Lime's Photograph (17 page)

I parked the motorbike and got off with stiff legs and a burning backside, not unlike the early sun that was creeping up in the humid, misty morning. The clicking hiss of the engine as it began to cool was the only sound in the growing morning light, the mist lying like a grey rug over the reaped pastures. The key was in its usual place under the pot by the back door, and I let myself in. The house was still warm from the heat of the day. In the silence I thought I could smell Amelia and Maria Luisa. There was some knitting on the kitchen table. As if Amelia had just popped upstairs or walked over to visit Arregui. Maria Luisa’s doll’s house was in the corner and a pile of children’s books lay on the table by the fireplace. I could see their raincoats and favourite umbrellas and the calendar that Amelia used to make a note of birthdays and other anniversaries. There were postcards, notes, one of Maria Luisa’s drawings and a photograph of her best friend in Madrid fixed onto the fridge door by little magnets with animal faces. We had bought them in a kiosk down in San Sebastián last summer.

I went outside again, got my sleeping bag from the motorbike and unrolled it on the wooden veranda that we had built right around the house. I fell asleep at once, my mind full of loss and the dark country road and the labouring motorbike, as relentless as a chain saw in a condemned forest.

I woke in the middle of a nightmare in which Amelia and I lay next to one another, like silver spoons in a cutlery case, and her soft, warm body slowly turned into a liquid skeleton, but I couldn’t make myself take my arms away, even though I was terrified.

Arregui was squatting in front of me. One of his big, shaggy sheep dogs was sitting next to him. The other one was looking after the flock grazing up on the hillside. I could hear the tinkling of the rams’ bells.
Arregui had a broad, almost square face, criss-crossed with fine wrinkles. His skin was leather-brown and his hair was white, thick and cut short. His eyes were completely black, as were his teeth, which were discoloured by the hand-rolled cigarettes he smoked all day long.

“
Hola!
Pedro,” he said in his deep, rasping voice.

“
Buenos días
, Arregui,” I replied, sitting up. I was still dazed by the dream.

“There aren’t any ghosts in that house,” he said.

“Maybe.”

“The dead don’t harm anyone. I kept vigil in the house one night. Their souls, thanks be to God, are at peace.”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s have coffee,” he said and went into the house, where I could hear him lighting up the stove. We had an electric kettle, but he was an old-fashioned man. The dog came up to me and I scratched absent-mindedly behind its ears, as I watched the sun rise above the highest mountain tops and cast a warm, golden glow down over the black and white sheep grazing so peacefully. The dew twinkled on the Honda’s chrome and lay like tiny pearls on the grass.

He brought out coffee with sugar and hot milk in two big mugs, and some bread with his own sheep’s milk cheese, and we ate while he talked about his animals and the weather which was never quite how he would like it to be. Farmer’s chat that calmed me and soothed my frayed nerves. I asked after Tómas and his daughter in prison. They lived, as he said, the life that God had chosen for them. One had fought his battle, and he accepted that he would fight no longer. His daughter was just one martyr among many in the struggle for Euskadi’s freedom. I had never discussed the issue with him, and didn’t intend to start now. Both children, he said, were fit and healthy, and with patience and God’s will he would have them both at his side again. He bid me a dignified farewell and picked up the rucksack that
he had left on the veranda. It contained bread, wine and cheese, and I assumed that he would be sleeping higher up the mountain as he often did when he let the sheep and dogs move on to fresh pasture. With a whistle to the dogs, he was gone. I remained sitting, watching them shrink into small dots high up on the green mountainside which led up into the huge massifs of the Pyrenees.

Then I burnt all the mementoes on a bonfire in the garden. Amelia and Maria Luisa’s clothes, the photographs of them, the calendar, the knitting, the toys, the doll’s house, the photograph of the friend. I couldn’t burn the scent or the memories of them, but I couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping in a house so full of physical reminders. I didn’t care what Arregui said. He was wrong. There were ghosts in that house.

I drove down to San Sebastián, on the La Concha bay, to meet Tómas. The town disappeared and reappeared as I swung through the bends at a leisurely pace. It was a hot day and the esplanade and beach were full of people. It was a white, lovely town and I was very fond of it. The Basque Country was going through a recession because of the terrorism, but there were no outward signs of this in San Sebastián. People were well dressed, and the bars and restaurants in the town centre were buzzing with life. Basque people love food, and the sea supplies them with an extensive cuisine which combines the French and the Spanish.

Tómas hadn’t arrived yet, so I stood at the bar and ate tapas and drank a cola. Pieces of squid, prawns with egg, sardines and slices of ham were served on small chunks of freshly baked bread. I stood at the corner of the bar, near the open door, and caught sight of Tómas before he saw me. He was only a little younger than I was, but the years had been kind to him. He always said that it was good for the health to do time in prison. You got lots of exercise, a low-fat diet and no alcohol. He had his father’s broad face, but his body was slim, and his
hands were elegant and long. There were touches of grey in his short, thick hair, and the smart, titanium frames of his glasses made him look like a polished, well-to-do banker. In fact, he earned his money as a computer programmer for finance companies and large businesses. The same brain which during the 1970s had made him ETA’s pre-eminent tactician now provided him with a good income as a troubleshooter. Tómas could always see the bigger picture and was often three or four moves ahead of everyone else. I had met him in 1972, a few years before he went to prison, and the Franco dictatorship sentenced him to death for terrorist activities. We had met by chance on the street in San Sebastián and the chemistry had been instant. He was a good source of information, but I hadn’t been aware of his deep involvement with ETA until I read about his arrest. I visited him several times in prison and helped him when he was granted amnesty along with other political prisoners.

We had been friends ever since. He had witnessed my ups and downs. His broad face lit up in a smile when he saw me and we gave each other a big hug before going into the back of the restaurant to eat a late lunch.

I drank cola. Tómas drank wine and, while I picked at my food, he ate with a hearty appetite, first a big salad and then
merluza a la vasca
– hake in a subtly seasoned sauce with vegetables. We chatted about one thing and another, but avoided the incident. We had exhausted the subject on the telephone a long time ago. Even though he was a bachelor, he understood my bereavement. He had suffered many losses himself during his life underground, but he had made the right choice when he laid down his weapons and started afresh. I knew that he despised the new generation of ETA activists, but being a Basque through and through, he could never bring himself to condemn or denounce them. He thought their politics and methods were wrong. But they were fellow countrymen first and terrorists
second. And I knew that although he was no longer active, he still had his connections and sources. He could be trusted. I knew there had been discussion of the possibility of him becoming an unofficial, secret mediator between the old socialist government and ETA, to try to work out a solution. He had put out feelers and made contacts. First, imprisoned members of ETA would be moved from Andalusia and other distant places to prisons in the Basque Country, in return for a cease-fire. The next step would be to work out a conclusive peace agreement, with the possibility of a partial amnesty. But the new, right-wing government would not negotiate with terrorists under any circumstances. The violence had flared up again, the eternal, evil spiral of violence. Now, however, it seemed as if there was change in Northern Ireland, Tómas said, and this could possibly help to resolve the situation. He didn’t harbour any great hope, but if the Irish could find a way, why not the Basques?

We had reached coffee before I asked, “Tómas. Was it them? Was it a terrible mistake?”

Tómas plucked at his napkin while I smoked. Like so many, he had long since given up smoking, but had taken up fiddling with things instead.

“It wasn’t them, Peter,” he said. “It wasn’t them. I’m not saying they wouldn’t have done it, but it wasn’t them. They didn’t know the traitor was living in that building.”

“Who then?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand it. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Then why haven’t they disclaimed responsibility? Said it wasn’t them?”

He looked away and drank from his
café solo
even though there were only dregs left in the bottom of the tiny cup. Then he spoke quietly, but with anger in his voice, an anger that I sensed was directed at himself.

“To create fear is at the very core of terrorism. They get a fear-inducing element handed to them on a plate, free of charge. Why shouldn’t they make use of it? A traitor was eliminated. Others will hesitate, because they’ve shown that the avenging arm is long. We didn’t spread terror back in Franco’s time. We went for military personnel, members of the oppressive police network, the regime’s top people. We were soldiers in a dirty war. But we were soldiers, not murderers of innocent civilians.”

I had never heard him take issue with the morals of his successors. There was truth in what he said. ETA had begun using violence – what they called the armed struggle – back in 1968, when he had been just a teenager. Like cowboys escaping across the Rio Grande, they had taken refuge in France after carrying out their actions. And France, like other European countries, had considered them freedom fighters struggling in a just cause – seeking to overthrow the fascist Franco dictatorship.

“I need to make some sense of it. I need to know,” I said.

“I understand. But maybe the authorities are behind it. Maybe it was an attempt to get rid of the photographs of the Minister. Maybe it was simple revenge. They’ve done it before, during the dirty war. And that was a socialist government! Have you thought how opportune it is for the Spanish to say that it was ETA? It’s rather convenient, the way ETA’s become active again. Maybe ETA’s just a smoke screen. What do they call it in English – a red herring?”

Under the Social Democrat government the authorities had sent death squads to both the French and Spanish Basque Country to liquidate alleged ETA members. Brutally execute them without trial. Violence breeds violence. The issue was being dealt with by the courts now, but so far all efforts to discover which members of the governments of the 1980s had known about the death squads had been in vain.

“I want to hear them say it,” I said. “That it wasn’t them.”

He sat thinking.

“It’s very risky, Peter. Risky for me, for you, for them. They’re being pressed from all sides. They’re divided, anxious, edgy, aggressive.”

“I want to hear them say it.”

He sat for a while. Then he made a decision and left. I stayed and ordered another coffee and paid the bill. He came back 20 minutes later. I didn’t know where he had phoned from or what he had been doing, and I wouldn’t dream of asking.

He sat down. He was sweating, as if he had been walking too fast in the afternoon heat, but it could also have been nerves. Even though he was a free, law-abiding citizen, he had to assume that for the rest of his days the intelligence and security services would be keeping an eye on him. He also had to be on guard constantly, in case the other side became suspicious that he was playing a double game, might turn traitor, and by so doing sign his own death warrant. In effect, he lived the agonising, edgy and stressful existence of a double agent, where you could end up frightened of your own shadow.

“There’s a bench. The underground car park next to the Londres, eight o’clock. Carry an evening edition of
Diario Vasco
,” he said in a quiet, nervous voice.

“Thanks, Tómas,” I said simply. “I’m in your debt.”

“Friends are never in debt to one another,” he said. But I could tell that I had pressed our friendship as far as was humanly possible. Perhaps it had been them after all, and he had a bad conscience. Maybe it was for Maria Luisa’s sake. For Amelia’s. Or for all the years we had known one other, or because he knew that I was working through my grief. We said a slightly cool goodbye with a firm handshake and I watched him disappear round the corner by a shuttered camera shop in the deserted, siesta-time street.

I wandered around the town for a couple of hours. It did me good
to walk. The straight, narrow streets in the town centre slowly filled with people after 5 p.m., when the shop shutters were rolled up with a rattle that echoed like the sound of castanets. The promenade by the park was buzzing with people again after the siesta, and the traffic was back to its roaring intensity. I bought a copy of
Diario Vasco
and, at 7.45 p.m., went and sat on the bench opposite the pedestrian entrance to the car park under the plaza. The town hall was on my right and, on my left, the Hotel Londres where I had stayed several times in my younger days when some newspaper was picking up the bill. I could see the statue of Christ up on Monte Egueldo. The tide had gone out, exposing the yellowish-grey sand below the esplanade. There were people in the water. Young men swam out to a raft anchored in the mussel-shaped bay, from which it took its name. The raft always made me think of Hemingway. Other youngsters had marked out football pitches in the sand and played with a lot of shouting until the sun went down in an orgy of red and darkness stopped play. The beach, which gradually grew narrower and narrower as the tide came back in, emptied.

A young mother pushing a small child in a pram came and sat down next to me. It was a warm and gentle evening and she held out an ice lolly which the child licked in delight. She chattered to the infant in Basque. The child waggled its hands and knocked the little bonnet that had been lying on its tummy out of the pram. I bent down and picked up the bonnet and handed it to the young mother. She smiled, but only with her mouth. Her brown eyes were anxious.