A Necessary Action (21 page)

Then he slowly walked up the two low steps and went into the room.

He stopped inside by the door and nodded at Willi Mohr. His gaze rested for a moment on the tangle of bedclothes before wandering on round the walls of the large untidy room.

His gaze rested for a long time on the picture of the house and cactuses, still standing on the easel, quite unchanged since he had last been there. When he walked over to the kitchen door, Willi Mohr saw that he had dried fish-scales on his trousers and on his right hip was a large sheathknife in his belt.

Santiago Alemany turned round and walked out of the house. He felt the top of the radiator carefully and then held on to it with his left hand while he turned the starting-handle with his right. At the third turn the engine started. He nodded to Willi
Mohr, climbed into the van and after fiddling with the pedals, backed out of view. Half-way down the hill, he switched the engine off and let the van free-wheel.

As he swung into the main road, the brakes squealed and the sound could be heard for a long time in the great empty silence.

Santiago Alemany had left Barrio Son Jofre.

Willi Mohr had not moved once the whole time. He was still squatting by the mattress with his right forefinger on the trigger and his hand closed round the butt, a piece of blanket covering the gun. He did not know how long the visit had lasted; whether Santiago had been there half-an-hour or perhaps only two minutes.

His calves prickled and he could feel the strain on his knees. Small white dots were dancing about in front of his eyes. He dropped the pistol and let it lie on the blanket. The palm of his hand was wet with perspiration and he wiped it on his trouser-leg.

Willi Mohr rose, stiffly and unsteadily, and went and sat on the doorstep, his elbows on his thighs and his head in his hands.

In front of the steps was a large dark patch of oil slowly spreading out over the cobblestones.

He thought: It didn’t come off.

This was his first conscious reflection since he had heard the fish-van coming up the alley. The intervening time did not exist. And yet he had had all his senses under control and assembled in an orderly way. What he remembered most clearly now was the dog lying on her back on the ground, abandoning herself to the man who was scratching her stomach.

Willi Mohr picked up the cigarette-end Santiago had thrown down and took his pipe out of his pocket. Then he carefully tore off the cigarette-paper and let the dry tobacco run into the bowl of the pipe. Not a single flake was lost. He struck a waxed-paper match that was so poor that he had to hold it with his nails close to the top. He burnt himself a little and even more so when he pressed down the tobacco with his thumb. When he had smoked it, he knocked his pipe out on the step, rose and went back into the house.

He fetched the piassava broom from the kitchen and swept the floor. Then he put the safety catch of the gun on, placed the gun
on the cane chair, shook his bedclothes out in the yard and made his bed properly. He carried the water-jar to the well by the road and filled it. When he had washed and shaved and changed his shirt, he put the safety catch of the gun off again and placed the weapon under the pillow. He checked whether it were easily accessible, before sitting down on the doorstep again to wait for Santiago Alemany to return.

The heat was dry and thick and suffocating, but the sun was no longer in the zenith and the shadow of the house fell over the doorstep.

Willi Mohr sat still and listened as he watched a small green lizard on the outhouse wall. It seemed hardly real in its total immobility. If one did not know its behaviour-patterns one would have thought that the animal was paralysed with terror or simply stuffed. But the lizard was waiting, and its vigilance was exemplary, just as was its action when its victim came within reach.

Thought Willi Mohr.

There was nothing at fault with his own vigilance either. Twice motor-cycles came along the road from the puerto and once the mail bus. After three hours, perhaps four, he heard the fish-van. He was quite certain about everything as it approached the cross-roads and long before it swung up into the alley towards Barrio Son Jofre.

He looked at the lizard and sat still, waiting.

Santiago Alemany had not changed his clothes or unloaded the empty boxes, but on the floor of the cabin were two large baskets which had not been there last time.

He switched off the engine and listened to it boiling. Then he got out, repeated the procedure with the dog, and chased away a few small naked children who had come running after the van from the houses down the hill.

‘Good-day,’ he said to the man on the steps.

Willi Mohr nodded.

Santiago knelt down and looked under the van. The oil from the engine had already made a small patch, a few yards farther on from the first one.

‘This van’s finished,’ he said. ‘I can’t use it much longer.’

Willi Mohr opened his mouth, but said nothing.

‘The oil’s running straight through,’ said Santiago.

‘Get a new engine,’ said Willi Mohr.

‘Not good enough. It’s completely finished. I hardly dare brake any more. Anyhow, you can’t get hold of engines like this that are any use any longer. They’re all just as bad.’

‘You can get a re-bore,’ said Willi Mohr.

He spoke slowly, hunting for the words.

‘You’ve learnt to speak Spanish since last I saw you,’ said Santiago.

‘A little.’

‘Quite a lot, I think.’

Santiago turned round and took the baskets out of the van.

‘Fish,’ he said, ‘Salmonetes and a calamary and a few langostinos. If you’d like them?’

He sounded slightly uncertain and kept moistening his lips with his tongue.

Willi Mohr looked indifferently at the fish and thought: He’s waiting for me to say no and then he knows what he’s got to cope with. He doesn’t really want to come here but he must, because he’s got to know. If I say no or just shake my head, then he’ll just put the baskets down on the ground and after a while he’ll drive away and then he’ll know a little more than he knew before. If I don’t kill him first, of course. Now I’ll let him go out into the kitchen and then I’ll fetch the pistol and kill him.

His thought processes were quite clear.

‘Why not?’ said Willi Mohr.

Santiago picked up the baskets and went into the house.

Willi Mohr waited a short while before following him in. Santiago was kneeling in front of the fireplace, heaping wood in the ashes on the hearth. He had emptied his baskets and set the contents up in a row on the stone bench. Two loaves, oil, a twist of salt, wine, one bottle of red, one bottle of white. Five packets of Ideales. Matches. Bones for the dog. Paraffin. A large green melon.

Although Willi Mohr had not eaten anything at all for several days, he did not feel hungry.

Santiago got up and gave some bones to the dog, and she at once began to chew them. Then he poured water into the large earthenware bowl and sat with it between his legs. He drew out
his sheath-knife and began to clean the fish. Bit by bit he put the guts and heads and tails down on to a piece of grey paper beside him. The cat was already there, purring as it ate and twisting its head to one side to enable it to chew with its back teeth.

Willi Mohr stood leaning against the doorpost, watching. Santiago’s face was calm and purposeful. He looked totally absorbed in his occupation, but now and again the tip of his tongue ran along his lips. After a while Willi Mohr shifted his gaze to the man’s hands, which nimbly and skilfully manipulated the broad-bladed knife and the small red fish.

They were not the hands of a labourer, although they were sunburnt and quite large. The fingers were long and well-kept with broad, short nails. Black hairs grew on his wrists as well as on the backs of his hands. His fingers moved, swift and supple, and between them ran small streams of pale, watery blood.

His hands seemed to settle the matter.

Willi Mohr went back into the room, bent down and thrust his hand under the pillow. The butt was scored and roughened to give a better grip and when he touched it he thought about the cold shiny steel tunnel and the bullet which would rotate through it, driven forwards with relentless force.

He stopped and listened to the sounds from the kitchen. Then he withdrew his hand and looked at it. It did not look like the hand of a labourer any longer, although it was sunburnt and quite large. The fingers were long and the nails broad and cut straight across. Sparse fair hairs grew on his wrists.

He shrugged his shoulders and returned to the kitchen door.

Santiago had cleaned the fish and was just wiping out the large frying pan, which had been thrown to one side for almost a year now and had got very dirty.

Santiago muttered to himself and rubbed at the iron with a bit of grey wrapping paper. Now and again he studied the results, finally pouring in the oil and putting the fish in after dipping them in salt. Then he poured paraffin over the wood and struck a match. The fire flared up at once and burnt with a clear orange flame.

As the fish were cooked he put them into the earthenware bowl, now rinsed out and thoroughly cleaned.

All this time Willi Mohr was standing in the doorway, watching. He still did not feel hungry.

Santiago finished cooking. He put the bowl down on the beaten earth floor between the two stone seats and cleaned his knife against his trouser-leg. Then he held one of the loaves to his chest and cut it up into thick slices.

He had also taken out two of the old tin mugs and poured out the wine.

‘Let’s eat,’ he said.

They sat opposite each other, the bowl between them.

Santiago looked at Willi Mohr once or twice, questioningly and uncertainly.

Then he raised his tin mug and nodded.

When Willi did not react, Santiago took a gulp and put the mug down again without saying anything.

After a minute or two, he took a fish and began to eat. He ate with his fingers, occasionally glancing at the man opposite him.

His eyes are not like they were before, thought Willi Mohr. Not cold and bold.

When Santiago had eaten his third fish, Willi Mohr stretched out his hand and took a salmonete from the dish.

He looked at it for a long time, as if hesitating still.

‘Good fish,’ he said.

‘Yes, very good. The fish are best at this time of the year, but it’s difficult to catch them. The weather’s usually impossible. It’s just been good for a few days. The boats have had big catches. Last night’s were the best for a whole year. Good business.’

Willi Mohr bit the salmonete in the back. As soon as he had taken the first bite, he was overwhelmed with hunger and had to stop himself gobbling the fish and at once stuffing his mouth full with another one.

‘Lot of money,’ said Santiago, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. ‘A great deal of money.’

Willi took a piece of bread and washed it down with a mouthful of wine.

‘A lot of money,’ repeated Santiago.

‘Needed, too,’ he added.

Another fish. Eating, slowly and carefully.

‘If they’d gone out again tonight, we’d have earned a lot more money,’ said Santiago.

‘Aren’t they going out then?’ said Willi Mohr.

Santiago shrugged his shoulders.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘If they have a good night then they seldom bother to go out again the following night. Even if they could have earned a whole month’s income on just that one night. They forget they haven’t been able to fish for a month, and that the fine weather might well come to an end the next day. Then there’ll perhaps be stormy weather for a month again. Perhaps two months.’

‘Strange,’ said Willi Mohr.

‘They’re like that. All of them. My father too. They’re hopeless. But if things are bad, really bad, then they lie out there night after night and day after day, just to get a little, perhaps not even enough to pay for the fuel. It’s what the priests call humility in the face of the inevitable. That’s what’s called work.’

Willi Mohr was eating.

He had not understood the last remark and looked up, shaking his head.

Santiago raised his right forefinger and made an effort to explain.

‘Before I got hold of the van,’ he said, ‘they used to just sit down there, waiting for a buyer from the town, who came when he felt like it and paid whatever price he cared to offer. Sometimes he didn’t come at all and they had to give away their catches or throw them back in the sea, if the fish were the kind you couldn’t salt down. That’s what they call work. What I do, that’s not work. D’you see what I mean?’

Willi Mohr nodded. He felt very peculiar. Perhaps it was because his stomach was rebelling against the rich food after such a long fast.

He went on eating. It annoyed him that he could not stop.

Santiago had finished. He drank up his wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he picked up a dry piece of wood, shaved a piece off with his knife, and picked his teeth lengthily and thoroughly.

When Willi Mohr had eaten up the last bit of fish, Santiago threw away the toothpick and said:

‘Which country do you come from?’

‘Germany.’

‘Hamburg?’

‘No. I come from the south-east really, The German Democratic Republic … but I left several years ago.’

‘Was it a bad country?’

Willi Mohr found the question difficult to answer. After a while he said: ‘Yes, I suppose I thought so … then. From certain points of view, anyhow.’

‘Do they let people starve there too? And do they shoot people who want better pay?’

‘No, not that. No, no one starves.’

‘What was bad about it then?’

‘They were short of things, for instance.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘All kinds. Coffee, tobacco, certain sorts of clothes, cars, motor-cycles. There weren’t any foreign things to buy.’

‘And no work?’

‘Yes, almost too much.’

‘No industry?’

‘It was being built up. The whole country was wrecked by the war.’

‘But the factories must have made things?’

‘Of course.’