FEDORA #2
Sure enough, groups of men were beginning to loiter near the shore, where the smuggling boats put in, cracking their necks in preparation for the work to come. I sat on an upturned boat, a little way from the activity, and opened the newspaper.
Of course, I didn’t read it. I kept half an eye on the beach beyond, on the milling groups of men waiting for something to happen, for a ship’s horn or a yell or a flashing light in the bay. I turned the pages mechanically, headlines washing over me until:
BUSINESSMAN SLAIN AT CóRDOBAN INN MURDERESS STILL AT LARGE
The suspect, a prostitute and thief named ALEJANDRA EXPóSITA, remains a fugitive, and should be considered dangerous. She was last seen three days ago in the region of RONDA. The Vélez del Olmo family are offering a reward of TWO HUNDRED pesetas for information leading to her capture.
I couldn’t breathe; the air was too thick with tar and salt and panic.
Alejandra Expósita. It was a surname they gave to foundlings, to orphans, to abandoned children.
It wasn’t my name: I’d never truly had one.
Morales must have given it to the authorities as proof of my illegitimacy, my baseless existence.
She’s not you, I told myself, fumbling open the packet of cigarettes.
Not any more. And yet, I’d chosen del Potro, named myself for the very place I was trying to escape.
I could have picked anything: Moreno, Gómez, ávila …
I put one of the cigarettes in my mouth, only to realize that I didn’t have any matches.
I forced myself to breathe as if I was smoking anyway, to slow the racing in my chest. No.
For better or worse, the inn had shaped me.
It was mine: the only thing I had ever known.
I wouldn’t let them take that from me, too.
When I looked up again, the beach was all activity. A boat had appeared and men were striding towards the waves, away from a figure in black, who stood overseeing everything. I tucked the cigarette into my jacket pocket, keeping my eyes on that man.
I waited until the work was done. Only when all the contraband had been stacked on a wagon and hauled away, when all men had been paid and the man in black had closed his satchel did I stand and walk towards him.
‘Senor Bautista,’ I called. He turned. His eyes were blank as they took in my suit and my hat. I hid my trembling hands in my pockets.
‘Who wants him?’ the large man who dealt with the men said, stepping up beside Bautista. A brute, a boot and fist man. I’d seen his kind before.
‘I—’ My mouth lost all its moisture. ‘I lost my papers. I heard you might be able to help.’
‘Get lost,’ the brute said.
Bautista continued to stare. I knotted my guts about my heart.
‘I can pay.’ I wrenched the ten-peseta note from my pocket. After all my expenses, I had fifteen left; five would be enough to survive another week or so, if I was frugal. ‘I can pay well for the papers.’
Bautista smiled. His face was ordinary, forgettable with its donkey-grey beard, but in that moment I was afraid, for there was something about his expression that reminded me of Morales. The money fluttered in my outstretched hand.
‘Where are you from, chico?’ he asked, after a while.
‘North.’
‘And you have no papers?’
‘They were stolen.’
‘They were stolen,’ Bautista repeated, holding my gaze. ‘Well –’ he beckoned for the money. I let him take it, but kept hold of the other end. ‘Chico,’ he chided mockingly.
I let go. In that moment, I truly did not know what he would do; whether he would agree to my request, or whether he would have his man beat me bloody. Had I been wearing the stolen suit, poor and stained, he might have done just that.
After what felt like an age, he nodded. ‘Bueno,’ he said, folding the note into his pocket. ‘Let’s talk in my office.’
The girl I had met on the street was right: Bautista ran the show in La Atunara. He could give me what I wanted, knew the people who could make it happen.
By midnight, I was sat in his warehouse office, watching as a forger with stained fingers and beautiful handwriting inked my new self on to a blank passport.
‘Name?’ he asked, stilling his shaking hands with nips of liquor from a flask. In the corner, another man fiddled with a camera, setting up a pair of hissing electric lamps.
‘Alejandro del Potro.’
‘That your real name?’
‘Of course.’
The man snorted. I watched as he wrote the name neatly.
‘Profession?’
That made me hesitate. Cook, I wanted to tell him, but it might give me away.
‘We’ll put “secretary”,’ the forger said, into my silence. ‘Gives you options.’ The pen scratched softly. ‘Age?’
The older I was, the more distance there would be between my former self and this new, suited stranger. ‘Twenty-five,’ I said. But that only made the man laugh.
‘You’re not more than sixteen. Look at that chin. Smooth as an egg.’
I felt myself turning red. ‘Twenty-two?’
‘Twenty-one,’ he said firmly. ‘Got to be convincing.’
‘Stand there,’ the photographer yawned, pulling down a roll of paper on the wall.
By mid-morning the next day, Alejandro del Potro had been born.
‘Scuff it up a bit,’ Bautista said, looking critically at the document in his hand. ‘Don’t want it looking too new.’
I nodded. My mind was swimming, body buzzing with nicotine.
I hadn’t slept much. I had been too nervous to stretch out on one of the wooden benches along the edge of the warehouse, in case I murmured in my sleep and blew my disguise.
I had tried to leave once, saying that I would return when the papers were ready, but his brute had blocked the door.
The message was clear. I could leave when Bautista told me to. Not before.
‘So, chico,’ Bautista said, tapping the passport on the desk. ‘Where are you going to go?’
‘That’s my business.’ I stood up and held out my hand for the papers, wanting out of that place. ‘Gracias, senor.’
Bautista only laughed. ‘Sit down, del Potro. This is not a charity. I am a businessman. And business between us is not yet concluded.’
‘Why?’ I made my voice rougher. ‘You have your money.’
He smiled. ‘Ten pesetas is not enough for a set of papers of this quality. Not nearly enough. Did you think it was?’
My guts began to squeeze themselves together. What if he had seen through me? ‘What do you want?’
He was watching me closely. ‘I want to know where you are running off to. France? Gibraltar? South America?’
‘Tangiers,’ I said, tense. He had control of the port. He would know if I lied.
‘Tangiers.’ He rubbed at his donkey beard. ‘What’s there for you?’
‘Nothing. A fresh start.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘Tangiers,’ he said. ‘Bueno. You’ll wait until this evening to take the boat. I’ll have a little job for you by then.’
‘What kind of job?’ My skin was prickling. I thought about the knife, hidden deep in my jacket.
‘Relax. You will take something to a friend of mine, that’s all.’
‘What?’
He tutted me. ‘Too many questions. Just take what I give you, deliver it and don’t peek.
My friend will know if you have, and he’s not so nice as me.
’ Bautista picked up the passport again.
‘If you are caught, you do not know my name. If you talk, we will find you. Otherwise, our business will be done. That’s fair, no?
A small favour, compared to what I offer.
’ He waved the document. ‘You can have this when you board the boat later. Not before.’
Crime upon crime. Smuggling, forged papers. If I were to be caught …
The hat rested on my lap, the gift from Mr Langham.
I pictured him once again, at the wheel of that bright car, remembered the smell of his cologne and the way he’d glanced at the shape of land on the horizon, the way he’d commanded the respect of the hotel staff and the look on his face when I told him the sun was in my eyes. The way he’d said, mine too.
‘Well?’ Bautista said. ‘Are we agreed?’