by MARY HOCKING
‘The police,’ he explained.
‘Was . . .?’ James stopped. He could not remember that fantastic surname.
‘Was our friend here?’ Frangcon asked.
The man did not understand and James translated. The man shook his head. He looked over his shoulder and then came nearer, his face close to James’s.
‘They said that I was to telephone them as soon as he came back. If you are friends of his you must find him and tell him not to come back here.’
He asked for no explanations; in this neighbourhood the police would never find allies. Frangcon wanted to stay and ask him a lot of questions, but it was obvious that he knew nothing and while he had no intention of betraying Raoul, James guessed that he was not anxious to become involved in his troubles. They thanked him and left the house watched by the people still idling in the road.
‘What do we do now?’ Frangcon asked. She was very white and her voice was husky.
‘We’ll go and have a coffee somewhere and something to eat. Then you must go back to Rose and tell her to unpack. I’ll see if I can find anything out.’
‘Unpack!’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said impatiently, his mind darling ahead. ‘It’s too late to get away now. We must bluff it out, insist that we had no idea that anything important was involved. At all costs we must not let them think that we are in a hurry to get away.’
She had not been in a hurry to get away so she did not protest. She stood irresolute in the hot, narrow street and he wondered wearily whether she would insist on remaining here until she had events sorted out to her satisfaction.
‘But what can you find out?’ she said. ‘Where can you go?’
‘I can go to his office. I’ll make a few enquiries about trips, say that I spoke to him before. Perhaps I’ll pick up something that way. If not . . .’
The boy who had run into the hotel was watching them. Two men leaning against the wall of an apartment house opposite were also watching; James had noticed them before because they did not seem to belong to any of the groups of people talking in the street. Frangcon said:
‘We must find Raoul. We must find him.’
The men had heard her. James decided that it might be advisable to start bluffing now. He went across to the men and asked whether they had any idea where the man whom the police were after had gone. They looked at him warily, taken a little off-guard. He pressed them irritably, explaining that he had been on a tour and had taken some photographs which Raoul had promised to get developed for him because he knew a good photographer. Now he could not find Raoul and he wanted the photographs. The men had lost interest; they said they didn’t know anything about Raoul. As James and Frangcon walked down the street they did not bother to look after them. But the boy watched them. He was disappointed; he had meant to follow the man and the woman until the man went up to the two detectives. He had wanted to tell them that Raoul had come earlier and that he had run down the street to warn him that the police were in his room.
‘Suppose he comes back?’ Frangcon was saying.
‘There’s nothing we can do about that.’
‘But those men . . .’
‘There is nothing we can do about it because of those men. What will they think if we stay hanging around here?’
‘We could go into that café over there and wait for a little while at least. You said we would get coffee and something to eat.’
‘It’s not the kind of place . . .’
‘Does that matter?’
They argued for a few moments and then went into the café.
In the meantime Raoul was coming out of the Sagrada Familia not far away. When the boy ran up to him to warn him about the police he had turned away at once. Afterwards he had realized that it would have been wiser to have asked the boy to go with him. He had grown careless lately as hope seemed to be fading; there were things in his room that should not have been there. The boy might have been able to salvage anything that the police overlooked. But he did not dare to go back himself and there was no one else who could help him. He had enough money to make a telephone call. He made it and was fortunate to get in touch with his friend at his estate in the wine-growing area of Tarragona.
‘Is Armand still with you?’ he asked.
Armand was there. When he came to the ’phone, Raoul said:
‘You were right. Our turn will come and in the meantime I shall have to learn to be patient.’
Armand, who could not recollect having expressed this view, sounded a trifle wary.
‘Meaning?’
‘I will go to South America.’
Armand and his friend were not very pleased with this turn of events, but danger seemed momentarily to have sharpened Raoul’s wits and he played effectively on the Frenchman’s sense of honour and the Spaniard’s pride. They had to make their arrangements quickly and he was glad to find that his gift of memorizing instructions had not deserted him. When he put the receiver down he knew exactly what he had to do. It was not until he was out in the busy street that he realized that he needed money to see his plans through. He could not go to the bank, the police would watch that, and the spare money he usually carried about with him to meet just this emergency was sewn into the lining of a jacket that he had left behind in his room.
He felt very tired; but he knew that he must keep on the move from now on, if he loitered there was a danger that a passing policeman would recognize him. It would be wiser to keep in the centre of the crowd until darkness came. He mixed with a party of tourists outside the Sagrada Familia and went into the small chapel with them. It was a relief to sit down. He bent his head as though in prayer, holding a hand in front of his face. His mind would not work. He was conscious only of hunger, thirst and weariness; his attack of fever had left him with little reserve of energy. It was dark when he left the church. He felt faint and he could not walk steadily; he was desperately afraid of becoming ill again before he could start his journey. He must get money from somewhere.
He thought of Rose. The idea of going to her was distasteful to him; but he had learnt long ago to overcome this kind of scruple. Rose knew enough not to ask questions and she would not bother him with advice; also, she might be glad to get rid of him now that he was in serious trouble. But he could not go to her room because the police would probably be watching it. He looked at his watch. It was just after eight. She usually went back to her room in the evening to carry out her ritual of bathing and changing her dress before she dined. With any luck he would be able to follow her when she left. He hoped that she would be alone.
He decided to wait in the porch of the church opposite her apartment house. But as he came into the courtyard, sidling along the wall of one of the houses, he noticed two men standing in the church porch. They did not attempt to go into the church. He stopped in a doorway. There was a light in Rose’s room; occasional shadows jumped on the blinds. A few people came and went across the courtyard; some women were sitting talking under the trees in the centre and a few children were playing in the doorway next to the one where he waited. He wondered whether he could risk sending one of them up to her room with a message. Then, from across the courtyard he heard steps and the sound of voices. He eased further back into the shadows. He wondered whether it was Rose coming towards him with her escort for the evening. But the couple that went by were strangers. The light was still on in Rose’s room; he could see her moving about from time to time. He wondered what she was doing, she seemed to be unusually active. Perhaps she did not intend to go out? Her moods of domesticity were rare, but he supposed it was possible that she might be doing some tidying up; once or twice her shadow elongated as though she was reaching up to something. Then, after he had almost given up hope, she came to the window and looked out. She leant forward, her elbows resting on the sill, and stared across the courtyard. Her shoulders were hunched and her hands folded across her breasts as though she was cold. She went away again; but soon she returned. This time she stood
quite still, looking down. She is lonely, he thought. If that is so, she will come out soon. He was glad that she was alone; Rose was never happy in her own company for long. But suppose the men in the porch followed her? He would have to take a risk. He must assume that she would go, as she usually did, in the direction of the more fashionable part of the town and he must wait for her at some point where he could intercept her in comparative safety. If the men had been told to watch her room, they would not leave it for long in case he came after she left. They would just check which way she was heading and whether she was alone, then perhaps one of them would ring back to headquarters while the other took up his position in the church porch again.
Raoul went out of the courtyard and began to walk up the street. He would have to get this over quickly. Even in this rather dingy quarter it would be inadvisable to hang around the streets for too long. It was some time before Rose came, however, and he had begun to wonder whether she had overcome her fear of solitude. Then he caught sight of her in the distance. She was walking in the road, as she so often did because she hated to be jostled on the narrow pavements. While in the dim street the dark-clad people were shadowy, she stood out by the brightness of her dress; he could see the apple-green skirt swaying and the shimmer of a magnolia stole around her shoulders. Hers was a tinsel brightness with no real warmth or richness; but now, watching the swaying green dress, he experienced once again a kind of refreshment in her company. There was an impression of coolness and a shallow kind of peace which brought back to him a memory of childhood holidays, of water in reedy, shadowed reaches, stagnant, yet with a kind of green innocence. He stepped back into a shop doorway and let her pass; her face was a pale oval across which the silky red hair formed a soft fringe agitated by the breeze. Her body would be cool, the breasts veined with blue, as smooth as alabaster; there would be the smell of sandalwood. She had never offered much, but now, as he followed her, he longed for the arid pleasure of her body; he wanted to lie with her, safe in a lotus land undisturbed by fear or hope.
She had reached a crossroads and she turned towards a dark, pillared arcade where market stalls would be set up in the morning. Now it was deserted. He closed with her. The green dress fitted tight about the waist and it seemed natural to rest his arm on the soft swell of her hip as he had so often done in the past.
She gave a stifled cry and jerked to one side, catching her heel in a grating. He watched, bemused, as she pivoted, arms outspread, and then fell back heavily against one of the stone pillars. Her behaviour seemed as inexplicable to him as if she had suddenly performed an ungraceful impromptu dance. He said irritably:
‘Rose, it’s only me.’
Her breath came in little whimpers; her elbow was grazed and a trickle of blood ran down her arm. The jade eyes stared through the soft fringe of hair, sharp as those of a frightened vixen.
‘Go away!’ she hissed. ‘Go away, or I’ll call a policeman.’
‘Don’t be silly. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry about your arm.’
The eyes became wary, as though this was some kind of trick to distract her attention.
‘Your arm,’ he pointed.
She looked down.
‘I’m bleeding! What did you do to me? Have you got a knife?’
He put his hands on the pillar, one on either side of her head; her face, thin and peaked with fear, stared up at him.
‘Rose, I’ve got to get away.’
She did not seem to understand. He felt sick with exhaustion. If she wasted much more time he would pass out. He must make her understand and then she would give him the money and he could find shelter for the night and a little food to keep him going. He began to explain, slowly and in detail, because this seemed the only way to get what he so badly needed.
‘Tomorrow I leave Barcelona; I have to catch the bus to San Juan de la Cruz. I have an appointment up in the mountains that I must keep. And I haven’t any money.’
She bit her lip and her eyes darted from side to side seeking a way of escape. He put his hands on her shoulders and began to shake her.
‘Rose, listen to me! I must have money. You’re the only person I could come to.’
She said in the high-pitched voice she always affected when things were getting beyond her control:
‘I won’t give you money. I’ve told you that before.’
‘Don’t you understand what this means to me?’
‘I think you do it to insult me, to make me feel . . .’
He struck her across the face. She cringed against the pillar; he could see the dark mark of his hand across one cheek, the other cheek was chalk-white and the lips were bloodless. She spat at him:
‘How dare you ask anything of me?’
‘There isn’t anyone else I could ask. Now listen to me . . .’
‘You didn’t tell me what you had done; you let me run this dreadful risk and you didn’t even warn me.’
‘Warn you?’ His mind groped wearily with the past. ‘We drifted into things. At first, it didn’t seem necessary to warn you, and then . . .’ Then, the undemanding pleasures of her body had been all that mattered and it still had not seemed necessary to warn her. ‘It’s too late to explain now. The police have been to my room and . . .’
Fear drained her anger.
‘The police! Already?’
She was edging away. He caught at her arm, his fingers clawing at the soft flesh as he felt his last chance slipping from him.
‘Rose, you must help me. You can see that now, surely? If I don’t have the money I can’t get away.’
‘The police! They’re looking for you now?’
‘Yes, yes. That’s what I’ve been trying to make you understand.’
‘You must be mad, wandering about the streets like this! Go away, hide somewhere!’
‘But I haven’t any money. I’ve been trying to explain . . .’
He reached out to stop her as she continued to back away from him; his hand caught at the neck of her dress, she jerked backwards and the dress ripped open. She began to run; a shoe came off, she went on running, hopping up and down like a wounded bird unable to take flight. The stole slipped from her shoulders and crumpled on the ground. He took a few steps after her, but there were people now at the other end of the arcade. He picked up the shoe without thinking what he was doing and bent it back in his fingers until it cracked across the thin instep. He wondered what he could do now.
Rose ran some little distance down the road leading off the market place; a pulse throbbed in her throat and her mouth was so dry she could not swallow. She stopped and leant against the blank wall of a cinema. There was no sound of pursuit; but he drumming of blood in her ears frightened her more than his footsteps would have done, and she was terrified by the violent pounding of her heart, so erratic that she was afraid its usual unemphatic rhythm would never be restored. One foot was hurting. She looked down and saw that it was cut and covered with dust. No shoe. There was something else wrong, too; her stole had gone and her dress gaped at the neck. She put trembling hands up to hold the frayed edges together. She could not hope to get a taxi here. She would have to walk through the dingy, cluttered streets that lay between this place and her room without a shoe, clutching a torn dress and looking for all the world like the tattered half-wit in Tobacco Road. She had once done quite a good parody of that sort of scene at a party, so she knew just how absurd she would look. Her teeth were beginning to chatter. She must go quickly, quickly . . . She took a few ungainly paces and then kicked off the other shoe and went barefoot.
It was dark and the people in the street were mostly working folk intent on their own affairs; the tear in her dress was not so bad as she had imagined and there were places where it would have seemed more strange to go barefoot than the back streets of Barcelona. Probably no one would have noticed her if she had gone quietly on her way. But she was in such a hurry, half-running down the road, her breath coming in little sobs. People turned to stare at her. A man
came up to her, urged forward by a maternal- looking old woman. He meant to be helpful but she pushed him away and shouted: ‘Vamos!’ He jeered at her, angered at such treatment. Her mind was too confused to remember the short cuts through the dark alleyways, so she continued along the narrow, shop-lined streets and all the time she imagined the faces turned to gape, the people closing in behind her, the whispering surge of comment, mockery, laughter. When she got to her room she leant against the door and cried and laughed until her ribs caved in and she plunged into a suffocating darkness.
Frangcon found her lying on the floor when she came back half an hour later. She had to get the woman in the flat below to help her to get Rose on to the bed. Rose lay quite still after the woman had gone while Frangcon searched in the kitchen until she found a little tea in the bottom of a rusty tin. Tea with plenty of sugar was the only remedy she knew for shock, and although it looked greenish and unappetizing she thrust it at Rose. Rose drank it without protest, her eyes looking straight ahead, unblinking.
‘It was Raoul,’ she said, staring at the slats of the blind across the window.
‘Raoul!’
‘Yes. He did this to me. He attacked me.’
Her voice was monotonous; she sounded as though she might have been dreaming. Frangcon scarcely knew whether or not to believe her.
‘But Rose, what happened? Did he come here?’
‘I couldn’t stay here, shut in all by myself. So I went out. And he was waiting for me. I had to walk back, all the way through the streets with my dress ripped off.’
‘It’s not such a very noticeable tear. Rose.’
‘I shall never forget it. They laughed at me. All those people in the street, staring and laughing at me. What is going to become of us, Frangcon?’
