Quest for a Father by Cecilia Peartree

Author:Cecilia Peartree
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: thriller, 1950s, war, families, spain

‘You are not happy,’ said Carlos just behind me. He was perched on the side of the boat, smiling at my slight jump of surprise.

I sighed. ‘No. I thought it would be different.’

‘Finding your father?’ Carlos shrugged. ‘You did not know how it would be.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

‘Come,’ he said, leaping athletically on to the beach. ‘I know a good place for coffee.’

Well, that was something at any rate.

Quite unexpectedly, the good place was a sort of shack set up in a square near the beach, and frequented mostly by taciturn fishermen. Or at least that was how they appeared. They lounged on low walls and leaned against the available surfaces to drink their coffee.

Carlos had greeted the owner in a rapid version of Spanish that I couldn’t tune into. Was it Catalan? I had understood the local language was banned, but perhaps its casual everyday use among fishermen was sometimes overlooked. Or were General Franco’s spies everywhere, eavesdropping on these casual conversations, building up dossiers on people at their leisure and then pouncing when they were ready? I shivered.

‘It is cold this morning,’ said Carlos. ‘Will be warm later.’

We said ‘adios’ to the coffee shop owner and went on our way.

‘We go around,’ said Carlos, illustrating the word by making a circle in the air with one hand. ‘We keep our eyes open.’

I got the message. It was even more dangerous to approach the apartment in daylight than it had been at night.

‘Best to go now, in the busy time,’ he added. ‘We shall hide in the crowd.’

‘Ah,’ I said, nodding as if that was exactly what I had thought, whereas in fact I hadn’t a clue and completely relied on him to lead us on a sensible path. I suppose I was stupidly trusting, and yet there was something about Carlos that seemed safe and reliable. The competence with which he spoke English – the risks he was prepared to take with his own safety to help me. His relationship with Eulalia and Mateu, who themselves seemed safe and reliable.

We took a very roundabout route, which lived up to Carlos’s gestures. For a while I think we both forgot we were there for a purpose, and behaved as tourists trying to fit in as many sights as they could in a day, or two days, or however long was allocated to this city.

I couldn’t help thinking that parts of Barcelona reminded me of post-war London, in that there were gaps in almost every street, like missing teeth, which must be a constant irritant to the inhabitants. I wondered how much effort the Generalissimo had put into rebuilding this part of the country since the end of the civil war. After all, I recalled from the newspapers, which I had read avidly at the time, being a curious student looking for signs of world war and half-dreading, half-anticipating being myself called up into the armed forces, Catalonia had been the place where resistance to the Fascists had been strongest and the last place to fall to them.

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