IT WAS UNNERVING, ALL OF it; and yet there were heartening stories of -people refusing to do exactly what the generals wanted. Teresa reported how a priest in the neighbouring village prevented a Falangist gang from shooting the atheists in his parish. She had also heard rumours of leftists reprimanding Anarchists for trying to burn down the local church, even hiding right--wing neighbours in their bread ovens, protecting them from certain death when the radicals turned up.
Olive, listening to these tales, could see how most -people were massed in the middle. They wanted no disturbance, desperate just to live their lives away from these demonstrations of power, talks of purge, of brutality sprayed in blood against a whitewashed wall. But their desire couldn’t change the truth of Arazuelo’s atmosphere. She would walk into the village and see -people’s pinched faces, worrying who was going to defend whom when Arazuelo’s day of reckoning finally came.
ISAAC PURCHASED A RIFLE IN Malaga from a trade--union contact, who was fond of poaching his boss’s boar. He reinforced the bolt across the cottage door, but he knew this would mean nothing to someone determined to get him. More ‘-people of interest’ to the nationalist rebels had left their villages to hide out in the countryside, or join the militias run by the Communist party in Malaga. But this wasn’t far enough for Teresa. She wanted him to leave.
‘I think you should go north,’ she said. ‘You’ve made too many enemies here. You don’t fit. The left won’t trust you because of our father, and the right don’t trust you for not being his legitimate son.’
Isaac regarded his sister. The new severity in her face was an unwelcome development. ‘You don’t fit here either, Tere,’ he said.
‘But you’re the one who put a bullet through the Madonna. You’re the one who’s spent his life teaching peasants their rights. You’re the one—-’
‘All right, all right. But you think they’re only going for men? You’d have to come with me.’
‘I won’t leave.’
‘Jesus, you’re as stubborn as the Schlosses.’
‘Well, we all know why they won’t leave. Because of you. If you think about it, Isa, you’re endangering them too.’
?
The British Consulate in Malaga had sent letters out to any of His Majesty’s registered subjects it knew of in the region. Wide--eyed, Teresa handed over the consul’s letter, which was addressed to Sarah. After a thin breakfast, bread being scarcer and the goat milk drying up, the Schlosses discussed whether they should stay or go.
The letter informed them that warships were waiting to take them off Spanish soil into Gibraltar – and on, if they wished, to England. The threat, it said, was not from these nationalist insurgents and their foreign troops, but from those on the Spanish far left, the reds – who might soon loot these British--rented fincas, and confiscate any private property.
Olive was determined that they should stay. ‘We can’t just leave when it doesn’t suit us. What sort of example is that?’
‘Liebling,’ said Harold. ‘It’s dangerous.’
‘You’re the one still driving into Malaga like a man possessed. We’re foreigners. They won’t come for us.’
‘That’s exactly why they will come for us,’ said Harold, pointing at the letter. ‘That’s what the consul said.’
‘Liv’s right,’ said Sarah. ‘I don’t think we should leave.’
Harold looked at his two womenfolk in bemusement. ‘You both want to stay?’
Sarah got up and walked to the window. ‘London is over for us.’
‘I’m confused,’ said Harold. ‘Only two months ago, you were clamouring to leave.’ Sarah ignored him. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that we should leave if it gets any worse, but invite Isaac to come with us.’
The women turned to look at him. ‘It’s my duty,’ said Harold. ‘He’s too valuable.’
‘Isaac won’t leave,’ said Sarah. ‘He’ll fight.’
‘What would you know about it?’
‘It’s obvious. He feels great loyalty to this place.’
‘As do I,’ said Olive, still on the sofa, reaching over to light one of their dwindling supply of cigarettes. Her parents did not stop her. ‘Mr Robles isn’t a coward,’ she said, exhaling deeply, surveying them both. ‘But if you’re planning to take him, then quite frankly, you should take Teresa too.’
Teresa was skulking in the corner. ‘Well, Teresa?’ said Harold. ‘If we left, would you want to come too?’
‘Thank you, se?or. I do not know.’
‘Has he nearly finished this Rufina painting?’ asked Harold. ‘I keep dangling the bait for Peggy, but have not been given any news.’
‘I do not know, se?or,’ said Teresa.
‘You normally know everything, Teresa,’ Sarah said, and the girl blushed.
‘He has nearly finished,’ said Olive. ‘It won’t be long, I’m sure.’
‘When you next go to Malaga, darling,’ Sarah said to her husband, ‘buy a Union Jack.’
‘What?’
‘I want to hoist the Union Jack. So whatever bastard comes along to shoot us up, they know that we are neutral.’
‘We’re hardly neutral, Mother,’ said Olive. ‘Have you even looked at the newspapers?’
‘You know I don’t like the newspapers, Olive.’
‘Unless you’re in them.’
‘Liv,’ said her father, a warning in his voice.
‘Well, what? She lives in a bubble. Our government has refused to get involved. So have the French. They’re saying that defending the Spanish Republic is tantamount to a defence of Bolshevism.’
‘They’re worried, liebling,’ said Harold. ‘They fear revolution, that the situation here will spread to France, up and up across the Channel, into Regent Street, along the Strand and the Pennine Way.’
‘Baldwin’s so scared of Hitler, he won’t do anything.’
‘I don’t think he is,’ said Harold. ‘The Prime Minister is buying time rather than German favour.’
‘Either way – where does that leave you, Mr Vienna?’ said Sarah. ‘Better for you – for all of us – if we stay in Spain.’