María Dueñas - The Time in Between

No one seemed surprised at the arrival of a Moorish woman at that time of the morning; they must have thought I was Jamila. I stood there contemplating the scene for a few seconds, still trapped in my haik, until a potent hissing from the corridor caught my attention. Turning my head I saw Candelaria waving her arms like a woman possessed while holding a broom in one hand and the dustpan in the other.

“Come inside, honey,” she commanded, agitated. “Come in and tell me, I’ve been sick with worry not knowing what happened.”

I’d decided to keep the more shocking details to myself and share with her only the final result. That we no longer had the pistols, and we did have the money: that was what Candelaria wanted to hear, and that’s what I was going to tell her. The rest of the story I’d keep to myself.

I talked as she removed the covering from my head.

“It all turned out fine,” I whispered.

“Ay, my angel, come here and let me hug you! And isn’t my Sira worth more than all the gold in Peru, isn’t my girl greater than the Lord’s day!” squealed the Matutera. She threw the cleaning things on the floor, captured me in her bosom, and covered my face with big noisy kisses.

“Be quiet, Candelaria, for God’s sake; quiet, they’ll hear you,” I objected, fear still clinging to my skin. With no intention of heeding my warning, she strung her jubilation into a thread of curses directed at the policeman who had turned the house upside down earlier that night.

“What do I care if they hear me now that it’s all over? Damn you to hell, Palomares, you and all your kin! Damn you to hell—you couldn’t catch me!”

Sensing that this explosion of emotion after a long night of nerves wasn’t going to end there, I grabbed Candelaria’s arm and dragged her to my room, as she continued raining down curses.

“Screw you, son of a bitch! Screw you, Palomares, you didn’t find a thing in my house, even knocking over my furniture and tearing open the mattresses!”

“Quiet now, Candelaria, once and for all be quiet,” I insisted. “Forget about Palomares, calm down and let me tell you how it went.”

“Yes, child, yes, down to the last detail,” she said, finally trying to calm herself. She was still breathing hard, her housecoat was misbuttoned, and locks of tousled hair had escaped from her hairnet. She looked pitiful, and yet she radiated enthusiasm. “Sure enough, the big brute came at five in the morning and chucked us out into the street… and also… also… Well then, let’s forget about him, what’s past is past. You talk now, my jewel, tell me everything nice and slow.”

I narrated my adventure to her briefly, as I removed the bundle of money that the man from Larache had hung around my neck. I didn’t mention escaping out of the window, nor the threatening shouts of the soldier, nor the pistols abandoned under the lone sign for the Malalien stop. I just handed her the contents of the pouch and then started to take off the haik and the nightdress I was wearing underneath.

“You can go rot, Palomares!” she shouted, laughing, throwing the banknotes in the air. “Go rot in hell, you haven’t caught me!”

Then her clamor stopped dead, and it wasn’t because she had suddenly recovered her good sense, but because what she had before her eyes prevented her from carrying on her excitement.

“But you’ve been massacred, child! You look just like the Christ of the Five Wounds!” she exclaimed on seeing my naked body. “Does it hurt a lot, my child?”

“A little,” I murmured, as I let myself drop like a dead weight onto the bed. I was telling a lie. The truth was that I was hurting right down to my soul.

“And you’re filthy as if you’d just been rolling around in a rubbish dump,” she said, her good sense fully recovered. “I’m going to put some pots of water on the fire to prepare you a nice hot bath. And then some liniment compresses for you where you’re hurt, and then…”

I didn’t hear any more. Before the Matutera had finished her sentence, I’d fallen asleep.

As soon as the house had been put back together and we’d returned to our normal routines, Candelaria set about looking for an apartment in the ensanche in which she could install my business. Tetouan’s ensanche, so different from the Moorish medina, had been built according to European standards to meet the needs of the Spanish Protectorate: to house its civil and military installations and to provide lodging and businesses for the families from the Peninsula that were gradually making Morocco their permanent home. The new buildings, with white façades, ornamented balconies, and a look that was somewhere between modern and Moorish, lined the broad streets and spacious squares that made up a harmonious grid. Through them walked well-coiffed women and men in hats, uniformed soldiers, children dressed in the European style, and formal couples arm in arm. There were trolleys and a few automobiles, cake shops, brand-new cafés, and exclusive up-to-date shops. Order and calm permeated this universe, in contrast to the hustle and bustle, the smells and the voices of the souqs in the medina, which seemed to be somewhere out of the past, surrounded by walls and opening out to the world through seven gates. And between the two spaces, the Arab and the European, almost like a border, was La Luneta, the street I was about to leave behind me.

I knew that when Candelaria finally managed to track down a place for me to set up my workshop, my life would take a new turn and I would yet again have to mold myself to it. In anticipation of this, I decided to change: to remake myself altogether, unburdening myself of the old baggage to start from scratch. In the previous few months I’d slammed the door on my entire yesterday; I’d stopped being a humble dressmaker and transformed myself successively into a whole heap of different women. A civil-service candidate, heiress of a major industrialist, globe-trotting lover to a scoundrel, hopeful aspirant to run an Argentine company, frustrated mother of an unborn child, a woman suspected of fraud and theft in debt up to her eyebrows, and a gunrunner camouflaged as an innocent local woman. In even less time now I’d have to forge a new personality for myself, since none of the earlier ones would do. My old world was at war, and my love had evaporated, taking with him my possessions and my illusions. The child who had never been born had dissolved into a puddle of congealed blood as I got off a bus, there was a file with my details circulating through the police forces of two countries and three cities, and the small arsenal of pistols that I’d transported attached to my skin might already have taken a life. Intending to turn my back on such pitiful baggage, I decided to confront the future from behind a mask of security and courage, preventing people from seeing my fear, my miseries, and the dagger that was still piercing my soul.

I decided to begin with the outside, to give myself the façade of a woman who was worldly and independent, to keep people from seeing my reality as the victim of a bastard and the dark origins of the establishment I was about to open. To do that I’d have to put a layer of makeup over the past, invent a present in great haste, and plan out a future as false as it was magnificent. And I’d have to act quickly; I had to begin right away. Not one more tear shed, not another lament. Not a single submissive look back. Everything should be present, everything should be today. So I chose a new personality that I drew out of my sleeve like a magician might whip out a string of handkerchiefs or the ace of hearts. I decided to transform myself, and my choice was to adopt the appearance of a woman who was solid, solvent, experienced. I’d have to fight hard to get my ignorance mistaken for haughtiness, my uncertainty for sweet apathy, for no one even to suspect my fears, hidden in the firm tread of a pair of high heels and a look of confident determination. For no one to guess at the immense effort I was still making every day to overcome my sadness, one bit at a time.