Message From Malaga

by Helen Macinnes

  “I must change,” she said, her voice quite calm, even businesslike. “I have to dance.” She ran up the stairs, lifting her wide skirt before her. “Magdalena! Magdalena!” No anger now; no tears; just her eyes on the clock. Halfway up to the landing, she remembered to call to Esteban, “Go back into the courtyard. Watch Rodriguez. Do not let him enter. If he is curious, keep talking. Keep him out of here!” She was running again, her dark-red skirt filling the stairway, her black hair fallen loosely down her back.

  Esteban had been watching Reid with a mixture of compassion and worry on his gaunt face. “He will be all right,” he predicted, and moved toward the courtyard. “I shall send Jaime to be with you.”

  “Who is Rodriguez?” Ferrier asked, rising, dusting off his trouser legs. Jaime, for Christ’s sake—that kid! He wished he had Esteban’s confidence about Jeff Reid’s recovery, too.

  “Captain Rodriguez is State Security,” Esteban said, his face quite expressionless.

  “Oh, the policeman.”

  Esteban almost smiled, and went into the courtyard.

  Ferrier sat down cross-legged on the floor beside Jeff. He lit a cigarette, smoked it slowly, started to wonder. What was Tavita trying to hide? Allowing for that old business-as-usual, the-show-must-go-on routine, there was yet something else. Secrecy. Reid’s accident was to be kept quiet; no one was to know about it, especially Captain Rodriguez. And Jeff, too, hadn’t wanted any attention drawn to him. When Ferrier had tucked the blanket around him, told him an ambulance was on its way, he had said, “Stay here, Ian. Until it comes.” Then he had made a special effort and added, “No fuss. Don’t sound any alarm.” At the time, Ferrier had thought Reid was trying to let Tavita’s dance end without any distractions, but now he was beginning to believe that there was something more involved. Which, in the cold light of day, would seem ridiculous. Only, this was not the cold light of day. This was a room of shadows off a moonlit courtyard, with an injured man lying on the floor beside him. He finished his cigarette, decided he would have to alter his own plans, remain some extra days in Spain until Jeff was out of danger and had become reconciled to a long stay in a hospital bed. He might even have to cancel that side jaunt to northern Italy, perhaps even his visit to England. The tracking stations in both those places weren’t official, anyway: just two interesting, and successful, amateur efforts that had aroused his curiosity and appealed to his sense of humour. In an age of giant, expensive machines, it was encouraging to see what a little money and a lot of human ingenuity could do.

  Jaime came into the room, looking both alarmed and excited. He stood over Reid, and Reid—eyes opening at the sound of his footsteps—let out a small, strangled cry.

  “Okay, okay,” Ferrier said quickly. “It’s Jaime.” He looked at his friend curiously, offered the smelling salts again.

  “No need—I’m feeling better. It’s the leg that really bothers me now.”

  “It’s the one that got busted before?”

  Reid nodded.

  “That figures.”

  “I was lucky that you—”

  “Don’t try to talk. Just take it easy.”

  “But I must—” Reid’s face twisted with pain. He recovered, but hesitated, looked at Jaime.

  “Jaime, would you please check on the ambulance?” Ferrier tried, in a mixture of Spanish and English. Jaime caught the meaning. He hurried toward the back of the room, disappeared through its doorway. So that’s the way we’ll make our exit, Ferrier thought, by some back entrance to a small street. No procession through the courtyard, no disturbance, no gossip. These people really knew the meaning of discretion.

  “Has he left?” Reid asked. And as Ferrier nodded, he said, “You must phone tonight. Business. Important.”

  “Take it easy, Jeff. Nothing’s so important as getting you—”

  “Tonight. Make the call tonight!”

  “All right, all right. Where?”

  “To Madrid.”

  “What’s the number?”

  “Better write it down. There must be no mistake. You won’t find it in the book.” Reid was speaking as if he had misgivings, as if he were persuading himself, finding good reasons.

  “Have you pencil and paper I can reach? My stuff is in my jacket.” And his jacket was now bundled under Reid’s head. “Oh, here’s a matchbook,” he said, fishing it out of his shirt pocket “Now all I need is a—”

  “Try my pocket. Right-hand pocket. Quick, quick!”

  Ferrier pulled back the blanket, searched, and found a pencil. It was an automatic one, small and slender, ornate to the touch, possibly made of silver, but it worked all right. “Ready and waiting.”

  Reid’s voice was low. Ferrier had to bend over closely to hear the number clearly. The light was so bad that he struck one of the matches to verify that he had jotted down the figures readably and accurately: 21-83-35. He repeated them aloud, but softly.

  Reid nodded. “Ask for Martin—don’t write it!”

  “I didn’t,” Ferrier said reassuringly. “I’ve just written the number. Not Madrid. Not Martin.”

  “Good. Tell him—tell him I can’t keep the Monday appointment. The Monday appointment.”

  “Sure. You can’t keep the Monday appointment.”

  “Tell him I’m laid up. For weeks. Hell, what a mess!”

  “Do I include that?” Ferrier asked with a grin.

  “Might do no harm.” There was a deep sigh. Reid’s eyes stared up at the heavy timbers in the ceiling as if he could find the answers to his problems up there among the decorated beams.

  “What if I can’t reach him?”

  “He will get the message.” There was a hesitation. “It’s important. We’ve a lot of competitors.”

  “I won’t forget.” Ferrier pocketed the matchbook. “Here’s your pencil back.” He made a move to replace it.

  “No, no! You’ll need it. Don’t lose it.”

  So Ferrier pocketed the pencil too. He was puzzled, but he kept silent.

  Reid said, “Another thing—you’ll find a lighter in my pocket. Take it. Keep it for me. Keep it safe. Safe.”

  Ferrier found the lighter. It was perfectly normal in shape and size, and smooth to hold except for one small bump in its centre—an embossed emblem, some kind of decoration. By this dim light, it was difficult to see what it was, but it could be one of the service Zippos that everyone used to carry around with them. “It’s safe,” he said, slipping it deep into his trouser pocket.

  “Don’t use it,” Reid was saying anxiously. “Just—”

  “Sure, sure. Stop worrying. Take it easy, will you?” Ferrier smoothed back the blanket.

  Reid was exhausted, but he was intent on speaking. The whispered phrases became spasmodic. “Martin will send—someone to take—charge—” There was a pause.

  “Of the office?”

  “Yes. Make sure he—he identifies himself. Get him to—write—”

  “Write what?”

  “Anything. It’s the—the pencil that matters. He uses one—similar to mine.” Reid didn’t elaborate. Either his mind was drifting or he had something more important to say. “If something—something goes wrong—with me—” Again a pause, as if he were still deciding.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you that a couple of good doctors can’t fix. So shut up, will you?”

  “If it does,” Reid persisted, “the lighter belongs to Martin. It was his. He will expect it.” There was an attempt at a smile. “Sentiment.”

  Sentiment? Ferrier was perplexed, troubled. There must be real meaning to all this: a man who had made such an effort to speak through his pain must be taken seriously. “Don’t worry,” he said gently. “I’ll see to it.”

  “You’ll remember everything?”

  “I’ll remember.”

  Reid relaxed for the first time. “Thank God you’ve—you’ve a good memory.” He closed his eyes.

  There was a movement on the landing. Ferrier looked up quickly. Tavita was ju
st about to come downstairs, her new dress billowing out in a froth of white and yellow. Her hair was perfect, her face freshly made up. She carried a pink cushion in one hand, held the railing with her other as she started down. Behind her, keeping step by step, was Magdalena, holding up the wide hem of the long skirt to keep it from sweeping the staircase. Everything Tavita did, thought Ferrier as he rose to his feet, had a sense of drama.

  She came forward, holding out the cushion, saying, “Put this under his head.”

  “Just leave him as he is,” Ferrier said.

  Her magnificent eyes took him in, from head to toe. Her voice was cold. “He will be much more comfortable.”

  “What he needs is an ambulance. Did you telephone the hospital to make sure someone is coming?”

  She bit her lip in annoyance, controlled her temper. She did not enjoy a reprimand, however tacit. “Magdalena made very sure. She even telephoned his own doctor.”

  I hope so, thought Ferrier. The waiting had put him on edge.

  “Tavita,” Reid said, opening his eyes. “Don’t worry. It takes more than a fall—”

  “It was only a fall?”

  Magdalena broke in. “I told you,” she scolded, “Tomás was back in his room. He was nowhere—” She saw Ferrier looking at her. She took the cushion roughly, said in a mumble, “I told you it was a fall.”

  Tavita shook her head with real sympathy, regret, impatience—a strange mixture that fascinated Ferrier. The anger and fear she had displayed to Esteban had gone; so had her annoyance with him. “Oh, Jeff, Jeff!” she said slowly. (But she had trouble in pronouncing the first syllable, and it sounded more like Hyeff. Well, thought Ferrier, I can stop worrying about my lousy Spanish accent. We all have our tongue-twisting troubles.) “Why did it have to happen at this time?” She looked at Ferrier. “Please.”

  “Of course.” He moved away quickly, stood just within the shelter of the doorway, looked at the stage with its tableau of bright colour and postures, listened to the guitars instead of Tavita’s voice. They are friends, he decided, not lovers; at least, not permanently. And the idea startled him. He had assumed, somehow, that Reid’s interest in El Fenicio was a matter of passionate romance. That would have been his own interest, he admitted to himself. She was the most beautiful, tantalising, upsetting, and annoying woman he had ever met. If he had had ten years of experience less, if he were in his twenties instead of the less vulnerable thirties, he’d be in love with Tavita and probably thoroughly destroyed emotionally. It might be worth it at that, he thought. He sensed her behind him, turned to look at her. “You make the most beautiful picture,” he blurted out, watching the angle of her head, the slender neck, the soft skirt ruffling out from tightly moulded waist and hips.

  She didn’t even hear the unwilling compliment. “You are his friend,” she said, studying his face. She looked at the steady grey eyes, the pleasant but firm lips, the marked bone structure that gave strength to his features, and found them reassuring. “I think you are a good friend,” she added softly, her eyes lingering on his. “You will help me?” She didn’t even wait for an answer, but—listening to the music, timing the moment of reappearance—stepped into the courtyard, and with that exquisite grace made her way toward the stage.

  Esteban was beside him. “Everything is all right.”

  “Captain Rodriguez is not interested?” Ferrier asked with a small smile. And interested in what? He wondered if Esteban would tell him who Tomás was. Or why the feeling of secrecy, of some small conspiracy, inside this room. Or was all this quite natural, and Ferrier only sensed strangeness because he was a foreigner here, plunged into a setting and a group of people that were nothing like anything he had ever encountered before? He looked over at Reid and Magdalena. Goddammit, she had moved Jeff, replaced his folded jacket with that pink pillow. She was shaking out the jacket now, lamenting its creases and dust stains from the floor.

  “The captain has left,” Esteban said with obvious satisfaction. But if he was relieved, he was also thoughtful. “He left as soon as Tavita had finished her dance.”

  “He didn’t stay long,” Ferrier said, making conversation. He was more interested in the view he had from this doorway, here, unnoticed by the people in the courtyard, he could see the middle and front tables as well as the stage. The only table that was fully blocked from sight by the scattering of standees down the side of the courtyard was the nearest one, the one he had occupied with Jeff. As he watched, the little group in front of him moved slightly, parted just enough to let him see the heads of the two men who had taken that table, and then the gaps closed again and the table was hidden. Now if I had been that long-haired guy who slipped out of here, Ferrier thought, I’d have felt quite safe; I couldn’t have guessed when people might move unexpectedly and let someone sitting at that table catch a glimpse of me. But why should I have wanted to feel safe? What would I be trying to conceal? “I think,” he told Esteban slowly, “that you should keep an eye on the Americans—the ones at the back of the courtyard.”

  “But they have left, too.” Esteban looked at him sharply. “Why should I watch them?”

  “When did they leave?”

  Esteban shrugged his shoulders. “Jaime will know. He was their waiter. But why—?”

  “I was just curious.” He turned away from the door. He looked at the staircase. A fall? Yes, that could always be possible—if Jeff had landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. But he hadn’t. He had fallen over the side, about halfway up. And this wasn’t a free-standing staircase, either: it had a decorative iron railing, not too strong to look at but high enough to reach a man’s waist, and you didn’t topple easily over that even if you had been running downstairs, had slipped, lost your balance.

  Esteban said, “Do not be so worried, Señor Ferrier. The hospital is excellent. I know it well. I was there eleven times.”

  “Eleven wounds?”

  “Seventeen,” Esteban said gravely. “Some of them very bad; others just simple gashes from the bulls’ horns. Do not worry. Señor Reid will walk normally again, as I do. He will be in good hands. The best.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Ferrier said, equally gravely. He wondered.

  “You must come back another night,” Esteban told him. “Then you can enjoy yourself. Tonight was unfortunate.” He gave that small formal bow of his, returned to the Courtyard.

  That’s right, thought Ferrier: everything must continue normally, even Esteban in his appointed rounds. Seventeen wounds...

  Magdalena had cleaned most of the dust from his jacket. She had removed his wallet and passport for safety while she had shaken vigorously, and they lay neatly on a wine barrel along with his car keys and loose coins. She replaced them all carefully and correctly, handed the jacket to him. These people really slay me, he thought. “Thank you, Magdalena,” he said. “Tell me, who is Tomás?” The effect was immediate. Her eyes widened in horror. Then quickly she crossed herself.

  “Was that for me or for him?” Ferrier asked. But she did not wait to answer; she was already half-way toward the door that young Jaime had taken. I bet she is going to warn him not to talk about Tomás to me, Ferrier thought. “How’s it going?” he asked Reid.

  “Could be worse.”

  “Yes. You could have broken your neck. You were damned lucky.”

  Reid nodded. He tried to say something, couldn’t manage it.

  “Save it. You can tell me tomorrow. Or the next day. I’ll hang around.” Where was that ambulance? Ferrier concentrated on it, as if by thinking about it he could bring it more quickly through the streets to El Fenicio’s back entrance. His sense of helplessness increased his worry; he was a foreigner in a completely strange city. Back home, in a situation like this, he could have taken charge, or at least felt useful. Here, he had to wait and hope that an old woman and a young boy, who only understood half of what he wanted to say, would somehow get everything squared away.

  And they did, too. Not badly, at that. When th
e ambulance arrived—without sirens or horns blowing madly—the stretcher-bearers were quick and gentle, the intern was efficient. “I’ll see you into the hospital. Make sure you get the prettiest nurse,” Ferrier told Reid just before the morphine hit him.

  Magdalena was saying, as she gathered together the cushion and the smelling salts, “Stay here, señor.” She pointed to the courtyard. “You will enjoy the dancing.”

  “The best is to come,” Jaime assured him. “I shall find you a good table.”

  “Thank you, no.” Ferrier hurried after the stretcher, leaving two worried faces looking blankly at each other. Now what had they been cooking up? he wondered, and then dismissed his question as idiotic. Why would Magdalena and Jaime want to keep him here, except as a matter of politeness?

  “Señor!” Magdalena called after him. “Tavita would like to see you.” He pretended he hadn’t heard, and kept on his way.

  5

  Hospitals were places that Ferrier usually liked to avoid—big, antiseptic, impersonal factories for the cure of the suffering where a visitor felt lost in a mile of faceless corridors; depressed, too, with the innumerable doors behind which were people in pain, pain forever behind those doors, with beds never empty, continuously filled and refilled. Tonight, the usual gloom fell over him like a cloak as soon as he stepped into the reception room even if the Hospital de Santa Maria de la Victoria was small, one of the smallest in the city, and peaceful and seemingly capable. Bewilderment attacked him, not because of the length of interminable corridors—here they were short, with red-tiled floors burnished to a rich gleam under the subdued lights on the thick white walls—but because he was a foreigner in a completely strange place facing the totally unexpected. Not that he objected to the unexpected if his own choice led him to it. But an hour ago he had been sitting in a courtyard looking at the stars above him, listening to flamenco, and now he was grappling with a long question-and-answer form to give all the necessary information about Reid and his accident, how it happened and where and when. (The why of it was a question that kept lingering at the back of his mind.) The change was almost too abrupt; like the ice-cold pool after a sauna. But it braced him. A man could immobilise himself by asking questions that had no answers. He stopped wondering about the meaning of that telephone call to Madrid, and prepared to make it. 21-83-35. That’s how he remembered the number. He checked with the matchbook and found he was right.