The Shores of Spain (27 page)

*   *   *

J
oaquim came out of the small shop on the Passieg de Gracia with a wrapped bundle under his arm. The hotel’s concierge had sent him there, citing it as a place where he could replace some of the garments that had been in the bag of his nephew’s that went missing on the train. That was the best way to explain the sudden addition of Alejandro to their party. Alejandro would be his sister’s son, come to stay with them because his mother was ill and couldn’t care for him.

Joaquim stopped in the lobby and placed a telephone call to the American consulate only to learn that they’d
still
not found Leandra Rocha and their missing man from Paris. He considered trying to find the woman as he’d done with the boy, but he didn’t know very much about her. If Alejandro had something of his mother’s, that might work, but Joaquim wasn’t certain. For the moment, it seemed he was destined to wait on the Americans, especially annoying when he didn’t understand their motives.

He went upstairs to their room and knocked on the door to warn Marina before he unlocked it. She wilted when he stepped inside and came to throw her arms about him. “What took so long?”

“I had to place a telephone call and send a wire and go to a store,” he said.

“You told me you were sending a telegram, not the others.”

“I apologize,” he said, taking in her worried look. “Is Alejandro still asleep?”

Marina took a deep breath. “No, he’s taking a bath.”

Now that was surprising. “How did you convince him to do that?”

“I doubt it occurred to him he had any choice,” she said. “I think he’s accustomed to doing as he’s told.”

Joaquim sighed. Had Alejandro ever had much choice in his life? He would suggest that the next time the boy needed to bathe, he should be told he
could
refuse, but that would make their lives unnecessarily complicated. He handed Marina the bundle from the store. “I had to estimate his size, but I bought a pair of clean outfits for him. Trousers, shirts, suspenders. I should have thought to take his shoes to find a match, but we can probably get a new pair for him later.”

Marina caught her lower lip between her teeth. “His feet are probably wider than a human’s. It would be better for him to have custom-made.”

That would take time they didn’t have. “Noted.”

“There is one thing,” she said as she untied the bundle. “When he undressed to get in the bath, there were no stripes on his legs, no sign of a dorsal fin.”

So his mother was definitely a sereia, not a Canary. “Someone other than his mother taught him Portuguese,” Joaquim said. “If she came from your islands, wouldn’t she have raised him speaking her language?”

Marina’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose. It just seemed odd.”

One more puzzle piece that doesn’t fit
.

*   *   *

I
LHAS
DAS
S
EREIAS

D
uilio had been the first to see the soldier approaching on horseback, one in Portuguese uniform. So Oriana waited on the drive in front of the beach house, squinting in the late-afternoon
sun.
Why would one of the soldiers be in such a hurry as to rent a horse?

Captain Vas Neves stood with her. As the horse came galloping down the road, they could see the rider was Corporal Almeida, who had gone just that morning to Quitos with Benites to speak with the Americans. The horse slowed, and as Almeida neared, the captain grabbed the horse’s headstall.

Face flushed, Almeida swung one leg over the horse’s bare withers and slid down to the ground. She drew the reins over the creature’s head and held them as it snorted and blew. “Madam,” she began with a nod in Oriana’s direction. “Captain. I’ve ridden ahead of the main group, but they should start arriving in a few hours.”

Oriana cast a glance at Duilio and turned back to the corporal. “Main group?”

The corporal faced her squarely. “Yes, madam. Not long after we handed that message over to the Americans, our embassy was contacted and given two hours to clear out. Since there’s nowhere on Quitos that will take humans, the lieutenant and your chief of staff agreed we should come here.”

“Clear out?” Oriana asked, beginning to feel like a parrot.

“Start at the beginning, Corporal,” Duilio said, coming closer. “Who gave the order to leave the embassy?”

“Subminister Paredes,” Almeida said. “She came to the embassy herself and informed us it was for our safety.”

Oriana pinched the bridge of her nose. What was going through her aunt’s head? She wasn’t even certain such an order was legal. Could a single government subminister order out an entire ambassadorial mission? Didn’t an expulsion order have to come via the oligarchy itself, or from their Foreign Office? And why so fast? Two hours was ridiculously short notice. While she had no doubt her guard contingent was handling this with aplomb, all the secretaries and clerks and typists were likely terrified.

“Did she say anything else?” Duilio asked. “Are we being
expelled
?”

“No, Mr. Ferreira, she didn’t use those words. The lieutenant made the call to evacuate, though, based on the warning. The Brazilians were already clearing out when the subminister got to us, so we gave it credence. She went from us directly to the Americans. If there was official paperwork, it came after I left.”

“She told
all
the embassies to clear out?” Oriana asked. That was a sign of trouble. All the missions’ personnel would have to ferry over to Amado. And while there were a few hotels in Porto Novo, there was certainly not room for that many.

“I was with the first group to get across, madam, so I don’t know. Benites sent me immediately to inform you, and the Brazilian ambassador was kind enough to leave one of his people behind at the ferry so I could get here sooner.”

The Brazilian mission was the smallest, an informal arrangement with a minimal guard. The English, Spanish, and Americans would all have far more people crossing over to Amado. Oriana touched a finger to her temple, needing a moment to think this over.

There were ships in harbor: one Portuguese, a handful of English, a Brazilian, and two American. The embassy staffs, if they couldn’t find lodging, could prevail on the captains of those ships for protection. The Spanish currently didn’t have that option.

“Did you see the English moving? Or the Spanish?” she asked the corporal.

“The subminister seemed to be going along the row of embassies, madam, so notification of the English would have fallen after the Americans, and the Spanish last. But there were already soldiers moving in by the time I was off embassy grounds, so the English would have known something was happening.”

Vas Neves shook her head. “Corporal,
what
soldiers?”

“Sorry, Captain,” Almeida said, flushing. “Sereia soldiers. Navy,
since they wore khaki skirts. Lieutenant Benites will be able to tell you more when she arrives.”

First things first: water, food, and lodging. Duilio gestured for Oriana’s attention. “I’m going to take the boys—”

“Sir,” Vas Neves protested.

Duilio spread his hands wide in apology. “Excuse me. I’d like to take the remaining
male
guards up to the harbor and meet our people. The chief of staff will be bringing our files, and I’d like to find a safe place to put them.”

As much as she would like to be at the harbor too, just to hear their news faster, Oriana knew she would be more useful at the house, organizing. Benites would have more solid information when she eventually arrived. Along with the full complement of guards. And a dozen clerical workers and the chief of staff.
Where am I supposed to put all those people?

And why were they being booted out of their own embassy on such short notice?

Many citizens on Quitos felt the same as her aunt, that the human stain on the islands was destroying their people. She only hoped that the massing of troops near the embassies wasn’t the start of a complete purge of foreigners. That would be the worst possible way to end her tenure as ambassador.

CHAPTER 25

                   T
UESDAY
,
28
A
PRIL
1903
; B
ARCELONA                   

A
lejandro hadn’t run off in the night, as Marina had halfway expected. In the morning he’d been in his bed in the sitting area, feigning sleep. When she’d told him to get up and get dressed, he acted as if that was an order. He had a disconcerting tendency to do as told and a disregard for his own privacy that made her suspect he’d learned never to protest anything.

He hadn’t given them many answers the previous evening, and they hadn’t wanted to press him too hard. He had nothing of his mother’s that Joaquim could use to find her. He
had
seen the journal; his mother still had it in her possession when she left him. He didn’t know who, if anyone, had hired them to steal the book. He didn’t know Iria Serpa and hadn’t ever met Dr. Serpa or Father Salazar. As for his situation at the prison, he’d been born there, had lived his whole life there until he and his mother went to the islands. He didn’t like to talk about it, Marina could tell.

He also never asked questions, which she found odd. He didn’t ask Joaquim anything about his family in Portugal. He didn’t ask why they were in Spain hunting his mother. He didn’t ask how long they would stay or where they would go. He didn’t complain either. He
donned the new clothing that Joaquim had purchased, never commenting on the fact that his sleeves were too long.

His old garments were nearly worn out, some of the grime so embedded that Marina didn’t think it would ever come out. She folded each piece as neatly as possible to have the hotel staff launder them. The key rattled in the door, and Joaquim came back in. His eyes went to the small bed against one wall, and then he looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

“I sent him into the dressing room to make himself presentable,” she said.

“Ah.” Joaquim shook his head, looking bemused by their new responsibility. They’d lain abed late into the night, trying to decide what to do with the boy.
Whispering
, because they worried he would overhear them. “I placed a call to the consulate again. They had a message from Duilio. It turns out they’d discovered Alejandro’s name and that he must be related to Duilio and me.”

“We already knew that,” she said.

“Yes, but he couldn’t have known that we knew. But the message was sent yesterday, so it’s helpful to know the Americans can get word from the islands to Barcelona that quickly.”

“Can they send word back?”

“That, they didn’t tell me. Also, they’ve not found the man from Paris or Leandra herself.”

Marina sighed, unable to hide her frustration. “The Americans seem to have fouled up everything.”

“Yes, this fellow from Paris has done more harm than good.” He came over and wrapped his arms around her from behind, briefly resting his chin atop her head. “Since they have nothing for us, what would you think of going to Terrassa this morning?”

They’d discussed that possibility during the night, for the first time since he’d mentioned his great-grandmother on the train. “We’ll have to bring Alejandro along.”

“Do you mind?”

She turned to face him. “No. Let’s go.”

Out of the corner of one eye, she saw that Alejandro stood in the door of the bedroom, his new cap in his hand. She went and knelt down in front of him. “After breakfast we plan to visit a relative of Joaquim’s. Would you mind that?”

He shrugged, not much of an answer.

“The people who are supposed to find your mother still haven’t done so, but as soon as we return, I promise we’ll start looking for her too.”

Alejandro nodded, so she rose and offered her hand. “We’re going to go down to the restaurant and have breakfast there.”

He wordlessly put his hand in hers. Clearly, food was important to him.

*   *   *

I
LHAS
DAS
S
EREIAS

T
he guards were camped out on the beach, most acting content to be there. Grandmother Monteiro had borrowed several canvas pavilions that offered cover from the sun and protection should it rain. The members of the clerical staff were all lodged inside the house itself, most sleeping on the terraces at night.

Their previous visitor had returned. Madam Norton had rented most of a hotel in Porto Novo for her staff. She’d driven out early to join them for a late breakfast and to inform them that their message to Joaquim had been sent despite the precipitous evacuation of the ambassadorial missions. “I’m sure you realize, Mr. Ferreira, the sereia government doesn’t give a damn what we consider a reasonable action to take against a foreign embassy.”

“I do,” Duilio admitted. “I merely point out that their Foreign Office, limited as it is, had to know a rushed evacuation would be looked upon with a jaundiced eye.”

Madam Norton smiled down into her cup of coffee. She was
attired in far more casual garb today, a white shirtwaist with a beige-striped skirt. It made him suspect that clothing had been low on her list of priorities when choosing what to carry out of the embassy. What had she chosen to take instead?

Their own chief of staff had packed most of the paperwork deemed sensitive into locked cases and put them in a heavily guarded wagon. Once ferried across to Amado, those cases were transported directly to the Portuguese steam freighter
Tesouro
and placed in its hold. The chief of staff and the remaining male guards—minus Costa—were stationed on the ship with that cache. Duilio had been taken aback by how much so-called sensitive material they’d accumulated in only three months. The Americans, with their years of work here, could not possibly have transported everything important.