The return of the Conde de Villanueva to his ancestral home had not been as gay and pleasurable as he expected. In his little town of Lazalaya, in the sun-striped Café Moderno to which he had looked forward through months of darkened New York bars, even in the office of the mayor who had always treated him with a fatherly affection in which there was no room for formal respect, he had been received with cold courtesy. Added to that, there was upon his desk a note from the Civil Governor of the Province demanding his immediate presence.
He really couldn’t blame them. The price offered by a Hamburg tourist agency for a strip of his foreshore had so pleasantly surprised him that he cabled his acceptance and signed the documents without remembering his own romantic view of geography. His education had left him permanently muddled between the points of the compass. Eagerly following in his school books the westward track of the conquistadores, the Pacific, the Philippines and even India appeared to him obviously west of Spain, the world east of Spain stopping somewhere about the Persian Gulf. His mental block was a mere question of semantics and impossible to refute; but on the dry land of a surveyor it was a nuisance, a disease, a curse. He believed that he had sold the eastern headland when he had actually sold the western.
The mistake hurt his pride – not his ancestral pride which hardly existed, but his self-respect as an enterprising young businessman with a taste for public relations. And he was appalled to find how irrevocably his error had grown. The foundations of a luxury hotel and the terracing of the approach road were already recognisable on the headland. The walls of a single-storied service wing – staff quarters, laundry, store-rooms and garage – were awaiting the roof. Bustling about the whole disaster with Teutonic efficiency was the able Herr Carl Kuchler who had chosen the site and would be ready within a year to receive the hotel coaches full of citron-blooming compatriots impatient to toast their white navels and patronise the Mediterranean.
On his third day home Gil de Villanueva obeyed the summons of the Civil Governor. Official displeasure was easier to face than all those unofficial silences. He drove to the provincial capital and parked his car with a final cavalier gesture in the space reserved for the Governor himself.
The Palace restored his faith in himself and his society. It was entirely unfitted for the enlightened, modern administration of a province. The Ministry of the Interior wished, he knew, to build a glass-and-concrete block of government offices, whereupon the Ministry of Tourism, always eager to turn the useless and beautiful into a superb hotel, would have gladly taken over the Palace. But nobody – thank God! – had yet had the heart to change its traditional function.
This treasure of Spanish baroque, its crumbling yellow stone combining elegance with power, had even affected the Governor’s appearance. The distinguished twentieth-century lawyer, who had never been gravely disturbed if some remains of his lunch were visible on his waistcoat in the afternoon, was now all courtly and fastidious. He wore the same perfectly cut black suits that he had always worn, but he treated the cloth as if it were lace and black velvet. He had suppressed the grey-and-black moustache which gave him a certain air of authority in the clubs and cafés of Madrid, and now showed an austere and scholarly upper lip. When he was annoyed – and at the moment he was very annoyed indeed – the lip was as long as if it had been painted by El Greco.
He frowned upon the young man, the far too self-satisfied young man, sitting opposite his tremendous desk of olive wood and mahogany. Both were dwarfed by the sheer space of the Governor’s office and its lofty stone walls hung with tapestries and pictures, some of them in place since the reign of Philip III, some lent by the paternal State.
‘As a grandee of Spain you ought to be ashamed of yourself!’ Don Baltasar announced. ‘Because of your continued absence from your estates, irresponsible attorneys have been able to sell to a speculator the land promised by your father to the Municipality of Lazalaya.’
‘Nobody could regret it more than I do, Excellency. If your colleagues of the Law – excuse me, your former colleagues – could ever draw up a conveyance making it clear exactly what one is selling, it wouldn’t have happened.’
The Count appeared completely unimpressed by his surroundings. The casual air of good breeding, which he could no more help than his distinctively Spanish narrow face and slim physique, contained neither disrespect nor undue reverence. He was in fact thinking that the grave magnificence framing Don Baltasar would have suited his own tastes and appearance a great deal better; it was a pity that he could not consider the arts of government as anything but a joke.
‘I am prepared to grant that under the influence of feminine and other distractions you did not read the conveyance with due care,’ said the Civil Governor severely. ‘But what you have done is to allow a lousy German tourist agent to put up a hotel where the Municipality proposed to build a mole and a fish market whenever they could raise the capital. You, the Conde de Villanueva, have broken a contract!’
‘There was nothing in writing, was there?’
‘In dealing with your father it was not necessary to put anything in writing. And he was not, I will again impress on you, an absentee landlord.’
‘Your Excellency talks as if we still owned half the province instead of just a farm at Lazalaya.’
‘The principle is the same.’
‘With respect, it is not the same. My father fed and educated his family by running a small estate with extreme efficiency. Myself I am a disaster as a farmer. So I leave the management to a bailiff and meanwhile sell sherry in New York, thereby adding to the country’s exports. And I refuse to be called an absentee landlord,’ Gil went on, adding a calculated warmth to his defence. ‘If I am, why don’t you people expropriate me? Exactly! Because it isn’t worth the trouble for four hundred hectares of land upon which, I may point out, the labourers are known to be well paid, happy, well-housed – and no monkey business with the social security. I also remind you that on my last visit I was publicly congratulated by the local Syndicate of Agricultural Workers.’
‘They were all as drunk as owls,’ replied the Civil Governor, ‘and so were you.’
‘The ancient democracy of Spain …’
‘I can do without a lecture on politics. The point is you sold it.’
‘Your Excellency should not have allowed it.’
‘I wasn’t asked. It all went through the Ministry of Tourism.’
‘Lack of liaison, I shall complain to the Chief of State through my Syndicate.’
‘You haven’t got a Syndicate.’
‘I have. Employees of the Wine Industry. And if it hasn’t enough nuisance value, I’ll stand for the Municipality of Lazalaya. I’m sure to be elected, however much you try to cook the returns.’
‘I do not cook the returns.’
‘And your Excellency will find himself governing Guinea with only two retired generals for company.’
‘I tell you I never had a chance to intervene,’ Don Baltasar insisted, picking up a symbolic file and slapping it with his other hand.
‘I accept your word. I am glad you have the decency to apologise.’
‘It is not an apology.’
‘Well, it sounded like one. Am I, once and for all, an absentee landlord?’
‘In spirit, no.’
‘That will do, Excellency. I am now prepared to help.’
‘I wish you would stop calling me Excellency.’
‘You started it, my dear uncle, by addressing me as Conde de Villanueva. The least I expected was exile and a fine.’
‘You know very well, Gil, that my powers are limited.’
‘To whatever you can get away with. Why don’t you compel this Kuchler to sell the land back to the Municipality?’
‘Because I can’t and should be sacked if I tried. I must remind you that it is deliberate Government Policy, executed in practice by the Ministry of Tourism, to turn Spain into a holiday camp for all Europe. Foreign Exchange, the Family, Employment …’
‘I don’t see all the males of Lazalaya becoming waiters.’
‘Nor do I! Nor do I!’ said the Civil Governor, making the considerable circuit of his desk and putting an arm round the shoulders of his nephew. ‘All I can suggest is that you show a sense of responsibility in future, and by active cooperation with your decent fellow citizens endeavour to revive in them some respect for the family. I need not say that I am entirely at the disposition of the Municipality of Lazalaya.’
Gil de Villanueva drove slowly back along the excellent road which was – economically speaking – the cause of all the trouble. It had been built by his grandfather in the days of family prosperity, and for a long generation had been used only by mule carts and the Villanueva automobile. Lazalaya had never had any reason for existence except that it existed.
The road and the rapid increase of fast and efficient transport had at least suggested that the town ought to be originating traffic rather than receiving it at a dead end. Fish was the answer – an imaginative answer, since Lazalaya had always ignored the sea. The coast was grim and rocky without a sheltered anchorage. Still, only two miles away, there was a shallow cove where a small and active community of inshore fishermen worked their rowing boats from a semicircular beach and supplied by donkey and pack basket the town and its surrounding villages. Given a breakwater of a hundred metres to protect the cove from the prevailing south-easterly winds, Lazalaya could become the only fishing port on a long, inhospitable shore.
Civil War had prevented the development; then lack of capital. Neither Lazalaya or the Villanuevas had any money. The central and provincial governments were fully occupied by more essential schemes. Meanwhile the road had attracted Herr Kuchler and a few adventurous tourists – at any rate to the extent that it was now safer to ride a donkey on the right rather than down the middle.
Gil de Villanueva stopped and got out on the crest of the low range which separated the narrow coastal plain from the endless inland miles of scrub and poor cornland. In his own territory he felt a car to be a confinement of the spirit; he preferred the old-fashioned view from the back of a horse.
Below him to his right – west, damn it! – was the compact little town, its lack of any brick or concrete suburbs revealing that it had not the least excuse for growth. To his left was the great, green oblong of the Villanueva farm, separated from the prevailing yellows of the countryside by a plastered stone wall – an extravagantly expensive method of fencing which dated from the time when labour cost little. The fertility within the wall reminded him of his father who had created it. And that unpleasantly emphasized what his father would have thought of him.
A remarkable vehicle was pounding unconcernedly up the hairpin bends of the road. The front of it was a twin-engined motorcycle with its handlebars enclosed in a cabin; the back was that of a small van. It belonged to the mayor, and had indeed been built by him in his own workshop. Since he was the smith, coachbuilder and wheelwright of Lazalaya and described himself as Engineer, it was a striking advertisement for his crafts. Forged iron and sound timber made it indestructible, and on such a hill would probably have made it immoveable if not for an additional gear of three massive cogs and shafts. Even so, the steady climbing was mysterious, for the home-made first gear must have weighed nearly as much as the engine.
Gil’s first instinct was to turn round and escape the meeting. He was humiliated to think that the mayor might not even stop to talk. But such cowardice would not do, really would not do. So he placed his own car more or less in the middle of the road, and himself posed sadly and romantically upon a roadside rock.
Don Jaime Caruncho halted his shuddering chimera, and at least exchanged compliments.
‘And what are you thinking about up there?’ he asked. ‘Lunch?’
‘Far from it, Jaime. I am recovering from an interview with the Civil Governor.’
‘What was His Excellency’s opinion?’
‘Of me?’
‘That I can guess. Of what should be done.’
‘Civil Governors, my dear Jaime, only think what they think they ought to think. That is why they are appointed. All I can tell you is that he would rather have fish than a hotel.’
‘Are you sure of that?’
‘Of course. He drew himself up to his full width and ordered me to cooperate with decent people.’
‘Then I will try to find a use for you.’
‘Anything you like,’ said Gil, joining the mayor in the road and absent-mindedly patting the vehicle. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To buy a second-hand dynamo.’
‘Second-hand dynamos don’t work.’
‘They do when I have repaired them.’
‘If I were to accompany you in the back of the van …’
‘No. For the time being we should continue to appear on the worst possible terms.’
‘How right you are, Jaime! The strength of you natural leaders is in the instinctive reactions which allow you time to think.’
‘Enough compliments! Do you agree with us that this hotel will be a disaster for the morale of Lazalaya?’
Gil did not. He thought that both the influence and the economic effects of the hotel would be excellent. But what mattered was the site for the long-promised breakwater.
‘Jaime, I always accept expert opinion,’ he answered cautiously. ‘This Kuchler, however, is a heretic and will not.’
‘He must answer to God for it. Meanwhile you can ask him to dinner.’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Nothing! Nothing! Just to look mysterious if he asks your opinion on some curiosities that I have told him. He is very interested in the atrocious past of Lazalaya, and it seems to me that he is too sure of the future. Some of those exaggerations you loose off when you have been drinking would do no harm.’
‘Anything else?’
‘We will see how it goes. Well, I’m off. On your way back take a look at the house in the Travesía de San Bartolomeo where Kuchler is staying. Something may occur to you.’
When he reached Lazalaya, Gil walked slowly through the Travesia. Nothing whatever occurred to him, except that Jaime would never take action without the approval of his friends, the priests. He was a conservative of conservatives, an ardent and practising churchman and above suspicion. Reliability without speed. The Vehicle was a true expression of his character – though it might be as well to remember that within his workshop Jaime was ruthless with his materials.
The Travesía was a long, narrow alley behind the Church, with half-abandoned warehouses on one side and a high wall, which had once enclosed a nunnery, on the other. The only two houses were Father Miguel’s, next to the church, and a venerable, crumbling mansion nearly opposite, of which Herr Kuchler had taken the second floor. The alley was private enough for anything, even for Kuchler’s assassination – though that could hardly have entered into the calculations of Jaime and the cofradía of the Friends of San Bartolomeo who probably represented as well as anyone the ‘decent people’ referred to by his uncle. Feeling more obscured by ecclesiastical shadows than an experienced Villanueva ought to feel, he dropped a note to Kuchler asking him to dinner the following day.
As yet he had only talked to the speculator at the hotel site or on the beach, reluctant to join him in the Café Moderno and be received by its customers with an elaborate politeness which really hurt. Kuchler, no doubt, would have ascribed it to respect for an ancient family. In his determination not to put a foot wrong in Spain he took social rank too seriously. That was the only reason why Gil had not already offered hospitality; Kuchler would be disappointed that it was so easily come by.
The German was extremely presentable, arriving with his white dinner jacket and formal air. A well-preserved man in his late forties with china-blue eyes in a smooth face of even tan, he was straight off the cover of a magazine for elder citizens – if there was such a thing. He turned out to be a likeable guest, and would have been even more so if he had not been so anxious to be liked.
Passion was the only word for Kuchler’s admiration of Spain and its people. Gil was reminded of an unfortunate friend of his who had been determined to marry a gipsy singer and was always making excuses or denying that any need for excuses existed. He suspected that Kuchler knew the country chiefly from books, though speaking excellent Castilian. He was too slow to appreciate the dancing of light and shade.
‘I hope, Count, that you are content with our deal?’ Kuchler asked at last.
‘Very, my dear fellow, very! When I think of the bare …’
‘And I intend to pay particular attention to the restaurant.’
‘The little bikinis!’ Gil exclaimed.
‘Ha! Ha!’
‘And the intriguing possibilities of my house!’
‘You will invite me. I hope.’
‘Of course! Of course!’ Gil replied, and then remembered that he was under orders.
The revolutionary past of Lazalaya had not been notably atrocious, except in Jaime’s eyes. Still, over the years there had been quite enough incidents for brandy and imagination to work on.
‘If I can,’ he added. ‘It is such a pity that for us the sincerity of political opinions can only be proved by violence.’
‘But all is very calm,’ Kuchler insisted. ‘In the north and in the universities I know there are pockets of discontent. But here is old Spain! The true, old, catholic Spain!’
‘Yes, we haven’t changed much.’
‘So wonderful in our era! So uniquely restful!’
‘And always so predictable. Do you know that this house has been burnt down four times since 1800?’
‘But by whom?’ Kuchler asked, much shocked.
‘Usually Lazalaya. We deserved what was coming to us except the accompanying rape,’ said Gil, warming to his task. ‘And my father used to tell me that from what he remembered of his great-aunts they deserved that, too.’
‘But rape!’
‘We can always have bikinis prohibited. That won’t keep people away if the food is good enough.’
‘Surely Lazalaya does not object to the hotel?’ Kuchler asked. ‘There was, I believe, some project for a mole.’
‘Oh, that! They’ve been talking about that since 1930. Your hotel will make more money for them than sardines. And prosperity for everyone is bound to reduce the crime statistics.’
‘There is no crime! My partner and I consulted our Embassy and the provincial chief of security.’
Gil had to admit that there were very few arrests. He tried to make his tone regretful. Herr Kuchler fidgeted with his bow tie and finished his brandy with a decisive gulp.
‘I was talking to Don Jaime Caruncho a few days ago,’ he said. ‘He asked me if I had ever visited the cemetery.’
‘And have you?’
‘Casually. In passing. And then he put a most curious question: had I ever noticed that no police were buried there?’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘He seemed unwilling to tell me any more, and suggested that I should ask you.’
‘Ask me what?’ Gil replied, his mind racing for some answer which would satisfy Jaime and yet be noncommittal.
‘Why there are no police in the cemetery.’
‘Well, they aren’t buried there.’
‘Where are they buried?’
‘Who knows, my dear Carl, who knows? I will ask you a question in my turn. Have you ever seen a dead donkey?’
‘No. No, I don’t believe I have.’
‘Think it over! You are an intelligent man.’
Kuchler’s thanks were impenetrable. When he got into his car to drive back to Lazalaya, he certainly seemed graver than he should have been after a Villanueva dinner; but Gil doubted if this able and active German was likely to be still impressed at breakfast time in the Travesía de San Bartolomeo. Jaime Caruncho’s dark hints were childish.
He strolled with a last cigar on the terrace of his house. Faint specks of lanterns showed at sea where the little boats had their lines out for bream. Lazalaya was a soft pattern of light, composed of faint pools rather than bright points. The only intrusion of modernity was the sudden plunge of a newly bought heifer as her nose touched the electric fence which limited the dairy herd’s supper of lucerne.
Gil’s peace of mind, already insecure between amusement and misgivings, had barely recovered from the start when there was a second plunge from the pomegranate grove below him.
‘How did it go?’ asked the mayor.
‘Jaime, I wish you would arrive by the front door. And such impatience is undignified.’
‘We technicians have no time for dignity.’
‘But for a little refreshment, I hope.’
‘Here outside the house, if you like.’
Gil, returning from the dining-room with glasses and a bottle, determined to reimpose his authority. It was futile for Lazalaya, a town of four thousand inhabitants without any noticeable capital among the lot, to oppose a sound project conceived in Hamburg and approved by the Ministry of Tourism.
‘Look, old friend! Forgive me if I say that you do not know the world outside Spain! When a speculator such as Kuchler has made so large an investment, he is not easily frightened out of it – if, as I suspect, that’s your intention.’
‘We will see. Tell me – what are his politics?’
‘He seems to be much like an American. He gives political names to his decency and good will, and has no interest in definition.’
‘But it is said he was a Nazi,’ Jaime replied.
‘Almost inevitable in a man of his age.’
‘Well, it counts. He was brought up to violence.’
‘So were you,’ Gil retorted, for the mayor had been a twice-decorated sergeant-major in the crusade against the infidel Republic.
‘That is why I understand him. He has a natural distrust of the Left.’
‘Jaime, you are not to involve them! They’d go to gaol.’
‘What do you think of me?’ the major exclaimed indignantly. ‘Whatever their misguided past, they are now my fellow citizens. I shall ensure that they all have alibis.’
‘When? What for?’
‘Father Miguel will explain to you. Go and see him tomorrow.’
Ridiculous, but at least harmless, Gil thought as he rode into Lazalaya the following day. His only touch of aristocratic pride was in his attitude to the Church. Since it was essential to the State, it must always be able to count on Villanueva support. As for parish priests, one entertained them; one had profound respect for their office; but one was not bound to have any for their opinion.
Father Miguel always reminded him of an obscure traffic signal. His cheek-bones were red, and so was the tip of his pointed nose. They formed a triangle under the black line of his eyebrows. He was cordial enough – and he damned well should be – but the parochial chair was uncomfortable and the interview unsatisfactory. Jaime seemed to have been misinformed, or else Father Miguel’s system of approach bidding was very cautious. He was pretending to see no harm in the hotel.
‘I fear it is likely to bring in disturbing modern influence, padre,’ Gil remarked gravely.
‘That is nothing new for the church, my son.’
‘Well, no. Of course not. Still, I can imagine …’
‘Sometimes fact is more healthy than imagination.’
‘I was only thinking that if we are to make out a case …’
‘The Ministry of Tourism has the full approval of the Church. It is not for me, a humble parish priest, to question national policy.’
‘But I understand you would rather have an honest little port and a fish-market! What about St Peter?’
‘I cannot feel that he would have objected to a well-run inn.’
‘Roman orgies, padre?’
‘I am unable to decide how much you hope, my son, and how much you fear. So far as I know, the hotel will be primarily for respectable families from northern Europe.’
This was getting nowhere. It was hardly worthwhile bringing up the question of female exposure. The old fox was quite capable of pointing out that nothing was more likely to impress on Lazalaya the vanity of the flesh than respectable wives in bikinis.
‘I can well see that you wish to undo the results of a moment of carelessness,’ Father Miguel went on. ‘But even if this worthy Kuchler could be persuaded to abandon the project, even if you were able to repay him his money, which – forgive me if I am misinformed – you cannot do, how is the Municipality to raise the capital for a mole and a fishmarket?’
‘Well, we could always try the banks or float a company. We should have the foundations. That’s an asset. And since the fishmarket would not be so big as the hotel, we can sell what’s over.’
‘To whom?’
‘A canning factory, for example.’
‘There is not enough space.’
‘Well, a villa then.’
‘Would you wish to live on top of a fishmarket?’
‘You’re being very difficult, padre.’
‘I am perhaps inexperienced, my son. And has it occurred to you that the walls of the service wing are three metres high already? Your company would have all the expense of pulling them down, and I doubt if the Ministry of Tourism would allow it. Our little town is powerless to oppose the Government.’
‘I told Jaime that.’
‘If only the site were in the centre of a business district!’ Father Miguel rambled on. ‘I hear that a constructor of office buildings has made an offer to the Little Brothers of St Macario for their convent in Tarragona. The price will enable them very materially to extend their good works.’
‘Then they had better take it,’ said Gil impatiently.
He was exasperated. It was typical of these parish priests to take refuge in milk-and-vinegar neutralism and start blathering about Little Brothers.
‘They would indeed if they could find a simple priory. The roof they would build with their own hands.’
‘I’d suggest some fairly heavy gloves.’
‘It would be well within their capacities to complete the service wing. In California, I am told, missions are turned into hotels. I see no reason why here we should not turn a hotel into a mission.’
‘And a lot of use that would be to Lazalaya! I mean, no doubt the town would profit spiritually, but …’
‘If the Little Brothers had the hotel garden and the wing,’ replied Father Miguel gently, ‘I cannot believe they would object to the excellent investment of building and owning a fishmarket. That leaves us only with the problem of financing the mole. No doubt the Little Brothers would assist, especially if the Provincial Government, under its present enlightened administration, were to give a grant.’
‘It’s possible. But something on paper …’ Gil began.
‘Indeed something on paper! With a little compass, perhaps, on the map? For example: that if for any unknown cause the building of the hotel is abandoned and the site with existing improvements offered back to you, the Little Brothers would lend you the money, you on your part giving them a lien on the property at cost, and they on their part undertaking to build a fishmarket with all necessary approaches and customary amenities and to lease the same to the Municipality on condition that the Municipality, whom I believe we should call the Party of the Third Part, undertake to build a mole and a quay.’
For a moment Gil could find no reply, feeling that astonishment at the extreme competence of the Church would be rude and congratulations out of place. Eventually he mumbled that they would have to keep the deal pretty quiet.
‘Publicity is always to be deprecated, my son. You may count, I assure you, on the discretion of the legal advisers to the Church. Now, since you appear to agree, let me hear your proposal, always remembering that I cannot run very fast.’
‘Padre, I have no proposal whatever!’
‘I understand from Don Jaime that you suggest I should allow a party of revolutionaries to chase me down the Travesía.’
‘I know absolutely nothing about it,’ Gil protested excitably.
‘Let me put your conscience at rest! I see no sacrilege in so good a cause, especially since this regrettable scene will be organised by the Cofradía of San Bartolomeo. All that will be asked of you personally is to keep your uncle informed – without in any way compromising him of course – so that in case of need he may, as the saying is, hold the ring.’
‘He’ll shove me up before a military court if he thinks I’m responsible!’
‘Surely not! Surely not! He will rejoice that a grandee of Spain should stick at nothing to undo the results of an accidental breach of faith. And in any case the Little Brothers will see that the Bishop has a word with him. God be with you, my worthy son!’
Back in the calm of the far too empty ancestral home, Gil realised that if anything went wrong the sacrifice had been already chosen. The scapegoat would be the irresponsible young man who had sold the headland, who didn’t go to church if he could help it, who approved of impropriety on beaches, who could buy an air passage one jump ahead of the police. There was no way out but ignominious flight. And that wouldn’t do at all. Some time in the future – when a rich wife came along or America doubled its consumption of sherry – Lazalaya would again be his permanent home; and home, if it meant anything, meant the liking and trust of his fellow citizens from top to bottom.
In the evening the Vehicle rumbled openly up the drive to the house. That at least was a welcome sign.
‘I thought we had agreed to keep our distance,’ said Gil cautiously, after he had led the mayor into his study and shut the door.
‘That doesn’t matter any longer now that all the decent people know you are doing your best.’
‘Well, you can go straight back and tell them that I will not chase Father Miguel down the Travesía de San Bartolomeo.’
‘Nothing of that for you! All that’s needed is for you to be with Kuchler in his dining-room which overlooks the street. Have you got a pistol?’
‘No and no! And I don’t want one.’
‘Well, take this!’ said the mayor, handing over a neat Star automatic.
‘What for?’
‘Just to take a few shots at us when we pass Kuchler’s flat.’
‘I might easily hit you.’
‘What about all the prizes you won for pigeon shooting?’
‘One does not use a pistol,’ Gil shouted.
‘The principle is the same.’
‘Kuchler will get suspicious.’
‘On the contrary! He will be convinced. You are an excitable young man of good family defending the Church. It is not necessary to know the difference between east and west at short range.’
‘Anything else?’ Gil asked, accepting his fate.
‘Yes. It’s fixed for the seventeenth.’
‘No moon. And I can arrange for Alonso Mejias and Enrique Jimenez to be on duty at the bottom of the Travesía.’
‘Can’t you find someone more intelligent?’ Gil asked, for the two venerable constables had piously dreamed their way through thirty years of Lazalaya’s civic and ecclesiastical life. ‘They are just a pair of unfortunates.’
‘That is because their minds are not set on things of this world, Gil,’ said the mayor rebukingly. ‘They see nothing. They are still incapable of holding up a bicycle with one hand while beckoning on my Vehicle with the other.’
‘Suppose Kuchler can’t have me to dinner on the seventeeth?’
‘Of course he can! What has he to do except walk round his headland learning filthy language from the builders? Good! And try to look more cheerful in public!’
By enlisting the aid of Kuchler’s venerable cook who had learned her job in the Villanueva kitchens, Gil managed to force the invitation with complete naturalness. She had only to mention that a dish of sea bream, stuffed with garlic, had been a favourite of the señorito. Kuchler, bored by his usually lonely meals, was on the telephone at once and accepted the date of the seventeenth. A more formal dinner, he said, must come later, and meanwhile this would be a memorable occasion.
Memorable it certainly was. Gil tried hard to be a satisfactory guest, though feverishly mopping up his sauce, talking too fast and probably drinking too much. The more he looked at the repercussions of this scandal, the more nervous he was. Everyone else was safe. The veterans of the republican army, the former anarchists, communists and plain democrats, were all sitting comfortably in their accustomed Café Ventura under the eyes of the town. The members of the Cofradía of San Bartolomeo were above suspicion. Nobody would ever enquire where they were.
Gil surreptitiously watched the ancient wall-clock behind Kuchler’s head. It formally struck eleven at ten minutes to the hour. His own watch said it was five past. But the time told by Jaime’s immense pocket watch, mended and improved by himself, was the only time of importance. He wondered how in the Civil War Spaniards ever managed to synchronise an attack. Whose watch? What check on it? And then at last came the flash and the formidable explosion.
‘What the devil was that?’ Kuchler exclaimed, rushing to the window.
Gil nearly answered that it was sugar and weed-killer. He hadn’t believed it could possibly be so effective. But trust Jaime! He probably used it for testing the springs of the Vehicle.
Father Miguel shot out of the vestry door and down the Travesía, shouting for help. Simultaneously the north end of the church glowed red behind the high wall as a pile of paraffin-soaked rafters from the former nunnery flared and crackled.
Hot on the heels of Father Miguel raced six men, collars turned up, faces indistinguishable in the darkness. Gil threw open the window, drew his pistol and sprayed the nunnery wall, hoping that one shot at least had gone reasonably close to the figure which he took to be Jaime. The flying shadows were seen for a moment down the street against the glow of light from the plaza, and disappeared.
‘The church is burning,’ Kuchler shouted, rushing for the door. ‘We must help.’
‘I shouldn’t if I were you. These things happen from time to time. One ignores them.’
‘But you fired! A little high, if you permit an old soldier to say so.’
‘I think I hit one. We keep the peace ourselves in Lazalaya. The honour of the town demands it.’
‘Where are the police?’
‘The police know better than to interfere, my dear Carl. I believe Don Jaime told you that … well … they sometimes disappear. May I perhaps have another brandy?’
The only thing which could appear suspicious to anyone who knew Lazalaya was the speed with which the fire engine arrived. Since Jaime Caruncho ran the Fire Brigade as well as the town, that was not surprising. Near the far end of the Travesía was a small turning to the left which led to the fire station. The conspirators had evidently taken refuge there. Those who were volunteer fire-fighters had then dragged out the engine; those who were not had quietly mixed with the excited crowd coming up from the plaza. Father Miguel’s discreet movements were beyond guessing.
‘It is my duty to report what we saw,’ Kuchler insisted.
‘Just to the mayor, perhaps. We can trust him to be discreet. Lazalaya does not want to lose the hotel.’
‘They are going the right way to do it!’ Kuchler exclaimed indignantly. ‘But of course, as one of yourselves, I know that I must not take these little outbreaks too seriously. Now shall I tell Don Jaime you fired?’
‘So long as you don’t tell anyone else. These people, you understand, might visit me and turn out better shots than I am.’
‘But suppose, my dear Count, that they think it was I who shot at them?’
‘Oh, they wouldn’t mind that! Just a German doing his duty, they would say. They’d know there was no ill feeling behind it.’
Kuchler next day upon his building site looked charged with secrets, but there was nothing in that to draw attention to him since all the citizens of Lazalaya were equally distraught. Their animation was insistent, though expressed in voices more muted than usual. Any person of some education was as ashamed to be ignorant of what had happened as any leader of a large community forced to admit that he hadn’t read the newspapers for a week. Inside information, as a matter of prestige, had to be freely invented.
Father Miguel, as befitted his cloth, did not tell a single lie. He had heard an explosion, seen flames and run for help. When it was discovered that nothing more than a pile of old rafters had caught fire, he was much relieved. Shots? No, he was quite sure that nobody had shot at him. Perhaps people had heard the crackling of the fire. He was no scientist, but could not all be explained by spontaneous combustion?
Don Jaime massively recommended calm; and the town police, who had not a clue to the culprits – for their only representatives anywhere near the spot had been Jimenez and Mejias – accepted his ingenious theory that the fire was a distasteful prank of students who considered, it might be, that Lazalaya needed waking up. Alternatively, idle foreigners from the vicious resorts along the coast might be responsible. The fishermen of the cove were persuaded that they had seen mysterious headlights racing up the hill from Lazalaya. The fire, the explosion and the shots, which the whole plaza had heard even if Father Miguel had not, were the only certain facts.
After a couple of days it was obvious that Kuchler’s intentions were unaffected. He took the generous view that, though there might be occasional excitement in Lazalaya, the hotel was too far from it to be involved. Should tourists, as tourists do, sometimes wish to spend their money in the cafés of the town, he was quite sure that they would only be impressed by the unfailing courtesy of the Spaniard to the foreigner. He had some evidence, he said tactfully to Don Jaime, that Lazalaya could control its own affairs without interference, and undoubtedly, for the sake of the hotel, it would.
‘He thinks we have declared our independence like Gibraltar,’ the mayor announced to Gil. ‘We have surpassed ourselves!’
‘You have.’
‘And who has been bombarding the town with a pistol? I was hit by a flake of plaster from the wall.’
‘If you were, you wouldn’t have known it with all those clothes round your head.’
‘It was the size of a plate! Look, Gil – what we have to do now is to prove to Kuchler that the authorities take us seriously. The Governor’s secretary is in my office.’
‘What does he want?’
‘You.’
‘I’m busy. Tomorrow. Next week.’
‘He has come to pick you up and drive you to the Palace. You have to go.’
‘I warn you – I shall tell Don Baltasar the truth.’
‘Nothing better!’ Jaime replied cheerfully. ‘He’s on our side. You said so. Show some spirit, friend! We’re still a long way from the fish market.’
Well, spirit was the only thing to show, plus some of the blackmail which had been applied to himself. Gil found his uncle in a pose of imperial neutrality, framed by the great room of power, and at once took the offensive.
‘You look like Pontius Pilate,’ he remarked.
‘I would remind you that he had no difficulty in dealing with two thieves.’
‘You have heard then that there has been a bomb in Lazalaya?’
‘I have had fifteen security reports, each one more improbable than the last, and I begin to fear that our noble police, like those of other countries, create smoke in order to justify their salaries. I have sent for you to tell me what fire, if any, there really was.’
‘A little one – in the old nunnery.’
‘And you?’ Don Baltasar stormed. ‘You were concerned in this criminal folly?’
‘Your Excellency told me to cooperate with my decent fellow citizens.’
‘My only hope is that we can put it down to agitation by the Left.’
‘No, you can’t. Jaime Caruncho was very careful to see that they all had alibis.’
‘Well, what the devil am I going to do if this comes to the ears of the Government?’
‘Jaime will tell you what to do.’
‘I am not going to have the mayor of a collection of insanitary hovels telling the Civil Governor what he is to do! And I remind you that Our Movement would have no objection to sending a grandee of Spain to gaol with a long sentence, and might even welcome the opportunity. I also remind you …’
‘If you’d let me explain,’ Gil interrupted.
‘I do not wish to know the details. You can merely tell me this. What interest has the Bishop got in the fishmarket and the mole?’
‘I suppose he disapproves of bikinis.’
‘Nonsense!’ Don Baltasar roared. ‘He’s a modernist. And he knows very well that if the Ministry of Tourism says there will be bikinis, bikinis there will be. Our need for Foreign Exchange …’
‘The Little Brothers of St Macario also need a priory.’
‘Would you do me the honour to amplify that statement? Concisely and with respect both for my intelligence and my office!’
Gil put forward Father Miguel’s proposal as confidently as a real estate operator proposing to pyramid mortgages on a dubious title. The Civil Governor listened with growing calm, perceiving that he was not entirely isolated between the Cabinet and his irresponsible home town.
‘I always understood the Little Brothers to be an Order of Poverty,’ he said severely.
‘Perhaps that is why they have some savings.’
‘And I have no intention of holding the ring, as your Father Miguel puts it. You, Jaime Caruncho and the Cofradia of San Bartolomeo will be defenceless before the Ministry. So shall I. I propose to take immediate steps to cover myself and show that I am not a man to be trifled with.’
‘I am sure that would be wise, uncle. As a matter of interest, how far do you control the Civil Guard?’
‘Control is a strong word. I indicate my wishes to the Commanding Officer and he takes them into account.’
‘Then may I suggest that you station a detachment in Lazalaya – just to restore confidence among foreigners?’
‘It’s the last thing which would restore confidence!’
‘Your Excellency understands me perfectly.’
‘It understands that you are an impertinent young crook! It also impresses on you that It cannot lift a finger to save you, since the Chief of State disapproves of nepotism and It has the misfortune to be your uncle.’
‘We should only want them a few days. And tell them to behave themselves!’
‘The discipline of the Civil Guard is impeccable.’
‘I know it is. But they needn’t look quite so grim.’
‘What are they supposed to be there for?’
‘To show the Ministry that you are not a man to be trifled with, my dear uncle.’
Two on the church. Two on Don Jaime’s workshop. Four at the entrance to the town. Half a dozen appearing and disappearing around the Town Hall and the plaza. Tourists, if there had been any, would have whispered to each other of the iniquities of a police state, or, alternatively, have wondered from what threat of commotion a benevolent government was protecting them.
The citizens of Lazalaya were content to shrug their shoulders and speculate on the inanities which the security police must have reported to the Civil Governor. Don Baltazar, they said, ought to have stayed in his district instead of allowing his common sense to be corrupted by thirty years of law-courts and Madrid. Meanwhile the town’s life continued imperturbably. In the Café Moderno the commander of the detachment of invaders occasionally joined Don Jaime and his friends at their accustomed table. In the Café Ventura turnover increased by twenty percent, since there were never less than four plainclothes security police consuming and offering liquor while they listened suspiciously to the old combatants of the Left.
‘You’ll drive them into revolt, Jaime,’ Gil said.
‘What are you talking about? They’re getting more free drinks than they deserve, and have nothing to give away. The only reliable sources in Lazalaya are the Priest and the Mayor. And since they too know nothing, there’s an end of it!’
‘There is always Kuchler. If he tells them about the shots, they’ll grill me for a week.’
‘Kuchler will not be so disloyal to a friend. Besides, he considers you his agent.’
‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘He has organised an intelligence service. You have to take your hat off to these Germans. The things they think of!’
‘Does he pay them?’
‘Yes, of course. But you’re not in that class. He’s got a waiter in the Moderno and another in the Ventura, two fishermen and Alonso Mejias and Enrique Jimenez.’
‘What on earth can they find to tell Kuchler?’ Gil exclaimed.
‘What I pass on to them. They can remember it so long as they see Kuchler within a couple of hours. Double agents – that’s what the cinema calls them! I have talent, and that’s a fact,’ the major added complacently. ‘It’s all in this head. The Cofradia need know nothing more, and Father Miguel only a little. On Wednesday Kuchler’s partner is coming to visit the hotel site with a newspaper man from Hamburg. I shall manage them with the least possible disturbance to the authorities.’
‘Jaime, it would break my uncle’s heart if he were sent to Africa. He likes being Civil Governor.’
‘May he enjoy it for many years! The Bishop and I have his interests always in mind.’
‘I think he’d prefer to look after them himself. Why doesn’t Kuchler put off his friends until Lazalaya looks less like a garrison town on a Saturday night?’
‘He said they wouldn’t know the difference, that they would just assume the town was well policed. Good! So they will call on me at the Town Hall at six o’clock. Nothing formal! Just to talk in private about the hotel!’
‘Can I help at all?’
‘Well, there’s one thing I would ask of you. I have a job I promised to deliver, and I cannot arrive till nearly six. I shall leave the Vehicle in the lane behind the Café Moderno. Would you drive it back to the workshop and join me in my office afterwards? The truth is that the Vehicle is a little old-fashioned, and I would not like this newspaperman to think that the Mayor of Lazalaya cannot afford a Mercedes.’
‘Of course. With pleasure.’
The request was reasonable, for few of the mayor’s cronies could drive. Still, it seemed to Gil, as he strolled out of the back door of the Moderno a little after six on the Wednesday, that there was really no occasion for Kuchler’s party, even if on a conducted tour of the town, to pass down the lane alongside the garbage cans, shrimp heads and vintage lavatories of the café, and no grounds for assuming – unless Kuchler mentioned it – that the Vehicle belonged to the mayor.
Lazalaya was sunk in its evening peace. The detachment of the Civil Guard had tactfully removed itself to the courtyard at the back of the Town Hall. On the balcony of the mayor’s office, which overlooked the plaza, a German flag had, as a courtesy, joined the Spanish. It gave a slight air of fiesta – enough at any rate for the respectable clients of the Moderno to be a little hurt that Don Jaime had not arranged a civic reception and free drinks.
Gil entered the Vehicle, looked for the switch, remembered that motor-cycles did not have one and pulled an ornate little door knob of twisted wrought-iron spirals which replaced the original kick-start. The two cylinders shattered the evening with a succession of appalling backfires. Timing? A stuck valve? He cautiously opened the throttle lever. The result was a devastating explosion, as full and loud as that of a mortar, as the silencer shot off into the gutter. He tried to close the throttle. The lever had jammed. He had to use his pocket knife to loosen the holding screw. Meanwhile the machine gun, its crew having recovered from that near miss of the mortar, continued the battle.
The engine did occasionally produce a backfire or two in starting, so that Gil, sweating in the blessed silence, assumed that he hadn’t known how to control it. Then at last it occurred to him why that jesuitical crook of a mayor had asked him to put away the Vehicle. Round the corner from the plaza bounced the assault car of the Civil Guard, flanked by motorcycles whose riders leaped off and took cover in the doorways, their sub-machine guns commanding the lane. Gil left the driving seat with his hands up.
Recognising both the Vehicle and its occupant, the Guards sheepishly gathered round and were joined by the customers of the Moderno, pouring out of the back door.
‘I am sorry,’ Gil said. ‘I was trying to make it start.’
The sergeant in charge of mechanical transport examined engine and dashboard with professional interest.
‘Very original,’ he remarked. ‘As I expected, the silencer has fallen off.’
‘You’ll find it down the lane somewhere.’
The sergeant recovered the silencer and easily replaced it, since it was attached to the exhaust pipe by a simple screw thread. Gil, watching, realised that Jaime must have given it a mere half turn, and he was pretty sure that it was bigger and more eaten by rust than the usual silencer. The mayor had calculated his every move in advance and, as likely as not, those of the Civil Guard as well.
The sergeant slung his sub-machine gun across his chest, entered the Vehicle and pulled the starter. The result was a booming report more menacing than any Gil himself had produced. The thread held, but the rusty end of the silencer flew screaming into the Moderno garbage cans. No one listening in the Town Hall could have any doubt that a field gun was now engaged in the local battle. Before the sergeant could close the throttle, the artillery was promptly answered by those intrepid machine gunners.
The Civil Guard stood by their motorcycles and the assault car awaiting orders. When on duty they were not supposed to laugh. They regarded the Vehicle with some embarrassment as if it had uncivically broken wind. The call to action was welcome. Far outside and to the east of the town something blew up which was certainly not a mere car engine. The detachment hurtled out of the lane, sirens shrieking, round the plaza and away into open country.
Gil hurried up the lane after them and entered the Town Hall by the side door. Running up the stairs to the mayor’s office, he found Alonso Mejia and Enrique Jimenez, the two town policemen, wearing their best uniforms and white gloves, on guard in the anteroom. They saluted and opened the door of the office.
The mayor and his party were grouped around the window. Dust on Jaime’s knees and on the prominence of his waistcoat suggested that he had flung himself on the floor of the balcony at the outbreak of hostilities. The newspaperman was behind the inadequate protection of the fine white tablecloth on which were drinks and an excellent variety of tapas. Kuchler and his partner were sheltered by the stout pillars which framed the window, and, as befitted old combatants, still held their glasses.
Over the tumbled red roofs of the town a column of smoke could be seen rising from the Villanueva estate, somewhere near the far angle of the enclosure. The low sun in the west, brilliantly lighting their dark greens on one side of the wall and the rusty scrub on the other, made the mist of dust and smoke in the middle look immense and impenetrable.
Don Jaime sympathetically approached the stricken landowner.
‘On behalf of the citizens of Lazalaya I offer you my condolences, assuring you, my dear Count, that the damage will be made good as soon as the Government regains control.’
This was the last straw. Jaime must be suffering from the paranoia of power. He couldn’t possibly get away with it, however many bishops were in the background. The Vehicle – well, that had been clever. No one could maintain that the racket had been due to anything but a too individual system of engineering; and, if anyone did, he would hesitate to insist on it for fear of showing up the Civil Guard as impulsive fools. But this outrage would call for the immediate intervention of Madrid.
Kuchler quickly explained to his partner, who spoke no Spanish, the identity and social significance of Gil. Both then shook his hand with good German comradeship and emotion. The partner remained nameless and unreal as a figure in a nightmare. He had an obstinate, round, still face. Beer and money had both contributed to his shape. Nothing belonged to daily life at all except alarm at the probable future.
‘I hope that you will not allow this to affect your plans,’ Gil said, more from a vague intention of covering himself than from cunning.
‘A symbol!’ Jaime broke in heartily. ‘The wall around the Villanueva estate is a symbol like the police. It is of no importance!’
The Press had rejoined the party, and was making up for the interruption in the flow of hospitality. It was very properly inquisitive. The mayor willingly developed his theory of the symbols which enraged the Left. He protested that the hotel could not be included among them.
‘You do not believe me?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Well then, enquire of our humble citizens! Constables Jimenez and Mejias, now guarding our door in peace and with devotion, are well known to Senor Kuchler as public servants of sturdy and independent opinion whose inside knowledge of our little town is unsurpassed. We will have them in and you shall talk to them freely!’
He flung open the solid door to the anteroom and called genially for the pair. The outer door to the passage was slightly open. There was no Jimenez, no Mejias, only a splattering of blood upon the wall and an ugly gobbet on the floor. At the mayor’s exclamation of horror, the four rushed into the anteroom.
‘Quick! Quick!’ Jaime shouted, locking the outer door. ‘Here in Lazalaya we allow no scandals. All is quiet. All must always be quiet.’
He seized the tablecloth, napkins and soda syphon, and began feverishly to squirt and mop. Gil added a bottle of white wine to the pink pool. Whatever Jaime was up to, the risk was outrageous. It was urgent that the mess should vanish whether it came from the constables or, as was more likely, the pork butcher. And in any case where were they and how could they vanish for good without enquiry?
Silent and furious, he worked with Jaime, hurling the soiled linen into a cupboard. Kuchler and his partner stood by, looking very pale. The newspaper correspondent added his sandwiches and free drinks to the mess.
In three minutes from the mayor’s shout of alarm no sign of the tragedy remained and the doors were open. The anteroom gave the impression that someone carrying a tray had tripped, but of what he had spilt there was no evidence.
Gil tipped down his throat the last glass which remained in his scrubbing bottle. Kuchler’s partner and the journalist, though still belonging to nightmare, came back into focus. Their faces were lard-white and expressionless. They asked if they might, immediately, go down to their car. Jaime, with polite protests, accompanied them as if nothing had happened, leaving Gil and Kuchler together in his office.
‘Those two poor fellows!’ Kuchler cried. ‘So harmless! So good-natured! Why should they be just a symbol? Revolution I can understand, but not this cold-blooded assassination. And in another month they would have retired on pension!’
‘Perhaps the assailants were wounded,’ Gil babbled. ‘Perhaps Mejias and Jimenez have followed them …’
He knew very well that it didn’t matter what he said, or Jaime would never have left him alone with Kuchler.
‘They told me in private that they were in fear of their lives,’ Kuchler said. ‘I even warned Don Jaime.’
‘Well, they have lasted a long time for Lazalaya,’ Gil replied with some obscure intent of comfort. ‘What did Jaime say?’
‘He said they were devoted churchmen and always prepared to meet their end. You are – excuse me – so callous a people!’
‘Sometimes we cannot find words for what we think,’ Gil said, wandering helplessly off towards the bottles on the floor.
‘You can find plenty for what you don’t think,’ Kuchler retorted with the first flash of irony Gil had ever heard from him. ‘I cannot blame you or Don Jaime, but I have been grossly deceived by the Ministry of Tourism who must have known the conditions here.’
‘You are going to complain to them? Wouldn’t it be unwise?’
‘Naturally I shall have to be very careful. I do not want to spoil my chances of selling the land to some Englishman or Dutchman who does not know the country as I do.’
It was now or never. Gil doubted the power of the Little Brothers to keep him out of gaol, but nobody else had any interest in trying.
‘Shall we cancel the whole deal?’ he asked.
‘You mean you would buy the site back?’
‘It is my duty as a Grandee of Spain. I feel my honour is affected,’ said Gil stiffly. ‘All I regret is that I cannot afford to compensate you for the work on the foundations.’
‘Let us leave that to our lawyers, my dear Count,’ Kuchler replied, leaping at his opportunity. ‘Cash or a mortgage?’
‘Cash – I suppose.’
‘Then you will not find me unreasonable. And now, if you will pardon me, this room … I am unwell. I think I shall drive straight up to Madrid.’
There was nothing to do but wait for Jaime in the safety of his office. Gil felt utterly unable to face the outside world where questions would be unanswerable and silence equally disconcerting. Meanwhile he restlessly tidied up bottles, plates and glasses so that the room looked as though some small entertainment had decorously ended.
The Civil Guard roared back into the courtyard. From the window he saw Jaime playing his part imperturbably and demanding news, like any other mayor, from an officer who was giving nothing away. Two civilian figures, formal and well-dressed, appeared from nowhere – they might have arrived in the assault car of the Civil Guard or merely been waiting behind the Town Hall – and addressed the mayor with authority. He turned into the building with one on each side.
It was too late to escape. Anyway there was no handy frontier, and nothing less would do. Jaime ushered the visitors into his office, pretending surprise and satisfaction at finding Gil there. He introduced the two civilians. A Captain Somebody. A Lieutenant Somebody. Their men in the cafés had been a joke, but these two, who had never yet been seen in the town, were disturbingly professional. They were not at all aggressive; they were smooth with the certainty of power.
It was a hundred to one that the political unrest in Lazalaya would come up before the Cabinet, but Jaime was magnificently unembarrassed. He seated himself at his desk with the two opposite, and burst into speech. He welcomed, he said, investigation at last by two such talented and distinguished officers. Ever since some absurd prank at the old nunnery had alarmed the Civil Governor – but not, he might point out, the high ecclesiastical authorities – he had hoped that Madrid would make direct enquiries.
‘And let us at once get rid of the irrelevant complication of my Vehicle,’ he said. ‘The Conde de Villanueva will tell you what happened.’
‘It wouldn’t start,’ said Gil feebly.
‘Did you retard the spark?’
‘The spark? Jaime, in this day and age you have a lever to advance or retard the spark?’
‘Of course I do! She won’t climb the hills without a retarded spark. For starting one must also retard it or she will backfire. Friends, I think you will agree that I cannot be held responsible because the Civil Guard panicked at a sound which all my town is accustomed to? As our glorious Generalissimo has said, local affairs should be left to the local authorities with the least possible interference by the State.’
‘So this disturbance was not intended to cover up the attempt on Villanueva property?’ the captain asked with a slight smile which might have been relieved or ironical.
‘What attempt?’
‘Ten metres of the boundary wall are blown down.’
‘I will have it built up again. An accident!’
‘But who did it?’
‘Well, you know we don’t like sending humble, decent men to prison. It’s national policy.’
‘Not so much of national policy if you please, Don Jaime! We are as aware of it as you are.’
‘Patience, captain! I was on the point of explaining. The contractors who are building our hotel naturally have a store of explosives. Well, and we have a small community of fishermen. One should never be next to the other. To cut a long story short, they stole some explosives for use at sea. This was reported to me and I took the action which the father of a family should take. “Friends,” I said, for I am accustomed to being obeyed, “who did this I do not know and I do not want to know. If the whole lot is destroyed at once, I will forget it.”
‘Well, it appears that they let it off close to the Villanueva wall, which was upwind, so that the hillside should not catch fire. That was sensible. A morning’s work will repair the damage. But they chose for their explosion a moment when I was entertaining distinguished foreigners. As a result, our hotel, the valued, indispensable project which will give life to our town is in danger.’
‘You accept this story?’ the Captain asked Gil.
‘Of course. I have no enemies.’
‘He has been congratulated by the Syndicate of Agricultural Workers,’ added the mayor proudly.
‘And you are prepared to swear that there is no political unrest in Lazalaya?’
‘None. I am sure that all the reports of your agents will agree.’
The lieutenant, entering the conversation for the first time, remarked sourly that it was the only point on which they did agree. The captain, raising his eyebrows in astonishment that the reports of secret agents should be mentioned at all, gathered up his subordinate and left.
‘Thank God it wasn’t about Jimenez and Mejias!’ Gil exclaimed.
‘Don’t worry! You see I have talent. Father Miguel will write to the Civil Governor about their pensions, and after him the Bishop.’
‘Damn their pensions! What’s happened to them?’
‘Nothing! Nothing!’ the mayor answered soothingly. ‘But administratively speaking it presents a problem. Did you notice the slaughterman’s van at the side door when you arrived?’
‘I don’t know. There was something.’
‘Well, that’s how they left. He’ll return their uniforms this evening. Lazalaya cannot afford new ones.’
‘Suppose he talks?’
‘Then he won’t get the contract for the hotel.’
‘There isn’t going to be a hotel, Jaime.’
‘And how is he to know that? Sometimes I think you left your intelligence in America.’
‘But it must all come out! Tomorrow at the latest!’
‘Then let it! Look! What has always been the defence of the humble? To make the authorities look fools, but in such a way that they cannot resent it. Gil, the town is proud of you.’
‘The police won’t be.’
‘This is too serious for the police. The Civil Governor is bound to investigate the affair in person. Besides, he’s in it up to the neck.’
‘I tell you, Jaime, he’ll sit with his fingertips together and sacrifice the pair of us.’
‘Not if he can score one up for himself. Let’s go over to the Moderno! It is time to calm the spirits of our fellow citizens.’
They certainly needed it. Lazalaya was buzzing with rumour, and the mayor’s café table was immediately surrounded, as if it had been a roulette table, by those who were privileged to sit there and others who had at least the right to lean over their shoulders.
When the crowd had thinned down to a dozen intimate friends, Jaime told his story of the damage to the Villanueva wall. The tale instantly became fact. No doubt, with a slight change of emphasis, it was. Gil, listening with such admiration as he could manage and once again privileged to pay for drinks, considered that a few explosives had indeed been stolen and that Jaime, as his price for keeping quiet, blackmailed the culprits into setting them off against the wall.
At about eleven the disappearance of Jimenez and Mejias was reported to the newsroom. They had not returned to barracks and had apparently vanished into the air. Jaime, who had just received a gigantic omelette from the Moderno’s kitchen, refused to be impressed. All he could say was that the missing constables had been on duty at the Town Hall when he went out to say goodbye to Kuchler’s partner and that they had not been there when he returned. He only hoped that no accident had happened, such as might be feared when an innocent town was under the threat of fire-arms in excitable hands.
Next morning, after one look at Lazalaya, Gil decided to remain at home. The women and the police had taken over. From every balcony and doorstep the high-pitched whispers criss-crossed the alleys with stories of confirmed murder and expected rape. The Civil Guard and mysterious strangers were sternly occupied and had at last a definite case for their notebooks. Jaime, in the intervals of replacing the old silencer on his Vehicle, was hounding on the search for Jimenez and Mejias and accompanying the police to improbable remoteness where, alive or dead, they might be found. There was no fish, because the fishermen had decided to remain at sea.
After three days it was at last with a feeling of relief that Gil received the writ of the Civil Governor. He packed a bag with such necessities as would, he thought, be permitted to a prisoner awaiting trial. Jaime, who was also in the police car and dressed in the black suit of thick cloth which he used for funerals and official visits, carried nothing but a packet of ham sandwiches presented, with a blessing, by Father Miguel.
They were escorted to the secretary’s room, in which, sitting bolt upright against the wall, were two very obvious bodyguards. The personage closeted with Don Baltasar was plainly of Cabinet rank. He had a powerful, military voice which rumbled through the double doors. The high, legal tones of the Civil Governor sounded in contrast like the yapping of some small, conscientious dog.
There was at last a moment of comparative silence. The telephone in the secretary’s room demanded their immediate presence. As soon as they entered the great office, the row broke out again. Gil recognised the Caesarian bald head and sturdy figure of the Director of Internal Security, responsible only to the Chief of State.
‘… and the Press! For the sake of the Ministry of Tourism we have been compelled to censor the despatch of a respected German correspondent. And all this because of incapacity on the part of the Civil Governor who is utterly unable to explain the cause of the unrest!’
‘I am bound to depend on my police and yours, General, for information,’ Don Baltasar retorted. ‘I have no more and no less than you. By the way, allow me to present the Conde de Villanueva and Don Jaime Caruncho, Mayor of Lazalaya.’
‘Delighted! … It is an intolerable position. Where are we? With the Mafia in Sicily? Either no one knows anything or everybody is afraid to talk. You there! You are the mayor. These Germans tell us you badly wanted this hotel. Well, you aren’t going to get it. And I am much inclined to send in a battalion of troops to assist you in your administration.’
‘We shall do our best to be hospitable, my General, though the resources of our town are small,’ replied Jaime with formal courtesy.
‘And you, Villanueva! Are you going to maintain in front of me all these lies about your wall?’
Whether or not Gil had told any lies – he thought that on the whole he had not, though God alone knew how many he had condoned – this was deliberately impolite and not to be borne from any upstart of a government employee, however exalted. He drew his steel at once.
‘I had considered,’ he replied, ‘that it was only these absurd foreigners and the Civil Guard who made a habit of seeing revolutionaries under their beds. It is a shock to me that I must also include persons whom I, my fellow citizens and our beloved Leader are accustomed to trust.’
‘Your honour is as precious to me as my own,’ the general answered with ironical formality. ‘I shall therefore appeal to it. You were present on the occasion when, according to the Ministry of Tourism, these Germans saw the floor and walls of the mayor’s anteroom spattered with blood. Is it so or not?’
‘On my honour I saw no human blood whatever. But perhaps – it is only my suggestion – red wine had flowed too freely.’
‘May I enquire what this new accusation is?’ asked Don Baltasar.
‘Two municipal police of Lazalaya have been murdered.’
‘I regret that I know nothing.’
‘It seems one could murder half the province without your Excellency’s knowledge.’
‘That of course is so, if I am not given a copy of the report. The source of your information?’
‘My sources are the German Embassy and the Ministry of Tourism. The Mayor of Lazalaya here will confirm that an investigation is proceeding.’
‘The mayors of small towns are not always in touch with the wider world, General. Can you give me the names of these two victims?’
‘Alonso Mejias and Enrique Jimenez.’
‘Ah, indeed they are familiar,’ said the Civil Governor. ‘A question of pensions. It may be necessary, I fear, to appeal to the Cabinet. The unflagging interest of the Chief of State in the spiritual welfare of the people, which of course you and I fully share …’
Don Baltasar rang for his secretary.
‘The Mejias-Jimenez file, please.’
‘Then you do know something?’
‘I had no knowledge that they were dead, General. Now, let me see! Ah, yes,’ he went on, leafing through a file which seemed to Gil to have acquired a surprising number of documents in a short time. ‘These two policemen heard the irresistible call of religion a month before they were due to retire. It is regrettable that they should have deserted their post without orders. It complicates so abominably their pension rights.’
‘They aren’t murdered?’
‘There is no mention of it in the file. It’s the pension which has been referred to …’
‘Then where the devil are they?’
The Civil Governor lowered his eyes in mild disapproval of this military and overbearing language.
‘My dear General, upon a sudden impulse – who are we to question it? – these two simple devotees, perhaps encouraged by their parish priest, perhaps alarmed by the recent disturbance of their long and meditative peace in municipal service, have taken their provisional vows and entered the Convent of the Little Brothers of St Macario.’