by Maria Duenas
From the exact moment I took the notebook, everything was a mad dash. A dash across the platform, a dash echoing on the flagstones of the empty station hall, a dash across the dark forecourt outside the station entrance. Hand in hand, tearing through the night, as we’d done once before. Until we reached the car.
“What the hell have you got in this notebook that you’d risk our lives for it?” he asked, trying to recover his breath as he started up the car and left the station with a powerful burst of acceleration.
My breathing labored, I kneeled on the seat to look behind us. In the dust thrown up by our back wheels I could make out the men from the train running toward us as hard as they could. At first there were only a couple of meters between us, but bit by bit the distance grew, until I saw them giving up. One of them first, slowing down until he came to a stop, spent, with his legs apart and his hands on his head as though he couldn’t believe what had just happened. The other held out for a few feet more and then lost energy, too. The last thing I saw was him doubling over, clutching his stomach, and throwing up what he’d so eagerly eaten not long before.
When I was sure that they were no longer following us, I sat back down and—still having trouble breathing—answered Marcus’s question.
“The best patterns I’ve ever done in my life.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
__________
Yes, Gamboa did indeed suspect something when he brought you the orchids. So he hid and waited to see who the owner of the hat was. And then he saw me coming out of your room. He knows me very well, I’ve been in the company’s offices several times. Armed with this information, he went in search of Da Silva, but his boss didn’t want to see him—he told him he was busy with some important business and that they’d talk the following morning. And they did talk today. When Da Silva found out what it was about, he flew into a rage, fired him, and began to take measures.”
“And how do you know all this?”
“Because Gamboa came looking for me this afternoon. His nerves are in shreds, he’s terribly afraid and looking for someone to protect him, which is why he thought he might feel safer approaching the English, with whom he used to have excellent relations. Even he doesn’t know what Da Silva is up to, because he hides things from everyone, including the people he trusts, but his current state made me fear for your safety. As soon as I’d spoken to Gamboa I went to your hotel, but you’d already left. I reached the station as the train was just pulling away, and when I saw Da Silva alone on the platform I thought everything was all right. Until the very last moment, when I saw him gesturing to two men leaning out of one of the windows.”
“What kind of gesture?”
“An eight—five fingers of one hand and three of the other.”
“My cabin number . . .”
“It was the only detail they were still missing. Everything else had already been arranged.”
I was assailed by a strange feeling—terror mixed with relief, weakness, and rage all at once. The taste of betrayal, perhaps. But I knew I had no reason to feel betrayed. I’d deceived Manuel, hidden behind an inoffensive, seductive front, and he’d tried to repay me in kind, without getting his hands dirty or compromising a speck of his elegance. Disloyalty in exchange for disloyalty—that’s the way things worked.
We continued along dusty roads, over potholes and craters, passing through sleeping towns, desolate villages, and patches of wasteland. The only light we saw in all that time was from the headlamps of our car opening a path for us through the thick darkness—there wasn’t even a moon. Marcus realized that Da Silva’s men would not remain at the station—they’d probably find some way of following us—so he kept driving fast, never letting up, as though we still had those two undesirables clinging to our tail.
“I’m almost sure they won’t dare cross into Spain; they’d be getting themselves into unknown territory where they don’t control the rules of the game. Of their own private game, that is. So we shouldn’t lower our guard till we’re over the border.”
It would have been natural for Marcus to question me further about why Da Silva was trying to get rid of me after treating me so deferentially only days earlier. He’d seen us with his own eyes, dining and dancing at the casino; he knew that I’d been going around in his car every day, receiving gifts from him at my hotel. Perhaps he was waiting for some explanation of the nature of our relationship, maybe some clarification of what had gone on between us, something that could throw a little light on the reasons for his brutal order when I was just about to walk out of his country and his life. But I didn’t utter a word.
He kept talking, without taking his attention from the road, making observations and proposing interpretations in the hope that at some point I might decide to contribute something. “Da Silva,” he went on, “opened the doors to his house wide for you, allowing you to witness everything that happened there last night, though I don’t know what that is.”
I didn’t reply.
“And you don’t seem to have any intention of telling me.”
It was true, I didn’t.
“Now he’s convinced that you got close to him because you were under orders from someone else, and he suspects that you’re not just a simple foreign dressmaker who showed up in his life by chance. He thinks you became friends with him because you meant to investigate his affairs, but he’s wrong in his assumptions about who it is you’re working for, because according to our tip-off from Gamboa, he incorrectly believes you to be working for me. In any case, he wants you to keep your mouth shut. Forever, if that can be arranged.”
Still I didn’t say anything; I preferred to keep my feelings hidden behind a front of feigned obliviousness. Until my silence had become intolerable for both of us.
“Thank you for protecting me, Marcus,” I murmured.
I didn’t fool him. I didn’t fool him, or soften him up, or move him with my false helplessness.
“Who is it you’re mixed up with, Sira?” he asked slowly, never taking his eyes off the road.
I turned and looked at his profile in the gloom. The refined nose, the strong jaw, the determination, the certainty. He seemed like the same man from our days in Tetouan. Seemed.
“Who are you with, Marcus?”
On the back seat, invisible but so close, we were joined by a third passenger in the car: suspicion.
When we crossed the border it was past midnight. Marcus showed his British passport, and I showed my Moroccan one. I noticed him looking at it, but he didn’t ask any questions. We didn’t see any sign of Da Silva’s men, just a couple of sleepy policemen who weren’t particularly keen to waste their time on us.
“Perhaps we should find somewhere to get some sleep, now that we’re in Spain and we know they haven’t followed us, and they can’t have overtaken us. Tomorrow I can take a train and you can go back to Lisbon,” I suggested.
“I’d rather go on to Madrid,” he muttered.
We continued driving, passing not a single other vehicle on the road, each of us absorbed in our own thoughts. Suspicion had brought doubt, and the doubt had led to silence: a silence that was thick and uncomfortable, pregnant with mistrust. An unfair silence. Marcus had just yanked me out of the worst fix I’d been in in my life and was going to drive through the night just to make sure I arrived safely at my destination, and I was repaying him by refusing to give him any information that might ease his mind. But I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t say any more to him. First I had to be sure about what I’d suspected ever since Rosalinda opened my eyes during our early morning conversation. Or perhaps I could say something. A fragment from the previous night, a snippet, a clue. Something that would be useful to us both—to him by satisfying his curiosity at least in part, and to me as a way of preparing the ground while I waited to confirm what I suspected.
We’d gone past Badajoz and Mérida. We’d been silent since the frontier post, dragging our mutual distrust along worn-out old roads and Roman bridges.
“Do you remember Bernhardt, Marcus?”
The muscles of his arms seemed to tense up, his fingers clinging more tightly to the steering wheel.
“Yes, of course I remember him.”
Suddenly the dark interior of the car was flooded with images and smells of that day we’d shared, after which nothing had ever been the same between us. A summer evening in Morocco, my house on Sidi Mandri, a supposed journalist standing by the balcony doors waiting for me. Tetouan’s packed streets, the gardens of the High Commission, the caliph’s band enthusiastically singing anthems, jasmine and orange trees, military stripes and uniforms. Rosalinda absent, and an enthusiastic Beigbeder playing the great host, still unaware that the time would come when the man to whom he was paying tribute would end up striking off his head and sending it spinning in the dirt. A group of German backs forming a ring around the special guest with the cat’s eyes, and my companion asking my help to get hold of secret information. Another time, another country, and yet, deep down, everything almost exactly the same. Almost.
“I was at dinner with him yesterday at Da Silva’s estate. Afterward they talked into the early hours.”
I knew that he was holding back, that he wanted to know more—that he needed information, details, but he didn’t dare to ask because he didn’t completely trust me yet either. His sweet Sira—I really wasn’t the person I used to be either.
Finally he couldn’t stop himself.
“Did you hear anything of what they said?”
“Nothing at all. Do you have any idea what they might have to do with each other?”
“None whatsoever.”
I was lying and he knew it. He was lying and I knew it. And neither of us was prepared to show his or her hand, but thinking about the past did loosen the tension between us. Maybe because it brought with it recollections of a past in which we hadn’t yet lost all our innocence. Perhaps because that memory made us recover a tiny bit of our complicity and forced us to remember that there was still something that bound us besides lies and suspicion.
I tried to keep my attention on the road and to remain fully alert, but the tension of the recent days, the lack of sleep, and the nervous exhaustion caused by everything I’d been through that night had debilitated me to the point of collapse. Too long spent walking a tightrope.
“Are you sleepy?” he asked. “Go on, rest your head on my shoulder.”
He put his right arm around me and I huddled closer to receive some of his warmth.
“Sleep. It won’t take long now,” he whispered.
I began to fall into a dark, troubled well in which I relived recently experienced scenes through a distorted filter. Men pursuing me brandishing knives, the long, moist kiss of a serpent, the wives of the tungsten mine owners dancing on a table, Da Silva counting on his fingers, Gamboa crying, Marcus and I running through the dark alleys of the Tetouan medina.
I didn’t know how much time had passed before Marcus woke me.
“We’re here, Sira. We’re arriving in Madrid. You have to tell me where you live.”
His voice pulled me out of my sleep. As I began to emerge slowly from my torpor, I realized that I was still stuck to him, clinging to his arm. Straightening up my stiff body and parting myself from his side was going to take an infinite amount of effort. I did so slowly: my neck was stiff, my joints numb. His shoulder must have been hurting, too, but he didn’t show it. Without saying a word, I looked through the side window while trying to comb my hair with my fingers. Dawn was breaking over Madrid. There were still some lights on. Just a few discrete, sad lights. I remembered Lisbon and its impressive display of nighttime brightness. In a Spain ruled by restrictions and wretchedness, people still lived in near darkness.
“What time is it?” I asked finally.
“Almost seven. You’ve had a good long nap.”
“And you must be aching all over,” I said, still sleepy.
I gave him my address and asked him to park on the far side of the street, a few yards away. It was almost day now, and the first few souls were beginning to come out onto the street. The deliverymen, a couple of servant girls, the odd shop assistant and waiter.
“What are you planning to do?” I asked, studying the activity through the glass.
“Get myself a room at the Palace for now. And when I wake up, first thing I do will be to send this suit to be cleaned and buy myself a shirt. I’m completely filthy from the cinders on the tracks.”
“But you managed to get my notebook . . .”
“I don’t know if it was worth it: you still haven’t told me what’s in it.”
I ignored his words.
“And after you’ve put on some clean clothes, what are you going to do?” I spoke without looking at him, still concentrating on what was happening outside the car, waiting for just the right moment to take the next step.
“Go to my company’s headquarters,” he answered. “We have offices here in Madrid.”
“And do you mean to escape as quickly as you did from Morocco?” I asked, my eyes sweeping over the street’s morning comings and goings.
He replied with a half smile.
“I don’t know yet.”
At that moment my doorman left the building, heading out to the dairy. The coast was clear.
“Just in case you do end up escaping again, I’d like to invite you up for breakfast first,” I said, quickly opening the car door.
He grabbed my arm, trying to hold me back.
“Only if you tell me what you’re up to.”
“Not until I know who you are.”
We went up the staircase together hand in hand, ready to call a truce. Dirty and exhausted, but alive.
Chapter Sixty-Six
__________
Without even opening my eyes I already knew that Marcus was no longer next to me. There was no visible trace of his visit to my home and my bed. Not a single forgotten item of clothing, not a good-bye note: just his scent clinging to my skin. But I knew that he would come back. Sooner or later, when I least expected it, he would show up again.
I would have liked to delay the moment of getting up. Just another hour, maybe even half an hour would have been enough—enough time to recall calmly everything that had happened in the preceding days, and especially in that last night: what I’d experienced, what I’d seen, what I’d felt. I wanted to stay there between the sheets, recreating each moment of the hours that had passed, but that wasn’t possible. I had to get moving: a hundred obligations were awaiting me; I had to start functioning again. So I took a shower and got going. It was Saturday, and although neither the girls nor Doña Manuela had come into the workshop, everything was ready and in full view so that I might be able to get up to date with the hectic work that they’d been dealing with in my absence. Things seemed to have proceeded at a good pace—there were samples on the mannequins, measurements jotted down in the notebooks, remnants and cuttings that I hadn’t left, and records kept in sharp pencil of who had been in, who had called, and what needed to be resolved. I didn’t have time to deal with all that, however: by noon I still had much left to work out, but I had no choice but to postpone it all.
Embassy was absolutely heaving with people, but I was counting on Hillgarth being able to see me drop my handbag as I came in. I did it deliberately, almost cheekily. Three gentlemanly backs immediately bent down to retrieve it. Only one of them was successful, a tall German officer in uniform who at just that moment had been pushing the door to step out onto the street. I thanked him with my very best smile, while out of the corner of my eye I tried to see whether Hillgarth had noticed my arrival. He was at a table at the back, in the usual company. I saw that he had spotted me and registered the message. I need to see you urgently, it meant. Then I looked at my watch and faked an expression of surprise, as though I’d only just remembered that at that very moment I had an important appointment somewhere else. By two o’clock I was back home. At three fifteen the box of candies arrived. Hillgart
h had summoned me for four thirty, back at Dr. Rico’s office.
It was the usual routine. I arrived alone and didn’t pass anyone on the staircase. The same nurse opened the door for me and led me through to the consulting room.
“Good afternoon, Sidi. It’s good to have you back. Have you had a good trip? I’ve heard great things about the Lusitania Express.”
He was standing by the window, dressed in one of his impeccable suits. He walked over to shake my hand.
“Good afternoon, Captain. An excellent trip, thank you; the first-class cabins are an absolute delight. I wanted to see you as soon as possible to update you on my stay there.”
“I’m grateful for that. Please, do sit down. Cigarette?”
He was relaxed and seemed in no particular hurry to learn the results of my work. The urgency of the previous weeks seemed to have disappeared as if by magic.
“Everything went well and I think I’ve managed to get hold of some very interesting information. Your suspicions were correct: Da Silva has been negotiating with the Germans to supply them with tungsten. The final deal was closed on Thursday night at his house, with the help of Johannes Bernhardt.”
“Good work, Sidi. That information is going to be very useful to us.”
He didn’t seem surprised. Or impressed. Or grateful. Neutral and impassive, as though this didn’t come as news to him.
“It doesn’t seem to come as any surprise to you,” I said. “Did you know about this already?”
He lit a Craven A and gave his reply through the first puff of smoke.
“We were informed about Da Silva’s meeting with Bernhardt this very morning. Since he’s involved, the only thing it could relate to right now would be the supply of tungsten, which confirms what we’d suspected: Da Silva’s disloyalty. We’ve already sent a memo to London informing them.”