by Per Wahlöö
‘I think everyone’s mad today,’ said Dan Pedersen. ‘If I see one more cop I’ll scream.’
The puerto seemed almost completely deserted, only two trawlers at the quay and all the shutters firmly closed. Everything had been done to keep the heat out.
They sat down under the awning outside one of the bars and Dan Pedersen clapped his hands. The proprietor came out and they ordered vermouth and soda-syphons. There was one other guest in the bar, a middle-aged foreigner in grey trousers, a shirt which hung outside them, sun-glasses and a white cap. He was sitting a few tables away, drinking brandy. A camera in an elegant leather case lay beside his glass.
Siglinde and Dan bickered between themselves over all kinds of things. Now and again they said something in German to Willi Mohr, so that he should not feel left out of things.
After a while the man in the white cap rose and came towards them, stopped two strides away from them and said: ‘I happened to overhear that you were Scandinavians. I hope you won’t think I’m intruding if I ask whether I might join you. It’s a little lonely among all these …’
He made a gesture, but could not find any Spaniards to point at.
‘No, do, by all means,’ said Dan Pedersen.
The man fetched his camera and glass of brandy. Then he shook hands with all three of them and each time repeated his name: ‘Berg.’
‘Swedish, from Malmö,’ he added, and sat down.
Siglinde and Dan had forgotten to say their names and Willi Mohr had not understood anything. After another pause, the man said:
‘Excuse me … but I did not really catch …’
They all gave their names and there was another silence. The man cleared his throat and said: ‘Perhaps I can get you a drink or something?’
He looked vaguely round for someone to serve him.
Dan Pedersen clapped his hands. The proprietor came out at once.
‘You couldn’t exactly do that at home, could you?’ said the man. ‘I mean, clap for the waiter.’
‘Why not?’ said Siglinde.
She had a feeling she was not going to like this man very much.
The proprietor came out with a bottle and poured out the drinks.
‘Leave the bottle here,’ said the man.
The proprietor shrugged his shoulders and put the bottle down on the table. It was still almost full.
The man raised his glass and said: ‘As we’re so far from home, we Scandinavians needn’t be quite so formal, need we? My name’s Ivar.’
They drank.
‘Do you live here?’ said the man, after a while.
‘Up there.’
Dan gestured up towards the misty grey spot in the mountains.
‘It looks wonderful,’ said the man. ‘This is a wonderful country.’
They considered this for a moment and the man filled the glasses again.
‘As I was saying, wonderful. They don’t cheat you and everyone’s so nice and friendly and helpful.’
‘Yes, they’re good people,’ said Dan Pedersen, for something to say.
After their third glass, the man said: ‘I was here four years ago for a brief business trip—this is a business trip too, in fact. I’ve just taken a few extra days as a holiday before I fly home.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Dan Pedersen, who easily became quite unnecessarily rude when he drank spirits.
‘Everything’s much better since then,’ said the man. ‘Not at all the same bother at the borders and much more democratic.’
‘This is no democracy,’ said Dan Pedersen. ‘It’s a corrupt dictatorship which the fascists call democracy to kid foolish foreigners. One shouldn’t really come here at all.’
‘Why do you live here then?’
‘Because we don’t give a goddam what kind of régime they have as long as it’s warm and as long as we’re left in peace. It’s fine living here, especially for foreigners and in many cases for Spaniards too. Most people do exactly the same things whether they live in a democratic community or under tyranny. The difference in daily life is very small. People work, eat, have sex, go to bed tired at night and wake up even more tired in the mornings. On Saturdays they drink or sit at home listening to the radio or go out for a walk. We don’t bother with politics and so we can live here. But that doesn’t stop us thinking it’s all wrong.’
Siglinde looked at her husband with amusement. She liked the way he said ‘we’. She loved him. She thought about the night before.
‘And it’s all wrong here, is it then, as you put it?’
‘Yes, definitely.’
The man filled his glass again, though only he and Dan were drinking now. Then he said: ‘You’re wrong. Franco has done a lot for this country. Before his time everything was chaotic and disorderly, the economy was even worse than it is now and people shot each other dead in the streets. He cut the Gordian knot and freed both the country and the people from their worst problems. He brought order. Aren’t I right?’
‘Yes, if the right way to free someone from his problems is to kill him.’
‘Skoal,’ said the man.
‘Skoal,’ said Dan Pedersen.
The bottle was empty now.
Santiago was approaching their table, still looking drowsy after the siesta.
Siglinde took the opportunity.
‘Here’s the friend we were waiting for,’ she said.
They got up and said goodbye to the man from Malmö.
‘Hell,’ said Dan Pedersen to his wife. ‘Lots of people reason like that. It almost made me angry.’
He thumped Santiago on the back.
‘Now let’s go on up to Jacinto and bust a bottle of champagne,’ he said.
Willi Mohr walked a few yards behind the others up the slope towards the church. Although he had drunk very much less than Dan, his head felt fluffy and he felt abnormally light. The brandy had quite an effect in the heat. He definitely did not like being drunk and thought it would be best if he took things carefully for the next few hours. And yet he felt in a good mood and was expecting good of the evening. He had begun to feel a sense of solidarity with Dan and Siglinde, which he could not explain but which gave a certain content to the days. He often found himself being curious to know what was going to happen next.
Dan Pedersen walked in the middle with his arms round the other two. Santiago was wearing his faded cotton shirt and blue trousers rolled halfway up his calves. He held himself very straight with his hands in his trouser pockets. Siglinde had pulled in very close to Dan, with her arm round his waist.
At the top of the hill, she freed herself and turned round with her hand stretched out.
‘Come on Willi,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t be walking there all alone.’
She laughed and her grey-brown eyes shone clearly despite their indefinite colour.
The bar was dark and there were no customers sitting inside. Along the far wall was a bar counter with an old espresso-machine on it, and the shelves behind it were filled with bottles and a radio-set. In the middle of the floor stood a tall iron stove with a crooked chimney pipe leading up to a hole in the chimney breast, and in one corner there was a well with a single rope for the bucket. The ceiling was blackened with grease and soot, but the walls were covered with colourful posters for films and bullfights. The abuela was sitting in an old rattan chair by the stove, knitting, with the cat sleeping on her knee, and behind the counter Jacinto was dozing on a stool, a sporting paper spread over his knees. He had been a civil guard from Santa Margarita and had resigned when he had succeeded in marrying into this bar. He ran it well with no concessions to elegance or modernity, and he did well out of it too, especially from the resident foreigners to whom he gave relatively generous credit. If he was ever cheated, then he retrieved more than just his losses through the juggled bills he presented after special parties. He needed the money, as he had to support both his own and his wife’s parents, and his wife never for a moment forgot that the place was really hers.
When the customers came in, he rose sleepily from his stool and automatically wiped the counter in front of him with a dirty cloth.
‘Champagne,’ said Dan Pedersen, ‘and bring a glass and come and join us.’
Jacinto got up on the stool and took down two bottles of the cheapest champagne from the rows hanging above the shelves. Then he went and sat down with the others at the table.
‘Five glasses,’ he said in passing to the abuela.
The old woman put down her knitting and shooed off the cat.
Jacinto opened the bottle skilfully and let the cork pop. They raised their glasses and drank.
Drinking began at six in Jacinto’s bar and would go on more or less continuously for the next nine hours.
There was talk, noise and drinking. More people came and joined in. Some came and sat for a while and then vanished again. One man brought a guitar with him and started playing. He was one of those who stayed to the end, as were a young Englishman and his red-haired wife. Now and again a couple of patrolling civil guards came in and leant their carbines against the bar. They allowed themselves to be offered brandy, smiled with white teeth and went out again into the night. The talk was like crossfire, in several languages, and at intervals Jacinto went behind the bar to scribble on the bills. The little Finnish painter who had drawn attention to himself in the fight a few months before came in for a while and tossed back a row of conciliatory drinks. He drank too quickly, was soon drunk and staggered away.
At about ten, Santiago made an attempt to get Siglinde to go bathing, but she shook her head and patted him indulgently on the arm.
Willi Mohr, who was sitting between them, was probably the only person who saw this.
Dan Pedersen was deep in an endless argument about women with the Englishman and on the whole noticed nothing at all.
The drinking went on. Everyone seemed very happy.
Shortly before midnight Santiago got up and said indifferently to Siglinde: ‘The boats’ll be coming in now. Are you coming down to meet Ramon?’
‘Shall we?’ said Siglinde to Willi.
Dan Pedersen was still arguing with the Englishman.
Willi Mohr went with them.
When they came out of the steaming smoky bar, it was as if the night had fallen on them with an indescribable purity and soft blackness. It had become considerably cooler and the stars in the sky arched with grandeur between the mountains. A bit further down the hill, the noise from the bar faded away and they heard the distant chug from the boats’ engines out in the approaches.
At the quay, all the lights were out except a few melancholy flickering street lights.
They sat down on the edge of the quay and waited. The water lay black and smooth and far out they saw the mast-lights of the first trawler.
Siglinde, who was sitting in the middle, took off her shoes and lay down on her back on the warm concrete. She drew up one leg and placed her heel on the edge of the quay. The other leg she let hang out over the water.
‘God, it’s good to be alive, anyhow,’ she said.
‘Isn’t it?’ she said, when no one replied.
‘Yes,’ said Willi Mohr.
Santiago said nothing. He was smoking and looking absently at her legs.
Willi Mohr was not very sober, but it struck him that this was in no way an unpleasant feeling.
The first boat rounded the pier. The reflections from its lights lay like a long trembling strip over the water.
‘Here they come,’ said Santiago.
They had been fishing for sardines and behind the trawler were two small boats with large lamps in the stern. About fifty yards from the quay someone had lit an oil lamp on board the fishing boat and hung it up on the mast. A cold white light fell on to the silvery heap of fish on deck.
‘They’ve had a good night,’ said Santiago.
A few minutes later the trawler’s bow touched the stone wall, Santiago caught the rope and fastened the boat. The whole boat seemed to be full of glittering sardines. Ramon jumped lightly up on to the railing and crouched there, barefooted and wearing an old black woollen jersey and torn blue trousers. His tangled hair stood on end and both his hair and his jersey glistened with small shining fish-scales. He laughed, swung up on to the quay, embraced his brother and shook hands with Siglinde and Willi.
‘Here’s Dad, so I’d better fetch the cart,’ said Ramon.
Pedro Alemany climbed over the railing. He was a broad, short-statured fisherman with a thin mouth and cold eyes. He was wearing a beret, a black shirt and black trousers. He stopped in front of Santiago and said: ‘Why didn’t you drive into town with the fish last night?’
‘I was thinking of going early tomorrow instead.’
‘You should go when I tell you to go and not at any other time.’
‘The van wasn’t fit yesterday.’
‘You’re lying, as usual,’ said Pedro Alemany coldly. ‘See that this lot’s shifted now.’
He made a gesture towards the heap of sardines on deck. Then he threw a scornful look at Siglinde, turned round and walked away up towards the village.
Santiago bit his lip but said nothing. He avoided the others’ eyes.
Ramon came back with a cart full of empty boxes. Santiago gave the remaining three members of the crew some instructions and then they walked back up to Jacinto’s bar. Ramon chattered all the time in Catalonian, his arm round his brother. Santiago interrupted him.
‘How’s your head?’
‘All right now,’ said Ramon.
‘Poor Santiago,’ whispered Siglinde to Willi Mohr, ‘his pride’s hurt.’
In the bar, the tobacco smoke was so thick that the miserable electric light bulb looked like a pale winter sun in the mist. They sat down at the table again and there was nothing to show that anyone had noticed their absence.
Jacinto, who was himself growing slightly unsteady, pulled the jalousies aside and closed the door to show that the party could now be considered over. The abuela had gone to bed.
The drinking went on. The champagne had come to an end and they continued on white wine. Ramon drank heavily. Evidently he was tired and was trying to liven himself up. Willi Mohr took one more glass and noticed he was becoming muddled. I won’t drink any more now, he thought.
The girls were in high spirits. The English girl danced first with the guitar-player, then solo. Siglinde insisted on dancing with someone and gradually it became Santiago. They danced very well and rhythmically together. Dan Pedersen, Jacinto and the Englishman were discussing something, loudly and with great energy.
The atmosphere grew even more gay and confused. Everyone was drunk and everyone seemed to feel the need to move in different ways. Siglinde and the red-haired English girl found it difficult to keep their legs still and performed a private can-can show on the bar counter. The guitarist was playing like a madman.
Suddenly Willi Mohr’s mind sharpened and he turned quite sober. It was a minor victory for his strength of mind, he thought. At once he saw the people round him quite clearly and wholly objectively.
The man with the guitar, small, sweat-soaked, his shirt flapping, playing like a madman, stamping his feet.
The Englishman, his face beginning to stiffen as his voice grew slow and uncertain.
Dan Pedersen, just knocking a glass over but still talking away.
Jacinto, who had had a long working day and had drunk more than he usually did, looking tired but quite pleased.
The girls, laughing and screaming and trying to kick in time on the bar counter. The English girl was in an ecstasy from the rhythm and the champagne, her untidy red hair sticking to her forehead. They were not sober, but there was nothing distasteful in their behaviour. They just seemed happy.
Santiago sitting straight up in his chair staring at the bar, every now and again licking his lips.
Ramon leaning forward with his mouth open, staring at the girls, so naively and covetously that it was almost moving.
Alth
ough the English girl was probably the most accessible to them, and anyhow had the nicest legs, Willi Mohr had the impression that both of them were looking at Siglinde. But that might well have been wrong.
The scene was broken up almost at once. Siglinde grew tired and jumped down. She walked round the table and sat down, wiping the sweat from her forehead. Soon afterwards the Englishman rose unsteadily, lifted his wife down from the bar counter, took her with him and left.
‘Where’s my friend Santiago?’ said Dan Pedersen suddenly, as if he had by chance just come back from a long trip.
He got up and drank to Santiago.
‘You’ve known each other a long time now,’ said Jacinto, yawning.
‘Santiago,’ declaimed Dan Pedersen, ‘is one of the best friends I’ve ever had. Santiago and I have done quite a few things together. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t trust him with. Cheers!’
They stood opposite each other and raised their glasses. It looked like a parody of a declaration of fidelity.
‘Long live their friendship,’ shouted Ramon.
Dan Pedersen took a step forward and embraced Santiago, who stood without moving, his arms down his sides.
For perhaps a second Willi Mohr caught his look over Dan’s shoulder, troubled, painfully moved, and the next moment he gently but firmly freed himself from Dan’s embrace.
‘The calamary fishing comes to an end on Wednesday,’ he said, as a diversion. ‘We’ll go out fishing then.’
‘Yes, by Christ, we must,’ said Dan Pedersen.
Twenty minutes later the party broke up. Dan was very drunk and leant against Siglinde as they walked down the hill.