The Time in Between A Novel

Chapter Thirty

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As night began to fall, they lit lamps as though it were an open-air dance. The atmosphere was lively without being loud, the music soothing, and Rosalinda was still absent. The group of Germans remained firmly surrounding the guest of honor, but at a certain moment the women had disengaged themselves from their partners’ sides, leaving just five foreign men and the Spanish dignitary. They seemed engrossed in conversation and passed something from hand to hand, bringing their heads closer, pointing, making comments. I noticed that my companion hadn’t stopped covertly watching them.

“You seem to find the Germans interesting.”

“Fascinating,” he said, ironically, “but I have my hands tied.”

I replied with a questioning raise of my eyebrows, not understanding what he meant. He didn’t clarify it for me, but changed the course of the conversation to territory that seemed completely unrelated.

“Would it be very cheeky of me if I were to ask you a favor?”

He tossed the question out casually, just as a few minutes earlier he’d asked me if I wanted a cigarette or a fruit cup.

“That depends,” I replied, likewise feigning nonchalance. Although the evening was turning out to be reasonably relaxed, I still wasn’t at ease, unable to enjoy this party that had absolutely nothing to do with my world. Besides, I was worried about Rosalinda’s absence; it was very strange that she hadn’t been seen once. The last thing I needed now was for Marcus Logan to ask me for another awkward favor: I’d already done enough by agreeing to attend the event with him.

“It’s something very simple,” he explained. “I’m curious to know what it is that the Germans are showing Serrano that they’re all looking at so attentively.”

“And is this personal or professional curiosity?”

“Both. But I can’t approach him: you know how little they think of us English.”

“You’re suggesting I go over and take a look?” I asked in disbelief.

“Without it being too obvious, if possible.”

I was ready to laugh.

“You’re not serious, are you?”

“Entirely. That’s what my job is: I try to find information, and the means of getting hold of it.”

“And now that you can’t get hold of this information for yourself, you want me to be the means?”

“But I don’t wish to take advantage of you, I promise you that. It’s a simple proposition, you have no obligation to accept it. Just think about it.”

I looked at him, wordless. He seemed sincere and trustworthy, but as Félix had predicted, he probably wasn’t. At the end of the day it was all a question of personal interests.

“Very well, I’ll do it.”

He tried to say something, perhaps to thank me in advance. I didn’t let him.

“But I want something in exchange,” I added.

“What?” he asked, surprised. He didn’t expect my action to come at a price.

“Find out where Señora Fox is.”

“How?”

“You’ll know how to do it, that’s why you’re a journalist.”

I didn’t wait for his reply; I turned on my heel immediately and walked away, asking myself how the hell I could approach the German group without being too brazen.

The solution presented itself to me in the form of the compact that Candelaria had given me a few minutes before I left home. I took it out of my handbag and opened it. As I walked, I pretended to look at a tiny part of my face in it, anticipating a visit to the toilettes. Except that while I was concentrating on the mirror I veered slightly off my path and instead of making my way through the clear gaps, instead—what bad luck!—I bumped into the back of the German consul.

My collision stopped the group’s conversation abruptly and knocked the compact to the ground.

“I’m so very sorry, forgive me, I just wasn’t paying attention . . . ,” I said, my voice loaded with fake embarrassment.

Four of the men immediately made as if to bend down and retrieve my compact, but one was faster than the rest. The thinnest of them all, the one with the near-white hair combed back. The only Spaniard. The one with the cat’s eyes.

“I think the mirror’s broken,” he said as he straightened up. “Look.”

I looked. But before fixing my eyes on the cracked mirror I tried quickly to make out what else he was holding in his so-slender fingers.

“Yes, seems to be broken,” I murmured, delicately running my index finger over the splintered surface that he still held in his hands. My just-painted nails were reflected in it a hundred times.

We were shoulder to shoulder, our heads close together, both of us bending over the little object. I could see the fair skin on his face from just inches away, his delicate features and the white at his temples, the dark eyebrows, the fine mustache.

“Careful, you’ll cut yourself,” he said softly.

I lingered a few seconds longer, checking that the tablet of powder was in one piece, that the powder puff was still in place. And in the process I took another look at what he was still holding between his fingers, what just a few minutes earlier had passed from hand to hand between them. Photographs. It was a few photographs. I could only see the first one: people I didn’t recognize, making up a tight little group of anonymous faces and bodies.

“Yes, probably better to close it,” I said at last.

“Here you are, then.”

I brought the two parts together with a loud click.

“It’s a shame; it’s a very beautiful compact. Almost as beautiful as its owner,” he added.

I accepted the compliment with a flirtatious expression and my most dazzling smile.

“Oh, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it, really.”

“It’s been a pleasure, señorita,” he said, holding out his hand. I noticed it weighed almost nothing.

“Likewise, Señor Serrano,” I replied with a blink. “My apologies again for the interruption. Good evening, gentlemen,” I added, sweeping my gaze over the rest of the group. Each one had a swastika on his lapel.

“Good evening,” the Germans repeated in chorus.

I resumed my path, making my walk as graceful as I possibly could. When I sensed they could no longer see me, I took a glass of wine from a waiter’s tray, downed it in one gulp, and tossed it empty into the rosebushes.

I cursed Marcus Logan for having set me onto that idiotic adventure, and I cursed myself for having accepted. I’d got much closer to Serrano Suñer than any of the other guests—his face had been practically touching mine, our fingers had brushed against each other’s, I’d heard his voice in my ear with a closeness almost bordering on intimacy. I’d shown myself to him as a frivolous, scatterbrained woman, glad to be the object of the attention of this distinguished personage for a few moments, while the truth was that I hadn’t been the least bit interested in meeting him. And it had all been for nothing; just to discover that the group had been looking at a handful of photographs in which I wasn’t able to make out a single person I recognized.

I dragged my irritation all the way across the garden till I reached the door to the main building of the High Commission. I needed to find a bathroom—use the lavatory, wash my hands, get away from it all for a few minutes and calm myself down before meeting up with Marcus Logan again. I followed the directions that someone gave me: I went down an entrance hall decorated with metopes and portraits of officers in uniform, turned right and went along a broad corridor. Third door on the left, they’d told me. Before I reached it, some voices alerted me to what was going on at my destination; just a few seconds later I saw it with my own eyes. The floor was soaked, water seemed to be gushing from somewhere inside, probably from a burst tank. Two ladies were angrily complaining about the damage it was doing to their shoes, and three soldiers were dragging themselves across the floor on their knees, working away with rags and towels, trying to stem the flow of the water, which was already beginning to invade the tiled corridor. I remained still, watching the scene as reinforcements arrived with arms full of rags—it looked like they’d even brought some bedsheets. The lady guests moved away, complaining and grumbling, then someone offered to escort me to the other bathroom.

I followed a soldier along the corridor in the opposite direction. We crossed the main hallway again and went into a new corridor, this one silent and dimly lit. We turned several times, first left, then right, then left again. More or less.

“Would madam like me to wait?” he asked when we’d arrived.

“Thank you, there’s no need, I’ll find my own way.”

I wasn’t too sure of that, but the idea of having a sentry waiting for me made me feel extremely uncomfortable, so once I’d dispatched my escort I did what I needed to do, smoothed out my dress, retouched my hair, and readied myself to go back out. But I didn’t have the heart, and faced with returning to reality my strength failed me. So I decided to treat myself to a few moments of solitude. I opened the window, and through it came the African night with its jasmine scent. I sat down on the windowsill and contemplated the shadow of the palms and heard the distant sound of the conversations in the front garden. I distracted myself without actually doing anything, savoring the tranquillity and allowing my worries to dissipate. After a time, however, in some remote corner of my brain, I heard a call. Tick tock, time to go back. I sighed, got up, and closed the window. I had to return to the world. To mix with those souls with whom I had so little in common, return to the side of that foreigner who had dragged me to this ridiculous party and asked me the most extravagant of favors. For the last time I looked at myself in the mirror, switched off the light, and went out.

I made my way along the dark corridor, turning a corner, then another. I thought I knew where I was going, then found myself confronting a double door I didn’t think I’d seen before. Opening it, I found a dark, empty room. I’d gone wrong somewhere, no doubt, so I changed my route. Another corridor, now turning left, I seemed to recall—but I was wrong again and had gone into a less regal area of the house, without the gleaming wood paneling or oil-painted generals on the walls; probably I was going into some service area. Just relax, I told myself not very convincingly. A vision of the night with the guns, with me in a haik and lost in the alleys of the medina, suddenly fluttered over me. I shook it off, focused, and immediately changed direction again. And straightaway found myself where I’d started, next to the bathroom. So, a false alarm—I wasn’t lost anymore. I thought back to the moment I’d arrived with the soldier and got my bearings. All perfectly clear, problem solved, I thought, making my way toward the exit. And everything did indeed start looking familiar again. A display of antique firearms, framed photographs, hanging flags. I’d seen it all minutes earlier and recognized it all. Even the voices I heard just around the corner that I was about to turn—the same ones I’d heard in the garden in the ridiculous scene with the powder compact.

“We’ll be more comfortable here, my dear Serrano; we’ll be able to talk more calmly here. It’s the room where Colonel Beigbeder usually receives us,” said a man with a thick German accent.

“Perfect,” was his interlocutor’s only reply.

I stopped still, not breathing. Serrano Suñer and at least one German were just a few feet away, approaching along a stretch of corridor at right angles with the one I was walking along. When they or I came around the corner, we’d be face-to-face. My legs trembled at the very thought. In fact, I had nothing to hide; I had no reason to be afraid of the meeting. Except that I didn’t have the strength to strike yet another pretend pose, to allow me to pass once again for an airheaded fool and give some pathetic explanation about a broken tank and puddles of water in order to justify my solitary wanderings through the corridors of the High Commission in the middle of the night. It took me less than a second to weigh my options. I didn’t have time to retrace my steps, and I wanted at all costs to avoid meeting them face-to-face, which meant I couldn’t go backward or forward. That being the case, my only option was sideways, through a closed door. Without giving it a second thought, I opened it and went in.

The room was unlit, but traces of moonlight were coming in through the windows. I leaned my shoulder on the door, waiting for Serrano and his companions to pass by the room and disappear so that I could go out and continue on my way. The garden with its festival lights, the hum of the conversations, and the imperturbable solidity of Marcus Logan suddenly seemed like a paradise to me, but I was afraid this wasn’t the moment for me to reach it. I breathed heavily, with each gulp of air trying to expel a bit of the anxiety from my body. I focused my eyes on my sanctuary, and among the shadows I could make out chairs, armchairs and a glass-fronted bookcase against the wall. There were other pieces of furniture, too, but I didn’t stop to identify them because at that moment something else caught my attention. Close by, behind the door.

“Here we are,” announced the German voice, accompanied by the sound of the door handle releasing the latch.

I moved away with rapid strides and reached a side wall of the room as the door began to open.

“Where might the switch be?” I heard someone say as I slipped behind a sofa. The moment my body touched the floor, the light came on.

“Well then, here we are. Do sit down, my friend, please.”

I was lying facedown, my left cheek on the cold of the floor tiles, controlling my breathing and with my eyes opened wide, filled with terror. At first not daring to breathe in, to swallow, or to move so much as an eyelash. Like a marble statue, like someone shot but not yet dead.

The German seemed to be acting as the host and to be addressing just one interlocutor—I knew this because I only heard two voices, and because under the sofa, from my unexpected hiding place and looking between the legs of the furniture, I could only make out two pairs of feet.

“Is the high commissioner aware that we’re here?” asked Serrano.

“He’s busy looking after the guests; we can talk to him later if you wish,” replied the German vaguely.

I heard them sit: their bodies settled, the springs creaked. The Spaniard sat in an armchair; I saw the cuffs of his dark trousers, their creases well ironed, his black socks around his thin ankles lost in a pair of conscientiously shined shoes. The German positioned himself opposite him, on the right-hand end of the sofa behind which I was hiding. His legs were thicker and his footwear less refined. If I’d reached out I could almost have tickled him.

They talked for a long while: I couldn’t have said how long exactly, but it was enough that my neck was aching horribly, enough that I was desperate to scratch an itch, struggling to stop myself from shouting, crying, running out of the room. I heard the sound of a lighter and the room filled with cigarette smoke. From floor level I saw Serrano’s legs cross and uncross countless times; the German, meanwhile, barely moved. I tried to tame my fear, find the least uncomfortable position, and beg heaven that none of my limbs would demand any unexpected movement.

My field of vision was very small, and my capacity for movement nil. I had access to nothing but what was floating in the air and coming in my ear: to what they were talking about. So I concentrated on the thread of conversation; since I’d been unable to obtain any interesting information during the powder-compact encounter, I thought that this might be of interest to Marcus Logan. Or at least that it would keep me distracted and prevent my mind from becoming so unsettled that I’d end up losing my grip on reality.

I heard them talk about installations and transmissions, about ships and aircraft, quantities of gold, German marks, pesetas, bank accounts. Signatures and terms of payment, supplies; balances of power, numbers of companies, ports and loyalties. I learned that the German was Johannes Bernhardt, that Serrano was using Franco as an excuse to put more pressure on him and avoid acceding to certain conditions. And even though I was missing information that would have allowed me to understand the whole situation, I could tell that the two men were both concerned that the matter they were discussing should turn out well.

And it did. At last they reached an agreement, then they got up and sealed their agreement with a handshake that I heard but couldn’t see. But I could see their feet moving toward the door, the German allowing the guest to walk ahead of him, acting the host again. Before leaving, Bernhardt threw out one last question.

“Will you talk to Colonel Beigbeder about this, or would you rather I told him about it myself?”

Serrano didn’t reply right away. First I heard him light a cigarette. His umpteenth one.

“Do you really think it’s absolutely essential to do that?” he asked after breathing out his first drag of smoke.

“The installations will be located in the Spanish Protectorate, so I suppose he ought to know something about it.”

“Leave it to me, then. El Caudillo will inform him directly. And as to the terms of the agreement, best not to let any details out. That can be kept between us,” he added as the German turned out the lights.

I let a few minutes go by, until I calculated that they were out of the building. Then I got up cautiously. All that remained of their presence was the thick smell of tobacco and an ashtray full of cigarette butts. And yet I was incapable of lowering my guard. I straightened my skirt and jacket and approached the door stealthily on tiptoes. I brought my hand slowly to the doorknob, as though afraid that touching it would give me a whip-sharp pain, afraid to go out into the corridor. I didn’t get as far as moving the latch, however; my fingers were just about to touch the handle when I noticed that someone else was moving it from the other side. Automatically I threw myself back and pressed myself against the wall as though trying to sink into it. The door burst open almost hitting me in the face, and a second later the light came on. I couldn’t see who’d come in, but I could hear his voice cursing through his teeth.

“So where the hell has the bastard left the damned cigarette case then . . . ”

Even without being able to see him I could tell it was just a simple soldier reluctantly carrying out an order, retrieving an object left behind by Serrano or Bernhardt. I didn’t know at which of them the soldier was aiming his epithet. Darkness and silence returned in seconds, but I wasn’t able to recover enough courage to venture out into the corridor. For the second time in my life, my salvation came by jumping out of a window.

I returned to the garden and to my surprise found Marcus Logan in animated conversation with Beigbeder. I tried to retreat, but I was too late: he’d already seen me and called me over to join them. I approached, trying not to let them see how nervous I was: after what had just happened, a private audience with the high commissioner was the last thing I needed.

“So you’re my Rosalinda’s pretty dressmaker friend, then,” he said, greeting me with a smile.

He had a cigar in his hand and put the other arm over my shoulders familiarly.

“I’m so pleased to meet you at last, my dear. It’s such a shame our Rosalinda is indisposed and hasn’t been able to join us.”

“What’s the matter with her?”

With the hand that was holding the cigar he traced circles over his belly.

“Intestinal troubles. She gets them when she’s anxious, and these past days we’ve been so busy attending to our guest that my poor little thing has barely had a moment’s peace.”

He gestured for me and Marcus to bring our heads closer and dropped the tone of his voice with apparent complicity.

“Thank God the brother-in-law’s going tomorrow; I don’t think I could bear him a day longer.”

He finished off this confidence with a booming laugh and we imitated him.

“Well, friends, I really ought to go,” he said, looking at his watch. “Much as I love your company, duty calls: now it’s time for the anthems, the speeches, and all that paraphernalia, undoubtedly the most boring part. Go see Rosalinda whenever you can, Sira—she’d appreciate the visit. And you, too, Logan, stop by her house; the company of a compatriot would be good for her. And let’s see if we can’t all arrange to have dinner one night, the four of us, to relax a little. ‘God save the king!’ ” he added in English by way of farewell, raising his hand theatrically. And without a further word he turned and left.

We remained in silence a few moments, watching him walk away, unable to find an adjective to assign to the uniqueness of the man who’d just left us.

“I’ve been looking for you for an hour, where were you?” Marcus asked finally, his eyes still fixed on the high commissioner’s back.

“I’ve been solving your problems, just like you asked me to do.”

“You mean you managed to see what it was that the group was passing around?”

“Nothing important. Family photographs.”

“God, what bad luck.”

We talked without looking at each other, both with our eyes on Beigbeder.

“But I’ve learned other things that might be of interest to you,” I announced.

“Such as?”

“Agreements. Negotiations. Deals.”

“About what?”

“Antennas,” I explained. “Large antennas. Three of them. About three hundred feet high, a console system, the Electro-Sonner brand. The Germans want to install them to intercept radio signals from air and maritime traffic in the Strait, to make up for the presence of the English in Gibraltar. They’re negotiating to have them installed next to the Tamuda ruins, a few miles from here. In exchange for express permission being granted by Franco, the Nationalist army will receive a substantial sum from the German government. It will all be run by HISMA, a firm whose senior partner is Johannes Bernhardt, who’s the one Serrano closed the deal with. They intend to marginalize Beigbeder, to hide it from him.”

“My goodness,” he muttered. Then in Spanish: “How did you find out?”

We went on without exchanging a glance, both of us apparently still looking attentively at the high commissioner, who made his way, greeting people as he went, toward a decorated platform on which someone was setting up a microphone.

“Because I happened to be in the same room where they were closing the deal.”

“And they closed the deal right in front of you?” he asked, incredulous.

“No, don’t worry; they didn’t see me. It’s a rather long story, I’ll tell you about it another time.”

“Very well. Tell me something else, did they talk about dates?”

The microphone squeaked with an unpleasantly shrill sound. Testing, testing, said a voice.

“The parts are ready, and they’re docked at Hamburg. As soon as they have El Caudillo’s signature they’ll be unloaded at Ceuta and the assembly will begin.”

In the distance we saw the colonel energetically step up onto the dais, calling Serrano over to join him with an expansive gesture. He was still smiling, still greeting people confidently. I asked Marcus a couple of questions.

“Do you think Beigbeder should know that they’re leaving him out? Do you think I should tell Rosalinda?”

He thought about it before answering, his eyes still on the two men, who were now receiving the feverish applause of the audience.

“I suppose so; it would be worthwhile for him to know that. But I think it’s best for the information not to get to him through you and Mrs. Fox, it could compromise her. Leave it to me, I’ll work out the best way of passing it on to him. Don’t say anything to your friend; I’ll find an opportunity.”

A few more seconds of silence went by, as though he were still considering everything he’d just heard.

“You know something, Sira?” he asked, turning to face me at last. “Even though I don’t know how you did it, you’ve managed to get hold of an amazing piece of information, much more interesting than I originally thought it would be possible to get during a reception like this. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“There’s a very simple way,” I interrupted him.

“Which is?”

At that moment, the caliph’s orchestra launched enthusiastically into “Cara al sol” and dozens of arms were immediately raised as though propelled by a spring. I stood on tiptoes and brought my mouth close to his ear.

“Get me out of here.”

Without another word, he held his hand out to me. I gripped it hard and we slipped away toward the end of the garden. As soon as we could tell that no one could see us, we broke into a run, into the shadows.