A Necessary Action (23 page)

He found to his satisfaction that his fuel had again come to an end, so he hunted up his pieces of rope and went out to collect brushwood. The climb was a strain in the dry, still heat, but he made two trips and both times went higher up the mountain than he had ever been before. When he came back, it was already growing dark and he was able to fall in with his usual evening routine. Although he was tired and sweaty, he went up to the eating-place behind the church and after the meal spent his usual couple of hours outside the Café Central. At the next table sat some labourers from the road construction projects. They were not drinking but had expended a peseta on the loan of a couple of packs of greasy cards. They played in silence and their thin, sunburnt faces reflected nothing but poverty and spiritlessness.

Willi Mohr went back to the house in Barrio Son Jofre soon after midnight. He opened the door and went on into the darkness without locking it behind him. As he was very tired, he did not bother with the paraffin lamp, but struck a match and lit the stump of candle beside his pillow. He yawned and thought that he ought to go out into the yard to clean his teeth and relieve himself before he went to bed. He fetched his toothbrush and a mug of water from the kitchen and just as he was going towards the door, he heard someone moving outside.

He stopped and stood still, about two steps from the doorway.

He was certain no one had come up the alleyway behind him, and yet there was someone out there in the darkness.

Someone who had been there all the time and who was now already standing on the steps, just outside the closed door. The key was still in the door on the outside.

He was holding his toothbrush in one hand and the mug in the other, incapable of deciding what to do.

Then he heard the slight sound of cloth brushing against wood and he saw the handle begin to move.

Willi Mohr stood quite still and stared at the door, which silently and very slowly, was opening.

Out on the steps stood a small civil guard with a round face and a thin black moustache. He had his carbine in his hand and he looked indifferently into the room.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

Nothing in the room had changed.

It contained only four pieces of furniture, a small desk, a brown filing-cabinet, a black armchair and a rickety bench for two people—and yet it seemed overcrowded. There were no windows, but on the wall behind the desk hung a large photograph of the Caudillo in a heavy black frame. Beneath the portrait sat a man, writing in the circle of light cast by a ceiling light with a green glass shade.

When Willi Mohr came into the room, Sergeant Tornilla at once put down his pen and rose out of the armchair.

He saluted meticulously, held out his hand and said with a smile: ‘So we meet again. A pleasure. I’m sorry to have to ask you to come here at this time.’

Willi Mohr stared at him with clear, blue eyes and mechanically returned the handshake.

The butt of a carbine rattled against the concrete floor outside. Someone was standing on guard out there, presumably the little black-moustachioed civil guard with a round face, the man who had brought him here and who had walked three steps behind him all the way. Willi Mohr had not seen him since they had left the house in Barrio Son Jofre, only heard the gravel crunching under the soles of his boots.

Sergeant Tornilla walked round the table and pulled the wooden bench nearer.

‘The accused’s bench,’ he said, and he smiled as if they had exchanged a private joke, intended only for the initiated.

They sat down opposite each other and Sergeant Tornilla went on smiling. He had his elbows on the desk and slowly he pressed the tips of his fingers together, then the palms of his hands. As if he had just thought of something important, he suddenly parted them, fumbled for a packet of cigarettes from behind the telephone and held them out.

Willi Mohr felt that he must in some way or other break this farcical act and he tried to get out his own matches, but the man in the armchair was there first, leaning across the desk with a light.

Before putting his lighter away, Sergeant Tornilla weighed it in his hand for a moment and said with a smile: ‘Still the same lighter. Excellent quality. Never goes wrong. Officially, I shouldn’t use it. Impounded goods …’

Again he pressed his fingertips together and went on smiling.

Sergeant Tornilla was exactly as he had been before, that night two and a half months ago. The same friendly, apologetic smile and the same kind of cigarettes. The same smooth cheeks and the same well-pressed uniform, the same angle of his cap and the same gloss on his strap. On the table lay a pair of light-brown gloves, which had not been there the last time, but otherwise everything was the same. Even the papers and the documents were the same.

Willi Mohr crossed his legs and stared sullenly across the desk. He was not nervous, but irritated by the man’s silence and steady eyes. He was sleepy too and had to suppress a yawn.

‘Why have you had me brought here?’

No reply.

Willi Mohr finished his cigarette and carefully extinguished it in the ash-tray. Four cigarette-ends lay there already.

‘Where are you living now?’ said Sergeant Tornilla.

‘In Barrio Son Jofre.’

‘How long have you lived there?’

‘Since August last year.’

‘Exactly. Your Spanish is much better now. You’ll soon be talking like a native.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Well, that’s an exaggeration of course. A way of speaking, you know. But you really do speak much better now. I heard it at once. You’ve made great progress.’

He offered a Bisonte and again had a light ready before the other man could get out his matches.

Next time I’ll get there first, thought Willi Mohr.

‘There are only a couple of weeks to go before Christmas,’ said Sergeant Tornilla. ‘But I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed in our Christmas celebrations here. They’re not at all as they are in your country. I remember the German Christmas very well. Even in Russia, at the front, we had small trees in the posts and bunkers, and hung red and green paper garlands on the branches. And we sang melancholy songs. I knew many of your countrymen and they complained that it wasn’t a proper Christmas. That was about the only time I ever heard them complain. They described how it used to be too, before the war. How you put on beards and gave each other presents. How you impersonated a certain figure, like a carnival figure. He had a special name, didn’t he?’

‘Santa Claus.’

‘Ah yes, Santa Claus. It’s not like that here. That’s not a Spanish custom at all. In the big towns the business men have taken it up but it hasn’t caught on out in the country. The only thing that happens here is that people go home to their families and eat a little more than usual, perhaps a paella with meat. Then they drank an anis at some bar. You won’t notice very much. Or have you already experienced a Spanish Christmas?’

‘I was here last year.’

‘Of course. I was forgetting. You’ve already been with us a long time. But you didn’t see very much of it, did you?’

‘No.’

‘Easter is quite different. That’s the great festival here. It lasts for several days, great processions and events, religious and secular. But perhaps you’ve experienced a Spanish Easter too?’

‘No.’

‘That’s right. You weren’t here over Easter.’

It began to darken in front of Willi Mohr’s eyes and he thought: I’ll fall asleep soon. But then he noticed that it was the electric light which was going out. The light flickered and faded until the coil looked like a small red zig-zag ribbon behind the dirty glass. The room was almost dark.

Sergeant Tornilla held out the cigarettes and clicked on his lighter.

‘The electricity works here are not good,’ he said. ‘The equipment is old and very poor. It often fails in the winter and will soon be worse when the storms come. It should be modernized, but people seem satisfied with it as it is. They’re proud to have electricity at all. As I said before, they’re simple, good people.’

The light went out altogether, but after a minute or two it went on again, flickered once or twice and then remained stable.

‘There we are. Now we can see each other again,’ said Sergeant Tornilla cheerfully.

After a short pause he added apologetically: ‘We are soon going to get an emergency generator here at the guard-post. Then this sort of thing won’t happen.’

Willi Mohr yawned, making no attempt to hide it. The conversation was uninteresting and was exhausting him.

The man in uniform looked searchingly at him.

‘My wife gets very irritated with the electricity works,’ he said. ‘She’s got an electric sewing-machine which my parents-in-law gave her two years ago. As I said before, they live in Huelva. Her father has a shop there, quite a large one, but he’s handed it over to my brother-in-law now. Have you been to Huelva? Pity, it’s a lovely town. The sewing-machine often annoys her. When I was posted to Badajoz and we lived there, it worked admirably, but here it doesn’t work so well. Sometimes the current is too weak to drive the motor and sometimes there’s no electricity at all. They say it’s something to do with the boilers. They’re very old and on the whole it’s surprising that they function at all.’

Willi Mohr blinked and looked at the portrait. The likeness between the Caudillo and the man in the chair was more marked than ever, but now it seemed more ridiculous.

He’s dragged me down here under escort in the middle of the night to talk about his wife’s sewing-machine. He’s mad.

Thought Willi Mohr.

Sergeant Tornilla had fallen silent. Without moving his eyes, he picked up a piece of paper from the desk and said: ‘There’s been a complaint about you.’

He smiled in a troubled way.

‘A person called Amadeo Prunera complains that you are stealing wood from his land.’

‘Not wood. Brushwood.’

‘I see. But that’s not allowed either.’

‘I didn’t know it was forbidden.’

‘Naturally not. But as I told you before, a lot of things are different here. A number of things which might well appear valueless have a certain significance to their owners. This is a poor part of the country and the people who live here are poor people. They want their rights.’

Willi Mohr did not know what to say. He was tired and this astonishing accusation had in some way robbed him of his certainty.

‘Naturally this is not a serious crime, but it is still an offence. The man had complained and he has right on his side. The simplest thing to do is to offer him some compensation. It can’t be more than an insignificant sum, and you have some money, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, a little.’

‘Where did you get the money from?’

Willi Mohr did not reply.

‘You got the money from Santiago Alemany, didn’t you?’

Tornilla waited only a second or two for the reply and then he said: ‘I mentioned your shirt when we last had a talk. You’ve got it on again today. How long have you had it?’

‘Since 1941.’

‘What kind of shirt is it?’

‘A Hitler Jugend shirt.’

‘So you belonged to that youth organization during the war then?’

‘Before the war too. Everyone did.’

‘That’s right. Did you belong to any other organization?’

‘No.’

‘But during your time in East Germany?’

‘No, not there either.’

‘Did you ever see the Fuehrer personally?’

‘Only once.’

‘When?’

‘1940, I think.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I’m not certain I saw him.’

‘Can you explain yourself a little more?’

‘It’s very simple. They said he was coming past in a train and we were lined up along the track with flags and flowers in our hands. First came a train full of soldiers and police and soon after that a train with only two carriages. I think he was standing by one of the windows, at least they told us it was him. Everything went so quickly. Now I’m not certain whether I really saw him, but then I believed it.’

‘You see, you speak quiet fluently. But let’s go on to something else. You said you weren’t here at Easter. But earlier on in the winter you were here?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were living here in the town?’

‘Yes.’

‘In the house in Barrio Son Jofre?’

‘Yes.’

‘When did you leave?’

‘At the end of March or the beginning of April.’

‘Why did you leave?’

Willi Mohr did not answer.

‘When did you last see Santiago Alemany?’

‘Today.’

‘And before that?’

‘Yesterday.’

‘Had you asked him to visit you?’

‘No.’

‘Why did he come then?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘What were you doing when he was with you?’

‘Repairing a truck.’

‘All the time?’

‘Most of it.’

‘Did he give you some money?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has he ever given you money before?’

‘Once.’

‘For what reason did he give you money?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Did he buy anything off you?’

‘In a way, yes.’

‘What did he buy from you? A painting?’

‘No. A tyre.’

‘And on the previous occasion? Did he buy anything then?’

‘No.’

‘He just gave you the money, just like that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you a friend of Santiago Alemany’s?’

He did not want to reply but had to make a great effort to refrain from doing so. His resistance was wearing thin.

‘Do you find it easy to remember events which happened, shall we say, six months or a year ago?’

‘Yes, generally.’

‘Let’s go back a bit in time, then. You were living here in the town during the months of January, February and March this year, weren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You said, on the other hand, that you were not here during Easter week, in April. Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘When did you leave Spain?’

‘At the end of March or the beginning of April.’

‘And when did you return?’

‘At the end of May.’

‘Quite right. You left on the second of April and came back on the fifteenth of May. What did you do during that time?’