Daughter of Catalonia

The small group of people trudged along the mountain pass from France. Above them rocky shadows loomed blacker even than the night sky. They were below the snowline, but it had started to rain, and Madeleine was shivering furiously in spite of her warm clothing. Elise held tight to her daughter’s mittened hand and spoke reassuringly.

‘Just keep going a little bit further, darling, and then Papa will be able to carry you again.’

Madeleine turned serious eyes to her, glinting white in this colourless world. She hadn’t complained or even spoken yet on this slow, stumbling walk into Spain. They had told her she needed to be quiet so that the border militia wouldn’t hear them, and her normal six-year-old chatter seemed to have frozen in the night air.

From the moment they set off in the car, on that tense, creeping drive along border tracks, edging towards the foot
of the mountains and the pass that would take them to safety through the Pyrenees, Elise had thanked the clouded heavens for the shelter they had given them. They’d chanced taking the car as far as possible, headlights off, easing forward at a snail’s pace for silence. The children couldn’t walk the whole way, so they had no choice, they had to take the risk. They’d made it to the pass unchallenged, and Elise had breathed again, her chest sore from stupidly holding her breath. And they’d found their guide Enric waiting for them, urging them to get started, for they had fifteen kilometres to cover, and must arrive before daylight. With the children it would be slow going.

For the moment, at least, the greatest danger to them came from the natural landscape – the shingle which shifted constantly under them, and the boulders which caught their feet. A sprain would spell disaster. Occasionally a quick flash of a torch from Enric would show them a danger area, but for the most part they relied on their night vision.

Ahead the men stopped for a moment, and Luis lifted little Robert down from where he rested against his shoulder, and slid him back, swathed in his blanket, into the makeshift carrier Enric wore on his back. He’d taken him out when he began to whimper some time before, wrapping him against his body, hushing him gently into his ear, but now, miraculously, the child was asleep.

‘We’ll try him in here again,’ Luis murmured to Elise. ‘At least if he cries here there’s less chance of anyone hearing him. I need to lift Madeleine for a while. She can’t walk much further.’

He knelt down in front of his daughter. ‘How are you doing, my little Amazon? Cold?’

She nodded, still soundless. Elise pulled another blanket from her bag, and wrapped it around her trembling shoulders. She hugged her and kissed her frozen cheeks.

‘You’re doing wonderfully, my darling.’

‘She’s a heroine,’ asserted Enric. ‘How old did you say she was? Only six? Well, little Madalena, your mother and father can be very proud of you.’

At his jovial Catalan words Madeleine gave her first smile, and held out her hands to be lifted into her father’s arms.

They continued their slow progress, Elise shifting a suitcase from one hand to another. Luis had a heavy holdall slung over his shoulder. With no hands free, they all stumbled from time to time, but at last now they were on Spanish soil, and their goal was getting nearer.

They fell quiet again. The threat of meeting the militia on the French side of the border had receded, but even more terrifying for Elise was the possibility of being picked up by Spanish border patrols. With her British passport, she and the children would be protected, but Luis was carrying only his French residency papers. With his history, his Spanish passport was a passport to a prison cell in Franco’s Spain, from where he might never emerge, and the further he walked, the more he walked into danger.

Ahead, Enric muttered something to Luis, and he stopped and beckoned Elise forwards.

‘No noise now,’ he instructed under his breath. ‘There are houses ahead, Enric tells me. This is the village but we
need to skirt round it. The safe house is on the other side, and we mustn’t be heard.’

Elise nodded. She checked on Robert, who still slept restlessly in the backpack, and then gestured to Madeleine.

‘You’d better give her back to me, Luis, so that you’re free to take Robert. Enric will need to be free to move ahead and scout around, and we can’t risk Robert waking up and crying again.’ She stroked Madeleine’s wet forehead. ‘Can you walk,
ma chérie
, for this last little bit? We’re nearly there now, darling. Hold my hand and we’ll follow Papa and soon you’ll be inside.’

They followed Enric onto rougher ground, wet with rain, and made a slow, edging progress around the village. It was still dark, but lights were lit in some of the cottages. This was farming country, and the people would be with their livestock before daylight. Elise held her breath again, willing them all to stay indoors until they were past. She gripped tighter onto Madeleine’s hand, drawing the child in closer to her.

A dog growled, sounding frighteningly near, and Madeleine cried out in fear. Elise froze, and saw Luis and Enric stop dead ahead of them. Nobody moved. The dog growled again, and Elise crouched down and pulled Madeleine to her, her face close to the child’s. She raised a finger to her lips, and Madeleine nodded, her lip quivering. They waited for the frenzy of barking which might follow at any moment. There would be other dogs in the village. Elise prayed that they were all chained up.

The seconds ticked by, and there was a blessed silence. Nobody came out to check on the dog. Perhaps his growl
hadn’t been heard inside. After what seemed like long minutes Enric gestured forward, and they crept on, even more slowly, for what seemed like an interminable fifteen minutes. The boggy ground was treacherous, and the suitcase felt like lead in Elise’s hand as she hauled herself, the case and the child towards the goal which must now be so close. Twice she stumbled, and once her hold on Madeleine’s hand was all that stopped the child falling to her knees. They kept going, following Luis who was following Enric.

A short way past the little village stood a cottage on its own, and Enric led them to the door. He opened it and went in without knocking, and gestured for them to follow. It was profoundly dark inside, and Enric lit his torch. It leapt eerily off the low ceiling, and then he was gone, leaving them by the door as he went into a second room in the cottage. After just a few minutes he returned, accompanied by a man in his late middle age, burly and hard skinned, who was pulling trousers on over his nightshirt.

The older man lit a lamp, and the simple room came into focus. He went to the fire and stirred the logs to uncover a glow underneath. Then he gestured to them to sit down. Luis greeted him in Catalan and his inscrutable face softened; he returned the greeting and made a remark about the bad night outside.

‘Felip has a spare bedroom where the señora and the children can sleep for a while,’ said Enric. ‘In the morning Felip will take them in his cart down to catch the train for Barcelona.’

Elise sat with Madeleine on her knee, easing warmth into the child’s frozen little body. Luis had lain Robert down beside her on the sofa, miraculously still sleeping. Luis and Enric spoke quietly by the window, but Elise felt too exhausted to talk.

Felip had disappeared but now came back and placed a steaming pan on the table. ‘Soup,’ he muttered. ‘You should eat before sleeping.’

It was an excellent mountain soup, full of onions and beans. Madeleine ate hungrily, and the tight look eased from her little face. Elise tried to eat, fighting the knots in her stomach. Soon Luis would be leaving, with Enric, heading back to France, and she would go on to England without him. When would she ever return? When would they ever be together again?

Robert stirred on the hard little sofa, and Elise went across and lifted him.

‘Come now, Madeleine, you should sleep for a while. I’ll put you in to bed with Robert and then I’ll come back and say goodbye to Papa.’

Fear returned to Madeleine. Her eyes shot towards Luis, and he came to her and lifted her and took her into the bedroom. Elise left them for a while, and then took in Robert. She found them lying together; Luis was asking Madeleine to look after her brother, and help her mother, and be a good girl, and soon they would all be together again.

‘When you beat Hitler,’ stated Madeleine uncertainly.

‘That’s right, my love, when we beat Hitler and send him and his soldiers back to Germany, then France will be free
again, and you and
Maman
and Robert will all come home.’

He kissed her and made to rise, and she clung to him, and gave a tearless sob.

‘And you won’t die?’

‘No,
carinyo
, I will not die.’

He rose and Elise laid Robert down beside her. Luis stroked his son’s cheek, kissed Madeleine again, and left the room.

‘I’ll be back soon, Madeleine,’ said Elise. ‘Just cuddle under the blanket and I’ll be in with you in a moment.’

She found Luis in the sitting room, clenching and unclenching his hands at his side. Enric and Felip had discreetly disappeared.

‘We did pack everything?’ he asked, for the hundredth time, gesturing to the suitcases. ‘The money, and your pearls? Where did we put the passport and the children’s birth certificates?’

‘Stop, Luis. Everything is there. You know that.’

‘Even your jewellery case?’

The attempt at a joke was almost heroic. They had argued over the jewellery case, Luis saying it was stupid to clutter herself with it on such a journey, and he’d insisted on removing the pearls and the children’s birth certificates from it. ‘That’s the first place anyone would look who wanted to steal from you,’ he chided her. He had been fiercely practical and positive these last few days. But he hadn’t been sleeping. She knew, because she tossed and turned in the same twisted sheets.

I’m really going away
, thought Elise.
This is it. He’s going to leave us now
.

‘Luis.’

He moved towards her and drew her into his arms, burying his head in her hair. She clung to him.

‘You have to go now before it’s light,’ she said, as matter-of-fact as possible.

‘I know.’

He looked down at her and her face was drenched in tears.

‘Go safely, my darling. Stay safe for me.’

He kissed her and was gone.