by Maria Duenas
What she was describing to me was moving, but I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted: we were on the right track, we had to keep going whatever it took. Even if it meant tugging at her conscience.
“You’re right; the situation is much more extreme for those poor people. Besides, it must be painful for them to see so many Germans moving so freely all over the place.”
“I imagine so . . .”
“And it must be especially hard for them knowing that the government of the country they’ve come to is so keen to oblige the Third Reich.”
“I suppose so . . .”
“And that there are even some Portuguese businessmen who are expanding their businesses at the cost of a few juicy contracts with the Nazis . . .”
I spoke those words in a thick, dark tone, moving closer to her and lowering my voice. We held each other’s gaze, both unable to look away.
“Who are you?” she asked finally, her voice barely audible. She’d leaned back, moving her body away from the desk and against the back of her chair, as though trying to get away from me. Her unsettled tone was full of fear; her eyes, however, didn’t look away from mine for a second.
“I’m just a dressmaker,” I whispered. “A simple working woman like you, who doesn’t like what’s happening around her any more than you do.”
I noticed how her neck tensed up as she swallowed, and then I formulated two questions. Slowly. Very slowly.
“What does Da Silva have to do with the Germans, Beatriz? What’s he involved in?”
She swallowed again and her throat moved as though she were trying to get an elephant down it.
“I don’t know anything about it,” she managed to murmur at last.
An annoyed voice came from the door.
“Remind me never to go back to the restaurant on the Rua de São Julião. It took us more than an hour to get served, and me with all the things I have to get ready before Don Manuel comes back. Oh! I’m sorry, Senhorita Agoriuq, I didn’t know you were here . . .”
“I was just going,” I said with feigned self-assurance, picking up my bag. “I came by to pay a surprise visit to Senhor Da Silva, but Senhorita Oliveira has told me he’s traveling. Anyway, I’ll come back some other day.”
“You’ve left your cigarettes,” I heard a voice say behind me.
Beatriz Oliveira was still talking in a dull tone. When she held her arm out to pass me the cigarette case, I held on to her hand and squeezed it.
“Think about it.”
I didn’t take the elevator but went down the stairs instead, going back over the scene in my mind. Perhaps it was rash on my part to expose myself like that so quickly, but the secretary’s attitude led me to suspect that she knew something: something she didn’t tell me more out of uncertainty about me than loyalty to her employer. Da Silva and his secretary somehow didn’t quite fit together, and I was sure she’d never tell him what happened during that strange visit. While he’d been busy playing both sides, not only had a fake Moroccan woman been poking around in his business, but a subversive leftist had already infiltrated his staff. I’d have to arrange things somehow so that I could see her alone again. As to how, when, and where, I hadn’t the faintest idea.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
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Tuesday dawned rainy, and I repeated my routine from the previous days, playing the role of buyer and allowing João to take me to my destination, this time a textile mill on the outskirts of Lisbon. The chauffeur came to pick me up again three hours later.
“Let’s go to Baixa, please, João.”
“If you were expecting to see Don Manuel, he’s not back yet.”
Perfect, I thought. I wasn’t planning to see Da Silva, but to find some way of approaching Beatriz Oliveira again.
“That doesn’t matter, the secretaries can help me. I just have a question on my order.”
I was counting on the older assistant having gone out to lunch again and her frugal companion remaining chained to her desk, but as though someone had gone to great efforts to thwart my desires, what I found was exactly the opposite. The veteran was at her post, going over documents with her glasses down on the tip of her nose. And no sign of the younger one at all.
“Good afternoon, Senhora Somoza. So I see they’ve left you all alone.”
“Don Manuel is still traveling, and Senhorita Oliveira hasn’t come in to work today. How can I help you, Senhorita Agoriuq?”
I felt a taste of annoyance mixed with alarm, but I swallowed it as best I could.
“I hope she’s not unwell,” I said, not answering her question.
“No, I’m sure it’s nothing serious. Her brother came by this morning to let me know that she was indisposed and had a bit of a fever, but I’m sure she’ll be back tomorrow.”
I wavered for a few seconds. Fast, Sira, think fast: act, ask where she lives, try to track her down, I commanded myself.
“Perhaps, if you could give me her address, I might send her some flowers. She’s been very kind to me arranging all my visits to suppliers.”
Despite her natural discretion, the secretary couldn’t help a condescending smile.
“Don’t worry about that, miss. I don’t think that’s necessary—really. We’re not accustomed to receiving flowers when we’re off work for a day. It’s probably just a cold or some other insignificant ailment. If there’s anything I might do to help you myself?”
“I’ve lost a pair of gloves,” I improvised. “I thought that maybe I’d forgotten them here yesterday.”
“I haven’t seen them anywhere here this morning, but they might have been picked up by the women who come in early to clean. Leave it to me, I’ll ask them.”
The absence of Beatriz Oliveira had left my spirit just like the Lisbon noon I found when I stepped back out onto the Rua do Ouro: cloudy, blustery, stormy. And it had taken my appetite away, too, so I just had a cup of tea and a cake at the nearby Café Nicola and went on with my business. For that afternoon the efficient secretary had scheduled a meeting with importers of exotic goods from Brazil: she thought, cleverly, that the feathers of some rare birds might perhaps be of some use to me in my creations. And she was right. If only she’d go to as much trouble to help me with other things I needed.
The weather didn’t improve as the hours went by, nor did my mood. On the way back to Estoril I added up the successes I’d achieved since my arrival, and the total was disastrous. The initial comments I’d had from João had proved to be hardly useful—just the same few brushstrokes repeated again and again with the tiresome verbosity of an old codger who has spent too long on the fringes of his boss’s real day-to-day concerns. On the subject of private meetings with Germans that Hillgarth’s wife had mentioned, I’d not yet heard a word. And the one person I thought of as a potential informer had slipped like water through my fingers, claiming some made-up illness. If I added to that the painful encounter with Marcus, the trip was an utter failure on all fronts. Except for my clients, naturally, who on my return would find a veritable arsenal of wonders impossible to imagine in the squalor of ration-book Spain. With this grim attitude, I had a light dinner in the hotel restaurant and decided to retire early.
As usual, the chambermaid had prepared the room with great care and left everything ready for a good night’s sleep. The curtains drawn, the dim light on the bedside table switched on, the bed turned down with the corner folded with military precision. Perhaps those newly ironed Swiss batiste sheets would help me to escape from consciousness and forget my feelings of frustration, at least for a few hours.
I was about to lie down when I noticed a draft of cold air. I approached the balcony barefoot, drew apart the curtains, and saw that the balcony doors were open. A moment of forgetfulness on the part of the staff, I thought as I closed them. I sat down on the bed and turned out the light: I didn’t feel like reading a single line. And then, as I stretched my legs out under the sheets, my left foot became entangled in something. I stifled a scream
, tried to turn on the bedside light, but accidentally knocked it to the floor; I retrieved it with clumsy hands, tried again to switch it on with the lampshade askew. I finally managed to get it on and yanked off the bedclothes. What the hell was this tangle of black cloth that I’d touched with my foot? I didn’t dare to touch it till I’d examined it carefully by sight. It looked like a veil: a black veil, a veil for Mass. I held it with two fingers and lifted it up: the fabric bundle came undone, and something that looked like a picture fell out from inside. I picked it up gingerly by a corner, as though I were afraid it would come apart if I handled it too firmly. Bringing it up to the light, I could make out the façade of a church. And the image of the Virgin. And two printed lines in Portuguese. “The Church of São Domingos. Novena in worship of Our Lady of Fátima.” On the reverse was a penciled note in handwriting I didn’t recognize. “Wednesday, 6 p.m. Left side, tenth row from the back.” There was no signature; there was no need for one.
The whole of the following day I kept away from Da Silva’s offices, in spite of the fact that the meetings I had scheduled for that day were in the center of town.
“Come fetch me this evening, João. At seven thirty outside Rossio station. Before that I want to attend a Mass, it’s the anniversary of my father’s death.”
The driver accepted my orders, lowering his gaze with an expression of condolence, and I felt a stab of remorse at having eliminated Gonzalo Alvarado so blithely. But I had no time for such regrets, I thought, covering my head with the black veil: it was a quarter to six and the novena would be starting shortly. The church of São Domingos was next to Praça do Rossio, facing the square. When I arrived at the broad façade of white lime wash and stone, I ran into a memory of my mother that was fluttering around the doorway. The last time I’d been to a religious service had been with her in Tetouan, accompanying her to the little church on the square. São Domingos, in contrast, was magnificent, with its huge grey stone columns rising up to a sepia-colored ceiling. And there were people, lots of people, a few men and hordes of women, all of them faithful parishioners who had come to fulfill the mandate of the Virgin by praying a holy rosary.
I went down the left-side aisle, walking slowly, with my hands clasped together and my head bowed, simulating devotion while I counted the rows out of the corner of my eye. When I reached the tenth, I could see through my veil a figure dressed in mourning sitting at the end. With a black skirt and shawl and coarse woolen stockings: the attire of so many humble women in Lisbon. She wasn’t wearing a veil but a scarf tied under her chin, which hung so low it was impossible to see her face. Beside her there was an empty place, but for a few moments I didn’t know what I was expected to do. Until I saw a pale, careful hand emerge from the skirts. A hand that settled on the empty space next to its owner. Sit here, she seemed to be telling me. I obeyed her at once.
We sat in silence as the members of the congregation continued to fill the empty places. The altar boys shuffled around the altar, and in the background we could hear the purr of a sea of quiet murmurings. Although I looked at the woman several times out of the corner of my eye, her headscarf prevented me from seeing her features. In any case, I had no need: I had no doubt whatsoever who she was. I decided to break the ice with a whisper.
“Thank you for asking me here, Beatriz. Please, there’s no need to be afraid: no one in Lisbon will ever know about this conversation.”
It was a few seconds before she replied. When she did it was with her eyes still fixed on her lap and her voice barely audible.
“You work for the English, don’t you?”
I lowered my head slightly in assent.
“I’m not really sure that this will be of any use to you, it’s not a lot. I only know that Da Silva is in negotiations with the Germans over something related to the mines in Beira, a region in the interior of the country. He’s never had any dealings in that area before. It’s all recent, just over the last few months. Now he goes almost every week.”
“What’s it about?”
“Something they call ‘the spit of the wolf.’ The Germans are insisting on exclusivity, for him to cut off his dealings with the British altogether. And on top of that he is to get the owners of the adjacent mines to join him and stop selling to the English, too.”
The priest came up to the altar from a side door, a tiny figure in the distance. The entire congregation rose to its feet, including the two of us.
“Who are these Germans?” I whispered from under my veil.
“Weiss is the only one who’s come to the office—three times. He never speaks to them on the telephone; he thinks the line might be being tapped. I know that outside the office he’s also met up with another one, Wolters. This week they’re expecting a third one to come from Spain. They’re all going to be having dinner at his estate tomorrow—Thursday night: Don Manuel, the Germans, and the Portuguese owners of the neighboring mines in Beira. That’s where they’re expecting to close the deal: he’s been in discussions with the mine owners for weeks to get them to supply only to the Germans, nobody else. They’ll all be there with their wives and he’s anxious to treat them well: I know that because he made me order flowers and chocolates to welcome them.”
The priest finished, and the whole church sat back down amid the sounds of rustling, sighs, and the creaking of old wood.
“He’s alerted us”—she went on, her head bent down again—“not to put through any calls from certain Englishmen he used to be on good terms with. And this morning he had a meeting in the basement with two men, two ex-convicts he sometimes uses for protection; from time to time he’s found himself in trouble. I was only able to overhear the end of the conversation. He ordered them to deal with these Englishmen, and, if necessary, to neutralize them.”
“What did he mean, ‘neutralize them’?”
“Get them out of the way, I guess.”
“How?”
“Use your imagination.”
The congregation stood up again, and again we joined them. They began to chant with fervent voices, and I felt my blood thundering in my temples.
“Do you know what the names of these Englishmen are?”
“I’ve written them down.”
Stealthily she pressed a folded piece of paper into my hand.
“I promise I don’t know anything else.”
“Send someone again if you hear anything new,” I said, thinking of my open balcony doors.
“I will. And please, don’t use my name. And don’t come by the office anymore.”
I couldn’t promise her that I’d do as she said because like a black crow she immediately took flight. I remained a short while longer, sheltered between the stone columns, the off-key chants, and the murmur of the litany. When I had finally managed to get over the impact of what I’d heard, I unfolded the piece of paper and confirmed that my worst fears were not unfounded. Beatriz Oliveira had given me a list of five names. The fourth was Marcus Logan.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
__________
Like every afternoon at that hour, the hotel lobby was lively and crowded. Filled with foreigners, ladies with pearls and men in linen suits or in uniform; filled with conversation, with the smell of expensive tobacco and the movement of bustling bellhops. And most likely filled with some undesirable types, too. One of them was there to meet me. Although I faked a reaction of surprised delight, I felt my skin crawl when I saw him. To look at him, he was just the same Manuel Da Silva of the previous days: sure of himself in his perfect suit, his first white hairs giving a sign of his forthcoming maturity, alert and smiling. Just seeing him provoked such revulsion in me that I had to curb my impulse to turn around and run. Out onto the street, to the beach, to the end of the world. Anywhere far from him. Before, everything had been mere suspicion; there had still been room to hope that beneath that attractive appearance was a decent human being. I knew now that that wasn’t the case, that regrettably the worst predictions had been correct. The Hillgarths’
assumptions had been confirmed in the church meeting: integrity and loyalty don’t go well with business during wartime, and Da Silva had sold himself to the Germans. And as if that wasn’t enough, he’d made a sinister addition to the deal: if his old friends bothered him, he’d have to get rid of them. Remembering that Marcus was among them gave me a jolt in the gut all over again.
My body was begging to run away from him but I couldn’t do it: not only because a heavy load of trunks and suitcases was momentarily blocking the hotel’s large revolving door, but for other much more forceful reasons. I’d just learned that twenty-four hours from now Da Silva was planning to wine and dine his German contacts. No doubt that was the meeting that Hillgarth’s wife had predicted, and it would probably be there that all the detailed information that the English were so keen to learn would be circulating. My next aim would be to try by any means to get myself invited to attend, but time wasn’t on my side. I had no choice but to rush ahead.
“My condolences, my dear Arish.”
It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what he was referring to. He probably attributed my silence to the fact that I was moved.