Sunburn Page 4

  Presently he rounded a slight curve and came upon a group of small white structures huddled up against the side of a hill. In front of them stood two men smoking cigarettes, stamping their feet against the cold.

  Mike pulled up and braked too quickly in front of them, skidding along for ten feet or so over the graveled road top. Then he opened the door and got out.

  “Hey, ’Ligio.”

  One of the men walked over to him and they shook hands. With a minimum of words, they went back into the huts and took out two long, heavy boxes. These they put into the back of the Citröen, under the floor and carpet. In less than ten minutes, Mike was back on his way out of the foothills, heading down to Perpignan, and then to Barcelona.

  This was not the best way to deliver guns and ammunition, but larger quantities were correspondingly dangerous. The fewer people involved, the less chance of being caught, and if it took longer than large-scale shipments by, say, fishing boats, it was nevertheless almost foolproof. Also, if any one person were caught at the border or on the road, only a few guns would be lost, as opposed to a shipload.

  In spite of the speed of the operation, which was to be expected anyway with experienced men, this morning had not gone well. The guns were all right; he’d seen to that. But the whole feel of things had been wrong. They had not taken his money, as they always had before, but rather had given him an address in Perpignan proper where, they’d said, he should go and find Monsieur Leclerc, obviously a phony name, and pay him.

  He was tired. He rolled down the side window, squinting into the sun, and lit himself a cigarette.

  No, something was wrong.

  At twenty-five, with quite a bit of hard living under his belt, Michael still was a strange mixture of awareness and naïveté. People constantly described him as close-lipped or mysterious, but to his own mind he was merely cautious. No one would have called him a warm person, yet a stubborn romantic streak would occasionally surface. And it was this romantic part of him, he knew, that really controlled his life.

  When he’d first arrived in Spain, he’d been attracted by the idealistic fanaticism of some of his Basque acquaintances. Being a bartender, he met more people under looser conditions than he would have under other circumstances.

  They would sit in the bar until closing time, drinking wine and brandy, toasting themselves and the coming death of Franco, when there would be revolution and finally independence for the Basques. He couldn’t help overhearing most of what they said, and they gradually came to trust him. Eventually, more to give himself something to do than out of any political convictions, he volunteered to help them deliver guns to their comrades.

  He had his own reasons for this step, even though it was motivated by his sense of adventure. He wanted to become familiar with parts of the Mediterranean underworld, and he thought that this would be a good place to start. Why he wanted to do this remained a mystery even to those who thought they knew him. But he did his job quietly and well, and no one really cared about his motives. They remarked, however, on his fearlessness. He seemed to be pursuing death at every turn, never quite going so far as to attempt suicide obviously, but driving recklessly, almost tempting the police to pull him over and discover the carload of guns.

  Once a Gypsy knife thrower had come into the bar, and Mike had volunteered to be the target. The Gypsy outlined his body with knives thrown into the wall opposite the bar. He hadn’t flinched, and afterward had tipped the Gypsy one thousand pesetas. His fearless acts were not done with the careless bravado of the drunk or the show-off, but rather with a calm concentration that made them all the more impressive, an effect he couldn’t have cared less about.

  Another time he had been up at the fort above Tossa during a winter rainstorm with some acquaintances, and had decided to walk the parapet, about a foot wide, which circled the fort and dropped sheerly to the water three hundred feet below. They tried to persuade him to stop, but he had mounted the wall and started walking.

  “The wind is too strong,” they said. “The walls might crumble with your weight. It’s too slippery.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Leave me alone.”

  Dying was one thing, but being caught and spending twenty years in jail quite another. He pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the car. There was a tree nearby and he went and sat under it.

  No, he didn’t like it.

  It made no sense to him, and that, in turn, made him nervous. The sun was fully up now, and beginning to get hot. He took off his sweater and smoked two cigarettes. Then he got up and back into the car.

  In Perpignan, he parked just inside the city limits and walked into the first café he came upon. He ordered a double espresso and a shot of brandy, then looked at the newspaper until he’d finished both, trying to think of nothing until he felt refreshed. The piece of paper they’d given him with the address on it was stuffed into his front pocket, and he took it out and flattened it on the table. He was to pay Leclerc at 10 Avenue de la Gare, #3 as soon as he could. He memorized the simple address, then set fire to the paper and watched it burn in the ashtray. Leaving change on the table, he left the café, but did not walk in the direction of the car.

  It was still quite early in the morning, but many people were about. He arrived at the Avenue de la Gare almost immediately, as it ran along the outskirts of the town, then turned inward. Number 10 was almost all the way downtown, but he enjoyed the walk, and arrived within a quarter of an hour. A gendarme directed traffic at the intersection, but otherwise he saw no police.

  Walking back to the car, a feeling of unease stayed with him. He got in and turned on the road away from town. Making mental notes where he was going, he took several back roads, avoiding the main highway, until he came to a restaurant he knew that sold pottery in the surrounding lot. Driving on for another two hundred yards, he finally stopped by a huge oak in a small grove. Here he unloaded the two boxes from the back, being careful to keep them covered by debris.

  He cared not at all for the Separatist movement, though he’d been happy enough to be involved in it for the adventure of it all. Now, when it threatened him, he decided to get out of it. He wasn’t even sure that there was any danger, but today, after nearly a year of it, it felt wrong, which meant that somebody had slipped up, and he wanted no part of it. He would return the money in Barcelona and tell them where the guns were hidden, and if someone else wanted to come and get them, and pay Monsieur Leclerc, whoever he was, then they were welcome to.

  He was back in Tossa by two, and slept until nearly six. After going for a swim, he was at work behind the bar by seven, slightly more gregarious than usual. When Tony came in, he was happy to see him. They had a drink together and were talking about soccer when Sean came in and joined them. After a while, Sean left to meet his girlfriend, but not before he’d invited Mike and Tony up to dinner in a few days.

  In bed that night, he couldn’t sleep. Now that he’d quit working for the Basques, he wasn’t doing anything but passing time, and he knew it. He thought of packing and moving on.

  He went to the window. The moon reflected off the water, and he stared at it for a long time. It seemed so calm out there.

  Suddenly he knew what was so wrong. He felt empty. Nothing was happening in his life. He started to tell himself that it didn’t matter, but then he stopped. That was all he’d been saying now for six or seven years, ever since . . .

  Again he stopped his thoughts. It wouldn’t do to think about it. Maybe he’d had enough of things not mattering. Maybe he should pick something, at random, to care about. But he was too honest with himself to do that. It wouldn’t work for him. Absently, he picked up his guitar and started playing, then as abruptly, put it down. He lay back down on his bed and closed his eyes.

  Mustn’t just latch onto anything, he thought. Something real has got to happen. Don’t go fooling yourself just because you’re alone.

  But he was more than alone, depressed, and tired. He had decided to give up. It was all so meaningless, anyway.

  If only something would happen, he thought. Almost anything. He wouldn’t be picky. He turned onto his side and pulled the pillow over his head. But he had to watch that he didn’t fool himself. He’d had something he believed in before. Maybe he could resurrect that.

  As long as he didn’t fool himself. That was the main thing.

  Five

  We all had time before dinner for another gin and tonic, and so by the time we sat down, any ominous overtones had disappeared. Sean came back in with several bottles of very chilled white wine and set them out within everyone’s easy reach. The round, heavy wooden table easily sat the seven of us. I sat across from Lea, between Tony and Marianne.

  It could be argued that the chicken in Spain is the best in the world, and Berta was a genius at preparing it. She would roast it on a spit in the kitchen, turning it in front of an oak log fire, letting the drippings fall into a pan, to which she’d then add sherry and garlic and a few secret spices. With that as the main course, and the fresh bread always smeared with olive oil, salt, and tomato, the lettuce and onion salad, and a large bowl of pinto beans, dinner was a great pleasure. By the time we’d all finished, we were euphoric. We had drunk nearly all the wine, and everyone was talking animatedly.

  Outside, it was black dark. The living room, with only two small shaded lights, was dim, and we adjourned there for the brandy that Kyra was bringing around. It was Fundador brandy, which didn’t taste good, and yet we drank it after nearly every meal. Everyone knew it wasn’t good brandy, and still we all drank it. And there was good brandy to be had. It was a small mystery, and one that I never understood. Sean once had told me that Spain didn’t make good brandy, but did make Spanish brandy, as though that had explained it. He’d been drunk at the time.

  When Sean wasn’t drunk, he was always ready to discuss anything: sports, art, politics, gossip. He was a great talker, and I had almost immediately found that I loved his company. When he was drunk, though, it was another story. All he would talk about on those occasions, which were not infrequent, was Kyra or drinking. I had earlier formed the impression that those two things were all he really cared about, and I had seen nothing to change that opinion. Still, I liked him immensely.

  I sat with Tony and Marianne, and the talk turned to Franco, who had been in a coma for several days. Everyone was wondering what Juan Carlos would do about the Spanish Sahara crisis, and Tony started arguing with Marianne, who was surprisingly, I thought, very pro-Spanish.

  “They shouldn’t let the Moroccans take one step onto Spanish land,” she said.

  “It’s not our land,” said Tony. “It’s African land.”

  “It’s yours. You’ve had it a long time.”

  “But we took it.”

  “And so, then, it is yours, n’est-ce pas?”

  Tony then reached down quickly, and took off her shoe.

  “Is this shoe mine?”

  “No. It’s mine.”

  “But I have it.”

  “But it’s mine. Give it to me.”

  “If I kept it for a week, would it be mine?”

  I laughed.

  “No. It’s mine.”

  “A year?”

  “No.”

  He laughed and gave it back to her. “You’re a fool.”

  “But it’s not the same.”

  “Ah, but it is.”

  “It’s not,” I put in.

  “What would you do then?” Tony asked me.

  “Shoot them,” said Marianne.

  I laughed again. “Perhaps a little extreme. They are, after all, unarmed. I don’t know. I wouldn’t shoot them, and neither would I give it to them. I can’t agree with you that it’s already theirs.”

  “Why not?”

  “Just because you did already take it. If you can’t hold on to your possessions, they are de facto no longer yours. That’s tough, and it’s not very moral sometimes, but it is the way things go.”

  Sean came by with the brandy. “Profound thoughts being uttered?”

  “Hardly,” I said. “Pour me some more.”

  He sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of us, and the talk drifted away into other things. Across the room, Lea and Mike sat on two easy chairs and talked quietly. Kyra evidently had gone to bed.

  After some minutes, Tony and Sean got back to Franco, and Tony once again became intense.

  “Do you have the bottle?” he asked.

  “I do.” My brother-in-law stood and crossed to the old chest where he kept the liquor. Going to his knees, he reached far back into the recess and pulled out an old bottle of champagne. He turned and showed it to Tony.

  “Good.”

  “I think I’ve had enough,” I said.

  Tony had leaned back with his arm around Marianne. We were all relaxed now, very much friends again. “That’s not for drinking now. Maybe tomorrow.”

  “What is it for?”

  “When Franco dies.”

  A hush fell over the room. Lea, from where she sat, spoke. “Put the bottle away, Sean. It’s dangerous.”

  I wondered how Sean could have become so patriotic in so short a time, but later that night Lea told me that Tony had given him the bottle to hold for him.

  “Why would you want to celebrate?” I asked. “There’ll be no change with Juan Carlos.”

  “It will change,” said Mike, from over by Lea. “There is always change.”

  And again there was that strange and silent aura around him that we’d felt before dinner. Sean returned the bottle, and then Marianne asked him if he had a guitar. “Mike plays, and I want to dance.”

  Sean went and got the instrument and we waited, talking. Once again the atmosphere became light and convivial.

  I’d noticed time after time in Spain that the attitude toward performing or dancing or simply singing aloud was completely different from back home. Here there was none of the self-consciousness with which people approach their own talent in the States. People dance here. I’d passed houses in the town where a lone couple would be dancing to the music on the radio. The discotheques thrived. Maybe I’d just been meeting a new type of person, but I didn’t think so. I suspected that these same people wouldn’t dance in another setting. Though not clumsy, I had never been a notorious rug-cutter, but many times here I’d danced until covered with sweat and then, exhausted, had fallen into an easy chair for an hour, or bed for the night. I knew it hadn’t all been the impetus of the gin or sangría.

  A few weeks before, I had been in town with Lea having coffee in a bar, and we had met a young woman who’d told us that she was a poet. After asking us if we’d like to hear some of her work, she took out a sheet of paper and read us some of her poems, with great feeling, oblivious to the other patrons. She had been, as far as I could tell, not at all drunk, and at the time it had seemed a completely natural thing to do. Sean had become the same way. He’d walk out from time to time with a few papers in his hands and, sitting down, would begin to read us what he’d written, sometimes for criticism, but mostly just to share it.

  So when Sean returned, Mike didn’t protest, but took the guitar and proceeded to tune it. Marianne stood up and took off her sandals. A few chords in a minor key, and then a flamenco flourish: Mike was no virtuoso, but he knew the rhythms. He played easily, his right hand moving constantly while his left alternated between two chords. Of course it was not real flamenco, but it was what one most often heard, and to our ears it passed for the real thing. Marianne whirled in the center of the room while we all clapped the time.

  Another song in another key. Tony suddenly leaped up, yelling, “Ai, Ai, Ai,” and began singing a Spanish song they’d obviously done before, his deep voice perfectly suited to the roughness of the melody. Marianne danced and danced, and before long we were all into it. Sean got a few more bottles of white wine, which we passed around without benefit of glasses. The songs changed. Whoever knew them sang along. Lea got up with castanets.

  I found it hard to keep my eyes off Marianne. She was really lovely. Had my daughter lived, they would have been about the same age. Her white shift seemed to glow in the room, and as she turned, it spread out, letting the dim light through a bit, silhouetting her body.

  From time to time, I looked across at Mike who, it turned out, played better than I had first thought. Seeing my gaze, he would smile. But somehow again he didn’t seem to fit in. His was the music that had brought us together this way, and yet he himself was detached. It was not that he was unfriendly—he seemed, in fact, to be happy playing for us—but the music didn’t seem to affect him. Perhaps that had been the resonance I hadn’t gotten from him all night. He seemed devoid of joy. Somewhere back in his eyes there was something missing, so that even when he laughed, you felt an emptiness; you were suspended.

  But these thoughts were fleeting. The women danced and we drank wine and more wine, singing happily and crazily. Happily and crazily.

  Finally, Lea and Marianne collapsed in unison to the floor. Mike stopped playing and leaned back in his chair.

  “Vino,” he said, mock-weakly.

  Lea stretched out to full length on the floor, and took the half-full bottle from between Tony’s feet. Then, in a gesture that would have been lewd but for her grace, she twisted her body to face Mike and passed the bottle up to him, after first taking a drink herself. It seemed an immensely intimate act between them, but I’d had a lot of wine.

  “Gracias.” He took the bottle and emptied it in a long swallow. “Muchas gracias.”

  He put the bottle down. The moment was over, and Tony began making noises to leave.