A Necessary Action

by Per Wahlöö

  ‘You’re beginning to get tired,’ he said, ‘but you can get much tireder than this. Do have a drink.’

  Willi Mohr drank, deeply and long. Then he was given a cigarette and a light. The other man went and sat down beneath the portrait.

  ‘You don’t seem happy. But perhaps that’s good for you. I read in a newspaper article, in Vanguardia, I think, that true art is often created under difficult, even miserable circumstances. Otherwise it’s easy to be happy here. Just look at people round about you. They are poor, but many of them are happy. Look at their faces. They are simple workers and peasants—but happy, for their families, their faith, for the miracle of being alive and creating another branch of the family. It’s easy to be unhappy here too, and it’s easy to find trouble for yourself. If you want to. Unhappiness is easy to find for anyone who seeks it out. But this is really a fine little town, when you get to know it, and the people, with a few exceptions, are good people. When the exceptions have been eliminated everything will be fine. It’s a big task, eliminating the exceptions.’

  Willi Mohr made yet another discovery. He had raised his eyes to stop his head sinking down and now he noticed the similarity between the man in the chair and the general on the portrait. The picture was old and the Caudillo must have been about forty when it was taken, so much the same age as Sergeant Tornilla was now. The likeness was striking. The same uniform except the badges of rank, the same kind of moustache, the same shoulder-strap, the same angle of cap. Was that why he kept his cap on indoors? Willi Mohr looked at the portrait for so long that it began to shimmer in front of his eyes, and all the time the stream of words was boring its way into his mind. Suddenly he found himself sitting and listening to the portrait, seeing the mouth move. He shook his head slightly and tried to fix his eyes on the real living face below.

  ‘… nine years, from 1936 to ’45 I was a soldier, in other words. Almost uninterruptedly throughout the war. Amongst other things, one learnt to be afraid and at the same time control one’s fear. They were, whatever people say, not unhappy years, not for those who had their aims in front of them. One had to learn to eliminate the enemies, one’s own and one’s country’s, if one didn’t want to have to live with them for ever in the future. There are many ways of eliminating. I was with the Navarre army corps during the offensive at Noguera Pallaresa in April ’38. Do you know about the offensive at Noguera Pallaresa? No, of course not. Smoke, my dear friend?’

  Willi Mohr fumbled as he took the cigarette. The hand holding the lighter did not tremble.

  ‘Noguera Pallaresa is a tributary of the Segre. The Segre, as you probably know, runs along the border between Aragonia and Catalonia. At the Segre, directly west of Barcelona, lies Lerida, the largest town in eastern Catalonia. Just north of Lerida, there’s a town called Balaguer and even farther north, just by the Noguera Pallaresa, a town called Tremp provides Barcelona and almost the whole of northern Catalonia with drinking-water and electricity. At that time the Catalonians were amongst those people who found it most difficult to think as we do. Some of them still haven’t learnt. Many of our soldiers were Moroccans. The Moroccans took Lerida on the second, and it was presumed that we should continue into Catalonia. The Catalonians expected it. Everyone expected it. But General Solchaga made a diversion northwards, we took Balaguer and advanced along the Noguera Pallaresa, where the reds had hardly any troops. Four days later we stormed Tremp. The Catalonians hadn’t many people there, only a few weak forces, but they panicked, almost to the last man. Many people died that day. It was up in the mountains and still winter—a good exercise for Russia. When we saw the water-reservoirs and the electricity works, we knew that a million workers would be unemployed and that one and a half million households would be without water and electricity. Barcelona is a big city. We broke its back and with that the Catalonians’ backs too. And yet …’

  He paused and looked thoughtfully at the man on the bench, as if to see whether his pupil were still reacting.

  ‘And yet,’ he said, ‘Catalonia didn’t capitulate until a year later. Sometimes the rot is so deep-rooted that it cannot be healed. Sometimes ignorance is so great that the teacher has to kill the pupil. For both’s sake. But let’s talk about something else. How long is it since you last met Ramon Alemany?’

  ‘Four months.’

  ‘Five months and sixteen days to be exact. You said so yourself at your interrogation. I’ve the record here.’

  He tapped the cardboard file on his desk.

  ‘You live in a poor part of the town,’ he said, with concern. ‘Barrio Son Jofre. I live in a better part, near the church, on the Avenue. A really fine house, old but well built, a garden at the back and plenty of space. Good for the children.’

  Now he’s going to start asking questions again, thought Willi Mohr with weary despair.

  Sergeant Tornilla rose, smiled and put out his hand.

  ‘This has been a pleasant conversation. Sometime perhaps I’ll come and look at your paintings. And now, we’ll meet again, I’m sure.’

  Willi Mohr swayed as he rose. He was soaked in sweat and everything shimmered in front of his eyes. The other man looked exactly as he had when he had risen from his chair the first time, an eternity ago.

  ‘Just one more thing. Your passport. I’ll keep it for the time being. If you want to go somewhere, perhaps you’ll come here. Come when you like. They’re bagatelles, I know, but …’

  He shrugged apologetically. Smiling.

  Then he walked to the door and politely held it open.

  Willi Mohr stood in the porch, which seemed light in comparison with the room he had just been in.

  Outside the sun was shining radiantly.

  The tall officer came into the porch. He looked recently risen and newly shaven, but his forehead was already sweaty. When he saw Willi Mohr, he stopped and said uncertainly: ‘I’m sorry. A mistake, wasn’t it?’

  He opened the door to the interrogation room and went in. Before the door closed, Willi Mohr saw Sergeant Tornilla once more.

  He was sitting at his desk writing. Between the forefinger and the middle finger of his left hand was a lighted cigarette, and his face was hard and serious.

  Willi Mohr walked unsteadily out into the sunlight.

  3

  Sergeant Tornilla was carrying on a conversation with his superior. Three remarks each.

  ‘Well?’ said Lieutenant Pujol.

  ‘Someone had given him some water.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘If he hasn’t done it, then he will.’

  ‘Might you be mistaken?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  4

  Willi Mohr walked through the town, a long gangling figure in a faded shirt, paint-spotted khaki trousers and sandals. His straw hat threw a dark shadow across his sunburnt face. He was tired, but his physical energies remained. Although he was walking very slowly, his steps were light and purposeful.

  On the Avenida Generalissimo Franco he met several men who were on their way to road construction work up in the mountains, heavy, unbelievably badly-paid assisted work which was carried out almost wholly without the help of machines and progressed very slowly. They were walking in silence, staring ahead with empty eyes. They were carrying straw baskets containing water-jars and bits of bread, the same baskets they would be using for their work a little later on.

  Look at their faces. They are simple workers, but happy, for their faith, for the miracle of being alive …

  He lies, thought Willi Mohr.

  Then he thought about another remark—the one about his shirt.

  It takes great certainty in observation to be able to identify a fifteen-year-old Hitler Jugend shirt, washed-out and faded and with all the badges removed.

  It struck Willi Mohr that he had answered all the questions quite truthfully, even those which dealt with the event of three days ago. Santiago Alemany had come at about five o’clock in the afternoon and stayed for a while, but they had no
t spoken to each other. He had parked his fish-van outside and gone into the house and looked round, especially in the kitchen. Then he had sat down on the bottom step and played with the cat. Several times he had opened his mouth to say something, but evidently had then changed his mind. When he had gone, three dirty hundred-peseta notes had lain on the steps. All the time, Willi Mohr had sat at his easel and worked on a painting of a house and some cacti. Santiago had said good-day and good-bye and possibly a few words, but Willi Mohr had just nodded twice. He had let the money lie there for two days, and then he had picked it up and paid his bill at the tienda.

  5

  Forty minutes after he had left the guard-post, Willi Mohr was standing in front of the house in Barrio Son Jofre. When he opened the door, the cat came up to him and brushed against his legs, and the bitch rushed out on to the floor. She whined and cringed and wagged her tail. She must have been very hungry and thirsty, just as he was.

  The house in Barrio Son Jofre was built on two floors and had three rooms, apart from the kitchen. From the large room on the ground floor a stone staircase led up to the first floor. Of the two rooms above, the larger was well kept but the smaller was more or less uninhabitable. The floor was broken and part of it had fallen through into the kitchen. In the whole house there were only two pieces of furniture, a large brown wooden bedstead upstairs and a rattan chair with a woven cane seat downstairs. There was a mattress downstairs too, and a blanket, and about twenty paintings. Most of them lay on the floor, but some were fastened to the walls with drawing-pins. Beside the chair stood a metal paraffin lamp, and on a piece of sacking in one corner lay some clothes and other personal possessions. The downstairs floor was carefully swept, but upstairs, where no one had been for a long time, there was a thick layer of greyish stone-dust over everything.

  Willi Mohr poured out some water into an earthenware bowl for the bitch and put some dry pieces of bread into it. Then he thrust his hand in amongst the pups and took out his pistol and the notebook. The weapon felt heavy and damp and he weighed it in his hand as he went into the room. He stood still in the middle of the floor and said to himself: ‘What the hell did he want anyhow?’

  And after a pause: ‘He’ll fetch me down there again and before that I must kill the other one too.’

  He leafed through the notebook. The first page was dated the thirtieth of July the year before, the day after Hugo had gone. He had written several pages on the first days and then the notes grew briefer and briefer, and after the fourth of September they ceased altogether. On the following pages he had jotted down figures and small sketches and then there was another note. The handwriting was firm and quite legible.

  16th December, 8 a.m. Yesterday I waited all the afternoon and evening in the puerto but they did not come back. It was past two in the morning when I got home.

  After this date there were a lot more notes and now the notebook was almost full.

  Willi Mohr bit his lower lip and slowly shook his head.

  Then he put the things back in their usual place under the mattress, took off his clothes and lay down on his back, naked, his hands clasped behind his head.

  He thought: Tomorrow I’ll kill the pups. I’ll pick out the one with the best markings and keep it. The others I’ll kill.

  Just before he fell asleep he thought about the truck and the day the Scandinavians were drinking at Jacinto’s bar. Fourteen months had gone by since then.

  Part Two

  1

  The truck was a re-built 1931 model Fiat-camioneta. It had no fenders and no hood and the driver’s cabin and back had been stripped and replaced with two wooden seats rather like park benches. All these alterations had been made purposefully, to make the vehicle lighter and more useful as transport for people on bad roads.

  The vehicle had a history, as it had come to Spain during the Civil War with General Bergonzoli’s first blackshirt division and had fallen into the hands of the worker’s militia after the battle at Brihuega in March, 1937. But no one knew anything about that now, so the camioneta was not considered of any historical value.

  Dan Pedersen had taken it over from an acquaintance who was a builder in Santa Margarita and although it was twenty-five years old, it functioned quite satisfactorily.

  The road ran in long curves down the mountainside and down there, on the other side of the bay, the houses of the fishing settlement lay piled up along the quay. The surface of the water was calm and blue and sunlit, and out by the pier a number of people could be seen bathing. Several white yachts lay by the harbour wall and farther in, along the quay itself, were half a dozen dirty yellow trawlers with their nets draped like mourning veils round their masts. Despite the distance, one could see groups of lightly-clad tourists standing on the quay, looking at the fishing-boats.

  It was the beginning of August and very hot. The truck rolled swiftly down, its engine switched off, and all that could be heard was the squeal of the mechanical brakes and the noise of stones striking the underneath of the vehicle. The road was narrow and rough, but then it also led to the most distant and isolated houses in the community.

  There were three people in the truck. Dan Pedersen, who was driving, and beside him Siglinde, his wife. On the bench behind sat Willi Mohr, his straw hat pulled down over his forehead as protection against the clouds of dust. Now and again he had to use both arms and legs against the bodywork to prevent himself from being thrown off on the sharp corners.

  He was looking at the girl’s slim, sunburnt neck and when the breeze raised her short blond hair, he saw a string of small drops of sweat along the roots of her hair. He also saw that the hairs were darker at the roots and realized that she had bleached her hair and wondered why.

  ‘Don’t drive so damned fast,’ said Siglinde. ‘The dust’s choking me.’

  Dan did not reply. He thought: The Scandinavians have got their money and now they’re drinking at Jacinto’s. They’ve forgotten that they owe me two thousand pesetas and that I’ve not paid the rent for two months and have hardly enough money for food. But they’ve also forgotten that this is a pretty small place and that one finds things out almost at once. And now they’ve damn well got to pay up. Hope I can get hold of Santiago and Ramon, for there’s going to be a row, and the German here’s not much use. He’s only good for sitting goggling at Siglinde when she’s sunbathing, and why not, as that’s what I’d do too, if I didn’t already know what she looks like all over.

  Dan Pedersen did in fact use the term Scandinavians, but with a certain contempt, forgetting that he himself belonged to that same group.

  At this time of the year there were perhaps a couple of hundred foreigners in the puerto and about a dozen of them were residents, people of various nationalities, mostly painters or writers, or at least pretending to be, and most of them were Swedes or Finns. Among them was a small group which never had any money. They were the Scandinavians. They were very fond of their liquor.

  Siglinde thought: There’s going to be trouble, I know it, as I know Dan, and I hope we meet Santiago or Ramon on the way, because this German’s not much use, although he seems kind, and he can’t paint either, poor thing, and it’s hell Dan let him come and live with us, so that now I can’t sunbathe naked.

  She was a young woman of fairly ordinary nordic type, healthy and strong and moderately beautiful. She was wearing pants and bra, dusty thonged sandals and a pale blue dress with shoulder-straps. She was blond and grey-eyed and much more sunburnt than genuine blondes usually get.

  The man in the back seat stared coolly at her bare shoulders and held a silent monologue with himself.

  What on earth have I got to do with these people? I’m as indifferent to them as they are to me. But what could I do when Hugo went and I was left with nowhere to live and not a word of the language? Stay at a boarding-house? Then my money would not have been enough and I was to stay here a year and paint. I said I would and I’m going to. Even if it is meaningless, really. Anyhow, I can’t unders
tand what people like Hugo see in this country and this sort of place. It’s warm, but that’s about all. Now these people are expecting me to help them in some private row, and I suppose I ought to, as I’ve lived with them for a week. I don’t know what it’s all about but what does that matter.

  They had come down on to the smooth shore road which ran in a curve round the inner part of the bay, connecting the village with the little group of houses lying near the lighthouse and the pier. Dan started the engine, which rattled alarmingly. He drove quickly and carelessly round the bay.

  Two nights earlier a couple of fishing-boats had happened to get a shoal of turtles in their nets, and halfway to the village the damaged nets were stretched out on a rack which was about a hundred yards long. The nets took up one half of the road and about every ten yards men and women were sitting mending the holes.

  At the third net-mender, Dan Pedersen braked the camioneta and stopped.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said.

  When the shadow of the vehicle fell over him, Santiago Alemany raised his head, and with two fingers pushed his straw hat off his forehead. He was sitting with his legs stretched out in the sun-scorched gravel and had stretched the net out by hooking his big toe in one of the holes.

  ‘What’s up?’ he said.

  ‘The Scandinavians have got their money and are drinking at Jacinto’s.’

  ‘I heard. Even when you sit here, you get to know everything.’

  ‘Are you coming with us?’

  Santiago Alemany carefully worked the net loose and rose. His movements had a studied leisureliness, giving him a kind of grandeur, although he was bare-footed and rather dirty from the work, and although his faded clothes were of a very indefinite colour.