Estoril

by Dejan Tiago-Stankovic

  He put down the journal, angry at the author of the article but even more at whoever had allowed these horrors to be published. An unnecessary letter had brought his secretary to tears and placed him in the awkward situation of having to console a woman with whom he had a strictly professional relationship. Muttering, he started arguing with who knows whom.

  ‘That’s not the way to do it, gentlemen. Not the way...’

  In the end he simply sighed. It would be so much easier if he could live off rentals or dividends, just so long as he did not have to work much with people. That is what he wanted. Not this.

  ALWAYS THE SAME STORY

  ‘I’m broke,’ Tricycle said.

  ‘So?’ asked Jarvis.

  ‘So I think it’s time for you to loosen your purse strings a little.’

  ‘We had a different agreement,’ observed Jarvis.

  ‘The circumstances were different then. They’re not giving me as much as I need,’ replied Tricycle.

  ‘In short: you need money for your extravagant lifestyle, is that it?’

  ‘That’s exactly it.’

  ‘Any idea as to how I should justify this?’

  ‘Tell them that for the first time in our long and fruitful relationship agent Tricycle is asking for the money he needs to lead an extravagant life; it’s his trademark.’

  ‘So how much do you need?’ asked Jarvis.

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Five what?’

  ‘Five thousand.’

  ‘So, five thousand dollars.’

  ‘Pounds,’ the agent corrected him.

  ‘Five thousand pounds?’ Jarvis repeated to be sure.

  ‘Five thousand pounds,’ confirmed the agent.

  ‘Frankly, we expected you to ask us for money, but not for this much.’

  ‘That’s how much I need, what can I do?’

  ‘You need a whole five thousand pounds?’

  ‘Five thousand pounds.’

  ‘And if they don’t approve it?’ Jarvis was curious to know.

  ‘They’ll approve it.’

  ‘But suppose they don’t.’

  ‘Then I’m moving to Rio. I’ve been in this job too long anyway.’

  ‘Just give me a little time to consult,’ Jarvis said, locking his desk and walking out of the office. It was a while before he returned with an envelope.

  ‘You’ve got two thousand in here. That’s all we have in the safe. Where do you want us to leave you the rest?’

  ‘Leave it in my water tank.’

  ‘All right. Is there anything else I can do for the gentleman?’

  ‘I need a visa for the Bajlonis,’ replied the agent.

  Jarvis shrugged his shoulders. The subject always came up each time they met, and each time he would tell Tricycle that he couldn’t help him, which did not stop the agent from raising the question at every subsequent meeting, as if they had never discussed it before.

  ‘Again?’ asked Jarvis wearily.

  ‘I owe them a lot of money. Be a pal and arrange it somehow. It would mean a lot to me.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I can’t help you there,’ Jarvis said, repeating the official position, as he always did.

  ‘Who will help me if not you?’ Tricycle asked, as he always did.

  ‘The appropriate office. Have them submit the necessary papers on the ground floor, their case will be examined and they will receive an answer,’ said Jarvis, as he always did.

  ‘You’re playing dumb. You know that we’ve tried that already and it didn’t work. Your people are digging in their heels and won’t grant them a visa. Please, give it a push. It would mean a lot to me.’

  ‘You certainly are persistent. Maybe in the Balkans it’s normal to do favours for friends through connections, but we don’t do that. That way of resolving problems is to us unacceptable,’ said Jarvis, laying out the position of Western civilization.

  ‘All right, if that’s how it is,’ said Tricycle with a shrug.

  As soon as the meeting was over, Jarvis wired somebody in Room 39. Among other things the message said:

  Tricycle again raised the issue of visas for the Bajloni family. It was made clear to him that such decisions are not within the purview of the persons conducting this case.

  And also:

  Tricycle was paid from the embassy safe 6,000 pounds sterling for debt repayment. The receipt has been given to Accounting.

  * * *

  Tricycle left no. 17 and started walking uphill to the square. He did not feel like going back to Estoril. He sat in the plaza and ordered a beer. He was sipping his drink, looking around aimlessly, killing time, when an unknown woman appeared in front of him.

  ‘Don’t be sad, my friend,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not sad,’ he smiled. ‘I was just daydreaming.’

  But the stranger did not believe him. How could she when his eyes had suddenly welled up with tears and he himself did not know why. It wasn’t sadness, truly it wasn’t; he was probably just moved by her words.

  A BOY MEETS A GIRL

  And what if, after almost three years, in the course of a number of highly unusual events in a very special place and time, we encounter a perfectly ordinary love story about requited love? Usually such stories are boring and, in honesty, we would not be missing much if we skipped over it. On the other hand, can and should one keep quiet about something as important and human as when your protagonist falls in love like a schoolboy?

  In order for a love story to be interesting, it has to have something just a little bit special about it. Let’s say that what makes this one unusual is that Duško had been staring at her for over an hour without her noticing, because she was standing under the stage lights and he was sitting in the audience in the dark. And it was not that he fell in love with her straight away. He fell in love with her, a little more than with any other potential beloved, only when she started singing the song about the rose:

  Tu és divina e graciosa

  Estátua majestosa do amor,

  Por Deus esculturada

  E formada com ardor

  Da alma...

  When she finished her performance and stepped off the stage, he was there waiting for her. He took her hand, glad to see that she was not wearing a wedding or any other ring, raised it to his lips, looked into her eyes and said:

  ‘Popov, Duško Popov, mademoiselle, je suis vraiment enchanté! It’s a true pleasure to meet you.’

  ‘Maria Elera.’

  ‘Even your name is poetic. Marry me, mademoiselle. Be the mother of my child.’

  She giggled. And, just for a fraction of a moment, imagined the possibility.

  Nobody knows what they talked about that evening, but at the time everything pointed to this being just another one of Popov’s flings. That first evening he walked her to her room. They parted at the door; she did not invite him in. Never mind, such things happened, even to him.

  Dušan Popov had notable success with women. He owed it, as he himself said, to being persistent. The people who followed his love affairs knew that he would fall for her, that he would work at it until he won her over. The more she resisted, the harder he would work to win her affection. He would not take no for an answer. It was a matter of days before he achieved his goal.

  The next morning he confided in his best friend.

  ‘I’ve fallen in love with a singer. She’s beautiful, sings like an angel but is not overly intelligent. Just how I like them.’

  *

  The undivided attention he paid her made her feel wanted and special. He knew she would be his if he worked at it long enough, if he bounced back after every defeat and did not worry about the consequences. Slowly, like a tenacious worm, he made his way into her heart and into her life. Women fall in love with people they feel good with. And he did his heroic best to make sure she felt good. His approach was: You’ll be mine sooner or later so there’s no point fighting it.

  Every morning he made sure she thought of him as soon as s
he woke up. A bouquet of red roses would arrive along with her breakfast.

  At the beach, along the promenade, in the park, at the café, at the travelling circus, at the casino, at the corrida or in the ballroom, they attracted attention wherever they went, she with her beauty, he with his wanton ways, and together with their glowing love. They were happy whatever they did, taking a stroll, dining, whatever...

  He would walk her to her room every evening and they would meet again the next day. He could think of nothing else but this beautiful Brazilian woman. The initial stages of love have some of the symptoms of an acute emotional disorder.

  She told him about herself. When she was a little girl in Rio she had wanted to be an opera singer. When she was fourteen she started studying voice. When she was sixteen her father gave her a record player and records. She learned about jazz, the blues and the samba. When she was eighteen she went to Rome where she continued to study music and began to perform, singing both baroque and jazz. An Italian violinist accompanied her. The two of them fell in love through music and married in 1938.

  He was conscripted in 1939 and sent to fight in Albania. The day after he disembarked from the ship he was killed. They sent her his bullet-riddled violin.

  Devastated, she went back to Brazil. She did not sing for a whole year. She was grieving. And when she discarded her mourning clothes she went to New York to sing in the clubs. After a few months, she needed a change again. The invitation to sing at the casino in Lisbon came just at the right moment.

  He was far less talkative than she was. When she asked him to tell her something about himself, he said:

  ‘I’m in love.’

  And so it went for almost two weeks. If we didn’t know him we would think that Popov was a man of the old school who honoured platonic love and a girl’s pre-marital chastity. But since we know the kind of libertine he was, she must have been a very special woman indeed.

  Until one evening when they were dancing and she suddenly looked up.

  ‘Let’s get away from all these people,’ she whispered, her lips brushing his ear, sending quivers down his back. He led her out by the hand.

  Later, watching his cigarette illuminate his profile in the dark room, she whispered:

  ‘One day I won’t know if I lived this, read about it or dreamed it all up.’ They fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  *

  After so much sunny weather, the next day dawned grey and wet, so they stayed in bed.

  ‘All I know about you is that your eyes are blue,’ she said. They picked up where they had left off the night before.

  ‘They’re green,’ he said. ‘I should know; they’re my eyes.’

  ‘They’re blue now’, she replied. ‘I can see them; you can’t. And please shave. Your stubble is scratching my face.’

  *

  The next day he woke up to a clear sky, but found himself alone in bed. She was not in the bathroom either, or in the hallway or in her own room. He could not find her anywhere. She hadn’t left a message. The maid told him that her luggage was still in the hotel, she had not checked out. He did not find her in the street, or under the parasols, or among the dinner guests or dancing. He got drunk but did not find her.

  *

  She found him, the next day, sitting on a bench under the lemon tree.

  She kissed him and said:

  ‘I’m fine. I just needed to get away for a bit. To be by myself and think.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful day. Come with me,’ he said, taking her by the hand to the car.

  They drove along the winding seaside road, through the flat, monotonous landscape. On one side, stretching far into the hinterland, were sand dunes scattered with clumps of long grass beaten down by the wind. On the other side was the grey ocean. Seen from the convertible, the sea and the land formed a flat disk that met the sky in the low-hanging, curved distance. Disturbing this horizontal view were only the rosettes of the agave, its slender, bare stems sticking out here and there like desert trees.

  They left the beaten track and stopped at a vantage point overlooking the sea. The place had a terrible name: Boca do Inferno. The Mouth of Hell. Long ago, when people believed that the world had a limit, this is where they thought it ended.

  Standing side by side, just a step away from the abyss, they were the sole witnesses to this magnificent void. She stepped dangerously close to the edge; had he let go of her arm she would have fallen into the sea foaming white below. He took her into his arms, kissed her hair and led her back to the car.

  Sharing the cigarette he had rolled them, they leaned back in their seats and quietly gazed out at the landscape as if it were a screen projection. The sun was setting.

  ‘What makes you happy?’ she asked.

  ‘Happy? Really, really happy? This,’ he said, slapping the polished rosewood steering wheel.

  ‘A car?’

  ‘No, this isn’t a car, it’s a six cylinder, 1,970 cc, eighty horsepower BMW 328 Roadster. It hugs bends in the road like a snake.’

  The car’s canvas roof trembled noisily in the wind.

  ‘It’s a strange feeling when you’re sad because you think you’re going to lose somebody who isn’t yours,’ she said.

  As there was no response, she went on.

  ‘I want to tell you something, but promise that you’ll at least try to understand and forgive me. Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘I lied to you...’

  He stared out at the ocean as if he hadn’t heard her.

  ‘I’ve been lying to you from the start,’ she said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter; forget it.’

  ‘Do you understand what I’m trying to say?’ she said, her voice quivering as if she were on the verge of tears. ‘I work for the Abwehr. You were my assignment.’

  He sensed her vulnerability. He held her tight in his arms. Her sobs were barely audible.

  ‘You are my target. I’m doing this officially. You understand? For money,’ she whispered.

  ‘Calm down, darling, don’t cry... There’s no need to be unhappy.’ He held her to his chest.

  ‘Please forgive me, I beg you.’

  ‘Don’t cry, darling. It will pass...’

  *

  Tricycle’s MI6 file included several testimonies from various sources concerning this seemingly unimportant episode.

  First there was the message the Lisbon station had sent to London by diplomatic pouch.

  As stated in the report of 20/10/43, Tricycle is very happy in Lisbon and is avoiding confirming the date of his next trip to Britain. The reason is probably a Brazilian woman named Maria Elera with whom, despite our warnings, he had an affair lasting a little over two weeks until it abruptly ended. Judging by messages intercepted from the Abwehr’s Lisbon office in the meantime, our suspicions were well founded. Tricycle’s mistress is the German agent Monica, already known to us from Operation Cardinal in Rome. Although he ignored all our warnings, Tricycle, from everything we know, here again did not risk his own or the operation’s safety. All the indications are that, like the other five cases we know of (three enemy female agents and two agents of our own), the girl failed to gather any information about him but rather, like the others, became emotionally involved and even admitted to him that she was an agent. Tricycle refuses to talk about her since he does not see why he would share details about his private life with us.

  Enclosed with Jarvis’s report was an English translation of the deciphered German intercept. It read:

  Regarding Ivan, he was checked but with no result. Agent Monica, an extremely attractive woman experienced in such matters, was assigned to cover him. The Italians, for whom she had successfully worked under the codename Inferno, recommended her. It took approx. two weeks after their first meeting for her to get close to him. After spending forty-eight hours in her room, on 13 October, having taken every precautionary measure, she appeared at our headqu
arters.

  She stated that the relationship between the two of them had got off to a good start, in fact too good, but that he avoided talking about himself and she had only managed to glean a few irrelevant details; they were proved to be correct, which suggests that Monica had done whatever she could. She informed us, however, that she had broken off the relationship the night before. She said she had done so because of ‘his warped proclivities’. During her time with Ivan she had not noticed anything unusual to indicate that he was involved in any kind of intelligence work. At the end of the meeting, Monica was instructed to make one more attempt to get close to him, to make up with him so that she could continue working on him.

  They met the next day, 14/10/43, in the hotel garden and he drove her to a remote cliff overlooking the ocean. Our field agents followed from a distance and witnessed her simulated attempt to commit suicide, which he prevented, moving her away from the dangerous site. They spent another night together but the next morning, 15/10/42, he broke off all contact with her, except for two occasions (21/10/42 and 26/10/42) when he came to her room drunk, once on his own and once with a local prostitute. He did not stay the night on either occasion. Several days later, on 30/10/42, agent Monica checked out of the hotel and flew to Rome.

  Enclosed in the same file was an envelope addressed to Popov that Maria Elera had left at the Palácio’s reception desk before leaving.

  It contained a photograph of her standing on the steps of the plane. She was wearing a white summer suit and plumed hat. On the back of the picture was a handwritten note in Italian.

  MY BELOVED DUDU,

  I can’t live like this. I feel as if the door is saying ‘Push’ and I’m pulling. I shall never forget how safe I felt with your arms around me. You are the biggest shit of all the shits I have loved.

  Your M.

  Added neatly underneath in English, in blue ink, was the following:

  Abwehr Agent 3, Monica, photographed at Lisbon’s newly opened Portela airport. No traces of invisible ink, microdots or any other valuable intelligence material were detected on either the photograph or the envelope.