Lovers in Enemy Territory (28 page)

"How do you do. I'm Sister Catherine."

He studied her exquisite face and was lost for a moment in the depths of her violet-blue eyes. He sighed inwardly. Never had he seen such great beauty. She was so young to have given herself to God.

"I'm not really a doctor, so you can call me Miguel. The Holy Mother introduces me that way so the sisters will not lose heart.” He laughed. Catherine's eyes opened wide with surprise. "Actually, I've had two years of medical study at the University in San Sebastian, but when the civil war broke out, I escaped to France for a year with other Basque students.

“When I returned six months ago, I was put into prison with hundreds of others. A guard became ill one night and I told him what to do to get better. I was released after that to work for him." He paused. " With a little money, many of my friends could be out of prison now because the guards accept bribes like candy.

“I came to Saint Theresa's and began helping the sisters. They gave me food and shelter. It’s the work I like best. After the war I’ll become a doctor, I hope. If it ever ends," he spoke passionately. "I have no right to do half the things I do, but there’s no one else qualified in the area. Many people would die if I did not help them.

“The Holy Mother is so thankful for any assistance, she just calls me Doctor, but I wanted you to understand before you started to work with me. You see?" He winked. "It's almost the blind leading the blind.” He urged the mule on to a walk. Catherine admired his honesty and dedication, but she was so surprised by his revelation she had nothing to say for a minute.

"Sister?" he asked. "Have I shocked you senseless?"

"No.” She shook her head, deep in thought. "I realize war makes everything different. It changes people and lives," she answered slowly. "I’ll do all I can to help, but you’ll have to be patient with me.

“My work has been with ideas, books, not illness, except for one little boy. I did spend some time with him in a hospital in England when he was very ill with pneumonia."

She fell silent and Miguel noticed how far removed she was from him right then. He was intrigued. She had an unusual sweetness and maturity. "I'm sure any experience you've had will be of help. If there was just enough food, but there isn't!" He sighed as the little cart moved down the

treacherously steep mountain road.

The sky was full of broken clouds and the sun was shining sporadically, warming the air about them. The scenery was even more magnificent in the morning light. It didn't seem possible that a war was going on. In fact, Catherine couldn’t believe she was here at all, sitting next to this young man high in the Pyrenees.

"I want to look in on Senora Alba. She had her fifth baby last month. Word has come from the village that her husband died in the prison. There’s no money or food. I always keep some supplies and food beneath the straw in the cart. We’ll go by and see if there’s something to be done."

"The Holy Mother at my convent in Wiltshire told me there was a shortage of food, but I had no idea of the magnitude of the famine here. On the

train, the children were eating the leftover scraps in the aisles.”

Her face contorted. He gave her a sharp glance and was troubled. This sister was in for many such shocks. "That is nothing, Sister. Do you realize there is no garbage anymore, anywhere?"

She stared at him and her eyes filled with tears.

"Last week I found some children down in the valley eating locust pods. The hunger of these people has turned them into walking skeletons." Catherine shuddered as he spoke on. "In the last few years over a third of the livestock have been lost. And the bread-- I wish you could see. It’s made of sawdust. Only the privileged classes eat white flour," and he spit to show his disgust.

"Senora Caracas showed me the sack of potatoes she stood in line to get with her ration book. It was half full of stones. Either the Fascist pigs or the army take it all. There’s nothing left to eat. We’re more fortunate here in the mountains because we have gardens. We couldn’t live without them.

“Be thankful you’re not in Madrid at this moment. The bodies are heaped in the streets." Catherine hugged her arms to her. Miguel was right. She wasn’t prepared for what was going on here. This was going to be the refiner’s fire.

“Sister, we’re lucky to be here in the mountains. At least we can keep each other alive. That is something!"

They continued on the road down through the trees till they came to the little town of Irun once more. He turned the cart on to a side road and presently pulled up in front of a tenement whose front had collapsed. The beams which had once supported the floors were splintered.

The windows had been covered with paper where there was no more glass. There were gaping holes in the walls. Catherine didn’t understand. "Does she live

here?"

He nodded with a grim expression. "Last year a delayed action bomb penetrated to the basement before exploding. They live down below. I haven’t been here since the baby came. Step carefully, Sister.” He brought along a canvas bag which he pulled from beneath the straw.

They descended amid the debris and entered a hallway. A child of four or five, whether boy or girl, she couldn’t tell, stretched out an emaciated hand to Miguel. The wretched little creature's skin was like parchment and death seemed to hover like a spectre behind the child.

Miguel gave him some bread and he disappeared. They went on till they came to a room reeking with the odor of human feces and vomit. Catherine grimaced in horror as she saw a woman and four children lying stark naked on a bed. Their bodies were mere bones, the skin stretched taut on their gaunt

frames. The new-baby was screaming hysterically at the mother's breast, which obviously had no milk. One child was lying face down, not moving.

"Sister," Miguel called out when he’d examined the bodies. "Go out to the cart. There’s a blanket beneath the straw. One of the children is dead. We must

remove the body and then clothe the family. See what you can find to wrap them in. Anything will do. I have milk in my bag to feed the baby. We’ll put this family in the cart and take them to the convent."

Catherine heard him, but she couldn't move.

Miguel turned around. The sister was retching violently in a corner. His heart went out to her. Such scenes weren’t meant to be. He was used to it and had to remember that this was her first day.

"Here, Sister. You wrap the baby in this and I'll go out to the cart." He handed Catherine a filthy rag which lay at the side of the bed. There was human excrement on the floor. She had to step carefully. It was all she could do to draw closer to the bed. Her body was still shaking from her attack of nausea.

Finally she leaned over to take the screaming infant from his mother's breast. The woman lay there with her large, vacant eyes watching Catherine without a flicker. She was beyond the point of caring, Catherine thought. The baby continued its incessant cries.

With tears streaming down her cheeks she folded the baby inside the cloth and hugged it to her. Miguel came in and one by one carried the children who were in a catatonic state out to the cart. Finally he covered the mother and lifted her emaciated body from the bed. They left the tenement and started up the road again.

Suddenly Catherine told Miguel to wait and handed him the baby. She ran back to find the child to whom he'd fed the bread. Catherine found him hiding in a doorway with a blank look on his face. She picked him up tenderly

and carried him to the straw, laying him down with the others.

Then she cradled the baby in her arms and they went back to the convent. She tried unsuccessfully to stifle her sobs, but she was horrified by the suffering she’d observed.

"How can the government let this happen?" she cried out at last. "Why isn't something being done to help? It's criminal. It’s worse than that!" she muttered angrily.

"The Relief Agency of the Phalanx Party, the Fascist regime, has soup lines for those who can get to them. But families like the Albas are not even capable of rising from their sick beds. The government only helps those who can to some degree help themselves. The rest are left to die."

"But what if we hadn’t come by here today, Miguel?"

"Now you understand why I must help," he murmured.

"Dear God, the cruelty, the inhumanity,” she moaned. There was work to be performed here. She was beginning to understand.

"Yes," he said quietly. "My father, sisters and two uncles were shot to death in front of our home in Fuenterrabia two years ago. Their blood ran down the street. No one came near the bodies for two days."

"Why?" Catherine was horrified once more.

"My father was accused of being a Red separatist. I don't suppose you know much about what has happened in our country since the civil war broke out. Franco wants to subject all of Spain to Castile to make us one nation.

“General Rivera tried to bring Basque and Catalan home rule down. He wants Madrid to have all the power. We Basques and Catalans naturally sided with the republicans. We had lived in peaceful coexistence till Franco came to power. He wants to do away with our own language, strike it from our liturgies and abolish our ancient rights and fueros.

“This was something my father could not accept, nor could hundreds of thousands of others. That is why so many fled to the mountains, to France, until the Germans took over their land. That forced us back. You see, Franco has been punishing our provinces. He withholds money from our factories, causing unemployment.

“He has labeled everyone who was a liberal, socialist, or communist, a traitor. He keeps a list of those Basques and. Catalans who haven’t contributed to the war effort. He rounds them up and puts them into prison or has them shot. Those of us who escaped and came back later were barred from working and we've had to find jobs with foreigners.

“None of us of military age are allowed to emigrate. It’s insufferable. I have friends in the mountains whose farm was confiscated for christening their baby in the Church and giving it a Basque name. The father was hauled off to prison. He’s still there awaiting trial because there are no interpreters to plead his case. Franco denies the Basques that privilege.

“Sister, you don’t begin to know what it’s like. Our children die of hunger in the meantime. I don’t plan to marry till the war is over. Something could happen to me at any time. I couldn’t bear to leave a wife and child as my friend had to do, wondering if they were dead or alive."

"No," Catherine agreed. "It would be too horrible." She thought of Jeffrey and Michael and thanked God silently that at least she knew Michael was not suffering. As for Jeffrey ...

They rode on in silence until they reached the convent. The sisters hurriedly took the stricken family inside and began the seemingly impossible process of restoring them to some semblance of health. Sister Angelina took one look at the Alba family and fainted dead away.

Catherine's work had only begun. As soon as the Alba family had been taken care of, Miguel indicated they would drive up into the mountains. It would be a longer trip this time. There was a French refugee family being housed with a Basque couple and the children had broken out in painful boils. He was taking them a supply of milk which he had managed to secure by bribing an official at the Nestle depot in Santander.

He would also take them a ration of flour. Their diet was being depleted of vital proteins. Catherine could learn to dress boils, which were prevalent everywhere. Again they climbed into the cart and began their journey into the glorious mountains. The ride offered temporary respite from the appalling scenes Catherine had just witnessed. She needed to get her second wind. They sat side by side in quiet thought. Finally he spoke.

"Sister, I must tell you something else. I’m still a political exile. The Fascists could throw me into prison at any time. I tell you this to warn you. I’ve stayed away from the large cities, and so far no one has noticed me. I haven’t caused trouble and so I’m not worth bothering about for the time being. I have friends in the villages below who get word to me if there is trouble."

"Were you involved politically before?"

"At the beginning I listened to the Fascist youth groups like everyone did. In fact I attended a student's organization which met in a basement room of the Escoril, and I listened as they poured out their hatred of the republican system.

But I’m a Catholic, and I couldn’t support their logic. Madame Franco may be a Catholic too, but Fascism is too aligned with Nazism. The Fascists do not honor the Catholic traditions, no matter what is said to the contrary. I went away from that meeting feeling very disillusioned and sad. My country has been torn apart. I cannot see where all of it’s going to end.

“Do you know that my distant relatives in the Pontevideo province were persuaded to surrender to Franco? They were republicans but they’d been promised amnesty. As soon as they surrendered, they were shot!" Catherine shook her head in dismay. "There’s no freedom anywhere. If the Fascists and Nazis don't get you, hunger will. I don't know why anyone goes on living, or even wants to."

"It’s because we all have hope of a better world someday. Someday, somehow, this tyranny has to stop, Miguel. If we don't fight it with God's help, there’ll be nothing left!"

Her outburst gave him courage. "You're right, Sister. So we go on, each in his own way." He glanced at her. "What is it like in England? I've always wanted to go there." His question surprised her.