The Horseman's Song

by Ben Pastor

  “Yes, please. Water would be fine.”

  Luisa summoned the housekeeper, whom she called Martirio. It struck Bora as the name for a sad dancer or a gypsy, and hung loosely around her spare frame. In the gauzy halo of the window, the old woman had resumed telling her beads. Was she senile, or hard of hearing? His first words had not alarmed her.

  Luisa stood behind her, visibly seeking the courage before asking, “What is the news, Don Martín? Is it about Antonio or about my cousin?”

  “I have news of your husband.”

  Her lips went tight, nearly disappearing. Bora wished she wouldn’t stare at him so hard, so hopelessly in control. “My information is that your husband was relocated to a prison camp. I’m afraid he’s very ill.”

  “Is he expected to live?”

  Bora eyed the old woman, who stopped fingering the rosary and seemed to be straining to hear. “I don’t know,” he said, even though Cziffra had reported that Cadena had gangrene and was as good as dead.

  “Qué tiene Antonio?” the old woman asked in a loud, distressed tone. Luisa repeated Bora’s words, and the old woman began to weep.

  “Do you have any details?” Luisa Cadena was trembling, but her eyes were dry.

  Bora watched her tremble and felt unspeakably sorry for her. “Lo siento. I have no other news.”

  What else could he say? Martirio came to lay a tray on the low table in front of Bora. The water was cold enough to frost the sparkling sides of the crystal pitcher. His throat was parched, but he did not drink at once.

  Tight-lipped, her back to the window, Luisa Cadena guarded her pain. Bora did no more than steal an embarrassed glance at the way the clasp of her hands formed an unflinching knot. Finally she said, nodding towards the pitcher, “Please help yourself, Don Martín. You have been very good in finding out and coming to tell us.”

  Bora had to make an effort not to drain the goblet in one long gulp. “I would like to help concerning your cousin,” he said. “But I will need some information from you first.”

  Slowly Luisa unclasped her hands, and the desolate crucified motion that followed made Bora fear his own sadness. “Anything you need, Don Martín. Just allow me to check on the baby upstairs. Martirio will bring more water, if you wish.”

  In the time Luisa was gone Bora filled and emptied his goblet again. From the old woman came low moaning sounds, this side of weeping, and the link-by-link ticking of rosary beads.

  The fussing of the infant upstairs lessened, then ceased. When Luisa Cadena returned, her eyes were red but tearless. “Mamá.” She went to the old woman. “Would you like to go and lie down?” And when the old woman shook her head she addressed Bora. “I’m ready to answer your questions. But please do sit down.”

  Bora would not, until she took her place at the other end of the sofa.

  “Señora Cadena, I’m still trying to understand the context of your cousin’s disappearance, and don’t have much to go on. You said he left this house shortly after eight in the evening. I have information – from a source I cannot reveal now – that he was still in Teruel two hours later. What I need to hear is where he might have been between the time he left here and 9.30. It’s very important that I find out.”

  Luisa looked at him for a long moment. “Does Colonel Serrano know you’re here, Don Martín?”

  “He does not.”

  “And you’re not Spanish.”

  “No.”

  She sighed. “I believe Federico went from here to a friend’s house, although I couldn’t say how long he might have stayed there.”

  “Has this friend talked to you since we last met?”

  “No. I can only surmise what I just told you.”

  It was Bora’s turn to stare. “Haven’t you tried to contact him?”

  “Yes, but I’ve failed so far.”

  “I will need his name.”

  Luisa Cadena’s shoulders stiffened. “I can’t give it to you.”

  Bora tried unsuccessfully to hide his irritation. “It is Francisco Soler, is it not?”

  She looked away with a fluttering lost look around the room, a second sign of dismay after she’d opened her arms, Christ-like.

  “Señora Cadena,” Bora whispered, “I will visit Señor Soler. Please simplify my task by answering me. Unlike others, I have no power to arrest or deport the citizens of Teruel, and Soler is safer with me than with anyone else now. Tell me if your cousin went to see him on that night.”

  “Yes, Don Martín. He did.”

  Francisco Soler owned a flat in the north-western Judería district. The street where he lived turned sharply near the entrance of Number 6, where a glazed tile read S. D. DE LOS PESCADORES.

  Bora rang the doorbell, waited, rang again. When it was clear that no one would answer, he stepped back to look up at the shuttered windows of the second floor.

  “Who are you looking for?” The question came from behind and above him. The visor of the army cap limited his view, so Bora removed it to look. A hefty woman in a yellow smock was watering geraniums on her balcony across the street.

  “I’m looking for Señor Soler.”

  “Eh? What did you say?”

  Bora didn’t like raising his voice. He spelled out, no louder than before, “I’m looking for Señor Paco Soler.”

  “Ah, I get you now. He’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”

  The woman looked down. From the street, Bora could see the black stockings under her skirt squeezing the flesh around her knees. “His windows have been shut since Saturday morning. He’s probably out in the country. Who wouldn’t be, in this heat?”

  Another washout. Bora moodily returned to the town centre. In the main square, the Confitería y Pastelería Muñoz was open at this time of day (and had been for the past eighty-two years, if the sign over the entrance was telling the truth), so he walked into it to get something cold to drink. The room was crowded with idlers, a typical fixture of Spanish public places. They were the low-voiced, short and fair men of central Aragon, playing cards, chatting over fried snacks and small cups of thick coffee. All eyes trailed Bora as he neared the counter.

  “Do you have anything cold to drink?”

  The waiter lifted a bottle from a bucket of melting ice. “Horchata,” he said, and though Bora didn’t care for the almond drink, he said it was fine.

  A portly customer with a distinct medicinal smell about him had been leaning with his elbows on the same counter. No paper fan this time, but Bora recognized the man whom the barber had called Don Millares. They exchanged a glance – Bora was about to nod a greeting but thought better of it – before Bora looked away. Millares said nothing, though he stayed turned towards him inquisitively.

  Reflected in the mirror behind the counter, Bora could see the pillar and fountain in the square. On the pillar, framed by the door and the stone columns of the portico outside, stood the feisty, cat-sized bronze bull, symbol of Teruel. Even under the proud torico men sat idly on the rim of the fountain, curious about the stranger.

  The buzz interrupted by his arrival began again. Bora caught a mention of the wheat crop having gone poorly, of the rainless month and someone’s illness. Flies feasted on spilled beer across the counter, landing noiselessly on the suds. Now and then, with a sweep of his wet rag, the waiter chased them off.

  Millares walked by Bora to join a table of card players. The medicinal smell, he guessed, identified him as a pharmacist or physician, and the only reason why he hadn’t noticed it at the barber’s was that the aroma of garlic and hair tonic had overpowered it. Offering his broad, shirt-clad back to the counter, Millares related something that made his listeners grin. Whatever the subject, it had a measure of spite judging by his tone and the expressions of those facing him.

  “… Sure, and where else? The stage designer goes there every time it gets uncomfortable for him in Teruel.” The way Millares raised his voice told Bora that the story was meant for a general laugh. “You all reme
mber the same thing happened when there was that story of the seminarians. The cockhound! I’m only amazed at old Vargas, who calls himself a good Catholic.”

  There was open laughter, followed by some comment about “old Vargas’ choirboys”. That was it. As quickly as the gossip had its desired effect, another took its place. It revolved around a campesino called Luis, and there was a novice involved.

  Bora took a last sip of almond drink, paid and walked out. He felt the stares follow him to the door, and could imagine the muted light of the portico broken by the shadow of his tall, spurred boots. From inside, he overhead Millares ordering another cup of coffee.

  He rode out of town by the viaduct that linked Teruel to the next hill with the perilous cement span of its arch. Ahead, the south-west road to Castralvo stretched, lonely and sun-cursed. Soon Pardo started to baulk, stopping to graze impossible tufts of dry grass and aiming for the meagre shade of each struggling tree along the way.

  Before the railroad track, Bora reached the fork that split the road to Castralvo from a dirt trail leading to the Ermita de Santa Ana. He took the trail with a disheartened look at the grassless, treeless expanse studded by low hills. It was now close to one o’clock. A wilting heat scorched the land between the road and the knobbly hills and beyond, far into the remote haze of the sierra of San Martín. At a glance, Bora could embrace the low, broken crown of arid mountains circling the plain. Swallows flew high, almost invisible in the glitter of the sky. Bora hoped rain would come again, but it was unlikely it’d be any time soon.

  Along the dry bed of a seasonal torrent, cane groves and struggling poplars reached no higher than a man’s head. Faraway almond groves dotted the chalky land, and on both sides of the road funnels of dust spiralled upwards, only to fall again. Only the blistering sun seemed to remain.

  Bora didn’t know exactly where he was going, but he went there anyway.

  EL PALO DE LA VIRGEN

  When Walton returned from Mas del Aire, Bernat told him that Marypaz was not around. She’d gone off, to Castellar, maybe, sure that Remedios was the reason for his errand. “It’s not like I told her, Felipe. She figured it out on her own, and she’s furious at you now. Don’t look at me that way and don’t blame it on me, because I did as you told me. It’s between you and Marypaz.”

  Walton felt something like vomit coming up. “OK,” he said, and walked around Bernat.

  “Remember, it’s between you and Marypaz. I’ve got nothing to do with it.”

  The long trek in the heat and the meeting with Remedios had made him nauseous. Walton sought shelter from the sun past the threshold, where thick walls and the scent of dry figs created an illusion of coolness. There was always time later to argue with Marypaz.

  “Damn hot, isn’t it?”

  The words came from nowhere. Walton’s eyes detected Brissot by the table, his figure gradually appearing through slowly dissolving green and red stains from the sun. “Rafael seems to be doing better,” he added. “I talked Valentin into some pride-saving form of apology, and they shook hands a little while ago.”

  Walton stared at the map laid out on the table. “It must have been your diplomatic touch.”

  “Diplomacy?” Brissot sneered. “I’m too honest to engage in that bourgeois art of lying. I merely lectured them on comradeship and good fighting spirit. Speaking of which, is it too much to ask what you were doing in the sierra?”

  Walton sat astride a chair. “I went to the grave.” How close everything seemed on the map. Mas del Aire, the unnamed spot where his men had been shot at, the camp. Lorca’s grave, the brook. The Fascist post. “On my way back I kept trying to put two and two together about Lorca, but it still doesn’t add up. I mean, what if he came alone? No escort, no cenetistas, no ambush … Only the men in the car the mulero spoke of.”

  “Yes. Well?”

  Walton slumped back in his chair. Nausea was giving way to a sick headache, and pain had started to slur his speech. “The question is, when did they kidnap him? Let’s say shortly after he visited Soler, although Soler said nothing about a car. All he knows is that Lorca left his house before half past nine.”

  Brissot gravely placed the empty pipe in his mouth. “Maybe he’s lying. If two men waylaid Lorca in Teruel with the intention of shooting him, why drive all the way here? They could have killed him in any back alley in Teruel.”

  “It’s a small town; you can’t just bump people off in the street.” Walton turned the chair around. His headache eased somewhat if he anchored his elbow on the table and rested his head on his open hand. “The open country is a better choice.”

  Brissot drove his forefinger into the map. “But why here, of all places, the foot of a mountain that borders Republican territory? Look, Felipe. They could have taken ten different directions! No executioner would travel an hour to shoot somebody and accidentally reach the sierra, Lorca’s own destination.”

  “Dunno.” Walton leaned heavily on the palm of his hand. “It made sense when I thought about it before, though I don’t know why.”

  “That’s because it doesn’t make any sense. Besides, where does that leave the sierra Fascists?”

  “They fit in somehow. I just can’t figure out how.”

  Brissot bit the pipe stem with a clacking sound. He took off his glasses to study the map. “If the Fascists discovered the murder before we did, they’re keeping mum because they’re behind it and fear repercussions. They’re involved, I say. The German wouldn’t be asking questions if he didn’t see the value of learning who buried Lorca, and where. Look at the distance between the mule track and the Fascist post … Felipe, are you looking?”

  “I’m looking.”

  “Suppose only one of them – let’s say the German – arrived on the scene before you and Maetzu: he’d have to seek help in order to transport the body. By then we’d already hauled it away.”

  When Walton pulled back on the chair, a stab of pain travelled from the top of his head to his neck. He rose to his feet, unsteadily walked to the door and leaned against the jamb, away from the sun. “The Widow Yarza says he was in Castellar yesterday, and a few days back he met the priest in church.”

  “No one in Castellar, priest included, could tell him anything. And the German could be in town for any reason: maybe he was looking for a piece of tail.”

  “If that’s the case, he’s not getting it from the widow, and she seems sore about it. For Chrissake, have you seen her? I can’t imagine anyone bedding that.” Just as his headache improved, Walton saw Marypaz returning, picking her steps past the spiny bushes in the blistering midday, hands in the pockets of her cotton trousers, head low. Rafael, who was keeping watch, told her something, and she replied with a wave that meant, Leave me alone.

  I don’t want to talk to her, Walton thought. Talking to her right now is the last thing I want to do.

  Having reached the ledge, Marypaz turned to the house, saw him and immediately made an about-face. The old desire to laugh at the wrong time tempted him, but Walton neither laughed nor pulled back. “You don’t trust Soler, Mosko, but he’s the one at risk now, even hiding out at Vargas’ huerta. If the Fascists find out he came to us, I wouldn’t give a penny for his life.”

  HUERTA ENEBRALES DE VARGAS, NEAR CASTRALVO

  Bora could imagine the effect of an army horseman stopping at the gate of the lonely huerta. Old Vargas, as Millares had called him, was probably spying through the window, agonizing over the wisdom of answering the garden bell.

  At the end of a brick path, the house sat in perfect silence, shutters folded like praying hands. Freeing himself of the sweaty riding gloves, Bora stared through the iron bars. Vargas might not have heard the bell, though it’d rung long enough. He might be upstairs; being an old man, it would take him a while to reach the ground floor. He might not be in.

  He’d run out of excuses and was about to scale the gate when the front door swung open just enough to let out a wispy-haired, petite old woman in an apron. Halfway
along the brick path, a frail shirtsleeved man joined her, and stood by as she let Bora in.

  “Señor Vargas? I’m looking for Francisco Soler.”

  Vargas blinked. He opened his lipless mouth and closed it again, a weak-jawed grimace on his bony face. Recognizing the two stars of lieutenancy on Bora’s uniform, he said, “Francisco Soler lives in Teruel, señor teniente. You must be mistaken.” Bora fought a sting of road-weary despair at the thought that Vargas might be telling the truth, but it passed quickly and he knew it was a lie. He courteously bowed his head to Señora Vargas and went past her towards the house. “Please fetch Soler. I’m in a hurry.”

  “I promise you, teniente —”

  Bora ignored him. When Vargas tried to hold him back, he pushed him away. It wasn’t hard enough to push him over and simply forced him into the flower bed, but Vargas gave up the attempt.

  Inside, there was no stopping Bora. Followed by Vargas’ pleading wife, he barged into the next room and back, crossed the floor, went to the kitchen and returned after a brief exchange with the lady. At the foot of the stairs, he paused with one hand on the banister. “Señor Vargas,” he said, “kindly fetch Soler before I go up for him. The windows of the second floor are too high for jumping out of, and I don’t think he’ll be able to climb the garden wall.” He showed them the key to the garden gate, which the embarrassed Señora Vargas admitted giving Soler.

  “But I am telling you that Soler —”

  Bora climbed the first step. He couldn’t make up his mind whether the frustration was angering him or giving him an amusing sense of power. He slipped the key into his breast pocket and buttoned it, reaching to his left side for the pistol holster. “I’ll search the house, then.”