At the end of October, a prominent fascist official came to the puerto. He was a member of parliament and a military man and had been persuaded there by his wife, who liked visiting idyllic and untouched parts of the country. They stayed for three days with a very rich director of a bank in the provincial capital, who had long ago built himself a large summer residence and equipped it with a staff of servants, near the lighthouse, but had practically never stayed there. With them the couple had their twenty-year-old daughter and her fiancé, a senior official in the Portuguese Embassy. They drove from the provincial capital in a large cream-coloured American car, towing a trailer on which was a little mahogany racing-boat equipped with a brand new outboard motor of a kind that cannot be bought on the open market.
The daughter was studying economics at Madrid University and belonged to the small group of emancipated Spanish women. She went about in white slacks, a red jumper, and French cork-soled shoes, which made her look a trifle long-legged.
She and her Portuguese fiancé had the servants put the racing-boat into the sea, start the motor and then they set off round the pier. It was windy beyond the mountains, but in the bay the water was green and calm. When they had got about two hundred yards behond the lighthouse, they slowed down and moved closer to each other on the seat. She unbuttoned her bra and pulled down the zip of her slacks, and then they busied themselves with an occupation which would have filled the member of parliament with wonder and doubts, had he been equipped with a pair of binoculars.
Three minutes later they lost the engine, which had been badly fixed on and had shaken loose with the vibration. It hissed as it fell into the water and immediately sank to the bottom and stayed there, forty feet below, jammed between two large stones. A couple of small squids fled in terror, each in a different direction.
The girl at once lost interest, took away the young man’s hand and pulled up her zip. Although it was less than half an hour before the civil guard’s barque towed the racing boat into the pier, the engine appeared to be a wholly indispensable toy. The barque went out again.
The young corporal with the shiny boots looked thoughtfully at the engine through a glass-bottomed box. He got one of his men to let down a drag-rope, but soon saw that it was not worth it. Then he sounded the depth and shook his head. When the barque returned, the member of parliament’s daughter was standing on the jetty, looking at him coldly and challengingly.
The cabo knew exactly how long it would take to get hold of a diver or a frogman from the provincial capital, and his smile was not entirely convincing. Thirty seconds later he happened to think of Ramon.
It was in the middle of the siesta and the Alemany brothers were lying asleep in the room behind the kitchen when the cabo came in. He shook Ramon awake and said: ‘General Moscardo’s daughter has lost an outboard engine out at the approaches. Can you get it up?’
‘Of course,’ said Ramon, blinking drowsily. ‘I’ll dive with stones.’
Santiago had woken and sat up.
‘How far down is it lying?’
‘Twenty, twenty-five feet, and they must have it up at once.’
‘Not for nothing, I hope,’ said Santiago.
‘No,’ said the cabo, ‘the General is sure to pay.’
‘And that trouble in the bar?’ said Santiago.
‘That can be forgotten,’ said the cabo, looking at the ceiling, ‘as long as the engine is really got up.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yes, sure.’
Santiago went over to the door and called: ‘Francisca, come here.’
His sister came in. She was a shy virgin of twenty-four, who had already grown too fat and had lost most of her freshness. Every time Santiago saw her, he was filled with loathing. He was convinced that they would never marry her off.
‘I want you to hear what the cabo has to say,’ he said. ‘He says that Ramon won’t be prosecuted for that row in the bar, as it appears he is innocent if he dives down to get a motor-boat engine. Didn’t you say that?’
‘Yes, perhaps that’s what I said,’ said the cabo sourly.
Then he turned irritably to Ramon.
‘Hurry now. It’s urgent.’
Ramon remained lying on his bed and looked at his brother.
‘Shall I?’ he asked.
‘Yes, come on, let’s go.’
‘You needn’t come,’ the cabo said to Santiago.
‘Try stopping me.’
Both the girl from Madrid and the young Portuguese came with them in the barque. They thought it was all beginning to be exciting now and when all was said and done perhaps it had not been such a silly thing to have gone and lost the engine.
‘Look how small and squat and muscular he is, and all hairy,’ said the member of parliament’s daughter, when Ramon pulled off his clothes.
Santiago heard her but did not react. He was busy studying the sea bed through the glass-bottomed box.
‘Twenty-four feet!’ he snorted. ‘Let’s skip this, Ramon.’
‘Forty feet, they plumbed,’ said the girl from Madrid.
Santiago looked contemptuously at the cabo.
‘Take us back,’ he said.
‘I can try,’ said Ramon, peering down into the water.
‘Think about Jacinto’s bar,’ said the cabo, drumming with his gloved fingers on the railing.
‘It’ll probably work,’ said Ramon.
Santiago peered down again.
‘D’you think so?’ he said.
‘Yes, I think it’ll work.’
Santiago leant close to his brother and whispered into his ear:
‘Try, but don’t take any risks. If you feel it’s not going to work, then drop the stone at once and come up. Do you hear what I say, at once …’
Ramon nodded. He lifted the large stone up from the bottom of the boat, took it in his arms and climbed over the railing.
‘This is fascinating,’ whispered the girl from Madrid.
Aloud she said: ‘I really do hope he gets it up. It’s my engine and it was awfully expensive.’
‘It’s my brother,’ said Santiago, looking bitterly at her.
‘Let me look,’ she said hastily, getting down on her knees on the bottom of the boat. ‘Give me that thing.’
Santiago gave her the glass-bottomed box. It was calm and in the clear water he could still see Ramon without the help of the box. The white figure grew slowly smaller and smaller. Time seemed to come to a halt and the seconds grew long and clear.
‘I think he’s got it, no, I don’t know,’ said the girl excitedly.
Santiago thought: Damned idiot, he’d go on down to a hundred feet with that stone if it was that deep. And if the engine is stuck, he’ll stay there until he drowns.
He was drenched with sweat.
‘It won’t work,’ said the Portuguese.
‘Yes, yes! He’s coming now. Terrific,’ said the girl.
Santiago saw his brother through the water. The blurred white figure grew larger, slowly. Unendurably slowly.
He won’t make it, thought Santiago. If anything happens to him, I’ll chuck this whole mob into the sea.
‘Drop it, drop it, for God’s sake,’ he whispered. ‘Drop their stupid little toy and who cares what happens to it.’
‘Come on, come on, good boy, oh, come on!’ said the girl from Madrid.
Ramon’s black head shot out of the water and at the same moment Santiago grabbed his arm.
The civil guard caught hold of the engine and the cabo made his contribution by wetting his uniform jacket right up to the shoulder.
‘Good, oh, goodie,’ said the girl, clapping her hands.
Ramon was waving his arms about desperately and his breath was coming in great rasps. The Portuguese helped drag him over the railing and lie him down on the bottom of the boat. Santiago knelt down beside his brother and stayed there until they had come round the lighthouse.
‘Fascinating,’ said the girl quietly to her fiancé. ‘Did you see, like an animal, with only one aim in mind …’
When they arrived back, Ramon was able to stand up again. He was still very pale in the face, breathing heavily and raspingly, and Santiago had to help him up the jetty.
The fun was over. The glow in the girl’s eyes had gone.
‘Have you got any loose change on you?’ she said to her fiancé.
The man dug into his pocket and drew out a fistful of coins and small notes. He held them out, almost shamefacedly, and Santiago took them hesitantly.
‘Well, goodbye then,’ said the General’s daughter.
She stopped for a moment in front of Ramon, looked him up and down and smiled at him in a way that could mean many things.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ said Santiago.
He put his arm round his brother and they walked towards the fish-van.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘My head’s aching again. How much did we get?’
‘Don’t know. Couple of hundred, perhaps.’
‘Not bad. That’s more than we usually earn from your mysterious affairs.’
‘Huh … and we don’t do that just for money, anyhow.’
‘No, of course not. Did you see what a girl she was? You, she’d make a good tail, wouldn’t she? Think of tearing off those trousers of hers and … She was even better than the Norwegian woman!’
‘How you talk, little brother,’ said Santiago, looking round seriously.
Then he bent down and began winding the starting-handle of the old Ford.