See How Much I Love You (18 page)

‘Is the baby okay?’

‘Yes, he’s fine. He’s a good boy.’

The two women were not in a hurry. But Pere Fenoll beeped the horn impatiently. This startled Fatma, who only then realised that someone was waiting for Montse. Not wanting to take any more of Montse’s time, she said goodbye. They promised to meet soon.

Pere had a serious expression on his face when Montse got back into the car. She was annoyed, and had to make an effort not to have a go at him for his impatience.

‘Well, Montse,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you had such exotic friends.’

‘Exotic? Do you not approve of my “exotic” friends?’

‘No, no, on the contrary. I think one should get to know all kinds of people.’

Montse didn’t like his tone. Before the car started moving, she opened the door again, got out and said:

‘You know what, Pere, I never thought I would say this to someone, but then I never thought I’d go to bed with someone like you either. Fuck off!’

Pere Fenoll was speechless. He knew he had blown it, but it was now too late to make amends. He stayed in the car with Wagner playing in the background, while Montse quickly walked away, cursing him.

W
HEN
M
ONTSE AWAKES, THERE’S NO ONE IN THE
jaima
. Once again she feels embarrassed to be the last one to get up. Layla’s aunt is cooking in the kitchen. They say good morning in Arabic. Montse is a fast learner. For breakfast she has coffee and goats milk, bread with marmalade and an orange. The food revives her. The Saharawi starts explaining to Montse that Layla is at the corrals on the outskirts of Bir Lehlu. She understands without difficulty. The children are running everywhere, making the most of the holidays. As soon as they see Montse, they come to say hello. The morning sun is beginning to make its presence felt.

Montse decides to go for a walk. She covers her head with a scarf to protect it from the sun. A few little boys are playing football. Others are fighting over the only bicycle. Suddenly a kid who is sitting on his own, far from the group, attracts her attention. She recognises the one-eyed boy from the day before. He’s looking at her without moving from his place. Montse approaches him slowly, as though she were just strolling by. Once near him she says hello. The boy doesn’t reply. His head has often been hit by stones and bears the marks. Montse doesn’t want him to run away, and so keeps her distance. It’s Layla’s nieces who run away, as though they were frightened of getting close to the boy. Montse asks him his name, again without getting an answer. She decides to leave him alone. And then, after taking a few steps she hears him say something.

‘Spanish? Spanish?’

She turns and stares at him.

‘Spanish, yes. And you, Saharawi?’

The boy stands up and comes close to her. Seeing him
up-close
, with his hollow eye-socket, Montse understands why the girls have scampered away. The boy put his hand in his pocket and takes out a piece of paper. The moment she takes it, he starts running away and soon disappears from view. Montse is so intrigued that she nearly tears the paper as she unfolds it. It is a squared sheet from a notebook, a school notebook no doubt. The handwriting is both careful and elaborate.

Montse’s hands start shaking. She can barely finish reading the note. When she takes her eyes off it, she cannot see the boy. She calls out his name. She walks in the direction where she saw him disappear. There are children everywhere, but none is Mohamed. She wanders around the
jaimas
and eventually gives up. She puts the note away after rereading it several times, and holds on to it in her pocket. Then, without hesitating, she makes for the corrals to get Layla.

The nurse notices how nervous Montse is as soon as she sees her. She carefully reads the note, then looks at Montse, looks back at the note and rereads it. Layla put her hand on her forehead and a moment later clicks her tongue in her characteristic way.

‘It wasn’t a dream, Layla. I told you Aza existed.’

The nurse does not speak. She looks around to make sure no one’s watching. They are alone. Montse looks calmer now. ‘But her nephew has disappeared. I don’t think I’ll find him again, Layla.’

The nurse smiles. Her calm face contrasts with Montse’s gestures.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure. If I’m not wrong, he’s hiding behind those rocks there.’

Montse looks in the direction that she’s pointing but sees nothing. Layla calls out Mohamed’s name, uttering phrases in Hassaniya. Presently the boy appears. He was right where she said he had been. Mohamed approaches them with a look of embarrassment. Layla shows him the note and exchanges a few words with him. She sounds cross. Montse quickly asks her to translate.

‘It’s true, his aunt is Aza. She’s in Edchedeirîa.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Not far. It’s a
daira
in Smara,’ she says, pointing to the horizon, where all that can be seen are rocks and sand. ‘It takes a while at a brisk pace.’

‘Come with me, please.’

‘On foot? No way. You’d get dehydrated.’

Brahim drives with both hands on top of the wheel. His pipe hangs from his lips. Montse’s sitting in the middle and Layla by the door. Mohamed is riding in the back, as he’s refused to sit between the women. Brahim exchanges phrases with Layla. He sounds angry. Montse asks the nurse if he’s annoyed at having to drive them, but she says he isn’t.

‘Not at all. He’s happy to take us, but he likes to grumble. If men don’t grumble, they’re not real men.’

Montse laughs. Brahim smiles at her; he doesn’t understand a word.

There’s no difference between Edchedeiría and Bir Lehlu. The landscape of
jaimas
and adobe constructions is identical.
Mohamed jumps out of the truck and runs away. Brahim goes straight after him. He has to drive carefully as there are a lot of children running around, chasing a plastic ball. Eventually he stops at the door of an adobe house. The two women enter and take off their shoes. Aza stands up, covers her face with her hands, slaps her forehead, takes her hands to her heart and finally hugs Montse. She seems to be praying. Her words sound like a pitiful litany, like prayers said after someone’s death.

‘My friend, my friend,’ she says, in Spanish. ‘You have
baraka
, my friend. I assure you of that.’

The presentations take nearly an hour. Aza introduces her to all her family in Edchedeiria. Montse introduces Layla. The two women talk for quite a while in Hassaniya. Brahim, who has stayed outside, is soon chatting to the neighbours. He seems to know everyone. The women of the household offer Montse some tea, and bring her perfume for her hands and face. The girls present her with necklaces, bracelets, and wooden rings with pretty decorations. She lets them
fête
her. Layla speaks with everyone as if they’d known each other for years.

‘You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend who was a legionnaire,’ says Layla after listening attentively to the others.

‘You didn’t ask,’ jokes Montse, laughing. ‘But it doesn’t matter, really.’

Aza and Layla smile. Montse feels it’s the right moment to talk about Santiago San Román. But, at the same time, she’s embarrassed about making her story so public. After all that’s happened, everything to do with Santiago feels very remote.

‘I think I’ve found the man you spoke of,’ explains Aza, waiting for Montse’s reaction. ‘Other Spaniards like him settled here, but most have died, or gone to Mauritania.’

‘It seems my story made an impression on you. After all we’ve been through, you haven’t forgotten what I told you.’

‘Not a thing. My mother helped me. She’s very old, but has a good memory. She put me on the right track.’

‘I’m not so sure I want to see him now.’

Layla and Aza look at each other, disappointed at the Spanish woman’s reaction.

‘Are you out of your mind?’ says Layla reproachfully. ‘Now you have to find out whether he’s been thinking of you all this time.’

Montse smiles. She has the impression the two Saharawis regard all this as a soap opera.

‘Fine,’ says Montse, ‘tell me what you know.’

‘In Ausserd there’s a Spanish man who fled with the refugees. He used to be a soldier, and now lives in La Güera, like me.’

‘Do you know his name?’

‘Not his real name, no. But I think they call him Yusuf or Abderahman, I’m not sure.’

‘Have you seen him?’

‘I’ve met him, but I didn’t know he was Spanish. He looks like one of us. I haven’t seen him for a long time, though. His children attended my school.’

‘Are you a teacher?’

‘Yes.’

‘What other surprises have you got in store for me?’

Aza goes quiet and smiles. Layla clicks her tongue.

As they travel through a
hammada
without paths or roads, Montse wonders what might move a man who wasn’t born in the desert to be anchored for so many years in this part of the world. The beauty of the landscape and the generosity and hospitality of the Saharawis do not seem reason enough. Neither does love.

Brahim drives in silence, with his hands on the top of the wheel. The three women have squeezed together in the cab of the pick-up. It feels like a lengthy journey, with the difficulty of the terrain. La Güera is no different from the rest of the camps. Amid the
dairas
one can see the two white buildings where the school is. They look like ships stranded at the bottom of a dry sea. Aza gives directions to her house. They welcome them
pretty much as they had in Edchedeiría. Aza’s mother is an old, nearly blind woman. She speaks Spanish as if she were salvaging it from the depths of her memory. At once she sets everything up to look after her guests. Presently Brahim strikes up a conversation with the men. Montse knows she’ll have to wait for the rite of hospitality to be over before asking after the Spaniard who lives in La Güera, so she doesn’t say anything yet.

They eat with the whole family. Brahim has been invited to the neighbours’
jaima
. In the course of the meal, Montse learns more about Aza and her family. Her father was once the mayor of the old Villa Cisneros, and a member of parliament at the Cortes Españolas. When Morocco and Mauritania invaded, he was taken prisoner by the Mauritanians. Aza was a child back then. They spent more than ten years in the country. Eventually they were allowed to go, along with the rest of the Saharawis, to the Algerian
hammada
. Aza’s mother recalls her dead husband with contained emotion. Then she explains to her daughter once more where to find the man they’re looking for.

Montse is very nervous. Her food feels stuck in her throat. At times it all feels like a dream. She has imagined a possible encounter with Santiago San Román many times, but not at all in the way it is happening now. Suddenly, a Saharawi steps aside from the group of men talking to Aza, offers Montse his hand, and greets her in Spanish, with a strong Arabic accent. He’s wearing a black turban and a blue
derraha
. His skin is as dark as any Saharawi’s. His eyes are red like theirs, and his teeth are tea stained. His gaze is as piercing as that of the men from the desert. It’s hard to judge his age, like most Saharawis after thirty. Montse feels that the hand which squeezes hers is actually burning. Aza speaks to him in Spanish, and he replies in that language and sometimes in Hassaniya.

‘Yes, I’ve been a legionnaire,’ he tells Montse. ‘But that was many years ago.’

Montse is almost certain that the man cannot be Santiago San
Román, but when she looks him in the eye she wavers.

‘My name is Montse. They told me about you, and I didn’t want to leave without saying hello.’

The man is obviously very flattered. He smiles. He finds the foreigner’s attitude a bit strange. He invites all three women to drink tea at his house. Layla excuses herself, explaining they should be getting back to Smara. The man insists. Now Montse is sure it’s not him. But she cannot help asking:

‘Did you know a young man called Santiago San Román? He was a soldier like yourself.’

The man thinks for a moment, tipping his turban slightly backwards. Under the cloth appear a few grey hairs.

‘I’m not sure. There were thousands of soldiers like myself. He must have gone back home when he was discharged. I stayed.’

‘He stayed too.’

‘Some died or were taken prisoner,’ the man explains, smiling all the while.

Montse knows this is leading nowhere. But deep down she’s relieved not to be in front of Santiago San Román. It’s a paradoxical feeling.

On the way back, Brahim drives more slowly. Aza has stayed back in La Güera. Montse has promised to visit her at the school in a few days’ time. She and Layla are both silent. The sun is setting at their back. Little by little the sky turns a deep red that takes Montse’s breath away. When they are near Smara, she asks Brahim to slow down. She wants to preserve the beauty of that sunset in her memory. Layla seems indifferent to it. Suddenly she points something out to Montse. A few metres from the tracks, a dromedary lies on the ground, dead. It is a vision that makes a deep impression on the foreigner. Montse asks Brahim to pull over. He does so without replying. Intuitively, he can guess the kind of feeling a sight like that might give rise to in a European woman. In the distance, one can see the
jaimas
of Bir Lehlu.

There in the desert, the body of the dead dromedary is like a red brushstroke on a white canvas. Montse cannot look away. There are no flies, no carrion-eating birds. Brahim smokes leaning on the pick-up and the women stand a few metres away from the carcass. There isn’t even a bit of wind that might profane the silence of the evening. Layla tries to understand what it is that so captures her friend’s attention. Montse looks into the horizon. In the middle distance, on a slight elevation, some rocks stand out in profile.

‘What’s that, Layla?’

‘The cemetery. That’s where we bury our people.’

Montse feels that death is as much a part of the desert as nature, as the wind, as the sun. They stroll over to the boundary of the cemetery. The tombs are nothing but stones placed at the head and foot of the dead. There are no signs to differentiate between them. It’s beginning to get dark, and the light is poor. Montse shudders. They are about to go back to the pick-up when, suddenly, they spot a shape a few metres away. Montse is startled. At first she thinks it’s a dog, but Layla’s face looks terrified, and she huddles against Montse, screaming. A Saharawi, who until now was half-buried, rises up from the earth. Even in the
semi-darkness
Montse can tell he’s almost naked. The man holds his clothes and runs away with his turban on. Brahim runs towards them, alarmed by Layla’s scream. When he realises what’s going on, he starts throwing stones at the crazy man.

‘What was he doing?’ Montse shouts to Layla.

‘I don’t know. I didn’t seen him either.’