see anyone report it at once to the Guardia Civil!’ snapped the driver.

  The engine roared into life and the truck picked up speed, foul smoke belching from its exhaust pipe. The soldiers stared back at her where she stood at the side of the road. They could not be any older than she was, yet some of them had the glazed eyes of the old man who sat on the low wicker chair in her street.

  And then, the soldiers were gone. Encarnita crossed the road and ran until she was out of breath, when she slowed her pace to a walk. Out in the campo she missed the company of Cinderella. The goat had died in the winter. She had no money to buy a new one and there was no chance of Don Geraldo coming to her rescue this time. In the beginning she had felt as if Cinderella’s death had severed a link with him but had found that when she took out Señorita Carrington’s picture of Gabriella, her first goat, and looked at it, her mind would travel back to the hillside above Yegen and she would remember the sound of the Englishman and his friends talking and laughing. They had always been so full of life. Were they laughing now? Was anyone laughing? Only the victors. In Republican houses, people were quiet, afraid even to raise their voices.

  She often wondered how they were, Don Geraldo and Doña Gamel, if they were living in England, or had stayed in Spain. She thought it unlikely that they would have stayed. Luisa might have heard from Maria and Rosario’s brother, but there had been no news from Yegen since early in the war. Encarnita had received one letter from Miss Osborne, to which she had written a reply, but when she had dropped the envelope into the box she had had the feeling that it might never reach its destination. The postal service had all but collapsed.

  She made for an old olive grove that was no longer tended. She harvested a number of its wrinkled fruits and dropped them gratefully into her sack. Further on, she came to a ruined house that had been burned out by the Nationalists; it had housed a Republican and his family. They had all died in the fire, the parents and their three children. Encarnita hated going near the blackened ruin that smelt still of smoke, but there was a good orange tree in the garden and if she did not take the fruit it would drop and wither and Sofia and herself would go hungry. As soon as she had dropped the fruit into the bag she put her back to the place and plunged deeper into the campo. She was going to visit her house.

  It was many months since she had been there. During the war it had been difficult to wander off the beaten path. Even now it was dangerous. She had set out to go not long ago but, before reaching the house, she had come across one of the patrols. They had waved her back with their rifles and so, without a word, she had turned and headed for the coast.

  She went warily, keeping an eye open for any sign of human life. The house, standing in such an isolated position, was well away from any other kind of habitation. When the broken-down roof came into view, she felt herself smiling. It was still there! Her own special secret place. No one had burned it down. She picked her way between the brambles and thorn bushes that had grown up around it since her last visit. Vegetation had crept up the masonry, too, virtually obscuring it.

  She pushed open the splintered door. The first thing that struck her was the noise after the quiet outside. It was the frenzied noise of madly buzzing insects. Many insects. Her eyes took a few minutes to adjust to the light but when they did she saw that someone – it looked like the body of a man – was lying on the floor. He was surrounded by a cloud of flies.

  1939

  Could it be Rinaldo? That was her first thought, then she realised that there was no reason why it should be him any more than anyone else. He had not known the place existed. She wished now that she had told him about it for he might have been able to use it as a hideaway.

  It was very hot inside the house. She swallowed to calm her rising nausea, then she forced herself to move towards the man. The flies came up in a swarm as she closed in on them and she batted them away whirling her arms round and round her head. Finally, she lifted a piece of old sacking and drove as many as she could out of the house, swearing at them as she did. She felt angry with them. They were an enemy she could attack in return.

  Now she could see the man. His head and shoulders were covered with a stained, grey blanket. The stains were dark. Blood, probably. Gently, she eased the covering back from his head. It was not Rinaldo. She did not know whether to be relieved or disappointed. He was not a Spaniard at all, or like none she had ever seen in their part of the country. His tangled shoulder-length hair, and matted beard were sandy-red in colour and his skin was pale, very pale, waxy almost, like the face of the Christ in the church. He had a gash on his temple, clotted with black blood. She swished away the insects that had been feeding on it. His long blond lashes were closed. She put out a finger and cautiously touched his cheek; it felt chilled but she did not think it was quite stone cold. She jumped as he let out a small moan, more of a mew, like the noise a kitten might make. He was alive.

  When she pulled back the blanket from the rest of his body she saw that he wore the uniform of the Republican army. So he was on the run. His right arm lay in an awkward position and there were blood stains on the legs of his trousers. She stayed for some time as she was, on her knees, watching him; his eyelids flickered from time to time and once or twice twitched so rapidly that she thought he was about to wake. But he did not. His lips were ridged and cracked at the sides. He was bone dry.

  Her dishes were still where she had left them, beside the wall, covered with a piece of cloth. She lifted the pail and went to fill it at the spring, taking care, as she came and went, to scan the terrain for any sign of human life. A black vulture was hovering overhead, casting his shadow on the ground, awaiting his chance. It was lucky for the man that he had found her house; out in the open he would have been vulnerable to birds of prey as well as humans. When she went back to him she found that he had not moved. She dipped her fingers in the water and laid them against his lips and immediately his mouth responded with little sucking movements. She plunged her fingers into the water again and again and each time the response from his lips was stronger.

  She sat very still beside him and waited, sensing that he was gradually stirring into life. The expres
sions on his face were changing. He frowned now as if trying to remember something. The sun was gradually moving round until its rays no longer reached into the interior of the house. Shadows were forming. She knew she should go soon or else she would be caught out in the dark. Just as she was thinking that she could not delay any longer he opened his eyes and looked directly into her face.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, in English.

  She was not surprised. While she had sat there, keeping her vigil, she had begun to think that he must come from a country further north. They had heard of the International Brigades, made up of men from several European countries as well as North America, who had come to Spain to fight on the side of the Republicans.

  ‘Hello,’ she returned, using his language.

  ‘English?’

  ‘Me? No, I Spanish.’

  ‘But you speak English?’

  ‘A little. You, you are English?’

  ‘No, Scots.’

  ‘It is not the same?’

  ‘No, it is not the same.’

  He tried to move his arm and flinched.

  ‘Painful?’

  ‘Broken. Feels broken.’

  ‘You know Rinaldo?’

  ‘Rinaldo?’ He looked blank. ‘No, I don’t think so. Why? Should I know him?’

  ‘He my uncle.’ She had hoped that he might have news of Rinaldo. She feared she would never see him again. It was as if he had vanished from the face of the earth, like so many others. ‘He fight like you. For Republicans.’

  ‘I see. Has he not come back? I’m sorry.’ He ran his serrated tongue over his cracked lips. She put the cup to his mouth and lifted the back of his head up with her other hand to make it easier for him to drink. He drank noisily and greedily.

  Dusk had gathered inside the house. Looking up at the sky through the broken roof Encarnita saw a star. Very soon it would be dark. She had to hope for a moon and a cloudless sky to see her home.

  ‘I sorry but must go. It late.’ She got to her feet. ‘But tomorrow I come back.’

  ‘Would you? Would you really? I’d be very grateful. Do you think you could bring me some food?’

  ‘Some here.’ She took two oranges and a handful of olives out of her sack and laid them beside him. ‘I bring more food tomorrow. There is water in pail.’

  ‘Thank you. You are very kind. You will not tell anyone about me?’

  She shook her head and then she left him. It was only when she had put the house behind her that she realised she did not even know his name. There was only a half moon which shed indifferent light over the undulating campo. She was normally sure-footed but in the half dark she could not avoid stumbling into rabbit holes or scratching her legs on thorny bushes. As she drew nearer to the coast she was encouraged by the sight of the little winking lights of Almuñecar ahead.

  The road was quiet so she was able to cross quickly and was soon in the shelter of the streets. She went cautiously, as she had come to do wherever she went, watching for signs of tricorned hats. There was scarcely anyone at all around. People did not venture out much after dark for fear of running foul of the patrols. When she reached Sofia’s house she saw that her lamp was lit so she tapped on the door and went in.

  ‘Encarnita! Where have you been? I’ve been worried about you.’

  Encarnita went to kiss her. ‘I was in the campo.’

  ‘But it’s been dark for an hour and more.’

  ‘No harm came to me.’ Encarnita tipped out the contents of her bag. ‘I brought us some fruit.’

  Sofia had a hunk of bread and a sliver of hard cheese. They put their food together and sat down at the table to eat. Encarnita related her encounter with the guard earlier.

  Sofia knew the man. ‘He’s a pig, that one! He tries to get his hand up all the girls’ skirts. His wife is a miserable creature. He beats her, I’m sure he does. You can see the bruises on her face. And she misses her family in Madrid. She talked to me up in the cemetery. Poor girl. She comes up there sometimes. She has no one here to talk to, with her husband being a guard. You must stay with me tonight, Encarnita. You shouldn’t be sleeping up there all alone, a young girl like you.’

  Encarnita stayed and woke in the morning thinking of the Scottish soldier. As soon as Sofia had gone up to the cemetery Encarnita slipped down the hill and set out for the house, collecting olives, a couple of avocados and some oranges on the way.

  He was sitting with his back to the wall. His face lit up as soon as he saw her. ‘I’ve been wondering if you would come.’

  ‘You think I would not?’

  ‘Why should you? You don’t know me. Have you come because of your uncle?’

  ‘I come because I want.’ She set down the fruit, trying to explain in faltering English that she did not have money to buy other kinds of food.

  He asked her name.

  ‘Encarnita.’ She felt shy now and looked away. He had very searching eyes of an arresting shade of turquoise-blue.

  ‘Me llamo Conal.’

  ‘Habla español?’

  ‘A little. What I learned in the war. I don’t think I should repeat some of the words though!’

  She smiled. ‘We can speak in a mixture of the two. You help me with English and I help you with Spanish.’ That would be good for her, she said, since she planned to go to England one day. He countered, saying that she must come to Scotland. He was curious and wanted to know how she had come to learn English.

  ‘You know Don Geraldo Brenan? He live in my village.’

  ‘Geraldo Brenan? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t know him? But he famous. He has written books with the name of George Beaton. You don’t know his book Jack Robinson?’

  Conal frowned and shook his head.

  ‘That is pity. He very nice man. You know the woman Virginia Woolf? She writes books as well. Lot of his friends do.’

  Conal had heard of Virginia Woolf though had not read any of her books. ‘She didn’t live in your village too, did she?’

  ‘She come for visit. She wear nice soft shoes.’

  A spasm crossed his face and he closed his eyes while it passed. Encarnita went to him.

  ‘It’s my arm.’ He tried to smile. ‘And a few other things. I’m filthy too.’

  She fetched water and let him sluice his face before she looked at his wounds. He shook his head afterwards like a dog coming out of the river. ‘That’s better.’ He was gasping. She had brought with her an old piece of cloth and a shirt of Rinaldo’s. He fainted for a moment while she was helping to ease him out of his jacket. She gave him a drink and held his head until the dizziness left him, then she went out to look for a straight stick to use as a splint. She found a branch and snapped it in half.

  ‘You’ve done this before,’ he said, as she bound the stick to his arm and afterwards cleaned, as best she could, the wound on his temple and two deep gashes in his right leg that had been bandaged by fraying strips of grubby cloth. She frowned at those wounds but made no comment. He was right; she had done this many times before. In the early years of the war, before they had been overrun by the Nationalists, she and Sofia had helped to tend wounds and bind up limbs of many wounded Republican soldiers.

  ‘You are an angel,’ he said.

  ‘An angel?’ That made her laugh and she realised that she had not laughed for a long time. ‘No, I not think so. I am not very holy. The priest probably not say so.’

  ‘You don’t have to be holy to be an angel! I like your name. Encarnita! Tell me about yourself, Encarnita.’

  ‘Not much to tell.’

  ‘There must be. You’ve been in this hellish war too. Tell me about your uncle.’

  To do that, she had to lapse into Spanish. She spoke volubly and fast, losing him at times, but holding him sufficiently so that he knew, more or less, what she was saying. ‘He was good man,’ she said finally, in English, and then she shed tears for Rinaldo, for the first time. Until now, she had tried to believe that a miracle would ha
ppen and he would return.

  Conal put out his hand to touch hers. ‘I understand. I have seen so many men die.’

  ‘You tell me your story?’

  The Scotsman told her that he had come to Spain in 1937 and enlisted in an International Brigade, having crossed over the Pyrenees from France with a number of other recruits, men who had wanted to help their Spanish brothers.

  ‘But why? Why you come when you are not Spanish? I don’t understand. It was not your war.’

  ‘It was every man’s war. I came because I hate Fascism!’ He went on to talk about Hitler, the man whom Jacobo had feared, and about Mussolini, the leader of the Italians, and how they wanted to take over the world.

  ‘The priest say the communists in Russia want to take over the world too. He say there is a man called Stalin who is very bad man and hates God.’

  ‘I’m not a communist. You don’t need to have a label. I am on the side of the poor and the underdog. You have to stand up for what you believe in in this world.’

  He might have been repeating the words that she had heard Rinaldo speak in the plaza, his eyes on fire, the listening crowd captured by his fervour. She wondered if the Scotsman was a poor underdog himself. How could she tell? He wore a soiled army uniform and he had no money so he was poor now whatever he had been at home in his own country.

  ‘You are brave man,’ she told him.

  He shook his head. ‘At times I was so scared to death I was tempted to run away but I didn’t know where to run.’ Now that he had begun to talk he went rambling on, about battles and places, most of which she could not follow. Some names she knew, like the river Ebro, which she had seen on the map of Spain. The battle there, she gathered, had been bloody and had lasted many months. It had been his last battle. Friends had died, had given their lives. As Sofia’s Pedro had, at that same place. ‘For what?’ Conal demanded, but she had no answer. She felt as if the soil of her country was soaked in blood. She wondered if flowers could ever bloom again in such polluted ground.