What We Become

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  “All in good time, my friend . . . Meanwhile, tell me, what have you decided in the end? Fascist dictatorship or Republic?”

  “I’m still thinking it over.”

  “Very well. But you’re running out of time. When do you plan to break into the house?”

  “In three days’ time.”

  “Any particular reason why?”

  “A dinner party at someone’s house. I know Susana Ferriol will be out for several hours.”

  “What about the servants?”

  “I’ll worry about them.”

  Mostaza was looking at Max while sucking on his pipe, as though gauging the significance of each reply. Finally, he removed his spectacles, pulled the handkerchief out of the top pocket of his jacket, and began polishing them energetically.

  “I’m going to ask you a favor, Mr. Costa. . . . Whatever you decide, tell your Italian friends that in the end you have decided to work for them. Tell them as much about me as you can.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Perfectly.”

  Mostaza held his spectacles up to the light and put them on again, satisfied.

  “There’s more,” he added. “I actually want you to work for them. Fair and square.”

  Max, who had reached for his cigarette case and opened the lid, paused in midmovement.

  “You mean I should hand the documents over to the Italians?”

  “That’s right,” Mostaza replied, calmly holding Max’s astonished gaze. “It’s their operation, after all. They’re paying for it. I think it only fair, don’t you?”

  “What about you?”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’m my own boss.”

  Max put the case back in his pocket without taking a cigarette. He had lost all desire to smoke, or to be in Nice, for that matter. Which part of the trap is most lethal? he was thinking. Where in this spider’s web will I be ensnared? Or eaten alive?

  “Did you ask me here to tell me that?”

  Mostaza touched Max’s elbow lightly, drawing him closer to the railing separating them from the sheer drop into the harbor.

  “Come here. Look,” he said almost tenderly. “Down there is Quai Infernet. Do you know who Infernet was? The officer in command of the Intrépide during the Battle of Trafalgar. He refused to flee with Admiral Dumanoir and went on fighting until the end. Do you see that merchant ship moored there?”

  Max said he could (it was a black-hulled freighter with two blue stripes on its smokestack). Mostaza went on to give a brief history of that ship. The Luciano Canfora was carrying war matériel intended for Franco’s troops: ammonia salts, cotton, tin and copper ingots. It was scheduled to set sail for Palma de Mallorca in a few days’ time, and it was more than likely Tomás Ferriol who had paid for the cargo. The whole thing had been set up, Mostaza added, by a group of Francoist secret agents based in Marseille who had a shortwave radio station on a yacht moored in Monte Carlo.

  “Why are you telling me this?” asked Max.

  “Because you and the Luciano Canfora have things in common. The shipping agents think it is going to sail to the Balearic Islands, unaware that unless things go badly wrong, its next port of call will be Valencia. I am currently busy persuading the captain and his chief engineer that they will benefit more all ’round if they work for the Republic. . . . As you can see, Mr. Costa, you aren’t the only cause of my sleepless nights.”

  “I still don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”

  “Because it’s true . . . and because I’m sure that, in a fit of cautious honesty, you’ll pass it on to your Italian friends at the first opportunity.”

  Max removed his hat, and ran his hand through his hair. Despite the clouds gathering over the sea and the easterly breeze, he felt suddenly, uncomfortably hot.

  “You’re joking, of course.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Wouldn’t that endanger your operation?”

  Mostaza pointed his pipe at Max’s chest.

  “My dear friend, this is all part of the same operation. Keep watching your back and let me take care of the dirty work. . . . All I ask is for you to continue being what you are: a nice fellow loyal to everyone who approaches him, who is trying to get out of this situation as best he can. No one is going to blame you for anything. I’m sure the Italians will appreciate your forthrightness as much as I do.”

  Max looked askance at him.

  “Have you ever thought they might try to kill you?”

  “Of course I have.” Mostaza laughed between gritted teeth, as if it were all obvious. “In my line of work, it’s one of the added risks.”

  Then he fell silent for a moment and contemplated the Luciano Canfora before turning to Max.

  “The problem in this sort of mess,” he went on, fingering the scar below his jaw, “is that sometimes it’s the other people who die. And, in one’s own modest way, one can be as dangerous as the next man. Has it never occurred to you to be dangerous?”

  “No, not really.”

  “That’s a shame.” Mostaza studied him with renewed interest, as though glimpsing a quality he hadn’t noticed before. “I can see something in your nature, you know? A certain predisposition.”

  “I get by quite well being peaceful.”

  “Has it always been so?”

  “You only have to look at me.”

  “I envy you. Truly. I’d like to be like that, too.”

  Mostaza took a couple of unrewarding puffs on his pipe, then removed it from his mouth, examining the bowl with a frown.

  “Do you know something?” he went on. “Once I sat up all night in a first-class compartment, chatting with a distinguished gentleman. An extremely pleasant fellow, moreover. You remind me of him. We hit it off well. At five o’clock in the morning, noticing the time, I decided I knew enough and stepped out into the corridor to smoke a pipe. Then someone waiting outside entered the compartment and shot the pleasant distinguished gentleman in the head.”

  He had fished out a box of matches and was relighting his pipe, absorbed by the process.

  “It must be marvelous, don’t you think?” he said finally, shaking the match to put it out.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Mostaza looked at him with interest, exhaling thick puffs of smoke.

  “Do you know anything about Pascal?” he asked unexpectedly.

  “About as much as I know about spies,” Max confessed. “Probably less.”

  “He was a philosopher. He wrote about the power of flies. They win battles.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Mostaza’s face broke into a benevolent smile, at once ironic and melancholy.

  “I envy you, believe me. How reassuring to be that third man surveying the scene with indifference. To believe yourself far removed from your fascist friends and from me. Intent upon being honest with everyone, not taking sides, and then sleeping peacefully. Whether alone or in company is no concern of mine. But peacefully, all the same.”

  Max was edgy, exasperated. He felt the urge to punch that cold, absurdly knowing smile, an arm’s length from his face. But he was aware that, despite the fragile appearance of its owner, that smile wasn’t the kind to let itself be punched easily.

  “Listen,” he said, “I’m going to be rude.”

  “Don’t worry, go ahead.”

  “I couldn’t give a damn about your war, your ships, and your letters from Count Ciano.”

  “I admire your bluntness,” Mostaza conceded.

  “I don’t care if you admire it or not. Do you see this watch? This suit made in London? Do you see my tie purchased in Paris? I worked hard to achieve all this. To wear it with ease. I sweated blood to get where I am. . . . And now that I’ve arrived, a whole bunch of people, in one way or another, are intent upon making things difficu
lt for me.”

  “I understand. . . . Your coveted, lucrative Europe is drooping like a fading lily.”

  “Then give me time, damn you, to enjoy it a little.”

  Mostaza appeared to reflect calmly about that.

  “Yes,” he said. “Perhaps you’re right.”

  Clutching the rail, Max leaned out above the harbor, as though seeking to breathe in as much of the sea air as possible. To clear his lungs. Beyond La Réserve, he could make out Susana Ferriol’s house on the rocky shoreline, in the distance, amid the ocher-and-white villas dotting the green hillside of Mont Boron.

  “You and they have embroiled me in something I don’t like,” Max added after a moment. “And all I want is to get it over with. To be rid of you all.”

  Mostaza tutted sympathetically.

  “Well, I’ve got bad news for you,” he replied. “Because you can’t get away from us. We are the future, like machines, airplanes, red flags, black, blue, or brown shirts. . . . You arrived too late for a party that is already doomed.” He pointed with his pipe toward the clouds gathering over the water. “A storm is brewing not far from here. That storm will sweep everything away, nothing will ever be the same again. Those fancy ties you bought in Paris will be of little use to you then.”

  “I don’t know whether Jorge is my son,” says Max. “Actually, I’ve no way of knowing.”

  “Of course not,” replied Mecha Inzunza. “You only have my word for it.”

  They are sitting at a table on the terrace of a bar on the Piazzetta in Capri, next to the cathedral steps and the clock tower looming above the road that winds up from the harbor. They arrived midafternoon, in the little ferryboat that takes half an hour from Sorrento. It was Mecha’s idea. “Jorge is resting,” she said, “and it’s been years since I went to the island.” She invited Max to go with her.

  “During that time, did you . . .” he starts to say.

  “Go with other men, you mean?”

  Max doesn’t reply immediately. He watches the people sitting at the other tables or strolling past, backlit by the setting sun. Snatches of conversation in English, Italian, or German reach them from the adjacent tables.

  “The other Keller was around then,” he adds as though concluding a convoluted line of reasoning. “Jorge’s official father.”

  Mecha gives a scathing laugh. She is playing with the ends of the silk scarf tied at her neck, over a gray sweater and black slacks that hug her long legs, skinnier now than twenty-nine years ago. She is wearing a pair of black Pilgrim shoes without buckles, and the leather and canvas shoulder bag is hanging from the back of her chair.

  “Listen, Max. I’m not asking you to accept paternity, not at this time of your life and mine.”

  “I don’t intend . . .”

  She raises her hand, silencing him.

  “I can imagine what you intend or don’t intend. I was merely answering your question. Why should I do it, you asked. Why should you should run a risk with the Russians by stealing their book?”

  “I’m too old for these tricks.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Mecha reaches absentmindedly for her wineglass on the table, next to Max’s. He looks once more at her skin sagging with age, like his own, and the blemishes on the back of her hand.

  “You were more interesting when you took risks,” she adds, wistfully.

  “And a lot younger,” Max replies, unflinching.

  She gazes at him, sardonically.

  “Have you, or we, changed so much? Don’t you feel the old tingling in your fingertips anymore? Your heart beating faster than usual?”

  She contemplates the graceful look of resignation he gives her by way of a reply: a gesture in keeping with the navy-blue sweater draped with deliberate casualness over the shoulders of his white cotton polo shirt, the gray linen trousers, and his white hair combed back like in the old days, with an immaculate side part.

  “I wonder how you did it,” she adds. “What stroke of luck allowed you to change your life . . . and what her name was. Or their names. The women who footed the bill.”

  “There weren’t any women.” Max tilts his head, uneasily. “Just luck. As you said.”

  “An easy life.”

  “Yes.”

  “The one you always dreamed of.”

  “Not exactly. But I can’t complain.”

  Mecha looks over at the steps leading from the Piazzetta to the Palazzo Cerio, as though searching for a familiar face among the crowd.

  “He is your son, Max.”

  A silence. She drains her glass, with short, almost thoughtful sips.

  “I’m not trying to make you pay for anything,” she says after a moment. “You aren’t responsible for his life or mine. . . . I was merely giving you a valid reason for helping him.”

  Max pretends to busy himself with smoothing out his trousers, so as not to appear troubled.

  “You will do it, won’t you?”

  “His hands, perhaps,” he concedes, at last. “His hair looks like mine, too. . . . And something about the way he moves.”

  “Don’t keep dwelling on it, please. Take it or leave it. But stop acting so pathetic.”

  “I’m not pathetic.”

  “Yes you are. A pathetic old man, desperately trying to rid himself of a sudden, unwanted burden. When there is no burden.”

  She has risen to her feet, seizing her bag. She looks up at the clock tower.

  “There’s a vaporetto leaving at six forty-five. Let’s take a last stroll.”

  Max puts on his glasses to read the bill. Then he returns them to his trouser pocket, pulls his wallet out, and leaves two thousand-lira notes on the table.

  “Jorge never needed you,” says Mecha. “He had me.”

  “And your money. An easy life.”

  “You sound almost disapproving, my dear. Although if memory serves, you were always chasing money. And now that you appear to have it, you aren’t hurrying to give it up.”

  They walk over to the parapet wall. Lemon groves and vineyards slope down toward the cliff tops, tinged red with the light streaking the Bay of Naples. The disk of the sun begins sinking into the sea, throwing into relief the distant island of Ischia.

  “And yet you missed your chance twice. . . . How could you have behaved so stupidly toward me? So clumsy, and so blind?”

  “I was too busy, I suppose. Trying to survive.”

  “You were impatient. Incapable of waiting.”

  “You were heading in a different direction.” Max chooses his words carefully. “To places where I felt uncomfortable.”

  “You could have changed that. You were a coward . . . although in the end you succeeded, unintentionally.”

  She shivers for a second as if she were cold. Max offers her his sweater, but she shakes her head. With her silk scarf she covers her short gray hair, fastening it under her chin. Then she stands beside him leaning over the parapet wall.

  “Did you ever love me, Max?”

  Taken aback, Max doesn’t reply. He gazes obstinately at the red-tinged water trying silently to separate the word regret from the word melancholy.

  “Oh, what a fool I am.” She touches his hand in a fleeting caress. “Of course you did. You did love me.”

  Desolation is another word for it, he decides. A kind of damp, hidden lament for all that was and is no more. For the warmth and the body that are unreachable now.

  “You don’t know what you’ve missed all these years,” Mecha goes on. “Seeing your son grow up. Seeing the world through his eyes, as he began to open them.”

  “Assuming it’s true, why me?”

  “You mean, why did I choose you?”

  She doesn’t reply straightaway. The church bell has chimed, its sound echoing over the island’s hills. Mecha glances up at the clock once mor
e, turns away from the parapet wall, and begins walking toward the terminus of the funicular railway that runs from the Piazzetta down to the marina.

  “It happened,” she says when he sits down beside her on a bench inside the funicular, where they are the only passengers. “That’s all. Then I had to decide, and I decided.”

  “To keep him.”

  “To keep him, yes. All to myself.”

  “And the father . . . ?”

  “Oh, yes. The father. As you say, he was convenient. Useful, at first. Ernesto was a good man. Good for the boy . . . But then that need diminished.”

  With a slight judder, the funicular descends between banks of vegetation and views of the sunset over the bay. The remainder of the short journey passes in silence, broken in the end by Max.

  “I spoke to your son this morning.”

  “How funny.” She seems genuinely surprised. “We had lunch together and he didn’t mention it.”

  “He asked me to stay away from him.”

  “What did you expect? He’s an intelligent lad. His instinct doesn’t only work for chess. He senses something ambiguous about you. Why you’re here, and all the rest. Actually, I think he senses it through me. He couldn’t care less about you. It’s my attitude toward you that puts him on guard.”

  By the time they reach the harbor, the sun has gone down and the marina has taken on grayish tones and shadows. They walk along the quayside, watching the fishing boats moored nearby.

  “Jorge can feel there’s a special bond between us,” says Mecha.

  “Special?”

  “Old. Misguided.”

  After saying this, she falls silent for a moment. Max walks beside her, not daring to say a word.

  “You asked me a question just now,” she says at last. “Why do you think I wanted to keep that child?”

  Now Max is the one who remains silent. He looks to one side, then the other, finally smiling nervously, admitting defeat. And yet she continues to stare at him intently, awaiting his reply.

  “The truth is, you and me . . .” he ventures.

  Another silence. Mecha watches him as the light fades and everything around them seems to die slowly.

  “Ever since that first tango we danced in the ship’s ballroom,” Max says at last, “ours was a strange relationship.”