‘You don’t believe in freedom of speech?’
‘Not any more.’
‘In democracy?’
‘I have concluded after a lot of thinking that it is wasted on people.’
This might be interesting. ‘You want to explain why?’
‘Of course.’ Another trademark grin, prompting the thought that Mikel Arenaza has a fatal weakness – a desire to be liked. He will say or do anything to achieve that end. What is seduction, after all, if not the constant pursuit of another’s approbation? I would be prepared to make a substantial bet that he has no firm convictions to speak of, only the desire to strip people of theirs.
‘Look at what is happening with the war in the Gulf,’ he exclaims, staring out of the window as if members of Iraq’s elite Republican Guard were suddenly massing in the Parte Vieja. ‘Millions of people, all around the world, protesting to their governments about the invasion of Iraq, and who listens to them? Nobody. Not Mr Blair, not the PP, certainly not the Americans and Bush. But they will do it anyway, they will go into Baghdad. And you know what makes me laugh? It is this same so-called democracy that they wish to impose on the Middle East. The same corruption. The same lies. Do you see? The people do not matter.’
‘But that’s not their fault.’ I don’t like hearing this from a politician, conviction or no conviction. ‘Democracy isn’t wasted on the public just because they don’t have a voice. It’s wasted on the politicians who take advantage of them.’
‘Exactly, exactly.’ Arenaza appears to agree wholeheartedly and drains his drink. ‘But the idea that governments listen to the public, that they are accountable to the men and women who voted for them, is a notion from the nineteenth century, in your country from the beginnings of socialism when people finally had a voice and a way of communicating with each other. Before that politics was about the special interests of elites. People forget this, and now we are back at this point. Your British government pursues a policy based on one simple ideology: follow America. That is the extent of their imagination. And in the long run it is easier for Mr Blair to say “No” to hundreds of thousands of British voters, even to ignore the voice of his own conscience, than it is for the Foreign Office of the United Kingdom to say “No” to George Bush. Now, follow my logic. Once the prime ministers of Spain and of the UK have a decision of this kind forced upon them, that is to say they have no choice in what they do because of America, then they start to see themselves as men of destiny. Good Europeans against bad, friends of democracy against friends of terror. The ego takes over.’
I’ve lost the thread here, but find a question. ‘So why are you still involved in politics?’
‘I am not. We have been banned.’
‘Yes, but -’
‘Listen to me. I have sat in on these meetings, even at the level of local politics, and none of my superiors ever cared for anything but their own personal and political advancement. They are all little Dick Cheneys, all the same. Politics is the vanity of individual men. Policy is shaped by flaws in the character.’
Why is he telling me this? Because he is drunk? ‘You’re saying that you disapprove of your colleagues?’
A heavy pause. Arenaza runs his hand through a thick clump of hair.
‘Not exactly, no. Not disapprove.’ I suppose he doesn’t want to overstep the mark. ‘It is more a question of human nature, of reality. Listen, you have somewhere else you have to go tonight?’
‘No.’
‘Then come with me. I will explain everything to you. We go to another bar and I will show you exactly what it is that I mean.’
10. Level Three
A light drizzle has started to fall by the time we leave the bar, the dark, narrow streets of the old quarter coated in black rain. The sea air is damp, Atlantic, quite different from the dry and dusty atmosphere of Madrid, and to take it in deep breaths is a welcome relief after the fug of the bar. Moving quickly beside Arenaza as we walk along the street I try to anticipate what the next few hours might hold. Anything could happen. The evening may disappear in a mulch of booze and ideology, or it could acquire a completely different character. Unless I have read the situation wrongly, Arenaza appears to have undergone some sort of political epiphany, criticizing his former masters in the armed struggle and happily articulating that revelation to strangers such as myself. It is the aeroplane phenomenon: the most sensitive information is often disclosed to the passenger sitting by our side whom we expect never to see again. As Arenaza spoke to me in the bar, confidence seemed to ebb away from him with each passing drink, as if a mask were slipping from his face. On the basis of a shared acquaintance with Julian, a former councillor with Batasuna was taking me into his confidence, and yet it somehow made perfect sense. I charmed him back there. I worked him round.
‘First we have to go to my car,’ he says. ‘I have to take off this jacket, Alec, to change out of my suit and shoes. You OK if I do this?’
‘No problem.’
Most of the better bars and restaurants in San Sebastián are clustered around the Parte Vieja, but I have spent very little time here, largely because Julian’s contacts preferred to meet in the lounge bar of the Hotel Inglaterra, where the comfortable sofas and armchairs offer views out onto the promenade and the ocean beyond. As a result, I don’t know my way around and Arenaza’s frequent switches of direction along the grid of streets are disorientating. It feels as though we are heading west towards the Concha, but it is impossible to take a bearing. Arenaza is holding a copy of the Gara newspaper over his head to protect it from rain, using his other hand to talk into a mobile phone. He is speaking to someone rapidly in Basque:
‘Denak ondo dago. Gaueko hamabietan egongo maizetxean. Afari egin behar dut Ingles bankari honekin.’
Who is he talking to? His wife? A colleague? Halfway through the conversation he breaks off and gestures at a poster tacked to the window of a nearby bar. It is a cartoon depicting a caricature of Aznar, the prime minister’s tongue curling deep into the arse of President George W. Bush. The caption is written in Basque and I cannot understand it. Through the window I can see two men playing chess on stools. Arenaza mouths the word ‘Truth’ and continues speaking into the phone. ‘Ez arduratu,’ he says. ‘Esan dizut dagoenekoz. Gaueko hamabiak. Bale ba, ikusi ordu arte.’
Then the conversation ends and we emerge into a pedestrianized area immediately behind the town hall. It is past nine o’clock and the streets are teeming with people. Arenaza explains that his car is parked in an underground garage about fifty metres away. Putting his hand on my back, he steers me across a set of blinking pedestrian lights and we walk towards the entrance.
‘Down here,’ he says. ‘Down here.’
The staircase is poorly lit and I hold on to the banister, pushed aside at one point by a pensioner coming the other way wearing a fake mink coat. The car park is on three subterranean levels, each one increasingly damp. Arenaza’s car, a tiny, door-dented Fiat, is parked in the far corner of the bottom floor, squeezed in between a brand-new Mini Cooper with British plates and a dark blue Renault Espace. This must be the long-term car park, because the area is completely devoid of people. It is very dark now, and for the first time it occurs to me that I may have completely misread the situation. Why did Arenaza need me to come all the way down here? Why is he changing his clothes?
‘You know what, Mikel, I think I might wait upstairs.’ This could be a kidnap attempt, a robbery, anything. ‘I’ll see you at the entrance to the town hall.’
I should never have come here of my own volition. I’m letting things slip.
‘What are you saying?’ He sounds relaxed, fishing around in the boot of the Fiat, his face is out of sight. ‘Alec?’