by Mathew Carr
“I assume you’re referring to Señor Foulkes,” the receptionist said. “A tragic and most unfortunate incident.”
Once again Lawton was struck by the extent to which Foulkes’s death was already more public than his widow wanted it to be, and he asked how long Foulkes had stayed at the hotel. The receptionist looked back through the register and found Foulkes’s signature, which Lawton compared with the letter he had brought with him. The two were identical, and the date of his arrival was June 7, seven days before his death.
“Did he have visitors?” Lawton asked. “Female visitors?”
The receptionist looked aghast. “Señor, this is not that kind of establishment.”
“Of course not,” Lawton said. “I meant friends or relatives. Did anyone come here to meet him or take him anywhere?”
The receptionist shook his head. Apart from breakfast, Foulkes spent most of his time away from the hotel or in his room, he said, but he had had no visitors.
“I wonder if I could see his room?” Lawton asked.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, sir. The room is occupied. It has been ever since Señor Foulkes’s things were removed. And there’s nothing to see. Our cleaners are very thorough.”
“I’ll only be a minute.” He looked pleadingly at the receptionist. “I have come rather a long way.”
“I’m sorry, Señor. It’s out of the question.”
Lawton had encountered similar objections in far less salubrious establishments, and he had usually found a way around them. He thanked the receptionist and walked slowly away as a guest approached the counter in his stead. Lawton glanced over his shoulder as the receptionist reached for a key, and then he turned into the staircase. He went quickly up the stairs to the third floor and knocked on the room he had seen in the register. A moment later a middle-aged Spaniard with his tie half-undone appeared and looked at him suspiciously.
“Sorry to bother you sir,” Lawton said. “But my wife and I were the last guests in your room. My wife has lost her wedding ring and she thinks she may have left it here. Do you mind if I have a quick look inside?”
The Spaniard was just about to reply when a female voice called, “What is it?” and a sweet-faced little woman in a long blue summer dress appeared behind him. The Spaniard repeated Lawton’s request.
“Of course you can look,” she said. “Your poor wife. She must be distraught.”
“She is,” Lawton murmured, as he came into the room. The Spaniard and his wife stood watching hopefully as he looked around the room, behind and under the furniture. It was soon obvious that the cleaners had indeed done their job well. Even under the bed the tiled floor looked spotless. He was beginning to think he had wasted his time when he noticed a little sliver of white paper beneath the dressing table. He bent down and pulled it out to reveal a torn ticket stub bearing the words: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Magic Flute. Gran Teatre del Liceu. He could not help smiling as he read the seat and row numbers, and the date June 13, the day before Foulkes’s death, and put the ticket in his pocket.
“Do you know where the Gran Liceu is?” he asked.
“Of course. It’s on the Ramblas.” The Spaniard was looking at him with disapproval and suspicion now.
“And your ring?” His wife’s stony expression made it clear that she no longer believed him either. Lawton smiled sheepishly and thanked them for their cooperation, and as he went back out in search of the theater where Randolph Foulkes had spent his last night on earth, he could not help feeling that the day was looking a little more promising.
* * *
At ten o’clock the funeral cortege accompanying the body of Pau Tosets came alongside the Montjuïc fortress. Esperanza had not been there since the day of her father’s funeral. At that time she had not understood the political significance of the fortress, or the role it had played in her father’s death, because her mother had not yet told her how he had died. Since then her family always avoided the fortress when they came to visit her father’s grave on All Saints’ Day, taking the longer way around to the necropolis from the sea. Now she walked alongside Flor Montero and Pau’s mother Rosa, just behind the cart that carried Pau’s coffin and his grandparents, and she remembered the black-clad mourners and the two black horses that pulled her father’s coffin past the fortress, and the golden cross protruding from his curtained carriage.
Most of Pau’s family and comrades had no black to change into, and the family had only been able to borrow a humble cart from the market, and they had rented two mules instead of horses. They had nevertheless draped the cart in black cloth and accompanied it with an impressive display of flowers that Ruben had collected money to pay for. As they passed the fortress Ruben raised a clenched fist, and Esperanza did the same. Flor was holding one of her children by the hand and carrying another wrapped in a shawl across her shoulder, and she also raised her fist, along with Arnau Busquets, the Ferrers, and her mother, who Esperanza had met for the first time that morning.
Esperanza knew of Rosa Tosets by reputation. According to Pau his mother had once been taken as a child to see Bakunin’s Italian emissary Fanelli, when he had first brought the Idea to Barcelona in 1868. Fanelli’s speech—delivered in Italian, which most of his listeners could not understand—had converted Pau’s grandparents into anarchists. His mother had also gleaned something from Fanelli, and had grown up to be a tireless and fervent proponent of the Idea. In textile factories where she worked she had led women and even men out on strikes and walkouts. She visited anarchist prisoners in the Modelo prison. She distributed pamphlets and the Soli. She gave speeches, protested, and persuaded. Her husband had been shot in the castle during the repression of 1897. Now she had lost a son, and Esperanza felt a kind of kinship with her as the cortege descended the hill into the necropolis, moving slowly past the sculptures of griffins, skeletons, reptiles, and hooded angels that adorned the tombs and mausoleums of the wealthy.
Esperanza knew them all well, and as they passed the statue of the half-naked angel with wings and exposed breasts and her arms stretched across one of the tombs she remembered the unbearable piercing grief that she had felt on the day of her father’s funeral, as though her heart had broken into little pieces that could never be put back. Now she felt strangely numb as the cortege made its way through the monuments and mausoleums to the walls where the poor were buried. Soon they reached Pau’s niche, and Ruben and the other pallbearers lifted the coffin from the cart and slid it into the wall. Esperanza stood next to Flor and her mother listening to the speeches and eulogies, while the cemetery workers looked on. At her father’s burial a priest had quoted from the Bible, even though her father was not religious. Pau’s eulogists praised his passion for justice and his devotion to the Idea. Arnau Busquets quoted Kropotkin and hailed Pau as one of those “Men of courage, not satisfied with words… for whom prison, exile, and death are preferable to a life contrary to their principles.”
Ferrer praised the man he had known as a writer and a dedicated revolutionist, and Ruben also made a short but emotional speech, in which he declared his love and admiration for his friend, comrade, and brother-in-law. Esperanza remembered what Pau had said to her about Ruben on the day he died, and it was clear that his death had already changed Ruben beyond recognition—or perhaps she had simply not seen what Pau had seen. It was not until the mourners began to sing “Sons of the People” that Esperanza’s numbness melted and she cried hot tears at the thought of the man she had not had the chance to love as she sang: “Son of the people/chains oppress you/and that injustice cannot continue.”
* * *
Afterward Señora Tosets put her arm around her and squeezed her tight as they watched the cemetery workers close the niche, leaving only Pau’s name scratched into it with the date of his birth and the day of his disappearance. The mourners began to disperse now and Pau’s mother invited Esperanza to ride back on the cart with the family. Arnau Busquets also rode with them. He sat directly opposite Esper
anza, next to Señora Tosets, with his cap pulled down to shield his eyes from the sun. At one point he looked at Esperanza with a pained, sympathetic expression. Arnau often looked pained, and Esperanza was not sure whether this was due to his years in prison or the Cuban war, where he had contracted the malaria that still gave his lined face a slightly jaundiced pallor, or the burn marks on his chest and back that he had suffered during an accident at the foundry.
No one spoke as they passed the fortress and descended the hill into Poble Sec. As they rode back along the Parallelo, Esperanza remembered the Sunday afternoon when she and Pau had walked together past the cafés, theaters, and music halls, and paused to look at the shell gamers and card sharps, the fire-eaters, the fortune-telling birds, magicians, and acrobats.
Even then Pau had been unable to resist heckling one of Lerroux’s speakers, until they had been forced to get away quickly to avoid a fight with some of his supporters. All this was little more than a month ago, and now Pau was gone forever, and it seemed both astonishing and intolerable that the city should go about its business as though nothing had happened. Arnau looked equally angry as he glared around at the busy avenue as if he wanted to shoot a passerby.
“We have to respond to this,” he burst out suddenly. “They can’t just kill us and get away with it.”
“Respond how?” asked Ruben.
“You’ve heard Maura’s planning to call up the Catalan reserves to fight in the Rif?” Arnau replied.
“He wouldn’t be so stupid,” said Señora Tosets.
“Well the newspapers think he is. And if he does the movement needs to oppose it—with a strike. That’s what Pau would have wanted. That’s how we avenge him.”
Señora Tosets nodded. “You’re right. It’s the best way. The only way.”
Arnau looked at Esperanza. “There’s a meeting on Tuesday at the Soli—to discuss what to do if war breaks out. Can you come?”
“Of course.”
“Good girl.”
Señora Tosets, Flor, and Ruben looked at her approvingly, and Esperanza was pleased to think that they thought of her as one of them now, and she sensed that Pau would have approved of her, too. On reaching the Boqueria market she took the tram to Gràcia, and returned to her flat to find her mother with a pupil, sitting at the piano and playing Strauss’s Mein herz ist stumm. The pupil was not singing it particularly well, but the melody immediately brought Esperanza’s tears welling up again. She took off her hat and withdrew to her room to find Eduardo sitting on his bed drawing on a sketchpad pictures of flying machines that he had copied from an artist’s illustration in a French journal. Already the wall was covered in them, and she knew that he would continue to draw them until his mind focused on something else.
She smiled at him and lay down on the bed to rest. She was still lying there when the lesson came to an end and her mother appeared in the doorway and looked at her with concern. Her mother was only fifty-two, but her graying hair and lined, careworn face made her look older.
“Señor Mata came around while you were out,” she said. “I asked him to leave a message but he said you would know why. I told him you wouldn’t want to see anyone today.”
“Well of course I’ll see him.” Esperanza jumped up from the bed and reached for her hat.
“Is this about Pau?” her mother looked suddenly anxious. “There’s nothing you can do. It’s in the hands of the police now.”
“That’s supposed to reassure me?”
“So you just walk in and walk out?”
“If it’s to do with Pau, yes.”
“Go on then.” Her mother sighed wearily. “Do what you want. You always do.”
“Mama, please.” Esperanza’s voice was softer now. “The police have no interest in finding out what happened to Pau. If Mata wants to see me there must be a reason.”
Her mother remained unmoved, and Esperanza knew there was nothing she could say to bring her around. She knew her mother was worried about her, but she also resented her attempts to make her feel guilty and she had no intention of succumbing. She went back out into the street again and walked quickly down into the Eixample till she reached Mata’s house, where the concierge let her in. Mata’s apartment was on the second floor, and she knocked loudly and waited. A moment later the door opened and Mata’s great bearded body filled the doorway. He was wearing white trousers, espadrilles, and a loose white shirt that hung down over his protruding belly, and it struck her for the first time that he looked like Bakunin.
“Miss Claramunt,” he said. “I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“You were right. I don’t believe that a lunatic killed Pau Tosets, and I want to help you find out who did.”
9
On the morning of his third day in Barcelona, Lawton was sitting in the Plaza Reial when he heard the sound of drums coming from the direction of the Ramblas. Even from a distance the drums had an unmistakably martial beat, and as they came closer he heard the horns and trumpets accompanying them and he remembered the band that he had seen marching through Southwold in the summer of 1898 summoning the population to fight for the Queen, the Country, and the Empire. He had come into the town from the fair that day to look at the sea before his fights that afternoon when the recruiters and the musicians came marching along the sea front. They looked grand and smart in their starched new uniforms, and the main street was lined with holidaymakers and local people who had come to watch the soldiers march past on their way to fight the Boers.
The soldiers looked unbeatable, and that day he had felt unbeatable, too. He fought four times and won them all, and the next morning he went in search of the recruiting office and volunteered. Now he walked onto the Ramblas and watched the column of soldiers marching four abreast down the center of the promenade toward the port. Some were dressed in khaki and narrow forage caps, others wore striped gray uniforms and kepis with white covers over their necks, and gaiters over their unpolished boots. Despite the best efforts of their officers, they marched badly, with a noticeable absence of pride and zest. Some were armed with Remingtons and Mausers, but most of them had no weapons except for the bayonets in their belts. Others carried only wooden rifles.
Most of them looked as if they were being sent to their own execution, and the women and children who accompanied them looked equally gloomy. It was as unimpressive a demonstration of military might as he had ever seen, and unlike Southwold the spectators looked distinctly unmoved.
“Where are they going?” Lawton asked an old man who was standing nearby.
“To Melilla!” The old man exclaimed furiously. “To fight the Moors!”
“Why?”
“Why?” The old man threw up his hands as if he were trying to shake off something unclean. “Because the ricos think the Moors are going to take their mines! So of course they send the poor to fight for them! You see these sad soldiers? For some of them it’s the only way to get a proper meal, Señor—if the Moors don’t slit their throats or cut their balls off! But you know what I think?” The old man’s eyes narrowed and he stuck his jaw out belligerently as if Lawton was personally responsible for all this. “I think the government can go to hell!”
Lawton did not know where Melilla was, and the old man seemed a little overheated and possibly unhinged. But as he walked on past the stream of soldiers toward the consulate, the sullen expressions on the faces of so many of the spectators made it clear that they were equally unenthused by the expedition. It was a very different crowd from the crowds that had once cheered his regiment onto their troopships.
Smither’s secretary Catalina took him to the vice-consul’s office, where he found Smither standing at the window, looking down at the soldiers. He looked as polished as his shoes and his glistening hair looked as though it were glued to his head.
“Good morning,” he said. “You’ve seen this? President Maura is sending the reservists to Morocco.”
“So I’ve heard. And people don’t look
very happy about it.” Lawton sat down and lit a cigarette as Smither dispatched Catalina to make some tea.
“They aren’t. The separatists don’t want to fight another Spanish war. The anarchists and the unions are asking why the poor should fight when the rich can buy their way out of military service. The Radicals are saying that the Church is behind the call-up. They say the Jesuits own shares in mining concerns in the Rif. All these groups usually hate each other, but now Maura has finally given them something they can all agree on. Even the socialists are talking about a general strike now. Anyway, what can I do for you? You’ve not come for the ashes, have you? The cremation’s not been done yet. It’s not easy to arrange these things in a Catholic country.”
“Do you know a man called Ferrer? Francesc Ferrer?”
The consul raised his eyebrows, as Catalina returned carrying a tray laden with tea, cups and saucers. “Everyone in Spain knows who Ferrer is, Harry. Why do you ask?”
Lawton helped himself to two sugars. “Foulkes went to the opera the night before his death,” he said. “I visited the Liceu yesterday evening and showed his photograph to some of the staff. One of the waiters said he saw Foulkes with a man and woman during the intermission, talking to this man Ferrer. I assumed he was the same Ferrer who met Foulkes in London in April. Mrs. Foulkes told me he’s an anarchist and a teacher.”
“He’s certainly a teacher,” Smither said. “But whether you’d want your children to be taught by him is another matter. Last year there was a bomb attack on His Majesty Alfonso XIII and his wife in Madrid. Killed thirty people and wounded dozens more. The bomber was a Catalan—a librarian at Ferrer’s school. The police shot him dead, but Ferrer was accused of financing and encouraging him.”
“Accused or convicted?”
Smither shrugged. “A court found him not guilty last year.”
“You don’t agree?”