Tapestry of Spies (32 page)

T
HERE,” SAID PORTELA. “DO YOU SEE IT?”

Florry lay on the pine-needled floor of the forest and studied the Fascist lines across the valley in the fading light. With his German binoculars, he conjured up from the blur a distinct view of the trench running in the low hills, the odd outpost or breastwork. But the terrain was generally bleak and scorched; it had the look of wasted, untilled land, its farmers fled as if from plague.

“It’s quiet here,” said Portela, “with all the fighting up around Huesca or down near Madrid. This is where I cross. Zaragossa is not far. My people wait in the hills beyond. You’ll see, comrades.”

“Good show,” said Julian, theatrically chipper. He stood in the trees like one of Our Gallant Lads at the Front in a 1915 West End melodrama. He had been in such a mood since they left, hearty, solicitous, irrepressibly British. He was almost hysterical with charm.

“Time to go, comrade?” he called to Portela cheerfully.
“My
bags are all packed.”

“Comrade Julian, you are like a hungry dog. I’ve never seen a man so eager. But we must wait until the night.”

“Blast!”
said Julian. “Stink and I want to get cracking here, eh, Stink? Have at the beggars, over the top, that sort of thing.”

Carrying on like a child. Performing antically for anyone who would pay him the faintest attention. Being Brilliant Julian on the center of a stage designed for him and him alone.

Florry issued a deeply insincere smile, as if he, too, were richly amused with Brilliant Julian, but he was so poor an actor he could find no words to speak, out of fear of speaking them transparently. Instead, he turned his back, using his pack as a sort of pillow. He could see through the pine needles above a patch of sweet, crisp blue sky. He hunkered against his pack, thinking how odd it was to be wearing a peasant’s rough garb and boots and be sleeping on a pack that contained a Burberry, a blue suit, and a pair of black brogues. Soon he had fallen asleep.

“Robert?”

Florry started. Julian loomed over him, staring intensely.

“Yes, old man?”

“Look, I want to say something.”

“Yes?”

“Portela’s sleeping. That man can sleep anywhere. Look, old boy, I’ve got an awfully queasy feeling that my luck’s run its string. I don’t think I’m going to make it back.”

You swine, thought Florry. You deserve an award for your performance rather than the four-five-five I’m going to put in your head.

“You’ll make it. The bullet hasn’t been made that could bring down the brilliant Julian.”

“No, no. And my feelings are never wrong about these
things. You will. I won’t. Somehow this little gimcrack”—he held out his father’s wedding ring on its chain—“has lost its charm. I can feel it. I
know
it. ‘Pons’ shall go forever unfinished.”

He smiled. His teeth were white and beautiful, his face grave and handsome. He had such high, fine cheekbones and glittery blue eyes. Julian, we mere mortals peep about your bloody ankles.

“I wanted to tell you about Sylvia. I want it straight between us. Do you understand there’s nothing between us? She’s yours. I’d never touch her, is that understood? The two of you: it’s so
right.”

“Yes, Julian. Yes, I do understand.”

And Florry did. For he knew that Julian could not betray him for love. But as for politics, that was something else. For Florry, over the long day’s drive, had finally reached the final implication of Julian’s treachery. The bridge attack would fail. And that meant Florry would die. Julian would kill him. Even now as he addresses me, he addresses me as the executioner talking to the victim, assuring him that the drop of the gallows trap is nothing personal, but purely in the best interests of the Party.

“Good, chum,” said Julian. “And when I’m gone, you remember that.”

“I will, Julian,” said Florry, “I will.”

You bastard
, he thought, surprised himself at the cold loathing he felt. You betrayed me at school. You betrayed me with Sylvia. Now you will betray me at the bridge. The difference is that I know it this time and I will stop you.

“Sylvia deserves somebody dogged and solid with virtue. And that’s you and it’s grand. Be good to her.”

“I’m sure in twenty years we’ll all get together at the Savoy over cocktails and laugh about this conversation.”

“I’m sure we
won’t
, ” said Julian.

They crouched in the forest. It was time. Florry found himself breathing heavily.

“Comrades,” said Portela, who had blacked his face out under his black beret. He carried an American Thompson gun. “For you,” he said. “Salud.” He got a flask out from under his cape and handed it over. “From Comrade Steinbach. For the English dynamiters.”

He handed it to Julian, who sniffed at the snout voluptuously. “God, lovely. Whiskey. Wonderful English whiskey. Bushmill’s, I believe. To the bloody future,” he toasted, taking a bolt, “that ugly whore.” He handed the flask to Florry.

Florry threw down a swallow. It was like the brown smoke from a thousand English hearths.

“Shall we go then, lads?” said Julian, and they were off.

Portela led them down the slope and out into no-man’s-land. A mist had risen, and the three men seemed to wade through it. Oddly, up above, the stars were clear and sharp, shreds and flecks of far-off, remote light. Florry was last in the file. He had the Webley in his hand, and a four-five-five in each chamber. He was just behind Julian.

Wait till you get beyond the lines. Wait till Portela leaves you. Wait till you get to the truck. Wait till you’ve changed into your fine English suit. Wait till you’re in the truck and setting off to Pamplona. Then lift and fire. Clean. Into the back of the head. It’ll be much easier than the boy in the trench.

Then what? he wondered.

Then you go on. To the bridge.

That’s absurd.

They waded through the mist. The silence fell upon them heavily. The mist nipped and bobbed at his knees. Portela halted suddenly, turning, and waved them down.

Florry knelt, sinking into the mist. For a second, all was silent and still. Then there came the low slush of boots pushing their way through the wet, high grass, and Florry made out the shape of a soldier—no, another, three, four!—advancing toward them in the fog. They were Fascists on patrol, somber men in great coats with German helmets and long Mausers with bayonets. Florry tried to sink lower into the earth, but the men continued their advance, gripping their rifles tightly, their eyes peering about. Florry thought of Julian: had he somehow alerted the NKVD who had in turn alerted the Fascists?

If they find us, Julian, I’ll kill you here, he thought, his hand tightening on the bulky revolver.

It was ghastly, almost an apparition, like a post patrol in some Great War legend, the tall soldiers isolated in the rolling white fog. Florry suddenly saw that they were Moorish legionnaires, huge, handsomely formed men, with cheekbones like granite and eyes like obsidian. Savages. They’d just as soon cut your guts up as look at you. They preferred the bayonet. At Badajoz, they’d put thousands to the blade, or so the propaganda insisted.

Florry gripped his Webley so tight he thought he’d smash it: what an opportunity for Julian, and so early on! A single noise, a cough, the smallest twitch, and the bloody thing was over. Florry brought the revolver to bear in the general direction of Julian. If Julian made a noise, he’d—

He heard the footfalls growing louder.

He could hear them talking in Arabic. They laughed
among themselves only feet away, and Florry fancied he could smell the cheap red wine on their breath.

They halted fifteen feet off.

More laughter.

More chatter.

Florry could feel his heart beating like a cylinder in an engine block. The sweat ran hotly down his face, though the night was cool. He lay hunched on the mist, and its moisture soaked him; he could see the damned glow of the Webley barrel.

The soldiers laughed again, and then began to move away. In minutes they had vanished altogether.

Florry felt a stream of air whistle out of his mouth in pure animal relief. He thought he might begin to tremble so hard he couldn’t move. But before him first Portela with his Thompson and then Julian with his small .25 automatic rose. He came off his knees and creakily climbed to his feet. Julian flashed the old Great War high sign: thumbs up, chum.

Portela began to move up the slope and the two Englishmen followed. In the fog they stayed closer together and Portela motioned for them to hurry. They seemed to be walking in milk and Florry had lost all contact with where they were. Had they reached the Fascist line yet? Shouldn’t they be crawling? What was going on?

Suddenly there was a noise. They sank back into the fog again.

There was the chink of something falling and some laughter. Then Florry heard the sound of running water—it was a man nearby pissing in the fog.

Something tapped his shoulder: Portela, gesturing him to rise quietly. Florry stood and the three began to walk swiftly ahead. They were on flat ground, it seemed, and—

They were in the yard of a small house.

“¿Quién está?”
came a call.

“Perdón,”
Portela answered.
“Estamos perdidos. Somos de la
Tenth Division.”

“Ha!”

A man leaned out the open window, a cigarette in his mouth.

He yelled something Florry couldn’t follow.

Portela yelled back. The two argued back and forth for some time.

Suddenly another voice screamed out.

“¡Hombres! Calláos, carrajo! ¿Qué pensáis, que es una fiesta?”

The first man said something under his breath. Portela muttered a reply. The two conversed in low tones.

“¿Jode Chingas las muchachas en Zaragoza por mí, ¿eh, amigo? Hay unas guapas allí.”

“Tendré los ojos abiertos,”
called back Portela.
“Les diré su mensaje.”

“Adiós, amigo.”

“Sí. Adiós, amigo,”
called back Portela, and began to walk smartly away. Florry and Julian hastened after.

From inside the hut came the sound of raucous, dirty laughing.

They walked on, climbing a low stone wall, until they found themselves in an orchard. Portela took them down its ghastly ranks, around some deserted buildings, and down at last a road. They halted in the lee of a wall.

“¡Por Dios!”
said Portela, crossing himself several times feverishly. “My prayers were answered tonight.”

“I didn’t think you were quite
allowed
to pray, old man,” said Julian. “That’s for the other side.”

“I have been an atheist since 1927,” Portela said,
“but on this night we needed the help of God, and so we got it.”

“How extraordinary,” said Julian. “Do you mean there was actually
danger
involved in all that?”

“I thought once we passed the patrol we were behind the lines. But then I took us straight to their company headquarters. ‘Hey, where you go?’ a fellow asks me. ‘To Zargossa,’ I tell him. ‘Many pretty girls there.’ ‘You lucky you got leave,’ he says. ‘Fuck one for me.’ ‘You men, shut your mouths,’ yelled the major. God in heaven.”

“Good heavens,” said Julian. “I thought it was all arranged.”

“Come, the trucks are this way.”

Florry slid the revolver out of its holster. It was just a matter of time now. Surprisingly, what worried him most was explaining it all to Portela. He knew he could do the thing: raise the pistol, fire it into the back of the head. Once you have shot a man in the face, you can do most anything.

They reached a farmyard.

Florry saw two trucks.

What—

“Well, old man, looks like we won’t be able to tell school stories on the way into Pamplona. Ta-ta.” And with that, Julian scurried off.

“It’s safer,” said Portela. “This way at least one man gets through, no?”

“Y-yes,” Florry heard himself saying, as he watched Julian climbing into the rear of the first truck. “Much safer.”

I
T TOOK LEVITSKY NEARLY A FULL DAY TO GET BACK TO
Barcelona, and nearly five hours into the evening—it was the evening of the fifteenth—until he found the man that he needed.

He began his search in the Barrio Chino, among the gaudy prostitutes and the cheap nightclubs that plied their trade regardless of the official revolutionary austerity imposed on the city. Levitsky was not interested in women, however, or in companionship of any sort. Bolodin would know he had just missed his quarry at Cabrillo del Mar; he would certainly deduce that the running man would seek safety in the one city he knew. Levitsky estimated that he had very little time left.

The wolf is near, he thought.

A girl came and sat at his table in the Club Chicago.

“Salud, comrade,” she said.

She asked him a question in Spanish.

“Inglés, por favor,”
he said.

“Sure.
Inglés
. You wish a girl for the night? Me, maybe? Some good tricks I know.”

“No. But I have some money for you.”