by Joe Joyce
‘No.’ Duggan had never been out of Ireland until now. ‘It’s hot.’
The captain laughed. ‘It’ll get a lot hotter than this in another month or more.’ He paused. ‘It can be a dangerous place. But I presume you know that. That they warned you to be careful.’
Duggan nodded, though he hadn’t been given any information about specific dangers, just that Lisbon was a nest of spies and conspiracies, real and imagined.
‘Be careful of anything you bring back on board,’ the captain added.
‘What do you mean?’ Duggan asked in surprise.
‘Make sure it is what you think it is. There have been bombs hidden in stuff people thought was just merchandise they were bringing home.’
‘Really?’
‘So the Brits say. There’ve been a couple of cases. Not just aimed at their own sailors, they say. At neutrals too.’
‘I’m not planning on doing any smuggling,’ Duggan said.
‘Well if there’s anything you want to bring back, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me about it.’
‘Sure.’
‘There’s a lot of cigarettes to be had here. And everything else.’ The captain tapped the railings as though he was finished sending a message. ‘I have to go and report to the British now.’
‘Why?’
‘Condition of the navicert,’ the captain said. ‘And inform them of the delivery of their coal. As well as listen to the usual instructions about where we’re allowed to go in Lisbon.’
‘How can they limit our movements here?’ Duggan demanded, surprised, and aware that that might be a problem.
The captain shrugged. ‘They can’t. But they warn that certain areas are dominated by the Germans and are out of bounds. I wouldn’t worry about it. Stick with the lads and you’ll be all right.’
‘How long will we be here?’
‘Three days. Our wheat has already arrived from America so there shouldn’t be any delays. They like to get us in and out as quick as possible these days. They’re so busy.’ The captain turned away, hesitated, turned back to Duggan and pointed inland to the east. ‘In case nobody warns you,’ he said. ‘You should know that the girls in the red-light district over there are in the pay of the Germans. Supplement their income by picking up information. And trying to set up fellows like you.’
‘Thanks,’ Duggan muttered, not sure what to say.
‘Not that I’d know anything about it.’ The captain rubbed out an invisible spot on the deck with his shoe in embarrassment. ‘It’s what the Brits say. If you can believe them.’
Two
The middle-aged man looked up from the sink behind the bar as the door opened and the group of Irishmen came through. A broad smile crossed his face and he shouted ‘Olá, Paddy!’ and grabbed a dishcloth to dry his hands.
‘Antonio.’ Jenkins pumped his outstretched hand. ‘We’re back again.’
Antonio raised a finger and concentrated for a moment. ‘Safe and sound,’ he said, remembering the learned phrase.
‘And thirsty,’ one of the other sailors interjected.
Duggan looked around the bar as Antonio lined up five small glasses and filled them from a bottle of rum. It was larger than he’d expected, dim after the brightness of the street lights outside, and infused with the pungent smell of strong tobacco. There were a couple of old men playing some kind of board game, watched by two others. In an alcove to one side, a young man picked at a guitar so slowly that the tune, if there was one, collapsed into individual notes. A morose
middle-aged woman sat on the chair beside him, their backs to the wall.
He turned his attention to the rest of the room, trying to spot the contact. Nobody looked likely. Most of the men were in work clothes; they were probably dockers. There were a few women among them, wives or girlfriends, he thought, except for one – who could have been one of those the captain had warned him about.
‘Get that into you,’ Jenkins said, nudging him in the ribs.
‘I feel drunk already,’ Duggan said. He could still feel the rolling of the ship, though he knew he was on firm ground.
‘You haven’t seen anything yet.’
The night wore on, shots of rum alternating with glasses of beer. The guitar player picked up the pieces of his tune and the morose woman sang a sad song in a strong alto voice that seemed at odds with her frail frame. At some point, one of the sailors joined the guitar player and sang ‘Boolavogue’, slowing the pathos of its last verse into a maudlin wail.
Duggan woke up the next morning thinking that he was back at sea in the heaviest of the Atlantic rollers, until he realised that it wasn’t the cabin that was vibrating, but the pulse of pain in his head. It took him another while to realise that all the noise was not within his brain. Some of it came from outside, where the cargo of coal was being shovelled into the crane bucket, hoisted ashore and tipped tumbling on to a truck.
He made his way to the galley, where the cook glanced at him and busied himself preparing something. Duggan sat down and the smell of fried eggs from an unwashed pan made him nauseous.
The cook put a glass in front of him full of some yellowish concoction streaked with red and black. ‘For the hangover,’ the cook said.
Duggan shook his head.
‘Get it into you,’ the cook said, standing over him, arms folded. ‘It’ll do the job.’
Duggan took a sip of the glutinous liquid and almost threw up.
‘Not like that,’ the cook ordered. ‘Knock it back, quick as you can.’
Duggan closed his eyes and tried to pour the liquid down his throat without tasting it. He held his breath to keep it down. ‘What’s in it?’
‘Raw egg and a few things.’ The cook turned back to his counter.
‘How do I get to Antonio’s?’
‘Not a good idea.’ The cook shot him a look over his shoulder.
‘I left my lighter there last night,’ Duggan lied.
The cook gave him a suspicious look, then sighed and took a sheet of brown wrapping paper from a drawer, tore it in half and sketched a rough map. ‘Don’t be tempted by the hair of the dog,’ he wagged a finger at him. ‘You’ll pay for it when we go back to sea.’
On deck, the sun blinded him and the humid heat covered him like a physical presence, sapping his energy. He squinted his way down the gangway and past the lorry being loaded with coal. The grinding and clanging of the crane was more bearable in the open air.
He made his way up a succession of narrow streets, where the four-storey buildings shut out the sun and the morning air had not yet been heated to the level on the open quayside. Some of the houses were covered in faded blue and white tiles, plaster peeled from others, and washing was draped on balconies and along walls on pulley systems. Two women talked across the street from first-floor balconies and a bent old man went slowly and painfully up a set of narrow steps. He rounded a corner into another street and stepped back in surprise as a small tram went by, its iron wheels screeching against a downhill bend.
He found the bar without difficulty, and bent down to enter its low door. He crossed to the counter and asked the woman there for a coffee. She gave him a tiny cup and a glass of water. He took them back to a table near the door where the light was slightly stronger. Two old men who could have been the same ones from the previous night were playing a board game at the same table. Another man was half hidden behind a newspaper, a coffee cup in front of him and a cigarette burning on a tin ashtray.
Duggan sat down, took out a packet of Gold Flake, lit one and left the yellow box open, standing upright on the table in the agreed signal. He sipped the muddy coffee, tasting the grinds on his tongue, and took a drink of water. It has to be the man with the newspaper, he thought, unrolling the sleeve of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his forehead.
The bar was silent except for the clicking of the pieces in the board game and the turning of a page in the newspaper. Occasional shouts of greeting and rapid bursts of conversation came fro
m outside. A radio played music somewhere in the distance.
Duggan finished the cigarette and was beginning to worry that the contact wouldn’t happen today, when a man ducked in, stopped inside the door and looked around. He was wearing a loose-fitting grey suit with a faint pinstripe and wide lapels, and a grey hat.
‘Ah,’ he said, glancing at the cigarette packet and quoting its advertisement. ‘Gold Flake satisfy! I haven’t had one for some time.’
‘Please try one,’ Duggan replied.
‘Only if you’ll try one of my American ones.’ The man took a packet of Lucky Strikes from his jacket and shook one out.
‘I’d like to,’ Duggan said, and took the cigarette, completing the ritual.
The man sat down and put his hat on the table. He was in his thirties, lightly tanned and with dark eyes that seemed to view his surroundings with amusement. His black hair was parted in the middle, and he brushed it back with both hands to smooth out the mark of the hat. He looked like a film star and was aware of it. ‘I’m Strasser,’ he said, taking one of the Gold Flakes.
‘Sean McCarthy,’ Duggan said, flicking his lighter for the two cigarettes and wishing that he could stop sweating. He hoped Strasser didn’t interpret this as nervousness or, worse, lying. Strasser didn’t look like he had climbed any hills to get there.
‘Where’s Dermot?’ Strasser raised a hand to catch the attention of the woman behind the bar and pointed at Duggan’s coffee.
‘He didn’t come this time.’
‘He’s well?’ Strasser turned back to Duggan, giving him his full attention.
‘He’s fine.’ Duggan held his stare. ‘It was decided that I should come. So we could make direct contact. Avoid any misunderstandings.’
‘I wasn’t aware of any misunderstandings.’
‘Just in case. Speed things up.’
The woman came with a coffee and a glass of water on a tray. ‘Obrigado, senhora,’ Strasser gave her a bright smile. He put half a spoon of sugar in his coffee and stirred it. ‘And you are?’ His English was good: the only hint of a German accent was in the precision with which he pronounced words.
‘A captain on the headquarters staff of the Irish Republican Army.’
Strasser sipped his coffee. ‘You can prove this?’
Duggan nodded and took a drag on his cigarette, taking his time. ‘I have a message from Dr Goertz.’
Strasser’s eyes widened in an uncontrolled gesture of surprise which belied his verbal ‘Who?’
Duggan gave him a faint smile and said nothing. He knew that Strasser had been the conduit for messages to and from Hermann Goertz, carried by the sailor whose place he had taken on this voyage.
Strasser tapped his Gold Flake twice on the ashtray. ‘Dr Goertz is no longer a free man,’ he said in a flat voice. Goertz had been arrested by the Irish police with the help of G2 some months earlier and had been interned.
‘We think he was betrayed.’
‘By whom?’ Strasser made no secret of his interest.
‘An opportunist criminal type. We’ll let you know when our investigation is complete.’
‘That’s your message?’
Duggan glanced around at the sudden noise behind him of a chair being scraped back, and he watched the man who’d been reading the newspaper go over to the counter and say something in Portuguese to the woman. She laughed and leant her elbows on the counter and they began a conversation.
‘No.’ Duggan took a small envelope from his back pocket and passed it across the table. Strasser put it into his inside pocket in a fluid movement. ‘What is that?’ he asked.
‘A message from Dr Goertz,’ Duggan said, playing his trump card. ‘In code.’
‘What does it say?’
‘Dr Goertz hasn’t shared the code with us.’
‘And Dermot is still free?’
‘Yes,’ Duggan nodded. ‘He’s not one of ours.’
‘Just an opportunist.’ Strasser gave him a hint of a smile.
‘They have their uses.’ Duggan shrugged. ‘He’s a sailor and small-time smuggler.’
‘He’ll be back again?’
‘On the next voyage.’
Strasser nodded in satisfaction. ‘Good. He’s an uncomplicated man. There’s a lot to be said for uncomplicated men these days, wouldn’t you say?’
Duggan gave a non-committal shrug, as if such concerns were of no interest to him.
Strasser stubbed out his cigarette and shook his head. ‘I think their advertisements lie,’ he said. ‘Gold Flake does not satisfy.’
‘I’m not sure about this either.’ Duggan inhaled some smoke from the Lucky Strike and blew it out. ‘A bit too sweet for my taste. Lacks bite.’
‘Just like Americans,’ Strasser smiled. ‘Soft. Without conviction. You’ve met Dr Goertz?’
‘No.’
‘How did you get this message from him?’
‘We’ve had long experience in getting things in and out of Free State jails. Of being treated like criminals in our own land. Unfortunately.’
Strasser stared at him for a moment, as if he was deciding something. Duggan held his stare. Strasser reached for his hat, stood up, and dropped some coins on the table. ‘That’ll cover the coffees,’ he said. ‘Same time tomorrow.’
Duggan nodded and waited until Strasser was gone a few minutes before releasing a deep breath. So far, so good, he thought, closing the Gold Flake packet and taking a cigarette case from his pocket. He lit a Sweet Afton and held in the familiar smoke for a moment and realised he had stopped sweating. Tomorrow would tell whether they’d succeeded. Whether there were any hidden tripwires in Goertz’s code that they hadn’t detected and that would tell the Germans that the message was not really from him.
He found a tram stop on the side of a steep hill, wondered how the tram’s wheels could grip the iron rails, and waited. The cook’s hangover cure was working: he was feeling better. The sun was beginning to edge down into the street and the temperature was rising. The only sounds were the distant cranes and metal-on-metal bangs from the unseen port. On the narrow footpath opposite him, two elderly women in long black dresses made their way slowly up the hill with flat wicker trays on their heads, carrying something he couldn’t make out.
The single-decker tram ground to a halt and he got on. It was crowded and he grabbed a strap suspended from the ceiling to hold on to as it set off down the hill, clattering and screeching around the tight bends. All the windows were pushed up as far as they would go, but the heat was oppressive and he was conscious of the growing patch of sweat under his extended arm. At last, the tram came to the bottom of the hills and ran alongside Praça do Comércio and the breeze ruffled his shirt. He wished he could lower his head enough to feel it on his face.
The tram twisted into the small square of Largo Corpo Santo and he got off and stood for a moment looking at the church across the cobbled road from the stop. Now for the trickier job, he thought, spying on my own government. He took a deep breath, crossed to the double wooden doors flanked by flat white columns, and pushed on one side.
The church was smaller than he had expected, an octagonal building of uneven sides that was almost circular. He genuflected and sat into the last pew and looked around. After the glare of the sun the church was restful and cool, the air scented with a mixture of old incense and candle wax. The windows were small, high over the altar area and at the top of a small dome over the body of the church. The altar was flanked by two alcoves, one with a statue of the Virgin Mary, the other with one of St Patrick standing on a bed of fat snakes. Above him, the church’s provenance was confirmed by a harp and, surprisingly, a crown. A shawled woman was lighting a votive candle at a rack by the altar rails.
The church had once been the centre of an Irish college that trained Catholic priests for Ireland during the Penal Laws of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, like the better-known colleges in France and Spain. The college was long gone, but the church was still run by Irish pri
ests of the Dominican Order and now catered for the English-speaking population in Lisbon.
A sacristan in a black soutane appeared at the side of the altar, and Duggan made his way up the aisle and waited at the altar rails until he caught his attention.
‘I’d like to see Father Alphonsus, please,’ Duggan said when the man came down the altar steps to him.
‘Are you a member of the congregation?’ He spoke English with a strong accent.
‘No. I just arrived from Dublin yesterday.’
‘A sailor?’
Duggan nodded.
‘Confessions are tomorrow evening,’ the sacristan said, assuming he was in search of absolution.
‘I’m not looking for confession,’ Duggan said. ‘I’d like to see Father Alphonsus about a private matter. It’s important.’
‘Does he know you?’
Duggan shook his head. ‘I’ve been sent from Dublin to see him.’
The sacristan gave him a searching look, then said, ‘He’s not here.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘After lunch.’
‘I’ll come back then.’
‘I’ll tell him your name?’
‘Sean McCarthy,’ Duggan said.
‘And the business you have with him?’
‘It’s confidential. A government matter.’
The sacristan dismissed him with a slow nod that implied that he didn’t believe this shirted young man had any connection with officialdom.
Duggan wandered back along Rua do Arsenal, past some sort of naval building with barred windows and sailors standing guard at its entrance, to the seaside square again, where the full force of the sun made him narrow his eyes. He turned left up Rua Áurea, crossing to the shaded side of the street, and followed the lines of black and white cobbled stones north as if they were tram tracks for pedestrians. The high buildings here were white and it was a different world from the narrow streets of Alfama, where he’d met Strasser. Shops and banks lined the ground level and he went by the vaguely religious tower of the Santa Justa elevador up to the streets of Bairro Alto and stopped further on under a shop awning to consult the directions in his notebook.