could shut his mouth, unless he fancied finding himself a proper job and a flat in Camden.
‘My father and I do not often agree,’ Isaac was saying. ‘He works for the duchess. All this land is hers. She is eighty-five years old and she won’t die.’
‘I’m going to be like that,’ said Sarah, and they all laughed.
‘The people who work her land – how do you say in English? – tienen un gran hambre—’
‘They’re starving,’ said Olive.
Isaac looked at her in surprise, and again Olive felt the current that ran through her, the thrill of his attention. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Thousands. Across the region.’
‘How terrible,’ said Sarah.
Olive willed Isaac to look at her again, but he leaned forward and spoke to her mother. ‘La duquesa’s men will give you a job, if you promise to vote for her family and keep her powerful. The poor beg to work her land, for almost nothing, because that is all the work. But she does not remember them if their wife dies, or if their mother is sick. If they are sick. She only shows her face during the time of election.’
Teresa appeared at the door of the dining room, and stood with her arms crossed. Her hair had frizzed from the kitchen’s steam, her apron covered in bloodied smears. Isaac looked up, seeming to hesitate. Olive noticed Teresa almost imperceptibly shake her head, as Isaac blinked away her warning and barrelled on.
‘My father finds her men to work her land,’ he said, ‘but he only picks the young men, the strong men, not the older ones with families. So more people are starving. And there is no rule on the price for your work here, so la duquesa pays you nearly nothing. We tried to change that in the last election, but it has been changed again. And if you complain about how little you get of the harvest – or how bad condition is your house – la duquesa and her people will hear. You will not work.’
‘But the church must help them,’ said Harold.
‘Shall I tell you a secret? They say that our Padre Lorenzo has a lover in the village of Esquinas.’
Sarah laughed. ‘It’s always the priest what done it.’
Isaac shrugged. ‘They say Padre Lorenzo wants to make private the fields between the church and the house of his lover, so no one can see him when he makes the journey.’
‘Is that a joke?’ asked Sarah.
‘Who knows, señora? Padre Lorenzo is the cousin of the duchess. He has more interest in territory maps than prayer books.’ He sighed, tapping the ash of his cigarette into the ashtray. ‘We had a vision. Land, church, army, education, labour – all to change. But we are – how do you say it? Cogidos?’
‘Caught,’ said Olive, and Isaac looked at her again. She blushed. ‘You’re caught.’ She turned away, unable any longer to meet his eye.
‘Mr Robles isn’t caught,’ Sarah said. ‘He speaks English. He’s been to Madrid.’
Isaac inhaled sharply on his cigarette. ‘Action may be the only answer, señora. We need the tyranny gone.’
‘Tyranny?’ said Sarah. ‘What tyranny?’
‘Most people here are just trying to plant their cabbages and eat them in peace,’ said Isaac. ‘But many of the children in Arazuelo do not even go to school because they are working in the fields. They need to know who’s pulling the sheep over their eyes.’
‘Wool,’ said Harold. He’d barely spoken, and they all looked at him as he reached into his pocket for his lighter and dipped his head to ignite his cigarette. ‘The word you mean is wool.’ Being Viennese, he pronounced it voohl.
‘Are you planning a revolution, Mr Robles?’ asked Sarah. ‘Perhaps we should call you Lenin.’
He held up his hands in surrender, laughing as he glanced at Olive once again. She could barely cope; he was looking at her this time because he wanted to, and she felt as if her head might be on fire. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. ‘You will see, señores,’ Isaac said. ‘You are new here, but you will see.’
‘Are you a communist?’ Harold asked.
‘No. I am a member of the Republican Union party. And the poverty in our region is visible, it is not in my imagination. Mud huts, ten or eleven children inside them, men asleep on the fields.’
‘Isaac—’ said Teresa, but he interrupted her.
‘It is not just the poor – small farmers, they live on the land, they improve it for the owners – and then