2

There was Leningrad, which before that was called St Petersburg and, many years later, would regain its old name – a Russian city, large and pretty, all covered in snow.

The Spanish children lived in residences called “children’s homes” and were in the care of someone designated by the authorities to look after them and see to their needs. The person in charge of the house where Harmony and Rose went to live was a young woman who had lost her husband in the war in Spain, fighting with the International Brigades. Not having any children, she devoted herself to the work of looking after refugee children from the war.

Harmony kept thinking about the letter she had to write to her mother to tell her all about the things that had happened and carried on happening every day but, since everything was new, she didn’t know where to start. The time passed quickly, and she couldn’t find the right moment to apply herself to her task. She would sometimes stare out the window at the gently falling snow and think, I have to tell Mother how much snow there is, much more than the year it covered all the rabbit holes in the garden, when the hens slid about on their perches and lots of children couldn’t go to school. But she also had to tell her about all the toys they’d been given and how people treated them with affection and gave them sorrowful looks. Harmony realized this, but thought perhaps she should keep this last bit from her mother, how she often felt like crying, but disguised her true feelings so that Rose wouldn’t pout like a duck and start crying because, if she did, she could be like that for ages, crying non-stop. They would give her things – sweets, new toys, pretty colouring books – and she would take them all, even suck on the sweets, but carry on crying. So it was better if she didn’t start.

Rose only cried when she was taken away from Harmony. They wanted to put her in an infants’ class, but she burst out crying and wouldn’t stop until they took her back to her sister. Everybody felt very sorry for her, the schoolteachers as well, because she didn’t make any noise or protest, she just flopped her head on her chest, like a withered flower, stuck her lips out, and two unending streams of tears would pour from her eyes. They would say, “Come on, take this sweet, see what a pretty book this is, all these colouring pencils…” And Rose would look at the book, even take a pencil and start colouring in the figures with cheerful colours, almost always reds and blues, which were the ones she liked best. She would colour elephants red and lions blue, and carry on shedding tears that soaked the pages. Until they took her back to Harmony. And Harmony would think she mustn’t tell this to her mother, so she didn’t think they were suffering, because most of the time they felt well, even though they missed them both, Father and her… So it was she kept writing this letter in her head – it was very long, but that didn’t matter, she didn’t even have to worry about whether “snow” was written with a “w” or an “e” or take care to write in a straight line.

There was just one thing that disturbed her, which she kept turning over in her mind without being able to push it out. She was sorry not to have said goodbye to her mother. She thought they would see each other again soon, but she also remembered how her father had said their mother would board the boat as soon as she arrived, that was why she was helping at the front, so that everything finished earlier, and yet they hadn’t let her go on board, or let them disembark. And even this business of arriving late had struck Harmony as a sad event she was unable to explain. It was something like the story about a certain marshal, Pedro Pardo de Cela, she had been told at school. The marshal and his son had been sentenced to death – they were going to cut their heads off in the square in front of Mondoñedo cathedral. The marshal’s wife went to talk to the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella and obtained a pardon. She hurried back but, just as she was reaching the city, her enemies came out to meet her and kept her busy with falsehoods on a bridge that, since then, has been called the “bridge of passing time”. When she finally made it to the square, the heads of her husband and son were already rolling on the ground. Harmony had felt very sorry about this ending because she thought, if she hadn’t obtained a pardon or the journey had taken many days, well, there was nothing you could do about it… But losing it all, when you were so close, struck her as very saddening.

She also thought what was happening to her must be like what had happened to one of the children from their expedition when they arrived in Russia. This was a boy her own age, more or less, who had been alone in the harbour, with nobody to accompany him to the boat. For this reason, he was the first to get on and, when he did so, he didn’t look back or anything. Harmony had noticed him when they were on the quay, waiting for their mother. He was just about the only child who wasn’t crying. He looked serious, his shoulders hunched as if he was cold or his overcoat was small, and he stared at the ground without paying attention to what was going on around him. He didn’t speak to anybody on the ship, either. Harmony wondered whether he didn’t have any parents or they were late, just like their mother, but it rather looked as if he didn’t have any because he wasn’t keeping an eye out to see if they would arrive, as Rose and she were doing. The boy was very serene the whole journey. He got seasick, like everybody else, but didn’t cry. And that was where Harmony found out his name was Leo, meaning “lion”, a name that didn’t suit him very well, because he was small and looked rather gentle, but that was his name, and there was nothing you could do about it. The lady from the Red Cross kept saying to the others, “Don’t cry, see how quiet Leo is, he also feels seasick, but he doesn’t cry.”

When they reached Leningrad and the toys were shared out, Leo received a book and a car like everybody else, but he also got another toy, a colourful carousel with horses that went around if you turned a handle, with music and, above all, a cockerel that moved as well. There were lots of books and similar toys, though some were different, very pretty, like the worm Rose was given, made out of wooden balls that had been painted green; it made a noise when you pulled it and jerked along in a funny fashion. Leo’s toy was one of the nicest, and he held it very carefully in his hands and gazed at it in raptures; it was the first time in fifteen days of travelling that Harmony had seen him view something with interest. He wasn’t exactly smiling, but almost. And suddenly the carousel slipped out of his fingers, fell on the ground and broke: the little horses, the cockerel, everything smashed into a thousand pieces. And then he threw down the book and car, covered his face with his hands and burst into tears. You couldn’t hear him, but it was obvious he was crying because his shoulders and chest were shaking and he wouldn’t let them take his hands away from his face or give him another toy. He stayed like that until the nurse came, who, when she saw there was nothing she could do, said he had better see a doctor, so they put him in a car and took him to hospital, the teacher told them. Harmony couldn’t stop thinking about him – she sensed she knew what the matter with him was, but couldn’t put it into words. There were times the grown-ups said about something it was “the drop that made a glass overflow”, but Harmony thought that wasn’t it, because the drop that makes a glass overflow leaves the glass still full, but what had happened to Leo was that the accident with the toy had made all the other sorrows inside him come spilling out. The same thing had happened to her when the boat had left and they hadn’t been able to say goodbye to their mother – she had felt like crying about all the sad things before that, the orphanage and the fear of her father being killed in the war, and also because, just like Marshal Pardo de Cela’s wife, their mother had only been a little late, it was all rather unfortunate. She couldn’t put it any better than that, but she knew what Leo was feeling…

That was why she wanted to write to her mother, to say how much she loved her and she understood, if she had been late, it was because she’d been seeing to the wounded and not because of her own carelessness or that remark Aunt Neves had once directed at her: “You think more about politics than about your own children.” Harmony knew this wasn’t true. The teacher at school had just told them their parents were fighting for freedom and justice, that was what she had said, and they had to be worthy of the sacrifice their parents were making for all the children in the world. So there was no doubt her mother had had a very good reason for arriving late. What she couldn’t understand was why they hadn’t let her board the ship, or let them disembark. What did such a short amount of time matter on such a long voyage?

She also wanted to ask whether the lady from the Red Cross who had said their mother was on the quay, asking for them, had explained it wasn’t their fault they couldn’t come out on deck. When they were all together at home, their mother would say, “You listen to me like someone listening to it rain,” because she would sometimes call to them and they would carry on playing or pretend they hadn’t heard. That was a long time ago. When they were in the orphanage, they would hurry whenever they were called, because they thought it might be them, Mother and Father, coming to fetch them or at least to pay a visit, and Rose wouldn’t stamp her feet or let out one of those ear-piercing yells. The second time she had done it, they had shut her on her own in a room for the afternoon and, after that, she had started pouting like a duck and crying without making any noise. But her mother didn’t know this, and perhaps she thought they’d been playing, and that was why they hadn’t come out. All they needed was for her to be angry with them on top of everything else.

In that letter she kept writing in her head, Harmony said, though she wasn’t sure she would ever put it down on paper, she was afraid it wasn’t true what they’d said about them all being together again very soon, and how they would be much happier than before, and the world a juster place, and all the other things their teacher had told them. Because her father had said, as soon as their mother arrived, she would board the ship, and yet she hadn’t, so perhaps it might be the same with everything else as well. And besides the lady who looked after them in the house, the one who made sure they ate properly and didn’t get sick, washed behind their ears every morning and folded their clothes, and all that kind of stuff… this lady, called María do Mar, who was very affectionate towards the children and had a sad look in her eyes, said to her one day:

“Wars, Harmony, are a bad thing. To start with, it’s possible that some people are good and in the right, while others are bad and in the wrong. But after a while everybody becomes the same. Wars bring only calamity and pain. Especially for women.”

Harmony wanted to tell her mother this, so her mother would say, “Well, look at Miss Plum, who doesn’t know how to read and runs a school!”, which was what she always said to Aunt Neves when she got cross with her for going to meetings, claiming everything that was said there was a lie, the poor would always remain poor, and that was all there was to it. Their mother would reply, if everybody was like her, there would still be slaves in the world, and make such pretty remarks that even Rose, who didn’t understand a thing, would stare at her in amazement, because their mother looked very beautiful when she talked like that, the colour would rush into her cheeks and her eyes would glisten, she looked quite a sight. And even if it was by letter, she was sure her mother would say all these things to her and explain why it was she had been late, and tell her not to worry, she understood they hadn’t come out because they wouldn’t let them.

But the days went by, and still Harmony couldn’t find the right moment to write to her.