Law of Return, page 9
“Clerking for Eduardo Crespo might have been understandable,” Judge Otero said simply. “Cleaning his office is completely insane.”
Since Tejada found himself totally in sympathy with the judge, he risked a question. “Why do you think he does it? Or did it, until last week?”
“Because he is eccentric.” Judge Otero’s tone was half amused and half annoyed. “He always mutters some nonsense about the dignity of labor but frankly, Lieutenant, I suspect that he would cling to any excuse to remain in a law office.”
“The law is so important to him?” Tejada asked, curious.
“Paramount,” said the judge flatly. “Manuel has spent most of his legal career in an academic setting, you know, and he has remained quite idealistic, in a way that those of us who have chosen other paths cannot afford to be.”
“The League of Nations?” Tejada suggested.
“Exactly.” Judge Otero nodded. “And his work on Cuba. You’re too young to remember 1898, I suppose?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Tejada said, privately marveling at how frequently people who seem perfectly capable of simple arithmetic asked if he remembered an event that had occurred a dozen years before his birth.
“Well.” The judge shook his head. “Manuel’s writings about it are interesting, but completely impractical.”
“I understand that your brother-in-law traveled frequently to Geneva, though?” Tejada said casually.
“Not since the early thirties,” Judge Otero corrected gently. “Although if you’re thinking he may have fled to Geneva, I suppose it’s possible.”
“Do you think he did?”
The judge pursed his lips. “I’d rather think not,” he said slowly, “if only for my sister’s sake. She’s had a fair amount to bear because of Manuel already.” He flashed a grim smile at Tejada. “Although she did mention that the lieutenant on night duty seemed to have the rudiments of common courtesy.”
Tejada did his best to keep his face expressionless. He suspected that he failed, because the judge’s smile grew wider. “I believe my sister is acquainted with your great-uncle’s daughter Barbara,” he added. “I must tell her. She’ll want you to convey her respects.”
“So you think it is unlikely that Professor Arroyo would flee the country?” the lieutenant said, a little stiffly.
Judge Otero became serious. “I don’t know,” he said. “I would have said it was unlikely. I would still say that it’s unlikely, but I’m afraid that’s merely my desire to believe that my brother-in-law is merely an embarrassment and a nuisance, and not a disgrace. And since Crespo mentioned that he’s been upset lately . . .”
“When did Crespo mention this to you, Your Honor?” the lieutenant asked, hoping that the judge would offer a more precise date than Arroyo’s employer had.
“Monday evening,” the judge said, dashing his hopes.
“This Monday?” Tejada said, suddenly alert. “But I assumed that neither you nor Dr. Crespo had seen or spoken to Professor Arroyo since the week before last?”
“That’s correct,” Judge Otero agreed. “Crespo telephoned me on Monday to let me know that he had spoken to you and that you were likely to call. That’s why I was able to fit you in at such short notice.”
Tejada sincerely hoped that his face remained blank at the phrase “short notice.” He managed a few more questions, and then ended the interview as gracefully as possible.
“I do hope you find Manuel promptly, Lieutenant,” the judge said, as Tejada left. “He’s not an unlikeable man, but he has become quite an embarrassment to the family.”
Tejada escaped from the judge’s chambers with a feeling he had not had since visiting his maternal grandparents as a small child. When he returned to the post he found that a letter was waiting for him. The censor’s seal only partially covered the return address: Sr. Juan Andrés Tejada Alonso y León, Finca Dos Cabras, Granada. If asked, the lieutenant would have said that he was very fond of his elder brother. The two men did in fact have a remarkably calm relationship. Possibly the fact that the lieutenant had never in word or deed doubted Juan Andrés’s position as heir and favorite contributed to the lack of friction. A letter of any sort was a welcome diversion though, and Tejada felt that his interview with Otero had earned him a break. He took the letter to his office, closed the door, and sank into his desk chair to read.
Dos Cabras
24 June 1940
Dear Carlos,
Congratulations on your promotion! Mama has almost forgiven your decision to join the Guardia Civil, and Papa has actually been heard boasting of “my son, the lieutenant.” If you send him a photograph of you in your new uniform with which to impress the crowd at the club you will complete your status as the new favored son.
I’m thinking of turning the old north vineyard into grain next season. I hate to do it, but these are hard times, and we have to feed our people. We’re settled back at the farm for the summer, although Rosa has stayed behind in Granada until the baby comes. Unfortunately, the rebels continue their campaign in the hills, and she feels safer in the city. Now that you are a lieutenant Mama will doubtless be agitating for you to come home and defeat them single-handed. (Note: Andrés informs me that if you will wait until he is big enough he will help you. He also says to tell you that he is getting a hunting rifle for his birthday this year, which is a surprise to me.)
What do you think of the news from France? Entre nous, I found the timing almost providential, because Rosa has been nagging at me to take her to Paris for our anniversary, and I now hope to persuade her that your colleagues at the border will make any travel north more trouble than it is worth. At any rate, a quick war is better than a drawn-out one, and these Germans seem to know what they’re doing.
I hope you’re enjoying Salamanca. I imagine you must be, if it’s the town I remember from my university days. Better than Madrid, at any event, which sounds like a hellhole at present. Speaking of which, your little protégé and her mother are doing fine, though the little one claims that she misses the capital. Do you intend to send her back to school in the fall? And what are your long-term plans for her, if one may ask? If she turns out to be pretty, I suppose you might eventually find someone to marry her in spite of her mysterious background. Do I get let in on the mystery anytime soon, by the way? I can’t say she takes after you especially, and I wouldn’t have said that the mother was your type, but don’t ask me to believe that fairy tale about a soldier father, and your promise to a dying man, because I know as well as you do that all war orphans are cared for by the state, and certainly don’t need your assistance.
Mama and Papa send love, as do the children. Don’t get into trouble, hermanito.
Your affectionate brother,
Juan Andrés
Tejada read most of the letter with tolerant amusement. He frowned slightly over the last paragraph, however. He had not precisely lied to his brother about the child Juan Andrés was pleased to term his “little protégé,” but he had suppressed certain crucial facts, and it disturbed him that his brother was sharp enough to sense this. He would have been less disturbed by his brother’s casual needling had the memory of the little girl not reminded him painfully that in searching for her he had found her teacher: a slender, dark-eyed, courageous, distressingly left-wing Elena Fernández.
He was debating whether and how to answer his brother when someone knocked. Tejada hastily folded the letter and thrust it into his coat pocket. Then he picked up a pen and opened his notebook. “Come in.”
Corporal Jiménez entered, shepherding a young guardia who Tejada had never seen before. “I beg your pardon for intruding, sir.” Corporal Jiménez seemed pleased with himself. “But Guardia Falguera has something he wants to tell you.”
Guardia Falguera cast a paralyzed look at the corporal. Jiménez beamed back at him avuncularly. “Go ahead, Guardia.”
“W-well, sir, you know the district down by the river? G-guardia P-Pérez and I were on p-patrol there and w-we were hailed, sir. B-by concerned citizens.” Falguera blushed painfully.
“Yes?” Tejada said, as encouragingly as possible, wondering why Jiménez did not simply summarize the stuttering guardia’s story and save them all time and grief.
“There’s a warehouse down b-by the river, sir, that’s b-being repaired. And it seems some of the construction w-workers found a b-b-body there this afternoon.”
“Not dead of natural causes, I take it?” Tejada interjected.
“No, sir. His head was b-b-bashed in. So Guardia P-Pérez and I contacted the c-contractor, sir, and only his b-b-bookkeeper was in, b-but the b-b-b-book . . . but he said to call the lieutenant.”
Something clicked in Tejada’s brain, and he made a desperate attempt to fend off another stuttering recital. “This would be the bookkeeper for Quiñones and Sons,” he said.
“Y-yes, sir!”
“By the name of Tomás Rivera?”
“Yes, sir.”
The lieutenant’s half-formed suspicion gained shape and substance. “Did you identify the body?” he asked.
“N-not positively, sir. He’s b-been dead a long time.” Guardia Falguera’s face twisted briefly in memory of the stench. “B-but the c-cards in his wallet say Manuel Arroyo Díaz.”
Chapter 9
Elena pleaded a headache on Friday afternoon to avoid visiting the Guardia Civil post again. It was not entirely an excuse. A sleepless night and a fair amount of sick dread had combined to make her genuinely uncomfortable. She watched with relief as her father set out, and began vigorously to clean her room to satisfy her conscience. She did her best to avoid reflecting on what the lieutenant might think about her absence. She had finished, and was just deciding whether it would be a good idea to iron all of her clothes, when there was a tap on her door. Elena turned, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Come in?”
María stood in the doorway. “Your father’s not back yet.”
Elena had lost track of time but she knew that checking the clock would only increase her mother’s agony. “Well, we were unusually quick last time, you know. There’s probably a line again today.”
“The evening news is on.”
Elena checked the clock then. It was past six-thirty. More than an hour past the time when she and her father usually got home. “Maybe they got behind schedule last week,” she suggested. “And so it’s longer today.” The words had a hollow echo, even to her own ears. I should have gone with him, she told herself, and turned away, afraid that her mother would read her guilt.
María bit her lip. “I told him yesterday, after the sergeant came around asking all those questions, that he shouldn’t ask about traveling now.”
Elena tried to shepherd her mother toward a chair. It was too difficult to watch the older woman shifting nervously from foot to foot. “Probably it’s just the new lieutenant,” she said soothingly. “Papa said the sergeant yesterday only asked old questions about the petition, and Professor Arroyo, and things like that. So maybe Tej—the lieutenant is just trying to be conscientious.”
“Maybe. Probably.” María sat down, and then immediately stood up again. “I’m going to pack up some things for him.” She moved toward the door.
Elena detained her, out of fear and not kindness this time. “What do you mean?”
María patted her daughter’s arm. “They let me take him things last time. And he’ll want clean clothes, a toothbrush, that sort of thing.” She saw Elena’s frozen face, and spoke gently. “It’s just a precaution, Elenita. He’ll probably be back by the time I’m finished.”
“Mama . . .” Elena’s voice trailed off. She wanted to deny the idea that her father had been arrested again; to scoff at it, to belittle it. She was used to being the expert, and defending her parents from the new world that the war had brought. But María had lived through her husband’s arrest once, and now she was the experienced one. “Mama,” Elena repeated, feeling like a child, and hating herself for it.
“Do you want to help me pack?” María had heard her daughter’s childish tone and responded to it.
Very slowly, Elena nodded. She followed her mother into her parents’ bedroom, feeling the same fleeting guilt that she had on entering their room when she was little. María opened a chest of drawers and began pulling out clean shirts. “I don’t think they’ll let him have a razor,” she said. “But he’ll want his pipe, don’t you think? Run downstairs and get it, will you, Elenita? The tobacco is in the tin in the sideboard drawer, that’s right, good girl.”
The small bundle was quickly packed. Elena watched it sit in the middle of her parents’ bed, as carefully as if it were a cobra poised to strike. María picked it up, and her hesitance seemed to return. “Well,” she said. “Well, it’s done. I guess he isn’t back yet. So maybe we should go see what’s happening at the post. Just in case he needs it.”
Elena felt her stomach clench in terror. “What if he’s on his way home?” she suggested desperately. “We can’t both go. We might miss him in the street. And then,” she tried to laugh, “think how worried he’d be to find an empty house.”
María nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, you’re right. It’s better if one of us stays behind, just in case.”
There was a long, awkward silence as both women weighed their prospective roles: waiting alone in an empty house for God knew how long, or going alone to the Guardia Civil post to find out what had happened. There would probably be a delay at the post, Elena thought. The Guardia were not generally forthcoming about the whereabouts of prisoners. It might well mean hours spent alone. And then, whoever’s left behind may set out for the post, looking for the other two, she thought. And then there will be none, like in the nursery rhyme. At least going to look for her father would be doing something. “I’ll go,” she said quickly. “I’d like a walk. And you must be tired.”
You can’t send her to a post alone! María thought. They might well arrest whoever shows up. My God, a girl alone among them would be completely defenseless. “What about your headache?” she said aloud, trying to hide her own fear of going to the post.
Elena looked at her mother’s face and read terror there. “I’d rather go than stay here and wait by myself,” she insisted.
“If you’re sure.” Her mother spoke doubtfully, while an internal voice said, It was your idea! How can you send her into danger?
“Positive,” Elena said.
She hurried out of the house before her mother could argue further, ashamed of leaving her mother behind in the more difficult role. As she drew nearer to the post, she realized why she had assumed that her own task was easier. It had not occurred to her that there would be any problem in speaking to the lieutenant. But as she reached the entrance to the post, and an armed guardia stepped forward to meet her, she felt her courage deserting her. “My name is Elena Fernández,” she managed, in answer to his challenge. “I’m here . . .” she hesitated, wondering how she could best ask about her father without arousing suspicion. “Because I’d like to see Lieutenant Tejada,” she finished finally.
“Is he expecting you?” The guardia looked dubious.
“No.” Elena was uncomfortably aware that her answer had not been calculated to increase the guardia’s confidence in her. She tried to think of something else to say, but her tongue seemed glued to the bottom of her mouth.
“Through that door.” The guardia gestured towards the entrance Elena usually used. It led, as she knew, to the waiting room.
The room was nearly empty when she entered. She saw no sign of her father. Taking her courage in both hands, she approached the desk at the far end of the room. The man behind it looked up. “Yes?”
Elena managed to stammer her name and requested Lieutenant Tejada again. The guardia’s eyebrows rose at her mention of Tejada, but he picked up the telephone on the desk and relayed the message. A few minutes later another guardia escorted her to the lieutenant’s office.
Tejada was standing behind the desk when she entered. His expression was completely unreadable as he said, “Thank you, Estrada. Dismissed.”
The door closed behind Guardia Estrada. The lieutenant came around the desk, holding out his hand. “It’s good to see you.”
Elena stepped backward instinctively and then cursed herself for tactlessness. Tejada dropped his hand and froze. She took a deep breath. “I came about my father.”
“Of course.” He retreated to the desk, hoping that his voice sounded businesslike. “We have a few extra questions for him this week.”
“Has he been arrested again?” Elena raised her chin, and forced herself to enunciate each word carefully, as if she were speaking to a small child.
“You’ll be notified.” Tejada risked looking at her face, and immediately regretted it. She was too proud to cry in front of him, but tears would have been superfluous. Her eyes were deep enough to drown in. “I understand that you were planning a trip to San Sebastián,” he said abruptly, to forestall another question.
“Yes.” Elena was too nervous to remember that her father had been adamant that she be excluded from the trip to the north. Papa must have asked, she thought, and he said we were planning, so that means Papa can’t go. Please God let it just be that permission’s denied.
“I’m afraid it’s impossible for Professor Fernández to leave Salamanca at the moment.” Tejada stared down at his desk, embarrassment making his voice brusque. “But if you and your mother wished to escape the worst of the heat . . .”
“And my father?” Elena spoke very quietly. “What’s happening to him?”
She watched the lieutenant’s face intently, trying in vain to snatch some clue to his thoughts. When he spoke, his voice was courteous, but cold. “We have some questions for your father, and a number of the other parolees. I think you would be more comfortable waiting for him at home.”
“I am here now,” Elena pointed out. “And my mother will be anxious for news.”
“Elena . . .” The lieutenant sighed, uncertain how to finish the sentence, and his voice trailed off.
