"Winter in Madrid" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sansom C. J.)Chapter FourOUTSIDE THE AMBASSADOR’S ROOM Tolhurst smiled apologetically. ‘Sorry about Sam,’ he said in a low voice. ‘He wouldn’t normally be in at a briefing for a new agent, but he’s nervous about this job. He’s got a rule: intelligence gathering is allowed, but no espionage, no antagonizing the regime. Some socialists came a few weeks ago to try and get help for the guerrillas fighting against Franco. Bloody dangerous for them. He sent them packing.’ Harry hadn’t liked Hoare, but was still slightly shocked by Tolhurst calling him Sam. ‘Because he wants good relations with the Monarchists?’ he asked. ‘Exactly. After the Civil War they hate the Reds, you can imagine.’ Tolhurst fell silent as they stepped into the street, the He renewed the conversation as they drove away. ‘They say Churchill sent Sam here to get him out of the way,’ he confided cheerfully. ‘Can’t stand him, doesn’t trust him either. That’s why he put the captain in charge of Intelligence; he’s an old friend of Winston’s. From his days out of government.’ ‘Aren’t we all supposed to be on the same side?’ ‘There’s a lot of internal politics.’ ‘You can say that again.’ Tolhurst smiled sardonically. ‘Sam’s a bitter man. He wanted to be Viceroy of India.’ ‘The in-fighting can’t make anyone’s job easier.’ ‘Way things are, old boy.’ Tolhurst looked at him seriously. ‘Best you should know the score.’ Harry changed the subject. ‘When I was at school I remember some adventure books by an Alan Hillgarth. Not the same man, I suppose?’ Tolhurst nodded. ‘The very same. Not bad, are they? Ever read the one set in Spanish Morocco? ‘I haven’t read it. I know Sandy Forsyth liked them.’ ‘Did he now?’ Tolhurst said with interest. ‘I’ll tell the captain. That’ll amuse him.’ They drove through the centre into a maze of narrow streets of four-storey tenements. It was late afternoon and the heat was starting to lift, long shadows falling across the road as Tolhurst steered carefully over the cobbles. The tenements had had no attention for years, plaster was falling from the brickwork like flesh from skeletons. There were several bombsites, heaps of stone overgrown with weeds. There were no other cars around and passers-by glanced at the car curiously. A donkey pulling a cart shied away into the pavement as they passed, nearly unseating its rider. Harry watched as the man steadied himself, mouthing a curse. ‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘how I was recruited.’ He kept his tone casual. ‘Just interest. Never mind if you can’t tell me.’ ‘Oh, that’s no secret. They were hunting up Forsyth’s old contacts and a master at Rookwood mentioned you.’ ‘Mr Taylor?’ ‘Don’t know the name. When they found you knew Spain they were in seventh heaven. That’s where the interpreter idea came from.’ ‘I see.’ ‘Real piece of luck.’ Tolhurst skirted a crack in the road by a bombsite. ‘Did you know, the embassy here was the first piece of British soil to be hit by a German bomb?’ ‘What? Oh, during the Civil War?’ ‘Hit the garden by accident when the Germans were bombing Madrid. Sam’s had it put back in order. He has his good points. He’s a first-class organizer, the embassy runs like clockwork. You have to give the pink rat his due.’ ‘The what?’ Tolhurst smiled confidentially. ‘It’s his nickname. He gets these fits of panic, thinks Spain’s about to come into the war and he’ll be shot, has to be persuaded not to run off to Portugal. D’you know, the other evening a bat flew into his study and he hid under the table, screaming for someone to take it away. You can imagine what Hillgarth thinks. But when he’s on form Sam’s a bloody good diplomat. Loves strutting about as the King-Emperor’s representative; the Monarchists all go soppy at anything to do with royalty, of course. Ah, here we are.’ Tolhurst had pulled up in a dusty square. There was a statue of a soldier in eighteenth-century dress on a pedestal in the middle, one arm missing, and a few fly-blown shops with half-empty windows. Tenements ringed the square, the windows behind the rusty iron balconies shuttered against the afternoon heat. The place must have had style once. Harry studied them through the window. He remembered a picture he had bought in a back-street shop in 1931: a crumbling tenement building like this, a girl leaning out of a window, smiling as a gipsy serenaded her underneath. He had it in his room at Cambridge. There was something romantic about decaying buildings; the Victorians had loved them, of course. But it was different if you had to live in them. Tolhurst pointed to a narrow street leading north, where the buildings looked even more down at heel. ‘Wouldn’t go down there if I were you. That’s La Latina. Bad area, leads across the river to Carabanchel.’ ‘I know,’ Harry replied. ‘There was a family we used to visit in Carabanchel when I came in 1931.’ Tolhurst looked at him curiously. ‘The Nationalists shelled it badly during the Siege, didn’t they?’ Harry asked. ‘Yes, and they’ve left it to rot since the Civil War. See the place as full of their enemies. There are people starving down there, I’m told, and packs of wild dogs living in the ruined buildings. People have been bitten and got rabies.’ Harry looked down the long empty street. ‘What else is there you should know?’ Tolhurst asked. ‘English people aren’t very popular generally. It’s the propaganda. It’s never more than dirty looks, though.’ ‘How do we deal with Germans if we meet them?’ ‘Oh, just cut the bastards dead. Be careful about greeting people who look English on the streets,’ he added as he opened the car door. ‘They’re just as likely to be Gestapo.’ Outside the air was full of dust, a breeze lifting little whorls of it from the street. They took Harry’s case from the car. A thin old woman in black crossed the square, a huge bag of clothes on her head supported by one hand. Harry wondered which side she had supported during the Civil War, or whether she had been one of the thousands without politics, caught in the middle. Her face was deeply lined, her expression tired but stoical; one of those who endured – somehow, only just. Tolhurst handed Harry a brown card. ‘Your rations. The embassy gets diplomatic rations and we distribute them. Better than we get at home. A lot better than the rations they get here.’ His eyes followed the old woman. ‘They say people are digging up vegetable roots for food. You can buy stuff on the black market, of course, but it’s expensive.’ ‘Thanks.’ Harry pocketed the card. Tolhurst went over to one of the tenements, producing a key, and they entered a dark vestibule with cracked flaking paint. Water dripped somewhere and there was a smell of stale urine. They climbed stone steps to the second floor, where the doors of three flats faced them. Two little girls were playing with battered dolls in the hallway. ‘ It was a three-bedroomed flat, such as Harry remembered would often house a family of ten in crowded squalor. It had been cleaned and there was a smell of polish. It was furnished like a middle-class home, full of heavy old sofas and cabinets. There were no pictures on the mustard-yellow walls, only blank squares where they had hung. Dust motes danced in a beam of sunlight. ‘It’s big,’ said Harry. ‘Yes, better than the shoebox where I live. Just the one Communist Party official used to live here. Disgrace when you see how most people are crowded together. Left empty for a year after he was taken away. Then the authorities remembered they had it and put it up for rent.’ Harry ran a finger along the film of dust on the table. ‘By the way, what’s this about Himmler coming here?’ Tolhurst looked serious. ‘It’s all over the Fascist press. State visit next week.’ He shook his head. ‘You never get used to the idea that we might have to run. There have been so many false alarms.’ Harry nodded. He’s not really brave, he thought, no more than I am. ‘So you report directly to Hillgarth?’ he asked. ‘That’s right.’ Tolhurst tapped the leg of an ornate bureau with his foot. ‘I don’t get to do any actual secret work, though. I’m the admin man.’ He gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘Simon Tolhurst, general dogsbody. Flats found, reports typed, expenses checked.’ He paused. ‘By the way, make sure you keep a careful note of everything you spend. London’s red-hot on expenses.’ Tolhurst looked out of the window at the central courtyard where patched washing flapped on lines strung between the balconies, then turned back to Harry. ‘Tell me,’ he asked curiously, ‘does Madrid look much different to when you were here under the Republic?’ ‘Yes. It was bad enough then but it looks worse now. Even poorer.’ ‘Maybe things’ll get better. I suppose at least now there’s strong government.’ ‘Maybe.’ ‘Did you hear what Dal#237; said – Spain’s a nation of peasants who need a firm hand? Cuba was the same, they just can’t handle democracy. Everything goes to pot.’ Tolhurst shook his head, as though it was all beyond him. Harry felt a spurt of anger at his naivet#233;, then reflected that it was beyond him too, the tragedy that had happened here. Bernie was the one who had had all the answers but his side had lost and Bernie was dead. ‘Coffee?’ he asked Tolhurst. ‘If there is any.’ ‘Oh yes, place is stocked. And there’s a phone, but be careful what you say, it’ll be tapped as you’re Dip Corps. Same with letters home, they’re censored. So take care if you’re writing to family, or a girlfriend. Got anyone back home?’ he added diffidently. Harry shook his head. ‘No. You?’ ‘No. They don’t let me out of the embassy much.’ Tolhurst looked at him curiously. ‘What took you to Carabanchel, when you were here before?’ ‘I came with Bernie Piper. My Communist schoolfriend.’ Harry smiled wryly. ‘I’m sure it’s in my file.’ ‘Ah. Yes.’ Tolhurst reddened slightly. ‘He got friendly with a family down there. They were good people; Christ knows what’s happened to them now.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll get that coffee.’ Tolhurst looked at his watch. ‘Actually, I’d better not. Got to check some damned expenses. Come to the embassy at nine tomorrow, we’ll show you the ropes for the translators.’ ‘Will the other translators know I’m working for Hillgarth?’ Tolhurst shook his head. ‘Lord, no. They’re all regular Dip Corps, just performers in Sam’s circus.’ He laughed and extended a damp hand to Harry. ‘It’s all right, we’ll run through it all tomorrow.’ HARRY TOOK OFF his collar and tie, feeling a welcome current of air playing on the damp ring around his neck. He sat in a leather armchair and looked through Forsyth’s file. There wasn’t much there: some more photographs, details of his work with Auxilio Social, his contacts in the Falange. Sandy was living in a big house, paying liberally for black market goods. Outside he heard a woman’s voice, harsh, calling her children in. He put down the file and walked over to the window, looking through the washing to the shadowy courtyard, where children were playing. He opened the windows, the old familiar smell of cooking mingled with rot striking his nostrils. He could see the woman leaning out, she was young and pretty but wore a widow’s black. She called her children again and they ran indoors. Harry turned back to the room. It was poorly lit and seemed full of gloomy corners, the places where pictures or posters had been removed standing out as ghostly squares. He wondered what had hung there. Pictures of Lenin and Stalin? There was something oppressive about the still, quiet atmosphere. The Communist would have been taken after Franco occupied Madrid, hauled away and shot in a cellar probably. Harry switched on the light but nothing happened. The light in the hall was the same; probably a power cut. He had been uneasy about spying on Sandy but now he felt a growing anger. Sandy was working with Falangists, people who wanted to make war against England. ‘Why, Sandy?’ he asked aloud. His voice in the silence startled him. He felt suddenly alone. He was in a hostile country, working for an embassy that seemed to be a hotbed of rivalries. Tolhurst couldn’t have been friendlier but Harry guessed he would be reporting his impressions of him to Hillgarth, taking pleasure in being in the know. He thought of Hillgarth telling him to treat this as an adventure, and wondered, as he had wondered from time to time during his training, if he was the right man for this job, if he was up to it. He had said nothing about his doubts: it was an important job and they needed him to do it. For a second, though, he felt panic clutch at the corners of his mind. This won’t do, he told himself. There was a radio on a table in the corner and he switched it on. The glass panel in the centre lit up; the power must be back on. He remembered when he was at his uncle’s, on holiday from Rookwood, playing with the radio in the sitting room in the evening. Twiddling the dial, he would hear voices from far-off countries: Italy, Russia, Hitler’s harsh screech from Germany. He had wished he could understand the voices that came and went, so far away, interrupted by swishes and crackles. His interest in languages had begun there. Now he twiddled the dial, looking for the BBC, but could find only a Spanish station playing martial music. He wandered through to the bedroom. The bed had been freshly made up and he lay down, suddenly tired; it had been a long day. Now the playing children had gone he was struck again by the silence outside, it was as though Madrid lay under a shroud. An occupied city, Tolhurst had said. He could hear the blood hissing in his ears. It seemed louder in his bad one. He thought of unpacking, but let his mind drift back, to 1931, his first visit to Madrid. He and Bernie, twenty years old, arriving at Atocha station on a July day, rucksacks on their backs. He remembered emerging from the soot-smelling station into blazing sunlight, and there was the red-yellow-purple flag of the Republic flying over the Agriculture Ministry opposite, outlined against a cobalt-blue sky so bright he had to screw up his eyes. AFTER SANDY FORSYTH left Rookwood in disgrace, Bernie returned to the study and his friendship with Harry resumed: two quiet, studious boys working for their Cambridge entrance. Bernie tended to keep his political views to himself in those days. He made the rugby XV in his last year and enjoyed the rough, speedy brutality of the field. Harry preferred cricket; when he made the first eleven it was one of the high points of his life. Seven people from that year’s sixth form sat the Cambridge entrance. Harry came second and Bernie first, winning the #163;50 prize donated by an Old Boy. Bernie said it was more money than he had ever imagined seeing, let alone owning. In the autumn they went to Cambridge together but to different colleges and their paths diverged, Harry mixing with a serious, studious set and Bernie off with the socialist groups, bored with his studies. They still met for a drink now and then but less often as time passed. Harry hadn’t seen Bernie for over a month when he breezed into his rooms one summer morning at the end of their second year. ‘What’re you doing these hols?’ he asked once Harry had made tea. ‘I’m going to France. It’s been decided. I’m going to spend the summer travelling around, trying to get fluent. My cousin Will and his wife were going to come to start with, for their holidays, but she’s expecting.’ He sighed; it had been a disappointment and he was nervous of travelling alone. ‘Are you going to work in the shop again?’ ‘No. I’m going to Spain for a month. They’re doing some great things there.’ Harry was reading Spanish as a second language; he knew the monarchy had fallen that April. A Republic had been declared, with a government of liberals and socialists dedicated, they said, to bringing reform and progress to one of Europe’s most backward countries. ‘I want to see it,’ Bernie said. His face shone with enthusiasm. ‘This new constitution’s a people’s constitution, it’s the end for the landlords and the church.’ He looked at Harry thoughtfully. ‘But I don’t really want to go to Spain alone, either. I wondered if you’d like to come. After all, you speak the language, why not go and see Spain too, see it first hand instead of reading dusty old Spanish playwrights? I could come to France first if you don’t want to be on your own,’ Bernie added. ‘I’d like to see it. Then we could go on to Spain.’ He smiled. Bernie was always persuasive. ‘Spain’s pretty primitive, though, isn’t it? How will we find our way around?’ Bernie pulled a battered Labour Party card from his pocket. ‘This’ll help us. I’ll introduce you to the international socialist brotherhood.’ Harry smiled. ‘Can I charge an interpreter’s fee?’ He realized that was why Bernie wanted him to come and felt an unexpected sadness. THEY TOOK the ferry to France in July. They spent ten days in Paris then travelled slowly south by train, spending their nights in cheap hostels along the way. It was a pleasant, lazy time, and to Harry’s pleasure their easy companionship from Rookwood returned. Bernie pored over a Spanish grammar, he wanted to be able to speak to the people. Some of his enthusiasm for what he called the new Spain rubbed off on Harry and they were both staring eagerly out of the window as the train pulled into Atocha that hot summer morning. Madrid was exciting, extraordinary. Walking round the Centro they saw buildings decorated with socialist and anarchist flags, posters for rallies and strike meetings covering the peeling walls of the old buildings. Here and there they saw burned-out churches, which made Harry shudder but Bernie smile with grim pleasure. ‘Not much of a workers’ paradise,’ Harry said, wiping a sheen of sweat from his brow. The heat was baking, a heat such as neither of the English boys had imagined could exist. They were standing in the Puerta del Sol, hot and dusty. Pedlars with donkey carts threaded their way between the trams and ragged shoeshine boys slumped against the walls in the shade. Old women in black shawls shuffled by like dusty, smelly birds. ‘Christ, Harry, they’ve had centuries of oppression,’ Bernie said. ‘Not least from the church. Most of those burned-out churches were full of gold and silver. It’s going to take a long time.’ They got a room on the second floor of a crumbling The heat continued; during the hottest part of the day they stayed in the One evening they went to a bar in La Latina called El Toro where flamenco dancing was advertised. Bernie had seen it in The big man next to them said something to them in Spanish. ‘What was that?’ Bernie whispered to Harry. ‘He says they’re singing about oppression by the landlords.’ The workman was studying them with amused interest. ‘That is good,’ Bernie said in halting Spanish. The big man nodded approvingly. He extended a hand to Bernie and Harry. It was hard and callused. ‘Pedro Mera Garc#237;a,’ the man said. ‘Where are you from?’ ‘ SO BERNIE’S FRIENDSHIP with the Mera family began. They regarded him as a comrade, and the apolitical Harry as his slightly retarded cousin. There was an evening in early September, shortly before they were due to return to England, that Harry particularly remembered. It was cooler in the evenings now and Bernie sat on the balcony with Pedro, his wife In#233;s and their elder son Antonio, who was Harry and Bernie’s age and like his father a union activist in the brickworks. Inside the At last she got bored and went to play with her dolls. Harry went onto the tiny balcony and looked out across the square, where a welcome breeze stirred up the dust. The sound of voices came up from below. A beer seller called his trade in a high sharp voice. Doves circled in the darkening sky, flashes of white against the red-tiled roofs. ‘Help me, Harry,’ Bernie said. ‘I want to ask Pedro if the government will win the vote of confidence tomorrow.’ Harry asked and Pedro nodded. ‘He should. But the President’s looking for any excuse to get Aza#241;a out. He agrees with the Monarchists that even the miserable reforms the government’s trying to put through are an attack on their rights.’ Antonio laughed bitterly. ‘What will they do if we ever really challenge them?’ He shook his head. ‘This proposal for an agrarian reform act has no funds to back it because Aza#241;a won’t raise taxes. People feel let down and angry.’ ‘Now that you’ve got the Republic,’ Bernie said, ‘Spain must never go back.’ Pedro nodded. ‘I think the Socialists should leave the government, have an election, win a proper majority. Then we’ll see.’ ‘But would the ruling classes let you govern? Won’t they bring out the army?’ Pedro passed Bernie a cigarette. Bernie had started smoking since he came to Spain. ‘Let them try that,’ Pedro said. ‘Let them try and see what we will give them.’ Next day Harry and Bernie went to see the vote of confidence in the Cortes. There were crowds round the parliament building but they had managed to get passes through Pedro. An attendant led them up echoing marble stairs to a gallery above the chamber. The blue benches were packed with deputies in suits and frock coats. The left-liberal leader Aza#241;a was speaking in a strong, impassioned voice, one short arm beating at the air. Depending on their politics the newspapers portrayed him either as a frog-faced monster or as the father of the Republic, but Harry thought how ordinary he looked. He spoke fiercely, passionately. He made a point and turned to the deputies behind him, who clapped and shouted their approval. Aza#241;a ran a hand through his wispy white hair and went on, listing the Republic’s achievements. Harry scanned the faces below, recognizing the socialist politicians whose faces he had seen in newspapers: round fat Prieto; Largo Caballero, surprisingly bourgeois-looking with his square face and white moustache. For once Harry felt caught up in the excitement. ‘Lively lot, aren’t they?’ he whispered to Bernie. But Bernie’s face when he turned was angry, contemptuous. ‘It’s a bloody theatre,’ Bernie said angrily. ‘Look at them. Millions of Spaniards want a decent life and they get this – circus. He surveyed the rustling sea of heads below him. ‘Something stronger than this is needed if we’re to have socialism. Come on, let’s get out of here.’ That night they went to a bar in the Centro. Bernie was in an angry, cynical mood. ‘Democracy,’ he said angrily. ‘It just swallows people up into a corrupt bourgeois system. It’s the same in England.’ ‘But it’ll take years to make Spain a modern country,’ Harry said. ‘And what’s the alternative? Revolution and bloodshed, like in Russia?’ ‘The workers have to take things into their own hands.’ He looked at Harry, then sighed. ‘Oh come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back to the They stumbled up the road in silence, both a little drunk. Their room was stuffy and Bernie pulled off his shirt and went onto the balcony. The two whores sat drinking opposite, wearing colourful dressing gowns. They called across. ‘ ‘I can’t come and play!’ Bernie called back cheerfully. ‘I’ve no money!’ ‘We don’t want money! We keep saying, if only the handsome blond would come and play!’ The women laughed. Bernie laughed too and turned to Harry. Harry felt uneasy, a little shocked. ‘Fancy it?’ Bernie asked. They had joked about going with a Spanish prostitute for weeks but it had been bravado, they had done nothing about it. ‘No. God, Bernie, you could catch something.’ Bernie grinned at him. ‘Scared?’ He ran a hand through his thick blond hair, his big bicep flexing. Harry blushed. ‘I don’t want to do it with a couple of drunk whores. Besides, it’s you they want, not me.’ Jealousy flickered inside him as it sometimes did. Bernie had something he lacked: an energy, a daring, a lust for life. It wasn’t just his looks. ‘They’d’ve asked you too if you’d been at the balcony.’ ‘Don’t go,’ Harry said. ‘You could catch something.’ Bernie’s eyes were alive with excitement. ‘I’m going. Come on. Last chance.’ Bernie chuckled, then smiled at him. ‘You’ve got to learn to live, Harry, boy. Learn to live.’ TWO DAYS LATER they left Madrid. Antonio Mera helped them carry their bags to the station. They changed trams at the Puerta de Toledo. It was mid-afternoon, siesta time, the sunny streets empty. A lorry rolled slowly by, its canvas cover gaily painted, the words ‘La Barraca’ on its side. ‘Lorca’s new theatre for the people,’ Antonio said. He was a tall dark youth, broad like his father. His lip curled slightly. ‘Off to bring Calder#243;n to the peasants.’ ‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’ Harry said. ‘I thought education was one thing the Republic had reformed.’ Antonio shrugged. ‘They’ve closed the Jesuit schools, but there aren’t enough new ones. The old story, the bourgeois parties won’t tax the rich to pay for them.’ A little way off there was a crack, like a car backfiring. The sound was repeated twice, closer. A youth no older than Bernie and Harry ran out of a side street. He wore flannels and a dark shirt, expensive clothes for Carabanchel. His face was terrified, wide-eyed, gleaming with sweat. He tore away down the street, disappearing into an alley. ‘Who’s that?’ Harry asked. Antonio took a deep breath. ‘I wonder. That could be one of Redondo’s fascists.’ Two more young men appeared, in vests and workmen’s trousers. One held something small and dark in his hand. Harry stared open-mouthed as he realized it was a gun. ‘Down there!’ Antonio called, pointing to where the youth had fled. ‘He went down there!’ ‘ ‘They were going to kill him,’ he said in a shocked whisper. Antonio looked guilty for a moment, then frowned. ‘He was from the JONS. We have to stop the Fascists taking root.’ ‘Who were the others?’ ‘Communists. They’ve sworn to stop them. Good luck to them, I say.’ ‘They’re right,’ Bernie agreed. ‘Fascists are vermin, the lowest of the low.’ ‘He was just a boy running,’ Harry protested. ‘He didn’t have a gun.’ Antonio laughed bitterly. ‘They’ve got guns all right. But the Spanish workers won’t go down like the Italians.’ The tram arrived, the ordinary everyday jingling tram, and they got aboard. Harry studied Antonio. He looked tired; he had another shift at the brickworks tonight. He thought sadly, Bernie’s got more in common with him than with me. HARRY LAY ON the bed, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He remembered how, on the train back, Bernie said he wasn’t going back to Cambridge. He’d had enough of living cut off from the real world and was going back to London, where the class struggle was. Harry thought he would change his mind, but he didn’t; he didn’t return to Cambridge in the autumn. They exchanged letters for a while but Bernie’s letters talking about strikes and anti-fascist demonstrations were as alien in their way as Sandy Forsyth’s about the dogtracks had been, and after a while that correspondence too petered out. Harry got up. He felt restless now. He needed to get out of the flat, the silence was getting on his nerves. He washed, changed his shirt, then descended the dank staircase. The square was still quiet. There was a faint smell he remembered, urine from malfunctioning drains. He thought of the picture on his wall, the romantic veneer it gave to poverty and want. He had been young and naive in 1931, but his attachment to the picture had stayed over the years, the young girl smiling at the gipsy. In 1931 he had thought the scene in the picture would soon be in the past; like Bernie, he had hoped Spain would progress. Yet the Republic had collapsed into chaos, then civil war, and now fascism. Harry circled, pausing at a baker’s shop. There was little on display, only a few A couple of workmen passed Harry, giving him quick hostile glances. He was conscious of his well-cut jacket, his tie. He noticed a church at the corner of the square; it had been burned out, probably in 1936. The ornate facade still stood but there was no roof; the sky was visible through weed-encrusted windows. A big notice in bright crayon declared that Mass was said at the priest’s house next door, and confessions heard. Harry had his bearings now. If he headed uphill he should reach the Plaza Mayor. On the way was El Toro, the bar where he and Bernie had met Pedro. A Socialist haunt once. He walked on, his footsteps echoing in the narrow street, a welcome evening breeze cooling him. He was glad he had come out. El Toro was still there, the sign of a bull’s head swinging outside. Harry hesitated a moment then walked in. It had not changed in nine years: bulls’ heads mounted on the walls, old black-and-white posters yellow with nicotine and age advertising ancient bullfights. The Socialists had disapproved of bullfighting but the landlord’s wine was good and he was a supporter so they had indulged him. There were only a few patrons, old men in berets. They gave Harry unfriendly stares. The young, energetic landlord Harry remembered, darting to and fro behind his crowded bar, was gone. In his place stood a stocky middle-aged man with a heavy square face. He tipped his head interrogatively. ‘ Harry ordered a glass of red wine, fishing in his pockets for the unfamiliar coins embossed, like everything else, with the Falangist yoke and arrows. The barman set his drink before him. ‘ ‘ The barman raised his eyebrows and turned away. Harry went and sat at a bench. He picked up a discarded copy of He studied the picture, the breathless celebration of the New Order. He remembered telling Bernie once that he stood for Rookwood values. He had probably sounded pompous. Bernie had laughed impatiently and said Rookwood was a training ground for the capitalist elite. Maybe it was, Harry thought, but it was a better elite than Hitler’s. Despite everything, that was still true. He remembered the newsreels he had seen of the things that happened in Germany, elderly Jews cleaning the streets with toothbrushes amidst laughing crowds. He looked up. The barman was talking quietly to a couple of the old men. They kept glancing at him. Harry forced himself to drain his glass and got up. He called ‘ There were more people about now: well-dressed, middle-class office workers making their way home. He passed under an archway and stood in the Plaza Mayor, the centre of old Madrid, of festivals and Harry stood irresolutely, wondering whether to have a coffee. The street lights were starting to come on, weak and white. Harry remembered how easy it was to get lost in the narrow streets, or trip in a pothole. A couple of the beggars had risen and were walking towards him. He turned away. As he left the square he noticed that a woman walking ahead of him had stopped dead, her back to him: a woman in an expensive-looking white dress, red hair covered with a little hat. He stopped too, astonished. Surely it was Barbara. That was her hair, her walk. The woman began walking again, turning rapidly down a side street, moving quickly, her figure fading to a white blur in the dusk. Harry ran after her, then stood irresolute at the corner, unsure whether to follow. It couldn’t be Barbara, she couldn’t still be here. And Barbara would never have worn clothes like that. |
||
|