Law of Return (27 page)

“Hipólito’s provided
us
with papers for leaving Spain,” her father said, a little grimly. “Or, to put it another way, he’s given us three shots at altering an official document.”

Elena inspected the visa Hipólito had sent more closely. It was printed, but her own name had been typed onto a blank line: “
Give permanent shelter and protection to Elena Fernández Ríos.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You think we can convincingly alter this?”

“Your father tells me he has a typewriter,” Professor Meyer spoke. “Unfortunately, the capital letters do not fall in the right places.”

“It’s cream-colored paper,” Elena pointed out, testing the visa between her fingers. “It will be hard to blank things out.”

“We were about to go into the study to try.” Her father spoke briskly. “Would you like to come and help?”

Elena shrugged. “All right. If Mama doesn’t need me to do anything.”

Since Professor Fernández had only one typewriter, it was impossible for more than one person to work at the forgery at a time. Joseph Meyer thoughtfully suggested that his colleague type a series of test copies, using the names Guillermo, María, and Elena Fernández, and then attempt to alter the test copies before moving on to the actual documents. Guillermo agreed, with a laughing comment about German logic which made the refugee wince slightly. He tapped away for a few minutes, and then presented the results to his daughter and colleague. “All right, how much of this should be altered by the machine, and how much do you think calligraphy will fix?”

Elena considered the regular black letters. “It’s probably better to work on mine or Mama’s. We both have a long vertical in the first letter that could be changed to a J pretty easily. And your name is too long anyway. It looks like the “a” in Mama’s name could become an “o” without too much trouble . . . but then you have to turn “r” into “s” and I’m not sure how that would work. And then there are so many extra letters.”

“The trouble is really the capitals, then,” Guillermo agreed. “And what to do with the extra letters on the surname of course, although I suppose that could just be crossed out.”

After some more debate, Elena settled down with a list of neatly typed
Elena Fernández’
s and a pen, and did her best to alter her name. Meyer took a list of
María Pilar Ríos de Fernández
’s and did the same. Guillermo tapped away at the typewriter, providing more sample copies. All of the inexpert forgers quickly hit setbacks, but Professor Meyer was inspired after about half an hour’s work. “Try spelling my name with an ‘f’ instead of a ‘ph’ at the end, so the capitals coincide,” he suggested.

“Is that the name on your passport?” Guillermo demanded.

Meyer shrugged. “Surely the Mexican embassy can make a mistake? And you use ‘f ’ for the Greek letter ö in Spanish, do you not?”

“Yes.” Guillermo nodded. “All right, try it that way.”

Unfortunately, the best efforts of all three were unable to alter an “F” or “P” to an “M” without causing visible changes. “You’ll have to say it’s a typo,” Elena commented finally, in despair. “Because they aren’t used to foreign names.”

“Yes,” Meyer frowned. “But . . . I do not know . . . Helenka, do you type?”

“Me? You mean, really type? Like a stenographer? No,” Elena shook her head, regretful.

“I do not either.” Meyer sighed. “But I believe there are more common errors, for someone who types. If we could make the changes look like those common errors perhaps. . . .”

This set in motion a spirited debate about what might be considered a “common” error, which ended with Elena, her father, and the professor intently inspecting the typewriter, and all three of them miming the motions of an expert typist, to see which keys might well be interchanged frequently. They were in the midst of this debate when the clock struck two, and Guillermo started up. “My God, it’s Friday. I’d almost forgotten. It would be just brilliant to be late today of all days, wouldn’t it. Elenita, would you like a walk?”

For a moment Elena did not know what her father was talking about. Then she realized, with horror, that he was inviting her to go with him to report for parole. She shook her head, mute, and then forced herself to add, “I’ll stay here, and try to work on this more. And . . . and Mama shouldn’t be left.”

“All right.” Guillermo kissed his daughter and hurried toward the hallway, pausing only to grab his hat and say to his guest, “I have to report to the Guardia Civil every Friday. A formality, generally, but they’ve been very picky about it lately. I should be back soon.” Guillermo was out of the door before Meyer had found the words to express his surprise that Elena did not wish to accompany her father, or to ask Guillermo to thank the lieutenant.

Elena took her father’s seat at the typewriter and returned to her experiments. Professor Meyer considered her silently for a few moments, but finally decided to say nothing. How she conducted her affairs was no business of his.

Elena was grateful for Professor Meyer’s tact. She had forgotten that her father would have to encounter Tejada. He doesn’t have to say anything about Meyer, she thought, with sudden fear. He doesn’t have to reveal that he knows me at all. He can arrest Papa for murder, or subversion, or whatever he pleases . . . but he won’t. Or he wouldn’t have if I hadn’t said that to him. Her determination to shut out what might be happening to her father at the Guardia Civil post made her focus more intently on her work, and actually spurred her to produce a very creditable sample forgery by the time Guillermo returned an hour later.

The professor was in good spirits. “Very quick again,” he reported cheerfully. “Mostly a formality. With any luck they’ll drop it altogether soon.” He inspected his daughter’s work. “That’s good, Elenita. Do you think you could do it with the real thing?”

Elena frowned. “I don’t know. I’d like to practice a little more. And then there’s the question of matching the ink, and how to blank things out on this color paper. Maybe we should practice with your visa first, so we get a feel for working with it.”

Both Guillermo and Professor Meyer made a few more attempts at altering names, and then decided that Elena’s attempt was not going to be bettered. After a practice run with Guillermo’s visa (in which it was discovered that the “F” on the Mexican typewriter that had typed the visas was slanted slightly differently from the “F” on Guillermo’s machine), the professor carefully slid Elena’s visa into the typewriter and began to make the necessary corrections. Another tense half hour with a pen, and the final product was done.

“There!” Guillermo looked at his work, and found it good.

“Do you think they’ll examine it closely?” Josef Meyer, possessor of an entry visa for Mexico, looked more dubious.

“The seal and everything is genuine,” Elena reminded him comfortingly. “And so’s your passport.”

Meyer snorted briefly. “No one would want to forge one of those passports now. They’re not worth the paper they’re written on.”

“The next question is how to get you to La Coruña.” Guillermo was brisk.

“Is it far?” the refugee asked, apprehensive.

His host shrugged. “Another train ride. The question is how to get you tickets.
I
can’t buy them, because I’m not allowed to leave Salamanca. And Elena’s just returned.”

“Perhaps you can draw off the surveillance again, as you did when I arrived,” Meyer suggested.

After further discussion, the Fernándezes agreed to Professor Meyer’s plan. Guillermo suggested that for him to leave the house again the same day would be suspicious. Elena quietly agreed to go to buy the ticket on Saturday, thankful that the day’s preparations had kept her father too busy to ask her about how she had crossed the border. She volunteered to go and report the progress that had been made to her mother, hopeful that she would be spared the necessity of mentioning Lieutenant Tejada for another evening.

Her hope was misplaced. María took an eager interest in the preparations for Meyer’s departure but she had (from her daughter’s point of view) a depressingly good memory. When Elena had finished the story of the altered visa and explained her intention to go to the station the next day, María said, “That’s a good idea. But the professor must be very resourceful. How did he make it to San Sebastián? Do you know, Elenita?”

Faced with a direct question, Elena was silent for a moment. She was tempted to lie, and say that she had no idea how Professor Meyer had crossed the border; he had not confided the details to her. But she was not in the habit of lying to her parents. She took a deep breath. “I met him in France,” she said.

“You crossed the border? But how? Why did you take such a risk?” Her mother was concerned.

Elena was somewhat steadied by the telling of her trip to France, and her first encounter with Meyer. “So we agreed to rest in a hotel lounge until nightfall,” she finished, feeling her mouth go dry.

“And you crossed on foot? My God, Elena, you poor thing! The professor must be quite a mountaineer.”

Once again, Elena was tempted to let silence stand as the reply. But her childhood habit of total honesty was strong. “No,” she said reluctantly. “As it happened we were found. By . . . by Lieutenant Tejada.”

“Lieutenant who?” María asked, frowning both at the title and her daughter’s tone of voice.

“The officer Papa reports to,” Elena amplified, eyes fixed on the quilt. “Who gave us permission to travel. He said he was in Biarritz on other business.”

María gasped. “The Guardia found you? But you got away? How? Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

Elena twisted her hands in her lap. “He drove us across the border,” she explained unwillingly, wishing that she had simply let her mother think that she and Meyer had crossed the border on foot. “He . . .” she paused as it occurred to her that even if she had not wished to conceal details of her meeting from her parents, she could not think of a plausible motive for Tejada’s help. A memory of his stubborn chauvinism came to her aid. “He said he wouldn’t hand a Spaniard over to foreign authorities. And he didn’t care what we’d done, so long as we weren’t Communists.” She swallowed remembering Meyer’s last words to the lieutenant. “He’s a good man . . . for one of them.”

“Why didn’t you tell us earlier?” María repeated, stunned.

“I didn’t want to worry you. You know how Papa is about the Guardia.”

María was quite sure that her daughter had not offered a full explanation, but years of war and surveillance had taught the professor’s wife that the absurdly irrational and wildly implausible were sometimes a daily fact of life. María did not think her daughter was lying. Talking about her encounter with the Guardia Civil clearly made her miserable, but there were many possible reasons for that. María decided that forcing her daughter’s confidence would be unwise. I’ll talk to Guillermo this evening, she thought. And see what Elena’s told him about all this. And give her a chance to recover from the whole business. “Thank God I didn’t know about this at the time,” she said aloud, forcing a smile.

“That was what I thought.” Elena’s smile became more natural as her mother dropped the subject.

To her relief, her parents seemed willing to let sleeping dogs lie. The next few days were tense enough anyway. There were no direct trains to La Coruña, and Elena had been forced to purchase a ticket with a connection in Madrid. Professor Meyer, who spent much of the time pacing the hallway and itching to go outside, accepted the news that he was to leave on Tuesday morning and arrive at La Coruña the following dawn with fatalistic calm. Elena devoted herself to giving the professor intensive Spanish lessons, and doing her best to recall the layout of the Madrid station, so that he would not need to ask for directions when he changed trains. Guillermo, who had pointed out that traveling such a long distance without luggage would probably attract comment, packed a small suitcase for his guest over Professor Meyer’s embarrassed objections. The suitcase was far from full. It contained only an extra suit, a small toilet bag, and a few volumes of Homer. “So you’ll have something to read on the boat,” Guillermo insisted. “I have extra copies anyway.”

Elena and Guillermo said their final good-byes to Professor Meyer early Tuesday morning. They had agreed to leave together, well before him, so that any surveillance would be drawn away from the house. “Good luck,” Guillermo said quietly, shaking hands with his colleague. He smiled a little. “I hope we meet again.”

“Next year in Mexico, perhaps,” the Jew agreed. He turned to Elena. “Thank you for all of your help, Helenka.”

“It was nothing.”

Father and daughter left the house and wandered down to the market, patiently standing in line for bread, glad that they had an excuse to spend so much time away from their home. They returned a little after ten. The house was empty, except for María. “He left around nine-thirty,” the professor’s wife reported.