Death of a Nationalist

by Rebecca Pawel

  She glanced at the bill, a note for five pesetas, and then up at him. Then she looked more closely at the serial number on the bill. His heart sank. “This isn’t valid,” she said softly. And then, more loudly, “Do you have a one-peseta note, Señor? I could make change more easily for that.”

  Gonzalo stared at her, uncertain of what she meant. “I . . . I’m not sure,” he muttered.

  “You have any Burgos currency?” she muttered back.

  “I’m not sure.” Gonzalo felt himself flushing, and wished that he was a better liar.

  “Thank you, sir.” Her voice was once again loud and bright. In a rapid undertone she added, “I won’t give you change. Carbineros should ride free, comrade.” She slid a ticket under the grill.

  Gonzalo stared at her. No one had called him comrade since before his fever. She winked. Suddenly overjoyed, he winked back. The Metro was still the Metro: still madrileño to the core. “Thank you, Señorita,” he said loudly, and took the ticket. The smell of the tunnels did not bother him after that. Madrileños had taken refuge in the Metro when there was nowhere else to go, and this was their smell: the smell of those who chose to take refuge—not in a foreign camp but in the depths of their own city. It was what he was doing, after all.

  Gonzalo strolled down to the platform, not loitering, but not rushing either. Most of the posters proclaiming DEFEND MADRID and VIVA LA REPÚBLICA had been ripped down. A few still clung to the tunnel walls, their edges peeling, with swastikas or giant black Xs painted across them, or obscenities scrawled in red. He had expected crowds. He remembered the platforms filled with homeless empty-eyed refugees sitting on ragged rolls of blankets that held all their possessions. The platform was empty now except for a few early morning commuters. He wondered where the refugees had gone.

  The train was late although not late enough for Gonzalo. The ride to Cuatro Caminos was all too short. But he had a stroke of luck. Few ticket collectors were on duty and no one demanded his ticket. The round-trip ticket would still be good for two more trips. As he left the train, he realized that the wisest thing to do would be to transfer to the number two line, which also terminated at Cuatro Caminos. It was the longest route and he could ride it back past the Puerta del Sol and then back to Cuatro Caminos again. That would take up about an hour. It was another hour and a half’s walk back to the Cathedral of San Isidro. He glanced at the station clock. It was just past nine-fifteen. There was still too much time to kill.

  He left the station, wondering if there was any place around Cuatro Caminos where he could rest for a while. But the streets around the station were silent and dead. Cuatro Caminos had been built as a shiny new suburb, along with the Metro line. The streets were broad and paved. But shelling along the northern front had shattered the windows of the once-luxurious apartment buildings, and stray bombs had hit a few. The buildings were dark and silent, and grass grew between the cracks in the sidewalk. Birds were singing loudly, as if making up for the silence of the buildings. Soon, Gonzalo knew, the buildings would fall away into the vast, dry emptiness of the Castilian plains and he would be in the country. It would be impossible to hide in that flat, barren land and impossible to find his way in the uncharted, featureless desert. He turned and headed back toward the Metro as quickly as possible.

  The station was deserted although it was after nine-thirty now. Before the war the platforms would have been jammed with commuters. Gonzalo realized, as a train pulled into the station, that he could easily let it pass and wait for the next one, as long as no one saw him waiting. He turned and stepped into the empty stairwell, where he would be out of sight of the train’s conductors. He waited in the stairwell for over an hour, allowing several trains to pass. Finally, the presence of a ticket agent forced him to get on the next train.

  At the other end of the line, Gonzalo repeated his actions: He left the station, wandered aimlessly for a time, and then returned, allowing as many trains as possible to pass him by before boarding one. It was nearly one o’clock when he once again got out at Cuatro Caminos. This time he began to walk with more purpose, back toward the city center, toward the Cathedral of San Isidro. He took an indirect route and tried to walk slowly. It was unexpectedly difficult. He would not have admitted to being nervous but he had a goal and it seemed stupid not to get there as quickly as possible.

  It was a little before three when he reached the cathedral. It was a flame-blackened, seventeenth-century building, impressive despite the smashed panes that had once held stained glass. Gonzalo’s steps slowed as he approached it. It had been a long time since he had entered a church. He took off his hat as he stepped into the shadowy space, hoping that the dim light would hide his face. To his surprise, the church was almost full. Then he remembered: Good Friday. And aren’t we all devout, now? he thought bitterly. Cross yourself and pray to Franco, Son, and Holy Ghost. He wondered, as he slid into a half-empty pew at the back of the church, how many of the people kneeling around him had hurled stones at the colored windows and the black-clad priests at the beginning of the war.

  At least the multitudes of the faithful hid him. Gonzalo had been confirmed when he was eleven because his mother had wanted it. He had stopped going to church the following year, the same year he left school, because he was the man of the house and it wasn’t right to make Carmen and his mother struggle on alone any longer. At twelve, he had regretted giving up neither the classroom nor the confessional. He had regretted leaving school later, but never leaving the church. He had all but forgotten the words and ceremonies, first from carelessness and later from principle, but he moved his lips when the rest of the parishioners spoke, and he rose and knelt with them. They moved jerkily up and down, and Gonzalo followed as if he were a marionette.

  When the cross had been revealed and the service was over, the crowd slunk out the door, talking very little. Do the priests think we’re repenting our sins? Gonzalo wondered as he shuffled out among the others. Do they really believe that we’re silent and sorry because an innocent man died nearly two thousand years ago? As if we had no other problems! He began to move sideways through the parishioners, edging his way toward the chapel at one side of the nave. Candles were burning and guttering here. He waited until the church had emptied out. A little hesitantly, he knelt in front of the image of the Virgin, uneasily aware that he was early and wondering how long one could plausibly remain lost in prayer.

  After what felt like an eternity but was really less than ten minutes, he heard footsteps behind him. He bent his head, heart pounding, not sure whether he most hoped or feared that the person behind him would stop. The footsteps paused and then came closer. There was a creak as a bearded man knelt on the wooden bench beside Gonzalo. “Seen anything of Isabel lately?” he asked quietly.

  Gonzalo swallowed. “Not since she was married,” he breathed.

  “A shame,” the man said. There was silence for a few moments, and then the man said softly, “Turn right when you go out and walk slowly toward the Plaza Mayor.”

  Gonzalo bowed his head, mumbled a prayer that had stuck with him from childhood, crossed himself, and rose. The man remained, apparently absorbed, in front of the candles.

  Gonzalo was only a few yards from the entrance to the Plaza Mayor, wondering what he should do next, when someone touched his arm. “We meet again,” said a familiar voice. Gon-zalo blinked in surprise, and then recognized the bearded man from the church. He was wearing a pair of thick glasses now. “Are you Gonzalo?”

  Gonzalo felt something clench in the pit of his stomach. He did not want to give his name into the keeping of this stranger. And yet . . . “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Just call me Juan. Come on, the others are waiting.” The bearded man began to walk briskly across the plaza, apparently blind to the guardias civiles circling the perimeter.

  “Others?” Gonzalo asked, falling into step beside him.

  “Do you play soccer?” the stranger called Juan asked, apparently deaf.

 
“Not since I was a kid.”

  “Me neither, but you should see my nephew. There’s not a goalie born who he can’t get past. He’ll be famous one day, I swear! I knew it years ago.”

  “Oh.” Gonzalo felt idiotic. “How old is he?”

  “Just nine, but even the teenagers want him on their team. Why, you know what he did last week?” Juan launched into an involved anecdote, which lasted until the two men were north of the Gran Vía. He stopped in front of a nondescript row house, took out a key, and entered, drawing Gonzalo in behind him. “Come on, it’s down the stairs.” He headed down a flight of ill-lit steps, too narrow to need a banister, which creaked ominously under his tramping feet. Gonzalo followed, aware that his life was in the hands of a rather eccentric stranger and wondering if he was making a fatal mistake. Juan was hurrying down the basement hallway now, apparently by feel, since it was completely dark. He stopped abruptly and knocked. Gon-zalo, who had been following closely, bumped into him.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Andrés, with news of Isabel.”

  Gonzalo blinked, shocked at the casual way that Juan had lied. Then he realized that it was far more likely that the bearded man had lied to him, and that “Juan” was really “Andrés.” Or, more likely, someone else entirely. The door opened and he was pulled into a smallish room that he realized was intended as a kitchen. It opened onto a garden sandwiched between buildings. There were two people already in the room. One was a man, probably in his late fifties, with a white mustache. The other was a woman, dressed in black and wearing a black veil that obscured her features. Both of them stood as Gonzalo and Andrés (or Juan) entered. The man spoke first.

  “Comrades.” He clenched one fist but raised it only to the level of his face, making the greeting almost furtive.

  “Comrade.” Gonzalo’s companion returned the salute, but bowed his head deferentially. “Everything quiet?”

  “Yes.” The older man turned his attention to Gonzalo. “You’re a friend of Javier Arcé’s?”

  “Yes.” Gonzalo nodded, uncertain what was expected of him. How the hell did Javier know these people? he wondered. And who are they? He felt that he was being measured but was not certain for what. Anxious to break the tense silence he added, “I got quite a shock when I heard he’d been arrested.”

  “So did we all,” the older man said dryly, and the tension in the room lessened slightly. “Why are the guardia civil looking for you?” In this atmosphere of passwords and secrecy the question was startlingly direct.

  Gonzalo paused. This was not the question he had expected. The answer seemed too obvious to warrant the risk of saying it aloud. But the man with the white mustache was waiting for an answer. “I am . . . I was . . . a carbinero,” Gon-zalo said slowly. “I’ve been in hiding since they told us to report to Chamartín stadium.” Too late, it occurred to him that the question might be a trap.

  “And that’s all?” the man asked, with emphasis.

  “Yes,” Gonzalo said, surprised. His curiosity got the better of his fear. “Why do you want to know?”

  “We need to know who else is affected.” The woman spoke for the first time. Her voice did not match her appearance. It sounded young, unexpectedly ragged, and tear-choked. “We can’t afford to lose anyone else.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help,” Gonzalo said. He was remembering his last conversation with Manuela, and pieces of random information were rapidly falling into place: Javier’s tendency to go for walks at strange hours, his unusual knowledge about the black market and the Guardia Civil. Gonzalo had wondered at the time how political a garbage collector could be. It had not occurred to him that Javier might have been arrested not merely as a city employee. “I only knew Javier socially.” The past tense slipped out easily. If Javier had been arrested as a spy, the best one could hope was that he was dead.

  The white-haired man raised his eyebrows. “We have spoken to Javier’s wife.” His voice suggested disbelief.

  Gonzalo was puzzled. He had only known Javier through Carmen’s friendship with Manuela. Manuela could have explained that better than anyone. So why hadn’t she? “I don’t understand,” he ventured.

  “She told us you seemed very anxious for information, the last time you spoke to her.” The man’s voice held the hint of a threat, and Gonzalo was aware that Juan (or Andrés) had moved to stand behind him. Then he felt something poke him gently in the back. He twisted and saw that the bearded man was holding a pistol.

  “I suggest that you give some explanation, Señor Llorente,” the man said quietly in Gonzalo’s ear. “We’ve taken a considerable risk in bringing you here. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  Gonzalo’s hands, which had gone automatically to his coat pocket, froze, and then slowly moved away from his sides. The woman silently came forward and disarmed him with an efficiency that suggested she had done this before. Gonzalo’s mind worked frantically, trying to find a plausible explanation, but all that occurred to him was the truth. “I asked Manuela about a murder,” he said cautiously. “My . . . my wife . . . was killed the day before Javier was arrested. I wanted to find her killer.” It was the first time he had called Viviana “my wife.” But “friend” and “comrade” were too cold, among these frightening strangers, and the old, inaccurate term seemed to fit best.

  “Why did you ask Javier’s wife?” That was the woman. The man with the white mustache frowned at her, and Gonzalo guessed that she was not supposed to have a part in the interrogation.

  “Manuela found her.” Gonzalo winced. “And I knew a guardia civil had killed her. I wanted to find out which one, and. . . .” He stopped.

  “Why was your wife killed?” That was the older man again.

  Gonzalo hesitated, but the nudge of the gun against his kidneys was persuasive. “There was a guardia civil there, dead. They thought she’d killed him, I suppose.”

  The man with the white mustache frowned. “And this dead guardia. What was your interest in him?”

  “None,” Gonzalo said. “But I thought if I found his partner I might find . . . the man I was looking for.”

  “What does the name Diego Báez mean to you?” The question was sharp, as if the man hoped to catch Gonzalo off guard.

  Gonzalo shook his head. “I’ve never heard of him,” he said, wondering if he was going to come out of this alive, and also wondering a little what exactly “this” was.

  “What about Paco López?”

  “I don’t know him either.” Gonzalo was very aware of the gun pressed to his back. He knew that there was small chance his questioners would believe he was telling the truth. He swallowed, trying to muster saliva. “I came here for help,” he said, as steadily as he could. “Because Manuela warned me that someone had tipped off the Guardia Civil about me. I don’t know anything about any of this.”

  No one spoke for a moment, and Gonzalo had the impression that everyone was waiting for a sign from the white-mustached man. Finally, the old man spoke. “That being the case, comrade, you will not mind if we hold you here temporarily. You understand our position.”

  “Of course.” Gonzalo did not trust himself to say more. It would be too embarrassing if his voice trembled.

  “As a gesture of good faith, then . . . until we establish that you are what you say you are . . .” The man picked something up from the counter beside him. As he stepped forward, Gon-zalo saw that the object was a coil of rope.

  Gonzalo submitted to having his hands bound without resistance. In any case, it would have been difficult to resist. The older man’s strength belied his white hair, and the younger man—Juan or Andrés—remained, pistol at the ready. Gonzalo was marched, firmly but not ungently, into a sort of pantry that adjoined the kitchen. It was more like a large closet than a room, windowless, with shelves set into its walls. The shelves were bare, but someone had placed a stool in one corner. “You can sit, if you like,” said the older man. “We’ll be back in a little while.”

  Gon
zalo sat, aware that the younger man’s pistol remained steadily trained on him. The older man backed out, and the man holding the gun followed. The door to the pantry swung shut, leaving Gonzalo in total darkness. He heard a key turn in the lock. There were muffled voices outside the door. Then there was only silence.

  Chapter 17

  Tejada was pensive as he changed out of his uniform and into the clothing that Jiménez brought him. The young recruit had thoughtfully provided not only a jacket but a clean ironed shirt. There was something odd about the fact that Jiménez had not only civilian clothing, but an actual change of shirts, while he had nothing but his uniform. Of course, Jiménez was new to the Guardia, and still probably had a lot of clothes from his life as a civilian. But this is what I wanted, the sergeant thought, to get away from being Señorito Carlos. To just be a member of the Guardia Civil, without all that damn nonsense. Well, now I’m a guardia civil. And girls scream at the sight of me. It was not, he knew, a little girl’s shrieks that troubled him but the memory of an older one’s choked whisper. He shrugged into the ill-fitting jacket and went downstairs to see Aleja.

  The child was lying where he had left her, with Corporal Ventura squatting beside her. The pharmacist had bandaged her head, and placed a cold compress on it. She was looking more alert, and much calmer. “No,” Ventura was saying, as the sergeant came within earshot. “I have a boy who is bigger than you are and two who are littler. But no little girls. Do you have any brothers?”

  “No.” Aleja seemed rational enough. “There’s just me.”

  “Then your mama and papa must take extra-special care of you,” Ventura observed.

  Aleja’s lip quivered. “My papa’s dead. Mama takes care of me.” A few tears leaked out. “I want Mama.”

  “Of course you do,” Ventura murmured. He glanced over his shoulder, and rose. “Where’s her mother, sir?” he asked in an undertone.

  “I don’t know,” Tejada replied quietly. “I was just up to trying to find out when she got hysterical.” He bent, to be at eye level with the girl. “Hello, Alejandra. How are you feeling now?”