The Anarchist Who Shared My Name

by PABLO MARTÍN SÁNCHEZ

  But among the crowd there was one man distant from all of this, although he had been ready to commit the act himself. His eyes were overflowing with uncontrollable tears and the pocket revolver was digging into his shin. He had spent the last four years of his life chasing a ghost, and now that he had found it, he had discovered that it was in vain. The ghost had left him for dead. The ghost had found a new life. The ghost had even managed to start a family. He stood up and left that place, walking robotically. He disappeared up the old Calle del Turco, where a group of agents of order had set up a checkpoint to catch any accomplices to the attempted regicide. They patted him down and let him go, proving that the twine trick was a sure bet. But Pablo, at that moment, didn’t even remember that he was carrying a pistol. If he had remembered, he might have done something crazy. He simply started wandering the streets of Madrid until he lost track of time. Only when his footsteps reached Calle Montera and he found himself in front of the door to the Amelia Inn did he come to his senses: through the frosted glass of the door, he could see that the proprietress was talking with two civil guardsmen. A survival instinct told him that it was better not to enter, and so he hid in the adjacent doorway until they came out. As they were leaving the inn, Pablo could hear their parting words:

  “Be sure to let us know, ma’am, if that man shows up here again.”

  Then they disappeared down the street and Pablo waited a few minutes before going into the inn. When he did so, he took out his revolver and ordered the proprietress to open the door to his room. He put his things in the suitcase and ran down the stairs. Before leaving, he paid his bill and left a good gratuity. Stepping out into the street, he almost ran smack into Vicente Holgado, who was leaving his own hotel in a hurry.

  “Where are you going?” they both asked in unison.

  “North Station,” they both replied.

  And that is where they went, with only one idea: to get out of the hornet’s nest as fast as they could.

  – 18 –

  The municipal constable, all told, showed praiseworthy zeal in accomplishing his duty. With his warning, and the services offered by the captain of the carabiniers and his forces, the Civil Guard, the local Somatén, and the harmonious and effective cooperation of the neighbors, the matter was resolved admirably, and the insurrection was quashed as soon as it arose, a bitter memory for this village due to the tragic deaths it caused, but also an occasion of glorious satisfaction because, through their fulfillment of the duties of citizenship, and inspired by love of country, the villagers were able to disrupt the perverse plot hatched against our Spanish Homeland, which arose in this peaceful village, not hesitating to face those who sought to disrupt order in the Nation, at the very moment when peace is most needed to continue the era of progress led by the current Directory that we are fortunate to have in charge of our government.

  Minutes of the City Hall of Vera,

  November 16, 1924

  “IT’S BETTER IF WE PART WAYS,” admits the former civil guardsman Santillán, when he can no longer see the road behind him, “that’s the only way we’ll have a chance of escaping, now that all is lost.”

  The others nod in agreement.

  “There are a few ways to try to reach France from here,” explains Piperra, knowing that this is the only hope to save their skin. “The shortest way is to go over the butte of Santa Bárbara and cross the border at Labeaga peak, but it is also the hardest way and I think some of us are not in shape to make it,” he says, looking at Pablo.

  “And what other options are there?” Robinsón asks, not ready to leave his friend in the lurch.

  “Going back the way we came. That’s the most accessible way.”

  “Crossing the village?” asks Pablo.

  “We can skirt the edge of it.”

  “Too risky,” declares Santillán.

  “Would you be able to accompany us, Piperra?” Robinsón asks.

  The guide takes a few seconds to respond.

  “Let’s go,” he finally says. “We’ll try to make it to the Eltzaurdia farmstead without being seen. I have some relatives there. Maybe we can hide out there until things blow over.”

  “Alright then,” says Santillán, who has come to terms with the situation and is starting to get nervous. “Let’s split up and leave right away, before the carabiniers alert the border patrol and cut off our escape. I’m going to go by Labeaga, who’s with me?”

  There is a moment of indecision, because Leandro and Julianín are hesitant to abandon their friends. But they do not appear to have a choice if they want to have any hope of saving themselves.

  “Go on, boys,” Pablo resolves the situation. “I’ll see you in France, one way or another.”

  And they say goodbye quickly, containing their emotions, embracing for what could be the last time, as Piperra explains to the ex-civil guardsman how to reach Labeaga. Then Santillán, Julianín, and Leandro head off up the hill, leaving the glow of the foundry behind. Pablo holds onto Robinsón, doing his best to handle the pain, and both follow Piperra and Kropotkin, who seems to know the way. They go around the butte of Santa Bárbara and make their way toward Vera through fields and prairies, dotted here and there by Basque farmhouses, most with their lights on: clearly, the sound of the gunfire has awakened the inhabitants. The sky is growing clearer, and a few stars are keeping the moribund moon company as it cuts the horizon of the majestic Mount Larrún, so close and so far away at the same time, as if proclaiming the border between salvation and damnation. For Pablo every step is a sacrifice and each stumble is mortifying, but he continues onward, biting his tongue. A stream lies in the fugitives’ path, and Robinsón proposes throwing away the pistols and ammunition, too incriminating in case of arrest. After a few moments of indecision, they end up throwing them into the turbulent water, which quickly swallows them. Shortly thereafter, before reaching the main road, Piperra stops:

  “Wait for me here, I’ll go see if the coast is clear,” he says, and disappears for a few seconds.

  “Robin,” Pablo whispers in the darkness.

  “What?”

  “Do you think we’ll get out of this?”

  And since the vegetarian does not respond, he continues:

  “How could we have been so foolish, Robin? How did we let ourselves get tricked like this?”

  But again he does not respond, because the guide comes running back.

  “Let’s go, follow me,” he says under his breath. “The road is clear.”

  The three men and the dog cross the road connecting the neighborhood of Altzate to the old village of Illecueta, where no one appears to be aware of what has happened. However, there are unmistakable voices coming from Vera sounding the alarm. As they pass behind the farmhouse of Zelaia, a light comes on inside and the three revolutionaries hit the dirt, and Pablo has the misfortune of knocking his injured leg against a rock. The former typesetter cannot contain a shriek of pain. Someone opens a window and a figure appears above the sill:

  “Who’s there?” asks a worried, elderly male voice.

  The three men hold their breath.

  “Who’s there?” insists the old man.

  And this time it is Kropotkin who saves the situation, barking at just the right moment.

  “Get out of here, you mutt!” the old man shouts, and slams the window shut.

  When the light goes out, the men continue on their way, with Pablo more hobbled than ever. Shortly they arrive at the farmstead of the Baroja family, which is still shrouded in silence and darkness, as is the Errotacho mill, a little further on, where the road to France splits off from the main road going up to Napoleon’s Pass. Piperra knows that there is no choice but to go to the mill, although it lies dangerously close to the road, and they are nearly discovered by an approaching automobile, aggressively revving its engine. The three revolutionaries hide among the bushes, and after a few seconds the headlights illuminate the street. The car passes like a sigh of relief, because they cannot see that trav
eling inside it are three members of the Somatén of Vera, who are going up to the border to report what has happened and to give the order that no one should pass. It seems that the civil defense corps formed by Primo de Rivera as soon as he took power is acting as a sentinel and living up to its supposed Catalan etymology, “som atents”—“we are vigilant.” But although the three fugitives cannot see them, they can sense them:

  “They’re going to the border to alert the carabiniers,” snaps Piperra, a carpenter by trade and a pessimist by nature. “Let’s go!”

  They take the main road toward Usategieta, but shortly Pablo lets himself fall to the earth, gasping:

  “Save yourselves, fellas. I give up. I have no right to make you lose more time—”

  “Not a chance, Pablo. It’s not much farther,” says Robinsón, who, despite his sickly complexion and the limp he has suffered since his bout of juvenile polio, lifts Pablo onto his back and drags him as best he can, until they reach the Eltzaurdia farmstead.

  “Wait for me there,” says Piperra, pointing at a little thatched hut next to the house, and he goes to the door and pounds on it energetically.

  After a few minutes that seem like hours, someone opens the little window and the light of a kerosene lamp illuminates the young man’s face.

  “Auntie, it’s me, Pedrito. Open the door, please.”

  The woman does as her nephew asks, and he slips inside the house without waiting to be asked in. It is half an hour before he comes back out to fetch Pablo and Robinsón, who by now are desperate and chilled to the bone. Kropotkin has to wait outside.

  “Ay, by the name of the Blessed Virgin!” the woman complains as she sees them enter, while her husband looks suspiciously at the longhair and the wounded man who have just disturbed the tranquility of their dwelling. “I knew that this boy would bring us nothing but trouble!”

  “Calm down, Auntie,” says Piperra, “and give these men something warm, you can see what shape they’re in.”

  The woman prepares them a café con leche. Robinsón gives her the horsetail, prized for its hemostatic properties, that he collected on the way into Vera, and she puts it on to boil. The vegetarian takes the opportunity to change Pablo’s dressings, now completely soaked with blood, and applies a healing poultice made of the medicinal herbs. When he finishes the process, the man of the house opens his mouth for the first time:

  “You can stay here until tomorrow,” he says to his nephew, in a dry tone that invites no discussion. “But your friends have to leave now.”

  “But, Uncle,” Piperra tries to protest.

  “Not another word. If they’re not gone in five minutes, I’m going to inform the carabiniers.”

  The three men leave the house. Decidedly, the people of Spain are not ready to start a revolution.

  “Don’t worry,” says Robinson to Piperra, buttoning his overcoat, “we know the way, it can’t be much farther.”

  “No, listen,” the guide replies hanging his head, “I’d go with you, but … Napoleon’s Pass is up that way, and then straight ahead you’ll reach the Inzola Inn. You can’t miss it. Good luck, comrades!”

  The three men say farewell, as Kropotkin nips at the pant cuffs of the man who is staying behind, as if reproaching him for his cowardice. It is not a great distance from the Eltzaurdia farmstead to Napoleon’s Pass, but the going is steep, and Pablo suffers unspeakably with every step. Also, as if that were not enough, the road soon splits to the right and left, and neither Robinsón nor Pablo knows which way to go. Finally they decide to follow Kropotkin, who opts for the road to the left, but after a short distance the path disappears into a thick forest.

  “This doesn’t look familiar to me,” Robinsón laments.

  “Me neither,” Pablo moans.

  And they decide to go back to the fork in the road. In the valley below, the village of Vera appears to have awakened, as many lights are lit. The two friends take the road to the right, and the first glow of dawn is starting to rise behind the mountains when they finally reach the pigeon towers of Usategieta, the same place where a few hours ago fifty revolutionaries, bent on liberating Spain, convened before making their descent. But Pablo can go no farther, and asks Robinsón to rest for a moment.

  “It’s alright, stay here and don’t move,” the vegetarian agrees. “I’ll go see if the road to the inn is clear.”

  And then Pablo commits a fatal mistake, a beginner’s mistake, as if the devil himself had set a trap for him in the form of a cigarette whispering light me, light me and smoke me. Because Pablo, his mind addled by pain and fatigue, takes out his tobacco pouch as Robinsón is disappearing down the road toward Inzola, and he rolls a little cigarette and lights a match, not on the first try, nor on the second, but finally on the third, and the brief glow catches the attention of a pair of carabiniers patrolling the area, a pair comprising a corporal and a sergeant who have been informed of the revolutionary insurrection and who are approaching Pablo’s location, following a tiny ember that blinks to life with each successive puff, a pair that hides behind a rocky outcropping and then shouts “Halt!” at Pablo, who is unarmed and missing the good luck amulet that used to accompany him through thick and thin, and he has no choice but to raise his arms and curse his bad luck, and hope that Robinsón is not on his way back, that he will take some time to return, so that he can at least save himself.

  “Halt there!” orders one of the carabiniers, while the other searches the surroundings, with his rifle at the ready. “Stand up!You’re under arrest!”

  And Pablo stands up, trying his best to hide his infirmity, because he knows that he will be considered guilty if they discover that he has a bullet wound. And he lets them search him, and tie his hands behind his back with a wire, not seeing that Robinsón has returned just in time to hide in some bushes and curse himself for having thrown his pistol in the river, leaving him unable to face down the carabiniers, unable to do anything but watch, crouching in the foliage as they take Pablo away, and bite his tongue, and wipe his tears on Kropotkin’s back, tears that flow like Inzola Creek a few yards away, tears of pain, rage, and impotence, tears of fear that he will never again see his friend Pablo Martín Sánchez, the anarchist with no sense of smell, the vampire with no heart, the kindred spirit he has entangled in this failed adventure. And not far off, he hears two gunshots, and Robinsón has no choice but to jump into the creek along with his trusty wiener dog, to try to reach the border before daybreak.

  So, little Pablo, you look at the sky and think you see the constellation Cassiopeia, which seems to form an M, an M as in Martín. But it is probably just a hallucination, brought on by fever or exhaustion, because the light of morning is already starting to cause the stars to fade. In the meantime, what has faded for good is the revolutionary hope of ending the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera.

  PART THREE

  – 19 –

  Forces of the Civil Guard from the outposts near the Bidasoa River and of the carabiniers (about 150 officers) from Vera, Echalar, and Lesaca, went into the forest, strategically deployed by their commanders, as soon as they learned of the painful events that had taken place in Vera, with the aim of capturing the criminals. Their praiseworthy work immediately began to yield excellent results. By noon, when we arrived in Vera, eleven syndicalists had been rounded up.

  Diario de Navarra, 11 November 1924

  IT IS OFTEN SAID THAT HISTORY is written by the victors, but we sometimes forget that it is journalists who take the notes. The first gazetteers arrive in Vera de Bidasoa at midmorning, most of them coming from Pamplona and San Sebastián, as the holding cell at the carabiniers’ barracks is already starting to swell with revolutionaries captured in the mountains. But no one dares to transfer them to the barracks of the Civil Guard, with two guardsmen’s bodies still warm:

  “If they bring them there, they’ll be pistol-whipped to death,” the constable Don Enrique Berasáin, who has become the unexpected star of the day, tells the journalists. “Don’t
doubt that for a second.”

  It takes the arrival of Patricio Arabolaza, the famous, valiant, recently retired soccer player, to divert the reporters, unseating the Dandy as the center of attention. The former forward of the Real Union Club of Irún, who in the Olympic Games of Antwerp made the first goal in the history of the Spanish soccer team, was one of those who most fervently participated in the search party to capture the rebels:

  “No, I was driving from Irún to go hunting in Echalar,” the renowned athlete deliberately explains, “and passing through Vera I stumbled into all this mess. So I made my car and my person available to the forces of order, that’s all.”

  “But, isn’t it true that it was you who dragged Corporal de la Fuente out of the river?” asks a junior reporter from El Pueblo Navarro, repeating the rumor that has been circulating among the journalists.

  “No, no, absolutely not. I only saw the trail of blood leading down toward the Bidasoa, and I let the authorities know. They put a boat in the river to look for the guardsman’s body.”

  “But then, you might say that it was thanks to your cooperation that the body was found,” insists the reporter from El Pueblo.

  “Man, if you want …” concedes Patricio, used to being the star of the best plays.

  And so, with the inestimable help of the Dandy, the footballer, and many others who participated in the search, the reporters manage to reconstruct the broad strokes of what has happened. They have converted the plaza next to the City Hall of Vera into a center of operations, where throughout the day more news reports and authorities arrive in equal measure. So it soon becomes known that a large group of armed men has littered the village with subversive literature and had a skirmish with the forces of order in the early morning. So it is that the village comes to be filled with civil guards and carabiniers, some of high rank, such as the colonel subinspector of the Civil Guard, Don José Rivera, who appears to be crammed into the sidecar of a motorcycle driven by his assistant, Captain Don Nicolás Canalejo, both of them coming from San Sebastián. So it is that they learn of the death of the corporal de La Fuente, the guardsman Ortiz, and Luís Naveira, and that their bodies have been transported on pallets like merchandise to the cemetery of Vera, where the judicial morgue is located. So it is that they witness the pompous disembarkation of the Civil Governor Don Modesto Jiménez de Bentrosa, arriving in his automobile from Pamplona. So it is that they are informed that in the area of the skirmish, one rebel was found with injuries to both legs, and was transferred to the Hospital of Mercy, where Dr. Gamallo is trying to spare him from an amputation that by all reckoning looks inevitable. So it is that they see descending from his horse the elegant, haughty lieutenant of the carabiniers of the dispatch of Lesaca, Don Augusto Estrada, who this very day will be promoted to the rank of captain and selected to organize the border patrol, in cooperation with the French forces of order. So it is also that at lunchtime they catch wind of the rumor that another rebel has been captured in the forest (this is Abundio Riaño, “El Maño,” laid low by gunfire near border marker 10) and that a carabinier has been transferred to Vera with three bullet wounds of uncertain prognosis. So it is that they see the mayor of Vera, Don Antonio Ollo, constantly entering and leaving City Hall, declining time and again to make any comment. And so it is that in the first hour of the afternoon they observe an automobile passing on the way to the hospital, in which they can spot the long, romantic, blood-soaked mane of Enrique Gil Galar, half-dead, because it seems that the bullet did not merely graze his right temple but lodged behind the ear. And so it is indeed that, as night falls, the journalists return to their homes, ready to write out their piles of scribbled notes and to cook up the chronicles that will fill the pages of the newspapers in the days to come. As long as the state censor gives them permission, of course. But let us not get ahead of the events; let us pick up the story where we left off, with the former typesetter of La Fraternelle looking at the sky, thinking he recognizes the flattened M of Cassiopeia, the M for Martín, as his father used to say.