The Angel of History

by Bruno Arpaia

  ‘And so?’ he repeated.

  ‘So,’ said Lisa, sitting next to him. ‘So there is the Lister trail.’

  ‘Pardon my ignorance, but what is that?’

  Lisa fluttered her lips and smiled. ‘Don’t worry. I’d never heard of it either. The mayor explained to me that Lister is a general in the Spanish Republic, and that many of his troops used this smugglers’ route to escape. It’s just a little bit to the west and there’s some climbing involved. It’s not easy.’

  ‘Well, as long as it’s safe, the rest doesn’t matter. But I should warn you that my heart is unwell and I can’t walk fast. Also, I came here with two people, Henny Gurland and her son. He’s about fifteen. Will you bring them too?’

  The waves swelled a few metres in front of them, and two seagulls drowsily sunned on a buoy. It seemed so calm and peaceful.

  ‘Of course,’ answered Lisa. ‘We’ll go together. But do you trust me? I’m not a guide and I’ve never been on this trail. All I have is the map Azéma drew for me, and his directions – take a right, watch for the shed on your left, you get to a clearing with seven pine trees, skirt the vineyard until you get to just the right point on the ridge . . . It’s risky. Are you sure you’re up for it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Benjamin without hesitation. ‘It would be more of a risk not to go.’

  It was useless to discuss it further. Old Benjamin was pig-headed like very few others that Lisa knew. She still remembered certain scenes he’d made in Paris the few times they’d met, how nasty he could be in his convictions and how easily offended he was. Intolerable. So she let go of her doubts about him surviving the crossing, whether his heart would hold out through the hours of hiking. It was better not to think about it too much.

  ‘You know what we should do?’ she proposed.

  A quarter of an hour later they had decided to go back to Azéma together and have him explain the whole thing again. There were too many signposts, too many details to keep in mind in order to stay on the path. It would be better if there were two of them trying to remember the instructions. They would just have to tell Eva, Lisa’s sister-in-law, who was back at the house with her daughter Titi waiting for them.

  ‘I’ll come back to get you once the road is safe and then we’ll go.’

  They departed in the late morning, Lisa walking ahead, followed by Henny and then Walter along with José – who wouldn’t leave his side – bringing up the rear. The sea shone in the distance, while the hills above it dripped with green vines already stripped of the ripe grapes, dotted with shapes of the women dressed in black who were working the vineyards.

  It was a few kilometres to Banyuls over flat ground, but Benjamin was winded halfway there. His skin had grown pale and his lips were purplish.

  ‘Do you feel all right?’ asked Lisa.

  ‘Perfect,’ he answered seriously.

  When they got to Banyuls they found three rooms in an inn that looked out over the sea – green, intense blue, under the beating sun. Benjamin could have stayed there watching the water until his eyes ached from the reflections, until the worries boiling in his head had quieted down and dissolved into that innocent blue like the sea itself, newborn. But they had to keep moving. They met again back down on the street just past noon.

  ‘Doctor Benjamin and I,’ began Lisa, ‘are going to go speak with someone who will help us. Wait for us here. Don’t go anywhere.’

  ‘I want to come too,’ said José. But his mother shot him a withering look. That was that. They set off. Mayor Azéma was in his office on the main road through Banyuls. A very thin man with strong hands and the face of a clever peasant, features carved deep by the sun and age. He held half an unlit cigar in his mouth. It wasn’t the moment for smoking. He shut the door, locked it, and then called the two over to the window.

  ‘There it is. You see? That’s the Pic Joan, and just a little beyond that is the clearing with the seven pines. Keep the clearing on your right and go straight on to the ridge.’

  ‘It seems so easy from here,’ observed Lisa. ‘But then we have to climb that peak.’ Azéma laughed and stretched out his arms. ‘I can’t do anything about that. Spain is over there, on the other side of the Pyrenees.’

  He returned to his desk and sat down under the flag and a very old photo of Pétain that hung on the wall. He glanced up and Benjamin thought he saw a crooked smile play over his lips. He wasn’t wrong. The mayor was still smiling as he perched on the edge of his chair and said in a low voice, ‘It might be a good idea to go now and check it out while there’s still light. Go up to that point,’ he said, underlining the place on the map he’d drawn. ‘That way you can see if you’re up to the walk or not. When you come back we’ll talk again. I would just add that it would be better to leave very early tomorrow when it’s still dark, that way you’ll blend into the workers walking up toward the vines. Just bring a backpack and lunchbox. Don’t talk – not a word. This is the only way to slip through the border patrols.’

  And yes, he was now satisfied. He’d said what he needed to say and he sank back into his chair, struck a match against the wall behind him and took a couple of drags on his cigar. He must have realised that Benjamin was drooling, but would never dare ask for a cigar.

  ‘Would you care for one?’ he asked. ‘It’s good stuff. Contraband on the black market from Spain.’

  Walter stood and leaned across the desk toward Azéma’s lit match. Finally. But he couldn’t taste anything and then he couldn’t breathe. Had the smoke gone down the wrong pipe or had his heart suddenly been gripped with fear that he couldn’t make it.

  ‘How long,’ he choked. ‘How far is it up to that clearing?’

  ‘An hour or two at the most. You’ll see. It’s quite a stroll.’

  And it was over. They all shook hands.

  ‘Je vous remercie infiniment, monsieur la maire,’ he heard Lisa saying.

  Chapter Forty-one

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay behind?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Benjamin decisively.

  ‘You know that we have to get up very early tomorrow morning and we’ll have a long walk ahead of us. Wouldn’t it be better if you conserved your energy?’

  ‘No. I want to come. I want to see it personally so that I don’t have to worry about what’s in store for me. And I feel fine now, really fine.’

  Lisa looked at him, from head to toe. He did seem genuinely rested. His face was relaxed and he’d regained his natural colour. Apart from that – what would be the point of arguing with someone like him? They left early in the afternoon, walking slowly up the softly sloping path like tourists taking in the landscape, the wind lifting dust clouds over the hill, the gaudy September colours, the olive grove, the fig trees, the carob bushes along the road. José ran back and forth, suddenly overcome by nervous happiness – an uneasiness that he seemed only able to express by careering about, running ahead and then running back along the languid curves. His mother called out to him asking him to stop and stick with them, but it was useless. Lisa thought it would be better to keep quiet. Fortunately the wind blowing around them diffused their voices and masked the sounds of their bedevilled language: four German Jews in flight.

  ‘Around here,’ she said, in order to distract herself, ‘they believe that the north wind drives people crazy – it carries madness.’

  ‘Where we’re from,’ responded Benjamin with a smile, ‘you don’t need the north wind . . .’

  Lisa turned to look at him. An ass brayed in the distance – down by the village they’d left behind.

  Old Benjamin seemed so out of place there, walking a trail, his tie tight around his neck, his jacket unbuttoned, his walking shoes worn through, carrying the bag that seemed chained to him. It was obviously heavy because he was listing to one side, grimacing, and panting with the effort of carrying it.

  ‘Can I help? I’ll carry the bag for a while.’

  Benjamin stopped and breathed deeply. ‘No thank you,’ he said. �
��My manuscript is in here. The last one.’

  ‘Well then,’ asked Lisa, ‘why are you lugging it? It’s useless. And we’re going back to the hotel tonight anyway.’

  Walter looked around as if he didn’t know there was no one else there – just a wayward swallow and a tuft of hay lying in the field.

  ‘I wouldn’t trust leaving it behind,’ he answered with a sparkle of mystery in his eyes. ‘It’s precious to me. I can’t possibly lose it. The manuscript must be saved. It’s more important than I am. Do you understand?’

  No, Lisa didn’t. That man and his damn obsessions. Things looked bad for their journey. But it was better not to think about it. What was important now was to lock every tree into her memory, every rock that might help them find the trail the next day. They walked, each of them closed in a bubble of silence, along that precarious path, cutting their way among the weeds, pines and locust trees. Even José grew quieter as if the mountain looming over them had suddenly frightened him. Benjamin got more and more winded, as he remembered his hikes through the mountains of Giura with Gerhard Scholem, and his outings in Ibiza with Paul Gauguin – the great painter’s nephew. But he had been younger then and wasn’t being dogged by the Nazis. What could he do? He’d been cursed with a miserable life, getting down and being put back up on one cross after the other.

  They had been climbing for almost three hours when a flash of light from a cluster of trees on the hill startled them.

  ‘The clearing!’ cried José running out in front of them.

  ‘Shut up,’ said his mother.

  But José was right. A hundred metres in front of them lay a circle of grass, delicate green and shining like a coin in the light of the advancing afternoon.

  ‘Hurry, let’s move,’ said Benjamin suddenly. He seemed as if he’d been reborn. His gait became elastic; his heart for a moment beat regularly. He was almost running. Then, without warning, in the middle of the clearing, he fell face down into the grass. Exhausted.

  ‘Are you sick?’ asked José. ‘Don’t you feel well, Mr Benjamin?’

  Walter stayed where he was, legs splayed and his torso heaving. Nothing else on his body moved, but one finger extended and wagged back and forth. No no, he was trying to say. I’m fine. Henny stole a glance at Lisa.

  ‘Let’s rest for a bit,’ she winked. ‘I can’t go on, I’m so tired.’

  So they sat for half an hour in the grass watching the fluffy clouds unfurl in the south wind as if a giant comb were passing over the sky. The strong scent of myrtle and mint rose from the earth, wafting peacefully in the luminescent air.

  ‘Do you want some water?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ he answered.

  Benjamin turned over onto his back and they could all see his skin had puckered and his cheeks were red as peppers, but he was breathing well and was smiling stubbornly again. Lisa perked up. And it was starting to get late, they had to make sure they got as much sleep as possible before leaving the next day.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said, standing. But Walter didn’t move. ‘Are you still tired?’

  ‘No. No. I’m fine. You three go on back.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll stay here. I’ll spend the night and we can meet back up tomorrow.’

  Stubborn, stupid old mule. There was something in his voice, a totally unnatural serenity, and a magic intransigence. What was Lisa to do now? He would be impossible to dissuade.

  ‘We are high in the mountains, Doctor Benjamin,’ she said, carefully choosing her words. ‘It’s risky, there are wild animals, stray bulls, smugglers who might attack you. And it’s cold, you have nothing to cover yourself with, and there’s nothing to eat. It would really be quite absurd to stay here.’

  Walter didn’t budge. He just stared back at her, the barest hint of a smile softening his gaze.

  ‘My decision,’ he explained, ‘is irrevocable. And it’s logical. Listen:What is my goal here? To get over the border so that my manuscript and I will not fall into the hands of the Gestapo. I have now covered a third of the trail. If I leave now, I may not be able to make it this far tomorrow. Thus I will spend the night here and then start in the morning from here. Does that make sense?’

  Lisa sat back down and crossed her arms. ‘Well, then I’m staying too,’ she burst out. But only got an amused, indulgent smile in response.

  ‘A gnädige Frau,’ Benjamin finally said. ‘You will stay in order to protect me from the bulls and smugglers?’

  How much had he already analysed this decision, examined every pro and con, every alternative? He had it figured to the smallest detail. He must have, because now he was calm and not to be budged. He went on telling her the way things had to go, ‘It would be irrational for you to stay with me. First of all, you have to see Azéma again to review the map. And you must get a good night’s sleep in order to lead us safe and sound over the border. So you see there’s no question that you must leave.’

  He was right and Lisa knew it. She had to go down to Banyuls to get some bread, tomatoes and jam on the black market to bring along the next day. She’d tried her best, but there were no alternatives. She resigned herself to heading back down with Henny before it got too dark.

  Benjamin waved broadly as the group slid down the pebble path and disappeared into the forest. He was alone now. Alone like a spy. Alone with the big black stain slowly enveloping the mountain from the other side of the valley, the cluster of peaks around him growing grey and soft in the reddening light, striking the tree trunks at a rakish angle and hovering on the horizon, brandishing a sumptuous peacock tail of light. Setting to the husky murmur of the wind, the sun was sad and dreadfully solemn. A faint cowbell echoed in the valley, his thoughts were thick and padded, the crickets pierced the silence like sharp needles.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Mercedes had said never. And we never did speak of her husband again, or of that night four years before. I was understanding. I had probably killed a lot of good people during the war – who was I to judge her now for getting rid of that son of a bitch? No. And this wasn’t what was wrong between us anyway, not what was making me feel out of place in that house. It was that after ten days I couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t take eating off charity. Couldn’t take this being practically buried alive. I had to be careful where I walked and be careful where I sat. I washed up in the kitchen because the courtyard wasn’t safe. I’d go into a room and Mercedes or her mother would rush to close up all the blinds.

  ‘We have to watch out for Enrique,’ they told me twenty times a day – a drone.

  Enrique was Enrique Viadiu, a short man with a long moustache that hung down the sides of his mouth. He was the town policeman and he lived right across the street from us next to a thin building from which hung the sign HOTEL FRANCIA. Some mornings I’d peek through the blinds and watch him putting on his cap, kissing his wife, happy and pleased with himself as he set out on the two-hundred-metre walk to headquarters. He’d always stop by to say hello to Juan Suñer, the owner of the hotel – a Falangist of the first order, the local contact for the Nazis. What a bunch. Viadiu was a pig in his own right, but he held a grudge as far as ‘reds’ like us were concerned – two of his brothers had died in the war. If he found me, chances were it wouldn’t go well. So there was nothing else I could do but creep around in the dark behind closed blinds, shut up for days at a time, twiddling my thumbs and trying to survive my pitched battles with María. What else could I do? I wasn’t used to being shut up like this. The longer I stayed the more nervous and worked up I got.

  In the meantime, I had a horsefly of an entirely different stripe buzzing around in my head. My imagination was running wild. I couldn’t figure what we were living on. Where did the meat, wine and cheese come from? The delicious mountain jambon that doña Pepa put out on the table every lunch and dinner? It was obvious that Mercedes had left her job at the hospital when she’d dumped me in Barcelona. So what was she doing now? She went out, stayed for a
few hours, and when she came back her eyes were guilty and she was practically breathless. I didn’t want to ask. There are only so many questions a man can ask a woman. So I started spying on her, going through her things, watching her from behind the blinds when she left. And I found her out. I’d been posted at the window for an hour, looking out over the yard, when I saw her sneak back in, quiet as a mouse, packages tucked under her arm that she hid in the hen house. It was late; there was no one out. I had seconds to weigh my options and I decided to go out to her. There wasn’t anything she didn’t have in that chicken coop: cold cuts, cigarettes, medicine, sausages, meat and vegetables – a cornucopia. Now I got it.

  ‘What is this stuff?’ I asked stupidly. ‘Are you in the black market?’

  She jumped when she heard my voice. But she turned back and stared at me calmly in the half-shadows. Her lips curled, she was almost snarling.

  ‘Well, what did you think, your Excellency? That our food came directly from heaven? That the Holy Ghost was watching over us?’

  ‘No, not that,’ I stuttered.

  ‘So what, then?’ she answered. ‘What doesn’t make sense to you. Come to think of it – you’re about due to start pulling your weight around here.’

  Me? How? I don’t know if it was fear that was suddenly choking me, or what. I might have been seeing myself in one of Franco’s jails. Maybe I was thinking about Enrique Viadiu and his moustache, about the French army, the Gestapo. Maybe I had changed and after six years of recklessly tempting death I couldn’t do it anymore. I felt like I’d been reduced to a shadow of myself.

  ‘Me? How?’ I asked in a tiny voice.

  ‘You could make a run, for example, that way I wouldn’t have to split the profit.’

  ‘A run? Me?’

  And that’s how I came to find myself in the course of one day in the smuggling business. Twice a week, I’d leave in the middle of the night, a knapsack on my shoulders, going out the back door. Three or four bored stray dogs would keep me company to the outskirts of town. By morning I was in France. I was all set up. Mercedes had contacts. I brought cigars, eggs, salami, meat and sugar to Port-Vendres and came back to Spain with a sack full of perfume, buttons, tobacco and medicine. I’d travel at night and come home in the dark. For the last stretch on the way back into town, those same dogs would meet me by the train tracks and walk with me. I’d deposit the take in the hen house and crawl exhausted into Mercedes’ bed. Fifteen days and I knew the route by heart. Except the more time that passed the more I had to keep my wits about me to avoid getting caught. The border had by then become the last chance of escape for hundreds of Jews, Belgians, Poles running from the Nazis and the Vichy army. And the patrols over the area had got heavy. It was the perfect moment for me to embark on this new career! And there was Enrique. That bastard must have known something was going on. I could tell from the sideways looks he’d cast at our windows when I came home and from the tight-lipped exchanges he had with his wife before setting out for the stationhouse. Lucky for us that in town Mercedes was above all else the widow of a martyr, a hero, and so Enrique Viadiu wouldn’t dare come searching the house at gunpoint. But for how long?