A Necessary Action (5 page)

Ramon Alemany was sitting right at the end of the row, bent forward, fumbling with the stitches. The family likeness was there, but he was in many ways very different from his brother. When he saw the truck, he at once untangled himself from the nets, flung them down and jumped up, small, muscular and with lively eyes. Under his carelessly knotted shirt could be seen his hairy, sweaty chest and large, dark brown nipples.

He clambered up on to the back bench and eagerly shook everyone by the hand.

The brothers spoke to each other in Catalonian. Both laughed.

Dan Pedersen drove on.

Singlinde turned and smiled at the three people behind her.

Willi Mohr did not understand a thing. He felt utterly indifferent to them all.

The clump of houses in the harbour lay basking in the sun, today just as on every summer day. From the broad level quay, narrow dark alleys ran upwards between leaning white house-walls. Some of the cafés on the harbour side had tried to live up to the demands of the present by setting up coloured umbrellas over the tables. One of the bar-owners was wearing a white jacket. On the quay a large number of foreigners were either sitting at café tables or strolling aimlessly about, looking at the boats and the catch of turtles which had been tethered with floats to rings. Red-burnt tourists in shorts and colourful shirts were wandering about in the alleys among half-naked children and thin black pigs. A couple of civil guards were standing in the shade of the fish-shed. They were absently watching the crowd on the quay. A small priest in a wide, flat hat was tripping along the row of houses. His long black skirts flapped round his legs and he kept his eyes on the ground, as if to avoid seeing such horrors.

Tourism had broken through in the puerto. The desperate need for foreign currency had persuaded the authorities to ease the restrictions on entry into the country. Here, as in hundreds of other places along the coast, the outer forms were in the process of loosening up. Strangers no longer received printed notes to say that it was forbidden to show yourself out of doors with a naked torso, or appear in shorts, two-piece bathing costumes or dresses with shoulder-straps, or to kiss in the street or to insult the Caudillo and his almighty realm. Foreigners must be treated well, as they brought money to the state. Money which was to be used for the poor and the ignorant. Soon the civil guard would be equipped with automatic weapons in place of their out-of-date old carbines.

A number of private individuals also made money out of the foreigners. These were the people who had their own businesses and had already been in a good position before. The ordinary people were just as poor as ever, though they had possibly become more conscious of their situation.

And that was where the risk lay.

The police had been reinforced, but at the same time their role had become more one of observation. Like the priesthood, the civil guard now worked preferably in silence and they mostly waited until the winter.

The patrols from La Policia Secreta very rarely showed themselves during the summer months and then only very late at night.

A number of people, especially irresponsible young men, who were much too young to have experienced the great battle for righteousness, seemed inclined to sacrifice their humility, faith, truth and purity for other forms of life and ideals.

Their names were carefully registered by the supervisors of both worldly and heavenly powers, a natural procedure, which on the whole they survived. Far worse was to land in the quagmire between the life they had been brought up in and the diffuse visions of something else, told to them by sun-shocked Scandinavians and half-naked German office girls.

In September the tourists went away and the hunt for Communists could begin again.

As could the battle for souls.

The ordinary personnel in the civil guard was often changed, according to an involved circulation system decided at regional headquarters in the town up in the mountains.

It was thirteen kilometres up there. From the quay one could see the town like a blurred shadow against the greyish-yellow of the mountain.

In the town in the mountains there were people who knew what was happening in the village by the sea without ever having to go there.

They cut off the village by the sea as if it were an enemy bridgehead during the war. They closed an iron ring round it, but very few strangers ever noticed that detail.

From the puerto only one road led into the mountains.

Dan Pedersen swung round into one of the side-streets and pressed the accelerator down as far as it would go to clear the slope. He energetically blew the horn and children, pigs and cats fled out of the way. Some strolling tourists pressed themselves against the wall and stared in surprise with round blue eyes. Then the camioneta stopped outside Jacinto’s bar.

It lay at the highest point in the village, only a block away from the church, and from the outside there was not much to see. There were no tables on the street, only a couple of basket chairs for the abuele and abuela, and the pale-blue, peeling letters on the notice above the doorway were only just decipherable against the whitewashed wall. In front of the entrance hung a primitive jalousie made of string and squashed bottle-tops.

Before, the bar had been a place for villagers, but now it was being annexed more and more by the small colony of resident foreigners.

Siglinde stayed in the truck with her legs crossed and one elbow resting on her knee, her chin supported on her hand. She did not want to go in with them, not because she was afraid, but simply because she did not feel like it. The noise from within indicated that the Swedes and Finns had already been at it for some time.

They were singing.

When the jalousies fell back again behind Willi Mohr, who was last in, most of the singing stopped.

Siglinde tried to make out from the sounds what was going on. Then she shrugged her shoulders and resignedly shook her head.

Inside in the bar, a fight broke out almost at once.

The person who owed Dan Pedersen most money was a Swedish painter. He was tall, dark and handsome, but also very frightened of being beaten up. He considered himself a successful seducer and his secret terror was that someone would do violence to his greatest advantage, his face. He was also stupid and tried to cover his physical cowardice with arrogance.

The Swede was sitting at a table near the door, together with a small bearded man, who also maintained he was a painter and who was definitely a Finn. Another Finnish painter, famous in his own country, was standing by the bar itself, drunk and conciliatory. He was bare-footed and wearing a blue and white track suit. Four other Scandinavians were there, amongst them two girls. Behind the bar stood Jacinto. He was looking satisfied and was just having a drink with the famous Finn. The abuela, who was small and chubby and wrapped in a dirty shawl, brought another bottle of champagne to the table by the door.

The champagne infuriated Dan Pedersen. True it was of the cheapest kind, which cost only twelve pesetas a bottle, but it still gave the scene an air of inappropriate and unearned luxury. He said something uncontrolled and when the Swede smiled superciliously, Dan grabbed hold of his shoulder. The little Finn rose to his feet and hit him hard with his fist on the back of his neck and Dan fell across the Swede’s outstretched leg. As he fell, he saw Jacinto slink out the back way and heard the abuela call for help. Then his head hit the iron leg of the table and he temporarily retired from the game.

When the Swede saw the devastating effect of tripping Dan up, he rose and walked towards the door. Willi Mohr was standing in the way and thought he ought to hit him. But then he saw that the Swede was frightened and so he hesitated. Ramon, who had been ill-placed from the start, pushed Willi Mohr aside and knocked the Swede down with two swift blows in the stomach. Then he kicked him hard in the side. At the same time, Santiago had succeeded in coming up behind the Finn and flinging his arms round him. Ramon came nearer, crouching with his fists clenched, but although the Finn had his arms locked to his sides he succeeded in kicking his opponent in the chest. Ramon staggered back a few steps. Two of the other Scandinavians hung amateurishly on to Santiago from behind and he was forced to let the Finn go.

Suddenly it was quite quiet, and Willi Mohr saw that what two seconds earlier had really been some kind of unreal game, had now suddenly grown serious.

Ramon and the Finn were moving round opposite one another in a small circle, crouching with their raised arms bent like
mechanical grabs. The skin on their faces was stretched tightly over their features.

They could well kill each other, quite without cause, thought Willi Mohr in astonishment.

The jalousies rattled and two civil guards in green uniforms came in from the street. One of them hit Ramon Alemany over the head from behind with the barrel of his carbine. Ramon fell and rolled round on the stone floor with both arms round his head. Then he lay still on his side, curled up, his arms and legs jerking like a dying animal.

The other civil guard had raised his carbine over the Finn, but stopped when he saw that he was a foreigner. He lowered his weapon and contented himself with poking the barrel into the Finn’s chest. The Finn looked contemptuously at the carbine, then straightened up and relaxed.

‘I’ll say one thing. The North is always the North,’ said the conciliatory gentleman at the bar, raising his glass, as if he were saluting some sportive success.

Calm was once again restored to Jacinto’s bar.

Dan Pedersen got up. He was bleeding from a scratch on his cheek.

The tall Swede was still sitting, groaning and holding his stomach.

Ramon lay stretched out unconscious. His brother had knelt beside him and was carefully lifting his head off the stone floor.

The fight was over. It had lasted at the most two or three minutes.

Dan Pedersen had not got his money.

Two hours later Dan Pedersen, Willi Mohr and Santiago Alemany were standing leaning against a whitewashed wall inside the civil guard’s cuartel, just behind the church. They were smoking cigarettes and looking unconcernedly at the corporal, who for the moment was the puerto’s most senior police official. There was also a wooden counter in the room, and a basket chair, in which
the guard on duty usually sat and slept with his collar unbuttoned and his carbine across his knees. For the moment, Siglinde Pedersen was sitting in it, her skirt modestly pulled down and her brown legs crossed. She had taken off her sandals and was impatiently swinging one foot up and down.

The cabo was quite a young man in an elegant uniform and black leather boots. His forehead was beaded with sweat and he was walking irritably up and down in front of the men leaning against the wall. Now and again he glanced timidly down at Siglinde’s sunburnt feet.

‘This will have to be the last time now,’ he said. ‘We’re friendly people, but we don’t tolerate anything. We’ve tolerated a great deal from you already, drunkenness, blasphemy, indecency …’

‘Indecency?’ said Dan Pedersen, stiffening.

‘Yes, we call it that,’ said the cabo hastily. ‘I know that they are said to look at things differently in your country. But that is as maybe, and this is something quite different. Provocation without precedent, almost assault …’

‘It wasn’t really our fault,’ said Dan Pedersen.

‘Don’t try that on,’ said the cabo, shaking his forefinger. ‘Don’t try telling us we’ve got it wrong. We know our job. I’ve heard what Jacinto and the abuela and even those drunks had to say. There’s nothing to argue about. You started it. And don’t try saying that this isn’t a proper investigation. I knew you’d say that, but this time it won’t work. I’ve had six men on this.’

‘In my country,’ said Dan Pedersen, ‘one policeman or at the most one and a half is enough for a place this size. And you’ve got fifteen.’

‘Seventeen,’ said the cabo. ‘And there’s no such thing as half a policeman. But this isn’t a nice little chat. You must leave now, and at once.’

‘And my wife?’

‘She too,’ said the cabo, without looking at Siglinde.

‘Do look at her,’ said Dan Pedersen. ‘She’s alive and won’t bite. Do look. You aren’t allowed to do that very often, you poor bastard.’

The cabo stopped abruptly in front of him.

‘Be very careful now,’ he said slowly. ‘Be very careful, if you
don’t want to spend the rest of your time in this country in a very small room. I’m able to …’

‘All right, when must we move?’

‘At once.’

‘Where to?’

‘Wherever you like. Out of the district.’

‘Up into the town, for example?’

The cabo shrugged his shoulders.

‘But then we can come here every day if we want to?’

The cabo shrugged his shoulders again.

‘Idiotic,’ said Dan Pedersen.

‘Within twenty-four hours,’ said the cabo. ‘Preferably before. Otherwise I’ll have to make a case of it and put it before the courts. And I’d rather not do that, for your sake, and for my own.’

At least he is honest, thought Dan Pedersen. Aloud he said: ‘And the German?’

‘He can stay.’

‘Where can he live then?’

‘That’s nothing to do with me.’

The cabo looked indifferently at Willi Mohr. Then he turned to look at Santiago Alemany, who was leaning with his back against the wall and looking up at the ceiling.

‘What have you got to say, then?’ he said provocatively.

‘It wasn’t our fault and all I did was to try and separate them.’

‘You never do anything,’ said the cabo, looking bitterly at Santiago. ‘You never do anything, but you’re always there. You don’t even work properly like your father and brother. They go out with the boats nearly every night—but you’re content to sit in bars with foreigners and drive into town with the fish at the most twice a week.’

Santiago Alemany opened his mouth and moistened his lips with his tongue.

‘That can be quite hard work sometimes,’ he said.