Elena put both arms around the girl and rocked her back and forth as if she were a much younger child. I’m damned if I’ll search her, she thought. She can go to Santander without a search, and Carlos will just have to live with it. She waited until Dolores’s sobs had subsided somewhat, and then pulled out a handkerchief. “Blow,” she commanded, still using a voice appropriate to a child.
Dolores hiccuped, sniffed, and blew. Elena stood up and went over to the basin. It was empty. She picked it up and rapped on the door. “Get some water,” she ordered Torres. “And a sponge, if you can find one.”
He hurried down the hall and returned a few minutes later with the basin three-quarters full. The water was icy cold, but the guardia had brought clean and reasonably soft towels, and a small chunk of soap. Elena thanked him and turned her attention back to Dolores. By the time the girl had washed her face and hands and run her fingers through her hair, she was calm enough that Elena thought she might like breakfast. “The guard brought some before,” Dolores admitted. “But I said I wasn’t hungry so he took it away again.”
“Maybe he’ll bring it back,” Elena suggested. “And I could go and see about getting word to your little sister.”
Dolores nodded. “Yes, please.”
Elena called Torres to the door. “Señorita Severino wants her breakfast now,” she said. “And I’ll be back to see her in a little while.”
As Elena left the cell, Dolores raised her voice. “Señora Fernández!”
“Yes?”
The girl gave her a timid smile. “Thank you.”
Elena found her husband alone in his office. “How can I get to Argüébanes?” she demanded. “I need to take a message for Dolores.”
Tejada raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t mean for you to transform yourself into her personal servant.”
“Carlos, do you have any idea what that poor child has gone through?”
“The poor child was involved in a shoot-out that left Guardia Riera seriously injured,” Tejada retorted. She began a furious retort but he held up one hand and cut her off. “I know. She wasn’t the ringleader. I’ll drive you over to Argüébanes this afternoon. I’d like to see Severino’s family anyway.”
“Dolores says he was a widower,” Elena said. “She’s the oldest child.”
Tejada looked quizzical. “Is that what she says? How interesting.”
“Why?”
The lieutenant tapped the papers on his desk. “I pulled the civil register on Severino. According to this, Dolores has an older brother, Luis Gil, born in ’22. I’m wondering where he is.”
“Maybe he died young.”
“It’s not recorded.” Tejada made a wry face. “Unless, of course, you think he’s the one who panicked and headed out under fire last night, in which case, yes, he did die young. We still haven’t identified him, but Dolores was in no state to tell us more last night.”
“You wouldn’t ask her to do that!”
“Not if I can get Father Bernardo or a reliable neighbor to do it instead,” Tejada said pragmatically. “I don’t want to have to drag her out to the morgue and back.”
Elena frowned. “At any rate, she’s responsible for her little brothers and sister. She wants to know what’s going to happen to them.”
“That would have been a good question to ask before she decided to play queen of the bandits,” Tejada said.
Elena stared at him, unable to believe what she was hearing. “You don’t care at all?”
“Her father and his friends tried to kill me last night,” the lieutenant reminded his wife. “I admit that lessens my sympathy.” He eyed the civil register thoughtfully. “Although Severino passed up a chance to kill us both when he picked us up in Unquera. So maybe I owe his daughter something for that.”
“All we did was ask for a ride!” Elena protested.
“I was in uniform,” Tejada reminded her. “And he could have caught me off guard easily.”
“Maybe he was unarmed,” Elena said grimly, disliking her husband’s logic. “He probably didn’t take a machine gun along when he went to visit his brother in San Vicente.”
“How do you know he has a brother in San Vicente?”
“Dolores said she wanted to send the younger children to her uncle there, and I assumed . . .” Elena heard what she was saying and stopped. “Where else could he have been traveling?” she asked, but her voice lacked conviction.
“That was a very unpleasant experience,” Tejada said, again tapping his pen on the desk. “Waiting for so long at the station, remember?”
“Because the guardias didn’t arrive to pick us up,” Elena said slowly.
“Because they were searching for the Valencians who had just escaped,” Tejada finished, beginning to smile. “And along came an old peasant making a seventy-kilometer trip in a snowstorm and I was so cold and tired and impatient I didn’t even think to ask where he’d been and why!” He began to laugh. “Jesus, poor man! Here he takes the Valencians down to the coast, where they’ll have a shot at a boat to France, or a train south, or God knows what, and he trundles along home congratulating himself on a job well done and then out of nowhere up pops a guardia civil demanding to know who he is and where he’s going. I must have given him a heart attack!”
“And then you asked for a ride,” Elena said, smiling a little reluctantly as she recognized the grisly humor of the situation.
“And damn near made him pull up in front of the post.” Tejada was still grinning. “No wonder he said he thought I was on duty!”
The door opened as he was speaking. “Who was on duty?” Sergeant Márquez asked.
“Nothing. I think we’ve just figured something out about the Valencians.” Tejada sobered in the presence of his subordinate, but his voice was still good-humored. “Luis Severino was the man Elena and I rode with on our way to Potes, and it seems he has a brother in San Vicente. We were just considering the possibility that he’d taken the runaways to the coast.”
“It’s a good thought,” Márquez agreed, moving toward his desk.
Elena, who had unthinkingly taken his chair because it was available, stood up. “I’m sorry to intrude. I’ll see you this afternoon then?”
“I’ll pick you up at home,” Tejada agreed.
Elena nodded and left. When the door had closed behind her, Márquez turned toward his commander. “You and Señora de Tejada have plans for this afternoon?”
Tejada was uncomfortable as he said, “Elena wants to visit Severino’s family. I thought I’d drive her over this afternoon and ask about the brother as well.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?” the sergeant asked. “I mean, given her sympathies, I think any contact with the maquis—”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Tejada interrupted shortly. “Have you finished the patrol schedules, Sergeant?”
Márquez still looked disapproving, but there was nothing more he could say. It was perhaps just as well that paperwork kept him in the office all morning, so he missed Elena’s second visit to the prison. This time, she came carrying a package with an extra blouse, a sewing kit, and a hairbrush. She found Guardia Torres, and demanded to see Dolores Severino again. The girl was sitting on her cot looking rather forlorn, but she brightened at the sight of Elena. “Did you find Concha?”
“No. I’m going this afternoon.” Elena explained the reason for her delay, and then held out the package she had brought. “I thought you might like a change of clothes. The blouse will need to be altered, but it will give you something to do, and then you can rinse out the one you have on. It’s pretty badly stained, but maybe I can see about hot water for washing.”
Dolores smiled ruefully. “No need. I think that’s mostly blood. When I saw Pedro was hurt, I went over to him and—” She lifted her elbows and inspected the stains on her sleeves. With a stronger voice she went on. “You’re very kind, though, Señora Fernández. Especially about the hairbrush.” She pulled her hair free of its pins and managed a
shaky laugh. “I’ve been feeling itchy and messy all morning, but I didn’t want to just attack it with my fingers.”
“Should I leave you alone?” Elena asked as Dolores picked up the hairbrush and began to yank it through her knotted curls.
“No, please. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.”
Elena knew exactly how Dolores felt, and her strong sympathy for the girl made her unsure whether her next words would be kindness or cruelty. Dolores was still barely more than a child, though, and Elena’s conscience made her say as she sat on the cot beside the girl, “I’m happy to stay and talk. But you’ll remember that I’m the lieutenant’s wife before you say anything?”
“Yes.” Dolores’s face was obscured by her hair. “I didn’t mean to talk about that. I just meant, well, it’s hard being alone because you don’t get any news or know what’s happening or even what time it is, and you start imagining all sorts of terrible things.”
“It’s just before noon,” Elena said, amused. “And so far as I know nothing has happened of note today.”
Dolores brushed silently for a few moments, picking at a recalcitrant knot. Then she said abruptly, “How is Pedro, do you know?”
Elena had heard the brief pause before the word “Pedro” and guessed that Dolores’s casual tone had cost her dearly. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I know he’s alive. And I don’t think he’s been interrogated. But I don’t know how badly he was wounded.”
“He was unconscious when we arrived last night.” Dolores was still straining to sound offhand. “But I know the lieutenant said the doctor would see to him after the wounded guardia. I hope he’s all right. He—he’s a friend of the family.”
Elena, unsure what to say, thought of repeating her warning that she was the lieutenant’s wife. But she had remained silent for too long, and Dolores, brushing hair out of her eyes, began to speak again. “One of the guardias said last night that he was my . . . that we were . . . well, friends.” She blushed painfully. “We’re not. I mean, I think he’s a wonderful man, of course, but he’s like an older brother. I mean, I didn’t want you to think, just because I asked about him—”
“He’s a comrade?” Elena suggested gently, remembering her own unreciprocated adoration of one of her father’s younger colleagues fifteen years earlier.
“Yes, that’s right.” Dolores nodded eagerly. “A comrade. A good friend.”
Elena could see that Dolores was aching to talk about Pedro, but she knew that the wounded guerrilla was probably a topic of considerable interest to Carlos, and she also knew that Dolores would never forgive herself if she inadvertently betrayed anything about her “comrade” to his enemies. “You said you were the oldest at home,” Elena said, determined to give the girl another gentle hint. “But the lieutenant says that according to the records, you have an older brother?”
Dolores’s face clouded and she nodded. “Yes, Luis. But he hasn’t lived with us for a while now.”
“He took to the hills?” Elena said.
The girl nodded. “Last year,” she admitted. “Papa didn’t like it. He said Luis was too young. But all his friends . . .” She stopped, resolute. “He wasn’t there last night at least,” she said firmly.
Elena nodded, pleased that Dolores seemed to be in control of herself once more. They chatted for a few more minutes, and then the lieutenant’s wife excused herself and went home. Tejada picked her up a few hours later, as he had promised, and they drove together to the Severinos’ home in Argüébanes. As Elena had expected, a neighbor was comforting a flock of frightened children. Tejada quietly took the neighbor aside and demanded information about of the late Luis Severino’s recent activities. Elena, left to supervise the children, gently asked to speak to Concha.
“I’m Concha.” A gaunt thirteen-year-old with the eyes of an old woman stepped forward, speaking with a quiet self-possession beyond her years. “I’ve heard my father’s dead. Did the sergeant send you?”
“No,” Elena said, a little disconcerted by the question. Then she remembered that Sergeant Márquez had been the commander of the post before Carlos’s arrival, and that Concha might even be using the term “sergeant” generically. “No, I came from your sister.”
“What’s happened to Dolores?”
“I’m afraid she was arrested last night.” Elena felt the cowardice of saying “was arrested” but she had already found it difficult enough to meet Concha’s eyes. “She asked me to give you a message.” She repeated what Dolores had said. The child gravely thanked Elena and politely accepted her awkward condolences with an expression that gave nothing away. The Señora was very kind. No, she and the children did not need any help. Their uncle would take them in. No, there would be no difficulty in getting to San Vicente. She had bus fare.
Elena’s last sight of Concha Severino was of the little girl gathering her siblings together to give them Dolores’s message. Tejada was finishing with the Severinos’ neighbor. It was time to go. Elena leaned against the side of the truck and tugged at her shoe to dislodge a pebble. As she straightened, she saw her husband coming toward her. His back was to the Severino house, and beyond him Elena glimpsed one of Luis Severino’s older sons, a boy of about ten with tousled, dirty-blond curls that gave him the look of a Renaissance cherub. The boy did not see her. He was focusing on Tejada’s retreating back, his face twisted with hatred. Suddenly, he spat ferociously and then turned and fled into the house.
“What’s the matter?” Tejada asked as he reached the truck. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Elena looked at him. He was smiling a little anxiously, the look he had when he was concerned for her welfare and afraid she would resent it. He reached out one hand to her, and Elena knew that if she started to cry he would embrace her and murmur endearments and not ask questions until she stopped. “Nothing,” she said softly. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
They drove down to the valley in silence. Then Tejada said carefully, “Did you deliver Dolores’s message?”
“Yes. Her sister asked if the sergeant had sent me.”
“I have to remember to tell Márquez,” Tejada said, amused. “He didn’t think you should go at all.”
Elena shuddered, remembering Concha’s firm politeness and her too-old manners. “Well, you can tell him that I hope I never have to do anything like that again. It was pretty unpleasant.”
Tejada heard the agony in her voice, and spoke more seriously. “You didn’t have to this time, you know. I would have taken the message to Concha.”
Elena knew that he was speaking the truth, and that he saw no incongruity in the errand. “Dolores asked me to do it.”
“Yes.” Tejada kept his eyes on the road. “But you shouldn’t sacrifice your own peace of mind for Dolores.”
“You think I would have more peace of mind if I didn’t know anything about your job?” Elena asked a little bitterly. “That I’d sleep better at night thinking you were staying up late doing paperwork?”
They had reached home. Tejada sighed, and drew up to a careful stop. “I’m only trying to protect you.”
“By pretending that some things don’t exist?”
Tejada climbed out of the truck, slammed the door a little harder than necessary, and then came around to the passenger side to help her down. “They exist,” he said flatly. “But they’re not your business. You don’t have to get involved.”
Elena drew her elbow out of his grasp and turned to face him. “Then why are you involved?” she demanded.
Tejada thought that he recognized the beginning of a familiar argument, and drew her inside, unwilling to argue in the street. “Because I’m a guardia. That’s my job.”
Elena knowing his reluctance to speak further in public, waited until they had climbed the stairs to their apartment. “Why is it your job?” she demanded then, derailing the argument from its standard lines. “You could have peace of mind, too, if you wanted it. You could be Señor Tejada Alonso y León, and live on yo
ur family’s estates in Granada. Or if you wanted to be independent of them you could have a law office in the city, or work for an import-export firm or something, and sit behind a big desk from ten to six. And if you said you were staying late to catch up on paperwork I’d only have to lie awake and worry that you were having an affair with your secretary, not that someone was going to knock on my door and tell me that you were dead.”
Tejada had been frowning uncomfortably, and even Elena’s idea of an affair with a hypothetical secretary did not lighten his expression. As her voice caught on her last words, he turned away from her and said, in a slightly strangled voice, “Is that what you want?”
Elena, who had been trying to make a point, and had somewhat lost the thread of her argument, was confused for a moment. “Is what what I want?”
“Do you want me to retire?” The set of Tejada’s shoulders was tense. He could feel blood pounding in his temples, and an internal voice nagged at him. But why have you never considered retiring before? Suppose you’d died last night? Or at the barn where you found the dynamite? You should think about the baby. And anyway, with Elena’s background you’ll never advance in the Guardia.
“No!” Elena’s cry of denial was instant and convincing.
He relaxed and turned toward her with a smile, almost dizzy with relief. “I somehow had the impression you disapproved of my work.”
“I do.” Elena took his hands. “But all the things I disapprove of wouldn’t stop happening just because you weren’t a guardia. They would just be happening where we couldn’t see them. So we could close our eyes and pretend they didn’t exist, and . . . have peace of mind. But you don’t want that kind of peace of mind! At least I don’t think you do. Wouldn’t you rather know the worst and try to prevent it than just bury your head in the sand?”
The Watcher in the Pine Page 16