See How Much I Love You E-Book

Luis Leante

• Herausgeber: Marion Boyars
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Winner of the 2007 Alfaguara Prize for Fiction, See How Much I Love You is a epic love story spanning over three decades. When Montse and Santiago meet as teenagers in 70s Barcelona they have little idea where their summer romance will lead. After they break up Santiago decides to spend his military service as far away as possible: in the Western Sahara, Spain s only African colony. There, he is one of the few Spanish soldiers to befriend the local Sahrawi people, quickly falling in love with their customs and culture. But the year is 1975 and the colony will not last much longer. Following the death of General Franco and the Spanish withdrawal, Santiago becomes caught up in the brutal war between the Sahrawi and invading Moroccan forces. He is entrusted with escorting a Sahrawi friend s family on an epic journey, hundreds of miles across the desert. Thirty years later, Montse, now a divorced doctor living in Barcelona, sees a photo of Santiago carried by a Sahrawi patient. After discovering that he did not die in 1975 as she had been told and that he, like her, has lost both a child and a partner, she sets out to find him amongst the refugee camps of the Western Sahara, a journey that will prove to be every bit as dangerous as Santiago s so many years before.

Leseprobe

See How Much I Love You

LUIS LEANTE

Translated by Martin Schifino

MARION BOYARS LONDON • NEW YORK

To Nieves

When I’m on foreign land, And recognise your colours, And think of your exploits, See how much I love you…

Little flag you’re red, Little flag you’re golden Full of blood and full of riches At the bottom of your soul.

Las Corsarias

Music and lyrics by Franciso Alonso

Contents

Title PageDedicationEpigraphChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenBrief background to the Conflict in Western Sahara and information about SandblastCopyright

Chapter One

SHE SLEEPS THROUGH THE MORNING, INTO THE EVENING, she sleeps through most of the day. Then she stays awake for the best part of the night: it is an intermittent wakefulness, with moments of brief lucidity and others of delirium or abandon; she often faints. She is like this, day in, day out, for weeks. She is completely oblivious to the passing of time. Whenever she is able to stay conscious, she tries to open her eyes, but soon falls back into the depths of sleep, a heavy sleep from which she finds it hard to come round.

For days now she’s been hearing voices in her moments of lucidity. They sound distant, as though they were coming from another room or the deepest end of her sleep. Only occasionally does she hear them near her, by her side. She cannot say for sure, but it sounds as if the unknown voices are speaking in Arabic. They talk in whispers. She doesn’t understand a thing they’re saying, but the sound of those voices, far from being disquieting, is comforting to her.

She finds it hard, very hard to think straight. When she makes an effort to understand where she is, she feels a great tiredness, and very soon falls back into her dreaded sleep. She struggles to stay awake, because hallucinations torment her. Over and over she is seized by the same image: the nightmare of the scorpion. Even when she’s awake she fears opening her eyes in case the arachnid has survived the dream. But however hard she tries, her eyelids remain sealed.

The first time she manages to open her eyes she cannot see a thing. The dazzling light of the room blinds her, as if she’d been in a dungeon all along. Her eyelids grow heavy and give in. But now, for the first time, she is able to tell reality from reverie.

‘Skifak? Esmak?’ says somebody, very softly.

It is a soft, woman’s voice. Although she doesn’t understand the words, the tone is clearly friendly. She recognises the voice as the one she’s been hearing over the past few days or weeks, sometimes very close to her ear and at others, in the distance, as if coming from another room. Yet she has no strength to reply.

Still conscious, she cannot rid her mind of the image of the scorpion, which is more troubling than an ordinary nightmare. She can even feel its carapace and legs creeping up her calf. She tries to convince herself that it is not really happening. She tries to move, but has no strength. In reality the sting was short and quick, like the prick of a needle. If it had not been for that woman’s shouts of warning; ‘Señorita, señorita, careful, señorita!,’ she wouldn’t have seen it at all. But she turned to look as she was slipping her arm into the burnous,1 saw the scorpion hanging from the lining and knew that it had stung her. She had to cover her mouth so as not to shout, and was distressed by the voices of the women who, sitting or crouching down, stared at her in horror.

She’s never sure what posture she fell asleep in. Sometimes she wakes lying face up and sometimes face down. And so she realises that someone must be moving her, no doubt so that she won’t get bed sores. The first thing she sees are the shadows in the ceiling where the plaster is coming off. Dim light comes in through a small window situated high up on the wall. She doesn’t know whether it’s dawn or dusk. No noises can be heard that might indicate life outside the room. Against the opposite wall, she discovers an old rusty bed. Her heart jumps when she realises it is a hospital bed. There’s no mattress on it. The bedsprings openly display signs of neglect. Between the two beds is a metal night table, which must once have been white but is now tainted by decay. For the first time she feels cold. She strains to hear a familiar sound. No use; there’s nothing. She tries to speak, to ask for help, but cannot utter a word. She spends what little strength she has trying to attract someone, anyone’s attention. Suddenly the door opens and a woman she has never seen before comes in. She realises that the newcomer is either a doctor or a nurse. A brightly coloured melfa2 covers her from head to toe, and over it the woman wears a green gown with all the buttons done up. On seeing that she is awake, the nurse flails her arms in surprise, but takes a moment to react.

‘Skifak? Skifak?’ the nurse blurts out.

Although she doesn’t understand the words, she assumes she’s being asked how she’s feeling. But she cannot move a single throat muscle to reply. She follows the nurse with her eyes, trying to recognise her features underneath the melfa covering her hair. The nurse leaves the room calling out for help, and presently returns with a man and another woman. They talk between themselves hurriedly, though without raising their voices. All three are wearing medical gowns, the women over the top of their melfas. The man takes the patient’s wrist and feels her pulse. He asks the women to keep quiet. He lifts her eyelids and meticulously examines her pupils. He listens to her chest with a stethoscope. The metal feels flaming hot against her chest. The doctor’s face shows he is perplexed. The nurse, who had left the room a moment ago, returns with a glass of water. The two women help her to sit up and drink. Her lips barely open. Water runs over the corners of her mouth and down her neck. When they lay her back down, they see her eyes turn white and she falls fast asleep, just as she has been for nearly four weeks now, since the day she was brought in and everyone thought she was going to die.

‘Señorita, señorita, careful, señorita!’ She’s heard the voice in her dreams so many times that by now it is utterly familiar. ‘Careful, señorita!’ But at first she didn’t know what all the shouting was about – until she saw the scorpion hanging from the lining of the burnous. At once she knew she’d been stung. The shouting spread amongst the women, and they covered their faces and uttered laments as if a terrible tragedy had taken place. ‘Allez, allez,’ she shouted for her part, trying to make herself heard above the screams. ‘Come with me, don’t just sit there. Allez.’ But the women either couldn’t, or were refusing to understand her. They covered their faces with neck scarves and would not stop moaning. In the end she lost patience and started insulting them. ‘You’re a bunch of ignorant idiots. If we don’t get out of here they’ll rape us. It’s outrageous that you let them treat you like this. This is worse than slavery, this is… this…’

Discouraged, she fell silent, because she saw that they did not understand her. At least they weren’t shouting any more. She stood still and quiet in front of the twenty women who, frozen with fear, avoided her gaze. She waited for a reaction, but no-one took a step forward. On the contrary, they huddled together like pigeons at the back of the cell, seeking comfort in each other, praying and covering their faces. For the first time she thought about the scorpion. She knew that of the one thousand five hundred living species only twenty-five are poisonous. She quickly swept the thought aside.

There was no time to lose. Now it seemed certain that if no one had responded to the shouts it was because they’d been left alone, unguarded. She finished wrapping the burnous over her shoulders and covered her head with the hood. ‘You can do what you like, but I’m leaving.’ She pulled on the door and, just as she’d thought, found it padlocked. But she’d had it all planned since dawn. With a kick, she broke the lower planks; the wood was so dry that it splintered into smithereens. She waited a while and, seeing that no one was coming, gave it another kick. The hole became considerably larger. She gathered up her burnous and crawled out. The midday sun was intense. ‘No, señorita, no,’ was the last thing she heard before walking away. Her legs trembled; they felt weak. It had been more than ten days since she had walked such a long way without being watched – ten days that she and the other women had spent locked in that windowless hut built with bricks and cement blocks, with an asbestos ceiling that made the air unbreathable. Although she’d only seen the small oasis on the morning they’d brought them over as prisoners, she knew every inch of it through its sounds. The well was at the centre with a pulley to extract water; a few metres away was an enormous canvas which served as a tent. It was there that the men drank tea at all hours, chatting and arguing. There was rubbish everywhere. Under the palm trees, a more solid tent, with a rug at the entrance, provided shelter for Le Monsieur. Over the past nine nights, amid the silence of the desert, she’d heard his spine-chilling snores go on for hours. Near the tent she now saw the metallic glimmer of the Toyota. There was no one around. There was no sign of the truck except the tracks leading out into the inhospitable hammada.3 She tried to stay calm and curb the euphoria she felt at being free.

She barely noticed the intensity of the sun in its zenith. She didn’t think twice: walking faster, she headed for the four by four. She did not run but walked decisively, without giving in to the terror that was beginning to seize her. Not once did she look back, or even sideways. And so, when she heard someone call out to her from behind, her heart jumped. Nevertheless she didn’t stop; she walked on and only turned her head when she recognised the voice following her. It was Aza, the only Saharawi of the group. She was running behind her, clutching her melfa, which was slipping down her shoulders, with both hands.

‘I’m coming with you, wait, I’m coming,’ she said in good Spanish. She waited for Aza and took her hand. They ran the rest of the way to the Toyota together. The woman opened the driver’s door and motioned to Aza to climb in from the other side. The Saharawi quickly did so. They sat for a while in silence, looking around, as if in fear that someone had seen them run towards the vehicle.

‘Let’s go, Aza; the nightmare is over.’ She fumbled around the ignition, looking for the key, and immediately went pale.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked the Saharawi. ‘Are you afraid?’ She showed Aza her empty hands.

‘The key’s not there.’ Aza took a moment to understand. But she didn’t seem worried; she gestured with both hands and placed them on her heart. Then she bent forward and slipped her hand under her seat. A black key, covered in dust, appeared.

‘Is this what you needed?’ The woman took the key and inserted it into the ignition. The four by four started with a roar. She was about to ask the Saharawi something, but Aza spoke first: ‘That’s where we keep them in the camps. Keys should be kept out of children’s reach. Children are naughty; they’re children.’ The vehicle jerked forwards. If there had been a guard, he would have already reacted to the noise of the engine. They were definitely alone. She took a moment to get used to the controls and pedals. She followed the tracks left by other vehicles and gathered speed towards the distant horizon. Sweat dripped down her forehead, but instead of feeling hot she felt increasingly cold: she put it down to her anxiety and nerves. ‘Not that way,’ shouted Aza.

‘Why not? Do you know any other road?’

‘There are no roads in the desert, but there’s no water that way, and we’re not carrying any.’ Aza lifted her hand and pointed to the southwest. ‘That way.’ The woman obeyed without saying a word. She took a sharp turn in a direction where there were no tyre tracks. By chance she glanced at the petrol indicator: they had a quarter of a tank left. Aza kept her eyes fixed on the the horizon. The vehicle lurched along, making the two women bounce. They did not talk. Inexplicably, her sweat stayed cold and she started to shiver. She started to feel a burning sensation on her neck where the scorpion had stung her. She had difficulty breathing, but thought it was nerves. Aza soon noticed that something wasn’t right. The woman, who was clutching the wheel, noticed her legs were trembling, and her heart was beating arhythmically. In profile, her face looked worn. The Saharawi knew what was happening, so when the Toyota stopped she didn’t ask her anything.

‘I can’t go on, Aza, I have no strength,’ the woman said after being silent for a while. ‘You’ll have to drive.’

‘I’ve never done it, I couldn’t move it a metre. You’d better have some rest and try later.’

‘I don’t feel well, Aza.’

‘I know: you were stung by a scorpion. It was bad luck.’ Suddenly, they heard a much louder noise over the idling engine of the four by four. A truck appeared in the distance, and it was coming towards them, lurching up and down over the dunes. ‘They found us,’ said Aza. Making a tremendous effort, the woman pressed the accelerator and held onto the wheel as firmly as she could. The four by four was faster, but it stumbled against the dunes, zigzagging, and was soon losing ground to the other vehicle. The truck, on the other hand, pressed forwards in a straight line at a steady speed, getting closer to the two women. It was only a matter of time before they were intercepted. When they were close enough, the men on the truck started shouting at the women in Arabic and French. Le Monsieur, in his old-fashioned Spanish legionnaire’s uniform, was wearing a frown that turned into the hint of a smile. He was sitting by the driver, pointing out the way over the sand or around the boulders. On his knees, he held a fully loaded Kalashnikov with both hands. As the woman drove on, her vision became clouded with more and more black spots. She had barely any strength left to press the accelerator. Eventually the vehicle crashed into a sand bank and came to a halt. Aza’s head smashed into the dashboard, opening up a cut on her forehead. The Saharawi tasted the blood on her lips. Before the woman could react she saw Le Monsieur’s men surrounding the car. Their eyes shone with a rage barely concealed by their fake smiles. They opened the two doors of the vehicle, and Le Monsieur shouted at them to get out. The Saharawi obeyed at once, but the other woman could barely move.

‘Get out!’ shouted the Spaniard.

‘You have to take her to a doctor,’ Aza shouted back, mustering her courage, ‘she’s been stung by a scorpion.’ The legionnaire roared with grotesque laughter. The woman was barely able to hear him; she only felt his large hands grabbing her by the arm and pulling her out. She slumped to the floor and could not get up.

‘A scorpion, eh?’ He spat on her and made as if to give her a kick, but stopped a few inches short of her head. ‘Where the fuck did you think you were going? Bloody whores. You should know,’ he said, addressing Aza, ‘that there’s no escape from here. Or are you as stupid as she is?’ From the floor, the woman was trying to ask for help, but only faltering words came out of her mouth. Nevertheless, she had enough presence of mind to recognise Aza’s screams. And, although the woman couldn’t see her, she knew they were beating her. She felt inexplicably responsible for it. Her throat was burning and she couldn’t utter a word. In the narrow field of vision left to her by the legionnaire’s boots, she saw the Saharawi run off towards the horizon. Aza knew she should not run in a straight line, and stumbled on her melfa. She ran clumsily but gave it all she had. The legionnaire put down his Kalashnikov on the bonnet of the Toyota and asked one of his men for a rifle. Looking up from the ground, the woman saw the whole scene play out as though in slow motion. Le Monsieur rested the rifle on his shoulder, moved aside his long grey beard so that it wouldn’t catch, and took his time to bring the Saharawi into his sights. Aza was slowing down, as though she were certain that sooner or later she would be caught. The agonising run turned into a fast walk, she struggled not to look back or stop. Suddenly a short report was heard, and Aza’s figure slumped onto the stony ground of the hammada. As if in mourning, an unexpected wind started blowing and gathered strength little by little. The last thing the foreign woman saw, before her eyelids fell shut, was an enormous sand curtain that was beginning to cloak the depths of the Sahara.

The patient screams and then opens her eyes. The nurse takes her hand at once, without saying a word, just looking her in the eyes as one would look at a newcomer. She tries to guess the woman’s age: forty, forty-five. She knows that people elsewhere age better than in the Sahara.

‘Aza, Aza!’

She’s delirious, no doubt. The nurse touches her forehead, trying to calm her down. Now she’s certain that the woman can see and hear her. She whispers a few words in hasania, vaguely hoping that she will be understood. She gives the woman some water, speaks to her in French, and tries to make herself understood in English. She tries all the languages she knows.

‘Aza, Aza!’ screams the woman again, now with her eyes wide open. ‘They’ve killed Aza!’

When she hears this, the nurse shivers. She struggles to keep smiling.

‘Hola. How are you feeling? Are you Spanish?’

The woman looks at her and grows calmer. She grasps the nurse’s hand firmly.

‘Where am I?’

‘In hospital. You’re alive, out of danger. You’ve been asleep for several days.’

‘They’ve killed Aza.’

The nurse thinks the woman is still delirious. She hasn’t left the side of her bed for many days. That lifeless face caught her attention from the moment a military vehicle left her at the hospital. The nurse had been the only one who seemed certain that the woman would live. Now she is sure that God has answered her prayers.

‘You’ve got baraka4,’ the nurse says. ‘You’ve been blessed by God.’

The nurse removes her melfa, revealing her shiny black hair. She cannot stop smiling. She doesn’t want to let go of the unknown woman’s hand, not even to go and spread the news that she’s finally conscious after all these weeks. She puts a hand on her heart and then places her open palm on the woman’s forehead.

‘My name’s Layla,’ she says. ‘What’s yours?’

Layla’s smile fills the woman with peace. She makes an effort to speak:

‘Montse. My name is Montse.’

1. Burnous: A long cloak of coarse woollen fabric.

2. Melfa: Traditional Saharawi woman’s dress made of a single cloth wrapped around the entire body, including the head. Similar to the Indian sari. Can be of many different colours.

3. Hammada: A type of desert landscape consisting of largely barren, hard, rocky plateaus, with very little sand. Hammada areas form seventy per cent of the Sahara desert.

4. Baraka: An Arabic term for blessing or luck

Chapter Two

CORPORAL SANTIAGO SAN ROMÁN HAD BEEN WATCHING the unusual troop movements all day, from the barrack hut that served as a guardroom. It was four by six metres, and had a mattress on a metal bed base, a desk, a chair, a filthy latrine and a tap.

Dear Montse: soon it will be a year since I last heard from you.

It had taken him nearly an hour to write down the first sentence, but now it sounded affected, unnatural. The noise of the planes landing at El Aaiún aerodrome brought him back to reality. He looked at the sheet of paper and didn’t even recognise his own handwriting. He could not make out much from the window of the hut except the security zone near the runway and part of the hangar. However, he could clearly see the depot and the Land Rovers that were constantly going in and out, the trucks loaded with new legionnaires and the official cars mysteriously coming and going. For the first time in seven days no one had brought him any food, and neither did they open the door in the middle of the afternoon for his walk to one end of the runway and back. In the last week he had barely exchanged a word with anyone, only eaten stale bread and tasteless soup, and seldom taken his eyes off either the door or the window whilst he waited to be collected at any moment, and put on a plane that would take him away from Africa for ever. They had told him, in a threatening tone, that it was only a matter of a day or two, and that later he’d have the rest of his life to miss the Sahara.

Time had stood still for Corporal San Román for the last seven days, ever since he’d been transferred from the guardroom at the barracks of the 4th Regiment of the Legion to the aerodrome, thence to be taken to a military court in Gran Canaria, far from the uprisings that were taking place in the African province. But these orders seemed to have been mislaid en route, and the procedure had ground to a halt without explanation. There was no difference between night and day now: his nerves and the anxiety of the wait gave him insomnia. And the fleas in the room did not help his discomfort and unease. His only break from the monotony was the few moments he stood at the end of the runway, guarded by an old legionnaire who always threatened him in the same way before climbing up to his watchtower. ‘If you take more than ten steps at any one time or start running, I’ll blow your brains out.’ The man would then lazily get out his Cetme rifle, to make sure that the Corporal knew that he meant it. This was the only moment of the day when he was allowed outside the prison; he would scan the horizon, trying to make out the city’s white rooftops, and fill his lungs with the dry air as if he were breathing it in for the last time. But on this November day no one had brought round his breakfast or lunch, and no guard had replied to his shouts pleading for food. There was no sign of life at all near the barracks. All the activity was concentrated around the runway and the hangars. No one came to open the door when it was the time for his walk. By mid afternoon he was sure that something out of the ordinary was going on.

It was only when the sun was about to touch the horizon that he heard the engine of an approaching Land Rover, and when he looked out of the window he saw the headlights of the vehicle as it went round the barracks. He sat on his mattress, trying to stay calm, until he heard the door being unbolted. Then Guillermo appeared in full regimental dress, carrying his white gloves in his hand, as if ready to go on parade. Behind him was a guard whom he’d never seen before, with his Cetme rifle slung over his shoulder.

‘You’ve got a visitor,’ the guard said, and closed the door behind Guillermo.

Corporal San Román didn’t even have time to ask for his food. Suddenly he felt dirty. He was ill at ease in front of his friend; or rather, embarrassed. He stood by the window, leaning against the wall. They had not seen each other for over twenty days, ever since that fateful afternoon when he set out for a walk carrying a bag that wasn’t his.

Guillermo was dressed impeccably, but didn’t know what to say. He held his legionnaire’s hat with both hands, crumpling it against his gloves. He appeared tense and was incapable of concealing it. Eventually he said:

‘Have you heard the news?’

Santiago didn’t reply, but he braced himself for the worst. Not that there was anything that could make things any worse.

‘El Caudillo is dead,’ Guillermo said, trying to get a reaction out of his friend. ‘He died in the early hours of the morning.’

Corporal San Román turned away to look out of the window. The news didn’t seem to affect him. Despite the late hour, the planes’ activity had not stopped.

‘So that’s what it was.’

‘What?’

‘That’s why they’ve been coming and going all day. Troops are being transported all the time. But I don’t know if they’re coming in or going away. It’s been chaos for a week, and no one explains a thing to me. There’s something else, isn’t there?’

Guillermo sat on the dirty, sweaty mattress. He didn’t dare to look his friend in the eye.

‘Morocco is invading us.’

On the desk lay a letter that would never be written, let alone posted. They both looked at the yellowing piece of paper and their eyes met briefly.

‘Guillermo,’ said the corporal, choking on his words, ‘they’re going to execute me, aren’t they? From what you say, the reason I’m still here is that they need the planes for other things, and not to fly out a…’

‘Traitor?’ said Guillermo with spontaneous malice.

‘Is that what you think too?’

‘It’s what everyone is saying. And you haven’t shown me any proof to the contrary.’

‘What for? Would you believe me?’

‘Try.’

Santiago approached the desk, crumpled the sheet of paper into a ball and threw it into the latrine. Guillermo watched his every move. Then he added:

‘They’re sending us away. No one wants a war with Morocco. Some people say they’ve secretly sold the province to Hasan and Mauritania.’

‘I don’t care about any of that. You’ll be discharged in a month, and go back home, whereas I…’

‘You’ll go back too. As soon as you explain everything, they’ll let you go.’

Corporal San Román went quiet, trying not to show the doubts that afflicted him. The din of a plane landing on the runway obliterated the silence of the barracks. Outside, a red sky blended with the line of the horizon, ablaze with mirages.

‘Look, Santi, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I need to ask you anyway, for my peace of mind.’

Corporal San Román tensed up once more. He glared at his friend; he wasn’t giving in. Guillermo looked away, but didn’t back down either.

‘At the barracks they say you’re with the traitors; that you’re a terrorist. I’m not saying I think that, but I’d like to hear it from you.’

Santiago felt he had no strength left to have an argument. He slid down, his back against the wall, until he was sitting on the floor. He covered his face with both hands. What he felt wasn’t awkwardness so much as shame.

‘I swear to you, Guillermo, that I didn’t know a thing. I swear it on my mother’s grave.’

‘And I believe you, Santi, I do. But from the moment they arrested you they haven’t let me speak to you. I’m fed up with working myself into the ground for you.’

‘Then don’t; it’s not worth it. They’re going to execute me anyway.’

‘Enough of that nonsense: no one’s going to execute you. As soon as you explain, they’ll discharge you; if the worst comes to the worst, they’ll open a file on you, but that’ll be all.’

‘They’ll want to know everything, names and so on…’

‘But you’re telling me you didn’t know a thing, so there’s nothing to be afraid of.’

‘I swear, I didn’t know. I thought that the bag only had dirty clothes in it.’

Guillermo stared at his friend accusingly. Even in the dim light, Corporal San Román could guess, just by looking at him, what was going through Guillermo’s mind.

‘Santi, those ‘dirty clothes’, as you call them, weighed more than fifteen kilos.’

‘So what? Do you think I don’t know? I thought there might be an old carburettor, or a connecting rod in there. I knew that kind of thing isn’t really allowed, but people do it. You do it, everyone does it. Carburettors, boots, all kinds of junk.’

‘Yes, Santi, but that junk was grenades, detonators and who knows what else. At the barracks they say someone could have blown up the Parador Nacional5 with all that.’

‘But I wasn’t planning to blow anything up. I was only doing someone a favour, the same as all the other times; only a favour.’

‘Who, that girl? Were you doing that girl a favour?’

Corporal San Román sprang to his feet. He clenched his fists and stood still in front of Guillermo. His jaw was clamped shut and his teeth could almost be heard grinding together.

‘That’s none of your business. Don’t interfere in my affairs, okay? I’ve told you before. I’m old enough to do as I damn well please and to see whoever I choose.’

Guillermo stood up, visibly hurt, and walked to the window. The whole thing made him miserable. He turned his back on Santiago to look at the first stars in the sky. Outside the air was fresh and pure. The beauty of the landscape contrasted sharply with his distress. He breathed deeply and felt relieved, though only for a moment.

‘Look, Santi, I’ve made a huge effort to come and see you. You can’t imagine how difficult it is. We’re confined to the barracks while we’re waiting for news. It was just lucky that I found out you wouldn’t be transferred for another two weeks; that’s why I’ve come over.’

Again they fell silent. It seemed as though Guillermo lacked the strength to go on talking. If he hadn’t known his friend so well, he would have said Santiago was crying. But Santiago San Román had never, ever cried, least of all in front of someone else. Guillermo felt thoroughly confused when he saw Santiago pick himself up in the shadows, walk over and hug him like a helpless child. He froze, not knowing what to say, until he felt Santiago’s tears against his face and could do nothing but reciprocate the gesture, holding his friend in his arms to console him as though he were a small child. He was even more startled to hear his friend’s revelation, in a voice choked with emotion:

‘I’m scared, Guillermo, I swear. I never thought I would say anything like this, but it’s the truth.’

Guillermo tried to remain emotionally detached. In the encroaching darkness he even considered the idea that it wasn’t really Corporal San Román who’d blurted out that confession. They sat on the mattress while Santiago tried to calm down.

‘I need you to do me a big favour, Guillermo. No one else can help me.’

The legionnaire braced himself, apprehensive of what might come next. He didn’t dare to reply.

‘I need you to help me get out of here. You’ve got to help me, Guillermo. It may be a long time until they take me to Canarias. If the Generalísimo is dead, things are going to get sticky.’

‘Things have been sticky for a while.’

‘Exactly. No one will give a damn if some shitty corporal breaks out from a shitty barrack. It’s very simple, Guillermo. You won’t get more than a month in jail. And that way you won’t have to fight against those Moroccans.’

‘You have no right to ask me that.’

‘I know, but if you asked me I wouldn’t hesitate for a second. It’s very easy, my friend, and I’m the only one in danger – if they catch me.’

‘You’re crazy, San Román,’ addressing him by his surname in an attempt to keep his distance and not get drawn into the situation. ‘If they catch you they will execute you.’

‘I’m at the end of my tether here. What I’m asking is that you sweet-talk the quartermaster into sending you on guard duty here. In the afternoon they take me for a walk to the end of the runway, where the planes turn around. I only need you to give me a two hundred yard start before you start shooting. With two hundred yards I can make it to the depot over there and get a Land Rover. After that it’s up to me.’

‘You’re crazy: they’ll catch you before you can jump-start it.’

‘They won’t. I’ll take one of Territorial Police’s vehicles. The Saharawis always leave the keys under the passenger’s seat. It’s a habit of theirs, I know it for a fact. You needn’t worry; just give me two hundred metres before you start shooting. I’d do it on my own, but it’s too risky. I might get one of those expert hunters from La Marcha, and they’d take me out clean.’

Guillermo didn’t reply. His palms were sweating just from thinking about it. The lights from the hangar slanted in through the window. He stood up and started pacing up and down the six metres of the guardroom. Now, there were no planes taking off.

‘Forget it,’ Corporal San Román said eventually. ‘It’s stupid. If they’re going to take me to a military court, the less they have against me the better. Besides, I don’t want to deprive you of the pleasure of shooting Moroccans. I haven’t eaten all day, you know? A man talks all kinds of nonsense on an empty stomach.’

Suddenly Santiago started shouting to attract the guards’ attention.

‘I’m starving here! You arseholes, I hope they cut your throats out there. Fucking cowards! Chickens! That’s what you are. When the Moroccans catch you, you’re going to pay for what you’re doing to me now.’

He was shouting as if possessed. Even his voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. Guillermo took a step back, looking for the door. He didn’t know what to say or do. The door opened and the same soldier as before appeared holding his Cetme rifle with a finger on the trigger. As soon as Guillermo saw him, he slipped out, trying to conceal his unease. The door closed and it was quiet again. The Land Rover drove away and was soon out of sight.

Alone again, Corporal San Román held the window bars and pressed his mouth and nose against them to catch the fresh air. A dry pleasant wind made it difficult to believe that autumn was at an end. The smell of the earth, after the recent rains, was more intense than ever. A flaky moon cast its light over the distant dunes, revealing the cunning foxes. The lights of the runway slanted towards the barracks. For a moment Santiago saw Andía’s image, as clearly as if she were in front of him. He thought he could hear her voice and smell her dark skin. The echo of a far-off bugle broke the silence and dispelled the image of the girl. Inexplicably, the legionnaire felt a pleasant sensation that made him appreciate the air blowing on his face. The smell gave him strength and transported him far away from the aerodrome, above El Aaiún and the Sahara. With his eyes half-closed, he recognised the sensation as the same one that had coursed through his whole body, like a shiver, on a certain September morning in 1974, when the hatch of the Hercules had opened noisily and the ramp came down, leading out into the most beautiful and dazzling of deserts. In Zaragoza, he’d had to put up with the north wind for as long as he was stationed there; he would never have imagined that what awaited him on the runway at El Aaiún would change him for ever. In a few hours he went from living under a pale winter light to the deep blue of the Saharan sky. All ninety-three soldiers who had voluntarily transferred from the army to the Legion remained seated on the benches of the Hercules, motionless, until the voice of a sergeant with a Seville accent shook them out of their daydreams.

‘Everyone stand up,’ bellowed the legionnaire. And all ninety-three novices stood up at once, before he’d even finished the sentence. But Santiago San Román’s mind was already outside the C-130. He almost floated down the ramp, carrying his bag and unbuttoning the top of his shirt like the legionnaires that waited below with their chests stuck out, chins cocked and eyes staring straight ahead. He placed himself in the first row, was the first to fall in line and so was the first to feel the warm December air – the warmest of Decembers, so different from the one in his native Barcelona. His whole body tingled as he took everything in out of the corner of his eye. Among the various flags and insignia, the uniforms of the Territorial Police attracted his attention: those pale army jackets which brought out the Saharawi’s dark skins. Opposite him was the office building. An enormous balcony crossed it from one end to the other, almost as high up as the roof, and the men on the balcony were dressed in black and blue turbans and long djellabas6, as if to enliven the monotonous reddish tinge of the landscape. The purring of the Land Rover, the noisy propellers of the Hercules, the instructions coming through the loudspeakers all seemed like a play staged for the new arrivals, rehearsed for years for the benefit of the young soldiers who came from the Iberian peninsula. He felt as though it had all been there for centuries, awaiting the moment that Santiago San Román got off the plane to see it. The desert and the Saharawis’ faces struck him as the oldest things on the planet. Everything fitted together: the landscape, the light, the faces of the native people. However, he came back to reality when he saw Guillermo’s pale face, his faithful friend Guillermo, whom he had only known for forty days, but from whom he had become inseparable. Guillermo was very pale and found it hard to remain standing. Santiago realised that his friend had had a rough flight. He hissed to attract his attention, but Guillermo barely raised his eyes and kept his gaze fixed to the floor. Santiago San Román felt somewhat responsible, because had it not been for him, his friend would now be posted somewhere quiet in Zaragoza, sitting out the months until he was discharged and collected his pay. But he, Santiago, had interfered, as had that legionnaire, a second lieutenant who had appeared in Zaragoza and spoken to them about the Legion, showing them his tattoos, a few photographs and a Super-8 film in which the legionnaires marched with a martial step, their chests puffed out; at that moment Santiago had decided that Zaragoza was not far enough from Barcelona. He did a mental calculation of the distance between the Saharan province and his neighbourhood and concluded that he could not possibly get any further away. That evening he rang Montse’s house once again, to let her know that he was leaving to go to the end of the world. But once again he was told that she was away. They were lying, and he knew it all too well. He slammed the phone down as hard as he could. He tried to tear Montse’s image into a thousand little pieces. Unable to sleep, he tossed and turned in his bed all night, right next to Guillermo. After reveille was sounded and he had a moment, he went straight to the recruitment office and said the second lieutenant: ‘Sir, I want to become a legionnaire.’ And the lieutenant, without asking him to repeat it, warmed up his ballpoint pen with his breath and wrote down Santiago San Román’s name. Then he asked: ‘Can you sign, lad?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The legionnaire turned the page and pointed to where it said ‘signature and printed name’, and Santiago San Román put his name down, for he wanted to go to the end of the world, get a tattoo like the second lieutenant’s, which read ‘A mother’s love’, and forget Montse, never to return.

But now, seeing Guillermo’s gaunt and anxious face, he wasn’t sure that he’d done the right thing dragging his friend along with him, the first true friend he’d had in a long time. Still, it had been Guillermo, not him, who had insisted on volunteering to the Legion on seeing Santiago’s recently signed piece of paper. Santiago was touched just thinking about it. No one had ever done anything like that for him.

The music coming through the loudspeakers of the aerodrome caught his attention. The first few bars of that paso doble turned his stomach and also disconcerted him. Like the wines from Jerez and from Rioja, went the song. The energy of the music was in sharp contrast to the soldiers’ exhausted bodies. Are the colours of the Spanish flag. On command they started loading their bags onto the two trucks at the end of the runway. When I’m on foreign land and see your colours… Santiago San Román could not think straight. And think of your exploits… It was as though Montse’s face were right in front of him. See how much I love you.

‘What did you say?’ she had asked, her eyes fixed on his own.