Winter in Madrid (29 page)

‘And then what?’

Phillips stretched out an arm in the Fascist salute. ‘
Sieg heil
, old boy. Another Fascist power. Well, I must toddle off to bed. Got to do a report from the Casa de Campo tomorrow, worse luck. Wish I’d brought my tin hat.’

H
ARRY WENT TO
Red Cross HQ next day and asked for Miss Clare. He was shown into an office where a harassed-looking Swiss man sat behind a trestle table stacked with papers. They spoke in French. The official looked at him seriously.

‘Do you know Miss Clare personally?’

‘No, it was her friend I knew. His parents asked me to contact her.’

‘She has taken it badly. We have given her a period of sick leave but we wonder if she might be better off returning to England.’

‘I see.’

‘It would be a great shame, she has been a tower of strength in the office. But she won’t go, not till she knows for sure about her boyfriend, she says. But she may never know for sure.’ He paused. ‘I have had a complaint from the authorities, I am afraid. She is becoming a nuisance. We need to keep good relations with them. If you could help her see things in some sort of perspective …’

‘I’ll do what I can.’ He sighed. ‘Perspective seems in short supply here.’

‘It is. Very short.’

T
HE ADDRESS
was a block of flats. He knocked at her door and heard shuffling footsteps within. He wondered if he had got the wrong flat, they sounded like an old lady’s footsteps, but it was a tall young
woman with disordered red hair and a strained puffy face who opened the door. There were bags under the startlingly green eyes half hidden by smeared glasses.

‘
¿Sí?
’ she asked without interest.

‘Miss Clare? You don’t know me. My name’s Brett, Harry Brett.’ She looked at him uncomprehendingly. ‘I’m a friend of Bernie’s.’

At his name she came to life. ‘Is there news?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Have you news?’

‘I’m afraid not. Bernie’s parents had your letter, they asked me to come out and see what could be done.’

‘Oh.’ She was downcast again at once, but held the door open. ‘Come in.’

The flat was cluttered and untidy, the air thick with cigarette smoke. She frowned, a puzzled look. ‘I know your name from somewhere.’

‘Rookwood. I was there with Bernie.’

She smiled, her face suddenly warm. ‘Of course. Harry. Bernie talked about you.’

‘Did he?’

‘He said you were his best friend at school.’ She paused. ‘He hated that school, though.’

‘Still?’

She sighed. ‘It was all tied up with his politics. Looks like it’s done for him in the end, his bloody politics. Sorry, my manners are awful.’ She swept a pile of clothes from an armchair. ‘Sit down. Coffee? It’s pretty dire, I’m afraid.’

‘Thanks. That would be nice.’

She made him a coffee and sat opposite him. The life seemed to have gone out of her again. She slumped in her chair, smoking strong Spanish cigarettes.

‘Did you go to the Red Cross?’ she asked.

‘Yes. They said you were on sick leave.’

‘Nearly two months now, it’s been.’ She shook her head. ‘They want me to go back to England, they say Bernie’s bound to be dead. I believed that at first but now I’m not sure, I can’t be sure till someone tells me where the body is.’

‘Have you made any progress?’

‘No. They’re getting fed up with me, they’ve told me not to come again. They’ve even complained to old Doumergue.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘There was a commissar Bernie knew from the fighting in the Casa de Campo, a Communist who worked at army HQ. Captain Duro. He was kind; he was trying to find out what he could but he left suddenly, last week, transferred or something. There have been a lot of changes recently. I asked if I could go out there, to the lines, but of course they said no.’

‘Maybe it would be better to go home.’

‘Nothing to go home for.’ Her eyes went blank, inward-looking; she seemed to forget he was there. Harry felt desperately sorry for her. ‘Come for lunch at my hotel,’ he said.

She gave him a quick, sad smile and nodded.

H
E SPENT
most of the next couple of days with her. She wanted to hear all he could tell her about Bernie. It seemed to lift her out of herself for a while, though she kept slipping back into that withdrawn, glassy-eyed sadness. She wore old skirts and unironed blouses and no make-up; she didn’t seem to care how she looked.

On the second day he visited the British Embassy but they said what everyone else had: that ‘missing believed killed’ meant they hadn’t found an identifiable body. He walked back to Barbara’s flat. He wasn’t looking forward to telling her what they had said. He had promised to visit army HQ the next day, perhaps they would take more notice of a man; after that he didn’t see what else he could do. He was sure Bernie was dead.

He rang her bell and heard the dragging footsteps again. She opened the door and leaned against it, staring at him. She was drunk. ‘Come in,’ she said.

There was a half-empty bottle of wine on the table and another in the wastepaper basket. She slumped into a chair beside the table.

‘Have a drink,’ she said. ‘Drink with me, Harry.’

‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’ he asked gently.

‘No. Take a cup and have one.’

He let her pour him a drink. She raised her cup. ‘Here’s to the bloody revolution.’

‘The bloody revolution.’

He told her what the embassy had said. She put down her glass. The inward look came over her face again. ‘He was so full of life, always. So funny. So beautiful.’ She looked up. ‘He said some of the boys at school got crushes on him. He didn’t like it.’

‘No. No, he didn’t.’

‘Did you have a crush on him?’

‘No.’ Harry smiled sadly. He remembered the night Bernie had gone to the prostitutes. ‘I was jealous of his looks sometimes.’

‘Have you a girlfriend back in England?’

‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘A nice girl.’ He had been going out with Laura for some months; he was surprised to realize he had hardly thought of her since coming to Madrid.

‘They say there’s someone for everyone, and there is, but they don’t tell you sometimes they’re just taken away from you again. Gone. Vanished.’ She clenched a fist against her forehead and began to cry, harsh wracking sobs. ‘I’ve just been deluding myself, haven’t I? He’s gone.’

‘I’m afraid it looks that way,’ Harry replied quietly.

‘Visit army HQ for me tomorrow, though, will you? Speak to Captain Duro. But if they’ve no more news. I’ll – I’ll give up. I’ll have to accept it.’

‘I will. I promise.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t usually get like this. I’ve shocked you, haven’t I?’

He leaned across the table and took her hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said gently. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

She clasped his hand and leaned her head against it and wept and wept.

T
HE SOLDIER
at the entrance to military headquarters was reluctant to let Harry in but he explained what he wanted in Spanish and that helped. Inside he told a sergeant he had come to see what he could find out about a soldier missing on the Jarama. He mentioned Bernie’s name and the name of the Communist Barbara said had helped her. The sergeant said he would consult an officer and showed him to a little windowless office to wait. He sat down at a table. He stared at a picture of Stalin on the wall, the screwed-up little eyes and the
big moustache, a smile like a grimace. There was a map of Spain, too, pencil lines marking the shrinking areas the Republic held.

A Spaniard in a captain’s uniform came in, carrying a folder. He was short and swarthy and had a tired, stubbly face. There was another captain with him, a tall pale burly man. They sat opposite him. The Spaniard nodded curtly.

‘I understand you are making enquiries about a certain Captain Duro.’

‘No. No, I’m trying to find out about an English volunteer, Bernie Piper. His girlfriend has been here, she said Captain Duro was helping her.’

‘May I see your passport, please?’

Harry handed it over. The Spaniard opened it, holding it up to the light. He grunted and slipped it into his folder.

‘Could I have that back, please?’ Harry said. ‘I need it.’

The captain folded his arms on top of the folder and turned to his colleague. The other man nodded. ‘You speak good Spanish, señor.’ His accent was foreign, guttural.

‘It’s my subject. I’m a lecturer – at Cambridge.’

‘Who sent you here?’

Harry frowned. ‘Private Piper’s parents.’

‘But his woman is already here. The records say he is missing believed killed. That means dead but no body. But we have first this woman from the Red Cross coming day after day, and now you. And always you talk about Captain Duro.’

‘Look, we just want to know, that’s all.’ Harry was getting angry now. ‘Private Piper came to fight for your Republic, don’t you owe us that much?’

‘You support the Nationalists, señor?’

‘No, I don’t. I’m English, we’re neutral.’ Harry began to feel uneasy. He noticed both officers wore revolvers. The foreign officer snatched the folder brusquely from his colleague.

‘Miss Barbara Clare, who has been here many times, I see she asked to visit the battlefield. That is a restricted zone. As she works for the Red Cross, she should know that. They have denied responsibility for her enquiries.’

‘She wasn’t asking on their behalf. Look, Bernie Piper was her – well, her lover.’

‘And you, what is your connection with him?’

‘We were at school together.’

The captain laughed, a harsh sound deep in his throat. ‘You call that a connection?’

‘Look here,’ he said. ‘I came here in good faith to find a missing soldier. But if you won’t help me, perhaps I’d better go.’ He started to rise.

‘Sit down.’ The foreign officer stood up and pushed him hard on the chest. Harry was taken off balance and fell over on the floorboards, landing painfully on his pelvis. The officer looked at him coldly as he stood up. ‘Sit on that chair.’

Harry’s heart was beating hard. He remembered what the journalist had said about torture chambers in the Puerta del Sol. The Spanish officer looked uneasy. He leaned over and whispered something in his colleague’s ear. The other man shook his head impatiently, then took out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. Harry stared at the pack; there was Cyrillic writing on it.

The officer smiled. ‘Yes, I am Russian. We help our Spanish comrades with matters of security. They need that help; there are Fascist and Trotskyist spies everywhere. Asking questions. Making up lies.’

Harry tried to keep his voice steady. ‘I came here to make enquiries about a friend—’

‘Private Piper did not come out here via established International Brigade procedures. He simply turned up in Madrid last November. That is not normal.’

‘I don’t know anything about that. I haven’t seen Bernie for years.’

‘Yet you came out here looking for him?’

‘His parents asked me to.’

The Russian leaned forward. ‘And who told you to ask about Captain Duro?’

Harry took a deep breath. He was in an underground room in a foreign city under martial law. There was no way out of here unless they let him go.

‘Miss Clare. She said Captain Duro introduced himself when she first came here making enquiries. I told you, he met Bernie in the Casa de Campo. He tried to find out more for her. Then she was told he had been transferred. No one else would help her.’

‘Now we are getting somewhere. Captain Duro was not, in fact, transferred. He was arrested as a saboteur. He was overheard saying we should have treated with the rebels in Barcelona.’ He leaned back, crossing his arms. ‘Treated with Trotsky-Fascist saboteurs.’

‘Look, I really don’t know anything about this. I’ve only been in the country three days.’

‘This Private Piper’s file shows that after he was injured in the fighting in the Casa de Campo, he offered to help with the reception of volunteers arriving from England. But it was felt he was a bourgeois, a sentimentalist, one likely to disapprove of some of the hard measures we need here. It was felt he should be allowed to recover then sent to the front. He was foot-soldier material, not one of the men of steel we need now.’

Harry stared at the Russian.

‘Such people are easily seduced by Trotsky-Fascism.’ The Russian turned to his colleague. The Spaniard leaned in close; Harry caught the whispered words, ‘Red Cross.’ The Russian frowned.

‘We shall discuss this outside.’ He turned to Harry. ‘You, Señor Brett, you stay here.’ Harry felt a shiver run down his spine, felt cold in the hot stuffy room.

The soldiers went out. Harry heard a low rumble of voices. He thought feverishly about what would happen if they took him away somewhere. Barbara was expecting him back at the flat. She had seemed calmer after her outburst yesterday; he hoped she hadn’t hit the bottle again. She would look for him if he didn’t return. His palms were sweating. He told himself he must stay calm.

The voices from the corridor rose. He heard the Russian shouting. ‘Who is in charge here?’ Footsteps retreated, then there was silence, a thick silence he could almost feel. He remembered the boys talking eagerly about types of torture at school. What the rack did, thumbscrews, new tortures with electric shocks.

The door opened and the Spanish officer entered, alone, his face set. He handed Harry his passport.

‘Be thankful for your Red Cross connections,’ he said coldly. ‘Be grateful we need their medicines. You can go. Get out now before he changes his mind.’ He stared into Harry’s eyes. ‘You have twenty-four hours to leave Spain.’

B
ACK IN THE FLAT
, Harry told Barbara what had happened. He had to leave Spain at once and she should go too; she must never go back to military HQ. He had thought she might not believe what had occurred, but she did.

‘We know about what’s happening,’ she said quietly. ‘In the Red Cross, I mean. The arrests and disappearances.’ She shook her head. ‘I’d just stopped thinking about it. I haven’t thought of anything but finding out about Bernie. I’ve been so selfish. I’m sorry you went through that.’

‘I volunteered to go. Maybe we’ve both been naive.’