The Time in Between: A Novel (49 page)

Some of them were familiar to me, others weren’t. Doña Manuela could have been among them, but Rosalinda didn’t mention her: perhaps she hadn’t reopened her workshop. When she had finished reading the list she tore the bit of paper into a thousand little pieces and left them in the ashtray filled with cigarette butts.

“In spite of the efforts to show new collections and offer customers the best designs, they all, however, share the same problem, they all have the same limitation. So it won’t be easy for any of them to make a success of it.”

“What’s the problem?”

“The scarcity of fabric, the severe scarcity of fabric. Neither Spain nor France is producing materials for this sort of sewing; those factories that haven’t closed down are focusing on fulfilling the basic needs of the population or developing materials destined for the war. They use the cotton to make uniforms; the linen, bandages; any sort of fabric has a function that’s a higher priority than fashion. You’ll be able to overcome this problem by bringing fabrics from Tangiers. There’s still trade here, there’s no problem with imports like there is on the Peninsula. You get products coming here from America and Argentina, there’s still a good stock of French fabrics and English wools, Indian and Chinese silks from previous years: you can take it all with you. And if you end up needing more supplies, we’ll find some way for you to get
hold of them. If you arrive in Madrid with material and ideas, and if I can spread the word among my contacts, you could be the dressmaker of the season. You won’t have any competition, Sira: you’ll be the only person who can give them what they want: ostentation, luxury, utter frivolity, as though the world were a grand ballroom rather than the bloody battlefield they’ve made it. And the German women, all of them, will be over you like vultures.”

“But they’ll connect me to you,” I said, trying to cling to anything that might prevent me from being swept away by this lunatic plan.

“Not at all. No one has any reason to. The Germans in Madrid have mostly just arrived and they have no contact with the ones in Morocco; no one has to suspect that you and I know each other. Though naturally your experience of sewing for their compatriots in Tetouan will be a great help to you: you know their tastes, you know how to handle them and how to behave with them.”

As she was speaking, I closed my eyes and just shook my head from side to side. For a few seconds my mind went back to my early months in Tetouan, to the night Candelaria showed me the pistols and proposed that we sell them to open the atelier. The feeling of panic was just the same, and the scenario was similar: two women hidden away in a dark little room, one laying out a dangerous, fully thought out plan, and the other, terrified, refusing to accept it. But there were certain differences—big differences. The plan Rosalinda was proposing to me was on quite another scale.

Her voice brought me back from the past, made me abandon the wretched bedroom in the La Luneta boardinghouse and reposition myself in the reality of the little storeroom at the back of Dean’s Bar.

“We’ll give you a reputation, we have ways of doing that. I’m well connected in the circles that are of interest to us in Madrid; we’ll get word of mouth going so that people hear about you without ever connecting you to me. The SOE will cover all the initial costs: they’ll pay for the rental of the place, the setup of the workshop, and the initial investment in fabric and equipment. Juan Luis will take care of the paperwork for customs and get you the permits you need to move the merchandise from Tangiers to Spain; it’ll have to be a considerable
supply, because once he’s out of the ministry these things will be much harder to arrange. You’ll take all the profit from the business. All you have to do is what you’re doing in Morocco, but paying greater attention to what you hear from your German clients, as well as any Spanish women connected to the structures of power and to the Nazis. The German women are utterly idle and they have more money than they need. Your atelier could become a place for them to meet. You’ll hear about where their husbands are going, the people they meet, the plans they have, and the visitors they’re receiving from Germany.”

“I barely speak any German.”

“You can communicate well enough to make them feel comfortable with you.”

“I don’t know much more than numbers, greetings, colors, the days of the week, and a handful of random phrases,” I insisted.

“It doesn’t matter; we’ve already thought about that. We’ve got someone who can help you. All you’ll have to do is assemble the bits of information and then get them to their destination.”

“How?”

She shrugged.

“That’s something Hillgarth will have to tell you if you accept. I don’t know how these operations work; I imagine they’ll design something especially for you.”

I shook my head again, this time more emphatically.

“I’m not going to accept, Rosalinda.”

She lit another cigarette and inhaled deeply.

“Why not?” she asked through the smoke.

“Because I won’t,” I said bluntly. I had a thousand reasons not to embark on that nonsense, but I preferred to pile them all up into a single refusal. No. No, I wouldn’t do it. Decisively no. I took another slug of whiskey from the bottle; it tasted horrible.

“Why not, querida? Because you’re afraid, no?” She was speaking quietly now, confidently. The music had come to an end; the only sound was the needle scratching over the surface of the record and a few voices and some laughter coming from the other side of the curtain. “We’re all afraid, we’re all utterly terrified,” she murmured. “But that’s not a
good enough reason. We have to get involved, Sira. We have to help. You, me, all of us, each in whatever way we can. We have to contribute our grain of sand to make sure this madness doesn’t go any further.”

“Besides, I can’t go to Madrid. I have unfinished business to deal with. You know what I’m referring to.”

The matter of the fraud charges from Ramiro’s time still hadn’t been resolved. Since the end of the civil war I’d talked to Commissioner Vázquez about it a couple of times. He’d tried to find out what the situation was in Madrid, but he hadn’t gotten anywhere. Everything’s still very chaotic, we’ll let some time go by, wait for things to calm down, he’d say to me. And having no intention of going back, I’d waited. Rosalinda knew the situation; I’d told her about it myself.

“We’ve thought about that, too. About that, and about the fact that you have to be covered, you have to be protected from any eventuality. Our embassy couldn’t be responsible for you if there were to be any problem, and the way things are it’s risky for a Spanish citizen. But Juan Luis has had an idea.”

I wanted to ask her what it was, but I couldn’t find my voice. Nor did I need to say anything; she set it all out for me right away.

“He can get you a Moroccan passport.”

“A fake passport,” I countered.

“No, querida, a real one. He’s still got very good friends in Morocco. You could be a Moroccan citizen within a few hours. With of course a different name.”

I got up and noticed I was finding it hard to keep my balance. In my brain—amid the pool of whiskey and gin—all those alien words were splashing messily around. Secret service, agents, operatives. False names, Moroccan passports. I leaned against the wall and tried to recover my composure.

“Rosalinda—no. Please, don’t go on. I can’t agree.”

“You don’t have to make a decision right now. Think about it.”

“There’s nothing to think about. What time is it?”

She looked at her watch; I tried to do the same with mine but the numbers seemed to dissolve before my eyes.

“A quarter to ten.”

“I have to get back to Tetouan.”

“I’ve arranged for a car to come and collect you at ten, but I don’t think you’re in any state to go anywhere. Stay the night in Tangiers. I’ll get them to give you a room in the El Minzah and to let your mother know.”

A bed to sleep in and forget that whole dark conversation seemed the most tempting of offers. A big bed with white sheets, in a beautiful room in which I’d wake up the following day to find that this meeting with Rosalinda had just been a nightmare. A wild nightmare out of nowhere. Suddenly some lucidity sparked up from a distant corner of my brain.

“They can’t let my mother know. We don’t have a telephone, you know that.”

“I’ll get someone to call Félix Aranda and he’ll tell her. I’ll also arrange for someone to pick you up and take you to Tetouan tomorrow morning.”

“And where are you staying?”

“At the home of some English friends on the Rue de Hollande. I don’t want anyone to know I’m in Tangiers. A car brought me straight here from their house; I haven’t even set foot on the street.”

She fell silent for a few seconds and then started speaking again, her voice lower. Lower and more ominous.

“Things are looking really bad for Juan Luis and me, Sira. We’re being permanently watched.”

“Who?” I asked, hoarse.

She gave a sad half smile.

“Everyone. The police. The Gestapo. The Falange.”

My fear burst out of me in a question, my voice a thick whisper. “And what about me? Will they be watching me, too?”

“I don’t know, querida, I don’t know.”

She smiled again but this time didn’t manage to conceal the trace of anxiety that lingered on her lips.

___________

T
here was a knock at the door, and someone came in without waiting for permission. With my eyes still half closed, through the gloom I could make out a uniformed maid carrying a tray. She put it down somewhere outside my field of vision and drew the curtains. The room immediately filled with light, and I covered my head with the pillow. Although this muffled the noise, my ears filled with little signals that allowed me to follow what the recent arrival was doing. The porcelain of the cup coming into contact with the saucer, the bubbling of the hot coffee coming out of the pot, the scraping of a knife against a piece of toast as it spread the butter. When everything was ready, she approached the bed.

“Good morning, señorita. Your breakfast is ready. You’ll have to get up now, there will be a car at the door for you in an hour.”

I replied with a grunt. I wanted to say thank you, I get it, leave me alone. The girl hadn’t understood that I meant to keep sleeping.

“They’ve asked me not to leave till you’re up.”

She spoke Spanish with a Spanish accent. Tangiers had filled up with Republicans since the war had ended, and she was probably a daughter of one of those families. I grunted again and rolled over.

“Please, señorita, get up. Your coffee and toast will get cold.”

“Who sent you?” I asked without removing my head from its refuge. My voice sounded like it was coming from inside a cave, perhaps because of the barrier of feathers and material that separated me from the outside world, perhaps an effect of the catastrophic night before. Even as I finished formulating it, I realized how ridiculous the question was. How could this girl know who it was who’d sent her to me? I, on the other hand, had no doubt whatsoever.

“I got the order from the kitchen, señorita. I’m the maid for this floor.”

“Well, you can go now.”

“Not until you’re up.”

The young maid was obstinate, with the persistence of someone who has been well drilled. Finally I withdrew my head and pushed the hair away from my face. When I moved the sheets aside I realized that I was wearing an apricot-colored nightgown that didn’t belong to me. The girl was waiting for me, holding a matching dressing gown; I decided not to ask her where it had come from—how would she know? I guessed that somehow or other Rosalinda had arranged for both things to be brought to the room. There weren’t any slippers, however, so I walked barefoot over to the little round table that had been set with my breakfast. My stomach was growling.

“Can I give you any milk, señorita?” she asked as I sat down.

I nodded, unable to say anything: my mouth was already full of toast. I was ravenous as a wolf; I remembered I hadn’t had dinner the previous night.

“If it’s all right, I’ll draw your bath for you.”

I nodded again while I chewed, and within a few seconds I heard the water gushing hard out of the taps. The girl returned to the room.

“You can go now—thank you. Tell whoever sent you that I’m up.”

“They’ve told me to take your clothes to be ironed while you’re having your breakfast.”

I took another bite of toast and nodded wordlessly again. Then she took up my clothes, which had been tossed in a jumble on a little armchair.

“Does señorita require anything else?” she asked before leaving.

With my mouth still full, I brought a finger to my temple, as though simulating a gunshot, though unintentionally. She looked at me in alarm and I noticed then that she was only a child.

“Something for my headache?” I explained when I was finally able to swallow.

She showed that she’d understood with an emphatic nod and slipped away without another word, keen to escape as soon as possible from the bedroom of the madwoman she must have thought me.

I polished off the toast, an orange juice, a couple of croissants, and a bun. Then I poured myself a second cup of coffee, and when I picked up the milk jug the back of my hand brushed past the envelope that was leaning against a little vase that held a couple of white roses. I felt something like an electric shock, but I didn’t pick it up. There wasn’t anything written on it, not a single letter, but I knew it was for me and I knew who’d sent it. I finished my coffee and went into the steam-filled bathroom. I closed the taps and tried to make out my reflection in the mirror, which was so misted up that I had to wipe it with a towel. Pitiful, that was the only word that occurred to me as I looked at my reflection. I undressed and got into the water.

When I came out of the bathroom the remains of the breakfast had been taken away and the balcony doors were wide open. The palm trees in the garden, the sea, and the intense blue sky over the Strait seemed to fill the room, but I barely paid them any attention—I was in a hurry. I found my clothes, ironed, at the foot of my bed: the suit, slip, and silk stockings, all ready to put back onto my body. And on the nightstand, on a little silver tray, a bottle of water, a glass, and a bottle of aspirin. I gulped down two tablets; I reconsidered and took another. Then I returned to the bathroom and drew my damp hair back into a low bun. I put on just a little bit of makeup—all I had with me was powder and lipstick. Then I got dressed. All set, I muttered to the air. I corrected myself at once. All
nearly
set. Just one little detail missing. The one that had been waiting for me on the table where I’d had breakfast half an hour earlier: the cream-colored envelope with no apparent addressee. I sighed, and picking it up with just two fingers put it away in my bag without giving it another look.