Cry, Mother Spain by Lydie Salvayre

Author:Lydie Salvayre [Salvayre, Lydie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857054517
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2016-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

The young man asked permission to come and sit at her table. My mother agreed without too much fuss (any revolutionary worth her salt had to spurn chichi niceties, phoniness and simpering, in short any manifestations of bourgeois affectation).

The young man was called André. He was French, but spoke impeccable Spanish. He was just starting out as a writer and had left Paris the week before. He was waiting to be drafted into an International Brigade to fight on the Aragonese front. He’d arrived, from Perthus, in a filthy, packed train, but he had quickly forgotten the foulness of it thanks to the happy commotion in all the compartments. As a flask of white wine was handed from person to person, the train filled with rallying cries and hoarse singing, insults aimed at Franco, that son of a great whore and his gang of bastards, el hijo de la gran puta y su pandilla de cabrones. Something dark and exalted spread throughout the train, as if collective fear had been flipped on its head, transformed into triumph, but with its darkness still lingering. André had been met on the station platform by a bevy of guapas, their delicate, feminine arms laden with flowers, and led to the Continental Hotel, where he was staying for next to nothing (the service was excellent though).

He told Montse he was ashamed of France, ashamed of Europe. They had let Hitler stomp all over them. Shame on the Catholic Church, too, for prostituting itself for the army.

He was leaving the following morning.

He was free that evening, and the whole night.

Montse fell for him immediately, from the very first moment, completely, utterly, and permanently (for those who might not have guessed, this is what’s called love).

They decided to go and see a film. All cinemas had stopped charging an entrance fee since the Anarchists had taken over the city. The second they sat down they threw themselves on each other. In the dusky cinema, they exchanged a first impassioned kiss that lasted at least an hour and a half. It was Montse’s first ever kiss, and with it she made her grandiose entrance into the world of sensual delights, in front of a screen filled with other kisses, doubtless a lot more proficient, but likely more subdued too.

All the old rules had gone by the board since July. It was as if morality now followed desire, as if traditional constraints no longer applied. Everyone (or nearly everyone) in the city had cast off their shackles without a grain of conscience (but with a touch of worry nevertheless), which is why Montse, after an hour-and-a-half kiss, the sweetest thing ever to happen to her, and without a moment’s hesitation, agreed to accompany the Frenchman to his hotel room. She didn’t have the time or the mind to wonder whether her underwear was suitable for the occasion (she was wearing a particularly unappealing pair of large cotton knickers with a matching camisole). The couple promptly tumbled onto the

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