Forgetfulness (11 page)

He's a good man with a mother lode of information.

What he doesn't know about the movement isn't worth knowing.

His politics aren't worth dick. But he shouldn't have to rot in a Spanish jail before they give him the noose or a firing squad.

Some question, by the way, whether Francisco was involved in the Guardia Civil hit. We think he wasn't. Franco's people think he was.

Do your best, Bernhard said. Do him a favor, and us, too.

All afternoon as the sunlight moved across the tile floor the Spaniard talked of his admiration for the poet Baudelaire. Baudelaire of the lower depths, Baudelaire's passion, the ecstasy of creation, the ecstasy of liberation from the bourgeois corset. It was necessary for a man to live with excess. Live with it, die from it. Paris was central to Baudelaire's ambition, Paris the living heart of the revolution, where the masses took to the streets as a matter of civic responsibility. Paris was a pillar of fire. How lucky the French were to have Paris! By contrast, the Spanish had only Madrid, a gray city lacking spirit, a dull provincial city of government like Brussels, Basel, and Washington. Thomas tried to give Francisco instructions; perhaps if he could be quiet a moment, the artist might see his face in repose. But the Spaniard plunged on, heedless. Madrid had no imagination. The civil war had seen to that. The war had ended thirty years before but the wounds still bled. The defeat was complete, and so, in the fullness of time, Catalonia would secede and the capital of the Iberian Peninsula would be Barcelona. Barcelona would lead a renaissance free of Spain. The Spanish people were terrified of what they were capable of, and so they became like
oxen—ponderous, looking neither to the left nor to the right, putting one thick hoof in front of another. They are a disenchanted people.

The war changed them forever.

The Spaniard went on and on in an ecstasy of his own, moving from French to Spanish to English and back again, depending on the aria. And Thomas, caught up in the old man's imagination, painted faster and faster in bold, slashing strokes, thinking of himself as an orchestra conductor, the Spaniard's face a brilliant score of nineteenth-century music. Halfway through he put away his brush and applied paint with a palette knife, the oils as heavy as the Spaniard's burdens, his suspicion, his fear, his many disappointments, his ambition, his morbid love of the idea of Spain. Thomas finished the portrait as dusk fell and the blade of sunlight ceased its slow transit across the tiles. He knew at once that the portrait was finished and stood looking back and forth at it and at the Spaniard until the man and the portrait seemed to merge. The old man did not notice, so complete was his concentration, talking compulsively of the Spanish people, the urban masses and the campesinos, so divided, so wary, a family torn to pieces, afraid to speak. The Spanish people had a split personality animated by opposing furies. They would never be reconciled in this generation or the next. The fascist army and the bastard priests would divide and conquer as they always had and the nation would remain outside the reach of the revolution. The Pyrenees were a barrier as vast as any ocean. Yet the struggle would continue underground, one corpse at a time. It is my life, the Spaniard said. Poor Spain.

Thomas was not listening. He stood in the gathering darkness with the palette knife in his right hand and the palette in his left. Finally he sat down, exhausted. God, we are an old country, Francisco said. We are the oldest country on the face of the earth. He fell silent at last, poured wine for them both, lit the table lamp, and peeked around the corner of the easel to look at the portrait. Francisco stared at it for a long minute and then he said in English, Oh, very fine. And you painted it in an afternoon! My dear Thomas, you
are a prodigy. And you are sweating like a goat. As if you had been rutting in a field under the hot sun. Wearing yourself out and the she-goat, too. But it's me, all right. It's me down to the ground. I would call it of the school of Goya, and that is logical because I am a graduate of that school.

You are an admirer? But of course you are.

What a shame, Francisco said with a broad smile. It will never hang in the Prado.

Maybe when Franco goes, Thomas said.

He will never go, Francisco said. El Caudillo is eternal.

Everyone goes, Thomas said.

Not him, Francisco said. He is our Dracula.

You must leave this place, Thomas said after a moment.

But it's my home, Francisco said.

Nevertheless, Thomas said.

It's perfectly secure. I have people who watch out for me. And I have friends elsewhere.

Not secure, Thomas said. Not perfect.

Nonsense. I have confidence in my friends.

Misplaced confidence, Thomas thought but did not say. Instead, he murmured, You should listen to me.

Why should I listen to you?

Because I know what I'm talking about. And we're comrades.

That's true, Francisco said.

I hear things—

Francisco had been staring at his portrait but now he turned and asked softly, What things do you hear, Thomas?

He paused, uncertain how far he should go. He and the old man were in a zone of trust and Francisco had a sensitive ear for the false note, the thing not said or said incompletely. A false note would not be forgiven. Thomas looked at him and said, I believe this place is not secure for you. We have not been friends forever but we know each other well. I would not mislead you.

I will never abandon my house, Francisco said.

We trust each other. Trust me now.

I know you are sincere, Thomas.

Thomas was silent a moment, cleaning his brushes, distracted by the paint smell. The canvas would take days to dry. He said, Do you have plans?

No plans, Francisco said.

Please reconsider. Make plans.

New arrangements take time. Maybe I should hang a clove of garlic from my doorknob.

Francisco, be serious.

The Spaniard laughed softly and shrugged, as if he had no say in the matter. He turned away, in deep thought, and when he spoke it was with profound resignation. I have lived a very long time but I am not ready to give up. Be assured.

Thank you, Thomas said.

I wonder if I might ask you a favor, my friend. From an old man to a young one. May I have the portrait?

Yes, Thomas said. I want you to have it. Thomas lifted the canvas from the easel, signed it in the lower left-hand corner, and handed it carefully to the Spaniard. It seemed the very least he could do.

After looking at it a moment Francisco said in a voice filled with emotion, A pure brushstroke.

Thomas said, I had good material.

I wish I had a talent for art or music. But I don't. It must be a comfort.

Comfort? Sometimes it is. I can't imagine life without it. Where will you go now, Thomas? Now that you have finished with me.

I'll be back soon, Thomas said.

Very soon, Francisco said. I'm old. I haven't much time.

More than you think, Thomas said.

We'll see, Francisco said with a ghost of a smile.

Thomas had no idea what the Spaniard knew or didn't know. He remembered that the longer he remained in the room the smaller it got, closing in on itself, as claustrophobic as a prison cell. It was true that they had not known each other a long time, barely five years since their first meeting in an artists' café in Barcelona; but he believed they knew each other well enough and trusted each other and he hoped the old man trusted him now. Thomas gathered his paints, brushes, and easel and said goodbye to Francisco, but not without a final look at the portrait he had made; one of his best, he thought. The old man had beautiful bones and a surface as weathered as a cathedral. At the doorway they embraced and as Thomas walked away Francisco gave him what he always called his Spanish salute, a clenched right fist at his temple, knuckles in, elbow out, the salute he first gave at Montblanch, near Barcelona, October 1938, a black beret on his head, a bright red scarf around his throat.

Thomas drove south to Málaga, where he spent the night, then meandered east to Almería and Cartagena and up the coast to Benidorm, with its wide vacant beach and fish restaurants open to the air. He planned to stay a week sketching fishermen and the women in the market. He met a young woman who was happy to pose so long as the sittings were kept private, owing to her strict Catholic family. The one week turned into three weeks. All the time he was with the señorita he was thinking of Francisco in his adobe in the mountains west of Grenada. One morning Señorita Carolina told him she was moving on. She had a job in one of the hotels. There were three large ones with three more to begin construction the following week. The Bavarians had arrived, she said, with satchels filled with deutschemarks. It is the first time we have been occupied since the Mussulmen in the fifteenth century. In five years you won't recognize Benidorm. Meanwhile, she said, I am training to become a receptionist. You are very sad about something, Thomas. What is it? And will you give me one of the sketches?

Thomas stayed on a few more weeks because he had nothing better to do, hoping Carolina would tire of her receptionist duties. In the morning he swam and in the afternoon he sketched and took long walks and in the evening he listened to the villagers enthuse about the hotel construction, prosperity at last. Carolina did not appear. He sent Francisco a postcard of the Benidorm beach in midwinter, empty as the Sahara. No message, only the card. At last he gave it up and drove to Barcelona, arriving at his apartment at dawn, discovering that while he was gone someone had broken in and
taken his radio and phonograph and the stash of pesetas in an envelope behind the Michelin guides. He looked in the drawers and closets, cursing, finding that the thieves had also taken a pair of shoes and his good blazer. The Grand Rapids table was undisturbed and his portraits were in the closet where he had left them. The thieves had come in through the window via the fire escape and left the same way, probably weeks before. In minutes he decided to quit the apartment—Barcelona had lost its savor—and the next day was on his way to Paris, where he rented a two-room apartment in Montparnasse, good light and a decent restaurant on the ground floor. Francisco was mostly absent from his thoughts. A month later the Spaniard's portrait arrived, carefully packed and sent from an unfamiliar address in London. There was no note. He had no idea whether Francisco had taken his advice or not. He feared not. And beyond that Thomas was unwilling to go.

That night he called Bernhard, who said he could not speak just then. He would call back in one hour.

Thomas said, What happened to our Spanish friend?

Gone, Bernhard said. Disappeared.

Safe? Thomas asked.

I hope so. I don't know.

Thomas said nothing. In the street below, a musician was playing an accordion, badly.

You're not to blame, Bernhard said. Thomas said, Why not?

You did what we asked. Something went wrong.

What? What went wrong?

Missed communications. Someone betrayed us. One of those two, perhaps both.

Bullshit, Bernhard.

The telephone was silent. In the street, the accordion music stopped abruptly; someone had probably paid the musician to stop.

I've told you what I can, Bernhard said. I don't know the details.

But you think the worst.

I think the worst, he said.

A fine old man, Thomas said.

Yes, Bernhard said. He was.

Were we actually trying to help him?

Yes, we were. Believe that.

We were on his side?

Yes. We were on his side. Bernhard's voice was as subdued as he had ever heard it. Bernhard said, We'll settle the score. It may take awhile. It may take years but we'll settle it. When Thomas didn't answer, Bernhard mumbled a word he rarely used, and never to a friend. He said, Sorry, and rang off.

That was effectively the end of Thomas's career in espionage. He undertook two more odd jobs over the next few months, both in Paris, minor business. Russ handled the assignments, apologizing, but they were in a jam; would he do it as a favor? At the end of the year Thomas handed over the currency, the passports, and the Smith & Wesson; they insisted he keep the Grand Rapids table. Thomas did not hang Francisco's portrait but propped it against the wall of his studio where he could see it while he worked. He knew that he was responsible for the old man's death and he believed that Francisco knew it, too, and knew it from the moment Thomas appeared at the door with his paints and his easel. As Bernhard said, missed communications, betrayal, something like that, but Thomas was not responsible. Like hell.

For a while Thomas carried his knowledge around like a lump in his throat. He wished to atone in some way but did not know how. The old man had no family. No one knew where he was buried, if he was buried anywhere. In due course Thomas sent the portrait back to Spain, not to the Prado but to a new museum across town, the small one that featured twentieth-century art. The portrait was not a favorite of schoolchildren but there were usually one or two old people looking at it, men and women both, always with somber expressions, remembering whatever it was they remembered. Thomas knew this because not long after he dispatched the portrait he flew to Madrid and spent a morning in the gallery watching the traffic.

Snowfall continued without letup. Discouraged, Thomas poured a cup of espresso and went upstairs to shower and dress. He shaved
quickly and chose corduroys and a heavy sweater against the chill of the room. He looked into Florette's closet, six feet of clothes on hangers, dresses, slacks, blouses, and what seemed an infinity of shoes. Some of the items he associated with specific occasions, Christmas Mass, Sunday lunches, and dinners out. She had worn the black shift on their last visit to the auberge south of Toulouse, where they had eaten great blocks of foie gras followed by a veal something. Both of them were tipsy by the end of the meal. The dress still had a stain where he had clumsily dropped a spoonful of sorbet while passing it to her across the table. He made a ribald remark and she shushed him.