by Lucy Wadham
Please, Kader said, holding up his hand. And he began to mime.
They made peace. The big woman helped him dress. He asked her about Astrid Arnaga, said her name several times but she looked blank, then shook her head. She helped him like a mother and did not say a word. He listened to the air whistling through her nostrils and smelt the delicious smell of talcum powder on her skin. She went to fetch him a pair of crutches and then helped him learn to use them in the corridor. She walked him to the lift and Kader kissed her soft cheek.
*
He took a taxi to Arnaga’s office. He had no plan as he paid the man and watched him drive away. He hobbled up the steps, suddenly filled with anger at the loss of Amadou’s Discman.
He held down the bell until the tired woman came to the door. He grinned at her.
No està, she said.
But he pushed past her on his crutches. He went straight to Arnaga’s office and opened the door. Arnaga was behind his desk. He had a nail file in his hands. The discus thrower was nowhere to be seen.
Kader sat down in the same chair. He brandished the crutches then let them clatter to the floor.
Look what you’ve done to me!
Arnaga opened his mouth to speak.
No! Kader shouted. He was charged with an energy that he knew was fake. He was play-acting. If you weren’t Astrid’s father, he said, I’d beat the shit out of you.
I do not give in to threats, Arnaga whispered. I never have and I’m not going to start now. I’ve been in situations a great deal more threatening than this one, believe me.
Listen, I’m not threatening you. I said, If you weren’t Astrid’s father and you are. But what I will do is sit here, day and night until you tell me where she is. You can get the big man in the little blazer to throw me out but I’ll keep coming up those steps. I’ve got nothing else to do.
You can sit then, Arnaga said. It’ll do you good.
Fine, Kader said. But in the mean time I’ll tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a brilliant young lawyer. He was clever, passed all his exams, straight off. Kader used his hands to help him along.
The man was elegant, Kader said. And witty. He was short but he didn’t care because women wanted to fuck him anyway because they knew he’d go far. One day he met a beautiful woman. He knew right away that she was the real thing. Kader held up his index finger. Unlike him, he insisted. She was the real thing. This woman was a princess. All she wanted from life was to give the lawyer children and make him happy. Kader paused, putting his hands together in prayer. He felt exalted. Now he was a black preacher. But this man had a flaw. He had no love. All he had was ambition. Because he had no love, everything that loved him got destroyed. He couldn’t help it. In the end he had to move away from anything that loved him. Kader paused. But Arnaga’s little black eyes were hard to read. All he could see in them was his struggle with the sickness. Soon the lawyer became very ill, Kader said. It was inevitable. Now the man is going to die and he knows that he’s lived his whole life without love. He’s lucky because his daughters are not like him. Kader bent to pick up his crutches. Your daughter Astrid can do miracles, he told the old man. She can make criminals repent. She can make a man walk across the world for her.
Kader was overwhelmed by his own performance. He felt like crying. Arnaga was looking at his empty desk. His face seemed to have slipped a little further. Kader knew that it was important not to speak now. It could go either way.
Get out! Arnaga shouted as best he could but his voice was trapped in his throat. The old man seemed to be shaking. Kader stood up and hovered a moment trying to think of something to say. Leave! Arnaga croaked.
Kader turned and left the room.
In the hall he met the woman. She looked at him and appeared wearier than ever. It occurred to him, as she walked back to her office, that she must have overheard them. Kader decided to sit for a moment on the steps to collect his thoughts. Outside the sky was heavy with rain. He had no decent clothes, hardly any money and no way of tracing Astrid. Not only had he failed but he felt bad about the things he had said in there. Even if he was a cunt, Arnaga was old and Kader believed his mother when she said you have to respect old people.
The door opened behind him and he felt a jab on his shoulder. The woman was thrusting a piece of paper at him.
What’s this?
Go, she said, nudging his shoulder again with the hand that held the paper.
What is this? he said, taking it from her. Is it the number?
Yes. Now go and don’t come back.
Kader stood up.
Thank you, he said.
But she did not smile back. She turned and slammed the door behind her.
TWENTY-EIGHT
The sun was setting as Mikel drove his van past the golf course at Saint Jean de Luz and across the bridge over the Nivelle. The river was high and fast here. A group of children carrying a kayak were making their way up the bank, their skinny legs poking out from beneath the boat. A childless man, he was. He considered this and felt no regret. With the life he had led, he could not bring up a child. They would want to know who he had been and he could not tell them. He could not say: this is the life I’ve led, this is who I am. Only now did he feel that his life resembled him. And it had been only three days since his release. He patted Castro who was lying beside him on the bench seat, his muzzle resting on the open window.
We’re lucky, Mikel told him. Good old Monsieur Lucky.
Castro moved his ears.
Lola, he remembered, had expressed a love of bench seats.
Prison had not just frozen his own life. Nothing had changed for any of them in twenty years. Mikel believed that his love for Astrid had been there all along, waiting to declare itself. He loved Astrid and Lola was his girl. She would be thirty-seven now, hardly a girl. To have wasted so much of her time was his sin.
*
It was dark when he drove into the village. He averted his eyes from all that was familiar and drove slowly up the hill towards the Arnaga house. As he climbed out of the van he felt no dread, only peace brought by the smell of the fig tree in their garden. This was happiness: not hope, but memory.
At first the house looked dark, then he saw the light from one of the sitting-room windows projected onto the patch of lawn at the side. As he reached out and pushed open the gate, Castro whined. What is it, boy? The dog hung back. I just want to have a look. But Castro backed away, whimpering. Mikel dropped to his knees and held out his hand. The dog came forward and licked it. You don’t want to go in there? He stroked his dog’s head. Someone died in there. Is that it? Castro half closed his eyes as Mikel scratched between his ears. You stay here. I’ll be a few minutes. Castro watched him push the gate and walk along the path and around the side of the house.
The house was more deeply shrouded in vegetation than he had remembered. He stepped up to the sitting-room window and held aside the trailing ivy to look. Lola was standing in the middle of the room performing some kind of mime to an unseen audience. Her hair had grown and she looked more beautiful than he could ever remember. Perhaps he had been too close to see it but her radiance struck him now as proof that he was right: she would be happy without him. The window recess was too deep for him to see who she was performing to but it was clear that this was the game she had played at boarding school in England. The game, which involved miming a book, film or play to be guessed by your teammates, had bored him. As a young man he had been incapable of humouring her. He smiled now at the sight of her childish enthusiasm, her magnificent body moving in that red spotted dress she had always loved and he had always found a little too skimpy. Now she clapped her hands in delight and disappeared from view and Mikel was looking at Astrid, standing there in her place.
Astrid stood still a while, her hands pressed together in prayer held to her lips. Then something Lola must have said made her laugh and she slumped forward like a puppet making its bow. Mikel smiled as he watched her straighten up, run
her hands over her face as if to wipe away the mirth and then make the sign denoting a film.
Film, he murmured. She held up one finger. One word. Then she sat down on the floor and began to row with invisible oars. Rowing, he muttered. She clasped her wrists and ankles. Galley slave, he said. She jerked forward, her face twisted in pain. She was being beaten. Spartacus! He watched the rest of the performance, knowing that he was right. He watched her mime the three syllables with expert precision but her audience could not guess it. Spartacus, he murmured. And he cast one more look at her. Still, he thought, she was not quite of this world. There was something in her face and her demeanour that set her apart. Like the engravings of the saints he had seen in his father’s book, The Lives of the Saints. There had been one, Santa Barbara, whom he would linger over as a child. The account of her life was brief but her picture and her story had mesmerised him. She had had unruly hair like Astrid’s. Her father had kept her locked away to preserve her beauty and her virginity. As a boy Mikel had been fascinated by the cruelty of the father. He had had his daughter tortured for her beliefs and then he had beheaded her with his own sword. As a boy, Mikel had wondered in his bed at night, what did torture mean?
He turned away from the window and walked back along the path towards his dog, who sat panting on the other side of the gate. Astrid had looked happy, so had Lola. He had no place in their lives.
TWENTY-NINE
Astrid was in the kitchen making breakfast for Lola and her mother. She had been thinking about Mikel and had prayed that he would choose to disappear. In her old room it was easy to pray. Lying in her old bed, the familiar smell of dust on her counterpane and the same shapes reflected by the moonlight on the wall, she could pray to her childhood memory of God. She had thought of Kader, had smiled in the dark at his peculiar energy and she had prayed for his success.
Lola stood in the doorway in her shell-pink nightie, dripping with sleep.
I was going to bring it up to you, Astrid told her.
OK, I’ll go back to bed then.
Lola turned and Astrid listened to her stamp unsteadily along the hall.
While she was filling the tray, Paco knocked at the kitchen door. She smiled and waved at him through the glass. He stepped into the kitchen and hugged her closely.
Astrid, he said. She smelt his sweat when he pulled away. It’s good to see you, he said, looking around the kitchen. I like this family. It makes me happy to have you living in this house.
I’m not staying, Paco. I don’t think Lola is, either.
Paco smiled.
We’ll see.
Do you want some breakfast? I’ll make you some eggs.
I’ve eaten, thanks. He looked at the trays. Is one of those for Lola?
Yes.
Can I take it up to her?
Astrid hesitated but Paco picked up the tray.
I know the way, he said.
Astrid watched him leave the room. There was something disconcertingly gentle about Paco. It was as though his strength were shameful to him. She remembered him in the playground, this big child, built like an ox but pigeon-toed, his hands in his pockets, ashamed even then. Paco had been in her cuadrilla. There had been six of them, sworn friends for life. All of them except for Paco and herself had joined the organisation. The gentlest of them all, Paxti, had been the last to join and had become one of its most remorseless and unrepentant members. He had been shot dead by the Guardia Civil on his arrest in 1981. His best friend, Kepa, who was with him at the time, had been shot in the knee and sent to prison. The other two, twin sisters, she believed had moved to Venezuela.
She picked up her mother’s tray and went upstairs. As she passed Lola’s room she heard Paco’s deep voice and then Lola’s laughter. It occurred to her, and not for the first time, that Lola had a chance of being happy with Paco.
Her mother was sitting up in bed, her head against the pillow, apparently fast asleep. Astrid knew she was pretending because of the flickering around her eyes. She stood over her mother, wondering at their lifelong estrangement. She believed that her mother had always thought that Astrid could do without her love. She looked at the eggs getting cold, then set the tray down on Margot’s side table and left the room.
Lola burst into the corridor as she was going downstairs.
Astrid!
Astrid turned and looked up at Lola. She had egg on her nightdress.
What?
There’s a man in Bayonne. Paco says if anyone can tell me where he is, it’s him. He’s got a button shop in the old quarter called Le Bouton d’Or.
Great.
Will you come with me?
Now?
Yes.
Astrid hesitated.
What about Mummy?
Gachucha’s coming at twelve.
Astrid’s heart was beating faster.
I’ll meet you downstairs in half an hour.
Lola …
But she had gone. The door of her room slammed. Astrid imagined her stripping off in front of poor Paco and pulling on her clothes.
*
When Lorea Molina, the woman from Cultural Affairs, knocked at the kitchen door, Lola was washing up her breakfast things at the sink. No one tried the front door any more. From the great crack in the stone steps and the moss that grew on them, it was so obviously condemned. Lola wiped her hands on a cherry tea towel and wished that Astrid were down here in her place. She would have preferred bathing her mother to talking to this woman. She decided not to smile back at Lorea Molina. Instead she nodded.
Come in.
Thank you. What an exquisite house.
Lorea Molina was clasping one of those small leather briefcases without a handle. She wore a red dress with dice on it. She matched the Nazi kitchen.
It needs redecorating, Lola said.
Lorea bobbed her head equivocally from side to side.
It has a lot of charm.
Would you like some coffee?
No thank you. I don’t drink coffee.
Tea?
Thank you. Yes.
Lola began looking for tea.
Please, she said. Sit down.
When Lola turned her back on her, she felt in danger, as if the woman were an attack dog at ease.
You’re not from here, she said, turning round. Your accent. Is it Catalan?
Lorea Molina smiled, but to herself. She unzipped the briefcase, pulled out a thin, green folder and laid it on the table. Lola did not have time to see what was written on it before she turned it over.
I was born in Valencia but brought up here. No one has ever accused me of being Catalan.
I didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation, Lola said, smiling. She set the mug of tea down on the table. Milk? Sugar?
Nothing, thank you. She took a sip. My mother was Basque, she said in a tone that told Lola the subject was closed.
Lola poured herself some cold coffee and stood leaning against the sink.
Lorea Molina rested her palms on the green folder.
I want to talk to you about Mikel, she said.
Lola did not trust her voice so she simply nodded.
I understand you’re looking for him.
Lola kept silent.
What I am about to tell you will shock you. I’m prepared for the fact that you will not believe me. Everything in you will rebel against this knowledge. You will refuse it. And yet I have the proof.
Lola shook her head. The woman was performing. She would not be drawn in. She put her coffee cup down on the draining board.
You sound very dramatic, she said. But her voice failed her, betraying her fear. She felt sick.
We think that Mikel was turned around in prison.
Lola felt anger rush through her body. It rescued her.
We? she said, her face burning. Who’s we?
A letter that he wrote to you was intercepted.
What letter? What did it say?
Lorea Molina opened the green file, pulled out a piece
of paper and held it out to Lola. It was a faded photocopy of a letter that Lola knew well. She could see the dark shadows marking the folds on the original, for Mikel folded his letters into twelve so that they would be easily smuggled out of prison in his lawyer’s pocket. Lola read it again:
I cannot say how I will be when I get out. You are right. I have changed, Lolita. I am not the man you fell in love with. I no longer like myself, for one. Your hero has lost the self-love that made him a hero. Perhaps this is what was meant by the word honour. It is an old-fashioned word but that is what I had and have lost. I believe it is something that cannot be retrieved.
She looked triumphantly at Lorea Molina.
That says absolutely nothing.
Lorea Molina held out her hand for the letter. Lola folded it into four and put it into the back pocket of her jeans.
It was written to me, she said.
Lorea Molina smiled again.
We would like you to let us know if and when he gets in touch with you.
Oh certainly, Lola said. She could still feel the anger humming inside her but it was growing toxic. She wanted this woman out of her house.
You owe it to the movement.
What? Lola spoke quietly. I’m sorry?
The refugee committee paid for all your trips to visit him over the years. You had funds. You didn’t have to take their offer.
So I have to pay for that by betraying him. You’re crazy, she said, tapping her temple with her finger.
If I’m crazy, Lola, then Mikel is crazy too. He’s one of us.
You just said he’d turned grass. Your logic is at fault somewhere.
Lorea Molina’s smile lost its veneer. Her neat mouth slackened and the keen intent went from her eyes. Lola saw Lorea Molina’s complex laid bare. She was not clever. It had been the bane of her life. She had sought to dissimulate her stupidity with political engagement. Lola felt it was important to keep talking to cover her knowledge. She sat down opposite Lorea at the table.
There is no way Mikel would have turned grass, she said. After his arrest, he was tortured by the Guardia Civil for four days. And he didn’t talk.
