María Dueñas - The Time in Between

Until a black cloud appeared in the doorway.

“Excuse me, my friends,” Da Silva announced. “I’d like to introduce you to Johannes Bernhardt.”

He was older, had put on some weight and lost some hair, but without a doubt he was the same Bernhardt from Tetouan. The one who so often used to stroll along the Calle del Generalísimo, on the arm of a lady who wasn’t with him at the moment. The one who negotiated with Serrano Suñer to install German antennas on Moroccan territory and agreed to keeping these matters from Beigbeder. The one who never knew that I’d been listening to them, lying on the floor, hidden behind a sofa.

“Sorry I’m late. Our car broke down and we had to make a long stop in Elvas.”

I tried to hide my unease, accepting a glass from a waiter while I did some quick calculations: when the last time was that we’d been in the same place, how many times we’d passed each other on the street, how long I’d spent with him that night at the High Commission. When Hillgarth had informed me that Bernhardt had settled on the Peninsula and was in charge of the large corporation that managed the Nazis’ economic interests in Spain, I told him that he probably wouldn’t recognize me if he ever met me again. Now, however, I wasn’t so sure.

As Bernhardt’s introductions began, I kept my back turned to the group of men chatting and devoted myself to the task of being charming to the ladies. The new topic of conversation was the orchid in my hair, and as I bent slightly and turned my head so that everyone could admire it, I was trying to catch snippets of information. I registered the names again, so that my memory of them would be more secure: Weiss and Wolters were the Germans whom Bernhardt, who’d only just got in from Spain, didn’t know. Almeida, Rodrigues, and Ribeiro were the Portuguese from Beira, men from mountain country. Mine owners—or rather, to be more accurate, owners of shabby little pieces of land where divine Providence had happened to place some valuable minerals. What kind of minerals? That was still a mystery to me: at this point I still didn’t know what the “spit of the wolf” was that Beatriz Oliveira had mentioned in the church. And then at last I heard the word I’d been waiting for: “tungsten.”

From somewhere deep in my memory I retrieved the information Hillgarth had furnished me with in Tangiers: it was a mineral crucial to the production of projectiles for the war. And as I held on to that memory, I recovered another: one of the people involved in buying it on a massive scale was Johannes Bernhardt. Except that Hillgarth had talked to me about his interest in deposits in Galicia and Extremadura; at the time he probably couldn’t have predicted that Bernhardt’s tentacles would end up crossing the border into Portugal and entering negotiations with a treacherous businessman who’d decided to stop supplying the English in order to fulfill the demands of their enemies. I felt my legs tremble and sought refuge in a sip of champagne. Manuel Da Silva wasn’t busy buying and selling silk, wood, or any other equally innocuous products from the colonies, but something much more dangerous, more sinister: his new business concerned a metal that the Germans would use to reinforce their weaponry and enhance their capacity to kill.

The guests demanded my attention, pulling me out of my reverie. They wanted to know where I’d obtained that wonderful flower resting behind my left ear, to get confirmation that it was in fact real, to know how they were grown: a thousand questions I took absolutely no interest in, but that I couldn’t refuse to answer. It was a tropical flower; yes, absolutely natural, of course; no, I had no idea of whether Beira would be a suitable place for cultivating orchids.

“Ladies, allow me to introduce you to our last guest,” Manuel interrupted us again.

I held my breath until it was my turn. The last one.

“And this is my dear friend, Senhorita Arish Agoriuq.”

He looked at me without blinking for a second. Two. Three.

“Have we met?”

Smile, Sira, smile, I commanded myself.

“No, I don’t think so,” I said, holding out my right hand languidly.

“Unless you crossed paths somewhere in Madrid,” Manuel added. Fortunately he didn’t seem to know Bernhardt well enough to be aware that at some point in his past he’d lived in Morocco.

“At Embassy, perhaps?” I suggested.

“No, no; I’ve been in Madrid very little lately. I travel a lot and my wife likes the sea, so we’ve settled in Denia, close to Valencia. No, your face is very familiar from somewhere else, but…”

I was saved by the butler. Ladies, gentlemen, dinner is served.

In the absence of a consort to play hostess, Da Silva ignored protocol and placed me at one end of the table. He took the other. I tried to hide my nerves, turning my attention to the guests, but I was so anxious I could barely eat. The shock caused by Gamboa’s visit to my room had now been elevated by the unexpected arrival of Bernhardt and the confirmation of the dirty business Da Silva was implicated in. As if that wasn’t enough, I also had to maintain my composure and play the role of lady of the house.

The soup arrived in a silver tureen, the wine in crystal decanters, and the seafood on huge trays overflowing with crustaceans. I went out of my way to seem attentive to all the guests. I discreetly indicated to the Portuguese women which cutlery they should use at any given moment and exchanged phrases with the Germans: yes, of course I knew Baroness von Stohrer; yes, Gloria von Fürstenberg, too; of course, yes, of course I’d heard that Horcher would soon be opening its doors in Madrid. The dinner proceeded without incident, and to my good fortune Bernhardt paid me no more attention.

“Well, ladies, now—if you don’t mind—we gentlemen will retire to chat,” Manuel announced when we’d finished dessert.

I forced myself not to react, twisting the end of the tablecloth between my fingers. It wasn’t possible, he couldn’t do this to me. I’d done my part; now it was my turn to get something back. I’d satisfied everyone, I’d behaved like an exemplary hostess even though I wasn’t, and I needed my recompense. At the very moment that they were going to talk about just the thing I was interested in, I couldn’t let them escape. Fortunately, our dinner had been accompanied by a substantial quantity of wine, and moods seemed to have relaxed. Those of the Portuguese, particularly.

“Oh no, Da Silva, for God’s sake!” shouted one of them, slapping the table loudly. “Don’t be so old-fashioned, my friend! In the modern world men and women go everywhere together!”

Manuel wavered a second; no doubt he would have preferred to keep the rest of the conversation private, but the Beira crowd gave him no choice: they got up noisily and headed back to the living room all excited. One of them draped his arm over Da Silva’s shoulders, another offered his to me. Once they’d gotten over their initial reticence at being received in a rich man’s grand home, they seemed utterly delighted. That night they were going to close a deal that would allow them to slam the door on poverty for themselves, their children, and their children’s children; there was no reason whatsoever why they should do it behind their own wives’ backs.

They served coffee, liqueurs, and candies; I remembered that Beatriz Oliveira had been responsible for buying these as well as the floral displays, which were elegant without being too showy. I guessed it had been she, too, who had ordered the orchids I’d received that same afternoon, and I felt another shudder as I recalled the unexpected visit from Marcus.

A double shudder. Of affection and gratitude toward him for having been worried about me like that; of fear, again, at the memory of the incident of the hat right under the assistant’s nose. There was still no sign of Gamboa; perhaps with a little bit of luck he’d be dining on a homemade stew with his family somewhere, listening to his wife complaining about the price of meat and forgetting that he’d suspected the presence of another man in the bedroom of the foreign woman who was being courted by his boss.