The Exile (22 page)

‘Where are you?' His voice was thick, anger turning to rage.

‘The Iglesia de Santa María, Calle Treinta y Uno de Agosto. Please hurry.'

He slammed down the phone, threw some change on the bar and rushed down the hotel's awning-covered steps to the taxis waiting by the kerb. He climbed into the cab at the head of the line and gave him the address. ‘
Policía
,' Guzmán told the driver. ‘Go as fast as you can. I'll pay double.'

Threats were good but bribes worked much better and the driver accelerated, tyres squealing as he took a left and hurtled down the Alameda del Boulevard. At this time of night, there was little traffic and the taxi raced along the wide avenue towards the sea before taking a violent right into Calle Mayor, almost overturning the cab in the process.

Grim-faced, Guzmán clung to his seat as the cab bounced along the cobbles for a hundred metres before shuddering to a halt. He sprang from the cab, throwing a hundred peseta note onto the seat as he went. He ran fast, the night-black street alive with echoes as he sprinted towards the dark Gothic outline of the basilica.

The church ahead was silent. Anyone lying in wait would gauge his position easily as his footsteps echoed off the dark walls so he slowed, drawing the Browning to scan the darkened building for signs of ambush. As he moved closer, he heard the faint sound of breathing, shallow and rapid. At the top of steps, by the huge double doors, he saw a huddled shape. Someone sitting in the darkness, head lowered.

‘Magdalena?'

‘Leo.' Slowly, she got to her feet, putting a hand on the wall to steady herself as she hurried down the steps into his arms.

He held her awkwardly, unsure what to do with the Browning as she clung to him.

‘It was Bárcenas and his men,' she said, suddenly angry. ‘They were going to throw acid in my face to blind me. He was enjoying it.'

He held her face in his hands, checking for signs of harm. ‘Where are they now?'

‘I'll show you.' She took his arm and led him into one of the narrow side streets. After a few metres, they turned into a blind alley, strewn with trash from the overflowing bins by the walls. ‘This is where they trapped me.' She pointed into the shadows. ‘Over there.'

Guzmán peered into the reeking darkness. ‘
Puta madre
.'

Bárcenas lay on his back, staring up at the night sky, his mouth open in surprise. Surprised no doubt by the bullet hole in his forehead. Another corpse stretched out in front of him. The man had fallen forwards, holding the flask as he hit the cobbles, landing face down in the acid. Small wisps of smoke rose around his head. It was a closed coffin for him.

‘Where did you get a gun?' Guzmán asked.

‘My father worried about assassination attempts. He always carried one and insisted I do the same.' She ran a hand over her hair. ‘He was right, for once.'

‘I've worked with a lot of men who couldn't shoot this well,' Guzmán said with professional admiration. As he moved away from the smoking corpse, his foot caught on something and he took out his lighter and snapped it into flame, seeing another body sprawled in the soggy refuse. ‘Who the fuck is this?'

‘Alvarez, the watchman at my apartment building. He tipped off Bárcenas when I went out and came here to watch the fun.' She looked down at the body. ‘Unfortunately for him, I had the last laugh.' She looked again at the bodies. ‘What shall we do with them?'

‘We'll leave these two here, the police won't care about them, they're nobodies. But Bárcenas is chairman of the local branch of the Falange, it's best if he disappears. I'll bring my car over from the hotel and stick him in the boot. I'll decide what to do with him tomorrow.'

‘You can't just make a man disappear,' Magdalena protested.

‘I can.' He put his arm round her shoulders and she leaned against him, exhausted.

‘I've ruined your evening,' she said. ‘Is there some way I can make it up to you?'

‘Yes, but if I told you what it was, you'd slap my face.' It was a bad joke and he was sorry he'd said it.

She stayed silent and Guzmán bit his lip, thinking he'd offended her. Then he saw her expression. ‘Wouldn't you?'

‘Let's get your car and move that,' she said, nodding at Bárcenas. ‘Then we'll go to my apartment. I'll fix us some supper after.'

‘After what?'

Magdalena rolled her eyes. ‘I don't sleep with stupid men,
Comandante
, do keep up.'

SAN SEBASTIÁN 1954, CALLE DE FERMÍN CALBETÓN

The room was almost silent. Steady muffled breathing. A sudden cry. ‘
Mierda
.'

It was a nightmare even more horrific than usual and Guzmán jerked upright, bathed in sweat. The closed shutters muted the pallid light from the street, creating pale diagonals across the walls. The air was warm and stuffy, filled with a heady odour of sweat, expensive perfume and sex. Magdalena was still asleep, her hair a blonde halo on the pillow. Careful not to wake her, he looked round for his cigarettes and saw them on the dresser by the window, next to his wallet. Since his side of the bed was against the wall, he would have to climb across her to get a smoke. She was sleeping so soundly he decided to forgo the cigarette rather than disturb her.

He lay back and resisted his craving for tobacco for almost a minute before giving up. As he eased himself over her, he felt the warm contours of her body as his weight pressed her into the mattress. He forgot about the cigarette.

Magdalena stirred, her voice distant and soft with sleep. ‘God, not again, Leo, please.'

Guzmán grunted in frustration as he climbed from the bed and pulled on his clothes. Once dressed, he lit a cigarette and went to sit beside her on the bed.

She pulled herself up against the headboard. ‘What time is it?'

‘Half past six. I've got to see the manager of the bank at seven and then drive up to the
cuartel
. We're heading into the mountains today after El Lobo.'

‘That's a shame,' Magdalena said. ‘The bed will feel empty without you.'

‘Don't remind me,' Guzmán grunted. ‘Before I go, can I ask you something?'

She brushed a blonde curl from her face. ‘As long as you don't ask if I was a virgin. I can't tell you how many men have asked me that.'

‘What did your father mean about keeping you away from Mellado's harvest ball?'

Magdalena arranged herself on the pillows and pulled the sheet over her breasts. ‘The autumn ball is one of the general's more depraved traditions. He invites his closest and most repulsive friends and sycophants and provides a large number of women, usually people he's had arrested. They have to take part in tableaux, posing in scenes from history or myth, that sort of thing. All in various states of undress, of course.' She blew a long column of smoke up into the air. ‘Naturally, Mellado's guests take advantage of them as they wish.'

‘Some of those women have been going to resistance meetings,' Guzmán said. ‘If they have to run around at his party in their underwear, they can think themselves lucky. It's better than fifteen years in jail for treason.'

‘I suppose so,' Magdalena said, grinding out her cigarette in the ashtray on the nightstand. ‘Haven't you seen the queues of girls at the station? Their parents send them to stay with relatives until after the ball, terrified they'll be snatched by Mellado's men otherwise.'

Guzmán went to the door. ‘Naturally, they're ashamed, but worse things can happen.'

‘They can indeed. Often they do.'

‘You mean they get hurt?' Rough stuff, he imagined, boisterous games played by men who didn't know their own strength.

‘I mean they get killed,' said Magdalena. ‘That's why
Pap
á
wanted me out of the way.'

Guzmán thought about it for a moment. ‘That would be a good idea, I'd say.'

She listened to his footsteps as he went downstairs, hearing the loud impact of the front door as it closed behind him. Then she slipped from the bed, retrieved the small Colt from her handbag and reloaded it. No matter how odious her father was, he had been right.

You could never be too careful.

10

MADRID 2010, UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE, CALLE DEL PROFESOR ARANGUREN

The campus was quiet, the lawns patterned with sharp angled shadows. Galíndez parked in the shade of some low trees near the faculty building and wandered across the grounds in search of her new office. Nothing seemed to have changed as she passed the administrative block, feeling a wave of unwelcome nostalgia, remembering last summer, walking with Tali to the car park in the faded light of a summer storm, on their way to search Guzmán's abandoned HQ. Remembering the encroaching sense of threat as they arrived at that grim building, the feeling of accumulated fear and pain inside.

With only three days left until summer break, there were only a few indolent students slouched on the grass near the fountain, watching the shimmering column of water rise into the warm air like sculpted glass. A new sign labelled
Centre for Historical Discourse Analysis
directed her down the side of the old History building. Clearly they had tucked Luisa's new department away at the back of the faculty. That made Galíndez smile: Luisa wasn't a woman to tolerate anything that threatened her status.

At the rear of the faculty building, Galíndez stopped, staring at what had been the visitors' car park. Luisa hadn't been hidden away at all. The new departmental building was a steel and glass construction, two storeys high with rounded asymmetrical contours, the architectural style more Martian than Madrileño. As she approached, Galíndez saw a large stylish foyer. A young man with an optimistic beard was lurking just inside the door, holding a clipboard. He gave Galíndez a disapproving look.

‘I'm looking for the new
Guardia Civil
Research Centre,' Galíndez said.

‘It's in the main faculty building,' the young man said, fingering his beard self-consciously. ‘I thought you were here for Profesora Ordoñez's lecture.' He checked his watch. ‘It'll be over in a couple of minutes anyway.'

‘Really?' Galíndez said. ‘Can I go in and catch the end of it?'

‘Just go up those stairs,' he indicated a short flight of metal stairs leading up to some swing doors, ‘the doors lead to the back of the lecture theatre.'

Galíndez ran up the stairs. Inside the darkened lecture theatre, she found herself in an aisle behind the last row of seats, looking down the sloping auditorium towards an intricately lit podium from where Luisa was delivering her inaugural lecture. Behind the
profesora
, a huge screen gave a magnified view of her face. It was an impressive use of the EU funds Luisa had secured for the new department, a monument both to her ambition and her ego. The auditorium was full and Galíndez leaned on the balcony behind the final row of seats to listen as Luisa brought her talk to a close.

‘Señores.' Luisa moved her gaze over the audience, as if recognising each person in turn. ‘Today, I set out the provisional agenda for my new department, an agenda in which actions speak louder than words and yet words are actions. Our main goal is to create an immense work of linguistic analysis, a discursive labyrinth stretching from the Civil War to the Pact of Forgetting and the subsequent disappearance of the dictatorship and its political lexicon.'

Galíndez sighed. Luisa couldn't say if she wanted cream or milk in her coffee in fewer than five hundred words.

‘Memory is at the heart of our work,' Luisa continued. ‘After all, memory was a central element in the transition from the dictatorship to democracy. Perhaps more correctly I should say the suppression of memory, since the Pact of Forgetting involved an agreement that the military would not resist democracy as long as their crimes during the years of Franco's rule were forgotten. That required all those who suffered during that time to deny it and set it to one side;
to agree it did not happen
. That denial of memory needs to be addressed and rectified using the analytic practices developed in my own ground-breaking work exploring emotion, experience and recall.'

Galíndez rolled her eyes, certain that if Luisa didn't have both hands on her copious notes, she would pat herself on the back.

Luisa wasn't finished. ‘The ultimate objective of an interpretative scholar like me is to examine how people give significance to their lives – not by using official histories, compendiums of statistics or sterile chronologies of events stripped of all relevance to lived experience. Instead, we explore hidden places, the lost worlds of human existence and experience whose perspectives have been obscured by the quantification and calibration of positivist science. Counting, categorising and quantifying merely create colourless realms in which human experience is represented using rigid categories to provide a restricted and joyless understanding of what it is to be human.'

Luisa was talking about scientific method and Galíndez narrowed her eyes, suddenly resentful, knowing the
profesora
never missed an opportunity to attack her working practices.

‘We must break away, allow the hidden voice to be revealed by our research, and, in doing so, share and understand the worlds of others.' Luisa sounded ecstatic. ‘We must judge actions on their own terms not ours, understand their motivations, recognise their frailties and inadequacies, not stand as judge and jury. As Bataille said: “Experience cannot be communicated without bonds of silence, of hiding, of distance.”' We need to understand those bonds, understand how people came to do things because of circumstance and social environment. Our work on history is about giving a voice to the silenced, the inarticulate and the dead. Ladies and gentlemen, for me as a historian, this work it is not an exercise in measurement or judgement. It is a privilege.'