In a provincial garrison far removed from the capital, Gustavo Morante was closely following developments, gathering information, and laying his plans. When he had sufficient evidence of the illegal acts of the regime, he held secret conclaves with a number of his comrades-in-arms. He had lost his illusions, convinced now that the dictatorship was not a temporary stage on the road to progress but, rather, a final stage on the road to injustice. He could not bear any longer the repressive machinations he had served so loyally, believing them always to be in the best interests of the nation. Terror, far from securing order, as he had been taught in officers’ training, had sown a hatred whose harvest would inevitably be greater violence. His years as a career officer had given him an intimate knowledge of the institution, and he decided to use that knowledge to overthrow the General. It was his opinion that this was a task appropriate for younger officers. And he believed that because of the failure of the economy, the increasing inequality among social classes, and the brutality of the system and corruption of high officials, other military men must harbor the same doubts as he—others, like himself, who wanted to cleanse the image of the armed forces and rescue it from the depths to which it had sunk. A less audacious and impassioned man could perhaps have achieved his objective, but Morante had such a compelling urgency to obey the dictates of his heart that he committed the error of underestimating the Intelligence Service, whose tentacles reached everywhere. He was arrested, and he survived seventy-two hours. Not even the experts could force him to divulge the names of others involved in the planned rebellion; he was stripped of his rank and at dawn his corpse was symbolically shot in the back as a lesson to others. In spite of every precaution, the story leaked out. When Francisco Leal learned what had happened, he felt respect for the Bridegroom of Death. With men like that in the ranks, there was still hope, he said to his father. Rebellion cannot be controlled forever. It will grow and spread through the barracks until there are not enough bullets to crush it. On that day, the soldiers will join the people in the street, and from shared grief and vanquished violence a new nation will emerge.
“You’re daydreaming, son!” was Professor Leal’s reply. “Even if there are military men like that Morante, the essence of the armed forces will never change. Militarism has already caused too much harm to humanity. It should be abolished!”
* * *
At last Irene Beltrán was well enough to move about. José Leal obtained false passports for her and for Francisco, to which they affixed photographs of their new faces. They were unrecognizable: Irene’s hair was short, and dyed, and contact lenses had changed the color of her eyes; Francisco was wearing a heavy mustache and eyeglasses. After their initial difficulty in recognizing each other, they became used to their disguises and forgot the faces they had fallen in love with. Francisco was surprised to find himself trying to remember the color of Irene’s hair, which had so fascinated him. And now the moment had come for them to leave behind their familiar world to become a part of the enormous wave of nomads that characterized their age: expatriates, émigrés, exiles, refugees.
On the eve of their departure, the three Leals came to tell the fugitives goodbye. Mario closed himself in his kitchen for hours, and would not allow anyone to help with the dinner preparations. He put his best tablecloth on the table and arranged flowers and fruit in an attempt to mitigate slightly the tragedy in which they were so inextricably enmeshed. He selected discreet music, lighted candles, set wine to cool, feigning a euphoria he was far from feeling. But it was impossible to avoid the subject of the imminent parting, and of the dangers that awaited the couple the moment they stepped outside this haven.
“After you get across the border, children, I think you should go to our house in Teruel,” Hilda Leal said suddenly, to everyone’s surprise, for it had been thought that the house was one of the memories erased by her amnesia.
She had forgotten nothing. She described the enormous shadow of the massif of Albarracín outlined against the evening sky, not unlike the mountains that stretched the length of her adopted country; the naked vineyards, sad and twisted in winter but storing up sap for the explosion of grapes in the summer; the dry, precipitous landscape ringed by mountains; the house that one day she had left forever to follow her man to war: the noble, rough dwelling of stone, wood, and red roof tiles, the small wrought-iron-covered windows, the high mantelpiece over which Mudéjar plates were set into the wall, like eyes observing down through the years. She remembered with precision the smell of woodsmoke when the fire was lighted in the evening, the fragrance of the jasmine and mint beneath the window, the coolness of the well water, the large linen chest, the woolen blankets on the beds. A long silence followed her recollections, as if she had been transported in spirit to her former hearth.
“The house still belongs to us, and it is waiting for you,” she said finally, with those words erasing time and distance.
Francisco reflected on the capricious fate that had obliged his parents to abandon their home and go into exile—only for him, many years later and for the same reasons, to reclaim it. He imagined himself unlocking the door with the same turn of the wrist his mother had used to lock it almost half a century before, and he felt as if during that time his family had wandered in a great circle. His father guessed what he was thinking, and spoke of what it had meant to them to leave their own land and seek new horizons: the courage that was needed to confront suffering; how they had fallen, and gathered strength, and risen again, time after time, while learning to adapt and survive among strangers. Everyplace they had stopped, they had made a home with vigor and determination, even if only for a week or a month, because nothing wears down inner strength as quickly as living from day to day.
“All you will have is the present. Waste no energy crying over yesterday or dreaming of tomorrow. Nostalgia is fatiguing and destructive, it is the vice of the expatriate. You must put down roots as if they were forever, you must have a sense of permanence,” concluded Professor Leal, and his son remembered that the elderly actress had said the same.
The Professor drew Francisco aside. His eyes were griefstricken and he was trembling as he embraced his son. He took a small object from his pocket and shyly handed it to Francisco: it was his slide rule, his only treasure, a symbol of the impotence and desolation he felt at this separation.
“It is just a keepsake, son. It won’t help you to make calculations about life,” he said hoarsely.
And, in truth, that was how he felt. Reaching the end of his life, he knew the futility of calculations. He could never have imagined that one day he would find himself, weary and sad, with one son in the grave, another in exile, his grandchildren lost to him in some remote village, and José, his only remaining son, in constant jeopardy from the Political Police. Francisco thought of the residents of The Will of God Manor and bent to kiss his father’s forehead, wishing with every ounce of his being that he could twist the designs of fate so his parents would not have to be alone when they died.
Seeing his guests so disheartened, Mario decided to serve dinner. They stood around the table, eyes moist, hands shaking, and lifted their glasses in a toast.
“I offer a toast to Irene and Francisco. May good fortune go with you, my children,” said Professor Leal.
“And my toast is that your love will grow with every passing day,” Hilda added, unable to look at them without revealing her anguish.
For a while everyone made an effort to be festive; they praised the delicious food and expressed their gratitude for the many kindnesses of their noble friend, but soon despondency spread like a shadow that covered them all. In the dining room there was no sound but the clinking of silverware and glass.
Hilda, sitting beside her most beloved son, could not take her eyes from him, imprinting his features forever in her memory: his gaze, the fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the slim, long-fingered hands. Although her knife and fork were in her hands,
her food remained untouched. Stern when it came to her own grief, she held back her tears, but could not hide her suffering. Francisco put his arm around his mother’s shoulders, and kissed her temple, as shaken as she.
“If anything should happen to you, son, I couldn’t bear it,” Hilda whispered into his ear.
“Nothing is going to happen, Mama. Don’t worry.”
“When will we see you again?”
“Soon, I’m sure. And until then we will be together in spirit, as we always have been. . . .”
Dinner ended in silence. Then they sat in the living room, staring at one another, smiling without joy, until the approaching curfew forced the moment of farewell. Francisco led his parents to the door. At that hour the street was empty, quiet, shuttered; there was no light in neighboring windows, and their voices and footsteps resounded dully in the desolate air like an ominous omen. They would have to hurry if they were to reach home in time. Tense, beyond words, they embraced for one last time. Father and son clasped each other for a long moment filled with unspoken promises and guidance. Then Francisco felt his mother in his arms, tiny and fragile, her adored face unseen against his chest, her tears at last overflowing, her slender hands convulsively stroking the cloth of his jacket, clinging like a desperate child. It was José who gently forced them apart, made his mother turn and walk away without looking back. Francisco watched the figures of his parents, hesitant, vulnerable, bowed, grow smaller in the distance. In contrast to his parents, his brother seemed solid and resolute, a man who recognized his risks and accepted his destiny. When they turned the corner, a harsh sob of farewell escaped Francisco’s breast, and the tears he had held back during that terrible evening rushed to his eyes. He sank to the threshold, his face buried in his hands, crushed by ineffable sadness. There Irene found him and sat by his side in silence.
* * *
Over the years Francisco Leal had never bothered to count the numbers of desperate people he had helped. In the beginning he had acted alone, but gradually a group of totally committed friends formed around him, united by the goal of aiding those in trouble, hiding them whenever possible or using various routes to help them escape across the border. At first these activities were simply humanitarian and, in a way, unavoidable labor, but with time that labor had become a passion. Francisco threaded his way through danger with mixed emotions, a combination of rage and fierce joy. He knew the gambler’s vertigo, that constant tempting of fate, but not even in moments of greatest daring did he abandon caution, because he knew that he would pay for any rash act with his life. Every move was planned down to the last detail, and he always tried to insure that an operation would be carried out without any surprises. This had allowed him to survive on the edge of the abyss longer than others who played the same game. The Political Police had no inkling that his small organization even existed. His brother José and Mario often worked with him. The priest had been detained on several occasions, although he had been questioned only in regard to his activities on behalf of the Vicariate and the working-class neighborhood in which he lived, where his cries for justice and courage in confronting authority were notorious. Mario, for his part, had the perfect cover. The Colonels’ wives flocked to his beauty salon, and frequently a bulletproof limousine came for him and drove him to the underground palace where the First Lady waited in the glitter and ostentation of her chambers. Mario advised her in the choice of her wardrobe and her jewels; he created new hairstyles to accentuate the hauteur of power; he offered his advice on the Italian raffia, Pharaonic marble, and cut-glass chandeliers imported to ornament the mansion. All the most important people attended Mario’s receptions, and behind the coromandel screens in his antique shop, negotiations were carried out with youths blessed with gifts for forbidden pleasures. The Political Police followed their orders not to interfere in his smuggling, his trafficking, his pipelines for discreet vices, never imagining how the distinguished stylist was pulling the wool over their eyes.
Francisco had supervised his group in difficult assignments, but not until recently had he anticipated that one day he would use their talents to save his life and Irene’s.
It was eight o’clock in the morning when a truck stopped before Mario’s apartment building, loaded with exotic plants and dwarf trees for his terraces. Three servicemen, dressed in overalls, plastic helmets, and fumigation masks, unloaded tropical philodendrons, flowering camellias, and miniature orange trees; they connected hoses to the insecticide tanks and proceeded to spray the bushes, their faces covered by their masks. Then, while one man stood guard in the hallway, the other two, at a sign from Mario, slipped out of their uniforms. Irene and Francisco quickly donned the overalls and masks, then unhurriedly joined the driver, and all three drove off without a second glance from anyone. Irene and Francisco spent some time circling the city, leaving the truck and twice changing taxis; finally they were met on a street corner by a grandmother with an angelically innocent face, who handed them the keys and documents to a small automobile.
“So far, so good. How do you feel?” Francisco asked, getting in behind the wheel.
“Fine,” replied Irene, so pale she looked as if she might dissolve into mist.
They drove south, out of the city. Their plan was to reach a certain mountain pass and cross the border before the police net closed around them. The name and description of Irene Beltrán was in the hands of authorities from one end of the country to the other; their difficulty was compounded by the fact that they would not be safe even in neighboring dictatorships, because those governments exchanged information, prisoners, and corpses. In such transactions, there were at times too many dead on one side and too many identity cards on the other, causing considerable confusion when it was time to identify the victims. Thus people were arrested in one country, only to turn up dead in another under a different name, and families who wanted to bury their dead had been known to receive a stranger’s body. Although Francisco had contacts on the other side of the border, he knew that they must make their way as quickly as possible either to a democratic country on their own continent or to their final destination—the mother country, as those who fled Latin-American countries grew to think of Spain.
They made the journey in two stages, because Irene was still very weak and nauseated and could not bear many hours in the car, in pain and without resting. My poor darling, you have grown so thin during the last weeks; you have lost your freckles and golden skin but you are as beautiful as ever, even without your long, queenly hair. I don’t know how to help you; I wish I could take your suffering and your uncertainties onto myself. Damn the fate that has brought us to this, swaying along in this car with terror gripping our guts. Irene, how I wish we could go back to the carefree days when we used to walk Cleo in the park on the Hill; when we sat side by side beneath the trees and gazed at the city spread out below our feet; when we drank wine, feeling we were sitting on top of the world, free and immortal. I never imagined that I would be driving you down this interminable, nightmarish road with every nerve on edge, jumping at the slightest sound, constantly on my guard, suspicious of everything and everyone. Since that terrible moment when the hail of bullets almost cut you in two, I have had no rest, either waking or sleeping, Irene. I must be strong, larger than life, invincible, so that nothing can harm you, so that I can protect you from pain and violence. When I see you like this, lying back against your seat, eyes closed, limp and half dead with fatigue, tortured by every lurch of the car, my chest tightens with terrible anxiety, with the yearning to take care of you, the fear I may lose you, the desire to stay by your side forever and keep you from all harm, to watch over your sleep, to make your days happy. . . .
As it grew dark, they stopped at a small provincial hotel. Irene’s weakness, her faltering step, and the somnambulistic air that had sunk into her bones stirred the compassion of the innkeeper, who accompanied them to their room and insisted on serving them food. Francisco removed Iren
e’s clothing and checked the light bandages she wore as protection; then he helped her into bed. A waiter brought soup and a glass of warm wine with sugar and cinnamon, but she was so exhausted she could not even look at them. Francisco lay down by her side; she put her arm around his waist, rested her head on his shoulder, sighed, and was immediately asleep. He lay completely still, smiling in the darkness, happy as always when they were together. The intimacy they had shared these last weeks still seemed a miracle. He knew this woman’s most subtle secrets; the smoky eyes that could turn savage with pleasure, or gratefully moist as they carried out the inventory of their love, held no mysteries for him; he knew her body so intimately that he could trace it from memory, and he was sure that as long as he lived he would be able to recall her smooth, firm geography; even so, each time he held her in his arms he was overcome by the same suffocating emotions he had felt the first time they made love.
The next morning, Irene awakened feeling as cheerful as if she were waking from a night of love, but her good spirits could not disguise the waxen pallor of her skin and the dark, unhealthy circles under her eyes. Francisco brought her a large breakfast, hoping she might regain a little strength, but she barely tasted it. She lay staring out the windows, absorbing the fact that spring had passed. Having lain so long in the lap of death, her life had taken on new meaning. The world seemed miraculous to her and she was thankful for its most inconsequential detail.
Early, because they had hours still to travel, they climbed into the car and continued on their way. They drove through the inebriating light of a small village, passing carts of fresh vegetables and vendors with trays of trinkets, and bicycles and broken-down buses filled to bursting. Church bells were ringing, and two ancient women dressed in black tottered along, all mourning veils and widows’ prayer books. They drove past a line of schoolchildren being led toward the plaza by their teacher, singing, Little white pony, on this fair morn, carry me back to where I was born. On the air came the fragrance of freshly baked bread and the song of cicadas and thrushes. Everything looked clean, orderly, tranquil; people were calmly and peacefully going about their daily business. For a moment Irene and Francisco doubted their sanity. Were they delirious, the victims of a horrible fantasy? Could it be true that no danger threatened them? Was it possible they were fleeing from their own shadows? But then they felt the false documents burning a hole in their pockets, they looked at their transformed faces, and they remembered the turmoil of the mine. No, they had not lost their senses. It was the world that was insane.