Victor del Arbol - The Sadness of the Samurai: A Novel

by Victor del Arbol

  Guillermo examined some rosebuds, bringing them so close to his face that the petals touched his eyebrows. They were Isabel’s roses. Maybe Publio was right.

  “Who was it? One of yours?”

  Publio nodded.

  “The same one that organized the assassination? The one that almost shot me dead?” asked Guillermo, irritated and pointing to his bandaged ribs.

  Publio swallowed hard.

  “It had to look real, but you weren’t in danger at any moment. My man knows exactly where to do damage.”

  “And if he had changed his mind at the last minute? If he’d let himself be blinded by that whore Isabel?”

  Publio shook his head. That was never a possibility; he knew his men perfectly. They were loyal and efficient. Anyway, he’d rather not talk to Guillermo about the relationship between Isabel and his undercover man. It would only have complicated things.

  Guillermo Mola was silent for a few minutes. The events of the last few weeks took all his attention. He had received the order to transfer to Barcelona. It was a good idea. That allowed him to get out of the way while they dealt with the Isabel matter.

  “We need someone to blame. And we need him fast.”

  Publio nodded. He had already been thinking about that.

  “There is someone who has the perfect profile. Marcelo Alcalá, Andrés’s tutor.”

  Guillermo Mola was surprised.

  “That harmless teacher? It’s not believable.”

  “It will be. Besides, he’s not as innocent as he seems. In fact, he was planning on helping Isabel escape with Andrés.”

  Guillermo Mola let out a snort.

  “It almost would have been better to let him. It would have gotten the problem of that little good-for-nothing off my back.”

  Publio felt a stinging resentment that he knew how to cover up. He was fond of the boy, and it bothered him that his father despised him. However, that was not his concern. Besides, Guillermo called his attention to another matter that he wanted resolved immediately.

  “You must have heard that they are recruiting an expeditionary force to support the Germans on the Soviet front.”

  Publio nodded. Most of the members were going to be Falangists, which had given rise to the name Blue Division. The generalissimo was very intelligent, he thought: in one stroke he got rid of the old staunch supporters of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, and that left him a free path to organize the movement and manage the victory as he wished. Honestly he didn’t like those officers called africanos that Franco commanded. Really he didn’t even trust the generalissimo. Publio himself had heard him say that “winning the war will cost more than some believe, but in the end we will win it” in early July of 1936. At the same time, his network of agents informed him that while Franco was declaring that, the wife and daughter of the generalito, as the old guard mockingly called him, were boarding a German ship headed to Le Havre, in case the uprising failed. Like a good Galician, he lit one candle for God and another for the Devil.

  However, Publio didn’t let his bitter thoughts show.

  “I’m going to send Fernando there,” said Guillermo. He went over to a file he had open. He turned the pages with concern and showed it to Publio. They were pages from a diary written by Guillermo’s older son. “If someone found out about this, it could cause me problems.”

  Publio read with some surprise the comments Fernando had written. They were serious indeed. But not serious enough to send the Mola heir to a certain death. Suddenly, it seemed that Guillermo’s sons were a burden to him. As if he wanted to erase any trace that linked him to Isabel.

  “For some harmless comments?” Publio intervened, tepidly. “We’re not talking about having him round people up on weekends or rough them up a little in some garage. That war is very serious, and Fernando isn’t prepared.”

  Guillermo Mola clenched his jaw.

  “Harmless comments? That ungrateful wretch says horrible things about me, me, his father. And, on the other hand, his mother is a saint. Let the Germans open his eyes; they’ll send him back to me a man.”

  Publio smiled cynically.

  “They might send him back to you in a coffin. I don’t like the Nazis; they’re too mystical, with all that superior-race stuff.”

  “They see things straight. If you start something, you finish it. Not like us; we’ve left everything half done. If we did it clean like they do, things would be very different around here.”

  Publio showed his sarcastic side. “The Germans are very good at cleaning things up, that’s true. First they go for the left-wingers, then the centrists, the middle class, the Jews, then they continue with the homosexuals, the gypsies, the infirm, the Catholics, and finally, like a rabid dog that has nothing to bite, they devour themselves. For such a cultured people, those Nazis are a bit obtuse. Although very neat, that’s true.”

  Guillermo Mola reluctantly tolerated Publio’s flippant remarks, which came from a place of absolute immorality.

  “If one of my centurion officers heard you speak like that, he’d rip out your tongue before you had a chance to say that you are a friend of mine.”

  Publio shrugged his shoulders. He was a true believer in the Falange, and he understood how serious the matter was. But he distrusted hypocrites, especially if they were on his side.

  “In any case, it seems a very drastic measure. Fernando’s a good kid; if you ask him to explain himself, I’m sure he’ll take it back, and you could always punish him with a stint in the Saharan colony. That boy’s too pale. The sun will suit him better than the snow.”

  “Save your sarcasm for a better moment, Publio. And bring me that boy straightaway.”

  * * *

  Fernando watched the movement of the red fish that rested on the bottom of the reservoir. He liked to put his head beneath the water and hold his breath. At first the fish were timid, running away in lightning-fast zigzags and hiding behind the rocks overtaken by seaweed. But over time those small beings, whose memory only lasted a second, were also curious about those half-open eyes and that face that floated like a strange, ugly jellyfish. They approached shyly at first, taking the long way around, but then they moved confidently before his eyes, they kissed his face, his mouth. Fernando watched, fascinated, the gleam of their scales under the beams of light. They were like fish made of gold.

  “Hello, Fernando.”

  The older Mola boy pulled his head out of the water and turned suspiciously.

  Publio sat on the edge of the reservoir and grabbed a fistful of water. His movement, while delicate, scared the fish, breaking the trust they had with Fernando.

  “Your father is waiting for you in his office. He wants to talk to you.”

  Fernando looked at Publio coldly. That man was really sinister. He had heard the maids in the kitchen call him “Polaco” disparagingly. They said terrible things about him. However, when they were together, Publio always made an effort to be friendly. That friendliness, when he stepped aside to give him the right-of-way or when he called him by his first name, looking directly into his eyes with respect, made Fernando uncomfortable.

  “A bit of advice, boy. Be careful with what you say.”

  “Thanks,” said Fernando, breaking away from his penetrating gaze.

  He went up to the arched walkway on the first floor of the house. His father was in the office going through papers.

  Guillermo Mola didn’t allow anyone into this sanctum sanctorum, unless he ordered otherwise. In that room the agreements with the Vatican representative, Monsignor Gomà, had been signed; there the German ambassador, von Stoher, had met with Minister of Foreign Affairs Beigbeder y Atienza with the intention of discussing whether to kidnap the Count of Windsor, who was then in Lisbon. In that room Guillermo Mola had conversed about women and pleasures with the handsome Count Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law and the Italian minister of foreign affairs, and seated at the desk they had toasted the Argentine Empire and the sensuous German actress Jana with Fr
ench champagne.

  Fernando had asked his father for permission, on more than one occasion, to study in that rich and wide-ranging library, but his father had made fun of him. The books, Guillermo would say, weren’t that different from the wallpaper that lined the library. They were decoration, not for reading. His father, whose wealth was the obscene type common to the nouveau riche, found that library perfect for sitting in an easy chair, drinking a brandy, and listening full-blast to the dithyrambic prose of the Diario de Noticias Hablado, the daily radio news which everyone just called El Parte, at two thirty in the afternoon and ten at night.

  It was of the highest offense to hear, through the closed door, in that beautiful temple, the phantasmagorical and pompous phrase that closed the news program: For the glorious ones, fallen for God and for Spain. They are here with us!

  The office smelled of coffee, wooden stamp wax, and Cuban cigars. Behind the desk there was a cubist painting by Juan Gris. There were the most valuable books in the library: ancient codices, historical maps from the era of the Catholic kings, volumes on the paintings of Velázquez, Titian, Van Dyck, and Goya; there was even a collection of Leonardo da Vinci’s letters.

  Fernando’s gaze caressed those worn spines, filled with dust and fascinating stories that his father kept only for their financial value. It was as if all that coarsely piled-up knowledge was lost to mankind.

  He stood waiting, his hands crossed over his lap. And there he remained for so long that even his toes fell asleep, and he was used to standing stoically for hours.

  Finally, his father looked up. He circled the reading chair and stopped in front of a small glass-door bookcase, opened it, and took out a small volume of poems by Eugenio d’Ors. He took off his black-rimmed glasses. For several minutes he scrutinized Fernando in silence.

  “Do you think I’m a bad person?” he spat out finally.

  Fernando was surprised by the question. His father was his father. Fernando knew his obligations as a son. He didn’t need to know more. He hadn’t been raised for anything beyond fulfilling his father’s will.

  “I do not understand the question, sir.”

  “I don’t know why. It’s simple.”

  Fernando was confused. On the scale of values that governed his existence, his father was good: he honored those dead for the Cause; he had built churches and orphanages; he gave important donations to the Female Section of the Falange for Pilar Primo de Rivera’s Family Schools; he was frequently in the company of intellectuals such as the Barcelonian Eugenio d’Ors or eminent men such as the top-ranking Falangist Serrano Suñer, Franco’s son-in-law.

  But it was also true that he drank too much and when he did he got violent. On one occasion he saw him whip a day laborer who dared to ask for a raise. That had repulsed Fernando because of the brute force used, but it didn’t make him question his father’s reasons for acting that way. He had always accepted that his father was like him, like everyone he knew: strange, unpredictable, confused beings.

  “Do you hate me, Fernando?”

  As far as his own feelings were concerned, Fernando had never asked himself if he loved his father or if his father loved him. Love was something superfluous and unnecessary in that world of dutiful obedience.

  “I asked you a question,” his father shouted, throwing the book of poems onto the desk. From among its pages peeked out several handwritten sheets. “Answer!”

  Fernando turned red when he recognized his handwriting. Now he understood.

  “No, sir, I don’t hate you.”

  “Did you write this?”

  “Yes, sir. It is part of my diary … But it doesn’t mean that I believe what is written there. It was an impulse.”

  “Read it,” his father ordered, throwing the pages at his feet.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, seeing as you have already read it.”

  Guillermo Mola’s face contorted. He was about to have a fit. Unable to control himself, he slapped Fernando. The young man took the blow stoically.

  “Pick up those filthy pieces of paper and read what you wrote on them; I want to hear those words coming out of your mouth,” said Guillermo through clenched teeth, his eyes gleaming with rage.

  Fernando obeyed, trembling.

  “Every night I hear my father beating my mother. She can barely let out a dog’s moan when she falls to the floor with the first slap. Then she curls up over herself, biting the floor to bear the blows with the stoicism she has been taught since she was a girl. But her strength is failing her.

  “As I hear how he hits her, the image of my mother hugging me as a boy slips into my mind and the scent of her hands penetrates my nose, a scent of tangerine trees and riverbed mud. And I’m consumed by cowardice for not going to her defense. The punches and kicks of my father are like slamming doors on that love. Every blow is a door that closes. A door that takes her farther from the living.”

  Fernando raised his anguished gaze toward his father.

  “Continue,” Guillermo ordered.

  “I think of the shrunken body of the prostitute I saw one morning floating in a bathtub of blood, covered with bruises and scratches. She didn’t even fight against my father’s fingers, which forced their way into her vagina and rectum. She was just like a piece of wood with her eyes fixed on the ceiling and her hair floating in the glazed tub. I wanted to kill him. Why do I allow it? Why doesn’t even an atom of my body rise up against such despicable acts?

  “In the silence, all of my father’s actions are like blows to a bag of sand. They don’t seem real, their sound is muffled, and the contact dry, lifeless. I do nothing because I am a coward. This uniform, my military discipline, they are just appearances. I want to be different, but I am what I am. And what most horrifies me is that Andrés will end up like him, a sadist, or like me, a vile, impassive being. If at least I were able to save him from his fate, if I could give him the possibility of escaping this rotten family, it would all at least make a little bit of sense.”

  Fernando stared at the carpet, ashamed.

  “Well? What do you have to say?” his father shouted angrily.

  “I … I think that you treat my mother unfairly, that she deserves better.”

  Guillermo turned red with rage.

  “And what do you know about your mother? Tell me, what the hell do you know about how she is?! I will tell you something, and you’d better not forget it: your mother doesn’t love you or your brother; she doesn’t love me; she doesn’t love anything this house represents. That is why she isn’t here, and that is why she is never coming back, do you hear me? Never! She has what she deserves, the treacherous whore.”

  Slowly, Fernando raised his green eyes to meet his father’s. He wasn’t like him; he didn’t even look like him. He could have been the son of a swineherd, and no one would have noticed the difference. Fernando was like his mother; he was his mother’s son.

  “I think my mother left us because she hates you,” he said curtly.

  Guillermo stared at that son of his who was nothing like him, unlike Andrés. He looked so much like his mother that Guillermo wanted to rip out those eyes that were so different from his and so similar to Isabel’s.

  “Your mother is a whore who’s probably rolling around with some pig in a barn somewhere. That’s why she left you.”

  “That’s not true. There must be a reason why she just disappeared without a word.”

  “The only reason is that she’s a low-class concubine, willing to do anything to get what she wants. She’s resentful and treacherous.”

  “I won’t let you speak that way of my mother, sir,” said Fernando, and he was surprised, almost as much as his father, at his words.

  Guillermo went into a rage and was about to slap him again, but this time Fernando held his wrist, a reflexive act that he immediately regretted. He had never before disobeyed his father nor opposed his wishes. However, a strange rage boiled inside him. He wasn’t deaf, he wasn’t blind. He knew what the ser
vants said about why his mother had been forced to run away. And for years, too many years, he had been witness to the contempt and beatings she had been subjected to.

  “Don’t you dare put your hand on me again. I am not a boy. I am nineteen years old.”

  Guillermo was so perplexed that for a few seconds he saw his son as a stranger who was intimidating him. But he recovered control and shoved him off with a brusque hand.

  “I’ve asked Serrano to find you a post in the division they are creating. Your knowledge of German will be useful. Perhaps, when you are in Russia, you’ll get these stupid ideas out of your head.”

  Fernando shrank inside, as if his heart had been kicked by a steel boot. His father was going to send him to Russia to get hardened up or killed, like the ancient Spartans did with their sons. But he didn’t care; actually he almost preferred it. He would never find his place in that house.

  Guillermo bade him farewell with a gesture of his hand.

  Fernando didn’t move. Since his fate had just been written, he had nothing to lose.

  “What is going to happen to Andrés? Are you thinking of locking him away in a hospital? Mother would be against it.”

  “That’s none of your business; get out of here.”

  “Of course it’s my business. He is my little brother.”

  Guillermo looked at his son, puzzled.

  “And I am your father…”

  “No. Not anymore. You just sent me to war.”

  “Get out, get out of here, leave this house today, right now,” shouted Guillermo.

  Fernando prepared to leave that house and that life forever, but first he turned toward his father and looked at him with hate in his eyes.

  “I swear to God that I will pay you back a thousandfold for the damage you have done to us.”

  9

  Modelo prison (Barcelona), December 1980

  “Happy birthday, Alcalá.”

  César frowned. His birthday wasn’t for months. But he got the guard’s irony. Today made three years in prison.

  “Thanks, Don Ernesto; you are always so thoughtful.” One of the paradoxical laws of the paradoxical world that was prison dictated that the inmates addressed the guards with formal respect and the guards addressed them familiarly. It was one of the systems that carefully marked the differences between them.