Chapter 1

The following is Chapter 1 of The Servants Of Gods, Ecks Ridgehead's as yet unpublished first novel.

1. Civil War, Civil Guards

The spectre of the Spanish Civil War had passed La Locura by as it stalked the mainland, gaunt and hollow-masked, thrusting its dirty spear into the chests of so many young men and women. The three years of terrible bloodshed had certainly not gone unheeded, but happily for the residents of the tiny island they seemed to have been forgotten about in the bloody struggle for power. No calls to join either cause came, no troops marched into the Plaza Mayor, no aeroplanes whined overhead whistling their bombs or cackling their machine gun fire. The ships fat with weapons and ammunition bound for Franco’s Nationalist armies lumbered down from Germany and on round to southern Spain, ignoring La Locura as countless others had done before.

In return, most of the islanders ignored the war. There were some on the island that felt passionately about the conflict one way or another, but all were sensible enough not to wish to take up arms against their friends and kin, and for a community built centuries before by soldiers deserting to avoid conflict this was not altogether too surprising. The islanders decided pragmatically that the river of blood gushing into the sea from the mainland was swollen enough without being fed by a trickle from La Locura.

As it happened, most of the people who lived on La Locura were sympathetic to the Republican cause. This is not to say that they understood the politics of the Civil War and had chosen to side with the communists; to be honest, they had no particular left-wing ideologies at all, but were Republican by dint of being vaguely anti-Nationalist. Most would have laughed had it been suggested to them that they were supporting the communists. They didn’t believe in any of the communist ideals. Most of them went to church on a Sunday, and they would certainly have balked at any notion of land or property redistribution, unless, of course, it meant that they would get more. It was just that people on the island were aware of the fact that Franco’s Nationalists were in league with the despotic regimes of Mussolini and Hitler, about which they had heard vague yet terrible things, and that was quite enough to make their minds up for them.

Fidel, though, was staunchly Republican. He was the one that owned and operated a boat for Don Moscote, the island’s cocaine-smuggling entrepreneur, bringing goods and mail to the island from Portugal and Spain twice each week. Eager to make a contribution towards the Republican cause about which he was so passionate, he began to collect propaganda posters from the mainland and distribute them around the island, and by 1939 the slogans screamed down from every flat surface with their exclamation marks and unnecessary capital letters: "Peasants, the land is Yours!", "Workers! Fascism is Exploitation and Slavery!" and "The Claw of the Italian Invader grasps to Enslave us!" But by that time the war was all but over, and the Italian Invader was presumably already on the verge of grasping and Enslaving La Locura, whose residents, one must imagine, were now all set for Exploitation and Slavery.

In spite of the island’s overwhelming feeling of indifference towards it, the war did strike La Locura with one casualty, albeit indirectly. Fidel’s wife Consuela had a brother who had moved to Madrid as a young man, and some months into 1937 Fidel himself had the great misfortune of delivering to his wife a letter from her sister-in-law that told of her brother’s death at the hands of the Nationalist insurgents. His wife remained remarkably calm as she read the news, out loud, in front of him, but then she told him that she felt a little tired and that she would like to retire to bed to rest. She walked resignedly up the stairs without waiting for his reply, and Fidel was left with only the echo of her perfume for company. Despite hearing nothing from her he remained downstairs for several hours out of respect for her privacy, and he would have remained longer but for the ticking of the clock, which had become so loud that it was unbearable. When he could stand it no more he ventured up the stairs and into their bedroom, where he found her lying peacefully in bed with the letter clutched to her chest. His first glance told him that she was asleep, but after watching her for a few seconds he realised that this was not the case, and concluded through a mist of tears that she had simply lain down on the bed and died of sorrow. He pulled the letter from her embrace with tremulous fingers, trying desperately to ignore the dark blooms of ink blotted by her tears, and placed it back in the envelope, upon which he wrote “Return to Sender”. He sat down next to her on the bed and said to her as he stroked her hair: “So you would die for him rather than live for me.” He kissed her once on the forehead and once on the lips, then called for Padre Eusebio to arrange the funeral. Fidel never spoke of his wife again.

Contrary to Fidel’s protestations, in reality nothing much changed on the island after the war ground itself to an end in 1939 and the Nationalists took to power. The only perceptible difference was that, one by one, Fidel’s posters were torn down or pasted over, except for one that remained in Dionisio’s tavern which he kept solely to annoy Yolanda, his wife. It had originally borne the rousing slogan "Women, work more for the Men who Fight!" but he had obliterated the words "who Fight!", and whenever he wanted Yolanda to do something for him he would point to the poster and say "Believe me my darling, I would do it myself, but as you can see from this official poster it is the will of the government. Come now, you had better do it, or I will have to report you to the authorities." She always ignored him.

At the same time, far away in Madrid, General Franco began to contract the fever of paranoia endemic among revolutionary dictators, for those who gain power through revolution or insurgence are acutely aware that power thus gained could so easily be lost in a similar manner. So he set about installing the Guardia Civil, a national militia that kept its eyes fixed resolutely upon its own people, in Spain’s towns, cities and villages as a way of beating down rebellions and keeping the peace. As is so often the case, though, the peace that was gained through violence, fear and brutality was kept by violence, fear and brutality. The keepers of this uneasy peace, these officers of the Guardia Civil, were at best cantankerous and petty and at worst vicious and sadistic. They were officially part of the army and believed that they had all the privileges of military conquerors, and behaved as such. They always worked in pairs, for protection - which should give an indication of how well-loved they were. These two-man patrols were known as parejas.

-- o --

On the 23rd of April 1940, two wiry, angular young men arrived noiselessly in La Locura. Eduardo García and Iago Moisés stepped onto the quayside from Fidel’s boat wearing the dark green uniforms and grotesque leather hats of the Guardia Civil, and both bore the markings of Lieutenants. They brought with them a single suitcase and a sense of disquiet.

After disembarking they made straight for the decrepit police building, and on their arrival there they found Captain Godofredo Patrón leaning back in his chair, with his booted feet propped up on the desk and his hat full over his face, snoring like a drowning man. The immaculately attired Guards wrinkled their noses in disgust at the sight and smell of this slovenly individual, and in one movement Lieutenant García swept Captain Patrón’s dusty boots and silver hip flask off of the table and slammed a sturdy brown envelope down in their place. Captain Patrón woke with a start, his eyelids opening and closing like the wings of a dying moth.

"What’s going on? Who are you?" he spluttered, his eyes lolling wildly around, frantically trying to co-operate with each other.

"I am Lieutenant Eduardo García and this is Lieutenant Iago Moisés, of the Guardia Civil," said Lieutenant García, "We have come to relieve you of your duties. In that envelope you will find papers authorising the transfer of command from you to us. You won’t need to check them, I can assure you that they are all in order."

Captain Patrón’s bleary eyes widened as he blinked in the enormity of the situation. His brain was hammering out a painful rhythm against the inside of his skull.

"So...mmph...you, you’re in charge here now?"

"That is correct," sneered Lieutenant Moisés, his mosquito whine of a voice sidling lazily through the smoky atmosphere. "This is now a Guardia Civil post and you are not a Guardia Civil. It’s quite simple."

"What, you’re taking my job, just like that?" Captain Patrón’s sleep- and drink-fuddled brain was beginning to draw level with the conversation. "How can you do this?"

"You have been relieved of your duties," said Captain García. "You have twenty-four hours to remove your personal effects from this office. Although I doubt very much that the removal of two empty bottles of wine and a tin of cigars will require quite that much time."

And so it came about that Godofredo Patrón lost his job, and Lieutenants García and Moisés became La Locura’s inaugural Guardia Civil. They began their tenure by ordering the repainting of the outside of the police building to a sickly yellow colour, and by ordering a number of signs that proclaimed "Guardia Civil" in ugly black letters, along with an elaborate official crest. These were affixed to the main door and the outside walls.

When Captain Patrón left, they found that the interior of the police building was untidy, cramped and smelled strongly of smoke, which was the result of Captain Patrón’s cigars. He didn’t smoke them; instead he had had the habit of burning them in a small metal tray on his desk, as he firmly believed that the smoke would keep the mosquitos away. He had been indoctrinated into this habit when he was very young by his grandmother, a hunched old lizard who had burnt small ceramic bowls of tobacco on the window ledges of her house in order to drive away insects. The young Godofredo Patrón could see no reason to doubt the efficacy of such practice, despite the quiet disapproval of his mother, although at that tender and impressionable age he had been too young to appreciate that his grandmother was actually insane.

Lieutenant García thought that the lingering, acrid odour was not befitting of a Guardia Civil post, and so he and Lieutenant Moisés opened all the windows and left them open for a week to try to dissipate it. When this failed to have any effect they washed the walls with lemon juice and vinegar, and they burned fragrant woods and flowers in the office. But even in spite of all these efforts the smell refused to go, and because of all the open windows they suffered terribly from mosquito bites.

-- o --

The pareja did not delay in making their presence felt about La Locura. They patrolled the island from daybreak until dusk, and sometimes made random, unannounced house calls after dark. They leaned indolently against walls, staring at passers-by with hooded eyes and eavesdropping on their conversations. They strutted imperiously through the market like two malevolent peacocks, plucking whatever bread, fruit or sweets they desired from the stalls. They lurked at the sides of buildings, dirty green stains on the whitewash, appearing insidiously wherever people were chatting.

Early on in their time on the island they even paid an evening visit to the sprawling villa of Don Moscote, swaggering up to the gates and demanding to be let in. Don Moscote received them gladly. It is not known whether they were more receptive to bribery or to coercion, but they emerged blinking into the sunlight very late the next morning and never went anywhere near the estate again.

The rest of the islanders, however, were not fortunate enough to be able to divert the attentions of the two Guardias so easily. Their behaviour was carefully calculated to ensure that the locals knew that they were being watched, and their oil-black pistols, glistening like newly hatched snakes, were always prominently displayed on their hips. Lieutenant García seemed to be the more assertive of the two, and as he talked Lieutenant Moisés would rest his hand on the butt of his gun and nonchalantly cock and uncock the hammer with his thumb, making a dry, menacing click-click-click noise like the snapping of a bone that made the blood run like ice in the veins. The pareja took great care of these pistols, more even than they did of themselves. They dismantled and reassembled them first thing every morning, meticulously cleaning and oiling all the moving parts, removing the barrel and gazing down into it as though into the eyes of a newborn child. If for some reason they had been short of time, they would have cleaned their guns rather than washing themselves or shaving.

But they were never short of time, for how can one be short of time when one has no schedule, no appointments and no duties? Their sole purpose in La Locura was simply to be on the island, a palpable governmental presence designed to quell the possibility of Republican resistance. And so they remained, creeping, sneaking, bullying, and answering to no-one, a painful red boil just under the surface of the island.

-- o --

One Saturday evening in July the pareja called in at Dionisio’s tavern. The Casta family had owned the tavern in the Plaza Mayor since it had been built in 1591, one of the first permanent buildings on the island, and Dionisio Casta was the current incumbent after his father’s premature death. He was a tall man, in his forties, and a lifetime of lifting barrels of beer and crates of wine had given him broad shoulders and thick arms, although the passage of years had caused some of his chest to migrate southwards into something of a paunch. He had a head of thick black hair, which he always slicked back with grease, and his temples and exuberant black moustache were just beginning to show the first signs of grey. He jokingly attributed this to the various misdemeanours of his nine year old son, and would tell him so from time to time: "Abejundio! Come here, look at this! There in my moustache, another grey hair! I tell you, that was your fault, when you smashed those bottles of wine with your ball. How does that make you feel, eh?" And little Abejundio would go and look, and see the grey hair, and wonder whether it really was his fault. Then his father would laugh and pinch his cheek and tell him that one day he would be collecting grey hairs from his own son.

That Saturday the pareja made their way to the door of the tavern during the early part of the evening when the dying light was fading to blue, which contrasted starkly with the candlelight inside the tavern, flickering orange and gold through the thick, smoky windows. They waded through the dim outside, and a small green lizard skittered soundlessly across the wall as they marched over the flagstones. The dark wood of the door, smooth with age, was still warm to the touch from the day’s sun, and it sighed a greeting from its ageing hinges as Lieutenant García pushed it open. The muffled melody of laughter, chatter and clinking glasses became suddenly clearer, as though someone had lifted a heavy blanket from the room, and then just as quickly died away into silence as the newcomers were recognised.

The pareja strutted into the tavern. Lieutenant García cast his gaze haughtily around the room, to be greeted by a dozen cold, hard eyes. Dionisio looked up from his work. Begrudgingly he stopped cleaning the wine glasses and turned to face them. It was a warm evening, and rivulets of grease from his hair trickled slowly down his forehead as he forced what he hoped was a warm smile onto his stubbled jowls.

"Good evening Lieutenants. Can I help you? A drink, perhaps? On the house, of course."

Lieutenant García walked slowly into the tavern, motioning distractedly at the wall.

"Señor Casta, tell me," his words leaked out into the room like a film of oil onto water, "Is that a Communist poster I see on the wall over there?"

Lieutenant Moisés smirked, and his thumb twitched upon the hammer of his gun.

Click.

Dionisio’s gaze flicked over to the poster and back to the Lieutenant’s face. His smile became a little stiff around the edges.

"Oh, that’s just a joke, Lieutenant García. I only keep that there to annoy my wife."

"All the same, Señor Casta, it is Communist propaganda, is it not?"

Click.

"Well, until I defaced it, Lieutenant, yes, ah, I suppose it was. But as you can see, it doesn’t make much sense now."

Lieutenant Moisés sneered and rolled his eyes as Dionisio spoke.

"Hmm. Well you see, what doesn’t make much sense to me, Señor Casta, is why Communist propaganda would come to be in your possession in the first place, defaced or not."

Click.

"Can you tell me, Señor Casta?"

Dionisio wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, which he then wiped on his apron. His shirt, slightly damp with sweat, was sticking to his back and began to feel cold on his spine. He had heard about what happened on the mainland to political agitators. He had heard the stories of midnight raids and executions, the rumours of distorted bodies found the next morning and witnesses too petrified to identify them.

"It...please, it was just a childish joke, Lieutenant. We never really believed in it."

Click.

"’We’, Señor Casta, ‘we’? So you admit that it is not just you who appreciates this kind of literature? Am I to assume that there is a nest of vipers here on my island?"

"No, no, all I meant was that my customers could not help but see it, but señor, please, be reasonable."

Click.

Lieutenant García smeared his lips across his face and into a thin smile.

"Señor Casta, I think that perhaps it would be prudent for us to continue this discussion back at our headquarters. Shall we?"

He gestured to the door. Dionisio turned to the kitchen and called out his wife’s name, and she peered halfway around the door frame, her black hair hanging loose around her face from a long day of cleaning and cooking.

"Yolanda, I’ve...I’ve got to go with the Lieutenants here. They want to take me back to their office to ask me some questions." His eyes felt hot and moist. "Please don’t worry about me."

Her dark eyes flitted from his face to Lieutenant García’s. Her fingernails scratched the frame of the door as his words sank in. Dionisio turned back.

"Lieutenant García, may I be allowed to see my son before we go? He’s asleep upstairs."

"No, I don’t think so, there isn’t really time. It would be a shame to wake him, don’t you think? Besides, you’ll probably be back here before you know it."

Click.

It was at that point that he realised he would be dead before dawn.