Watcher in the Pine (24 page)

“That was what I told her!” Tejada agreed. “That’s what bothers me most! It’s dishonest.”

“Do you think there was anything else . . . dishonest about these meetings?”

Tejada scowled. “I suppose not. But that’s not the point!”

Pause. Wind. Cast. “When is your child due, Lieutenant?”

“The end of this month.” Tejada’s voice sounded sulky in his own ears. “But I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“You’ve been married long?”

“Eight months.”

The priest sighed. “Your wife,” he said slowly, “struck me as a highly intelligent woman. She mentioned to me that she had graduated from university, and had worked to support herself for several years. That would have been during the Republic?”

Tejada braced himself for the familiar pinprick hostility. “Yes,” he snapped.

Pause. Wind. Cast. “So she has acquired a habit of independence, which is unfortunate,” Father Bernardo said. “But it seems to me that she is trying to break this habit. Often women who marry late and have experience of self-sufficiency have difficulty adjusting to marriage. And your wife is adjusting to marriage, to motherhood, and to a new home all at once. I’m sure she’s making an effort. But she may need you to be tolerant of any lapses.”

“I am tolerant,” Tejada protested. “But this is something that could affect my career. Something that’s important.”

“And how does she feel about your career?” Father Bernardo asked shrewdly.

Tejada opened his mouth to complain, and then remembered Elena saying gently,
We neither of us want peace of mind
. “She understands what it means to me,” he admitted softly.

“That’s a rare blessing,” Father Bernardo cast again, and added encouragingly, “Also, remember, she’s in her last month of pregnancy. Women at that time are always beset with doubts, fears, terrors even. When the baby comes she’ll settle down to taking care of it, and you’ll have to worry less about all this.”

Tejada stared at the muddy ground, and flushed. “I told her I’d take the baby away if she didn’t give way about Vargas,” he muttered, embarrassed.

“That,” said the priest briskly, “would be the worst thing you could do. Aside from being inhumanly cruel to a woman of warm heart and fondness for children, as Señora Fernández obviously is, it would be precisely the thing most likely to push her into more defiance. Think about it: If you crush her maternal feelings, a woman of her intelligence and education is likely to take refuge in exactly the sort of unfeminine intellectualism that you’re trying to avoid.”

Tejada stopped listening shortly after hearing the words “inhumanly cruel,” and started remembering Elena’s face as he had last seen it, drawn with misery. “I didn’t mean it,” he said guiltily. “I’ll apologize to her. I . . . is there anything you think I could bring her? Wine? Roses? Chocolate?”

“The gold of El Dorado?” Father Bernardo suggested, teasing but not unkind. “It’s early in the season for roses, and Fermín hasn’t had a delivery of chocolate in six months, but I have a bottle of a nice local vintage that you’re welcome to, if you think it’s necessary.”

“I couldn’t—” Tejada began.

“It would give me great pleasure to see a husband and wife reconciled,” Father Bernardo interrupted gently. He drew in his line a final time, and stepped out of the water. “It will soon be too dark to stay anyway. Come along.”

Tejada was impatient to set things right with his wife, and he was afraid that the priest would delay him. But Father Bernardo moved along the bank with the speed of long familiarity, and they reached the parish house within a few minutes. “Give my respects to Señora Fernández,” said Father Bernardo, smiling, as he handed over the bottle of wine.

Tejada thanked him briefly but fervently, and set off for home as rapidly as possible. The streetlights were just beginning to come on, and house windows glowed through the gathering dark. Tejada rehearsed the scene in his mind. Elena would probably be very quiet at first. She always was when she was frightened or upset. But he was optimistic that she would forgive him. She always had forgiven him before. He anxiously replayed their last conversation, wondering if he had said or done anything unpardonable. He thought not. All the same, he entered the
fonda
and headed up to his apartment with a certain sense of foreboding. The lights were all out when he entered. He wondered if she had taken refuge in bed. He headed for the bedroom. Perhaps she had fallen asleep. He imagined creeping across the room and leaning over to kiss her on the cheek and murmur endearments as she woke up. That would not be the worst way of apologizing.

He was still gripping the wine bottle by its neck. Smiling slightly, he went to the kitchen to put it down, flipping the light switch as he went. The kitchen was spotlessly clean. He wondered what had happened to the soup he had not eaten for lunch, and felt pleasantly hungry. They could have a late supper together, with the wine. He headed back toward the bedroom. The door creaked as he pushed it open. “Elena?” He crossed the room and turned on the lamp beside the bed. It was unmade, but empty.

Tejada frowned, worried, and retraced his steps. “Elena?” In spite of himself he spoke a little more sharply.
It’s nothing serious
, he told himself, fighting down irrational panic.
She’s not here. She probably went to see a friend. So she’ll gossip about our fight. Damn
.
Well, I suppose I did the same thing. With luck it won’t be all over Potes before the end of the week
. He passed the dining-room table and saw that a folded note with his own name on the outside was propped up against a book. He picked it up, a little relieved. At least she had told him where she was going. She could not have left in a state of total anger then. He unfolded the note.

Lieutenant
, he read, shocked first by the cold salutation, and then by the realization that it was not in Elena’s handwriting.
Your wife and her child are safe. If you wish them to remain so, bring the shipment of carbines you received from Santander and the eight hundred rounds of ammunition that accompany them to the pine where you found a cache of arms two weeks ago and leave them there within the next forty-eight hours. If you comply with these conditions Señora de Tejada will be released unharmed within a day of the delivery of the arms. If you do not deliver them, or if the Guardia or the Policía Armada initiate any house-to-house search, her body will be returned to you. Sincerely, the Republican Army of Liberation
.

Tejada sat down, mouth open, eyes staring at nothing. “Elena,” he whispered, half-hoping that if he managed to say her name aloud he would feel her arms around him and hear her saying gently,
Carlos! Carlos, wake up! I’m here, it’s all right. It was just a dream
. He repeated her name, willing himself to wake up, to discover that the whole day, the whole time they had spent in Potes leading up to this day, had been only a dream. Desperate, he slammed his fist into the table.

His knuckles bruised, the pain brutally forced him to admit that he was awake. He reread the note, trying to focus on the details beyond the fact of his wife’s absence, but his only coherent thought was that his Elena was being held prisoner somewhere in the mountains, cold and frightened, and perhaps wounded, and still believing that he hated her.

Chapter 19

T
he sound of horses in the street brought Tejada out of his daze. Perhaps one of the patrols was returning late. The cold thought struck him that Elena’s kidnappers might mistake the end of a routine patrol for a house-to-house search. He grabbed the note and headed for the post at a run. His men were at dinner when he arrived. He found Márquez and Battista eating together, their heads bent over the sergeant’s radio, which had nearly miraculously managed to pick up a program from Radio Cantabria, in spite of the mountains. Tejada reached over and switched off the radio. “We’ve got a problem,” he said.

The two officers looked up at the lieutenant, and then exchanged glances. Then they stood up. “The office?” Márquez suggested.

Tejada nodded, and the three men left the cafeteria in silence. When they reached the office, Márquez took a seat at his desk, and Battista stood behind him. Tejada paced back and forth, ignoring his chair. It was the corporal who finally broke the silence. “So what’s the matter?”

Tejada took a deep breath and found that he was unwilling to say the words aloud. Telling someone else what had happened made it somehow more real and irrevocable. “I found this when I got home,” he said finally, and held out the note.

Márquez leaned forward to take the piece of paper from the lieutenant. He read it silently, considerately holding it up so that Battista could read over his shoulder. Tejada was looking at the ground, so he did not see their faces as they read, but he heard Battista’s breath hiss between his teeth, and heard Márquez mutter softly, “Pigs.” Battista looked up at his commander. “I’m so sorry, sir.”

The sympathetic words almost broke Tejada’s self-control. He sank into a chair, one hand over his eyes. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “If I could think of any way of finding her . . . but I can’t.” His voice was shaking, and he stopped, unwilling to betray any more weakness.

Márquez took a deep breath, and seemed to be speaking very cautiously. “Lieutenant, the maquis have been wasting ammunition lately. Their supplies are running low. They can’t buy it here, and the Germans may be blocking their supplies in France. All we have to do is wait them out. But if we
give
them enough ammunition for the next six months—”

“I know that,” Tejada snapped. “We can’t give them the ammunition.”

“Good.” The sergeant looked relieved. “And let me say how much I admire your heroism, sir.” He turned in his chair, speaking more rapidly now. “We do have a chance. You were home for lunch, so this can be only a few hours old at the most. We’ll send out patrols in all directions right away. Battista, get the register for each of the villages, so the men who haven’t gone on patrols yet will know how many houses they have to search.”

“We can’t. They’ll kill her,” Tejada interrupted. “You know word travels faster than we do for the house-to-houses, and we don’t even have a clue which direction to start.”

“I know it’s a slim chance, sir,” Márquez said. “But we have no choice.”

Tejada had been frantically revolving plans, and now he put forward the best of a flawed lot. “I thought maybe we could stake out the arms drop. Use dummy arms, even. If they’d only given us a little more
time
it would be easier. But even as it is . . .”

He stopped; the sergeant was shaking his head and looking disapproving. “This is
terrorism
, Lieutenant. You can’t give in to their demands.”

“Leave them the guns without ammunition then,” Tejada pleaded. “We could have the whole area surrounded.”

“It’s too much of a risk.” Márquez was firm. “Besides, what kind of precedent would it set? No. We have to show them that we can’t be bargained with. You have to order a house-to-house search
now
.”

Tejada stared the sergeant, understanding dimly that Márquez was worried about the ammunition, about keeping order in the Liébana, about everything except Elena.
He’s never liked Elena
, Tejada thought despairingly.
He thinks she’s a Red. Oh, God, if they’d only
known
that before they’d taken her. This is all my fault
. “No,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I can’t do that to her.”

“Lieutenant, if we allow them to take hostages the entire valley will become unsafe,” Márquez said. “Order the house-to-house, or I will.”

“I . . . can’t.” Tejada looked past Márquez to Battista, and saw sympathy in the corporal’s face, but not support.

Márquez looked grim. “I understand from your file that you were in Toledo in ’36, Lieutenant.”

Tejada blinked, confused. “Yes. So what?”

“So you were privileged to witness the example of Colonel Moscardó’s heroism.”

For a moment, Tejada did not understand what Márquez was talking about. Then the part of his brain that understood why the maquis could not be given the ammunition in exchange for Elena’s safety gave him a sharp mental kick. All of Spain knew of Colonel Moscardó’s heroism: The Reds besieging the Alcázar de Toledo had called the Colonel and told him that if the Alcázar was not surrendered within the hour his son would be shot. Moscardó had given his son his blessing, and said farewell to him in a brief telephone call. Tejada closed his eyes, and tried to remember the months he had spent in the Alcázar, under Moscardó’s command. He remembered the exhilaration that something was finally
happening
; that the die had been cast, and the Falange was finally sounding the call across the nation. He remembered excitement and well-suppressed nervousness about how he would perform in combat for the first time. He remembered fear and overwhelming hunger and remembered the first time he had seen a man shot at close range. He remembered grim nights passed in darkness because the Reds had cut off electricity and water to the fortress. He had an odd, anomalous memory of the phone lines being cut as well, but surely that was a mistake, one of the mind’s treacherous tricks. For the life of him he could not remember anything about Moscardó’s son, or about the phone call that had since become famous throughout Spain, but he was sure it had happened. He knew that the death of the colonel’s son had been confirmed that autumn when the siege was lifted. But he couldn’t remember hearing the colonel refer to his son during the siege.
Heroism
, Tejada thought dully.
Heroism is making the ultimate sacrifice for your country. But I never thought the ultimate sacrifice would be
someone else.

“Moscardó’s son was a grown man,” he said hoarsely. “My . . . my child hasn’t even had a chance to live yet.”
And Moscardó had a telephone call
, he added silently.
Or . . . well, he must have had one
.
He was able to make things right with his son. But if I never see Elena again I won’t be able to tell her how sorry I am. She’ll keep thinking I’m angry with her until she . . . she’ll keep thinking I’m angry. Suppose they tell her about the house-to-house before they . . . Suppose they tell her? Taunt her with my inhumanity? She’ll believe them
.

“That makes their crime more despicable,” Márquez said quietly. “But it doesn’t change the only honorable course.”

Tejada propped his elbows on his desk, holding his temples. “No,” he whispered.

The sergeant stood and put one hand on his commander’s shoulder. “I’ll give the order, sir,” he said soothingly. “And Battista and I can arrange everything. You won’t have to ride with the patrols. The men will understand.” He picked up the duty roster and gestured to Battista, who went over to the filing cabinet to pull out a census of the villages in the Liébana.

Tejada raised his head as the two men headed for the door. “I said no. A house-to-house is useless without more directions. We’ll spend the next two days gathering intelligence, paying for informants, everything we can. And then we’ll stake out the arms drop.”

Márquez’s lips thinned. “With all due respect, sir, I don’t think your judgment is trustworthy in this case. It’s quite understandable. But we’ll do a house-to-house.”

Tejada stood up. “That was an order, Sergeant.”

Márquez froze. Then he said softly, “I’m sorry, sir. I believe that course is not in the best interests of the corps or the security of this region. I’m sure that after a little reflection you’ll agree with me.”

“The hell I will!” Tejada retorted, incensed. “Where do you—?” He stopped suddenly. Márquez had drawn his pistol.

“I think,” the sergeant said deliberately, “that you will reconsider when you’ve had time to think it over, Lieutenant. I’m going to take you upstairs, and then Battista and I will organize a house-to-house. As soon as the guardias return and whatever news they have is communicated to Santander, you’ll be released to perform your regular duties. Come on, and quickly. The faster we go the better chance we have of recovering your lady.”

Tejada stared at the pistol, uncomprehending. “You’re mutinying?”

“No, sir. I’m authorized to act as commander of the post if the lieutenant is rendered unfit for any reason. You’re clearly too distressed to act competently. As soon as you recover, I’ll cede command, with the greatest of pleasure.” He jerked the pistol. “Let’s go.”

The lieutenant turned to Battista. “You’re going to allow this, Corporal?”

Battista looked unhappy. “I . . . I’m sorry, sir. But I think Sergeant Márquez might be right.”

Tejada was again struck by the odd sense that he was dreaming as the sergeant advanced toward him, gun leveled, and gestured him around the desk. “Battista will take care of your pistol for now, sir,” Márquez said quietly.

Tejada felt as if he were watching a film of himself as the corporal stepped forward and disarmed him with an apologetic expression. Except he was not quite sure which of the three figures in the silent movie he was as they left the office, Márquez behind him, and Battista at his elbow. He had seen prisoners escorted a thousand times, without ever noticing his own perspective before. “Should I put my hands on my head?” he asked without sarcasm, merely curious to see how far this strange excursion into a mirror image of his world would go.

“I don’t think that’s necessary, sir.” The sergeant was reassuring.

Tejada was almost sorry for the response. Márquez was being so reasonable, so deferential, that he began to doubt his own sanity.
I should do something
, he thought, as they climbed the stairs.
Márquez wouldn’t dare use the gun, really. He’d have to explain it to the colonel if he did
. They reached the cells, and Battista stepped forward to unlock the empty one. In retrospect, Tejada found it funny that he had worried so much about space to put prisoners. As the corporal gestured him inside, he did not see anything amusing. He knew that he was faster than most men. He was fairly sure that he was faster than Márquez, and he suspected that both of his captors would hesitate an instant before using a pistol on a superior officer. There was a good chance he could knock the sergeant’s arm out of the way without injury, and he might well be able to make a dash down the stairs before either of them reacted.

What kept him from resisting was not so much the possibility of being shot as the nagging suspicion that Márquez and Battista were right, and that he was in fact temporarily insane. He was not reassured when Sergeant Márquez said gently, “I’m sure when you think it over you’ll agree this is for the best, Lieutenant.”

“We’ll tell you as soon as there’s any news,” Battista added. “And we’ll leave someone on duty here, so you can call if you need anything.”

“And you don’t need to worry about what the colonel will say,” Márquez finished. “When we write the reports, you’ll have full credit for the operation. Your . . . temporary mental disturbance can remain between us.”

The cell door swung shut, leaving Tejada alone in darkness.
How many times have I left someone like this
? he wondered. But they understood why they were there.
I understand why I’m here, I suppose. Márquez thinks I’ve gone crazy. Maybe I have gone crazy. I wouldn’t be locked up by my own officers otherwise. I don’t feel crazy. But do madmen even know that they’re insane? Maybe, if they lose their minds after being normal for a long time. God, how terrible, like a cripple who knows that other people can walk, to know that you can’t trust your own mind where normal people can. Am I like that? I wouldn’t have fought with Elena over a stupid nothing if I’d been in my right mind. But it’s not a hallucination that she’s been kidnapped. It’s not a hallucination that the maquis will kill her if they get word of the house-to-house
.

He took a deep breath, and tried to think calmly and logically. Perhaps Márquez was right, and the patrols would find Elena. But that was a faint hope. And in the meantime he would have to wait here, impotent, until the patrols returned. Waiting was unbearable.
All right
, he told himself firmly.
Slow and steady
.
Worry about getting out of here first, and then about stopping the house-to-house
. The tramp of horses’ hooves and the jingle of bridles outside his window nearly drove him to despair again. The house-to-house was starting already; it would be impossible to recall the patrols now. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to ignore what he could not control. Battista had said to call if he needed anything. He yelled for the corporal. There was no response, and he yelled again, his faint embarrassment at raising his voice expanding into outright humiliation at this ritual of pleading with the empty air.