Franco and they’ll lift the blockade. I sit up at this because I realize that he is not just an idiot with pesetas on his mind but someone who understands the real situation. I offer him a drink; his company is more lively than the usual Bodega Salinas customer. I learn that the free port status of Tangier means that all these goods can come in and be freely traded, with no duty or tax. The companies who buy and sell these goods also don’t have to pay any taxes. Everything is very cheap. All you have to do is buy it, ship it across the straits and you can sell it at a premium. This all sounds fine except he has no money to buy and no ship to transport the goods. This he waves away as uninteresting detail. ‘You start by working for others,’ he says. ‘You see how the business operates and then you fit yourself in.
‘Where there’s money,’ he says, fixing me with his young inexperienced eyes, ‘there’s danger.’
I wonder why he addresses this to me and he just says that danger means that premiums are always paid.
R. went to Madrid to work in construction but the owner of the building ran out of money. He then bought his way into a shoeshine syndicate. Only rich people have their shoes shined. He realized that rich people are rich only because they have superior knowledge. He listened to them and their talk was of Tangier, where the administration is both Spanish and corrupt and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. R. has it all worked out. I have to remind him that I don’t need money. He disagrees vehemently and tells me just how little even well- known artists make from their work. At the end of the evening we are quite drunk and he asks if he may sleep on my floor. He is cheerful and lively so I agree on the condition that he leaves before I start work.
21st December 1943
I’ve been robbed. R. and I came back from the Bodega Salinas, unlocked my room and found that someone had got in via the patio and stolen everything except my notebooks, drawings and paintings. My clothes, paints and even the Virgin above the bed have gone. The last is the worse loss because all my money was in the backing. I have only what is in my pocket. I tell the landlady what has happened. I am angry and I imply something about the only other user of the patio. She flies at me and between us we put our relationship beyond repair. Later we find broken pots in the patio and R. points to where somebody must have got in over the wall and used the pots, which were nailed into the stucco, to climb in and out.
22nd December 1943
The fat Moorish bitch is unforgiving and has appeared with her whipped cur of a husband and some other resident bandits to persuade us to leave. With my training I’m tempted to tear them to pieces but then I’d have the Guardia Civil to contend with and gaol. R. and I leave. He works on me relentlessly and now we are heading south on foot to Algeciras.
27th December 1943
I thought some of the Russians were poverty-stricken, primitive people, but the villages we’ve been through have revealed that this part of Spain is locked in some Dark Age with no hope and insanity a constant companion. It is not unusual to see people howling at the moon. In searching for food in one village R. came across a boy chained with a metal collar to a wall. His eyes were all pupil and in looking into them R. saw nothing to indicate there was anything human residing there.
5th January 1944, Algeciras
We have arrived here half-starved and in rags after an attack by some wild dogs who were hungrier than us. I killed three with my bare hands before the pack ran off leaving us torn and bleeding. R., who has always been respectful, now holds me in something like awe. There is a shrewdness about this boy that makes me feel uncomfortable.
7th January 1944, Algeciras
Spain in this state is no country for anyone. Africa is so close, visible and near across the straits. I can smell it and surprise myself by how much I want it again.
R. has come back saying that he’s found a contrabandista who has offered us two months work, food and lodging on the boat with a guarantee to drop us in Tangier with $10 each in our pockets. If it works we can renegotiate terms after the two-month trial period. I ask him what we have to do, but it is not a detail that interests him. He likes to do the deal. He produces two cigarettes, which shuts me up. I wonder why I’ve put myself so completely in his hands until I remember all those other legionnaires who left and came back to Dar Riffen, unable to stomach the outside world.
R. tells me something about himself as if to bind me to him. His tone is matter of fact. He recounts how a truckload of anarchists came into his village in 1936 and demanded from the mayor all the fascists. The mayor told them that they had all fled. The anarchists returned two days later with a list of names. Among the names were Raul’s parents. The anarchists took them off into the ravine and shot them all. ‘Almost everybody I knew was shot that afternoon,’ he said. He was twelve years old.
10th January 1944, Algeciras
The contrabandista’s boat is an old fishing vessel about 15 metres long and 3 or 4 metres wide. It has one large hold aft with all the accommodation in the fore. There’s a small wheelhouse with two cracked panes of glass; underneath is the engine, which is where we find Armando. He is thickset with black hair and a dirty, stubbled face. His eyes are brown and soft but he has a thin-lipped mouth with a taut smile. I don’t dislike him, especially when he makes up a stew of beans, tomatoes, garlic and chorizo. He tells us there are clothes in one of the cabins that will fit us better than anything of his would. We eat and drink and I feel fat and sleepy but remember to ask A. whose clothes we are wearing. They belonged to the last crew who were shot and killed by some Italians. R. asks him how he got away and he says bluntly: ‘I killed the Italians.’
After the crumbling and sordid Algeciras, Tangier is prosperous. The port is full of ships and all the cranes are working. The dockside is massed with Moroccans, either huddled under the pointed hoods of their burnouses or crouching under the weight of some cargo. Trucks and cars crawl amidst the jostle of humanity; many of them are large American automobiles. Above the port, in a commanding position, is the Hotel Continental. Other hotels line the Avenida de Espana — the Biarritz, the Cecil, the Mendez. I blanche at the possibility that my father has moved here to take advantage of the boom.
R. jumps about the foredeck, whooping for joy. A. looks at me with dead eyes and asks what this is all about. I tell him that R. has the same nose for money that a dog has for a bitch on heat. A. rubs his chin, which rasps against his rope-hardened hands. I would like to draw those hands … and his face, where the sensual and the brutal meet.
Once we have moored up A. has a private talk with R. who disappears. A. smokes a pipe; he gives me a paper and tobacco to roll a cigarette. He puffs away and says: ‘You’re the best crew I’ve ever had.’ I tell him that we haven’t done anything yet. ‘But you will,’ he says. ‘R. will be the trader and you’ll do the killing.’ Those words chill my guts. Is that all he could see when he looked into my face? I realize that R. has been talking.
11th January 1944
We sailed last night. R. was back within a few hours, followed by an American and two Moroccans wheeling a barrow with two 200-litre drums of diesel. The fuel was cheaper than any A. had ever bought. R. and A. talked some more prices and by nine we were loading sacks of chickpeas and flour and 8 drums of gasoline. R.
