The Exile

by Mark Oldfield

  The man glanced around the square suspiciously. Since the square was deserted, the gesture annoyed Guzmán intensely. ‘You can never be sure who’s listening,’ he muttered.

  ‘Never mind your paranoia,’ Guzmán said. ‘Just tell me how you’re going to handle the communications for this operation, and look at me while you’re talking, not that paper.’

  Reluctantly, Viana looked up. ‘I’m working undercover at the local police station. Gutierrez will send telegrams to me, I’ll decode them and then deliver them to your hotel.’

  ‘And when I’m in the mountains?’

  ‘We can radio you at the guardia cuartel, or I can send communications by courier.’

  Guzmán got to his feet. ‘I expect Gutierrez told you I have my own ways of working?’

  ‘He said you’re insubordinate and unorthodox,’ Viana said. ‘Among other things.’

  ‘You should know better than to gossip about your colleagues,’ Guzmán growled. ‘Just be sure you do a good job on this operation. If you don’t, I’ll come looking for you.’

  Viana looked up, his eyes glinting. ‘I can handle myself, Comandante.’

  ‘I’m sure you do every night,’ Guzmán said. ‘But answer me like that again and I’ll put you in a wheelchair.’ He saw the waiter coming towards them. ‘There are two things I expect on an operation like this, Viana.’

  ‘Which are?’

  ‘The first is don’t talk to me with a face like a choirboy going into confession with a bent priest.’ Guzmán took his bill from the waiter and slapped it down onto the table in front of Viana. ‘The second is you pick up the tab. Remember to keep in touch, won’t you?’

  Gutierrez was right about Guzmán, Viana thought, watching him go. No wonder the general de brigada had promised him special instructions on how to handle the comandante.

  SAN SEBASTIÁN 1954, ESTACIÓN DEL NORTE, PASEO DE FRANCIA

  Guzmán drove across town to the Santa Catalina Bridge. The town was livening up. Every street corner was lined with boys hawking newspapers, and here and there gypsies were shining shoes, using neat alcohol that removed all stains but would split the leather within a few hours. Further along, lines of women queued outside every food shop, all hoping the produce would not sell out before their turn came.

  On the far side of the bridge, he turned into the Paseo de Francia and pulled over by a patch of waste land across the road from the smoke-stained North Station. Along the front of the station, a line of stony-faced passengers queued patiently at a ticket window. Guzmán observed them without interest as he finished his cigarette, watching the smoke from a departing train stretch and fade on the sea breeze.

  A few passengers came out of the station entrance, among them a pasty-faced man struggling with several large camera cases. He peered uncertainly across the road through his thick glasses and finally recognised Guzmán. He staggered across the road with his luggage.

  ‘Good trip?’ Guzmán asked as he put Ochoa’s bags in the boot.

  ‘Not bad, sir,’ said Ochoa. ‘Although it wasn’t all that good either.’

  ‘Fuck me, Corporal,’ Guzmán snapped, ‘it’s been seventeen years and you’ve still got that same miserable disposition you had in the war.’

  ‘The station’s packed with young women,’ Ochoa said, in an attempt at conversation.

  ‘You always were hopeless with small talk,’ Guzmán grunted. ‘Just get in.’ He looked down and saw a small leather case. ‘Is this yours as well?’

  Ochoa snatched up the case. ‘I carry this camera with me all the time. Just in case.’ He paused. ‘Who’s that watching us across the street?’

  At the front of the station, Inspector Rivas was standing near the queue for the ticket office. Two of his men waited by the entrance, thinking Guzmán wouldn’t notice them.

  ‘Local police. Someone was killed last night, I think he suspects me.’

  Ochoa gave Guzmán a strange look. Guzmán ignored it.

  ‘Nice car, sir,’ Ochoa said instead, admiring the Buick. ‘Must have cost a fortune.’

  ‘Not really. I confiscated it from an enemy of the state.’

  He pulled out of the car park, still glowering at Rivas in the rear-view mirror. ‘So what’s this job, jefe?’ Ochoa asked.

  ‘We’re tracking down a bandit.’

  ‘Just us?’

  ‘The American ambassador is on holiday just across the border. Franco doesn’t want his vacation disturbed by talk of bandits.’ Guzmán turned to stare at Ochoa. ‘And by talk, Corporal, I mean killing the bastard.’

  ‘I gathered that, sir.’ Ochoa nodded. ‘So what’s our plan?’

  ‘Remember the counter-insurgency work I did up here in the war?’

  Ochoa nodded. ‘It’d be hard to forget that, wouldn’t it?’

  Guzmán leaned forward. ‘I’m not talking about that. Christ, remember what was said when the war ended? There are things we don’t talk about. Everyone in the Brigada Especial agreed to that, you included.’ He changed gear noisily and headed out of town.

  ‘You were in the press corps when we were at Villarreal,’ he continued, annoyed by the silence. ‘Did you do that for the rest of the war?’

  Ochoa nodded. ‘After you were posted south, I took pictures of Red atrocities.’

  ‘How? You weren’t behind their lines.’

  ‘I used any bodies I could find. First, I’d mess their faces up with a bayonet or a brick and then take a picture. Our newspapers published them, saying they were the work of the Reds.’

  ‘Christ, it’s always the quiet ones,’ Guzmán said. ‘You must have seen a fair few corpses then, even if the only shooting you did was with a camera?’

  ‘I certainly did, jefe. I was there when we captured Toledo.’

  Guzmán exhaled a cloud of smoke. ‘I bet you didn’t take pictures of that.’

  ‘I went to watch them take over the hospital,’ Ochoa said. ‘There were two hundred patients, most too badly injured to get out of bed. After they killed the doctors, the legionarios raped the nurses and then killed them. Then they went through the hospital, slaughtering the patients as they went. It’s not the sort of thing you forget.’

  ‘Of course you can.’ Guzmán took a drag on his cigarette. ‘Just get on with your life.’

  ‘Is that what you did?’ Ochoa said. ‘After Villarreal?’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ Guzmán snapped. ‘What did I just say about things we don’t talk about? Villarreal’s in the past and that’s where it’s staying.’

  ‘See, I haven’t forgotten it,’ Ochoa said. ‘I have these nightmares...’

  ‘Stop that now, Corporal, or you’ll end up in the madhouse,’ Guzmán said, angrily. ‘And when you come out in thirty years’ time and you’re begging outside Atocha station like a flea-ridden dog, don’t shake your tin cup at me because you’ll get fuck all.’ He glared at him. ‘Got it? Change the fucking subject.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Ochoa nodded. He looked out of the window at the sheer slopes towering over them on either side of the road. ‘Where are we?’

  OROITZ 1954

  The wind came from the mountains in cold violent flurries. Guzmán stood by the side of the Buick, surrounded by the shredded remains of his map. That map had failed him for the last time, he thought, watching the scattered pieces dancing away on the breeze.

  Ochoa came back from examining an old wooden sign a few metres down the road. ‘It isn’t a road sign,’ he shouted, trying to make himself heard above the wind.

  ‘What does it say?’

  Ochoa shrugged. ‘Beware of cattle.’

  ‘The sooner I get back to Madrid, the better.’ Guzmán stared belligerently at a vast landscape devoid of cows. He cocked his head. ‘What’s that noise?’

  Someone was coming down the road. Guzmán reached into his jacket for the Browning, noticing Ochoa draw his pistol as he moved away, making them a harder target.

  The noise grew louder as a figure appeared from behind a bank
of gorse and rough shrubs. An ancient shepherd, wearing what appeared to be a filthy carpet. The strange noise Guzmán heard was his singing. The wind picked up again, changing direction. Suddenly, Guzmán became aware that the man was, in fact, wrapped in a sheepskin, a very old one, judging from the smell. He holstered his pistol and concentrated on getting upwind.

  The old man’s smile was a row of evil-looking stumps. ‘Are the gentleman lost?’

  Guzmán thought that was perfectly clear, even to a reeking peasant like him. Since they needed his help, he refrained from saying so.

  ‘I’m looking for Oroitz, Abuelo.’ He spoke slowly, presuming the man was an idiot. Most country people were in his experience.

  The old man pointed to a faint cluster of houses clinging haphazardly to the lower slopes of a mountain several kilometres across the valley. ‘Oroitz.’ He pointed again, in case Guzmán hadn’t understood. ‘Bai.’

  ‘Watch it, Abuelo, it’s illegal to speak Basque,’ Guzmán warned. ‘Tell me, if we walk up that track over there, can we get to the village?’

  The old man nodded. ‘That track takes you there eventually, señor, though it’s very wet, so you’ll probably get those nice shoes muddy. And then you have to climb up through the rocks and that’ll be quite a struggle because the ground gets really steep there.’

  Guzmán’s scowl was growing deeper by the minute. He began taking his bags out of the boot. ‘Will the car be safe if I leave it here?’

  ‘Leave it?’ the old man asked, surprised. ‘Why would the gentleman do that?’

  Country folk: every last one wooden-headed. No wonder Franco shot so many. ‘Because I’m not going to carry it, am I?’

  ‘I thought perhaps the señor might take the road since he has an automobile.’

  ‘Road?’ Guzmán’s eyes narrowed. ‘What road?’

  The old man pointed to a faint grey ribbon in the distance. ‘That road. You follow it over the hill and it branches off up the side of the mountain to Oroitz. An easy drive, señor.’

  Guzmán threw the bags back in the car. ‘You thought I’d prefer going up a muddy track rather than drive?’

  ‘The gentleman is from Madrid. Things are done differently there.’

  Guzmán stared at him, suspiciously. ‘How do you know I’m from Madrid?’

  The shepherd shrugged. ‘From the gentleman’s licence plates, of course.’

  Guzmán got behind the wheel. The old man watched him without blinking.

  ‘Do you want a lift, Abuelo?’

  The old man exposed the shattered remnants of his teeth as he smiled. ‘Eskerrik asko.’

  Guzmán pulled the choke angrily. ‘Por Dios, speak like a Christian, will you? Spanish. Not Basque. Entiendes?’

  ‘I understand, señor.’

  Ochoa opened the rear door and the shepherd scrambled onto the back seat. Ochoa slammed the door and climbed into the passenger seat alongside Guzmán. They looked at one another for a moment.

  ‘I’ll open a window,’ Ochoa said.

  ‘Open it wide.’ Guzmán started the engine and the tyres grated on the track as he headed towards the distant road.

  Ochoa turned to offer the old man a cigarette. ‘Got a name, Abuelo?’

  ‘Mikel Aingeru, para servirle,’ the old man said politely, dipping into the pack of cigarettes. He took three, Ochoa noticed.

  ‘Do you know where General Torres’s hunting lodge is?’ Guzmán asked.

  ‘Of course.’ The old man leaned forward between the two front seats, giving them a waft of his vile breath. ‘See where the road turns left up the mountain? That’s where we’re going. If you carry straight on, you come to the general’s lodge after a few kilometres.’

  The shepherd was correct: the road did climb up the side of the mountain, so steeply that Guzmán was forced to slow to a crawl. The effect on the old man was immediate. No longer disturbed by the movement of the car, he began snoring loudly, his face resting against the window, steaming the glass with his fetid breath.

  After a few hundred metres the road opened out onto a piece of flat ground near the village. Guzmán pulled over and killed the engine.

  ‘That’s quite a view,’ Ochoa said, accepting Guzmán’s offer of a Bisonte. An ancient hand emerged from between the seats and plucked a cigarette from the pack.

  ‘You’re awake, then?’ Guzmán said, half turning. ‘We’ve arrived.’

  ‘So I see.’ Mikel leaned forward to let Ochoa give him a light.

  ‘Let’s take a look round,’ Guzmán said to Ochoa.

  ‘I’ll stay and watch your bags.’ The old man yawned, giving them an unwanted view of his gums. ‘This car is so comfortable, I could sleep in it all night.’

  ‘You could if I let you,’ Guzmán muttered. He climbed out of the car and looked round at the spectacular view. Above them, shards of cloud clung to the slopes of the mountain, hiding the peak. Behind him, he heard the sound of Ochoa’s camera as he began taking photographs.

  The village consisted of a short steep track with buildings on either side. The appearance of the houses told of centuries under rain-filled skies, scoured by the eternal mountain winds. The idea of living here horrified him. No bars or whores and no gambling. Just ancient houses being worn away by time and rain, much like their occupants, he supposed.

  The clouds around the mountain were starting to break up, and he watched as the world below slowly emerged from the mist. Within twenty minutes he found himself looking out over a great landscape, rugged and beautiful in equal measure. Not that he cared. It wasn’t Madrid and for that reason alone, he hated it.

  Guzmán returned to the car and tapped on the window to wake the old man, recoiling from the smell as he opened the door. As he rummaged among the bags in the boot for his hat, he sensed the shepherd peering over his shoulder.

  ‘Hold this for a second.’ Guzmán handed the old man a long leather case.

  ‘The señor has a rifle?’ Mikel looked at Guzmán in surprise. ‘Cuídese, señor. The guardia shoot people for carrying weapons.’ He inclined his head towards the barracks a hundred metres down the hillside, joined to the village by a steep narrow path. A frayed plume of smoke rose from a chimney, and over the entrance to the comisaría the yellow and red flag stuttered in the breeze.

  ‘Not that we need the guardia to kill us here,’ Mikel said. ‘We fight among ourselves. Hombre, two nights ago, they found eight bodies in the school at Ihintza. Students, all shot dead. Seems they’d got hold of some weapons and fallen out. What a thing to happen, eh?’

  Guzmán looked at him without blinking. ‘It’s a tragedy.’

  ‘Who knows what goes on in these young ones’ minds? I blame the parents, señor.’

  ‘Absolutamente,’ Guzmán agreed, knowing that what had happened to the students in the schoolhouse had been planned weeks earlier by Gutierrez and his staff in Madrid.

  ‘It was nice to meet you,’ he added, pointedly.

  ‘The pleasure was mine, señor. Agur.’ The old man set off up towards the village.

  ‘You’ve forgotten something.’

  The shepherd grinned. ‘Lo siento. I nearly walked off with the gentleman’s rifle.’

  ‘Nearly.’ Guzmán retrieved the heavy leather case from Mikel Aingeru and watched the old man wander away, leaving an odour of ancient sheepskin behind. He stowed the weapon safely in the car and called Ochoa to join him as he went down the track leading to the cuartel.

  ‘It’s not Madrid, is it, sir?’

  Guzmán glowered at him. ‘Strangely enough, Corporal, I’d noted that.’

  OROITZ 1954, CUARTEL DE LA GUARDIA CIVIL

  The building was typical guardia architecture, an ugly, cheaply constructed blockhouse made of defective concrete bought from dishonest contactors and built by incompetent builders. Most of the builders’ efforts seemed to have gone into carving the traditional Todo por la Patria over the entrance, and even the lettering of that was skewed. Guzmán could picture the layout inside: a few o
ffices, an armoury and a squad room that stank of sweat, farts and cabbage. By the door, a civil guard was polishing his boots. He looked up as they approached. ‘Want something?’

  Good, Guzmán thought, it would never do to arrive somewhere and be dealt with courteously. That would just make things boring. ‘We’re staying in the village,’ he said. ‘We’re here to present our documents.’

  ‘Quite right too.’ The trooper held out his hand with blatant disinterest.

  Guzmán handed over his papers and watched the man’s face change as he read the pass issued by Franco’s HQ.

  ‘Perdón, mi Comandante. We had no idea you were coming. A sus ordenes.’

  Somewhere inside the cuartel, a woman screamed. ‘Qué pasa?’ Guzmán asked, walking briskly towards the entrance.

  ‘Sargento León is questioning someone, sir. I wouldn’t interrupt if I was you.’

  Ignoring him, Guzmán went into the building and marched down the dingy corridor, the monotony of its mildewed walls punctuated by khaki doors with peeling paint. The woman cried out again, from a room to their right. Ochoa stood back as Guzmán opened the door.

  There were two men inside. One had his back to them, the other was a burly sargento, holding a young woman against the far wall, his big hand round her throat. The girl’s face was flushed and her blouse was torn at the neck. The men were arguing.

  ‘Mind your own fucking business, Corporal,’ the sargento growled. ‘She’s a suspect. I’ll do what I like with her.’

  ‘She can’t be a suspect,’ the corporal protested. ‘She hasn’t done anything wrong.’

  ‘You think so? She’ll confess to anything in an hour or two. You know what they say: old enough to bleed, old enough to butcher. Time she found out what women are for.’

  Guzmán stepped into the room. ‘Buenos días.’

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ the big sargento growled. ‘Throw him out, Cabo.’

  The corporal looked at Guzmán and saw trouble. ‘Who are you, señor?’

  ‘Read this.’ Guzmán handed the corporal his papers. ‘Out loud.’

  ‘Stuff it up your arse, I’m busy,’ the sargento said. Noticing his momentary distraction, the young woman took the opportunity to bite his hand. He cursed, pushing her against the wall, trying without success to pin her arms to her sides. She lashed out with her foot and caught him in the shin. He glared at her. ‘I’ll teach you to bite me, puta.’