Sira, page 22
The previous evening, after confronting Olivia, I’d asked Dominic to take care of everything. To liquidate what Marcus had left me and my son, to assure Olivia that I had no intention of throwing her out of what had been her home. To pay her whatever amount he considered appropriate and deposit the rest in a bank account for a time, until I knew where I was going to settle. I had no desire to stay in England, thank you. I’d had enough.
The first thing I did the next day was call Ángel Ara.
“I’ve finished my notes and I’m ready. If the matter of the approval has been sorted out, we can start right away. I don’t have long. I’m leaving London soon.”
“It’s as if you read my mind, my friend. I was just about to call you. We start tomorrow at nine.”
I arrived five minutes early and he was already there waiting for me. I told him my ideas, and he accepted all my notes enthusiastically.
“They’re fabulous images of present-day Jerusalem. Our listeners are going to be captivated. Magnificent, real, fresh, incisive, illustrative . . .”
I let him go on, though his flood of superlatives didn’t give me much pleasure. I’d simply described what the city was like in the year and a half I spent there, without fig leaves or artifice. I hadn’t gone into painful private matters like Marcus’s death, or personal details of any kind. Nor had I mentioned the reality of the attacks, the everyday conflicts, the controversies, the different sides of the argument, the anguish, and the hardship.
We worked without rest, first structuring the notes, him sitting at the typewriter, me offering suggestions, making changes and corrections as we went—preparing, essentially, the text that would later become a voice recording. We were putting the finishing touches to it in the office adjoining the studio when there came a knock on the door. Through the glass we saw George Camacho. He came in and greeted us with his usual amiable courtesy before, to my astonishment, asking Ara to leave us alone for a moment.
He got straight to the point.
“I have a message for you. Highly confidential. I ask that you treat it with the utmost discretion.”
A cold sweat broke out all over my body.
“I must confess that this whole business is taking a most surprising turn. During the investigation into the matter of your approval to work with us, it seems some aspects . . . some unusual particulars emerged.”
His tone was as modulated as ever, but even so, he sounded serious.
“There are certain people who, having learned of your presence in London, would like to speak to you, Señora Bonnard. I will take the liberty to ask you, please, to listen to them.”
I was alarmed, taken back to a time when my work involved clandestine messages, furtive meetings, and secrecy.
He concluded his message.
“If you’d be kind enough to accept, a car is waiting for you at the entrance.”
There were no windows in that room next door to the recording studio, nowhere to allow my gaze to wander while I tried to take in what he was saying. So I focused on my hands, examining them while I weighed up what my intuition was telling me.
A few long moments passed as he waited patiently.
“All right, my esteemed friend,” I said finally, looking up from my fingers. “I suppose I’ll listen to those gentlemen, as you ask. But we’ll do it on my terms, no orders or demands. I’m not going to get into any car right now. Nor will I meet anyone where they tell me to.”
George Camacho was looking at me with astonishment. I stood up so that we were on the same level.
“If it’s not too much trouble, please tell the people who sent you that they’ll have the chance to see me at the Dorchester at three o’clock this afternoon. In fact, no, sorry—half past three would be better.”
I remembered the name because it was the hotel I’d visited in my search for Rosalinda, when I’d found no trace of her. I rounded off my effrontery with a smile as false as it was luminous, a trick I also had to rescue from the depths of my memory, as I hadn’t used it for a very long time.
He left bewildered, unable to understand me. Ara was back at once with a couple of tasteless sandwiches: our lunch. I neither explained nor did he ask, and we continued as if nothing had happened. At ten minutes before three, we’d finished. I managed to flag down a cab, and at twenty past three I was at the entrance to the Dorchester. My legs were almost out of the car when I drew back and asked the driver to start off again.
“Where shall I take you, madam?”
“Let’s go for a quiet drive,” I replied. “Anywhere you want to show me.”
Through the window I contemplated Buckingham Palace, the legendary Big Ben, the broad, dark Thames, the Houses of Parliament. At forty minutes past three we drove along Park Lane again, and I finally got out of the taxi in front of the hotel. I was usually a punctual person, but this time I was late on purpose. If the meeting was going to be what I suspected it would be, this time it would be me who decided the time that it would happen.
They were waiting for me in an out-of-the-way area, and they stood as soon as they saw me walk into the Dorchester’s elegant lobby. They were wearing suits, their hair neat, and their faces clean shaven. One of them was blond, in his thirties; the other, more mature, had some elegant gray hairs and was wearing glasses and a beautiful silk tie. I didn’t know either of them, but I’d met a few of their style, so they seemed in a way familiar. I greeted them with outward confidence and sat down gracefully, crossing my legs as I always used to do. They both had cups of coffee in front of them. I declined when they offered to get me something.
The nearby tables were unoccupied, but even if they hadn’t been, they were distant enough for the risk of our conversation reaching ears beyond our own to be minimal. After our introductions, they offered me their condolences for Marcus’s death and reiterated how sorry they were for the deplorable incident of my rejection by the BBC.
“A section manageress made an imprudent mistake,” the elder one said, “but it’s all resolved now. The plus side, for us, is that thanks to this error, the director of the Latin American Service asked for an explanation, assuming it was a political veto, and the matter was passed through the relevant authorities until we learned of it. Which is how we located you. I must admit, finding that you’d settled in London came as a complete surprise to us.”
The younger man removed some papers from a clipboard and passed them to his superior, who lowered his gold-rimmed spectacles to the tip of his nose and proceeded in a soft, articulate tone.
“To refresh our memories a little, according to our files, you, the British subject Sira Bonnard, previously the Spanish citizen Sira Quiroga, were employed by the Special Operations Executive from 1940 to 1945 under the assumed identity of a Moroccan dressmaker, Arish Agoriuq, with code name Sidi. Your base of operations was in Spain, with occasional relocations to Portugal. You performed your duties with the utmost competence, thoroughness, dedication, and integrity at all times.”
I confirmed as much without opening my mouth. The other man then spoke.
“You should know that, to verify these points and obtain a more personal appraisal, we took the liberty of consulting the officer who originally recruited you.”
A tiny hint of a smile appeared at the corners of my mouth as I whispered a surname.
“Hillgarth.”
The terrace of the American Legation in Tangier came to mind: it was where I’d met him and where my training began. He’d issued orders and guidance to me with efficient aplomb, instructing me on how to communicate using Morse, the norms for transmitting messages, rules for sending and receiving. He’d also provided me with the list of Nazi wives who were to become my customers, and he’d advised me on how to behave so as not to arouse suspicion: whom to approach and whom to steer clear of, the places to go and those to avoid at any cost.
Drawing me from my torrent of memories, the fair-haired man spoke again.
“That’s right. Captain Alan Hillgarth, naval attaché at our embassy in Madrid during the war, gave you a glowing report. I don’t know if you’re aware that, after the war, he decided to retire both from the navy and from our activities. He now lives in Ireland, from where he was pleased to respond to our inquiry and sends you his warmest regards. He also requested a postal address at which to write to you personally.”
People were beginning to sit at the tables around us, and the murmur of conversation was louder, albeit muted. The waiters were beginning to push trollies and serve tea. Teaspoons clinked, voices multiplied. The older man saved me the discomfort of admitting to them that I had neither fixed residence nor any current prospect of finding one.
“Are you sure you won’t have anything?”
Perfectly sure. Given the privations of life on the Boltons, if I hadn’t felt so tense, I might have appreciated a full afternoon tea like the one at Fortnum & Mason, with sandwiches, scones, and cakes. I might have even snuck a few into my handkerchief to take to Víctor, who would’ve been delighted to have them. But I declined again. All I wanted was for them to get to the point without further delay. They, however, continued to take turns speaking in some sort of coordinated preamble.
“As you know, Mrs. Bonnard,” the older man began, “everything has changed radically these past two years. There is a new world order, and we must adapt to situations with wholly different dynamics than those from the war years. We no longer face troubles as worrying as the ones that occurred in wartime, but there are other scenarios that require close attention.”
Of course I knew that. All too well. I knew that neither the locations nor the conflicts were the same as they’d been. How could I not know it, having lost Marcus in one such inferno? But I said nothing and waited for them to finish.
They continued with their verbal choreography.
“Which is why, for one of our new missions, we need someone with a very specific profile.”
“A judicious and worldly person who knows the terrain in which she must operate, who has a command of the language and is able to act with discretion, shrewdness, and tact.”
“The tasks we require such a person for are urgent.”
“The problem is that, until now, we hadn’t managed to find anyone who meets our criteria.”
One, two, three . . . five seconds of silence. The one with the gray temples broke the suspense.
“Until, Mrs. Bonnard, you suddenly appeared.”
34
I felt dizzy, as if instead of turning down their offer of a drink, I’d had three or four martinis. There it was. There it was, entering my life again. The British intelligence service, casting its hook into me once more.
The more mature man spoke.
“This being the case, Mrs. Bonnard, we would like to propose a new mission in Spain.”
As they waited for a reaction, the two strangers’ eyes were fixed on me like magnets. I didn’t so much as blink. I remained impassive, legs crossed, mouth closed, back straight. Under my jacket’s soft fabric, however, my pulse was furious.
The two men had taken turns during the introduction, but now the elder and higher ranking of the two seemed unwilling to relinquish the floor.
“It would be a very specific operation, performed during a limited time—over about three weeks—though we expect the work will also be intense. The risk will be managed, with no political controversy whatsoever that might compromise your safety. In fact, your cover would be so watertight that even the government would approve your participation.”
I finally managed to string a few syllables together.
“What would it involve?”
Inflexible when it came to procedure, they didn’t answer. They still had some background to lay out.
“Do you have any personal links to Argentina?”
Argentina? Why on earth were these individuals from the secret service interested in Argentina? In a drawer of my wardrobe at the Boltons house, I had a Télam press card that Fran Nash had given me when I left Palestine. Télam had sent her two of them plus a rubber stamp so she could add her photograph and certify her connection to the news agency. She’d decided to issue one in my name, for no particular reason. “Who knows, Sira?” she’d said. “Sometimes a press card can open doors for you.”
I didn’t disclose any of this to the pair. I just answered, “None that I know of.”
“And do you have any knowledge of the current situation in the country, its leaders?”
I knew something about it. During my last few months in Jerusalem, Fran had arranged to receive copies of the newspapers in which the reports I’d translated appeared. She probably did it just to cheer me up—she didn’t understand a single word of Spanish. But lacking anything else to read in my language once the papers from Madrid stopped arriving after Marcus’s death, I’d often leafed through them. And so I’d familiarized myself with certain names and circumstances, events and important figures.
I opted, however, to be cautious.
“Very little.”
“If you could give us a few moments of your time, we can give you some background.”
I agreed, though my voice was barely audible. The senior man took off his fine-rimmed glasses, as if they hindered his ability to speak.
“Right. Well. For a long time, relations between Britain and Argentina were very fruitful, particularly as far as trade was concerned. Since the end of the last century, we’ve been the recipients of the majority of their exports, especially meat. Entire generations of British people lived on beef from the Pampas. Likewise, over time we made huge investments in their country: railways, the refrigeration industry, loans to the state, public service companies, insurance, banking . . . Thanks to all of this, our links with their most powerful classes have been incredibly fluid and cordial, and there is also a large British population there. In fact, some of the country’s past leaders even stated that Argentina was, in economic terms, almost part of the British Empire.”
He spoke in a low monotone, though his diction was crystal clear. He paused while he folded the arms on his spectacles, measuring his words.
“In recent times, however, the situation has taken a drastic turn. The war, as you know, laid waste to Britain’s finances, whereas Argentina has a buoyant economy and, after supplying us all these years, is one of our biggest creditors. So we froze both repayment of the debt and Argentine funds deposited in London, knowing that at some point we would have to sit down to negotiate. The elections last year gave victory to General Perón, who was already leading the policy of the previous government. This confirmed the country’s nationalist orientation, and negotiations have been rather difficult ever since. The Argentinian state’s expropriation of railways and gas and electricity companies marks the end of an era for our interests in the country, and the nationalization of the financial system has been very challenging for our banks and insurance companies. There have also been changes in other areas, such as foreign trade. All of this, in short, has led to a huge loss of British capital, been a blow to our businesses, and generally weakened our influence both in Argentina and in much of South America.”
He put his glasses back on, his forefinger sliding up the bridge of his nose until they were in place. “Sic transit gloria mundi,” he said in conclusion. Thus passes the glory of the world.
I took the information with a grain of salt. I was sure everything he’d said was accurate in broad terms. I also knew, however, that the British were hardened negotiators, seasoned traders and industrious entrepreneurs who’d long been roaming the world with a voracious appetite, arrogantly imposing their rules, and always earning fat returns. But I said nothing about that, of course.
“To put it mildly,” he went on, “this situation is detrimental to us and disconcerting. But we won’t throw in the towel and prefer to remain quietly optimistic and think that smooth relations can be restored, at least in part. And with this in mind, we might just have one last card to play.”
I raised my eyebrows in a faint questioning expression.
“From the midst of the Peronist government’s efforts to keep our presence in the country’s economy to a minimum, a figure is emerging around whom there are many questions that need answering.”
The waiter approached the table again, but the younger man waved him away.
“I’m referring to Eva Duarte,” the older man declared, lowering his voice. “Señora Perón, the president’s wife.”
Yes, I’d read about her. And seen her blurry image in the press. A woman neither beautiful nor beauty’s opposite, quite a bit younger than her spouse, somewhat over the top in terms of her choice of attire.
“We know she’s gaining prominence in political affairs, which even within her own milieu pleases few and angers many. She’s also involving herself in several government matters, seems to have a great deal of influence over her husband, and is growing in popularity among certain sections of Argentinian society, particularly the working classes. But while we know this much, we also feel we’re short of firsthand information, more reliable and direct details about her.”
He paused, as if piecing together what he was about to tell me next.
“It’s hard to admit, but sometimes the diplomatic reports we receive are rather dubious. We get the impression that our staff aren’t moving very well in the new circles of Argentine power—plus, depending on whom they speak to, we receive conflicting reports. As I mentioned, we have some great friends in Argentina, families we’ve had close and lucrative ties with for many years. Sadly, however, many of them, whom we used to consider reliable, are no longer useful as informants. This is because most belong to the opposing elite, a highly critical section of society that is resistant to the Peronism that claims to favor the working class and hopes to put an end to the oligarchy, or to at least reduce its privileges. Because of this, we can’t rely on them in this urgent matter.”
