Stefan knew better than to risk a phrase like this on Eva. The last thing he wanted was for her to stop talking, to stop remembering, but however hard he tried she refused to take her story further.
‘One day maybe,’ she said, ‘but not now. Not while the sun’s still out.’
The following day, during the morning this time, she brought him photographs freshly developed from the darkroom downstairs. Her hands were still wet and the smell of the chemicals quickly filled the room. She spread the prints on the bed where Stefan could see them and then opened the window. There was glass in the window now and Ignacio had briefly returned to fix the catch.
Stefan was staring at the photos. They were taken from the clifftop and they showed the remains of something he didn’t immediately recognise.
‘It’s your boat,’ she said quietly. ‘Your submarine.’
Slowly he made sense of the chaos of the wreckage scattered across the reef below. There was so little left of U-2553. It seemed to have exploded, torn apart by storm after storm. His eyes went from one print to another. He recognised the bare bones of the boat, the ribs that gave the submarine its strength, the battered remains of the conning tower. Then, in the last of the photos, he found himself looking at what must have been his control room, the pipework and the rows of gauges exposed and laid bare as if someone had taken a giant tin opener to the hull. He could even make out the tiny table where he’d lay his charts.
Eva, aware of his hovering finger, was barely inches away. He could feel the heat of her body in the chill of the morning air.
‘I changed the lens,’ she said. ‘Eighty-five-millimetre. It’s hard in the wind. You have to keep steady.’
‘It’s a fine shot. You did well.’ He touched the very middle of the photo. ‘That was my home. That was where I lived.’
‘So small.’
‘Kleine. Tiny. We lived like mice. And often we ate like mice, too. Cheese and stale bread.’
‘You liked it? It was something special?’
‘You want the truth?’
‘Sí.’
‘I loved it. Especially in the early days. It was all I knew. And I was very good at it.’
He glanced sideways at her, trying to gauge what kind of interest lay behind these questions. She had to be in her early thirties. Had her boundless curiosity survived the years since she’d left home for the Asturias? And then Barcelona? Or was he pushing at a door that would lead to something uglier? To recrimination, at the very least, and maybe to something far worse? He was still at her mercy. One misjudgement, one wrong turn in the road, and he might find the attaché from Coruña at the door. There’s a German deserter upstairs, Herr Otto. Help yourself.
The thought alarmed Stefan. The penalty for desertion was death. The price he’d have to pay for killing a senior SS officer would be even worse. But that wasn’t it. Just the thought of a return to a world of uniforms, of Heil Hitlers, of ludicrous posturing fantasies about winning the war, filled him with despair. He’d done his best for the Fatherland but the story was over. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, he’d been spared by the storm and now – in Eva’s phrase – it was time to make a new start.
He looked at her and smiled. She held his glance for a moment and then began to collect the photos. To his delight, she was blushing.
He said he wanted to ask her a favour.
‘What is it?’
‘I’d like you to teach me Spanish.’
She looked up at him, startled. Not embarrassed any more but surprised.
‘Why? Why would you want to do that?’
‘Because I believe you about languages,’ he said. ‘And because I want to become someone else.’
9
The Lakeview Sunshine Home lay four blocks inland from the road that skirted the grey waters of Lake Michigan. This was where the city began to peter out among the sprawl of the northern suburbs. The nursing home had neither a view of the lake nor a monopoly of sunshine but Gómez had chosen it on the basis of good advice and liked what he’d seen so far.
His father, Ricardo, occupied a room on the top floor. A series of strokes three years back had robbed him of pretty much everything Gómez had taken for granted in the looming, ever-present figure that had shaped his childhood and the years that followed. He could no longer walk properly. His long face, never pretty, sagged to the left. Bits of his long-term recall were OK but he had trouble remembering anything that had happened in the previous ten seconds. He was also given to sudden outbursts of unprovoked rage that could, if you didn’t know this man, be seriously upsetting.
The nursing staff, thankfully, loved Ricardo Gómez. They’d learned to understand his frustrations and to live with his temper. They loved the way he tried to make up to them afterwards – the shakiness of his huge, gnarled hand on their forearms, the remorse filling his watery eyes – and on these occasions they were only too happy to feed his passion for Hershey Bars and maybe a mug of hot chocolate. For an old guy who’d made the long journey from the slums of Mexico City to a fine-paying job on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, he’d won not just their approval but their respect. In so many ways, the grouchy, big-hearted occupant of Room 27 was the American Dream personified.
Gómez found him hunched in a recliner under a new-looking plaid blanket. By some miracle his hair, freshly combed, was still jet-black, a sure sign – in Gómez’s view – that the family on his dad’s side went way back to the Aztecs.
The old man peered up at him, one hand shading his eyes from the brightness of the afternoon sun. Then the seamed face broke into a beaming smile.
‘Back already, son?’
Gómez stood over him, extending a hand. His dad had no grasp of time. He might have called by yesterday or last year. But that didn’t matter. At least he still knew who Gómez was.
‘How you keeping, Dad? Folks looking after you here? Still chasing all those pretty women?’
The old man nodded, not really understanding the questions but eager to keep the conversation going. He’d always liked company and, as a kid growing up on the city’s South Side, Gómez remembered the house full of friends dropping by, mainly men. Like his dad, these guys worked on the railroad, first with the maintenance crews, then – when promotion beckoned – from the timetabling department. They called his dad ‘Ricky’ and after a while his mom had done the same.
Gómez stooped for the box of tissues beside the recliner and dabbed at the thin trickle of saliva that leaked from the corner of his father’s mouth. The big old hand crabbed across and grabbed at his. Huge eyes, inches from Gómez’s face.
‘How’s that wife of yours?’
‘She’s fine, Dad.’
‘Tell her to call by and see me.’ He gestured vaguely towards the door. ‘Always welcome.’
Gómez hadn’t seen his wife since way before the war. Her name was Pearl and after barely a year of marriage she’d gone off with a big Polish guy who worked in the construction industry. The marriage had been dead in the water for months by that time and Gómez, although he’d never admit it, had a sneaking regard for anyone in trousers who could put up with his wife’s affectations. In the end they’d never even tried for kids, largely because Pearl didn’t much like sex, leastways not with him, but at the time the divorce had upset Gómez’s dad. He came from a Catholic family. You put up with what God gave you. Thank Christ the stroke had wiped the divorce from his memory.
Now he wanted to know whether Gómez was eating properly. Gómez, oddly touched by his dad’s obvious concern, allowed himself a smile.
‘I’m eating fine, Dad. Do I look hungry?’
‘You always look hungry. That’s why your mom buys you all that stuff for school. Boy can’t get by on a bowl of flakes in the morning. Especially winter. Like now. Cold, is it? Out?’
‘It’s fine, Dad. Everything’s fine.’
‘Good. Glad to hear it.’
Gómez went to the window to check the radiators. They were both on
. Keeping his dad here cost a fortune, one reason he’d taken the job on the Hill. The money the FBI were still paying him covered his dad’s weekly bills at Lakeview but only just. Without two incomes, God knows what he’d do.
His dad wanted to know when the Krauts were coming to Comiskey Park. Comiskey Park was home to the Chicago White Sox. As long ago as Gómez could remember, his dad had always been mad about baseball.
‘Krauts, Dad?’
‘Them Germans. The Sox will whip their ass. Ol’ Aches and Pains will hang ’em out to dry.’
Ol’ Aches and Pains was a shortstop called Luke Appling, a White Sox legend for a whole generation from the South Side, and in the hospital after his father’s first stroke Gómez had found a folded photo of the player in his dad’s wallet. He’d returned the photo once he’d got out of hospital but when he realised his dad hadn’t a clue who he was looking at he’d kept the shot himself as a reminder of the way his dad had once been.
His dad still wanted to know about the Krauts.
‘What Krauts, Dad?’
‘Them ones in the uniforms. Them ones giving us all such a hard time. You heard about them? They’ll be playing the White Sox as soon as we can fix it. How else are we gonna win this damn war? You telling me you got a better idea?’
At last Gómez understood. His dad had reduced the last three years to a baseball game. A couple of home runs by the likes of Luke Appling and it would all be over. No more Nazis to bomb. No more Pacific islands to retake. No need for the Gadget, or even the Hill. Just a huge crowd at Comiskey Park and the home win on the scoreboard before the stadium began to empty. Maybe his dad was right. Turn three years of madness into a couple of hours of entertainment. Neat idea.
‘The war’s going good, Dad. Don’t you worry about it. The White Sox, too. Anyone else come to see you recently?’
Gómez knew it was a question his dad couldn’t possibly answer but he asked it anyway because it felt like ordinary conversation and that made his dad very happy.
‘Sure,’ he said, nodding. ‘Sure I get visitors.’
‘They bring stuff? Presents?’
‘Sure.’
‘Like books, maybe?’
‘Sure, books. Lots of them.’ The hand again, waving at some phantom bookshelf. ‘When I get the time, I’ll maybe get round to reading them. Nice, though.’
‘What, Dad?’
‘Books. Keep you company, you know what I mean? Keep the brain alive. The radio, too.’
Gómez spotted the Bakelite radio beside the bed. It was a Firestone, handy, portable.
‘What are you listening to these days, Dad?’
‘Listening?’
‘The radio.’ He nodded towards the bed.
The old man was looking confused. Gómez got up and switched the radio on. Classical music, he thought. Some symphony or other. Full orchestra. The works. He was astonished.
He rejoined his father, knelt beside the recliner.
‘You’re listening to all that old stuff now, Dad? Beethoven stuff? Mozart?’
The old man at last got the drift. His head went back and he closed his eyes. Then he smiled, and his hands started beating time with the music.
‘“Sweet Lorraine”,’ he murmured. ‘They don’t write songs like that no more.’
The huge eyes opened and he reached up for his son.
‘You staying over tonight, Hector?’
‘Here, you mean?’
‘Sure. Your mom bought chops specially. She’ll do fries if we’re real nice to her. And maybe even gravy.’
Gómez looked down at him, then shook his head. Mom. Another ghost his father still lived with.
‘I’m off, Dad. Gotta war to fight.’ He stooped to kiss his father’s forehead. ‘Back soon, eh?’
*
Stefan awoke to shouting from downstairs. Eva’s voice he recognised. He’d never heard her so angry. The other voice was male, lower, with an edge of what Stefan took to be menace. He thought it might be Ignacio, the carpenter, but he couldn’t be sure. After a while, a door slammed and then there was silence. Minutes later came the opening bars of a piece Stefan remembered from his childhood. Beethoven. ‘Für Elise’. A sudden splash of sunshine after the storm. Upbeat. Fingers dancing through the melody. Then the key suddenly changing before the music came to an abrupt halt.
Stefan wondered whether to applaud. Then the door opened. It was Eva. She normally wore trousers. Today, a bright cotton skirt, cut an inch below her knee. Wonderful legs, lightly muscled, creamy white.
‘I woke you up?’
‘No. I loved the music.’
‘Not the music. Not that. Before the music.’
‘No hay problema.’
The phrase on his lips at last brought a smile to her face. She’d been teaching him the odd phrase for a couple of days now, just the essentials to get him through the most basic of conversations.
‘You know who that was?’ She nodded towards the open door.
‘Ignacio?’
‘Sí. And you know why he makes me so …’ she frowned, ‘… crazy?’
Stefan shook his head. By now he knew better than to try and force the pace. Far better to let Eva stay in charge, take her time, decide exactly how much she wanted to confide.
She was standing by the window now. She opened it wide and peered out, up and down the street, both directions, then tossed her head. There was satisfaction in the gesture. Ignacio was evidently nowhere to be seen.
‘You know about this man?’ She was back in the middle of the room. ‘He treats me like a dog. Because he thinks he owns me.’
Stefan wondered what to make of her choice of verb. Owns? Besitzen? Did she mean that? Were they together? The ill-mannered carpenter and this refugee from a different world? Were they a couple?
‘I don’t understand,’ he said carefully.
‘Not me, either. He comes here often. Sometimes my father has jobs for him. Jobs in the school. Jobs in the house. He gets well paid. But sometimes he just comes, and sits, and looks at me. Today especially. If a woman shows her legs in this village there are men who shout at her.’
‘Men like Ignacio?’
‘Sí.’
‘He shouts at you? Because of the skirt?’
‘Sí. And you know what he says? He says I shouldn’t wear such a thing. He thinks I should cover myself. Like all the other women in his life.’
‘He has that power?’
‘Of course not.’
‘So why does he say it?’
The question took her by surprise. Too direct, Stefan thought. After her time in Barcelona, this was another door he shouldn’t open.
‘He knows nothing about women, this man,’ she said at last. ‘And he knows nothing about the rest of Spain. All he knows is that I went away to Barcelona and came back somebody different. Different inside and different outside. I had no hair. And I wore skirts like these. I came back to look after my father and you know who told me how ill he was?’
‘Agustín.’
‘Ignacio. He told me my father was dying. And so I came home.’
‘Your father was OK?’
‘My father was sick. Ignacio was right. But he wasn’t dying. Smoke all your life and one day it will kill you. For my father it’s hard to breathe, hard to move. But he’s not dead. Not the way Ignacio told me.’
‘When was this?’
‘Nineteen thirty-nine. Madrid had just fallen to the Fascists. I was on the road. I hadn’t been home for three years. My father had a telephone. I made a call to tell him I was OK, that I was alive. Ignacio answered the telephone. He was working in the house. My father was at the school. Ignacio told me to run back. Before it was too late. I believed him. That’s why I came home.’
‘And stayed?’
‘No. Two months only. Then I went to England.’
‘Leaving your father here? Alone?’
‘My father gave me the money for the journey. He said to phone sometimes. If he got worse then ma
ybe I come back. But he knew there was a war coming. And he wanted me to see England.’
She settled on the foot of the bed, her anger over Ignacio gone. She said she’d taken the train north into France, and then the ferry to Dover. She’d never been outside Spain. She’d never been to Paris. Paris was maravillosa. The summer was hot. People were happy. The day after she landed in England the Germans invaded Poland and the war began. Was it luck that she escaped the Germans? She thought so. Although nothing happened that winter. Nada de nada.
‘You were disappointed?’
‘Not at all. I’d seen too much killing. Too many deaths. The Spanish are good at many things but not at making war. The people of the left were like children. They died too easily. They put their brains on ice. They never really knew what to do. That’s why the best matadors are always Fascist. Because Fascists know how to kill.’
Stefan was curious about England. How long had she stayed?
‘Nearly a year. The bombers came to London in September. I found a job with a newspaper. I had my camera. I took many pictures.’
‘You were under the bombs?’
‘Sí.’
‘German bombs?’
‘Sí. The bombers came at night. They aimed for the docks. Many people lived there. Next morning I made photographs. Many bodies. Whole houses gone. For what? For your glorious Reich? So we could all learn German?’
‘Is that why you hate us?’
‘Of course.’
Stefan nodded. It seemed perfectly reasonable. Entire streets flattened. Families wiped out. The bodies of children tugged from the wreckage like broken dolls. Smoke everywhere. And, according to Eva, the foulest of smells from the broken sewers. She was staring at him, demanding some kind of response.
‘I saw it myself,’ he said quietly. ‘In Hamburg. I was born there. I grew up there. It was my home. Then one night the bombers came, the English bombers, hundreds and hundreds of them, maybe a thousand, and they came the next night and maybe the night after that and afterwards there was nothing left.’
Finisterre Page 13
