The noise upstairs gradually dropped off. Now we only heard footsteps going up and down and the sound of conversation. Cry-Baby and I glanced at each other, not knowing what to say or do. Suddenly Quirze ran in, as if he wanted to hide or was being chased, he sat down next to us and started wolfing the food down until his mouth was stuffed and his cheeks puffed out. Presumably they must have caught him spying on something and now he wanted to put on an act, in case somebody came into the kitchen to check on his whereabouts and what he was up to.
However nobody else came. We heard the footsteps of people coming downstairs and then a conversation in the doorway that was hard to hear, in Spanish with snatches of Catalan, and what we could hear most easily was Dad Quirze’s clotted, rudimentary Spanish repeating: “Nada, nada… Todo está aclarado, verdad que sí?”
When we saw the gang of civil guards accompanied by Brunet Who Never Stops walking past the kitchen window and round the house to take the path to the village, we knew the raid was over. I thought Brunet looked angry, with his little pencil-line, mousey moustache and a shirt as blue as a mechanic’s overall, and registered that Canary and Curly Lettuce weren’t there.
But the grownups didn’t come into the kitchen for a while. Someone went upstairs and we imagined they must have gone to look for Grandmother, and an even more secretive, inaudible conversation now reached us from the front porch. This time not even Quirze dared get up from the table. We looked from the window to the door and back but saw nothing. We heard the lids of the big laundry baskets slam down, angrily even, then Aunt Ció finally walked in, still looking very on edge, her face a paler shade of red, wiping her hands on her apron even though they looked dry and clean.
“I don’t know… I don’t know…” she mumbled, ignoring us, “I don’t know how we’ll get out of this. This time God or Lady Luck took pity on us, we must thank Father Tafalla for his supplications. I don’t know what we’re going to do, I really don’t.”
When she walked over to the table to clear away the glasses, leftover crumbs, the piece of sausage and milk jug, it was if she couldn’t see us, her eyes were open and staring blankly into space and she walked like a sleepwalker.
“What about Grandmother?” Quirze asked again, now wanting to catch his mother’s attention than out of any real curiosity.
“She stayed in her room. She wants to rest for longer. She probably won’t even come down to supper. She’s lost her appetite. Those people clattering around totally overwhelmed her.”
She paused to sigh and then added: “This raid has knocked me out, too.”
She went on with her chores by the stove keeping her back turned on us. Quirze looked to see whether Cry-Baby and I had got over our bewilderment and were doing or saying anything. He couldn’t stand sitting still any longer.
He got up quietly and went to the door as if he was going to make a run for it. He bumped into Pere Màrtir, who was coming in, on the doorstep. We’d not heard any footsteps, and Pere Màrtir stood there, stock-still, opposite Quirze, as polished and gleaming as a silver tray, as Grandmother said he always was. Pere Màrtir and Quirze stood opposite each other as if paralyzed, but after the initial shock, both took a step back to let the other pass. However, Quirze took a couple more steps back, encouraging Pere Màrtir to go in, which the brawny young man did with a grateful smile.
Aunt Ció looked round and when she saw Pere, she shouted in gleeful surprise and hurled herself at him in an embrace that Pere Màrtir welcomed with an even broader smile, hugging her gently, and when our aunt started whimpering against his chest, he stroked her head, slowly and lovingly, as if wanting to tidy her dishevelled hair.
“What are you…?” Aunt Ció shouted. “In my heart of hearts I knew you’d come, but I thought it would be tomorrow, not this soon. They left only a minute ago.”
“Yes,” he whispered, as if his words were only for her, “I saw them, the whole patrol, going off empty-handed…”
“You passed them on the path?” asked Aunt Ció, panicking.
“No. I came on the shortcut through the woods so I wouldn’t bump into anyone. I took the turning just outside the village and waited until they’d all gone by.”
Aunt Ció let go of him and wiped her tears on her apron. They both exchanged silent, knowing glances and when she shook her head, he smiled cheerfully again. It was obvious, even to us, that their eyes spoke of things they were already party to and that they needed no words to understand each other.
“Sit down and have something to eat,” reacted Aunt Ció, her hand on his back directing him towards the table where we were sitting. “They’ve finished. Why don’t you stay for dinner? Dad Quirze and Bernat will want talk it all over with you. These cheeky brats will be off right now to help young Quirze with the animals. You just go and sit down.”
But we ignored her big hint and stayed put. Quirze came back and sat next to us.
“I can’t,” replied Pere Màrtir, standing at one end of the table, “they’re expecting me back tonight at home. I only wanted to know how you were and to see whether Enriqueta was around.”
“She’s still at Florència’s. She’s keeping her company,” Aunt Ció went back to the range, opened the cupboard and took out a tablecloth, “she’s been going every day after work. She’ll be back today because Florència is slowly recovering. What else can she do?”
“So she’s not back yet, right?” Pere Màrtir looked at us out of the corner of her eye and at Aunt Ció as intently as before.
This time the young man’s question caught Aunt Ció off guard.
“No, I was telling you…” she began until she read into Pere Màrtir’s eyes. “No, nobody else has paid us a visit!”
“It’s just that someone was murdered in Vic this morning,” he replied as if that piece of news was a kind of explanation. “Hadn’t you heard?”
“What’s that? What’s happened? We’ve heard nothing,” said Ció, sounding interested, looking at us as if she wanted us to share in the news. “We’ve been chasing our tails all day, really under the hammer from the second we found out they might turn up at any moment…getting everything ready…until just a few minutes ago.”
Both now addressed us as if they’d finally condescended to acknowledge us, now we seemed vital, as if an increase in the audience would spread the impact of the news. We were so excited by the word “murdered” that I, and I imagine my cousins too, hardly paid any attention to Aunt Ció’s sudden rush of explanations; she was probably so alarmed she’d not really thought through what she was saying. She left a difficult conundrum in the back of my mind that I struggled to resolve; in any case, nothing squared over those few days.
“Early this morning, before daybreak, the Civil Guard shot a man to smithereeens who was leaving the Hotel Colom in Vic.”
“What on earth?”
“They were clearly keeping an eye on the whole square and the vicinity of the hotel because they’d been informed Massana might be spending the night there, he’d crossed the border to prepare a couple of attacks, and was pretending to be a landowner from Collsacabra. Evidently the square was covered in mist, you could hardly see a thing, and the second the man left the hotel, the civil guards shouted to him to halt, he put his hand to his chest, they thought he was going for his pistol and shot to kill, didn’t even give him time to raise his hands and surrender.”
“My God!”
“The man dropped dead on the spot. When the guards went over, they saw he was the owner of the Reguer de Pruit estate who was on his way to the station to catch the first train to Barcelona that leaves at six. He was going to see his son who’s a boarder at the Escolapian School in Sarrià.”