Sad Weapons (136 pages) is perhaps Marina Mayoral’s best-known work of young adult fiction and has already gone through more than thirty editions. It was first published in Galician in 1994. It is a book about two sisters, Harmony and Rose, who are sent to Russia by their parents during the Spanish Civil War for their safekeeping, their life there and what happens to the members of their family. It is a charming story that is sure to touch the heart of any reader.

The novel is divided into three parts and an epilogue. In Part I (four chapters), the two sisters have been living in an orphanage for almost a year, because their parents, who are fighting on the Republican side, do not want to leave them with relatives who have more Francoist leanings. Their parents decide to send them to Russia together with other children for their safekeeping. The children travel to Gijón harbour, where they board a French cargo ship. Their father is there to see them off, but their mother arrives late and is unable to see them. The children are taken to a children’s home in Leningrad, where they are looked after by a Spanish woman, María do Mar, and receive toys, sweets and colouring books. In her mind, Harmony composes a letter to her mother, explaining that they weren’t allowed to leave the boat to see her and it wasn’t their fault. She notices a boy called Leo, who seems to be without any relatives and who doesn’t cry on the journey to Leningrad, even though he’s seasick like everybody else. On arrival in Leningrad, he receives a carousel with horses and a cockerel, but it falls on the ground and breaks. This makes him very sad and he is taken off to see the doctor.

In class, the teacher invites the children to write letters to their relatives. Harmony is flustered when she learns she is actually going to have to write the letter she has been composing in her mind for days on end and doesn’t know where to start. In the end, she writes a quick letter, saying it wasn’t their fault they couldn’t come out to see their mother and they understand their parents are fighting for a just cause. Rose includes a drawing of a red hen surrounded by chicks to go with the letter. Harmony is told Leo will be returning from the hospital soon. She tells the teacher that they are friends because she feels a close connection with him, but then she is afraid that Leo will give her away when he returns and say he doesn’t know her at all, and the children will tease her and say she did this because she likes Leo. She also has a nightmare about the letter they sent their parents like a pigeon, being attacked by soldiers and dogs, and barely managing to stay airborne. When Leo returns to the school, however, he greets Harmony by name, and Harmony realizes he’s remembered her name from the ship, when the people from the Red Cross called out to her to say her mother was on the quay.

In Part II (seven chapters), the Republicans take control of a city, where among the prisoners Miguel, the girls’ father, comes across a friend of his, Henrique, the son of a Nationalist general, with whom he did teacher training. He can’t bear to let him be shot, so he frees him from the town hall, where the prisoners are being held, and helps him leave the city with his daughter. Henrique gives him a letter addressed to his father, the Francoist general, should the tables be turned and Miguel find himself in need. Miguel, however, is killed during the Battle of the Ebro. The children’s mother, Carmiña, receives his belongings, including the letter addressed to Henrique’s father. She is due to be shot, but instead is taken to the general’s office. The general, realizing what Miguel did to save his son (even though Henrique and his daughter were later killed by a grenade that was thrown at their car), wishes to return the favour and, at risk to himself, transports Carmiña to the French border, advising her not to return to Spain.

In France, in her nurse’s uniform, Carmiña helps out with the wounded and manages to avoid being taken to a refugee camp that is more like a prison. She is helped by a woman, Irene, who works for the Post Office. Irene locks her in the store, where unbeknown to Carmiña she sleeps on top of a sack containing her daughters’ letter, and then arranges for her to be smuggled out of the country to Argentina. After the Spanish Civil War ends, the children’s letter makes its way to Madrid, where it is viewed with suspicion because it has come from Russia. The censor, Boniface, had been a postman until he was run over by a car. He understands the letter has been written by an unhappy child and, while the other censor in the office is suspicious, he approves the letter and sends it on to its destination.

The letter reaches the children’s home town. In the post office, the manager, who used to have a crush on the children’s mother, keeps hold of the letter and sends the postman to inform Carmiña’s sister, Neves, and her husband that there is a letter from the children. Neves’ husband thinks it is a trap to see if they have dealing with the communists and refuses to accept the letter, but Neves herself is sad she hasn’t had children and thinks, if Carmiña is no longer alive, she can raise the children as good Catholics and not tomboys like their mother, so she visits the post office without her husband’s knowledge. There, she asks for the letter, but the manager advises her against opening it (he knows the children have been a little rude about their aunt) and instead suggests she jot down the sender’s address and contact the children herself. He wants to be seen in a good light, since he has never quite forgotten Carmiña and, if she returns one day, he hopes they can be friends.

In Argentina, Carmiña has a difficult time finding work as a maid or a cleaner because of the economic conditions. Whenever she does find work, men take liberties with her and, when she reacts, she is normally fired. One day, while cleaning the offices of an American company, she comes across an envelope with ten 100-dollar bills in the bin. She thinks about keeping the money and using it to visit her daughters in Russia, but her honesty wins out and she goes to visit the man whose office this is on Monday morning to return the money. Dick Butwin is so impressed by the pretty woman who comes to see him that he sends her a bunch of roses, then has her promoted from cleaner to typist, then takes her out for dinner, until six months later he proposes marriage. Carmiña accepts and goes to live with him in the United States, which after the Second World War places her on one side of the Iron Curtain and her children on the other.

In Part III (four chapters), the children are moved to Kirov in Russia in order to be further away from the front. Harmony and Leo have special feelings for each other, but when Rose asks Harmony if she is going to be Leo’s girlfriend, Harmony just says they’re good friends. Leo says the same, so Rose decides that she is going to be Leo’s girlfriend when she’s old enough. She likes to do dances; on this occasion, she does the Dance of Trees in Spring, lifting herself up on tiptoe to show her full height. Leo is a little disappointed that Harmony didn’t want to be his girlfriend, since he would do anything for Rose, but the one he has feelings for is Harmony. The children attend a performance by the Bolshoi Ballet, and afterwards Rose is very quiet. She confides to Harmony that she would like to become a ballerina, and suddenly everybody realizes that this is exactly what Rose has to be. But children who attend the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow start at age six and are normally Russian; for Rose, it will be very difficult to be accepted. Even so María do Mar writes to the artistic director, an interview is arranged, and the director is so impressed by Rose’s movements that she agrees to turn her into a star.

Rose is very happy to be accepted, but sad to be leaving her loved ones. Harmony encourages her to make the most of her talent and says she must go to Moscow to study. Rose agrees and, now that she’s going to be a ballerina and probably won’t ever get married, she says Harmony must be Leo’s girlfriend. Harmony admits she has liked Leo ever since she first set eyes on him, but makes Rose promise not to tell him. Rose goes to see Leo, says she can’t be his girlfriend, and why doesn’t he go out with Harmony? Leo isn’t sure Harmony likes him (Rose can’t tell him because of her promise) and also he plans to become an engineer, which will mean plenty of years away from Harmony, studying. Rose tells him he’ll just have to study and make sure Harmony doesn’t forget him in the meantime. Rose leaves for Moscow. Harmony and Leo try to put on a brave face, but once Rose has left, Harmony bursts into tears and hugs Leo tightly. Leo thinks this means she likes him and she is now his girlfriend, but he wants her to confirm this. He is still afraid she might like some other boy, like Pablo, who wants to become a teacher and has the gift of the gab. He goes to speak to Harmony. Harmony tells him he must go and study to become an engineer, but she will wait for him. She then confesses her love for him, and the two of them embrace.

In the Epilogue, we learn that Rose became a famous ballerina. Leo became a physicist and worked on space programmes in Russia. Carmiña had two children with Dick Butwin. She was able to see Rose when the Bolshoi Ballet visited America, but couldn’t go to Russia to see Harmony and her family. On Harmony’s sixtieth birthday, Leo has prepared a surprise for her. The political situation has changed, it is after the falling of the Berlin Wall, and he has arranged for them all to return to Galicia, to the house where Harmony and Rose were raised. Once there, they receive a visit from the post office manager’s grandson, who has a letter for them – the selfsame letter they had sent in 1938, on their arrival in Leningrad. Harmony has it framed unopened to remind them of the horrors of war and, whenever one of her grandchildren asks the story of that envelope, she tells how two little girls once set out for another life in Russia.

This is a charming story and has been very popular in Galicia, where it has had more than thirty editions. Marina Mayoral is one of Galicia’s best-known writers, and this is one of her most-loved stories. It doesn’t focus on the horrors of war so much as the destiny of two children who are sent to Russia by their parents, and the destiny of a letter that is held up at the border between France and Spain, then in Madrid, and finally in the girls’ home town in Galicia, where it is finally delivered after a delay of some fifty years.

Synopsis © Jonathan Dunne