Frontier Passage Page 10

  “The Señor is English—though he has such admirable Castilian! Has the Señor perhaps some sugar?”

  Now Milcom had smuggled in a few pounds of sugar from France, with an eye to his friends in Madrid; he had actually got two half-kilo packets in his pocket at that moment, along with some cigarettes—a small present intended for the Conde. He drew one out now, and let the shopkeeper feel the angular creaking shapes of the flat cubes within. The man’s eyes glistened with cupidity.

  “For three such, Señor, the coverlet is yours.”

  James put the packet back.

  “Very well—later, I will see.” He turned to go.

  “Señor, Señor, for two! No, do not go,” said the man, catching at his arm. “See, for two—for one and a half!”

  “Bueno—bueno,” said James soothingly. “This you cannot have—it is a present. But I will return this afternoon with more. Two. Keep the quilt for me—wrap it up.” And disregarding the man’s anguished protests, he left the shop and went on his way, up the hill to the prison.

  From outside it he paused again to look out over the town. There was scattered damage here and there, as he had seen on his way up, but not much; most of the ruined buildings, as at Barcelona, were near the port—he recognised grudgingly that for aiming from the air the Italian pilots, as the captain had said, were good. This morning, with the white walls and pink roofs shining in the bright sun, the place looked pretty and peaceful enough.

  Throughout his journey Milcom had looked forward to this visit with a certain nervous distaste. He disliked Whites; he disliked everything he had ever heard—and he had heard plenty—of the Conde; above all he hated seeing anyone in prison—he had always had a morbid horror of the very idea of shutting a human being up, and depriving him of his liberty of movement. And on top of all this there was also the disconcerting consciousness that he, James Milcom, was in love with this man’s wife, that he had avowed his love and received her avowal in return. And he had got to tell him that his only child was dead. What a picnic, James said grimly to himself, as he followed the gaeler along the echoing stinking passages, coldly lit from an occasional barred window high in the wall.

  But the visit turned out very differently from what he expected. His elaborate and difficult arrangements for seeing the Conde in his cell, which included a final heavy bribery of the gaoler with cigarettes on entering, to persuade him to leave them to themselves, all proved to be useless. The Conde was not in a cell alone—he occupied a largish room with about ten others, obviously drawn from all classes. It was lit by two windows, also set high in the wall—there were some ragged palliasses on the floor, a very small table, and three chairs, one of which was pushed forward for James; five or six of the men, including the Conde, had secured wooden soapboxes, which served them at once for seats and for cupboards, to nold such few belongings as remained to them. James, in a despairing attempt to secure at least a measure of privacy for their conversation, introduced himself and told his errand in French—for the other prisoners, starving for news from the world outside, were clustering eagerly round him. But the Conde, in an unexpectedly soft and gentle voice, asked him if he spoke Spanish—“If you do, it would be kind if you would speak that; they will like to hear about your journey.”

  “Well, I will part of the time,” said James, more glumly than ever—and proceeded to relate to the motley audience the story of his journey from Barcelona to Port-Vendres, to Perpignan, and across France to St.-Jean-de-Luz. They kept interrupting him with questions—one had relations in Barcelona, another a shop in Madrid, while one very merry-faced little man, who wore perpetually a sort of monkey’s grin, had been a bus driver in San Sebastián, and was biiterly disappointed that James had not crossed the bridge at Irún and been in to see his beloved town. James could, and good-naturedly did, tell him how conditions were there, for he had heard plenty about the place from Hamilton, Hever, and the British Embassy staff—he even described the extent of the damage in Irún. While he talked, they sat round him in a shabby group, and he noticed that most of them had a bit of glass in their hands, and a small piece of wood, at which they whittled away at intervals. This sight surprised Milcom greatly. Any sort of cutting instruments were most strictly forbidden in the prisons, since they might be used either for escape or for suicide; the only way to account for the presence of all this glass was that the gaoler must be a “radish”—that is, red outside and white inside; in which case, Milcom reflected ruefully, he had given him far more cigarettes than were necessary. Some of the prisoners, with extraordinary ingenuity, were making linked belt buckles of three or four interlocked rings of wood, all carved out of one piece; others, the Conde among them, were carving fascinating little designs on peach stones. It produced a most extraordinary impression on Milcom to see this big, rather fadedly handsome man, about whose wealth and manner of life he had heard such exotic stories, sitting on a soapbox among a group of cab drivers, carving peach stones into a necklace for his wife with a bit of broken glass.

  However eventually, having taken the edge off their appetite for news, Milcom told them that he had private business to discuss with his friend, and they all obligingly withdrew with their bits of glass to the far end of the room, while he told the Conde about Pilar’s death, and how the Condesa was now established at St.-Jean-de-Luz, with her sister. Pascual de Verdura asked rather awkwardly—almost shyly, James felt—about how Raquel had borne the death of the child; and then went on to enquire about her herself. How was she looking? What had she got in the way of clothes? Had the rough life in Madrid spoilt her hands? “She has such beautiful hands,” he said meditatively. “Can she afford now to go to the manicurist?” And by such questions, very simply and directly put, he at last forced James to the admission that for the moment he was paying for her. This was one of the numerous points in the conversation that James had been dreading; he feared that the redoubtable Spanish pride would create a scene about the money. But instead, to his mounting surprise, he met a curious resigned acceptance. The Conde used an odd little phrase—“Things are like this, now. It is a new experience.” Milcom was beginning indeed to get a very deep impression that the Conde was altogether undergoing some new and very profound experience, something which went far deeper than the mere fact of being imprisoned, night and day, along with ten scallywags, and in circumstances of the greatest discomfort. James was startled, and almost disconcerted, by the first stirrings of a feeling of sympathy for the man, as distinct from the prisoner. When he asked if there was anything the Conde especially wanted, that he might be able to get for him, to his astonishment Pascual asked for an English-Spanish dictionary.

  “Yes, I am trying to learn English in here,” he said, smiling at James’s startled expression—“I have an English book; the gaoler got it for me.” And stooping down, he pulled out of his soapbox a rather tattered bound copy of Jude the Obscure, and handed it to Milcom in triumph. James examined it—it was a first edition. This did not surprise him—Spain is full of first editions of the English classics. Pascual read him a sentence or two aloud, with a shocking pronunciation, but quite fluently.

  “My wife speaks English well,” he said, with a certain pride—“but you will know that. Her grandmother was a Stewart—Scottish; but you will know that too. Does she speak English with you?”

  James said that she did.

  “I have never learned it yet,” the Conde went on—“I should have done, but I missed the opportunity. Well, I have now this •opportunity, so I do not miss it. Do you think you can get me a dictionary?”

  “Yes—I certainly will; if not here, in Barcelona or Madrid, and I will send it,” James promised. If the gaoler was a “radish,” he thought, by the application of some sugar he could almost certainly be induced to smuggle the dictionary in, though such works were as strictly forbidden as glass, since they were invaluable for code communications.

  At this point a siren wailed’ suddenly overhead, intolerably loud and near. James, accust
omed to raids in Madrid, automatically began to glance round the room to find the most appropriate corner in which to lie flat, but the prisoners did nothing of the sort—they hastened towards the further of the two windows, which was out of the range of vision of anyone looking through the gaoler’s peephole in the door, and silently, with a skill evidently born of frequent practice, scrambled up on one another’s shoulders, two deep; then two more of the smallest and lightest, among whom was the bus driver from San Sebastián, were hoisted in turns onto the shoulders of the second man, from which position they could see out. They began a running commentary to those below, in hissing whispers.

  “No, nothing yet.” “Ah, si, there they come.” “How many?” “Two.” “Pepe; you fool, there are three—don’t you see the third?” “Yes, es verdad—there he is.” “What’s in the harbour?” “Only two small ones—one is trying to go out.” “Ah, but he’s onto him I” “No—missed him.” And so on. James found himself caught in the infection of their excitement; like the Conde and the rest he stood gaping up at the windows, as if in this way he could the better see through the eyes of the two men looking out, while a series of shattering explosions filled the air. In between them they could hear the high faint drone of the planes. The two observers presently hissed joyfully that a ship had been hit, and was sinking, and that smoke was going up from some buildings near the port. This announcement was greeted with murmurs of “Arriba España!” by the others; even the two men at the bottom of the living ladders, who were breathing painfully with the weight on their shoulders, managed to emit strangled grunts of triumph. James could not but admire their spirit, even while he was sickened at their delight, Spaniards as they were, over the destruction of Spanish life and Spanish property. He thought, for the thousandth time, that of all evils that can befall a nation, civil war is the worst and the most disruptive.

  At length the explosions ceased, the nasty whining hum of the planes died away, and the observers and their living supports were carefully lowered to the floor again, where they gave more full and graphic details of the raid to their delighted audience. That a ship had been sunk was considered highly satisfactory, but the real interest, Milcom learned, was whether the ship was British-built or not; everyone hoped that it was, not out of any particularly anti-British feeling, but because shattered British-built ships provided more fragments of teak, the ideal wood for whittling into belt buckles, necklaces, and their other artistic products. The chances of persuading their gaoler to go and bring them up some more teak and a fresh supply of broken glass, of which their stock was running low, were eagerly discussed. Milcom at this point tactfully produced the cigarettes which he had brought for the Conde de Verdura, and the half-kilo packets of sugar. The other prisoners looked on with glowing eyes. It was clear that they had now become a roomful of millionaires—the Conde could buy anything he chose from the gaoler. James could not help liking the way in which Pascual de Verdura at once handed out five cigarettes to each man, with the exception of a huge gruff old fellow, one of the weight carriers at the window, who did not smoke. They smoked immediately, beaming.

  Time was getting on—the gaoler poked his head in once to hurry Milcom up, was bought off with a lump of sugar, and retired, promising to come back in half an hour. But James too had things to do—people to interview, the town to inspect, visits to pay. The Conde asked in a barely audible murmur if he could possibly write a few lines to his wife? This was a risky proceeding, for both parties, but James took the risk; he produced his reporter’s notebook and indicated to the Spaniard that he should write on the back of some used sheets—then, as the Conde retired with his soapbox to a corner to write, James occupied the attention of the other prisoners by asking them how long they had been there, and hearing the details of their various captures. At last the letter was done, and Pascual handed the book back to James unobtrusively.

  “When you see her, tell her that I am well,” he said. “When shall you see her?”

  James, embarrassed, said that he did not know.

  “I hope you will see her soon,” the Conde said. “You have been so good to her, I am sure that she must like you. And she will be lonely now, without the child. Please try to see her whenever you can.” And again with that hint of shyness, he said—“And give her my love, and bid her to take care of herself. Tell her too that I am”—he gave a funny little smile, of a peculiar secret sweetness—“very happy.”

  James, in spite of himself, was moved by this man. Nothing he had heard previously had prepared him for a person like this. But at this point he suddenly recollected that the Conde might conceivably know something about Juanito and he asked him—“Do you know at all what has become of Juan Torre de Modero, the Condesa’s brother? She is in such anxiety about him.”

  He had the oddest impression, then, that the question was an unwelcome one. Pascual de Verdura seemed to shut up, all at once. He made some formal remark about how charming his brother-in-law was—“but I have no idea what has become of him.” The contrast between this chilly and obvious insincerity of manner and his expansiveness of only a few moments before was most marked.

  “I am sorry for that,” Milcom said very gravely—he was sure that de Verdura was lying. “This silence about him is causing your wife acute distress.”

  The Conde fiddled his fingers.

  “Yes—it is distressing, this lack of news, but alas, it is one of the features of this war,” he said, with the same airy falsity as before.

  Pepe, the San Sebastián bus driver, looked up from where he sat carving away, cross-legged on his palliasse.

  “The little Paquita should know,” he said. “Why does not the Señor ask the little Paquita?”

  The Conde smiled at Milcom. “Pay no attention to him,” he said; “he is——” He touched his forehead significantly. Milcom was not so sure about this—Pepe had shown no special signs of lunacy, apart from his silly monkey’s grin; indeed, his account of the raid had been quite as good as the other man’s. But before he could do or say anything more the gaoler reappeared, this time with an air of decision, and said that he must now go. The prisoners scrabbled round the man telling him to come back when he had taken the Señor out—“Cigarrillos!” “Azúcar!” they said importantly. The gaoler ignored them with a completeness of which only Spaniards are capable. James meanwhile was taking his leave of the Conde, all of whose former sincerity and warmth reappeared at the moment of farewell.

  “Adiós, my dear friend.” He took Milcom’s hand in both of his. “Thank you—no, you must believe in my thanks; I cannot find words for what you have done for my wife. Adiós” And as James made to go—“Do come back soon, if it is not too far,” he said, almost wistfully. “And do not forget the book.” He was careful not to use the word “dictionary” in the gaoler’s hearing.

  The prisoners all insisted on shaking hands with James also, but at last the door clanged to behind him, the gaoler turned the key, and they tramped back along the corridors and down flights of stone stairs. The man chatted a little about the prisoners they had left. As they walked on—“Is it possible for me to see La Paquita?” James asked, as casually as possible. He was drawing a bow at a venture—from Pepe’s one remark he was not even sure whether she was in the prison or not. He soon learned. The gaoler started, and glanced nervously round.

  “Certainly not. She is not allowed any visitors,” he said. He looked timidly, sourly, and suspiciously on James, and in spite of the earlier bribe showed a distinct tendency to hustle him out. Clearly she was in the prison—and from the gaoler’s sudden change of manner, James could make a pretty shrewd guess at what she was in for. There was only one thing which aroused such strong feelings in this war—spying. He walked away thoughtfully, barely giving a glance of the clouds of smoke which still hung over the port after the raid. This business of La Paquita was worth going into. He did not for a moment believe that Pepe was potty—on the contrary, he believed that the man had given him a very useful tip; and the
Conde’s denial and change of manner only confirmed him in this belief. If he could get hold of La Paquita—whoever she was—he felt convinced that he would learn something about Juan Torre de Modero. But if his guess at what La Paquita’s crime consisted in was right, the implication was that Juanito was also mixed up in the spying racket. God, what a piece of news to send to Raquel! For there was only one end to spies in Spain, sooner or later, and not always a short one. James had seen too many dead and dying men, horribly mutilated and contemptuously labelled, in the outskirts of Madrid to have any illusions about the fate of spies. He thought too, as he walked on, about the roomful of men that he had just left, with their glass and their soapboxes, and their bribable radish of a gaoler. He had seen enough of the reforms in Republican prison administration carried out during the last year by the brilliant young Basque Director-General of Prisons to be surprised to find here, in Almadera, the old sloppy muddle and casualness. Remote, or a stubborn Governor, he supposed, and wondered if this state of affairs would make his next move easier.

  But while he walked back down the hill through the hot clear sunshine towards the centre of the town, on his way to visit the Consul, revolving in his head schemes for getting in touch with La Paquita, something happened which for the time being put her and Juanito and everything else out of his head. In the smaller Republican cities, and even in Barcelona itself, the system of air-raid warnings did not always work very well—incompetence about machinery, vagueness about duty and discipline, fairly frequently caused a hitch in the arrangements. It was so in Almadera that afternoon. Without the smallest warning, the sunny air suddenly contained a faint high drone, almost as faint as a bee’s hum—and before James had even clearly recognised it for what it was, there came the long whining moan of a falling projectile. James looked up—he could see the planes, and glanced round for a doorway in which to lie down, head inwards. But he was still in the suburban part of the town, where the villas stood widely spaced—he decided on the next one downhill, and started to run. He was too late. There was that mixture of the moan rising to a crescendo, somehow combined with the roar and the blow, which hit him simultaneously and indistinguishably, knocking him clean out of consciousness.