Castro's Dream (21 page)

Kader looked through the passenger window into the Volvo and smiled. He would have sung for joy if he had been alone but people were watching him. He supposed that in a place like this, a face like his would not go unnoticed for long. Let’s not even think about
your
mug, Amadou, he thought. He looked for any trace of his presence in her impeccable car and found none.

He walked into the hotel reception wishing that he was not on crutches. Yes, he wanted to say to the man behind the counter, an Arab
and
a cripple. But the man was friendly and spoke to him in English.

Do you speak French? Kader asked him.

Yes. How can I help you?

The man had a pale face and eyebrows that were blacker and covered more of his forehead than most humans. Kader sensed the eyebrows had been a problem in his life.

Is Astrid Arnaga staying here?

She is. I’ll just ring up to her room. What is your name?

Kader hesitated.

Kader, he said.

The man picked up the receiver and pressed a button on his antiquated switchboard. Pressed was hardly the word: it was more like a push that engaged the full motion of his right arm. The number nineteen lit up orange.

He spoke to Astrid in Spanish but Kader knew that the conversation was not going the way he would have liked. He pretended that he had not understood and wedged his crutches snugly in his armpits, ready to proceed.

She says that she does not want to be disturbed.

I’ll come back later, then.

She says that she doesn’t want to see you. That you should go.

His manner was patient but suddenly Bushy had become more like a wolf than a squirrel. Kader scanned the premises. There
was no lift and on crutches he doubted that he could outrun him. He decided to retreat.

He went to the café next door and bought himself a bottle of beer and a sandwich with an omelette in it, and returned to the big square up the hill. A few remaining children were playing football under the floodlights. Kader sat and drank his beer and ate the sandwich, which was not nearly as bad as he had anticipated. He wished he could have played with the kids. Instead he shouted instructions:

Spread out! he yelled. Don’t all chase the ball, you fucking halfwits!

They ran about, craning their necks, trying to understand.

When he had finished eating, he returned to the hotel. He walked through the lobby without greeting Bushy, who was watching a football match on a TV screen so far above his head that he had to tilt back his chair.

As he reached the stairs, he heard Bushy’s chair clatter to the floor and a muffled shout. He hobbled as fast as he could up the stairs, trying to keep his hip still, but each step produced red-hot pain. Bushy overtook him in the narrow corridor and stood before him, out of breath. His eyebrows had taken on a life of their own.

You have to leave. You can’t be up here.

Kader cast a glance to either side of him. Room number thirteen to his right, fifteen to his left. He was not far but there was no getting past Bushy who, from his calm expression, seemed to bear him no hard feelings. He just stood there, waiting for Kader to draw back.

Kader thought of the karate master back home. The man’s quiet voice, his long blond hair and his headband had annoyed the shit out of him. It is all a matter of approach, he would say. You must pass
through
your adversary. Think of rushing water. This way your hand can slice through it. This way you will be swept away.

Bullshit, Kader thought, and he gave Bushy a firm push with both palms that sent him reeling backwards onto his arse. As he lunged towards Astrid’s door, Bushy’s fist grabbed his bad ankle and he cried out in pain. Bushy gave a sharp tug and pulled him to the floor.

Astrid’s door opened.

It’s all right, she said wearily. He can stay.

Bushy looked down at Kader, as though deciding whether or not to give him a kick, then turned and walked back along the corridor.

Kader stepped after her into the room. He could see nothing but red spots in the darkness. Then he saw her, sitting on the edge of the bed, her head bowed.

Why did you come? Her voice was so sad, for a moment Kader couldn’t answer.

Can I turn a light on?

No.

He hovered a moment, then sat down on the edge of the other bed and faced her, making sure his knees didn’t touch hers.

What are you doing here? Why aren’t you with your sister?

Astrid looked up and he strained to see her expression but could only see her outline.

I’m going back to Paris, she said.

Why? You just got here.

He could tell from the set of her shoulders that she was in despair. He sat facing her, so close that he could feel the warmth of her body. He had no desire to touch her. It felt to him that all the desire and rage that had driven him here had vanished and he was a kid again, but not the kid he had been, the one he was meant to have been.

He took her hand.

To Astrid, all movement had started to feel slow and laborious. She looked at her hand being held but could not hold his in return.

He let go and laid the crutches on the floor, then he knelt in the gap between the two beds and put his arms around her. He clasped her for some time and she listened to his breathing. Suddenly he pulled her hand from her lap and wrapped her arm around him.

Hold me, he said.

So she held him.

The more she clung to him, the more separate she felt.

Kader, she said. She held him closer, trying to annihilate his
pain with the strength of her embrace. She could feel the discomfort of a new kind of deceit settling into her heart. She pulled away.

What have you done to yourself? she asked.

My hip came out of its socket. He took her hand again. You have no idea, Astrid.

She covered his hand with hers.

I’m the one who’s going to look after you, he told her. Do you understand?

She recognised that remoteness and clarity that came over her when she was operating.

I got thrown from the top step of your father’s office, he went on. He was smiling and she remembered how beguiling his joy had been only four days before. Now she looked at him with detached curiosity.

You met my father, she said.

I did. What a sad old bastard he is.

He told you where to find me.

No. Kader paused. Let me turn a light on. I want to see you.

Astrid let him stand. He hobbled, without the crutches, over to the sink and turned on the light above it. The yellow tube gave off a warm light that filled the room with shadows.

I love this place, he said, returning to the bed. This village is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. I mean it.

I hate it, she said.

You hate it now …

Who told you where to find me? she interrupted.

His secretary told me. She looks like she hasn’t slept for about ten years.

That’s not his secretary. That’s his mistress. She’s a lawyer too.

Well she took pity on me. Look at me, he said. This time his smile reached her.

I have to sleep, Kader. Will you let me sleep and then we’ll go?

Go where?

Back to Paris.

He lay down on the bed.

Sleep here, he said, opening his arms. Sleep in my arms.

Astrid shook her head.

I can’t sleep in someone’s arms.

Well it’s time you learned. Come on.

His innocence made her resistance seem petty. She lay down with him.

You had a row with your sister, he said.

She found out.

Found out what?

His voice had a softness. Astrid could not see him, she could only hear his breath and feel his voice vibrating in his chest.

What did she find out? he urged.

Astrid closed her eyes and was in the confessional again.

What I’ve been trying to hide for so long, she said. That I lied to her. That the man she’s been waiting for all her life is in love with me, that I let him love me.

And what about you? Do you love him?

She opened her eyes.

I don’t love anybody, she said.

You love your sister.

I don’t know.

Kader reached out and gathered an edge of the dusty counterpane and wrapped it around her, holding her more tightly.

I met her, he said. She’s like you and the opposite of you. She looked … He hesitated. She looked like she’d just been fucking.

She often looks like that.

He squeezed her.

You do love her, he said.

Astrid closed her eyes. She dreaded emerging from this embrace when she would see once again how separate they were.

Do you love him? he asked her for the second time.

No.

Are you sure?

I hate him. When I went to prison I made Lola promise to stop seeing him.

Kader lifted his head.

What do you mean, prison? Have you been inside?

For two years.

Fuck, Astrid. What for?

Logistical support of a terrorist organisation.

Fuck me, he said, lying back.

Astrid hoped he wouldn’t move again.

I was inside for eighteen months, he told her.

You told me.

It nearly did my head in.

I didn’t mind it. It was made bearable by the woman who ran it. She was called Ana Gonzalez. She was the first person I really admired. She had great courage and energy. She loved all of us and tried to make confinement as painless as possible.

You were lucky, Kader said. Ours was called Delorme. What a cunt. He used to strut around pretending that he was keeping an eye on things. Working for change, he’d say. He’d write down complaints like: We’re fucking four in a cell built for two, in this little notebook, and he wore caps. Fucking tweed caps. What a nerve. He paused and she knew his memory was conjuring the smells and colours of prison. But go on, he said. I want to hear about your time.

Mine was quite comfortable, she said. We all had a cell to ourselves. It was a new prison and it was built with that in mind. It was like a beehive with tiny geometric cells, about two metres square, where we slept and washed and crapped. The cells all stank, some more than others, but in the end you didn’t notice it.

Kader stroked her hair.

Luxury, he said.

For the first six weeks I did nothing but watch.

I did nothing but fight, he said.

Every afternoon we were locked out of our cells and I think that’s what I hated most. I didn’t like being locked out of my cell and I didn’t do any of the activities.

Nor did I. What did you have?

Hairdressing, cooking, theatre, art. I didn’t want to do anything but I liked to go and sit in the art room. I liked the smell. I hated the kitchens because they stank, and the smell of nail varnish in the hairdressing salon. I’ve hated hairdressers since then.

It shows, he said, clasping a handful of her hair. Look at this stuff.

Astrid smiled. She knew that she was experiencing a reprieve from her own nature and she did not expect it to last.

I liked the art teacher, she said. She was a big woman with a thick Galician accent. She stopped asking me if I wanted to paint and just let me sit in the corner.

What I hated most, Kader said, was time. Time in prison is fucked. Every day it crawls and when visiting time comes around it fucking races.

Ana had no clocks in her prison.

Good woman.

She was.

There was a pause.

Tell me, he said. Is there a lot of … you know …

Sex? Yes. There was frenetic erotic activity. In my first weeks I watched so many couples form and break up. I’d see the first flush of love. Girls would pin up their hair and show off their love bites. It always involved the same people, though. You were either part of it or you weren’t. People fell in and out of love very quickly. When there were fights, they were usually about love.

Were you part of it?

No. But I suppose I was in love.

Who with?

With Ana.

What was she like?

She was tiny and she smoked all the time. She had a deep, gravelly laugh. I looked forward to her visits. Everyone did. When she came on her rounds, she always had a flock of women walking with her for as far as they were allowed to go. They’d all speak at once, like children, and she’d keep walking, answering gently, always with a smile on her face. Her one flaw was that she loved one of the prisoners, this woman called Gaia. It was a mystery to me. Gaia was a gypsy from Malaga. She didn’t love anyone. Except for her dog. She had photos of him all over her cell. He was a boxer with pointed ears called Cal. Short for
calcetinas.
Because he had white socks.
Calcetinas
means sock in Spanish.

I got that.

Gaia was like a stray dog herself. She was hungry and grasping. There were two groups in prison. Those who wanted money and wanted to work and those who didn’t care. Gaia only thought about work and she was rich. She wore tight, navy-blue overalls every day and every morning after breakfast she’d be the first in the workshop, making inner tubes.

And what did you do?

I studied medicine.

No shit. Fuck, I wish I’d studied.

What would you have studied?

Anything. History. The Koran maybe. Try and get some knowledge, so people can’t bullshit you so easily.

If I hadn’t been able to study, prison would have been very different. The other women disliked me because I was labelled a
terorista.
Then it became clear that I wasn’t accepted by the political prisoners either, that I was something different. The women who belonged to the organisation stuck together. They had an aloofness about them, as if they were set on a higher goal than the rest of us. They were like nuns. After I’d been there for a few months Ana called me into her office. She offered me a filing job. I asked her why she’d chosen me and she told me that she had the feeling that I was there by accident, that she had experience in these matters and that it showed. Studying was her idea.

What happened to the woman with the dog?