Chapter 4

I spent a moment sitting there, letting my renewed self-loathing boil over for having failed my comrades, and Valentina. Then I put Valentina’s face in my mind. How beautiful she was, how tender, and how pure of spirit. I thought of her at her best: how she loved to dance whenever someone took out a guitar and how she laughed so easily, and how her eyes crinkled with laughter, and how she would always shout “¡viva la libertad!” with such gusto that it made you believe in your heart that the fascists could never win. But she was not a fighter. She was a dancer and a lover. A lover that was too beautiful for this ugly world. A lover that did not deserve that ugly piece of shrapnel that pierced her heart.

I thought of what she might think of me for letting Gabrielle go to betray the resistance. Then I realized, she would have never faulted me for sparing Gabrielle’s life. She would have forgiven me, and she would have held my hand, kissed my cheek strongly, and say, with gusto, “don’t worry, amor, in the end we will triumph. Viva la libertad!”

An intense impulse came over me, an intense soul-borne spirit, that caused me to bolt out Gabrielle’s compartment and out onto the platform which was bathed in a silver Pyrenean light that spilled in through the skylights above. I spotted Gabrielle by her blue beret on the French side of the station. Her chestnut hair shimmered in the silver light.

“Gabrielle,” I shouted. My voice resounded like I had shouted into a tall valley. Many faces turned to me, Gabrielle’s included, and when I had her attention I shouted, or perhaps it was a part of Valentina’s soul that I had just found still residing inside me that shouted, “Vive la liberté!”

Two uniformed Wehrmacht soldiers enjoying espressos in a nearby cafe clapped and then laughed. An officer of the Guardia Civil came to me brandishing his machine gun to bother me. But I was not bothered by him. I kept my eyes on Gabrielle, to see what she would do. She gave me a slanted smile.

The officer shoved me, and told me brusquely to leave the station, so I started walking to the exit on the Spanish side, thinking I had seen the last of Gabrielle d’Aubigny.

But then I heard her shout, “Where do you go now?”

I spun to face her. She still had that smile on her face, which was full of charm.

“Porto!” I shouted back.

She nodded. She stood for a moment to watch me, then blew me a kiss and turned to walk away. A porter followed her with her luggage I suppose to wherever she would meet her German contacts.

When she disappeared, I left the station, and found a quiet place to have a coffee, then went to the ticket box to purchase a ticket for Madrid.

The wind brought in a swath of freshness and a chill from the ocean that was enjoyable. I watched two seagulls fight over a chunk of bread that a man had torn off of his sandes de pernil for them. The bigger of the two seagulls won the piece, then caught the wind to fly off up the river to where she could eat it in peace, but the other, determined to have her share, flew in close pursuit shouting breathful caws.

A dock worker pulled a tugboat’s mooring lines off, and tossed them to a deck hand aboard, and waved a quick goodbye to the boat crew before walking off to his next chore or for a cigarette.

The sun was setting into the Atlantic mist, offering a last bit of gently biting warmth that made it so I didn’t need to wear my coat.

The waiter, who was the son of the owner of the café brought me my order of the vinho tinto da casa, and bright olives, which were Spanish, and so not typically served, but I had told the owner that I was from Madrid, so he insisted that I try them. I also explained that I was Valentina’s friend, and he shared a warm memory of her. He remembered how easily she laughed at his jokes, and that she loved to dance.

Porto was as lovely as I pictured it, and I felt Valentina’s presence here, so I was happy to have come. But at the same time, I felt that I did not belong here.

I thought a lot of Gabrielle, too. At first the thoughts buzzed with anger, but now, they swam purely in melancholy. I even forgave her for her betrayal of the resistance. I convinced myself that her jackals may have even deserved to be thrown to the wolves. I knew firsthand that many were not the heroes they made themselves out to be. Many would do terrible things not just to their enemies, but to anyone that would get in the way of their ambitions, as had been the case, evidently, with Gabrielle’s husband, Claude. I decided, therefore, to not hold her rage against her. Now, I thought more about what could have been, my heart aching to think that she had been on the precipice of believing that there was something to her life other than revenge, something with me, perhaps, and if only I had asked her to come with me to Porto, she would be sitting here with me now, drinking wine with me, watching seagulls fight over bread and dock workers tossing lines while we bickered over where we would go after Porto.

As my melancholic mind meandered, my eyes naturally wandered down the promenade to fixate on a tall woman walking beneath a line of maritime pines. This woman walked fashionably, and she wore the sort of fashionable attire that reminded me very much of Gabrielle — wide-legged trousers, a billowy blouse, and a long scarf that fluttered in the wind, and she wore a wide-brimmed hat that she held on her head with one hand.

It never crossed my mind that this woman could possibly be Gabrielle, because I had long accepted that Gabrielle had gone over to the wolves. So, I was caught by surprise when the woman I had been so wistfully watching approached my table, placed her hand on the seat across from mine, and asked in a familiar voice,

“Do you mind if I join you, or are you saving this seat for someone?”

She took off her wide-brimmed hat and flicked her chestnut hair. A charming smirk was painted on her delectable ruby lips.

I stared at Gabrielle in the pause it took for my head to catch up with my heart before I finally had the wits about me to say, “I was saving it for you.”

The waiter came to us just as she sat.

“What wine do you have that’s good and red?” she asked the waiter, to which I responded, “try the house wine. It’s wonderful,” then I smiled slyly and added, “It’s the only one they have at the moment.”

Gabrielle returned the smile, looked back at the waiter, and said, “Then I’ll have one of those.”

Then she turned her attention back to me and for a long moment, we gazed into each others’ eyes without saying a word before she finally broke the silence to say, “I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

“Oh? Why should I be?”

“Because you’ve somehow gotten under my skin back in Canfranc. Thanks to you, I’m wanted by both sides now.”

I nodded. “I suppose that is reason enough to be proud. Welcome to the club.”

She tipped her head, then took out a cigarette and offered it to me. I declined. She lit it and took a drag and turned to face the Atlantic mist that glowed in the sunlight. It was a deep orange color of campfire embers. Everything — the buildings on the other side of the river, the café parasols, the boats and barges moored along the banks — was cast in this color.

When the wine came, she took a long sip, holding the wine glass by the stem in the same hand she held her cigarette. The waiter brought an ash tray, and she tapped the long ashes into it.

“How long do you plan to stay in Porto?” she asked.

“Not long,” I answered.

“I feel that it’s not right for me to stay.”

“I see… so what’s next for you? Back to Madrid?”

“Madrid? No. There’s nothing for me there… I don’t know. Somewhere. What about you?”

“I have a proposition for you.”

“That sounds very dubious.”

“Maybe so. You tell me. I’m about to buy a nightclub from a good friend. A nightclub in Puerto de La Cruz.”

“Puerto de La Cruz in Tenerife?”

She took another quick sip of her wine.

“Very dubious… do you know anything about managing a night club?”

“I know a thing or two. But my Spanish is terrible, as you know. So I’ll need a Spanish speaker to help me manage it.”

“You might be able to find a Spanish speaker in Tenerife,” I replied.

Gabrielle laughed, then turned her eyes again to the promenade, towards the setting sun, and raised her hand to shield her eyes because she had taken her hat off. She gazed distantly, as if trying to spot Tenerife from here.

“I’d like for you to come with me,” she said turning her eyes back to me.

“To speak Spanish for you?”

“To be my business partner.”

“The last time we met, I tried to kill you.”

“But you didn’t. Instead, you saved my life. You understand what it is I’m asking of you, don’t you? I’m asking you to account for your sins. Besides,” her voice went low and coy, “I need someone to keep me warm on those cold Tenerife nights.”

I smiled. “I hear the nights do get pretty cold there.”

“…And I need a strong-headed woman who isn’t afraid to handle tough business.”

I sipped my wine, making a show of considering her proposition, but truth was, I already had. After finishing the sip, which was the last of my wine, I put the glass onto the table.

“I do have quite a number of sins I need to account for … and I do know how to stay warm on cold nights. At least you’ll get your money’s worth from me.”

She put her hand on the table, offering it to me as her way of offering the deal. I put my hand in hers, lacing my fingers through it, and squeezed.

Do you have papers?” I asked.

“We’ll have to come up with papers,” I said.

“I may have a contact in Lisbon,” she answered.

“Then why don’t we go to Lisbon?”

She sat back in her chair. Her eyes gleamed. They were so beautiful, I could not look away.

“Have I ever told you that I adore the way you look at me, Aurora?” she said. “It makes my heart come alive. It makes me want to fall in love with you.”

I thought exactly the same about her, but I didn’t say it right away. I was too busy thinking how she might look under the light of a full Tenerife moon.

Here are some songs I like:

Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars – Oscar Peterson Trio

Half the Perfect World – Madeleine Peyroux

Dance me to the End of Love – Leonard Cohen

How Insensitive – Astrud Gilberto

Effortlessly – Eleonora Kouneni (this is basically the theme song to this story)

“Aurora, there’s something you should know…”

“There is a third business partner.”

“Oh? Oh no. Who is it?”

“Her majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service. MI6 if you prefer.”

“Much of our clientele will be Kriegsmarine sailors on shore leave. Congratulations, Aurora. You now work for the British crown.”