Luis Leante - See How Much I Love You

The patient screams and then opens her eyes. The nurse takes her hand at once, without saying a word, just looking her in the eyes as one would look at a newcomer. She tries to guess the woman’s age: forty, forty-five. She knows that people elsewhere age better than in the Sahara.

‘Aza, Aza!’

She’s delirious, no doubt. The nurse touches her forehead, trying to calm her down. Now she’s certain that the woman can see and hear her. She whispers a few words in hasania, vaguely hoping that she will be understood. She gives the woman some water, speaks to her in French, and tries to make herself understood in English. She tries all the languages she knows.

‘Aza, Aza!’ screams the woman again, now with her eyes wide open. ‘They’ve killed Aza!’

When she hears this, the nurse shivers. She struggles to keep smiling.

‘ Hola . How are you feeling? Are you Spanish?’

The woman looks at her and grows calmer. She grasps the nurse’s hand firmly.

‘Where am I?’

‘In hospital. You’re alive, out of danger. You’ve been asleep for several days.’

‘They’ve killed Aza.’

The nurse thinks the woman is still delirious. She hasn’t left the side of her bed for many days. That lifeless face caught her attention from the moment a military vehicle left her at the hospital. The nurse had been the only one who seemed certain that the woman would live. Now she is sure that God has answered her prayers.

‘You’ve got baraka4 ,’ the nurse says. ‘You’ve been blessed by God.’

The nurse removes her melfa , revealing her shiny black hair. She cannot stop smiling. She doesn’t want to let go of the unknown woman’s hand, not even to go and spread the news that she’s finally conscious after all these weeks. She puts a hand on her heart and then places her open palm on the woman’s forehead.

‘My name’s Layla,’ she says. ‘What’s yours?’

Layla’s smile fills the woman with peace. She makes an effort to speak:

‘Montse. My name is Montse.’

1. Burnous : A long cloak of coarse woollen fabric.

2. Melfa : Traditional Saharawi woman’s dress made of a single cloth wrapped around the entire body, including the head. Similar to the Indian sari. Can be of many different colours.

3. Hammada : A type of desert landscape consisting of largely barren, hard, rocky plateaus, with very little sand. Hammada areas form seventy per cent of the Sahara desert.

4. Baraka : An Arabic term for blessing or luck

CORPORAL SANTIAGO SAN ROMÁN HAD BEEN WATCHING the unusual troop movements all day, from the barrack hut that served as a guardroom. It was four by six metres, and had a mattress on a metal bed base, a desk, a chair, a filthy latrine and a tap.

Dear Montse: soon it will be a year since I last heard from you.

It had taken him nearly an hour to write down the first sentence, but now it sounded affected, unnatural. The noise of the planes landing at El Aaiún aerodrome brought him back to reality. He looked at the sheet of paper and didn’t even recognise his own handwriting. He could not make out much from the window of the hut except the security zone near the runway and part of the hangar. However, he could clearly see the depot and the Land Rovers that were constantly going in and out, the trucks loaded with new legionnaires and the official cars mysteriously coming and going. For the first time in seven days no one had brought him any food, and neither did they open the door in the middle of the afternoon for his walk to one end of the runway and back. In the last week he had barely exchanged a word with anyone, only eaten stale bread and tasteless soup, and seldom taken his eyes off either the door or the window whilst he waited to be collected at any moment, and put on a plane that would take him away from Africa for ever. They had told him, in a threatening tone, that it was only a matter of a day or two, and that later he’d have the rest of his life to miss the Sahara.

Time had stood still for Corporal San Román for the last seven days, ever since he’d been transferred from the guardroom at the barracks of the 4th Regiment of the Legion to the aerodrome, thence to be taken to a military court in Gran Canaria, far from the uprisings that were taking place in the African province. But these orders seemed to have been mislaid en route, and the procedure had ground to a halt without explanation. There was no difference between night and day now: his nerves and the anxiety of the wait gave him insomnia. And the fleas in the room did not help his discomfort and unease. His only break from the monotony was the few moments he stood at the end of the runway, guarded by an old legionnaire who always threatened him in the same way before climbing up to his watchtower. ‘If you take more than ten steps at any one time or start running, I’ll blow your brains out.’ The man would then lazily get out his Cetme rifle, to make sure that the Corporal knew that he meant it. This was the only moment of the day when he was allowed outside the prison; he would scan the horizon, trying to make out the city’s white rooftops, and fill his lungs with the dry air as if he were breathing it in for the last time. But on this November day no one had brought round his breakfast or lunch, and no guard had replied to his shouts pleading for food. There was no sign of life at all near the barracks. All the activity was concentrated around the runway and the hangars. No one came to open the door when it was the time for his walk. By mid afternoon he was sure that something out of the ordinary was going on.

It was only when the sun was about to touch the horizon that he heard the engine of an approaching Land Rover, and when he looked out of the window he saw the headlights of the vehicle as it went round the barracks. He sat on his mattress, trying to stay calm, until he heard the door being unbolted. Then Guillermo appeared in full regimental dress, carrying his white gloves in his hand, as if ready to go on parade. Behind him was a guard whom he’d never seen before, with his Cetme rifle slung over his shoulder.

‘You’ve got a visitor,’ the guard said, and closed the door behind Guillermo.

Corporal San Román didn’t even have time to ask for his food. Suddenly he felt dirty. He was ill at ease in front of his friend; or rather, embarrassed. He stood by the window, leaning against the wall. They had not seen each other for over twenty days, ever since that fateful afternoon when he set out for a walk carrying a bag that wasn’t his.

Guillermo was dressed impeccably, but didn’t know what to say. He held his legionnaire’s hat with both hands, crumpling it against his gloves. He appeared tense and was incapable of concealing it. Eventually he said:

‘Have you heard the news?’

Santiago didn’t reply, but he braced himself for the worst. Not that there was anything that could make things any worse.

‘El Caudillo is dead,’ Guillermo said, trying to get a reaction out of his friend. ‘He died in the early hours of the morning.’

Corporal San Román turned away to look out of the window. The news didn’t seem to affect him. Despite the late hour, the planes’ activity had not stopped.

‘So that’s what it was.’

‘What?’

‘That’s why they’ve been coming and going all day. Troops are being transported all the time. But I don’t know if they’re coming in or going away. It’s been chaos for a week, and no one explains a thing to me. There’s something else, isn’t there?’

Guillermo sat on the dirty, sweaty mattress. He didn’t dare to look his friend in the eye.

‘Morocco is invading us.’

On the desk lay a letter that would never be written, let alone posted. They both looked at the yellowing piece of paper and their eyes met briefly.