Sira, page 54
As I went downstairs I heard sewing machines. My new employees were there already, reliable, early. Candelaria was clanging around in the kitchen; Félix was waiting for me in the living room. He’d half-tidied his hair, redone his tie, and tucked his crumpled shirt back into his trousers. Despite his best efforts, it was obvious he’d had a bad night.
“I need a list of the banks in Tangier.”
“What for, angel?”
Instead of giving the explanation he wanted, I persisted with my request.
“Start with the biggest ones.”
“Hmmm . . . there’s the State Bank of Morocco in its big house at the Chico Souk. There’s the Banco de España, Bilbao . . .”
I remembered Ramiro’s instructions: no pesetas.
“Not the Moroccan or Spanish banks. What are the British ones?”
“Well, there’s the Bank of British West Africa, and one or two others.”
“Is there a Barclays Bank branch?”
“Not that I know of. But I think I remember seeing one in Gibraltar the other day.”
In Gibraltar the other day, he’d said. And memories of the Rock flooded back. With all the rushing about, it felt as if our visit there had happened weeks, months, years, centuries ago. I thought of Nick Soutter again. I’d have given another ten thousand dollars to have him close to me right then.
Oblivious to my thoughts, Félix continued with his list.
“And there are the French ones, the Banque de France and the Banque de l’Algérie et de la Tunisie, and at least two or three more—you know what posers the frogs are. And there’s also the Jewish banks. There are two large, serious institutions, the Banca Salvador Hassan and the Banca Pariente, which has just moved into some classy premises on Calle del Estatuto.”
I was barely listening, still immersed in my thoughts.
“Apart from that, since the end of the war, a multitude of other banking firms have opened, but I’m not sure how trustworthy they are. There’re a lot of smart people out there who have very little shame. There are posters everywhere, just look on the boulevard and the streets around there. The Tangero-Suisse, the South Continental Bank . . .”
“Félix . . . ,” I said while I opened my handbag and rummaged inside.
“They must see Tangier as an easy mark, and smart alecks have come here from all over the world. No one checks the transactions, there’s no taxes or laws, no regulatory bodies—”
“Félix,” I repeated. “Can you do me a favor?”
He stopped his blathering. In his eagerness to be useful, he’d gone a bit overboard.
“Sorry, not one,” I corrected myself. “Two. Two favors.”
“I’m all yours, my queen.”
“First, before you do anything else, go to the police and tell them they’ve shown up, that it was all a misunderstanding, whatever comes to mind. Just get them out of the way.”
His face was a picture of astonishment, but I didn’t give him the chance to question my reasons. Before he could react I handed him Nick’s card, the one he’d given me at the radio studio.
“And straight after that, go somewhere with a telephone, call this Gibraltar number, and ask for this name.”
He pushed his thick glasses to the top of his nose and held the card a few inches from his eyes.
“Nicholas Soutter,” he slowly enunciated.
“Speak to him in French if that’s easier. Tell him you’re calling on my behalf. Tell him to please come to Tangier, urgently. That . . . that it’s”—the six letters of his name were stuck in my throat—“it’s Víctor.”
I slammed the door on my way out, heading into the unknown. It was a splendid morning in Tangier, with a clear sky and a light west wind. All my efforts, however, made it feel to me as bleak and dismal as a dreadful winter’s night. In the first, the second, and the third bank I visited, I achieved absolutely nothing. Arranging for my money to come from London would be a lengthy process, they informed me. If I wanted a loan, I needed guarantors, assets, or income. My claim that I owned a mansion in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea must’ve sounded like a tall story, and my mentioning the sum of ten thousand dollars in cash made more than one of them smile condescendingly.
I was sure Félix was right, and that Tangier was a paradise for individuals who were moving money—a free market with no restrictions, where it was possible to speculate with currency, to traffic gold, and to open and close businesses with nothing more than a scribble. Checks from anywhere in the world could be cashed, money from contraband could be laundered, and financial transactions could take place without scrutiny. But nobody seemed prepared to give a penny to a woman like me, alone, unknown, with a desperate look on her face.
Frustrated by the refusals from the British banks, I decided my next option was to try one of the Jewish banks that Félix had mentioned, the one owned by the Pariente family. I didn’t spend a second remembering the attack on the King David as I put the soles of my sandals on the marble floor of the splendid premises into which they had just recently moved. Without wasting time, I attempted to explain myself to one of the employees on the other side of the mahogany desk. I asked to speak to the manager, the deputy manager, someone who was in charge. But it was summer, it was early, and again, no one seemed to feel any urgency in that city where “live and let live” was the norm. Disappointed once more, I headed to the exit, containing my urge to beg, scream, curse the world. I was about to leave the building when an unexpected presence pushed the door open from outside.
“There you are, my queen. Finally! We’ve been looking for you for an hour!”
The volume of my voice when I saw Félix made heads turn.
“What’s happened? Has Ramiro been back? Did he bring Víctor? Any news?”
“Nothing new, relax. But someone who might be able to give us a hand has arrived.”
I must’ve been in a daze. The sleepless night and devastating morning were taking their toll. Félix pulled me and then pushed me from behind to make me walk.
“Come on, let’s go. He’s waiting for you outside.”
His hat was casting a shadow over his face, but even so, I recognized him as soon as he raised a couple of fingers to the brim. Waiting for me to come out of the Pariente Bank was Commissioner Vázquez, the man who had once trusted me when he had no reason to do so, the one who’d watched over me, who had kept me on a tight leash with one hand while allowing me to fly with the other.
He’d just come from Tétouan at Candelaria’s request. The first thing he did after greeting me was send Félix home.
“Someone needs to be there, watching for anything unusual. Please keep an eye on the perimeter of the property, go out onto the street at regular intervals, and take note of anything that seems out of the ordinary.”
As soon as my friend had left to follow his orders, Don Claudio came clean.
“Candelaria could’ve done those things, in all honesty. But I wanted us to be alone.”
He offered me an arm, and we started crossing to the other side of the road.
“Let’s go to El Minzah over there. You look like you urgently need a coffee, señorita.”
79
“Not one cent.”
I almost choked on the omelet the commissioner, concerned by my haggard face, had insisted on ordering for me.
We were sitting in the hotel’s central courtyard, the only customers remaining as the waiters cleared the last breakfast tables. The guests had returned to their rooms, and before long they’d head out to the beach again, or to buy souvenirs and rugs, or to go on excursions. It was a time for rest and relaxation, in other words, for the patrons of the distinguished El Minzah. Meanwhile, I was being eaten up from the inside by anxiety.
“Forget about trying to find the money. We’ll have to fix this another way.”
“I won’t get the police involved,” I insisted. “I already told you. I know this wretch. I know it’s better if—”
“All right, we’ll forget about the International Police if you prefer.”
“You must keep out of the way as well, Commissioner. You mustn’t interfere. Advise me, guide me, but let—”
“There’s no need for me to get out of the way, Sira. I’m not officially active anymore. A couple of months ago, I moved into the reserves.”
He must’ve been over sixty, but he didn’t seem to have aged at all. He was somewhat grayer, his eyes a little narrower, his body a bit slighter, perhaps, but the calm elegance he conveyed in that light-colored linen suit of his was unchanged.
Candelaria had called him the night before—she’d lied when she said she was going to the church. She had in fact taken matters into her own hands and gone in search of a telephone to try to locate her former adversary, the veteran servant of public order who’d put a stop to so many of her shady deals and plagued her with his steely diligence. After several attempts, she’d managed to find Don Claudio in Tétouan, and she’d told him about my situation. He’d had no idea I was back in Morocco. To her surprise, he had offered to come to Tangier. And now, here we both were, face-to-face.
“I don’t think tackling a matter like this by ourselves is the best idea, but we can do it privately if you insist.”
“You don’t know how grateful I am.”
More than a decade had passed since he came to arrest me at the La Valenciana station, when I was still miscarrying my pregnancy by Ramiro. It was he himself, Claudio Vázquez, who had taken me to the hospital in his own car, and who’d then brought me out of there once I’d managed to recover, who’d put me under Candelaria’s protection at the guesthouse on La Luneta, and who’d watched over all my subsequent movements with shrewd eyes.
“Without wishing to pry into your private life, there’re certain things I need to know,” he then said. “First off, who is the boy’s father?”
“Do you remember that supposed English journalist who arrived in Tétouan to interview Beigbeder?”
“Logan was his name, wasn’t it?”
He was aware of Marcus’s stay in Morocco. What he didn’t know was that our paths had crossed again.
“His real name was Mark Bonnard and, as I imagine you suspected at the time, he wasn’t a reporter but a British intelligence service officer.”
I speared the last piece of omelet. It’d gone cold, but it was doing me good, breathing a little life into me. Before holding the fork to my mouth, I added, “After some toing and froing that I don’t need to go into now, we ended up getting married. He’s my son’s father. He died a year ago in Jerusalem, the same day the boy was born.”
I suspected he had a lot of questions, but he contained his curiosity and let them go. Concentrating, he took a sip from his cup and, with an eloquent gesture, waved off a waiter who was about to take my plate.
“All right. Let’s focus on the present, then, and recap, so everything’s clear. Let’s see, the individual we’re dealing with now is the same man who, when I met you, had just abandoned you, taking all your assets and leaving you with a bill at the Hotel Continental. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“And just a month ago you came across each other by chance in Madrid, and he asked you to intercede on his behalf with an Argentine acquaintance on a matter of business. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“And you refused, and he started accosting your son’s nanny. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“And you, afraid things could get out of control, took the law into your own hands and managed to get him arrested for a crime that, in reality, he hadn’t committed.”
I hesitated. Put that way, I sounded like the cruel and vindictive one, and Ramiro like a poor devil who’d had someone else’s misdeed pinned on him.
“More or less, but—”
He held up his hand to stop me.
“You don’t need to explain yourself. I can imagine the pressure he must’ve put you under to make you do what you did.”
Grateful for his understanding, I tried to smile with relief. The feeling, however, lasted barely a few seconds.
“Just as I understand the grudge this man must have against you.”
The courtyard was now completely empty, with all the tables cleared except ours. The first bathers were beginning to cross it on the way to the pool.
“I imagine there are a thousand more details that you’ll tell me some other time, but right now, let’s review what happened last night.”
I repeated the story that I’d first summarized for him while we walked to El Minzah. This time, I recounted it with less haste and more cohesion.
“And you say he grabbed your throat?”
I lowered my silk scarf to my collarbone so he could see the marks. They probably seemed trivial compared to the stabbings and beatings he must have seen during his long career. Still, from his grimace, I could see that he didn’t take the matter lightly.
“Tell me, what do you know about his situation in Tangier?”
“Only that he hadn’t been back here in all this time. Since . . . since . . .”
“Since he abandoned you without a penny, leaving you to deal with the consequences of his chicanery and his debts, I understand. Let’s suppose then that he doesn’t have any contacts or friends here, let alone accomplices.”
That was what I believed to be the case, yes.
“And he’s in a hurry,” I added. “He told me he arrived at midday. From Algeciras, presumably. He’s doing everything in a rush, on the fly.”
“He told you himself he’d rented a car, didn’t he? Did you see it? Color, make, model?”
I shrugged. “I couldn’t say. It was on the corner some distance away, and it was dark.”
We fell silent for a moment, each of us worrying about a different side of the same coin. He, about the modus operandi of an unscrupulous man acting on pure instinct. I, about the whereabouts and well-being of my son and Philippa.
“And his physical appearance this morning, what can you tell me about it? Was there anything that caught your attention?”
I shook my head. There was nothing I could say about that, either. Even at that time, even after crossing from one continent to another to abduct two innocents by force, Ramiro was dressed correctly, his hair in place, the same bearing and elegance as ever.
“Although . . .”
“Yes?”
“Let me think. There was something. Something fleeting that caught my attention . . .”
I closed my eyes, trying to concentrate. There had been something. When he’d grabbed me by the neck, when he’d wanted me to look at him, I had lowered my eyes, instinctively refusing to play along. There was something I’d noticed then, while I was choking, that seemed out of place. What was it, for God’s sake, what was it . . . ?
I clenched my fists in an unconscious action, as if digging my nails into my palms would help me think clearly, until a lucid image formed in my mind.
“Mud,” I said. “He had mud on his shoes.”
The commissioner frowned, trying to understand.
“He had dirty shoes. He usually keeps them gleaming.”
80
We remained at El Minzah until the tables in the courtyard began to fill with the first relaxed tourists, arriving to cool off with beers, colorful cocktails, and modern Coca-Colas in ice-filled glasses. We then decided to head back to headquarters: my house. And we didn’t go empty handed, but with a stack of newspapers.
It had been my idea to ask for them.
“Just a second,” I’d said to the commissioner, squeezing his arm.
The doorman had already been holding the door open. In his red tarboosh, gold waistcoat, and velvet breeches, he was obligingly holding the bronze bar to let us out onto Calle del Estatuto. But I’d seen something that lit a spark in me: a customer engrossed in a copy of the España, the newspaper that had innocently revealed to Ramiro where I was.
“Make use of your former authority, won’t you?” I’d whispered almost in the commissioner’s ear.
He had raised an eyebrow.
“Ask at the desk for copies of the last few days’ newspapers. All the information that rat has about me and Tangier as it is now will be in there. Maybe it’s worth taking a look.”
We found everything in order on our return, not counting a lack of fresh news and the obvious absences. The seamstresses, having finished their morning’s work, had gone back to their courtyards for lunch, to serve their families the stews they’d made at sunrise. Candelaria, well prepared as ever, was making something for us. But nobody seemed to be hungry. Félix, the commissioner, and I opted to sit in the living room, forming a triangle. Candelaria, with one eye on the stove and another on us, stood in the door’s threshold, ready to come and go. Although, tending to lunch might’ve just been an excuse, and she may have preferred not to sit down because the presence of Don Claudio still filled her with feelings of both respect and distrust.
“All right, señorita, we’re going to try to think clearly, without getting carried away by our emotions.”
Perhaps because I was feeling particularly sensitive, I was touched by the fact that he still called me “señorita.” With his impeccable manners, it was how the commissioner had addressed me back when I was a frightened and penniless young woman, and I was still a señorita to him a decade later, despite my now being a mother and a widow, despite my past woes and present misfortune.
“It was a good idea to bring these newspapers. If this Arribas disembarked yesterday in Tangier and headed straight here, the one reliable source of local information that’s been available to him is, as you rightly supposed, the press.”
“Straight here to kidnap, that’s why the son of a bitch came, may he burn in hell . . . ,” Candelaria brooded, tea towel in hand.
The commissioner contradicted her.
“Not necessarily, Candelaria. I’m inclined to think he arrived without a fixed idea of what he would do, but rather to see what options were open to him. And he suddenly found himself with easy pickings—the nanny and the boy, alone in the street.”
