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I made a great show of waking up half an hour later, yawning, stretching, having a moment’s trouble orienting myself, then swinging down from the hay cart and walking alongside the donkey. I wondered how close Vicente had come to drawing a red line on my throat.
“When we cross into Andorra,” Pablo said, “you will want us to carry the powder for you.”
“Perhaps.”
“Ah, it is necessary.”
“Perhaps. If we are under the straw, we will be safe, will we not?”
“One would hope so.”
“Then why should not the powder be safe with us?”
His explanation was involved and, I think, purposely unconvincing. If we were discovered, he said, he could bribe a guard to overlook the fact. But if the powder were found, there would be trouble, and so it would be better to let him take it. It would, he assured me, be quite safe in his hands.
“Are we close to the border?”
“Very close. An hour, perhaps two.”
I went back to the wagon. When we approached the Andorran border, Pablo stopped the cart again and made us burrow ourselves underneath the hay. He asked for the powder.
“If they search you,” I said, “and find the powder, you will be in great difficulty. But if they search us and find it, you can deny that you knew what we carried and thus save yourself from trouble.”
He let me outfumble him for the check. He and Vicente piled hay on us, and we lay there under the smelly hay while the wagon started up again. Esteban was still half asleep and very much confused. At first he tried to fight his way free of the hay. I finally managed to calm him down, but he obviously didn’t like it.
“I do not trust those men,” he said. “Do you?”
“Of course not.”
“No? I think they are thieves and entirely ruthless. I think they would kill us without a second thought.”
“I agree.”
“You do?”
“Vicente was going to kill you while you slept. But Pablo would not let him.”
“He was going to kill me?”
“With a knife,” I said. “He was going to slit your throat.”
“Mother of God-”
“But it’s all right now,” I assured him.
And it was. The border was easily crossed. Pablo and Vicente evidently did quite a bit of smuggling and were well known at that station. The wagon passed through without incident, continued on through the postage stamp republic of Andorra, and cleared French Customs on the other side. I felt a little sad about this. I was one of the few Americans actually to travel to Andorra and I saw nothing whatsoever of it, spending my entire passage through the country at the bottom of a load of hay. When one could neither see anything nor understand the language, I thought, one might as well have stayed home and watched it all on television.
I was a little worried about ditching Pablo and Vicente, but it turned out that they were more anxious to get away from us than we were to see the last of them. We had a ceremonial drink of wine together, and they went their way, and we went ours, walking north into France. In the first café we came to we ordered breakfast, and I opened the attaché case and drew out the little tin of face powder.
“I do not understand,” said Esteban.
“I bought this in Zaragoza,” I explained. “I bought a tin of face powder and spilled it out and replaced the powder with confectioner’s sugar and crushed aspirin. It was supposed to taste like heroin, and I guess it passed the test. You see, they would hardly have smuggled us across the border out of charity. There had to be profit in it for them, and a tin of heroin would represent a fairly elaborate profit.”
He was nodding eagerly.
“Do you remember when Pablo left the hut in Sort to obtain supplies? He ran off to buy a can of face powder. Then while you slept they switched cans with us. So we started with face powder and now we wind up with face powder.” I gave the can to Esteban. “For you,” I said. “For your salon in Paris.”
“Then we never had any heroin?”
“Of course not.”
“Oh. And they do not have heroin now, do they?”
“They have a dime’s worth of sugar and a nickel’s worth of crushed aspirin. That’s all.”
“Ah.”
“If they sniff it,” I said, “they’re in for a big disappointment.”
Chapter 11
It was almost impossible to explain to Esteban that we were not going to Paris together. He insisted that brothers such as we could not be separated and he ultimately began to weep and tear at his hair. I did not want to go to Paris. There was a man I had to see in Grenoble, near the Italian border. I tried to put Esteban on a Paris train, but he would have no part of it. I had to come with him, he insisted. Without me he would be lost.
The irritating thing was that I knew he was telling the truth. Without me he definitely would be lost, and I couldn’t help feeling an a
When I had recovered the gold, when I had dispatched the mysterious documents to the proper place, when I had somehow cleared myself with the Irish police and the Turkish police and the American authorities and whatever other national bureaus had developed an interest in me, then I could find some way to take care of Esteban. In the meanwhile he would survive. He was too mad to get into serious trouble.
And so we boarded a train to Paris, Esteban and I. We got on the train at Foix, and I got off it at Toulouse and took another train east to Nîmes and a bus northeast to Grenoble. M. Gerard Monet must have already received the cryptic note I’d sent him from Ireland. I went to his home. His wife said that he was at his wine shop-it was not quite noon-and told me how to find him. I walked to the shop and introduced myself as Pierre, who had written from Ireland. He put a finger to his lips, walked past me to the door, closed it, locked and bolted it, drew a window shade, and took me behind the counter.
He was a dusty man in a dusty shop, his hair long and uncombed, his eyes a brilliant blue. “You have come,” he said. “Tell me only what I must do. That is all.”
“My name is-”
He held up one hand, corded with dark blue veins. “But no, do not tell me. A man can repeat only what he knows, and I wish to know nothing. My father was of the movement. My great-grandfather fell at Waterloo. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“For all my life I have been of the movement. I have watched. I have listened. Will anything come of it? In my lifetime? Or ever? I do not know. I will be honest with you, I doubt that anything will come of it. But who is to say? They tell me the days of Empire are over for all time. The glory of France, eh? But I do what there is for me to do. Whatever is requested, Gerard Monet will perform what he is capable of performing. But tell me nothing of yourself or your mission. When I drink, I talk. When I talk, I tell too much. What I do not know I can tell no one, drunk or sober. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“What do you require?”
“Entry to Italy.”
“You have papers?”
“Perhaps.”
“Pardon?”
“I don’t know whether or not they’re valid. I’d rather slip across the border, if that can be arranged.”
“It can. It can, and with ease.”
He picked up the telephone, put through a call, talked rapidly in a low voice, then turned to me. “You can leave in an hour?”
“Yes.”
“In an hour my nephew will come to drive you to the border. There are places where one may cross. First we shall lunch together.”
“You are kind.”
“I know how to serve. The Monets have always known how to serve. Do you go to Corsica? No, do not tell me. I have never been to Corsica. Let us have lunch.”