María Dueñas - The Time in Between

He said some words in Arabic that I didn’t understand, as though to demonstrate his mastery of the language. As though I wasn’t already aware of it. He drank again, and I filled the glass for the third time.

“Do you know what Franco said when Serrano put me forward for the ministry? ‘You’re telling me you want me to put little Juan Beigbeder in Foreign Affairs? But he’s an utter lunatic!’ I don’t know why he’s branded me a madman; perhaps because his soul is cold as ice and anyone who’s a little bit more passionate than he is seems to him utterly insane. Me crazy—I hardly think so!”

He drank again. As he talked he barely looked at me, spewing out his bitterness in a ceaseless monologue. He talked and drank, talked and smoked. With rage, and without pause, while I listened in silence, unable to understand why he was telling me all this. We’d hardly ever been alone together before; he’d never addressed more than a handful of phrases to me without Rosalinda present; almost everything he knew about me came from her mouth. And yet at this moment, a moment so important in his life and his career, at this instant that marked the end of an era, for some unknown reason he had decided to confide in me.

“Franco and Serrano say I’ve gone crazy, that I’m the victim of the pernicious influence of a woman. The goddamned nonsense I’ve had to listen to lately. And the In-law-ísimo wants to lecture me on morality; he of all people, who has six or seven legitimate kids at home while he spends his days bedding a marchioness who he then takes out to the bullfights in his convertible! And on top of that they’re considering including the crime of adultery in the penal code; the whole thing’s a joke. Of course I like women, how could I not? I haven’t shared a conjugal life with my wife for years, and I don’t have to answer to anyone for the way I feel or whom I go to bed with or whom I get up in the morning with, that’s all there is to it. I’ve had my escapades, as many as I could, to be absolutely honest with you. So? Does that make me unusual in the army or the government? No. I’m just like all the rest, but they’ve decided to pin a label on me, a frivolous playboy bewitched by an Englishwoman. That’s just how stupid they are. They wanted my head to demonstrate their loyalty to the Germans, like Herod and the Baptist. And now they’ve got it, may it do them some good. But they didn’t need to trample all over me to get it.”

“What have they done to you?” I asked.

“Spread all kinds of calumnies about me: they’ve fabricated an intolerably bad reputation for me, as a depraved womanizer capable of selling out his country for a good screw, if you’ll pardon the language. They’ve spread the story that Rosalinda has kidnapped me and forced me to betray my country, that Hoare has been bribing me, that I receive money from the Jews in Tetouan in exchange for maintaining an anti-German position. They’ve had me watched night and day—I’ve even begun to fear for my physical safety—and don’t believe for a moment that I’m imagining these things. And all this because as a minister I’ve tried to act sensibly and put forward my ideas accordingly. I’ve told them that we can’t just drop our relations with the British and the North Americans because our supplies of wheat and oil, which we need to stop this country from starving to death, depend on them; I’ve insisted that we shouldn’t let Germany interfere in our domestic matters, that we should oppose their interventionist plans, that it’s not in our interest to get embroiled in their war, not even for the colonial empire they think we might be able to gain by it. Do you think they’ve given my opinions the slightest consideration? Not a bit: not only have they not paid me the least attention, but they’ve also accused me of lunacy for thinking that we shouldn’t bow down to an army that is passing through all Europe in triumph. Do you know what one of the divine Serrano’s latest brilliant notions is, what phrase he’s been repeating lately? ‘War, with bread, or war without it!’ What do you think of that? And now it turns out that I’m the crazy one—imagine that! My resistance has cost me the position; who knows if it might end up costing me my life, too. I’ve been left with nothing, Sira. My ministerial post, my military career, and my personal relations: everything, absolutely everything, dragged through the mud. And now they’re sending me to Ronda under house arrest, and who’s to know if they haven’t planned to set up a court-martial and get rid of me one fine morning with a firing squad?”

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He seemed weary. Exhausted. Old.

“I’m confused, I’m drained,” he said quietly. Then he sighed deeply. “What I wouldn’t give to go back, not to have ever abandoned my beloved Morocco. What I wouldn’t give for this whole nightmare never to have started. Rosalinda is the only person who could console me, and she’s gone. Which is why I’ve come to see you: to ask you to help me get my news to her.”

“Where is she now?”

I’d been wondering about that question for weeks, not knowing where to go to find an answer.

“Lisbon. She had to leave at short notice.”

“Why?” I asked in alarm.

“We learned that the Gestapo was after her; she had to get out of Spain.”

“And as minister you weren’t able to do anything?”

“Me do something about the Gestapo? Not me, not anyone, my dear. My relations with all the German representatives have been very tense lately: some members of our own government have taken it upon themselves to leak my thoughts against our possible intervention in the war and excessive Hispano-German friendship to the ambassador and his people. Though I probably wouldn’t have managed anything even if I’d been on good terms with them, because the Gestapo operates quite autonomously, on the fringes of the official institutions. We learned through a leak that Rosalinda was on one of their lists. Overnight she prepared her things and flew to Portugal; we sent everything else on after her. Ben Wyatt, the North American naval attaché, was the only person who came with us to the airport; he’s a great friend. No one else knows where she is. Or at least, no one should know. Now, however, I wanted to share the information with you. I’m sorry to have invaded your home at this time of night and in this state, but tomorrow they take me to Ronda and I don’t know how long I’ll have to go without being able to contact her.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked, finally sensing the purpose of his strange visit.

“Find some way to arrange for these letters to get to Lisbon through the diplomatic bag of the British embassy. Get them to Alan Hillgarth, I know you’re in contact with him,” he said as he took three thick envelopes out of his inside jacket pocket. “I’ve written them over the last few weeks, but I’ve been so closely watched that I haven’t dared dispatch them via normal channels; as you’ll understand, I don’t even trust my own shadow right now. Today, with this business of their having formalized the dismissal, they seem to have let up a little and lowered their guard. Which is why I’ve been able to get here without being followed.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely, don’t worry,” he said, calming my fears. “I took a taxi—I didn’t want to use the official car. There weren’t any cars following us the whole way, I checked. And following me on foot would have been impossible. I stayed in the taxi till I saw the doorman bring the rubbish out; only then did I come into the house. No one saw me, you can be sure of that.”

“How did you know where I lived?”

“How could I not have known? It was Rosalinda who chose this house and kept me abreast of the developments in its preparation. She was very excited about your arrival and your agreement to join with her country’s cause.” He smiled again with his lips closed, just tensing one side of his mouth. “I really love her, Sira, you know that? I’ve really loved her so much. I don’t know if I’ll see her again, but if I don’t, tell her I’d have given my life to have had her with me on this desperately sad night. Would you mind if I poured myself another drink?”