The Map

by T. S. Learner

  Apart from her, there was only a couple of old men playing cards in the corner. No sign of Marcos or a man who even vaguely fitted his description. August walked over to the jukebox, slipped two francs into the machine and made his selection. He waited as the record clicked down into position and the arm lowered. Immediately, the hit song ‘Boom’ from the late thirties sounded out. The two old men looked up, glancing at the barmaid, then shuffled discreetly out of the bar, leaving their game unfinished. The blonde put down her glass and stepped from behind the bar.

  ‘Marcos?’ August asked, smiling. She looked him up and down, then unexpectedly took his hat off. Surprised, he stepped back.

  ‘It’s customary to take your hat off in the presence of a lady, isn’t it?’ She spoke perfect English. August took his hat out of her hand.

  ‘I apologise. I was trying to blend in.’

  ‘It will take more than a hat. American?’

  ‘Once.’

  ‘What do you want with Marcos?’

  ‘Just say I’m an old friend, a friend who needs help. And if that doesn’t work, try saying “Tin Man” to him.’

  Now she was startled. She stared at him.

  ‘You are Tin Man?’

  ‘Please excuse my daughter.’ A tall man in his late fifties stepped out from a back door August hadn’t noticed, his large face craggily handsome, with a crooked nose and distinctive large ears – a trait that was classically Basque.

  ‘She’s forgiven. I’m sorry I didn’t telegram ahead but times have changed.’ He watched the man’s reaction to the music. ‘You must be Marcos.’

  August held out his hand yet the Basque hung back, refusing to shake it.

  ‘How do I know you are Tin Man? How do I know you’re not some fascist spy recruited by Franco?’

  ‘“Boom”.’

  ‘So?’ Marcos shrugged, unimpressed.

  ‘Okay, how about Winston Holinger, the young airman you rescued in April 1942. It was him who arranged for the jukebox – a great feat of black marketeering. Before that airmen used to have to come in here and play the opening bar of “Boom” on an old piano.’

  Marco lifted a bottle of cider from a shelf and placed two glasses on the counter. He began pouring it.

  ‘So, how are Winston and his young wife?’

  ‘Winston’s fine, only he ain’t married, least not last time he wrote,’ August snapped back, knowing he was still being tested.

  Marcos smiled to himself. Now August sensed he’d won a little trust. The Basque finished pouring out the cider and offered August a glass.

  ‘So you’re Tin Man.’ He handed August the glass. ‘You know, I thought you’d be better looking,’ he joked, completely deadpan. He raised his glass and August joined him.

  ‘A la guerre,’ he toasted. ‘Of course, for some of us the war never ended,’ he added, in English. ‘How can I help you, Tin Man?’

  August glanced around the bar. The daughter had disappeared and they were now entirely by themselves.

  ‘I need to get across the border.’

  ‘And why can’t you get in the usual way? There should be no problem for an American.’

  ‘I fought with the Republicans, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. I will be arrested the moment I step on Spanish soil.’

  ‘You and me both, gora Euskadi askatuta!’ Marcos sat at one of the small tables by the window, indicating August should join him. ‘Please.’ August sat, acutely aware he was still on trial. The Basque pushed a small dish of sardines and bread in his direction. ‘You know I still run people across.’

  ‘I had heard.’

  ‘My people, most of the Basque men who fought, are either dead or exiled from their own families. America, Cuba, Australia, here in France, everywhere but their own country, their own villages. There is no real information getting into the country except for Radio France or the BBC. Franco censors everything. We are still fighting an underground war. Many, many people rely on me to bring them news, to smuggle loved ones across, some they hadn’t seen for years. So tell me, Tin Man, why should I risk all this for you?’

  August stared into his cider suddenly weary from the day’s travel. He knew he didn’t really have a convincing argument.

  ‘I’m on the track of something – historical research that could be hugely important if my trip is successful. But I’ll be honest, Marcos, I’ve left politics behind.’

  ‘My name is Joseba. Marcos was my codename.’

  ‘And my real name is —’

  But Marcos held up his hand. ‘Please, I think it’s better if I only know you as Tin Man. So you think I should not help you?’

  August drained his glass. ‘Maybe not.’

  For the second time since they met Joseba aka Marcos smiled, then poured himself and August another glass of cider.

  ‘You are lucky, there is no moon tonight. We can leave in a few hours. Do you have a good coat and walking boots?’

  August nodded, finding himself speechless with relief.

  ‘Bon, I can drive you to a place, then we will walk down a riverbed that winds its way through the mountains, maybe about four hours. Then I leave you, it will be cold, there will be snow, ice. You will walk another three, four hours. Maybe you freeze to death, maybe not. But I guarantee there will be someone waiting to meet you on the other side of the mountain. After that you will be on your own and I never met you, understand?’

  ‘Understand. How can I thank you?’

  ‘You don’t have to, you will be carrying a parcel for me. Don’t ask me what’s in it because I won’t tell you, but assuming you make it over to the other side you are to hand it to my contact. That’s my price for helping you.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘So you are agreed?’

  ‘I am agreed.’

  Joseba lifted a corner of the blind that hung across the window. He glanced out at the street then swung back to August.

  ‘There’s one other thing, you’ve been followed.’

  August turned to the window. The street looked empty – apart from the two old men from the bar who were now sharing a cigarette outside, there appeared to be only a young woman walking a dog.

  ‘I don’t see anyone.’

  ‘My man followed you from the station. We watch all foreign visitors like yourself. An older woman got off from the same train as yours. She followed you until a street away from here. Then we distracted her. Do you know her?’

  ‘I have no idea who she is. As far as I know no one knows I’m here.’

  ‘Someone does. Never mind, I guarantee she won’t see us leave tonight. So we have a deal?’

  Now he reached out to shake August’s hand.

  ‘We have a deal.’ They shook, but August couldn’t stop wondering who his tail was. If it wasn’t MI6, who else?

  Dressed in white overalls with ‘Kensington Electric’ embroidered over the breast, Malcolm waited as Eddy Watkins, the surveillance man, broke into August’s flat in a matter of seconds, picking the lock with criminal panache. There wasn’t a door in west London Eddy couldn’t get through and he often boasted he had skeleton keys to the rest of the city – a fact that had contributed to Malcolm never sleeping soundly at night. It was four in the afternoon and the building was deserted, except for the old man living in the apartment opposite who’d been staring suspiciously from behind his net curtains as Malcolm and his men walked down the path. Malcolm had tipped his cap at him making sure the insignia and the tool bag were well visible. The old man seemed to buy the ruse and, scowling, had retreated into the shadows of his apartment. But now standing in the neglected entrance hall with flaking paint and the faint smell of damp, Malcolm wasn’t so sure. A run-in with the local constabulary could prove embarrassing to MI5. There had already been several humiliating incidents, one of which a training exercise in which several eager recruits were instructed to break into a ‘safe’ house and interrogate a ‘suspect’. The trouble was, they had broken into the wrong flat and by complete coincide
nce had ended up interrogating a terrified petty criminal who assumed they were the police and confessed all. It took some imagination on Malcolm’s behalf and a ticket to Paris for the terrified criminal to avoid a compromising situation for both him and MI5.

  The three of them – Malcolm Hully, Eddy Watkins and Eddy’s soundman, Keith – stepped into the flat, carefully closing the door behind them.

  It was in semi-darkness. The curtains were drawn and there were still clothes thrown across the bed and chair.

  ‘He must have left in a hurry,’ Eddy remarked, before going directly to the skirting board, running his fingers along it for unusual hollows and possible hiding places or wires.

  ‘Man on the run,’ said the soundman, a stout man of few words – a characteristic born of the tedium of listening to thousands of other people’s recorded conversations. He picked up the telephone and tested the receiver a few times. ‘Phone’s clear.’

  ‘Wire it,’ Malcolm commanded. He checked his watch. ‘Well, gentlemen, we have just under an hour, let’s keep this simple and silent – anything the slightest suspicious, photograph it and, if necessary, bag it.’ He slipped on white gloves, the others followed.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ Eddy asked, already in the middle of levering open a skirting board.

  ‘A radio transmitter, code book, secret writing, microdots, the usual suspects,’ Malcolm answered, making a beeline for the desk.

  Keith held up a half-eaten tin of sardines. ‘If he is KGB, they ain’t paying him much.’

  ‘A man like Winthrop has political ideals, he’s not interested in money,’ Malcolm snapped back, opening all the drawers. The top right-hand one was locked. Fishing into his pocket, he pulled out a penknife and prised it open. Inside was an empty box that looked as if it might have once held jewellery, and a bunch of airmail letters held together by a red rubber band – letters from Winthrop’s mother in Boston. Underneath them a single folded piece of paper. This intrigued Malcolm. He unfolded it, several paragraphs in handwritten Russian, signed in English at the bottom – Yolanta Ashivokova.

  ‘Bingo,’ he said quietly to himself, then ran his eyes down the lines. It looked like a poem, enigmatic enough to be code.

  ‘Gentlemen, I think we have something.’

  Olivia pressed the bag of ice against her swollen ankle. Outside, she could hear the concierge of the cheap boarding house she’d found behind the promenade de la Plage arguing with her husband about how much she’d charged the strange Englishwoman. If only that young fisherman hadn’t caught the heel of her shoe with his net as she was walking – she wouldn’t have stumbled and twisted her ankle. And she’d know into which street August had disappeared. As it was, by the time she’d managed to disentangle herself from the fishing net and the overly obliging arms of the fisherman, the American had vanished completely. She glanced down at the purple swelling. At least it didn’t feel broken, but it would take three or four days before she’d be able to put any weight on it and she couldn’t follow him on a walking stick. Suddenly furious, she tore at the lace that lay across the pillow. If she lost him completely, it could take weeks to track him down again. Leaning heavily on an umbrella, she hobbled to the window. The room was in a triangular mock-Gothic nineteenth-century building that made up the corner of two narrow streets, just below the seafront. She had chosen it for the views: from her balcony even at night she could see that she had clear sightlines of ocean, the old casino La Pergola and several of the cafés and hostels that ran along the two narrow streets behind, rue de la Baleine and rue de la République.

  As it was off-season, the small seaside town that had experienced its heyday in the late nineteenth century reminded her of illicit encounters and stolen romances she’d had in similar resorts many many years before. It made her feel strangely nostalgic. She stared out at a small fishing boat battling the wind on the dark horizon as it made its way back to the harbour; remembering was painful.

  August must be somewhere in the town, perhaps in one of those little hotels on rue de la République, she decided. The question was, which one and for how long? Olivia had no choice. She would have to scout the town and sit at a table at one of the cafés in the place Louis XIV, have a late dinner and keep watch. August was bound to emerge sooner or later. She became aware of a burning sensation at the back of her head, as if something or someone hostile were staring at her. She swung around, surveyed the room, then hobbled over to the head of the bed and turned the large wooden cross with a graphic plaster figurine of the crucified Christ to the wall. She had enough problems.

  ‘So, Tin Man, you know her?’ Joseba, standing in the doorway of the bar, discreetly pointed up to a mirror hidden in the alcove of a beam running over the entrance reflecting the street to the left, enabling the viewer to see clearly thirty feet beyond. Sitting at an empty café table at the next building down was a small middle-aged woman in a headscarf. She was in profile so it was hard to get a clear picture of who she was, but August felt pretty sure he’d never seen her before.

  ‘No, I don’t think I do.’

  ‘Not the mother of some young woman you have dishonoured?’ the Basque joked, again in the deadpan way August was beginning to glean was characteristic.

  ‘I’m telling you, I don’t know her.’ But as he stared into the curved glass he knew he was lying. There was something faintly familiar about her but he just couldn’t place it.

  ‘This is strange but she is someone important. You know how I know? Because about an hour ago someone else arrived in Saint Jean de Luc, only he is looking for her and him I don’t like. This one is a killer – an American like you, but he has a smell about him. The smell of dead men. As for your girlfriend …’ Joseba gestured up at the mirror. ‘If she is a tiger, her claws are all blunt. But this other guy …’ He ran his finger across his throat. ‘I want him out of my town as soon as you go. But tell me, Tin Man, why are you so popular?’

  ‘I don’t know. I swear no one knew I was leaving London, and certainly not where I was going.’

  Joseba slipped back into the bar, closing the door quietly behind him.

  ‘In that case, my friend, they will only know this far of your journey. I promise you.’

  Around midnight they slipped out of the back door of the bar. Joseba hustled August into the back seat of his old Citroën and insisted he keep his head down until they were well clear of the narrow streets of Saint Jean de Luc and out onto the bumpy country lanes. As promised, there was no moon and Joseba drove like a madman in what seemed like pitch darkness to August, seemingly along a route he must have known by heart. The bag with the chronicle in it bounced against August’s leg as the car careered over bumps and potholes. Not willing to take any chances, he’d slipped the Mauser into his trouser pocket, in easy reach in a hurry.

  An hour later the Basque abruptly pulled the car up in what appeared to be an empty field. He switched off the engine and wound down the window. Immediately, they heard the sound of distant frogs, the rustle of the wind in the trees and rushing water.

  ‘Joseba?’ August ventured.

  ‘Shh.’ The Basque held up a hand and they both sat stock-still in their seats. August strained his ears and gradually from under the forest noises came the rumble of a truck. It grew louder as the truck came on, appearing to approach them. August’s hand tightened on his pistol and he stared out at the mist that hung low among the fir trees. It was impossible to see the road down which the truck was travelling, but it must be near as now they both could clearly hear the sound of Johnnie Ray’s ‘Cry’ blasting out from the truck’s radio. August glanced over at his companion. Joseba’s face was grim with tension – it wasn’t a reassuring sight. Just as August tensed the muscles in his legs, readying to spring out of the car, the truck passed by them, its headlights arcing blindly through the tops of the trees.

  August exhaled. He glanced across at Joseba. The Basque smiled then indicated they should remain silent. Finally, the sound of the truck faded comp
letely. Five minutes later Joseba checked his watch.

  ‘That was the border police on their way to change guards. One a.m., right on time.’

  ‘They were close.’

  ‘Don’t worry, they have never found me yet. Okay, now we start walking. I will escort you along the river up to the plateau we use as our crossing place. We will arrive at approximately four in the morning, the time the border guards are at their most distracted, and some are even sleeping then. Here I will leave you – it will be another three hours walking before you will have crossed the border. My guy will be waiting for you on the other side. God willing.’

  He got out of the car, wheeling his makila, a short wooden walking stick with a silver engraved handle and a spike at the tip used for climbing the steep slopes of the Pyrenees. August followed, pulling his bag out behind him, his walking boots sinking into the bog-like turf. Joseba opened the boot and pulled out another satchel. He waited until August had hoisted his own rucksack over his shoulders then held out the satchel. August took it.

  ‘It’s heavy.’ The satchel felt like it contained a piece of equipment of some sort – August could feel hard edges pressing through the material. A weapon of some sort, he wondered, but knew he couldn’t ask. Joseba took it back, pulling the bag strap tight across his own shoulder.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll carry it until you’re on your own.’

  ‘After you leave, how will I know which path to take?’

  ‘Don’t worry, this is not difficult. We have markers along the way. Besides, you marched in the Civil War, non? I trust peacetime has not made you soft?’ He playfully punched August in the stomach. ‘Another thing you should know, if the fascists catch you with this bag, it will be the death penalty. And, friend, it sounds as if the American Embassy would not care to argue on your behalf.’

  ‘I don’t intend to get caught.’ August stomped his feet to rid himself of the spreading chill rising up from his toes. ‘We should get moving.’