Nothing in the room had changed.
It contained only four pieces of furniture, a small desk, a brown filing-cabinet, a black armchair and a rickety bench for two people—and yet it seemed overcrowded. There were no windows, but on the wall behind the desk hung a large photograph of the Caudillo in a heavy black frame. Beneath the portrait sat a man, writing in the circle of light cast by a ceiling light with a green glass shade.
When Willi Mohr came into the room, Sergeant Tornilla at once put down his pen and rose out of the armchair.
He saluted meticulously, held out his hand and said with a smile: ‘So we meet again. A pleasure. I’m sorry to have to ask you to come here at this time.’
Willi Mohr stared at him with clear, blue eyes and mechanically returned the handshake.
The butt of a carbine rattled against the concrete floor outside. Someone was standing on guard out there, presumably the little black-moustachioed civil guard with a round face, the man who had brought him here and who had walked three steps behind him all the way. Willi Mohr had not seen him since they had left the house in Barrio Son Jofre, only heard the gravel crunching under the soles of his boots.
Sergeant Tornilla walked round the table and pulled the wooden bench nearer.
‘The accused’s bench,’ he said, and he smiled as if they had exchanged a private joke, intended only for the initiated.
They sat down opposite each other and Sergeant Tornilla went on smiling. He had his elbows on the desk and slowly he pressed the tips of his fingers together, then the palms of his hands. As if he had just thought of something important, he suddenly parted them, fumbled for a packet of cigarettes from behind the telephone and held them out.
Willi Mohr felt that he must in some way or other break this farcical act and he tried to get out his own matches, but the man in the armchair was there first, leaning across the desk with a light.
Before putting his lighter away, Sergeant Tornilla weighed it in his hand for a moment and said with a smile: ‘Still the same lighter. Excellent quality. Never goes wrong. Officially, I shouldn’t use it. Impounded goods …’
Again he pressed his fingertips together and went on smiling.
Sergeant Tornilla was exactly as he had been before, that night two and a half months ago. The same friendly, apologetic smile and the same kind of cigarettes. The same smooth cheeks and the same well-pressed uniform, the same angle of his cap and the same gloss on his strap. On the table lay a pair of light-brown gloves, which had not been there the last time, but otherwise everything was the same. Even the papers and the documents were the same.
Willi Mohr crossed his legs and stared sullenly across the desk. He was not nervous, but irritated by the man’s silence and steady eyes. He was sleepy too and had to suppress a yawn.
‘Why have you had me brought here?’
No reply.
Willi Mohr finished his cigarette and carefully extinguished it in the ash-tray. Four cigarette-ends lay there already.
‘Where are you living now?’ said Sergeant Tornilla.
‘In Barrio Son Jofre.’
‘How long have you lived there?’
‘Since August last year.’
‘Exactly. Your Spanish is much better now. You’ll soon be talking like a native.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Well, that’s an exaggeration of course. A way of speaking, you know. But you really do speak much better now. I heard it at once. You’ve made great progress.’
He offered a Bisonte and again had a light ready before the other man could get out his matches.
Next time I’ll get there first, thought Willi Mohr.
‘There are only a couple of weeks to go before Christmas,’ said Sergeant Tornilla. ‘But I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed in our Christmas celebrations here. They’re not at all as they are in your country. I remember the German Christmas very well. Even in Russia, at the front, we had small trees in the posts and bunkers, and hung red and green paper garlands on the branches. And we sang melancholy songs. I knew many of your countrymen and they complained that it wasn’t a proper Christmas. That was about the only time I ever heard them complain. They described how it used to be too, before the war. How you put on beards and gave each other presents. How you impersonated a certain figure, like a carnival figure. He had a special name, didn’t he?’
‘Santa Claus.’
‘Ah yes, Santa Claus. It’s not like that here. That’s not a Spanish custom at all. In the big towns the business men have taken it up but it hasn’t caught on out in the country. The only thing that happens here is that people go home to their families and eat a little more than usual, perhaps a paella with meat. Then they drank an anis at some bar. You won’t notice very much. Or have you already experienced a Spanish Christmas?’
‘I was here last year.’
‘Of course. I was forgetting. You’ve already been with us a long time. But you didn’t see very much of it, did you?’
‘No.’
‘Easter is quite different. That’s the great festival here. It lasts for several days, great processions and events, religious and secular. But perhaps you’ve experienced a Spanish Easter too?’
‘No.’
‘That’s right. You weren’t here over Easter.’
It began to darken in front of Willi Mohr’s eyes and he thought: I’ll fall asleep soon. But then he noticed that it was the electric light which was going out. The light flickered and faded until the coil looked like a small red zig-zag ribbon behind the dirty glass. The room was almost dark.
Sergeant Tornilla held out the cigarettes and clicked on his lighter.
‘The electricity works here are not good,’ he said. ‘The equipment is old and very poor. It often fails in the winter and will soon be worse when the storms come. It should be modernized, but people seem satisfied with it as it is. They’re proud to have electricity at all. As I said before, they’re simple, good people.’
The light went out altogether, but after a minute or two it went on again, flickered once or twice and then remained stable.
‘There we are. Now we can see each other again,’ said Sergeant Tornilla cheerfully.
After a short pause he added apologetically: ‘We are soon going to get an emergency generator here at the guard-post. Then this sort of thing won’t happen.’
Willi Mohr yawned, making no attempt to hide it. The conversation was uninteresting and was exhausting him.
The man in uniform looked searchingly at him.
‘My wife gets very irritated with the electricity works,’ he said. ‘She’s got an electric sewing-machine which my parents-in-law gave her two years ago. As I said before, they live in Huelva. Her father has a shop there, quite a large one, but he’s handed it over to my brother-in-law now. Have you been to Huelva? Pity, it’s a lovely town. The sewing-machine often annoys her. When I was posted to Badajoz and we lived there, it worked admirably, but here it doesn’t work so well. Sometimes the current is too weak to drive the motor and sometimes there’s no electricity at all. They say it’s something to do with the boilers. They’re very old and on the whole it’s surprising that they function at all.’
Willi Mohr blinked and looked at the portrait. The likeness between the Caudillo and the man in the chair was more marked than ever, but now it seemed more ridiculous.
He’s dragged me down here under escort in the middle of the night to talk about his wife’s sewing-machine. He’s mad.
Thought Willi Mohr.
Sergeant Tornilla had fallen silent. Without moving his eyes, he picked up a piece of paper from the desk and said: ‘There’s been a complaint about you.’
He smiled in a troubled way.
‘A person called Amadeo Prunera complains that you are stealing wood from his land.’
‘Not wood. Brushwood.’
‘I see. But that’s not allowed either.’
‘I didn’t know it was forbidden.’
‘Naturally not. But as I told you before, a lot of things are different here. A number of things which might well appear valueless have a certain significance to their owners. This is a poor part of the country and the people who live here are poor people. They want their rights.’
Willi Mohr did not know what to say. He was tired and this astonishing accusation had in some way robbed him of his certainty.
‘Naturally this is not a serious crime, but it is still an offence. The man had complained and he has right on his side. The simplest thing to do is to offer him some compensation. It can’t be more than an insignificant sum, and you have some money, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, a little.’
‘Where did you get the money from?’
Willi Mohr did not reply.
‘You got the money from Santiago Alemany, didn’t you?’
Tornilla waited only a second or two for the reply and then he said: ‘I mentioned your shirt when we last had a talk. You’ve got it on again today. How long have you had it?’
‘Since 1941.’
‘What kind of shirt is it?’
‘A Hitler Jugend shirt.’
‘So you belonged to that youth organization during the war then?’
‘Before the war too. Everyone did.’
‘That’s right. Did you belong to any other organization?’
‘No.’
‘But during your time in East Germany?’
‘No, not there either.’
‘Did you ever see the Fuehrer personally?’
‘Only once.’
‘When?’
‘1940, I think.’
‘I’m not certain I saw him.’
‘Can you explain yourself a little more?’
‘It’s very simple. They said he was coming past in a train and we were lined up along the track with flags and flowers in our hands. First came a train full of soldiers and police and soon after that a train with only two carriages. I think he was standing by one of the windows, at least they told us it was him. Everything went so quickly. Now I’m not certain whether I really saw him, but then I believed it.’
‘You see, you speak quiet fluently. But let’s go on to something else. You said you weren’t here at Easter. But earlier on in the winter you were here?’
‘Yes.’
‘You were living here in the town?’
‘Yes.’
‘In the house in Barrio Son Jofre?’
‘Yes.’
‘When did you leave?’
‘At the end of March or the beginning of April.’
‘Why did you leave?’
Willi Mohr did not answer.
‘When did you last see Santiago Alemany?’
‘Today.’
‘And before that?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Had you asked him to visit you?’
‘No.’
‘Why did he come then?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘What were you doing when he was with you?’
‘Repairing a truck.’
‘All the time?’
‘Most of it.’
‘Did he give you some money?’
‘Yes.’
‘Has he ever given you money before?’
‘Once.’
‘For what reason did he give you money?’
‘Did he buy anything off you?’
‘In a way, yes.’
‘What did he buy from you? A painting?’
‘No. A tyre.’
‘And on the previous occasion? Did he buy anything then?’
‘No.’
‘He just gave you the money, just like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you a friend of Santiago Alemany’s?’
He did not want to reply but had to make a great effort to refrain from doing so. His resistance was wearing thin.
‘Do you find it easy to remember events which happened, shall we say, six months or a year ago?’
‘Yes, generally.’
‘Let’s go back a bit in time, then. You were living here in the town during the months of January, February and March this year, weren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You said, on the other hand, that you were not here during Easter week, in April. Is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘When did you leave Spain?’
‘At the end of March or the beginning of April.’
‘And when did you return?’
‘At the end of May.’
‘Quite right. You left on the second of April and came back on the fifteenth of May. What did you do during that time?’
‘Worked on board a boat.’
‘What boat?’
‘A pleasure yacht.’
‘Who owned this boat?’
‘An Englishman.’
‘Do you remember his name?’
‘Thorpe.’
‘Quite right. Colonel Thorpe. When did you meet this Colonel Thorpe for the first time?’
‘Just before.’
‘Just before we sailed.’
‘Can you remember which day you met him?’
‘The twenty-ninth or thirtieth of March.’
‘Did he come to you or ask you to work for him?’
‘No.’
‘So it was you who went to him?’
‘Yes.’
‘To look for work on his yacht?’
‘Yes.’
‘You knew he was sailing to Corsica?’
‘No.’
‘You’re not a seaman, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Why did you try for this work?’
Willi Mohr had anticipated this question and had an answer ready. After a short pause, he said:
‘I had already lived here for seven months. I wanted to leave the country.’
‘But you didn’t know where Colonel Thorpe was going?’
‘No.’
‘In other words you were willing to go with him anywhere?’
‘Yes.’
‘If you’d never met Colonel Thorpe before, how did you know he was looking for people?’
‘I happened to hear it.’
‘Where did you happen to hear it?’
‘In a bar.’
‘Someone told you, then?’
‘Yes, in a way.’
‘Who was this someone?’
‘Someone I didn’t know. I just happened to hear it.’
‘And then you went to Colonel Thorpe?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did he employ you just like that?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘My papers weren’t in order.’
‘No, they weren’t in order. You had no exit-visa.’
‘In what way?’
‘The Englishman arranged it.’
‘When?’
‘The next day.’
‘And the following day you sailed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you have any money with you when you left?’
‘No.’
‘None at all?’
‘Practically none.’
‘How much?’
‘About a hundred pesetas, perhaps.’
‘Were you the only crew aboard?’
‘No.’
‘So there was one other person employed on the boat?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who was that?’
‘Ramon Alemany.’
‘Quite right. It was Ramon Alemany. Do you know where this Ramon Alemany is now?’
‘No.’
‘Is he in Spain?’
‘No.’
‘Was he the one who asked you to go on the trip?’
‘No.’
‘So it was his brother, Santiago Alemany, who persuaded you to look for work with Colonel Thorpe?’
Willi Mohr was very surprised by the question. Without thinking, he said: ‘Of course not.’
Sergeant Tornilla sat in silence for a few minutes. His eyes had remained on the man opposite him since the series of questions had begun and his expression was serious.
Willi Mohr looked down at the floor, trying to avoid those immobile eyes so that he could collect his thoughts. Under the desk he saw Sergeant Tornilla’s legs. There was not a speck of dust on his shiny black boots.
‘Are you tired?’
‘Yes.’
‘Pity. I’d very much like to continue our conversation a little longer. Have you any objections?’
‘Yes.’
‘Pity, a great pity,’ said Sergeant Tornilla. ‘Perhaps you’d like something to drink?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘I’ll arrange for it in a moment. Well, how far had we got?’
‘Then we sailed for Corsica,’ said Willi Mohr.
Sergeant Tornilla put out his hand and took a file out of the filing-cabinet. He did it with a sleep-walker’s certainty, without turning his eyes.
‘No,’ he said, ‘of course it wasn’t Santiago Alemany who gave you orders to go too.’
Willi Mohr stared questioningly at him.
‘So it was Antonio Millan?’
‘I’ve never heard of the name.’
‘You’re not telling the truth,’ said the man in the armchair sadly. ‘I myself have told you it.’
‘I don’t remember that.’
‘You’ve a good memory usually.’
Sergeant Tornilla had opened the file and taken out a couple of pieces of paper clipped together. Without looking at them, he pushed them across the desk and said:
‘Read that. It’ll be a good exercise for you and the contents may also interest you.’
The pages were typed and seemed to be part of a police-report. Willi Mohr picked them up and shook his head to clear it.
‘Read it aloud,’ said Sergeant Tornilla.
Willi Mohr read:
‘Report on interrogation of Colonel Thorpe, held on his yacht Monsoon in Puerto de Soller, Majorca, in the province of Baleares, on 10th September. Colonel Thorpe himself gave the information that he was born in 1893 in England and had retired nine years ago. During the last four years he had stayed for longer and shorter periods in Spanish Mediterranean ports. He is in the process of writing his memoirs. When asked about his relations with the German citizen, Wilhem Mohr, he said as follows: On the evening of the same day I had been told that one of the hands I had employed could not be relied on, I was visited by a German (Mohr) who said he had been in the Navy during the war and was willing to sign on. He seemed very keen to come on the trip, in fact so keen that at first I was afraid that he was trying to get out of the country in a not very honest manner. However this proved to be wrong, for the following day he was given an exit-visa without any fuss from the authorities. I decided to employ him, although he had no references, as both my wife and I wanted to leave the place as soon as possible, especially while the weather was good, as due to certain circumstances we had already stayed there far longer than we had meant to. The man (Mohr) was in my service from the second of April until the twenty-ninth of the same month, when at his own request he signed off in Ajaccio. During that time he fulfilled his duties well and I think to the best of his abilities, but his experience of navigation and daily life on board appeared to be extremely limited, and he had obviously exaggerated his qualifications in his first conversation with me. He was a poor seaman and I shall not in future employ Germans on my boat. When my other man (a Spaniard by the name of Ramon Alemany) deserted in Ajaccio, the German asked to leave the boat. I saw no reason why I should refuse him, especially as I should anyhow have been forced to ask him to leave. On the other hand I was sorry to lose my other hand (Alemany) as he was a good and industrious seaman. On the question of his opinion of the relationship between the two men, Colonel Thorpe says that he is not in the habit of noticing the behaviour of his employees in their free time and that he had not talked to the man (Mohr) or even addressed him on any subject apart from his duties on board. However he considered that both men knew each other well when they first came on board. Of Mohr’s character, the Colonel says that he seemed to be typically German. The Colonel’s wife, Senora Clementine Thorpe, who was present during the conversation, says: The two of them (Mohr and Alemany) were always together and on the occasions when they went ashore, once in port on the French mainland, where the boat was tied up for two days, and twice in Ajaccio, they went together. She adds that Mohr and Alemany kept the cabin they shared reasonably tidy and clean. Asked if he knew where Mohr was thinking of going when he asked to leave the boat, the Colonel says that as far as he remembers Mohr did not mention any place. On the question of wages received by Mohr for his work, Colonel Thorpe says he offered to work for his keep and the trip, and so did not receive any wages.’
Willi fell silent. His throat was dry and his head felt empty.
Sergeant Tornilla had sat quite still all the time and it was impossible to make out whether he had been listening or not. Now he smiled benevolently and said: ‘You really do read very well indeed. Admirable that you’ve been able to learn so much of the language in such a short time. But your J’s are not quite right yet. Much too hard. Say after me: Barrio Son Jofre, J-o-f-r-e … J-o … J-o … J-o-f-r-e …’
‘Jofre,’ said Willi Mohr.
‘See, that’s better.’
He stretched out his hand and took the paper, placing it in the cardboard file. Then he pushed the file into its place in the filing-cabinet without even glancing in that direction.
‘How are you liking it in your house, by the way? I understand it’s not in a very good state of repair. That’s not so good at this time of year. The nights can be both damp and cold, and even at your age you can get rheumatism. My wife is often troubled with rheumatism. And yet our house isn’t bad.’
He smiled and added thoughtfully: ‘On the contrary, it’s surprisingly good, when you think of the standard here. It’s on the Avenue, by the church. Only a block away from the place where you usually eat when you’ve got any money.’
‘May I have a little water?’
‘Soon. Apropos money, you didn’t have any with you when you left and you didn’t get any from Colonel Thorpe. Then you came back here and then you had enough to pay the rent for six months and live quite well for three months. You didn’t change any, so you must have had Spanish money.’
Sergeant Tornilla’s stomach rumbled. The sound was very weak, but Willi Mohr heard it quite distinctly. It felt as if at last he had made some progress.
‘You see, it’s small things like that which puzzle a man when he’s sitting and thinking. But experience tells you that everything has a natural explanation. Where did you get the money from?’
Willi Mohr said nothing. His face was sullen and closed and did not reflect his physical exhaustion.
The man in the armchair picked up a piece of paper from the desk, glanced fleetingly at it and said, as if in passing: ‘On the twentieth of February this year, Colonel Thorpe appled for exit-visas for Ramon Alemany and Santiago Alemany. He said he was thinking of employing them on his yacht Monsoon. Fourteen days later a visa was issued for Ramon Alemany, but his brother’s was refused. Thorpe appealed against the decision, and on the thirty-first of March both he and Santiago Alemany were informed that the decision was upheld. That same evening you went on board the yacht and offered to do the work for nothing, although you were obviously not capable of doing it in any way satisfactorily. The following day you go together with Colonel Thorpe in a taxi to the provincial capital, where the Colonel manages to arrange an exit-visa for you. As you are a foreigner and Colonel Thorpe knows the Governor personally, there were no difficulties. In France, Ramon Alemany disappears from the boat and immediately afterwards you sign off. Four weeks later you come back here and then you have some money. Earlier you have been seen together with or in the proximity of Santiago Alemany practically every day, but now you don’t meet for three and half months. Then Santiago Alemany suddenly appears and gives you money. It is puzzling in some way. Don’t you agree?’
The words bored into Willi Mohr’s mind and stopped him from falling asleep and off the chair. He blinked several times, but had difficulty in seeing clearly, and the face in front of him seemed strangely unreal in the unsteady light from the little ceiling light.
‘Give me some water, please,’ he said.
‘You’re tired and thirsty?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not very. It can be much worse.’
Sergeant Tornilla had had his hands clasped in front of him, and now he leant on his elbows and pressed his fingertips together.
His smile died away and he said, swiftly and sharply: ‘Have you ever been to Santa Margarita?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘A year ago, just before Christmas.’
‘And before that?’
‘Once.’
‘When?’
‘In October or November, I think. Anyhow, in the autumn.’
‘Try to remember the date.’
‘Of the first time or the second?’
‘Both.’
‘I don’t know, once just before Christmas and once earlier, during the autumn.’
‘Let’s try to reconstruct the events. Your Norwegian friends left the country at that time, didn’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘On the 15th December.’
‘Did you visit Santa Margarita before that or after?’
‘The second time was after, just before Christmas, as I said.’
He counted on his fingers.
‘It must have been the eighteenth of December.’
‘What did you do in Santa Margarita?’
‘Hired a truck.’
‘Right. You talked to a builder there about taking over an old truck your Norwegian friends had had before. But the first time? Was that in December too?’
‘Earlier, I think.’
‘Might it have been the first or the second of December perhaps?’
‘No, it must have been earlier. In November or perhaps October. It was raining.’
‘Did you go to Santa Margarita alone?’
‘No.’
‘Who was with you?’
‘My … Norwegian friends.’
Willi Mohr did not reply.
‘They are called Pedersen, aren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me see, what are their first names? Yes, Daniel and Sig … something like that. You know their names, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you be good enough to tell me them?’
Sergeant Tornilla sat quietly, waiting for a reply. His attitude grew thoughtful, as if he had gone on to think about something else.
‘Do you know my name?’ he said finally.
‘Yes.’
‘My first name too?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve told you it.’
Willi thought.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘now I remember it.’
‘Would you please say it.’
‘José Tornilla.’
‘Exactly, José Tornilla. But your j’s are still too hard, J-o-s-é.
‘José.’
‘And what are your Norwegian friends called?’
Silence.
Willi Mohr looked at the man beneath the portrait, sullenly but not defiantly.
‘You think your Norwegian friends are dead, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re probably right. Well, you went with them to Santa Margarita. Will you tell me what happened?’
‘We drove there and looked and then we drove back again.’
‘There’s a mine up there. Did you look at that too?’
‘We weren’t there, but I remember seeing it, in the distance.’
‘Was Santiago Alemany also with you?’
‘No.’
‘You don’t remember the date, but you think it was November and anyhow before the third of December?’
‘Yes.’
‘We shall look at those days for a few minutes, the second and the third of December. What did you do then?’
‘No idea.’
‘I’ll help you. On the second of December in the evening you were in the puerto. A police patrol saw you out by the pier at half-past one in the morning with your Norwegian friends and the Alemany brothers. What were you doing out there?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What were you doing out by the pier?’
‘Bathing.’
‘At half-past one in the morning? And by the pier? Why not at one of the ordinary bathing-places near the village?’
‘We didn’t have our bathing-costumes.’
‘Not the woman either?’
‘No.’
‘It’s not permitted to behave like that. There’s even a special law which forbids it. Do you know that?’
‘It’s a silly law.’
‘That’s possible. Did you have sexual relationships with the woman too?’
‘No.’
‘But you practically lived with her for four months. She’s said to have been physically attractive and not especally … particular. She could hardly have failed to make an impression on you. Were you in love with her?’
Willi Mohr did not answer. He felt less tired now, but very uneasy and he wanted at any price to get the other man away from this subject.
‘What do you really want to know?’ he said.
‘For instance, what happened on the following day, the third of December?’
‘I think we went to the puerto then too. Let me see, one moment, it was very hot then too. We didn’t bathe but went to a bar and stayed there until late into the night. It was a kind of party. We sang and drank quite a bit … and … well, there was nothing else.’
‘Were the Alemany brothers there too?’
‘Yes. Santiago Alemany was with us all the time. His brother came later, after being out in the fishing-boat. Yes, I remember now. We were down on the quay when the boat came in. The Alemany brothers’ father spoke sharply to Santiago because he had not been to town with the fish the day before. Then we all went back to the bar again.’
‘What did Santiago Alemany answer to that?’
‘I don’t remember. Not definitely. Yes, that the van was out of action, I think. Then we started drinking again and then we went home. I drove the camioneta, I remember.’
‘Did you drive although you were drunk?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s not really allowed.’
Sergeant Tornilla smiled. His expression was again friendly and good-humoured.
‘Tonight you’ve admitted three offences already. Wherever will this end?’
He put his hand down behind his chair and lifted up the water-jug. Then he got up and walked round the desk, just as elegant an unmoved as before. Willi Mohr drank and was given a cigarette and a light. The other man returned to his place.
‘The electricity really is poor,’ he said, looking at the bulb, which had again begun to flicker.
Then he sat in silence for a while, looking at the man on the bench.
‘You should have a family,’ he said, pointing with his middle finger at the three photographs in the leather frame. ‘It’s very important for a man to have a family. It gives him a wholly different anchorage in life. I well remember after all those years as a soldier, what a change it meant. Perhaps you don’t really appreciate it to the full until you have children of your own. You ought to get married. Then you have two essential things to live for, your work and your family. The family makes your work more worth while, even if as in my case, you sometimes don’t see all that much of them. You get a more definite understanding of what you’re working for, evidence that your aims really correspond to the work you do to achieve them.’
Willi Mohr was not listening. His cigarette had gone out and he was holding it between his fingers, staring at the portrait. It seemed to him that the Caudillo’s lips were moving, like the last time, and he did not like it.
‘Have you a fiancée in Germany perhaps?’ said Sergeant Tornilla.
‘No.’
‘Not even before either?’
‘Yes, perhaps, in a way. Once.’
‘A long time ago?’
‘During the war.’
‘You were in Poland in the war, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, in Gotenhafen.’
‘Was it a nice town?’
‘No, not especially. Rather small, wide streets and small, square houses. A very large harbour. Full of army people.’
‘I was in Poland once or twice too. My impression of the Poles was not particularly favourable. They seemed very hostile, almost irreconcilably. Like the Russians.’
‘They had good reason to be. It was an unjust war.’
‘That’s right. But why? Well, because it was lost. Even here that’s thought to be a historical truth now, although it’s admitted that the opposite result would have been better. The war became unjust the moment it was lost. And the result might well have been different.’
‘Don’t talk about the war,’ said Willi Mohr, crushing his cigarette-end out in the ash-tray.
Sergeant Tornilla pushed the packet of cigarettes across the desk and followed up with his lighter. Then he sat in silence and waited.
‘Gotenhafen was a dreadful town,’ said Willi Mohr. ‘I was there for a year, from February forty-four to January forty-five. Second Submarine Cadet Division. More than two thousand men, jammed into an ex-luxury liner which had been painted grey. Everything was grey, except the snow, and that turned grey too, as soon as it reached the ground. It was always windy and the whole of your damned war went through the town like an endless grey snake. Stores and tractors and hospital ships and grey boats which came and went and grey voices bawling out lies from a grey loudspeaker. And every night one lay in terror that they’d bomb the place and the ship would heel over and drown you. It did in the end, and drowned five thousand people, mostly women and children. And almost half of the Second Submarine Cadet Division.’
‘What happened?’
‘The Russians torpedoed it, a Russian submarine.’
‘I’ve read about that. During the evacuation, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ruthless.’
‘Not at all. That’s your war, just as it should be. Anyhow, what d’you think one can see in a bloody great storm in the middle of the night? Woman and children? Huh.’
‘And what happened to you yourself?’
‘Nothing. Nothing happened to me. I never saw the enemy, not until the war was over, and then there weren’t any enemies any longer, were there? That’s the rules. I just saw thousands of grey people with grey faces. They came from somewhere or other and stood on the quays and waited in their tens of thousands. In snowstorms. Some died, I suppose. There were air-raids sometimes, so they say. But no bombs ever fell where I was, and I saw nothing. And the boat I was on got through. That was a liner painted grey too, but an older one. And it didn’t drown me.’
Unfortunately, thought Willi Mohr. And the next second he thought about himself talking like this with great surprise. He must pull himself together.
‘But you had a fiancée there?’
‘Yes, if you can call her that.’
‘What was her name?’
‘Barbara.’
‘German?’
‘Yes.’
‘Born in Gotenhafen?’
‘Posted there. Women’s Naval Corps.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Did she disappear after the torpedoing?’
‘I don’t know which boat she was on. Most got through. We were soldiers. Never knew anything about anything.’
‘You never met her again?’
‘No.’
‘Did you look for her?’
‘Everybody was looking for someone. But there was no one looking for everyone.’
‘And you loved each other?’
‘We made love.’
‘Do you mind talking about it?’
‘Not at all. But it’s not worth it.’
‘No, perhaps not,’ said Sergeant Tornilla.
He picked up a photograph and handed it over.
‘Do you recognize this man?’
A thin, ordinary Spanish face. Like a road-labourer’s, perhaps a little more lively.
‘No,’ said Willi Mohr.
‘Well then, so you sailed with Ramon Alemany for almost three weeks, nineteen days to be exact?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know where he is now?’
‘No.’
Answer in monosyllables, thought Willi Mohr. Don’t let him get you talking again.
‘Let’s talk a little about the trip to Corsica. Was the weather good?’
‘I’m tired,’ said Willi Mohr. ‘I need some sleep.’
‘Naturally. I should have thought of that before. You can sleep here. Or would you rather go home?’
‘Yes.’
‘You want to go home?’
‘Yes.’
Sergeant Tornilla got up, smiled and held out his hand.
Willi Mohr swayed as he got up. He was drenched with sweat and everything blurred in front of his eyes. The other man looked exactly as he had done when he had got up from the armchair the first time, an eternity ago.
‘I’m sorry I’ve had to wear you out,’ he said. ‘And now, until the next time.’
He threw his hands out apologetically. Smiling.
Then he walked to the door and opened it politely.
Reprieve, thought Willi Mohr as he stood out in the porch. The dawn light hurt his eyes.
The sun had just risen behind the ridges on the sea side and the mountainside was bathed in its clear white light. A little of the cool of the night remained and although it was already hot, the heat had not yet become oppressive. The long, low, yellow stone building of the guard-post appeared empty and dead, and the silence lay like a hood over the countryside. Willi Mohr stood quite still in the great dusty stillness and looked at the buildings which rose in a jumble beyond the olive-trees. This was the town up in the mountains. Here lived a number of priests and a doctor and some officers and policemen and naturally someone who owned the sheep and most of the land, and three thousand people too, simple and poor and happy over the miracle that they were allowed to create new families for this community. Most of them had fought for three years in the war to avoid experiencing this miracle.
He had lived here for more than a year, sufficiently long to get to know the milieu without breaking through or carrying out systematic studies. Now he was standing there, waiting for the town to wake, rise and cry out, not in revolt, but in an agony of death and despair.
He was beyond fatigue now, and could not control his thoughts, which had broken through the barriers and become impulsive and irrational.
Willi Mohr shrugged and began to walk along the road between the olive-groves. It was still straight and smooth but the rains of the last few months had crumbled the edges and washed away most of the gravel.
He looked straight ahead and walked through the town with long strides, calmly and mechanically. The only people he saw were two civil guards standing in the middle of a cross-roads staring out to the east. They were smoking and had leant their carbines against the low wall along the edge of the road.
He went into the house in Barrio Son Jofre and shut the door behind him without locking it. Dimly, he was aware that such details would no longer change or even influence his situation. He poured water into the bowl for the dog and gulped down what was left in the jar. Before he left the kitchen, he glanced at his watch. Nearly six o’clock. The interrogation had not been especially long, at the most three or four hours.
He did not bother to wash, but went back into the room and lay down on his back on the mattress, his straw hat over his face, without undressing or taking off his sandals.
Thirty seconds later it struck him that they were going to kill him, presumably without telling him why and without giving him another opportunity to kill Santiago Alemany. But that did not matter any longer. He just wanted to sleep.
Just as he was about to fall asleep he thought once again about Barbara Heinemann.