THREE
Maria had been born in December, 1914. It was the early days of the Great War in which Spain had thankfully remained neutral. All her young life had been spent in her beloved Basque country where she'd passed a sunny, carefree childhood and adolescence. That was followed by a few all too short and tumultuous years as a beautiful and passionate young woman. She married at twenty-one, just before the civil war began. And she'd always lived in this fertile, yet wild and isolated region at the eastern end of Spain's northern coastline; at the very corner of the vast triangle of waters known to the English as the Bay of Biscay.
As a child, Maria had been educated with great care. That was when her parents were alive and still wealthy. She had flourished under the guidance of private tutors and had been taught much about Spain's history and even its pre-history. She had learned of the many foreigners who'd passed through or invaded the Iberian Peninsula. There were the Phoenicians and their Carthaginian descendants; the Romans; Vandals; Visigoths and Moors. Later came the Christian fanatics. They exterminated the simple, pious Cathar people in the early thirteenth century Crusade against what they called the 'Albigensian heresy'; they welcomed in the Inquisitions and later fostered the nineteenth century conflict known as the Carlist Wars and more recently, the hated Fascists' dictatorship.
Secreted in San Sebastian, she found that her thoughts often turned to her own family and how she now viewed them in a different light. Her ancestors and her careful affluent upbringing had been unequivocally Basque, monarchist and fiercely Catholic. But were not these people the stalwart supporters of Franco's nationalist party? The people who now saw her as the enemy!
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Maria's path to the downtown bus station in San Sebastian led through the narrow streets of the old town and down past the port, before crossing the newer central district between the beach and the river. The city was called Donostia in euskara, the distinctive Basque language. As she walked, she thought about the old town. She recalled that it had been founded back in the twelfth century and was a thriving seaport since 1524. That was during the reign of Charles I of Spain; known more widely in Europe as Charles V or Charles Quint. He had even been crowned Holy Roman Emperor, like his namesake 'Charlemagne' back in 800 AD.
Her mind buzzed with these thoughts. It wasn't a bad thing, as it helped to mask the agonizing, almost debilitating fear hidden just below her outwardly composed exterior.
She looked around her; worried that she might be the subject of scrutiny. "Be more careful!" Maria chastised herself quietly; "try to think of other things". Had other people been out on the streets of the old town so early that morning, they might well have noticed this heavily pregnant young woman, so pre-occupied by her thoughts and seemingly talking to herself or perhaps to the infant she carried. But in reality, it was her unborn child who took most notice as she listened to her mother's words and thoughts.
Maria knew she must take charge of her emotions. She did not want fear to overcome her. Her eyes looked ahead but allowed her thoughts to go elsewhere.
She turned into Calle de 31 Augusto - in euskara, it was called 31 de Agosto Kalea - and trod lightly but surely on down towards the port; her eyes taking in cautiously what she thought may well be her last sights of San Sebastian.
The old town had been built on a sandy isthmus connecting the mainland with a rocky outcrop, called Monte Urgull. It was just uphill to her right. It was where the great sixteenth century fortress: Castillo de Santa Cruz de la Mota had once stood. Now it was all but gone.
"Time passes so quickly": she murmured to herself, "and so much changes ... but is it only on the surface?" she wondered aloud.
She recalled that the whole city had been rebuilt after being destroyed in the great fire of 1813. It had been ignited by an explosion following a barrage of cannon fire from the English and Portuguese troops under the command of the Duke of Wellington. They were there to oust the occupying French forces during the siege of San Sebastian in July and August of the same year. The victorious troops had then ransacked and burned the city.
"Only the street I now walk on had escaped destruction. ... Was that a good omen?" she wondered.
She immediately scolded herself for such a silly thought.
Her mind turned again to San Sebastian's chequered past.
By the late eighteen hundreds the city had become the summer residence for the Bourbons, the newly-restored Spanish royal family ... with, and she smiled at her old history tutor's words: 'their rather suspect and ambiguous English connections'. Indeed, Queen Maria Cristina had used the designs of an English architect to build the Miramar Palace during the reign of the Bourbons. It still stood down at the other end of the main beach. In the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds, San Sebastian was a fashionable seaside resort attracting visitors from all over Europe.
"But that was then and now is now" she reflected with a sudden change of perspective, "in these dark days, no elegant and wealthy foreigners visit this town ... only displaced people and refugees. Not even Spanish families take seaside holidays here; not since this horrendous war has divided communities and families alike". Indeed, her own family had broken apart and lost everything. Now all but her were dead.
Maria's thoughts of San Sebastian's past and those rather genteel nineteenth century times began slowly to subside as she pressed on, though not so quickly as to draw attention to herself.
She was calmer now. Yet the bus station was still quite a distance away and it would still help if she could to try to take her mind off her almost desperate situation. She glanced around her at the neat houses that crowded together along the street as she turned into Calle Campana - Campanario Kalea in euskara - leading from the church bell tower down parallel to the port.
The narrow, normally spotless alleys of San Sebastian's old town were a refuge for Maria; or at least they had been until now. It had always pleased her to see how the residents there diligently cared for their own little section of sidewalk and gutters. They were swept clean and either washed by regular rain or, in its absence, by sprinkling about the precious water brought in clay pots from the nearest fountain. Not all the people living in the old town had water supplies piped to their houses.
Even this early in the morning, the street corners were clean and bathed in warm sunlight, though shadows still partly hid the comings and goings of those few people out and about on the less frequented cobblestone alleyways and lanes of old town Donostia
YOU ARE READING
BEGINNINGS : Where A Life Begins ------ I. GENESIS & RESURRECTION
Historical Fiction"Tales of Survival and Revenge" is the theme of BEGINNINGS I. GENESIS and RESURRECTION is the story of violence, heartbreak and the genesis of a bitter cycle of murder and revenge around the Basque country in Spain. BEGINNINGS : Where A Life Begin...
