Lime's Photograph

by Leif Davidsen

  “Please don’t misunderstand,” he said, leaning towards me so that I got the full aroma from his cigar. “I’m a supporter of democracy. The real purpose of our work was to combat communism and anarchism, so that Spain would be ready for democracy. It succeeded. We had many enemies. Bolsheviks, terrorists, separatists. Foreign agents attempted to undermine the authority of the State and the social order. There was great pressure during the 1970s as the Caudillo’s strength began to fail. Our enemies saw a breach in our defences and sent agents to incite those forces that desired chaos. I helped to monitor and stop these subversive forces. My speciality was the KGB.”

  “Together with Don Alfonzo?”

  “Don Alfonzo had his duties. I had mine.”

  “Which were?”

  “To defend the State and its institutions. To ensure that good citizens could sleep peacefully at night.”

  “I thought that was my father-in-law’s task too.” I used “father-in-law” just to remind him who I was.

  “Your father-in-law concentrated on the enemy within. My job was to endeavour to stop the foreign agents who infiltrated our nation.”

  “The Russians?”

  “Among others. The Soviet command liked to use Cubans. They fitted in better with the – what shall I say – the milieu.”

  “OK,” I said and drained my glass. I would have ordered another one, but the substitute bull was sent in and the sale of drinks stopped as the ritual followed its established, predictable course. Now I understood that Don Alfonzo had worked for the internal security network, while Don Felipe had been employed in counter-espionage.

  “You were one of the people who featured in certain reports,” he added.

  “Reports?”

  “Normal intelligence operations. Bugging, surveillance, covert searches of places of residence, material from informers. You know what goes on.”

  A buzz went round the bullring and I looked down at the sand as the band struck up the pasodoble. We were witnessing one of those moments of great beauty when bullfighting becomes art, and beast and man merge in a deadly embrace, when the bullfighter’s suit of light and the beast’s dark, blood-drenched pelt become one. It was the young Andalusian, not yet old enough to realise he was mortal. He used the red cape to draw the bull towards him in tighter and tighter circles so its blood stained his tight-fitting costume. The bull went straight for him, eager to attack, as he lured it with calls and small flicks of his wrist. You could tell that he wanted to stretch the moment for as long as possible, to continue his macabre, exquisite ballet for ever, the music and the rhythmic shouts of olé from the spectators a drug which drove him on. But common sense finally prevailed. With each pass the bull learnt a little more, and soon it would realise that behind the red cape there was a man, and you could see that its eyes no longer focused exclusively on the muleta, but that it sensed a soft body on the other side. The bullfighter executed a series of three passes, to the spectators’ noisy delight, and then fetched his sword.

  “May the killing be elegant,” said Don Felipe respectfully. He was obviously an expert, an old aficionado.

  The young bullfighter walked into the open arena, bowed and presented the bull to the ecstatic crowd. He positioned himself and drew the bull across in a couple of tight passes which I remembered were called manoletes, named after the legendary matador de toros from the 1920s. Then he lifted himself onto the balls of his feet and sighted along the blade while locking the bull’s eyes with the red cloth so it raised its bleeding hump of muscle, exposing the spot where the blade could penetrate to its inner organs. A hush fell over the arena, the bullfighter flicked his wrist and the instant stood still, frozen, for a long time. And then man and bull attacked simultaneously and the bullfighter passed in over the horns and thrust deep, severing the artery in its neck. The bull sank to its knees, motionless for a moment, spewing blood, and then falling on its side as the assistant came in and delivered the final blow with one thrust of his short-bladed knife.

  I got to my feet, joining the ovation for the young man standing with his fallen quarry, proud with the arrogance of youth. The scarves came out and, with the President’s permission, the two ears and tail were cut off and given to the bullfighter as a trophy before the mules dragged the bull round the arena to the sound of deafening applause, in tribute to the beast for its courage and bravery. I had forgotten how this barbaric spectacle could suddenly appear to be sublime, making you momentarily suppress your sympathy for the animal.

  “Let us thank God for our good fortune,” said Don Felipe.

  “Or Don Alfonzo for the tickets,” I said.

  He laughed.

  “Yes. And now we ought to leave. We were fortunate to witness one of those rare moments when art is born and dies before our eyes. That is unlikely to occur again today, or possibly ever.”

  “I thought you had something for me.”

  “I have. But we don’t need to sit here any more. Now it will only be disappointing, and I’ve checked that we’re not under surveillance.”

  “And you’re sure about that?”

  “You are going to have to trust me a little, señor Lime. Seeing as how I trust you. Let’s go!”

  We went up the stairs and into the building. There were only a few people in the wide passageway under the sweeping arches. He hurried along to one of the many bars and bought two cognacs, and we went over to one of the arches from where we could look down through the opening to the square in front of the arena which was still swarming with people. The buzz of voices had become more intense.

  “They expect our young Andalusian maestro to be carried out shoulder-high after the level of artistry he achieved,” said Don Felipe and handed me the El Pais Suplemento. We could hear the music starting up again inside the arena.

  “I’ve put a surveillance report inside. It’s from an archive that doesn’t exist – officially, that is. I’ve removed the archive number, which could identify the report should it fall into the wrong hands, but you have my word that it is bona fide. I’m repaying a debt of honour. I’m breaking the law, I’m breaking my pledge of secrecy, I’m breaking my oath to the Caudillo never to divulge secrets about my work, but I feel for Don Alfonzo and mourn for his loss, which is your loss also.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Read it. There are two men talking. One is called Victor Ljubimov. He was the cultural attaché for many years, but his real employer was the KGB. His area of responsibility was the Spanish Communist Party, the PCE. He was an agent, couriering money for the party, and helping to organise the PCE. As you know, the party was illegal before the transition.”

  I nodded. He had used the word transición, which the Spanish used to describe the peculiar, dangerous years between General Franco’s death in 1975 and the first free parliamentary elections in 1977. Shortly before his death, Franco had authorised five executions. No one knew whether the King or those within the old regime would opt for democracy. The younger forces in the only party permitted by Franco would have to relinquish their own monopoly voluntarily and take Spain from dictatorship to democracy. They would have to do so without antagonising the army and vast security network, which would have resulted in a classic, Latin-American-style military coup. It was a heady and exciting period, and a dream to be a reporter in Spain at the time.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Don Felipe asked.

  I nodded again and he continued.

  “The PCE was under careful surveillance, but it was the Americans who found Victor for us. He speaks fluent Spanish and English. He was the KGB’s main contact with the PCE.”

  “OK,” I said. “Who’s the other one?”

  “Please, be patient with an old man,” he said. “The PCE – Partido Comunista de España. A large number of the party leaders lived in France or in Moscow, but in the 1970s a new generation was in the process of re-establishing the party within Spain. The PCE was extremely active in the universities and the trade union movement
, and we lost access to parts of their underground organisation because the new, young communists were difficult to infiltrate. Of course, we knew that Moscow was trying to maintain control and influence, both through agents and by financing the party. I remember that time so well. Spain was in a state of revolution. There were many foreign agents operating here. Our own revolutionaries sensed what was coming, but many on the left didn’t think Soviet communism was what should replace Franco’s regime. Moscow was worried about that too. That’s the background you need to understand the transcript.”

  “OK,” was all I said, and this time I waited patiently. He took a sip of his cognac and I did the same from my glass. My fingers tingled as I felt the soothing effect of the alcohol.

  “We had Victor under surveillance. We collaborated closely with the Americans, of course. Were we not a bulwark against communism? Did we not accommodate their bases? When it came to the fight against the Bolsheviks, the Americans would have been willing to collaborate with Satan himself. The identity of the other person talking is, however, unknown to us. We gather that he is of German origin. That he is from the GDR and that he works for the Stasi. His assignment was to infiltrate the PCE. We don’t know the exact nature of his role – or if he recruited you, señor Lime.”

  I looked at him astounded. I had not expected that.

  “Me? I’ve never been a member of a party. He didn’t. I’ve never been asked by either the one or the other,” I said.

  “Well, it’s of no consequence today. But Don Alfonzo considers it of significance.”

  “I’ve worked as a photographer in the GDR, but I don’t know anyone and didn’t know anyone from the GDR here in Madrid.”

  I knew Oscar of course, but he was from Hamburg and, as far as I knew, had set foot in East Germany only once as a very young man, when he went in on a one-day visa just to see what life was like on the other side. I didn’t regard Oscar as German at all, he had long since renounced everything to do with Germany and he had talked incessantly about becoming a Spanish citizen for years, always mocking me for refusing to consider giving up my Danish passport. He often said that we had made our homes and lived well in Spain, so we ought to go the whole way and become citizens of the country that had treated us so well. What did I think I owed Denmark?

  I looked at him questioningly and after a pause he continued.

  “I’ve got friends from those days. Contacts. Some active, others, like me, who savour the tranquil pleasures of the pensioner. I know the Soviet agent is still alive, but he left the service when the Soviet Union collapsed and he’s now a so-called businessman in Moscow.”

  “Mafia?”

  “He calls himself a security consultant.”

  I could tell from the buzzing sound coming from down in front of Las Ventas, the music and the cries of olé drifting up from the sand, that the young Andalusian had been successful with his last bull, and I realised that Don Felipe, or whatever he was called, had timed it so that he would leave the arena at the same time as thousands of others. And now it looked as though the crowd would pour out of the main gate with the bullfighter carried shoulder-high, a rare honour – an honour that would create total confusion.

  Hearing the spectators’ ecstatic applause, he stood up, leaving El Pais on the table.

  “Thank you for the remarkable experience,” he said, raised his glass and drained it. “Don Alfonzo must have second sight. Asking me to arrive specifically at the time of the third bull was a stroke of genius. It is seldom that el arte de torear really is an art. Goodbye, señor Lime. It has been a pleasure talking to you.”

  He left, trailing a plume of cigar smoke, a small, stooped man with big secrets. The elated, satisfied crowd began pouring out of the exits and swept him along, and he vanished as if I had never sat talking with him. I looked through the window and watched as the throng gathered by the main gate and shortly afterwards a group of men came out with the young Andalusian on their shoulders. He looked happy and alarmed, as if the mass of people posed a greater threat than the two bulls he had killed with such honour and courage that afternoon. He held the ears and tails proudly above his head, shook them and then threw them into the air. How simple and straightforward life was for him. He didn’t fear death, he had been carried aloft by the discriminating aficionados who frequented Las Ventas, he was on the threshold of his life and took it for granted that youth, beauty and good fortune would be his for ever.

  I raised my glass and drained the last drop of cognac, wished him good luck and carefully opened El Pais. I was standing in my little alcove as people streamed past, paying no attention to me. A few sheets of white paper, carefully folded in half, had been slipped inside the middle pages. I was itching to read them, but I put them back and, when the crowd began to thin out, I left with El Pais under my arm to find a quiet place where I could delve into yet another strange aspect of my past.

  14

  I went to our Sunday-quiet office on Paseo de la Castellana. For most of the year, the office was busy even on Sundays. The insatiable appetite for photographs of the rich and famous didn’t let up, but in August we put operations in Madrid on the back burner and let the London office deal with business over the weekends. Most of our employees spent their holidays far away from the stifling, smoggy heat that enveloped the city day after day. On the short taxi ride from Las Ventas to the office, my body stuck to the imitation leather of the back seat as if glued to it and when I got out, the back of my t-shirt was soaked through.

  I let myself in, and met the dry coolness of the air conditioning that hummed faintly. I pulled my t-shirt out of my trousers and flapped it like a girl at dance class, and fetched a cold cola from the fridge in the kitchen. Apart from the humming, the office was completely quiet, and the computers sat covered and silent. I wandered through the empty rooms and had a quick look in Oscar’s office. His cluttered desk – usually covered with dozens of copies of photographs, glossy magazines, coffee mugs, long computer print-outs and full ashtrays – was tidy and polished. The telephone and computer looked abandoned, although I could see the light flashing on his answering machine. The large cupboards in the archive room were stuffed full of negatives and copies of photographs, but the ones that were most in demand were stored digitally on computer, ready to be transferred when a newspaper or a magazine needed a particular photograph. We dealt mostly in photographs of famous people, but we were also able to provide a good picture of a Goya in the Prado if needed. We could send a photograph round the world via the telephone network in seconds. The magic touch of the information age.

  I put off reading the report for a while, and pottered about savouring the calm and the cool air, but eventually I sat down in my office. I left the door open so I could look out across the big, open room where The secretaries and assistants worked and on into Oscar’s office. I felt at home and yet a bit like a guest who shouldn’t have the key to the domain of these diligent people. The rooms were still part of my life, I owned a share in them, and yet I didn’t belong there any more. I put the sheets of paper in front of me, lit a cigarette and began to read with growing fascination and astonishment as the stark words took me back in time.

  Surveillance Report PCE/13/05 March 1976.14.45.

  Prepared by (blanked out). Translated from English by (blanked out).

  Participants in conversation: Victor Ljubimov, approx. 40, cultural attaché at the Soviet Embassy in Paris, entered on a Cuban passport via the Portuguese border 23rd February 1976, staying at Hotel Victoria (see enclosed copy of hotel registration). Unknown man, mid-20s, tall, bearded, hippie-type. Conversation took place in English. Some interference noise, otherwise technical equipment functioned excellently. However, first four minutes of the conversation missing. Surveillance group PCE/13 is of the opinion that this part of the conversation took place in the entrance hall beyond the range of microphone 3. Surveillance was also restricted by a TV set in the sitting room broadcasting a film. After processing the tape, the major part
of the conversation has been deciphered. Having studied the recording, the service’s language expert A/24 reports that the subjects speak good and grammatically correct English, but it is not their first language. The hippie speaks English with an accent defined by language expert A/24 as German despite his attempted use of some American jargon. Ljubimov’s English is fluent with British pronunciation, reports language expert A/24 having listened to sections of the tapes without prior knowledge of the subjects’ identities.

  Ljubimov arrived 15.45 at the cover address on Calle Princesa no. 12. In accordance with Directive 11 with authorisation from Classified Court Division 6, in agreement with the owner of the neighbouring apartment, a good patriot with many years membership of the Movement, electronic surveillance equipment had been installed.

  The cover address is owned by (name blanked out), whose connection to the illegal underground trade union, Comisiones Obreras, is well documented. In the light of current investigations, the recommendation remains to refrain from arrest and questioning of (name blanked out).

  15.58, interlocutor arrived at Calle Princesa no. 12. As the identity of the subject is currently unknown, the transcription designates the subject Hippie because of his long hair. Surveillance group C/3 was unable to obtain a photo of Hippie as he apparently left the building via another exit. Surveillance group C/3 will continue investigations in an effort to establish his identity and official business in Spain. Gives the impression of being a tourist, but is athletic and clean despite the long-haired appearance.

  Obviously they hadn’t succeeded in establishing Hippie’s identity. “Tall and long-haired”. That could describe thousands of young Westerners who swarmed to Madrid, enjoying the good life in the 1970s when the dollar and Deutsche Mark bought a lot of pesetas. I looked out across the Madrid rooftops and thought about how, at the height of the cold war, bureaucrats all over the world churned out report after report like this one. Could they be trusted at all? Hadn’t it always been the case that the reports of secret agents were often completely unreliable, because it was in their own interest to turn each little triviality into a suspicious element, into a sinister piece of a larger pattern. This was the way in which the secret services ensured that their budgets, and therefore their staff, continued to grow. It’s expensive to run a police state.