The Time in Between: A Novel (11 page)

I recalled my daily visits to the reception desk, hopeful, longing to receive that letter that I believed would change our lives. Ramiro had already had it for months without ever letting me know. My resolve to defend him was dissipating, turning to smoke. I clung with what little strength I had to my last remaining trace of hope.

“But he loved me . . .”

The commissioner smiled with a touch of bitterness mixed with something like compassion.

“That’s what all his kind say. Look, miss, don’t fool yourself: men like Arribas only love themselves. They can be affectionate and seem generous; they’re usually charming, but at the moment of truth the only thing that interests them is their own hide, and at the first sign of things getting a little tricky they’re out the door like a shot. They’ll step on anyone they need to so as not to be caught in a lie. This time the person hurt worst has been you; bad luck, without a doubt. I don’t question that he thought highly of you, but one fine day a better project came along and you became a burden he was no longer interested in dragging along. That’s why he left you. Don’t try and think about it any more. You’re not at fault for anything, but there isn’t a lot we can do to alter what is irreversible.”

I didn’t want to plunge further into those thoughts about the sincerity
of Ramiro’s love; it was too painful for me. I preferred to return to practical matters.

“And the thing with Hispano-Olivetti? What am I supposed to have to do with that?”

He breathed in and breathed out hard, as though readying himself to broach something that didn’t appeal to him.

“That business is even more tangled. Right now, there’s no cast-iron proof to exculpate you, though personally I would surmise that it’s another scam into which you’ve been drawn by your husband, or your fiancé, or whatever this Arribas is. The official version of the facts is that you are the owner of a business that has received a number of typewriters that were never paid for.”

“He thought of setting up a business in my name, but I didn’t realize . . . I didn’t know . . . I didn’t . . .”

“That’s what I believe, that you had no idea about all the things he was using you to front. Let me tell you what I think really happened. Correct me if I’m wrong: your father gave you some money and some jewels, correct?”

I nodded.

“And then Arribas offered to register a company in your name, and to put all the money and jewels away in the safe of the company where he worked, correct?”

I nodded again.

“Well, he didn’t do it. Or rather, he did do it, but not as a simple deposit in your name. With that money he made a purchase from his own company, pretending that it was an order from the import-export firm he told you about, Quiroga Typewriters, for which you appeared as owner. He paid punctually with your money, and Hispano-Olivetti suspected absolutely nothing: just one more order, a large one, well negotiated, and that was that. As for Arribas, he then resold the machines, I don’t know to whom or how. Thus far everything was quite correct as far as Hispano-Olivetti’s accounting was concerned, and satisfactory for Arribas who, without having a single cent of his own money, had done a terrific deal in his favor. Well, a few weeks later he arranged
another large order in your name, which was again fulfilled in a timely manner. The full cost of this order wasn’t met at the time; only a first installment came in, but since you were known to have good credit no one was suspicious: they imagined that the rest of the sum would be met according to the terms agreed. The problem is that the payment was never made: Arribas once again sold the merchandise, again took the profits and got out, with you and with all your capital practically intact, as well as a good slice he had managed to get with the resale and the purchase he never paid for. A coup, yes indeed, although someone should have suspected something because as I understand it your departure from Madrid was rather abrupt, was it not?”

Like a flash I remembered arriving at our home on the Plaza de las Salesas that March morning, Ramiro’s nervous rush in taking the clothes from the wardrobe and filling suitcases, the urgency he instilled in me to do the same without wasting a second. With these images in my mind, I confirmed the commissioner’s assumption. He went on.

“And so to cap it all Arribas didn’t just take your money, but he had also used it to get greater profit for himself. A very smart guy, no doubt about it.”

Tears came to my eyes again.

“Stop that. Keep your tears to yourself, please: there’s no point crying over spilt milk. But unfortunately, these things have really happened at the least convenient and most complicated time.”

I swallowed, tried to control myself, and managed to resume the conversation one more time. “Because of what you were saying the other day about the war?”

“We still don’t know how all this is going to end, but right now the situation is extremely complicated. Half of Spain is in the hands of the rebels, and the other half remains loyal to the government. The situation is unstable and no reliable news is getting out; in short, an utter disaster.”

“And here? How are things here?”

“Moderately calm at the moment; in the weeks just past, everything was in much greater turmoil. This is where it all started, didn’t you know? It was here that the insurrection arose; it was from here, from
Morocco, that General Franco appeared and the troop movements began. There were bombardments in the first few days; the Republic’s air force attacked the High Commission in response to the uprising, but through bad luck they missed their target and one of the Fokkers caused quite a few civilian injuries, the death of several Moorish children, and the destruction of a mosque, which was considered by the Muslims to have been an attack on them, and they automatically took the side of the rebels. At the same time, there were also countless arrests and shooting of defenders of the Republic who were against the insurrection: the European prison filled almost to bursting, and they set up a sort of detention camp in El Mogote. Finally with the fall of the Sania Ramel Aerodrome here, very close to this hospital, the government’s bastions in the Protectorate were all done for, meaning that now the whole of the north of Africa is controlled by rebel soldiers and the situation is more or less calm. Now the worst of it is happening on the Peninsula.”

Then he rubbed his eyes with his left thumb and index finger; after that he moved his palm slowly upward, over his eyebrows, his forehead, and the roots of his hair, over the crown of his head and down the back of his neck until it reached his collar. He spoke low, as though to himself. “Let’s just see if this damned business comes to an end once and for all . . .”

I pulled him out of his contemplation: I couldn’t contain my uncertainty a second longer. “But am I going to be able to leave or not?”

My untimely question forced him back to reality. Decisive.

“No. Absolutely not. You won’t be able to go anywhere, least of all to Madrid. At the moment the government of the Republic is there: the people are supporting it and getting ready to resist for as long as they possibly can.”

“But I’ve got to go back,” I insisted weakly. “That’s where my mother is, my home . . .”

He struggled to keep his impatience in check. My insistence was troubling him more and more, though he tried not to contradict me, bearing in mind my delicate state. In other circumstances he might have treated me with much less leniency.

“Look, I don’t know which side you’re on, if you’re with the government or in favor of the insurrection.” His voice had recovered all its strength after the brief moment of decline; most likely tiredness and the tension of these turbulent days had momentarily taken their toll. “To be honest, after everything I’ve had to witness in these past weeks, your position doesn’t trouble me all that much; in fact, I’d just rather not know about it. All I do is go on with my work, trying to keep political issues on the sidelines; there are too many people worrying about them already, unfortunately. But ironically, luck—for once, though it’s hard to believe—has come down on your side. Here in Tetouan, the heart of the uprising, you’ll be absolutely safe because no one but me will take an interest in your business with the law, and believe me, it’s pretty murky business. Enough to keep you—under normal conditions—in prison for quite some time.”

I tried to protest, alarmed and filled with panic. He didn’t let me—he halted my objections with a raised hand and went on talking.

“I imagine that in Madrid by now they’ve stopped most police proceedings along with any legal cases that aren’t political or on a significant scale: with all they’ve been through, I don’t imagine anyone has any interest in coming to Morocco in pursuit of an alleged typewriter company swindler and thief of her father’s estate, accused by her own brother. A few weeks ago these would have been reasonably serious matters, but nowadays they’re trivial compared to what’s happening in the capital.”

“And so?” I asked, unsure.

“And so what you’re going to do is stay right where you are, not make the slightest attempt to leave Tetouan, and do everything you can to avoid causing the least bit of trouble. My assignment is to oversee the supervision and security of the Protectorate zone, and I don’t think you’re a great threat to that. But just in case, I don’t want you out of my sight. So you’ll stay here awhile and steer clear of any kind of trouble. And you are not to consider this a piece of advice or a suggestion; it’s got the full force of an order. It’s a rather unusual kind of detention: I’m not putting you in jail or restricting you to house arrest, so you will
enjoy relative freedom. But you are absolutely forbidden from leaving the city without my prior consent, is that clear?”

“Until when?” I said, without affirming what he had asked. The idea of remaining alone for an indefinite period in that unfamiliar city seemed the worst possible option.

“Until the situation calms down in Spain and we see how things are resolved. Then I’ll decide what to do with you; right now I have neither the time nor the means to deal with your affairs. For the immediate future, you’ll only have one problem to face: the debt to the hotel in Tangiers.”

“But I have no way of paying that much . . . ,” I explained, again on the verge of tears.

“I know: I’ve searched your luggage from top to bottom, and apart from a jumble of clothes and a few papers, I’ve been able to confirm that you don’t have anything else with you. But for now you’re the only person we’ve got whom we can hold responsible, and in this matter you’re just as implicated as Arribas. Which means that in his absence, you will be the one who’ll have to meet the demands. And I’m afraid I won’t be able to get you out of this, because Tangiers knows I’ve got you here, absolutely under control.”

“But he took my money . . . ,” I insisted, my voice breaking with tears again.

“I know that, too, and stop that damned crying once and for all, would you please? In his note Arribas makes it all clear: in his own words the scoundrel expresses quite openly that he means to leave you high and dry and without a cent, taking all your belongings with him. And dragging a pregnancy with you that you ended up losing no sooner than you set foot in Tetouan, stepping off the bus.”

The confusion in my face, mixed with my tears, pain, and frustration, forced him to frame a question.

“You don’t remember? I was the one waiting for you there. We’d got a tip-off from the police in Tangiers alerting us to your arrival. It seems some bellhop in the hotel made a comment to the manager about your hasty departure; he thought you looked strange and raised
the alarm. They then discovered that you had left the room with no intention of returning. Since the sum you owed was considerable, they alerted the police, tracked down the taxi driver who had taken you to the La Valenciana bus stop, and discovered that you were headed here. In normal circumstances I would have sent one of my men to fetch you, but with things being so tempestuous lately I now prefer to supervise everything personally to avoid unpleasant surprises, so I decided to find you myself. No sooner had you gotten off the bus than you fainted in my arms; I brought you here myself.”

A few blurry recollections were starting to take shape in my memory. The stifling heat of that bus, which everyone just called La Valenciana. The shouting inside, the baskets with live chickens, the sweat and smells coming off the bodies and the bundles that the passengers, Moors and Spaniards, were carrying with them. The feeling of a thick moisture between my thighs. And once we’d arrived in Tetouan, the extreme weakness as I got off, the shock when I realized that a hot substance was running down my legs, a thick, black trickle that I was leaving behind me. No sooner had I touched the tarmac of the new city than a man’s voice was emerging from a face half obscured under a hat brim. “Sira Quiroga? Police. Come with me, please.” At that moment I was assailed by an infinite weakness, my mind clouding over and my legs no longer able to support me, and I lost consciousness. Now, weeks later, I was once again looking at that face, still uncertain whether it belonged to my executioner or my savior.

“Sister Virtudes has been in charge of passing information on to me about your progress. I’ve been trying for days to speak to you, but until now they denied me access. They told me you have pernicious anemia, as well as a number of other things. But, well, it seems you’re doing better now, which is why they’ve allowed me to see you and are going to discharge you in the next few days.”

“And where will I go?” My anxiety was as overwhelming as my fear. I felt unable to confront an unknown reality all by myself. I’d never done anything without help, I’d always had someone walking ahead to show me the way: my mother, Ignacio, Ramiro. I felt useless, unfit to face life and its challenges alone, unable to survive without a hand
leading me firmly, without a head making decisions for me, without a nearby presence in whom to trust, and on whom to depend.

“On that matter,” he said, “I’ve been looking for a place—don’t think it’s easy, the way things are now. In any case, I want to learn more of your story. So if you feel strong enough I’d like to come back and see you again tomorrow, in case there may be some detail that will help us to resolve the problems that were dumped on you by your husband, your fiancé . . .”