María Dueñas - The Time in Between

I followed a soldier along the corridor in the opposite direction. We crossed the main hallway again and went into a new corridor, this one silent and dimly lit. We turned several times, first left, then right, then left again. More or less.

“Would madam like me to wait?” he asked when we’d arrived.

“Thank you, there’s no need, I’ll find my own way.”

I wasn’t too sure of that, but the idea of having a sentry waiting for me made me feel extremely uncomfortable, so once I’d dispatched my escort I did what I needed to do, smoothed out my dress, retouched my hair, and readied myself to go back out. But I didn’t have the heart, and faced with returning to reality my strength failed me. So I decided to treat myself to a few moments of solitude. I opened the window, and through it came the African night with its jasmine scent. I sat down on the windowsill and contemplated the shadow of the palms and heard the distant sound of the conversations in the front garden. I distracted myself without actually doing anything, savoring the tranquillity and allowing my worries to dissipate. After a time, however, in some remote corner of my brain, I heard a call. Tick tock, time to go back. I sighed, got up, and closed the window. I had to return to the world. To mix with those souls with whom I had so little in common, return to the side of that foreigner who had dragged me to this ridiculous party and asked me the most extravagant of favors. For the last time I looked at myself in the mirror, switched off the light, and went out.

I made my way along the dark corridor, turning a corner, then another. I thought I knew where I was going, then found myself confronting a double door I didn’t think I’d seen before. Opening it, I found a dark, empty room. I’d gone wrong somewhere, no doubt, so I changed my route. Another corridor, now turning left, I seemed to recall—but I was wrong again and had gone into a less regal area of the house, without the gleaming wood paneling or oil-painted generals on the walls; probably I was going into some service area. Just relax, I told myself not very convincingly. A vision of the night with the guns, with me in a haik and lost in the alleys of the medina, suddenly fluttered over me. I shook it off, focused, and immediately changed direction again. And straightaway found myself where I’d started, next to the bathroom. So, a false alarm—I wasn’t lost anymore. I thought back to the moment I’d arrived with the soldier and got my bearings. All perfectly clear, problem solved, I thought, making my way toward the exit. And everything did indeed start looking familiar again. A display of antique firearms, framed photographs, hanging flags. I’d seen it all minutes earlier and recognized it all. Even the voices I heard just around the corner that I was about to turn—the same ones I’d heard in the garden in the ridiculous scene with the powder compact.

“We’ll be more comfortable here, my dear Serrano; we’ll be able to talk more calmly here. It’s the room where Colonel Beigbeder usually receives us,” said a man with a thick German accent.

“Perfect,” was his interlocutor’s only reply.

I stopped still, not breathing. Serrano Suñer and at least one German were just a few feet away, approaching along a stretch of corridor at right angles with the one I was walking along. When they or I came around the corner, we’d be face-to-face. My legs trembled at the very thought. In fact, I had nothing to hide; I had no reason to be afraid of the meeting. Except that I didn’t have the strength to strike yet another pretend pose, to allow me to pass once again for an airheaded fool and give some pathetic explanation about a broken tank and puddles of water in order to justify my solitary wanderings through the corridors of the High Commission in the middle of the night. It took me less than a second to weigh my options. I didn’t have time to retrace my steps, and I wanted at all costs to avoid meeting them face-to-face, which meant I couldn’t go backward or forward. That being the case, my only option was sideways, through a closed door. Without giving it a second thought, I opened it and went in.

The room was unlit, but traces of moonlight were coming in through the windows. I leaned my shoulder on the door, waiting for Serrano and his companions to pass by the room and disappear so that I could go out and continue on my way. The garden with its festival lights, the hum of the conversations, and the imperturbable solidity of Marcus Logan suddenly seemed like a paradise to me, but I was afraid this wasn’t the moment for me to reach it. I breathed heavily, with each gulp of air trying to expel a bit of the anxiety from my body. I focused my eyes on my sanctuary, and among the shadows I could make out chairs, armchairs and a glass-fronted bookcase against the wall. There were other pieces of furniture, too, but I didn’t stop to identify them because at that moment something else caught my attention. Close by, behind the door.

“Here we are,” announced the German voice, accompanied by the sound of the door handle releasing the latch.

I moved away with rapid strides and reached a side wall of the room as the door began to open.

“Where might the switch be?” I heard someone say as I slipped behind a sofa. The moment my body touched the floor, the light came on.

“Well then, here we are. Do sit down, my friend, please.”

I was lying facedown, my left cheek on the cold of the floor tiles, controlling my breathing and with my eyes opened wide, filled with terror. At first not daring to breathe in, to swallow, or to move so much as an eyelash. Like a marble statue, like someone shot but not yet dead.

The German seemed to be acting as the host and to be addressing just one interlocutor—I knew this because I only heard two voices, and because under the sofa, from my unexpected hiding place and looking between the legs of the furniture, I could only make out two pairs of feet.

“Is the high commissioner aware that we’re here?” asked Serrano.

“He’s busy looking after the guests; we can talk to him later if you wish,” replied the German vaguely.

I heard them sit: their bodies settled, the springs creaked. The Spaniard sat in an armchair; I saw the cuffs of his dark trousers, their creases well ironed, his black socks around his thin ankles lost in a pair of conscientiously shined shoes. The German positioned himself opposite him, on the right-hand end of the sofa behind which I was hiding. His legs were thicker and his footwear less refined. If I’d reached out I could almost have tickled him.

They talked for a long while: I couldn’t have said how long exactly, but it was enough that my neck was aching horribly, enough that I was desperate to scratch an itch, struggling to stop myself from shouting, crying, running out of the room. I heard the sound of a lighter and the room filled with cigarette smoke. From floor level I saw Serrano’s legs cross and uncross countless times; the German, meanwhile, barely moved. I tried to tame my fear, find the least uncomfortable position, and beg heaven that none of my limbs would demand any unexpected movement.

My field of vision was very small, and my capacity for movement nil. I had access to nothing but what was floating in the air and coming in my ear: to what they were talking about. So I concentrated on the thread of conversation; since I’d been unable to obtain any interesting information during the powder-compact encounter, I thought that this might be of interest to Marcus Logan. Or at least that it would keep me distracted and prevent my mind from becoming so unsettled that I’d end up losing my grip on reality.

I heard them talk about installations and transmissions, about ships and aircraft, quantities of gold, German marks, pesetas, bank accounts. Signatures and terms of payment, supplies; balances of power, numbers of companies, ports and loyalties. I learned that the German was Johannes Bernhardt, that Serrano was using Franco as an excuse to put more pressure on him and avoid acceding to certain conditions. And even though I was missing information that would have allowed me to understand the whole situation, I could tell that the two men were both concerned that the matter they were discussing should turn out well.