a figurehead: Dolores is our lifeblood.’ Martine leaned back in the chair. Ana noticed muddy stains beneath her eyes. ‘So what is it you want?’ she asked her.
Martine arranged her hands across her belly. She stared at Ana. Whatever was coming needed courage. When she finally spoke the words were a blizzard.
‘The police came yesterday,’ she said. ‘SIM, the Secret Police. They asked many questions about Antonio. When had I last seen him? When was I going to see him? Trick questions … Did he give your daughter a present when you saw him? Why did my father help him to escape? Then they went to see my father. As you know, he has a weak heart.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Ana said. She poured Martine a glass of mineral water and handed it to her.
‘He was very distressed. Another interrogation could kill him.’ She sipped her mineral water and stared at the bubbles spiralling to the surface. ‘The police came to my house again this morning. They asked questions about Marisa.’ She blinked away tears. ‘Not threats exactly but hints … What a pretty little girl my daughter was, intelligent … They hoped that no harm would befall her.’
Ana said firmly, ‘The police would not harm Marisa.’
‘If they took me away it would harm her. And what of her brother or sister?’ pointing at her belly. ‘What if I were thrown into prison? I wouldn’t be the first. Then they wait, the SIM, until the husband hears that his wife is in gaol, that his child is starving. Then he gives himself up. Then he is questioned, tortured and shot in one of the execution pits.’
‘Has Antonio contacted you?’
Martine looked away furtively. ‘I don’t know where he is,’ she said, voice strumming with the lie.
‘That wasn’t what I asked you.’
‘I had a message,’ she said. ‘Through a friend.’
‘Is he well?’
‘He is full of spirit.’
‘He is a fool,’ Ana said. Martine said nothing. ‘So how can I help you?’
‘You can move about Madrid. Meet people, talk to them.’
‘And you can’t?’
‘None of us can.’
‘Us?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I know what you mean,’ Ana said. ‘Fascists.’
‘Anyone with any property or position. Old scores are being settled.’
‘But not with pregnant women. When is the baby due?’
‘I am followed wherever I go,’ Martine said. ‘They want Antonio badly. He knew many things. The baby is due in February,’ she said.
‘You were followed here?’
‘Does it matter? We are sisters-in-law. But there are certain places I cannot visit …’ She hesitated. ‘Can I trust you to keep a secret?’
‘It depends. The names and addresses of Mola’s Fifth Column? No, you cannot trust me.’
Martine fanned herself with a black and silver fan; her hair, once so precise, was damp with sweat. She said, ‘Does the man in the check jacket mean anything to you?’
Ana frowned; it meant nothing.
‘He is an Englishman. And he wears a check jacket.’
‘Stop playing games,’ Ana said.
‘I want you to swear …’
‘I’ll swear nothing. Now, please, I am hungry and Jesús will be back from the market soon.’
Martine said abruptly, ‘I must escape from Spain. For Marisa’s sake. For the sake of your nephew,’ she said slyly, stroking her belly with one hand.
‘The man in the check jacket can help you?’
‘His name is Lance. He’s sometimes known as Dagger. He’s an attaché at the British Embassy in Calle Fernando el Santo. It’s full of refugees …’
‘From Mola’s army? From Franco’s army?’
‘Don’t joke,’ Martine said. ‘You know what I mean. Refugees from the militia, from the Assault Guards. Lance has been getting prisoners out of gaol. He may be able to get them out of Spain.’
‘And you want me to …’
‘I can’t,’ Martine said.
Ana was silent. She thought about Antonio and then she thought about Martine’s daughter, Marisa, and then she thought about the unborn child and then she thought about the priest.
She said, ‘Would you mind travelling with a man of God, a black crow?’
‘I don’t understand,’ Martine said.
Ana considered telling her sister-in-law about the priest. But no, you didn’t confide in women such as her brother’s wife: they used secrets as others use bullets. But maybe this man Lance could take the priest off her hands. And Martine.
She thought, Mi madre! What am I, a daughter of revolution, doing plotting the escape of a hypocritical priest and the daughter of a Falangist?
‘Where does this Englishman live?’ she asked.
‘Calle de Espalter. Number 11. You could go there pretending to offer your services as a cleaning woman.’
Ana laughed. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘I almost admire you.’
At that moment Jesús returned carrying a basket half filled with sprouting potatoes.
Ana went to Calle de Espalter, a short, tree-lined street adjoining the Retiro, a few days later. It was the beginning of October and the air had cooled and the trees in the park were weary of summer. Militiamen, rifles slung over their shoulders, patrolled the street because it was in a wealthy and elegant part of Madrid; a banner fluttered in the breeze: LONG LIVE THE SOVIET. Broken glass crunched under Ana’s feet.
Two assault guards outside the thin block regarded her suspiciously. They wore blue uniforms and they were the Republic’s answer to the Guardia Civil who, with their shiny black tricorns and green-grey uniforms, were always suspected of Fascist sympathies.
‘What are you doing here?’ one of them asked her. He was smoking a thin cigarette and smoke dribbled from his flattened nose.
‘Do I have to give reasons for walking in my own city?’ She folded her arms and stared at the guards whose reputation for killing was unequalled in Spain. Had they not assassinated José Calvo Sotelo and helped to spark off the war?
‘You have to give us reasons,’ the guard said but he regarded her warily because some of the women of Madrid were becoming more ferocious than
