The Time in Between: A Novel (79 page)

When I arrived home I found an envelope that somebody had slipped under the door. It bore the logo of the Palace Hotel and a handwritten card inside.

“Going back to Lisbon. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow. Wait for me.”

Of course I’d wait for him. Figuring out how and where took me just a couple of hours.

That night I once again bypassed the rules about chain of command without the slightest flicker of remorse. After more than three uninterrupted hours that afternoon, when Hillgarth and I had finished going
through all the details of the meeting at the estate, I asked him about the lists he’d brought up when we met the day after the events at the Hippodrome.

“It’s all still the same; for now there’s no news, as far as we know.”

That meant that my father was still on the side of the friends of the English, and I was with the Germans. A great pity, because the moment had come for our paths to cross once more.

I turned up without giving him any warning. Ghosts from another age fluttered furiously when they saw me walk through the front door, bringing with them memories of the day my mother and I had climbed that same staircase, filled with worry. They quickly vanished, fortunately, and took with them some bitter recollections I preferred not to face.

The door was opened by a servant who bore no resemblance to old Servanda.

“I need to see Señor Alvarado immediately. It’s urgent. Is he home?”

She nodded, confused at my haste.

“In the library?”

“Yes, but . . .”

Before she was able to finish her sentence, I was already inside.

“No need to announce me, thank you.”

He was glad to see me, much more so than I’d expected. Before leaving for Portugal I’d sent him a brief note informing him about my trip, but something must have seemed strange to him. All too hasty, he must have thought; too close to that unsettling scene at the races. He was reassured to know I was back.

The library was just as I’d remembered it. Perhaps more books and papers had accumulated: newspapers, letters, piles of magazines. Everything else was just as it had been when we’d met there, my father, my mother, and me, years earlier: the first time the three of us had been together, and also the last. That distant autumn afternoon I’d arrived burdened down with nerves and innocence, inhibited and oppressed by the unknown. Almost six years later, my feeling of self-confidence was quite different. I’d won it with blows, with work, through missteps and longings, and it clung to my skin like a scar; nothing could free me
from it. However strongly the winds blew, however tough the times to come might be, I knew I’d have the strength to face them and make it through.

“I need to ask you a favor, Gonzalo.”

“Anything you want.”

“A meeting for five people. A little private party. Here at your house, on Tuesday night. You and me and three other guests. You’ll have to invite two of them directly, without letting them find out that I’m involved. There won’t be any problem, as you know them both.”

“And the third?”

“I’ll take care of the third myself.”

He accepted without any further questions or any reservations. In spite of my unnerving behavior, my unexpected disappearances, and my fake identity, he seemed to trust me blindly.

“What time?” he asked simply.

“I’ll be here in the midafternoon. And the guest you don’t yet know will arrive at six; I’ll have to talk to him before the others arrive. Can I meet him here in the library?”

“It’s all yours.”

“Perfect. Invite the other couple for eight, please. And one more thing—do you mind them knowing that I’m your daughter? It’ll stay between the five of us.”

It took a few seconds for him to reply, during which I thought I saw a new sparkle come to his eyes.

“It would be a matter of honor and pride.”

We chatted a little while longer: about Lisbon and Madrid; about this, that, and the other, always remaining on safe ground. When I was just about to leave, however, his usual discretion failed him.

“I know it’s not my place to meddle in your life at this stage, Sira, but. . . ”

I turned and hugged him.

“Thank you for everything. You’ll find out all about it on Tuesday.”

__________

M
arcus appeared at the appointed time. I’d left a message for him at his hotel, and as I’d expected it reached him easily. He had no idea whose address that was: he just knew that I’d be waiting for him there. And there I was indeed, in a red silk crêpe suit, dazzling right down to my toes. Made up to perfection, with my long neck uncovered and dark hair gathered in a high bun. Waiting.

He arrived, looking impeccable in his dinner jacket, his shirt front starched and his body hardened by a thousand unmentionable adventures. Or at least, unmentionable until now. I went to open the door for him myself the moment I heard the bell. We greeted each other, struggling to hide our affection, standing so close, almost intimate at last.

“I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

Taking his arm, I led him to the living room.

“Marcus, this is Gonzalo Alvarado. I’ve brought you to his house because I want you to know who he is. And I also want him to know who you are. For him to be quite clear who we both are.”

They greeted each other politely, Gonzalo poured us a drink, and the three of us chatted about banalities for a few minutes, until the maid—in a very timely fashion—came to the door to summon the host to take a telephone call.

We were left alone, looking like the perfect couple. To see something that was closer to the truth, however, you just needed to hear the hoarse words that Marcus murmured in my ears, barely moving his lips.

“Can we speak in private a moment?”

“Of course. Come with me.”

I led him to the library. The grand portrait of Doña Carlota still presided from the wall behind the desk, with her diamond tiara that once was mine, and later no longer mine.

“Who’s the man you just introduced me to, why do you want him to know about me? What is this ambush all about, Sira?” he asked roughly when we were separated from the rest of the house.

“It’s one I’ve prepared specially for you,” I said, sitting down in one of the chairs. I crossed my legs and stretched my right arm out over the backrest. Comfortable, mistress of the situation, as though I’d spent my whole life setting up traps like this. “I need to know whether it is convenient for me that you should remain in my life, or if it’s better that we don’t see each other again.”

He didn’t find my words the least bit funny.

“This doesn’t make any sense; maybe it would be best for me togo . . . ”

“You’re giving up so easily? Only three days ago it seemed as though you were prepared to fight for me. You promised you would at any cost: you told me you’d lost me once and you weren’t going to let it happen again. Have your feelings cooled that quickly? Or were you lying to me, perhaps?”

He looked at me without saying a word, still standing, tense and cold, distant.

“What do you want from me, Sira?” he said at last.

“I want you to be honest with me about your past. In exchange you’ll know everything you need to know about my present. And on top of that you’ll get a reward, too.”

“What is it about my past that you want to know?”

“I want you to tell me what you went to Morocco for. Do you want to know what your reward will be?”

He didn’t reply.

“Your reward will be me. If I’m satisfied with your answer, you get to keep me. If I’m not convinced, you lose me forever. You choose.”

He was silent again. Then he walked slowly toward me.

“Why on earth should you care now why I went to Morocco?”

“Once, years ago, I opened my heart to a man who didn’t show me his true face, and it took infinite efforts on my part to close up the wounds he made in my soul. I don’t want the same thing to happen with you. I don’t want any more lies, any more shadows. I don’t want men simply availing themselves of me to suit their whims, coming closer and moving away again without any warning, even though it might be to save my life. That’s why I need to see your whole hand now, Marcus. I’ve seen some of your cards already: I know who you work for and I know that you aren’t really in the business world, I know you weren’t really in journalism back then, either. But there are other gaps in your story that I still need to fill.”

Finally he settled on the arm of a sofa. He kept one foot on the floor and crossed the other over it. His back straight, his glass still in his hand, his face set in determination.

“Very well,” he agreed after a few seconds. “I’m prepared to talk. In exchange for your being honest with me. About everything.”

“Afterward, I promise.”

“Tell me what you know about me, then.”

“That you’re a member of the British military secret service. The SIS, MI6, whatever you prefer to call it.”

The surprise didn’t show on his face: he’d probably been trained not to reveal his emotions. Not like me. I hadn’t been trained to do anything, I hadn’t been prepared, I hadn’t been protected: I’d just been thrown naked out into a world of ravenous wolves. But I’d learned, on my own, struggling, stumbling, falling, and getting back up; setting off again—one foot, then the other. My head held high, eyes fixed straight ahead of me.

“I don’t know how you got hold of that information,” was his only reply. “In any case, it doesn’t matter: I suppose your sources are reliable and there wouldn’t be any point in my denying what’s obvious.”

“But there are a few other things I still don’t know.”

“Where do you want me to start?”

“You could start from the moment we met, for example. Start with the real reason you came to Morocco.”

“Very well. The main reason was that in London they knew very little about what was going on within the Protectorate, and they were hearing from a number of sources that the Germans were infiltrating it freely with the acquiescence of the Spanish authorities. Our intelligence service hardly had any information on High Commissioner Beigbeder: he wasn’t one of the better-known military men, we didn’t know how he behaved, or what plans or opinions he had, and above all we didn’t know what his position was on the Germans, who were apparently so free to do whatever they wanted in the territory he controlled.”

“And what did you learn?”

“That as expected the Germans were operating in whatever way took their fancy, sometimes with his consent and sometimes without it. You helped me get part of that information yourself.”

I ignored that comment.

“And about Beigbeder?”

“I found out the same things about him that you know, too. That he was—and I imagine still is—an intelligent man, distinguished and rather unusual.”

“And why did they send you to Morocco, given the dreadful state you were in?”

“We got word of the existence of Rosalinda Fox, a compatriot of ours who was in a relationship with the high commissioner: a precious jewel to us, the best possible opportunity. But approaching her directly was too risky: she was so valuable to us that we couldn’t risk losing her with an operation that had been clumsily planned. We had to wait for just the right moment. So when we learned that she was looking for someone to help evacuate the mother of a friend of hers, the machinery was set in motion. And it was decided that I was just the right person because while I was in Madrid I’d had contact with someone who handled those evacuations to the Mediterranean. I’d kept London informed about Lance’s movements myself, so they thought I’d have
the perfect alibi to show up in Tetouan and approach Beigbeder with the excuse that I was carrying out a service for his lover. There was a small problem, however: at the time I was half dead in the Royal London Hospital, flat on my back in bed with my body all bashed up, semiconscious and pumped full of morphine.”

“But you risked it, you fooled us all and got what you wanted . . .”

“Much more than we’d ever expected,” he said. I could see the trace of a smile on his lips, the first I’d seen since we’d shut ourselves in the library. I felt the pinch of a confused emotion: the Marcus I’d so yearned for, the Marcus I wanted to keep by my side, had finally returned. “They were very special times,” he went on. “After more than a year living in the turmoil of war-stricken Spain, Morocco was the best thing that could have happened to me. I recovered, and I carried out my mission with exceptional results. And I met you. I couldn’t have asked for more than that.”

“How did you do it?”

“Almost every night I sent messages from my room at the Hotel Nacional. I had a small radio transmitter with me, hidden at the bottom of my suitcase. And I wrote an encrypted message daily about what I’d seen, what I’d heard. Then, whenever I could, I passed it on to a contact in Tangiers, a shop assistant at Saccone & Speed.”

“And no one ever suspected you?”

“Of course they did. Beigbeder was no fool, you know that as well as I do. My room was searched several times, but they probably sent someone who just wasn’t all that skillful: they never found anything. The Germans were suspicious, too, but they weren’t able to get hold of any information either. For my part, I did my best never to make a single false move. I didn’t contact anyone outside official circles and didn’t venture onto any hazardous terrain. Quite the reverse—my behavior remained irreproachable. I allowed myself to be seen with all the right people and always went around in the plain light of day. All apparently entirely clean. Any more questions?”

He already seemed less tense, closer. More the Marcus he used to be.

“Why did you leave so suddenly? You didn’t warn me: you just
showed up one morning at my house, gave me the news that my mother was on her way, and I never saw you again.”

“Because I received urgent orders to get out of the Protectorate immediately. There were more and more Germans arriving every day, and word got out that someone suspected me. I still managed to delay my departure a few days, even though I was risking being uncovered.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want to leave without confirming that your mother’s evacuation had gone ahead as we’d hoped. I’d promised you that. There was nothing I would have wanted more than to have been able to stay with you, but it wasn’t possible: that wasn’t my world, and my time had come. And besides, it wasn’t the best time for you, either. You were still recovering from a betrayal and you weren’t ready to put your trust entirely in another man, least of all someone who would have to abandon you suddenly without being able to be absolutely honest about why. That’s it, my dear Sira. The end. Is that the story you wanted to hear? Will this version do?”