"Sometimes the truth is dangerous, Julia. But we should search for it nonetheless..." Antonio, Julia's husband.
Ana Torres Moreno works as a maid at Castella Hilton Madrid, in Madrid Spain. It is 1957, almost twenty years after the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. During the war Ana has lost her parents; her father executed and her mother imprisoned and murdered for wanting to open a Montessori school. For this crime her family was broken apart. Now Ana lives in silence, never mentioning her parents, dreaming of a life she cannot possibly have and of leaving Spain some day.
Now twenty years later, dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco has opened up Spain to tourists again. One such tourist is Daniel Matheson, from Dallas, Texas. Daniel, who is an only child, is with his parents who are in Spain to secure an deal for his father's oil company. They have rooms at the Castella Hilton Madrid.
Recently graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas, Daniel will attend Texas A and M University in the fall. His father wants him to take over the family oil business upon graduation, but Daniel is determined to be a photojournalist. To that end he is one of five finalists for the 1957 Magnum Photography Prize. With the trip to Spain, Daniel is hoping to get some great photographs that will win him the coveted prize and enable him to attend journalism school, an endeavour his father has made clear he will not finance.
Out on the street, Daniel who speaks fluent Spanish, takes a picture of a nun carrying a bundle, the wind revealing the gray face of a dead baby. It is the last shot for the roll of film so Daniel quickly reloads another roll into his camera. When the Guardia Civil, the military force that serves General Franco appear, Daniel quickly takes a shot, but he is at once accosted by the guards who rough him up, order him to remove the film, question him as to where he is staying and then escort him back to the hotel.
Ana and Daniel first meet when he returns unexpectedly to his room after his encounter with the Guardia Civil. After work that day, Ana goes to a workshop on Puerta del Sol where she helps her sister Julia sew
traje de luces, the suit of lights worn by the matadors. The suit of lights is so called because it is covered in gemstones and beads sewn into fabric. In another room the master tailor, Luis is fitting the matador Ordonez. Julia and her husband Antonio have a four month old daughter who is not very healthy. Julia's work helps to feed their family and pay their debts. They hope to move from the impoverished Vallecas to a small flat in Lavapies. Ana tells Julia about her assignment to a very wealthy American family and how their son has access to American magazines. Julia warns Ana that their life is very different and to keep her distance.
That night Daniel attends a dinner reception at the Van Dorn's villa in Madrid. Daniel meets Shep Van Dorn, the U.S. public affairs officer for the American embassy and his son Nicholas who seems to Daniel to be a typical rich kid, interested in parties and women. Shep tells Daniel that Spain has many stories based on its geography and then introduces him to Benjamin (Ben) Stahl who works out of the Madrid Bureau of the New York Herald Tribune. Ben is impressed with Daniel's intensity and determination and also that he is a finalist for the Magnum Prize. During the reception, Daniel also learns from Nick that the embassy is processing the paperwork for an "orphanage deal" which he assumes means a monetary donation from his parents.
Purificacion (Puri), Ana's cousin works at the Inclusa, a orphanage that provides for destitute mothers and their babies. Babies arrive at the Inclusa via an opening in the wall near the door, called el torno. But some babies arrive with a nun or a doctor by the back door. Puri's questioning about this has gone unanswered. Puri's job is to interact with the babies so they will develop normally. She is especially devoted to one orphan, whom she has secretly named Clover. Puri is happy because Sister Hortensia, who runs the orphanage has arranged for Clover to be adopted. As she leaves the Inclusa, Puri encounters a distraught woman who states her baby was taken two days ago to be baptized and has not returned. She asks Puri if her baby is here but Puri tells her this is the orphanage.
At the orphanage, the newborns are easily adopted. It is the older children who concern Puri. When she is sent by Sister Hortensia to place notes into the files downstairs, Puri begins to read some of the information in the files. She discovers that Clover's adoption fee is the astronomical amount of 200,000 pesos. She wonders if the Inclusa works to find homes for the children, why are the adoption fees so high?
As Puri continues to read through the files over the next weeks, she discovers letters from parents claiming the child they were shown to be deceased did not match their baby, with other letters claiming outright that the orphanage has stolen their newborn. Doubt and hesitation begin to plague Puri who continues to read through some of the hundreds of letters, dating back over twenty years. These letters are in the "Resolved File" but they do not appear to be resolved!
More questions arise when Puri is sent by Sister Hortensia to work in the maternity clinic down the street from the Inclusa. Her discovery of a dead baby in the freezer at the clinic instead of the morgue add even more distress. She brings her questions to her confessor, asking him, "...is it better for a child to have no parents than the wrong parents..." Eventually, when her parents are out, Puri begins to investigate at home, looking at letters and pictures in a box her mother has hidden in a closet. And she begins to wonder about her own past and who she really is.
Ana's brother Rafael (Rafa) and his friend Fuga are "comrades of hardship". They spent their youth in a boys' home in Barcelona, a humiliating experience where they were both abused. Now Rafa works in a slaughterhouse while Fuga whose name means "Escape" is a grave digger. Fuga is determined to become a famous torero and earn enough money in order to expose the evil that is going on in the children's homes. He has discovered that some of the small coffins which feel too light do not contain the bodies of babies. Fuga believes "babies born to Republican or poor families are being stolen,that the church wants the children redeemed and raised by Francoists."Rafa asks his sister Julia to ask Luis to lend Fuga a suit of lights. He explains that Fuga has been practicing on the bulls in the willow field using a blanket dyed with red bricks. Julia agrees but asks Rafa to speak to Ana whom she is certain is headed for more trouble.
When Daniel's parents travel to Valencia, Ana takes him on a trip through Madrid to reach a photography shop to have his film developed. He meets twelve-year-old Carlitos, the bell hop at the Castellana Hilton and Lorenza, a tacky hotel employee and Miguel who runs a camera shop. Miguel is impressed with Daniel's expensive Nikon as well as his photographs.
Although Daniel's relationship with Ana deepens, life in Spain does not flow smoothly. Rafa is jailed, Ana loses her job at the hotel, Julia's daughter becomes seriously ill and Daniel and his parents leave, returning to their life in America with a surprise even Daniel couldn't predict. But over the years, secrets will be uncovered, second chances will be discovered and love rekindled.
Discussion
The Fountains of Silence is an unforgettable novel about war, repression, poverty, secrets, and the burden of silence often borne by the survivors. But it is also about love, hope and redemption. The novel is set twenty years after the beginning of the Spanish Civil War which began in 1936 and ended in 1939. The Spanish Civil War was the result of a complex set of factors that dated well back into the 19th century when Spain was still a monarchy. Attempts to transition to a liberal government were fraught with uprisings, coups, and abdications during this century. In April of 1931, general elections were held and socialist and liberal republicans won in most of the provincial capitals, leading to the formation of the Second Spanish Republic.
In the 1930's Spain became a deeply polarized country. On the right politically were the Nationalists who were mainly Roman Catholics and included many landowners, businessmen and members of the military. They were opposed by the left-leaning Republicans, comprised of the educated middle class, labourers and those who worked in the cities. Elections held on February 16, 1936 saw a Popular Front government elected. This was a left wing coalition made up of working and middle class parties including the Spanish Socialist Workers Party and the Republican Left. They were determined to resist what they felt was fascism, which had already infected Italy and Germany. Spain was now wracked with violence, the outright seizure of farmland from landowners, the closure of Catholic schools, the seizure of Catholic property and desecration of churches.
However, members of the Spanish military began to plan a coup, which eventually took place on July 17, 1936. Led by three men, Emilio Mola y Vidal, General Jose Sanjurjo and eventually General Francisco Franco Bahomande, the Nationalist coup was unsuccessful and the country sank into civil war between the right Nationalists and the left Republicans. Both Mola and Sanjurjo were dead by the middle of 1937, leaving Franco to lead the war. With neither side strong enough to win the war, both enlisted military support from other countries. Eventually the Nationalists, with help from Germany and Italy, gained control of much of Spain. On March 28, the Republican armies began to surrender and disband.
Sepetys weaves together four stories; Ana, daughter of a middle class family whose parents were murdered and imprisoned for wanting to start a school and who longs for something more than the impoverished life she shares with her sister Julia and her brother Rafa; Daniel son of a wealthy American oil tycoon who dreams of becoming a photojournalist but who is expected to enter the family business; Ana's brother Rafa and his friend Fuga, survivors of a brutal boys school who discover that the coffins they are burying are empty; and Puri, Ana's cousin who works at the Inclusa and who longs to uncover the secrets of the orphanage and possibly her own identity.
The Fountains of Silence is a novel about how the greatest suffering in war is often borne by the youngest and most innocent, the children and teenagers who are unable to fight back against the violence and repression. Sepetys wanted to tell their story. "During the postwar period and dictatorship in Spain, young people were left amidst the wreckage to navigate an inheritance of heartache and responsibility for events they had no role in causing. The young adult narrative is what I chose to represent in the story -- innocent youths who, instead of pursuing hopes and dreams, became fountains of silence."
Almost everyone in the novel has a secret. Daniel has secrets; his plans to attend journalism school, his breakup with girlfriend Laura Beth, his blossoming relationship with Ana, his encounter with the Guardia Civil. Daniel's parents have their own secrets, a miscarriage, an illness and then an adoption. Ana, Julia and Rafa's share the secret of their family's involvement in resisting Franco, the murder of their father and the imprisonment, torture and public humiliation of their mother. Rafa and Fuga have the secret of their abuse at the boys home, of Fuga training in the fields illegally. Julia too has a secret, one that we don't learn until the very end.
It is Julia, who is considered the guardian of the family secrets who wonders at the cost of silence. "What is the cost of silence? If she remains quiet about her suspicions, is granting acceptance of what is happening? If she imposes silence upon Ana and Rafa, what is that telling them? That she is ashamed of their parents? Their parents did nothing wrong. They were academics, hardworking, sophisticated people. Their father wanted to create a school outside of the Catholic Church. That is all..."
One of the greatest strengths of this novel is Sepetys' characters. They are authentic to the era, unique and interesting. For example, Daniel Matheson is an endearing character, a teenager growing into adulthood as a young man with courage, compassion and honour. He is a protector and therefore very appealing. His love for Ana is genuine. Her family justifiably are concerned over her relationship with Daniel, but his honour is demonstrated in how he treats her. Daniel represents the reader looking into a Spain he cannot really understand, even though his mother is Spanish. Sepetys discovered during her research for the novel, that understanding what happened in Spain so many years ago was difficult for an outsider like herself. Daniel is that outsider, looking in, his focus sharpened by the lens of his camera.
Daniel's strength as an outsider is that he can tell the human story of what's happening Spain and Ben Stahl urges him to do so. "But you. You can capture a real story here -- a photo essay to show a different side of Spain than the one on the postcards. All the foreign correspondents are chasing the same threads....But they're mission something. What about the people of Spain? What is life like under a dictatorship? What's it like for young people when textbooks are government sponsored? What are their hopes and dreams when there are no free elections and only one religion?"
Ana, Julia, Rafa and Fuga are all well crafted characters, used to portray the suffering of the Spanish people during the Franco years. Ana, Julia and Rafa had their lives upended when Franco took power, losing their parents and being separated. Their grinding poverty is contrasted by the wealth of Daniel and the other wealthy Americans living in Spain. This is especially evident when Daniel visits the slum, Vallecas where Ana lives with her family in a concrete cement shack, without running water or toilets, a broken window and door and a collapsing roof. In contrast, Daniel's father meets with General Franco and his family is able to afford to dine at the renowned restaurant Lhardy, where "Waiters stand behind screens, so not to interrupt the guests but watch and tend to their every need." Both Rafa and Fuga have suffered mental and physical abuse and deprivation. Julia's husband, Antonio has a left foot that drags a bit, an injury courtesy of the Guardia Civil.
At a hefty 500 pages, The Fountains of Silence is an epic work of historical fiction. It is a work that touches not only on the poverty and repression the Spanish people endured under Franco's dictatorship, but also on the heinous practice of stealing newborn infants from families deemed too poor or too "Red". The theme of missing children is woven throughout the novel and is a part of the stunning conclusion. It is through the character of Puri, that the reality of this practice is exposed in the novel.
Sepetys includes an Author's Note about the Spanish Civil War, a section on Research and Sources which includes an extensive list of sources the author consulted, a Glossary and a section of black and white photographs from the era.
Book Details:
The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys
New York: Philomel Books 2019
495 pp.
