by Maria Duenas
“I know him.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know him from Tetouan.”
“How well do you know him?” he asked slowly.
“Little. Very little. I’ve never spoken to him, but we were at the same reception from time to time when Beigbeder was commissioner there.”
“And does he know you? Would he be able to recognize you in a public place?”
“I doubt it. We’ve never exchanged a single word, and I don’t imagine he’d remember those meetings.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Women can tell perfectly when a man looks at us with interest, or when he looks at us as you might examine a piece of furniture.”
He remained silent a few moments, as though considering what he’d heard.
“I suppose that’s feminine psychology,” he said at last, skeptical.
“Exactly.”
“And his wife?”
“I made her a jacket once. You’re right, she’d never be one of the especially sophisticated ones. She’s not the kind of woman who’d mind at all about wearing last season’s wardrobe.”
“Do you think she’d remember you, that she’d recognize you if you ran into each other somewhere?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I can’t guarantee it. In any case, if she did, I don’t think it’d be too problematic. My life in Tetouan isn’t in contradiction with anything I’m going to be doing from now on.”
“Don’t be so sure. Out there you were a friend of Mrs. Fox, and by extension eventually of Colonel Beigbeder, too. In Madrid nobody can know anything about that.”
“But I was barely with them at public events, and as for our private meetings Bernhardt and his wife have no way of knowing anything about them. Don’t worry, I don’t think there should be any problems.”
“I hope you’re right. In any case, Bernhardt is more or less on the fringes of intelligence matters: his world is that of business. He’s the front man of the Nazi government in a hugely complex web of German corporations operating in Spain: transport, banking, insurance . . .”
“Does he have anything to do with HISMA?”
“HISMA, the Spanish-Moroccan Transportation Corporation, became a small business when they made the move back to the Peninsula. Now they operate under the auspices of another more powerful firm, SOFINDUS. But tell me, how come you’ve heard about HISMA?”
“I heard it mentioned in Tetouan during the war,” I replied vaguely. This wasn’t the moment to go into detail about the negotiation between Bernhardt and Serrano Suñer; that was something we’d left far behind.
“Bernhardt,” he went on, “has a bunch of political informers on his payroll, but what he’s really always after is information of commercial value. We’re assuming you’re never going to meet him—in fact he doesn’t even live in Madrid but on the eastern coast. They say that Serrano Suñer himself paid for the house by way of thanks for services rendered; we don’t know if the truth is quite that extreme or not. One more very important thing about him, though.”
“Tell me.”
“Wolfram.”
“What?”
“Wolfram,” he repeated. “A mineral of vital importance for the manufacturing of components for artillery projectiles for the war. We think Bernhardt’s in negotiations with the Spanish government to sell him mining concessions in Galicia and Extremadura in order to get hold of small sites so that he can buy directly from their owners. I don’t imagine people will be talking about these things in your workshop, but if you happen to hear anything about this, you’re to let us know at once. Remember: wolfram. Sometimes they call it tungsten. It’s written down here, in the section on Bernhardt,” he said, pointing at the document.
“I’ll bear it in mind.”
We each lit another cigarette.
“Well then, let’s go on to some things you should avoid. Are you tired?”
“Not in the least. Please, go on.”
“As to clients, there’s one small group you should avoid at all costs: the employees of the Nazi administration. It’s easy to recognize these women: they’re extremely showy and arrogant, they go around with a lot of makeup on, heavily perfumed and showily dressed. The truth is that they have no social pedigree at all and relatively modest professional qualifications, but their salaries are astronomical by current Spanish standards and they spend them ostentatiously. The wives of the powerful Nazis despise them, and they themselves—in spite of their apparent conceit—hardly dare to cough in front of their superiors. If they show up at your workshop, get rid of them without a second thought: you don’t want them there, they’ll drive away the more desirable clientele.”
“I’ll do as you say, don’t worry about it.”
“As for public establishments, we advise against your presence at places like Chicote, Riscal, Casablanca, or Pasapoga. They’re full of nouveaux riches, black marketeers, parvenus from the regime, and theater people. Company that isn’t to be recommended in your circumstances. As far as possible, restrict yourself to the hotels I’ve already mentioned to you, to Embassy, to other safe places like the Puerta de Hierro club or the casino. And needless to say, if you manage to get invited to dinners or parties with the German women in private homes, you’re to accept at once.”
“I will,” I said, not adding how much I doubted that I’d ever be invited to any such thing.
He looked at his watch and I did the same. There wasn’t much light left in the room; we were already surrounded by a premonition of nightfall. Around us there wasn’t a sound, just a thick smell from the lack of ventilation. It was past seven in the evening; we’d been together since ten in the morning, Hillgarth spewing information like a hose, and me absorbing it through all my senses to take in the tiniest details, digesting facts, trying to allow every last fiber of my being to become imbued with his words. The coffee had been finished some time ago, and the cigarette butts were overflowing the ashtray.
“Well, we’re almost done now,” he announced. “All I have left are a few recommendations. The first of these is a message from Mrs. Fox. She’s asked me to tell you that—both in terms of your own appearance and your sewing work—you should try to be either bold and daring or pure elegance in its utmost simplicity. Either way, she advises you to avoid the conventional, and especially not to be mainstream, because if you do, she thinks there’s a risk that the workshop will fill up with the wives of big shots from the regime looking for modest jacket suits to go to Mass on Sundays with their husbands and children.”
I smiled. Rosalinda, incorrigible and unmistakable, even in messages delivered by someone else.
“Coming from that person, I’ll follow the advice without a second thought,” I said.
“And now, finally, our own suggestions. First: read the papers, keep up to date with the political situation, in Spain and also abroad, though bear in mind that all the information will always be slanted toward the German side. Second: always keep calm. Get yourself into character and convince yourself you are who you are, no one else. Act fearlessly, confidently: we can’t offer you diplomatic immunity, but I guarantee you that whatever happens you’ll always be protected. And our third and final piece of advice: be extremely wary in your personal life. A beautiful, single foreign woman will always attract all manner of playboys and opportunists. You can’t imagine how much confidential information has been revealed irresponsibly by careless agents in moments of passion. Be alert, and please do not share anything with anyone, anything at all of what you’ve heard here today.”
“I won’t, you can count on it.”
“Perfect. We trust you and hope that your mission will be successful.”
He began to gather up his papers and organize his briefcase. The moment had arrived that I’d been fearing all day: he was getting ready to leave and I had to stop myself from asking him to stay, to keep talking and giving me more instructions, not to let me fly free just yet. But he was no longer looking at me, so he
probably hadn’t noticed my reaction. He moved at the same pace with which he’d delivered his sentences, one by one, over the course of the previous hours: quick, direct, methodical, reaching the end of every subject without wasting a single second on banalities. While he put away his belongings, he passed on his final recommendations.
“Remember what I’ve told you about the files: study them and then make them disappear immediately. Someone’s going to accompany you now to a side door; there’s a car waiting close by to take you home. Here is the airline ticket and money for your initial expenses.”
He handed me two envelopes. The first, slimmer, contained my documentation to cross the skies to Madrid. The second, thicker, was filled with a big wad of banknotes. He kept talking as he deftly fastened the clasps of the briefcase.
“The money should cover your preliminary expenses. The stay at the Palace and your rent for the new atelier are being taken care of by us; that’s all been arranged already, as has the salary for the girls who’ll be working for you. Income for the work will be all yours. Just the same, if you do need any more cash, let us know right away: we have an open budget line for these operations, so there are no problems as far as financing is concerned.”
I was all ready now, too. I was holding the folders against my chest, sheltered in my arms as though they were the child I’d lost years earlier rather than an assortment of information about a swarm of undesirables. My heart was still in its place, obeying my internal orders not to rise up to my throat and choke me. Finally we got up from that table on which nothing was left but what looked like the innocent remains of a lengthy lunch: plates, empty coffee cups, a full ashtray, and two displaced chairs. As though nothing had happened there but a pleasant conversation between a couple of friends who—chatting away, relaxed, between one cigarette and the next—had been catching up on each other’s lives. Except that Captain Hillgarth and I weren’t friends. And neither of us was remotely interested in the other’s past, or our presents. All we were concerned about, the two of us, was the future.
“One last detail,” he warned.
We were about to leave; he already had his hand on the doorknob. He drew it back and looked at me fixedly from under his thick eyebrows. In spite of the long session we’d had together, he still looked exactly as he had in the morning: not a hair out of place, his tie still impeccably knotted, his shirt cuffs spotless. His face remained impassive, not particularly tense, nor particularly relaxed. The perfect image of a man capable of handling himself with perfect self-control in any situation. He lowered his voice till it was little more than a hoarse murmur.
“You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. We’ve never met before. And as for your enrollment into the British Secret Intelligence Service, from this moment you’re no longer the Spanish citizen Sira Quiroga to us, nor the Moroccan Arish Agoriuq. You’re just the SOE special agent codenamed Sidi, with a base of operations in Spain. The least conventional of the recent conscripts, but just the same, one of our own.”
He held out his hand. Firm, cold, self-confident. The firmest, coldest, most self-confident hand I’d ever shaken in my life.
“Good luck, Agent Sidi. We’ll be in touch.”
Chapter Forty
___________
No one but my mother knew the real reasons for my unexpected departure. Not my clients, not even Félix and Candelaria: I deceived everyone with the excuse that I was going to Madrid to empty out our old house and settle a few matters. My mother would have to invent little lies to justify the length of my absence: business, some indisposition, perhaps a new boyfriend. We weren’t worried that anyone would suspect any intrigue or connect the dots: even though the channels of transport and communication were fully functional by now, contact between the Spanish capital and North Africa remained very limited.
I did, however, want to say good-bye to my friends and to ask them wordlessly to wish me luck, so we organized a lunch for my last Sunday. Candelaria came dressed like a fine lady in her own right, with her bun thick with hairspray, a necklace of fake pearls, and the new outfit we’d sewn for her a few weeks earlier. Félix came over with his mother, whom he hadn’t been able to get rid of. Jamila was with us, too—I was going to miss her like a little sister. We toasted with wine and soda water and said good-bye with noisy kisses and earnest wishes for a good journey. It wasn’t until I closed the door when they left that I realized how much I was going to feel their absence.
With Commissioner Vázquez I used the same strategy, but I immediately realized that the lie would never stick. How would I be able to pull the wool over his eyes? He knew all about the outstanding debts in Madrid and the panic I felt at having to face up to them. He was the only person who sensed that there was something more complex behind my innocent departure, something I couldn’t talk about. Not to him, not to anybody. Perhaps that was why he preferred not to inquire. In fact he barely said a word: he just did what he always did, he looked at me with his explosive gaze and advised me to take care. Then he accompanied me to the exit to shield me from the dirty slobberings of his subordinates. At the police station door we said good-bye. Until when? Neither of us knew. Perhaps soon, or perhaps never.
Apart from the fabrics and sewing tools I carried to Spain, I also bought a decent number of magazines and a few pieces of Moroccan craftwork in the hope of giving my Madrid workshop an exotic air suited to my new name and my supposed past as a prestigious dressmaker in Tangiers. Embossed copper trays, lamps with pieces of glass in a thousand colors, silver jugs, a few ceramic pieces, and three large Berber rugs. A little bit of Africa right in the center of our exhausted Spain.
When I went into the grand apartment on Núñez de Balboa for the first time, everything was ready, waiting for me. The walls painted in glossy white, the oak floor recently polished. The layout, organization, and order were a replica on a larger scale of my Sidi Mandri house. The first section was a series of three adjoining rooms, three times the size of their equivalent in my old place. The ceilings infinitely higher, the balcony doors more stately. I opened one, but when I looked out I didn’t find Dersa Mountain, or the Ghorgiz, or the air fragrant with traces of orange blossom and jasmine, or lime wash on the neighboring walls, or the voice of the muezzin calling to prayer from the mosque. I closed it quickly, cutting off my melancholy. Then I walked on. In the last of the three main rooms were the rolls of material that had come over from Tangiers, a paradise of dupioni silk, guipure lace, muslin, and chiffon. Their shades ranged from the palest memory of sand on the beach to fire red, pink, coral, and every possible blue between the sky of a summer morning and a turbulent sea on a stormy night. The fitting rooms—two of them—felt double their size thanks to the imposing three-way mirrors framed in gilt marquetry. The large cutting table, ironing boards, naked mannequins, tools, and threads, just the usual. Beyond that, my own space: immense, disproportionate, ten times more than I needed. I immediately sensed Rosalinda’s hand in the whole setup. Only she knew how I worked, how I’d organized my house, my things, my life.
In the silence of my new home I was visited once again by the question that had been drumming in my head for a couple of weeks. Why, why, why? Why had I agreed to this, why was I embarking on this uncertain, lonely adventure, why? I still had no answer. Or at least, no definitive answer. Perhaps I’d accepted out of loyalty to Rosalinda. Perhaps because I thought I owed it to my mother and my country. Perhaps I hadn’t done it for anyone else, but just for myself. What’s certain is that I’d said yes, let’s do it: fully aware of what I was doing, with a promise to myself that I’d take on the job with determination and without hesitation, fears, or insecurities. There I was, squeezed into the character of the nonexistent Arish Agoriuq, walking through her new habitat, heels clicking down the stairs, dressed with all the style in the world and ready to transform herself into the falsest dressmaker in Madrid. Was I afraid? Yes, intense fear was clinging to the pit of my stomach. But in check. Tamed. Under my control.
&nb
sp; My first message reached me via the building’s porter: the girls who would be working for me would be turning up the following morning. They arrived together, Dora and Martina, with an age difference of two years. They looked alike, and yet different at the same time, as though complementing each other. Dora seemed to be in better shape, Martina won out on features. Dora seemed smarter, Martina sweeter. I liked them both. What I didn’t like, however, were the wretched clothes they were wearing, their faces of chronic hunger, and their shyness. Fortunately these things were quickly resolved. I took their measurements and soon I had a couple of uniforms ready for each of them: the first people to make use of my arsenal of fabrics. With a few of the banknotes from Hillgarth’s envelope I sent them to the La Paz market in search of provisions.
“And what are we to buy, señorita?” Dora asked, eyes like saucers.
“Whatever you can find. They’re saying there isn’t much of anything right now. Whatever you see—didn’t you tell me you can cook? Well then, get to it.”
