María Dueñas - The Time in Between

What I received this time wasn’t the straightforward bunch of roses tied with a ribbon covered in coded dashes that Hillgarth used to send when he needed to get a message to me. Nor were they exotic flowers like the ones Manuel Da Silva had sent to me before deciding that having me killed would be better. What Marcus brought to my house that night was just a small, almost insignificant single bud that had been pulled off some rosebush that had grown up miraculously against an adobe wall that spring after a terrible winter. A tiny flower, almost scrawny. Dignified in its simplicity, without any subterfuge.

I wasn’t expecting him, and at the same time I was. He’d left my father’s house a few hours earlier, with Hillgarth; the naval attaché had invited him to accompany him, no doubt wanting to talk to him without me present. I returned home alone, not knowing when he would reappear. Or if he was going to come back at all.

“For you,” was his greeting.

I took the little rose and let him in. His tie was undone, as though he’d actively made the decision that he was going to relax. He walked slowly into the middle of the living room; it was as though with each step he was calculating the words he had to say to string together a thought. Finally he turned and waited for me to approach.

“You know what we’ve got ahead of us, don’t you?”

I did know. Of course I knew. Our lives moved in swamps of murky waters, in a jungle of lies and furtive creatures with teeth that could cut like glass. An undercover love in a time of hatred, privations, and betrayal, that’s what we were facing.

“Yes, I do know what we have ahead of us.”

“It won’t be easy,” he added.

“Nothing’s ever easy,” I added.

“It could be very hard.”

“Perhaps.”

“And dangerous.”

“That, too.”

Outwitting traps, overcoming risks and setbacks. Without any plans, in the shadows; that was how we’d have to live. Combining willingness and daring. With integrity, courage, and the realization that we were fighting for a common cause.

We looked hard at each other and my memory of the African land where it had all begun flooded back to me. His world and my world—so far away then, and now so close—had locked together at last. Then he embraced me, and in the tenderness and heat of our closeness I felt with absolute certainty that this was another mission at which we would not fail.

And that is my story, or at least that’s how I remember it, perhaps varnished over with the sheen that decades and nostalgia give to things. What happened in Spain after the European war, as well as the traces of many people who have passed through this account—Beigbeder, Rosalinda Fox, Serrano Suñer, and others—can be found in history books and archives, and in the memories of older generations. Their comings and goings, their glories and miseries were objective facts that in their day filled newspapers and fed the salons and the clusters of people gossiping on street corners.

What happened after the war to Marcus and me and to those in our immediate circle, however, was never recorded. Our destinies might have gone in any direction, as we succeeded in remaining unnoticed, forever on the reverse side of history, crisscrossed by stitches, invisible lives from the time in between.

The conventions of the academic life to which I have been bound for more than twenty years demand that writers recognize their sources in an ordered, rigorous way; this is why I’ve decided to include a list of the more significant bibliographic references I consulted. A large proportion of the resources I’ve depended on when re-creating settings, describing certain historical figures, and bringing some coherence to the plot, however, go beyond the margins of the printed page, so I want to mention them here.

In order to reconstruct the details of colonial Tetouan, I’ve made use of countless testimonials that have been gathered in the bulletins of the La Medina Association of Former Residents of the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco, and for these I would like to acknowledge the collaboration of its nostalgic members and the kindness of its directors Francisco Trujillo and Adolfo de Pablos. Equally useful and touching were the Moroccan recollections unearthed by my mother and my aunts Estrella Vinuesa and Paquita Moreno, as well as the countless documents provided by Luis Álvarez, who was almost as excited by this project as I was. The bibliographical reference supplied by translator Miguel Sáenz, about a curious book partly set in Tetouan, was also extremely useful; it provided the inspiration for two of the supporting characters in this story.

In my reconstruction of the complicated life journey of Juan Luis Beigbeder, I was greatly interested in the information supplied by the Moroccan historian Mohamed Ibn Azzuz, zealous custodian of his legacy. For my introduction to him, and for welcoming me into the headquarters of the Tetouan-Asmir Association—the beautiful old Indigenous Affairs Bureau—I’d like to thank Ahmed Mgara, Abdeslam Chaachoo, and Ricardo Barceló. I would like to extend my thanks, too, to José Carlos Canalda for biographical details about Beigbeder; to José María Martínez-Val for dealing with my queries about his novel Llegará tarde a Hendaya , in which the then-minister appears as a character; to Domingo del Pino, who through his article opened the door for me to the memoirs of Rosalinda Powell Fox, vital to the plotline of the novel; and to Michael Brufal de Melgarejo for offering to help me follow her unclear trail in Gibraltar.

For providing me with firsthand information about Alan Hillgarth, the British Secret Services in Spain, and the Embassy cover, I’d like to acknowledge the personal kindness of Patricia Martínez de Vicente, author of Embassy, or the Mambrú Intelligence , and the daughter of an active participant in those clandestine operations. I’d like to extend my thanks to Professor David A. Messenger of the University of Wyoming for his article on the SOE’s activities in Spain.

Finally, I’d like to express my gratitude to all those who one way or another were close to me during the process of creating this story, reading the whole or parts, encouraging, correcting, supplying wolf whistles and applause, or simply stepping from one day to the next by my side. To my parents for their unconditional support. To Manolo Castellanos, my husband, and my children Bárbara and Jaime, whose unceasing vitality has been a daily reminder of what it is that really matters. To my many siblings and their many circumstances, to my extended family, to my in vino amicitia friends and my dear colleagues from the Anglophile crème .

To Lola Gulias, from the Antonia Kerrigan Literary Agency, for having been the first person to take a chance on my writing.

And very especially to my editor Raquel Gisbert, for her redoubtable professionalism, her positivity, and her energy, and for having put up with my arm-wrestling with indefatigable steadfastness and good humor.

Alcaraz, Ignacio. Entre España y Marruecos. Testimonio de una época: 1923–75 . Madrid: Catriel, 1999.

———. Retratos en la memoria . Madrid: Catriel, 2002.

Alpert, Michael. “Operaciones secretas inglesas en España durante la segunda guerra mundial.” Espacio, tiempo y forma, series V, Historia Contemporánea no. 15, (2002).

Armero, José Mario. La política exterior de Franco . Barcelona: Planeta, 1978.