Read Law of Return for Free Online Page A

comfortable writing it himself. He dismissed Jiménez, and began to pound away at his composition, carefully balancing respect for the Otero Martínez family, with insistence on the justice of the Guardia’s actions in the case.
     
    He finished writing a little over an hour later, placed the precious document in a locked filing cabinet, and stumbled back to bed, feeling as if his eyes were the size of watermelons. Naturally, since he wanted to make the most of the few remaining hours available for sleep, his mind became suddenly alert. How could a man under surveillance disappear for a week? He supposed it was logical that Señora de Arroyo might not be overly anxious to involve the Guardia in her personal affairs, but most women would have been worried if their husbands suddenly disappeared. Unless she knew where he was, of course. His mind sharpened. She had denied knowledge of his whereabouts and he had believed her. Why? She might well be Arroyo’s accomplice. In what?, the lieutenant asked himself, and received no good answer. Tejada could not remember any charges against the former lawyer aside from his signing of the petition four years earlier. What else might make him want to disappear? And did it have to do with the other “petitioners”?
     
    In the morning, Tejada told himself, I’ll read all of their files again, carefully. And I’ll find out what the standing of the Otero Martínez family really is. And if Arroyo’s family are leftists. In the morning. And right now, I’ll go to sleep so that I’ll be alert tomorrow . . . today . . . in just a few hours . . . shit, stop wasting time. GO TO SLEEP! Naturally, he tossed and turned until a few seconds before reveille, when he was forced to arise totally exhausted.
     

Chapter 4
     

    B reakfast readings were a tradition in the Fernández family. Guillermo always claimed that he wrote best in the small hours of the morning, preferably when facing a tight deadline. His children had grown up with the phrase, “Go to bed now. Papa needs to write.” Frequently, the morning after uttering these magic words, Professor Fernández would appear at the dining-room table unshaven and with bags under his eyes, clutching a sheaf of papers. “It’s done!” he would proclaim. “Would you like to hear it?” Then he would read the speech or article to his wife, pausing anxiously at the end to ask for her comments. As Hipólito and Elena grew older, they too became part of his morning audience, praising and criticizing with increasing knowledge and interest.
     
    Elena had missed the morning readings when she returned from Madrid. She had relegated them to the irretrievably lost world designated as “prewar.” So she felt a rush of relief and pleasure when her father appeared the next morning with his chin covered in gray stubble, holding a folded sheet of paper, and said as he reached for the coffeepot, “The letter’s done. Would you like to hear it?”
     
    Elena caught her mother’s quick smile as well, and a knot in her chest tightened. It was almost painful to remember what her father had been like. “Of course,” she said, and waited for him to declaim.
     
    Professor Fernández had worked hard on the letter. It was reasonable to assume that it would be read by both the Spanish and French authorities before it reached its destination—if it reached Meyer at all. He had carefully cloaked any reference to taking in the refugee in allusions to the Odyssey . Even his daughter had to work to follow these allusions, and his wife had to interrupt him with questions. “What do you mean ‘visit Sparta for news of Odysseus?’” María asked halfway through the letter.
     
    “That’s where Telemachus meets Theoklymenos,” Elena explained impatiently.
     
    “Yes, dear.” Her mother shot her an irritated glance. “But I meant what does it mean ?”
     
    Guillermo smiled briefly. “I was thinking that you deserve a holiday from all the heat. How would you