The Guardian of Secrets: And Her Deathly Pact (62 page)

Chapter 68

M
aría received Carlos’s note asking her to meet with him. He had given her short notice, but she had somehow managed to swap shifts with another nurse and now found herself standing awkwardly on the corner of the street behind the hospital. While she was waiting, she recalled that it had been almost six weeks since Carlos’s last appearance. Then he had arrived out of the blue and had stayed just long enough for a watery cup of coffee and a kiss behind the hospital building.

She was freezing, with dull pain in gloveless hands and eyes that stung with the cold. She had never known such cold, a cold that bit into her bones and left her feeling continually tired so that even thoughts of Carlos could not warm her.

She looked at the faces of the people she passed, exhausted but resolute. The previous two months had been hard, with hundreds of wounded civilians coming to the hospital due to the bombing of the city by German aircraft. Makeshift bomb shelters had been dug quickly, and people slept in the underground tunnels and sewers in an attempt to escape the bombs. Disease and the vermin that carried it were now the people’s greatest enemy, and very few of the infected survived. The intermittent bombing became commonplace, and hundreds died. In her opinion, the bombproof shelters that met her eyes now were not very bombproof at all! Earlier in the week, she had gone for a walk and had been caught up in the panic just before an aerial attack. She’d thought it strange, standing on the steps of one of the shelters, that hundreds of panic-stricken people were trying desperately to get out of rather than into the shelter. The fear of suffocation was undoubtedly their motivation for leaving the Metro station, and as the roar of the aeroplane engines above became louder, signalling that their presence was drawing ever closer, she too decided to leave the madness and take her chances inside a shop across the street.

She had stood in the doorway watching the crowds, some fighting to get into the shelter and others pushing and shoving to get out. People suddenly stopped in their tracks, looking upward, mesmerised, at the incendiary bombs hurtling towards them. Both the inside and outside of the shelter were bombed, and two hundred people died that day. She knew then that she would never set foot inside a shelter, not even if her life depended on it.

She looked again at the hungry faces that surrounded her and saw him sauntering towards her with his sure-footed step and cheesy grin. Carlos always had the power to make her smile. A rush of energy poured into her as she ran across the street towards him.

Carlos grabbed her and hungrily pulled her to him like a starving man. “María! My God, it’s good to see you. How are you, darling?” he asked her, holding her now at arm’s length.

“I’m all right… a little tired,” she said honestly.

They kissed again.

“I’ve missed you; you look pale.” Carlos said. “Are you eating properly?”

“Yes, I’m fine, really.”

“How long have you got off?”

María thought about the question, teasing him by not replying.

“María, how long can you stay?”

“I think the answer to that question is in my next question. How long do you have?”

“Until tomorrow,” he told her.

“That long!” María threw herself into his arms.

She was ecstatic. She was used to seeing him for only an hour or two at a time, and even then, she thought, they had never been able to enjoy a meal together without him running out of time. She had heard about the mass mobilisation, and she had a good idea that he had something to tell her, something important. There was going to be a long goodbye at the end of this, she was sure of it.

They sat at their table in the small restaurant opposite the central bomb shelter. María asked for a glass of red wine, gulping it down as soon as it arrived. He was going to tell her that he was leaving Madrid.

He looked into her eyes, and she felt her stomach lurch with desire. She tried her best to smile and fought back the tears she always denied.

“Tell me, Carlos, please, just tell me,” she begged with a weak smile.

“Tell you what?”

“You’re leaving Madrid, aren’t you?”

Carlos sighed and then held her hand. “Yes, I am. María, you know as well as I do what’s going on here. We’re both at the convenience of our government, so why do you ask me these questions over and over again. We’re at war; I go where I’m told, when I’m told. We have no control over our own lives.”

“I know that. I just want to know, to get it over with and put my mind at rest,” she defended herself.

Carlos brushed her face with his finger. The sadness in his eyes overwhelmed her, and she gulped down a wretched sob before taking a deep breath.

“María, please don’t cry. I know you came to Madrid in the hopes of seeing me, and I was selfishly happy at the thought of your being close by, but as I said, we cannot control anything that happens in this war, except for today. Today we can love and take memories with us when we part. We can shut out this war for one whole day, and together we can lose ourselves in a place where it can’t touch us. I’m not letting you out of my sight until tomorrow, but when tomorrow comes and I leave you at the hospital gates, you mustn’t ask me about where I’m going or what I’m going to do.”

María was not appeased. “But you always know where I am and what I’m doing, so why can’t I know the same about you? You could be on another planet, for all I know!” She batted his hand away. “You’re so damned secretive all the time! It wouldn’t be so bad if I could, just for once, know what kind of danger you may or may not be in or know that I can write to you. Do you know how it feels every time you go away, to God knows where, with no idea if or when you’ll be back? You wear no uniform, yet you have a rank. You are not attached to any unit I know of in Madrid, and believe me, I’ve seen most of them at some point or another. Yet you talk about orders; orders from whom? Don’t you love me enough to tell me what you do?”

There, she’d said it; she’d wanted to say these things for a long time now. She wanted him to know how much she hurt—no, agonised—over his secretive operations. She supposed that she was being unfair to him in a way, but he was so damned elusive that even their prearranged meetings were tinged with an amount of scepticism on her part. There had been times when she had looked forward to seeing him for days, only to go to the spot where they were supposed to meet and find it empty. Those were the worst times, when she’d walk back to the hospital wishing that she hadn’t bothered to wash her hair and put on one of her few nice dresses. It was also on those occasions that she wished she didn’t love him so damned much.

“María, I’m sorry you feel this way. I know it must be hell for you wondering where I am all the time, but I can’t tell you,” Carlos said after a long pause. “It goes against the oath that I have taken to serve my country. It breaks my heart every time I have to leave you, when all I want to do is hold you in my arms all night, every night. But I’m doing my job the best way I know how in order to free us from the fascist rats that are standing at the gates of our capital city. If Madrid falls, María, Valencia will fall too, and we can’t let that happen. I have to leave tomorrow, so please let’s just make the most of the time we have and talk no more about the bloody war!”

She stared long and hard at her empty glass and watched a tear drip inside it. He loved her, she knew that, but he was not being honest with her, and that was what hurt the most. She’d been a fool to question his feelings and loyalty. She knew that too, for if he was being secretive, it was because he had to be, not because he was deliberately hiding something from her. God, she was pathetic. She looked at his face and decided to do as he said. He was right; here and now was all that mattered, and tomorrow hadn’t happened yet. Today was all they had.

María and Carlos lay side by side in the small bed in a hotel behind the cathedral.

Carlos had always been patient with her. He had wanted her on many occasions in the groves at La Glorieta but had never urged her to give herself to him completely. He wanted to wait until she was absolutely ready. She was naked now, and he drank in her curves and innocence. “Are you sure?” he asked her.

“I’ve never been so sure of anything, darling. I want to be yours in every way. I’ve waited so long for this. Love me, love me, please.”

She was his now, and he had never thought it possible to love another human being so completely.

Later, they tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. As they held each other throughout the night, María realised that everything had changed forever.

They talked about Marta. María cried and laughed at her memories of the sister who had been the most important person in her young life. She then realised that life was filled with memories and future plans, and they often became more important than the actions of the present, the here and now. The future would unfold; the past would remain. She and Carlos had to seize every second of every minute of life’s pleasures right now, before they disappeared forever. She touched him, caressed every part of him, and their passion reignited once again.

“Orders and a letter,” Lucia said, thrusting a piece of paper and an envelope into María’s hand as soon as she walked into the room. “And where were you last night? No, don’t answer that. I can guess. María, we’re leaving. We have orders to follow the army to the Jarama valley. It will be field rations from now on; that’s all I know,” she added with a twisted pout that always made María laugh. “Open the letter quick! It’s from London!”

The two girls held no secrets from each other and had formed the habit of reading aloud letters from home, which often bolstered the other, even when the letter was not for them. Maria laughed again at Lucia’s childish excitement and began to read.

London,
15
January
,
1937

Our
darling
María,

We
were
so
happy
to
receive
your
last
letter
and
hope
that
this
one
reaches
you
just
as
quickly
and
as
safely
as
yours
did
us.
Father
is
resting
and,
as
I
mentioned
last
month,
is
still
itching
to
find
out
everything
that’s
happening
in
your
area
and
being
very
irritable
if
he
thinks
there’s
something
we’re
not
telling
him.
Thank
God
for
Aunt
Marie!
She
is
the
only
person
with
enough
information
to
quell
his
hunger
for
news,
and
she
keeps
him
in
line
as
well
(you
know
what
she’s
like.)

We’ve
heard
from
Pedro
at
last.
I
think
he
might
be
close
by,
with
the
International
Brigades.
Father
says
I
mustn’t
say
too
much,
but
I
just
felt
I
had
to
tell
you
the
wonderful
news
that
Pedro
is
well
and
finally
in
touch.
I
wrote
straight
back
and
told
him
that
you
were
in
roughly
the
same
place,
so
don’t
be
surprised
to
see
him
any
day
now.

There’s
still
no
word
from
Miguel,
and
I’m
worrying
about
him
so
much
that
lately
he
hasn’t
been
out
of
my
dreams.
Your
father
is
distraught,
but
I
keep
telling
him
that
it
means
Miguel
is
probably
safe
and
well.
As
they
say,
no
news
is
good
news.
Don’t
they?