Homeland

by Fernando Aramburu

  Months of uncertainty. When the hell are they going to reestablish command? They were without any connections. They received no weapons. Txopo had to turn to his parents for help paying the rent. Meanwhile the Spanish state relaxed and celebrated the Universal Exposition in Seville and the Olympic Games in Barcelona. One morning, Joxe Mari said fuck it, I’m going to take a chance. So he hopped aboard the Topo train at the Amara station and got out in Hendaya. After three days in France, he came back to the flat, starving, filthy, demoralized.

  “ETA will never again be what it was. The hit we took in March was too hard.”

  “Who are the new bosses?”

  “There are a few of them. They don’t make things any clearer. They don’t know whether they’re coming or going.”

  Despite everything, he didn’t come back empty-handed. He’d set up a meeting in a bar in the Gros neighborhood with a militant who could put him in touch, let’s see if I’ve understood him, with one of the new chiefs or with someone close to him or something like that. Joxe Mari was dubious. He ordered Patxo an hour before the meeting to go have a drink.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Then he went and gave the guy a letter Txopo typed out in which the three of them asked to be transferred to Iparralde and to be in the reserves for a time. They justified their requests: we’re not functioning properly, we need to be brought up to date in things like preparing bombs, we’re ignorant of strategy. They had to wait several weeks for an answer. Request approved. And they assigned them a team of mugalaris. Txopo followed them a few months later.

  Patxo was given a job on a poultry farm, the property of a French couple with nationalist convictions. With the owners and their children and with the help of a manual he started learning Basque. Didn’t he already speak it? No, actually, except for the twenty or so words you pick up automatically, which was the reason his comrades always scolded him severely. If you don’t speak Basque, you’re not Basque, they would say, even if you’re in ETA. He would always protest that he was dedicated to the cause of independence. They told him to go to hell.

  And as for Joxe Mari: he expressed having the greatest interest in increasing his knowledge of explosives. The failed attack on the Guardia Civil convoy was a thorn in his memory. And Txopo? Txopo finally went through the arms course. So when they all went back to the struggle, the three of them were convinced they formed a more competent, stronger, deadlier talde than before.

  Five months later they were arrested. And still, after so many years, Joxe Mari asks himself what went wrong, who went wrong? Was the organization chock-full of moles, as people said? Did the three members of the talde lower their guard? I didn’t, but Patxo? There’s no other explanation. What at first was mere suspicion soon became a certainty. They were caught just a few days before they were to make a spectacular attack, when they had everything ready: the time, the place, the car bomb. And Joxe Mari had not the slightest doubt that someone squealed. During the trial in the National Court, whenever he happened to be with Patxo in the holding tank, he wouldn’t deign to speak to him. He didn’t even honor him with a glance. As if he didn’t exist.

  It took him a long time to change his opinion, though even now he’s still convinced it was Patxo’s fault they were caught. I recognize that it didn’t make sense for him to collaborate with the txakurrada just so he could serve a long sentence in jail, where he is still. So he didn’t betray us, not at all; but he was imprudent.

  One night they saw he was melancholy, down.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “My father is dying. I don’t think he’ll last much longer.”

  Red lights flashed inside Joxe Mari’s head:

  “How did you find out?”

  Understanding that he’d already said too much, Patxo had no choice but to confess he’d secretly visited his family. When? Actually, several times. A serious lapse in discipline. His comrades demanded details. He gave them, each one worse than the other. His father, skeletal, pale, suffering terrible pains. His father who no longer recognized anyone. His father who.

  “Okay, enough.”

  It hadn’t even been a month since they’d changed apartments for security reasons. And now this. Joxe Mari could not get to sleep that night. He got out of bed several times. From the dark room, he spied on the deserted street, the burning street lamps, the parked cars. Five, ten minutes, and he went back to bed. In the morning, he spoke alone to Txopo.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling. What do you think?”

  “It may well be that no one saw him and that you’re worrying over nothing.”

  “It’s certain that our names are on some piece of paper intercepted by the police. Or maybe some prisoner has named us while they were beating the shit out of him. So, all they have to do is put a plainclothes txakurra near our aitas’ houses. They get one and they get us all. Should we get the hell out?”

  “Again? Wait a few days. Let’s carry out this ekintza and then we’ll change our place of residence.”

  He let himself be convinced, he who was so careful, so suspicious. Maybe he sensed he was tired. Tired of what? Of all the coming and going, of watching out, of spending his life in a constant state of nervousness and tension, and of this fucking underground life that eats away at you little by little. He could have defended himself because between the explosion at the door and the instant when the first txakurra charged into his room shouting at the top of his lungs he had time to grab his pistol. But screw it. I’m still young and someday they’ll let me out. It was 1:25 a.m. In the first moment, I felt relief. Probably because I was deluded and hadn’t the slightest idea about what was waiting for me.

  101

  “TXORIA TXORI”

  As soon as he feels, senses, smells the dust of sorrow floating up from the floor, he starts whistling his favorite song. He doesn’t have to think about it. It comes on its own. He’s deeply grateful for that song. His mind works that way. Sometimes, when he walks to the dining room or in the patio or after saying goodbye to his mother in the visitors room, he seeks its tranquility: Hegoak ebaki banizkio, whispering it so low that it’s as if he were merely thinking it, always imitating the voice of Mikel Laboa. He’s promised himself: the day he’s set free, as soon as he gets to the village, he’ll go up to the mountain to sing “Txoria txori” with no other witnesses than the grass and the trees.

  As they were leading him out of the flat, his eye happened to land on Laboa’s CD. He hadn’t listened to it for a long time. There it was, on the table, and there it remained. For Joxe Mari, it was the last image of the world that had been his until then, the world he was leaving behind forever.

  The search went on for several hours. The police kept them apart, each one in a different room, their hands behind their backs in cuffs. Weapons? Yes indeed, there were a few. The rest of their supplies were in the cache; but the txakurras would find all that out later. In the presence of the court clerk they questioned him. And this, what is it? And where do you have? And where are you storing? They put them in different vehicles. Joxe Mari was the last one they brought to the street.

  “Let’s go, tough guy.”

  It was getting light. The coolness of the morning, the chirping birds, neighbors looking out of windows. And as he entered the van, a punch from a Guardia Civil who thought Joxe Mari was staring at him brusquely tore him out of his dazed drowsiness. He wasn’t to look at him. And next to him, another Guardia Civil said in mock calm:

  “You fucked up, gudari.”

  They forced him to keep his head between his legs, the way it was when he went for his interview with Pakito. And in that position, the song came into his mind for the first time, Hegoak ebaki banizkio / nerea izango zen. They traveled at high speed. For a moment, he felt safe within the song. It was going to be his refuge, his deep lair. I hide there and make them think they’ve got me.


  Destination point: the Intxaurrondo barracks. After taking his fingerprints and his mug shots, they stripped him, and one guard said we’re going to treat you okay here, but you have to deserve it. We don’t give gifts. They removed the earring from his ear. No faggots allowed. And they covered his head in a balaclava. They must have put it on backwards because he saw nothing. They locked him up in a cell. No insults, no shoving, no beating. The hours went by. He heard footsteps and muffled voices. Suddenly some screams of pain, moaning. Patxo? Joxe Mari, still handcuffed, tried to fight the cold remembering the song.

  At some moment in the morning they took him for interrogation. He should be smart, his buddies confessed and left him holding the bag. Coward, traitor, incompetent, they’d called him everything.

  “Nice friends you’ve got, they blame you for being caught by us.”

  The txakurras riddled him with questions whose answers they knew only too well. Trivial questions: what was his name, what were his comrades’ names, how old was he, where was the cell’s apartment. And the questions, questions, questions were repeated so quickly that Joxe Mari couldn’t finish answering them. Sometimes one voice in front of him and one behind or at the side would ask two different questions at the same time. And even though he saw no one, he realized because of the various voices, the footsteps, and other noises that he was surrounded by a large number of the Guardia Civil. Suddenly six, seven, eight continuous punches rained down on him. Someone was shouting near his ear. He only understood isolated words: “patience,” “you deny,” “getting tired,” “collaborate.” All shouted. And threats. And more punches. And insults. He fell off the chair, did they knock him down? They beat him while he was flat on the floor, fucking murderer, myriad kicks all over his body. With his hands behind his back he couldn’t defend himself.

  They sat him back on the chair. Someone spoke in a low voice. What did he say? No idea. Whispers. Now came other questions. And he realized that in the brief time it took him to answer they weren’t beating him, so he tried to lengthen his answers by adding details, most of them superfluous. And it was clear they’d squeezed a shitload of information out of Txopo and Patxo. Which was why the questions now referred to minute matters from the daily life of the three militants and to concrete aspects of attacks, of supply deliveries, about all of which the txakurras knew everything.

  They wanted names. The slightest hesitation was matched with a punch. And then there was that Guardia Civil, at some distance, who suggested putting a bullet in the back of the ETA man’s fucking neck and throwing him into the sea. Joxe Mari’s face was burning under the balaclava. And the song? It didn’t come to him, he didn’t remember it, he couldn’t think. After two, three hours of beatings they still hadn’t asked about the cache sites. Maybe it was a trap built into the interrogation. He decided to tell where they were. Maybe that way they’ll stop beating me. He said: the weapons are in such-and-such a place. Is that right? So why didn’t he say so before? And how could they know he wasn’t lying? They took off the balaclava. And at the same time a hand brutally pulled his hair to lower his head: they forbade him to look at their faces. They brought over a map of the province. They even gave him water. Lukewarm but water nevertheless. And in an instant, he was pointing to a place. He noticed that the site of the cache was marked with an X. So, they knew. They didn’t even bring him there. For sure, they’d already gone with one of his comrades or with both and dug up the containers.

  After night had fallen, they pushed him into a vehicle, with three txakurras who went on asking him questions, more than anything to humiliate him. What did he think of the Spanish flag. If he had a girlfriend and how many times had he screwed her. That sort of thing. And except for a few punches at the start of the trip, they didn’t beat him during the whole ride to Madrid. Since last night’s dinner he hadn’t eaten a thing. But hunger wasn’t his principal problem. Sleep was worse. And as soon as his eyes closed and his head sagged under the weight of fatigue, they yanked hard at his hair.

  “Wake up, gudari.”

  Then they started talking among themselves about their own lives. They left him in peace, though they still kept watch in case his eyes closed. They did close. It was impossible for them not to close. The txakurras shook him violently, they pulled his hair. Finally, they let him sleep for a while. Suddenly the song came to me. Ez zuen aldegingo. Or maybe he just dreamed it. Nothing, a few seconds, words without images. And that did me a lot of good.

  When they woke him up, still at night, the vehicle was crossing the streets of Madrid at top speed. The final destination? The general headquarters of the Guardia Civil, on Guzmán el Bueno Street. He doesn’t know what’s waiting for him. How the hell would I know? I thought that at Intxaurrondo they’d given the standard beating. In the parking lot, they made him stand for a while, his face to the wall. They know his comrades have also just arrived and this was so they wouldn’t see one another. A brick building. Offices and holding areas. They brought him to an underground cell. They warned him: help us out, don’t look at anyone’s face or talk to any other prisoners in case you pass any.

  And an infernal circle begins for Joxe Mari: it begins at the cell, moves to the interrogation room, then to the medical examiner, then back to the cell, and then starts over. Four days incommunicado including the Intxaurrondo barracks time. He should collaborate, not put up a fight, he shouldn’t be too smart for his own good, he should collaborate, collaborate, the fun is over. They put a mask on his face. Then a balaclava, then another, three in all. He sweats, trembles. These guys also want names. Had he been with so-and-so, if he knew this guy. They accused him of attacks. He denied it and they instantly smacked him several times in the head with clubs or sticks covered with something, I don’t know what, foam rubber or insulating tape. More questions, more punches. So he wouldn’t have any illusions, they made him hold a pistol and a clip, still with his hands behind his back. He was to hold tight so his fingerprints would be sharp. Congratulations, ETA man. You just became the murderer of someone or other.

  “This is what we call reliable evidence.”

  And suddenly, come on, do ten deep knee bends. Questions about his private life, his parents, his friends, the village bars, the ikastola, the abertzale people in town. More knee bends and the elevator. He doesn’t understand. They’ll teach him. They put him opposite the wall and there he has to hunker down, get up, hunker down again, and go on like that, covered with sweat, for a long time.

  They put a plastic bag over his head. The lack of air made him panic. He fought out of pure anguish. He was so strong it took several agents to subdue him. Two, three sitting on him while another tightened the bag around his neck. Death was inside the bag. There comes a point after which you fall onto the other side. Then there is no oxygen to bring you back to life, and they have to get rid of your body. Your open mouth tries at all costs to breathe in a bit of air, no matter how little. But all that comes in is the plastic. They know the critical point. Joxe Mari feels his lungs are about to explode. On the verge of passing out, they allow him a gulp of air before bringing him once again to the edge of suffocation. They do that eight, nine times. And finally, yes, he lost consciousness.

  He told the medical examiner they’d tortured him. And the doctor in a bored voice told him that he could only include wounds in the report and nothing about subjective opinions or value judgments. Any broken bones? Any hemorrhaging? Nothing? In any case, he should speak to the judge, though it won’t do you much good. Joxe Mari, his face swollen, but without visible wounds, did not make a point of it. And after, whenever he visited the infirmary, he limited himself to finding out the date, the time, and to drink water.

  The second, or was it the third night?, they subjected him to electric charges. Naked, wearing the balaclava, flat on his back on the rough floor, they applied the electrodes to his legs, his testicles, behind his ears. He folds up, throws up, screams. Sometime
s his body experiences a violent shudder, when they make the electrodes spark close by to scare him. And more questions and more punches, truncheon smacks on the forehead and on the back and on the shoulders. They want to know when he joined ETA, who recruited him, what his training was like, who does the teaching, who gives the orders. And punches and electrodes. They brought him to the doctor, his body spotted with reddish stains, small burns, and a few bleeding wounds. The doctor put some ointment on them. He said it was six p.m.

  A day later, the program changed. They got him out of the underground cell. And one of the agents who accompanied him to the office warned him along the way:

  “Be very careful not to say anything different from what you’ve told us, because if you do we’ll bring you downstairs again and you won’t come out alive.”

  Upstairs, charm, manners, and the presence of a legal-aid lawyer. The questions don’t differ from those asked in the basement interrogations, but when asked calmly and not shouted they had a conversational air. He followed instructions. It didn’t matter as long as he avoided the savagery of the interrogations. And he signed the papers disdainfully, without looking at them.

  There was no more mistreatment. In the morning, they made him bathe. As he got dressed, a txakurra in a good mood spoke to him. Did he think that at his age it was worthwhile to join ETA just so he could spend years in jail, throw away his youth, and make his parents suffer, instead of enjoying life, starting a family, and things like that. He offered him a cigarette.

  “I don’t smoke.”

  During the morning, the same officer led him to the office of the National Court. Joxe Mari had a ball of hatred in his chest. A hard, hot ball. I never felt that, even during the ekintzas. He rejected the lawyer assigned to him. He demanded someone of his own ideological persuasion, someone experienced in defending ETA prisoners. After a long discussion, they called in a woman lawyer, the questioning began. As soon as he heard the first question, Joxe Mari said he’d been tortured. The judge rolled his eyes.