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| A Smatchet Madonna |
“Senor Baker,” El Estrapo (the black marketeer) slid into a chair at the table, uninvited. “Have you heard Alesander has been ‘rehabilitated’ He signed a denunciation of the anarchists and might be released this week?”
The creep reminded Harry of a sleazier version of Peter Lorre in Casablanca but he had to humor him. He was, after all, sometimes a good source of information, “Yeh, Strapo, I heard… I haven’t been in a cave all this time.” He thought it almost laughable that Franco’s cheap thugs thought they could get anyone to believe Alesander would have signed any such document… willingly or not.
“But then maybe you don’t know that Alesander’s Chucha was arrested,” his eyes beamed with sordid glee at the prospect of having something of interest to Harry, “serendipity, or maybe someone made a swap, si?”
Harry shoved his shot-glass across the table and filled it, “Drink? What else can you tell me that I don’t already know?”
“No thank you, por favor,” he shoved the glass back to Harry, “Oh, nothing much, his Chucha, Iniga was embarazada… heavy you say, with child… no padre.”
“Pregnant, we say… eh?”
“Oh yes,” he lied to pique Harry’s interest, “Couldn’t be Alesander’s bastardo, he’d been locked up for the past five years. His loss is my gain though… I already have a lock on someone who pays good cash to the nuns for the little bastardo.”
“And, of course, what is your cut… eh?” Harry sobered up. He didn’t want to give away his hand, that he knew more and was most intimate with Iniga. The price would go up considerably if the shit-head knew he was interested, “Do you know where they are keeping her?”
“With the Nuns… la Ventas, maybe? It is peculiar… si?” the glint in the trader of misfortune’s eye twinkled, “Some say, among the anarchists, that it was the Bird Dog that knocked her up and betrayed her. If you know of this, Bird Dog, maybe you have lost some cachet with the anarchists.”
Harry was astute enough about how rumors of this sort made an extended stay in Barcelona a perilous place to hang around, “Thanks, Jack, even from here in my cave I can see that.”
There was no use wallowing in doubt or self-pity, for there were strings to pull, plans and bribes: he couldn’t allow this uncustomary remorse to let his child be adopted-out and lost to an upstanding, good Catholic couple of moral and political rectitude. That is what would have been done with Nicky had he been officially termed “huérfano”, or, an orphan. Without an important American father these things were a regular atrocity for the duration of Franco’s horrible oppression… a policy that continued far past the Generalissimo’s death in 1975 into the mid-nineties. And, while Harry wasn’t officially important, he’d enough unsavory connections, bribes, intrigues, and extortions even, to be important enough to the right people.
Iniga had made first contact with Harry. It was a cold November in Barcelona, the stronghold of anarchists at that time. The Stalinist Communists of the PCE had left guerrilla groups associated with anarchists to fend for themselves in the struggle against contra militias and Guardia Civil, almost everywhere else in Spain. Harry found himself caught between his affection for his old allies and overriding reflexes to personal profit and profit had called for him to take out the leadership of what was once the Maquis in Spain; i.e., the likes of Caracamada and Alesander.
He had been sitting at a corner table, as was his habit in most cafés, across from the door, pretending to read the newspaper. Headlines featured the word, ‘bandoleros’, always something about this or that successful government action against bands of common criminals. Harry knew that ‘common criminal’ was the euphemism within the jargon of Spanish journalism for ‘maquis’ by government censors in Spain. These were rarely written about unless there was an arrest of a notorious guidari and these days the isolation of anarchist enlaces was nearly complete. He didn’t need to read the paper because he always had inside information on the real news of the day that the papers dared not touch.
“Perro de caza, what brings you back to this cess-pool?” her voice still stirred him.
Harry flashed a grin. Only a few knew Harry’s old code-name… Perro de caza or Bird Dog... “Iniga, sit down, por favor, I have some business here.” Harry knew that his use of the word, “business’, carried some weight with Iniga.
Her eyes scanned the room… “Even here in Barcelona, one has to watch one’s back, eh?” She pulled out a rickety chair from across the table and sat down.
“Be careful too that you don’t miss what is in front of you,” his guilt about what he needed to do directed his quip. They sat quietly, with eyes fixed on each other, not in longing… checking…, just as they had so many years ago in the Pyrenees.
“You are here on business, aren’t we well aware of what your business is today?” Iniga was never one to hedge; “We no longer have the same alliances, do we?”
“I've been away from official business since the war ended.” He was also well aware that this was a prevarication. Iniga would let it pass however, as they had more important business to take care of. “You were never all that good at diplomacy, were you, dear girl?”
“And you are still so good at lying,” she took one of the cigarettes Harry offered, “So, you had nothing to do with Alesander’s capture?”
“You still blame me for what happened four years ago but don’t give me any credit for his impending release, eh?” Harry could see by the way her eyes lit up that this was news, very good news, to her.
“Are you sure, we had these hopes built up before?” she was hard pressed to restrain herself from throwing herself at Harry.
“It was Fournier in France that put the money up. I just passed it on to the right people.”
“Still, I’ll give you all the credit, Bird Dog. Where is he now?”
“Slow down, Iniga, he isn’t out yet…” Harry lit another cigarette. His instincts told him that Iniga wanted to reward him personally, “He is still in Carabanchel but any day now…” and he could rot there as far as Harry was concerned.
“Please, Harry… money wouldn’t be enough, he was scheduled to be executed.” Her voice was a monotone that hardly revealed the emotion deeply buried… moving with great force like an underground river.
“We traded some Guardia Civil captured from some po-dunk town near Valencia. They were held by one of the enlaces you might be familiar with.” He reached across the table and placed his massive hand palm up in an offering. Iniga was the price he had to pay to get Alesander cut loose but Harry was going to make the best of it as long as he could. That night the salamander that would be dubbed Nicholas was planted in Iniga’s womb.
Harry’s maneuvers were not based on political beliefs: he had none. Nor were there but very few personal alliances that bound him. He was strictly on business and going to his dingy room to bed Iniga was extra-curricular to his business. His business in Spain today was to get Alesander released. There was no hurry as Alesander had languished in Carabanchel for four years… since 1953… he wasn’t likely to die while Harry closed the deal. The fact that he had made up the bit about the enlaces (undercover cells) near Valencia was of little weight on his conscience either. This was all a part of the crafts he’d learned in the OSS … way back when… and a clear conscience was an extravagance afforded only to those who had never been at war.
After approximately two months he and Iniga started to argue. She would nudge him after he had gone to sleep and ask… “So what is happening with Alesander?” They would argue. Harry would insist that he was powerless over the when and where of it all. It was after such a night, New Years Eve that they argued during their own private cotillones de nochevieja. The clock struck twelve, they shared the twelve grapes and toasted to the New Year. Harry appeared to have passed out about an hour before dawn when Iniga arose from the bed as stealthily as she could. It wasn’t safe for a woman to be on the streets unescorted, as much as for the obvious dangers as it was for the patrols of the Guardia Civil, but Iniga was strong willed and able to take care of herself against anything but… As soon as she shut the door he was up and pulled his window shade up and then down. It was time to make the trade.
Throughout Franco’s oppression women were the victims of an archaic machismo that filtered far past the demise of the Generismo. Spain went medieval where the rest of the western world tested the warm waters of modernity began before the advent of the past two wars. In the Spain of Franco, women weren’t allowed to leave an abusive husband lest they be charged with ‘abandonment’. Submission to the males in her family was the law. Brothers and fathers managed her finances, and she would have to be escorted on the streets by a male family member any time of the day and certainly after dark. However, Iniga felt safe, as prying eyes from behind barred windows would be closed in slumber by the time she stepped out onto the street before dawn.
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