by Ben Pastor
“There’s no need.” Soler’s words reached him from the top of the stairs. A pale man in an open-collared shirt and house slippers, Bora saw him flinch in alarm, and slowly withdrew his hand from the holster.
“I was just visiting Señor Vargas, Lieutenant. What he says is true. Am I not allowed to visit friends?”
Bora unholstered the gun. “Precede me outside,” he said, using his armed hand to direct Soler. Admittedly, the words sounded ominous to his own ears; God knows what the Vargases and Soler took from them. Señora Vargas’ little face looked horrified as Soler went unprotestingly past her, tailed by Bora.
Outside the door, Bora halted. Soler took a couple more steps along the brick path and looked back at him.
“Are you here to kill me? If you have to kill me, I wish you’d do it outside the garden.”
Cruelly Bora kept him hanging there before holstering the gun. “I want to talk to you about García Lorca.”
The other man’s expression went through a predictable change. The tension rearranged itself on his drawn face as grief took the place of physical fear. “What?”
“I want to know when you last saw him.”
Soler was panting. He glanced over his shoulder, in case there were other soldiers outside the huerta. For a fleeting moment, Bora suspected he was about to attempt a dash for the gate.
But he didn’t. He spoke, grasping his thighs to keep his hands from shaking. “He died last year in Granada.”
“Not true. When did you last see him?”
The movement of Soler’s throat signalled he’d just swallowed a mouthful of saliva. Was he wondering whether Luisa Cadena had betrayed him? Bora watched him try to steady himself in order to think, deny or tell the truth.
All around, the flower beds in the overgrown Vargas garden let out the bittersweet smell of wilting leaves. It was unbearably hot. Soler stood wide-eyed, ashen, a dark curl of chest hair showing through the opening of his shirt like the tip of a rat’s tail. At last, he said, “I briefly saw him on the evening of 12 July, after eight. We discussed theatre matters for about an hour. That’s all.”
“At your house?”
“Yes.”
Long strands of hair from the top of his head blew into Soler’s eyes when a blistering breath of wind swept the huerta. Bora noticed how he kept from flicking the hair off his face, staring intently at him, as if staring would keep Bora from attacking.
“Was Lorca on foot when he came to see you?”
“He was.”
“Did he leave on foot?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know this?”
Here it came, the first trickle of sweat on Soler’s face. It wormed down the side of his neck and followed the collarbone, becoming lost in the curl of chest hair. “I’m not sure. Maybe he took a car afterwards.”
“To go where?”
Another trickle strayed down Soler’s neck. “He didn’t say.”
That’s a lie. In a show of self-possession, Bora kept from wiping his own sweaty face. Does he think he can fool me? He’s swallowing saliva again, and I can see the veins bulging in his temples from here. His heartbeat must be out of control. “Let me jog your memory: is it possible he might have crossed into Red territory? I am told you often had disagreements.”
Soler’s limbs were starting to assume a corpse-like stiffness, yet his jaw twitched uncontrollably. “Disagreements? Who told you?” The haste with which he dug into his pocket for a handkerchief momentarily alarmed Bora, but not enough for him to touch the holster. “Teruel is gossipy and provincial.”
“Nevertheless.” Bora tasted a drop of sweat as it cleared his upper lip. “What did you argue about?”
“Not politics.” Unlike Cziffra’s fastidious dabbing of his neck, Soler dragged the handkerchief across his face and down to the shaggy hollow at the root of his throat. “A professional disagreement over the play we were working on, that’s what it was. During the visit, I took back my sketches for The Miraculous Horseman, because he didn’t like them. I’m redoing them now in my Teruel flat.” The gesture of putting away the crumpled handkerchief was artificial, forcibly calm. He added, slyly, “Antonio Cadena disappeared the same day, surely you’ve heard that. Maybe the two of them left together.”
“I doubt it. Antonio Cadena was in Alfambra that day. Tell me instead, does Señor Lorca have enemies in Teruel?”
Behind Bora, the creak of hinges alerted him that the door had opened. He wheeled around briskly enough that Señora Vargas hesitated on the threshold. Her eyes went from Bora to Soler and back, smiling and apologetic. “It’s such a warm afternoon; I thought you gentlemen might want some cold water and lemon.”
Why do women try to defuse men’s anger? The offer of a drink at this point was grotesque but hard to resist. Bora moodily accepted a round-bellied glass and watched Soler do the same. “Please go back inside.” He dismissed her.
In front of him, Soler held the glass with both hands to keep the drink from spilling. “No enemies, no.” But there was no telling if he felt trapped beyond his ability to attempt an escape. “Why should he? He had no enemies.”
Had. Had? Bora took a mental note of the slip, and of his own budding heartlessness. He felt indifferent to Soler’s fear. “Well, do you?” he insisted, lowering his eyes to the lemon wedge in his glass.
“No.” The answer came as if Soler’s tongue had gone numb in his mouth. “No, no.”
Bora picked the lemon wedge out of the water and started chewing on it. “That may be your impression. How do you think I found out you were here?”
Unsteady against the motley pattern of garden plants, Soler tilted his head back and emptied his glass in an open-mouthed gulp. Bora felt the change in the other man. Something like an invisible frenzy went through the Spaniard, an inner spasm of nerves and muscles that was not quite a shiver. A few steps away, Bora pensively chewed a tip of the lemon wedge, the water in his glass untouched.
“Please, teniente … are we done?”
“No.” Bora dropped the lemon wedge back in the water. He set down his glass at the edge of the brick path. Oddly, he recognized the twinge in Soler’s muscles – was it time to run away, make a dash for it? – as if it were his own. He stared at the Spaniard to keep him in suspense, to make him cringe at the clipped politeness of his words. “Señor Soler, you place me in a quandary. Given your acquaintances, I cannot allow you to stay behind after I leave, free to escape, abscond, or do whatever else you see fit. I could take you to Teruel for further interrogation. There, however, I would have to hand you over to the Guardia Civil. It’s a dilemma, and I’m struggling with it.”
“That is, if you don’t choose to shoot me.”
Soler’s spelling out how things were came as a surprise. Bora had judged him more impotent and afraid, and the words caught him off guard. He began to say, “If you give me a reason to shoot you —”
It came now. Just as he was off guard: now.
Soler sprinted from where he stood like a released metal spring, aiming not for the gate but the side of the house, straddling bushes, crushing flower beds on his frantic way around the corner and out of sight.
Bora blasphemed for the first and only time in his life. He started running a moment after Soler, leaves and branches whipping past and giving way, and reached the corner in time to see the Spaniard scramble up a ladder leaning against the garden wall, knock the ladder down and drop down to the other side. There was no time to go back and use the gate. Bora raised the unwieldy ladder from the tangle of bushes; he replaced it against the wall, climbed furiously and jumped off without thinking how high the wall might be. Leafy bushes below broke his fall and once more he was after Soler, who’d crossed the road and sent a cloud of dust into the air as he scampered down into a dry ditch.
Bora raced, lunged after him, missed him by a hair at the bottom of the trench, again stretched and missed him, but the other side of the hole was steep and Soler couldn’t run uphill in his house slippers. Bora seized h
im by the waist and they both lost their footing, rolling back down to the dusty floor of the ditch. Immediately Soler tried to resume his flight, but Bora held him by the ankles and caused him to fall again.
The slide of the automatic pistol made a clacking sound as it drew back and locked in place.
Soler froze, with Bora standing over him in the colourless dust. They were both unhurt, although only Soler was out of breath. Bora’s gun-wielding, outstretched arm was very firm.
“You do want to give me a reason to shoot you, Señor Soler.”
EL PALO DE LA VIRGEN
Marypaz crouched in the almond grove, where the grass had wilted and the tree leaves were too sparse to offer any real shade.
The smell of horses drifted here from their enclosure when Walton came up the hill to join her. The heat was making the manure ferment and let out a powerful odour of ammonia, but he quashed the temptation to turn away. Turning away was what he’d done in his marriage and in his life so far, and it’d helped nothing.
Whatever pretence Marypaz was making of ignoring him, a small jerk of her shoulders proved that she’d seen him. She’d been using her nails to tear the papery, ashen leaves fallen from the thirsty branches above.
“You went to see Remedios,” she hissed. “I can smell her on you. So turn your tail and leave, because I got here first and I want to stay here by myself.”
“You’ve got it wrong.”
Walton craned his neck to look at Marypaz, who was propped against the dilapidated orchard wall. She pouted at him and continued to tear the wilted leaves, stripping them and throwing them away. “I don’t believe it, and I don’t believe you.”
“As true as God is, Marypaz —”
“As if you believed in God.”
How different was this from the wearisome quarrels in the living room long ago, with the rain outside and the radio on? Walton made no effort to touch her.
“I don’t trust you, Felipe. Márchate! Leave me alone. After all the times you’ve gone sniffing her doorpost! Márchate, márchate! Get away from here before I start screaming.”
“Suit yourself.” Walton turned to leave.
He’d gone a few steps from the orchard when Marypaz called him back, and her voice only made him pick up his pace. He’d also learned not to crawl back when women called him. In Pittsburgh or in Spain, it only made things worse. Loose gravel shifted under his boots, frightening small insects out of his way.
Maetzu, back from reconnoitring on El Baluarte, came towards him to report. On the ledge, Bernat pointed to invisible newcomers climbing to the camp. “Felipe, Almagro is here!”
Walton felt like sending everyone to hell.
No sooner had Maetzu joined him than Marypaz came too, interrupting what the Basque had started to say: “Wait, Iñaki. I was talking to him first. Felipe, swear you didn’t go to her.”
Walton spat in the dust. “I’m not going to fucking swear. If you want to believe it, believe it.”
“Can you prove it to me, then? There’s a way you can prove it to me.”
“I don’t feel like proving it to you, Marypaz.”
“Is that because you don’t want to, or because you can’t?”
Walton regretted that he couldn’t get as angry with her as he’d done even just a month ago. She irritated him, but it wasn’t the same as real anger. Because Maetzu was staring, he reacted to Marypaz’s words with a foolish need to boast sexually before another man. “Wait for me inside, Marypaz, I must talk to Almagro first. Silly cow. Sabes que puedo siempre que quiero. Any time I feel like it.” He stooped to kiss her so that she’d leave. When he turned to Maetzu again, he saw him shake his head with a scowl of great contempt.
6
Under the tepid roses of your bed
The dead await their turn.
FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA,
“IV: CASÍDA OF THE RECUMBENT WOMAN”
TERUEL
At sundown Bora returned to Teruel from Castralvo. The heat of day abated slowly, leaving behind a pale sky streaked with red pennants of clouds. Swallows clamoured above the roofs of the old town; among the tall ornate buildings of Calle Nueva, blankets of shadow filled the space that had blazed at midday. A small breeze unravelled, but Bora’s overheated body required more than a wisp of air to cool off. Pardo needed watering, fodder and rest, which he found in the stables under the fortress-like barracks of the Guardia Civil.
“Don’t take this animal out again tonight, teniente,” the sergeant who came to take the horse said. “Leave it here overnight.”
“Out of the question. I need to ride out shortly.”
The Guardia Civil swept an assessing glance over him. “Con permiso, you don’t look that good either.”
“I don’t need advice.” Bora stepped back to the stable door. “If the Guardia Civil wants to be useful, get me another mount ready, and I’ll come for it in an hour.”
“Como usted quiera. But you’ll have to ask for it upstairs at the office.”
Bora did. A spiffy colonel who knew Serrano “like a brother” promised a good horse, graciously inquired about his health and sent him on his way without waiting for an answer.
Back in the street, Bora found that his muscles were starting to ache from a full day in the saddle, and the visit to Santa Olalla arranged with Serrano was still two hours away. In the main square, worshippers were heading for the church of San Pedro. Bora went the opposite way, in the direction of Luisa Cadena’s house. There he stopped and unfastened the watch from his left wrist. He timed the walking distance from the Cadenas’ to Cziffra’s office: less than five minutes. Without stopping, he then continued to Soler’s house. Six additional minutes, which he could have stretched to ten at most by keeping a slower pace.
Finding the door to the house ajar, Bora stepped inside. He met an elaborate, buckling floor of thin bricks and river pebbles, and a stairwell dank with the smell of cat urine. The glimmer from a high recessed window allowed him to stumble upstairs. In his chest pocket, the bulky key to Vargas’ gate shared space with Soler’s house key, which he’d managed to get in the end, although not without a struggle.
On the first landing, hardly readable in the twilight, a brass plate spelled out FRANCISCO HERAS SOLER, ARQUITECTO. Inside, the darkness had the peculiar opacity of shuttered, draped rooms. Bora groped for a switch on the wall, found it and closed the door behind him.
A papered vestibule opened on to three rooms. On the wall, like the intricate spoil of a great gilded insect, a bullfighter’s jacket hung spreadeagled. Sewn to the embroidery, a handwritten note bore the name Ignacio Sánchez Mejías. Of course. Mejías, the most accomplished matador of the last twenty years, the one praised by everyone who mentioned bullfighting. The same whose death in the arena Lorca had bitterly sung of. Bora looked for traces of blood on the jacket, but there were none, so this wasn’t the splendid traje de luces Ignacio had worn in his last fight.
In Soler’s bedroom, everything was tidy. Strangely, Bora felt himself go on alert, as if someone else were in the flat, hiding. The impression was strong enough for him to search every room at gunpoint, only to discover a subtler sense of intrusion.
Things had been moved and replaced on their shelves, as the disturbed veil of dust showed. Books stood in disorderly rows. The bedding looked indented as if someone’s hand had reached under and around it. A portfolio of sketches leaning against the wall had been searched: some of the dividing sheets had been removed from the fresh pastels, and light blue smears had soiled their cardboard cover. The pastels were no more than abstract pairings of shaded nuances, perhaps a colour study for stage costumes.
When Bora opened the wardrobe, the full-length mirror inside its door swung back to reflect his own travel-worn self. The dark red stain on his sleeve was so obvious, no wonder the Guardia Civil officer had noticed. Soler’s clothes hung crowded at one end of their wooden rod. Daubs of light blue pastel smeared the hem of a white shirt, and that was all. Bora uselessly searched the f
lat for the manuscript of The Horseman’s Song and the sketches mentioned by Soler. But for the careless daub of blue on the white shirt, he’d have thought Lorca’s friend had lied to him and removed all evidence of his work with the poet.
No. That’s not what happened. Someone was here, found what he was looking for, and didn’t take care to disguise that fact. Someone, someone … why wouldn’t they have tried to hide their tracks?
Leaving the stairs and cat smell behind, Bora timed himself from the Judería to the public garage, a leisurely five-minute walk.
In the garage, all cars except the dark green Ansaldo sat where he’d seen them at midday. The albino was still working on the old Fiat. He had his back to the street entrance, and didn’t notice Bora.
“Buenas tardes.”
The man withdrew from under the hood. He tipped his head in recognition. “Buenas tardes a usted.”
Bora stood on the threshold, securing the watch to his wrist. “What are your opening hours during the week?”
“On paper, six in the morning to ten at night. The proprietor lives upstairs.” The albino lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “When returning the car after hours, people ring his doorbell, and he lowers a basket for them to put the key in.”
“And now that he’s away?”
“His spinster aunt lives with him. She gives the key out after hours, and takes it back too. If you want to reserve the car in advance, you can.”
“Not now.”
“As you like, but remember that come Sunday people’ll want to take their families out for the feast of St James.”
Bora walked away. When he emerged from the archway of the Saviour’s tower, the last daylight had left the horizon. He found a saddled, lively horse waiting in the Guardia Civil stables, and then it was time for him to take the solitary westward road that led to Concud.
Once he left Teruel, the sky turned endlessly high. Along the gravel road, bare hills stretched their rolling surfaces, parted by purple hollows and waterless ditches. Beyond them, the land rose again, slowly twisting towards the distant heights of Albarracín or to the north, where the sky sank deep and dark.