While England Sleeps (23 page)

Eight torturous hours later, when we arrived in Barcelona, I had convinced myself that Edward—alive when I began this journey—would be dead by the time I ended it.

I got off the train. My stomach was hollow, but I did not eat. Instead—bypassing even my pension—I went to Bar Bristol. I had no idea if Northrop would be there, if he was even in town. Still, the place served as a kind of nerve center in those days; if I was going to find out anything, I reckoned, I would probably find it out there.

Almost as soon as I walked in the door I knew something had happened. It was as if, upon my arrival, the hum of the place had gone up a register. Strangers—people I barely knew—were looking at me and whispering.

A soldier approached me.
“Muchacho!”
he called. “You were looking for someone, an English soldier, right?”

“Yes?”

“I think they’ve found him.”

“Where?” I cried.

“San Sebastián. Only now he’s back in Altaguera, in the barracks brig.”

“And is he all right?”

“I don’t know; I just heard the rumor—that the English
maricón
who deserted had turned up. Then someone said he’d seen the
maricón
, and he looked just like the picture the other English fellow was showing—”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry, I must go.”

“Where? To Altaguera:
Qué loca
—” But I was already out the door. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, siesta just over, a mass of people hurrying down the narrow street toward the Ramblas with the directional intensity of a school of fish, a flock of birds, a wave: old women in mourning black, workers drunk on cheap lunchtime wine, young men whose beauty would stop your heart. The light—more generous, softer than it had been earlier in the day—had drawn them out from their curtained flats to browse at the book stalls or read the scribbled propaganda on the Ramblas. And I sailed among them, buoyed up by panic, by an impulse that could tolerate no distraction, it was so single-minded: for the first time in weeks, I knew where Edward was.

By metro, I went back to the station. I bought a ticket to Altaguera. There was no direct route, I discovered; instead I would have to retrace a substantial portion of the journey I’d just made—all the way to Saragossa. If I’d known, of course, I could have just got off at Saragossa in the first place. But I hadn’t known.

I sat down on a hard bench to wait. Almost immediately the woman sitting next to me stood up and left. Only then did I realize I hadn’t bathed, shaved or changed clothes in almost thirty-six hours.

All around me tragic partings were taking place: mothers rent from sons, wives from husbands. Uniformed soldiers laughing and waving as the dilapidated trains that would carry them to their deaths steamed off. The station had high, vaulted ceilings that, in their grandeur, only compounded the atmosphere of sepulchral gloom: it was a cathedral in which the train itself, the terrible voyage itself, presided like a god.

And in my exhaustion, I fell into a kind of stupor; slowly, inch by inch, I felt myself slipping off the bench—it seemed beyond my control—until the small of my back was where my rump should have been. Before me a panorama of busy life was spreading out, the sort you see when you lift a wet piece of wood. Vendors hawked newspapers and sweets,
chaperos
lounged casually near the lavatories, their cocks crudely outlined in their trousers. Dust and smoke everywhere, a film of blackness that even the desolate-looking chars, swishing their mops around, could never entirely eradicate.

Have you noticed how all war stories end up at a station? Think of the movies, the requisite scene where the train starts up, the soldier leans out the door to wave goodbye, his girl—desperate to prolong the moment of parting—chases after him, until the accelerating beast outruns her. There is no rest in a station; a station thrives on motion, and war usually necessitates a journey: the enforced transport of soldiers to the front, the panicked exodus of refugees, the surreptitious flight of exiles. Soldier, refugee, exile. Who has not, at one time or another, played one of these roles, or all three?

The time arrived for the train to depart. I stood, collected my bags, stumbled over to where the impatient crowd—my fellow travelers—had gathered.

But the hour of departure came and went, and no train pulled up to the announced platform.

Twenty more minutes passed. A voice came over the loudspeaker, announcing that the train to Saragossa would be indefinitely delayed.

Because it was wartime, the crowd greeted this bad news not with anger but relief. The soldiers’ mothers, thanking God for the stay of execution, rushed their sons home for makeshift farewell meals.

As for me, I went to the station baths and had a shower.

And finally, around midnight, we pulled out. I remember droplets of rain slithering down the window, clinging to the glass as we picked up speed, then being snatched away by the hungry air. Saragossa—where I spent two hours—survives in my memory only as another hard bench, a fog of half sleep perpetually interrupted by unintelligible voices announcing delays. Nothing ever arrives on time during a war.

It rained for a long, long time, the rain thudding against the station’s tin roof.

Three hours and fifteen minutes late, the local to Altaguera made its departure from Saragossa.

Six hours and thirty minutes after that, we arrived in Altaguera.

I got out; I was standing with some soldiers on a bare platform in the middle of a flat, dusty plain. Early afternoon, the sun hammering, in spite of the cold.

Hoisting up my bags, I walked into town. Altaguera had no charm to speak of; its streets and squares were flat and geometrical, with few trees and little shade. Old, low buildings forged from swollen bricks listed and crumbled onto barely paved streets. Donkeys mingled with the military trucks; women carried things on their heads.

I did not stop to find a pension, to drop off my bags or bathe or have something to eat. Instead I went directly to the barracks: a clump of jerry-built flat-roofed shacks laid out on a ragged field. Two soldiers stood guard at the gate.

I asked for Northrop. They appeared not to recognize his name. The head of the British battalion, I said. The soldiers looked me over for a minute, and then one of them made a call on a walkie-talkie. After a few minutes he received what I gathered was a favorable reply and motioned me through the gate, where another soldier escorted me through the barracks buildings to an old one-room farmhouse that appeared to have been converted into a kind of central command. And there Northrop sat, in full uniform, behind an empty desk on which a clock ticked mercilessly: Northrop, with whom I had frolicked on the bucolic grounds of an English public school, whose fat cock I’d stroked—how long ago had it been? Five years? Six years? Childhood.

“Botsford! Jesus, man, you look awful!”

“I haven’t slept much,” I said. “I’ve spent the last several days on trains.”

“Well, sit down.” I sat. “I gather you must have heard about Phelan, then.”

“I have. I’ve come to ask if I could see him.”

“Now, Botsford, I told you—”

“You must let me see him, John. Please. You must.”

He looked away. “I don’t see how it could possibly—”

“I’m not asking you to let him go. I’m not even asking you to understand or tolerate. I’m just asking, as someone you’ve known since you were a boy, to let me see him. A half hour, fifteen minutes. That’s all.”

He stared at his desk.

“Please, John.”

“Oh, Christ. Look, this goes against every rule.”

“I’m aware of that. And I’m prepared to take full responsibility if any blame should be leveled.”

“All right,” he said. “Fifteen minutes. But not a second more.”

“Thank you,” I said.

We stood.

At the door, Northrop turned to me and said, “I just want to say I can’t see how this is going to possibly do any good—for either of you.”

“You can’t, I know. Still, you must let us speak.”

He held the door for me, and I passed through. We walked between the barracks buildings until we arrived at a stone structure with blacked-out windows, outside which two armed soldiers stood guard. Northrop saluted them, and they made way to let us pass.

Inside, the building smelled of sweat and urine. We were in a mean little room, unadorned except for a table, two chairs, the ubiquitous bare bulb and a portrait of Lenin. Another armed soldier stood beneath the portrait.

“Wait here,” Northrop said.

Taking a key ring from his pocket, he let himself through a second door, an inner door.

I sat down at the table.

What seemed like hours passed.

Then the door opened again.

Northrop and a soldier came through, between them Edward, his wrists handcuffed.

I stood.

“Edward,” I said.

He looked at me. His eyes widened with surprise.

“Edward, I’m here.”

The soldier sat him down at one end of the table. Northrop then waved the soldier out of the room.

“Fifteen minutes,” he said from the doorway.

He stepped out.

The door clicked shut.

An expression of utter surprise gripped Edward’s face.

I took his handcuffed hand in mine and burst into tears.

“Brian,” Edward said, “it’s all right. I’m all right. Don’t cry—”

“It’s just it took me so long to find you—I’ve been searching and searching.”

“Take a deep breath. You’ve got to pull yourself together.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I breathed. “Ridiculous, your having to calm
me
down. Anyway, how are you?”

“I’ve been better.”

“You’re thin.”

“Haven’t had much to eat.”

“Well, you look wonderful to me.”

“Glad you think so.” He leaned closer. “Brian—what are you doing here?”

“I got your letter. I came as soon as I got your letter.”

“Oh. I wondered if you had. It seems like decades since I wrote that letter.” He attempted a smile. “I suppose I’m in a lot of trouble, eh?”

“A little,” I said, smiling as well, wiping my eyes. “Edward—what happened?”

“Well, like I said in that letter, I reached a point where I couldn’t bear it anymore. The fighting, that is. So when Northrop wouldn’t let me leave, I stole off. I got as far as San Sebastián, where I met this fellow in a bar. You must know him by now—Mr. Archibald.”

“Philippa’s uncle?”

“I knew who he was, Brian, on account of reading your journal, which of course I shouldn’t have done. And in spite of—well, in spite of his relation to you, he was still someone familiar. Believe me, over here I would have welcomed my worst enemy if only he’d been English. Anyway, he was nice and civil to me, and I thought I could trust him. What a joke that turned out to be! Still, I confessed and told him what was up. Oh, at first he couldn’t have been more cordial: he let me stay in his hotel with him, he gave me fruit and milk and coffee—things I hadn’t had for weeks! And he said he’d take me back to England with him. He said he could arrange things, knew who to bribe to get me across the border. But first he wanted to stay a bit longer in San Sebastián on account of he had some business to finish there.

“Five days we stayed in the hotel. Nothing happened. I had my own room. And though I could tell this fellow
wanted
something from me, I pretended I couldn’t, on account of—well, I just didn’t fancy him. Anyway, how could I have done that, with anyone but you? I’m sorry to say it, Brian, believe me, but it’s how I felt. And then the last night he came into my room, and I had to tell him point-blank I wasn’t about to do anything with him. Well, you can imagine his reaction. Hurt and angry all at once. ‘After all I did for you, after everything I’ve risked for you.’ Finally he stormed out. And then the next morning we were having breakfast, all very tense and silent-like, when the doorbell rang and it was the police. Apparently they’d tracked me down from a photo. And he just let them right in, like they were coming to breakfast, stood by while they put the cuffs on, saying how sorry he was that he wouldn’t be able to help me after all. As I left, he wouldn’t meet my eye.” Edward looked into his sleeve. “My own stupidity. I thought I could trust him, him being Miss Archibald’s uncle—or is it Mrs. Botsford now?”

“Oh, God,” I said, laying my head on the table. “Everything is my fault.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“What? Oh. No. No, of course not.”

“You did ask her to marry you.”

“Yes—but, Edward, it was a dreadful mistake. A mad fantasy. She laughed at me.”

Edward raised his eyebrows. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Well, never mind about that. The point is to get you out of here. Are you feeling all right? You look pale.”

“I think I’ve got influenza.”

“But are they treating you all right? Have you got enough food?”

“If you can call it that. They’ve got four of us right now—a Pole, two Russians and me. They’re decent fellows, the others, though we can’t say a word to each other. One of them had a deck of cards, and we play with that, day in, day out. And it’s clean—well, I mean, it’s not the Savoy Hotel, but compared to the police cell . . . Makes our flat—your flat—seem like paradise. Still, I’d rather be here than on the battlefield.” He looked behind himself, as if to make sure no one was listening. “Brian,” he said, “it’s not like they said at the meetings. Nothing is nearly so simple. Most of the blokes in my battalion are upper-class boys out to prove they can be rebels. Even so, if you’ve got an accent like mine they treat you like a servant. The leaders, the ones like Northrop, they see us as expendable on account of us mostly being from the lower classes. And the fighting—it’s horrible, Brian! Those Moors would shoot you just as soon as shake your hand. I’ve had to kill; there wasn’t any choice.” He leaned closer. “Is there anything you can do? I’m sorry to trouble you, I know I’m of no concern to you now, but you’re my only hope. All I want is to go home.”