‘So what happened? What did you do about it?’
‘Me personally?’
‘You personally.’
‘I talked to some friends in Washington. Applied a little pressure.’
Pressure, Beaman said, was the key. The White House would do anything to keep the tanks and airplanes rolling off the assembly lines. Black anger had a habit of spilling back into the workplace and so the War Department was directed to clean up bases like Carlsbad, forbidding segregation.
‘And you were really part of that?’ Gómez was impressed.
‘I was. And I am. I was in Carlsbad yesterday, checking the base out. Full compliance. In this game you settle for nothing less.’
‘And that’s why you’re down here? That’s how come you made the call?’
‘Sure.’ He nodded and reached for his glass. ‘They think I’m the man from Big Government.’
Gómez watched him attacking the enchiladas again. Then he leaned forward over the table, his voice low.
‘So how did you know I was working at Los Alamos? This stuff’s supposed to be beyond secret.’
‘I asked one of my Washington friends.’
‘How would he know?’
‘She.’
‘Really? She has pull, this woman? Contacts?’
‘Yes.’
‘Like where?’
‘Like in the government.’
‘She knows where to go? Who to ask?’
‘She went to the top. She always goes to the top. Attorney General. Never fails.’
‘Right.’ Gómez had the feeling he was getting out of his depth. ‘She has a name, this friend of yours?’
‘Of course. Everyone has a name.’
‘You gonna tell me?’
‘Sure. Eleanor Roosevelt.’
‘The President’s wife?’
Gómez stared at him. Was Beaman kidding? Or did he really have the ear of America’s First Lady?
‘She’s a friend. I just told you.’
Gómez was still absorbing the news. In some respects it made sense. Eleanor Roosevelt was famous for wandering off the reservation, for poking her nose into other people’s business, for making a nuisance of herself. She was a believer in good causes, in dressing some of the country’s self-inflicted wounds. Her column, read by millions, was syndicated from coast to coast. She was tall and somewhat gawky and outspoken but undeniably brave. People loved her for that and in the light of this conversation the title of her column said it all. ‘My Way’.
‘She’s slipped the leash,’ Gómez grunted. ‘Am I right?’
‘One hundred per cent. A fine lady.’
‘You know the President, too?’
‘Never had the pleasure. Mrs Roosevelt has an apartment in New York. Washington Square. We meet there most times though I’ve been up to Hyde Park as well.’
Gómez nodded. Hyde Park was the Roosevelt family spread, hundreds of acres overlooking the Hudson in upstate New York.
‘She has a cottage in the grounds,’ Beaman said. ‘Place called Val-Kill. Beautiful. I stayed over one night. She talked me to death.’
Gómez was inclined to believe him. This was beyond impressive. How come this skinny guy, toast of the Detroit slums, had made it to such elevated company? And why on earth was he wasting his precious time in a rundown New Mexico diner with a guy he barely knew?
‘You saved my life,’ Beaman said. ‘I appreciate that.’
‘Sure. But there has to be more.’
‘You sound like a cop.’
‘I am a cop. Sort of.’
‘So trust me. You made a judgement back in Detroit. I know you did. I could see it on your face. You liked me. I intrigued you. Why? Because I was different. Because I cared. And because I knew how to work a bunch of women who deserved a bigger voice. Tell me I’m wrong.’
‘You’re not.’
‘Good. Because I have a proposition.’
Gómez held his gaze. He half guessed what was coming.
‘You think I’m a faggot?’
‘Sadly not. Ever change your mind, just let me know.’
‘So what is it?’
‘I need protection. I needed it then and I need it now. None of this stuff is risk-free. A whole lot of people want to hurt me. Some of them would like me dead.’
‘You know that?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’re talking specific threats?’
‘Sure.’
‘Then take it to the authorities. To the police. To the FBI. To the Justice Department. Talk to your friend.’
‘I did.’
‘And?’
‘She knows what I know. I’m in deep with the negroes. I want us all to be equal. I want us all to be friends. Since when have the FBI been interested in any of that?’
Gómez smiled. Well put, he thought. Beaman was right. Hoover loathed the President’s wife, called her ‘the old hoot owl’, kept a vast file on her and her so-called Commie friends.
Beaman still wanted an answer. Gómez had already saved his life. He could do with more of that.
‘I have a job already,’ Gómez pointed out.
‘I know. You’ll be well paid. Better than now.’
‘Your friend again?’
‘The money will come from a friend of my friend but this conversation was Mrs Roosevelt’s idea. She knows about Detroit. I told her. She was impressed.’ He nodded. ‘Are you telling me no?’
‘I’m telling you things aren’t quite as simple as you might think.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Good. Because you don’t need to.’
Beaman studied him for a moment. Then he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
‘You left the FBI to work with the military. Am I right?’
‘You are. Security on the base is handled by the military. My boss is an Army colonel.’
‘So how come the decision? Why quit the Agency in the first place?’
Gómez held his gaze, then shook his head. No way.
‘You’re not going to tell me?’
‘No.’
‘But the move is permanent?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘So you might …’ The grin again. ‘… consider my proposition?’
‘I didn’t say that either.’
Artie was approaching. He collected Beaman’s empty plate and asked whether they needed more drinks. Gómez shook his head. He had a job to get back to. He was done. A couple of dollars would cover the bill. He got out his wallet but Beaman was already on his feet. He handed Artie a five-dollar note, told him to keep the change. Fabulous enchiladas. His buddy here had been right. Great place to eat.
Artie left with a nod and a smile. Gómez sat back in the chair and emptied his glass.
‘You needn’t have done that,’ he said.
‘Pleasure. My friend insisted on paying.’ Beaman looked down, extending a bony hand. ‘One day you’ll get to meet her.’
3
A piercing shaft of sunshine roused Stefan Portisch. He tried to struggle upright, failed. He felt a mattress of straw beneath him. He could smell cow shit. The sagging roof above his head was chequered with startling daubs of blue, smudged with racing clouds. The wind was still blowing hard, shaking the heavy clay tiles.
He closed his eyes. Still wet through, he was trembling with cold. He let his hands fumble with the buttons on his leather greatcoat and explore further. He felt disembodied, utterly helpless, bludgeoned half to death by a series of events he had trouble piecing together. He remembered struggling up the ladder as the submarine rolled and bucked in the storm. Then the sheer power of the huge waves rearing out of the darkness came back to him. The crew had gone. He was by himself. Another wave would toss the U-boat on to its side. After which, he was dead.
His fingers, numb with cold, found a deep wound in his lower leg. He withdrew them, held them out against the light. Fresh blood. His whole leg was throbbing and when he tried to straighten it he
yelped with pain. Something nearby stirred. He could move his head just enough to locate the noise. The cow was only feet away, the huge brown eyes unblinking.
He’d jumped from the conning tower. He knew that. He’d waited for the next wave, judged the moment and launched himself into the boiling sea. He remembered letting the wave lift him clear of the reef, a small act of surrender, and then came the thunder that engulfed him as the roller broke on the other side. He’d braced for the inevitable impact as he hit the rocky shore, doing his best to protect his head, then reaching out for anything firm, anything solid, as the wave withdrew. Still mobile, he’d done his best to scramble up towards the dark mass of the looming cliff but then had come another wave, even bigger, determined to reclaim him. Underwater again, a plaything of the storm, he’d tumbled over and over, desperate to regain his footing. Had the miracle happened? Had he made it? The answer, self-evidently, was yes. So how come the wound in his leg? And the fact that, even now, breathing was so painful? His hands were exploring the ribs beneath his woollen shirt. Even a fingertip touch brought tears to his eyes. Scheisse.
He tried to roll over but it was hopeless. Getting off the rocky foreshore, scaling the cliffs, finding this tiny scrap of shelter, was a mystery, hours of agonising effort that seemed to have wiped all trace from his memory. He lay back, concentrating again on the submarine that had nearly killed him, on U-2553, wondering exactly what had happened to the rest of the crew. Some, like himself, might have survived. Others probably hadn’t. Where had they gone? What had happened to Hans, the Chief Engineer, to fat old Wolfgang the cook, to the nervous young ensign from Glücksburg with the shaved head and the out-of-tune fiddle? What lay in wait for these precious Kameraden on this unforgiving corner of neutral Spain? He shook his head. He didn’t know. Another chill gust of hopelessness.
Then came a new image, as bright as the slants of sunshine through the wreckage of the roof. Last night he’d killed a man. He could see Huber’s face, almost touch it. He could sense his terror of drowning, and he could remember the terse resignation in his voice as he ordered his own death. Shoot me. Now.
Stefan was looking at his hands again. They were shaking with cold. He raised one to his nose, sniffed it. Somehow expecting the bitter tang of cordite, he could smell nothing. He’d shot the Brigadeführer three times, once through the left eye and twice through the chest as he fell backwards into the rising water. Three bullets. Bang, bang, bang. Sharp little cracks above the clamour of the storm before he’d tossed the gun aside, disgusted with himself. As a sailor and a patriot, he’d never had any time for the zealots of the SS. They were an aberration, a cancer, a vile growth deep in the body of the Heimat. Shipping these people south, having them aboard, being aware of their constant presence, he’d felt tainted, physically dirtied. But even so, last night had been unforgiveable, a memory he could never erase. Maybe, against huge odds, he should have tried to save this man’s life. Instead, at point-blank range, he’d killed him.
The cow was stirring again. Stefan closed his eyes. Everything hurt. Nothing made sense any more. Dear God, he thought. Let there be an end to this madness.
The cow heard the approaching footsteps before he did. Time had moved on. Sunshine was hitting a different wall. The animal had struggled to its feet and was lumbering clumsily towards the muddy entrance. Stefan, blinking, gazed at the door. He must have pulled it shut last night, dropping the big wooden latch. Another mystery. The footsteps paused outside. A woman’s voice. Old. Out of tune. Singing.
Stefan lay back, aware of his helplessness. He’d been dreaming about his grandparents. Their names were Berthold and Edith. They were simple people, not rich, not ambitious, not highly educated. Berthold, like his own father before him, had been a farmer. Home was up near the Kiel Canal, an hour’s drive from Hamburg, on the flat, rich soil of Schleswig-Holstein. As a kid, with his brother Werner, Stefan would spend whole summers there. He remembered the weird sight of ships, big ships, slipping past on the skyline, strangers in the vastness of this landscape, and he remembered helping his grandparents out in the fields, lifting beets scabbed with wet earth and dropping them in his own tiny bucket. They’d had cattle, too. Black and white. Holstein Friesians, as he’d later learn to call them. Huge. Docile. Smelly. Dreamtime, he told himself. Another world.
The woman was kicking at the door. Finally the latch gave way and the gloom was bathed in sunshine. Silhouetted against the brightness of the morning, she stood motionless, talking to the cow. Spanish, Stefan thought. He spoke barely a word.
The woman abandoned the cow and bent to examine the latch. Watching her from the straw, Stefan knew he had a decision to make. There was no way he could get himself out of this place, not without help. Some of his ribs were probably broken. His leg, at the very least, needed stitching. Maybe that was broken, too. Either way, he needed help. Better this woman than a younger man with a reputation to make.
The woman looked about a hundred years old. She was wearing a smock that might have been made of sackcloth and a pair of wooden clogs. With the flower she’d tucked behind one ear, she could have stepped out of a medieval painting.
Stefan stirred. He liked the flower.
‘Help me,’ he said softly in German. ‘Please.’
The woman stiffened, peering past the cow. Then came a tiny gasp and a volley of Spanish and moments later she was bending over him, the seamed old face full of concern. At the very least, she now understood about the door.
Stefan gestured at his leg, at his ribs. When she tried to haul him to his feet, he had to fight her off. She was much stronger than she looked but he knew she would have collapsed under his weight. What he wanted was a doctor, or maybe a nurse. Someone who could clean him up and sort out his wounds. He voiced the thought in German, getting nowhere. Then he tried sign language, gesturing at his leg. She stared down at him, alarmed. Then backed away, crossing herself.
Christ, Stefan thought. She thinks I need a priest.
He shook his head, extending a hand, knowing that somehow he had to get back on his feet. She gave him a look, still uncertain, then stepped forward and tried again to haul him upright. It didn’t work. The pain was unbearable. White-faced, Stefan collapsed back on to the wetness of the straw. He shut his eyes, fighting the urge to vomit. Then he remembered the coins. Mercifully they were there, still in his pocket. He produced a couple, held them out. They were bigger than he remembered, strangely heavy. The old woman was staring at them.
‘Take them,’ Stefan said in German. ‘Find me a doctor.’
She nodded, her eyes back on Stefan’s face. She seemed to understand the word Doktor. Then she backed away, ignoring the proffered coins, and Stefan heard the scrape of the door closing and she was gone.
She returned within the hour. The man at her side might have been her husband. Same age, same weather-roughened face, but a smile this time and a bottle in his hand that turned out to be half full of plum brandy.
Between them, the old couple got Stefan to his feet. Outside, in the sunshine, a donkey stood between the shafts of a wooden cart. The back of the cart lay open. The old man forked straw on to the cart and then returned to the shed to fetch a box. The box formed a step. At the old man’s insistence, Stefan took a pull at the bottle before they struggled to hoist him backwards on to the step. The harshness of the spirit burned his throat and lungs. Fighting for balance, his face contorted with pain, Stefan could feel the edge of the cart against the back of his thighs.
The old man was smiling again. His hands were huge. He put one of them against Stefan’s chest and gently pushed. Stefan tottered and then collapsed backwards. The straw softened the impact but the searing wave of pain from his ribs drained the colour from the landscape. For a second or two he thought he was going to faint but moments later the old man was stirring the donkey into action. Bumping away down the track from the cowshed, every jolt bringing fresh agony, Stefan could see nothing but the scurry of clouds against the blueness of the sky.
There was warmth in the sun, balm for his broken body, and far away he thought he could hear the rasp of surf. Rocks, he thought, and my poor bloody crew.
After a while, Stefan didn’t know how long, the rattle and squeak of the wooden wheels on the rutted track gave way to a new surface, kinder, gentler, smoother. The donkey picked up speed and soon they were in the outskirts of a village. Looking up, Stefan could see wooden buildings crowding in from either side: rotting window frames, pitted mud walls, peeling plaster. Then came the rumble of cobblestones beneath the wheels of the cart and there was suddenly a line of washing stretched across the street, undergarments and towels and a sheet blowing in the wind. Some of the clothes were tiny. Kids, Stefan thought. Real life. Normality. Bustle. Conversation. The prospect brought a smile to his face. It felt like a kind of deliverance.
After the washing, the sky was suddenly full of swallows. He watched them darting hither and thither, enjoying the craziness of their flight. He knew they were after insects, that they needed to feed, that there was a logic in this madness, but here and now he wanted nothing more than to share their freedom. Left. Right. Up. Down. Perfect.
The cart had come to a halt. He heard the old man’s footsteps, the clump of his boots on the cobblestones, then a rap-rap as he paused before a door. The door opened and there came another voice, male, light. The conversation was brief. Stefan didn’t understand a word but suddenly he was looking at two faces peering down at him. One was the old farmer. He’d removed his hat. The other was a much younger man. He was wearing a collarless white shirt and a scrap of red handkerchief knotted at his throat.
‘Habla español?’
Stefan shook his head.
‘English?’
‘A little.’
‘Me, too. A little.’ The man’s smile was infectious. There was kindness in his eyes. Stefan smiled back, accepting his handshake.
‘Agustín.’ The man introduced himself. ‘Tell me what hurts.’
Stefan touched his chest on both sides, and then his right leg beneath the knee.
Finisterre Page 4