Law of Return (16 page)

She skimmed the beginning, and was relieved to see that Telemachus appeared almost immediately. The passage the professor had referred to dealt with Telemachus’s visit to Eumaios. Elena chewed the inside of her lip thoughtfully, considering the poem. “
Telemachus put on his fair sandals . . . and went with measured
pace towards the stockade. . . .
” She inspected Meyer’s telegram again: “Eumaios at Pension d’Or. Don’t write. Hurry.” With some dismay, Elena realized that Meyer was demanding—or begging— that she cross the border. Two border crossings, she thought, one there and one to accompany him into Spain. Damn. I wish someone was here to help . . . Or to talk me out of this.

She went to bed early, uncertain what else to do, and hopeful that sleeping on the problem might provide a solution. But falling asleep presented some difficulty. It occurred to Elena, as she tossed uncomfortably in the unfamiliar hotel bed, that Lieutenant Tejada’s permission for her to travel, given with the kindest of intentions, had placed her in an incredibly dangerous position. Not his fault, she reminded herself. And then, with a certain grim humor, she thought, he certainly would have stopped me if he’d known this was going to happen. Then she resolutely returned to the business of trying to fall asleep.

Nervousness woke her at dawn the following morning. She was up and dressed by seven, uncomfortably aware that the night had presented no answer to her problems and that it was several hours before she would even be able to leave her room without causing comment. She would have liked to write to her parents, or simply to write down her thoughts to organize them, but she was aware that putting too much into writing was dangerous. After pacing her room for twenty minutes, Elena cast caution into the wind, slipped her ring onto her finger, and headed downstairs.

The hotel lobby was empty except for a few maids and the night clerk. All of them were too well trained to show any surprise at the eccentricity of a guest who was awake so early in the morning. The clerk contented himself with saying, “Good morning, Señora. Do you need a cab?”

“No, thank you.” Elena deposited her keys at the front desk as she spoke. “I’m just going out for a walk.”

She turned away from the elegance of the casino and the promenade instinctively, and headed for the river. Cool wind struck her as she crossed the bridge, raising goosebumps on her bare arms. She shivered slightly, and suddenly remembered the freezing mornings in Madrid, when she had risen at first light to get to school early to prepare for the children’s arrival. She had hated actually rising so early. But she had enjoyed the good-natured greetings and sleepy complaints she had shared with the icemen and milkmen and others whose profession required an early start.
Madrid . . .
for a moment Elena felt a lump in her throat. She turned away from the sleepy streets of San Sebastián, pale mockeries of the capital that she had loved, and found a stairway down to the beach.

The long strip of sand on this side of the river belonged to the townsfolk. Unlike the horseshoe crescent of the Playa de la Concha, which was almost completely blocked by the isle of Santa Clara, where the water was nearly as flat as a lake, this part of the coast was unprotected by breakwaters and the beach was steadily pounded by long, rolling waves. The surf left arches of foamy bubbles on the sand, evidence of the contamination the river carried down from the paper factories to the south. The martial rows of furled umbrellas and neatly folded deck chairs that lined La Concha were absent here. A few soggy and sand-logged beach towels were the only evidence that anyone used the beach for swimming.

In her unsuitable footwear, Elena tottered along the sand near the seawall, far from the water, pondering whether to take off her shoes, and suffer from sandy feet for the rest of the day, or risk ruining her shoes. The wind wrinkled the sea, giving it the texture of crushed silk. Clouds scudded rapidly across the sky—huge, ragged parodies of the gulls. A few pieces of garbage blew across the sand, which were idly chased by gray gulls. Cinderella, the morning after the ball, Elena thought, watching the stray wrappers, still soaked with the oil stains of hot french fries, or sticky with the syrup of lemon ices. All the ball gowns turned to rags, like Odysseus’s rags when he returned to Ithaca. . . . Odysseus goes to Eumaios when he returns, to avoid the suitors and meets up with Telemachus there. . . . I’m supposed to be Telemachus . . . but how I am supposed to get to Biarritz? And if I do get there how will I find the Pension d’Or?”

As Elena made her way toward the rocks at the far end of the beach, the smell of salt air was gradually overwhelmed by a fishy odor. A huge collection of gulls congregated just ahead of her. A pair of fishing boats pulled well up from the water explained both phenomena. Four men were sorting their catch into buckets, occasionally tossing away a minnow, which was instantly fought over by the crowd of gulls.

Elena’s immediate impulse was to withdraw and leave the fishermen to their work. But as she hesitated one of them glanced up and saw her, and turning away from him seemed discourteous. She continued toward them, nodding as she did so to the one who had made eye contact with her. “Good morning.”

“Good morning, Señorita.” It was the oldest of the men who spoke to her. “You’re up early.” His accent was unfamiliar to Elena and she guessed him to be a Basque.

Elena smiled. “It looks like a cloudy day.”

The old man squinted at the sky, deepening the crow’s-feet around his eyes. “Don’t worry, Señorita. It won’t rain. You’ll have nice weather for your holiday.”

His voice was kindly but Elena winced. It was not right for him to be so deferential.
What about
your
work day?
she wanted to ask.
Isn’t that important?
Instead, she found herself saying awkwardly, “Thank you. This is my first time in the Basque country. It’s very beautiful here.”

“Yes, Señorita.” One of the other men spoke. His voice was polite; the voice one would use for a pretty, spoiled child. “You should see Irún, where I’m from.”

Elena smiled, and then, perhaps because she was tired, or because her memories of Madrid had made her nostalgic, or simply through carelessness, she said absently, “I remember the broadcasts about the defense of Irún.”

There was a sudden fraught silence and Elena tensed as she realized what she had said. All of the men had looked up to stare at her, and she got the impression for the first time that they were looking at
her,
instead of at yet another tourist. Then one of them said in a carefully casual tone, “You’re from Madrid, Señorita?”

“No . . . I . . .” Elena tried to meet the blank stares. They were wary, but not hostile. “I lived there until the end of the war though.”

“Until Madrid was ‘liberated,’ you mean.” It was the old man again, his eyes twinkling with amusement under raised brows.

“Yes.” Elena smiled back, relaxed, and wondered why the men trusted her. It did not occur to her that most tourists would not have stayed to talk to them, much less that her own face was as communicative as the fishermen’s raised eyebrows. “I suppose I must mean that.”

One of the men grunted, a sound somehow conveying amusement. Another turned, and made a remark to his companions in a language completely unfamiliar to Elena. Another replied, laughing, and Elena realized that they were speaking Basque. The man who had first spoken to Elena turned back to her. “You enjoy your stay here, dear,” he said.

When he had first spoken Elena had suspected that his courtesy was false. Listening now, she realized that her suspicion had been the merest shadow of the truth. “Thanks,” she said, knowing that the word couldn’t convey her gratitude for the men’s unexpected warmth. “Thanks a lot.”

The fishermen nodded and returned their attention to their nets. Elena, looking at the boats, and then out to sea, had a sudden idea. She did not think that they would betray her, but to trust them further was dangerous. Exchanging pleasantries was one thing but to ask them to risk prison. . . . What choice do I have? she thought wryly, and then said quickly, before fear closed her throat, “Do you go out fishing every morning?”

“Just about.” One of the younger men looked back at her.

“You couldn’t . . . take a passenger, could you?” Elena had the miserable feeling that she was not handling the conversation with any grace, but at least she had managed to frame the question.

“Fishing’s a boring sport for a young lady.” The man did not answer directly.

“I’d like to see more of the coast.” Elena’s voice was quiet.

Once again, there was a conversation between the fishermen that Elena could not understand. She held her breath. Finally, the oldest of them turned back to her. “Whereabouts along the coast would you like to see most?” he asked.

The time for seemingly innocent conversation was past. “Biarritz,” Elena said flatly.

The intricacies of the Basque language fluttered around her like the cries of the gulls. “We can take you,” the old man said finally. “But it’s putting our boat at risk. And our lives.”

“I can’t pay very much,” she said, opening negotiations.

“Two hundred pesetas.”

Elena hesitated, heartily regretting the cheap edition of the
Odyssey
and the overpriced breakfast that she had been weak enough to buy. Still, she had budgetted for a ten-day stay in the hotel and had thus far only passed two nights. Very carefully, she said. “I need to return also—”

“No,” he interrupted her bluntly. “We can drop you off, but we can’t hang around in French waters waiting for a rendezvous. It’s too dangerous.”

“Not even for two hundred pesetas?”

‘“Not even for four hundred.” One of the old man’s companions made a quick comment in Basque. Another seemed to concur. The old man turned back to Elena. “Jorge says he has a cousin on the French side. We’ll give you his name, and tell you where to find him if you like, and he can take you back.”

“For the same fee?” Elena inquired softly.

The fisherman laughed. “Two hundred pesetas will take you safely to Biarritz and get you the name and contacts you need there, sweetheart. You work out the price of your return trip once you get there.”

“When can we go?” Elena asked, rapidly calculating whether three nights of saved hotel fees would leave her with sufficient funds to get back from France.

“Tonight, if you like. Daytime’s too dangerous.”

Elena nodded. “All right. Tonight then.” She held out her hand. “For two hundred pesetas.”

There was a glimmer of amusement in the fisherman’s eyes but he took Elena’s hand gravely and shook it. “Meet us here at midnight,” he said.

“Here?” Elena asked, with some surprise.

“It’s as good a place as any, and we don’t have to give you directions,” he explained.

“All right. And thanks.” Elena hurried away, almost afraid to believe that she had achieved her goal.

She spent much of the day sleeping, trying to make up for the previous night’s lack of rest, and for the probable disruption of her sleep the following evening. Shortly before dinnertime she left the hotel, hoping that her departure would not be remarked upon amid the flow of guests leaving to search for restaurants. Once more she wandered through town and then headed down to the beach, this time posing more carefully as a stroller, enjoying the cool of the evening, with her face turned as much as possible toward the fading sunset.

The beach was empty when she returned to the spot where she had earlier encountered the fishermen. She sat on the sand, arms wrapped around her knees, and stared at the darkening water for as long as she could see it, hoping that if anyone noticed her they would think she was merely lost in contemplation. There was no sound except for the endless thud and swish of waves against the shore. She could make out few stars. Low, fast-moving clouds skated across the moon, blocking and then uncovering the pale light. She wondered, a little nervously, if it was going to rain. How long do I stay here? she thought, anxiously. What if it’s past midnight? What if they don’t come? Or if they alert the Guardia? I haven’t done anything wrong yet. . . . but if they arrest me for plotting to cross the border. . . . I wish Tejada was here instead of in Salamanca. She shuddered slightly, knowing that whatever feeling of benevolence the lieutenant might have toward her would not survive if she were arrested.

Waiting alone in the dark was maddening. They may have decided not to come. Or else they’ve been caught by the Guardia. Or maybe I’m in the wrong place. Or they’ve forgotten. Finally, after what seemed like decades, but was in fact less than half an hour, a dark shape appeared on the water, and the crunch of a keel on sand distinguished itself from the slap of the waves. Elena pushed herself to her feet and hurried down to the water’s edge. The moon was behind a cloud again, and she could make out no more than dark shapes, and an overwhelming smell of fish. “All safe and sound, Señorita?” She recognized the voice of one of the men she had spoken to earlier.