Everyone looked relieved beyond measure. Constantina, the youngest of us, stood up from her bed, her shawl about her shoulders. “We could work free. For a day. To boost morale.”
“I would do it for a day,” Jacinta said.
“Listen to yourselves,” I said, furious. “You’re just whores! The Fascists don’t waste a single thought on you. The lack of a nail in a horseshoe will make more difference to the war than all the whores in the world.”
“Get out,” Alma said.
I struggled to remain charitable. “Well, I have got my monthly,” I said evenly. No one spoke to me as I dressed.
I had spent the day languishing in cafés and dress shops. Finally, desperate for someone to talk to, I remembered Mr. Bartow’s letter. I found him in the Hotel Continental savoring his first cocktail in months. Now we were on the Ramblas, strolling beneath the poplars and the curved necks of the streetlamps, dimmed because of worries about air raids.
“I can’t get over how much has changed here,” he said. “Would you look at that storefront!” We were walking beside the window of an exclusive boutique. Rows of bonbon boxes gleamed like gold teeth. “He was selling supplies to militiamen just a few months ago. And have you noticed all the tailored suits in town? It looks like the upper crust are back from whatever country home they retired to when the Anarchists took over.”
“I like the boutiques.”
He shook his head. “It used to be that the people couldn’t do enough for a militiaman, now they duck across the street when they see him coming.”
“You are a dirty lot before you’ve cleaned yourselves up.”
“Then they should offer us baths, not contempt. I’m afraid it’s all going to come apart, Miss Dade.”
“You journalists are all alarmists.”
“Maybe so. But the Loyalists aren’t getting the help of the British or the French and without that they’re doomed. Moscow won’t help as long as it has an alliance with Paris. The Bolsheviks are telling the Communist brigades to forget about Franco and concentrate on keeping Spanish Morocco from falling to the Loyalists. Because if Spanish North Africans obtain self-rule, then all of the Arabs—in the French holdings as well as in the British Near East—will rebel. Don’t you believe it when the British press blathers on about how the Spanish government can’t be supported as long as it harbors ‘extremists.’ English moderation must be music to Hitler’s ears.”
“You’re a lot of fun.”
“So are you,” he said, without my sarcasm. “Are all London working girls as nice as you? No painted nails? No tight skirts?”
I decided to ignore that. “When I was growing up during the Great War, my mother said that a cloud of evil had descended on Europe. Do you think—”
“That’s happening here? What an odd way to put it.”
I relayed every detail of what I’d seen the night before, including Alma’s explanation. “She’s right, of course. I wouldn’t be so concerned if she hadn’t woken up this morning an even more fanatical revolutionary. Out of pure zeal, she’s giving it away today.”
“So much more sensible to do it for money.”
“If the transaction is a fair one.”
“Spoken like a true Englishwoman—all moderation and sweet reason.” He lit another cigarette. “I’ll worry about Hitler devouring your country some other night. Tonight, I’d like to take you back to my room.”
“I’m indisposed.”
He took my hand. “In my room is one of those huge Victorian showers. You know the kind? Like a big monkey bars with steam blasting you from every direction. We could put it to good use.”
“All right,” I said. “If you promise to stay off politics.”
I was surprised to find myself alone in the bed. He was an early riser, I told myself. I got up, made a toga with the sheet, then found my way into the enormous bathroom. He was at the mirror, his back to me. He’d cleared a patch on the steamy glass and was briskly shaving himself. A towel protected his stiff collar.
“You’re up early.”
“Got things to do,” he said. He didn’t even look at me.
Nostalgically, I glanced at the shower, remembering last night. “When do you go back to the front?”
“I’m not going back,” he said. The razor slipped along his cheek. He was bleeding but seemed not to notice.
“You’re deserting?”
He grinned at his cut. “I’m not a coward. I’m going to fight for Franco.”
I stood there, my jaw dangling, I’m sure. He watched his blood turn the shaving lather pink. “Go on, now,” he said. “Get back on the job and stay there.”
I certainly wasn’t going to let him see how disturbed I was. I stepped back into the room and started getting dressed. I could attend to my morning functions in the lady’s room of the hotel lobby.
Instead of taking a cab, I walked to St. Mary’s, my mind filled with all the things I wished I had said. The more I walked, the more bewildered I became. I thought I knew Gary’s type: a recently baptized militiaman so on fire with brotherhood and justice, he’d die smiling for the cause. What could have changed him in a night? In one, single night?
I rounded the last corner and saw the house there as always, the shudders and blinds tight against the morning sun. The sheer familiarity made my skin prickle. I ran to the door.
I knew that something was wrong as soon as I heard the silence inside. I looked in the parlor but found no one there. I walked down the hall, then opened the door to the loggia, just a crack. The little woodstove was dead. I opened the door the rest of the way and found Jacinta on the wicker sofa. She was staring fearfully into the middle distance. Upon seeing me, she burst into tears.
It was some time before Jacinta could win her breath back from her sobs. But eventually the story came out. Dozens of militiamen had queued up outside once the word of free services had gotten out. All of them were dirty. Many were syphilitic. A citizens’ committee came and tried to shut down the infirmary for the day. The girls went out into the street, to jeer at the committee for being bad comrades. Eight or ten men were loitering at the corner.
Jacinta stared at the floor as if a shell were lying there, waiting to explode. “Those boys shot the committee members, one after another. I tell you, Vida, not one comrade survived.”
“Is Alma alive?”
Her expression was full of pity—pity for me, I realized. “After they shot the comrades, they told Alma to get back to work, to make sure Constantina and Esmeralda worked hard, too. If the whores told anyone about their sickness, the men would come back to kill them.”
“We’re not diseased!”
Jacinta shook her head. “You still don’t understand. Alma and the women who touched her spread disloyalty, just like a fever. It turns good militiamen into the murderers of their comrades. I told you the skeletons were just the beginning.”
My mouth was as dry as sand. “You’re talking rubbish, Jacinta.”
“No one can find his bones,” she said hollowly. “Constantina put them in here by the stove, but they could not be found.”
“So? Someone—”
“I think he is back in his grave, growing the flesh to walk the earth again.”
I thought of Gary’s change, of how complete it had been. Would the same thing happen to the next man, and the next? I couldn’t work anywhere. Beneath my skin, I could feel the busy soldiering of bacteria. I suddenly understood why Gabriella had killed herself and why that irate militia captain had called her a traitor. With no hope of a husband and no belief in other work, she had simply chosen a quick death over a slow one.
“Where is Alma?”