The Poetry of Doom

Misery, distress, indigence, adversity,
calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin.

“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 Caracremada, but any day now…”

“Please, Harry … money wouldn’t be enough, he was scheduled to be executed, wasn’t he?” 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 a 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. That night the salamander that would be dubbed Nicholas was planted in Iniga’s womb.

Harry’s maneuvers were not based on political beliefs as 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 Gotson released. There was no hurry as Gotson had languished in Caracremada 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 near Valencia was of little weight on his conscience either. This was all a part of the crafts he’d learned in the OSS where a clear conscience was an extravagance afforded 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 Gotson?” They would argue. Harry would insist that he was powerless over the when and where of  it all. Iniga would then go back to her place 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.

Iniga thought she left Harry asleep on one such night. As soon as she shut the door he was up and pulled his window shade up and then down. It was time for the trade. She was able to reach the street corner when she felt her instincts tell her she was being followed. She ducked into a shop entrance and tried the door. Of course, it was locked. She was unarmed but for a small switchblade. She knew she had no choice but to toss the knife where she might find it afterward, if there was an afterwards, and to wait and watch. Waiting and watching was a talent developed over years as a guidari in the resistance. There was no traffic, so the tinny sound of the SEAT’s (pronounced like Fiat) four-cylinder motor approaching came as an alarm. The sedan screeched to a halt with all but the driver’s door swinging open in the early dawning hour of the Barcelona morn.

            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 could not become a judge or even testify in court. She most certainly could not even dream of becoming a university professor.

The irony of the trade-off for the release of Gotson was that Iniga, his closest confidant, was his ransom, and, the Guardia Civil set in motion the poetry of doom after Iniga slipped away into the night. She was politely interrogated at first.

Her interrogator offered her a cigarette across the desk-top that was gouged with a hollow protest… “no pasaran!”:  probably scratched in with an edge of a captive’s hand cuffs. He called her by her alias as he opened a file, “Maria Francesco?”

She knew that her alias would not have such a thick file but the ruse was courteously accepted. She had documentation and, by all appearances, her identity was settled. She had people from the enlaces, unaffiliated with guidari, that could have come to retrieve her but she was not about to implicate anyone else until she could determine the seriousness of her arrest. She played it like an innocent woman, Maria Francesco, caught on the streets in the predawn hour… “Si, senor,” her voice quavered.

“You were on the street alone tonight… You are puta? No, you don’t look...”

“No, no, no… no señor. I was going home but my brother couldn’t come for me.” She lifted her eyebrows and let her steel-gray eyes catch his.

“You’re eyes, they are Basque? … Even unusual for Basque… eh?” He flicked open a Zippo lighter with a US Marine Corps emblem on its face, “I am Comandante Rojelio.”

She restrained herself from a snide retort that would have been uncharacteristic of a woman of good standing. She stayed in character and managed to blush, casting her eyes towards her lap, “Yes, I am Basque.”

“So, your name… Maria Francesco, it is uncharacteristic of Basque names too, eh?” he was now taking out a yellow legal tablet from the center desk drawer. “I have been honest with you as I have given you my name and rank. Why would you try to deceive me, Iniga?”

A chill run up her spine. Her thoughts were clear… focused… sharp. This is where it begins… She knew what was coming… she would be told to list her enlaces (circle of supporters:) in lieu of an offer… a chance that her plight might be relaxed. The Law of the Fugitives (Ley de Fugas) decreed a fugitive’s life was dirt. Any fugitive could be generously offered clemency and released. Then, as she walked away, believing to have avoided years of imprisonment, a bullet would be dispatched to the back of her head thus saving considerable bother for all involved.

“I’ve wanted to meet you for several years now. It is a curious phenomenon, notoriety, si?” the comandante was authentically moved to meet an adversary that had been a nemesis since he had graduated from the academy in 1948. He had been on the scene when Gotson was taken in and he had seen a WWII picture of her in a file. She held a smatchet in front of her cupid bow lips with a face he would have no need to double-check.

Refusing to list her collaborators assured her that she would be tortured, raped and, most likely, murdered instead. She held one trump card up her sleeve that could reprieve her from further torture… if the Comandante found it to his advantage. “I am embarazada (pregnant).”

“So, you want to visit the nuns at la Ventas? I can assure you that your stay will be most comfortable for your first, what, nine months?” He saw her lips quiver for the first time and thought of the torture and rape that he was sure she would be in store for her. The Comandante was a practicing Catholic and, as a practicing Catholic, he’d embraced a compassion unfamiliar to those whose ambition preceded their devotion to Catholicism.

“We are ready for whatever you can dish out, Comandante.” She stiffened her resolve and considered that she would indeed be more comfortable than she was sure to be afterwards, rotting in prison.

“I’m sure you can endure more of it than me, senorita… or should I say senora?”

“It is Senora. I am married to the Basque cause.” She knew that these words were an empty proclamation but had always imagined she’d say something along those lines when captured.

 He stood to leave the room and stopped by the door, “You say you are married to the Basque cause, Senora, but the Basque cause has abandoned you. You will find your revolutionary fervor a luxury you can hardly afford from now on.”