by Maria Duenas
“You don’t know anything about them, do you?” Ignacio went on slowly. “Well then, you pay attention now, because I’m going to tell you. Your neighbor Norberto fell at Brunete; his elder son was shot the moment the Nationalist troops entered Madrid, although if you believe what people were saying he had also been involved in political repression on the other side. The middle one is breaking rocks in Cuelgamuros and the youngest is in the El Dueso prison: he joined the Communist Party, so he probably won’t be getting out any time soon, that is if they don’t just execute him one of these days. Their mother, Señora Engracia, the one who used to look after you and treated you like her daughter when your mother went to work when you were just a kid, she’s on her own now: she’s gone half blind and wanders the streets as though deranged, turning over whatever she finds with a stick. There are no longer any pigeons or cats left in your neighborhood, they’ve eaten them all. And you want to know what happened to the girlfriends you used to play with on the Plaza de la Paja? I can tell you about them, too: Andreíta was blown up by a shell one evening as she was crossing Calle Fuencarral on her way to the workshop where she had a job—”
“I don’t want to know any more, Ignacio, I get the idea,” I said, trying to hide my agitation. He didn’t seem to hear me; he just went on enumerating these horrors.
“As for Sole, the one from the dairy, she became pregnant with twins by a militiaman who disappeared without leaving them so much as his surname; since she couldn’t look after the children because she didn’t have enough to support them, the people from the foundling hospital took them away and she never heard about them again. They say that she goes around offering herself up to the men who do the unloading in the Cebada market, asking one peseta for each act that she does right there up against the tiles of the wall; they say she goes over there without any panties, lifting up her skirt as the trucks start arriving in the early morning.”
Tears were beginning to stream down my cheeks.
“Shut up, Ignacio, shut up now, for God’s sake,” I whispered. He ignored me.
“Agustina and Nati, the poulterer’s daughters, they joined a group of nurses and spent the war working in the San Carlos hospital. When it all came to an end they were picked up at their house, put into a van, and from there taken to Las Ventas prison; they were tried in Las Salesas and sentenced to thirty years and a day. As for Trini, the baker—”
“Shut up, Ignacio, let it go,” I begged.
At last he yielded.
“I could tell you a lot more stories, I’ve heard almost all of them. People come daily to see me, people who knew us back then. All of them show up with the same refrain: I talked to you once, Don Ignacio, back when you were engaged to Sirita, the daughter of Señora Dolores, the seamstress who lived on the Calle de la Redondilla . . .”
“What do they come to you for?” I managed to ask through my tears.
“They all want the same things: to ask me to get some relative of theirs out of prison, to see if I can use my contacts to spare someone the death penalty, to help them find a job, no matter how mean . . . You can’t imagine what day-to-day life is like in the General Directorate—in the lobbies, along the corridors, on the staircases, a fearful crowd pile-up waiting to be seen, ready to bear anything for a crumb of what they’ve come for: for someone to listen to them, for someone to attend to them, to give them some clue about somebody close to them who’s missing, to tell them whom they should beg for a relative’s freedom . . . A lot of women come, especially—an awful lot of them. They have nothing to live for, they’ve been left alone with their children and can’t find any way to get ahead.”
“And is there anything you can do for them?” I asked, trying to overcome my distress.
“Very little. Almost nothing. The military tribunals handle the crimes relating to the war. These people come to me out of desperation, just like they approach anyone they know who works for the administration.”
“But you’re part of the regime—”
“I’m just a simple functionary without any power at all, just another rung in the whole big hierarchy,” he interrupted me. “I don’t have any way of doing anything more than hear their troubles, give them some indication of where they should go if I happen to know, and give them ten pesetas when they seem to be on the verge of despair. I’m not even a member of the Falange: I just fought on the side that I happened to find myself on and fate decided that ultimately I should end up winning. That was why I entered the ministry and took on the task they gave me. But I’m not on anyone’s side: I saw too many horrors and ended up losing respect for all of them. That’s why I just obey the orders I’m given, because it puts food on the table. So I keep my mouth shut, keep my head down, and work my ass off so that I can help my family get ahead, that’s all.”
“I didn’t know you had a family,” I said as I wiped my eyes with the handkerchief he held out to me.
“I got married in Salamanca, and when the war ended we came to Madrid. I have a wife, two little children, and a home where at least there’s always someone waiting for me at the end of the day, however tough and sickening that day has been. Our house isn’t anything like this one, but it’s always got the hearth lit and the children’s laughter in the hallway. My sons are named Ignacio and Miguel, my wife Amalia. I’ve never loved her like I loved you, and her ass doesn’t sway like yours as she walks down the street, and I’ve never desired her half as much as I desired you tonight when you held my hand. But she always puts on a brave face when there are troubles, she sings in the kitchen while she’s making a stew out of what little there is, and she puts her arms around me in the middle of the night when I’m assailed by nightmares and shout and cry because I’m dreaming that I’m back at the front and going to be killed.”
“I’m sorry, Ignacio,” I said in a whisper. My own tears barely allowed me to speak.
“I may be just a conformist, nothing special, a puppy-dog servant of a revanchist state,” he went on, looking me straight in the eye, “but you’re no one to tell me whether or not you like the man I’ve become. You can’t give me moral lectures, Sira, because if I’m bad, you’re even worse. At least I still have a drop of compassion left in my soul; I don’t think you have even that. You’re nothing but an egotist who lives in a massive house where all you can see is loneliness wherever you look; a woman without any roots, who denies her origins and is incapable of thinking of anyone but herself.”
I wanted to shout at him to shut up, to leave me in peace, to get out of my life forever, but before I was able to utter the first syllable my guts were transformed into a wellspring of uncontainable sobs, as though something had sprung loose inside. I cried. With my face covered, inconsolably, unstoppably. When I was able to stop and return to the immediate reality, it was past midnight and Ignacio was no longer there. He had left without making a sound, with the same delicacy with which he used to treat me. The fear and distress caused by his presence still clung to my skin, however. I didn’t know what the consequences of this visit would be; I didn’t know what would become of Arish Agoriuq after that night. Maybe the Ignacio of a few years ago would have taken pity on a woman he’d loved so much and would have decided to let her go on her way in peace. Or maybe as a devoted functionary of the New State he would choose to pass on to his superiors the suspicions he had about my fake identity. Perhaps—just as he himself had threatened—I’d end up being detained. Or deported. Or dead.
On the table there sat a box of candies that was much less innocent than it seemed. I opened it with one hand, while the other dried the last of my tears. All I found inside were two dozen milk chocolates. Then I looked over the wrapping until I found a light, almost imperceptible stitching on the pink ribbon tied around the packet. It took me just three minutes to decipher it. “Urgent meeting. Consult Doctor Rico. Caracas, 29. 11 a.m. Extreme caution.”
Alongside the box of candies was a glass I’d poured some hours earlier. Untouched. As Ignacio himself had said, n
one of us were the people we used to be. But even though life had turned us all around, he still didn’t drink.
PART FOUR
PALACIO DAS GALVEIAS IN LISBON
Chapter Forty-Four
__________
Several hundred people, all of them well fed and even better dressed, saw in the New Year of 1941 in the Madrid Casino’s Royal Hall to the sound of a Cuban band. And among them, one more in the crowd, was me.
My original plan had been to spend that night alone, perhaps to invite Doña Manuela and the girls to share a capon and a bottle of cider, but the tenacious insistence of two of my clients, the Álvarez-Vicuña sisters, forced me to change my plans. I took great care in getting ready for the night, albeit reluctantly: I got my hair done in a low bun and made myself up, emphasizing my eyes with Moroccan kohl to give myself the appearance of the strange displaced creature that I was supposed to be. I designed a kind of tunic, silver grey, with full sleeves and a broad belt wrapped around it to complete the silhouette, something halfway between an exotic Moorish caftan and an elegant European evening dress. The sisters’ unmarried brother collected me at home, a man by the name of Ernesto whom I never got to know beyond his birdlike face and his oily deference toward me. On arriving at the casino I made my way confidently up the large marble staircase and once in the main hall pretended not to notice the splendor of the room, or the various pairs of eyes that undisguisedly bored into me. I even pretended to ignore the gigantic chandeliers from the La Granja glass factory that hung from the ceiling and the elaborate moldings on the walls that provided a backdrop for the grandiose paintings. Confidence, mastery over myself: that’s what my image emanated, as though I were a fish, and that opulence, water; as though that sumptuous place were my natural milieu.
But of course it wasn’t. In spite of living surrounded by fabrics as dazzling as the ones being worn that night by the women around me, the pace of the previous months hadn’t exactly been a leisurely ride, but instead a succession of days and nights in which my two occupations sucked away like leeches the integrity of a time that was ever more rarefied.
The meeting I’d had with Hillgarth two months earlier, immediately following the encounters with Beigbeder and Ignacio, had marked a before-and-after point in my way of behaving. I gave him detailed information about the former; the latter, meanwhile, I didn’t even mention. Perhaps I should have, but something stopped me: modesty, insecurity, perhaps fear. I was aware that Ignacio’s presence was the result of my carelessness: I should have informed the naval attaché the moment I suspected I was being followed. Perhaps if I had, I would have avoided having a representative of the Governance Ministry break into my house with no trouble at all, to sit and wait for me in my living room. But that meeting had been too personal, too emotional and painful to fit into the cold patterns of the Secret Intelligence Service. Keeping quiet about it went against the protocols I had been given. I’d ridden roughshod over the most fundamental rules of my mission, that was for sure. All the same, I risked it. Besides, it wasn’t the first time I’d hidden something from Hillgarth; I also hadn’t told him that Doña Manuela was a part of the past he’d forbidden me from revisiting. Fortunately neither the hiring of my old mistress nor the visit from Ignacio had any immediate consequences: no deportation order had appeared on the atelier door, no one had called me in for questioning in some sinister office, and the trench-coat ghosts had finally stopped their assault. Whether it was over for good, or just a temporary reprieve, I had yet to find out.
At the urgent meeting to which Hillgarth summoned me after Beigbeder’s removal from office, he appeared as neutral as on the day I met him, but his interest in absorbing every last detail about the colonel’s visit made me suspect that his embassy was unsettled and confused at the news of the dismissal.
I didn’t have any trouble finding the address he’d given me, a first floor in a distinguished old building: nothing that looked at all suspicious. Once I’d rung the bell I only had to wait a few seconds for the door to open, and an old nurse invited me in.
“Dr. Rico is expecting me,” I announced, following the instructions on the ribbon of the box of candies.
“Follow me, please.”
As I’d expected, when I entered the large room to which she led me I didn’t find any doctor, but an Englishman with luxuriant eyebrows who had an altogether different profession. Although on a number of previous occasions I’d seen him at Embassy in his blue navy uniform, on that day he was in civilian clothes: a light-colored shirt, dotted tie, and an elegant grey flannel suit. Quite apart from the apparel, his presence was altogether incongruous in that consulting room fitted out with all the equipment of a profession that wasn’t his: a metal screen with cotton curtain, glass cabinets full of jars and equipment, a stretcher over to one side, certificates and diplomas covering the walls. He shook my hand energetically, but didn’t waste any more time on unnecessary formalities.
No sooner had we sat down than I started talking. I recalled the night with Beigbeder second by second, trying hard not to forget the slightest details. I related everything I’d heard from him, described his condition with minute precision, answered dozens of questions, and finally handed over his letters to Rosalinda intact. My explanation took more than a hour, during which time he listened as he sat with a focused expression while—cigarette by cigarette—he made his way methodically through an entire box of Craven A.
“We still don’t know the impact this ministerial change will have on us, but the situation looks far from positive,” he declared at last, putting out his final cigarette. “We’ve just notified London and haven’t yet had a reply; in the meantime we’re all just waiting. Which is why I ask you to be extremely cautious and not to make any mistakes now. Receiving Beigbeder in your house was a real act of rashness; I understand that you couldn’t have denied him access, and you did well to calm him down and prevent his condition from degenerating, but the risk you ran was extremely high. From now on, do please be as cautious as you possibly can, and in the future try not to get yourself into similar situations. And take care with any suspicious presences around you, especially close to your home: don’t rule out the possibility that you may be being watched.”
“I won’t, don’t worry.” I guessed that he might have suspected something about Ignacio following me, but I preferred not to ask.
“Everything’s going to get even more complicated, that’s the only thing we know for sure,” he added as he held his hand out to me again, this time in farewell. “Once they’re rid of the inconvenient minister, we can assume that Germany’s pressure on Spain will increase, so remain vigilant and ready for any eventuality.”
Over the months that followed I worked accordingly: I minimized the risks I took, tried to appear in public as little as possible, and focused on my work with all my energy. We went on sewing, more and more. The relative calm I’d gained by adding Doña Manuela to the workshop lasted barely a few weeks: the growing clientele and the approaching Christmas season obliged me to go back to devoting myself one hundred percent to my sewing. Between fittings, however, I remained engrossed in my other responsibility—the clandestine one. And so, as I was adjusting the sides of a cocktail dress, I’d also be obtaining information about what guests would attend the reception being held at the German embassy to honor Himmler, head of the Gestapo, and while I took measurements for a new suit for a baroness, I’d learn how enthusiastically Madrid’s German colony was awaiting the arrival of Otto Horcher’s new restaurant, modeled after the favorite restaurant of the Nazi high command back in their own capital. I told Hillgarth about all this and much more: dissecting the material minutely, choosing the most exact words, camouflaging my messages in supposed stitches, and dispatching them punctually. Following his warnings, I remained constantly alert and focused, bearing in mind everything that was happening around me. And as a result I did notice some things change in those days, little details that might have been a result of the new situation,
or that were perhaps just mere chance. One Saturday at the Prado Museum I didn’t see the silent bald man who usually received my portfolio filled with coded patterns; I never saw him again. A few weeks later the girl from the hairdresser’s cloakroom was replaced by another woman: older, heavier, and equally inscrutable. I also noticed more vigilance on the streets and in the shops, and I learned to recognize who the people were who were watching: Germans the size of closets, silent and threatening with their overcoats down almost to their feet; skinny Spaniards who smoked nervously outside a front door, next to a business, behind a sign. Even though I wasn’t really the target of their efforts, I did my best to ignore them, changing my route or crossing over to the opposite sidewalk when I spotted them. Sometimes, in order to avoid having to walk past or approach them directly, I would take refuge in some shop or other or pause at a roasted chestnut seller’s stall or a window display. Other times they were impossible to avoid because I ran into them unexpectedly and with no opportunity to change direction. Then I’d steel myself with courage and formulate a silent Here Goes. . . picking up my pace firmly, looking straight ahead. Sure of myself, distant, almost haughty, as though what I was carrying were something purchased on a whim, or a little case full of makeup, rather than a shipment of coded information on the private agendas of the Third Reich’s most powerful figures in Spain.
I also kept abreast of the political changes that surrounded me. As I used to do with Jamila in Tetouan, every morning I’d send Martina to buy the papers: ABC, Arriba, El Alcázar. Over breakfast, between sips of coffee, I’d devour the tales of what was happening in Spain and Europe. That was how I learned that Serrano Suñer had taken over as the new minister of foreign affairs. I scrutinized every word of the related news concerning the trip he and Franco made to meet Hitler in Hendaya. I read as well about the tripartite pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan; about the invasion of Greece; about the thousand movements occurring at vertiginous speed during those tempestuous times.
