Free See How Much I Love You by Luis Leante

where she is. Her eyes are full of fear.
    ‘Aza,’ she says, delirious. ‘They shot Aza. You have to tell everybody.’
    ‘Who’s Aza?’ asks Layla, tying to appease her.
    ‘Aza? She escaped with me and they caught us. That murderer killed her. It was my fault. I should have escaped on my own.’
    ‘Who killed her?’ insists Layla.
    The foreign woman closes her eyes and goes quiet. From her breathing, it is obvious she’s suffering. Layla squeezes her hand, determined to stay by her side until she calms down. 
    7 . Jaima : A large tent used in the Sahara.
    8 . Wilaya : An Algerian administrative area akin to a province.
    9 . Wali: Administrative head of a wilaya .

Chapter Five
    F OR S ANTIAGO S AN R OMÁN , T HE O ASIS WAS THE CENTRE of the universe. Leaning on the bar, or sitting at one of the oilcloth-covered tables, he felt that the world revolved around him. Never before had he felt so comfortable. A glass of cognac in his hand, and the company of Guillermo, was all he needed to forget the thorn that had been lodged in his conscience since he had left Spain.
    The officers gathered at the Casino Militar and the Parador Nacional in El Aaiún. The Oasis was reserved for the troops. On Saturday evenings no other place in the city, or for that matter the province, was as crowded. Its owner, a world-weary Andalusian, was called Pepe El Boli. The place was the only one where the authorities turned a blind eye to prostitution. At the Oasis one could find whores, bingo, poker, brawls, hash and the cheapest cognac in the Western Sahara. On Saturday nights it looked like a battlefield. The prostitutes, dressed as waitresses, could barely cope, and the shouts of the gamblers vied with the TV turned on at full blast. No other place in the city had such a faithful clientele as the Oasis. Sooner or later, everyone who had a permit for an evening’s, or a week’s, leave, dropped by.
    When he spent time at the Oasis, Santiago San Román forgot about his obsessions for a while. And ‘his obsessions’, at the time, really meant Montse, the treacherous Montse. As his blood warmed up with a second glass of cognac, he would regain his self-confidence, and Montse would be relegated tothe background. Then he could devote his time to his friend Guillermo and anyone else who wanted to share their time away from the barracks. Guillermo had not only become his confidant, but was also the most loyal person he’d ever known. He would write the letters Santiago sent to Montse, listen to him when he needed to vent to his anger, and keep him company in silence when he didn’t feel like talking. Guillermo had been provisionally assigned to the 9th regiment of engineers as a sapper. He spent his days digging ditches and pits for the construction of the El Aaiún zoo. Like the rest of the legionnaires, he wasn’t thrilled at mixing with regular soldiers. Santiago, for his part, was initially a mechanic in the 4th Regiment of the Alejandro Farnesio Legion. However, chance aligned his destiny with that of a group of Nomad Troops, under commander Javier Lobo.
    The Nomad Troops, like the Territorial Police, were a corps made up mostly of Saharawis, even if the officers were Spaniards. From the first day Santiago San Román had been fascinated by the Saharawis. In the eyes of someone newly arrived from Spain, these dark-skinned young men, with their curly hair and peculiar habits, were a constant surprise. The first time he had direct contact with them was when a Nomad Troop Land Rover was pushed into the garage where he worked by four Saharawi soldiers. The soldiers, covered in grease up to their eyelids, parked it and lifted the bonnet. When Santiago went over to take a look at the engine, he whistled sharply, attracting the other mechanics’ attention. The wires, connections and patches on that Land Rover were in such a tangle that they hid the cylinder block from view. ‘Major Lobo sends us,’ said one of the soldiers, and he spoke so