A Necessary Action (12 page)

‘Shall we?’ said Siglinde to Willi.

Dan Pedersen was still arguing with the Englishman.

Willi Mohr went with them.

When they came out of the steaming smoky bar, it was as if the night had fallen on them with an indescribable purity and
soft blackness. It had become considerably cooler and the stars in the sky arched with grandeur between the mountains. A bit further down the hill, the noise from the bar faded away and they heard the distant chug from the boats’ engines out in the approaches.

At the quay, all the lights were out except a few melancholy flickering street lights.

They sat down on the edge of the quay and waited. The water lay black and smooth and far out they saw the mast-lights of the first trawler.

Siglinde, who was sitting in the middle, took off her shoes and lay down on her back on the warm concrete. She drew up one leg and placed her heel on the edge of the quay. The other leg she let hang out over the water.

‘God, it’s good to be alive, anyhow,’ she said.

‘Isn’t it?’ she said, when no one replied.

‘Yes,’ said Willi Mohr.

Santiago said nothing. He was smoking and looking absently at her legs.

Willi Mohr was not very sober, but it struck him that this was in no way an unpleasant feeling.

The first boat rounded the pier. The reflections from its lights lay like a long trembling strip over the water.

‘Here they come,’ said Santiago.

They had been fishing for sardines and behind the trawler were two small boats with large lamps in the stern. About fifty yards from the quay someone had lit an oil lamp on board the fishing boat and hung it up on the mast. A cold white light fell on to the silvery heap of fish on deck.

‘They’ve had a good night,’ said Santiago.

A few minutes later the trawler’s bow touched the stone wall, Santiago caught the rope and fastened the boat. The whole boat seemed to be full of glittering sardines. Ramon jumped lightly up on to the railing and crouched there, barefooted and wearing an old black woollen jersey and torn blue trousers. His tangled hair stood on end and both his hair and his jersey glistened with small shining fish-scales. He laughed, swung up on to the quay, embraced his brother and shook hands with Siglinde and Willi.

‘Here’s Dad, so I’d better fetch the cart,’ said Ramon.

Pedro Alemany climbed over the railing. He was a broad, short-statured fisherman with a thin mouth and cold eyes. He was wearing a beret, a black shirt and black trousers. He stopped in front of Santiago and said: ‘Why didn’t you drive into town with the fish last night?’

‘I was thinking of going early tomorrow instead.’

‘You should go when I tell you to go and not at any other time.’

‘The van wasn’t fit yesterday.’

‘You’re lying, as usual,’ said Pedro Alemany coldly. ‘See that this lot’s shifted now.’

He made a gesture towards the heap of sardines on deck. Then he threw a scornful look at Siglinde, turned round and walked away up towards the village.

Santiago bit his lip but said nothing. He avoided the others’ eyes.

Ramon came back with a cart full of empty boxes. Santiago gave the remaining three members of the crew some instructions and then they walked back up to Jacinto’s bar. Ramon chattered all the time in Catalonian, his arm round his brother. Santiago interrupted him.

‘How’s your head?’

‘All right now,’ said Ramon.

‘Poor Santiago,’ whispered Siglinde to Willi Mohr, ‘his pride’s hurt.’

In the bar, the tobacco smoke was so thick that the miserable electric light bulb looked like a pale winter sun in the mist. They sat down at the table again and there was nothing to show that anyone had noticed their absence.

Jacinto, who was himself growing slightly unsteady, pulled the jalousies aside and closed the door to show that the party could now be considered over. The abuela had gone to bed.

The drinking went on. The champagne had come to an end and they continued on white wine. Ramon drank heavily. Evidently he was tired and was trying to liven himself up. Willi Mohr took one more glass and noticed he was becoming muddled. I won’t drink any more now, he thought.

The girls were in high spirits. The English girl danced first with the guitar-player, then solo. Siglinde insisted on dancing
with someone and gradually it became Santiago. They danced very well and rhythmically together. Dan Pedersen, Jacinto and the Englishman were discussing something, loudly and with great energy.

The atmosphere grew even more gay and confused. Everyone was drunk and everyone seemed to feel the need to move in different ways. Siglinde and the red-haired English girl found it difficult to keep their legs still and performed a private can-can show on the bar counter. The guitarist was playing like a madman.

Suddenly Willi Mohr’s mind sharpened and he turned quite sober. It was a minor victory for his strength of mind, he thought. At once he saw the people round him quite clearly and wholly objectively.

The man with the guitar, small, sweat-soaked, his shirt flapping, playing like a madman, stamping his feet.

The Englishman, his face beginning to stiffen as his voice grew slow and uncertain.

Dan Pedersen, just knocking a glass over but still talking away.

Jacinto, who had had a long working day and had drunk more than he usually did, looking tired but quite pleased.

The girls, laughing and screaming and trying to kick in time on the bar counter. The English girl was in an ecstasy from the rhythm and the champagne, her untidy red hair sticking to her forehead. They were not sober, but there was nothing distasteful in their behaviour. They just seemed happy.

Santiago sitting straight up in his chair staring at the bar, every now and again licking his lips.

Ramon leaning forward with his mouth open, staring at the girls, so naively and covetously that it was almost moving.

Although the English girl was probably the most accessible to them, and anyhow had the nicest legs, Willi Mohr had the impression that both of them were looking at Siglinde. But that might well have been wrong.

The scene was broken up almost at once. Siglinde grew tired and jumped down. She walked round the table and sat down, wiping the sweat from her forehead. Soon afterwards the Englishman rose unsteadily, lifted his wife down from the bar counter, took her with him and left.

‘Where’s my friend Santiago?’ said Dan Pedersen suddenly, as if he had by chance just come back from a long trip.

He got up and drank to Santiago.

‘You’ve known each other a long time now,’ said Jacinto, yawning.

‘Santiago,’ declaimed Dan Pedersen, ‘is one of the best friends I’ve ever had. Santiago and I have done quite a few things together. And there’s nothing I wouldn’t trust him with. Cheers!’

They stood opposite each other and raised their glasses. It looked like a parody of a declaration of fidelity.

‘Long live their friendship,’ shouted Ramon.

Dan Pedersen took a step forward and embraced Santiago, who stood without moving, his arms down his sides.

For perhaps a second Willi Mohr caught his look over Dan’s shoulder, troubled, painfully moved, and the next moment he gently but firmly freed himself from Dan’s embrace.

‘The calamary fishing comes to an end on Wednesday,’ he said, as a diversion. ‘We’ll go out fishing then.’

‘Yes, by Christ, we must,’ said Dan Pedersen.

Twenty minutes later the party broke up. Dan was very drunk and leant against Siglinde as they walked down the hill.

‘You and your friendship,’ said Siglinde, holding him more firmly with her arm. ‘You’re more Spanish than the most Spanish of Spaniards.’

As soon as he got into the camioneta, Dan fell fast asleep.

Siglinde took an uncertain step as she was getting into the truck, and Willi Mohr had to help her up.

‘What a night,’ she said. ‘Willy, did I behave very badly?’

‘Of course not.’

‘I only get like that sometimes,’ she said, and she yawned.

Willi Mohr drove home. He was feeling rather drunk and kept having to shake his head to be able to see the road clearly in the beams of the headlights. He saw no civil guards, but already knew the country so well that he was certain that they were there.

When Siglinde Pedersen woke, the daylight was flooding into the room through the open windows, but although it was very warm, the sun looked pale and veiled.

She was lying behind her husband’s back, on one side, with one hand under her cheek and the other between her thighs, just above her knees, as she always lay when she slept. But now she was awake and had opened her eyes and was listening to her husband’s even breathing and to the small noises outside. She could hear the chickens scratching round in the dry grass between the cobblestones and the rattle of a motor-cycle on the road and a donkey braying far away. For the moment she was feeling secure and happy about having woken to a new day.

Siglinde turned over on to her back and stretched her warm naked body. She ran her hands over her hips and waist and breasts and burrowed her head into the pillow, yawning widely, for a long time. Then she raised herself on to her elbow and reached over her husband for his watch lying on the stool by the bed.

It was half-past seven and the date-indicator showed it was the fifteenth of December.

She untangled herself from the sheet and cautiously climbed over Dan, who was sleeping so calmly and heavily that she took the risk of giving him a light kiss on the ear and she swung her body back and forth a couple of times so that her bare breasts brushed his shoulder. She found it difficult to leave him alone, but wanted to be up first as she needed longer time to get dressed.

Then she remembered something and stayed standing by the bed as she thoughtfully pinched her breasts to see whether they were beginning to feel tender. She could feel nothing and she rummaged round in the bag lying on the chair. Then she found her pocket diary, wet her thumb and leafed through it, looking at the dates and pouting as she counted in her head. She should be having her period on the sixteenth if her calculations were right and there was no sign as yet. That did not necessarily mean anything but things were not quite right anyhow.

Siglinde Pedersen looked down at her husband and smiled.

She took the dressing-gown off the bedpost and swept it round her as she walked over to the window. The sunlight was drab and dusty and a veil of greyish mist covered the sky. The town lay spread out below the window, flat, yellowish and lifeless, and visibility to the east was so poor that she could not see the sea.

She padded bare-footed down the stairs and crept out through the outer door. Willi Mohr was lying asleep on his back with his mouth open and his hands behind his head.

When Siglinde came back from the lavatory, he had turned over on his side, but still appeared to be asleep.

She went out into the kitchen, shut the door and quickly washed herself all over with cold water. As she was doing this, the rest of the household woke up. The dog came rushing up to her and wriggled round her legs, and she heard Dan and Willi calling to each other.

When she came out again, Willi was sitting curled up on the mattress, smoking. He grinned slightly when he saw her, as she was wearing Dan’s dressing-gown and looked rather funny.

‘Today’s the day we’re going fishing,’ she said. ‘Have you changed your mind?’

‘No, but I’ll come with you down to the puerto. I thought I’d wander round and do some sketching while you’re out.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. I don’t think it’ll be up to much today.’

In the room above, Dan Pedersen was still lying in bed. He watched Siglinde as she took off the dressing-gown and moved round the room.

‘What are you staring at. Haven’t you ever seen me before?’

‘It must feel silly to have a damn great mass of hair like that between your legs. All black, too!’

‘I can think of something that must feel ten times sillier.’

Siglinde pulled on her pants and fastened her bra, then stood still for a moment deciding what to put on.

‘Wrap up well,’ said Dan. ‘It won’t be all that warm out there.

‘It’s hot and peculiar.’

She thought for a moment again. Then she got out her shorts and a clean white blouse, which ought to go well with her sunburn.
When she had dressed and tied on her espadrilles, she was annoyed they had no proper mirror.

‘I’ll take my jeans and polo-necked sweater in reserve. Do you think that’ll be all right?’ she said.

‘Sure to be,’ said Dan, indifferently.

Siglinde put on her straw hat with green edges and fetched a bag from the kitchen. Before she went to the tienda she got another hundred peseta note from Willi Mohr and carefully noted the sum down on the wall alongside the kitchen door, where she kept her household accounts.

The tienda was dark, cool and very dirty. Along the one wall stood sacks of beans, sugar and dried green peppers, along the other the barrels of wine with their taps and galvanized metal measures. From the roof hung sausages, earthenware jugs, shoulders of mutton and pieces of harness. The proprietrix absently chased away a dog which was standing on its back legs slobbering in a sack of sugar. Then she took ten small oblong rolls out of a brown paper bag.

‘Are you going out on a trip today?

‘We’re going out fishing.’

‘It’s not a good day to be out at sea,’ the woman said gloomily. ‘Better to stay at home.’

Apart from the ten rolls, Siglinde bought two litres of the cheapest red wine, a piece of cheese and a few slices of smoked sausage. She needed only the things they were to take out with them, for they were to have fish for their evening meal, and she had olive oil to fry it in at home.

As Siglinde walked up the hill back to Barrio Son Jofre, she peered several times up at the sky. She had a feeling of anxiety, but could not think of any plausible reason for it.

Dan and Willi were up and had made the beds and swept out the house in her absence. Siglinde sat down on the stairs, sliced through the rolls and put cheese and sausage into them. Then she packed the food into a bag and added her jeans and her polo-necked sweater.