The Anarchist Who Shared My Name

by PABLO MARTÍN SÁNCHEZ

  “You know what Berkman says, boy? Before being a man, he is a revolutionary, and the only love a revolutionary can allow himself is the love of humanity. And do you know the first thing he did when he got out of jail? He ate the bouquet of flowers his girlfriend had brought him.”

  But it would not be until the young Catalan Mateo Morral got into action that anarchism started showing up on the front page of all the national newspapers, coinciding with the Royal wedding between Alfonso XIII of Bourbon and Victoria Eugenia Julia Ena de Battenberg on May 31, 1906. It was a year of great political and social upheaval in Spain, as was noted by the famous writer and countess Emilia Pardo Bazán, who reflected apocalyptically in an article published in La Ilustración Artística: “Goodbye, 1906! Year of calamities, attacks, eruptions, floods of hot lava and muddy water, fires, shootings, murders, bombs exploding from Russia to Madrid, earthquakes that destroyed entire cities, typhoons and hurricanes that devastated whole regions, crop-destroying droughts, death duels, crime waves, suicides, daily train crashes and derailments, shipwrecks in which hundreds of people drowned, and dire threats of leprosy and oriental plagues. The only thing missing was war.” It was precisely one such calamity, which Pardo called “horrifying,” that was about to derail the whole nation.

  One hundred foreign reporters and more than fifty Spanish journalists had registered with the Ministry of Governance to cover His Royal Highness’s wedding, and among them there was a fox in the henhouse: a certain Ferdinando Fernández, of El Castellano in Salamanca. Accompanying him was the young Pablo Martín, who had become his faithful sidekick since the day they attended the dredging of the suicides from the river Tormes. It had been ten years since Pablo had set foot in the capital of the kingdom, but he still distinctly remembered that morning in the spring when he had visited another kingdom, as Maxim Gorky called it: the kingdom of the cinema. He also had etched in his memory the face and name of the newspaper hawker who had accompanied him on his adventure: Vicente Holgado. What he didn’t expect was that, in a city of more than half a million people such as Madrid, he would meet him again.

  The other thing that Pablo didn’t expect was that Madrid would so enthusiastically welcome the arrival of a new animal in its menagerie, soon to become the king of the jungle: the automobile. When they arrived at the capital on Wednesday night, on the eve of the wedding, he still had time to see a few motorized coaches. He had heard talk of them in Salamanca, but he had never seen one, and now handfuls of them were circulating around the capital. Of course, only the most comfortable classes could allow themselves the luxury of acquiring a Panhard 12 CV like that of the Duke of Alba, but even a proletarian conscience like Pablo’s could not help being fascinated by those roaring monsters of gleaming metal.

  “Close your mouth, boy,” said Ferdinando, “You look like you’re about to eat the world.”

  The spectacle came to an end when they arrived at the filthy inn that Obdulia had reserved for them on Calle de Barcelona, just a stone’s throw from the Puerta del Sol, where the Royal Procession was to pass on its way to the Church of Saint Jerome.

  “Four smackers for this fleahouse?” Ferdinando complained when the proprietress showed them the room, decorated with moisture damage on the walls and furnished only with two rickety cots and a beat-up bedside table.

  “Yes, sir,” said the woman, in the lisping accent of Cádiz. “But if you don’t want it, don’t worry, there are plenty of people standing in line to find lodging for tonight.”

  Indeed, according to official estimates, the city’s temporary population had risen by more than one hundred thousand souls for the occasion of the royal wedding, and the hoteliers of Madrid, nobody’s fools, had raised their prices without thinking twice. Fortunately for Ferdinando and Pablo, El Castellano was footing the bill. Ferdinando declined the dinner option and took Pablo to eat at the Café Pombo, on the nearby Calle Carretas, famous for its bookstores, jewelers, and the good wine of its taverns, but especially for its orthopedic shops, with their windows decorated with jointed arms, wooden legs, glass eyes, artificial dentures, and every kind of gizmo imaginable for the replacement of human body parts. The gas lamps lent an inviting glow to the café, which was formed of a small central salon and five separate rooms, which nevertheless were connected to each other by old stone archways. In one of the reserved rooms, a few Spanish journalists were making bets about the location the anarchists would choose to attack Alfonso XIII, because word had gotten around that Madrid was infested with men ready to blow the royal carriage sky-high and make good on the failed assassination attempt exactly one year before in Paris, where a bomb disguised as a pineapple nearly cut short His Majesty’s life as he was leaving the Opera. Some even said that the city was full of graffiti announcing the attack and that on a tree in the Retiro someone had carved the words “Alfonso XIII will be executed on his wedding day,” illustrating the threat with a skull and crossbones. It’s no wonder, then, that security measures had been reinforced like never before, and that the Royal Guard had been augmented with staff from the army, the Civil Guard, and the mounted police, in addition to the English detectives that the bride’s family had brought in specifically to protect her.

  FERDINANDO APPROACHED THE GROUP OF REPORTERS who were raising their bets as they emptied their glasses, and he greeted a few men he knew. Then the server came, and Ferdinando ordered a plate of sherried kidneys, two steaks with potatoes, and a bottle of red wine.

  “Eat up, boy, we’re going to need to gather our strength. Tomorrow’s going to be a bitch of a day,” he told Pablo as he started laying into his plate of kidneys. By the time dinner was finished, the journalists had gotten into an argument between monarchists and republicans that seemed ready to end up like the Haymarket Riot. The most excited was a sickly looking lad who was vociferating and jutting his neck out like a plucked duck while threatening his interlocutor with a felt hat, the band of which had been replaced by a plaited cord, giving it a most ridiculous appearance.

  “C’mon boy, let’s get out of here, the ambiance will be better over on Ceres.”

  At that time, the Calle de Ceres was the haunt of Madrid’s cheapest prostitutes, frequented by the lowest lowlife, the gutter bohemia of destitute painters, alcoholic musicians, and desperate writers who dedicated Alexandrines to it, in bad meter and worse taste:

  The hookers along this street so quiet

  Show their witchy faces in the streetlamp’s light

  And the streetlamp girds them in milky white:

  Here’s La Pepa, La Moños, La Rosa, and La Maruja.

  The street would end up being razed to clear the way for the Gran Vía, but at the start of the century it was still a gathering place for the purebred Lumpenproletariat. Ferdinando and Pablo crossed the Puerta del Sol, glutted with people admiring the public lighting or trying to get a last-minute ticket to the royal bullfight; then they took Calle de Arenal, where a few laborers were still working to get the platforms ready for the next day; and they wandered to the Plaza de Santo Domingo, the same square where Julián Martín had left his son ten years before while he took the test to become a provincial inspector.

  “I know this place,” said Pablo.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve already visited the paradise of Calle Ceres,” said Ferdinando with surprise, pointing toward a side street a little way ahead.

  “No, I mean the square. I came here with my father when I was a boy.”

  “And he didn’t bring you to see La Moños? What a thoughtless father!” exclaimed the reporter, shaking his head. “Come on, let’s go. We don’t have all night, boy.”

  “No, you go on ahead. I’d rather just walk around,” Pablo excused himself.

  “Listen, if you don’t like tuna, I know a place where you can get some sausage,” said Ferdinando, making an obscene gesture. Seeing that Pablo was no more tempted by this prospect, he bid him farewell: “Fine then, suit yourself, boy. I’m gonna get my rocks off, can’t babysit you all night.”r />
  Emitting his signature cackle, he disappeared into the dusk.

  Pablo went to sit at the same spot he had all those years ago. The square hadn’t changed much, but the evening shadows gave it a ghostly appearance. How I’d like to go back in time, thought Pablo, standing up, and be here again listening to that man announcing the Lumière Cinematograph. It was a splendid night, and he started walking aimlessly, letting his legs take him where they would as his mind traveled to the past, to visions of trains in motion, hoses shooting jets of water, horses running races, and parents feeding their happy sons. The festive streets were hung with garlands and paper banners, resting in the dim light, saving their vibrancy for the next day. There were people camped in doorways, to the chagrin of the night watchmen, who brandished their nightsticks impotently, aware that they were far outnumbered. At eleven o’clock, Pablo decided to return to the hostel. It wasn’t difficult to find Puerta del Sol, where there was still some hubbub and various unfortunate visitors dragging suitcases around and looking for shelter for the night. Then he took Calle Carretas and, passing in front of the Café Pombo, he again saw the passionate young journalist who a few hours before had been jutting his neck out like a duck and ridiculously threatening his interlocutor with a felt hat. The man took a watch from his vest pocket, looked at the time, and headed off toward Atocha, looking hasty and suspicious. Without really knowing why, Pablo followed him for a while, keeping his distance, until he saw him disappear into a building. He approached the entrance and his jaw dropped as he saw the marquee announcing: “IMPERIAL COLISEUM. The most perfect cinematograph. Followed by the remarkable works of the illusionist Canaris, with the beautiful Madame Albani and the ventriloquist Sanz.” The ticket cost fifty céntimos, half of what it had cost ten years before, and there was a late show at half past eleven.

  “One, please,” Pablo asked, completely forgetting the man he had been following.

  When the lights went down, a pair of newlyweds appeared on the screen, arriving at a hotel. But it wasn’t just any hotel, it was a mechanical hotel, where everything worked as if by magic: the suitcases went up to the rooms all by themselves, the clothing folded itself into the dresser drawers on its own initiative, brushes polished shoes in the absence of a bootblack, and logs traveled single file like a train toward the fireplace, to burn in a fire lit by self-striking matches. Without a doubt, the illusion was better than anything a magician could do with mirrors, false floors, hidden pulleys, or invisible strings, and Pablo was astonished to see how the cinema had evolved in those ten years: no longer content to represent reality, now it was trying to change it. Then he remembered that a few months beforehand he had heard people in Salamanca talking about a movie depicting a man who traveled to the moon, and he wondered if the Lumière brothers’ invention was an window to the future, a machine that could travel forward in time to see what future generations would see.

  When the projection came to an end and the illusionist Canaris leapt to the stage planning to hypnotize a volunteer from the audience, Pablo got up and left the room, certain that no prestidigitator could possibly outdo what he had just seen. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that, leaving the hall, he almost ran headlong into two men who were talking next to the entrance. One was the sickly, pale journalist he had been following, and the other was a sturdy, swarthy young man, one of those handsome ruffians who take women’s breath away. He immediately looked familiar to Pablo. It had been many years, but there was no doubt about it—that defiant gaze, that swarthy complexion, that cocky tone in his voice …

  “Vicente Holgado?” he asked.

  The two men abruptly cut off their conversation and the one whose name had been called lifted his hand to his flank, indicating he was ready to answer with a Browning semiautomatic.

  “Who’s asking?” spat the man in the felt hat, stretching his neck out like an ostrich.

  “Pablo Martín, from El Castellano in Salamanca,” replied Pablo in his most professional tone, not taking his eyes off Vicente Holgado.

  “Holy shit,” said the latter, recognizing him. “Don’t tell me you’re that snot-nosed kid who went with me to see the Lumière Cinematograph.”

  “No, I was the snot-nosed kid who took you to see the Lumière Cinematograph,” Pablo corrected him with a smile.

  Vicente hesitated a moment, looking back and forth between Pablo and the sickly hack reporter like someone plucking daisy petals or flipping a coin to divine whether his love was requited. It must have come up heads, because he squinted at the exit and said, “Let’s go. Come with us.”

  And that’s how Pablo first came into contact with the anarchist movement, although it would take a few more hours for him to discover just how dangerous it could be. For the time being, they merely took him to a tavern on the corner and made the perfunctory introductions. The journalist from Café Pombo was working for the Diario Universal and had been a writer for Tierra y Libertad, the anarchist weekly founded in Madrid by Juan Montseny, aka “Federico Urales,” a teacher from Reus who had become a syndicalist, journalist, and frustrated dramaturge. Vicente, for his part, said he was unemployed and didn’t care to give any further explanation. Nevertheless, it was he who paid for the wine, with a wrinkled 100-peseta note that elicited protest from the waiter.

  “Either you accept Quevedo or you make the round on the house,” said Holgado, scowling and leaving the bill bearing the famous writer’s countenance on the bar. Then, speaking to Pablo, he apologized: “I’m sorry, but we have to go. Tomorrow’s going to be an intense day. I hope to see you again sometime, somewhere.”

  “I hope so too,” said Pablo. And he meant it.

  When he arrived back at the inn, Ferdinando was snoring profoundly, as only innocents and madmen can.

  The next morning, they woke up early, washed in the grimy basin, and went to Café Pombo to breakfast on a well-deserved chocolate de tres tantos—cocoa, sugar, and cinnamon in equal proportions—as well as a few sweet, greasy churros that fell apart in their hands. Only then did they feel ready to start the work day, which was destined to last until the wee hours of dawn. At the Church of Saint Jerome, where the wedding was to take place, a special booth for journalists had been set up, but Ferdinando preferred to stake out a spot at Puerta del Sol to watch the royal procession pass.

  “Weddings are all the same, boy. The interesting stuff is in the street.”

  In reality, he was annoyed at the thought of going to the church, and he had decided to set up his base of operations right there at the intersection of the four main streets of the wedding parade.

  “Look here,” he said, taking out a map and tracing an exaggerated figure-8 with his finger. “This is the route the parade will take: Calle Arenal, Puerta del Sol, and Calle Jerónimo going out, then Calle Alcalá, Puerta del Sol, and Calle Mayor coming back. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “So here’s what you’re going to do: I’ll wait for you here and you’ll follow the royal carriage, writing down everything you see, hear, feel, suspect, or smell. Understood?”

  “Perfectly,” said Pablo, not mentioning that the last order would be a bit more difficult.

  “And if anything out of the ordinary happens, come running and tell me. Got it, boy?”

  “Absolutely, Your Highness,” said Pablo with exaggerated courtesy, as he set off for Calle del Arenal, happy to get away from the dilated pupils of the domineering Ferdinando.

  Passing in front of number 22, he saw a sign that read, “Great success of the voiturette Clément, designed for the highways of Spain. Climbs any hill. Easy handling.” This was the dealership belonging to the Santos brothers, pioneers in automobile sales.

  Sadly, there was no time to lose, since the correspondents of El Castellano weren’t the only ones who had gotten up early: when Pablo arrived at the Marine Ministry, Calle Bailén was already full of people. The shopkeepers had improvised little platforms in their windows for a better view of the parade, and now they them
selves appeared to be for sale. The onlookers had also started to congregate on the balconies, and some had set up makeshift lean-tos and awnings, risking their lives to witness the passage of the hemophiliac Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg and the prognathous Alfonso XIII. Finally, at half past nine, the monarch emerged from his palace, flanked by coaches, automobiles, and mounted guards. He was wearing the dress uniform of a captain general and he saluted from the royal sedan with the solemnity of a marionette, accompanied by the infante Carlos and his little brother Don Alfonso María. To his right, never taking his eye from the king, rode Don Rodrigo Alvarez de Toledo, first footman to His Majesty, as the unquiet crowd shook their signs and threw hats in the air, shouting “Viva el Rey!” One woman fainted, and a child nearly suffocated, but the fate of the nation transcended such trifles. It was ten thirty by the time the future queen’s entourage came out from the Marine Ministry. At the time, Pablo was perched on the statue of Neptune, watching Alfonso XIII’s stately sedan turn toward Los Jerónimos.

  The wedding went without a hitch, although the tension in the air was palpable, like a volcano about to erupt. The church had been combed by security a thousand times, but until the bride and groom said “I do,” people were afraid there would be an attack. As if, once they were married, divine grace would immunize them against fire and dynamite! Inside the parish, the cream of the Spanish and European aristocracy had gathered, as well as the highest public officials, from the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria to the Count of Romanones, as well as Maura, Caralejas, and the princes of Belgium, Sweden, Greece, and Portugal. When Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg entered, clinging to the arm of her mother-in-law-to-be, all in attendance stood in unison, as a murmur of excitement traveled among the pews and galleries set up inside the temple. The electric lamps hanging in the great altar appeared to glow more intensely, dazzled by the princess’s white gown, fringed in silver and dotted with lilies and orange blossoms. The reverend Cardinal Sancha, Primate of Spain and Archbishop of Toledo, officiated the ceremony, and the fiancés became spouses, until death should have the caprice to part them. When they left the church and started walking down the red-carpeted stairs, the Royal March played for the umpteenth time, and madness swept through the feverish crowd, who stirred and shouted, tossing anything that came to hand in the direction of the royal couple. More than one of the female fans was tempted to take off her petticoat and throw it at the studly king, whose member was rumored to be as long as his sword.