Juan Gomez-Jurado - The Traitor's emblem

“Are you all right? Have they hurt you or… anything?”

She shook her head. It was only then that she fully registered Paul’s appearance. His shirt stained with blood, his face covered in soot, his bloodshot eyes.

“What’s happened to you, Paul?”

“My mother died,” he replied, lowering his head.

As Paul recounted the events of the night, Alys felt sorrow for him and shame at the way she’d treated him. More than once she opened her mouth to ask his forgiveness, but she had never believed in the meaning of that word. It was a disbelief fed by pride.

When he told her his mother’s last words, Alys was astonished. She couldn’t understand how the brutal, vicious Jurgen could be Paul’s brother, and yet deep down it didn’t surprise her. Paul had a dark side that flared up at certain moments, like a sudden autumn wind shaking the curtains of a cozy house.

When Paul described breaking into the pawnshop and how he’d had to hit Metzger to make him talk, Alys began to feel very afraid for him. Everything to do with this mystery seemed unbearable, and she wanted to distance him from it as quickly as possible before it consumed him completely.

Paul concluded his tale by recounting his dash to the beer hall.

“And that’s all.”

“It’s more than enough, I think.”

“What do you mean?”

“You aren’t seriously planning to keep digging around, are you? It’s obvious there’s someone out there who is prepared to do anything to keep the truth hidden.”

“That’s precisely the reason to keep digging. It proves someone’s responsible for the murder of my father…”

There was a brief pause.

“… of my parents.”

Paul didn’t cry. After what had just happened, his body was begging him to cry, his soul needed him to, and his heart was overflowing with tears. But Paul kept it all inside, forming a small shell around his heart. Perhaps some ridiculous sense of manhood wouldn’t allow him to show his feelings in front of the woman he loved. Perhaps it was this that ignited what happened moments later.

“Paul, you should give up,” said Alys, increasingly alarmed.

“I have no intention of doing that.”

“But you have no proof. No clues.”

“I have a name: Clovis Nagel. I have a place: South-West Africa.”

“South-West Africa is a very big place.”

“I’ll start at Windhoek. A white man shouldn’t be hard to spot over there.”

“South-West Africa is very big… and very far away,” repeated Alys, emphasizing every word.

“I have to do it. I’ll leave on the first boat.”

“So that’s it?”

“Yes, Alys. Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said since we met? Don’t you realize how important it is for me to find out what happened nineteen years ago? And now… now this.”

For a moment Alys contemplated stopping him. Explaining how much she’d miss him, how much she needed him. How much she’d fallen in love with him. But pride stilled her tongue. Just as it prevented her from telling Paul the truth about her own behavior over the last few days.

“So go, then, Paul. Do whatever you have to do.”

Paul looked at her, utterly bewildered. The icy tone of her voice made him feel as though his heart had been torn out and buried in the snow.

“Alys…”

“Go straightaway. Leave now.”

“Alys, please!”

“Leave, I’m telling you.”

Paul seemed on the verge of tears, and she prayed that he would cry, that he’d change his mind and tell her he loved her and that his love for her was more important than a search that had brought him nothing but pain and death. Perhaps Paul was waiting for something similar, or perhaps he was just trying to record Alys’s face in his memory. For long, bitter years she would curse herself for the haughtiness that overcame her, just as Paul would blame himself for not having taken the trolley back to the boardinghouse before his mother was stabbed…

… and for having turned around and walked away.

“You know what? I’m glad. This way you won’t burst into my dreams and trample all over them,” said Alys, throwing to her feet the broken bits of the camera she had been clinging to until that moment. “Since I met you, only bad things have happened to me. I want you out of my life, Paul.”

Paul hesitated for a moment, and then, without looking back, said, “So be it.”

Alys remained in the church doorway for several minutes, fighting a silent battle against her tears. Suddenly a figure emerged from the darkness, from the same direction in which Paul had disappeared. Alys tried to collect herself and put a smile on her face.

He’s coming back. He’s understood, and he’s coming back, she thought, taking a step toward the figure.

But the streetlights revealed that the person approaching was a man in a gray raincoat and hat. Too late, Alys realized it was one of the men who had followed her that afternoon.

She turned to run, but as she did she saw his companion, who had come around the corner and was less than three meters away. She tried to escape, but the two men lunged at her and caught her by the waist.

“Your father’s looking for you, Fraulein Tannenbaum.”

Alys struggled in vain. There was nothing she could do.

A car emerged from a nearby street and one of her father’s gorillas opened the door. The other pushed her toward it and tried to force her head down.

“You’d best be careful with me, imbeciles,” said Alys with a look of scorn. “I’m pregnant.”

Elizabeth Bay, 28 August 1933

Dear Alys,

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve written to you. At a rate of once a month it must be more than a hundred letters, all of them unanswered.

I don’t know if they’re reaching you and you’ve decided to forget me. Or perhaps you’ve moved house and not left a forwarding address. This one will go to your father’s house. I write to you there every once in a while, even though I know that it is useless. I remain hopeful that one of these will somehow get past your father. In any case, I shall keep writing to you. These letters have become my only contact with my former life.

I want to begin, as always, by asking you to forgive me for the way I left. I’ve recalled that night ten years ago so many times, and I know I shouldn’t have behaved in the way I did. I’m sorry I shattered your dreams. Each day I’ve prayed for you to be able to realize your dream of being a photographer, and I hope that over these years you’ve succeeded.

Life in the colonies isn’t simple. Ever since Germany lost these lands, South Africa has controlled the mandate over the former German territory. We aren’t welcome here, though they tolerate us.

There aren’t many jobs going. I work in farms and in the diamond mines for a few weeks at a time. When I’ve saved a bit of money, I travel the country in search of Clovis Nagel. It’s not an easy task. I’ve found traces of him in the villages of the Orange River basin. One time I visited a mine site that he’d just left. I missed him by only a few minutes.

I also followed a tip-off that led me north, to the Waterberg Plateau. There I met a strange, proud tribe, the Herero. I spent some months with them, and they taught me how to hunt and gather in the desert. I fell sick with a fever, and for a long time I was very weak, but they took care of me. I’ve learned a lot from these people besides physical skills. They are exceptional. They live in the shadow of death, every day a constant struggle to find water and adapt their lives to the pressures from the white men.

I’m out of paper; this is the last piece of a batch I bought from a peddler on the road to Swakopmund. Tomorrow I’m heading back there in search of new leads. I’ll go on foot, as I’ve run out of money, so my search will have to be a brief one. The hardest thing about being here, apart from the lack of news about you, is the time it takes me to earn my living. I’ve often been at the point of giving it all up. However, I don’t mean to give up. Sooner or later I’ll find him.