Watcher in the Pine (17 page)

“No. I’m going this afternoon.” Elena explained the reason for her delay, and then held out the package she had brought. “I thought you might like a change of clothes. The blouse will need to be altered, but it will give you something to do, and then you can rinse out the one you have on. It’s pretty badly stained, but maybe I can see about hot water for washing.”

Dolores smiled ruefully. “No need. I think that’s mostly blood. When I saw Pedro was hurt, I went over to him and—” She lifted her elbows and inspected the stains on her sleeves. With a stronger voice she went on. “You’re very kind, though, Señora Fernández. Especially about the hairbrush.” She pulled her hair free of its pins and managed a shaky laugh. “I’ve been feeling itchy and messy all morning, but I didn’t want to just attack it with my fingers.”

“Should I leave you alone?” Elena asked as Dolores picked up the hairbrush and began to yank it through her knotted curls.

“No, please. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.”

Elena knew exactly how Dolores felt, and her strong sympathy for the girl made her unsure whether her next words would be kindness or cruelty. Dolores was still barely more than a child, though, and Elena’s conscience made her say as she sat on the cot beside the girl, “I’m happy to stay and talk. But you’ll remember that I’m the lieutenant’s wife before you say anything?”

“Yes.” Dolores’s face was obscured by her hair. “I didn’t mean to talk about that. I just meant, well, it’s hard being alone because you don’t get any news or know what’s happening or even what time it is, and you start imagining all sorts of terrible things.”

“It’s just before noon,” Elena said, amused. “And so far as I know nothing has happened of note today.”

Dolores brushed silently for a few moments, picking at a recalcitrant knot. Then she said abruptly, “How is Pedro, do you know?”

Elena had heard the brief pause before the word “Pedro” and guessed that Dolores’s casual tone had cost her dearly. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I know he’s alive. And I don’t think he’s been interrogated. But I don’t know how badly he was wounded.”

“He was unconscious when we arrived last night.” Dolores was still straining to sound offhand. “But I know the lieutenant said the doctor would see to him after the wounded guardia. I hope he’s all right. He—he’s a friend of the family.”

Elena, unsure what to say, thought of repeating her warning that she was the lieutenant’s wife. But she had remained silent for too long, and Dolores, brushing hair out of her eyes, began to speak again. “One of the guardias said last night that he was my . . . that we were . . . well, friends.” She blushed painfully. “We’re not. I mean, I think he’s a wonderful man, of course, but he’s like an older brother. I mean, I didn’t want you to think, just because I asked about him—”

“He’s a comrade?” Elena suggested gently, remembering her own unreciprocated adoration of one of her father’s younger colleagues fifteen years earlier.

“Yes, that’s right.” Dolores nodded eagerly. “A comrade. A good friend.”

Elena could see that Dolores was aching to talk about Pedro, but she knew that the wounded guerrilla was probably a topic of considerable interest to Carlos, and she also knew that Dolores would never forgive herself if she inadvertently betrayed anything about her “comrade” to his enemies. “You said you were the oldest at home,” Elena said, determined to give the girl another gentle hint. “But the lieutenant says that according to the records, you have an older brother?”

Dolores’s face clouded and she nodded. “Yes, Luis. But he hasn’t lived with us for a while now.”

“He took to the hills?” Elena said.

The girl nodded. “Last year,” she admitted. “Papa didn’t like it. He said Luis was too young. But all his friends . . .” She stopped, resolute. “He wasn’t there last night at least,” she said firmly.

Elena nodded, pleased that Dolores seemed to be in control of herself once more. They chatted for a few more minutes, and then the lieutenant’s wife excused herself and went home. Tejada picked her up a few hours later, as he had promised, and they drove together to the Severinos’ home in Argüébanes. As Elena had expected, a neighbor was comforting a flock of frightened children. Tejada quietly took the neighbor aside and demanded information about of the late Luis Severino’s recent activities. Elena, left to supervise the children, gently asked to speak to Concha.

“I’m Concha.” A gaunt thirteen-year-old with the eyes of an old woman stepped forward, speaking with a quiet self-possession beyond her years. “I’ve heard my father’s dead. Did the sergeant send you?”

“No,” Elena said, a little disconcerted by the question. Then she remembered that Sergeant Márquez had been the commander of the post before Carlos’s arrival, and that Concha might even be using the term “sergeant” generically. “No, I came from your sister.”

“What’s happened to Dolores?”

“I’m afraid she was arrested last night.” Elena felt the cowardice of saying “was arrested” but she had already found it difficult enough to meet Concha’s eyes. “She asked me to give you a message.” She repeated what Dolores had said. The child gravely thanked Elena and politely accepted her awkward condolences with an expression that gave nothing away. The Señora was very kind. No, she and the children did not need any help. Their uncle would take them in. No, there would be no difficulty in getting to San Vicente. She had bus fare.

Elena’s last sight of Concha Severino was of the little girl gathering her siblings together to give them Dolores’s message. Tejada was finishing with the Severinos’ neighbor. It was time to go. Elena leaned against the side of the truck and tugged at her shoe to dislodge a pebble. As she straightened, she saw her husband coming toward her. His back was to the Severino house, and beyond him Elena glimpsed one of Luis Severino’s older sons, a boy of about ten with tousled, dirty-blond curls that gave him the look of a Renaissance cherub. The boy did not see her. He was focusing on Tejada’s retreating back, his face twisted with hatred. Suddenly, he spat ferociously and then turned and fled into the house.

“What’s the matter?” Tejada asked as he reached the truck. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Elena looked at him. He was smiling a little anxiously, the look he had when he was concerned for her welfare and afraid she would resent it. He reached out one hand to her, and Elena knew that if she started to cry he would embrace her and murmur endearments and not ask questions until she stopped. “Nothing,” she said softly. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”

They drove down to the valley in silence. Then Tejada said carefully, “Did you deliver Dolores’s message?”

“Yes. Her sister asked if the sergeant had sent me.”

“I have to remember to tell Márquez,” Tejada said, amused. “He didn’t think you should go at all.”

Elena shuddered, remembering Concha’s firm politeness and her too-old manners. “Well, you can tell him that I hope I never have to do anything like that again. It was pretty unpleasant.”

Tejada heard the agony in her voice, and spoke more seriously. “You didn’t have to this time, you know. I would have taken the message to Concha.”

Elena knew that he was speaking the truth, and that he saw no incongruity in the errand. “Dolores asked me to do it.”

“Yes.” Tejada kept his eyes on the road. “But you shouldn’t sacrifice your own peace of mind for Dolores.”

“You think I would have more peace of mind if I didn’t know anything about your job?” Elena asked a little bitterly. “That I’d sleep better at night thinking you were staying up late doing paperwork?”

They had reached home. Tejada sighed, and drew up to a careful stop. “I’m only trying to protect you.”

“By pretending that some things don’t exist?”

Tejada climbed out of the truck, slammed the door a little harder than necessary, and then came around to the passenger side to help her down. “They exist,” he said flatly. “But they’re not your business. You don’t have to get involved.”

Elena drew her elbow out of his grasp and turned to face him. “Then why are you involved?” she demanded.

Tejada thought that he recognized the beginning of a familiar argument, and drew her inside, unwilling to argue in the street. “Because I’m a guardia. That’s my job.”

Elena knowing his reluctance to speak further in public, waited until they had climbed the stairs to their apartment. “
Why
is it your job?” she demanded then, derailing the argument from its standard lines. “You could have peace of mind, too, if you wanted it. You could be Señor Tejada Alonso y León, and live on your family’s estates in Granada. Or if you wanted to be independent of them you could have a law office in the city, or work for an import-export firm or something, and sit behind a big desk from ten to six. And if you said you were staying late to catch up on paperwork I’d only have to lie awake and worry that you were having an affair with your secretary, not that someone was going to knock on my door and tell me that you were dead.”

Tejada had been frowning uncomfortably, and even Elena’s idea of an affair with a hypothetical secretary did not lighten his expression. As her voice caught on her last words, he turned away from her and said, in a slightly strangled voice, “Is that what you want?”

Elena, who had been trying to make a point, and had somewhat lost the thread of her argument, was confused for a moment. “Is
what
what I want?”

“Do you want me to retire?” The set of Tejada’s shoulders was tense. He could feel blood pounding in his temples, and an internal voice nagged at him.
But why have you never considered retiring before? Suppose you’d died last night? Or at the barn where you found the dynamite? You should think about the baby. And anyway, with Elena’s background you’ll never advance in the Guardia
.

“No!” Elena’s cry of denial was instant and convincing.

He relaxed and turned toward her with a smile, almost dizzy with relief. “I somehow had the impression you disapproved of my work.”

“I do.” Elena took his hands. “But all the things I disapprove of wouldn’t stop happening just because you weren’t a guardia. They would just be happening where we couldn’t see them. So we could close our eyes and pretend they didn’t exist, and . . . have peace of mind. But you don’t
want
that kind of peace of mind! At least I don’t think you do. Wouldn’t you rather know the worst and try to prevent it than just bury your head in the sand?”

“Yes,” Tejada said seriously. “I . . . being a guardia has always been important to me, but . . . I was never able to put it quite so well before.”

“Well, that’s why I had to take Dolores’s message,” Elena said, suddenly feeling very tired. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Tejada touched her cheek, more grateful than he could say that she was not offering him logical reasons to leave the Guardia. “I love you, and I would be more protective of your peace if you would let me, but I understand.” He smiled mischievously. “You’re very persuasive. Do you think you could explain all those reasons to my mother the next time she starts harping on my career?”

Elena laughed. “I couldn’t explain a recipe for fish soup to your mother, and well you know it. She wouldn’t sit still long enough to listen to the dangerous Red slut who entrapped her baby.”

“I guess you couldn’t,” the lieutenant admitted. “But I’m sure she never actually said slut.”

“It was implied.”

Tejada laughed and watched Elena settle herself into her armchair with a feeling of infinite satisfaction. Suddenly relaxed, and very sure of the answer, he said, “Elena, who’s Herrera?”

“Herrera?” Elena was puzzled. “The only Herrera I knew was in Madrid.”

“Yes, that one,” Tejada said eagerly. “Was he—were you close to him?”

“I wouldn’t say close,” Elena said, wondering why on earth her husband was interested. “We worked together for five years.”

“He’s a teacher then?”

Elena stared. “Carlos, he was the director of my school. You
met
him, remember?”

A vivid memory of a fussy little man with square-rimmed glasses and a yellow complexion, terrified of the Guardia and quite willing to sacrifice any of his employees to them to ensure his own safety, came back to Tejada. He had asked to speak to Elena Fernández regarding a murder, and the director had practically begged him to arrest her and spare the rest of the school. Tejada laughed in sheer relief. “The sneaky little coward who fired you?
That
Herrera?”

Elena pursed her lips. “He wasn’t really a sneaky little coward. And I resigned.”