Death of a Nationalist Page 23

“Whose phone number?” Gonzalo asked, momentarily distracted.

  “Captain Morales, the head of the Alcalá post.” Tejada’s voice was very dry. “A very competent man and a highly respected officer.” The sergeant drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel for a moment, and then continued speaking. “I talked to his sergeant this afternoon. Morales has been promoted fast. He got command of the Alcalá post after exposing a ring of thieves who were stealing rations at his last assignment. He punished them very publicly, too. And he was so modest about his own experience catching thieves that he asked Lieutenant Ramos to recommend a man to conduct an investigation when things started going missing there!”

  Gonzalo wondered at the suppressed emotion in the sergeant’s voice. “You’re saying he was stealing them?” he asked.

  “Oh, not just that.” Tejada was bitter. “He has a system worked out. He pulls in the junior officers so he always has someone ready to take the fall. And he gets the credit for exposing corruption. But Paco wouldn’t play. So he killed him and picked out a nice inexperienced sap to investigate the thefts of provisions. And if it was the sap who’d already executed someone for Paco’s murder, so much the better!”

  “What do you mean, ‘Paco wouldn’t play’?” Gonzalo demanded, interest getting the better of caution.

  “I mean I think Paco was trying to pull out of it,” Tejada snapped. “Morales threatened him with . . . well, it’s none of your business, but Morales threatened him with something that wasn’t true. So Paco went along. And I think as soon as the war ended he decided he was going to go to higher-ups. Paco was honorable, damn it! Whatever you say about him!” The sergeant’s voice carried clearly above the humming engine now.

  “I didn’t say a thing,” Gonzalo pointed out. His head hurt, and the temptation to needle his captor overrode his good judgment. “Morales threatened to expose Paco as a Communist, didn’t he?”

  “Paco wasn’t a Red!” The sergeant rapped out the words. “He was trying to hide a girlfriend’s identity, so he did something stupid and pretended that a photograph was a picture of her when it wasn’t. But that’s all!”

  “Who told you that?” Gonzalo asked, wondering how Morales had seen through the deception. Probably it had been Paco’s great inspiration. One of the over-elaborate lies that Isabel had said would have made him a poor agent.

  “Morales’s sergeant again,” Tejada replied absently. “He’s in it too, of course, but I suspect under some sort of compulsion. He wouldn’t tell me what he’s being blackmailed with. He’s scared stiff that Morales will bump him off or set him up as the fall guy. He tried to warn me that the girl wasn’t the important thing in the photo but he’s such a fucking incompetent that all he did was make me suspicious of him.”

  Gonzalo reflected sadly that he had just gathered all the information Juan and Isabel had asked him for. It seemed that Isabel’s identity had been guessed at by Captain Morales, but the information had been used for other purposes. It was a shame that he would not have a chance to report back to them. “I suppose this sergeant’s not a Communist either,” he ventured.

  “I told you, Paco wasn’t a Red!” Tejada snapped. He thought about his conversation with Rota, and about the photograph again, and then added reluctantly, “Was he?” His voice pleaded for a negative reply.

  “No,” Gonzalo answered, glad that he was telling the truth, for reasons that he could not analyze. “No, he was one of you.”

  “I knew it,” Tejada sighed. He was speaking to himself now. “He might have made a mistake. But Paco loved Spain. He would never have willingly done anything to hurt his country.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Gonzalo asked, wishing that he could see the other man’s face.

  “Because . . .” Tejada paused and thought. He understood suddenly why prisoners sometimes confessed even without threats. He wanted to talk. “Because you’re a safe audience,” he admitted.

  Gonzalo coughed violently, almost retching, and wondered if his ribs were broken. “Silent as the grave?” he gasped, when he could speak again.

  The guardia civil snorted. “Something like that. Besides, you knew Paco was involved with the black market. It’s fair you know why.”

  It was odd, Gonzalo thought, that he was still able to be interested in trifles even though he knew that he would be dead in a few minutes. “How did you know I knew?” he asked, since there was nothing to lose by the question.

  “I picked up that smuggler you questioned last week,” Tejada said frankly. “That’s how I found out about Báez too.”

  “Nice work.”

  “Sheer luck,” the sergeant corrected. “I was hot on the wrong trail and happened to stumble over him.” He paused and braked for a sign that Gonzalo could not see. “I’ve screwed up nearly everything in this investigation,” he added ruefully.

  Gonzalo’s silence did not contradict him. The vehicle rattled along for a while. Gonzalo wondered again where they were going. Out into the countryside probably. It was the logical place to dump a body. “What will you tell them about me?” he asked.

  Gonzalo heard a smile in the sergeant’s voice. “Paco’s murder is officially a closed case. But the lieutenant knows he was a friend of mine. If I tell him I found out you were responsible and took you out because I wanted to question you personally, he’ll understand. He’ll be annoyed, of course, because we do want to know where you obtained your forged papers, but I’ll tell him I hit a little harder than I meant to or that you were weaker than I thought. These things happen.”

  “Jesus!” Gonzalo commented. “You could be court-martialed.”

  Tejada shook his head, forgetting that his prisoner was blindfolded. “I’d be court-martialed if I let you escape. I did think of that, but there’s no way in hell you’d reach the border, and I’m not interested in staring down a firing squad.”

  “Why is this so important to you?” Gonzalo asked as the truck turned and then accelerated.

  For a while, Gonzalo thought he would receive no reply. Then he heard the driver say shortly, “You’re a Red. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “I told you . . . I owe you. And I don’t like being in people’s debt.”

  “It’s only the repayment part that I’m having trouble understanding.” To the surprise of both men, Gonzalo’s voice was almost jocular.

  Tejada actually laughed. “I told you. It’s the best I can do under the circumstances. I’ll try to see that your sister’s released soon, too. She was arrested for hiding you, so we really have nothing to hold her for now.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Gonzalo meant the words ironically. They came out sounding sincere.

  “It’s really Aleja I feel sorry for,” the sergeant explained. “This whole business has been hard on her. And it’s not her fault her people are Reds.”

  “Or that you shot her aunt,” Gonzalo pointed out.

  “Fuck you, Llorente.” The words were muffled by the grinding of gears.

  “And uncle,” Gonzalo murmured experimentally, trying out the concept. It was difficult to imagine being dead. Presumably it meant that various parts of his body would stop hurting.

  Tejada deliberately ignored the miliciano. “Yes, Carmen should be released soon,” he said. “But sometimes the process takes time and we’re overworked at the moment. I was thinking . . . I was thinking, the wait won’t be good for Aleja.”

  “Probably not,” Gonzalo agreed. Knowing that he would not be there to see to Aleja gave death a context, made it seem more real, and permanent.

  “I thought . . .” Tejada tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel again. “I thought maybe I’d send her to Granada. My brother’s oldest daughter is in school there at the Convent of the Sacred Heart. I’m sure the nuns would take Aleja too, and my brother’s family could take her on weekends, and during holidays.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  The loathing in Gonzalo’s voice startled the sergeant. “Her father’s dea
d,” he pointed out. “And you won’t be around to take care of her. She’d get a good education, and she wouldn’t be tagged as the daughter of a Red.”

  “You scum!” Gonzalo retched again and twisted in his seat, hating his body’s helplessness and his tongue’s inability to express his rage. “How could you, knowing what she means to Carmen?”

  “You’d rather she starved in the street?” Tejada asked. “I assure you, it won’t be easy for an ex-convict with a brother who’s been executed to find work. And—” His face twisted for an instant. “I thought Aleja’s education was important to you.”

  “I’d rather she starved in the street than learned what you would teach her!” Gonzalo hissed.

  Tejada shook his head again. “I’ll never understand the Reds.”

  The man was sincere, Gonzalo thought. He genuinely couldn’t see what was wrong with taking Aleja away from everything she held dear. He had a niece of his own, and he would have screamed that the minions of Satan were kidnapping her if she had been so much as enrolled in a secular school, and yet he would take Aleja away and call it kindness. “I’ll never understand you either,” he said, and suddenly his anger was washed away by sadness.

  “It was just an idea.” The sergeant’s voice was a little stiff. “I thought you might be relieved by it.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t bring a priest along,” Gonzalo remarked sarcastically.

  The sergeant laughed again. “I didn’t think one would be necessary or appreciated. Should I have found one?”

  “No, thanks.” Gonzalo found himself smiling in the darkness and was appalled. How could he be sitting here in the darkness chatting with Viviana’s murderer, and his own? “This is a very odd conversation,” he said aloud.

  “Very,” Tejada agreed. For a moment, his mind flitted back to Elena, and he said reflectively, “Maybe it’s easier to say things in the dark.”

  “When you can’t see someone’s face,” Gonzalo agreed, staring at the inside of the blindfold, and wondering how far the sergeant was planning to drive him.

  “That’s why confessionals are dim, I suppose,” Tejada said. “Brace your feet. We’re turning.”

  The truck swung to the right, and Gonzalo, swaying to keep his balance, brushed against the sergeant’s shoulder. Tejada righted his prisoner with one hand. “The night became intimate, like a little plaza,” Gonzalo quoted.

  “Yes.” The sergeant threw a quick, surprised glance at his prisoner’s profile, wondering where Llorente had picked up the bit of poetry. “Yes, that describes it exactly. Except that I’m not drunk,” he added, and then realized that Llorente probably did not know the entire poem, and would therefore miss the reference.

  Gonzalo turned his head rapidly toward the guardia civil’s voice, a gesture made useless by the blindfold. “You mean you’ve read Lorca!” he exclaimed.

  “You mean you have?” Tejada said, disbelieving.

  “Of course. All of Federico’s work was in the union library.” Gonzalo raised his chin, laying claim to the poet.

  “My cousins lived up the street from his parents,” Tejada explained. “I met him a few times, as a kid.”

  Gonzalo’s jaw dropped. “But you’ve read him?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Yes, of course. Well, all his early work. Some of the Cante jondo is beautiful. A shame he got off into all that surrealist crap.” Tejada had few, but decided, opinions about poetry.

  “So, you like the ‘Romance de la Guardia Civil Española’?” Gonzalo suggested mischievously.

  Tejada snorted. “Communist crap. But I’ve always liked ‘Pre-ciosa y el Aire.’”

  “I wouldn’t have figured you were so sentimental.”

  “I’ve always liked ‘Preciosa y el Aire.’ ” Tejada repeated, with a certain emphasis. He braked sharply and Gonzalo slid forward, wondering unhappily if they were reaching the journey’s end.

  “He was the greatest poet of his generation,” the miliciano said, a little defiantly.

  “Agreed.”

  “And your side killed him.”

  “A regrettable mistake. Accidents happen in wartime.” Tejada was busy with the clutch.

  “The way Viviana was a mistake?” Gonzalo asked. “How many mistakes do you allow yourself, Sergeant?”

  “Fuck off.” The gears ground, partly because Tejada’s hands were shaking. The vehicle lurched to a stop. “Sorry I don’t have more time to analyze poetry with you, Llorente. But we’re here.”

  “Where?”

  “Where you get off.”

  The engine died, and then there was the sound of the door opening and slamming. Gonzalo sat rigid, trying to accustom himself to the imminence of death. He heard the door on his side of the truck open, and then the guardia civil was pulling him down and setting him on his feet.

  “Back up,” the sergeant said quietly, and Gonzalo felt something that could have been a rifle barrel nudge him in the chest. He backed up, stumbling slightly, and found himself still on paving stones. There was still a paved road here then. Odd, considering how long they had driven.

  “You fucking Red,” Tejada said. “Paco was worth ten of you. Ten! And he died, and you’re still here! And you damn well don’t deserve to be! Communist traitor!” The sergeant’s voice was rising steadily.

  Gonzalo felt the rifle strike him lightly on the chest again. He stumbled a few steps backward and found his shoulders in contact with a wall. This is it, he thought. But I didn’t crack. Viva la República, I didn’t crack.

  “Communist!” Tejada shouted again. “Spain should be purged of all of you! You don’t deserve to breathe Spanish air! Red! Communist!” There was a hysterical note in the sergeant’s voice, and Gonzalo wondered what had become of their fleeting camaraderie. “Filthy Communist!”

  It all happened very suddenly. One moment, Gonzalo was backed up against a wall, as the guardia civil screamed insults, and the next moment the pressure on his shoulder blades had disappeared, and a hand behind him drew him inside. Then he heard the gentle thud of a door swinging shut, and Tejada’s cries were muffled. Then someone pulled off his blindfold.

  “You are a member of the Party?” a man whispered.

  Gonzalo blinked stupidly. After so many hours in total blackness, the lamp shining in his eyes seemed as brilliant as the sun. He stared at the shadows on the floor and realized that he was in some sort of foyer. From the echoes of the whisper, it was a large space. “A Party member?” the man asked again, with a certain urgency. He had a thick accent, which flattened and squared off the vowels. German? Gonzalo thought, with a flash of fear. Outside, the guardia civil was still shouting. Then there was a burst of gunfire outside the door.

  Gonzalo turned to his rescuer. “I . . . yes, I suppose, but you must let me out, sir. He’s a guardia civil. He’ll shoot open the door if he has to.”

  “No, he cannot.” The foreigner spoke with absolute confidence. “Please turn around.” He gently spun Gonzalo and began to work at the knots holding the miliciano’s hands.

  There was another burst of gunfire. “Comrade, thank you,” Gonzalo said urgently. “I can tell you’re a foreigner, but in Spain now, even foreigners—”

  “We are not in Spain!” The foreigner’s flat vowels took on a haughty tone. “This is the British Embassy.”

  Gonzalo twisted around and stared at the man. “But . . . who . . . how?” he gasped.

  The man smiled and tapped his nose, a gesture made grotesque by the shadows thrown by the lamp. “It is a little irregular, comrade. But I think we can grant you asylum. If we twist . . . no, that’s not right . . . if we bend the rules.”

  As Gonzalo stared, speculations whirling wildly in his brain, he heard the sound of a truck gunning its engine and then driving off into the night.

  “There,” said the man with satisfaction. “The guardia civil is gone, you see.”

  “How did you know I would be here now?” Gonzalo asked slowly.

  The man tapped his nose again. �
��A tip. You understand, the embassy is neutral. But some of us who work here are sympathizers.”

  “A tip,” Gonzalo repeated. “But who . . . ?”

  “I understand he gave the name Paco López,” the Englishman said.

  Gonzalo’s hands were free. He brought them slowly to his mouth, as pieces of his conversation with the sergeant whirled through his brain like confetti at a parade: Sorry I don’t have more time to analyze poetry with you, Llorente . . . I’ve always liked ‘Preciosa y el Aire.’

  “Paco López,” he breathed, as the last sounds of the truck died away in the distance. And then, under the concerned gaze of the Englishman, he leaned against the door of the embassy and laughed until he cried.

  Chapter 23

  Citizens to the right, please. Citizens to the right. All passengers with foreign visas to the left. The left, sir, if you “ please. A gauche.”

  Gonzalo did not understand the words but the guard’s gesture was clear enough, and he guessed the meaning of the two lines. The line on the right was moving slowly but steadily down the gangplank, filled with people waving to friends and shouting incomprehensible greetings in English. The mass of people herded to the left were milling around the deck or sitting on their luggage, looking purposeless, annoyed, or distressed. Gonzalo, whose luggage consisted of a single duffel bag filled with gifts from members of the Association of Friends of the Spanish Republic, leaned against the railing and watched the fortunate holders of blue passports disembark. They were quickly swallowed by the crowd on the pier.

  Gonzalo stared downward, past the greenish water where the boat gently rocked to the unmistakably dry and solid ground a few yards away. It was difficult to believe that in a few hours he might actually be stepping onto land again. He turned his gaze downstream before the hope became too strong. A bend in the river hid the harbor from view. Gonzalo had gone up on deck at dawn, along with most of the boat’s passengers, to see the Statue of Liberty as they passed it. The statue’s torch glowed in the rising sun, clenched in an eternally upraised fist, and Gonzalo had blinked, and yawned, and pinched himself to make sure that he was awake. The skyline of New York rose out of the water with shocking suddenness, too strange to seem beautiful, or even real. Gonzalo had wondered if some trick of the light made the buildings seem grayer than they really were. Now, looking at them in the full light of the golden September sun, he saw that the buildings were a perfectly normal color. He had thought that they should look green, because the sight had reminded him of the Emerald City of Oz in a book that Aleja had loved.