‘Tell me, what should the King have done if the soldiers had said something treasonous? If, that night, he’d discovered a plot to murder him before dawn, a plot that would thus put paid to the battle in which they would lose heads and legs and arms. Should he still not have taken measures, handed out punishments, made use of what he’d found out from beneath his cloak? Given his disguise, he should ignore, erase, everything he hears, that’s what you said. What, according to you, should he do in the case of a conspiracy? Allow himself to be murdered in his tent, go to sleep and not wake up, await the arrival of the soldiers and their daggers?’
Tomás smiled, this time approvingly, as if he were amused by my ruminations, or as if they made him think. He still liked my company, as he had since the very beginning. We enjoyed being together, despite the mists and smokescreens surrounding us. Despite my restricted view of his life, despite everything. It was as if I could see his life with only one eye, and the other eye was blind. I found it hard to bear sometimes, but I did bear it. And, yes, I still loved him, imperfectly and confusedly, as one does. No, like those who love best. I preferred to have a part of him rather than to say goodbye, to lose sight of him for ever and for him to become a mere memory.
‘No, that would radically change the situation. In that case, Williams and the others would no longer be his men, they would have ceased to be friends and become enemies. And if, that night, the King already suspected a plot to kill him, which would mean that the battle would end in surrender, he would have every right to disguise himself and spy on his soldiers and officers and nobles, from the highest to the lowest. They would then be utter bastards and unworthy of respect. And that weathercock captain would be quite right to appeal to martial law and demand their heads. Executing them wouldn’t be an abuse, it would be advisable and appropriate, so that they couldn’t do any further harm to the Realm.’
I was reminded again of Franco’s sociales. Everything is justifiable depending on one’s point of view, and since everyone has his or her own point of view, being right is very easy. I let it pass, though, because now was the perfect moment to mention my idea:
‘Is that what you did with the Kindeláns? Execute them, I mean. Is that why you’re so sure they will have completely forgotten about us?’ And I added lightly, so as to let him know that I didn’t entirely condemn him (if the couple were dead meat, my children would be safer, and that was the most important thing, especially when they were still so young). ‘They won’t just have forgotten about us, they’ll have forgotten everything, if, that is, you and yours bumped them off. Even their own faces. Even their names.’
My question caught him off guard (a lot of time had passed, and I’d never asked him before), or else he tried to make it look as if it had. Inevitably, he answered without entirely answering:
‘What an idea, Berta. Of course not, we don’t do that kind of thing, how absurd. Who do you take us for? For the KGB, the Stasi, Mossad, or DINA? For James Bond or the CIA?’ An idea flashed through my mind: If all those other secret service organisations executed their enemies without trial, why wouldn’t his lot do the same with theirs? ‘Or worse still, the Mafia? I’ve told you before that, fortunately, I know nothing about them.’ He broke off, stroked his now vanished, invisible scar, as if he were alone in his memory. Then he said: ‘Anyway, why are you asking me questions when you’re not supposed to, and when I’m not supposed to answer them?’
Tomás soon had an opportunity to prove the accuracy of what he’d told me that night, for, barely a month later, the Argentinian dictatorship took the ridiculous, and supposedly patriotic, decision to invade the Malvinas, or the Falklands – the name depended on which side you belonged to and which language you spoke – a British possession since 1833. As was only natural, and regardless of whether they were in the right or not, Great Britain certainly wasn’t going to sit by and do nothing in the face of such an appropriation by force, a fait accompli, certainly not Margaret Thatcher the Ruthless, who was prime minister at the time, and even though the above-mentioned islands were in the middle of nowhere, or as we say in Spanish, donde Cristo perdió el mechero, where Christ lost his cigarette lighter: to the east of the Magellan Strait and to the north-east of Tierra del Fuego; that is, not very far from the Antarctic.
The fact that the invading country was also a dictatorship provided, at least formally, further justification for Britain’s predictably bellicose reaction, despite the neighbouring dictator, Pinochet, in Chile, being on excellent terms with the lady, both at the time and until the end of their respective lives – I can’t quite remember which of them died first – but then most politicians blithely ignore such contradictory sentiments. We watched the approach of that absurd war, which had seemed completely unimaginable right up until the day before the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands and occupation of the capital, Stanley, a war between two countries that were extremely remote from each other geographically, although rather less so ideologically; after all, the Argentinian military had been in power for six years, committing all kinds of atrocities, without the so-called free world reacting or expressing their hostility. Still, an act of aggression is an act of aggression, indeed, an act of war, and could not go unanswered if, as was the case, any diplomatic threats swiftly ran their course.
‘Look at this,’ Tomás said, brandishing the front page of a particularly belligerent English newspaper. ‘Weren’t you saying just the other day that we no longer see naval battles or land battles or bombardments? Well, I’m afraid you’re going to see them very soon, especially naval battles, because there’s nothing but ocean between us and the Falklands, which are three hundred miles from land. The main attacking force will have to be ships: frigates, destroyers, submarines, aircraft carriers, cruisers, troop ships and landing craft. With England involved, you’ll have no option but to see naval battles being fought on the open sea. As I said, there’s always a war going on somewhere, even if it only occasionally becomes visible. This war will be visible to the whole world, so everyone will know about it, although only for a short time, because it won’t last long, I can assure you. Those military braggarts in Argentina have dug their own grave with this desperate action.’ ‘The sea’s throat’: the line came into my head unbidden, but with good reason this time.
He sounded almost pleased, boastful. He wasn’t just pleased to be able to make the point that he had been absolutely right, he also seemed glad that there was about to be an imminent armed conflict that would incur deaths on both sides; perhaps not in enormous numbers if the matter was resolved quickly, but that would make it no less regrettable. Nor was there anything odd about that burst of enthusiasm, for it was there in the air, fanned by both Thatcher and Galtieri – the Argentinian general and usurper of the presidency – and, however remotely, Tomás served Thatcher, for she gave all the orders, apart from any it would be best for her not to know about; people in power, armour-plated as they are, let others interpret what they might want and avoid actually having to give an order themselves. Incomprehensibly, despite centuries of experience, especially on the English side, both the Argentinian population and the British were now all aflame and demanding that the other side be taught a lesson, because among the things people like best – unscrupulous people, and there are always millions who would never regard themselves as such – is the prospect of a nice big war, only the prospect, mind, before it has begun.
Then another idea occurred to me: if there was going to be a war against a Spanish-speaking country, then it would be only a matter of days before Tomás was summoned to London to act as interceptor, translator and perhaps interrogator. I didn’t think he would be called on to infiltrate anywhere, for it seemed unlikely that any espionage would be necessary, given that the cards had been placed firmly on the table ever since the invasion; there wouldn’t be much to find out or, I imagined, to anticipate, and the British military forces were vastly superior to the Argentinian forces, so much so that there was general astonishment at
the latter’s reckless, suicidal irresponsibility. In any case, I was sure that, if necessary, Tomás would be capable of doing an impeccable imitation of an Argentinian; if he could imitate those different ways of speaking in English, changing and transforming his voice in that alarming way, he would find it easy enough to pass himself off as an Argentinian, since the Buenos Aires accent, at least to Spanish ears, does always tend to sound like a caricature of itself, and someone with his abilities could carry it off without arousing any suspicions. And I, of course, in my state of absolute blindness, could never rule out anything; as I said, I had long since realised that I was condemned to being a slave to my conjectures and speculations. In my imagination, they could as easily post him to Buenos Aires as to Río Gallegos or even Tierra del Fuego.
When I say that Tomás still had time to enjoy what he saw as his triumph over me, that’s because everything happened exactly as I had foreseen. On 3 April 1982, when the UN Security Council demanded the immediate cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of all the Argentinian troops from the Falklands (that was what Tomás called them and so I followed suit), and urged the two governments to seek a diplomatic solution to the dispute, Tomás told me that he had to leave for England the next day. And only one day later, on 5 April, the British Task Force left Portsmouth, cheered and waved off by a pugnacious and surprisingly bloodthirsty crowd, clamouring for a fight to restore their cheapened honour, a bit of a comedown in comparison with past epic deeds and struggles. After all, in the last long century and a half, this was a nation that had stood up against Napoleon, the Tsar, the Kaiser and Hitler, among others – far too many others.
On 4 April, I went with him to the airport to say goodbye, something I rarely did. I had grown accustomed now to his departures, and although I could never be sure when he would be back, I tried to treat them as if they were the routine business trips of some restless or perhaps neurotic executive, of the kind who is always unexpectedly prolonging his travels around the world, as if he only really felt comfortable in a constant state of absence and movement. On this occasion, though, there was a real war in the offing, a visible war, as he would put it, and although I didn’t initially fear that he might be sent to the front, on board some ship, acting as linguistic support or whatever, the fact is, he was of an age to be called up and, to me, anything was possible. Unlike those other occasions swathed in mist and mystery, I could now easily visualise the kind of danger he could be exposed to, for we’ve all seen films of horrendous naval battles, with ships in flames or sinking, crews dying in the water or else horribly dismembered. I accompanied him quite calmly and normally, barely speaking and, needless to say, not asking him what his mission involved, but then he might not even have known – yet. He seemed excited, in the good sense of the word (for the person feeling the excitement, you understand), not so much about what he might have to do personally, as about the warlike atmosphere, as if he had been infected by the awful swaggering bravado gripping England. I must confess I found that atmosphere both disturbing and repellent, and had felt exactly the same about the mass demonstration held on 2 April in Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, in support of aggressively retaking the Malvinas, with Argentinians cheering on the very generals who had spent years committing crimes and were now prepared to sacrifice their young soldiers for no reason and with no likelihood of victory: in short, for a very bad cause indeed. Mrs Thatcher’s cause was no better, unlike Henry V’s at Agincourt, at least according to history and to Shakespeare, but then she had not shot the first arrow and, while that counts for something initially, it’s soon forgotten if the response is disproportionate, involving shellings and sending in the Gurkhas, who were ferocious when it came to hand-to-hand combat with their horrible curved kukri knives.
‘I assume you’ve no idea when you’ll be back,’ was almost all I said in the taxi to Barajas airport. ‘Even less than at other times, I imagine. No one can ever know how long a war will last, can they, even the ones that seem easy to win.’
‘Who said I was going to war?’ he said slightly coquettishly, as if he enjoyed making me feel even more anxious than usual. ‘I certainly didn’t. It may be that, this time, I won’t even move from London.’ He didn’t say whether he actually knew this or not. He avoided giving any facts.
‘No, you didn’t say anything about that, but you don’t exactly have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that, if they summon you urgently when a fleet is being prepared to take back those islands from a Spanish-speaking country, it’s probably going to be something to do with that. I’m not saying they’ll put you straight on a destroyer heading for the Falklands (at least I hope not), but you’re sure to be useful in such a conflict, don’t you think?’
‘I’m always useful, Berta,’ he said with a rather arrogant smile; sometimes, he just couldn’t resist. ‘How he’s changed,’ I thought, ‘how different from the man he was some years ago, now that he leads this absurd, clandestine life, which he can probably only boast about to me, and then only a little. The poor man must feel so frustrated sometimes, when a little domestic, conjugal showing off is all he can hope for. But how can he be so convinced, how has he turned into this staunch English patriot with no views of his own, or if he does have views, he keeps them to himself and firmly under lock and key, because showing that he disagreed with the Crown would be to cast doubt on his activities and his trajectory, his straight path, his very existence. The only thing that hasn’t changed is his lack of interest in knowing or questioning himself, his utter lack of introspection: he does what he has to do, or perhaps what he decides to do, and that’s that, he’s always thought navel-gazing was a complete waste of time. He’ll know by now what kind of man he is and what he’s capable of, and he accepts that and is happy with who he is, perhaps even proud sometimes, or perhaps not proud, but pleased that he’s proved useful. I doubt if he goes any further than that; what matters to him is being able to serve and use his talents. Of course I miss the person he was before, that goes without saying, but I still love him and the last thing I would want is to lose him, even if now I only have fragments of him. After all, the person he is now – the one who is and isn’t, the one who comes and goes – still contains the person he was, and it couldn’t be otherwise. He’s still in there, half-asleep, like the victim of some very long enchantment. Let’s hope he comes back soon. Let’s hope nothing happens to him on those islands. Let’s hope that stupid war doesn’t last very long.’ Then he added: ‘Make no mistake, there are other conflicts going on as well, and, unfortunately, none of that stops just because some more striking event, some act of aggression, apparently obscures everything else. Our enemies never grow tired, never. While you’re sleeping, they’re still busy. And when they’re asleep, they’re dreaming about what other fruitful machinations they can bring into play later on. In fact, they make the most of another front opening up, so that, while we’re distracted and our energies dispersed, they can ramp up their hostilities and deal us still lower blows. Or do you think that the Irish problem, for example, went quiet and offered us a respite during the Second World War? Not at all. Ireland declared itself neutral. Neutral. The cheek of it. And in 1944, in 1944 (when we’d already been at war, under attack, for five years, mind), Ireland refused to expel Axis diplomats stationed there, despite requests not only from us, but from the United States too.’ It was incredible: that ‘we’ extended back into the past, to a time before he’d even been born; I imagined it stretching back, at the very least, as far as the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. ‘Quite a few Irish people actually collaborated with the Germans as spies and saboteurs, because the Germans, of course, wanted to destroy us, and to the Irish this seemed a marvellous opportunity. What they didn’t appear to have given much thought to was what would become of Ireland if the Nazis won. In comparison, our jackboot, our subjugation, as they thought of it, would have seemed a mild and benevolent dominion. So, you see, everything carries on even when it seems to have stopped. The Iron Curtain countries and inte
rnational terrorists and Ulster, and other enemies that the press don’t know much about, they all carry on regardless. There’s a lot happening in the world, so don’t assume you know where I’ll be going just because of current circumstances. As I said, I may not even leave the Foreign Office.’
‘All right, I won’t make any assumptions. Let’s just hope you’re right.’
Berta Isla Page 27