See How Much I Love You (12 page)

‘Look, young man, I may not know what you’re up to here, but I can imagine. You’re looking for a rich kid to cosy up to. But make no mistake. If you try to pull the wool over this girl’s eyes, I’ll report you. You understand? This is a decent
household. You’d do better by helping your mother, she could use a hand.’ Mari Cruz fell silent as soon as she heard Montse’s steps in the corridor behind her. The girl picked up her books and folder from the kitchen table and gestured to Santiago to follow her. She said goodbye to the maid. ‘’bye,
señorita
. Shall I expect you for lunch?’

‘Not today. I’m eating at Nuria’s.’

The lights of the vestibule startled Doctor Cambra. She raised her head and opened her eyes. An elderly woman cautiously approached her.

‘Are you all right?’

Montserrat Cambra stood up and tried to appear normal.

‘I’m fine, thanks. I’m waiting for someone.’

The woman started up the stairs with great difficulty, holding onto the handrail. From her breathing Montse could tell she suffered from asthma. Her anxiety had passed. Although she knew Ayach Bachir’s address by heart, she checked the piece of paper she had in her handbag one last time.

The Saharawi was a thin man, with clear-cut features and dark skin. He had very short hair and a two-day stubble, and looked about twenty-five. He was casually dressed, in jeans and an unfashionable jumper. He shook Montse’s hand feebly, and then invited her in. It was a modest household, with old floorboards and bare walls. In the living room there was very little furniture: an armchair, two chairs, a coffee table, a 1970s unit against the wall, and a lamp that looked even older than the other pieces. The floor was covered by a large, colourful carpet. The room gave onto a balcony, and the window, which was too small, didn’t have any curtains. It seemed as though all the furniture had been left behind by previous tenants. The unit was almost empty, as if about to be moved. In the middle of the room were a primus stove and a tray with small glasses
and a teapot on it. On entering the room Montse saw a young man looking out of the window. He was younger and more slender than Ayach. She was introduced to him, but was unable to understand his name. Montse sat in the armchair and Ayach Bachir took the chair. The boy sat down on the carpet and, without saying a word, turned on the primus stove and put the kettle on. From the moment she’d come in, Montse had been able to hear a baby crying. It seemed to be coming from a room on the other side of the wall.

After a few polite phrases, Montserrat Cambra took out the photograph and gave it to Ayach. The Saharawi stared at it. He trailed a finger over it, as if he was trying to recover from the paper the touch of his wife. Montse observed a respectful silence. She didn’t know where to begin.

‘You see, I didn’t tell you everything on the phone, because I wanted to discuss the picture with you first. And now I don’t know how to say it.’

Ayach looked at her in confusion. The other Saharawi went on preparing the tea, oblivious to Montse’s words.

‘I don’t understand,’ said the Ayach.

‘Let me explain. I used to know the guy in the
djellaba
– a long time ago, though.’

‘The one in the
derraha
?’

‘Yes, but that man died many years ago in the Sahara. It happened in Marcha Verde. At least that’s what they told me. Now, the other night, after your wife’s accident, I found this picture among her personal belongings. I have no doubt it’s him, but the date on the back is later than the date of his death. And I know for a fact that the dead don’t come back.’

Montse regretted these last words, and Ayach Bachir realised she felt ill-at-ease. They looked at each other without saying anything else, until the Saharawi turned his eyes back to the picture.

‘This man is not dead,’ he said firmly. ‘He came to my
wedding three years ago.’

Montse took a deep breath and asked Ayach to look at the photograph again to make sure. He did so.

Yes, he’s my wife’s uncle.’

‘Mamia Salek’s?’

He smiled in appreciation of her remembering the deceased’s name. He seemed moved.

‘Yes. The last time I saw him was at our wedding. My wife loved him like a father. He used to live at the Bir Gandus
daira
11
, in the
wilaya
of Ausserd.’

Montse could not hide her disappointment on hearing those words. She hung her head and looked at the boy making tea.

‘Then there’s been a confusion,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘The man I was referring to was Spanish, but they look so alike…’

‘I didn’t say that this man was Saharawi, only that he was my wife’s uncle. My wife would have told you lots of stories about him. But one thing I’m sure of is that he was born in Spain.’

‘Do you remember his name?’

‘Yusuf, they called him Yusuf. I don’t know his Christian name. The other man in the picture is Lazaar Baha, his brother in law. He died when Mauritania attacked the capital, like our president. I was born that year.’

‘Does the name Santiago San Román ring a bell?’

‘No, I’ve never heard it.’ Ayach Bachir fixed his eyes on the photograph once again. ‘I didn’t see him much. We barely exchanged a few words, I can’t remember. My wife had more recent pictures of him. He’s changed a lot. He was badly wounded in the war. He didn’t strike me as being entirely together. They say the death of his wife upset the balance of his mind.’

The other Saharawi held out a small tray to Montse. She picked up a glass and Ayach Bachir another. Montse’s hands trembled as she took it to her lips. Now the child’s crying was
louder. At that moment she understood it had been a bad idea to come over. The past could not be changed. Not even hers. And yet she could not help asking:

‘So he was married?’

‘Yes, to my wife’s aunt. A daughter of his studies in Libya and his son was killed by a landmine near the Wall.’

What wall? Where was Ausserd? What was a
wilaya
? Montse tried not to think about these things, but questions kept popping into her head. A woman came into the living room and stood still on seeing Montse. She had long black hair, and was wearing jeans. She apologised for interrupting and exchanged a few words with Ayach Bachir in Arabic. The other Saharawi said something as well; he sounded upset. The woman looked worried. All three spoke in low voices, as if they didn’t want to disturb their guest. Ayach left the room. The other Saharawi started preparing a second round of tea. He looked up and smiled. Then he went back to what he was doing. Ayach came back and apologised.

‘I’m sorry. Fatma’s son is ill. And she’s worried because she doesn’t know what the problem is.’

‘Was that him crying?’

The Saharawi nodded. Montse stood up and left her handbag on the armchair. The two men looked at her in confusion. Montse’s face, all of a sudden, had grown serious and tense. She looked cross.

‘Where is the child?’

‘In the women’s room.’

Montse went to the corridor and let the crying guide her to the room. Fatma and an elderly woman, both sitting on the floor, were trying to appease the child. The doctor approached and asked their permission to pick him up.

‘Don’t worry, I’m a doctor.’

Fatma’s face lit up. She stood up and gave her the baby. Montse lay him down on a mattress. He must have been four or
five months old.

‘He’s been crying since noon. And he refuses to be fed,’ explained Fatma, weeping.

‘When did he last suckle?’

‘At ten,’ said the other woman without hesitation.

The two men looked in from the door, disconcerted, without daring to take part in the conversation.

A sacred silence descended on the room as the doctor examined the baby. She lifted his clothes, undid the nappy and felt his groin, stomach and chest.

‘He needs liquid. He’s nearly dehydrated.’

‘He won’t open his mouth,’ said Fatma, bursting into tears.

The doctor turned over and examined the faeces in the nappy.

‘He’s got a strong colic. Don’t cry, please, it’s nothing serious. We need to give him an infusion of fennel, camomile and aniseed. In babies the gallbladder is not fully developed and it’s common for this to happen. For now we’ll give him some camomile with a syringe for him to swallow. If it works with cats, it must work with babies,’ she said, trying to dissipate the tension and make the mother smile.

Fatma stopped crying. Ayach Bachir looked at Montse awkwardly, without knowing what to say. He still had the picture in his hands. For a moment he tried to imagine the woman’s story.

‘Tomorrow I’ll call Rabuni,’ the Saharawi said. ‘If this man is the Spaniard you believe he is, then my father must know him. He’s got the memory of an elephant: he can still recite from memory the names of all the dead he left behind in our country before he fled.’

Doctor Montserrat Cambra smiled at him with a mixture of gratitude and uncertainty.

T
HE TRUCK IS GLIDING ALONG THE
HAMMADA
. I
T ISN’T A
long way between the Smara Hospital and the
daira
of Bir Lehru, but to Montse it feels like an eternity. She’s travelling in the cab, between the driver and Layla. In the back are three young men and a goat. The Saharawi who is driving has not uttered a single word during the whole journey. Now, as Bir Lehru comes into view in the distance, he exchanges a few phrases with Layla. The nurse seems angry with him. Yet the man remains indifferent to her reproaches. One could even say he enjoys seeing her like that. Montse does not understand a thing, and doesn’t dare to ask questions.

The vehicle goes up a gentle slope and stops in front of a humble brick-and-cement building with a whitewashed façade. Layla extricates herself from the truck and helps Montse out. The driver smiles with his pipe in his mouth. By way of goodbye Layla slams the door and utters a phrase that sounds like an insult.

‘He’s a cretin,’ she explains to Montse. ‘He won’t takes us any nearer my
jaima
. He says it’s getting late and has to be home. He’s a friend of my father’s, but I didn’t want to marry him when I returned to the Sahara.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ replies Montse, amused. ‘This is a lovely place.’

In the sunset, the pale colours of the houses in Bir Lehru set off the intense ochre of the desert. The small elevation where Montse and Layla are standing, and on which a special-needs
school has been built, commands a superb view of the desert. The roofs of the
jaimas
break up the monotony of the horizon. Against the last slanting rays of sun the water tanks shine brightly. There’s a slight breeze blowing, which makes the landscape of the
daira
more pleasant. Now and again, the bleating of a goat shatters the seemingly sacred silence. The bluish green of the
jaimas
contrasts with the much poorer adobe buildings.

Montse takes a deep breath. She feels tired. The beauty of such an arid place sends a shiver down her spine. The desert and the sky meet in an almost imperceptible line.

‘Look,’ says Layla, stretching her arm. ‘Down there is my house.’

Montse looks where she’s pointing, but all the
jaimas
look the same.

‘Wait a moment, I’d like to enjoy the fresh air,’ says Montse. Layla pulls up her
melfa
and sits on the ground. Montse does so as well. In one of the far areas of the camp stands a mud wall, almost completely covered in sand, which surrounds two or three hectares planted with trees and tomato bushes. Montse is surprised to find an oasis like that in the middle of such a hostile desert.

‘We built that orchard. It looks like a picture, but it’s real. The water is very salty here, but it yields tomatoes and some lettuce.’

‘And the school?’ asked Montse, pointing to the brick building.

‘It’s for sick children, mentally handicapped ones, actually.’

‘Now, if you’ve managed to build hospitals and schools, how come you’re still living in tents after twenty-five years?’

Layla smiles, as if she had been expecting the question and has a ready-made answer.

‘We could lay down foundations for buildings, plan streets, dig drains into the ground. But that would mean we’re giving up. We’re only here temporarily, because our country is occupied by invaders. Once the war is over, we’ll go back. And all this
will be swallowed by the desert. Right now the tents can be taken down in two days, and we could be in our country in less than a week.’

Montse doesn’t know what to say. She wouldn’t have thought that within a fragile-looking woman like her friend lurked such firm courage and resolve. She winks at her and takes her hand. Layla goes back to being her usual gentle self.

‘Last night you spoke in your sleep again,’ she says, drawing the
melfa
behind her ears. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of now. I’m sure that woman is only a mirage. If she had existed, our soldiers would have found her. The dead don’t disappear so easily in the desert, although it might seem so. Besides, a scorpion sting causes hallucinations.’

Montse fixes her gaze on the line of
jaimas
below.

‘You’re right. I’d also like to think it was a hallucination. But I cannot explain away the nightmare about Tindouf. That really did happen. I feel like such an idiot now…’

Eventually she agreed to cover her head to go out. But when she crossed the door, the lady of the house went after her and didn’t leave her side, even though Montse wanted to be alone to try and find a phone. The Algerian wore a serious expression, and was visibly annoyed by the fact that Montse wanted to go out on her own. Montse found the situation so absurd that at times she wanted to laugh. At others, however, she had to struggle not to cry. The children would follow her as well, trailing a few steps behind her. If Montse stopped off, the woman did so too, and if she walked faster, the woman matched her step for step. Both looked thoroughly exasperated. Montse had decided no longer to speak to her. The Algerian barely spoke any French, and Montse knew no more than a dozen poorly pronounced phrases in the language.

After looking for a phone booth at every corner she passed, Montse thought she heard someone curse in Spanish. She turned
round and saw an old truck, with a trailer covered by a
hole-ridden
tarpaulin, parked at a petrol station. Without thinking, she walked straight over. The Algerian woman’s shouts did not intimidate her this time. A man of about sixty was talking to the station employee. He was dressed in the remains of various military uniforms, sported a grey beard down to his chest, and had both arms covered in tattoos. Montse recognised the hat of the Legion, and saw a Spanish flag embroidered on each of his sleeves. She approached the man like a castaway who finds a floating plank at sea.

‘Excuse me, are you Spanish?’ The man turned round as though he could barely believe his ears. He looked her up and down and put his hands on his belt buckle. He was slow to reply, however.

‘For the love of God, where did you come from?’ Montse was so excited that her explanations barely made any sense. She tried to tell the stranger everything, and seemed incapable of expressing herself coherently. From across the street, the Algerian woman looked at the scene incredulously, without daring to approach.

‘I need to make a phone call. They should have collected me from the airport yesterday, but no one showed up. My suitcase is at that woman’s house, and they almost didn’t let me out.’ The Spaniard looked to where Montse was pointing. As soon as the Algerian realised they were discussing her, she covered her face and quickly walked away.

‘Don’t be afraid, madam, you’re safe with me. You’ve been very lucky to find me. Believe me, very lucky.’ In spite of his strong smell, Montse could have hugged him.

‘Can you tell me where I can find a phone?’

‘I’ll do something better. I’ll take you to the Spanish consulate and they’ll take care of everything.’ Montse could not believe it would all be solved so easily after so much trouble. She mentally pinched herself to make sure she was not dreaming.

‘My suitcase is still at that woman’s house,’ insisted Montse.

‘I know how to get there, but I would really appreciate it if you came over with me. I don’t understand what they want from me.’

‘Do you have anything of value in your suitcase?’ Montse thought for a moment before replying. Her instinct told her to be cautious.

‘Nothing expensive. What little money I have and my passport I carry on me.’ The man thought it over. He paid the employee with some dirty, crumpled notes, and said a few words to him in French.

‘Get in the truck, madam. We’re leaving straight away.’ Montse climbed into the cab and soon began to understand that things were not going to be as easy as she had thought.

As soon as the erstwhile legionnaire got behind the wheel, two other men entered the cab. They were Muslims, and were wearing turbans and army boots. From the noise Montse could tell a few other men were climbing onto the trailer. ‘They’re good people, madam. Real patriots,’ the legionnaire said, referring to the Algerians. The truck pulled out, and Montse was caught between the driver and the other two. Their smell was nauseating. Despite the noise of the engine, she could hear the shouting in the back.

‘The house is at the end of this street, on the left. Those grey blockish buildings,’ explained Montse. The legionnaire put an unlit cigar in his mouth and chewed on it while looking straight ahead. Montse got alarmed when they went past the street. ‘It’s back there, in those little houses.’ The legionnaire smiled.

‘Don’t worry, madam; going into that neighbourhood is really not worth it. Only riff raff live there, thieves and whores, if you’ll excuse the language. Nothing else. If you haven’t got anything valuable in your suitcase you’d better forget about it. Trust me.’

As the last houses receded into the distance, Montse’s feelings
became more and more mixed. On the one hand, she was glad to leave that hellhole behind; on the other, she knew she shouldn’t have climbed into the truck without knowing if the man was trustworthy. As her suspicions increased, the legionnaire talked and talked. He seemed to enjoy soldierly bravado. The other two men remained silent, smoking impassively. When the legionnaire paused for breath, Montse saw an opening in which to ask: ‘What city is the Spanish consulate in?’ The man was slow to answer, and Montse had the feeling he was playing for time. Then he mentioned an Arabic name that she didn’t catch. ‘And is that far from Tindouf?’

‘In the desert, madam, you can never be sure what’s near or far. It depends what you compare it with. Did you say you came from Madrid?’

‘No, I didn’t say that.’

‘I beg your pardon, I thought you had.’

‘I came from Barcelona.’

The legionnaire went on asking Montse about the details of her journey. She raised her guard, for the questions had turned into a kind of interrogation. Montse tried to disclose only half of the truth; but the man was clever and at times made her contradict herself. Eventually Montse decided to reply with monosyllables or to pretend that she couldn’t hear him over the noise of the engine.

It was difficult to say whether they’d been driving for two or three hours. The tarmac gave way to a dry, dusty path which in turn disappeared a few kilometres later. The truck lurched along the tracks left by other vehicles or simply cut across the desert. They seemed to be going increasingly far from anything. When Montse could barely take it any longer, she saw the glimmer of a village in the distance. The dark shapes contrasted with the ochre of the desert. In the dazzling noonday sun, she couldn’t make them out clearly, but she was sure that far on the horizon there were signs of civilization. She even thought she could see
some rooftops shining in the sunlight. ‘Are we nearly there?’ she asked, animated.

‘Yes, madam. In five minutes you’ll be able to rest.’

As they approached the mirage, Montse felt the blood rush to her face. When they were about one kilometre away, she realised that the place was not a town, or a village, or anything of the sort. The dark shapes and shiny surfaces she had seen were in fact thousands of cars heaped up as scrap metal in the middle of the Sahara. There were so many that pathways ran between them, complete with intersections, in what looked like a monstrous cemetery.

She was dumbstruck. Her mind raced ahead of itself. She crossed her arms and tensed up, as though holding on to an imaginary object. When the men got out of the truck, she followed them, terrified but trying to keep her wits about her.

‘You told me you would take me to the consulate.’

‘All in good time, madam, all in good time. Once we’ve dealt with a couple of things, I’ll take you to the consul.’

‘My husband must be in Tindouf already, and he’ll surely alert the Algerian police.’ Montse’s words sounded like the lies of a desperate little girl. With a quick movement, the legionnaire stuck his hand in Montse’s pocket and grabbed her papers. She tried to back away, but two men took her by the arms and held her still. She tried to scream, but her voice faltered. A third man checked her other pockets and took out her wallet and passport. He passed them to the legionnaire as a dog would a
gunned-down
prey. The latter flicked through it and put it away in one of the several inner pockets of his uniform.

‘Now, don’t do anything stupid. Even if we let you go, you wouldn’t get anywhere on foot. You’d die of thirst and hunger first.’

The legionnaire walked off and the two men dragged Montse behind him. Among the wrecked cars was a small hovel, with a window sealed off by two planks. The man unlocked the
padlocks on the door, and the mercenaries pushed Montse in. She fell flat on her face. ‘You can scream all you want. No one will hear you.’ She stifled a cry of pain. Physical resistance, she knew, was futile, but she wasn’t even capable of screaming. She let out a moan and lifted her head. Her nose was bleeding.

‘Please, please, please,’ she whimpered pleadingly. The door closed. Montse sat up and started asking for help in whispers, afraid to raise her voice. She soon realised she wasn’t alone. Although there was very little light, she made out three other women sitting on the floor. They looked at her with as much surprise as her own face was no doubt registering at that moment. She felt inexplicably ashamed and tried to regain her composure, but couldn’t stop whimpering. There was really no point in screaming and kicking at the door. She looked at the other women. Little by little she made out their features in the shadows. They were dressed the same as the women she’d seen in Tindouf. In spite of their hardened expressions, they looked scared. Montse tried to communicate with them in Spanish, said a few words in French; but there was no reply. One of the women gestured at her to sit down. Montse fell on her knees and buried her face in her hands. Could things get any worse? She cried inconsolably for a long time, until her tears and strength ran out. When she tried to reconcile herself to the idea that this was a hopeless situation, a woman sat next to her and put her hand on her shoulder.