While England Sleeps (25 page)

How hesitantly human souls brush against each other! Like the ads one sometimes sees in the lonely hearts column in the newspaper: “4/12: We spoke in front of the library. You were wearing a scarf, I was carrying a newspaper. I would like to see you again, love you, marry you!”

Well, Joaquim, if someday, by some miracle, you read these pages, consider this my own lonely hearts letter. Know that I remember that night in Altaguera. It’s eighteen years later now. I’m middle-aged, blacklisted, broke. Edward is under, and I am across, the sea.

Still, if you read this, call me.

Chapter Fifteen

Altaguera, by morning light, looked even bleaker than it had in the afternoon. Grime caked the walls of the buildings; dust tornadoed from the unpaved streets every time a truck lumbered by. I was walking down a commercial block filled with butcher shops and
charcuterías
, the doorways of which were hung with strings of colorful beads. These bead strings stretched out when you pushed through them, then dropped back, raking your shoulders sensually, like long fingers. Inside, however, one found only the meagerest provisions, nothing remotely appetizing or appealing, though whether this was due to the war or to Altagueran asceticism I couldn’t tell.

Needing to eat
something
, I went into a bakery. I wanted a sweet roll or a bun, but the proprietress had only loaves of dry bread, one of which I bought and tore into as soon as I was out on the street. Witnessing this, a group of women frowned and shook their heads judgmentally. (I learned only later that the Altaguerans considered eating in the streets a
faux pas
of the highest order.) Meanwhile some children were torturing a kitten. When I approached them they ran off, leaving the rheumy-eyed creature to bite at its flea-infested hide. And now I saw there were cats everywhere; the streets were filled with cats: tabbies with distended, low-hanging teats, packs of kittens gnawing at foul-smelling scraps, fearsome toms who wore their shredded ears and gouged eyes like medals. A sky mysteriously empty of birds. Perhaps that was why. Perhaps the cats had eaten them all.

Having finished most of the loaf, I set out once again toward the brigade headquarters. Once again I asked to speak with Northrop. I don’t know what I had in mind—perhaps to beg, perhaps to make another attempt at convincing him to let Edward go. But Northrop wasn’t in. No one was in. No one would see me.

Well, when would Northrop be in? I asked.

Northrop had gone to Barcelona. He returned in three days.

Thanking the anonymous figure that dispensed this information, I left.

For three days after that I waited.

I managed to convince myself that things were looking up. I wired Channing, explaining I was short on cash and could he do anything to extort some from Aunt Constance; wrote a fawning letter to the beldam herself, a reassuring letter to Nanny and an honest letter to Nigel; caught up on my journal. I even explored the town of Altaguera a bit, determined, before I left, to root out
some
bit of beauty, some pearl, amid all its studied austerity. And I did find something: there was, near the center, a very small, very old church, the oldest in the region. It had been built during the reign of Charlemagne, had walls of swollen, uneven brick, and displayed on its façade images of Christ and His disciples, the faces of which the hard winds of Altaguera had long since eaten away. Nothing spectacular about the church; rather, its very humility charmed me. It was like a beautiful girl before she learns she is beautiful, before she learns the power beauty carries.

The church had a unique history. Adjoining it was a convent whose sisters had been cloistered for more than five hundred years. A large balcony above the nave connected the two buildings, and it was from here and here alone that five hundred years of nuns had borne witness to the outside world. You could often see them when you went in: lofty figures in heavy habits, clinging to the shadows as if they feared, above all else, being seen by those they watched over.

I went to the church frequently during those days, not so much to pray as to reflect, to contemplate. In its hushed chambers, I could hear my own voice better; the questions that plagued me—if not answerable—at least became articulate. What would happen if Edward
was
freed? I wanted to know. Would we take up where we had left off, he and I? Or would he return to Upney, and I to Richmond? Yes, my bungled efforts with Philippa had resulted only in my own humiliation, but the fears that prompted them still lingered. Home was now as uncertain a prospect as Spain; I had no idea where I’d live upon returning, if I’d spend my nights scouring public lavatories for sex, or reading in bed with Edward, or some new Edward. As for England, she might not be a haven very much longer: there was every chance that soon both of us would be compelled to go to war again—the big war this time, the war that threatened in Germany and for which this one would prove, in the end, merely to be the prologue.

But of course, there was every chance in the world that Edward
wouldn’t
make it back home, every chance that all my speculations were for nothing.

And of course dawn, the fourth day, the day of Northrop’s scheduled return, found me at the gate to the barracks. Northrop, I was told, had been delayed.

“Well, then, might I speak with someone else?”

Doubts. Murmured consultations by walkie-talkie.

Finally a decision was reached: two other comrades, both familiar with Edward’s case, would speak with me. If I might come this way .
.
.

And I did, following a claque of brigadiers back to the same office in which I had earlier met with Northrop.

They closed the door behind me. In the corner two figures stood in huddled conference, their faces shadowed. They were apparitions that, as I neared them, became more recognizably human: one dark, with alarming, almost spectral eyes and a drooping mustache; the other pale, plump, a youth who—

I stopped in my tracks, winded by recognition, the breath literally knocked out of my chest.

The two turned.

“Brian,” the youth said. “What on earth .
.
.”

And suddenly it was as if that fatal umbrella, lost in another life, had blown open, casting its vast shadow over all of us: a darkness so huge it could never be defeated.

“Rupert Halliwell,” I murmured. For it was he.

Not until years later would I learn what had happened: how Rupert, seemingly out of the blue, had one day woken up, put on his dressing gown, walked quietly downstairs and one by one smashed every precious teacup, every fluted crystal vase, every glass. Then he poured lye all over the Indian silk sofa. Then he went and said irrevocable things to his mother, and then he got in a taxi, rode to the London offices of the Communist Party, knocked on the door, and prostrated himself before the befuddled secretary who happened to answer: a piteous specimen of the corrupt bourgeoisie. “Reform me!” he cried. And they did.

“You know each other?” asked the man with the drooping mustache. He was French, by his accent.

Rupert looked away.

“Yes,” I said. “We do.”

The Frenchman smiled, so that the ends of his mustache curled upward. “England must be a very small country,” he said. “And may I introduce myself? I am Comrade Bonet.”

“Brian Botsford,” I said, putting out a hand.

“A pleasure,” Bonet said. “Won’t you have a seat?”

The three of us sat. From his corner of the desk Rupert eyed me nervously.

“And how may we help you, Mr. Botsford?”

“I’ve come to inquire about my friend Mr. Phelan,” I began.

“Ah, Phelan,” Bonet answered, smiling. “What a sad morning it was when he deserted.”

“I understand his case has yet to be resolved, and I was wondering if I might say a few words on his behalf.”

“Of course. Not that
we
have any say in the matter—”

“Even so, if there is anything you could do .
.
.”

“Go ahead.”

I steadied myself. “First of all, I don’t contest the fact that Mr. Phelan deserted. Nor do I contest that desertion is a serious crime. However, in this instance there are extenuating circumstances that need to be taken into account.”

“Such as?”

“Mr. Phelan is a young man of limited education who had the fortune—or perhaps the misfortune—to come within my circle. His decision to travel to Spain might well be said to have resulted from his exposure to that circle. But he hadn’t fully thought through the consequences of his actions. As a result, when he arrived, he had second thoughts. For this reason, I would ask that you let him go home.”

I stopped speaking. Bonet had laced his fingers into a temple over his mouth, while Rupert’s eyes remained fixed on the wall.

“Mr. Botsford,” Bonet said finally, “forgive me if I sound stupid or unreasonable, but I believe I have missed your point. Are you suggesting Comrade Phelan is so impressionable—so, if you will, unformed—that he cannot be held accountable for his actions?”

“No—not exactly. But he
is
young. And the fact is, if it hadn’t been for me, he wouldn’t be in this trouble now. He’d be at home, working for the London Transport.”

“I understand. Nonetheless I fail to see why this should affect our treatment of him. Because he was under your influence, the pledge he made to the brigade—to the cause—is no less binding.”

“It is I who should be going to prison. Not Edward.”

“Mr. Botsford, you are not a brigadier. You made no pledge.”

“No. No, I didn’t. And I agree with you, pledges to a cause cannot be taken lightly. But what if a boy takes that pledge rashly—without thinking it through? What if there were other factors involved? Things that were going on at home that had nothing to do with the war but that might have prompted him to do something on the spur of the moment, something he’d later regret?”

“By other factors you mean, I presume, something such as, for instance, Comrade Phelan having a sweetheart who left him for another man.”

“Well—yes.”

“And did Comrade Phelan have a sweetheart?”

I looked down. “No. No, he did not.”

“Then what type of other factors are you suggesting, Mr. Botsford?”

“I’m—I’m not sure. I’m just saying if there were—”

“But apparently there were not.”

Outside something crashed. A cat howled. Tortures proceeded.

Bonet leaned forward and cracked his knuckles.

“Mr. Botsford, what exactly is your relationship to Comrade Phelan?” he asked.

Rupert, who had been silent up to this point, coughed loudly and recrossed his legs.

“He is my friend,” I said, after a few seconds.

“Your friend.”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

A palpable silence. Rupert pushed his stubby fingers through his hair.

“Mr. Botsford, may I ask you something, if you don’t mind?”

“Of course.”

“Do you consider yourself a Communist?”

“Yes. Fundamentally.”

“And Comrade Phelan?”

“I couldn’t presume to say.”

“Well. We are brothers, then. No? We agree that the Spanish republic must be defended against the Fascist threat. That must be our priority. My comrades demand obedience, but we are not barbarians—”

“Then he won’t be shot.”

“That is not for me to decide.”

“Then who must I speak to? For God’s sake, who’s deciding this boy’s fate? Is he to have a trial? Is he—”

“Mr. Botsford, please calm yourself. There’s no need for you to be so frightened. The firing squad is a remote—an extreme—possibility. More likely your friend will be sent to a prison camp, or back into battle—”

“I could go to the press, you know. The British press. I could—”

“Or he might be freed. In any case, contacting the British would do him little good. He no longer holds a British passport. He is a citizen of the brigade now.”

“But he’s not well!” Then, in a softer voice: “He says he’s got a temperature. He says he’s having pains.”

“We have a doctor here.”

“I don’t want to make it worse for him. I hope my speaking to you like this won’t make it worse for him. I’m simply trying to help Edward. I hope you understand.”

“If I might make an observation,” Bonet said.

“Of course.”

“You care too much. He is not worthy of it. He is a coward. Let him go.”

And he smiled. And suddenly, in that smile, I saw something. He had penetrated to the truth of my relationship
too
skillfully. His huddling intimacy with Rupert, as I’d entered, made a new sense, as did his interrogative eyes, his “England must be a very small country.” England was not the only small country.
You are one of us too,
I might have said to him—Nigel would have. Instead I met his smile with my own, I let my gaze travel down the length of his body, over his chest, groin, legs, to his shoes.