by Ben Pastor
That’s why I keep mentally comparing myself to the American – Felipe, as they call him. Is he a better soldier than I? Does he “believe” as much (or more) than I do, and is he readier to die for it than I was today? I hate the thought that we might end up killing one another, and the comparison will stay unresolved for all times. So, to quote Father, I try to “do well”. But something connects the two of us, other than the fact that we both buried Lorca. Why was he by the brook, anyway? Is he, too, trying to discover who committed the murder? If we didn’t kill the poet, and he didn’t either, then who did? I wish I knew why I keep thinking of the worn-out Roman headstone.
The first, distant rifle shot – the one towards Riodeva and Camarena de la Sierra – startled Bora awake with the certainty that someone had walked into his room.
The narrow cot was uncomfortable and damp under his body. Drowsiness and sweat wove a limp net ensnaring him, and he couldn’t move enough to reach for his gun under the bed. Someone in the room? It only took a glance across the murky twilight from the broken window to see that the small space was empty. Bora lay there wide-eyed until his mind convinced his spine and back muscles to function, and then lifted himself up on his elbows. He didn’t remember hearing the shot. Only that something had jolted him from sleep and it felt like a presence. Grabrelief eines jungen … The Roman headstone had belonged to a horseman.
Bora sat up. That’s why the sentence had floated to the edges of his weariness last night. Reiter, Jínete, Horseman … What Cziffra and Niceto and Luisa Cadena had spoken of. It all fit together into a strange composite image, and it had something to do with Lorca and his death. The Miraculous Horseman. For a moment, the room seemed to shrink around him, imploding into a nucleus of darkness where Bora stared and held his breath. He couldn’t get the image to cohere, but the Miraculous Horseman – half Spaniard, half Roman soldier – was at the centre, and darkness seemed to drain slowly around it. It had no shape really, only a name and denser darkness, like a sinkhole whose bottom reached the other side of the universe. Bora found himself holding on to the sides of his cot, lest the shrinking dark would swallow him, too. Cautiously he let the air out of his lungs. When he took another breath, and another, the dark began to settle, neither shrinking nor growing, like water in a well. The shadowy Horseman sank into it. Within seconds, Bora’s muscles had loosened enough for him to swallow and relax his neck, and then there was nothing around him but the dimness of the small room. Time and space were familiar again.
I’m awake. I may have been dreaming until a moment ago, but I’m awake now. Quickly he assessed sounds, images. In the next room, Fuentes snored a bizarre intermittent snore. As always, the beams across the ceiling stood out against the whitewash. The broken window let in a blurry starless sky.
Despite the mildness of the night, Bora was cold. He felt around for his discarded shirt and put it on to stop his teeth from chattering. It was a strange dream, and I’m only cold because I’m soaking wet. It had better be that he was sweating because he had had a nightmare, and not because he was afraid, if what Fuentes said was true: that Aragon winters turned so bitter that beggars and farm animals caught out in the open froze to death.
Cziffra kept speaking of a rabid year’s-end battle for Teruel that might last through the spring and help decide the war. “You’ll be in it.” He’d reinforced the statement in a professorial tone. “So keep your eyes open now. You’re here for us as much as for Spain. Before you get your guts spilled this winter, look around; learn your business in the field. Ask, talk. Meet people. Try to figure out the American. The post is just the base you work from.”
The base he worked from. Bora could see how loving Spain would only complicate matters. He got off the cot and sat cross-legged on the floor with his back to the wall. Already it seemed impossible that he’d ever been afraid or would be again, ever. All he’d taken away from the scramble of the ambush was the arousal, the stunned feeling of potency he’d experienced for a sensual split second between the end of the shoot-out and any consideration of it. Which is why the Civil Guard had said cojones and not coraje, although both meant the same.
Bora smiled. The girls in Bilbao had danced on the dinner table, wrists slowly twisting, backs arched, heels tapping hard. And then there was the bruja Remedios, whom he’d never seen. Death in Spain was female, he was suddenly and blissfully sure: you watch her dance and come closer step by step, relishing her odour and noise and the flash of motion, and in the end you lie down with her. Besame con tu lengua, aquí.
16 July. Night, continued at the post.
On the verge of elation, or rather well into it. Sweaty, cold. As for the somewhat immature warring sentiments expressed above, I can’t help them. I don’t deny the cruel stupidity of combat, nor am I unafraid: I’m unwilling to stay away from it. Call it the cheapening or the sublimation of my soldiery if you will; I’m all but looking forward to ‘spilling my guts’ if I must, though hopefully not in an ambush. I only wish I were in the line of battle and had to measure up every day.
More soberly, my accomplishments since coming to Spain have been: 1. The first Red unit surrendered to me in Bilbao; 2. I wasn’t killed in the battle for 1.; 3. I didn’t get a venereal disease from the victory party; 4. I’ve managed to avoid lice so far. Not much to brag about, considering that less than ten hours ago I killed a man from Leipzig. Matthias Braun, labourer, from the Mockau district past the railroad junction. The place where Dikta asked me to go home with her! The blood soaked black into his shirt as we dragged him to the road. Lorca writes that “blood comes forth singing”, which is what Lieutenant Jover’s blood did.
I heard a rifle shot just now, so distant and muffled that it could have been fired as far away as the next province. So much for excitement on the Teruel front.
EL PALO DE LA VIRGEN
As if by appointment, the small airplane returned in the morning. From the orchard, Walton could see that it was a flimsy machine, circling like a moth around the flame. Through his field glasses, he tried to identify its markings in the low sun (the three stick-like Italian fasci or the German crossbars), but saw none.
All the men looked up at the swaying dot in the sky. Even Rafael, who’d just accused Valentin of stealing his silver rosary and come close to exchanging blows with him over it. Squatting by the open fire on the terraced ground, Chernik burned his fingers on the coffee pot and cursed.
Walton slipped back into the orchard, where the coolness of the night had not yet evaporated. Soon Brissot joined him there. “How did it go last night?”
“Fine. On the way back I spotted a patrol at Cabezo Blanco. Guardsmen, I think.”
“Where did you end up leaving Soler?”
“At a place outside Valdecebro. The huerta of a man called Vargas.” Walton swallowed a yawn, crossing the orchard on his way to get coffee from Chernik. “Two old people living alone. Vargas is the music teacher Soler mentioned.”
Brissot stayed at heel like a swarthy terrier. “You were supposed to use the trip to gather information from Soler. Let’s hear it.”
On the terraced ground, Chernik’s small fire made with green sticks reminded Walton that they were once more running low on fuel. “Time to send the youngsters to gather wood,” he said.
The other man passed him a tin of steaming coffee. “I told Rafael, but he’s in a downright foul mood. As if he’s the only one who’s lost anything. I can’t find my friggin’ fountain pen.”
Walton avoided Brissot’s meaningful look. “Well,” he answered him at last, “Soler explained in detail why Lorca left Barcelona when he did.”
“Ha! It doesn’t take a wizard to figure that out.” Brissot spat the words in contempt. “If he was even remotely connected with CNT or FAI anarchists, we all know how it went with the cenetistas and other moderates during the spring. They and the communist POUM got what was coming to them. But I forget that you have Marxist Unification sympathies yourself.”
Walton ignored Chernik’s v
isible amusement at the sally. “And we all know where you stand, Mosko, don’t we?”
Brissot rose to the bait. “I never advocated the harsh measures adopted by the PSUC after the riots. But executions are necessary, sometimes, and purging is a time-honoured medical practice.”
“Yes. It does make for a lot of shit.” Walton said so knowingly, but wondered where his allegiances really were. Cutting oneself off was not as easy as it had seemed yesterday evening. “In any case, Soler says that Lorca felt physically in danger. PSUC members associated with the NKVD —”
“So now it’s the Soviet Secret Service that drove Lorca out of Barcelona!”
Walton tried to grin, but his lips stretched humourlessly. “Mosko, it isn’t as if they hadn’t bumped off a few hundred lately, including Andrés Nin.”
“We don’t know what happened to Andrés Nin.”
Walton yawned. “It’s too fucking early in the day to argue. Look, all I’m saying is that Lorca was afraid of the NKVD.”
“Because Soler says so?”
“Because he has nothing to gain from making accusations about a left-wing organization to us.” Walton succeeded in grinning this time, sure that would gall Brissot. “I mean, how does he know I don’t belong to the NKVD? Why, I don’t even know that you don’t.”
“You’d never find out, either. If you’re prepared to accuse anyone on our side of killing Lorca, you’ve lost your critical sense altogether.”
“I keep an open mind, that’s all.” Walton knew there was no point in searching his pockets for cigarette paper or matches, but he still went through the motions. “I did tell Soler that Lorca is dead. I added nothing, explained nothing. He knows no more than he suspected before coming here.”
“Well, isn’t that grand!” Brissot looked exasperated. “No attempt to frame the message and exploit it! You have no sense of history, none whatsoever!”
Rafael had been approaching, but hearing the altercation he drew back. Walton caught sight of his gangling figure in retreat and felt free to shout back. “And what the hell is history? You said yourself no one is going to care in a hundred years’ time. Who’s going to care who told Lorca’s queer friend that he was killed? All I told Soler is that he’s dead, and forbade him to pass it on to anyone.”
Brissot made a grandiose, angry wave with his open hands. “And you went out of your way, at your own risk, to take him to a hiding place! Why? There’s more to this and to Lorca than you’ve been sharing. Yesterday I heard you tell Almagro that there was ‘no news’. No news about what? I think Lorca must have been carrying more than a piece of sheet music. Otherwise you’d never have agreed to come down to the mule track and look for clues.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
“I’m not. But I expect you to share all you know.”
They approached the fountain. “It’s about the deployment of Fascist units around Teruel,” Walton grudgingly admitted. “Every courier who hikes up here tells us how in Valencia they insist on obtaining that information. When I heard from Lorca that he’d secured an escort to leave Teruel, I figured he was in touch with CNT-FAI agents in town: they’re the only ones active there and likely to offer help at this point. I assumed he’d bring the intelligence with him.”
Brissot frowned. Before speaking, he wiped his glasses with his dirty handkerchief. “And why would the cenetistas use as a courier a famous writer in hiding who was too terrified to leave his own house?”
“I don’t mean that.” Walton lowered his eyes to the ground, where a line of ants were travelling busily from a dead locust to a dainty mound of chewed dust. Packing food in their mandibles, one by one they clambered up the mound and crawled into their hole. “Maybe the cenetistas would bring the information at the same time they escorted Lorca.”
“And where does Soler fit into all this?”
“Nowhere.” Walton watched the ants dismember the locust, each of them tearing a bit from the carcass. “After I told him about Lorca’s death, he opened up like a faucet. I could have gotten anything out of him. He hasn’t a clue about what really went on, and Lorca wouldn’t deliberately endanger him. I promise you, Soler won’t get over his very physical fear of death any time soon, and the last place where he’ll want to be seen is Teruel.”
Brissot stomped his foot, coming close to crushing the dead locust and the labourers toiling inside it. “So, if what you say is true, and what the mulero said is true, then we can assume Lorca’s escort abandoned him to his fate. In addition, someone stripped his body of all he had.” One more step, and Brissot would destroy a month’s supply of collective insect food. Caught in the turmoil of sandal-churned dust, the line of ants became disarrayed. Some fled.
Walton stared at Brissot’s feet. The argument was getting on his nerves. Memories of the day he and Brissot had gone looking for clues clicked before him like a series of snapshots. The chalky gravel bed, the Browning pointed at his face. The English-speaking legionnaire who had relieved him of his gun and scrambled off.
The German. Of course. Whatever language he spoke, he had to be the German in the next camp. His accent, his build … he was the one Maetzu had spoken of. Why hadn’t he realized it earlier? Either the German had killed Lorca, or he had at least reached his body before anyone else. He had been looking for clues by the brook. Eyes on the ants’ disciplined attempt to line up again, Walton confronted the new knowledge and paid careful attention to Brissot as he would another, oversized insect. The German had been looking for papers. Or clues. Why? In order to conceal them, or to destroy them. So why hadn’t he gone the full distance and disposed of Lorca’s body? Had he tried to? How much did he know? Questions spawned fast in Walton’s head, Brissot scolding him all the while. “You have no sense of history and no political acumen. From now on you’ll keep me informed of every single thing that goes on.”
“Ooh. Is that commissar talk?”
“It is commissar and security talk, Felipe.”
4
I come to devour your mouth
And drag you by your hair
Into a shell-coloured dawn.
Because I want to,
And because I can.
FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA, “EROS WITH A CANE”
RISCAL AMARGO
Colonel Serrano rode in shortly after 7.30 in the morning, as the flag was being raised in front of the army post. Two brightly attired Requetés came behind him on long-maned horses, followed by an army mule loaded with supplies.
It was a credit to his disciplinary efforts, Bora thought, that his men didn’t break ranks immediately to run to unload the sacks, though the final words of the anthem they were singing wavered considerably. Soon, with Paradís and Aixala in the lead, they gathered around the mule, hopeful for tobacco and coffee.
Serrano glanced at them with disdain. “Were your men singing ‘Cara al Sol’?” he asked Bora, though it was obvious that they had been. “Why not the national royal anthem?”
Bora found no better answer than the truth. Focusing on Serrano’s figure, the Requetés were blurs of red and blue behind him. “Because not all of them are royalists, sir.”
“And what about yourself?”
“I’m not a monarchist either, but I wouldn’t keep the men from singing ‘La Granadera’ if they wanted to.”
Serrano tightened his mouth, and for a moment his drawn features resembled the embalmed face of a mummy. By contrast, the young royalist horsemen behind him, mounted with the slouching ease of landowners, had boyish unlined faces. In blue shirts and blood-red berets, they looked at Bora from their ornate saddles and neither saluted nor seemed openly hostile. Serrano handed the reins to Tomé, who stood at attention with his shirt pockets full of cigarettes. Fastidiously removing his riding gloves, the colonel eyed the field glasses hanging around Bora’s neck. “Have you seen the plane?”
“Yes, sir. No markings, but it’s a German machine. I think it may be photographing the unsurveyed parts of the sierra.”
Ser
rano seemed annoyed by the men crowding to receive their rations from Fuentes: Canaries tobacco, canned meat, bars of soap and chocolate. “You shaved your temples,” he said, with a critical look at Bora. “Did you fear you might not look German enough?” He nodded towards the young men, who had just dismounted. “Those are my wife’s nephews, just in from their parents’ estancia. They need to be exposed to the front, which is the reason I brought them along: you needn’t be introduced to them yet. What I want you to do now is to show me the gravesite. In case you should be killed.”
Bora was tempted to tell Serrano about the ambush and to brag a little, but since another German had been involved in the incident, he decided against it. He entrusted the young men to Fuentes’ care, and with the colonel took the winding climb from Riscal to Castellar.
Before long, their horses were scrambling to the top of the ridge. Its crest was narrow except where it joined El Baluarte, and ran along the rim of the hollow where Castellar sat on its own parched knoll. The riders cast infinite, deep blue shadows against the sunlit shrubbery or moved, shadowless, in the shade. Lizards sluggish with the cool of night were slow in seeking cover from the hoofs. A skinny hare took off from a tuft of grass in a scamper of ears and legs. When they made it to the top of the ridge and came in sight of Castellar, the sunbeams only reached its bell tower, like a torch fired at the tip.
“Where to from here?” Serrano asked.
“We follow the ridge to the north-east.”