Death of a Nationalist

by Rebecca Pawel

  “Possibly.” Morales shrugged. “But it seems to me that you took care of poor López’s murder very efficiently. Good work, that.”

  Tejada was beginning to think that it had been extremely sloppy work, but he kept his opinion to himself. “I may look through his things, though, sir?” he asked patiently.

  “Oh, I suppose, if you like. He was a friend of yours, you said? I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Fortunes of war, sir.”

  “Well spoken.” Morales clapped him on the shoulder and opened the door. “Guardia! Send me Sergeant de Rota, right away.”

  The guardia on duty outside the door saluted and disappeared, returning shortly afterward with a thin, stooping man in a sergeant’s uniform. “Captain!” The man’s shoulders sloped even when he stood at attention.

  “Sergeant de Rota.” Morales introduced the thin man. “Sergeant Tejada, Manzanares post. He’s here to pick up López’s things.”

  Sergeant de Rota’s face took on an expression that Tejada recognized as a variant on the “I-am-not-arguing-with-a-superior-officer-even-though-he-is-insane” look. “Yes, Captain,” he agreed. “At your service, Sergeant Tejada.” Tejada acknowledged the salutation and wondered idly why his counterpart seemed so surprised by the command.

  Sergeant de Rota led him past the dormitory where he had spent the morning, down a hallway, and to a small room, with two sets of bunk beds. Three of the beds were neatly made. The fourth one was occupied by a snoring man. Tejada glanced at the snorer and raised his eyebrows. Sergeant de Rota looked sullen. “Corporal García is on the night shift,” he said stiffly. “There’s the stuff you want.”

  He was pointing at the bunk bed below the sleeper. Tejada now saw that a soldier’s pack was sitting in the center of the bed. He crossed the room, sat down, and opened the pack.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sergeant de Rota’s voice was far from friendly. “You want his kit. It’s there. Take it and get out.”

  Had Rota been a superior, Tejada would have obeyed. As it was, he ignored his fellow sergeant, and upended the pack onto the bed. Few of the articles that tumbled out could have been called personal. They were standard issue, like the pack itself. But Tejada recognized some of them. A ribbon denoting bravery under fire, awarded by Colonel Moscardó. A leather-bound Bible, much worn. A penknife with a damascene handle. And—Tejada blinked suddenly prickling eyes— a fragile paperback copy of Azorín’s Castilla. He carefully opened the creased book, afraid that bending back the cover one more time would detach it completely. His own handwriting looked back at him from the first page: 16/9/36 For Paco, who loves Castile—Carlos.

  Very gently, Tejada thumbed the little book. Something stiff had been placed between the cracking pages, perhaps as a bookmark. He let the book fall open to the beginning of “The Fragrance of the Vase,” and discovered a photograph, carefully trimmed with pinking shears. Surprised, he took it between two fingers and examined it more closely. It was a portrait of a girl, apparently a candid shot, taken out-of-doors. She was looking over her shoulder, hatless, and her bouncy blond curls matched the ruffles of her light dress. She seemed to be laughing at the camera.

  The picture was not of either of Paco’s sisters. The entire López family had taken refuge in the alcázar during the siege, and Tejada had known both of the López daughters. They had been the objects of extravagant gallantry during the early days of the siege, but that was only because they were young ladies in an environment where young ladies were rare. Neither of them had possessed the startling beauty of the girl in the picture. Nor, Tejada thought, was it the kind of picture that one kept of a sister. He was not an expert on women’s fashion, but it occurred to him that the ruffled neckline of the dress would probably be thought rather daring by Doña Clara—or by his own mother and sister-in-law. He looked at the back of the photograph. The pencil writing was faint and blurred, but still legible: Dearest, Here is your “souvenir of a happy time.” Love, Isabel. Tejada inspected the laughing girl again. Doña Clara had been harsh. She did not look like a painted hussy. He looked up at Sergeant de Rota, who was still standing disapprovingly by the door. “Who’s she?” he asked, holding out the picture. “Do you know?”

  “No,” said the thin man without moving.

  “It would help if you looked at the photograph,” Tejada said mildly. He had a certain sympathy for Rota. He himself would have resented being questioned by a stranger who did not outrank him. But it seemed to him that the sergeant of Alcalá was being needlessly uncooperative. He wondered why Rota was so resentful. Was the man’s attitude a sort of proprietary response to his partner’s death? Or did he dislike Tejada’s investigation of the disappearance of rations? Morales had said that he had already spoken to all of his officers but Tejada found himself wishing that he could question Sergeant de Rota.

  Tejada was considering whether and how to put Paco’s sergeant at ease when there was a squeak of bedsprings and weight shifted over his head. Then a head appeared upside down and regarded Tejada with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.

  “What’s all the noise?” asked the man who had been occupying the top bunk, with a jaw-splitting yawn.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Corporal García,” said Sergeant de Rota, with unnecessary emphasis. “This is Sergeant Tejada, from the Manzanares post. He was just leaving.”

  “I’m sorry to break in on your rest,” Tejada said, mindful of his own feelings earlier in the day. “I’m here to collect Corporal López’s personal effects. I found this, and wondered if you knew who it was.” He held up the photograph.

  Corporal García shoved himself farther over the edge of the bed, and hung downward. “Huh!” he said. “That must be Isabel. What a looker!”

  Tejada suddenly remembered that he had identified himself as Paco’s friend only to Captain Morales. He decided to indulge his curiosity. “Was she his wife?” he asked.

  “Not officially.” García’s tone spoke volumes.

  “Fiancée?” Tejada suggested, deliberately tone-deaf.

  “I don’t know what she was, hombre,” García laughed. “But I know he sent her half his pay every month.”

  “What?” Tejada and Rota spoke at the same time. Rota subsided into silence, glowering at Tejada. Tejada turned his attention back to García. “How do you know this?”

  García heaved himself upright and then slid off the bunk bed. “About six months ago we were out on patrol together and he asked me if I’d mail something for him,” he said, studying the photo in Tejada’s hand. “I asked him why he couldn’t mail it himself and he said it was to a girl he wasn’t supposed to see, that he had promised not to write to her himself, but . . . the letter, not the spirit, eh, Sergeant? I tried to kid him about it a little but he clammed up. He wasn’t the confiding type.” A few weeks ago, Tejada would have disagreed with this assessment. But now, in light of Isabel, he wondered how much Paco had confided in him. “I got the impression Isabel wasn’t the sort of girl he could bring home to Mama,” García continued, still looking at the photograph. “So that’s her, huh? Well, she looks worth the pay. Do you suppose that blond is natural?”

  “How do you know he was sending her his pay?” Tejada asked, ignoring the superfluities.

  “When a man hands you a roll of bills at the end of each month, the day after we all get paid, you usually assume it’s pay,” García pointed out logically.

  “García, this is ridiculous,” Sergeant de Rota broke in emphatically. “Corporal López sent his pay to his parents, as do all unmarried officers.”

  “No, sir.” García shook his head. “He sent gifts to his parents. Food and suchlike. I know, because he used to tell me about them when he wrapped them up. But half his wages went to this girl, Isabel, regular.”

  Tejada’s mind was reeling under the onslaught of information. It seemed that Doña Clara’s confidence that her son was free of romantic entanglements had been misplaced. “What is Isabel’s full name?�
� he asked.

  García shrugged. “Toledano, I think.”

  “You think?” Tejada echoed. “But if you mailed things to her. . . .”

  “Not to her,” García corrected. “The address was poste restante to some little town in Cantabria.”

  “But it must have been addressed to someone,” Tejada protested.

  “Well, he told me the address was care of Señora Toledano,” García explained. “But the way he talked, Isabel was a señorita, not a señora.”

  “Corporal, I remind you that you are speaking of a dead man,” Sergeant de Rota said, through clenched teeth. “And any dramatic touches are in extremely poor taste. Whatever his . . . liaison . . . with this girl, there was absolutely no reason for López to send her half his salary.”

  “Very good, sir, just as you say,” García agreed, pulling himself to attention and stamping. He relaxed again immediately and cast Tejada a glance that clearly expressed his opinion of his commanding officer.

  Tejada did not normally encourage insubordination but he flashed an amused glance back. He had already sensed the tension between Sergeant de Rota and Corporal García. Given his own dislike of Rota, he was inclined to trust the corporal. He was also curious about Rota’s vehement denials that Paco was sending his pay to a girl. “Can you think of any reason for him to send this girl money, Corporal?” he asked coolly.

  “Really, Sergeant—” Rota began angrily.

  “Sir!” García saluted appreciatively. “I thought, sir, that there might be a child involved.”

  “You won’t cast slurs upon the dead, Corporal!” Sergeant de Rota’s sharp voice cut across Tejada’s meditations. “And that’s an order. Or do you care to face charges of insubordination?”

  “I beg your pardon, Sergeant. He was obliged to answer my question.” Tejada’s voice was still cool and unconcerned but he had moved to stand in front of Corporal García. “Thank you, Corporal,” he added over his shoulder. “I’m sorry to have disturbed your rest.”

  Corporal García, who knew when not to push his luck, remained silent. He was wishing that he had caught the unknown sergeant’s name and wondering what the chances were of being transferred to the Manzanares post.

  Sergeant de Rota’s mustache flattened slightly as he flared his nostrils. “Do you have any other questions, Sergeant?” he asked ominously.

  “Only one.” Tejada had at least ten more questions but he too knew how far he could push his luck. He sat down on the bed and began to repack Paco’s things. “You seem to think that it’s highly unlikely that Corporal López sent this girl regular payments, Sergeant. May I ask why?”

  “I assume you’re aware of the salary a corporal earns, Sergeant.” Rota’s voice was blistering. “I think it highly unlikely that López would have devoted so much of it to an affair like this. And he had no other source of income.”

  A suspicion had presented itself to Tejada while García was talking. He did his best to ignore it, but it was now jumping up and down on the threshold of his brain and banging the knocker. “Are you sure he had no other source of income?” he asked. “Corporal García suggested that his parents might have objected to this girl. He wasn’t from a wealthy family, perhaps?”

  “I suppose it’s possible.” Rota’s voice was tight. “But I doubt it. And that’s more than one question, Sergeant.”

  “Indeed.” Tejada stood up. “Thank you.”

  Sergeant de Rota saw him to the door of the post and bid him a sullen farewell. Tejada hardly noticed. His mind was working frantically. For all his hostility Rota had managed to suggest a suspect for the post’s link to the black market. Given García’s unexpected disclosure and Rota’s insistence that Paco could not have afforded to make payments to Isabel, the obvious inference was that Paco had found some clandestine source of income. Then Rota had practically insisted that Paco did not come from a wealthy family. Tejada walked slowly along the Calle Alcalá, frowning heavily. Paco had been a proud Falangist. And he had never boasted, of course. It was just within the bounds of possibility that someone who did not know him well might imagine that he came from a humble background. Possible, Tejada thought, but not likely. But if Rota had been talking to someone who’d never met Paco, he’d have set up a nice suspect: a man sending off sums of money he couldn’t afford to an unexpected destination. A very neat little piece of character assassination. “Oh, no, he couldn’t have had any other source of income.” And all the while knowing that I’m looking for someone with precisely that.

  He reached the end of the Calle Alcalá. The Puerta del Sol stretched in front of him, an elongated diamond shape, pockmarked by bombardment and now enlivened by the soldiers on parade. The logical thing would be to continue back to the post and make a report. Lieutenant Ramos, he knew, would be waiting for him, probably cursing impatiently, with a list of other tasks. But Ramos had insisted that the theft of rations was important, too. And Captain Morales had agreed. Tejada skirted the Puerta del Sol and bore leftward, heading for the Calle Tres Peces. It was time to seek out María Alejandra Palomino.

  If Tejada had not been preoccupied with his thoughts as he crossed the Calle Atocha he might have noticed the gaunt man in ill-fitting civilian clothes and a cap that partially hid his face, who cast a stricken look at him and shrank into a doorway. Even if he had noticed the man and marked his behavior as suspicious, he would have had no way of knowing that he had just crossed paths with the uncle of the little girl he intended to see.

  Chapter 9

  Gonzalo was early for his appointment with the smugglers. With the help of a few sections of orange, Carmen had persuaded her unwilling daughter to go to school that morning. Aleja had agreed under protest, and only with the assurance that her mother would walk with her. Gonzalo, who had taken to sleeping late, had awakened hearing the argument, but feigned unconsciousness.

  He was still lying on the couch, willing time to move faster, when Carmen returned several hours later. “Did she go to school?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Carmen sank into a chair and rubbed her temples. “I believe I’ve had a headache for the last six months.”

  “Only one?” Gonzalo asked, without opening his eyes. His sister snorted, but did not reply. “Did you find work?” he asked.

  “I only just got back from the school,” Carmen said wearily.

  Gonzalo sat up. “The school’s barely a mile away,” he protested. “You’ve been gone over three hours!”

  “I rested a little on the way back,” she snapped. “Anything wrong with that?”

  Gonzalo bit his tongue. He wondered for a moment whether it was worth hoarding pennies for impossibly expensive food or if it was more practical to save energy by spending them on streetcars. He remembered his own struggle to get to the Plaza de la Cebada. “Aleja make the walk all right?” he asked.

  “I carried her part of the way. And I said that she shouldn’t come home for lunch.”

  Gonzalo did not ask where Carmen had found the strength to carry her daughter. It was, he assumed, one of those things that mothers were able to do. “Do you know where there might be work?” he asked, aware that he was irritating her, but unable to stop himself.

  “No.” To his surprise, she did not snap at him.

  The unspoken whisper, red whore, danced in the silence, and each hoped that the other did not hear it. Carmen had seen more of the women in the street than Gonzalo so the whisper was louder in her ears. To drown it out she said aloud, “Perhaps I can take in sewing.”

  Gonzalo winced as a clear voice said in his memory, “Your sister hates to sew, and, really, I don’t mind it.” Viviana had always claimed to enjoy sewing. And he had teased her, telling her she sounded like a good Catholic girl who prayed for General Franco’s health every night. “If . . . Viviana . . . were here she could help,” he managed to force out the words.

  “Well, she’s not.” Carmen had no energy for gentleness.

  She doesn’t know what it’s like, Gonzalo thought, shock
ed by her cruelty, forgetting how Carmen had reacted to the news of her husband’s death. He subsided into silence. Carmen sat silently also. Gonzalo was not sure if he dozed or simply if his mind went blank for a period of time. He was roused a little before three, when Carmen said, “I’m going to go see Man-uela. Aleja will want supper.”

  He nodded, determined to say nothing, knowing that if he spoke he would say that he was hungry too. When the clock struck three-thirty, his patience ran out. He pushed himself off the sofa and went into the bedroom. Much of the closet was empty. His brother-in-law’s clothes, and many of his sister’s as well, had long since been cut up to make clothing for Aleja. But there, behind Carmen’s dresses, as he had hoped, was the revolver he had received when he had joined the carbineros. He took it and pulled an oversized coat from the closet as well. When he was satisfied that the gun did not show under the coat, he slipped out of the apartment and down the stairs. It would not, he knew, take anywhere near an hour to walk to the Calle Alcalá. But he told himself that there was no harm in resting along the way, as Carmen had. And the smugglers might not wait for him if he was late. They were weak arguments, but anything was better than lying on the sofa doing nothing.

  Gonzalo walked slowly, carefully gauging which was the most direct route, to save his steps. The little alleys around Tres Peces were comfortingly familiar. The buildings pressing in on either side offered friendly shadows and promised solid walls to support him if he needed to rest. The windswept width of the Calle Atocha made him feel unpleasantly exposed. The lack of cars made the street seem bare, and the rubble-filled lots where shells had hit gaped like a prizefighter’s shattered teeth. He paused before stepping out into the open, telling himself that he was only looking for streetcars. The guardia civil crossing in the opposite direction shattered this comfortable illusion. Gonzalo froze against the shutters of what had once been a café and watched as the guardia walked past him, and then stopped.