The Return Read online

  Though the curtains filtered only a fraction of the light, nothing would have stopped Sonia falling into a deep sleep that afternoon. The sound of cars honking their horns, the wail of a police siren and the banging of doors in the corridor would normally have been enough to wake her, but for several hours she was in a state of blissful unconsciousness.

  When they woke, it was dusk, and light no longer streamed in. This was the major flaw in the siesta habit, having to get out of bed just as the dying light was telling your body and mind that it was time to climb into it.

  Now it was Sonia’s turn to have difficulty stirring and Maggie who bounced out of bed.

  ‘Come on, Sonia, time to go out!’

  ‘Go out? Where?’

  She was half asleep, bleary-eyed, confused and in a bemused state of semi-wakefulness in which she could not quite remember where she was.

  ‘That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To go out dancing?’

  ‘Dancing? Mmm . . .’

  Her body was still heavy with a not-quite-fulfilled need to sleep. Her head throbbed. She could hear the sound of Maggie in the shower, singing, whistling, humming, her joie de vivre almost bursting through the bathroom wall. She could not face dancing tonight.

  Maggie came back into the room, her hair wound up into a tall turban, a second towel tightly drawn across her breasts, her naked chest and shoulders dark against the whiteness. Sonia watched her.There was something majestic, even statuesque about this woman. Maggie continued to hum as she dressed, pulling on jeans and a white ruffled shirt, and fastening a wide, leather belt. Her face glowed from the warmth of the shower and the few hours of sunshine they had enjoyed earlier that day. She seemed lost in her own thoughts and it was as though she had forgotten Sonia was there.

  ‘Maggie?’

  She turned round and sat on the end of her bed, fiddling with a pair of hooped earrings. ‘Yes?’ she replied, her head tilted to one side.

  ‘Would you mind if I didn’t come out tonight?’

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t. But it seems a bit of a shame. We did come here to dance . . .’

  ‘I know. I just feel completely wrung out. I’ll come tomorrow, I promise.’

  Maggie continued to get herself ready, spraying on perfume, outlining her eyes in inky black, accentuating her long lashes with layers of mascara.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right going on your own?’ Sonia added anxiously.

  ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ laughed Maggie. ‘Everyone here is shorter than me. So I can always run away if I need to.’

  Sonia knew that Maggie meant it, and that she was a match for anyone. There was no need to give a moment’s thought to her safety. Maggie was the most independent woman she knew.

  Sonia continued to doze. At nine thirty, Maggie was ready to leave.

  ‘I’m going to have something to eat on the way. Are you sure you don’t want to come out with me?’

  ‘No, really. I just want to catch up on sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  For a second night, Sonia enjoyed the tranquillity of her single bed. Though noises continued to float up from the street, there was a magical silence in the space of the room. She loved the knowledge that she was going to be here alone, that no one could dent her peace of mind.

  It was so different from those nights when she went to bed early, tired out from a long day at the office and then lay, tense, wondering when James was going to arrive home. Perhaps once or twice a week he would stagger through the front door at three or four in the morning and the stained-glass panes in the front door would shudder with the impact as it was slammed shut. He would then stumble up the stairs and collapse, fully clothed, onto the bed, his mouth breathing out the foul fumes of his evening’s excess. It was not the sex - fast, rough, and easily forgotten - that sometimes happened when he was in this state that repelled her most. It was the sour smell of stale alcohol that made her retch with disgust. It was a stench that revolted her more than any other in the world and she recoiled from this vast, dark hulk lying in the darkness next to her, rattling the stillness with his snores. On the mornings after these nights, there was no reference to his state of inebriation. James seemed to be able to rise at six without even a hangover, shower, dress in his City uniform and leave for work with the same punctuality as he did on any other day. It was as though he was unaware that anything out of the ordinary had even happened. No one else was aware either. In the picture book of marriage, they were the perfect married couple. It was a story told for an audience.

  Now, as she lay in the semi-darkness, she felt her stomach contract with the recalled nausea of it all. She rolled over onto her side and soon felt the chill of tears on her pillow. This was meant to be a peaceful night, one where she caught up on her sleep. It was not intended to be a night in which she tortured herself with recollection of all that was wrong. Occasionally she fell into a fitful sleep and in the moments when she came to, she noticed that Maggie’s bed was still empty.

  At three o’clock in the morning, she was just dropping off to sleep when the sound of a key in the lock disturbed her.

  ‘Are you still awake?’ whispered Maggie.

  ‘Yes,’ grunted Sonia. Even if she had been asleep the noise of Maggie stumbling into the room would have woken her.

  ‘I’ve had such a fantastic night,’ enthused Maggie, switching on the overhead light, oblivious to her friend’s mood.

  ‘I’m glad for you,’ Sonia answered, with ill-disguised annoyance in her voice.

  ‘Don’t be cross.You could have come with me!’

  ‘I know, I know. I don’t know why I didn’t really, for all the sleep I’ve had.’

  ‘You’re just afraid of letting your hair down,’ she said, tugging at the band that held her hair up and, as if to demonstrate her point, letting her thick, wavy locks tumble around her shoulders.

  ‘We haven’t got many nights here and you should come out. Why on earth didn’t you?’

  ‘There are hundreds of reasons why I didn’t. I’m not good enough, for a start.’

  ‘That’s complete rubbish,’ said Maggie. ‘And even if you aren’t, you soon will be.’

  With this decisive statement she switched off the light and, now naked, threw herself onto her bed.

  Chapter Five

  DESPITE HER NIGHT of snatched, unsatisfactory sleep, Sonia rose early the next morning.The airlessness of the room had left her with a throbbing head and she yearned to get out. She was hungry too.

  Their dance lesson was not until the afternoon and since Maggie was clearly going to be comatose for a while, Sonia dressed quietly and crept out of the room, leaving her friend a note.

  Turning right out of the hotel, she wandered up to the main street that ran like a spine through the centre of the city. She soon realised that Granada was impossible to get lost in, so simple was the topography of this small city. Distant, towards the south, was a high wall of mountains, eastwards the streets climbed towards the Alhambra, westwards the roads sloped down towards a stretch of lowland. Even if she found herself in the maze of narrow alleyways that snaked around the cathedral, it would not be long before the gradient, a glimpse of mountain or sight of that monumental building would tell her which way to turn. There was something liberating about this aimless meander. She could lose herself in these streets and yet never be fearful of being lost.

  Every few turns brought Sonia to a new square. Many of them had grand, ornamental fountains, and all had cafés, each serving a handful of customers. One leafy, open space had four shops selling an almost identical range of tourist paraphernalia, comprising fans, dolls in flamenco costume and ashtrays emblazoned with bulls. Outside another was a forest of a dozen postcard carousels. It seemed there were a million images of Spain that people would buy. Sonia chose quickly: a generic image of a flamenco dancer.

  By the time she had wandered the streets for an hour her head was clear. She was in the Plaza Bib Rambla and the flower market filled it
with vibrancy on this rather colourless February day. It was nine thirty, and although the place still had the peace and quiet of a city out of season, a few more people were now wandering about. Sonia passed two Scandinavians with huge backpacks, chilly and slightly ridiculous in their optimistically chosen shorts, and a group of East Coast students being given a guided tour by a fellow American whose voice filled the otherwise peaceful space. There were several cafés to choose from but one of them particularly appealed. Its tables were just catching the first rays of sunshine that were slanting across the rooftops, and standing outside it was a barrel overflowing with geraniums that had survived a cool winter.

  Purposefully, she strode towards the sunniest table and sat down. She hastily scribbled the postcard to her father and then began to read her guidebook. It seemed that the city had much more to offer than the famed Alhambra and its gardens.

  In what seemed like a matter of moments after taking her order, the elderly waiter served her with a creamy café con leche. As he did so he looked over her shoulder. Her book was open at the page on Federico García Lorca, ‘the greatest of Spanish poets’, as it described him. Sonia had been reading how he had been arrested in Granada at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

  ‘He used to stay nearby, you know.’

  The waiter’s words penetrated her concentration and she looked up. Sonia was surprised not just that he had looked at what she was reading, but by the deeply serious expression on his handsome, lined face.

  ‘Lorca?’

  ‘Yes, he and his friends used to meet not far from here.’

  Sonia had once seen Yerma at the National Theatre. Oddly enough she had gone with Maggie, because James had a last-minute business dinner, and she recalled her friend’s verdict: ‘dull and depressing’.

  Sonia asked the man if he had ever met Lorca and the waiter told her that he remembered seeing him once or twice.

  ‘Many people here believe that part of this city died with him,’ he added.

  The statement was both powerful and intriguing.

  Sonia’s knowledge of the Spanish Civil War did not extend much further than a couple of dimly remembered books by Ernest Hemingway and Laurie Lee; she knew that they had been involved, but little more than that. Her curiosity was aroused, given the way in which the disappearance of Lorca seemed to have touched this old man personally.

  ‘What do you mean exactly?’ she asked, aware that she must respond.

  ‘When people realised what had happened to Lorca - that he had been shot in the back - it gave out the message to all liberal-minded people that it was not safe for anyone and that the war in Granada was as good as finished.’

  ‘Forgive me, but I don’t really know very much about what happened in your Civil War.’

  ‘That’s not surprising. Many people in this country don’t know very much about it either. Most of them have either forgotten or been brought up in a state of near ignorance.’

  Sonia could tell that the old man disapproved of this state of affairs.

  ‘Why did it happen?’ she asked.

  The waiter, who was small in stature like many Spaniards of his age, leaned forward and gripped the back of the spare chair at Sonia’s table. His dark eyes stared at the red tablecloth so intently it seemed as if he was examining its weft and warp. Several minutes went by and Sonia wondered if he had forgotten that she had posed a question.Though his hair was still predominantly dark, Sonia observed that the skin on his chiselled face and hands was as creased as an autumnal leaf, and she guessed he could be in his eighties. She noticed too that the fingers of his left hand were badly deformed, she assumed with arthritis. Her father’s mind often wandered like this so she was quite used to such a silence.

  ‘Do you know something?’ he answered finally. ‘I’m not sure I can tell you that.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she reassured him, noticing that his eyes were red and watery. ‘It was just idle curiosity.’

  ‘But I do worry,’ he said, mildly agitated, now looking directly at her.

  She suddenly realised that she had misinterpreted his earlier remark.There was a clarity in his look that told her that this man was as lucid as he had ever been.

  He continued:‘I worry that the whole terrible story will disappear, just like Lorca and so many other people.’

  Sonia sat back.The man’s passion took her aback. He was referring to an event of nearly seventy years ago, and yet it was as though it had taken place yesterday.

  ‘I can’t give you one single reason why war broke out. The beginning of it all was so confused. People didn’t really know what was happening and they certainly had no idea at the time what it would lead to, or how long it would go on for.’

  ‘But what triggered it all off - and why was Lorca involved? He was a poet, not a politician, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I know your questions sound so simple and I would like to give you simple answers, but I can’t. The years leading up to the Civil War were not entirely peaceful. Our country was in turmoil some of the time and the politics were so complicated, most of us couldn’t begin to understand them. People were going hungry, the left-wing government didn’t seem to be doing enough and the army decided to take over. That’s the quick way to explain it.’

  ‘That sounds fairly black and white.’

  ‘I can assure you it wasn’t.’

  Sonia sipped her coffee. Her interest was engaged and since he appeared to have no other customers, she was tempted to press the elderly man further.

  A twelve-strong group of Japanese on a guided tour then arrived and were soon waiting expectantly for their orders to be taken. The elderly man moved away to attend to them and Sonia watched him writing things on his pad.Without his patience it might have been a tortuous business given their lack of both Spanish and English, a language which he spoke with great fluency but a thick accent. No wonder so many menus here were illustrated with garish photographs of unappetising-looking dishes and foaming milkshakes; at least that way foreigners could order just by pointing.

  When he brought the drinks and pastries they had ordered, he also came out with another coffee for Sonia; she was touched that he had thought of her.

  By now the café was filling up with people and she could tell that the moment had passed for him to devote all his attention to her.

  ‘La cuenta, por favor,’ she said, using most of the words she knew to ask for the bill.

  The café owner shook his head. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said.

  Sonia smiled. It was a simple gesture and she was touched. She knew instinctively that he was not in the habit of giving away drinks.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It was really interesting talking to you. I might go and look at Lorca’s house. Where is it from here?’

  He pointed down the street and said she must turn right at the end of it. It would not take her more than ten minutes to reach La Huerta de San Vicente, the Lorca family’s summer house in the south of the city.

  ‘It’s pretty,’ he said. ‘And it’s got some good mementoes of the man and his family. It’s a bit cold, though.’

  ‘Cold?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Sonia could not ask him any more questions. He was busy now and had already turned his back to take another order. She rose from her seat, gathered her book, her bag and her map, and edged her way past the other tourists.

  As she walked away, the elderly man came after her, for a moment holding on to her arm. There was one more thing he was eager to tell her.

  ‘You should go up to the cemetery as well,’ he said. ‘Lorca didn’t die there but thousands of others were shot up on that hill.’

  ‘Thousands?’ she queried.

  The old man nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said deliberately. ‘Several thousand. ’

  It seemed a huge figure to Sonia, given the scale of this city. Perhaps the old man was a bit soft in the head after all, and telling a tourist to go and look at a municipal graveyard was fairly bizarre too
. She nodded politely and smiled. Even if the house of a dead poet exerted some fascination, she had no intention of visiting a burial place.

  Sonia followed the directions he had given her, taking the long straight road, Recogidas, towards the edge of town. Shops were now open and snatches of music floated out onto the pavements that now began to fill with young women, arms linked, chattering, pristine carrier bags swinging at their sides. This was the street for youthful fashion, and alluring window displays of high boots, jewel-coloured belts and stylish jackets on blank-faced dummies drew these girls like children to sweetshops.

  Walking down the sunny side of a street, which pulsated with a sense that life had never been so good, the café owner’s portrayal of a strife-ridden Spain seemed hard to imagine.Though she was intrigued by what he had told her of the war, Sonia was puzzled that so little evidence of it remained. She had noticed neither plaque nor monument that recorded the events of that period, and the atmosphere all around her did not suggest that these young people were burdened by the past.The historical buildings of the Alhambra might have been what drew most visitors to Granada, but a street such as this showed a Spain that was pressing on into the future, transforming buildings from the previous centuries into futuristic palaces of glass and steel. A few old shop fronts remained with their ornate fascias and the owner’s name etched in gold on black glass, but they were a curiosity deliberately preserved for the sake of nostalgia, not part of this modern Spain.