“What do we do now?” I asked Martín.
“We go eat,” he said with a smile. “Then we’ll ask people in the street if they’ve come across the little girl in the picture.”
“We’ve got no chance.”
He frowned at me and I immediately regretted my hastily uttered words.
“If we have no chance, we might as well return to the ship and call it a day. You can tell the teenage boy inside you that you weren’t able to find the soldier’s daughter. I don’t care, it’s not my problem.”
He crossed the street without me.
“Martín, wait!” I cried.
He turned to face me. “What is it?”
“I apologize. I agree we should show people in the street the photograph. It’s a good idea.”
He walked back toward me. “We have lost a battle but we haven’t lost the war,” he solemnly declared, his gaze filled with a certainty that chilled my blood. “If I had given up the day the Francoists shot my father in front of me, I would be dead now, hear me?”
“Yes,” I timidly replied.
“So stop crying and let’s go find your German girl.”
The mysterious Martín began gradually to resolve. The hurt and pain within him seemed limitless. But clearly there was no place for giving up in this gaping psychological chasm. He strengthened me tenfold and I redoubled my efforts not to lose hope.
We walked for hours that afternoon, back and forth across the town, showing everyone we met the photograph of the young girl. Some stopped to listen to our story. Others, too preoccupied with their own concerns, walked right past us. Those we spoke to all replied in the negative. Nobody had seen Catherine Schäfer.
After spending several days like this, and despite our continued hope, we flopped down on the sand at Alcaravaneras Beach, exhausted from walking, our feet covered in blisters. Alcaravaneras was an odd area, seemingly working-class but with a curious social mix, situated in the east of the town not far from the port. All sorts of people rubbed shoulders here: sailors, street peddlers, middle-class professionals, and the prostitutes who thronged the promenade day and night. We granted ourselves a few moments of repose under the sun’s warm caress and soon fell into a light sleep, easy prey to that confused state where images and sounds collide in an anarchic mix.
I saw a wheat field in which my actor friend Jean was yelling orders at the drill sergeant, who was pouring with sweat. My father lay on the ground beside them, eyes closed, a stalk of wheat protruding from his mouth. Mama was nearby, weeping her heart out. Jacques was there too, standing facing me, his eyes filled with rage as he screamed, “This is all your fault! This is all your fault!” The ears of wheat quivered, swept by the gusts of a storm that rumbled overhead. That’s when she appeared. Mathilde. Naked, her gaze blank, she stared at me as she walked toward my brother. She took his arm and kissed him. I turned to face the forest and glimpsed the captain, who stroked his beard while yelling, “I warned you, kid!” My chest tightened increasingly with anxiety. I gasped for air. Then came the storm. Thunder boomed. Lightning struck the field, electricity arcing over our heads. Everyone disappeared except Mathilde, who whispered: “Come back, come back, I beg you,” which broke my heart. A hard rain began to fall. Mathilde wandered sadly away across the field, her long legs covered with wheat. “Mathilde! Mathilde!” I screamed, hoping she’d turn around, but everything went dark. All gone. I was lost in the limbo of my unconscious.
A small voice whispered through the dark: “Hola, hola.” Softly first, then louder and louder until I opened my eyes, terrified like a hunted animal. A woman in her thirties stood in front of me, her eyes the color of the bright-blue sky, her long hair as golden as the ears of wheat in my dream, lifted by the warm trade winds. “Pesadilla, pesadilla,” she said.
Martín suddenly awoke, squinting against the sunlight. He rubbed his eyes. “Pesadilla means ‘nightmare.’” He then began a conversation with the woman, translating as he went.
“What do you want?” Martín asked her.
“Your friend was having a nightmare,” she answered with a smile.
“Yes, so? It happens!”
“Sure. When one’s mind is preoccupied.”
“What exactly are you after?”
Offended, the woman’s smile turned into a scowl.
“Nothing,” she replied, walking away along the beach.
“Fucking junkies!” declared Martín, stretching back out on the sand.
It’s strange, thinking back on it, but if I had not spent years cultivating my intuition—which, if I may say so, is my strongest quality—nothing that followed would ever have taken place. The woman would have gone on her way. I would have lain back down on the sand like my friend. End of story. Yet, convinced that something strange was going on, I yelled “Señora!” (one of the few Spanish words I knew) in the direction of the woman, who was already a little ways off. She turned around immediately and stood watching us with the indifference of one whose wounded pride doesn’t leave them inclined to make any further effort. I roused Martín and we walked toward the woman, who stood motionless on the sand.
“Wait, madam,” I said in French while Martín translated. “Sorry for having offended you. We’re tired from walking around in the sun all day long. Please excuse us.”
She seemed to soften, hard feelings apparently not part of her character. “Apology accepted.”
“What did you want to tell us?” I was impatient to know more.
“Are you the ones searching for the German girl?”
At that, Martín and I looked at each other, amazed to be looking at the face of somebody who could help us. We might not have admitted it, but we had started to lose hope of finding Catherine.
“Yes, that’s us!” I replied, feeling my internal fire burst to life even stronger than before. “How did you know?”
“You just asked one of my . . . colleagues, shall we say”—she pointed at a scantily clad prostitute strolling back and forth on the promenade—“if she had seen a little German girl.”
“Yes, it’s true,” I said, my heart pounding in my chest. “Do you know her? Who . . . ?”
She cut me off. “My name is María,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m a streetwalker. I do it to raise my kid, who lives in Málaga, where I’m from, on the Península.”
“The what?”
“The Península, Spain—that’s what the Canarians call it.”
María smiled sadly. It was as if all the melancholy of the world had gathered in her eyes, the corners of her mouth pointed desperately downward. She looked worn down and ruined by the street. Clearly, the woman wanted to confide in us before telling us about the German girl. I had enough respect to take an interest in this unfortunate being, wracked by the despair of existence.
“Why are you here?” I asked, intrigued.
“I followed a man here three years ago,” she replied. “He made me beautiful promises—that he would marry me, bring over my little one, buy a house. But instead he beat me and sent me out on the street as soon as we arrived. And he still keeps an eye on me. I took advantage of his absence to speak with you.”
We didn’t know what to say, so we just nodded.
“I’ve not seen my little boy for three years. Manuel’s his name.” She showed us a picture of a sad little boy.
“He’s very handsome,” I said, moved.
“And what about the German girl?” asked Martín, who couldn’t wait any longer.
“Show me the photograph.”
I handed the picture of Catherine to María, who examined it and then gave it back to me.
“That’s her, all right. Yes, I recognize her.”
“Where can we find her?” Martín was quivering with impatience.
“Her mother was with us a little while ago . . . I mean, she walked the street with us.”
“She walked the street?” I asked, amazed.
“Yes. Her Spanish wasn’t up to much, but she was a good wo
man. She told us she had fled the war in Germany. She came to Gran Canaria to forget the death of her husband. She had some friends here but they didn’t help her. She ran out of money. So she began to sell herself to feed her little girl.”
“Did you ever see Catherine?” I asked.
“Yes, once or twice. Her mother used to take her to the beach when she wasn’t working. That’s where I saw her. A lovely little child, just like my Manuel . . .”
A tear rolled down her suntanned cheek. She sniffed and wiped her nose with a handkerchief.
“Where can we find her, please?”
“I don’t know. They disappeared a few months ago. Since then we’ve not had any news. I believe they lived in a small building in La Isleta, up in the mountains over there, but I don’t know where exactly.”
“And you have no idea where they are now?”
“No. Her mother wanted to go somewhere else. But I have no idea where . . .”
“Is there nobody in La Isleta who could help us?” I asked.
“She was a discreet woman who focused on looking after her daughter, I don’t think she had many friends there.”
María lowered her gaze, aggrieved at not being able to help us further. We stayed silent for a few seconds, imagining Catherine and her mother taking flight from this place, their desperate circumstances. Chance had dealt this family a terrible hand. Catherine’s father, who had gone to war to avenge his own father, had succumbed to the injuries inflicted on him by the inhabitants of my village, placing his wife and daughter at the mercy of life’s vicissitudes. I had witnessed his death, powerless to intervene. A kind of guilt began to resonate in my head. After all, was I not partly responsible for this tragedy? Where did the borders of responsibility lie?
Catherine’s mother had left no trace, no sign, no clue whatsoever that could point us in any direction. Where were they now? Were they still alive? I had nothing to cling to. For a moment I thought of giving up on the whole business, this unbelievable folly that had taken me to two foreign countries. What mysterious need was I trying to satisfy with my quest for truth? Mathilde was far away, alone in our empty house. I didn’t even know if my letter, posted when we moored in Las Palmas, had reached her yet. Truth be told, I was weary of all the existential questionings I’d had since I was a little boy, this accumulation of nostalgia and anxiety entangled in the roots of my being. In the end, wasn’t I just plain crazy, a lunatic whose whole existence was driven by a quest for recognition? Did I have a duty to suffer more than others? María earned her living, or rather lost it, by selling her body; what could be more dramatic than that? Martín had seen his father shot by the soldiers of fascism. Life has treated me pretty well, I thought, and I can’t hold that against it. The Volcan de Timanfaya would weigh anchor that evening. We had just a few hours left to savor these last moments of tranquility. Then it would be back to the sea and its capricious swell.
22
We thanked María and bade her farewell, and she wished us safe travels. We watched her return to her place on the sidewalk next to her colleague, looking sad and lost, no doubt thinking of her little boy. I imagined little Manuel deprived of his mother, sitting on a swing, feet dangling, dejected. Can there be anything more painful than the sudden disappearance of one’s mother, or one’s child—the two of them inextricably linked? I thought of my mother dancing in a whirl of bubbles in the dilapidated washhouse. Why did little Manuel have to miss out on the pleasure of watching his mother intoxicated by life? I stopped dead in my tracks. Martín continued walking, not realizing I was no longer following him.
“Martín!” I called out.
He stopped and turned around.
“What is it?” he asked, looking puzzled.
“We can’t let María do that . . .”
“Let her do what?”
“We can’t leave her like that, she’ll die here,” I declared, thinking of her son.
Martín’s expression turned to one of concern, as if he’d glimpsed the outline of my hastily conceived plan through a narrow keyhole. He walked toward me with a menacing air.
“We can do nothing for her, Paul. Nothing, you hear me?”
“What about her kid in Málaga, have you thought about that?”
“No, and I’d prefer not to! This doesn’t concern you, my friend, you can’t solve everyone’s problems. That’s just the way it goes. Life is unfair; it’s unfair for me, it’s unfair for you, for María, for everyone! So the best thing you can do now is walk with me to that damn ship and think about your wife waiting for you in Bordeaux!”
“I can’t,” I declared.
“Yes, you can, Paul!” Martín yelled, beside himself. “It’s over, buddy. You did your best to find that German girl, you did all you could, and you should be proud of yourself! But that’s the end of it.”
“You told me the opposite just a few days ago. You told me that nothing’s ever over.”
“I said that to encourage you, Paul, nothing more. Please, trust me, there’s nothing good in it for us if we go back there.”
“I can’t just leave her,” I announced, more determined than ever.
Martín looked at me sternly. His eyes bored into mine. We remained like that, motionless, staring each other out. Passersby shot us furtive glances before continuing briskly on their way, anticipating a scuffle they wished to avoid. Eventually, Martín realized that I wouldn’t back down, and his features softened. The tussle between emotion and reason had turned in my favor. He rubbed his head and sighed deeply.
“OK, what’s your plan?” he asked, resigned.
“Bring María back to France with us,” I said with a smile.
“How?”
“On the ship.”
Martín couldn’t believe his ears. He was speechless, not knowing what argument to use to make me see sense. But no words could have changed my mind.
“You’re completely crazy,” he said in despair.
“I know.”
“The captain will never let you bring a prostitute on board.”
“We don’t have to tell him,” I replied, unperturbed.
“No? What will you say when you walk up the gangway with her, Mr. Know-It-All?”
“I don’t know. I’ll improvise.”
“You’re really going to do this?”
“Yes. I can’t leave her here. She didn’t have to help me, but she did. Without her we’d still be out looking for Catherine. I owe her something.”
“You don’t owe her anything.”
“Yes, I do. I must help her see her little one again.”
“You’ve completely lost your mind.”
I smiled. “Yes, I know.”
I turned around and set off back along the beach. Martín begged me to be reasonable, to give up on this insane idea. I glided along, my heart pounding in my chest, thrilled to be going to the aid of a soul in distress. My body seemed in the grip of a mysterious force. In spite of his efforts, Martín understood that he could do nothing to make me turn back. “Oh, to hell with it,” I heard him mutter as he followed me with a determined stride. It’s strange how manipulable men are, I thought, as if one individual’s certitude and perseverance could sweep away other people’s skepticism, flooding them with one’s energy, annihilating their doubts.
We soon reached the beach and saw María in the distance talking with a man. She looked desperate. We walked down to the water, taking care not to be seen by the man, who seemed excited at the idea of exploring this Andalusian’s naked body, this mother who strove not to think of her son while clients shamelessly penetrated her. We watched the pair cross the street and disappear into a dimly lit building.
“What shall we do?” said Martín.
“Improvise,” I replied, impatient to go help María.
We ran toward the building, adrenaline pulsing through our veins. I hoped that the man wouldn’t put up any resistance, that we could appeal to his humanity. I wondered what would happen if things went awry. Mathilde.
Mama. I would never see them again. We entered the lobby of the building. María and the man were locked in discussion with the madam, an old lady with middle-class airs, grown rich on other women’s misfortune. Surprised, they turned to look at us.
“Police! Nobody move!” yelled Martín in Spanish, with a flash of inspiration.
The man’s composure disappeared, swept away by the shame of being unmasked. His vices were now revealed for all to see before this figure of authority, who was anything but. He put his hands in the air and fell to his knees like a little boy confessing to his parents.
“Sorry, I didn’t want to,” implored the man.
“Out of the way,” yelled Martín, channeling his character.
“Show me your badge!” cried the old lady, who stood her ground, used to police raids.
“One moment,” stammered Martín, making as if to rummage through his pockets. “Paul, take the whore away!”
“Yes, boss!”
I grabbed María roughly by her arm. “You, come with me!” I said with authority.
María did as she was told, putting up no resistance as I pulled her out of the building. Martín finished rummaging in his pockets and produced a piece of paper, which he handed to the suspicious old lady.
“Here’s my card, madam! Compliments of the Las Palmas police,” he cried before exiting after me.
We ran through the town as fast as we could, crossing streets without looking, eager to reach the ship as quickly as possible, galvanized by the fear of being caught. The wind of freedom was at our backs. We finally reached the port and hid behind a pile of fishing nets, doubled up, panting. It took us a few minutes to recover. María seemed amazed at our audacity, though unaware of what was in store for her.
“What do we do now?” Martín asked once his pulse had returned to normal.
Seasons of the Moon Page 12
