The Time in Between: A Novel (12 page)

“Or whatever that son of a bitch was,” I completed with an ironic grimace as weak as it was bitter.

“Were you married?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“That’s better for you,” he concluded decisively. Then he consulted his watch. “Well, I don’t want to tire you out any further,” he said, getting up, “I think that’s enough for today. I’ll come back tomorrow, I don’t know what time; when I have a moment free. We’re up to our eyeballs right now.”

I watched him as he made his way toward the hospital exit, walking with the agile, determined step of someone who isn’t in the habit of wasting time. Sooner or later, when I was fully recovered, I’d have to find out whether that man really did believe in my innocence or just wanted to be rid of the heavy burden that had fallen on him, as though from the sky, at the most inconvenient time. I couldn’t think about that then: I was exhausted and afraid, and the only thing I wanted was a deep sleep, and to forget about everything.

Commissioner Vázquez returned the following evening, at seven, maybe eight, when the heat was no longer so intense and the light more filtered. No sooner did I see him come through the door at the far end of the pavilion than I lifted my weight on my elbows and with great effort, almost dragging myself, sat up. When he reached me, he sat down on the same chair as the day before. I didn’t even greet him. I just cleared my throat, readied my voice, and began to tell him everything he wished to hear.

___________

T
hat second meeting with Don Claudio took place on a Friday in late August. The following Monday he returned to collect me. He had found lodgings for me and wished to accompany me there. In other circumstances, such apparently chivalrous behavior might have been interpreted differently, but at that time, neither he nor I doubted that his interest in me was strictly professional, that I was simply an object worth having in his safekeeping in order to avoid serious complications.

I was dressed when he arrived, perched on the edge of the already made bed in mismatched clothes that were now too big for me, my hair in an untidy bun. The suitcase at my feet was filled with the miserable remains of my calamity, and my bony fingers were clasped on my lap as I struggled unsuccessfully to gather my strength. When I saw him arrive I tried to get up, but he indicated with a gesture that I should remain seated.

Positioning himself on the edge of the bed opposite mine, he merely said, “Wait. We have to talk.”

He regarded me for a few seconds with those dark eyes capable of drilling through a wall. By now I realized that he was neither a grey-haired young man nor a youthful old man: he was a man somewhere
between forty and fifty, schooled in manners and skilled in his police work, well built, with a soul somewhat battered from dealing with scum of every kind. A man, I thought, with whom I ought not to have any sort of problem.

“Look, this isn’t standard procedure. Due to current circumstances, I’m making an exception for you, but I want you to be absolutely clear about the real situation. Although I personally believe that you’re just the unsuspecting victim of a con man, the whole matter has to be settled by a judge, not me. But things being the way they are in these confused times, I fear a lawsuit is out of the question. And nothing will be gained by keeping you locked up in a cell till God knows when. So, just as I told you the other day, I’m going to allow you your freedom, but—pay attention—under supervision and with limited movement. And to remove any temptation I’m not going to return your passport to you. Also, you remain free on the condition that while you recover, you’ll find a decent way to earn a living and save enough to pay off your debt to the Continental. I asked them to give you one year to settle the outstanding bill and they accepted. So now you can start finding a way to scrape up this money, from under a rock if need be, but honestly and without getting into any trouble, is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” I murmured.

“And don’t fail me; don’t try any tricks with me, and don’t force me to come down hard on you, because if you cross me I’ll set the machinery in motion, and you’ll be shipped off to Spain at the earliest opportunity and get seven years in the Quiñones women’s prison before you know what hit you, understand?”

At such a grave threat I was unable to say anything coherent; I just nodded. Then he got up; a couple of seconds later I did the same. He moved quickly and nimbly; I had to make a tremendous effort just to keep up with him.

“So let’s be off,” he concluded. “Leave that, I’ll take the suitcase, you can’t even lift your own shadow. I’ve got the car at the door; say good-bye to the nuns, thank them for looking after you so well, and let’s go.”

We made our way through Tetouan in his car, and for the first
time I was able to appreciate the city that would for an undetermined time become my own. The hospital was on the outskirts; bit by bit as we progressed farther in, the volume of people grew. At nearly midday, the streets were full. Although there were hardly any motorcars around, the commissioner was constantly having to sound his horn to open up a passageway between the bodies moving unhurriedly in a thousand directions. There were men in light-colored linen suits and panama hats, boys in shorts running races, Spanish women with their shopping baskets laden with vegetables, Muslim men in turbans and striped djellabas, Arab women covered in voluminous garments that allowed only their eyes and feet to be seen. There were uniformed soldiers and girls in flowery summer dresses, barefoot local children playing amid the chickens. And the constant din of voices, stray words and phrases in Arabic and Spanish, interminable greetings to the commissioner each time someone recognized his car. It was hard to imagine that in this very setting only weeks earlier there had emerged a movement that was now being considered a civil war.

We didn’t initiate any conversation over the course of the drive; our journey wasn’t supposed to be a pleasure trip, but a precise step in a procedure for moving me from one place to another. From time to time, however, when the commissioner sensed that something that appeared before our eyes might seem strange or new to me, he gestured to it with his jaw and, his eyes always fixed straight ahead, spoke some concise words to name it. “Riffians,” I remember him saying one such time as he indicated a group of Berber women dressed in striped full skirts and big straw hats with colored pom-poms. The ten or fifteen brief minutes of our journey were enough for me to absorb some of the shapes, smells, and names that I would become familiar with during that new phase of my life. The High Commission, the prickly pears, the caliph’s palace, the water carriers on their donkeys, the Moorish quarter, the Dersa and the Ghorgiz, the
bakalitos
, the mint.

We got out of the car at the Plaza de España; a couple of Moorish boys rushed over to carry my luggage and the commissioner allowed one of them to do so. Then we went into La Luneta, located next to the Jewish quarter, next to the medina. La Luneta, my first street in
Tetouan: narrow, noisy, irregular, and rowdy, full of people, taverns, cafés, and chaotic bazaars where you could buy anything and everything. We reached a large door, went in, and ascended a staircase. The commissioner rang a bell on the first landing.

“Good morning, Candelaria. I’m here with the delivery you were expecting,” my companion said to the plump woman in red who had just opened the door, gesturing toward me with a brief movement of his head.

“But what kind of delivery is this, Commissioner?” she replied, placing her hands on her hips and giving a powerful guffaw. Then immediately she stepped aside and let us pass. Her place was sunny, gleaming in its modesty, and of somewhat questionable aesthetics. While she had a seemingly natural flippancy, beneath it you sensed that this visit from the police was making her extremely uneasy.

“A special delivery,” he explained, putting the suitcase down in the little foyer beneath a calendar with the image of the Sacred Heart. “You’ll have to put this young lady up for a while, and for the time being, without charging her anything; you’ll be able to settle accounts with her once she starts to earn her living.”

“But my place is filled to the brim, by Christ on the cross! And I get sent at least half a dozen bodies a day that I have to turn away!”

She was lying, of course. This olive-skinned woman was lying, and he knew it.

“I don’t want to hear about all your problems, Candelaria; I’ve told you you’re going to have to put her up somehow.”

“Since the uprising people haven’t stopped turning up in search of lodging, Don Claudio! I’ve even got mattresses on the floor!”

“That’s enough of your tales. The traffic in the Strait has been interrupted for weeks and these days not even seagulls are making the crossing. Like it or not, you’ll have to do what I ask; look at it as payment for all the things you owe me. And what’s more, you don’t just have to give her lodging, you have to help her. She doesn’t know anyone in Tetouan, and she’s got a pretty ugly story behind her, so make some space for her because this is where she’s going to be staying from now on, is that clear?”

“Like water, sir,” she replied, without the slightest enthusiasm. “Clear as water.”

“So I leave her in your safekeeping. If there’s any problem, you know where to find me. I’m not too pleased that this is where she’ll be staying; she’s already been corrupted, she’s not going to learn a lot of good from you, but anyway . . .”

“You don’t distrust me now, do you, Don Claudio?”

The commissioner didn’t allow himself to be fooled by the woman’s playful tone.

“I always distrust everybody, Candelaria; that’s what they pay me for.”

“And if you think I’m so bad, why in heaven’s name are you bringing this jewel to me, my dear commissioner?”

“Because as I’ve already told you, the way things are, I don’t have anywhere else to take her—don’t think I’m doing it because I want to. In any case, I’m leaving you responsible for her. Start dreaming up some way for her to make a living: I don’t think she’ll be able to return to Spain for quite some time, and she has to make some money because she’s got a bit of business to settle around here. Let’s see if you can’t get her hired as a saleswoman in some shop, or in a hairdresser’s; somewhere decent, mind you. And be so kind as to stop calling me your dear commissioner—I’ve told you a hundred times.”

She observed me then, paying attention for the first time. Top to bottom, quickly and without curiosity, as though she were simply assessing the amount of weight that had just been dumped on her. Then she returned her gaze to my companion and with mocking resignation accepted the assignment.

“You can be sure that Candelaria will take care of it, Don Claudio. I don’t know where I’ll put her, but you can rest assured knowing that she’ll be in heavenly bliss here with me.”

The celestial promises of the landlady apparently didn’t sound at all convincing to the policeman, as he still needed to tighten the screws a little more to conclude the negotiations. With modulated voice and index finger raised vertically to the level of his nose, he offered a final piece of advice that didn’t allow for any banter in response.

“Just watch out, Candelaria, watch out, be very careful—things are unsettled at the moment and I don’t want any more problems than are strictly necessary. So don’t think of getting her mixed up in any of your trouble. I don’t trust a hair on your head, or hers, so I’ll make sure you’re watched closely. And if I hear of any strange goings-on I’ll bring you before the commission, and not even a Sursum Corda will get you out of there again, clear?”

We both murmured a heartfelt “Yes, sir.”

“So the thing is, she’s to get better, and then, when she can, start work.”

He looked me in the eye, then seemed to hesitate a moment, debating whether to give me a handshake in farewell. Ultimately he chose not to and concluded the meeting with a recommendation and a prediction condensed into four concise words: “Be careful. We’ll talk.” Then he left, trotting nimbly down the stairs while adjusting his hat, his open hand holding it by the crown. We watched him in silence from the doorway until he had disappeared from view and were about to go back into the house when we heard his footsteps finish their descent and his voice thunder in the stairwell.

“I’ll take you both to jail, and once you’re there not even the Holy Child of the Remedio will get you out!”

“And screw you, too, you bastard,” was the first thing Candelaria said after shutting the door with a shove from her voluminous rear. Then she gave me a reluctant smile, trying to calm my confusion. “A devil of a man, he drives me raving mad; I don’t know how he does it, but he doesn’t miss a thing, and he’s constantly on my back.”

Then she sighed so deeply that her bulky bosom filled and emptied as though she had a couple of balloons inside her percale dress.

“Go on, my angel, in you go, I’ll be putting you in one of the rooms in the back. This damned uprising! It’s turned us all upside down and filled the street with arguments and the barracks with blood! Let’s see if all this ruckus ends soon and we can get back to normal life. I’m going out now, I have a few little matters to deal with; you stay here and get settled, and then, when I’m back at lunchtime, you can tell me all about it, nice and slowly.”

And with some shouting in Arabic she demanded the presence of a young Moorish girl, just fifteen years old, who came in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a cloth. The two of them started to clear up some bits of junk and change sheets in the tiny, airless room that would be transformed into my bedroom. And there I settled, without the slightest idea of how long my stay would last or what course my future would take.

Candelaria Ballesteros, better known in Tetouan as Candelaria the Matutera—the Smuggler—was forty-seven years old. She passed herself off as a widow, but even she didn’t know whether her husband had in fact died on one of his many visits to Spain or whether the letter she’d received seven years earlier from Málaga announcing his demise from pneumonia was no more than the tall tale of a shameless scoundrel to extricate himself from his marriage and make sure no one came looking for him. Fleeing the miseries of the day laborers in the olive groves in the Andalusian countryside, the couple had installed themselves in the Protectorate in 1926, after the Rif War. After that, the two of them had devoted their efforts to various enterprises, whose meager returns he had conveniently invested in partying, brothels, and large glasses of Fundador brandy. They hadn’t had children, and when her Francisco vanished, leaving her alone without the contacts in Spain to continue dealing contraband, Candelaria decided to rent an apartment and establish a small boardinghouse. This did not, however, stop her from doing her best to buy, sell, rebuy, resell, sell on credit, exchange, and trade whatever she could lay her hands on. Coins, cigarette cases, stamps, fountain pens, socks, watches, lighters—all of them of shady origin, all with uncertain destinations.