No. 4 Imperial Lane by Jonathan Weisman

Author:Jonathan Weisman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2015-08-03T16:00:00+00:00

“Ah, Senhora Gonçalves.” António de Spínola rose ostentatiously from the table. He was in his finery: white gloves, monocle, even the jodhpurs of the cavalryman he was. Elizabeth was joining him in a darkened dining room off the main officers’ mess on base. She still had not seen the governor’s palace. She wore the same flowered dress she had worn when João and she dined with the governor on their first night in the country. But Spínola seemed like a different man, weary and miserable despite the costume.

“Senhor Governor, my husband…”

Spínola raised his gloved hand to silence her.

“I know of João’s capture. I have no doubt that he is safe, Elizabeth. He is with one of Cabral’s most capable lieutenants, a man named Farinha, all the way from Angola. They have probably made it back to Senegal by now.”

Elizabeth was incredulous.

“If you know this, why don’t you do something?” she demanded.

“Elizabeth, intelligence is one thing; action is quite another. We learn much from our spies in the countryside, but not always because they want to help us. More often than not, they are taunting us. They are letting us know how helpless we are. I don’t have João’s exact location. That, I’m sure, is by design. The base they will be heading for is in the Senegalese Casamance, south of the Gambia, outside the town of Kolda. My friend President Senghor will make sure João is protected, but he will make sure the base is protected as well.”

“General Spínola, what am I to do?” Elizabeth pleaded. Her brave face was already crumbling at what she saw as the general’s indifference. “This is my husband you’re talking about. He doesn’t even know I am pregnant.”

It just slipped out. No one knew she was pregnant but her, and now the governor and commanding general of Guiné. She reddened with embarrassment.

She was there not exactly on a mission, more like a quest for absolution, for self-forgiveness. Her convoy had rumbled onto the main base in Bissau three days before; the scene that had greeted her on her arrival in the country had repeated itself tediously: the Guinean women ironing out the botflies, the aimless milling of young Portuguese men, the heat and dust. It was annoying somehow in its changelessness. On cue, Paula Pelegrin, Ana Aveiro, and Raquel Brito showed at her door within minutes to express their concern over João’s disappearance and offer up what gossip they had. Of course, she was the best gossip of all. A doctor had been captured. What on earth had he been doing? How did he get himself into this predicament? The women pressed her for details, her limited Portuguese frustrating their demands.

“I’m sure you are doing everything you can to get your husband back,” Paula said with feigned admiration.

“Yes, of course,” Elizabeth said with a serious look.

In fact, she had not done a thing to secure her husband’s freedom or even ascertain his whereabouts. She thought of those potboiler stories in the newspapers of mothers

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