The Time in Between A Novel

Chapter Sixty-Eight

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Marcus appeared at the appointed time. I’d left a message for him at his hotel, and as I’d expected it reached him easily. He had no idea whose address that was: he just knew that I’d be waiting for him there. And there I was indeed, in a red silk crêpe suit, dazzling right down to my toes. Made up to perfection, with my long neck uncovered and dark hair gathered in a high bun. Waiting.

He arrived, looking impeccable in his dinner jacket, his shirt front starched and his body hardened by a thousand unmentionable adventures. Or at least, unmentionable until now. I went to open the door for him myself the moment I heard the bell. We greeted each other, struggling to hide our affection, standing so close, almost intimate at last.

“I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

Taking his arm, I led him to the living room.

“Marcus, this is Gonzalo Alvarado. I’ve brought you to his house because I want you to know who he is. And I also want him to know who you are. For him to be quite clear who we both are.”

They greeted each other politely, Gonzalo poured us a drink, and the three of us chatted about banalities for a few minutes, until the maid—in a very timely fashion—came to the door to summon the host to take a telephone call.

We were left alone, looking like the perfect couple. To see something that was closer to the truth, however, you just needed to hear the hoarse words that Marcus murmured in my ears, barely moving his lips.

“Can we speak in private a moment?”

“Of course. Come with me.”

I led him to the library. The grand portrait of Doña Carlota still presided from the wall behind the desk, with her diamond tiara that once was mine, and later no longer mine.

“Who’s the man you just introduced me to, why do you want him to know about me? What is this ambush all about, Sira?” he asked roughly when we were separated from the rest of the house.

“It’s one I’ve prepared specially for you,” I said, sitting down in one of the chairs. I crossed my legs and stretched my right arm out over the backrest. Comfortable, mistress of the situation, as though I’d spent my whole life setting up traps like this. “I need to know whether it is convenient for me that you should remain in my life, or if it’s better that we don’t see each other again.”

He didn’t find my words the least bit funny.

“This doesn’t make any sense; maybe it would be best for me togo . . . ”

“You’re giving up so easily? Only three days ago it seemed as though you were prepared to fight for me. You promised you would at any cost: you told me you’d lost me once and you weren’t going to let it happen again. Have your feelings cooled that quickly? Or were you lying to me, perhaps?”

He looked at me without saying a word, still standing, tense and cold, distant.

“What do you want from me, Sira?” he said at last.

“I want you to be honest with me about your past. In exchange you’ll know everything you need to know about my present. And on top of that you’ll get a reward, too.”

“What is it about my past that you want to know?”

“I want you to tell me what you went to Morocco for. Do you want to know what your reward will be?”

He didn’t reply.

“Your reward will be me. If I’m satisfied with your answer, you get to keep me. If I’m not convinced, you lose me forever. You choose.”

He was silent again. Then he walked slowly toward me.

“Why on earth should you care now why I went to Morocco?”

“Once, years ago, I opened my heart to a man who didn’t show me his true face, and it took infinite efforts on my part to close up the wounds he made in my soul. I don’t want the same thing to happen with you. I don’t want any more lies, any more shadows. I don’t want men simply availing themselves of me to suit their whims, coming closer and moving away again without any warning, even though it might be to save my life. That’s why I need to see your whole hand now, Marcus. I’ve seen some of your cards already: I know who you work for and I know that you aren’t really in the business world, I know you weren’t really in journalism back then, either. But there are other gaps in your story that I still need to fill.”

Finally he settled on the arm of a sofa. He kept one foot on the floor and crossed the other over it. His back straight, his glass still in his hand, his face set in determination.

“Very well,” he agreed after a few seconds. “I’m prepared to talk. In exchange for your being honest with me. About everything.”

“Afterward, I promise.”

“Tell me what you know about me, then.”

“That you’re a member of the British military secret service. The SIS, MI6, whatever you prefer to call it.”

The surprise didn’t show on his face: he’d probably been trained not to reveal his emotions. Not like me. I hadn’t been trained to do anything, I hadn’t been prepared, I hadn’t been protected: I’d just been thrown naked out into a world of ravenous wolves. But I’d learned, on my own, struggling, stumbling, falling, and getting back up; setting off again—one foot, then the other. My head held high, eyes fixed straight ahead of me.

“I don’t know how you got hold of that information,” was his only reply. “In any case, it doesn’t matter: I suppose your sources are reliable and there wouldn’t be any point in my denying what’s obvious.”

“But there are a few other things I still don’t know.”

“Where do you want me to start?”

“You could start from the moment we met, for example. Start with the real reason you came to Morocco.”

“Very well. The main reason was that in London they knew very little about what was going on within the Protectorate, and they were hearing from a number of sources that the Germans were infiltrating it freely with the acquiescence of the Spanish authorities. Our intelligence service hardly had any information on High Commissioner Beigbeder: he wasn’t one of the better-known military men, we didn’t know how he behaved, or what plans or opinions he had, and above all we didn’t know what his position was on the Germans, who were apparently so free to do whatever they wanted in the territory he controlled.”

“And what did you learn?”

“That as expected the Germans were operating in whatever way took their fancy, sometimes with his consent and sometimes without it. You helped me get part of that information yourself.”

I ignored that comment.

“And about Beigbeder?”

“I found out the same things about him that you know, too. That he was—and I imagine still is—an intelligent man, distinguished and rather unusual.”

“And why did they send you to Morocco, given the dreadful state you were in?”

“We got word of the existence of Rosalinda Fox, a compatriot of ours who was in a relationship with the high commissioner: a precious jewel to us, the best possible opportunity. But approaching her directly was too risky: she was so valuable to us that we couldn’t risk losing her with an operation that had been clumsily planned. We had to wait for just the right moment. So when we learned that she was looking for someone to help evacuate the mother of a friend of hers, the machinery was set in motion. And it was decided that I was just the right person because while I was in Madrid I’d had contact with someone who handled those evacuations to the Mediterranean. I’d kept London informed about Lance’s movements myself, so they thought I’d have the perfect alibi to show up in Tetouan and approach Beigbeder with the excuse that I was carrying out a service for his lover. There was a small problem, however: at the time I was half dead in the Royal London Hospital, flat on my back in bed with my body all bashed up, semiconscious and pumped full of morphine.”

“But you risked it, you fooled us all and got what you wanted . . .”

“Much more than we’d ever expected,” he said. I could see the trace of a smile on his lips, the first I’d seen since we’d shut ourselves in the library. I felt the pinch of a confused emotion: the Marcus I’d so yearned for, the Marcus I wanted to keep by my side, had finally returned. “They were very special times,” he went on. “After more than a year living in the turmoil of war-stricken Spain, Morocco was the best thing that could have happened to me. I recovered, and I carried out my mission with exceptional results. And I met you. I couldn’t have asked for more than that.”

“How did you do it?”

“Almost every night I sent messages from my room at the Hotel Nacional. I had a small radio transmitter with me, hidden at the bottom of my suitcase. And I wrote an encrypted message daily about what I’d seen, what I’d heard. Then, whenever I could, I passed it on to a contact in Tangiers, a shop assistant at Saccone & Speed.”

“And no one ever suspected you?”

“Of course they did. Beigbeder was no fool, you know that as well as I do. My room was searched several times, but they probably sent someone who just wasn’t all that skillful: they never found anything. The Germans were suspicious, too, but they weren’t able to get hold of any information either. For my part, I did my best never to make a single false move. I didn’t contact anyone outside official circles and didn’t venture onto any hazardous terrain. Quite the reverse—my behavior remained irreproachable. I allowed myself to be seen with all the right people and always went around in the plain light of day. All apparently entirely clean. Any more questions?”

He already seemed less tense, closer. More the Marcus he used to be.

“Why did you leave so suddenly? You didn’t warn me: you just showed up one morning at my house, gave me the news that my mother was on her way, and I never saw you again.”

“Because I received urgent orders to get out of the Protectorate immediately. There were more and more Germans arriving every day, and word got out that someone suspected me. I still managed to delay my departure a few days, even though I was risking being uncovered.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to leave without confirming that your mother’s evacuation had gone ahead as we’d hoped. I’d promised you that. There was nothing I would have wanted more than to have been able to stay with you, but it wasn’t possible: that wasn’t my world, and my time had come. And besides, it wasn’t the best time for you, either. You were still recovering from a betrayal and you weren’t ready to put your trust entirely in another man, least of all someone who would have to abandon you suddenly without being able to be absolutely honest about why. That’s it, my dear Sira. The end. Is that the story you wanted to hear? Will this version do?”

“It will,” I said, getting up and walking toward him.

“So, have I earned my reward?”

I didn’t say anything. I just approached him, lowered myself onto his lap, and brought my mouth to his ear. My made-up face brushed against his freshly shaved skin; my lips, bright with lipstick, spilled out a whisper just half an inch from his earlobe. I noticed how he tensed when he felt my closeness.

“Yes, you’ve earned your reward. But you might find that this gift is poisoned.”

“Perhaps. If I’m to know that, I need to find out about you now. When I left you in Tetouan you were a young dressmaker filled with tenderness and innocence, and when I found you in Lisbon you’d been transformed into a grown woman who had become close to someone entirely inappropriate. I want to know what happened in between.”

“You’ll find out very soon. And so that you absolutely trust my story, you’re going to hear it from someone else, someone I believe you already know. Come with me.”

We walked arm in arm down the corridor. I heard my father’s powerful voice in the distance and once again couldn’t help remembering the day I’d met him. How many turns had my life taken since then? How many times had I been nearly drowned, unable to come up for air, and how many times had I managed to get my head back above the surface? But that was all in the past now, and the days for looking back were past. It was time to concentrate on the present alone, to face it head-on in order to attend to the future.

I guessed that the other two guests were already there and that everything had gone according to plan. When we arrived at our destination we unlocked our arms, though our fingers were still entwined. Until we both saw who was waiting for us. And then I smiled. Marcus did not.

“Good evening, Mrs. Hillgarth; good evening, Captain. I’m glad to see you,” I said, interrupting their conversation.

The room filled with a dense silence. A dense, anxious silence—electrifying.

“Good evening, miss,” replied Hillgarth after a few everlasting seconds. His voice sounded as though it were coming out of a cave. A dark, cold cave, because the head of the British secret service in Spain, the man who knew everything or ought to know everything, was feeling his way blind. “Good evening, Logan,” he added after a pause. His wife, this time without the makeup from the beauty salon, was so stunned to see us together that she was unable to respond. “I thought you’d gone back to Lisbon,” continued the naval attaché, addressing Marcus. “And I wasn’t aware that you two knew each other.”

I noticed Marcus was on the verge of saying something, but I didn’t let him. His hand was still in mine and I gave it a hard squeeze and he understood. I didn’t look at him, either: I didn’t want to see whether he was as confused as the Hillgarths were, and I didn’t want to see his reaction to them sitting there in that unfamiliar living room. We’d talk about it later, when everything had calmed down. I was sure that we would have plenty of time for that.

Looking into the wife’s big, light-colored eyes, I saw only confusion. It was she who had given me the guidelines for my Portuguese mission; she was completely involved with her husband’s activities. They were probably both struggling to connect the same dots I’d finished connecting the last time the captain and I had met. Da Silva and Lisbon, Marcus’s untimely arrival in Madrid, the same information delivered by the two of us just a few hours apart. All that, quite clearly, wasn’t merely the product of chance. How could they have missed it?

“Agent Logan and I have known each other for years, Captain, but we hadn’t seen each other for a long time, and we’re just finishing catching up on what we’ve each been doing,” I explained. “I know all about his situation and his responsibilities now, and since you were extremely helpful to me not so long ago, I thought you might be so kind as to assist me again by informing him about mine. And that way my father can hear about it at the same time. Oh—sorry! I’d forgotten to tell you: Gonzalo Alvarado is my father. And don’t worry: we’ll try to be seen in public together as little as we can, but you can understand that breaking off my relations with him completely won’t be possible.”

Hillgarth didn’t reply: he looked at us both again with a granite stare from under his bushy eyebrows.

Imagine Gonzalo’s bewilderment: it was probably as extreme as Marcus’s, but neither of them spoke so much as a syllable. They just waited—as did I—for Hillgarth to digest my boldness. His wife, uneasy, resorted to a cigarette, opening the case with nervous fingers. A few uncomfortable seconds passed in which the only sound was the repeated click of her lighter. Until at last the naval attaché spoke.

“If I don’t reveal it, I presume you’d do it yourself anyway . . .”

“I fear you wouldn’t leave me any other choice,” I said, giving him my best smile. A new smile—full, confident, and slightly challenging.

The silence was only broken by the clink of the ice cubes against the glass as he brought the whiskey to his mouth. His wife hid her confusion behind a thick drag on her Craven A.

“I suppose this is the price we have to pay for what you brought us from Lisbon,” he said at last.

“For that, and for all the missions to come in which I’ll work myself to the bone, I give you my word on that. My word as a dressmaker, and my word as a spy.”