Death of a Nationalist (4 page)

Chapter 4

L
ieutenant Ramos had told the truth when he had said there would be no time off over the next few days. In addition to the patrols, there were prisoners by the hundreds who had to be either executed or registered and housed and so-called civilians looking for family members who had to be taken down to the cells to look at prisoners or directed to the morgue to identify bodies. Ramos had received a memo from Burgos stating that all houses were to be checked for firearms (“Maybe they’d like an inventory of rat holes, too!” the lieutenant had exclaimed. “What the hell do they think this is— some mountain village? Where are we going to get the manpower for that?”). Then there were denunciations, written and oral, to be received and acted upon. The corps worked through Palm Sunday, stopping to hear the mass that inaugurated Holy Week with relief or impatience, depending on individual temperament. Jiménez and some of the other new recruits dutifully prayed for the health of General Franco, so that he might continue to do God’s work in Spain. Ramos, who was preoccupied with God’s work on a more immediate basis, prayed for a consignment of trucks or a train designated to remove the prisoners, or else for speedy trials and sentencings, so that the prison would not be so dangerously overcrowded. After some consideration, he decided that praying for an honest and efficient quartermaster was also an unselfish prayer, and he requested that as well. Tejada prayed for the soul of Paco López. And for understanding, he thought. I don’t question the need. Not my will, Lord, but thy will. But please, if there was an earthly reason, for my comfort, I’d like to find it.

Tejada did not have time to search for an earthly reason until two days later. A memo had been sent around to all posts, asking if one was missing a Corporal Francisco López Pérez. But other commanders were overworked as well, and a dead man whose murderer had already been executed was a low priority. No reply had arrived when Sergeant Tejada and First Corporal Loredo set out on a routine patrol, one whose route had been carefully planned by Tejada the night before.

He would have preferred patrolling with Jiménez, who knew of the strange piece of evidence he had found by Paco’s body, or even with one of the other enlisted men. They were all younger than he was, and none of them would have thought to question his judgment. Loredo was in his midthirties, a career guardia, who would never rise beyond his present rank. He would obey orders, but was apt to resent them, especially if given by someone several years his junior. However, there was no help for it. Jiménez was on his way to Toledo, along with ten other guardias
,
with a trainload of prisoners. Moscoso had been commandeered by Lieutenant Ramos to update maps. Loredo would do.

As Tejada had arranged, they were making a circuit of the Plaza de Colón. As they walked down one of the side streets south of the plaza, they passed a high whitewashed wall. The shrill cries of children at play could be heard from the other side. The wall was pierced by a wrought-iron gate adorned with a plaque proclaiming, LEOPOLDO ALAS ELEMEN-TARY SCHOOL. Tejada read the sign with satisfaction. “Shall we take a look, Corporal?” he asked.

Loredo shrugged. “What for?”

Tejada had his answer planned. “We’re supposed to get to know the neighborhood. Besides, we should get a register of the older boys. They’ll be forming groups of Falangist Youth here. We want to know who to sign up for the movement.”

Loredo grunted. This was typical of Tejada. This was the sort of idea that men with university educations had. This was the sort of idea that had gotten Tejada promoted. Loredo looked on such ideas with profound suspicion. Tejada was the sergeant, though. “Yes, sir.”

Tejada rang the bell beside the gate. It took a few minutes for someone to come out of the main building and down the path to open the gate. Long before their guide arrived, the gym class in the courtyard had become aware of the silent scrutiny of the two guardias civiles. The shouts died to whispers, and the children bunched together, clustering around an elderly man who seemed a most unlikely instructor in physical education. The ball they had been playing with rolled away toward the gate. Someone in the class whimpered.

There was some low-voiced conversation and then the teacher shuffled after the ball. He was not so old, Tejada realized, looking at him more closely. Perhaps in his early fifties. It was his slight limp and frail appearance that gave the impression of age. He stooped awkwardly to pick up the ball, muttered, “Gentlemen,” and turned away, without meeting their eyes.

By this time, a boy of perhaps thirteen had appeared at the gate. He turned white at the sight of the guardia civil, but said only, “Did you ring the bell, gentlemen?”

“Yes,” said Tejada. “We’d like to speak to the director.”

“Y-yes, sir.” The bolts of the gates clattered as the boy drew them back, perhaps because his hands were shaking.

One of the little girls in the gym class began to cry as they marched across the courtyard. Someone hastily shushed her. The sergeant glanced at the little knot of children. “Coeducational,” he remarked dryly. “Very modern.”

Loredo grunted again, but this time it was a friendly grunt. “Can’t hardly tell the boys from the girls,” he agreed. “Unchristian.”

Their guide whirled around, face burning. “We have separate classes after third grade! And you
can
tell!”

Loredo and Tejada glanced at each other, and then stared at the boy, until his face went from red to white. “You salute when you’re speaking to an officer, son,” Loredo said quietly.

Very slowly, as if it did not belong to him, the boy raised his right arm. His hand twitched a few times, and then seemed to clutch at the handle of an invisible teapot. Tejada reached out, gently pulled the boy’s elbow straight, and uncurled the twitching fingers. The boy’s eyes glittered, with rage or unshed tears. “You’re young,” the sergeant said. “You’ll learn. That’s why we’re here.”

“And a good thing, too,” Loredo muttered. Tejada smiled, satisfied. If Corporal Loredo were convinced of the necessity of their visit, Tejada’s task would be that much easier.

The boy said nothing more as he led them through an arched entrance and down a corridor, into the office of the director. The room contained a desk, a filing cabinet, and a chair. That was all. The director of the Leopoldo Alas School apparently did not favor unnecessary ornamentation.

The director, Señor Herrera, was, if not exactly pleased to see the guardia, at least anxious to appear helpful. He provided the two men with the rolls of the senior classes, and was quite willing to allow Loredo to copy them. Leaving Loredo thus occupied, Tejada turned to Herrera. “One other thing, sir. Does a Señorita Fernández teach second grade here?”

The day was cool but the director started to sweat. “Yes, Elena Fernández works here. Why do you ask, Officer?”

“I wonder if I could speak to her for a moment,” Tejada said. “It’s nothing serious. I’d just like to ask her a few questions.”

Señor Herrera had been pale before. At the last phrase he turned slightly yellowish. “Her room is just up the stairs and to your right,” he croaked. “Number 102. The children go home for lunch at one o’clock. But if you’d like to see her now. . . .”

“Thank you.” Tejada turned to his colleague. “This is fortuitous, Loredo. I ran across Señorita Fernández’s name last week, in connection with an incident. I’d like to clear up a misunderstanding now, if you don’t mind. I’ll be upstairs when you finish.”

“Very good, sir.” Loredo saluted, and returned to patiently copying the names and addresses of students onto the pages of a tablet that Señor Herrera had provided. Tejada turned to leave the office.

“Er . . .” The director cleared his throat desperately. “Do you anticipate . . . I mean . . . should I call a substitute teacher for this afternoon?”

In spite of the man’s pasty face, and in spite of the fact that he was almost certainly a Red, Tejada was suddenly reminded of Lieutenant Ramos. He laughed, which unnerved Señor Her-rera still more. “I don’t think that will be necessary. Oh, and a piece of friendly advice, Señor, if I may. You don’t seem to have a Spanish flag in your office. I’d recommend you find one. Very important to instill patriotism in the young by example.”

“Of course, of course,” the director gabbled. “I
had
a flag, only, er . . . it was . . .”

“Burned by the Reds?” Tejada suggested, the memory of his harassed commander still putting him in a compassionate mood. “I suspected as much.” His eyes scanned the bare walls of the office and noted several rectangular patches where the paint was noticeably brighter. “You seem to have lost several wall ornaments also. A photograph of General Franco, perhaps? And the lyrics to the national anthem?”

Señor Herrera swallowed, uncertain how wide an escape route the guardia civil was leaving him. “Of course . . . I’ll replace them with that. . . . I mean, with the photo and . . . I mean, with
another
photo and . . . just as you suggest, Señor Guardia.”

Tejada made his way up to room 102, fairly certain that Señor Herrera would present no further problems. As he turned out of the stairwell, he saw an open door on his right, and heard a female voice spilling out of it, saying, “. . . The Count Lucanor heartily approved of Patronio’s advice . . .” He stopped, just before the doorway, and allowed the voice to come to the end of the story. Then he stepped forward.

The square classroom that met his eyes contained perhaps fifteen children seated in the rows of battle-scarred school desks, in a promiscuous confusion of boys and girls. The walls had once been tan, but paint was peeling from them to reveal the white plaster beneath. Unlike Señor Herrera, however, Señorita Fernández obviously believed in decorating them. Childish drawings were stuck up all around the room, most with carefully lettered captions: “This is my house.” “My older sister has brown eyes and looks like me.” “The Germans bomb Madrid.” One wall was devoted to a chalkboard, which was completely blank.

Señorita Fernández stood at the front of the room holding the book she had just finished reading. Tejada, whose impression of the school had led him to expect another militant like the woman by Paco’s body, was favorably surprised. The teacher was unobjectionably dressed, in a long garment of so dark a blue it was almost black. Her hair was pinned to the back of her head in a dark, glossy coil, and looked as if it would be unfashionably long. As she turned toward Tejada he saw that she was about his own age. Her eyes widened as she took in his uniform, and the rifle over his shoulder, but her voice was steadier than Señor Herrera’s had been as she said, “Good morning. Can I help you?”

The class, Tejada noted, had gone dead silent. He scanned their faces, trying to guess which one might be Maria Alejan-dra. It was hard to tell. Too many of them looked like they had been recently orphaned. “Elena Fernández?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“I have some questions for you.”

“Of course.” She turned toward the class. “Please read the next fable in the
Conde Lucanor
silently,” she said. “It begins on page 53. I’ll be right back.”

Tejada gestured toward the hallway with one hand. “Should I get my coat?” she asked in a low voice designed to pass over the heads of the children.

The sergeant felt a moment of unwilling admiration for Señorita Fernández. She was cooler than many of the men he had arrested. She was either very courageous, or else she had a very clear conscience—and if she had stuck it out in Madrid as a Nationalist then she should probably get an award for courage in any case. “There’s no need,” he answered in the same undertone.

She let out an almost imperceptible sigh and stepped into the hallway.

He followed her, and then shut the classroom door. “I wanted to know if you recognized this?” He reached into one of the pouches on his belt, and pulled out the stained and crumpled notebook.

Her gasp was audible this time and he wondered if he had underestimated her fear. On the other hand, it was an unexpected question for him to ask.

“I don’t know,” she said after a moment.

He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t know if you recognize it?”

She looked up at him, and her mouth twisted. “Guardia, as you probably are aware, all of the students at this school have notebooks like that one. I won’t say that I recognize this specific one, because I don’t, but I won’t be entrapped into saying that I have no idea whose it is when I might very well know the owner.”

Tejada smiled. “Very wise.” He held out the book. “Open it. See if the inside looks familiar.”

She opened the book to the inside cover right away, he noted, and looked for the owner’s name there. “Alejandra,” she said in a flat voice. “Yes, she’s one of my students. Where did you find this?”

“Are you surprised?” The sergeant avoided her question.

“That you’d be interested in a child’s notebook, yes.” She flipped to the final entry on its pages and smiled, a little sadly.“She hasn’t done Friday’s homework, I see. Will I be arrested for asking if she’s still able to?”

“I imagine it would be difficult to do without the problems,” Tejada answered. “Other than that, I don’t know. I’ve never laid eyes on her.” He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Who are these notebooks valuable to?”

“Valuable?” The teacher stared at him. “Aside from the students and their families, no one.”

“Their families?” Tejada repeated.

Señorita Fernández made an impatient gesture. “Paper’s rationed, you know. Each child gets one notebook per semester. They have to make it last as long as possible.”

The sergeant took the book back, and looked at the last entry. There were still nearly fifty clean pages left. A suspicion presented itself, but it did not wholly make sense. “So if a book was lost?” he suggested. “Or stolen?”

Señorita Fernández lifted her chin. “
We
don’t steal from each other,” she said.

Tejada ignored the implicit challenge. “Lost, then.”

The teacher’s moment of defiance passed. “It would be a disaster. Especially for a student from a poor family.”