I
Although I did not know it until much later, the summer of 1964 left an everlasting mark on the image I always had of my grandfather. I vividly remember my cousin Jacobo, my father, my uncle and I with him, enjoying a summer day in the Vallés region, in the heart of Catalonia. Around midday, we passed through a generic town, with nothing of interest for a boy of ten.
Without any warning, my grandfather, who shared the back seat of the car with me and Jacobo, became overwhelmed, with a look of sheer panic over his face and he was barely able to speak.
‘Where are we?’ He asked the men in the front seat.
‘This town is called Sant Celoni, Teodoro,’ my father responded, somewhat surprised. ‘Why?’
In that moment, like a scared deer, my grandfather threw himself to the floor in the car with a choked cry. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’
The strangeness of that event stuck in my memory, but I didn’t understand its significance until I was well into my adult life. During all this time, my family, who never mentioned it again, began to create a heroic image of my grandfather. Almost mythological. Of how he had broken with the social norms by living together with a peasant woman from Aragon, of his participation as a volunteer for the Republic during the Civil War, and of how he had managed to save himself and his family by emigrating to Mexico at the end of the war. It was always difficult for me to balance this image with the reality of which I was witness to on a walk through the Vallés on a hot morning in 1964.
II
Teodoro started his days rolling a cigarette, followed by a coffee, without sugar. Accustomed to getting up early, when the sun was barely visible behind the mountains, his wife, Aurora, and his three children, Pedro, Luisa, and Carlota, were still sleeping. This was his time to sit and reflect. He went out for a moment into the courtyard of the house on Carrer de Sant Antoni, where he has just managed to find a place to stay. He had arrived in Sant Celoni just two months ago. It was a town with little to no aspirations, halfway between Barcelona and Girona. It was the middle of the summer of 1936 and Teodoro could sense that violence was in the air.
He looked back on his life.
How did I get here? Gone are the images of his childhood in the apartment in Valencia, where he forged his personality. He had no siblings, an absent, military father, and a strict mother, whom he does not remember ever having seen laugh.
The best time of my life was definitely in Barcelona. He still remembers when his father was assigned to the San Pablo Cavalry Barracks, and they moved to a brand new flat in l’Eixample. From the beginning, he was amazed with the city. To him it seemed to be alive, like an organism. Next to it, Valencia looked like a small provincial town.
At twenty-one he was already a medical student at the University of Barcelona. This fateful day his father, Teodoro and his mother, Carlotta, called up to him.
‘Teodoro, we need to talk,’ said his father, ‘sit down.’
He took a seat in the office.
‘There’s a promotion to colonel, but it’s at the cavalry barracks in Alcalá de Henares.’ They would have to move, but Teodoro, in the middle of his third year of a medical degree, would have to stay. The possibility of putting some space between himself and his parents, especially his mother, filled him with a secret joy.
‘We have already spoken to my brother in Vitoria. Your cousin, Eduardo, who also studies at the University, rents a room in a boarding house not too far from here. We have already been to see it. It’s small, but the rooms are comfortable. Most importantly, it’s in a good neighbourhood, well situated. The rules on coming and going are very clear, and the owners are reputable. There are many students who have gone off the rails after a stay in some boarding houses.’
‘That won’t be me,’ he affirmed to his father.
Intelligent, but above all very disciplined, Teodoro had no trouble establishing himself as a good student at the Faculty of Medicine. Until then, his desire to be away from his parents’ home forced him to spend long hours studying in the library. Even with the leaving for the boarding house, Teodoro continued his march towards what, inevitably, seemed to be his destiny: to become a surgeon.
He remembers when his cousin Eduardo found him in a bar.
‘Teodoro. Look where you’re hiding.’ he said mischievously.
‘I’m not hiding, Eduardo. I’m taking a break before going back to the boarding house. Exam season starts in a few weeks.’
‘Looks to me like you’re going to have to leave room for fun. I have just met Gloria, a girl from the depths of Teruel. She’s pretty and easy going. Most importantly, she wants to have a good time.’
‘I’m happy for you. Now, with your permission, I must get going.’
‘Not so fast. Gloria lives with her four sisters. They all came to Barcelona last year, looking for the opportunities they didn’t have in their small town. Better still, with the money they get from their work, they rent a flat in Sants, so…’
‘They live alone,’ said Teodoro, slowly.
‘That’s right, and to show you that I care about your well-being, I’m inviting you to a little party this Friday. Let’s see if you come out of your cave.’
Teodoro inhaled deeply. The cigarette smoke mixed in his lungs with the summer heat that had already arrived in Sant Celoni. Thoughts came rushing to him. The party at Aurora and her sister’s house. She wasn’t a pretty woman, but her piercing gaze gave him butterflies. His studies took a back seat. The visits to Sants became more and more frequent. He lost his virginity in that flat, when Aurora was suspiciously alone. From then on, everything appears in his memory as flashes.
‘I’m pregnant, Teodoro.’
Theodore felt those words with a thunderous roar as the blood rushed to his head. His pulse quickened. He tried to compose himself, analysing his options. The alternative of terminating the pregnancy crossed his mind for a moment, but faced with the possibility of losing Aurora, he took a deep breath.
‘Well. Looks like were having a child,’ he said, ‘we’ll see how we manage.’
The memory closed with the momentous joy of being parents. It didn’t take long for the family scandal to break up, forcing him to do without much-needed help. Aurora worked and they managed to support themselves. It wasn’t easy. After two more children, Teodoro fulfilled his dream of becoming a doctor. Without family support, he had little access to small jobs. With Eduardo’s influence, after a year an opportunity finally appeared.
‘You’ll need to register with Esquerra. The Frente Popular has just won the elections and is now in charge of the Generalitat. They need people like you. I have a contact, and I’ve already spoken to him about you.’
The initial enthusiasm wore off when Teodoro realised that he would be the town doctor of Sant Celoni, a grey village on the border between Barcelona and Girona. With a certain resignation, and in the absence of alternatives, he accepted.
Teodoro sensed the fragility of the Generalitat government. He feared, above all, that he would lose his position and be at the mercy of fate. With the July uprisings, his security was shaken. In Sant Celoni, the defence committee was organised by the Esquerra socialists and the CNT anarchists. The salary from the Generalitat was decreasing and was slow in coming. In desperation, he asked Miguel Puig, leader of Esquerra in Sant Celoni, for money. However, the CNT was gaining more and more power in the committee. Theodore then decided to switch his tenuous political allegiance to the anarchists. When he found out, Miguel Puig confronted him:
‘Teodoro, you’re an opportunist. You lack any sense of shame or dignity. After everything that I’ve done for you.’
In his thoughts, Teodoro nodded. ‘It’s the necessity to save oneself and look after family. We are at war, the CNT is in charge here, and Esquerra is lost. It’s a nightmare. Everybody is looking out for themselves.’ His only reaction was a punch of sheer frustration which left Miguel on the floor.
Teodoro finished his cigarette. It was 9 o’clock in the morning on August 8th, 1936, in Sant Celoni. He knew that in fifteen minutes the CNT truck will come for him, to do the unimaginable. There was nothing to be done. Resisting would be suicide. He never imagined that things would get this extreme.
Two hours later, a church in ashes, and four dead. The hated parish priest and three more unfortunates he had never met. Theodore moved away from the noisy, celebrating group and threw up in the corner of the street.
III
‘This town is called Sant Celoni, Teodoro, why do you ask?’
Of course, thinks Teodoro. The image lives in his memory. He will never forget what happened that day. The weight of regret was only lightened by the certainty that he was wrapped up in the circumstances; It was to protect his family.
If he had time to reflect, Teodoro would tell himself that it was that instinct to survive that led him to enlist at the front, where, at least, war seemed more like war. It was this identification of imminent danger that led him to escape to France when all was lost, and from there to Mexico, when another war loomed on the horizon. It was a stroke of luck, an amnesty and Spain’s need for oblivion that helped him to return.
‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ Was all he could manage to say on that summer morning in 1964.
This story was translated by Jack Caine and edited by Jasmin Griffiths.
Carlos González Iradier Carlos González Iradier was born in Venezuela from Spanish parents and has always lived between Europe and America. He currently resides in Madrid. Carlos entered the short story competition ‘El Nacional’ (from Venezuela) with his short story Domingo por la Tarde. Carlos also was the editor of the literary magazine Sobremesa.
Jack Caine is a twenty-something freelance translator from the Lake District, England who translates documents from Spanish, German and Italian into English on topics such as literature, other cultures, travelling and more.
Jasmin Griffiths is a Plymouth University graduate with a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing. She grew up in the south of Spain and after moving back to England decided to pursue her passion of writing. She has performed music and her poetry all over the country and also enjoys writing creative nonfiction and short stories.
This short story is part of a research project on speculative historical fiction in Ireland and Spain funded by the AHRC and the University of Plymouth.
Picture credits: Leo.
THE WANDERING BARD 