2

Whether the pitcher hits the stone, or the stone the pitcher, it will be bad for the pitcher.

SPANISH PROVERB

The corridor of the cell block was wide and grey. The walls were gunmetal grey. It did not seem that a razor blade could be fitted between the steel cell doors and their steel walls. The doors had no handles. The only things that made them distinguishable as doors was the number on each, the thin seams of their outlines and the 180-degree lens peepholes, head-high in each of them. Even the lamps set in the high ceiling above heavy glass covers gave off what Ugalde thought to be grey light.

The place was surgical-clean. It smelled of hospital disinfectant.

Colonel Basa walked ahead, his right arm draped companionably across Mauro’s shoulders. Ugalde came behind, puzzled by the colonel’s fatherly assumptions. His view of the corridor was blocked by the enormous colonel and his own tall son. The doctor was, and felt, the smallest of them all. He felt very, very small. He was troubled by this feeling of unusual smallness.

“The doors have no handles,” Mauro said.

“They can be opened only from the control room.”

“Where do they eat?”

“Room service,” the colonel said pleasantly. “Look in number five.” He stopped them at the door.

“Don’t they object to being stared at, sir? What about their privacy?” Mauro asked.

“Their what?” the colonel asked.

Mauro put his eye to the peephole. He could see the entire cell. There was a young man in it. He sat cross-legged on the floor, with his back to the far wall. His arms were folded across his chest, his head lay back against the wall, his eyes were closed. There was no furniture, no equipment of any kind in the cell. Above the young man’s head, about as high as his hands could reach if he were standing, there were two steel rings bonded in the wall, about six inches apart. While Mauro watched, the young man stretched slowly, his arms above his head. He opened his eyes. He was crying.

Colonel Basa did not look through the peephole. Mauro thought and at once dismissed the thought of telling him the young man was crying. It was not really a thought dismissed. Neither his mind nor his stomach would let him tell Colonel Basa the man was crying. The tears were the prisoner’s tears alone.

Colonel Basa said, “Come along to number eleven.” He draped his arm again across Mauro’s shoulders and moved them casually along the corridor. There was no hurry. The cells would not go away. Ugalde came behind.

“Take a look,” the colonel said, nodding his encouragement.

Mauro took a look. There was no furniture. There was a young man, older than the one in number five. This one might be twenty-five. He was standing, his feet a few inches from the base of the far wall, his back against it, his hands stretched above his head, his wrists in locked clamps linked by short chains to the rings in the wall. His wrists bled. His forearms were swollen. His face was sunken. His eyes were closed in pain.

“He is being punished?” Mauro asked. “For what?”

“For silence,” the colonel said. “Look, Dion.”

Dr. Ugalde did not step forward. “Mauro will tell me.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d see for yourself.”

Ugalde wondered whether in his shrunken state his eye could reach the peephole. That would make him look ridiculous. He felt a little dazed; a sense of unreality lay like a filter in his head.

His eye reached the peephole with inches to spare. Still, his sense of smallness did not diminish. Basa stood beside him, his size overwhelming.

No cot, no chair, no wall tap or handbasin, no bucket, no window. Only a young man, chained upright, straining to ease his bleeding wrists and swollen forearms. His face was a shadowed mask of weariness.

“His wrists need medical attention,” the doctor said tentatively.

“All he has to do is talk.”

“I should have thought …” the doctor began again, searching for tact, “in such a new building … modern facilities? Where do they go?”

“Most of them have buckets most of the time. This one—in his trousers for a while.”

Mauro said with his hand on his father’s arm, in a voice that cried diversion, “The building’s well heated.”

“We can control the heat separately in every cell,” Basa said, “and in winter we can make them very cold. Did either of you recognize the one in No. 11?”

“No.”

“That’s Vincente Hierro, the leader of the Fifth Assembly, the military wing of ETA. You both speak Basque so you know the initials mean Basque Homeland and Liberty.” It was an odd footnote. Every Spaniard knew what the initials meant.

“I’ve never even seen the man’s picture,” Ugalde said.

“Neither have I,” Mauro said in a flat little voice.

“But perhaps you can explain something to me, Mauro. You belong to their generation.” There was a note of dominical supplication in Basa’s tone, like a schoolmaster appealing to the good student in a bad class. “Why? The Basque provinces are rich and prosperous—the richest and most prosperous in Spain. Yet these young men commit crimes to separate the provinces of Viscaya and Alava and Guipúzcoa and some of Navarra from the rest of Spain. Nobody in the Basque lands except these young men and women want it. But they go on, even when their own people are against them. Do you know why?”

“I suppose it’s the way they think,” Mauro said.

“Obviously. But that doesn’t tell me why.”

Crablike, Mauro said, “It must be a very individual thing.”

“What does that mean? Maybe that’s the wrong way to put it. I should have said, Does that mean anything?”

“It seems to mean a lot to them. They’re in here.”

“Maybe you think they have the Spanish disease?”

“What’s that?”

“Gambling. Do they gamble with their lives?”

“Maybe.”

Hierro was left to his shackles.

Basa motioned them along the corridor. “Come and see the rest.”

Ugalde walked behind. He followed them through the kitchens, a small one for the prisoners, a larger one for the staff. “All our meat is bought from Criado’s meat shop in the village. It makes for good relations. The staff gets meat stew on Thursday. The prisoners don’t get meat, except on Saint’s Days,” Basa explained. Then, through the staff rooms, the control room, the radio room, the interrogation rooms, the offices. The great arm around his son’s shoulders looked to Ugalde more and more like a coil. Basa’s voice washed over him, endlessly explaining and vaguely, somewhere in his mind, he wondered, since the place had been open for six months, why Basa chose this day to show them over it and why he chose to show them two young political prisoners? Ugalde had never expected to see the inside of the place and the invitation surprised him. What surprised him more was Basa’s proprietorial father-figure behavior with his son. Basa had met Mauro often on a fleeting basis and paid him small attention. And now? Ugalde drifted after them, still shrinking.

They finished their tour of the building and went out into the compound.

The brilliance of the day was harsh. Ugalde screwed his eyes against it.

“Come up with us, Dion,” Basa called and did not look behind.

Mauro hesitated, trying to wait for his father and the coil around his shoulders pressed him forward. Ugalde saw it and was irritated and a little jealous and stayed behind.

“There are two fences,” Basa explained, needlessly loud. “The inside fence is eighteen feet high, with another foot angled outwards. This inner fence is electrified. Beyond it we have another eighteen-foot fence, canted outwards like an airport noise baffle, and covered with red danger signs. It is not electrified. A goat cannot jump it, adventurous children cannot climb it. The public is safe.” His left arm encompassed the fences.

We know all that, Ugalde told himself. We watched the place being built.

“The patrols,” Basa said as two guards approached them. “Four patrols, in pairs. They are never out of one another’s sight, from before or behind.” The patrols went by, heavy with weapons.

And why tell us this? The whole village knows it. Half the village has timed the patrols on their rounds, worked out their pace, their positions, their system. Twelve feet in from the electric fence, right-wheel in the corners—they had worn hard-earth paths for the whole world to see.

“Night and day,” Basa said, gesturing. “Floodlights at night.”

We have seen them from the beginning. At first the priests at the monastery couldn’t sleep because of the lights and the pulse of the generator.

Basa pointed to it over in the northeast corner of the compound. “We have our own power. We have outside power, too, if we need it, of course, but we can’t be cut off.”

Everybody had heard it night and day till the sound became a part of them like another heartbeat; they accepted it now and absorbed it, without awareness.

“They can’t get in, except our way,” the colonel said, “and they can’t get out, except our way. It is not a place to get into—unless for a conducted tour.”

Basa turned, and waited, and called, “Come up with us, Dion,” and the cold sun hid his face. He draped his long arms over their shoulders and steered them, like oxen under the yoke, toward the front door of his prison and into the prison commandant’s office.

The prison commandant was about his business somewhere else in the building. Basa sat down behind the desk. His head looked out of place on his great frame. It was narrow; the face was pale and angular, the forehead high, the eyes dark and shadowed. His cheeks were not yet sunken but they were sinking. Ugalde always thought he had the face of a scholar worn down by the classroom. It had no business on that powerful body.

Basa’s little smile as he looked at Mauro was that of a headmaster with a pupil he liked. He surprised them both. “Your father is my good friend, Mauro,” he said.

“Yes, sir, I know.”

It was not the sort of announcement Ugalde would have made and it was not in character with the Basa he knew. The colonel was in a queer mood today, a new mood, at least an unfamiliar mood.

“Tell me frankly what you think of our new jail.”

Jumping about a bit, from friendship to jails? Mauro wanted to say, I didn’t know you cared what anybody thought, or, There are no rats in this one, or, You’d better ask Vincente Hierro. He said, “I’m not much of a judge of jails. It’s very clean.” That was something positive.

“The prison commandant, Captain Rubio, thinks he’s a bit of a philosopher. He’s a Seneca man. He keeps these quotations on the wall above my head. What do you think of the first one?”

Mauro and his father looked up. Seneca, on a printed card on the wall, said: If you know how to use it, life is long enough. A philosophical policeman leading a little seminar. It was peculiar.

“I’d have to agree,” Mauro said.

“How do you use it, Mauro?” A priest, also?

“Study. At this stage, medical studies. That’s my right use of life, sir.”

“Nothing else?”

“Visits home. Just now, nothing else.”

“You use your motorcycle?”

“It’s the cheapest way.”

“You had an uneventful trip this time?”

Ugalde watched them with undefined uneasiness. Basa had never pried before.

“Not entirely. We came by Tolosa up into Pamplona …”

“We?” With the lifted eyebrows of an interested elder.

“Yes. One of my friends at the university comes from Pamplona. I gave him a pillion ride.”

“From Pamplona? Maybe I know him?”

“José Duarte.”

Basa wrote on a pad. “The trip wasn’t entirely uneventful, you said.”

“No. We had a flat rear tire a few miles on this side of Tolosa.”

“No spill?”

“No, but neither of us was very good at fixing a puncture.” Tell him, Mauro thought. He knows already. “The Auxilio en Carretera came by and saved us.”

“The Civil Guard has its uses. I hope they were pleasant?”

“Yes. Quite pleasant.”

“What time was that?”

Tell him. He knows already. “We lost the tire about ten-thirty. They came along about ten-forty-five. We were on the move again by eleven-fifteen.”

Ugalde was oppressed by the room. It was close, and getting closer. Mauro was under control. He was proud of him. But he was also under examination.

“What do two healthy young men do in Pamplona? Do you see girls?”

Now he doesn’t know. Tell him what you want him to know. “We drank and we ate.”

“Give me an idea what two young men do in Pamplona on a Friday night. It’s some time since I spent my time that way. You got to the city about … about what time?”

He wants you to account for your movements. Give him an accounting. “Midnight. We parked the motorcycle and put the chain on it in San Augustin because we were coming back there to eat. Then we went to the Iruña in the plaza and had a drink.”

“Saw friends?”

He wants witnesses. Give him witnesses. “Friends of José’s. Maria Raventos and her father and mother. We had a few drinks—white wine—and some coffee with the Raventos …”

Basa wrote on his pad.

“… we were there for over an hour. Then we walked about a bit and went to the New London bar. It’s over the plaza beside the La Perla hotel. We’re up to half past one now.”

Basa did not react. “Then?”

“Then we went down the steps to San Augustin and ate at the La Vasca.”

“That’s the little Basque place? Is the food good?”

“Very, and cheap and plentiful. My father—we used to eat there often. Then I took José home. I was home myself just after three.”

“Three?”

“Yes.”

“You said the Iruña? The café-bar?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In the plaza?”

“Yes.”

“Not the Iruña Zarra down the hill?”

“On San Miguel?”

“No, Blanca de Navarra.”

“No, sir. Why?”

“At four this morning, a time bomb went off in the dining room of the Iruña Zarra and wrecked the place. There was nobody in the building.” Basa sat back in his chair. “But the place was thoroughly wrecked.”

Mauro was very still. He said nothing.

“Julio! You’re not asking Mauro if he was involved in this?” The doctor was out of his chair.

“Sit down, Dion. Leave this to us.” Basa said to Mauro, “The Civil Guard man who fixed your tire reported after the word went out about this explosion. Every student who was in or near Pamplona last night will be questioned. I wanted to know what you would say to my men or the people in Bilbao—whoever sees you—before you said it to them. This account is the truth, Mauro?”

“Of course, he’s telling the truth!”

“Sit down, Dion. Mauro can speak for himself.”

“Yes,” Mauro said sharply.

“Mauro,” Basa said, “your father is my good friend. When you are questioned, tell the simple truth.”

“Yes, sir. I have to pick José up in Pamplona on the way back. Should I go to your headquarters then?”

“Don’t do anything. Wait for them to come to you in Bilbao. They’ll come, I promise you. Your father told me you stopped in Pamplona and I have to report that I know you were in the city. But wait till they come. The bombing will not be generally known about till the television and radio people and the press get permission to report it on Monday. Why would you go to my headquarters or anybody else’s till you read it in the papers?”

“Because you told me what happened, sir.” It sounded grateful. It felt pleasantly malicious.

“Yes.” The colonel smiled dryly. “In my corps, my dear young man, friendship is not allowed to count. Wait. Always avoid unnecessary complications.”

“For anyone, sir?”

“For anyone, Mauro.” Basa’s dominical smile degenerated. He was grinning. “I will file my own report in my own terms. If you are asked about our conversation, I questioned you.”

“Thank you, sir.” A pleasant confidence warmed Mauro.

Ugalde stood up and was glad Basa did not. It made him feel a little less shrunken. “We’ll go now, Julio,” he said. “Thank you.” A man needs a good friend in place. He has a right to be grateful for that.

“I’ll drive you home.”

“No. I need to walk.” He wanted to say, I want my son to myself.

“Well, I have things to do here this weekend and you’ll want Mauro to yourself. I’ll see you later on Sunday before I go back to Pamplona.”

He walked with them to the electrified gates. The lethal charge was switched off, the inner gate opened. Ugalde shivered as he stepped across the bar embedded in the ground. Mauro stepped on it with deliberate care. He felt the power of the demolitionist in his feet. The outer gates opened and they passed beyond them.

Basa watched them from inside his prison compound. They did not look back. His wave to their backs was a slack salute.

He went into his prison and sat down again at the prison commandant’s desk. His long gaunt face was melancholy.

Ugalde and his tall son walked across the fields toward the monastery road, across the narrow guardless bridge over the river, and they did not speak.

In the avenue of trees, Mauro stopped in the middle of the road.

“You call that man your friend?”

“He is my friend, Mauro. He just proved it. More than that, apart from you and Mama, he’s the only friend I have.”

“He has things to do here this weekend, he says. What things? To draw more blood from Vincente Hierro’s wrists?”

“That could be.”

“And you still call him your friend?”

“In my time, I have done worse. If we all got our due, many of us would face the hangman.”

“You? What did you ever do to hurt anybody? You never did anything but good. What makes you talk that foolish stuff? I know you. And I know him. You have no right to have any dealings with him.”

“Don’t shout, Mauro.”

“I want to shout. How can you …?”

Dr. Ugalde seized his son by the lapels of his coat. “Shut up, boy,” he said in his face. “I’ll tell you how I can and why I can and then you’ll be silent till I choose to tell you more. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ugalde let him go. “Now, walk on and forgive me for my anger. I had to shut you up. You were shouting loud enough to be heard at the barracks.” But they stood, face to face, and did not walk on.

“I’m sorry, Father.”

“I love you, Mauro. You know how much. Walk on.”

They walked between the trees past the Civil Guards’ new brick barracks, and, out of earshot, Ugalde said, “Long, long ago, your mother and I made a contract with life. We had reasons, Mauro, very good reasons. ‘Give us one another, obscurity and peace, and children to love and bring up, and we will give back our skill and our service.’ That’s what we pledged. We have kept the pledge. We had Christina for a while. We still have you. We have loved you with all our hearts. Our contract with life has preserved you. We have died for you. You do not understand what I mean by that. You will, in time. Make your own contract with life, Mauro, but don’t despise ours. It assured your past, it has provided your present, and it has offered you your future. Just remember that you can serve some men, but you cannot save the world.”

Mauro stood in the avenue of trees and gaped at his father. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Walk on.”

They walked in silence and apart. Presently Ugalde took his son’s arm. “I know you don’t know what I’m saying,” he said, “but think about this. I do not live under Basa’s shadow. I live under his cover. What that means, I will tell you one day. But till you are qualified and licensed and have a practice and no longer need me, let it rest. Keep out of trouble with them. Do not disturb the hornets. Just keep it in your head, night and day, that your grandfather was Luis Arrabal. You can be sure they know it. You can be sure Basa knows it. This Hierro you saw just now was a midget beside Luis Arrabal and Basa knows it. But today he warned you. And he has never mentioned to me, or to Mama, that she is the daughter of Luis Arrabal. Basa has forgiven us for Luis Arrabal. He does not hold us to blame for him. Do not threaten us with talk or anger. Will you be quiet, and careful?”

“Yes, Father.” Ten paces on he said, “But I am proud of my grandfather.”

“But not of your father?”

“You were in France when he was fighting”

“Yes. Safe? Hiding, perhaps?”

“I do not think that. You were born gentle.”

There was no more talk. They came to the house.

Ugalde said, “I have two house calls to make. If you would like to fish the Urrobi for the last time this year, tell Mama and she’ll pack some wine and food. She’ll come too.”

In the kitchen, Maria packed cheese and bread and cold chicken and a flask of coffee and a bottle of wine.

“Mama,” Mauro said, “Grandfather Ugalde was a gentle man, wasn’t he?”

“A very gentle man.”

“Like Father?”

Maria closed the basket. “Your father is a very gentle man,” she said and put her arms about him. “But he is more. Your father is an iron man. Like Luis Arrabal.”

“How can that be? Luis Arrabal died fighting.”

“Mauro. Your father earns about $8,000 a year as a country doctor. We bleed to send you to Bilbao to become a doctor. When you no longer need your father, he will tell you many things. If he does not—ask me. Till then, wait and do not run into danger.” She stood back from him.

“What do you both mean?”

“When you no longer need us, ask us.”

“When will I not need you?”

They fished the pools of the Urrobi and the afternoon ached on. It was cold. There would be no more sport this year. Maria watched her husband and her son as they worked apart along the banks of the river, and she could not read their thoughts.

At home, when the afternoon died, the strain dissolved in their need for one another and they talked. But night came and Dr. Ugalde’s dreams came, not of malevolent nature or of malignant machines, but of men and their deformities threatening his household in grotesque events; and late in the morning Mauro had to leave.

“Come home again soon,” Maria said.

“The first minute I can.” Mauro held his father hard. “Don’t think unkindly of me,” he said.

“How could we do that? We love you.”

But Mauro thought they looked older than when he came and tired, very tired.

In the early afternoon, when Colonel Basa came to Ugalde’s he was carrying a black briefcase.