“Why did your parents split up?” It was late evening on December 26, and we had been on the AVE, Spain’s superfast train, for five hours. We were only about half an hour out of Seville’s Santa Justa station, and it had taken me this long to get around to asking a question I had wanted to know the answer to ever since I had seen Sofia give Laia that look in Parc Güell.
Laia thought for a long moment, gazing out the window at the olive groves speeding by. “They separated three years ago,” she said. “What triggered it was Felip being transferred to Seville. Sofia didn’t want to leave Barcelona and take me away from my school, but there was more to it than that.” Laia used her parents’ first names as comfortably as if they were close friends from school. It seemed odd. I couldn’t imagine calling Mom anything other than Mom, but Laia had introduced me to a lot of habits I found strange.
“The whole process was very polite and civilized,” Laia went on. “Of course, I was upset at the time, but there were no arguments that I ever heard and neither blamed the other. Felip has always been the rational intellectual, taking time to think things through before making a decision. Sofia is much more emotional and tends to react immediately. I think they simply grew apart over the years. They’re still friends.”
“Which are you?” I asked, “emotional or intellectual?”
“A bit of both,” Laia said with a smile.
“But you miss Felip,” I said.
“Yes, very much. We used to have wonderful long conversations about all kinds of things, from politics and religion to football and mystery novels. Now that he’s in Seville, that doesn’t happen so often. I miss our conversations.”
“I love mystery novels,” I said.
“There is no shortage of mysteries in Spain.” Laia tilted her head and looked at me in that quizzical way she had. “I think you are very like Felip. You think about things and try to work them out.”
I was pleased by the compliment. “I hope that’s not the only reason you hang out with me.”
Laia laughed and punched me playfully in the ribs. “Of course not.” She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I hang out with you because surrounding myself with dumb people makes me seem smarter.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting Felip,” I said, grinning like a fool.
My phone pinged with a text from DJ. I checked my watch: 9 PM. That would make it 3 PM in Ontario, so it was probably to tell me he’d arrived at Grandfather’s cottage. It was, but it said something else as well.
Arrived at the cabin. Discovered stuff. Need to think. Will email tomorrow. DJ.
“Is DJ stuck in a snowdrift?” Laia asked.
“He’s at the cabin,” I said, my thumbs working the keypad of my phone. W@ u mean discovered stuff? W@ stuff?
“He says they’ve discovered something at the cottage,” I explained as I sent my text.
“What?” Laia asked.
“That’s what I’ve asked him. The only thing you might find at the cottage would be a nest of mice.”
“Sounds delightful,” Laia said. “Maybe it is just something like a mouse nest.”
I shook my head. “DJ said he had to think about what he’d found and that he’ll email me tomorrow. If DJ has to think about something, it’s important.”
My phone pinged again. Money, fake passports, coded messages. I will send scans of Spanish stuff tomorrow. DJ
I stared at my phone screen for a long time. What was going on? Was this a joke? I turned the phone so Laia could see the screen. She looked at me questioningly. I shrugged. “It must be some kind of joke DJ and the others have cooked up.”
LOL :-D Spencer’s idea? I replied.
A response came back almost immediately. No joke. Weird stuff. Grandpa was a spy. We need to figure it out. More tomorrow.
Dnt lve me hanging, bro, I texted. A SPY?????
“What does it mean?” Laia asked. “Was your grandfather really a spy?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “We know better than anyone that Grandfather did things in his youth that he didn’t tell anyone about.” I felt my brow furrow as I concentrated, trying to remember anything that would help make sense of what little information I was being fed by DJ.
“After I got home from Spain last summer, I told Mom all about Grandfather’s time in Spain. I also asked her a whole bunch of questions. I only knew him as an old man, but I also got to know him as a teenager through his war journal, and I wanted to fill in the bit between.”
“Did your Mom think he might have been a spy?”
“No. This is the first anyone’s mentioned that. Maybe DJ’s got it wrong,” I said, but I didn’t believe it. DJ didn’t get things wrong. “Mom said he was away a lot when she and her sisters were growing up. She didn’t know what he did exactly, just that he was a businessman in some kind of import/export company.” The phrase import /export rang a bell in my brain, but I couldn’t place it, and I had too many things to think about now to follow that train of thought. In any case, my phone was pinging.
Too much to send in text and I need to scan Spanish passport and codes. I will also send cash to your PayPal account. Letter says Grandpa was a traitor. It must be a lie. We need to clear his name. MTC. DJ
Both Laia and I stared at the screen, but could think of nothing to say before another text came through.
We’ve each chosen a place Grandpa was and the pages from his code book that seem to fit. Spain is one place and since you’re there and like codes and mysteries, I’ll send that to you. See what you can do. We’ve got a week to clear his name. Email tomorrow. DJ.
Laia and I stared at each other, and I blurted out, “I don’t want anything to do with this.”
Laia regarded me curiously for a moment. “Why not?”
I took a few seconds to organize my feelings into words. “Because I feel invaded. I’m on holiday, with you. I didn’t ask to be involved in whatever DJ and the others have found. DJ’s being overly dramatic. A week to clear his name? What does that mean? It’s DJ not wanting the wonderful image he has of Grandfather to be tarnished. I just want to meet your father and have a holiday with you, not go running off on some wild-goose chase.” I was surprised by my reaction and by how strongly I felt, surprised that I really didn’t want DJ intruding on my life this much.
Laia looked at me thoughtfully. “You are involved now, whether you want to be or not,” she said. “Maybe DJ is overreacting, but false passports, codes, money and someone calling your grandfather a traitor? It doesn’t sound as if DJ’s making stuff up.”
“Maybe not,” I agreed reluctantly, “but I don’t want this to overwhelm our holiday.”
“It won’t,” Laia said with a smile, “and isn’t there a tiny part of you that wants to know what it all means? After all, you do love mysteries. And didn’t we have a wonderful time finding out what your grandfather did in the war?” I nodded. “Did that interfere with our time together?”
“No,” I replied. “It gave us a chance to get to know each other. But it’s different now.”
“Yes, it’s different now, and part of that difference is that through the journal and what we did last summer, I have come to know your grandfather. Because of his love for my great-grandmother, he’s part of my past as well. I don’t want to think of him as a traitor, and if he came back to Spain, even as a spy with a false name, I want to know about it.”
“I suppose so,” I said. “And if I’m honest, there’s a part of me that is intrigued by what DJ says.”
“Okay,” Laia said. “Let’s see what DJ sends tomorrow. If he is exaggerating, we can ignore it. If the code is meaningless and we can’t see anything that makes sense, then that’s an end as well. But if it interests us, we can do some digging. It might be fun, and we’ll be doing it together.”
Laia squeezed my hand and gave me a smile that made me feel weak. “Okay,” I agreed. The train slowed and pulled under the curving glass arches of Santa Justa station. I tried to push DJ’s texts into the back of my mind. I would worry about all that tomorrow; now it was time to meet Laia’s father.