by Maria Duenas
I was about to say quite openly that our poor country wasn’t in a position to get involved in any future war, that it had more than enough misfortune with the one it was living through now. That war of ours seemed quite alien to her, however, despite the fact that her lover was significantly involved in one side of it. Eventually I chose to follow her lead, to focus on a future that might never come and not sink into the tragedy of the present. My day had already had a good dose of bitterness, and I preferred to keep it from getting any sadder.
“And how do you mean to do that?” was all I asked.
“Bueno—well—don’t believe for a moment that I’ve got powerful personal contacts in Whitehall, nothing of the kind,” she said with a little laugh. I automatically made a mental note to ask Félix what Whitehall was, but my look of concentration managed to hide my ignorance. She went on. “But you know how these things work: networks of acquaintances, people who can connect you to other people . . . So I thought I might try things with some friends I have here in Tangiers to begin with, Colonel Hal Durand, General Norman Beynon and his wife, Mary, all of whom have excellent contacts in the Foreign Office. At the moment they’re away spending a little time in London, but I’m planning to meet them later on, introduce them to Juan Luis, try to see if they’ll talk and get along.”
“And you think he’ll agree, he’ll let you get involved like that in his official business?”
“Of course, querida,” she said without the slightest trace of doubt, as she tossed another lock of hair away from her left eye with an airy shake of her head. “Juan Luis is a terrifically intelligent man. He knows the Germans very well, he’s lived with them for many years, and he’s afraid that the price that Spain will have to pay for all the help they’ve been receiving will turn out to be too dear. Besides, he has a high opinion of the English because, after all, we’ve rarely lost a war. He’s a soldier and such things are important to him. And above all, and this is the main reason, because Juan Luis adores me. As he tells me every day, he would go down into the fires of hell for his Rosalinda.”
By the time we got up, the tables on the terrace were already set for dinner and the evening shadows were beginning to rise along the adobe walls. Rosalinda insisted on paying for our lunch.
“I’ve finally managed to get my husband to transfer my allowance; do allow me to treat you.”
We strolled to her car and set off back toward Tetouan, barely managing to avoid going over the twelve hours I’d been allowed by Commissioner Vázquez. But the geographical direction wasn’t the only thing we reversed on that journey; we also reversed the trajectory of our conversation. If on the way there and for the rest of the day it had been Rosalinda who’d monopolized the talk, on the way back the moment had come for our roles to be reversed.
“You must think I’m dreadfully boring, always going on about myself and my business. Tell me about yourself. Cuéntame—tell me—how did it go this morning with those things you had to sort out?”
“Badly,” I said, simply.
“Badly?”
“Yes, very, very badly.”
“Lo siento—really, I’m very sorry. Something important?”
I could have answered no. Compared to her own concerns, my problems lacked some of the ingredients necessary to arouse her interest: there were no high-ranking soldiers involved, no consuls or ministers, no political interests, no affairs of state or premonitions of great European wars, nothing remotely related to the sophisticated tempests through which she moved. In the humble territory of my concerns there had been room only for a handful of private miseries that could almost be counted on the fingers of one hand: a love betrayed, a debt to pay and a hotel manager who refused to understand, the daily grind of starting up a business, a homeland drenched in blood to which I couldn’t return, and the yearning for an absent mother. I could have answered no, that my little tragedies weren’t important. I could have kept quiet about my private business, kept it hidden, shared it only with the darkness of my empty house. Yes, I could have. But I didn’t.
“To tell you the truth, it was something very important to me. I want to get my mother out of Madrid and bring her to Morocco, but to do that I need a large sum of money that I don’t have because I first have to put my savings toward meeting another urgent payment. This morning I was hoping to postpone that payment, but I wasn’t able to, so right now I fear that this thing with my mother will be impossible. And the worst is that, according to what people are saying, it’s getting harder and harder to move from one zone to another.”
“Is she alone in Madrid?” she asked with what seemed like an expression of concern.
“Yes, alone. Quite alone. She has nobody but me.”
“And your father?”
“My father—well, it’s a long story, but briefly, they’re not together.”
“I’m so very sorry, Sira, dear. It must be so hard for you knowing that she’s in the Red Zone, exposed to so many things, stuck with all those people . . .”
I looked at her sadly. How could I make her understand what she didn’t understand? How could I get into that beautiful blond head the tragic reality of what was happening in my country?
“Those people are her people, Rosalinda. My mother is with her people, in her house, in her neighborhood, with her neighbors. She belongs to that world, to the people of Madrid. If I want to bring her over to me in Tetouan, it’s not for fear of what might happen to her there, but because she’s all I’ve got in this life, and with each day that passes I find it harder not hearing anything from her. I haven’t heard news in a year; I haven’t the slightest idea of how she is, I don’t know how she’s supporting herself, what she’s living on, or how she’s getting through the war.”
Like a balloon being punctured, the whole sham of my fascinating past disintegrated in a second. And the strangest thing was, it didn’t bother me at all.
“But, but they told me . . . They told me your family was . . .”
I didn’t let her finish. She’d been honest with me and had told her story without deceit: it was time for me to do the same. Perhaps she wouldn’t like the version of my life that I was going to tell; maybe she would think it wasn’t terribly glamorous compared to the adventures she was used to. She might decide that from that moment on she would never again share pink gins with me or offer me rides to Tangiers in her Dodge convertible, but I couldn’t stop myself from telling her my truth in detail. After all, it was all I had.
“My family is me and my mother. We’re both dressmakers, simple dressmakers with no assets but our own hands. From the time I was born my father never had anything to do with us. He belongs to a different social class, a different world: he has money, companies, contacts, a wife he doesn’t love, and two sons he doesn’t get along with. That’s what he has. Or had, I don’t know—the first and last time I saw him was before the war and he already had a feeling they were about to kill him. And my betrothed, the attractive, enterprising fiancé who’s in Argentina managing companies and resolving financial matters, he doesn’t exist. It’s true that there was a man with whom I had a relationship and who may be in that country doing business, but he no longer has anything to do with me. He’s nothing more than an undesirable human being who broke my heart and robbed me of everything I had; I’d rather not talk about him. That’s my life, Rosalinda, and as you can see, it’s very different from yours.”
In reply to my confession she launched into a paragraph of English in which I was only able to catch the word “Morocco.”
“I didn’t understand any of that,” I said, confused.
She went back into Spanish.
“I said what the hell does it matter where you come from when you’re the best dressmaker in all Morocco? And as for your mother, well, as you Spaniards say, God may squeeze us, but He never suffocates us entirely . . . It’ll all work itself out, you’ll see.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
___________
Early the next morni
ng I returned to the police station to report to Don Claudio on the failure of my negotiations. Of the four policemen, only two were at their desks: the old one and the skinny one.
“The boss isn’t in yet,” they announced in unison.
“What time does he usually arrive?” I asked.
“Half past nine,” said one.
“Or half past ten,” said the other.
“Or tomorrow.”
“Or never.”
The two of them laughed, with their slobbering mouths, and I found myself without the strength to put up with that pair of creeps a moment longer.
“Please tell him that I came to see him. That I’ve been to Tangiers and I wasn’t able to arrange anything.”
“Whatever you say, princess,” said the one who wasn’t Cañete.
I made for the door without saying good-bye, and I was about to leave when I heard Cañete’s voice.
“Whenever you like I can prepare another pass for you, sweetheart.”
I didn’t stop. I just clenched my fists hard, and almost without realizing it I was revisited by a shadow of my former self. I turned my head a few inches, just enough for my reply to be heard loud and clear.
“Better save that for your whore of a mother.”
As luck would have it I ran into the commissioner on the street, far enough away from the police station that he didn’t invite me to return with him. It wasn’t hard to bump into anyone in Tetouan, where the street grid of the Spanish ensanche didn’t stretch too far and everyone was constantly coming and going. As usual he was wearing a light-colored linen suit and smelled recently shaved, ready to begin his day.
“You don’t look happy,” he said the moment he saw me. “I imagine things at the Continental didn’t go well.” He looked at his watch. “Come, let’s get a coffee.”
He led me to the Spanish Casino, a beautiful corner building with white stone balconies and big windows open to the main road. An Arab waiter was lowering the awnings with a squeaking iron rod as two or three others were putting out chairs and tables on the sidewalk in the shade. There was no one in the cool interior, just a large marble staircase in the entry and two big rooms, one on each side. He invited me into the one on the left.
“Good morning, Don Claudio.”
“Good morning, Abdul. Two coffees with milk, please,” he requested, seeking my agreement with his eyes. “Tell me,” he then said.
“It didn’t work. The manager is new, he wasn’t the same one from last year, but he knew all about the matter. He wasn’t prepared to negotiate at all. He just said that their terms had been more than generous and that if I didn’t make the payment by the designated date, he would turn me in.”
“I understand. And believe me, I am sorry. But I’m afraid I can’t help you now.”
“Don’t worry, you did enough by getting me a year.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Pay right away.”
“And the thing with your mother?”
I shrugged.
“Nothing. I’ll keep working and saving, though by the time I’ve gotten together as much as I need, it might be too late and they will have halted the evacuations. For now, as I said, I’ll clear my debt. I have the money, there’s no problem there. That’s just why I came to see you. I need another pass to cross the border and your permission to keep my passport for a couple of days.”
“Keep it, there’s no need for you to give it back to me again.” Then he brought his hand to the inside pocket of his jacket and took out a small leather case and a fountain pen. “And as for the safe-conduct, this will do,” he said as he removed a card and uncapped the pen. He scribbled a few words on the back and signed it. “Here.”
I put it away in my handbag without reading it.
“Are you planning to go on the Valenciana?”
“Yes, that’s what I’d planned.”
“Like you did yesterday?”
I held his inquiring gaze a few seconds before replying.
“I didn’t go on La Valenciana yesterday.”
“So how did you manage to get to Tangiers?”
I knew that he knew. And I also knew that he wanted me to tell him myself. But first we each took a sip of our coffee.
“A friend gave me a lift in her car.”
“Which friend?”
“Rosalinda Fox. An Englishwoman, a client of mine.”
Another sip of coffee.
“You do know who she is, don’t you?” he said then.
“Yes, I do.”
“So just be careful.”
“Why?”
“Just because. Be careful.”
“Tell me why,” I insisted.
“Because there are people who don’t like the fact that she’s here with the person she’s with.”
“I know.”
“What do you know?”
“That there are certain people who aren’t too pleased about her personal life.”
“Which people?”
I’d discovered already there was no one like the commissioner for squeezing, crushing, and extracting the very last drop of information.
“Certain people. Don’t ask me to tell you what you already know, Don Claudio. Don’t ask me to be disloyal to a customer just so you can hear from my mouth the names you already know.”
“Fine. Just confirm one thing for me.”
“What?”
“The names of these people—are they Spanish?”
“No.”
“Perfect,” he said simply. He finished his coffee and looked at his watch again. “I have to go, I have work to do.”
“So do I.”
“Indeed you do, I’d forgotten you were a working woman. You know you’ve earned an excellent reputation for yourself?”
“You hear about everything, so I’ll have to believe you.”
He smiled for the first time, and the smile took several years off him.
“I only know the things I need to know. But I’ll bet you hear about an awful lot of things, too: women always talk a lot to one another. And you deal with ladies who no doubt have interesting stories to tell.”
He was right, my clients did talk. They talked about their husbands, their businesses, their friendships, about the people whose houses they frequented, what various people did, thought, or said. But I didn’t answer yes or no to the commissioner; I simply got up, ignoring his observation. He called to the waiter and sketched a flourish in the air. Abdul nodded: no problem, the coffees would go on Don Claudio’s tab.
Settling the debt in Tangiers was liberating, like having a rope freed from my neck. It was true that I still had the lawsuits in Madrid to resolve, but from this distance it all seemed terribly far away. Paying the debt at the Continental allowed me to free myself of the burden of my past with Ramiro in Morocco and to breathe differently. More calmly, more freely. The mistress, now, of my own destiny.
Summer progressed, but my clients still seemed lazy about contemplating their autumn wardrobes. Jamila remained with me, looking after the house and doing small jobs in the workshop. Félix came around to visit almost every night, and from time to time I would go over to see Candelaria at La Luneta. Everything at peace, everything quite normal, until an inconveniently timed cold left me without the strength to leave the house or the energy to do any sewing. I spent the first day lying prostrate on the sofa. The second in bed. The third I’d have done the same but for an unexpected appearance. As unexpected as it always was.
“Siñora Rosalinda say Siñorita Sira get up out of bed immediately.”
I went out to meet her in my dressing gown; I didn’t bother to put on my never-changing suit or hang the silver scissors around my neck, not even to straighten my tousled hair. But if she was surprised at my disheveled state, she didn’t let it show: she had come to deal with other more serious matters.
“We’re going to Tangiers.”
“Who?” I asked, wiping my runny nose.
“
You and me.”
“What for?”
“To try to resolve this thing with your mother.”
I looked at her halfway between disbelief and amazement. I wanted to know more.
“Through your . . .”
A sneeze prevented me from finishing the phrase, which I was grateful for as I wasn’t sure how to refer to the high commissioner, whom she always spoke of by his first name.
“No, I’d rather keep Juan Luis out of it: he has a thousand other matters to worry about. This is mine, so his contacts are out. But we have other options.”
“Which are?”
“Through our consul in Tangiers I tried to find out whether they’re making these sorts of arrangements in our embassy, but without any luck. He told me that our legation in Madrid has always refused to give asylum to refugees, and besides, since the Republican government moved to Valencia that’s where the diplomatic officials have been based. All that’s left in the capital is an empty building and some minor staff member to look after it.”
“So then?”
“I tried with St. Andrew’s, the Anglican church in Tangiers, but they weren’t able to help me either. Then it occurred to me that some private firm might know something, so I asked around here and there, and I managed to get hold of a tiny bit of information. Not a great deal, but we’ll see if we’re lucky and we might get a bit more out of it. The director of the Bank of London and South America in Tangiers, Leo Martin, told me that on his last trip to London he heard people in the bank’s headquarters talking about someone working in the Madrid branch who had some kind of contact with someone who’s helping people get out of the city. I don’t know any more than that; all the information he was able to give me was very vague, very imprecise, just a comment that someone made that he overheard. But he’s promised to check things out.”
“When?”
“Inmediatamente—right now. I was there a couple of days ago, he told me to return today. So you’re going to get yourself dressed right away and we’re going to Tangiers to see him. I imagine he should have had time to find out a bit more.”