María Dueñas - The Time in Between

“But my place is filled to the brim, by Christ on the cross! And I get sent at least half a dozen bodies a day that I have to turn away!”

She was lying, of course. This olive-skinned woman was lying, and he knew it.

“I don’t want to hear about all your problems, Candelaria; I’ve told you you’re going to have to put her up somehow.”

“Since the uprising people haven’t stopped turning up in search of lodging, Don Claudio! I’ve even got mattresses on the floor!”

“That’s enough of your tales. The traffic in the Strait has been interrupted for weeks and these days not even seagulls are making the crossing. Like it or not, you’ll have to do what I ask; look at it as payment for all the things you owe me. And what’s more, you don’t just have to give her lodging, you have to help her. She doesn’t know anyone in Tetouan, and she’s got a pretty ugly story behind her, so make some space for her because this is where she’s going to be staying from now on, is that clear?”

“Like water, sir,” she replied, without the slightest enthusiasm. “Clear as water.”

“So I leave her in your safekeeping. If there’s any problem, you know where to find me. I’m not too pleased that this is where she’ll be staying; she’s already been corrupted, she’s not going to learn a lot of good from you, but anyway…”

“You don’t distrust me now, do you, Don Claudio?”

The commissioner didn’t allow himself to be fooled by the woman’s playful tone.

“I always distrust everybody, Candelaria; that’s what they pay me for.”

“And if you think I’m so bad, why in heaven’s name are you bringing this jewel to me, my dear commissioner?”

“Because as I’ve already told you, the way things are, I don’t have anywhere else to take her—don’t think I’m doing it because I want to. In any case, I’m leaving you responsible for her. Start dreaming up some way for her to make a living: I don’t think she’ll be able to return to Spain for quite some time, and she has to make some money because she’s got a bit of business to settle around here. Let’s see if you can’t get her hired as a saleswoman in some shop, or in a hairdresser’s; somewhere decent, mind you. And be so kind as to stop calling me your dear commissioner—I’ve told you a hundred times.”

She observed me then, paying attention for the first time. Top to bottom, quickly and without curiosity, as though she were simply assessing the amount of weight that had just been dumped on her. Then she returned her gaze to my companion and with mocking resignation accepted the assignment.

“You can be sure that Candelaria will take care of it, Don Claudio. I don’t know where I’ll put her, but you can rest assured knowing that she’ll be in heavenly bliss here with me.”

The celestial promises of the landlady apparently didn’t sound at all convincing to the policeman, as he still needed to tighten the screws a little more to conclude the negotiations. With modulated voice and index finger raised vertically to the level of his nose, he offered a final piece of advice that didn’t allow for any banter in response.

“Just watch out, Candelaria, watch out, be very careful—things are unsettled at the moment and I don’t want any more problems than are strictly necessary. So don’t think of getting her mixed up in any of your trouble. I don’t trust a hair on your head, or hers, so I’ll make sure you’re watched closely. And if I hear of any strange goings-on I’ll bring you before the commission, and not even a Sursum Corda will get you out of there again, clear?”

We both murmured a heartfelt “Yes, sir.”

“So the thing is, she’s to get better, and then, when she can, start work.”

He looked me in the eye, then seemed to hesitate a moment, debating whether to give me a handshake in farewell. Ultimately he chose not to and concluded the meeting with a recommendation and a prediction condensed into four concise words: “Be careful. We’ll talk.” Then he left, trotting nimbly down the stairs while adjusting his hat, his open hand holding it by the crown. We watched him in silence from the doorway until he had disappeared from view and were about to go back into the house when we heard his footsteps finish their descent and his voice thunder in the stairwell.

“I’ll take you both to jail, and once you’re there not even the Holy Child of the Remedio will get you out!”

“And screw you, too, you bastard,” was the first thing Candelaria said after shutting the door with a shove from her voluminous rear. Then she gave me a reluctant smile, trying to calm my confusion. “A devil of a man, he drives me raving mad; I don’t know how he does it, but he doesn’t miss a thing, and he’s constantly on my back.”

Then she sighed so deeply that her bulky bosom filled and emptied as though she had a couple of balloons inside her percale dress.

“Go on, my angel, in you go, I’ll be putting you in one of the rooms in the back. This damned uprising! It’s turned us all upside down and filled the street with arguments and the barracks with blood! Let’s see if all this ruckus ends soon and we can get back to normal life. I’m going out now, I have a few little matters to deal with; you stay here and get settled, and then, when I’m back at lunchtime, you can tell me all about it, nice and slowly.”

And with some shouting in Arabic she demanded the presence of a young Moorish girl, just fifteen years old, who came in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a cloth. The two of them started to clear up some bits of junk and change sheets in the tiny, airless room that would be transformed into my bedroom. And there I settled, without the slightest idea of how long my stay would last or what course my future would take.

Candelaria Ballesteros, better known in Tetouan as Candelaria the Matutera—the Smuggler—was forty-seven years old. She passed herself off as a widow, but even she didn’t know whether her husband had in fact died on one of his many visits to Spain or whether the letter she’d received seven years earlier from Málaga announcing his demise from pneumonia was no more than the tall tale of a shameless scoundrel to extricate himself from his marriage and make sure no one came looking for him. Fleeing the miseries of the day laborers in the olive groves in the Andalusian countryside, the couple had installed themselves in the Protectorate in 1926, after the Rif War. After that, the two of them had devoted their efforts to various enterprises, whose meager returns he had conveniently invested in partying, brothels, and large glasses of Fundador brandy. They hadn’t had children, and when her Francisco vanished, leaving her alone without the contacts in Spain to continue dealing contraband, Candelaria decided to rent an apartment and establish a small boardinghouse. This did not, however, stop her from doing her best to buy, sell, rebuy, resell, sell on credit, exchange, and trade whatever she could lay her hands on. Coins, cigarette cases, stamps, fountain pens, socks, watches, lighters—all of them of shady origin, all with uncertain destinations.

In her house on La Luneta, between the Moorish medina and the newer Spanish ensanche, she indiscriminately lodged anyone who showed up at her door asking for a bed, usually people of little means and even fewer hopes. She treated them like anyone else she met: she tried to strike a bargain. I’ll buy from you, sell you, sort it out for you; you owe me, I owe you, you sort that out for me. But carefully—always with a certain caution—because Candelaria the Matutera, with her tough bearing, her stormy dealings, and that self-confidence seemingly capable of knocking over the very meanest sort, was no fool, and she knew that when it came to Commissioner Vázquez, she’d better not mess around too much. Perhaps a joke here, a sarcastic comment there, but without letting him get anything over her, never overstepping what was legally acceptable because, as she put it herself, “if he catches me up to something, he’ll whisk me off to the police station, and then God only knows.”