The Man Who Loved Dogs

by Leonardo Padura

  “You met Caridad,” Ramón said, who at some point in the conversation had ceased to be Jacques Mornard.

  “She was a different woman. She was seven years older than me, but even when she denied it, had a fit, rolled around on the ground, you could see she had class. I liked her and we began to have a relationship.”

  “That still continues.”

  “Uh-huh. At that time, she was a little lost, although she sympathized with Maurice Thorez’s Communists. And I was working with them . . .”

  “Did she join the party because of you?”

  “She would have joined anyway. Caridad needed to change her life; she was screaming out for an ideology to center her.”

  “Is Caridad a collaborator or does she work with you?”

  “She started collaborating with us in 1930, but she became part of the staff in 1934 and did her first work in Asturias, during the miners’ uprising . . . That will clarify many things about her that perhaps you didn’t understand before.”

  The young man nodded, trying to place certain memories of Caridad’s actions.

  “That’s why she returned to Spain when the Popular Front won. And that’s why she’s here, in Paris. Or is it because she’s your lover?”

  “In Spain she worked for us, and now she’s here because she will be very useful in this operation and because things there are going from bad to worse . . . The Republic is falling to pieces. In a few days, Negrín is going to propose the exit of the International Brigades. He still believes that Great Britain and France can support them, and that with that support they can even win the war. But Great Britain and France are shaking with fear and are courting Hitler and aren’t going to bet a dime on you. Forgive me for bringing the subject up, but I should tell you so you don’t have any illusions. The war is lost. They’re never going to manage to resist until a European war starts, as Negrín wants.”

  “And you’re not going to give them any more help?”

  “It’s no longer a question of weapons, although we don’t have enough to just go around wasting them. All of Europe is going to deny them everything, even water. And within the Republic, morale is fucked. When Franco decides to take on Barcelona, it’s all over . . .”

  Ramón perceived the sincerity of Tom’s words. But he refused to give him the pleasure of getting scolded for talking about the fate of his country. He felt how his usual fury gripped him and he preferred to move on to something else.

  “You have a wife in Moscow, right?”

  Tom smiled.

  “Not one, two . . .”

  “So you picked me because I’m one of Caridad’s sons?”

  The adviser was quiet for a few seconds.

  “Would you believe me if I said no? . . . Ever since I saw you the first time, I knew you were someone special. I’ve been watching you for years . . . And I always had a hunch about you. That’s why, when Orlov received the order that we should look for Spaniards suitable for working in secret missions, I immediately thought that you were the best candidate. But something warned me that I shouldn’t discuss you with Orlov or the others. Now I know why. You’re too valuable to be put in just anyone’s hands . . .”

  Ramón didn’t know whether he should feel flattered or offended at having been chosen like a stud. Besides, despite what the man said, Caridad’s shadow kept lurking in the background of that story. But the possibility of being at the epicenter of a great event based on his own merits gave him a burning satisfaction.

  “If you can, tell me something else, just to know . . .”

  “The less you know, the better.”

  “So, well . . . are you ever going to tell me your real name?”

  Tom smiled and finished swallowing one of the meat pies served as appetizers and drank more vodka, staring at the young man.

  “What’s a name, Jacques? Or are you Ramón now? Those dogs you like so much have names. So what? They’re still dogs. Yesterday I was Grigoriev, before I was Kotov, now I’m Tom here and Roberts in New York. Do you know what they call me in the Lubyanka? . . . Leonid Alexandrovich. I gave myself that name so they wouldn’t know mine, because they were going to notice that I’m Jewish, and many people in Russia don’t like us Jews . . . I am the same and I am different each moment. I am all of them and I am none of them, because I’m just one more person, so very small, in the fight for a dream. A person and a name are nothing . . . Look, there’s something very important they taught me when I had just entered the Cheka: a man can be relegated, substituted. The individual is not an unrepeatable unit but rather a concept that is added to and makes up a mass that is real. But man as an individual isn’t sacred and, as such, is expendable. That’s why we’ve charged against all religions, especially Christianity, that state that foolishness about man being made in the likeness of God. That allows us to be ruthless, to let go of the compassion that gives way to pity: the worst sin doesn’t exist. Do you know what that means? . . . It’s better that neither you nor I have a real name and that we forget we ever had one. Ivan, Fyodor, Leonid? It’s all the same shit; it’s nothing. Nomina odiosa sunt. The dream is what matters, not the man, and even less the name. No one is important; we’re all expendable . . . And if you end up touching revolutionary glory, you’ll do so without having a real name. Perhaps you will never have one. But you will be a formidable part of the greatest dream humanity has ever had.” And, raising his cup of vodka, he toasted, “Here’s to the nameless ones!”

  As soon as he opened the door, he had the feeling that something terrible had happened. He thought of young Luis; that an order was canceling the operation or Jacques Mornard’s existence. It had been six months since he had seen her and he had enjoyed that distance. All he felt was relief when Caridad smiled at him as if they had sat down for dinner together the night before. She placed a cigarette at the edge of her mouth as she observed his naked and recently showered torso.

  “Malaguanyada bellesa!” she said in Catalan as she caressed her son’s nipple and walked into the apartment.

  Ramón couldn’t help getting goose bumps and, with all the delicacy allowed by his anger and his weakness, he moved Caridad’s warm hand away.

  “What are you doing here? Didn’t we decide that no—” Without thinking about it, he had also spoken in Catalan.

  “He sent me. I know better than you what can and can’t be done.”

  Caridad had changed in the months that had passed since their only meeting in Paris. It was as if she had gone back in time and buried the holster-wearing Republican combatant who had walked around Barcelona and who she still dragged along despite the tight clothing and the crocodile-skin shoes. She now dressed with the elegant informality of a bohemian woman; her hair was lighter and the waves were distinct; she wore makeup on her face, her nails were long, and she smelled like expensive perfume. She exerted control over high-heeled shoes and even smoked with different movements. It was possible for Jacques to see in Caridad the last remains of the Caridad Ramón had known many years before, before the fall that led to her depression and suicide attempt.

  “How’s it going with your Trotskyist lizard?” she continued in Catalan as she took off the silk foulard covering her neck and shoulders. With measured movements she settled into one of the leather armchairs, in front of the window through which one could see the already ocher-colored tops of boulevard Raspail’s trees.

  “As it should,” he said, and went to his room in search of a satin robe.

  “Make some coffee, please.”

  Without answering, he went to the kitchen to prepare it.

  “What does Tom want?” he asked from the kitchen.

  “Tom has to stay in Spain, so he sent me . . .”

  “And what’s the matter with George?”

  “He’s in Moscow.”

  “Did Yezhov send for him?” Ramón looked into the living room and saw Caridad with a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other, her gaze fixed on the window as if she were addressing the panes.
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  “Yezhov isn’t going to send for anyone anymore. They’ve taken him out of the game. Now Beria is in charge.”

  “When did that happen?” Ramón took one step into the living room, his attention divided between the brewing coffee and what Caridad was telling him.

  “A week ago. Tom asked me to come and tell you, because things could go into motion at any moment. As soon as Beria cleans up Yezhov’s shit and Comrade Stalin gives the order, we’ll go into action. When Mink comes back, we’ll know more . . .”

  Ramón felt his muscles tense. It was the best news he could have received.

  “Have they told you anything about Orlov?”

  “He’s in Washington, singing like a canary. He still presents a threat to many projects, but not for ours. In the end, it wasn’t because of him that we took the other comrades out of Mexico who were already there.”

  “The Spaniards?”

  Caridad lit her cigarette before responding.

  “Yes. With Yezhov, almost the entire New York and Mexican networks went down. A disaster . . .”

  Ramón Mercader tried to place himself in the new puzzle of betrayals, desertions, purges, and real or fictitious dangers and, as tended to happen to him, he felt lost. The ultimate reasons for Moscow’s decisions were too intricate, and perhaps not even Tom himself could know all of the complexities of those witch hunts. He just reaffirmed the necessity to himself, often repeated by Tom, of discretion as the best immunization to guard himself against betrayals. But in the welter of tensions at play, he noticed more clearly what his mentor had considered to be the value of his actions. It was a contradictory feeling, of fear at the responsibility and joy over knowing he was closer to the great mission. He took the coffee off the flame and started to serve it.

  “What about Tom? Will he stay in Spain?” he asked in French.

  “Yes, for now.” She continued to speak in Catalan. “There’s not much to do there, but he has to stay until the end. Negrín is fighting with him, but he can’t live without him . . . the Republican army keeps sliding back. Spain is lost, Ramón.”

  “Don’t say that to me, goddammit!” he yelled, again in French, and the coffee spilled on one of the small plates. “And don’t speak to me in Catalan!”

  Caridad didn’t flinch and he waited to calm down. He didn’t know if it was the news of Spain or the uncertainty this added to Luis’s fate—weeks before he had crossed the border to join the Republican army—or simply his mother’s malevolent insistence on stirring up the past and poking at the cracks in Jacques Mornard’s identity. He finished serving the coffee and entered the living room carrying the cups on a tray. He sat down in front of her, taking care that his robe not open.

  “What does Tom think will happen?”

  “Franco’s troops are going for Catalonia,” she answered, now in Spanish. “And he thinks they’re not going to be able to stop them. Ever since these French faggots and those shitty Brits signed that pact with Hitler and Mussolini, not only did Czechoslovakia get fucked but we also got fucked: no one can help us anymore . . . Estem ben fotuts, noi. T’asseguro que estem ben fotuts . . .”

  “So what are the Soviets going to do?”

  “They can’t do anything. If they meddle in Spain, a war will start that would be the end of the Soviet Union . . .”

  Ramón listened to Caridad’s argument. In some way he agreed with her, but it was painful for him to confirm that the Soviets were withdrawing as Hitler swallowed up Czechoslovakia and gave Franco more and more support. Perhaps the Soviet tactic of allowing the sacrifice of the Republic was the only possible one, but it was still cruel. The party, at least, had accepted it, and La Pasionaria herself said that if the Republic had to be lost, it would be lost: they could not compromise the fate of the USSR, the great homeland of communism . . . But what was going to happen to those men, Communists or mere Republicans, who had fought, obeyed, and believed for two and a half years for nothing? Would they be left at the mercy of the pro-Franco forces? Where could young Luis be fighting right now? Ramón preferred not to ask his questions out loud. He observed how Caridad finished her coffee and returned it to the tray. Then he leaned over and tasted his. It had gone cold.

  “Tom doesn’t want me to talk about Spain. Jacques isn’t interested in Spain.” He tried to pull himself together.

  “Jacques reads the papers, doesn’t he? What’s he going to say when his Trotskyist girlfriend tells him that Stalin is going to make a pact with Hitler, as well as with the French and the English? Because that’s what that renegade louse is writing in that fucking bulletin of his.”

  “Jacques would tell her the same thing: Change the subject; that’s not his problem.”

  Caridad looked at him with that green and piercing intensity that he had always feared so much.

  “Be careful. That woman is a fanatic, and Trotsky is her god.”

  Jacques smiled. He had a card up his sleeve to defeat Caridad.

  “You’re mistaken. I’m her god, and Trotsky, if anything, is her prophet.”

  “You’ve become sarcastic and subtle, kid,” she said, smiling.

  Caridad stood up and started to place the foulard over her shoulders. Ramón was pulled between wanting her to stay and wanting her to go. Speaking in Catalan again had been like visiting a closed-off region of himself that he hadn’t wanted to enter but, once inside, provoked a sense of comfortable belonging. Besides, he knew she was in touch with Montse and, above all, with young Luis, and perhaps even knew something about África. But now was the least appropriate time to roll over before her and show his weaknesses. It was the first time that he had felt truly superior to her and he didn’t want to squander the feeling.

  Caridad’s visit left him full of expectations regarding the orders that could come from Moscow, but also the bitter taste of the fate of the Republic that, as much as he tried, Jacques Mornard could not remove from the mind of Ramón Mercader. Because of that, on that early December afternoon, he had to call on all his discipline to bury Ramón’s passions deep inside himself when Sylvia asked him to accompany her to see some U.S. comrades who had fought in Spain, members of the international troops evacuated by the government of the Republic, who were now in Paris.

  “What do I have to do with those people?” he asked, making clear his annoyance at the proposal.

  Sylvia, surprised and perhaps even offended, tried to convince him.

  “Those people were fighting against fascism, Jacques. Although there are many beliefs I don’t share with them, I respect them and I admire them. The majority of them didn’t even know how to march when they went to Spain, but they’ve been able to fight for all of us.”

  “I didn’t ask them to fight for me,” he managed to say.

  “They didn’t ask you, either. But they know that many things are decided in Spain, that the rise of fascism is a problem for everyone, you included.”

  Winter had come quickly and the air was sharp. Jacques took her by the arm and made her enter a café. They sat down at a table to the side, and before the waiter could approach them, Jacques shouted:

  “Two coffees!” He focused on Sylvia. “What did we agree?”

  The girl took off her glasses, steamed up by the change in temperature, and rubbed the lenses with the edge of her skirt. At that moment Jacques realized he was afraid of himself. How could she be so ugly, so stupid, so much of an imbecile as to tell him who was fighting for what? How long could he stand to be next to a being who disgusted him?

  “I’m sorry, my love. I didn’t mean to—”

  “It doesn’t seem like it.”

  “It’s just that it really is important. In Spain, a lot is decided and Stalin is again letting Hitler and the fascists get their way. Stalin never wanted or allowed the Spaniards to make the revolution that would have saved them and . . .”

  “What are you talking about?” Jacques asked, and he immediately understood that he had made a mistake.

  Jacques simply couldn’
t care what Sylvia was talking about and he made himself regain his control. Neither those loathsome accusations nor Sylvia Ageloff’s ugliness would get the best of him. They were served their coffee and the break helped him regain his composure.

  “Sylvia, if you want, go see those saviors of humanity and talk to them about Stalin and your beloved Trotsky. You have every right to. But don’t involve me in it. I’m just not interested. Can you understand that for once, dammit?”

  The woman shrunk into herself and sank into a long silence; finally she took a sip of coffee. Two months before, Sylvia’s insistence on talking about politics had caused the couple’s first serious argument. That afternoon, Jacques had accompanied her to the villa of the Trotskyist Alfred Rosmer, in Périgny, so the girl could serve as the secretary at the meeting that, according to Sylvia herself, had signified the abortion rather than the birth of the Trotskyist International. As they were returning to Paris, after castigating her and making her promise she wouldn’t speak of those matters again, Jacques took advantage of the situation to try to make her give up her return trip to New York at the beginning of the new school year and to drop the hint—as if he were placing a noose around Sylvia’s neck—that they should be formally engaged. But political passion was once again betraying Sylvia, who, fearful of her lover’s reaction, murmured: