The Obedient Assassin: A Novel (9 page)

L
ater that day, from a distance, he observed Sylvia's reaction to Klement's death. She looked anxious and weary. All of her brightness was gone, the vitality. She had taken on a grayish pallor, a fearfulness that made him want to reach out to her. He was so close to her, he could reach out so easily. He felt terrible deceiving her.

Then, four days later, like a weird echo, her letter came back from Brussels
.

Shocking, terrible news! The police found Rudolf Klement's body floating in the Seine. I can hardly bear to write this, but whoever killed him (Stalin's henchmen, everyone says) cut off his arms, legs, and head and stuffed him in a suitcase. I no longer know what I'm doing here in Paris and must make some decisions about going home. I had a letter from my boss saying he can only hold my job until September 15, then I will be replaced.

I would feel better if I only knew where you were and what had happened. You've become such a mystery to me. I thought I saw you today. It was such a vivid and strange sensation.

Have you heard that new song? I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places. It's strange how haunting a song can be! But truly, I wonder if I will see you again. My family has been writing, urging me to come home. They're very worried about what's happening here in Europe. I think I might be able to stand the greater uncertainties if I only knew about you. With much love, Sylvia

After reading the letter, he walked to the garage near his flat where he kept the Citroën. He was sick of following Sylvia around, playing a silly game of his mother's devising. He had no plan other than to go for a drive, to get out of the city. But being in the car was a tonic—the feel of a hot breeze coming through the windows, shifting gears, the power of the engine. He'd thought vaguely of returning to Versailles but found himself on the road to Lyon, drawn in some inexorable way, as if each mile he drove was another reason not to turn back, as if a plug had been pulled and water was rushing down a drain.

It was August, the time when one is meant to leave Paris, to get away. He would treat himself to a night in Lyon. He knew the restaurant where he would dine, the dishes he would order. He would stroll around, walking past the culinary school where he studied, find a little hotel where he could sleep.

From his car, he began to see glints of river in the distance, the terraced vineyards climbing up the hills. Farm trucks sat beneath shade trees next to the road, filled with tomatoes and peaches and plums. He thought of Provence, the fields of lavender, the groves of olive trees. The scent became stronger, the pull of the South, the gravity of home.

Stopping on the edge of Lyon to buy gasoline, he counted his francs—enough for an expensive meal and a night in a hotel—or enough for three or four days if he was careful. He drove into the city, following the spires of the basilica, then parked on the street near the restaurant he remembered liking. He studied the menu in the window for a few minutes, then walked toward the basilica, strolling along the Rhône—or perhaps it was the Saône—as dusk fell and the streetlamps and shop lights came on. When he saw a telephone office, he hesitated a moment. He knew Caridad would start looking for him, but he couldn't bear the thought of hearing her voice, her assumption that he would do what she wanted, her voice hectoring and badgering him. No, he would not call her. He had to shut her out in order to listen to himself. He had come this far. That was his decision, and now he felt whole and free again.

He bought bread and sausage, which he ate sitting in the Citroën, studying a road map. Lyon was a bit out of the way, too far east. But he could drop down to Aix then head back along the Riviera to Perpignan and eventually Cerbère. He asked a man to point him toward the road to Aix then started south. The traffic was light but slow, mostly trucks trundling along at fifty kilometers an hour. He passed through Valence, stopping on the outskirts of Aix near a gas station where he slept in the backseat of the car. When he woke, listening to the insistent drone of cicadas in the trees, he felt as if he were once more a boy in Toulouse.

He got the car gassed up, found coffee and bread, then started east through Languedoc-Roussillon, the landscape becoming increasingly wild and rugged, the road winding and turning. The sun was strong, the air hot, dense with the smell of motor oil and melting tar, the scent of juniper, rosemary, and pine. At intervals, small, carefully cultivated valleys came into view with vineyards, olive groves, and lavender fields, followed by wild and rugged terrain, craggy boulders and ridges, stony hilltop villages. He saw gulls and sensed the air changing, then, coming over a ridge, in the distance he glimpsed the white, snowcapped peak of Canigou floating spectral in a misty band of blue haze that lay between land and sky. His breath caught at the sight of the mountain; the road dropped down from the ridge, the Mediterranean came into view, reflecting the curve of the earth, the swells rising and falling, marking the passage of time. He was close to home, Barcelona, just hours away.

The train station at Cerbère felt oddly quiet at two o'clock in the afternoon. “Barcelona?” the man in the ticket window repeated. “No, there's nothing for Barcelona.”

“Nothing?”

“The border is closed.”

“And for cars?”

“As well. There's a war, you know.”

Outside, on the street he saw a Gypsy leading a dancing bear on a chain. The man, dressed in flashy black pants and shirt with a rakish black hat, looked weathered and weary. The bear, a metal collar around its neck, was filthy, its heavy coat matted and dusty. Ramón lit a cigarette, offering the pack to the Gypsy, who took two, saying one was for a friend.

“Where do you cross the border?” Ramón asked in Catalan.

The Gypsy lifted his chin and pointed inland toward the foothills with his pursed lips.

“In a car?”

“Walking or on horseback. There are paths.”

“Do you mean the crossing at Puigcerdà south of Toulouse?”

“No, much closer. There's a dirt road that goes through the forest. When it starts up into the hills, you see an opening for a trail into Catalonia.”

Ramón got back in the car, starting north on the blacktop until he saw a well-used dirt road that ran inland toward the hills. When he found the trail, he drove back to the train station in Cerbère, parked the Citroën, and flagged a taxi, calculating that the chance of the car being stolen or vandalized would be greater on a dirt road so close to the border.

He paid the taxi driver, then started down the rocky trail. He needed a bath and a shave, but he looked relatively respectable in a white shirt and pair of gray slacks. He was in Catalonia once more, three hours from Barcelona by car or train. He stayed on the trail till it came to a dirt road, where he turned back toward the coast. When he saw a woman in a battered straw hat hoeing in a garden next to a farmhouse, he stopped to ask for water. Wiping her brow, a smudge of dirt on her cheek, she brought him a tin cup from the well. She was in her forties, her face lined and faded, her lips chapped. Despite her age and a certain heaviness that emanated from her body, he could see her prettiness.

“Water tastes better on this side,” he said in Catalan, wiping his lips.

“You came from France?”

“Yes, just now on the path. But I'm a native of Barcelona, trying to get home.”

“You weren't there during the aerial attack?”

“No, but I hear it was bad.”

She nodded gravely.

“Do you know anyone who goes that way? I would pay for a ride. I had to leave my car on the other side.”

She considered, looking into the distance. “What day of the week is it?”

“Wednesday, I believe. Or is it Thursday? I've been on the road.”

“Don Tomas should be going. He goes every Thursday to sell his cheese at the market on Friday. He stays with his daughter in the city.”

“And where can I find Don Tomas?”

“The next house on the road. Tell them that Matilda sent you.”

Ramón thanked her for the water and continued walking. He saw goats grazing in a field before the house came into view, an old Peugeot truck in front of a low stone shed. A man wearing a straw hat and a dark suit was loading enamel buckets into the back of the truck. A black-and-white collie barked at Ramón and ran toward him, alternately cowering and wagging his tail. The man hushed the dog, then pushed his hat back to get a better look at the stranger approaching. Ramón mentioned Matilda, that he was hoping for a ride to Barcelona and would be happy to pay.

The man shook his head. No, he wouldn't take money. They were going anyway.

“For the gasoline,” Ramón was saying when the farmer's wife appeared from the house in a flowered dress and a straw bonnet.

“Jaume, it's just for petrol. It's only fair.”

Bustling to get away from home, she was carrying a black handbag, a covered straw basket, a large tin can filled with flowers, and a lumpy package wrapped carefully in wrinkled brown paper and string. In France, Ramón had imagined that his country was dying, but, as ever, the farmer and his wife were going to the city, taking their cheese to the market. Ramón took the basket and flowers from the woman and offered to help load the buckets of
recuit
, soft, creamy cheese.

In the truck, he was afraid they would ask too many questions, but when he said he had been living in France with his mother, they assumed that she was French and that he had dual citizenship. They were far more interested in talking about their daughter who had married a medical student in Barcelona. “A good boy, a brilliant student,” the farmer said.

“But an anarchist,” the woman worried.

“So many were anarchists in Catalonia.”

“And they'll pay the price with Franco.”

Ramón sat by the door, his arm out the window, the woman in the middle beside her husband. It was dark by the time they reached Barcelona. The headlights picked out piles of rubble, wooden barricades, shattered storefronts, and abandoned cars. The streets were almost empty, pedestrians hurrying along as if pursued. The farmer and his wife insisted on taking him to Calle Ancha, the wide commercial street that ran parallel to the waterfront.

He stopped at a pharmacy to buy a toothbrush, then walked to his father's building, noticing the gaping hole across the street. He still had the key he'd carried since he was thirteen, which still opened the heavy, battered wooden door. He switched on the sickly overhead light in the black-and-yellow tile foyer, the same pallid yellow as old piano keys. The stone flags of the curving staircase sagged with age, the light above dying as he reached the landing. He pressed the button on the wall plate for the next landing and continued up another flight, stopping in front of 2B, raising the heavy brass knocker shaped like a dolphin and tapping firmly.

His father before him had grown up in the apartment, and he had been born there. After what seemed a great while, he heard his father inside coming from what sounded like a great distance. A dead bolt snapped back, then the door opened. “Ramón!” The name followed a sharp inhalation of air.
“Ay, hombre, que gusto!”

Tall, his head bald, his shoulders rounded, his father looked older and sadder. He had tied a black band of ribbon around his left sleeve and draped a white sheet over the vestibule mirror. He offered his hand, then embraced his son. “Come in. What are you doing here? Can you stay?”

“For the night, if you don't mind.”

“The house is empty except for me. Your old room is waiting for you.”

A lamp burned in the long hallway to the kitchen. He led the way to the back of the apartment, his carpet slippers whispering on the worn tiles. “I sit in here,” he said, referring to the kitchen, which had never been meant to be seen, much less lived in. Everything was utilitarian and roughly made, worn by decades of use. A bare bulb hanging from a chain cast a greenish glow. A rocking chair had been positioned near a window for the sea breeze. A radio, newspapers, an ashtray, and cigarettes waited on a small table within easy reach. A small bowl of water on the floor belied the presence of a cat.

“You must be hungry. Would you like an egg? An egg and bread?”

“Something to drink, perhaps. A sherry?”

“Yes, of course.
Un fino
.”

He pulled a bottle from a shelf and dusted off a small clear glass.

“Won't you have one with me?”

The old man looked surprised. “Yes! Why not?” He filled a second glass, raising it to Ramón, who patted his own sleeve to indicate the black ribbon.

“Is that still for Pablo or for more recent deaths?”

“Oh yes.” He glanced down at the ribbon. “For Pablo but so many others. And so many still to come. You noticed the building across the street? Or what was once a building?”

“Of course. I couldn't miss it.”

“It was frightful, the bombing. Three days, every three hours. Forty tons of explosives they dropped, the constant sirens. I sat here and waited. What could I do? Most of the time we had no electricity, no lights or water. During the day, I could go down the stairs to talk to my neighbors, but at night I sat and rocked.”

He took a sudden and quick swallow of the sherry, emptying the small glass. “It will be so much worse under Franco. I'm glad I'm old. I won't have to live through much of it.”

“How many years do you have now?”

“In December I complete seventy.”

Ramón nodded, tacitly agreeing that that was indeed many years.

“The last I heard you were on the front in Aragon. Then I lost track of you.”

Ramón drank his sherry. “I've been in Paris.”

“With Caridad?”

“Does that surprise you?”

“No, why should it?” He raised his eyebrows and shoulders in unison; there was nothing he could do. “You always had to take care of her, even as a little boy.”