A Necessary Action (32 page)

There were no civil guards at the cross-roads.

When he had covered three-quarters of the alleyway up to Barrio Son Jofre, the dog began to bark and run on ahead. He realized that someone was waiting for him up at the house.

The fish-van was parked beside the camioneta. Santiago was sitting in the driver’s seat, staring out at the rain. He was wearing a sou’wester and a short oilskin jacket, and he needed both, as the Ford had no doors and the windscreen was shattered. It must have happened recently as there were still bits of glass between the wooden beading and the metal frame. Santiago had unbuttoned his jacket and was holding his large sheath-knife in his right hand. He seemed irritable and restless, and had evidently been sitting whittling away at a wet piece of wood, for the floor of the van was covered with long fresh shavings.

When he saw Willi Mohr, he got down from the van and said: ‘I’ve been waiting for you for a whole hour.’

‘I was at the Central. You could have gone there.’

‘No, I didn’t want to meet you there.’

Willi Mohr stood on the steps and looked irresolutely at his visitor, who was still holding his knife in his hand.

‘Open the door. I don’t want to have to wait any longer,’ said Santiago impatiently.

Willi Mohr shrugged his shoulders and turned round to stick the key into the lock.

He thought: Now he’ll lift the knife and plunge it into my back, but I don’t care any longer.

The door swung open on its creaking hinges and nothing had happened.

Willi Mohr stepped to one side to let Santiago Alemany walk past. Santiago put his knife back into its leather sheath and buttoned it down as he stepped over the threshold.

Before following him into the room, Willi Mohr turned round once more and looked at the small Ford van, with its high load of fish-boxes. The boxes were securely tied down and covered with a worn tarpaulin.

‘What happened to the windscreen?’ he said.

‘They shot at me,’ said Santiago.

‘The civil guards?’

‘No. Policia Armada. Two idiots in a jeep. They could have turned the jeep and overtaken me instead.’

‘Why did they shoot at you?’

‘I didn’t stop at their halt-signal. For that matter, I never even saw it.’

His voice was tense and impatient and it seemed as if he thought the episode incidental, hardly worth mentioning.

Willi Mohr did not say anything more, but kicked off his sandals and hung his hat and plastic coat on the nail inside the door. Then he sat down on the stairs and wrung out his soaking trouser legs before rolling them up.

Santiago was walking uneasily back and forth across the floor, hunting in his pockets for something, presumably tobacco, and he looked irresolutely at the man on the stairs several times.

‘There are some cigarettes over there by the rucksack,’ said Willi Mohr, without looking up.

Santiago took an Ideales and lit it. His hands were shaking and he stood staring for a long time out into the rain, as if trying to regain his composure.

Finally he said: ‘Do you like things as they are in this town and this country?’

‘Not much,’ said Willi Mohr.

‘I was thinking of asking you to do something.’

‘Oh yes.’

Santiago turned violently and flung the half-smoked cigarette out into the rain.

‘Do you see what I’ve got on the van out there?’

‘Yes, fish.’

‘Fish, yes. There are some funny fish there too, not much like the usual ones.’

Willi Mohr said nothing. He was still busy with his trouser legs.

‘Would you like to see my fish?’ said Santiago Alemany sarcastically.

‘Why not?’

Santiago laughed, and it sounded subdued and peculiar. Then he went out to the van and loosened the straps and pulled up a corner of the tarpaulin. Although it was the middle of the day and the distance from the van not more than six feet, Willi Mohr found it difficult to see and was not really able to distinguish what the other man was doing out there. The heavy rain softened the outlines and the more he stared the more blurred things became.

Santiago had taken down one of the fish-boxes and dumped it on the floor inside the doorway. Without speaking, he went back to the van fetched another box and placed it beside the first one, at the bottom of the stairs.

Willi Mohr sat still and looked at the fish.

‘Do you see what these are?’ said Santiago, kicking the first box.

‘Squids.’

‘Exactly, pulpo, the worst kind. They don’t look very edible, do they?’

‘No.’

‘They aren’t either. If you boil them for ten hours they’re still just as tough as old rubber tyres. And these then?’

He kicked the other box.

‘Sardines.’

‘Not even that. Alachas, the poorest fish of the lot. Hardly worth bringing them ashore. But people who’re really badly off eat them all the same. They salt them down in jars.’

‘Oh yes.’

Santiago took the key out of the lock and shut the door from the inside.

‘Feel in the bottom of the box,’ he said.

Willi Mohr leant forward and thrust his hand down the edge. The unappetizing-looking squids were cold and slimy and in amongst the flabby jumble of tentacles were lumps of sepia-coloured secretion.

‘No, not there. Try in the middle.’

Willi Mohr was irritated by his feelings of distaste and did not want to show it too clearly. He shrugged and thrust his fingers into the cold, sticky slime. Then he raised his head and looked at Santiago standing over him in the dim light, black and shiny in his wet oilskins.

‘I didn’t ask you to stir around in that mess just for fun,’ said Santiago. ‘And that’s the best box. The other one’s even worse. Alachas have sharper fins than any other fish I know. And I’ve four boxes of butcher’s leavings too, entrails and half-rotten pig’s stomachs, and two boxes of sea-urchins. If you touch them without gloves they puncture your skin and if you use gloves they spoil them.’

He knelt down and thrust both hands like a scoop into the mess and began to shovel the squids over into the other box. Not until he had scraped the rest away against the edges did Willi Mohr see that the box was unusually deep and stable.

On the rough bottom boards, among the lumps of squid secretion and torn-off tentacles lay a dismantled machine-gun. Despite the bad light, he could see that it was covered with a thick layer of green small-grained grease.

Neither of them said anything for a long time. Santiago had suddenly grown as calm as Willi Mohr, his breathing no longer uneven and panting, and he sat crouching with his elbows on his thighs, his filthy hands hanging loosely between his knees.

‘I’ve got four more like that and six automatic-pistols. Out there. And underneath are three hundred rounds of ammunition and two dozen hand-grenades.’

‘Where does all this come from?’ said Willi Mohr.

‘From the sea.’

Outside the rain poured down with undiminished force.

‘Not in our boat. That used to happen, when there were two of
us. My father would be mad if he knew about it. He believes in adapting himself, like most people of that age. They’re burnt out, and say they’ve given all they had once and for all.’

‘Who brings it ashore then?’

‘Someone else. Hardly anyone knows anything about it, only him and me. And you.’

After a short pause he added:

‘Things are going wrong. I must have help. From you.’

It grew silent again. They sat quite still and listened to the rain. Then Willi Mohr wiped his fingers on the stair and said: ‘And if I refuse?’

The cat had come in through the hole in the door, wet and miserable, with a long bleeding scratch from its nose up to one eye. Santiago Alemany pulled out his knife and stirred round in the box of alachas until he found a flat red one among the other nickel-coloured fish. He lifted it out by the tail and put it down in front of the cat.

‘Then I’ll kill you,’ he said.

‘If you can,’ said Willi Mohr.

‘Yes, if I can.’

The cat sniffed at the fish, put one forepaw on it, turned its head sideways and sank its teeth into the fish’s back.

‘What’s gone wrong?’ said Willi Mohr.

‘Something’s up today. Something big. I know the signs. There were two road-blocks on the road from the puerto, and those idiots in the jeep too.’

‘What happened?’

‘They stopped me at the first and searched the van, even took off the tarpaulin and looked in the top boxes. There’s never anything in them. Then they saw all this shit and the butcher’s stuff and they gave up. They were people from hereabouts and they’re never very dangerous. They’ve stopped me so many times that nowadays it’s just automatic. Once I made them search through the whole load and lay the fish out along the side of the road. I pro … pro … what’s it called?’

‘Provoked.’

‘Yes, that’s it. I provoked them. Since then they’ve not been so fussy. The next road-block let me straight through. They’ve got some signalling system between them. But then that Policia
Armada patrol came. They’d parked their jeep under some trees and I didn’t see either it or any halt-sign until they shot after me and the bullet came sailing through from behind and smashed the windscreen. However, they didn’t feel like messing themselves up with fish and they didn’t want to be out in the rain either. The one who had shot at me was a bit ashamed too. He said it must have been a ricochet.’

Santiago Alemany got up and went and fetched the cigarettes.

‘I daren’t go on now,’ he said. ‘It’s worse on the other side of the mountains, on the main road. There are real barricades there. And tonight or early tomorrow morning this scare will have blown over. That’s what usually happens.’

He lit two Ideales with the same match and gave one to Willi Mohr. Then he kicked the boxes and said: ‘These have got to be there tonight or at the latest tomorrow morning.’

He stood still smoking, for perhaps thirty seconds, before he finished the sentence: ‘… they say.’

‘Who?’

‘You ask too many questions.’

‘Antonio Millan?’

Santiago started and said roughly: ‘What do you know about him?’

‘Nothing. Just heard his name.’

‘Where?’

‘At the police.’

‘Have they had you down there? Then I shouldn’t have come.’

He paused briefly and then said thoughtfully: ‘But I had nowhere else to go. You and I …’

He fell silent again.

Willi Mohr experienced a vague astonishment over the fact that he was not surprised, and also over the fact that the conversation was running so naturally and logically. He asked another question.

‘Why are you doing all this? For money?’

‘I don’t think so. Not now. Anyhow, they don’t pay all that well. At first I did it for money, but then something happened about a year ago, last autumn. Did you hear about the revolt in Santa Margarita?’

‘Yes, a little.’

‘Forty or fifty people were butchered there. They hadn’t got any ammunition or hand-grenades. Do you know why?’

‘No.’

‘Because I didn’t take the stuff there, although they’d said it was important and although I’d promised to do it and had already been paid for it. And do you know what I did instead? Went bathing with you and …’

He stopped suddenly and crashed his right fist into his left palm.

‘Those people fought all the same, though they had nothing to fight with. There must be something in that. This time they’ve said again that it’s important and this time the stuff’s got to get there. No one’s going to stop me.’

Then he began to breathe heavily and his voice grew suddenly hostile.

‘Not even you,’ he said.

‘You must realize that this has really nothing to do with me,’ said Willi Mohr with chilling politeness.

He did not like the change of tone, and he was always made uneasy by uncontrolled outbursts of emotion. A moment later he said: ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Leave the stuff and fetch it tonight or tomorrow when the extra patrols have been withdrawn. I’ll drive into town with the fish this afternoon as usual. There are four boxes that are to be sold there anyhow.’

‘What were you going to do with the arms and ammunition?’

‘Put them in the outhouse or in here upstairs.’

‘There’s a rubbish heap behind the house. That’d be better.’

‘As they’re already on to you, it’s dangerous wherever they’re put.’

‘No one’ll think of the rubbish heap. There are a whole lot of old scrap metal and other things to cover them up with. And there’s straw in the outhouse.’

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Santiago. ‘I’ll get going now. The siesta’s practically over.’

Willi Mohr fingered the dismantled machine-gun.

‘Good stuff,’ he said. ‘Who are they for?’

‘Don’t know. Someone who needs them.’

Santiago swiftly and methodically scooped the squids back into
the box. Then he opened the outer door. Outside the rain was like a thick living curtain.

‘This weather’s saved us,’ he said. ‘Visibility’s no more than thirty feet. If anyone comes, then my van’s broken down and I’ve had to borrow the camioneta and am loading it up.’

‘Yes, perhaps that’ll do.’

Santiago lifted the box of sharp-finned, sardine-like fish.

‘Are you going to help?’ he said.

Willi Mohr got up from the stairs, pulled on his plastic coat, and pried the box of squids up off the floor. Then he took it in his arms and walked bare-footed round the house, just behind Santiago.

It took them only a quarter of an hour to transfer eight boxes of fish and sealed metal boxes of cartridges and hand-grenades from the Ford to the rubbish heap, and no one appeared as they were doing it. When they had covered over the boxes with old abandoned reed fencing and rotted straw from the outhouse, Santiago roped down the rest of the load and without looking up from the job, said: ‘I’ll be back this evening or tonight.’

Then he put his shoulder to the little van, got it moving and clambered into the driver’s seat. The vehicle vanished into the rain long before it reached the alleyway, and if the engine started, it was not possible to hear it.

Willi Mohr stood on the flat steps in front of the door and stretched out his naked feet for the rain to rinse the mud off them. Then he did the same with his hands, which stank of fish and tainted offal.