by Shaun Herron
“Are you safe, Dion? Can you reach the frontier?”
“Not now, Julio. Not now. Come to your car.”
“I loved you well, Dion, old friend. I wanted to say it face-to-face…”
“I loved you well, Julio.”
“Come with us to Irun. Tomorrow we can think of a way, Dion. When I rest we’ll work something out…”
“I’ll come, Julio.”
They turned from the door of the bar in the direction of the car.
“Ugalde!”
The cry came from the guts. Basa froze in a queer sepulchral posture. Ugalde turned to face the voice. There was no one on the street.
The Guards stepped out of houses and shops that moments ago were closed. Their guns, waist high, pointed at Ugalde.
“Do not move, Dion. They will shoot,” Basa said. “I know them well.”
“Step away from me, Julio.”
“Do not move, I will not move.”
“Do not move, Julio,” Señora Aloys screamed from the car.
Lieutenant Mieza came out of the darkness. “That is good advice, señora. Come to me, doctor.”
Ugalde stepped away from Basa, then turned and walked quickly in the opposite direction.
“Dion, Dion, don’t run.” Basa, his arms stretched out, tottered after Ugalde and the guns chattered.
They fell together in the street.
Ugalde felt the blows in his legs. They knocked him violently off his feet. Warm fluid ran down his legs. He thought of Luis Arrabal’s shattered and bleeding limbs. He had no pain. Basa lay in the street with his back to him. The señora’s screams multiplied themselves between the houses. Four Civil Guards pinned her to her car.
“Julio,” Ugalde whispered. There was no reply. Louder, he thought. “Julio.” There was no reply. Louder. “Julio.” There was no reply.
“You can take that one away,” Lieutenant Mieza said, turning Basa over. “We didn’t even want him. But this one we can keep, if you’ll get a tourniquet on him fast enough.”
The pain was coming, pounding in his legs, up into his head.
“You’re already too late, lieutenant,” he said through the pain.
“We’ll see.”
“I’m the doctor.”
“Does that mean much? You weren’t clever enough not to telephone Señora Aloys.”
From the sea came the wild crying of the hooters of the fishing fleet, clear of the harbor, saying goodbye to wives and children.
“What’s that?”
Ugalde’s right hand lay on the street, warm in his own flowing blood.
“That is the crying of the birds in next year’s nest,” he said.
