“I don’t know. How can we convince a fascist that he’s supposed to love? That’s impossible. They want to kill us. What really matters is who kills first and who dies first.” I was reciting from memory the things I had heard my father say hundreds of times at party headquarters or over card games in cafés.
She clucked in response. “Go on, go to bed. You probably haven’t slept all night.”
I washed my face and was about to crawl into bed when I noticed my mother from across the room. She was taking something out of the dresser, a little piece of paper. I did not know then that it was a holy card with a picture of a saint. She kissed it and whispered something with her eyes closed. Then she put it back and called my sisters to come to breakfast. That little ceremony frightened me more than the guns and war cries from the night before. Because if my mother was harkening back to the old god of her ancestors, I knew she must really believe that the jubilance would not last and that the streets would soon be stained with blood.
I have no idea how, but the next day I convinced Mom to let me take some food to Dad. The workers had kept watch on the Montaña Barracks all day, and the besieged military inside showed no signs of giving up. Rumors that rebel reinforcements would come from Zaragoza, Valladolid, or Burgos encouraged them to hold out.
I headed for the barracks in one of the crowded trolleys and listened to all the news and gossip. Apparently, the coup d’état had failed nearly everywhere in Spain, especially the big cities, except for Seville and a few provincial capitals in Castilla la Vieja.
I jumped off at a stop on Gran Vía and walked with my hands in my pockets to Príncipe Pío hill. I had never paid much attention to the huge, squared building up there. It looked modern, more like a hospital than army barracks. As I drew closer, I found myself surrounded by more and more people, as if I had walked into a market or fair. Yet a hundred yards ahead, a mix of workers, soldiers, and civil guards were crouching behind improvised barricades. Artillery and machine guns were aimed at the building, but if not for the weapons and cannons, no one would have guessed that one of the first battles of the war would start there.
I spotted my father stationed at one of the cannons with other socialist workers. Each union group and political party had its own emblematic paraphernalia which its members wore on their necks or arms. As I walked toward my father, one of his friends slapped my neck down, and I cried out in surprise.
“Get your head down or they’ll take it off with a bullet. What do you think you’re doing here?” the man demanded.
I could not understand what he was angry about. War seemed like a grand game to me. I had no inkling of the danger and suffering it could leave in its wake.
“I brought Dad some food,” I said, taking care to crouch low.
“Your dad is up there at the cannon. Deliver it and then get out of here. This is no place for kids.”
I walked along, crouching down among the men. A few kept their sights aimed at the barracks, but most were circled up together talking, smoking, or drinking cold beer.
“Marco, what are you doing here?” Dad asked in a wearied tone when he saw me. The bags under his eyes had grown deeper, and his summer tan contrasted with his gray hair and black hat.
“I brought you some food.”
His initial frown faded when he saw the white bread, chorizo, and sausage rounds. When I pulled out the bottle of wine, several of his friends gathered around with keen interest. My father elbowed them away good-naturedly and went up to a dark-haired man. “Here, Orad, this will help us regain our strength.”
The man smiled and stretched out his hand to take a slice of bread with chorizo. He savored it as if it were the finest delicacy and washed it down with a long swallow of wine. When a round of shots rang out, everyone dove to the ground except for this man, Orad, and my father, who both seemed immune to fear. “Just like a fascist to ruin a good meal,” my father growled, turning, aiming, and firing a few rounds.
When the air had calmed, he sat beside the cannon and continued to eat. He offered me a bit, and I felt like the happiest person in the world.
Just then, airplanes flew overhead. Everyone ran around in confusion, expecting a bomb to fall, but the sky grew strangely clouded as thousands of pieces of paper rained down. My father grabbed one as it floated, and I saw it was a warning pamphlet for those who resisted in the Montaña Barracks. In the name of the Republic, the papers formally discharged any soldiers who rebelled and disobeyed the Republic’s orders.
I stayed with the men for a few hours. Many of them killed time by playing cards or singing, until a group of soldiers approached the barricade and spoke to Orad.
“We have to attack. We can’t let night fall,” one of the soldiers said.
“I doubt that a few blasts will drive them out,” said an artilleryman.
“In a few minutes, we’ll bomb them from overhead. That will be the signal.”
Once the soldiers left, my father turned to me. “Get out of here before things heat up.”
I agreed to leave and had just picked up the empty wine bottle when the sound of airplanes pierced the sky. I heard a whistling noise, and then I instinctively covered my ears at the sound of an unbearably loud explosion. Bombs were hitting the ground around the barracks, but one struck the front of the building, which then crumpled over the double staircase.
Orad gave the order to load and fire the cannon under his command. The explosion threw me backward to the ground, and I balled up with my head between my legs, as if doing so could protect me from the blast. The machine gun shots sounded over our heads, and for a few minutes chaos reigned. A wounded man fell down beside me, and when I glanced over, our eyes met. He seemed more like a scared child than a militiaman.
Soon another soldier fell down near me, and his rigid, bloody body left me no doubt that he was dead. I had never seen a cadaver before. His face was disfigured and had lost its human factions. He looked more like a scrap of meat lying forgotten in an alley.
I felt strangely alert. The smell of gunpowder and the blast of cannons sent the adrenaline racing through my veins. I decided to look up. My father was firing nonstop and shouting for his men to do the same. A group of men sitting on the ground continued to load the guns and hand them to the shooters.
We heard machine-gun fire coming from one of the rooftops of the building behind us. The windows of the barracks in front of us shattered in response.
I do not know how long the shooting lasted, perhaps only a few minutes, but it was an eternity to me. We saw a white flag in the building, and the militiamen hurried toward the stairs. Most of them had their guns raised high in victory. My father’s group was about to join them when Dad waved them back and shouted for them to get down.
The burst of machine-gun fire from the fascists fell like hail on the militiamen advancing toward the barracks. Dozens fell, and those who managed to escape retreated to the barricades. Our group held nothing back in response. My father was enraged by the fascists’ deceit and the naïveté of his comrades. It had been a dirty coup, not a gentlemen’s agreement.
At noon, when the sun was beating down hard, we saw white flags again. This time no one moved until the doors of the barracks opened and the first soldiers threw down their guns. Some of the barrack defenders ran out, throwing down their helmets and guns and shouting, “Long live the Republic!” The assault guards advanced first, and a mass of militiamen from the gamut of political parties and labor unions followed. Everyone cheered, and some belted out battle songs. My father turned and ordered me not to move an inch.
While I waited, I heard a few shots. Later I heard the shouts of some officers who were dragged out of the barracks and beaten with sticks before the crowd. Blood flowed everywhere, but what stood out to me was the fear on the prisoners’ faces.
I disobeyed my father and snuck up closer to the building out of curiosity. I had to pick my way around bodies lying on the cobblestones and step over more covering the stairway. I saw a bo
y my age pointing a pistol at an officer who walked down the street with his hands above his head.
A journalist took photographs nearby, and curious bystanders had gathered to watch as the militiamen collected all the guns. When I tried to get into one of the barrack yards, I was blocked. Cadavers were lined up in groups of ten. Some officers who had committed suicide still held weapons in their hands. To one side, groups of men shot the Falangists who had joined the rebel soldiers.
Some of the assault guards were forcibly removing General Fanjul, the rebel leader. No one else got close to him, though they spat on him and mocked him from a safe distance.
Then I spied my father, sitting alone on a stone bench, his gun draped over his back. His face was dark with sadness. I thought he would reprimand me for disobeying and leaving my post, but he hardly reacted when he saw me. I sat beside him in the middle of that field of death, and he put his arm around me.
“I’ve always heard that a few deaths are necessary to create a world without violence. Wanting to kill is not the same thing as actually killing. Until today, I’d never fired a shot or killed anyone. I believed getting rid of those fascists would bring me some degree of pleasure . . . You know by now that it’s either them or us. But now I feel it. Killing someone is not defending an ideology. I’ve killed a person, people. These men were my brothers. There’s nothing worse than a civil war. Maybe the bloodbath will end and we can return to fistfights in the streets or in parliament, but not like this . . . No, not like this,” he whispered.
I saw the pain in my father’s anguished face and jaded gaze, heard it in his feverish words. That one day, which in many ways provoked one of the worst wars in history, was over for him. He would remain an idealist who longed for the triumph of the proletariat revolution, but something broke apart in his soul that hot July day. He could not have named the sadness any more than I could have right then, but it was without a doubt the grief of a broken heart that discovers there is no ideology on earth worth killing for.
I looked up and studied the bodies. Nearly all of them were young men. I understood they had been robbed of something more precious than mere breathing: the right to a future.
Chapter 5
In the Trenches
Madrid
October 9, 1936
I woke up from a dream about my father. We were walking through the Casa de Campo city park on a Sunday and around the lake toward the boat rental stand. My mother carried my sister Isabel; my youngest sister, Ana, still hadn’t been born. I looked up at my father, who was to me a giant capable of anything. I spent most of my time with my mother, who wasn’t then working in the theater. On Fridays, payday, she used to take me and Isabel with her to the market to do the week’s shopping, or she’d take us to a park to play. But I didn’t often walk around in public next to my father, which is why this dream, this day, was so special to me. That spring day the sky seemed especially blue, as if it wanted to swallow us up in azure infinitude. Reflected sunlight shimmered like polished gold on the water. Hand in hand with my father, I felt safe. Nothing bad could happen because I knew he would protect me from every danger and show me the right way to go.
On happy days, like that spring Saturday when we didn’t look up at the sky in fear, I learned how wonderful it was to walk along holding hands with my father. I remember he bought me an ice cream cone as we waited for the boat to come to the little pier. My mother was happy and smiling. We didn’t have much. We lived in a tiny house in Lavapiés, with only two dark, dank rooms and no bathroom or heat or running water, but my father’s love spilled through every look and touch.
That day we rented a canoe, and Dad let me help him row, though he was the one who moved the paddles and steered. His face oozed joy.
We took a long, meandering walk on the way back home. Isabel slept in my mother’s arms, and I held on to my dad’s hand. I could not put it into words, but what that day ingrained in my little mind was that safety lay between the fingers of those calloused, scratched hands.
* * *
I once thought that growing up meant getting married, starting a family, finding a good job, and waiting for life to pass one by without struggles or distress. But on one autumn morning in October 1936, with the sky a dull gray and as I walked beside Isabel and holding Ana’s hand, I started to wonder if getting older meant learning to take care of yourself and the people you love. We got to the trolley that would take us to Casa de Campo. The huge expanse of forest was no longer the haven of peace it had been when I was younger, when cyclists meandered down the dusty trails or Sunday visitors picnicked beneath the centuries-old oaks that had stood watch as kings, ambitious courtesans, and even Napoleon’s troops passed them by.
The trolley car clacked louder than in years before, rickety now from overuse and neglected maintenance because of the war. We could see some of the ruins from the bombings, though most had hit public buildings and the Cuatro Vientos airfield. We stepped off near the Line 25 stop in Puerta del Ángel Plaza, then walked to the entrance of Casa de Campo. Militiamen came and went from all directions. They weren’t wearing uniforms, but there was no mistaking their armbands, military hats, and rifles. The color of the bandannas around their necks indicated the party or union to which they belonged. As we neared the lake, they greeted us with raised fists, surely because we were all three dressed like them, with little hats and the socialist party bandannas around our necks.
Since taking the Montaña Barracks, my father had supported the city’s assault guard. He spent most of his time in Salamanca, one of Madrid’s most well-to-do neighborhoods. My mother, along with most of her theater troupe, had enlisted in a militia that defended the capital. She rarely carried a weapon since she and her colleagues mainly focused on keeping morale high among the volunteers by dancing, singing, and performing satirical skits about the enemy and priests.
My sisters and I reached the improvised camp, barely a dozen tents where food was distributed and the volunteer army received instructions. Most volunteers showed up in the mornings, joined their units, then went back to their homes at night.
We searched for our mother among the tents and finally found her rehearsing with some of the other actors. As soon as she saw us, she left what she was doing and smothered us in hugs and kisses until I turned red with embarrassment.
“Come on, Mom,” I said, wriggling away and wiping her lipstick off my cheeks. “I’m not a little kid anymore.”
“What time did you leave school? You’re here earlier than I expected.”
“There’s a procession this afternoon. The International Brigades are arriving,” I said, turning my head to get a better look at the cannons just beyond the tent.
Mom nodded. “Go on, you can go look at the weapons. I know you’re interested.”
I was already outside next to a cannon by the time she finished speaking. It was enormous, much bigger than the one I’d seen at the Montaña Barracks.
“You like it?” one of the artillerymen asked. I nodded. “Want me to show you how it works?” He smiled when he saw my eyes light up. He nestled his cigarette in one corner of his mouth, then heaved up a missile, loaded it into the cannon, shut a little door, and pushed a lever.
“These models are old, but they’ve promised us the Russians are bringing us newer weapons. The Soviet comrades will help us win this war and bring the revolution. Father Stalin is keenly interested in what happens in Spain. The German fascists won’t quit bombing us, and I’ve heard they’re sending tanks and new arms to the rebels.”
I paid much more attention to the cannon, the missiles, and the nearby machine guns than I did to his words.
“You’re old enough to fight, you know,” the man said. “You should enlist in one of the militias. We need every hand we can get.”
I studied his black hat and matching black bandanna. He was an anarchist with the National Work Confederation—a leftist organization like the one to which my dad belonged, but in many ways at odds with it.
“I’m just telling him the truth. That he’s old enough to fight against the fascists.”
“His father and I are already helping in the struggle. His job is to study and become someone useful to our cause.”
“What cause? You socialists have always been sellouts,” the anarchist spat out.
“Stupidity can’t grasp nuance,” my mother said, grabbing my hand and pulling me back to the tent. We were barely inside when we heard a loud explosion, quite nearby. Mom’s face grew tense. She grabbed her purse and made to leave the tent, but another explosion, even closer, put her on alert. She looked around wildly but saw nowhere to take cover. “We have to get away from here.”
We went outside and saw airplanes flying low, as if the sky belonged to them. Bombs fell on the camp, and the cannons I had just been admiring moments ago flew through the air. We ran toward the lake. Ana screamed and cried as Mom dragged her along, and I had Isabel, who cried like a much younger child, by the hand. When we managed to get beyond the park, we saw a column of smoke rising, darkening the sky even more. The airplanes flew back over the city and disappeared on the horizon.
We walked up the hill to the Segovia Bridge. My father would be waiting for us near Puerta de Alcalá. We were worn-out and very scared by the time we got there, and when he saw us, he could tell right away that something had happened. Mom threw her arms around him and began to cry. We went to a café to regroup, and my parents drank coffee while my sisters and I had orange juice despite the chill in the air.
Remember Me Page 3