Death of a Nationalist

by Rebecca Pawel

  Gonzalo knew the man was right. But his reason for living was linked to staying in the city, and some lingering stubbornness made him say slowly, “Then before I leave the man who killed my . . . wife . . . is a sergeant at the Manzanares Guardia Civil post. I’d like to find him. That was my plan.”

  “Are you crazy?” Juan demanded, just as the woman raised her voice to say with sudden intensity, “How do you know he’s a sergeant at the Manzanares post?”

  Gonzalo shrugged, uncertain which question to answer. Juan looked over Gonzalo’s head at his companion, and then said slowly, “Good question. How do you know he’s a sergeant at Manzanares?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “We have time for it.” Again, it was the woman who spoke.

  Gonzalo shrugged again and did his best to summarize his investigations into the identity of Viviana’s murderer as quickly as possible. They already knew about Manuela, and he saw the bearded man nod slightly at a few points and relax as Gonzalo told them what she had said. Encouraged, Gonzalo went on to describe his accidental discovery of the chocolate wrapper and his later dealings with the black market. The bearded man tensed again, and the woman moved around so that she could see Gonzalo’s face. Gonzalo explained about Aleja’s lost notebook, and added his plan of hiding and observing the guardia who was supposed to call on his sister. “But then Manuela came and warned us,” he finished. “So I missed the chance. He’s probably met with Carmen already. I hope she’s all right,” he added, aware that they did not care about Carmen’s safety and somewhat ashamed that he had not thought of her more during his imprisonment.

  “You’re sure Paco was mixed up in the black market?” the bearded man said, ignoring Gonzalo’s last statement. His voice was grim.

  “It would help if I knew who Paco was,” Gonzalo retorted.

  “You don’t know? Oh, shit.” The man frowned. “Paco was the name of that dead guardia. The one who your Viviana was killed for. But what the hell was he doing with the black market? I thought you said he was a perfect choirboy?”

  Gonzalo realized that the last question was not addressed to him but to the woman. She nodded. “I did. I thought he was.” She sounded sad. “He was . . . oh, an ideal Fascist, I thought. Loud and blustery, and too shortsighted to know what he was fighting for. A stupid man, in many ways. But not a hypocrite.”

  “You knew him?” Gonzalo asked, with surprise and a touch of fear.

  “Fairly well.” The woman’s voice might have been bitter, or amused, or simply rueful. It was hard to tell. “He was a very valuable source of information.”

  “You mean he was a spy?” Gonzalo blurted out the words before he could stop himself. He grieved briefly for a man who had died trying to serve the Republic, and then he realized that pinning the guardia’s murder on Viviana might be tremendously convenient for . . . someone. He shuddered slightly. No wonder they were interested in finding out who had killed Viviana.

  “Not precisely,” the woman said, still rueful. The man frowned at her, gesturing her to silence, and she shook her head. “What difference does it make, Andrés? He’s dead.” She turned back to Gonzalo. “Paco thought he was in love with me. A real hearts and flowers affair. It wasn’t hard to get him to talk about his work. He was the type who didn’t think that women really troubled their heads over wars and politics.” She sighed, and her voice shook slightly as she added, “As I said, a stupid man. But honest enough, in a clumsy sort of way. We assumed he’d died for that.”

  “You think someone found out about his connection to you?” Gonzalo asked, his mind working rapidly.

  “Yes.” The woman nodded. “It made sense. He is—he was— from a prominent family. It would have been embarrassing to them for him to be court-martialed. We thought they’d decided on a quiet assassination but we didn’t know if he’d told them anything first. He could have identified me . . . and a few other people.”

  “How did they find out?” Gonzalo asked.

  “The idiot sent money.” Juan had apparently decided that it could not hurt to tell Gonzalo more. “To his ‘fiancée.’” Juan snorted, either in contempt or amusement. “Not that we didn’t appreciate Burgos currency. But someone was sure to notice it sooner or later. And try to trace this ‘Isabel’ who was receiving the payments.”

  “‘Isabel’ seems to be a name that turns up a lot,” Gonzalo remarked dryly.

  Juan smiled. “It’s a common name, comrade.”

  Gonzalo nodded and suddenly remembered something. “The smuggler I talked to said that Paco didn’t care about money. He said he ‘sent it all to some girl.’ Would that have been you, too?”

  The woman—Isabel, for lack of a better name—looked thoughtful. “Yes, in fact . . . oh, yes, that makes sense. About six months ago he started sending money. He said . . .” She closed her eyes. “Let me get it right. Something like: ‘I have a little extra pay now. I’m not proud of what I’m doing to earn it, but I don’t have any choice. So if it’s of help to you, I’m glad.’”

  Juan laughed. “So he turned to a life of crime to help support Isabel?” he said. “That’s pretty rich.”

  “Or else someone figured out who ‘Isabel’ really was,” Gon-zalo suggested. “And blackmailed him.”

  “If he was being blackmailed he wouldn’t have had spare cash,” Juan pointed out.

  Isabel shook her head. “No, I see what he means. If Paco only got involved with the smugglers because he was coerced, he wouldn’t care about the money.” Her face softened for a moment. “It would be typical of him to try to give it away, if he felt it wasn’t rightfully his. Naturally, all that he’d inherit from his father was ‘rightful’ but this wouldn’t be. That was how he thought.”

  “Would he keep sending you information? If he knew you were on the other side?” Gonzalo said.

  Juan swore softly. “For six months, he could have been feeding us false information!”

  “No.” Isabel was positive. “I told you. He could never have been an agent. He was too . . . open. Too poor a liar. I don’t mean he couldn’t keep his mouth shut because he was good at that. But you always knew he was hiding something. You might not know what, but you’d know it was something.”

  “But how else could he be blackmailed?” Juan objected.

  This time it was Isabel’s turn to snort softly. “Someone probably threatened to tell his mother he was still in contact with me. She didn’t approve of me. Starched old bitch. He was the one who made a big thing about keeping our letters clandestine, ‘until my mother is won over,’ to use his own words. The entire system was so complicated that I knew for sure it would go wrong. That’s what I mean about how he’d have made a poor agent.”

  Juan was tapping his glasses nervously against the table. “That doesn’t change anything, then. They would have cared more about a security risk than about black marketeering.”

  “Probably,” Isabel agreed. She smiled briefly at Gonzalo. “At least, thanks to your chocolate seller, we know the smugglers thought his death was a coincidence.”

  “I’m glad to be of help,” Gonzalo said dryly. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of finding this sergeant for me, in exchange for my information?”

  Juan shook his head. “Absolutely not. We can’t let personal grudges get in the way of the cause.”

  Gonzalo knew that Juan was right. But it was hard to care more about a cause than about Viviana. He brooded as Isabel said, “I still wish we knew more about Paco’s involvement with the black market. If he told someone outside the Guardia Civil. . . .”

  Juan nodded. “We’ll find out. But first we have to get him out of here.” He turned to Gonzalo. “You’ll have to stay underground a little longer. It takes time to get papers. We’ll get you out of the city when we can.”

  Gonzalo felt the stirring of rebellion. He was a man, not a suspicious parcel to be handed quickly from one person to the next. He supposed it was only natural for these people not to trust him fully but he w
ished that they would not treat him like an infant, fit only to be passed passively from hand to mysterious hand.

  “Let me try to find out about your Paco’s involvement with the black market,” he volunteered. “No one knows me as part of your group, and I can spend my time in Madrid doing something useful then.”

  The man and woman exchanged considering glances. “It’s not a bad idea,” Isabel said slowly. “It doesn’t risk any of us, but. . . .”

  “But,” the bearded man agreed. He studied Gonzalo through narrowed eyes. “Are you a Party member?”

  Gonzalo hesitated. The truth might well be the wrong answer to this question. And the wrong answer could be dangerous. He had been a Socialist before the war, and simply a carbinero for the duration. None of his hosts (Rescuers? Captors? What was the right name for them?) had volunteered an affiliation. “Worried I’m a Fifth Columnist?” he asked, as lightly as possible.

  “That,” the bearded man agreed, “or simply a loose cannon. We can’t let you hare off to shoot guardias for the sake of some private vengeance.”

  Gonzalo took a chance. “My word as a Party member,” he said quietly. “I won’t do anything that’s not for the good of the cause.”

  Juan (or Andrés) looked at him for a long moment. Then he took out the revolver and handed it to the woman. “I’ll see if my superiors agree,” he said, without taking his eyes from Gonzalo’s. “You won’t mind waiting here.”

  “Here?” Gonzalo asked, with a feeble attempt at humor. “Or in the closet again?”

  “Here,” the man replied, smiling slightly. He turned to Isabel. “Watch him.”

  She nodded, and Gonzalo felt his stomach clench. They were being very polite, and even kind, to risk helping him. But he was still little better than a prisoner. Juan (or Andrés) departed, and Gonzalo was left sitting across from Isabel. Her face was friendly, but she was still holding the gun, and he had no doubt that she would use it if he made any attempt to escape.

  Gonzalo could think of nothing to say that would not be construed as a suspicious request for information. The woman was equally silent. He invented a dialogue between them. “So, where are you from?” Her inky black hair and pale, Celtic features suggested an imagined answer. “Galicia, along the coast.” “I’ve heard it’s very pretty there.” “Yes, beautiful. You’re from Madrid?” “Yes.” “When did you join the Party?” The imaginary conversation stopped here. Gonzalo wondered if the bearded man would try to verify his claim that he was a Communist. I gave my word to them as a Party member, Gonzalo thought. But if I get the chance to meet this sergeant it won’t be breaking my word. Not if I was never a member in the first place. If only I get the chance. . . .

  “Would you like something to eat?” Isabel’s voice broke in on his reverie.

  “Please,” Gonzalo said.

  She smiled. “There should be something in the icebox.”

  He was puzzled and then saw that the gun was trained on him. Isabel might be trying to be kind, but she was taking no chances. After a long pause, he rose and headed toward the icebox in the corner.

  There was some stale cornbread. He ate and offered some to her as well. She refused, but with an apologetic smile. He munched in peaceable silence. The kitchen was dim now, shadowed as the sun dropped behind the building that backed onto it.

  There was a sound of tramping feet, and it occurred to Gon-zalo that the unsteady stairway leading down to the basement provided an excellent warning system. The gun had disappeared under the table and the woman’s veil was slid over her face before he heard a knock at the door.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Andrés, with news of Isabel.”

  The door opened, and Gonzalo’s bearded guide reappeared. “All safe and sound here?” he asked.

  Gonzalo nodded, too tense to say anything further.

  “All right, then.” The man came and sat beside him. “The others like your idea. Let’s call it a way of paying for your documents.”

  “My pleasure.” Gonzalo relaxed slightly.

  “Good.” The man looked at Isabel. “You want to meet at the usual place?”

  She nodded and slid the revolver out from its hiding place, leaving it lying on the table. Then she stood and gathered her coat. At the doorway she turned. “Good-bye, Gonzalo. Good luck.”

  The man waited until the door had closed behind her and her footsteps on the stairs had died away. Then he leaned toward Gonzalo. “All right,” he said in a low voice. “Here’s the deal.”

  Chapter 19

  Tejada was on his way to find food for Alejandra when Lieutenant Ramos intercepted him. “Tejada! Why are you still in that getup? Corporal Torres is waiting.”

  The sergeant began an explanation, but Ramos was in no mood to listen. “Look, you said you’d find the brat’s mother and get rid of her. You can’t spend the afternoon baby-sitting.”

  “But, sir,” Tejada protested. “I think if I have just a little more time with Alejandra . . .”

  “You’re scheduled for patrol in five minutes,” Ramos interrupted. “And you’re out of uniform.”

  “But, sir,” Tejada insisted. “If I can just give her lunch, she’ll talk to me.”

  “Absolutely not!” the lieutenant said firmly. “The girl was one thing—and don’t think I was fooled by that cousin nonsense for a minute, by the way—but you are not wasting our rations as a bribe for some Red brat.”

  Tejada breathed through his nostrils and suppressed the urge to take exception to his commander’s tone when referring to Elena. “Sir,” he began, hoping his voice was neutral. “If I—”

  “Four minutes to be in uniform, Sergeant.” Ramos’s tone was final.

  Tejada capitulated. At least, he thought, Ramos had not insisted that he drop off Alejandra at Cuatro Caminos that same afternoon. The child could wait. He met Corporal Torres within the designated four minutes, and the two of them set off.

  Normally, Tejada rather liked foot patrol. The slow steady tramp gave him time to think. But today he dreaded being alone with his thoughts. How could Paco have gotten involved in the black market? The question was insistent, and painful. Paco could not have voluntarily allied himself with traitors and criminals. He would not have taken food from his own post to sell. Not willingly and cynically. Paco was never cynical, Tejada thought. I joined the movement because I saw what the Reds were capable of, and I knew they had to be stopped. But Paco joined because he believed. In a new, better world. I never believed like that. Somewhere at the back of the locked filing cabinet of his unconscious the sergeant knew that he was lying to himself. He had believed in the Movement. He had not merely wrapped himself in the glow of his friend’s passionate conviction. But somehow his own certainties had gone. Perhaps they had been slowly flaking away like the edges of yellowing newsprint. Perhaps they had been shredded when Elena explained why Viviana had gone to fetch Alejandra’s notebook and he had realized that he had killed a woman guilty of nothing more than trying to care for her niece. Perhaps they had disappeared the moment he had kissed Elena, terrified of what she might reveal and of his own awareness that he would take no action against her no matter what she said. But I haven’t changed that much, Tejada told himself. And Paco wouldn’t have changed that much. Paco couldn’t have changed that much. He thought about the photograph of the smiling girl. How well did you ever know Paco? a voice in his head asked treacherously. As well as you knew Elena when you thought she was a spy because she wouldn’t let you take her home? Or as well as Elena knew you when she said she assumed you weren’t guilty of murder? Do you know that he believed in the Movement the same way you knew that damn miliciana had killed him?

  Corporal Torres, who had been paired with Tejada before, was accustomed to the sergeant’s taciturn ways. The two men were not friends, but they liked patrolling together. Their paces matched well, and they generally preserved a companionable silence while each pursued his own thoughts. In the normal course of things, Torres, who was himself an
expert sharpshooter, scanned the upper windows with suspicion, while Tejada kept an eye on things at ground level. So Torres was surprised when the sergeant said suddenly, “Why did you join the Guardia, Corporal?”

  “My father’s a guardia, sir,” Torres answered, wondering why the sergeant was interested.

  “Was that all?” Tejada asked, disappointed. Surely other men joined the Guardia because they believed in . . . something. Something that they could explain to him, as a reminder.

  “All?” Torres was somewhat offended. “It’s a family tradition, sir.”

  “Of course.” Tejada lapsed into silence again. He and Paco had been friends because they were not merely following a family tradition. Because each had understood that the other believed in something. So why did Paco get involved with the black market? Tejada could find no answer to the question, but he remained positive that it had not been Paco’s own doing.

  The two guardias civiles passed through the Plaza Mayor and headed southward. Near the Cathedral of San Isidro, a pair of priests nodded to them and saluted. Torres nodded back and gave a deferential greeting. Tejada nodded also, but said nothing. Confession tomorrow, he thought miserably. Elena . . . oh, God. Please let the priest be sympathetic.

  The Plaza de la Cebada was crowded with people. Many of them seemed to be peasants who had come into the city for the holiday, perhaps to go to church. But Tejada noticed bitterly that they slipped away from the guardias civiles with the same furtiveness as the madrileños. At least they were not the only guardias in the square. Another pair of uniformed figures were orbiting the plaza in the opposite direction. And, Tejada realized with some surprise, a third guardia was crossing the plaza ahead of them, apparently unaccompanied. Off duty, the sergeant thought automatically, noting the absence of a three-cornered hat and the slouching posture with some disapproval all the same. And something about the slouch was familiar. He slowed down, watching the man, and Torres, who recognized the sudden change of pace as an alert, brought his attention back from the cornices of the roofs, and tried to follow his partner’s gaze.