Horse Under Water

51 Where I shine

The brown tilled earth of the Castilian steppe surrounds Madrid like a brim around a stone hat. The northern section of the stone crown has crumbled to produce the Cuatro Caminos where thousands of productores live in the rubble. Along the streets which lie deep between pink-brown buildings only the blue-shirted Falangists go jacket-less. Traffic cops wear flashing white cross-straps on their uniforms and cite, pass and dedicate the brave blue two-decker buses, while between the densely packed riflemen there is scarcely room to pry a peasant. They stand, eyes focused on long ago, lining the route of a procession that never comes.

Café la Vega is a bright, stainless, espresso temple. Cups clatter, machines hiss and high heels click across the white marble floor. An elderly American couple argued about pasteurized milk and Felix the Cat tripped happily through the TV screen in a city where TV is something to go out to. From the Super Mercado across the street there is a continual flash of red neon, and an advertisement for sherry balances on a skyline of tiles.

I sat near the door where I could see the street. I ordered some hot chocolate and watched a bald-headed man shining a pair of two-tone shoes. I sipped the sweet cinnamon-chocolate for which Madrid used to be famous. The shoe-shine man’s box was studded with brass studs; inside the lid were pin-ups of movie stars. He delved amongst the bottles, tins, brushes, and cloths and offered a last flick to the toes. From the upper extremities of the two-tones a large hand descended with paper money.

A young army officer in a grey, immaculate uniform, hung around with aiguillettes, tapped his saucer to summon the shoe-shine. The high black boots were a long and careful operation. It was 7.30 p.m. I looked at the menu. I was worried in case something might have gone wrong. This was a country where it is easy to go wrong.

The shoe-shine man was kneeling at my feet. He placed small pieces of paper inside the shoe to prevent polish soiling my sock. After he had finished polishing, one piece of paper remained there. I could have shouted or tapped my saucer in the Spanish manner, or I could have merely pulled the paper out and thrown it away; but I went to the toilet and read it. On the paper it said, ‘Calle de Atocha and Paseo del Prado. Corner. 8.10.’ Both the Army officer and the two-tones were gone by the time I returned to my table.

The wind whistled down the Paseo del Prado and the night was suddenly cold, the way it goes in Madrid’s fickle climate. A new Chev. rolled down on me like the day of judgement, all headlights and flashing signals with chrome and enamel poured over it like cranberry sauce. I sank into the pink upholstery, the hood dipped, and we purred south towards the river.

Cats sat around with their hands in their pockets and stared insolently back into the headlight beams. The driver parked the car with meticulous care and killed the lights. He opened a wrought-iron gate for me and conducted me to a first-floor front. A man silhouetted in the narrow rectangle of window was studying the café opposite with an enormous pair of binoculars. He moved to one side.

Across the street in the tiny tasoa the marble table-tops were covered in glasses of Valdepenas, the stone floor with prawn shells and dirty boots. The men in the boots were shouting, smoking, drinking wine and then shouting again. I applied my eyes to the soft rubber eye-pieces of the binoculars. They were trained on the window next door to the café. Iron bars divided the window into rectangles. The scene beyond was bright and clear. The Chevrolet was parked carefully with good reason. The car had more lenses, spotlights, fog lights, overtaking lights — more lenswork than a fly’s eye. Now I realized that one of the headlights had infra-red beams and was still switched on. Through the infra-red binoculars I saw two men taking scientific instruments out of their packing. Shavings and screwed-up paper littered the floor. Into my ear a voice said, ‘They must be nearly finished. They’ve been at it for nearly an hour.’ It was Stewart, one of the Navy’s Intelligence, who had probably been put on that frogman course just to watch me.

‘They aren’t setting it up,’ I said. It wasn’t the sort of room that would make a good laboratory. I moved aside for the other man to resume observation.

‘What do you want us to do, sir?’ Stewart asked.

‘Who does this house belong to?’ I asked.

‘We’ve put one of the embassy chauffeurs into it since …’ he nodded his head towards the house which held da Cunha’s equipment.

‘Perhaps he has a wife who will make some coffee,’ I asked.

‘Aye,’ said Stewart.

‘You’d better organize it,’ I said. ‘I have a feeling we’re in for a long wait.’

After a lifetime of travelling one is prepared for transient discomfort. A good-quality dressing-gown will double as a blanket, a bed will fold to the size of an umbrella and a pair of soft slippers go into an overcoat pocket. I had all of these things — in my baggage at the hotel.

Stewart and I took an hour each at the binoculars and the chauffeur took an embassy car around the block to cover the back. I don’t know what he was expected to do if they went out that way, but there he was.

At 3.30 in the morning, or what I call the night, Stewart woke me.

‘Now there’s a little van parked outside,’ he said. By the time I had got across to the binoculars they were moving the fluorimeter out.

‘Do you have a gun?’ I asked Stewart.

‘No sir,’ he said. I hadn’t considered the possibility that da Cunha would move the laboratory equipment elsewhere. I was waiting for him to turn up. When the van was sagging under the weight the three men locked the back doors and drove away. We followed. It wasn’t a long drive to the airport.

As dawn drew a pink frown across the tired forehead of night a small Cessna aeroplane turned its nose to south-south-west and buzzed happily towards the horizon.

‘Cessna’; I thought of Smith’s file-card; it had to be a Cessna. We watched from the tarmac because none of the three charter planes had a pilot available. Stewart beat on the doors of the padlocked offices and damned them, but it got us no nearer to the equipment that was now at three thousand feet and still climbing. It was 7.22 a.m., 15 December.