“How many are there?” Elena asked.
“Twenty. Arriving next week. And since the barracks won’t hold them we’ll have to quarter them in town, which will be another headache.”
Elena smiled. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?”
“Don’t strain your sympathies.” Tejada laughed. “But you should know that I’ll be busy over the next week or so.”
“Unlike most of the time?”
“More busy,” Tejada amended. “I don’t want to neglect you, but . . .”
“It’s all right. I understand.”
Tejada was as occupied as he had predicted. Elena, left to her own devices, ended up visiting the prison on a daily basis. Dolores was always eager to see her, and after the first few days of Dolores’s requests to give messages to various friends and family, Elena started simply bringing the girl other visitors. The news spread quickly through Potes that the lieutenant’s wife had been kind to the Severino girl, and that it was easy to visit the prison with her. Elena ended up escorting a friend or relative of Dolores’s to the prison nearly every morning. She spent a few minutes each day gossiping with Dolores and the girl’s other guests. In the process, she began to form a picture of the varying strata of society in the Liébana. The subjects of Dolores’s conversations with her well-wishers taught Elena a good deal about Potes. She learned, for example, that the pharmacist’s daughter Celia was engaged to a boy who had emigrated to Argentina and had promised to bring her over as soon as he had the money, but the way Celia made eyes at all the boys in Potes was scandalous; that the reason Lame Francisco, who worked in the stationery store, was so gloomy all the time was because his mother hated his wife and made their lives a living hell; and that there was lively betting at the bar on whether the reason Miguel Sandino kept hanging around Lucita Vega without ever coming to the point was that he had been wounded in the war or that the engineer Señor Oquendo had been taking Lucita out too and Miguel stood a little in awe of him. In spite of their chatter, the people of Potes said nothing about Dolores’s brother or about the other people who had taken to the hills or those helping them. Elena enjoyed speaking with them, but it was something of a relief to say good-bye to Dolores every day and turn to the cell at the other end of the hall, where the conversation was less relentlessly focused on the youth of Potes.
Vargas was not local, and in spite of Señora Fernández’s sympathy, no one was willing to commit themselves by calling on him, so Elena remained his only visitor. She continued to bring him books, but their discussions did become less confined to art and literature. Both of them meticulously avoided politics. They shared anecdotes of urban childhoods, Elena freely naming the streets of Salamanca, and Pedro speaking only of “plazas” and “avenues” without giving hints of a specific city. Elena, judging from a few comments he let slip about the size of his home, guessed that he had to be from Madrid or Barcelona. Judging from his hypercorrect pronunciation of Castilian, she eliminated the former. Guardia Torres, who continued to show an interest in her conversations with the prisoner, was impressed by her logic, but pointed out gloomily that finding a needle in a haystack was probably easier than running a check on a Red from Barcelona with only one surname, and that probably an alias. Elena agreed and pretended to commiserate, although she had in fact only given away the information because she was sure that it would not hurt Pedro. Torres comfortingly told her not to worry, and encouraged her to keep visiting the prisoners.
“How on earth did you come to marry the lieutenant?” Vargas asked the following Thursday, his voice teasing but genuinely curious.
“How did you come to be a maquis?” Elena retorted.
“Sorry. I wasn’t meaning to pry. Is why you’re in Potes a secret?”
“My husband was promoted to his own command,” Elena said, suppressing extraneous details.
“A dangerous sort of promotion, from Salamanca!”
“More so for you!” Elena retorted loyally.
“For me, personally,” Vargas agreed. “But your Carvallo isn’t just giving me a nightly working over out of spite. And I’m not keeping my mouth shut to protect corpses. Guardias die up here in the mountains.”
“Like Calero, you mean?” Elena asked, smiling slightly.
“What do you know about Calero?” He sounded amused, and almost contemptuous.
“Something very like one of Dolores’s histories,” Elena admitted, and summarized the tale she had heard from the carpenter’s wife. “I thought perhaps Anselmo Montalbán had killed him in revenge,” she finished.
“That sounds about right,” Vargas agreed. “You have good sources of information.”
“Then I won’t worry about my husband,” Elena said. “He has-n’t made any personal enemies like that.”
“That’s a very feminine position,” the maquis said. “The idea that personal grudges are more important than political issues.”
“It seems to be true as far as Montalbán and Calero were concerned,” Elena replied.
“Only because Montalbán was an idiot.” Vargas spoke without heat.
“So now feminine and idiotic are synonyms? Thank you.”
The maquis smiled. “I didn’t mean that. I only meant that Montalbán had a good relationship with the Guardia. He’d never been in trouble, in spite of that business with his son. He was . . . oh, not a spy, but a man who was very well placed to find out what was happening in Potes and tell his friends. A man like that is rare for us. Necessary. To suddenly go haywire and shoot the lieutenant for the sake of some personal vengeance is pure idiocy. Not what we expect of a man who has responsibilities.”
“We?” Elena asked.
Vargas laughed. “Sorry, Señora. No comment. I’ve never believed that feminine and idiotic are synonyms. But I do believe that loyalty to loved ones is a feminine trait, and that you possess it.”
Elena fought down her irritation at being dismissed as “feminine” and said coolly, “Leave aside specific examples then. You believe that humanity has no place in politics?”
“I might have said it did before the war. Time in the mountains gets rid of illusions like that.”
“And you think it’s worse to kill someone who has hurt you than to shoot someone out of pure political expedience?”
Vargas shifted to find a more comfortable position to think over the question. “Put that way it sounds brutal, but yes, I do. That’s the difference between the government’s executing a murderer and the victim’s family starting a blood feud. The state acts without personal malice. It’s what separates the twentieth century from the seventeenth.”
Elena laughed. “That’s a funny argument to hear from a prisoner of the state.”
“Not the legally constituted state,” Vargas said firmly. “I represent the Republic, the legal government of Spain.”
“So you have the right to kill on the Republic’s behalf?”
“Yes.” The maquis nodded. “And if I killed for personal reasons I’d be no better than a bandit or highwayman. Which is why that is precisely what your husband and his kind call me.”
Elena considered for a moment. “So the fact that Calero was a despicable human being would have made no difference if he had been useful to the Republic?”
“None, if the risk involved in killing him outweighed Anselmo’s benefit to the cause,” the guerrilla agreed.
“And the fact that my husband is a decent man would make no difference to someone planning to execute him?”
“Theoretically. In practice I don’t know that it arises.” Pedro gestured toward his wound. “If I were you, I wouldn’t question the Severino kids too closely about his decency.”
Elena winced, remembering Dolores’s hopeless sobbing. “What if you make mistakes?” she asked softly, remembering what she knew of Carlos’s career.
He snorted. “I don’t think Luis and Rafa were errors, Señora.”
Elena shook her head. “No, I mean what if you make mistakes? Anselmo knew something
about the lieutenant. But suppose you’re sent off to kill someone who you don’t know? Who you’ve only been told is a danger? It doesn’t really matter that you’re killing without malice then, does it?”
Vargas looked impatient. “That’s a condition of wartime, Señora. Sometimes good men die.”
“And women, as well,” Elena agreed, still thinking of her husband. “But the state kills without malice even when it’s not at war.”
He laughed. “Make no mistake, we are at war, Señora. And France as well, for all the propaganda they print in the newspapers.”
“And after the war?” Elena demanded. “Since we’re still speaking theoretically, there has to be an afterward.”
“After the war,” Vargas repeated slowly, his sparkling cynicism dulled for a moment. “After the war?” His shoulders slumped, and suddenly he looked both younger and sadder. Then they straightened, and he regained his mischievous smile. “Afterwards I sincerely hope there will be time for malice. I would like someone to avenge me, and Luis and Rafa.”
Elena made a gesture of frustration. “I don’t know why I’m talking to you!”
“I haven’t the faintest idea, Señora.” Vargas shrugged. “Human nature never ceases to puzzle me.”
“At least you didn’t say ‘women’s’ nature,” Elena said, a little bitterly.
“That’s because I’m equally puzzled by Anselmo,” the maquis replied. “He was a good man for years. An innkeeper’s job is to get along with everyone, and Anselmo did that and well. He picked up a lot of information, too, and passed it on faithfully—mostly to Luis, I believe, which is why I don’t mind telling you. Then, the next thing we hear, Calero is dead on patrol, and Anselmo’s disappeared to God knows where. He knew that the best revenge he could have on Calero was to stick with what he was doing.”
“Maybe he didn’t feel that way,” Elena said, noting absently that Pedro seemed to assume that Anselmo was guilty of the lieutenant’s death.
The maquis looked sardonic. “I would bet a fair sum of money that if Anselmo had stayed where he was, Dolores and I would not be enjoying the pleasure of your company. You’ll forgive me if I find that more important than some private vengeance.”
“Because he endangered representatives of the legally constituted state?” Elena asked sweetly.
He laughed, acknowledging a hit. “Of course. Personal feeling doesn’t enter into it at all.”
Elena laughed also, and stood up. “I have to go. I hope you continue to mend.”
“Not too quickly,” the guerrilla said. “The sooner I’m fully recovered, the sooner your Lieutenant Tejada can begin a real interrogation.”
Elena chewed her lip, unable to deny the truth of his words. “Until tomorrow,” she said, eyes on the ground.
“Until tomorrow. Give Dolores my love.”
As usual, Guardia Torres escorted her to the bottom of the stairs. “Vargas say anything interesting?” he asked.
Elena reviewed their conversation with her customary twinge of guilt. “I don’t think so. Mostly we just argued about ethical theory.”
Torres patted her shoulder comfortingly. “Don’t feel bad. You got a surname and birthplace out of him, and that’s better than we could do. He’s read everything under the sun, and when he gets to quoting things he gives me a headache. How about Dolores?”
Elena shrugged. “She asked me to find out if Marisol’s made up with her boyfriend yet.”
“She hasn’t.” The guardia spoke with authority. “I saw his cousin last night. He says the whole family’s been trying to talk sense to them, but it’s no use.”
“You could let her know,” Elena suggested. “It sounds like you know more details than I do.”
Torres flushed. “Well, Eliseo and I play checkers sometimes, and he tells me things. But Dolores doesn’t like me.”
Elena refrained from pointing out that the girl had well-founded reasons for her dislike, then said good-bye to the guardia. She was thoughtful on the way home. A visit from Simón after lunch distracted her a little, but that evening after dinner she said hesitantly, “Carlos?”
“Mmm?” Newspapers and mail had arrived that morning, and Tejada was diligently plowing through a week’s worth of old news. “It says our pilots are giving the Russians hell.”
“Carlos, pay attention. Did you ever check the files to find out if there was any reason anyone would want to kill Anselmo?”
“Montalbán?” Tejada folded the paper. “Yes, a couple of days ago. There was nothing there.”
“He wasn’t a spy or anything?”
“The term is informant. And no, not according to our records. We had nothing against him either, except the business with his sons, but most of the young men around here were more or less on the left, so that wasn’t damning.”
“Do you think he was in contact with the maquis?”
Tejada snorted. “Bandits. And around here, I’d say every second household is in contact with them. Why?”
“Well,” Elena paused, “suppose he was in contact with them. And suppose he did kill Lieutenant Calero, but he wasn’t acting under orders, so to speak. Do you think he might hide from them afterward?”
Tejada looked down at the newspaper and thought about what it had to say about the Communist chain of command. “I sure as hell wouldn’t cross them in his position,” he said con-sideringly. “You think he acted on his own, because of his son? And then fled because he knew that the Reds would come after him just as surely as we would?”
“Does that make sense?” Elena asked, still timid.
“Of course. He found an opportunity to go after Calero, and then he realized that he was in major trouble and took to the hills. But he couldn’t make it on his own, so after a few months he hooked up with the bandits and they disposed of him, using Márquez. Very neat.” The lieutenant smiled briefly. “This is why I like talking to you about my work.”
“The only question is why he went after Calero then,” Elena said slowly. “I mean, he’d been nursing a grudge since ’37. Why this fall?”
Tejada shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he’d just picked up a new weapon. Why is this on your mind?”
Elena shook her head, embarrassed. “I don’t know. I suppose I’m worried about you.”
Tejada smiled at her. “We’re all prepared against attack, Elena. The new men help. And the shipment we’ve been waiting for finally arrived today, thank God.”
“The shipment?” Elena asked, willing to change the subject.
“Eight hundred rounds of ammunition. And a new set of carbines.” Tejada laughed. “The carbines are nice, but the ammunition was necessary. I wasn’t looking forward to going cap in hand to the Policía Armada.”
“So the roads are back to normal?” Elena said, reflecting that the Guardia had to worry about logistical problems, though never about financial ones. A rag waved at the edge of her mental field of vision, but she was unable to focus on it.
“Yes. With any luck we should be rid of your friend Dolores right after Easter. And the mysterious Vargas. It’s a pain having to divert so many resources to guard duty.”
Tejada was glancing at the newspaper again, so he did not see Elena’s guilty look as she said, “Yes. I suppose it must be.”
There was a brief silence and then Tejada said, “Looks like the Germans will finish with Russia before England.”
“Maybe.” Elena was neutral. “The English are rich. The Russians don’t have much to bargain with.”
“Except Spanish gold,” Tejada said, thinking of the national reserves that the Republicans had sent to Russia during the war. Expensive English guns, he thought. And Spanish gold to bargain with. “They traded for those weapons!” he exclaimed, enlightened.
“Yes, that was what I meant,” Elena said, puzzled.
“No.” Tejada shook his head. “The maquis. That was why they wanted material from Devastated Regions. I couldn’t figure out the logic of what they’d taken! The only common denominato
r was that it was portable! They’ve been selling Devastated Regions materials and buying weapons. Or maybe just bartering one for the other.”
“Would the cash value of what they took be enough for those guns you found in the forest?” Elena asked.
“I hope so!” Tejada said fervently. He frowned. “They probably bartered directly. It would be hard to find buyers with that much ready cash.”
“That still means contacts with England,” Elena pointed out.
“Arms dealers will take barter sometimes,” Tejada said.
“Luis Severino,” Elena said suddenly. “That cart to San Vicente. To the border.”
“Our helpful chauffeur!” Tejada snorted. “I hope I never have to explain to the colonel that I blithely hitched a ride with a maquis who was dropping off escaped prisoners, and possibly stolen goods.”
“He wouldn’t let you get the suitcases,” Elena remembered. “He didn’t want you near the back of the cart. Suppose he was not only dropping off the Valencians, but also picking something up.”
Tejada made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “Elena, you are brilliant, and you are the joy of my life, but for goodness’ sake don’t have any more insights this evening. I would hate to have to court-martial your husband for incompetence.”
Chapter 17
Tejada had hoped to be able to spend that Saturday with Elena, to make up for their previously aborted trip to Santo Toribio, but the rest of his week was absorbed in administrative tasks. The new guardias created almost more problems than they solved, not least because of the resentment the natives of Potes felt at the influx of armed strangers. (Two days after their arrival, Torres was stopped on the street by Fermín the grocer, and asked frankly how he could understand what “those foreigners” were saying. Himself a native of Sevilla, Torres was more amused than irritated by the comment, but he made no friends when he repeated it in the barracks.) Three of the newcomers were married, and one had children, and Tejada was forced to hastily find rooms for them with local residents, who were less than enthusiastic about their presence. Several of the guardias themselves grumbled about their new posting.
The Watcher in the Pine Page 20