by David Rees
‘A boat. Where? And where’s it going?’
‘It sails from a deserted beach near Estepona.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘A long way off, on the Mediterranean between Gibraltar and Málaga. I’ll have to drive you,’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ll leave after dinner. Departure’s at two a.m.; it’s a fishing vessel and it’s taking twenty men, all anarchist brigands from behind the lines. It’s been organized by Republicans in Almería … that’s where the boat is heading … we have contacts with contacts who have contacts with them. You: you’re a terrorist with a distinguished record, or so Almería thinks … which means you have a place on it. Best if you wear your prison garb; it looks more authentic. But for the drive to Estepona wear the togs I bought you; we might get pulled up by the police or at some road-block. If we do, just leave the talking to me … we’re British diplomats on a visit to the consul in Málaga. I don’t think he’s still there, but the soldiers and the police won’t know if he is or isn’t.’ He was excited, Stephen observed, in the sort of way he had himself once been: a boy on a great adventure, finding his role a bit of a lark. Guy was in fact a couple of years older than Stephen, but he’d seen no fighting ― he had been in Cadiz since the beginning of the war.
Stephen left Franco’s Spain shoeless and in rags, with a few things including money and a loaded pistol tied up in a bundle. He wasn’t distressed to leave his new clothes in the car with Guy. Barefoot all the time in jail, he had not yet readjusted to shoes. The sand on the beach, as he walked down to the boat that was waiting to carry him out to the fishing smack, was a delicious sensation. He hoped he looked like what he felt he was ― anarchist partisan and ex-prisoner of war.
When the other refugees discovered his identity ― that he had been at Red Pedro’s side in the battles for Zahara (hardly politic, he thought, to boast of the sexual relationship to these tough, villainous-looking guerrillas; gorillas might be a more apt description) ― he found he was quite a hero. Drinks were pressed on him, and Pedro’s health was toasted again and again. ‘Good luck to him, wherever he may be!’ they said. None of them knew what had happened after Zahara fell; the Lynx had simply vanished into thin air. Dead, some thought, but the most widely held view was that he’d holed up in the mountains and was waiting for an opportunity to strike again. Stephen told them what had really happened ― the weeks in the cathedral, the journey to Cadiz, the final disappearance. He was careful not to say that Pedro had abandoned him, and he did not mention the letter from France; these men did not deserve an iconoclast. Others, at a future time, could throw stones.
Conversation turned to what they would do in Amería. Some said they would go on elsewhere immediately; they had wives and children, and as the war was undoubtedly lost they had to find them and get them out of the Republic. Others, single men, said they’d stay in Amería, get drunk and visit the brothels; it was famous, they told Stephen, for the quality of its whores, the size of whose tits was prodigious. They’d take him around with them and get him a woman; after a year in jail he must be dying for a really good fuck. How do I wriggle out of that? he said to himself.
‘What will you do when the fascists arrive?’ he asked.
They’d grab the nearest boat and sail out into the Mediterranean. Head for Algiers or Tunis.
As the boat they were on now seemed to be doing. But when it was out of sight of the Spanish coast its captain, an inscrutable, utterly silent young Basque, changed course for Almería. He was only inscrutable and silent because he couldn’t speak any Spanish. After the fall of Bilbao he’d fled in his boat and sailed right round Spain and Portugal to Valencia, where he’d offered his services to the Republic.
It was a dull, foggy night, and from time to time it drizzled. Good weather for an escape.
Then disaster. Out of nowhere a gunboat bore down on them, ordering them through a loud-hailer to stop.
TWELVE
A few men panicked, and threw their weapons and ammunition into the sea; incriminating documents were ripped up, and tossed over the side too. But most kept calm, including Stephen ― the words being shouted through the loud-hailer were to some extent reassuring: they had been stopped, not because the Nationalists thought they were Republicans, but because they weren’t showing any navigation lights.
‘You speak to them,’ the man next to Stephen said. Tell them you’re English!’ He grabbed the fishing-boat’s loud-hailer ― the captain was holding it out, hoping somebody would have the sense to take it and answer ― and pushed it into Stephen’s hands.
‘But what shall I say?’
‘That we’re fishermen … our boat was sunk … you rescued us.’
‘Our lights are not working!’ Stephen yelled into the loud-hailer.
‘Why not?’ came the reply.
‘We were fired at by a Red vessel. No other damage.’
‘From what country are you?’
Good, they had noticed the foreign accent. Would this trick work, Stephen asked himself. He was trembling with fear. Did it show in his voice? No, the loud-hailer seemed to make him sound quite confident. ‘England!’ he shouted.
‘And your crew?’
‘Spanish fishermen. Their boat was sunk by the Reds ― we picked up the survivors.’
‘Where are you taking them?’
‘Málaga.’
After a pause: ‘Where is this enemy ship?’
‘Fifteen miles south-south-west.’
‘What kind of ship?’
‘An armed trawler.’
A long silence followed this; the officers on the gunboat were discussing what to do ― and say. The tension on the fishing smack was extreme: everything depended on the next few words. If the fascists decided to send a boarding party all would be lost. Some men were ready to hurl themselves into the sea should this happen; others regretted throwing their guns away ― if they were to die, they thought, they should have been able to kill some of the enemy first.
‘You may proceed.’
For a moment relief and surprise left Stephen speechless. ‘¡Arriba España!’ he shouted, at last. ‘¡Viva Franco!’
‘God save the King!’ was the reply, in English, followed by laughter.
The two ships sailed on, having altered their courses ― the Basque understanding enough of what Stephen had said to know he should steer for Málaga, at least until the gunboat was out of sight; and the fascists turning south-south-west to look for the non-existent trawler.
Stephen was amazed at what he had done. His experiences since the war started had certainly changed him, he realised; two years ago ― a year ago ― he would have been quite incapable of such daring level-headedness: he’d have shivered uncontrollably and given himself up. He was, of course, the hero of the hour; not even the Lynx, he was told many times, could try something like that and bring it off so well.
They reached Almería without further incident. It was a tonic in itself to be on dry land again, but it was a while before Stephen became used to the fact that this wasn’t hostile territory ― not since the fall of Zahara had he been anywhere that was safe. Nobody here ― in the streets, in the cafés, in the shops ― was an enemy. He had to suppress a strong desire to rush around and embrace everyone he saw: he was in the Republic! In free Spain!
His companions from the boat ― he had rescued them, they said, from death or years of imprisonment ― wanted to show their gratitude. What he wanted was to be left alone to plan how to get out of the Republic and back to England, but he felt he couldn’t refuse them. He may have learned how to deceive a bunch of dangerous fascists, but he hadn’t learned to say no to people who liked and admired him. So that evening was a succession of bars in the port area and much too much to drink; then finally a visit to a brothel, where his companions paid for him to have what they said was the girl with the biggest tits in all Spain. Again, he didn’t know how to say no. Undressed and limp, he felt as much of a badly cast actor as he had done when he was yelling thr
ough the loud-hailer ― and equally nervous. She thought it the alcohol, so did most of the work. Eventually he managed to perform, though it seemed to take hours. He didn’t not enjoy it: it just wasn’t anything special ― he’d known, since he was twelve or thirteen, that that would be the case. He remembered Pablo’s story of the whore in the Plaza Andalucía, and was aware of yet another change: a year ago he’d have run away from this situation too.
He didn’t get to sleep till five ― on a spare mattress in the house of a relative of one of his shipmates, the man’s sister, he thought. When he woke at noon he found he had a gigantic hangover.
A French merchantman was departing at dawn for Marseilles. It took him nearly all his money to bribe the captain to let him have a place on board, and even so, he was told, he would have to work his passage as a dogsbody in the engine room. He had borrowed from the British Consulate funds a quite adequate amount to get him back to England; ‘You can repay it when your book is published.’ Guy said. He now had just about enough left, he calculated, for a meal and a train ticket to Paris.
His last view of Spain was an absolutely magnificent sunrise: the sea was flat, turquoise; the sky flushed; the white port still and at peace with everything. There was this odd sense, as on other occasions, that the war didn’t really exist ― but it was accompanied by a deeper, new feeling: that, if he ignored the buildings and ships of a twentieth-century dock, this scene had existed for as long as man had been here, that it wasn’t so very different in the times of the Romans or the Phoenicians. He half expected Homer’s ships to appear on the horizon, just to the right of where the sun was beginning to show itself.
It was forty-seven years before he set foot in Spain again.
He had no trouble in locating the new Casa Badajoz ― a phone call, in Paris, to the Spanish Embassy gave him the address. At first José and Cristina had no idea who he was: this thin, barefoot, lanky hobo with convict’s hair, in rags now even more torn and dirty than in his prison days, stained ― as were his face and arms ―with oil and grease from an old ship’s engines. He was still carrying his tattered bundle of possessions. When they realised, they embraced him, kissed him, and wept; asked a hundred questions and hardly waited for answers as new, more important questions came into their minds. They offered him food and coffee, clothes, a hot bath.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Coffee, please. And something to eat; I’m starving!’ Cristina rushed round, preparing a tortilla. ‘I’ll wash later. But clothes … I don’t have any!’
‘Take anything of mine that fits you,’ José said.
‘I want Pedro to see me like this. Where is he?’
‘At work. Repairing cars, of course. He’s a good mechanic; he has a good job.’
‘Here, in Paris?’
‘Yes. He doesn’t live with us. Well… there isn’t the space. We have two rooms! It’s all we can afford, Pedro has a room of his own.’
Where he can take his new lovers, Stephen said to himself, surprised to find the stab of jealousy intense and violent. ‘Tell me about yourselves,’ he said. ‘How did you get out of Spain? What have you been doing since? You look good … both of you. Not a day older!’
‘We’re light-years older,’ Cristina said. ‘But you … tell us first what happened to you. I’m sure our lives have been dull in comparison.’
He talked for ages, but he did not slant anything to suggest Pedro had behaved badly ― he would reserve Pedro for Pedro himself. They knew about Tomás: it still upset them even to think of it. They had heard that Miguel Goicoechea had some part in Stephen’s trial, but they had not been told the details before. ‘He murders my youngest son,’ José said, wearily. ‘My eldest son revenges the deed. Is that sufficient? Apparently not. There has to be revenge for the revenge. Does it stop there? Or do we have to have some kind of chain reaction that goes on for ever?’
‘A civil war,’ Stephen said, ‘maybe this one in particular … it brings out the best in people, and the worst. Not much in between. At least Miguel had the courage to try a middle road. With disastrous consequences, as it turned out. He’s not an evil man … as Araquistain was … and others.’
He listened to their story: lives that had been ruptured, and the struggle to pick up the pieces. Their journey to Paris had been less eventful than his, and they still had the car they had stolen, which they used for occasional trips into the countryside. Pedro kept it in first-class condition. Their chief problem was lack of money. José now worked at his old trade, but it was not a regular job. His French wasn’t good enough for him to find permanent employment, and he was only called upon when something in Spanish was being printed, which was not often. Cristina worked too, in a factory. It was a far cry from their comfortable life in Zahara.
‘We’ll never go home,’ she said. ‘The war is lost.’
‘We’re exiles,’ José said. ‘It’s hard at our age.’
‘At any age. And we’ve lost Isabella.’
‘We haven’t lost her! She’s simply in another country.’
‘It’s the same thing.’
Isabella had married a young British businessman, and was living in London. Stephen said he’d go and see her when he got back to England. They’d never met, but she knew a great deal about him, and vice versa. Carlos was still in Paris: he’d finished his studies, and worked now as a translator. He was living with a French girl; they were, both of them, politically active ― ardent socialists. He spent much of his spare time with other left-wing exiles, planning the Spain that would replace Franco’s Spain. José was contemptuous of this: all his old gusto for politics had gone. ‘Madcaps and dreamers’ was his opinion of Carlos and his friends.
‘What will you do if there’s a European war?’ Stephen asked.
‘Stay here, I suppose,’ Cristina said. It’s as safe as anywhere else … in other words, not remotely safe.’
A European war was beginning to seem very likely, and the democracies would lose, José said. Britain and France were defeatist ― look at the years of kowtowing to the dictators, their refusal to help Spain because Hitler and Mussolini might be provoked! ‘We could go to Mexico if the worst happens. We’ve talked of it. At least they speak Spanish there.’
‘Of a kind,’ Stephen said.
‘What’s in that bundle?’
He undid it. A pistol, a battered British passport, odds and ends of food, and some seeds. ‘Quince,’ he explained, ‘from your garden. The last time I was there I picked some of the fruit… I let it dry out, and… well, they’re for you. Maybe you could plant them ― they might grow.’
It was the best gift he could have brought: expensive chocolates or perfumes wouldn’t have pleased them as much. ‘We crossed into France with a bag full of Spanish earth,’ José said. ‘It’s in the flowerpots on the window-sill. We’ll put your seeds in it.’
‘At some future date,’ Stephen said, I’ll expect to sit under a quince tree … just like old times.’
‘That will take years!’
‘What are your plans?* Cristina asked. ‘Will you be moving in with Pedro? Oh … we’ll see you every day!’
‘I’m returning to England. Tonight.’
‘So soon?’ She was surprised and disappointed.
‘He has family to visit,’ José said to her. ‘When will you be back?’
‘I don’t know.’
Silence. Something was wrong: they didn’t know what, and didn’t like to ask ―their children’s marital problems weren’t their business.
The Place Chicanerie, José had said. It was aptly named: he recognized the legs protruding from beneath the car, though the trousers that clothed them were not familiar. His heart somersaulted.
Pedro, realising that someone was watching, wriggled out, got to his feet, and said in French, ‘Yes? What do you want?,’ Then, recognition: and in Spanish, ‘If you’d passed me in the street I wouldn’t have known who you were! You’re taller … is that possible? And so skinny! And why are you dressed like th
at? Let me kiss you.’
Stephen held him at arm’s length. ‘This is what I wore in jail,’ he said. ‘I wanted you to see it.’
Silence. Pedro looked wary ― but so attractive, so sexy; the dark curls, the strong fit body, the held-in strength: despite everything Stephen wanted Pedro to rip the prison rags to pieces and screw him into the middle of next month, here, now, over the bonnet of the car. But he was determined nothing like this should happen.
‘Did you get my letter?’ Pedro asked.
‘It was burned by one of the warders … I was never able to read it.’
Another silence. ‘I’m sorry.’ Pedro said.
‘Sorry? What about? The letter? Or the betrayal? You watched me walk into a trap and you did fuck all to help me! A year in prison … it wasn’t exactly heaven on earth! I was tortured.’
‘What did they do to you?’
‘It … it doesn’t matter.’
‘Tell me!’
They beat my arse … till I couldn’t even scream. Till I couldn’t see. Till I was unconscious … a swollen mass of bruises. And blood. And I have a scar under one eye ―’
‘I noticed.’
‘They wanted me to say where you were hiding.’ Stephen said.
‘But you didn’t know.’
‘If I’d known, I’d have told them. The pain … was excruciating. Unbearable! Oh, yes! That’s what torture does … and betrayal begets betrayal.’ Silence. ‘I was sentenced to death,’ Stephen went on, ‘Well … they didn’t shoot me, but supposing they had? Would it sit nicely on your conscience? Yes … I think it probably would.’
‘I couldn’t do anything else! I saw Miguel following you … I followed him, hiding in doorways… he saw you go into the hostal. It was crazy, Stephen ― why did you do it? As for sleeping there: sheer, utter madness! Whatever were you thinking of?’
‘You could have come in for a moment to tell me? One little moment ― that’s all that was needed!’