by Maria Duenas
He returned from work the following day laden with bits of paper and leaflets.
“I haven’t stopped turning your situation around and around in my head, and I think I’ve found the solution. Best would be for you to set up some sort of commercial enterprise,” he said as soon as he came through the door.
I hadn’t been out of the house since getting up. I’d spent the whole morning tense and nervous, remembering the previous afternoon, still shaken by the knowledge that I had a father with an actual name, a fortune, and feelings. This unexpected proposition only increased my agitation.
“Why would I want a company?” I asked in alarm.
“Because that way your money would be safer. And for another reason, too.”
He spoke to me then about the problems in his company, about the tensions with his Italian bosses and the uncertainty of foreign businesses in turbulent Spain. And about ideas, too. He talked to me about those ideas, unfolding a list of projects the likes of which I’d never imagined. All innovative, brilliant, destined to bring outside inventions to the country and open up a path to modernity. Importing English mechanical harvesters to the fields of Castile, North American vacuum cleaners that promised to leave urban homes as clean as a whistle, and a Berlin-style cabaret for which he already had a site in mind on Calle Valverde. Among them all, however, one project emerged more brightly than any other: Pitman Academies.
“I’ve been mulling over it for months, ever since we received a leaflet at work through some old clients, but in my position as manager it didn’t seem appropriate for me to approach them personally. If we set up a firm in your name, it would all be much simpler,” he explained. “Pitman Academies are running in Argentina at full throttle: they have more than twenty branches, thousands of students who they are preparing for posts in business, banking, and administration. They’re taught typing, shorthand, and accounting using revolutionary methods, and after eleven months they come out with a certificate under their arm, ready to devour the world. And the company just keeps growing, opening new sites, hiring staff, and generating income. We could do the same, set up Pitman Academies on this side of the pond. And if we propose the idea to the Argentineans, saying that we have a legitimate firm backed up with enough capital, we’ll stand a much better chance than if we approach them as private individuals.”
I didn’t have any way to judge whether it was a sensible project or a harebrained scheme, but Ramiro spoke with such certainty, with such mastery and knowledge, that I didn’t for a moment doubt that it was a brilliant idea. He went on and on about the details, continuing to amaze me.
“What’s more, I think it’s worth bearing in mind your father’s suggestion to leave Spain. He’s right: everything is too tense here, any day now something powerful could blow up, and this isn’t a good time to undertake a new enterprise. That’s why I think we have to follow his advice and go to Africa. If everything works out, once the situation has calmed down, we can hop back to the Peninsula and expand right across Spain. Give me a little time to make contact in your name with the owners of Pitman in Buenos Aires and convince them about our plan to open a large branch in Morocco, either in Tangiers or the Protectorate, we’ll see. A month at most and we’ll have our reply. And as soon as we have it, arrivederci Hispano-Olivetti: we’ll be off and get this thing running.”
“But why would the Arabs want to learn how to type?”
Ramiro’s first reaction was a resonant laugh. Then he enlightened me.
“The things you say, my love. Our academy is aimed at the European population living in Morocco: Tangiers is an international city, a free port with citizens coming from all across Europe. There are lots of foreign firms, diplomatic missions, banks, and financial companies of all kinds; the employment possibilities are immense, and everywhere they need qualified staff who know typing, shorthand, and accounting. In Tetouan the situation is different but equally full of possibilities: the population is less international because the city is the capital of the Spanish Protectorate, but it’s full of civil servants and people who aspire to be civil servants, and all of them, as you well know, my love, need the preparation that a Pitman Academy can offer them.”
“What if the Argentineans won’t agree?”
“I doubt that very much. I have friends in Buenos Aires with excellent contacts. We’ll manage, you’ll see. They’ll let us have their method and know-how, and they’ll send representatives over to teach the employees.”
“And what will you do?”
“Me on my own, nothing. But us, a great deal. We’ll run the firm. You and me, together.”
I prefaced my reply with a nervous laugh. The picture that Ramiro was proposing could not have been less plausible: the poor unemployed dressmaker who just a few months earlier had contemplated learning to type because she didn’t have so much as a plot to die in was about to transform herself as if by magic into the owner of a business with fascinating prospects.
“You want me to run a company? I don’t have the slightest idea about anything, Ramiro.”
“What do you mean? How is it that I have to tell you just how much you’re worth? The only problem is that you’ve never had the chance to show it: you’ve wasted your youth shut away in a burrow sewing clothes for other women and with no chance to devote yourself to anything better. Your moment, your great moment, is yet to come.”
“And what will the Hispano-Olivetti people say when they find out you’re leaving?”
He smiled slyly and kissed the tip of my nose.
“Hispano-Olivetti, my love, can go screw themselves.”
Pitman Academies or a castle floating in the air, it was all the same to me if the idea came from Ramiro’s mouth; if he spelled out his plans with feverish enthusiasm as he held my hands and his eyes tumbled into the depths of mine, if he repeated to me how much I was worth and how well everything would go if we gambled on a future together. With Pitman Academies or the cauldrons of hell: whatever he proposed was my law.
The following day he brought home the informational leaflet that had captured his imagination. Paragraph after paragraph described the history of the company: established in 1919, set up by three partners, Allúa, Schmiegelon, and Jan, based on the system of shorthand conceived by the Englishman Isaac Pitman. An infallible method, rigorous teachers, absolute responsibility, personalized treatment, a magnificent future after obtaining the certificate. The photographs of young people smiling, already seeming to savor their brilliant professional prospects, confirming the veracity of the promises. The pamphlet radiated an air of triumphalism that could have shaken even the most cynical: “Long and steep is the path of life. Not all reach the wished-for end, where success and fortune await them. Many are left by the wayside: those who are inconstant, weak-natured, who are negligent, ignorant, who trust only in luck, forgetting that the most resonant and exemplary triumphs were forged through the power of study, perseverance, and will. Each man can choose his own destiny: Make yours!”
That afternoon I went to see my mother. She brewed a pot of coffee and as we drank it, with the blind, mute presence of my grandfather beside us, I made her privy to our plans and suggested that once Ramiro and I had settled in Africa perhaps she could join us. As I’d expected, she didn’t like the idea one bit, nor did she agree to go with us.
“There’s no reason you have to obey your father or believe everything he’s told you. The fact that he’s got problems with his business doesn’t mean anything is going to happen to us. The more I think about it, the more I think he was exaggerating.”
“If he’s so frightened, Mother, it’s for a reason; he’s not going to go and make things up . . .”
“He’s afraid because he’s used to giving orders without anyone answering back, and now it upsets him that the workers—for the first time—are beginning to raise their voices and demand their rights. The truth is, I can’t stop wondering whether accepting this fortune, and above all the jewels, wasn’t a crazy thing to do.”
Crazy or not, the fact was that from then on, the money, the jewels, and our plans became part of our day-to-day lives, quietly not brashly, but ever present in our thoughts and conversations. As we had planned, Ramiro took charge of the arrangements to create the company, and I restricted myself to signing the pieces of paper he put in front of me. Besides that, my life went on as usual: busy, fun, and filled to the brim with love and foolish naïveté.
The meeting with Gonzalo Alvarado had allowed my mother and me to smooth over the rougher parts of our relationship, but our paths continued irremediably along different courses. She supported herself stretching out to the utmost the final remnants that had come from Doña Manuela’s workshop, occasionally sewing for some neighbor, remaining inactive most of the time. My world, in contrast, was already something quite different: a world that would have no place for patterns or linings, in which almost nothing remained of the young dressmaker I had once been.
The move to Morocco was still a few months away. During that time, Ramiro and I went out and came home; we laughed, smoked, made love like lunatics, and danced the carioca till dawn. Around us the political scene remained explosive, and the strikes, the labor disputes, and the violence on the streets continued as usual. In February the left-wing Popular Front coalition won the elections; the Falangists reacted by becoming more aggressive. Words were replaced by pistols and fists in political debates; the tension was heightened. Yet what did all that matter to us, if we were already just a couple of steps away from a new phase in our lives?
Chapter Five
___________
We left Madrid at the end of March 1936. I went out one morning to buy some stockings and when I returned I found the house in turmoil and Ramiro surrounded by suitcases and trunks.
“We’re leaving. This afternoon.”
“Did Pitman Academies answer?” I asked, my stomach in knots. He replied without looking at me, pulling out trousers and shirts from the wardrobe.
“Not directly, but I’ve learned that they’re considering our proposal very seriously. So I think this is the time to start spreading our wings.”
“And your job?”
“I quit. Today. I’d had more than enough of them, they knew it was only a matter of days before I’d go. So it’s good-bye, Hispano-Olivetti, we won’t be meeting again anytime soon. There’s another world waiting for us, my love; fortune favors the brave, so start getting things together, because we’re off.”
I didn’t reply, and my silence forced him to interrupt his frantic activity. He looked up at me, smiling briefly at my confusion. Then he came over, grabbed me by the waist, and with a kiss tore all my fears up by the roots and gave me a transfusion of energy that could have flown me directly to Morocco.
Our haste allowed me only a few minutes to say good-bye to my mother; little more than a quick hug practically at the door and a don’t-worry-I’ll-write. I was glad there was no time to prolong the good-bye—it would have been too painful. I didn’t even look back as I trotted down the stairs; in spite of her fortitude I knew she was about to burst into tears and that wasn’t the moment for sentimentality. In my state of utter unawareness, I felt that our separation wouldn’t last long, as though Africa were just a few blocks away and our trip wouldn’t be for more than a few weeks.
We disembarked in Tangiers on a windy afternoon in early spring. After leaving a harsh grey Madrid, we arrived in this strange, dazzling city, filled with color and contrast, where the dark faces of the Arabs with their djellabas and turbans mingled with those of European settlers and others fleeing their past, in transit to a thousand other destinations, their suitcases filled with uncertain dreams. Tangiers, with its sea, its twelve international flags, and its striking vegetation of palms and eucalyptus, with Moorish alleyways and new avenues driven by impressive motorcars with CD license plates: corps diplomatique. Tangiers, where minarets and the scent of spices lived comfortably side by side with consulates, banks, frivolous foreign women in convertible cars, and the aroma of Virginia tobacco and duty-free Parisian perfumes. The terraces of the harbor’s bathing resorts greeted us with awnings fluttering in the sea air, Cape Malabata and the Spanish coastline visible in the distance. The Europeans, dressed up in light-colored lightweight clothing, protected by sunglasses and soft hats, sat with their legs crossed indolently, sipping their aperitifs as they perused the international press. Some were devoted to business, others to administration, and many of them to a life that was idle and deceptively carefree: the prelude to something uncertain that had yet to arrive and that not even the most audacious were able to foresee.
While awaiting concrete news from the owners of Pitman Academies, we were lodged at the Hotel Continental, overlooking the port and just beside the old town. Ramiro cabled the Argentine firm to inform them of our change of address, and I took charge of making daily inquiries to the hotel management concerning the letter that would mark the beginning of our future. Once we had received our reply, we’d decide whether to remain in Tangiers or install ourselves in the Protectorate. In the meantime, while the communication took its time crossing the Atlantic, we began to move about the city among other expats like ourselves, part of that mass of beings with varied pasts and unpredictable futures who were dedicated body and soul to the exhausting chores of chatting, drinking, dancing, watching shows at the Teatro Cervantes, and gambling their futures on a hand of cards, unable to ascertain whether life had a sparkling destiny in store for them or a sinister end in some dark alleyway.
We began to be like them and entered a time that was anything but tranquil. There were vast hours of love in our bedroom in the Continental while the white curtains fluttered with sea breezes; furious passion beneath the monotonous sound of the fan blades mingling with the labored rhythm of our breaths; and the salty taste of sweat on our skin and the rumpled sheets overflowing the bed, spilling onto the floor. We went out constantly, enjoying the streets night and day. At first, not knowing anyone, we went around alone, just the two of us. On days when the east wind wasn’t blowing too hard, we’d go to the beach by the Diplomatic Forest; in the afternoons we’d walk along the recently constructed Boulevard Pasteur, or watch American movies at the Florida Kursaal or the Capitol, or we’d sit at some café in the Small Souq, the pulsing center of the city, where Arabs and Europeans intermingled congenially.
Our isolation, however, lasted only a few weeks: Tangiers was small, Ramiro sociable in the extreme, and in those days everyone seemed to have a great urgency to interact with one another. Soon we started greeting faces, learning names, and joining up with groups when we walked into places. We’d have lunch and dinner at the Bretagne, Roma Park, or the Brasserie de la Plage, and at night we’d go to the Bar Russo, or Chatham, or the Detroit on the Place de France. Or to the Central with its group of Hungarian dancers, or to watch the M’Sallah music-hall shows in their great glazed pavilion, filled to bursting with the French, the English, Spaniards, Jews of various nationalities, Moroccans, Germans, and Russians who danced, drank, and discussed politics, either local or international, in a jumble of languages against the backdrop of a spectacular orchestra. Sometimes we’d end up at the Café Hafa by the sea, sitting under the awnings till dawn, on mats laid over the ground, with people reclining as they smoked hashish and drank tea. Rich Arabs, Europeans of uncertain fortune who at some time in the past might perhaps have been rich, too, or perhaps not. It was unusual for us to go to bed before dawn in those bewildering days, between our anticipation of news from Argentina and the idleness imposed by its delay. We’d frequent the new European quarter of the city and wander through the Moorish one, living with the combined presence of exiles and locals, with waxy-complexioned ladies wearing sun hats and pearls as they walked their poodles and dark-skinned barbers working in the open air with their ancient tools. With the street vendors of creams and ointments, the diplomatic corps in their impeccable attire, the herds of goats, and the fleeting, almost faceless silhouettes of the Muslim women i
n their haiks and caftans.
News came daily from Madrid. Sometimes we’d read articles in the local Spanish-language newspapers, Democracia, El Diario de África, or the republican El Porvenir; other times we’d just hear them from the mouths of the newspaper vendors in the Small Souq shouting their headlines in a jumble of languages: La Vedetta di Tangeri in Italian, Le Journal de Tanger in French. Occasionally I’d receive letters from my mother—brief, simple, distant letters. That was how I learned that my grandfather had died, silent and peaceful in his rocking chair, and between the lines I gathered how hard it was becoming, day by day, for her just to survive.
It was a time of discoveries, too. I learned a few phrases in Arabic, but nothing very useful. My ears got used to the sound of other languages—French, English—and to other accents in my own language, such as Haketia, that dialect of the Moroccan Sephardic Jews with its roots in old Spanish that also incorporated words from Arabic and Hebrew. I discovered that there are substances you can smoke or inject or snort that will jumble your senses, that there are people capable of gambling away their mother at a baccarat table, and that there are passions of the flesh that allow for far more combinations than just those of a man and a woman horizontally on a mattress. I learned, too, that there are things that happen in the world that my dim education had never touched upon: I found out that years earlier there had been a great war in Europe, that Germany was being ruled by someone called Hitler who was admired by some and feared by others, and that someone who one day occupied a given place with a feeling of permanence could the following day vanish in order to save his skin, to avoid being beaten to death or ending up in a place worse than his darkest nightmare.
And I discovered to my utmost dismay that at any moment and with no apparent cause, everything we believe to be stable can be upset, derailed, twisted from its course. Unlike what I had learned about people’s political leanings, about European affairs and the history of the countries of the people who surrounded us, this wasn’t a piece of knowledge I acquired because anybody taught me, but because I happened to experience it myself. I don’t recall the exact moment, and what happened wasn’t absolutely concrete, but at some indeterminate point things between Ramiro and me began to change.
