A Most Uncivil War Read online

  Raul looks out of the window at the buildings passing by. After a few seconds he says, “You had better put it away.” Salvador nods his head and stuffs his hand into the pocket of his trousers without loosening his grip on the cloth.

  As the miles roll by the window Raul tells him of his actual relationship with Caterina’s family. He tells him of how her family is now his responsibility after promising her father that he would make sure they would be all right. He makes Salvador promise that what he has seen and learnt in Barcelona would be a secret between them and how his safety and life were now in Salvador’s hands. Like the importance of the neckerchief, the boy swears to himself that he will keep both things hidden from everyone.

  They sit in silence for the remainder of the journey. While Raul rehearses the meetings with the workers that await him in the village, Salvador wrestles with the conflicting emotions he discovered in the city. As the hours pass, the young man feels increasingly overwhelmed by the thoughts vying for his attention; the responsibility given to him by Raul, the pain and suffering of the people that he had witnessed and the terrible guilt as his mind continuously reaches for Caterina, the new found focus of his desires. As the countryside rolls past the window, he struggles to know what to think. He remains silent and the neckerchief in his clenched fist becomes damp with sweat.

  By the time they return to the village it is mid-afternoon and the sun has driven all the inhabitants that can afford it into the shade. Raul and the boy go straight to the fields where they start working immediately. After a little while Raul takes Esteban’s cousin to one side during a short break and updates him on the situation in the city. Salvador watches them talking, reassuring himself that his trip now means that he is privy to information that many in the village are not.

  He drags at the earth with the hoe and the muscles across his back channel the pent-up energy that has been building over the previous twenty-four hours. The sweat across his back makes the thick linen shirt translucent and pulls the material taut across his shoulders with each drag on the wooden handle.

  He tries to picture Cati in Barcelona and all he can think of is her full lips slightly parted and her mahogany brown eyes staring back at him. With his focus so far away, the pain across his shoulders and down his spine nags at him from a distance. He tries to think of a course of events that will lead them back to one another, but he struggles against the sinking realisation that he may never see her again. His anger at the bleakness of his future fuels his muscles and he swings the hoe faster and drags at the sunbaked earth harder.

  His meditation is broken when he hears Raul’s voice. “Calm down. You will injure yourself like that. Slow and steady.” Salvador looks up from the ditch and feels himself brought back to the moment. His shoulders are burning and his lower back grips like a corset. He puts down the hoe and looks at his hands. The blood from the burst blisters dilutes with the mud and sweat. Raul passes him a bucket of water. He splashes the cool liquid on his hands; the acid sting sends shivers up his arms. He splashes the water on his face and feels the salty bitterness of the sweat in his eyes.

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls the neckerchief out. He pauses for a moment to look at it. Raul throws him his own faded handkerchief. “Here, use this instead, you don’t want to spoil that one.” Salvador catches it with his other hand and feels the muscles in his thighs tense and lock. He wipes his face with Raul’s handkerchief and puts the black and red one back into his pocket. After a more careful study he decides that on balance his right hand is in a worst state than his left and so wraps the stained handkerchief around it before picking up the hoe again. Raul picks up the bucket and as he turns away says, “Slow and steady. We are not in any rush. Remember that.”

  *

  That evening Salvador sits in the storehouse on his bedroll struggling to find the words to explain to Cati what their meeting had meant to him. Juanico, angry at being ignored by his friend, stamps back into the house to sit with his grandmother. Seeing the boy’s reaction as he comes back into the house, Marianela worries for her son and what could have caused the tension between the boys. Mechanistically, she cleans away the dinner things and wipes down the surfaces in the kitchen. She rushes to prepare Juanico for bed with her own son at the forefront of her mind.

  As she is tucking the younger boy into his bed he asks her why Salvador would not tell him about his journey to the city. Marianela strokes his forehead and says, “He has had a long day travelling and working in the field, young master. I am sure he will tell you about it tomorrow.” Holding him tight to her chest she kisses him on the top of his head. The warmth of her full bosom against his face triggers a familiar security from his childhood, the safety of knowing that his nursemaid would always be there for him.

  Feeling the satisfaction of being needed coursing through her, Marianela closes her eyes. With her arms wrapped tightly around the boy’s body, his soft head leans against her heart, rising and falling as she breathes and enveloping her in a warming reassurance. She lowers him down to the pillow and kisses him on the forehead. His eyes start to close and she studies the innocence resting on his face. Quietly, she comes down the stairs and makes her way purposefully through the garden to the storehouse behind it.

  As she enters her son’s sleeping area she finds him sitting cross-legged on his bedroll, a pencil in his hand and a sheet of paper on his lap. The light of the candle dances shadows against the adobe wall. He looks up and greets her with a somewhat forced smile. “Tell me, son, how are you feeling, how was your trip?” she asks.

  He puts the pencil down on the paper before answering, “I am good. I am tired, but good.”

  She sits down beside him. “And tell me of Barcelona. What was it like?”

  The forced smile doesn’t leave his face. “It was good.”

  Sensing that there is more, she pushes him, “Just good. Did you leave your tongue there? What kind of good? What was good?”

  Feeling uncomfortable with the scrutiny, the boy continues to evade her questions. “It was just good. Why are you so preoccupied with what I do?”

  His voice rises slightly. His mother slaps him across the face. “Don’t you dare speak to me like that.” His head recoils and his cheek begins to sting. He feels his eyes welling up as the anger builds inside and the muscles in his face tighten. He stares back at her defiantly with insubordination in his heart. She hits him again. “Don’t you dare look at me like that. You will show me respect for what I have done for you.” Sal’s face recoils from the second slap and once again he feels the blood burning to the surface of his cheek as a tear rolls down it. He says nothing, tightening his lips.

  Seething with anger, she stands up, unable to believe the selfishness of her own son. She stands over him, and with her voice shaking says, “You will respect me. My entire life has been for you. I have worked longer than the sun is in the sky, every day since I was younger than you are now, so that you would have a roof over your head and a belly full of food.” The boy, still angry and increasingly embarrassed, looks down at the paper on his lap. The only words he has managed – ‘Dearest Caterina’ – stare back up at him blankly.

  His mother’s verbal barrage continues raining down from above. “And you will show the master and his son respect. His graciousness puts food in your ungrateful belly and his son will do the same when I am dead.” She grasps the collar of his shirt and pulls it towards her so that he is looking up at her. With her face only inches away from his and in a more measured, direct tone she spits the words at him, “Tell me you understand before I beat you again.”

  Steeling himself, he bravely replies, “He is not my master.” And holding his wounded hands palms upwards he continues, “The food in my belly was dug from the earth with my own hands. I bleed in the fields. Not him.” Rage overwhelms Marianela and she slaps him with all her force, pushing him prone onto the bedroll. The tears splash down
both their faces as she spins around and walks away. He stays down, his head buried in the cloth bedding beneath him.

  Marianela knows exactly where to find Raul and makes her way directly to the workers’ taverna. Inside, Raul sits with two of the local organisers discussing the situation in Barcelona. Only a few men are in the bar that evening, as the prospects for many of the villagers grow increasingly precarious. For many in the village, each new day brings only longer hours and emptier stomachs. As Marianela walks in, the men dotted around the bar look up. The sudden lull in background conversation piques Raul’s attention and he turns to see Marianela in the doorway. She stamps over to him, her normally deep brown eyes almost black with anger.

  Sensing the emotion driving her towards him, he quickly gets out of his chair and crosses the room to intercept her. They meet in the middle and she starts shouting immediately, “How dare you fill my son with your peasant insolence, your Basque shit?” He puts an arm around her waist and pulls her towards the door. She continues shouting as she lets him handle her around to the side of the building. “Don’t you touch me with your filthy gypsy hands. Get your fucking filthy hands off me.”

  Once out of sight of the men inside, he holds her at arm’s length and tries to calm her down. “What has happened? Tell me what is wrong.”

  Still angry, but increasingly feeling vulnerable in his hands, her voice lowers and a tremor rises within it, “You are filling my son with your insolence. He was a good boy until you came.”

  Raul takes one hand away from her shoulder. “What has he said? He was fine when he left the fields.”

  Feeling her heart slowing and the adrenalin subsiding, she begins to feel sick and unsteady on her feet. “He does not do as he is told. He has no respect for the way I have suffered for him,” she croaks.

  Raul continues holding one of her shoulders. He lowers his head to one side and slows his voice, “He is turning into a man. It is normal to behave like that. I will speak to him, Marianela. You must calm down.”

  The anger inside slowly makes way for loss. She starts to cry, “He is the only thing I have got. I cannot lose him.”

  Raul pulls her close to him and puts his arms around her, saying softly, “You will not lose him. He is turning into a good man. He saw many people suffering in the city. It will take time for him to understand what he has seen.” He puts his hand on the back of her head as she nestles her face into the crook of his neck. “Do not worry about your son, he is a good man,” he reassures her as he strokes her hair.

  It has been years since a man has held her and she feels safe cocooned in his arms. She listens to his heart beating against her face and his voice in her ear. The moment is over all too soon for Marianela as Raul pushes her gently away from him. He says, “Go home. Do not worry; I will speak to your son tomorrow. I promise you everything will be all right.” After taking a moment to compose herself, she smiles, nods, and then walks away, slowly wiping the tears from her eyes.

  As Raul watches her walking across the square he feels the weight of responsibility sitting heavier on his shoulders. He knows that if he takes on her problems as well, he may well let down those he has already promised to help. His thoughts race through his responsibilities: the workers in the village, his workers in the field, the boy and now the mother, Caterina’s family and his comrades in Barcelona. He feels exhaustion swelling like a tidal surge within him. As he stands watching her walk away he resolves to find the strength that he needs. He pushes the thoughts to the back of his mind and walks back inside.

  Returning to the house, Marianela finds Pedro sitting in the main room reading the newspaper. Looking up, he immediately notices Marianela has been crying. The feelings he has tried so long to bury bubble up. “What is wrong?” he demands as he stands up.

  Like a dam breaking, Marianela starts crying again and through the tears splutters, “I am sorry, sir. You must not pay me any mind. I should not concern you.” Pedro feels himself being drawn towards her and fights with himself not to take her in his arms.

  “Tell me what has happened, Marianela,” he demands again. He rarely calls her by her name and it momentarily disarms her.

  The words start flooding out, “My boy is growing into a stranger. He speaks to me like I am nothing.” Through the sobs the words and sentences start to become confused, “I am… he is an insolent dog. He takes all my love and gives nothing back.”

  Pedro feels himself getting angry. The woman in front of him is wounded and his thoughts turn to protecting her. “I will deal with the ungrateful dog,” he spits. As he storms through the house he pulls his riding crop from the umbrella stand and strides through the garden to the storehouse.

  Lying on his front, still trying to compose the letter, Salvador hears and feels Pedro before he sees him. The first lash of the crop bites like a dog across his back. As he half turns over to see what is happening, the second lash tears at his shoulder. Blinded by rage, Pedro raises the crop high above his head and swings it down hard against the boy’s chest and shoulder. Within seconds, the shirt on the boy’s back is tearing and the welts on his naked flesh massing into a sickly red pulp.

  After the first nine strikes landing in silence, Pedro eventually finds his voice and starts shouting, “You will show your mother respect in my house.” The tenth strike tears an opening across the back of the boy’s shoulder. “You will respect your betters in my house or I will feed you to the dogs.” The eleventh strike tears a three inch gash across his shoulder blade and spine.

  Unable to hear the man over his own cries of pain, Salvador pulls himself into a foetal position to protect his front. Pedro keeps swinging the leather crop, “You will do as I say in this house or I will kill you.” Salvador loses feeling across his back as the adrenalin floods his senses. He feels the wet warmth running through the tattered shirt and down to the bedroll. From the corner of his eye he can see Pedro’s lips pulled back into a malevolent snarl. He forces his eyes tight shut.

  Eventually, the thrashing stops, and in the distance he can hear Pedro’s voice over his own sobs. “You will respect your mother,” the man spits at him as he turns and leaves. Salvador lies curled tightly into a ball; unable to stop himself from shaking, he counts the man’s footsteps as they slowly disappear. The feeling quickly returns and the pain overwhelms him. He fights to stay awake as he slips in and out of consciousness.

  Pedro returns to the garden to find Marianela kneeling in the doorway, her hands covering her mouth and her eyes wide and wet. Pedro pushes past her saying, “Clean him up but show him no comfort. He will not learn if you mother him now.” As he pushes past her she notices the sweat on his brow and the blood flecked across his shirt; terrible images rush into her mind.

  She runs over to her son fearing the worst. She reaches the bedroll and sees the bloodied and torn back of her child. The guilt and pain drag her down to the ground beside him. Not wanting to hurt him she holds his thigh, staring at the raw flesh as she rocks backwards and forwards sobbing. The guilt stifles her like a blanket as she tries to soothe him from a distance. “My poor boy; my poor baby boy.” She gently strokes one hand on his thigh and whispers through the other, covering her mouth. “Forgive me; my baby boy, forgive me, forgive me.”

  Wrestling with consciousness, he can only just hear his mother’s voice over his racing heart and laboured breath. She rolls him onto his front gently, and delicately tries to pull the tattered shirt away from his back. With each touch he flinches and whimpers and with each start the grip around her heart tightens.

  The adrenalin slowly subsides and he slips into a fitful semi-sleep as the pain quietens to a dull throb, randomly interspersed with lancing flashes across his muscles. She delicately washes the blood from his back, always whispering, “My beautiful boy, my lovely boy.” Standing by the doorway to the garden, Pedro listens to her reassuring tone while his stomach turns and his jaws lock t
ight with guilt. When he can bear hearing no more he walks back to the house, raising his heels slightly with each step so as not to be heard.

  After cleaning the wounds with a disinfectant solution from the house, Marianela lies down next to Salvador. Holding his hand in both of hers she stays awake all night watching him trying to sleep through the pain. The guilt blinds her to anything else as she watches the stinging and throbbing shaking him awake every time he moves before once again exhaustion forces his eyes closed. In his room Pedro lies in bed staring at the ceiling, the guilt from allowing his feelings for Marianela to be so openly displayed gnawing at him. The boy barely crosses his mind.

  The following morning Pedro comes down the stairs, still furious. He marches into the storeroom to find the boy lying on his front, the angry wounds in the open air drawing flies to his back. Pedro stifles the bile rising in his throat as speaks, “Wake up, ungrateful dog. You will work today.” He kicks the boy’s foot. Only half asleep, the boy feels the fear of another beating and pulls himself into the foetal position. The tightness of the barely healing skin on his back reopens the livid wounds as he grasps his knees. Unable to stop himself, he lets out a cry which Marianela hears from the kitchen and which brings her running.

  She arrives just in time to find Pedro standing over the boy, saying, “You will work today and you will learn your lesson.” Unable to look at the boy’s seeping wounds, he turns away and finds himself facing Marianela. Disgusted with the role he has been forced to play and embarrassed by his own weakness, he looks away as he pushes past. Masking his true emotions, he blurts angrily at her, “Make sure he works today. And know that if your dog bites again, I will put him down myself.”

  Pedro reaches the doorway to the dining room at the same time as Juanico comes bounding down the stairs. The young boy instinctively starts making his way towards the back door. Pedro grabs him by the arm and drags him towards the dining table. Juanico yelps in surprise. Pedro pushes him towards a chair. “You will not talk to the boy today. He is being punished.”