Inquiry of Asses

Inquiry of Asses

   It was peculiar to Alesander that he was almost glad the hunt was over. He had been dodging in and out the length of the Pyrenees and stealthily maneuvering through friendly villages and side streets and alleyways of cities successfully for so long… he had been captured more than a few times since Madrid... to the camps in Vichy  France... slipped  through the barbed wire to caves in the mountains... but now he sighed, “At last it is over.” He then slept.

   The cells at Carabanchel were dark places. There were no bars or communication with other prisoners if one had the misfortune to be placed in solitary confinement. A small concrete enclosure with a steel door was it. Alesander's cell had a window like the others but it was blacked out with a thick coat of paint. A single dim light bulb, protected from behind a clouded glass above a thick screen, was on or off at his keeper’s discretion. “Off” meant almost total darkness, except for a sliver of light from under the door or the slot with a steel flap hinged on the outside of his cell where a tray could be slipped through to him if his guards thought it kind to feed him.

   He passed time doing exercises and running in-place to keep distracted from longing as much as it was for staying in shape. This prison was fairly new. It had been built after the war as a maximum security facility after the passage of the Law for the Repression of Banditry and Terrorism (Ley para la represión del Bandidaje y el Terrorismo) on April 1947, which targeted the maquis. Thus, there were no decaying bricks to scrape through or bars that could be loosened as in the older jails in the villages.

   Other than mild flirtations with the idea of escape, when he lay down on the steel bunk that still had no mattress, his visions of Iniga became clearer… he could smell her scent and feel her firm breasts in his hands while he slept. Sometimes his thought rested on Baker… Harry Baker, his betrayer, back to when Baker was with him in the Pyrenees as a young O.S.S. agent to his last meeting with the C.I.A. contractor; or, a better word, assassin.

   Ah, sleep… he had to fight the lethargy of sleeping. In the dark of his cell he caught himself excited at the prospect of food waiting waited for a tray to be passed through the slot in the door... waiting for the days to pass... days that were counted by the changing of shifts. Alesander figured it had been about two weeks. The bulb in the cell above him had been off for three or four days before boots approached with purpose, his door slam open, and light stream in.

   His eyes ached at the light… a halo of white light around the shadow of the tall man gave off a contradiction as in saintly aura of the angel of light, Lucifer. Two guards entered and gruffly pulled Alesander off his bunk and led him past the tall man into the eyeball assaulting light of the corridor, beyond the hub of the prison and on to the administrative wing. Arriving at the same room he was interviewed in at first he was put in a chair at the Formica topped table.

   “Ah, Senor Gotson… times have changed,” lighting a cigarette and passing the pack to Alesander, he continued, “Women… girls… they are on the beaches in France wearing their underwear. The call these swimsuits bikinis…. Ah, excuse me, I forgot.”

   “That I don’t smoke?” Alesander pushed the cigarette pack away.

   “No,” the tall man’s smiled suddenly turned grim, “No, I forgot, you are a bandit and, therefore, an immoral man, why should you care that times have changed elsewhere?”

   Alesander braced his spirit for the sinister and dramatic change in tone. He then thought of the stone megaliths he had rested under the shade of so many times and wondered… It was one of those flashes of thought compacted into a fraction of a second… He wondered how hunter/gatherers passing those monuments or watching those who planted those stones, living in agricultural settlements and also planting grain in the fields, felt about the changes that were going on then and wondered too if they tried to hold on to the good old days.

   There was no use in arguing the point. What was he going to say at this time? What could he do about this situation? He had accepted that the war was over for him and his only option now was to surrender his will to that reality and not the madness of the man across from him at the table.

   “My first question for you, Alex,” he blew smoke in Alesander’s face, “Where is Iniga?”

   Alesander was glad he actually didn’t know where she was. What was coming next didn’t matter. He knew nothing of the location for any enlaces of the resistance because he worked alone or with only a few… very few, trusted, tried and true, friends. Even those he knew of, he only knew of most of them by their nom de guerre. They met by a markings on a tree, rock, a weather report or skewed lyrics of a song on the radio at a certain time of the day. He had let his guard down once for an O.S.S. agent turned independent contractor, Bird Dog… Harry Baker, and thus he was here before an arrogant interrogator.

   “I haven’t seen her in years.” He said without taking his eyes off his inquisitor.

   Another lean, weasel looking, character entered the room. It was nothing other than El Strapo who stood leaning against the far right corner behind the tall man. Alesander knew the man as a black marketer and extortionist who’d come in handy more than once for cash transfers, ransoms and any other sleazy task. He was nothing more to Alesander than a tool of the trade.

   The tall man left the room and El Strapo immediately took the chair across from Alesander and took one of the cigarettes from the pack left on the table, tore it open, shook the tobacco onto the table, and with a folder of cigarette papers of his own, rolled one, lit it with one hand and tucked the folder of wrappers into the pack, blowing the smoke out the side of his mouth away from Alesander. After a few minutes passed he  pushed the cigarette pack to Alesander and said, "Take should up smoking to pass time. You look well fed enough but….” Waving a hand past his nose, “Whew, you need a change of clothes.” he then asked compassionately, “How are you being treated, amigo?”

   “Are you with the Red Cross now, El Strapo?” Alesander said sarcastically. However, his sarcasm was for show because both knew the room was wired up. Alesander didn't wonder what the ruse with the cigarette paper was about. He was glad to see El Strapo just because El Strapo was El Strapo. He was used by both sides in this peculiar war against Franco. If there was a way for El Strapo to make things easier for him, Alesander knew he could, for a price but it was hard to tell what....

   “You might say so,” he winked. “I’m here as a favor to the proprietors of this fine hotel. But, if I can help you in any way, let me know. Even here I have influence of a sort.”

   “And your debt to our hosts might be?” Alesander kept up the appearance of distaste for the benefit of the microphones. He sensed the stealthy El Strapo squirm… a shift of the shoulders and eyes that darted ever so slightly around the room.

   “It seems that our beneficiaries here have this interest… er… Iniga in particular… I don’t know why but they have no sense of humor about it. I can promise you that.”

   ‘Times have changed and there is little support for the Resistance, El Strapo. I haven’t seen or heard from Iniga in years. She is probably in France.”

   “The Resistance isn’t given such an exalted name. You are billed in the headlines of the papers as common criminals… and so is she!”

   This wasn’t news to Alesander. It had always been this way since the Republic had fallen. He changed the subject, “Who is this tall man, El Strapo?”

   “His name is Martinez de la Rosa but he is the Grand Inquisitor as far you are concerned. He is a wise man and quite efficient at what he does. That is why you haven’t been subjected to the usual torture and, frankly, it is why you’re still alive,” El Strapo spoke almost gleefully for the benefit of the bugs but with contempt shown only by a slight lift of his upper lip.

   “The Rose, yes, I’ve heard of him.” Alesander was glad to have an image of this shadowy character known up to then only by name. “So, did he send you to persuade or to trap me?”

   “You, Alesander, are already trapped… in case you haven’t noticed.”

   “Then, don’t waste our time on persuasion, El Strapo.” He then let El Strapo slip the pack of cigarette papers between his cuffed hands. He then awkwardly twisted to reach down with cuffed hands to put the pack in his rear pocket. As he did so he thought, El Strapo always comes through.

   De la Rosa entered the room just as soon as Alesander put his hands back on the table. El Strapo obediently lifted himself by pushing his bent body from the table. “May I leave now, Senor de la Rosa?” he deferred.

   Stay where you are for now, El Strapo.”

   Alesander looked up as the Rose stood over the table… looming like an eagle… a bird of prey. “Get up,” the Rose ordered.

   Standing across from the table Alesander resigned to what was coming next. He went inside his mind where there was nothingness. He was taken to another room that had only a drain in the middle. Left there alone for a few minutes he pulled out the cigarette papers where a short note was written that he could barely read in the dim light that said, “Faith, Bird Dog and Fournier watch”. He crumpled it up and swallowed it wondering what it meant. It promised no guarantee that he wouldn’t be tortured but it did hold a glimmer of hope that he was somehow protected. A string of hope was all he needed to keep from popping the cyanide capsule tucked away in his cell… if he would ever get back to his cell.