by Lucy Wadham
She lay on her back, eyes wide open. She could hear her own pulse in her ears, like the sound of footsteps on gravel. It drowned out the sound of the extractor fan below her window. I must not seek to know, she told herself. She thought of Kader, of his innocence. This was where peace could be found, in a nature like his. She must keep out of other people’s lives. She could seek understanding only in her field.
As she waited for sleep, she tried to recall her first procurement. It had been more than fifteen years ago, a woman weighing over a hundred kilos. Astrid had been struck by the brightness of the colours on the inside of this body. She had seen the gaudiness of autumn: the orange of the fat, the rich brown of the intestines and the red of course, the cardinal red. This was a multi-organ harvest for heart, liver and kidneys but still she had not been prepared for the crowd: twelve of them, like the disciples, leaning over the woman’s beating carcass. In the complex staging of the operation she had been criticised for speaking her part too softly, for speaking too quietly behind her surgical mask. And there was her accent too, making it hard for the surgical nurse to recognise the terms and respond quickly. The quantity of fat had made Astrid nervous and it had taken her nearly three hours to harvest the woman’s liver. The kidney surgeons, waiting for their turn, had hardly been able to conceal their impatience. But Astrid was Chastel’s protégé so they stitched and cut in tense silence.
That first time had seen the birth of her mistrust of cardiac surgeons. She remembered hearing the heart surgeon’s booming tenor next door in the antechamber. He was pacing in wait for the fresh organ and showing off to the nurses. She had never met a cardiac surgeon who did not have a great, booming voice and an operatic demeanour. Even at four a.m. in a hospital corridor when they were clearly exhausted, they still performed. And they seemed to follow their grand destinies, unhampered by scruples of any kind. What was it about the heart, she wondered, that drew these vainglorious people? Did they really believe the heart was the seat of the soul? It was just a pump. The liver was a far more intelligent organ. It had over seven thousand functions, most of which were only partially understood. If the brain was an electrical circuit, the liver was an infinitely complex factory. And she was more drawn to factories than to computers.
Still it was undeniable that the moment the heart was stopped, flushed through with cooling fluid; when it was lifted from its pearly cavity and put in the plastic jar with a screw-top lid and then into a plastic bag, tied in a bow with a green ribbon; as soon as the heart team left the room with their prize, there was a drop in intensity. She remembered being struck by the fact that they had called out:
Bye!
And the others had called back without looking up from their work:
Thanks!
Even now, there was always a sense, to the others left behind to harvest the remaining organs, that when the heart team left, the glamour went, as it does when the most interesting or desirable member of a dinner party goes home.
She had worked on for another hour beside the kidney team while her assistant, a young Vietnamese intern, held back the intestines with swathes of muslin, dyed pink with blood. Never since had the strangeness of this world she had chosen to inhabit been so vivid to her: the sweet smell of cauterised flesh, the disinfectants that hung in the throat, the respirator, like the sound of someone doing breaststroke in the blue light of that underground room, and the shrill metronome of the electroencephalogram. Then the depth of the silence after the respirator had been switched off and the anaesthetists, like three sulking puppeteers behind their green curtain, had taken the probes off the cadaver and the screens had gone dark.
THIRTY-ONE
Txema walked quickly past Lorea’s open door but her voice clawed at him from behind. He hurried on along the corridor and shut himself into his office. By the time he got to his desk she was knocking.
No! he shouted. Not now!
There was a pause.
Is everything all right?
Fine. I need some peace.
He sat down in his chair and watched the door slowly open.
What is it? she asked.
She was wearing her dress with the dice motif. He had once made the mistake of telling her he liked it and now when she wore it, her self-satisfaction galled him.
Nothing, he said. I have to make a call.
She stepped into the room.
You look pale. Are you all right?
Her head was tilted slightly to one side and her straight black hair obscured her face a little.
Txema’s shoulders fell forward in defeat. He glanced at the engraving of the whaling scene hanging on the wall opposite his desk. The shafts penetrated the whale’s body from every angle while the boat balanced on the crest of a great curling wave. In the next instant all the men would be drowned.
I met Astrid Arnaga just now, he said.
Here, in the village?
We had a drink.
What did she say? she asked, taking another step into the room. Her eagerness deterred him. He sat back in his chair.
I want you to have Anxton follow her, he said.
Now? Today?
Yes.
Good.
Lorea smiled. She did have a lovely smile.
Off you go, he said, putting his hand on the phone. I have to make this call.
Lorea made a balletic turn, causing her dress to swing outwards and revealing, for an instant, the backs of her thighs, then stalked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Txema sat for a long while with his hand on the phone, his mind free of intent. He stared, unseeing, the sounds of children playing on a hot day coming through an open window. Suddenly there was an explosion and glass shattered all around him. Txema leapt from his chair and dived under the desk. He sat there, his heart pounding, watching the pelota ball roll along the parquet towards him. Txema crawled out from beneath the desk and picked up the ball from among the shards of broken glass. He walked over to the shattered pane, and hurled the ball, with the full force of his anger, into the group of children gathered beneath the window. He could feel the blood pumping in his temple. One of his well-kept secrets was that anger had always affected his vision. He looked down, as though through a tunnel, at the gaping children gathering around the comrade who had been wounded by the returned missile. Txema realised that his hands were shaking when he picked up his car keys from the desk. He drove both hands into his pockets and walked out of the room.
*
Txema pulled into the car park of the beach that the French called the ‘Chamber of Love’. He had spotted Gomez’s battered Renault 12 parked close to the steps that led down to the beach. He was ten minutes late. He walked past a family of four in bathing suits, hobbling barefoot on the burning concrete. He was too hot in his dark suit and he regretted his choice of a meeting place.
The blind man was in the passenger seat, his window down. Txema did not look inside so he did not see Gomez. He stood beside the car, facing a showy sea. On the horizon clouds were gathering. The bathers were cramped in a corridor of about ten metres wide marked out by two red flags and under the watchful eyes of a handful of lifeguards slouching on their look-out platform. Obedience was indeed a miraculous thing.
Itxua’s voice was rasping.
What can I do for you?
He had prepared his opening line and he would not change it now.
I have some good news about the retirement home, he said, keeping his eyes on the sea.
This was not strictly true. On paper there was no room in the new retirement complex that was being built at the entrance to the village but Txema was confident that for the right price, someone would give up their place.
That’s good. It’s time for me to come home, Itxua said.
It is, Txema told him. It is. Then he added, You know Mikel’s out.
Of course, Itxua said.
He’s disappeared.
What do you mean by that?
Txema paused.
&n
bsp; He called on the day of his release and then nothing.
How long ago was that?
Three days ago.
You can’t say a man’s disappeared after three days.
Perhaps you’re right. I’m just wondering why he should be hiding from us.
What makes you think that he is?
This is hard for me to say. He paused. He could hear Itxua breathing noisily. I was the first to defend him when people started saying he’d been turned around.
What are you saying? he barked.
Old and maimed, Itxua was still a formidable man. When Franco was alive he had jumped from a five-storey building in Bilbao to avoid arrest. His fall had been broken by a web of washing lines and he had got away with two broken legs. They had still arrested him and, it was alleged, tortured him for ten days. It was said that he had woken from a coma in prison hospital angrier than ever. Txema was sure Itxua still had close ties to the organisation. He pushed on.
The only reason I can find for him not getting in touch is that he’s turned grass.
I can think of other reasons, the blind man said.
Txema knew Itxua disliked him. Ever since the seventies, in the days when the military wing took orders from the political wing, Itxua had considered Txema soft. While Txema was on the Executive Committee discussing Marxist method and setting targets accordingly, Itxua was making bombs and training commandos. Txema knew he thought him impure but in those days Itxua had to keep his mouth shut. After the schism the military apparatus started making all the decisions. If Itxua had not been blinded by a letter bomb he would probably have become head and Txema’s life might have been in danger. Calling him in now might well be like calling for fire on his own position.
If Mikel was turned around in prison, Itxua said at last, I’ll know just by talking to him.
I dread to think of the damage he could do, Txema said, looking out at the corralled swimmers hurling themselves at the waves.
He could do very little, Itxua said coldly. He’s had no contact with anyone since he went inside. But that’s not the point. As you know there is a policy.
Txema smiled then feared the blind man had sensed his pleasure. He opened his mouth wide and clicked his jaw. He ground his teeth at night and the constant friction sometimes made his muscles go into spasm. On some days he sat in his office, unable to close his mouth.
Policy, he repeated. Yes.
Policy was, death to informers. It was as simple as that.
Why did you contact me, Txema? Itxua said.
Txema hesitated, sensing a trap.
I thought, if anyone can find him, you can.
There was a pause. Txema listened to the blind man’s wheezing. He regretted his attempt at flattery.
Looks like rain, the blind man said.
Then he must have made some signal to old Gomez because the engine started before Txema could reply. He stood facing the sea until the sound of their car had died away. Then he turned and walked, this time without shame, back to his Mercedes.
THIRTY-TWO
Paco parked beside Bayonne cathedral. Lola had always found it inelegant and sombre. The stone was darkish pink. People pissed in the recesses of its walls. She walked along the town battlements towards the river. They had left the village under leaden sunshine. On this side, the sky was filled with churning cloud that looked like brown smoke. In the distance rain hatched the surface of the river. She could smell the dusty plane trees above her waiting for the rain, feel them straining towards it. As she walked into the narrow, pedestrian streets of the old town, the rain broke over her. It fell hard, drumming the stone pavements. It poured through her hair, blinding her. Soon her clothes were soaked and her feet were slipping in her sandals.
She stepped into the cluttered shop behind a middle-aged woman with highly colourful make-up and an auburn crew cut. The woman was looking for flesh-coloured elastic. Lola waited while she dithered over elastic of various widths. The man who served the woman seemed to be involved in her dilemma. Indeed he seemed in no hurry for her to make a decision. Each time she came close to choosing a calibre, he would throw in a further consideration to make her change her mind.
It all depends on how often you’re going to wash the garment, he told her. This elastic holds up well in the wash.
It’s not as attractive, mused the woman.
The man clearly loved his shop, loved opening the little drawers, and loved pushing aside display racks to get into nooks and crannies that might conceal more flesh-coloured elastic. At last the woman settled on 1.5 centimetres.
If you’re sure, the man said. You can always come back and change it, Madame. You know that.
When the woman left the shop, he set about restoring it to the same disorder it was in before his search for the elastic began. Lola watched him, wondering what could possibly explain this man’s link to the organisation. He was very small and thin. Indeed, he must have had difficulty finding the grey work coat he wore, unless perhaps it had been made for school children. His wiry, sandy hair was clearly a toupee of some man-made fibre. Lola saw that his little hands were covered in eczema.
How can I help you, Madame?
I’m looking for someone. She had the photo that she kept in her wallet. She held it out. The man blinked at the photo with piggy eyes, then looked at her and shook his head.
Sorry.
Look again. Lola could hear the desperation in her voice and she could see that the little man already wanted her out of his shop. It was taken twenty years ago, she urged. You have to imagine this face, but older.
The man gave a cursory glance at the photo but his mind was already made up.
No. As I say, I’m sorry.
The little man stood there with his wounded hands clasped in front of him, looking at her patiently, a beacon of non-commitment.
Lola left the shop. She walked slowly through the empty streets letting the rain soak her again. She climbed into Paco’s car and shut the door. She sat in silence beside him until the glass had steamed up and they could no longer see out.
THIRTY-THREE
Kader had never seen a place so green, sunshine so golden, rivers so clear. It was like a video game he had once played. He and Amadou had played it for twenty-four hours, stopping only briefly to eat, piss or shit. They had not slept. When they had finally got to the end they had both felt depressed to be out of the game’s magical landscapes. He remembered sitting in silence in Amadou’s room, smoking good pollen in order to soften their return to the real world.
Kader had a grin on his face as he walked on his crutches up the main street of Astrid’s village. There was a space like a gigantic playground surrounded by trees. A group of old men in berets, each with a walking stick, sat on the low wall watching the children play. Kader felt an overwhelming sense of goodwill towards the old men and the kids. It was as if he had a new heart.
He wanted to stop and sit down on the wall to savour this feeling but the urge to see Astrid’s face again was too strong and he walked on. She had not exactly sounded enthusiastic when he had called her but she had given him her address and directions to the bus station in San Sebastian and Kader thought she might be one of those rare women who, like his mother, did not like the phone.
When he had stepped off the bus he had been given directions to her house by the first passer-by he had asked, a woman with long, grey hair held back with a pink hairband. She had a wispy beard and moustache that had made Kader smile. She had smiled with him and pointed up the hill.
La ùltima, she had said.
Kader decided that he would go and get her and they would come and sit on the wall together, their backs to the sunshine. When he came in sight of the last house the dog bite on his heel was throbbing, his hip ached and the knife wound on his shoulder itched beneath the dirty bandage. In spite of the pain, he was overjoyed. He stood in awe, looking up at the grand stone façade, with all its big windows and its dark blue shutters and the roses growing all over it.
He looked down the street. A woman carrying a baby on her hip was crossing the road. He heard the bell sound as she opened the door of the bakery. Then he looked the other way at the cobbled street running into a path that disappeared into a wood. He pushed open the iron gate and limped up the path to the front door.
THIRTY-FOUR
Lola wanted Paco out of her room. She was in bed and he was sitting naked on the edge of the bed with his back to her. The sight of his great shoulders hunched forward irritated her. He turned.
Why did that happen?
It was my fault, she said.
Paco turned his head as if he had received a blow, then turned back.
What do you mean, your fault?
I needed to be held.
I could have held you, Lola. Why didn’t you ask me just to hold you? he pleaded.
I can’t explain, Paco. I’m probably not who you think I am.
He shook his head. I don’t judge you, Lola. I want to understand.
Lola tried to keep the anger out of her voice.
I needed to anaesthetise myself. I’m in pain.
About Mikel?
About my life.
He just needs time, Lola.
That’s what Txema said.
Paco turned his back on her. His weight was pulling the bedclothes taut, trapping her legs.
I’m going now.
Lola watched him stand. She watched this poor, naked giant stoop to gather up his clothes with the gestures of a maiden.
I’ll come back tomorrow after my shift, he said.
She nodded, unable to meet his eye. His slowness and gentleness made her want to hit him.
