The Sentinel: 1 (Vengeance of Memory) (8 page)

His door was large and crossed with iron bands at the top and bottom. It took time to unlock, given that he needed to deal with each of the three locks fitted at shoulder, waist and knee height. Anyone trying to batter down that door would have a long job. It finally opened on carefully oiled hinges. Again the fumble for the light switch and then the pitiful half-light from the tiny bulb.

It was a spartan room, dark, wood-panelled walls with a threadbare carpet and dusty curtains. It had the air of a property whose owner had gone away suddenly, without making arrangements for its upkeep. Which, in a way, Guzmán recalled, was what had happened. A small kitchen to the left, a bedroom to the right and a small bathroom. A bathroom was still a luxury for many and Guzmán had been pleased to take over the occupancy of such a well-appointed flat. The owner had been on one of the lists sent to Guzmán by Central HQ in manila envelopes. Only the door had needed replacing – there was not much left after Guzmán’s men smashed it down one cold morning an hour before sunrise. Two plain armchairs faced one another by the window. Against the wall was a sturdy table strewn with papers. On the wall next to the kitchen door a gaudy Madonna smiled beatifically from beneath a glowing halo.

Guzmán took a swig of red wine from an open bottle in the kitchen and then poured himself a large glass, drank it and poured another. He locked the door, securing the three bolts he had fitted, one above each of the locks. Kneeling by the table, he pulled back the carpet. The floorboards beneath were loose fitting and an icy draught rose as he removed them one after another, revealing a large space between the joists below. Two large boxes of papers. Several files, a shoebox full of French francs. A British Webley revolver. Two cartons of ammunition. He reached further under the floorboards, checking the sub-machine gun and the box of extra magazines. All just in case. Guzmán brought out one of the files and looked at the cover. The words were written with a broadnibbed pen in a strong angry hand:

General Antonio Rodrigo Valverde

Guzmán put the file on the table. The electric light was too weak to read by. He brought out his matches and lit the lamp. A sudden gust of wind rattled the windows. He put down the glass and walked over to the light switch. The room plunged into shadow with only the spectral glow of the lamp on the table to guide him as he crossed to the window and pulled the curtain aside.

Snow was falling steadily, blown in irregular patterns by the freezing wind. Guzmán looked down the darkened street. Nothing. Just snow streaming down, blurring the detail of the buildings, hiding the city beyond. Then he saw it. The glow of a cigarette in a doorway, intensifying momentarily as its owner took a drag. Someone was down there in the shadows watching him. For a moment Guzmán continued staring at the doorway. Then he let the curtain fall back across the window. Someone was watching him. But then someone always was.

BADAJOZ 1936

The battle had ended but the killing went on. For some of the defenders, it was a long time before they recognised the end had come. In the smoke from the flurries of explosions it was difficult to see which of the darting shapes was Republican and which was Nationalist. The savage ricochet of bullets from the baked ground and the jagged rocks obliged the men to crouch as they made their way back up the hill. Before the last barrage they had seen the Nationalists were gaining ground on their left and the men became increasingly nervous as explosions and clouds of dust to their right told them Franco’s troops were advancing on that flank as well. The political commissar tried to keep the company together, exhorting them to stand fast and hold back the fascist tide, but his words lacked conviction. Some men threw away their rucksacks despite the threats from the political commissar to have them court-martialled. Bullets rattled around them and whined above their heads, increasing their determination to get to the safety of the trees above. Among the trees there would be shelter from the deadly fire of the enemy. Now and then a bullet found its mark and a man would fall, raising a cloud of dust as he slid down the steep slope, back towards the oncoming enemy troops. Paco the sargento died like that: one minute he was next to the kid, helping him upwards, conscious of the lad’s youth and intent on ensuring he kept up, the next there was the shrill whine of the bullet and Paco fell back down the slope, tumbling in a cloud of dust and pebbles until he came to rest against a large rock. The kid looked down at the sargento, the man who had protected him, ensured no one stole his rations and fought off the bullies. The
sargento
looked back, eyes wide as he realised flight was no longer possible. His rifle lay some six metres away and he stretched out a bloodied arm towards it. He looked back to the kid. But the kid was already climbing again, his boots sending down small dusty flurries of dirt and stones. By the time the sargento died, his last view was of the remnants of the company passing from the scorching day into the welcoming shadows of the trees. Five minutes later, the first Nationalist troops reached him, barely pausing to bayonet the body before they continued their pursuit.

For a moment, amongst the trees it was quieter. The dull thudding of artillery and the crackle of small-arms fire faded as the men scrambled into the shadows of the little wood. The ground rose steeply and they quickly lost all sense of direction: all they could see were the stunted boughs, their clinging, low-hanging branches impediments to flight as the men struggled beneath the weight of their equipment. Soon, they began to throw off their extra ammunition, even their water bottles, and those who still had their packs dropped them to the ground. The political commissar tried to get them to stay together in a compact group, to fight a rearguard action to hold back the Nationalists until reinforcements arrived, unlikely though it was. He demanded three men remain in the trees to act as snipers, delaying Franco’s men while the others continued the retreat. The men were on the verge of hysteria. They could hear the shouts of the Moors below on the hillside. The political commissar drew his pistol, threatening to shoot one of them as an example to the others. Realising the men were ignoring him, the political commissar fired a shot into the air, bringing down parts of the tree beneath which he was standing and showering those around him with leaves. The crack of the pistol echoed across the hillside. A sudden volley of shots told them the Moors had heard the pistol and were now pursuing them with greater precision as a result. It was then the political commissar was killed.

MADRID 2009, CALLE DE SAN VICENTE FERRER

Daylight filtered warm and soft through the shutters. Outside, the bustle of the market and the chaotic tension of traffic were just beginning. It was early, though the heat was already enough to make Galindez kick away the sheet. The air felt cool on her skin as she slipped from the bed leaving the
profesora
to continue sleeping.

Galindez idly looked around the bedroom, hearing the street outside coming to life, watching the sun move slowly over the bookshelves. So many books on just one theme, several written by Luisa. The titles all suitably professorial –
Forgetting the Past: the grave secrets of the Civil War; Not So Hidden Secrets: war graves and complicity in everyday discourse 1940–1976; Where Do They Lie?: Geographies of Forgetting in Contemporary Spain
. She yawned and looked for another book. Luisa continued to sleep. Galindez stretched lazily, suddenly realising she was bored.

It wasn’t that sex with Luisa wasn’t good. Luisa’s inventiveness was surprising. But something had come between them and, strangely, it was a man. The mysterious
Comandante
Guzmán. Luisa’s research into the enigmatic police chief had begun to enthuse Galindez as very little else in her adult life had. Even so, something was starting to bother her about the
profesora
. The night before, Luisa set off alarm bells when describing the methods she used in her research into Guzmán and his activities. For Galindez, Luisa’s most serious failing was her disdain for science: those templates of knowledge Galindez had assiduously incorporated into her life ever since she began to take science lessons seriously in her teens. Although, she thought, peering down at the market through the soft gauze curtain, if she were honest, she owed her interest in science to
Señorita
Chavez, her science teacher.

Señorita
Chavez enthused her, sharing with Galindez the thrill of seeking out and accumulating data, and then understanding it using complex models of analysis and interpretation. Science gave Galindez a framework of knowledge that eventually inspired her to train as a forensic scientist. And how she had loved that training. Learning how to tackle the challenge posed by intangible, incoherent strands of evidence and rework them, translating the chaos and confusion of the crime scene into a coherent, credible explanation. That challenge, she had realised, was missing in her work for the
guardia civil
. In fact, her only real challenge so far had been to accept that her junior status doomed her to the crappy jobs. Inevitably, that meant war graves, even though forensic archaeology wasn’t her specialist field. But then, she thought, how much of a specialist did you have to be to wield a spade?

So far, all she’d done was catalogue sites and excavate remains, even though, very often, local people had known exactly who was in those graves since the day they had been shot. No one cared about the dead. The politicians wanted to be seen to be doing something about addressing the casual slaughter of the War. So the
guardia
sent her on these futile journeys because of pressure from the politicians. That way, something was seen to be done. Something visible but inexpensive. Her job summed up then: cost-effective but pointless.

She took one of Luisa’s books from the bookshelf and sat by the window. A faint eddy of warm air moved the diaphanous curtain against her arm. Outside, the sounds of the street grew louder. She skimmed through the book. One heading caught her eye: ‘How Should We Write the History of the Civil War?’ She began to read:

Most histories of the Civil War are moral and political projections from a contemporary perspective to one from
regime, with its self-aggrandising and backward-looking hagiography was to align Spanish political and social life with quasi-mythical events and needs derived from a fictional golden past. This constant re-creation of a contrived and artificial history that justifies contemporary political ends clearly demonstrates the need for a history focused on the ways in which a society understands itself through its understanding of the relationship between ‘now’ and ‘then’. Doing history with practical intent must involve writing a history which needs to be – as Foucault has shown – a history of the present. We need to identify the contribution of the past to the thoughts and deeds of the present.

A history of the present? Practical intent? The words appealed to Galindez. But the sentences which followed didn’t as she skipped through the turgid, repetitive rhythms of academia in full flow. Where was the clarity? The argument? Why couldn’t academics like Luisa write in plain Spanish? Reading further, Galindez noticed with annoyance that Luisa had little time for individuals in her grand theorising:

For too long we have accepted the notion that the slaughter of the war resulted from the murderous inclinations of individuals. Yet it is in the realm of ideas and ideologies that the seeds of destruction are sown: treating the war as a patchwork of disparate criminal acts lends nothing to our understanding and creates only a culture of blame intent on individualising culpability and stereotypically labelling its subjects.

Christ, Galindez thought, Luisa wouldn’t make much of a detective. No role for the individual? Blame culture? She saw the implications clearly. No role for forensic investigation, or detailed inquiry, just a focus on ideas and grand theories. Luisa’s approach rejected the principles of rigour and precision Galindez had worked so hard to apply to her own work. For Galindez, Luisa’s work seemed more like storytelling, taking strands of dubious evidence and weaving them together with vague and insubstantial theories.

Galindez wondered if she could do it better. Rather than leave people like Guzmán as vague footnotes in the Civil War’s catalogue of death, maybe she could use them as case studies, making their wartime activities public knowledge? She had the technical knowledge. Her background and scientific expertise would give her the necessary gravitas. She began to think about the opportunities: conference papers and journal articles bringing the darkest secrets of the Civil War to light. There would be benefits for others as well as a major benefit for her: a way out of the organisation
Papá
loved. The organisation that was grinding her down. She could leave behind the endless bagging up of remains, the hours of working alongside sweating men in fatigues who stood back to discuss her
culo
as she bent over the heaps of bones, debating whether she was a six or a seven.

Thinking of
Papá
kindled a familiar sadness. She recalled
Tia
Carmen telling her stories of how much he loved working for the
guardia
. Until the day he walked out of the door and climbed into his car without even a cursory look underneath.
Why would the Basques want to kill me
, he’d laugh whenever ETA was mentioned.
There are plenty of
guardia
nearer the Basque country for them to target
. He really thought he was safe. Until that morning when the explosion flung his car into the clear spring air, burning debris falling in an arc of fiery metal rain. The sound of the exploding petrol tank, the smoke, the lurid swell of the flames. Men running,
Mamá
screaming. Distant sirens. A little girl’s frightened cry.
Papá
.