by Maria Duenas
“I arrived at El Pardo with all this information and conveyed it to El Caudillo in detail,” he went on. “He listened very intently, held on to the document, and thanked me for my work. He was so cordial with me that he even made a personal reference to the old times we’d shared in Africa. The Generalísimo and I have known each other for many years, did you know that? Actually apart from his ineffable brother-in-law, I think I am—sorry, I was—the only member of his government not to address him as ‘sir.’ Our little Franquito in charge of the Glorious National Movement—we never would have imagined such a thing. We were never great friends, in truth; actually, I don’t think he’s ever thought very highly of me at all—he didn’t understand my lack of military enthusiasm and my desire for postings that were urban, administrative, and, if at all possible, foreign. He didn’t fascinate me particularly either, I have to be honest with you; he was always so serious, so upright and dull, so competitive and obsessed with promotions and the career ladder, a real pain in the ass of a man. We were together in Tetouan; he was already a commandant, I was still a captain. Do you want me to tell you a story? When night fell all the officers used to get together in a seedy little café on the Plaza de España to have a few glasses of tea—do you remember those little cafés?”
“I remember them perfectly,” I said. How could I erase from my memory the wrought iron chairs under the palm trees, the smell of kebabs and tea with mint, the subdued movement of djellabas and European suits around the central pavilion with its clay tiles, and the whitewashed Moorish arches.
Nostalgia caused him to smile briefly for the first time. He lit another cigarette and leaned back in the sofa. We were talking in near darkness, with the small lamp in the corner of the room providing the only light. I was still in my dressing gown: I hadn’t found a moment to excuse myself to run and change. I didn’t want to leave him alone for a single second until he was quite calm.
“One evening he didn’t show up, and we all began to speculate about his absence. We came to the conclusion that he must have a girl and decided to seek out some confirmation; you know, basically just the nonsense that young officers get up to when they have too much time on their hands and not much to do. We drew lots and it fell to me to be the one to spy on him. The next day I clarified the mystery. On leaving the citadel I followed him as far as the medina and saw him go into a house, a typical Arab home. Although I found it hard to believe, I first imagined that he was having an affair with some little Muslim girl. I made some excuse to get myself into the house—I can’t even remember what it was. And what do you think I found? Our man getting Arabic lessons, that’s what he was up to. Because the great Africanist general, Spain’s notable and unvanquished Caudillo, the savior of the nation, doesn’t speak Arabic, however much he may have tried to learn. Nor does he understand the Moroccan people, nor does he care about them in the least. But I do. I care about them a great deal. And I get along with them because they’re my brothers. I can understand them in the most elevated Arabic, in Cherja, the dialect of the Rif villages, in whatever dialect they speak. And that was extremely troublesome to Spain’s youngest commandant, the pride of the troops in Africa. And the fact that it was I who discovered him trying to amend his fault annoyed him even more. But anyway, all youthful foolishness.”
He said some words in Arabic that I didn’t understand, as though to demonstrate his mastery of the language. As though I wasn’t already aware of it. He drank again, and I filled the glass for the third time.
“Do you know what Franco said when Serrano put me forward for the ministry? ‘You’re telling me you want me to put little Juan Beigbeder in Foreign Affairs? But he’s an utter lunatic!’ I don’t know why he’s branded me a madman; perhaps because his soul is cold as ice and anyone who’s a little bit more passionate than he is seems to him utterly insane. Me crazy—I hardly think so!”
He drank again. As he talked he barely looked at me, spewing out his bitterness in a ceaseless monologue. He talked and drank, talked and smoked. With rage, and without pause, while I listened in silence, unable to understand why he was telling me all this. We’d hardly ever been alone together before; he’d never addressed more than a handful of phrases to me without Rosalinda present; almost everything he knew about me came from her mouth. And yet at this moment, a moment so important in his life and his career, at this instant that marked the end of an era, for some unknown reason he had decided to confide in me.
“Franco and Serrano say I’ve gone crazy, that I’m the victim of the pernicious influence of a woman. The goddamned nonsense I’ve had to listen to lately. And the In-law-ísimo wants to lecture me on morality; he of all people, who has six or seven legitimate kids at home while he spends his days bedding a marchioness who he then takes out to the bullfights in his convertible! And on top of that they’re considering including the crime of adultery in the penal code; the whole thing’s a joke. Of course I like women, how could I not? I haven’t shared a conjugal life with my wife for years, and I don’t have to answer to anyone for the way I feel or whom I go to bed with or whom I get up in the morning with, that’s all there is to it. I’ve had my escapades, as many as I could, to be absolutely honest with you. So? Does that make me unusual in the army or the government? No. I’m just like all the rest, but they’ve decided to pin a label on me, a frivolous playboy bewitched by an Englishwoman. That’s just how stupid they are. They wanted my head to demonstrate their loyalty to the Germans, like Herod and the Baptist. And now they’ve got it, may it do them some good. But they didn’t need to trample all over me to get it.”
“What have they done to you?” I asked.
“Spread all kinds of calumnies about me: they’ve fabricated an intolerably bad reputation for me, as a depraved womanizer capable of selling out his country for a good screw, if you’ll pardon the language. They’ve spread the story that Rosalinda has kidnapped me and forced me to betray my country, that Hoare has been bribing me, that I receive money from the Jews in Tetouan in exchange for maintaining an anti-German position. They’ve had me watched night and day—I’ve even begun to fear for my physical safety—and don’t believe for a moment that I’m imagining these things. And all this because as a minister I’ve tried to act sensibly and put forward my ideas accordingly. I’ve told them that we can’t just drop our relations with the British and the North Americans because our supplies of wheat and oil, which we need to stop this country from starving to death, depend on them; I’ve insisted that we shouldn’t let Germany interfere in our domestic matters, that we should oppose their interventionist plans, that it’s not in our interest to get embroiled in their war, not even for the colonial empire they think we might be able to gain by it. Do you think they’ve given my opinions the slightest consideration? Not a bit: not only have they not paid me the least attention, but they’ve also accused me of lunacy for thinking that we shouldn’t bow down to an army that is passing through all Europe in triumph. Do you know what one of the divine Serrano’s latest brilliant notions is, what phrase he’s been repeating lately? ‘War, with bread, or war without it!’ What do you think of that? And now it turns out that I’m the crazy one—imagine that! My resistance has cost me the position; who knows if it might end up costing me my life, too. I’ve been left with nothing, Sira. My ministerial post, my military career, and my personal relations: everything, absolutely everything, dragged through the mud. And now they’re sending me to Ronda under house arrest, and who’s to know if they haven’t planned to set up a court-martial and get rid of me one fine morning with a firing squad?”
He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He seemed weary. Exhausted. Old.
“I’m confused, I’m drained,” he said quietly. Then he sighed deeply. “What I wouldn’t give to go back, not to have ever abandoned my beloved Morocco. What I wouldn’t give for this whole nightmare never to have started. Rosalinda is the only person who could console me, and she’s gone. Which is why I’ve come to see you: to ask you to hel
p me get my news to her.”
“Where is she now?”
I’d been wondering about that question for weeks, not knowing where to go to find an answer.
“Lisbon. She had to leave at short notice.”
“Why?” I asked in alarm.
“We learned that the Gestapo was after her; she had to get out of Spain.”
“And as minister you weren’t able to do anything?”
“Me do something about the Gestapo? Not me, not anyone, my dear. My relations with all the German representatives have been very tense lately: some members of our own government have taken it upon themselves to leak my thoughts against our possible intervention in the war and excessive Hispano-German friendship to the ambassador and his people. Though I probably wouldn’t have managed anything even if I’d been on good terms with them, because the Gestapo operates quite autonomously, on the fringes of the official institutions. We learned through a leak that Rosalinda was on one of their lists. Overnight she prepared her things and flew to Portugal; we sent everything else on after her. Ben Wyatt, the North American naval attaché, was the only person who came with us to the airport; he’s a great friend. No one else knows where she is. Or at least, no one should know. Now, however, I wanted to share the information with you. I’m sorry to have invaded your home at this time of night and in this state, but tomorrow they take me to Ronda and I don’t know how long I’ll have to go without being able to contact her.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, finally sensing the purpose of his strange visit.
“Find some way to arrange for these letters to get to Lisbon through the diplomatic bag of the British embassy. Get them to Alan Hillgarth, I know you’re in contact with him,” he said as he took three thick envelopes out of his inside jacket pocket. “I’ve written them over the last few weeks, but I’ve been so closely watched that I haven’t dared dispatch them via normal channels; as you’ll understand, I don’t even trust my own shadow right now. Today, with this business of their having formalized the dismissal, they seem to have let up a little and lowered their guard. Which is why I’ve been able to get here without being followed.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely, don’t worry,” he said, calming my fears. “I took a taxi—I didn’t want to use the official car. There weren’t any cars following us the whole way, I checked. And following me on foot would have been impossible. I stayed in the taxi till I saw the doorman bring the rubbish out; only then did I come into the house. No one saw me, you can be sure of that.”
“How did you know where I lived?”
“How could I not have known? It was Rosalinda who chose this house and kept me abreast of the developments in its preparation. She was very excited about your arrival and your agreement to join with her country’s cause.” He smiled again with his lips closed, just tensing one side of his mouth. “I really love her, Sira, you know that? I’ve really loved her so much. I don’t know if I’ll see her again, but if I don’t, tell her I’d have given my life to have had her with me on this desperately sad night. Would you mind if I poured myself another drink?”
“Of course not, no need to ask.”
I’d lost count of what number he was on, probably five or six. With the next gulp, the moment of melancholy passed. He’d relaxed and didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving.
“Rosalinda is happy in Lisbon, she’s building a life for herself there. You know what she’s like, able to adapt to anything with impressive ease.”
Rosalinda Fox—there was no one like my friend for reinventing herself and starting from scratch as many times as she needed to. What an odd couple she and Beigbeder made. How different they were, and yet how well they complemented each other.
“Go see her in Lisbon when you can, she’d so enjoy spending a few days with you. Her address is on the letters I’ve given you: don’t pass them on till you’ve copied it down.”
“I’ll try, I promise. Are you considering going to Portugal, too? What do you mean to do when all this is over?”
“When my arrest is over? How should I know, it could last years—I might never get out of it alive. The situation is very uncertain; I don’t even know what charges they’re going to bring against me. Revolt, espionage, treason against the fatherland: any outrageous thing. But if Fortune takes my part and it’s all over soon, then yes, I think I will go abroad. God knows I’m no liberal, but I’m absolutely repelled by the megalomaniac totalitarianism with which Franco has emerged from his victory, the monster that it’s engendered, and that many of us have conspired to feed. You can’t imagine how much I regret having played a part in enhancing his reputation in Morocco during the war. I don’t like this regime, not one bit. I don’t think I even like Spain; at least, I don’t like this monstrosity of Una, Grande y Libre that they’re trying to sell us. United, great and free! I’ve spent more years of my life outside this country than in it; I feel like a foreigner here, there are so many things that are strange to me.”
“You could always go back to Morocco,” I suggested. “With Rosalinda.”
“No, no,” he replied forcefully. “Morocco is over now. There’s no future for me there; after having been high commissioner I couldn’t take on a more modest post. Though it pains my heart to say it, I fear Africa is a closed chapter in my life now. Professionally, I mean, because in my heart I’ll be connected to it for as long as I live. Inshallah. May it be so.”
“And next?”
“Everything will depend on my military position; I’m in the hands of El Caudillo, Generalísimo of all the armies by the grace of God; there’s nothing to be done. As though God had anything to do with these devious matters. He might lift my arrest in a month or decide simply to execute me and put out a press release. Who’d have thought it twenty years ago—my whole life in the hands of little Franquito.”
He took his glasses off once again to rub his eyes, then refilled his glass and lit another cigarette.
“You’re very tired,” I said. “Why don’t you go to sleep?”
He looked at me with the face of a little lost boy. A little lost boy who was carrying the weight of more than fifty years of existence on his back, along with the highest posting in the Spanish colonial administration and a ministerial role with a precipitous ending. He replied with crushing honesty.
“I don’t want to leave because I can’t bear the idea of going back to being alone in that big gloomy house that up till now has been my official residence.”
“Stay and sleep here if you prefer,” I offered. I knew it was reckless on my part to invite him to spend the night, but I could sense that given the state he was in, he might do something crazy if I shut the doors of my house and drove him out to wander the streets of Madrid alone.
“I fear I won’t be able to sleep a wink,” he acknowledged, with a half smile heavy with sadness, “but I would be grateful if you’d allow me to rest here awhile; I won’t be any trouble, I promise. It will be like a refuge in the midst of the storm: you can’t imagine how bitter the solitude of the banished man can be.”
“Consider yourself at home. I’ll bring you a blanket in case you want to lie down. Take off your jacket and tie—make yourself comfortable.”
He followed my instructions while I went off in search of a blanket. When I returned he was in his shirtsleeves, refilling the glass with cognac once again.
“Last one,” I said authoritatively, taking the bottle away.
I put a clean ashtray on the table and the blanket on the back of the sofa. Then I sat down next to him and gently took his arm.
“It’ll all pass, Juan Luis, give it time. Sooner or later, eventually, it’ll all pass.”
I rested my head on his shoulder and he put his hand in mine.
“From your mouth to God’s ears, Sira,” he whispered.
I left him alone with his demons and retired to bed. As I made my way back through the hallway to my bedroom I heard him talking to himself in Arabic;
I didn’t understand what he was saying. It took me some time to fall asleep; it was probably past four when I managed to reconcile myself to a strange, troubling slumber. I woke to the sound of the front door closing at the other end of the hallway. I looked at the time on my alarm clock. Twenty to eight. I would never see him again.
Chapter Forty-Two
__________
My fears about being followed suddenly lost all urgency. Before troubling Hillgarth with suppositions that might be unfounded, I had to make immediate contact with him to get Beigbeder’s information and letters to him. His situation was much more important than my fears: not only for himself, but for my friend, and everyone. Which was why that morning I tore to shreds the pattern I’d planned to use to convey my suspicions about being followed and replaced it with a new one: “Beigbeder visited me last night. Out of ministry, state of extreme nervousness. Being sent under arrest to Ronda. Fears for his life. Gave me letters to send to Mrs. Fox to Lisbon by embassy diplomatic bag. Awaiting instructions. Urgent.”
I considered going to Embassy at noon to attract Hillgarth’s attention. Although the news of the ministerial dismissal would undoubtedly have reached him first thing in the morning, I knew that all the details the colonel had told me would be of considerable interest. And besides, I sensed that I should get rid of the letters addressed to Rosalinda as quickly as possible: knowing the sender’s position, I was sure those pages went beyond mere intimate personal correspondence and constituted an arsenal of political fury that I really never ought to have in my possession. But it was Wednesday, and like every Wednesday I had my trip to the beauty salon planned, so I preferred to use the regular channels of transmission before raising the alarm with an emergency action that would allow me to hand over the information only a couple of hours earlier. I forced myself to work through the morning, I was visited by two clients, I picked unenthusiastically at some food, and at a quarter to four I left home for the hairdresser’s, with the tube of patterns firmly wrapped in a silk handkerchief in my handbag. It looked like there was rain on the way, but I decided against taking a taxi: I needed to get some fresh air on my face to dispel the fog that was destroying me. As I walked, I recalled the details of Beigbeder’s unsettling visit the previous night and tried to predict the plan that Hillgarth and his people would come up with for getting hold of the letters. Lost in these thoughts, I wasn’t aware of anyone following me; perhaps my own concerns kept me so engrossed that if there was someone there, I simply didn’t notice.