The Map

by T. S. Learner

  The trip out of the Basque country had not been easy. The truck he was travelling in had been stopped by police on the mountain road to Elantxobe but the policemen, looking for smugglers, were more interested in the cargo in the back than the two men up front and had assumed from August’s dress that he was a local anyhow. But once August arrived in Elantxobe, he found that Mateo’s cousin wasn’t as sympathetic as Mateo had suggested, and had only agreed to take August as far as Bordeaux for fifty American dollars – a fortune in pesos. The trip on the boat had taken a good three hours and August, forced to hide in a hidden partition behind the engine, was sickened by the lurching boat and the smell of diesel fumes.

  Once in Bordeaux, he’d managed to find a cheap room to rent for the hour near the railway station and had washed, shaved and changed his rural guise for something more urbane. It had only been there, in the tiny bedchamber little more than a glorified cupboard, with an iron washstand squeezed in between the door and the window, that the ramifications of his departure fell on top of him like a weight. Part of him had wanted to stay, had wanted finally to break down Izarra’s reserve, even be there as a mentor for Gabirel. I should have stayed and protected them. Who knows what kind of attention my visit may now bring? Will the relationship between them survive now that Gabirel remembers that terrible day? I know that feeling of being unravelled only too well. Did I do the right thing morally?

  He’d stood there, staring down at a bowlful of soapy water, when suddenly white-green fingers appeared under the cloudy surface, a drowned hand, a buried memory playing tricks with his eyes, a bloated corpse in the shallows of a river. Somewhere in the hostel a door slammed and August heard the report of a gun. He jumped then grasped the edge of the washstand to steady himself. Closing his eyes, he saw Charlie in the grey of the night, his body jerking back with the impact of the bullet, and himself now running, stumbling back to the trenches. He opened his eyes and forced himself to focus on the garish floral wallpaper and the smell of frying fish drifting in from outside. Then he lifted his razor and deliberately cut his cheek, a small neat slash. It brought him sharply back. No more memories, he told himself, no more past. But the guilt of leaving so abruptly and secretly gripped him. And there was the fact he had taken the chronicle with him. He’d left a note and some money explaining that he intended to return it as soon as he had finished with his research, but none of that stopped him from feeling like a coward as he walked out into that still Biscay morning. More disturbingly, it wasn’t just abandoning them that hurt him, it was the sneaking sense that he hadn’t been entirely honourable. Had he been trying to compensate for the ambiguity of his own actions all those years before, was that why Charlie had now started appearing again after being locked up in his memory for so long? He tortured himself with the notion all the way to Paris.

  But now in Paris there were more pressing dilemmas. He had to find Jimmy, and soon. A taxi narrowly missed a boy on a Vespa, hooting loudly, and the altercation propelled August’s mind back to the street and where he was standing. He’d been walking for over an hour, almost in a daze. He glanced up and realised he was only a block away from the club where Jimmy used to perform. Crossing the boulevard Saint-Michel, he pushed his way through a group of drunken American sailors then entered the small side street of rue de la Huchette. He could see a painted sign of a saxophone with a rose twisting around it about halfway down the street. Five minutes later August found himself climbing down a steep set of stone steps and into the jazz club.

  Lit only by candlelight and a single spot illuminating a corner from which a black saxophone player was performing a haunting melody, the cellar was packed with wooden beer barrels upended, functioning as tables. The ceiling was a series of brick arches, and August guessed the venue must have once been the cellar of a rather grand building. Small clusters of intense-looking students sat around the barrels, chatting among themselves, drinking. A makeshift bar ran along the far wall and posters of various jazz artists were pinned up on the wall behind it. The barmaid was a thin brunette with waist-length hair, dressed in a pencil skirt and a skin-tight purple polo-necked top with nipples that beckoned. The air was cloudy with cigarette smoke. A harassed-looking bearded waiter in a black skivvy pushed his way through the clientele, holding a tray with a bottle and wine glasses balanced on it. August sat on a high stool by the bar, and gestured for the barmaid to bring him a glass of red wine. She brought it over, hips rolling under her tight skirt. She watched as he lit up. Taking the hint, he offered her a cigarette. She took it.

  ‘Dutch?’ she asked, in French, then exhaled a plume of white smoke across the bar.

  ‘American. Can’t you tell by the tailoring?’

  ‘No, just that you’re not an existentialist, but I won’t hold that against you. Around here it’s a disease you have to catch,’ she answered, in English, her smile transforming an otherwise theatrically morose expression.

  Encouraged, August leaned forward. ‘I’m looking for someone.’

  ‘Aren’t we all, baby,’ she shrugged. ‘This is the human state. You look for someone, you find him, then you realise he wasn’t who you were really looking for, so you go on looking.’ She pushed her pointy breasts over the counter towards him; August forced his eyes back to her face.

  ‘No, really, I am looking for someone, an old army friend, another American, around forty-five, a musician, Jimmy van Peters? He used to perform here.’

  Disappointed, the barmaid picked up a glass and began polishing it.

  ‘Oh Jimmy, sure, he’s a regular. I don’t know him myself very well. Agnes hung with the daddy-o, she’s sitting over there – with the big guy.’ She pointed to a bespectacled blonde in rapt conversation with a tall cadaverous-looking man. ‘The poet with the hungry eyes. They say he’s even published.’

  As August started to get up, the barmaid put her hand on his. ‘Hey handsome, if you don’t find who you’re looking for, let me know, we could be destiny.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind.’ He plucked her hand off his and walked over to the table. The man was in the middle of reciting a poem, what sounded to August like an ode to the electric toaster.

  ‘Agnes?’ he tried interjecting.

  ‘Fuck off, I’m concentrating.’ She didn’t even bother to turn around.

  Ignoring her, he pulled up a chair and sat defiantly at the table.

  ‘Monsieur, you have broken my flow,’ the man spluttered.

  August didn’t move. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get it back in a minute, I just have to borrow your girl for a moment. I have an important question, about a mutual acquaintance who may be in trouble.’

  Now Agnes turned, and August realised she was really young, maybe not much older than seventeen. ‘Jimmy, Jimmy van Peters,’ August said, quietly.

  The girl’s expression softened and she whispered something into the poet’s ear. Then she led August from the table, away from the crowd, into the shadow of one of the low arches. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m an old friend. I fought with Jimmy in Spain.’

  ‘You did?’ August could see that she didn’t quite believe him. ‘What of it?’

  ‘I need to see him. When’s he in?’

  ‘Does he need to see you?’

  ‘I told you we’re friends.’

  ‘Why should I trust you? Jimmy has a lot of enemies. How do I know you’re telling the truth?’

  ‘Did Jimmy ever tell you about Joe Iron? About the time we hid from the fascists in the Ebro River?’

  ‘You’re Joe Iron?’ Her green eyes widened. Now August could see how poignantly close to childhood she still was.

  ‘Joe Iron was my nom de guerre.’

  ‘I still don’t know whether to trust you.’

  ‘I’m staying at the hotel at thirty-nine boulevard de Rochechouart, just tell Jimmy that.’ He began to walk away. She ran after him, grabbing his arm.

  ‘Jimmy never goes out, not any more. His apartment is at fifty-six rue des Martyrs
in Pigalle. But you didn’t hear it from me.’

  Situated off the place Pigalle, a notorious square lined by cafés and strip joints, number fifty-six rue des Martyrs was a narrow building that must have been quite grand in the belle époque. Once residences of the aspirational bourgeoisie, it was now crumbling and decayed. August looked down the narrow street; it appeared to be empty, apart from a couple of teenagers kissing on the street corner. Just then a young woman pushing a pram opened the front door of the apartment building from the inside. After greeting her, August politely helped her carry the pram down the few steps to the pavement, then slipped into the front door before the door slammed shut. Inside the dimly lit but elegantly marbled entrance hall there was the faint smell of cats’ urine and a bicycle jammed up against a marble panel. From upstairs, somewhere in the building, August could hear the sound of a jazz record being played and, from another direction, a man and woman arguing over the thin wail of a baby. A strong smell of onion soup drifted down the lift shaft.

  He checked the list of occupants beside the doorbells set just inside the front door. To his amusement the owner of the top flat had listed himself as a Monsieur M. Twain – it had to be Jimmy.

  The door had a set of five locks on it. A little battered, it had seen better days. In the centre was a small brass knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. August lifted it and rapped sharply against the wood.

  ‘Qui est la?’

  August recognised the muffled voice immediately.

  ‘Jimmy, it’s Gus,’ he said, through the door. From the other side came the sound of a man shuffling across, then the clinking and rattle of locks and door chains. Finally, the door creaked open. Jimmy’s shattered face came into view and August had the unnerving experience of thinking for a moment he was looking at Jimmy’s aged father, the musician had deteriorated so much in a few weeks. One side of his head was bruised and swollen, his right arm was in a sling, his right hand bandaged up – even through the bandage August could see he was missing a finger. Jimmy stared at August through a matrix of broken blood vessels. ‘What are you doing here? You shouldn’t have come, it’s not safe,’ he croaked, then hauled August into the room.

  The apartment was little more than an open-plan space with a cooking ring and sideboard set against a washbasin in the corner. It was tucked under the eaves of the building and August had to duck to avoid bashing his head on the slanting roof as Jimmy led him in. Against the opposite wall was a low coffee table marked by cigarette burns, with one huge overflowing glass ashtray perched upon it. Behind this sat a record player, while Jimmy’s guitar – the most attractive object in the whole place – was leaning up against the wall. One wall was covered in posters from the early forties advertising Dizzy Gillespie and his band, the main band Jimmy used to play with. August put down his bag.

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Damien Tyson.’ Jimmy sat gingerly back onto the narrow rickety bed. ‘Unfortunately the lousy bastard decided not to finish the job. Apparently that would have been too much of a favour. There’s a whisky bottle in the cupboard under the sink and a clean glass on the sideboard. Help yourself. But don’t get too comfortable, the Bureau’s got to have the place staked out.’ Jimmy looked terrible, his skin was greyish and his hands trembled. The man’s got weeks not months, August thought, barely able to meet Jimmy’s gaze. He went over to the kitchenette and found the whisky.

  ‘While you’re there, pour me one,’ Jimmy yelled out.

  ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘A man’s gotta die happy.’

  August brought out the two drinks and handed one to Jimmy, who buried his nose in the glass and inhaled deeply. ‘The smell of paradise.’

  Cradling his own glass, August sat opposite the bed, sinking down into the battered leather armchair. Jimmy collapsed back on the pillows, eyes closed. For a minute August thought he might have died there and then, but then he spoke, eyes still closed. ‘So you got my letter?’

  ‘I had to come, Jimmy, I was worried. And there were other reasons I had to come to Paris.’

  ‘What other reasons?’

  ‘The chronicle. There was a monk in the early eighteenth century who began investigating it, then mysteriously disappeared.’

  ‘So the chronicle has got its claws into you.’

  ‘Jimmy, Andere and her men were murdered for that book, the US government had nothing to do with it. Tyson was working independently.’

  Jimmy sighed. ‘So I’ve realised. I was such a goddamn idiot, I could have killed him! I could have killed him back in 1945!’

  ‘You weren’t to know then.’

  Jimmy turned painfully towards him, studying him thoughtfully. ‘They’re after you, Gus, all of them – the Bureau, MI5, Interpol. Tyson told me they think you’re KGB.’

  August held his gaze steady. ‘What do you think?’

  Finally, Jimmy dropped his eyes. ‘Buddy, in reality I don’t care, I just want you to get Tyson for what he did. And now there’s talk of this defence pact with Franco – American military bases in Spain for millions of dollars, money that will finance Franco’s regime for decades to come. Jesus, Gus, who did I fight for? For what? I’m telling you, a new world order is beginning to take shape. The West is terrified about how the Soviet Union will change after Stalin dies, and the Man of Steel is finally dying – and when he does, all hell is going to break out. America is nervous – there’s Korea, South America, maybe Cuba. So if you are a spy, Gus, keep it to yourself, I could do without the grief.’

  Now Jimmy reached for his whisky. He took a sip, then doubled over, his eyes watering, one skinny arm shooting out as he steadied himself against the bedhead.

  ‘Easy.’ August helped him back onto the pillows, the musician’s frame under his hands painfully gaunt. ‘What do you want from me, Jimmy?’ he finally asked, softly.

  ‘In truth – if I only had a day to live?’ Jimmy cracked. Gallows humour, you always were the best at it, even under fire. August nodded gravely, Jimmy leaned forward, staring at him intensely. ‘I want you to try and sabotage this pact somehow. I want you to discredit Damien Tyson. Kill him if you can get away with it.’ Somewhere above their heads the plumbing rattled loudly, and Jimmy leaning back against the bedhead, pulling the threadbare quilt up around his shoulders, broke into another bout of coughing. August stared into his glass determined not to feel sorry for the man.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘August, he murdered the woman I loved and those other poor bastards, but I can give you a bit more than that.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I have information that he is very well connected to the White House and close friends with Senator McCarthy. He has been one of the unofficial negotiators of this defence pact. Tyson could be your key.’

  August took his good hand. ‘I will get him, one way or another, I promise.’

  Jimmy stared down at his hands. ‘He broke my fingers and took one on the right. My days as a guitarist are over. What the heck, I got weeks left anyhow.’

  He swung his legs back down to the floor then painfully got himself to his feet. He shuffled over to the gramophone player and lifted up one of the record sleeves – the album cover was Nat King Cole’s hit ‘Mona Lisa’. He tipped up the cover and extracted a piece of paper. He handed it over to August then put the record on. As Nat King Cole’s voice crooned out, August scanned the paper. It was a list of names; some he recognised, some he didn’t. He looked up at Jimmy. ‘Is this what I think it is?’

  Jimmy grinned. ‘We’re still out there, Gus, you won’t be alone. This is a network of ex-International Brigade fighters scattered across Europe. It’s not a large group, but these are loyal men. You can trust all of them, and they can all provide safe houses and help.’

  August looked back down at the list. The names brought faces and memories back. Some had stood beside him in battle, others had gone over the top with him, shouting, willing to die for the idea of freedom, for a democracy that pro
mised equality. And all of them had stayed on living after that moment, had had lives like he had. How had they survived?

  He folded the piece of paper and slipped it into his breast pocket.

  Mateo, the café owner, watched the tall redheaded middle-aged woman climb stiffly down from the cart. She looked either English or German, with that heavy frame and graceless step. But she walked with a purpose. Two foreigners in less than ten days; this was more than the village had received for over a year. It can’t be good, he reflected. Perhaps Irumendi’s obscurity – a characteristic regarded as a great strength by the villagers – was on the wane or perhaps the two foreigners were linked somehow. He studied Olivia as she walked across the plaza to the fountain, then stopped to stare up at the bell tower – somewhat aggressively, Mateo noted. The observation heartened him. Perhaps she was a friend after all; any enemy of the church was a friend of his. On the other side of the square he could see several first floor shutters on the villas that lined the plaza being opened as the news of the stranger’s arrival spread like a virus. Now he could see at least two old women staring out from behind white lace curtains, the village’s gossips. If he didn’t move now, he wouldn’t be able to save the foreigner from intense scrutiny. Ah, the naivety of the stranger, Mateo thought to himself, as he stepped out of the bar, carefully pasting a smile on his face as he hurried over the plaza to greet her.