The Anarchist Detective (Max Cámara) (16 page)

‘So I got good at surviving – and shooting. Small things save you in conditions like that, not heroism, or bravery, or good organisation or all the things you might expect. A sudden itch in your leg makes you bend down just as a bullet passes through the space where your head had been. A slip, a fall, a pause for a smoke – or not smoking at the right time. Our lives became a litany of tiny life-saving or live-taking details. A man could leave his position on some errand and find it shelled and everyone killed on his return. Or else never return, while his comrades remained unscathed for another few hours, or days.

‘This Luger, you see. We weren’t issued with these. Only the officers. But I found it during a firefight. The hand to which it had once belonged was still clinging to it, but the body it was attached to had scattered and joined the rest of them. A shell burst. I stopped to pick it up. I thought – I don’t know – that I’d hand it in to my lieutenant, or perhaps keep it. But in the moment I paused to bend down two of my companions fell, shot by machine-gun fire. I stayed down, pushing myself as hard as I could into the frozen ground till nightfall, dizzy with the cold, willing the blood to flow to my feet and fingers. And the Luger buried in my tunic. Then, when it was totally dark I moved to head back to our positions. And the Luger stayed with me. I felt it had brought me luck.

‘I don’t know what it was that saved me – intuition? Fate? Perhaps it was just accident, not design. But no – I don’t believe that, not entirely. If there is a design then it is so far beyond our understanding that it appears to be accident, randomness. But just because we can’t understand it doesn’t mean it can’t exist. It simply demonstrates the limits of our understanding. But you can, nonetheless, sense something – something moving it all. And you learn very quickly to accept that at any moment you may cease to exist, in an instant. All the while struggling with every breath, every movement, every thought, to stay alive.’

Alicia lit a cigarette, sharing it with Cámara beside her. Hilario told them about a big battle that had begun shortly after, as the Russians tried to break the siege. The Germans were amazed that they had the strength after hearing stories of cannibalism inside the city. It was a difficult period and Hilario’s unit lost a lot of men.

‘I thought a wound of some sort might help,’ he continued. ‘But it was looked down on – they could tell if it had been deliberate. Besides, I was in a minority – most of the men were there because they wanted to be, to kill as many Russians as possible. All that fascist fervour. Reds, communists, Russians – they didn’t make much distinction. It was a continuation of the Civil War for many of them. Veterans from the Battle of Teruel used to joke that the Aragon winter of
1938
had been colder than Leningrad. So cowardice, absenteeism, self-inflicted wounds or wounds deliberately got from the enemy were virtually unheard of. Later, when reinforcements started including conscripts rather than just volunteers, you heard of a few cases. But Hitler was very happy with us – said we were one of the best divisions in the Wehrmacht – or at least that’s what they told us. There was even a Blue Division medal struck, at Hitler’s insistence.

‘But things were coming to an end by then. Stalingrad was a big blow. The body language of some of the German officers changed. They weren’t used to it – big defeats like that. Our lot weren’t so bothered – there had been plenty of reverses during the Civil War, they said. You kept going. Victory was certain. We were fighting the forces of evil. How could it not be?

‘Not long after Stalingrad Franco began negotiating our retreat. Of course, I had to be up in arms, like the rest. There was already talk of staying behind. It was a ruse, they said. Typical Franco. Let the world know that he wasn’t officially supporting Hitler any more, but keep on fighting all the same. They started making preparations – applications to stay on, to be absorbed into SS divisions.

‘A lot of them managed to stay behind, but I got drafted back. I was alive, I’d done my bit. Or so I thought. No medal, no mention in dispatches. But I’d killed. More than my fair share of young men just like myself. Except they were fighting to save their homes, their country. I was a foreigner, fighting someone else’s war against a people I had no grudge against, no hate for. Yet I’d survived, and in order to do that, I’d killed.

‘I was in Barcelona when I heard that Maximiliano had been executed. It had taken place a week before, as we’d been freighted across lands with swastikas flying from every public building. On Franco’s personal insistence he’d been shot, rather than garrotted. I had that to thank him for. All those dead Russian boys had bought for my father a second or two less pain and panic in his dying.

‘And back to civilian life, a grieving, widowed mother to look after. More surviving – I’d got good at it in Russia. It didn’t feel so different in many ways. We both worked where we could – she ended up cleaning for the wife of the military governor, the man who signed Maximiliano’s death warrant. I got a job at a mechanic’s – oh, there were dozens of jobs I did back then.

‘I handed the Mauser rifle in, when we were demobbed. They asked if I had anything else. I still had the Luger, kept it tucked into the back of my trousers, but said no. I don’t think the NCO believed me, but they only searched my bags and didn’t find anything, so they let me go.

‘And I don’t know why. Perhaps I should have got rid of it. I’ve still got a magazine for it, somewhere.

‘But I’d grown fond of it, for some reason.

‘They’re funny like that, guns.’

HIS LEG WAS
sore, but he could walk. After taking some more pills and pacing up and down the corridor half a dozen times he could move almost without a limp.

Hilario was still asleep. Cámara went into his room to check he was all right, nodding to Alicia when he came out.

They had some coffee, then Cámara downloaded the photos he’d taken the day before and put them on a memory stick while Alicia showered and got ready to go.

‘I’ll walk you there.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘It’ll be better. It’s just going to get stiff otherwise.’

There was a mist that morning and the streets were pale and milky. After the rush of early workers moving around the city, the roads were now scattered with parents and grandparents taking small children to nurseries and play schools. A mother with a pushchair wriggled past them on the narrow pavement, her little girl, perhaps one year old, staring out ahead as she nestled a doll against her chest.

Alicia’s hand squeezed around Cámara’s. They didn’t talk about that now. It had come up once, a few days after he’d arrived with his suitcase at her Madrid flat early in the summer, but the child of his that she’d aborted at the start of their relationship would have been about the same age. Cámara only glanced down briefly at the little girl. His hand tightened instinctively in response to Alicia’s grip, but his mind was taken with other things.

Grief and anger over the abortion had consumed him for too long. He’d left that behind in Valencia. It didn’t form a part of him any more.

They had ten minutes at the station before her train arrived.

‘Time for another coffee?’

‘No, thanks. I’m already wired as it is.’

She leaned up to kiss him.

‘Let me know what happens.’

‘I will.’

‘I’m worried.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘It’s easy to say that.’

‘It’ll be fine.’

‘I’ll . . . I’ll give you a call.’

She kissed him again.

‘Sometimes it’s as if I can’t see into your eyes. They’re open, yet they’re closed. As though a film covers them, made up of all the terrible things you’ve seen.’

He handed her her bag and watched as she passed through ticket control, found her carriage, and boarded.

She didn’t look back.

Cámara was already out on the street again, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

Had it been a day like this, cold and misty?

He sniffed. Memories were stirring inside him. Something about Hilario’s revelations, saying goodbye to Alicia.

It had had this same feel – that day. Although thinking back it had been late summer when Hilario had come for him. The end of the holidays, a new school year about to begin. He hated that time of year.

It should have been a relief. And in some ways it was. July and most of August had gone and he and his father had barely moved from the flat. A couple of times, at the beginning: doing the shopping together, a walk around the park late one evening, when the sun had almost set and the air was beginning to cool. His father had said something about going to the coast, perhaps. Getting the car and driving away, just the two of them. Perhaps down to Valencia. They could find somewhere cheap, a hostel perhaps. Or even sleep rough – in the car, on the beach. Wherever. That was the great thing about the summer – the elements were kinder, at least at night-time.

He was still only twelve, but Cámara had loved the idea. Later he wondered if that had been an early warning sign, his father already showing the decay, the lack of consideration for his only remaining child. Sleeping rough – it sounded fun, and it could have happened. But it was too late. He just couldn’t see it then.

He started heading to the shops more on his own. His father seemed to sleep a lot during the day. It was normal in the summer, when the hours of darkness became a refuge from the sharp-eyed sun. But even the young Cámara knew it was excessive: not for his father’s sake, but for his own. Friends were avoiding him; they said he stank. After four days slouching around empty bottles and unwashed dishes, he spent half an hour in the shower trying to scrub off the grime.

More orders came in for drink. From his pocket, his father would pull out crumpled peseta notes and hand them to him, telling him to go to the little neighbourhood supermarket that had opened on the next street. Wine and beer at first. And Cámara had joined him, sipping cans in secret, then more openly as his father had encouraged him.

The demands for stronger drink became more frequent. Anis and whisky. Then just whisky – DYC, the cheap brand, from Segovia. Cámara tried it in the kitchen one evening while his father slept on the sofa. An hour later – although it could have been less – he just remembered having enough strength to cough and roll on to his side as the vomit stuck in his throat. Some time afterwards he’d found himself in the bath, still clothed, cold water lapping around his groin. The vomit on the kitchen floor had not been cleared up – that was his job.

One night a woman had shown up. He’d never seen her before, or had any idea who she was. Cámara was sitting at the table in the living room, studying for some retakes he had to do in September when he got back to school. His father answered the door when the bell went, and in came this tall, skinny young woman with short black hair and a small brown leather handbag that flapped over her hips as she walked. What was the point of something so small, he thought. What on earth could you put in there? Besides, he was hungry. A day had passed since they’d last eaten properly and he was hoping his father might fix them something. Was the girl here for dinner?

She gave him an intense, odd look as, wordlessly, she walked past, following his father down the corridor. The bedroom door opened, they stepped inside, and Cámara was left on his own. He never saw the girl leave.

The following morning his father poured whisky on his cereal: the milk had run out.

It was probably around that time that his father lost his job. He hadn’t worked properly since Concha’s death. And the men at the printing cooperative were very helpful. The printworks had shut down altogether at first, partly out of respect, and partly because all the members were helping in the search for the missing girl. A week after the funeral they’d started again, but orders started slowing up – people said they didn’t want to bother them when they were coping with such a tragedy. The real reason, everyone knew, was because they didn’t want to be associated with something so dark and painful, as though an evil stain had attached to them through what had happened, and the family and anyone close to them had to be avoided. Superstitious crap, they’d all denounced it as, but they were worried; things would have to improve if the co-op were to survive.

But Ricardo, Cámara’s father, was told to take his time; there was no rush. He had other things to think about – keeping the rest of his family going, and looking after a wife quickly crumbling under the strain.

She hadn’t lasted long. Poor old Ana, they’d said. Such hardship for a mother to lose her daughter like that. But few had come to the funeral. The doctors made out that it was an accident, but no one fooled themselves it was anything more than an attempt to save face for the family – and for themselves. It was standard practice to give someone in her condition sleeping pills. No one, it appeared, had stopped to think that she might be a suicide risk. She had another child – the boy, Max – to look after. No mother would abandon her son like that.

But she had.

One morning Cámara had woken to find his mother had simply vanished.

‘She left,’ someone – a family friend he’d found crying in the kitchen – said. ‘Last night. She just went.’

He thought she might have gone to the shops, or gone to see friends, or something. But that she would come back. This was a temporary thing. Strange, yes, and the faces that dared to peer down at him wore curious, indescribable expressions. But it would not last for ever. His mother would return.

Finally, when he realised what had happened – although no one told him straight; he remembered having to piece it together for himself – he went into his room and put his fist through the window.

The bandages were in the bathroom, on top of the mirror cabinet. He found a stool, grabbed the box, and bound the wound himself.

The day of his mother’s funeral had certainly been cold; he wore a soft black woollen jumper his grandfather had given him for Christmas just a few weeks before. It was as if he’d known he was going to need it. But they said that about Hilario – that sometimes he seemed to see the future, or behave in a way that suggested he knew things. A
brujo
, someone had called him once. And they’d laughed. He was a bit of a joke – fun, a bit strange, kept his distance from his family; there was some suggestion he’d fallen out with Ricardo, his son, years back. No one would say over what. But a wizard? A man of magic? No. He might be lots of things, but not that. He was just a crazy old anarchist, living in the past, quoting proverbs most of the time.