from the fire and took it to the bathroom and told the children to wash themselves, Rosana first, then Pablo.
‘I hope it poisoned them,’ Antonio said. ‘And how have you been keeping, elder sister?’
‘Surviving,’ Ana said.
‘Jesús?’
‘Fighting.’
‘Mother of God! He’ll shoot his own foot.’ Antonio inhaled deeply and blew smoke towards the fire and watched it wander into the chimney.
‘And Salvador?’
Ana straightened her back in front of the fire. ‘He’s dead.’
Antonio stared at the cigarette cupped in his hand. ‘Papa?’
‘Dead.’
‘How?’
‘Killed by one of your bombs.’ She placed her hands on her hips. ‘But the priest lived.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said.
And then he had gone and she had imagined him flitting through the blacked-out campus, and sidling through the front lines where friend and foe called to each other, and making his way south to the Jarama valley to resume the fight against his own people.
In the Puerta del Sol she spoke to a lottery ticket vendor. The lottery headquarters had moved with the faint-hearted Government to Valencia but tickets which could make purchasers rich beyond the dreams of working men were still on sale in Madrid. But as the crone had said, ‘Who wants money?’ If the first prize had been a kilo of sausages Ana might have joined a syndicate and bought a fraction of a decimo, a tenth part of a ticket.
The vendor was young and broad-shouldered with a strong waist and muscular arms but his legs were shrivelled, tucked under him like a cushion on his wheelchair.
She asked him if he knew any food resources. She had known him for three years, this robust cripple, and they admired each other.
‘I know where there are candles.’
‘You can’t eat candles, idiot.’
‘You can barter with them, guapa.’
‘And what do I barter for the candles?’
‘That rabbit of yours. He is very lucky. I wish I was that rabbit.’
‘If I can’t get any food today I shall eat that rabbit tonight,’ Ana said.
‘I wish even more that I was that rabbit.’
She frowned but she was not displeased; she liked his glow and enjoyed his vulgarity. It was rumoured that, during the frenzied days of July, he had produced a pistol from beneath the blanket covering his thighs and shot a Fascist between the eyes.
‘How is business?’ she asked.
‘Today everyone gambles with death, not figures.’
‘You get enough to eat?’
‘People are good to me,’ he said. ‘I am, after all, at the centre of Spain.’
‘Some people say the Hill of the Angels is the centre of Spain.’
‘I hope not; the Fascists hold it.’
‘We held it for one great day,’ Ana said. ‘Enrique Lister took it in January. And took 400 prisoners. We showed them what to expect.’
‘Just the same, this plaza is the centre of Spain because it is in Republican hands. Kilometre 0.’ He pointed across the plaza, shouldered by the red and white façade of the Ministry of the Interior, with its kiosks selling merchandise that no one wanted these days – dolls and combs and fans – and the umbrella shop with sawdust on the floor. ‘Have you ever been here, guapa, on New Year’s Eve when you must swallow twelve grapes before the clock has finished striking twelve?’
‘I have been here,’ she said. ‘And I have been to the Retiro on a Sunday and seen the jugglers and the mummers and listened to the guitars and eaten water ices and taken a rowing boat on the lake.’
‘It was beautiful to be in Madrid then,’ the vendor said. ‘Here, I will give you a ticket.’ He tore a pink ticket from one of the strips hanging from his neck.
‘But you will have to pay for it.’
‘You can repay me one day when we have won this bloody war. Now perhaps you can use it to trade for a candle which you can trade for a can of beans.’
‘If not, you share the rabbit with us.’
‘Have you noticed that all the cats have disappeared?’
‘Then there will be plenty of rats to eat. Where are these candles?’
He named a street near the Plaza Mayor where, from a height, the roofs looked like a scattered pack of mouldering playing cards.
At the stall, where a man with sunken cheeks was trading candles, Ana became inspired. Glancing at the ticket she noticed that the last three figures were 736. The seventh month of the year of ’36 – the month in which the war had broken out.
‘What have you to offer?’ asked the trader, who was not doing good business because, after dark, Madrileños went to bed and watched the searchlights switching the sky and listening to the gunfire to the west of the city and had no need for illumination.
‘I want six candles, comrade,’ Ana said.
He appraised her. Ana was flattered that men still looked at her in that way; she was also aware that she carried with her a fierceness that discouraged all but the most intrepid.
‘I asked you what you had to offer.’ A cigarette in the corner of his mouth beat time with his words.
‘This.’ She held up the lottery ticket.
‘You expect six candles for that?’
But Ana knew her Madrileños: they would bet on two flies crawling up the wall.
‘This is a very special ticket,’ Ana said. ‘With this you will be able to buy a Hispano-Suiza. And an apartment on the Castellana. And a castle in the country.’
‘Let me have a look at this passport to paradise.’
She handed him the ticket. He held it up to the light like a banker looking for a forgery. Cold rain began to fall from a pewter sky.
‘What is so special about this ticket?’ the vendor asked.
‘Imbecile. Look at the last three numbers. The month of the year the war started.’
The trader hesitated. Then he said, ‘Three candles.’
‘Burro! They were
