Homeland

by Fernando Aramburu

  So, that business about it’s being cool, what’s it all about? Well, when he was standing opposite the boss, who had a dead smile on his face and eyes like those of a fish beginning to rot, Joxe Mari was hit by a blast of cold air that made him think: damn, I should have put on my sweater. It’s the same as when you’re in the supermarket: you go into the frozen-food section and a sudden lowering of the temperature catches you by surprise. The window was closed, giving Joxe Mari the feeling that the cold emanated from that man, who, despite the fact that he was a boss, received them with obvious timidity.

  Or maybe all that was nothing more than his imagination, aroused by the fascination the novice feels in the presence of a veteran in the armed struggle. He was supposed to have killed Moreno Bergareche—Pertur—and to have ordered the execution of Yoyes and Ordizia, and to have blown up a barracks in Zaragoza when there were children inside. He shook Patxo’s hand. He patted me on the back, leaving me with the feeling I’d been touched by a jellyfish. It was the blessing, the definitive entry into ETA. And the immobile smile and the turbid fish eyes were still there.

  He offered them a seat on the sofa.

  “You’re the one who played handball?”

  Very clever. I thought: he’s been supplied with facts so he pretends to know everything. But apparently, and according to what others said who also spoke with him, it was nothing more than a desire to be friendly. In fact, he said he sincerely hoped they’d be comfortable being part of an operational talde.

  A detail-obsessed man, a calculating man, he showed them a map of the province of Guipúzcoa. On the paper, he traced a circle with his index finger.

  “This is your zone. Here you two can do whatever you like. Police, the Guardia Civil, ertzainas, whatever crosses your path. We have to hit hard until the state sits down to negotiate with us.”

  The first thing Joxe Mari saw was that his village was within the circle Pakito drew, which to him seemed neither good nor bad. The major geographical reference was the Oria river. That’s what they’d be called: the Oria cell, made up of three men. The third, Txopo, was waiting for them in a rented flat.

  “You don’t have to do anything in Donostia. Stay out. There are others in place there. But within this zone”—again he pointed to the map—“you’re the proprietors. There you can do all the damage you like.”

  He then gave them Brownings along with clips and bullets. Also phony documents, a plastic bag filled with money, and finally another, larger bag, with explosives, fuses, and various components for making bombs.

  “You yourselves will identify the objectives in your zone, okay? And make things happen. Don’t hold back.”

  A problem with the mugalaris, what problem? no idea, kept the two freshly minted militants in the house of a French couple, a place so lost in the solitary wilderness you could only reach it by driving off the highway between Urrugne and Ascain. Six days of waiting they spent taking walks through the woods. No one told them they couldn’t go on hikes. One afternoon they tried out the pistols. Which meant in fact they were following the advice they’d received in the instruction course, since, according to the instructor, it’s important to make sure the arms are in working order before going into action. So they went up a dirt road to a secluded place surrounded by trees, and took turns: while one stood guard the other amused himself taking a few shots.

  One night they had a disagreeable surprise. By then Joxe Mari, it had to happen, was more or less used to his companion’s whistling breathing. Even so, sometimes he just couldn’t stand it and felt like walking over and smashing his nose with his fist.

  Unable to fall asleep, he turned on the light. It was the middle of the night. Then he saw them. They were coming out from under a picture hung on the wall above the bed. What? Bugs. Bugs with crawling in several directions, neither quickly nor slowly. He smashed one, one larger than the others, at random. And when he lifted his finger he saw the bloodstain on the wall. Bedbugs. He woke up Patxo and the two of them were killing bedbugs for an hour.

  “The Oria cell in action.”

  “Look, Patxo, if what you’re looking for is an alias, I’ve got a good one for you: Jerkoff.”

  Joxe Mari realized something: all those nights of troubled sleep were making him bitter. He got mad over any triviality. He became argumentative, impatient, a faultfinder. He had an argument in Basque, since he spoke not a syllable of French, with the lady of the house about the food. Shouting, aggressive, he called it garbage. Scanty, tasteless, and badly prepared. And in the afternoon, when he came home from work, the husband threatened to throw him out of the house.

  Early in the evening, locked in his room with Patxo, he nostalgically evoked his mother’s cooking:

  “I never met anyone who can cook like her. I can imagine her right now frying fish at home. We always had fish for dinner. The smell reaches me even here. Can’t you smell it? Crusted red mullet and fried garlic?”

  And he stretched his neck and sniffed the air in the room as if those maternal mullets were floating under his nose.

  “You’re not going to get all sentimental on me now, are you?”

  “Not sentimental, not mental. Ever since we walked into this house I’ve been hungry. I’d eat a steak this big with peppers and French fries.”

  They didn’t even have a TV. So after smashing four or five bedbugs they put out the light earlier than usual. And as soon as Patxo began to annoy him with his respiratory whistle, Joxe Mari, as stealthily as he could, dragged his mattress out into the hall. He slept like a log the whole night, and he really needed it. Early the next morning he walked out into the countryside, gathered a bouquet of wildflowers, and at breakfast time, joking, smiling, presented them to the lady of the house. That ingratiating act enabled him to get on her good side.

  That same day, toward afternoon, a blackish-purple Renault van came to pick up the two militants. They went toward Ibardin. The weather? Cloudy but dry, with some breaks in the clouds where you could spot the first stars. As night was falling, they got out of the van in a wooded place. Out of the thicket came two young shadows. They wasted no time in conversations and, slipping on our packs, which weighed a ton, they started up the mountain with us behind. In a short time they were enveloped in such a dense darkness you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. I have no idea how those mugalaris knew where to go; they must have known the route by heart. Later the moon came up. Now they could recognize forms, shapes, masses, and see one another.

  The four of them walked in silence for almost an hour until they came to the top of a hill. From there they could make out the silhouette of Mount Larrún and the glowing points of light in Ventas de Ibardin. Just then, the group stopped and one of the mugularis, after listening carefully, bleated an imitation of a goat. He was answered by another similar bleat not far away. It was the signal for changing the mugalaris. That’s how Joxe Mari and Patxo understood that they’d crossed the border. And they immediately began the descent to Vera de Bidasoa.

  When they were behind the cemetery chapel, they were told to stay put. They waited with their packs almost half an hour until they were signaled to walk down to the highway. The mist rising from the river erased the houses. And the truth is we were cold. It was getting light when they got into a car. Along the road to Irún they stopped several times, waiting while one of them who was up ahead on a motorcycle came back to confirm that the road was free of cops. The trip ended at the first hour of morning on Avenida Zarauz in San Sebastián. In a bus shelter they met up with Txopo, whom they didn’t know.

  80

  THE ORIA CELL

  Stretched out on the bed in his cell, Joxe Mari remembered. What? That he turned twenty-one that year and was the youngest of the three. Not that there was a great age difference. Txopo, at twenty-four, was the oldest.

  “Why did they nickname you Txopo?”

  “Kid stuff.”r />
  When he was a little boy he would play soccer in a grassy playground near his house. A clothesline stretched between two metal rods was the goal. They couldn’t have a real match because there weren’t enough kids or space. So they played three against three, four against four, but no more than that, and he was the only goalkeeper. He blocked shots by both teams and liked to broadcast the games.

  “What do you mean?”

  He would give each player the name of a soccer star and from the goal he would comment on the critical moments in the game as if he were a radio announcer. And since he often referred to himself as Txopo, in memory of Iribar, his idol at the time, he adopted the nickname forever.

  Patxo, also a soccer player, rooted for Real Sociedad. “Are you fucking kidding me, you were for Athletic?”

  “I admit it proudly.”

  “Well, we’re off to a good start. But listen, why didn’t you volunteer for the Vizcaya cell?”

  “Because no one told me I’d end up working with a guy like you.”

  And Joxe Mari, to reconcile them, joined in:

  “Okay, boys, that’s enough. There are other sports, you know.”

  “Is that right, what are they?”

  “Handball.”

  Just to get his goat, they retorted:

  “Come on, that’s no sport.”

  “Well, what is it, then?”

  “Handball has the same relationship to soccer that ping-pong has to tennis.”

  “Or like a hand job to a fuck.”

  And they laughed, ha ha ha ha, the bastards, while he stood there glaring at them, not moving an eyelash.

  Txopo took on chores appropriate for a support militant. Behind his back, so he wouldn’t risk enraging him, Patxo called him our messenger boy or simply the messenger. Everything he knew about fighting, about militancy, about weapons—which was considerable—he’d learned on his own without passing through the recruitment channels in France. He didn’t lack astuteness or organizational skills, and he had experience. Before joining with Joxe Mari and Patxo he’d never directly participated in an ekintza, but from the shadows he had helped some of Donostia’s satellite cells solve logistical issues. That’s what he did best.

  “Someday I’ll be running ETA.”

  I see him as a spider, always calm, hidden, waiting for his prey. He wasn’t one for demonstrations and much less for run-ins with the cops. His strategy, in his own words, was to keep calm, learn, and call as little attention as possible to himself. Patxo didn’t understand:

  “At your age, how can you be so old?”

  “When your brain grows a little, you’ll understand.”

  Txopo had no police record. He’d never been arrested. He was committed to the cause, with an ideological preparation that Patxo and Joxe Mari, more men of action, lacked. He was also more highly educated than they were. He’d done a year of geography and history at the Mundaiz campus of the University of Deusto. When it came time to take the exams at the end of the term, he didn’t show up. He let some time pass and enrolled again. He was from a well-to-do family.

  Joxe Mari liked him from the start. The reason? Txopo was an ace when it came to practical matters. He made difficult things easy for you, he solved problems, he was cautious and provident. And he knew how to cook.

  He’d rented the apartment on Avenida Zarauz, a fourth-floor with elevator, about a month earlier. He paid punctually and with under-the-table cash, with no other contract than a verbal agreement with the house owner. Was there a garage? Yes, but since it was shared with others and raised the rent, he turned it down. He moved into the apartment to await the arrival of his comrades, letting it be known to everyone he ran into coming and going that he was a student. To promote that image he came in and went out every day carrying an attaché case and the odd book.

  One advantage of the apartment: nearby there were bus stops so they could travel to the interior of the province and also get to the center of the city. Txopo said that:

  “It’s better to live where you don’t do things. You can strike and withdraw to lead a normal life like anyone else. And here in Donostia, in a neighborhood like this, it’s much easier to pass unnoticed. Three new guys in a town where everybody knows everybody else, where at the most there are no more than four bars, that catches people’s eye.”

  “Jesus, Txopo, how’d you get so smart?”

  Days before our arrival, the guy had been inspecting the zone. The fact is he was as hardworking as an ant, as calculating as a spider, which, before it does anything else, makes its web. He went, he came, he looked for. Walking along the Igara highway he’d found a stupendous spot to dig a weapons cache. It wasn’t far. On foot, fifteen minutes. The three of them went there one Sunday, walking with about a hundred paces between them. When they reached an abandoned homestead, its roof collapsed, they left the highway to walk up a steep hill, heading toward the hermitage of Ángel de la Guarda. Soon they found themselves in a stand of pines. Until that point, they’d walked along a path covered with brambles and nettles, a sign that no one had passed through there in a long while. Patxo and Joxe Mari approved of the spot.

  Without places to hide weapons we can’t do anything. In that matter the three of us were in agreement. Just before, they’d sent a first report to the higher-ups. They enumerated details relevant to free movement, they described the zone, they asked for a car and supplies. As far as they themselves were concerned, they were ready. It didn’t matter to Patxo that they were storing weapons and explosives in the flat. Txopo was totally opposed. He explained. And Joxe Mari, the leader of the cell, had the last word. He sided with Txopo, always making an exception for weapons they’d need for immediate self-defense.

  “If we hide our supplies, they can be used by other comrades in case the txakurras grab us. We’ve got to set up the caches quickly.”

  First step: buy two plastic drums. That’s easy. But how to transport them without raising suspicion? They needed a car. Patxo:

  “Okay, we’ll steal one.”

  Txopo became exasperated:

  “You’ve seen too many movies.”

  He said he’d take care of things. How did he do it? No idea. He got two plastic drums, blue and with screw caps, that could hold about sixty gallons. He borrowed a van. From whom? No idea. He refused to answer. Since we insisted, he said that it was from a cousin, a plumber, but God knows. And he hid the two drums in that ruined homestead along the road to Igara. Inside the drums, also brand-new, the shovels for digging holes. The guy forgot nothing.

  “Shit, Txopo, I don’t know why we bother to come along when the two of us are just extras.”

  “You do things right or you don’t do them at all.”

  Txopo was damn good. Txopo was worth a lot. There have been bosses in ETA who weren’t worth even half of him.

  Early one morning they went to the pine stand. Calmly, listening to the birds sing, they buried the drums, one here, one a bit farther up. Then they covered over the sites with pine needles. When they finished, you couldn’t tell anyone had been digging.

  Stretched out in the bed in his cell, Joxe Mari remembered.

  81

  ONLY THE SAD DOCTOR WENT TO SEE HER OFF

  At midmorning, October 9, Nerea boarded the train to Paris. There, in the afternoon, before continuing her journey on the night train, she would have a few hours to stroll around the neighborhood of the Gare du Nord, providing she could leave her bags in a secure place.

  More or less at the same time in the morning, Bittori, who did not want to accompany her daughter to the station, me? that’s your business, went up to the cemetery. Just for once and without setting a precedent, she hiked up the entire Eguía hill on foot. She needed cool air and physical exercise to release her anger, which was burning in her stomach. Until the last moment, she was certain that Nerea would come into her room a
nd say: ama, you’re right, I’m staying here. Are you really staying? Yes, it was a crazy idea, I don’t know what I was thinking. She didn’t come in. So she, who had been awake in bed for over an hour, her ear tuned to Nerea’s preparations, did not see her off.

  Because of her haste, her rage, she’d left the square of plastic at home. Doesn’t matter. The stone, a sunny morning, was dry and the dust I can shed with a few shakes of my skirt.

  “She’s gone. Yes, Txato. Your darling daughter, the light of your life, remember? Well, she’s left us, apparently forever. She’s got an attachment in Germany. Don’t think she was very communicative. Xabier told me all about it. If he didn’t, I’d never find out. That she was taking a trip, that’s what she told me, but I believed, I thought, you understand me. She’s not coming back. She doesn’t give a damn about us. She told me her lover boy’s name, but do you think I can remember a name as weird as that? All that money spent on her studies. And now she throws her future into the garbage and what’s she going to do there when she doesn’t know the language? Press some German’s shirts for him? I don’t know who he is, never even saw a photo of him. And you down there on your back unable to read the riot act to that slut. Her egoism is beyond anything. She could have been a lawyer, sure. Open her own office, live comfortably, and be the pride of her deceased father. But no. You’ll see how she burns through the money you left her in no time.”

  The one who did turn up by surprise at the station was Xabier.

  “Since I don’t know when we’re going to see you again, I didn’t want you to go without a farewell hug.”

  “Don’t you have to work?”

  “I made a deal with a colleague.”

  They made some incidental conversation, praised the sunny morning, hid their feelings. But suddenly, she: that she would have preferred that he hadn’t revealed to ama the reason for her trip, that she was going to explain things to her from Germany by telephone or in a long letter. Sooner or later, ama would have found out. Her reaction? Well, for certain it would have been the same either way, but at least mother and daughter would have spared themselves the disagreeable argument they’d had the night before.