Estoril

by Dejan Tiago-Stankovic

3) Using the usual diplomatic channels, officially request the Yugoslav embassy in Lisbon to compile a report on Tricycle’s possible business activities in Portugal.

  4) Using the usual diplomatic channels, officially request that the Portuguese judiciary ask for Tricycle’s bank statements from Banca Nacional Ultramarino, starting from 1939 to the present day.

  5) Two months later, in at least two relevant newspapers, publish the news that foreign national D.P. (32) has been sentenced to fifteen years in prison for fraud.

  6) Before leaving, Tricycle said he was afraid that Miss Lila Bajloni could pose a threat to the security of our operations, because she allegedly knows too much about his activities. It is possible that he is bluffing. On the other hand, for some time now Tricycle has been paying considerable attention to the said girl, they have been spending quite a lot of time together and there is a good chance that she knows something. So far, our department has found no indication that either she, or anyone in her family, is collaborating or has collaborated with the enemy. Therefore, given the circumstances, and for the sake of our higher goal, I strongly suggest that the relevant department be asked to issue entry visas urgently for the four-member Bajloni family.

  7) Tricycle has been paid a thousand pounds out of the cash box.

  * * *

  Just before noon the next day, Mr Gradimir Bajloni asked at Reception for Bruno. As instructed by Popov the previous evening, Bruno brought the white BMW from the garage to the hotel and handed it over to Gradimir. The young man was thrilled at the chance to drive such a machine. Before leaving, Bruno warned him that there were fragile objects in the boot of the car and it would be wise to drive slowly. The boy promised to take care.

  ‘Well then, off you go, or you’ll be late,’ said Bruno, slapping the back of the car the way you do a good horse.

  Grada drove straight to his estate, but he did not stay there for long. Just an hour later, he was back on the road with the same car, its roof now up. He headed north, as if going to Porto, but turned off the road and made for the airport.

  In front of the main terminal, the driver stepped out of the car and took the suitcases out of the boot. Meanwhile, a younger man wearing a hat and sunglasses rose from the seat next to the driver’s.

  The friends kissed each other goodbye on the cheek, like brothers.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Grada had the temerity to say.

  ‘Go ahead, ask.’

  ‘What do you really do?’

  ‘Grada, my friend, what I do is like a septic tank. Most of those who fall in drown, and the few who survive reek of shit.’

  The porter had already taken the luggage into the terminal. Grada watched from a distance as Duško smiled and chatted with the border police officer. A minute later, he was already in no man’s land.

  * * *

  That same evening, after dinner, Gaby was told that Mr Black wanted to see him. The hotel manager came straight to the point.

  ‘Gaby, I just want to pass on a message to you. Duško has left.’

  ‘For where?’

  ‘For London. He had to leave urgently,’ said the manager. ‘He asked me to give you this letter.’

  The envelope was open. Inside, the folded sheet of hotel writing paper said:

  Sorry, kid. Things have become complicated.

  I’ll give you back the money as soon as I can.

  Don’t worry, I’ll find you.

  Your friend D.

  After the boy had read the letter, the hotel manager said:

  ‘Before leaving, Mr Popov asked me to advance him some money for the trip. He said that you would give it back to me. That the two of you had an agreement to that effect. Can I count on you in that regard?’

  ‘I promised that I would give him five thousand dollars, but in person; however, given the situation, we can do it this way too.’

  ‘Hmmm...’ said Mr Black, slightly hesitating. ‘I think I foresee a small problem here. I gave him nine thousand, that’s what he asked for; together with what he owes the hotel that would make it just under ten thousand... I had no reason not to believe him.’

  Gaby shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I’m sorry. I promised him five thousand dollars. He cheated you out of the rest.’

  ‘I like your way of thinking, young man. It’s logical and fair,’ agreed Mr Black. Later they went to the safe and settled their accounts.

  * * *

  ‘If only I knew where that pervert disappeared to,’ Cardoso said to Black on one of his regular evening visits to the hotel. ‘Did he leave owing you anything?’

  ‘Forgive me, Inspector, but I would rather not discuss it,’ said the American.

  ‘So he did. That’s why the good-for-nothing fled. I always suspected he was up to something. I had my eye on him for a long time. But we didn’t discover a thing. Just, partying, whoring, binging... We didn’t have enough agents to cover him. Later I stopped the surveillance. It’s disgraceful to make people watch such debauchery, married, serious men... Following him was no joke. You know how he drives? Peçanha skidded off the road twice chasing him. They say you were the last person to see him?’

  ‘You heard wrong. The last person to see him was the lift boy.’

  RODRIGUEZ

  ‘It says in our press that we are slowly changing sides,’ said the driver, looking at the hotel manager in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘I would say myself that the war is coming to an end, but I’m not quite sure where it says that.’

  ‘It’s in our papers, though not exactly in those words. I’m telling you, it’s all there, you just have to know how to read,’ Bruno laughed.

  ‘What exactly does it say?’ Black did not read the national press.

  ‘The government has stopped exporting tungsten under pressure from the British. Didn’t I tell you? The big boss first gave the Allies the Azores, and now he’s depriving the Germans of tungsten.’

  ‘He didn’t concede the Azores voluntarily. If he hadn’t handed them over, the Americans would have taken them by force,’ said Black. ‘But the tungsten is certainly a sign that he’s giving way.’

  ‘Not only that. They’ve started talking about the historical alliance with the English. They’ve remembered that the fourteenth-century Anglo-Portuguese Alliance is still in force. Why didn’t they write about that in ’39 or ’41, when things were going so well for Hitler? No, our Prime Minister is trying, cunningly, while there’s still time, to approach the victor. But not in an unseemly way; he’s doing it slowly, concession by concession. He’s smart, the old man is,’ said Bruno, giving his interpretation of the day’s press. ‘It’s all interconnected,’ he decided.

  *

  Bruno’s claim that everything was connected was to be confirmed a few days later, when Superintendent Cardoso paid an afternoon visit to the manager of the Palácio.

  He knocked at the door unannounced, without waiting for a reply. He walked into the office looking morose, muttered ‘Good afternoon’ through clenched teeth, sat down opposite the somewhat surprised American and waited for him to ask:

  ‘What brings you here, Inspector?’

  The inspector spoke with immense pathos:

  ‘I knew it all along, Black...’ He stretched out the words, pausing after each. ‘I knew about you and your activities from the very start, and you, I am sure, knew that I knew. Am I right?’

  The American looked the inspector straight in the eye but said nothing. His face was expressionless, as if the man hadn’t asked him anything.

  ‘So,’ the policeman continued, ‘I knew but I tolerated it. In any case, I could have had you kicked out, but I didn’t. That’s because I respect you as a fair, hard-working man.’

  Black still said nothing. His eyes were focused somewhere on the middle of the inspector’s face.

  ‘I came to ask you, Mr Black, how, after all that, you had the cheek to do to me what you did...? I’d like to know, please.’

  ‘Believe me, I ha
ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ And, indeed, he honestly looked as if he did not have a clue what all the fuss was about.

  ‘You knew all along about his secret activities but you didn’t tell me,’ Cardoso said.

  ‘What secret activities are you talking about, Inspector? And can you tell me exactly who “he” is?’ said Black, pretending not to understand.

  ‘I was naïve. I thought I knew everything about everybody, but I didn’t. I didn’t know crucial things about those who were the closest... I didn’t know about him.’

  ‘About whom? What?’

  ‘About Bruno. He’s a member of the Communist Party,’ said the policeman. He made the word communist sound like a swearword.

  Black’s reaction was, for him, quite vigorous.

  ‘Are you certain? What’s your basis for such a conclusion? I am in touch with him every day, so I would know. Or at least sense it.’

  ‘There’s no doubt about it.’

  ‘Well, Inspector, I didn’t know, but even if I had known, I’m not sure I would have told you.’

  A prolonged silence ensued.

  ‘And what happens now?’ asked the American.

  Silence.

  ‘Who reported him?’ the American asked.

  ‘The English. The whole organisation was penetrated − we arrested around thirty of them...’ Cardoso replied.

  They sat there in silence for a few minutes, each like an eternity, as if waiting for something. Black did not dare to ask any questions. The silence was broken by a knock at the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Black called out.

  Bruno came in, looking slightly puzzled. The door closed, and Cardoso took over, as if this was his office, not Black’s.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said to Bruno, indicating a chair.

  When Bruno sat down, everybody fell silent until Cardoso suddenly asked:

  ‘They call you Rodriguez?’

  ‘Some do,’ Bruno replied after a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘You see, the thing is that I’ve been ordered to arrest Rodriguez who, and I quote,’ he proceeded to read, ‘“is a member of the Communist Party of Portugal and an informer for foreign intelligence services”. Those are two major criminal offences. Are you this Rodriguez?’

  Silence.

  ‘You see, Bruno...’ the inspector started, looking at a point on the floor, ‘I thought that we were... friends.’

  ‘And we are friends,’ the driver suddenly spoke up, as if responding to a grave insult.

  ‘If we’re not, we were...’ the policeman confirmed, continuing in the same monotone voice. ‘So, why didn’t you come to me as a friend and say: here’s the situation. Why didn’t you? If you had, I would have found a way to help you out... If you had, we wouldn’t be arresting you. But no... You didn’t say a word to me, your friend... Friendship is, first and foremost, a matter of trust, Bruno my man.’

  What could Bruno say? Nothing. He remained silent.

  ‘And now I can’t help you... You do, of course, realize the situation you have put me in? I ask myself: what did you need this for? What was missing in your life? You had a good job, you did it well, you lived comfortably, you had friends... and of all things for it to be this...’ said Cardoso coldly.

  The three of them sat in silence a while longer.

  ‘Come with me, Bruno, quietly, we don’t want to create a commotion. It would be unfair to the guests,’ the inspector said. ‘We’ll say that your mother has fallen ill and you have to go home urgently.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the hotel manager said to the driver as they were leaving.

  Bruno did not say a word to him. He walked out and went quietly, as directed, to the car waiting for him on the other side of the railing. He did not try to run away; he knew that they had their guns aimed at him.

  HALF AN HOUR BEFORE LUNCH

  ‘Look at this heat, my dear Isaura. It’s like being in Hell, God forbid. I can hardly wait for winter when people outside will be freezing but here in the kitchen we will be nice and warm...’ Lourdes was standing by the stove, fanning herself with her apron.

  Isaura silently empathized. She could not herself complain because if she dared to say anything her boss would bristle and remind her that these days anybody with a job like hers should be singing with joy, not griping. That’s what Lourdes would tell her, Lourdes who moaned enough for the two of them. But she didn’t complain about anything, except about her body, which was not what it used to be.

  ‘I keep feeling dizzy. When I stand, my feet swell; when I sit, my back hurts,’ Lourdes said to her assistant that sweltering afternoon, while peas were simmering in the pot; on a day like this, lunch had to be light.

  Lourdes’ sandals shuffled when she walked. She went over to the door where there was a breeze; it was less humid there.

  The heat forced Senhor Armando, too, to look for a breeze out in the courtyard. He had done the morning drive, polished the limousine and moved it out of the sun and under the eaves of the house. When he had finished everything, he sat down on the little chair in the shade by the kitchen door, where he could keep an eye on the car. He spread open the newspaper and read.

  Just before noon, the cook popped her head out from behind the door.

  ‘Good afternoon, Senhor Armando,’ she said. ‘My goodness, what a sweltering day we’re having.’

  We haven’t mentioned him before, but Senhor Armando has been working at the hotel from the beginning. When Bruno suddenly left, he was on the day shift at Reception and Black thought that he would be the best person to replace him. They worked well together, but they never developed the closeness that Black had had with Bruno. Armando also took over driving Gaby to school. He got along well with him, too, but not like Bruno.

  ‘Good afternoon, Lourdes. How are you? Please come over here, I want you to see something,’ he said, opening the newspaper to show her. ‘Look at this, please. Maybe your memory is better than mine. Is that the French gentleman who was here a few years ago? The one who made friends with our Gaby?’

  Before even seeing the page Lourdes said:

  ‘How should I know who’s who, when I never step out of the kitchen?’

  But all the same, she looked at the picture and suddenly she became serious:

  ‘Well, if it isn’t he certainly looks like him. I know the man, Gaby once brought him over to the kitchen to introduce us. What does it say about him?’ Lourdes did not read much, and if she had to she always found somebody to help her, so that she had forgotten the few letters she knew anyway.

  Senhor Armando adjusted his glasses on his nose:

  Rome, August 9 (AP) – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the forty-four-year-old pilot and writer, has been reported missing during a reconnaissance flight over France, it was officially announced at Allied headquarters in Rome today. Born into an aristocratic family, in his youth Saint-Exupéry was a pilot with the French postal service in Africa and South America. That experience inspired his novels Night Flight, Man and His World, etc. He fled France after the occupation. He recently returned to military duty, after having spent time in the USA. Last March, Saint-Exupéry, a veteran with over 13,000 hours of flight time, was rejected by the US army because of his age.

  ‘Missing?’ Lourdes asked just to make sure that she had understood it properly.

  ‘That’s what it says. Missing.’

  They took a closer look at the photograph. He gave her his glasses for her to see better.

  ‘He’s a bit thinner in this picture, but it looks like him,’ Lourdes said.

  ‘It’s him. He was a pilot too... A few days ago, the boy told me that the two of them were corresponding, and that he had received a package from him from America. It contained a letter and a picture book – for children.’

  ‘I hope to God the worst hasn’t happened,’ Lourdes said, crossing herself.

  They stood silently side by side, as if paying homage to him.

  ‘Shall we tell Gaby?’ Lourdes asked.

>   ‘He has enough troubles of his own,’ Senhor Armando said. ‘Maybe he just had to make an emergency landing and they’ll find him.’

  ‘You’re right. We always expect the worst. Anyway, have you finished with the newspaper? If you have, I need it to light the fire,’ Lourdes said, taking the paper out of the man’s hands, putting it under her arm and returning to the kitchen. It was time to put the rice on the stove. Lunch was in half an hour.

  Senhor Armando headed for the reception desk, but he took the longer, circuitous route rather than the shortcut through the kitchen; he was afraid of the smells permeating his uniform.

  Later, over lunch, his colleagues asked him what was new, what had he read in the papers that day. Senhor Armando told them that the Americans were advancing towards Paris, the Russians were moving from the east and south towards Berlin, and that for the first time Churchill had stated he was expecting an end to the war. But what Armando’s audience enjoyed most was a true story that had happened in Lisbon. When he told them about it everybody laughed.

  It went like this: the previous day, a wedding party was waiting in front of the Anjos church for the bride to appear and just as they started losing patience, a young man came bearing a letter from the bridge. It said that she did not want to get married. She wrote: ‘At times like these, marriage would be an adventure.’

  NINE MONTHS

  It takes nine months from conception to the newborn’s first cry. That is indeed a long time, but when you are busy with work, it goes by in a flash. Exactly nine months after he suddenly vanished, Bruno reappeared at the Palácio. He came back as abruptly as he had left. He had nowhere else to go. This was the only home he had.

  His colleagues were thrilled to see him. For some it was as if he had been away for nine days, for others it was more like nine years. They embraced him, the women even shed a tear or two, and Lourdes, when she saw him, simply clasped her hands on her breast and said in a shocked voice:

  ‘Oh, poor Bruno, you’re so thin! Did they starve you?’ She crossed herself, without at all realizing how on the mark she was. ‘That’s what happens when a man is left to his own devices.’