Evening was coming down. The radio was very loud.
CHAPTER FOUR
Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact, within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands.
—The Communist Manifesto77
The crowds had drawn away; only a few small boys were left, concealed and whistling in the yellow trees. The armed guard stood in front of the station house, speaking to the mayor, whose band of mourning could scarcely be seen on his lapel in the increasing dark. A faint gabble of roosters came from the oblique row of houses.
As soon as the station was deserted, the passengers began to revive. The Catalans gathered their children, and pulled out the long loaves of bread. Even the Englishwoman brightened. Poor Mme. Porcelan, who was so anxious about her husband, stared at the Swiss across from her in the compartment, and wondered if his heavy, pitted head, thrown back against the antimacassar, would ever wake. The Hungarians leapt down from one car suddenly, laughing and cracking jokes, and disappeared into the town.
It was a signal. The whole train, a string of pale faces pressed against the windows of first-class, a scramble of shoulders and heads blocked out in third, assumed vigor. A few Spanish families flocked on the platform, not speaking, moving into the town.
A radio roared a sentence, shocking the train into full attention; and then digressed into a soft tango, the notes played sliding and loose, the jar and ripple of music reassuring everyone.
Helen sat in Peapack’s compartment, tracing the letters in the lace border that repeated M-Z-A-M-Z-A. Peapack’s face, white and still fearful, stirred.
“All right,” she said. “I don’t feel so upset any more. I feel hungry now. Could we eat?”
It was a very good idea.
“Oh, but wait,” said Peapack in alarm, “supposing the train starts to move, and we’re in the town?”
“We’ll be called,” invented Helen.
Peapack was comforted.
“The café is very close.”
The English couple, with their easy walk, was crossing the little square beside the station. The woman with them was shorter than they, who drooped over her slightly. Her dark hair was clawed with gray and fitted to her head, her eyes were deep in shadow. As she spoke, her mouth, russet-colored and startling, moved distinct and separate, drawing attention to itself so that it took a small additional effort to listen to her.
“There is no need,” she was explaining, with a strained note in her voice, as though her throat had been struck and was still ringing. “The Spanish gentleman will call us the moment the engineer says yes.”
“The engineer?” interrupted Helen, just behind them—“Is there any activity? Is the train going to move?”
The woman turned. Her face did move with her smile, brightened as the small white teeth showed. The radio finished its tango in a shiver of high notes, and a wide final chord.
“Nobody knows, if the General Strike is to last a day or indefinitely. But we have a gentleman—a diplomat, a Spaniard—with us, who has gone to speak with the mayor, and to see whether anything can be done—even a cable would be a lot,” she added.
“Weren’t you on the London train? Didn’t we see each other on the Channel?” The fair English girl dropped back to speak to Helen.
Peapack hurried ahead, she snatched at the girl’s husband.
Yes, said the English girl to Helen, they were all going to dinner. They weren’t sure yet where they’d go. The five went up the street to the café.
It was the only place open in Moncada. All down the Calle Mayor, there were boarded-shut doorways and shy children in their corners, chain curtains that tingled under the breeze, pale thin dogs running across the street.
The sidewalk was jammed. The five strangers broke into a file and crocodiled between the tables. Every chair was taken, every table was surrounded with chairs.
The big radio announced its Barcelona stations.
The lady from South America stopped, her hand up. Helen and the English looked at her.
“That’s why everybody’s here,” the lady finally commented. “It’s the radio. That was an order from the government at Barcelona, advising the people to stand by. As long as the radio goes, the government is in power. The Fascists have attacked the radio station several times today. There must have been terrible fighting in town,” she added.
The broadcast had stopped for a moment. There was the click and whine of a victrola being set up in the station, and another dance tune began.
They pushed forward to the marble counter. The lady from South America asked for a table.
“We’ll have to wait forever for the sidewalk,” she relayed the answer, “but we can go inside, immediately.”
The small inner room to the side subdued the radio by putting the wall between them. “This is splendid,” said the Englishman. His collar was open; it was a first concession to necessity. His face was very young and clear, and the long mustache only served to soften it further. “What shall we have?” he asked gaily. “Wine? Would you please ask for wine—you’d like wine, dear, wouldn’t you?” he swung to his wife, gathering the others in his eagerness.
“And bread.”
“And Vichy.”
“Oh, come,” said the lady, scarcely moving her lips, “we’ll have all of that—but something else: spaghetti, or omelettes perhaps?”
They watched the lady as she ordered, as if she were qualifying for some distinguished position. She smiled at them, brilliantly, an actress’s smile.
“You’re not thinking,” she objected, “I’ve lived in South America and Spain for a good part of my life.”
Helen was curious.
“But you’re not Spanish, are you?”
“Both of my parents were English,” the lady answered. “My mother and son are in Geneva, and I’m going home to my sister’s flat in Barcelona—not very rapidly, it’s true.”
The dark wine and soda water were set before them. The soda water was in a bottle tinged blue, as if ink had escaped faintly into the glass. Helen pressed the little handle, and the water hissed into their glasses. They had not known how thirsty they were.
“Here’s to a quick journey,” said the Englishman, his long eyes narrowing with a smile, “although blast it all, I did hope we could get to Palma by tomorrow night.”
“Are you going to Mallorca?” asked Peapack. “I’ve heard Mallorca’s lovely.”
“It’s our first trip—it will be, that is, if we ever get there,” he said. He went on, turning to Helen, “—You were in Cook’s bus in Paris, weren’t you? Of course. Well, Cook put us through, too and their man should have known better. He could have told us—why, I asked whether everything would be perfectly safe, and he said certainly it would—”
“I do think he should have known, don’t you?” asked his wife.
Helen laughed at them. The lady laughed. Peapack looked grave.
“Very well,” continued the Englishman, a little weakly. “When we get to Barcelona I’m going to tell the man at Cook’s a thing or two.”
The omelettes were brought in, the little yellow rolls deliciously streaked with brown, and a long loaf of bread. The waiter set them down, and the lady said something cheerful to him in Spanish. The remark made him look at them all, for the first time. He said to the lady, “There are two gentlemen seated behind you, two brothers, who have walked in from Barcelona.”
“Doesn’t he look like a brute,” whispered the English girl. Helen looked at the table next to theirs. Two men sat facing each other over its small top. The larger of the two had a broad heavy back, turned to them, and when he lifted his head, his furry, close-cut hair took the light. His head came up at every mouthful to face his brother. Smaller, compact, the other man sat eating
steadily, never looking up, baring the plate methodically from rim to rim. His hair fell in shreds, dark and jagged on his forehead, and his upper left sleeve was torn. White cloth showed under the rent, and the arm hung loose.
The lady from South America, opposite Helen, put her hand out gently and touched the shoulder of the large man.
The lady’s head was thrown back at him so that the jawbone stretched the skin white and brittle, and her cheek made one delicate plane away from it. The attitude was suggestive of ritual, the position of the head was very familiar. For a moment Helen could not remember; and then she saw vividly again the beautiful woman in London, the long cheek marbled with one pale vein, turn her head so against her shoulder, to look back and up at the wooden Buddha in its stance of disclosure, bright with its oily gilting.
The two were talking. In a moment the lady turned back. “Yes, she said, breathless, “there’s been a terrible battle in Barcelona today, starting this morning. Over two thousand dead, in the streets of the city, and these men have walked all the way.”
She turned back to hear more.
Behind her, the Americans were entering the restaurant—Peter and Olive, and the two school teachers. Helen said Barcelona noiselessly, with her lips, looking at the little table.
“But who is the man?” the Englishman was asking.
“He says he’s a bus-driver in town,” answered the lady. “Everything is stopped there, in the General Strike, nothing’s running, nothing’s open but the chemists’ shops, and all doctors are on emergency duty.”
“And the battle?” he asked eagerly, half-smiling in excitement.
The man was explaining, friendly, comfortable. He turned so that he could see while she translated, screwing himself around the chair, the creases in his shirt spiraling over his shoulder.
“He says it is impossible to say very accurately, now; but that the government had a smashing victory, starting with the defense of the Telephone Building, and has captured and broken up two rebel troops. They’re completely disorganized—they’ll be escaping through these hills to the frontier—”
“Through here!” Peapack’s face rearranged itself, agitated.
“Of course through here,” retorted the lady in a hard voice. “We’re on the direct route, aren’t we? And they’ve been fighting in the big plazas” she said quietly, as if recollecting—“they always fight in the four big squares. He says the dead, and the horses and mules, have had to be left where they fell.”
The man added something briefly.
The lady from South America told them what he was saying about the United Front. They were strong, everything had been foreseen, all night for two nights men had been meeting, collecting weapons, checking on the African news. The whole of Catalonia, according to the bus-driver, was in the United Front: only the church, the generals and the wealthy had rebelled. “And,” added the lady, “he says everyone is with the Anarchists this time—the Front is really strong.”
The radio yowled suddenly as a record was skidded off. An announcement followed. The lady from South America looked up from her omelette. Her face was taut in fatigue and nausea. The whole restaurant was straining for the sound. The bus-driver’s head pulled up; his brother glanced at him and went on eating.
“What is it? Tell me!” said Peapack frantically.
“Sh—General Goded78—captured, going to speak,” the lady answered under her breath.
There was a blank of silence, and then a harsh, broken voice came through.
“La suerte me ha sido adversa y yo he quedado prisionero. Por lo tanto, si queréis evitar el derramamiento de sangre, los soldados que me acompañábais quedáis libre de todo compromiso.”
A burst of noise poured from the other room, cheering, laughter.
The American table was very excited. Peter rushed over.
The lady drew her eyebrows tight. “How can he?” she said, contemptuously. “He says that he has fallen prisoner, and advises his soldiers to stop fighting, actually. He says to stop the flow of blood, he releases them from their duty. They must have held him to the microphone. A general!” she exclaimed.
Peter said, “My father spoke in that desperate voice all through 1930 . . . ”
The voice had changed.
“Ciudadanos: Sólo unas palabras porque estos momentos lo son de hechos y no de palabras . . .”
“Acts, not words—that’s Companys!” said the waiter, arriving. He stopped at the table, listening.
“. . . Acabáis de oír al general Goded que dirigía la insurrección y que pide se evite el derramamiento de sangre.
“La rebelión ha sido sofocada. La insurrección está dominada. Precisa que todos continuéis a las órdenes del Gobierno de las Generalidad, ateniéndos a las consignas.
“No quiero acabar sin hacer un fervoroso elogio de las fuerzas que con bravura y heroísmo han luchado por la legalidad republicana, apoyando a la autoridad civil. ¡Viva Cataluña! ¡Viva la República!”
They came to their feet in the burst of cheering. “Visca Companys!” they shouted.
“He said, ‘The Rebellion has been suffocated.’ He praises the forces who fought so heroically for the republican regime,” relayed the lady.
The short man looked into his brother’s eyes during the blare of cheering. His nostrils stiffened and pointed.
The radio put on another record. The stammer of machinery done, the words issued, crooning, native, absurd:
Alone, alone with a sky of romance above.
Alone, alone with a heart that was made for love,
There must be someone waiting
Who feels the way I do.
Whoever you are,
are you
are you, alone?
They left the café.
THE WOMAN STUCK her head out of the train window. All the little boys had climbed out of the yellow trees. They had gone off to bed; from the row of houses slanting to the station, their voices still came, moving from window to window. The houses were full of running children. The radio was shouting down at the Worker’s café. But the children stopped, one by one; the radio was turned off. The deep quiet rose from the ground. The train was deadly still.
They all sat in the compartment—Peter, Olive, Helen, the two school teachers who were uneasy, the pockmarked Swiss.
Rising from the ground, following the quiet, a deep roar came, a zoo noise of some sick enormous animal.
They looked at each other in despair and ignorance, the long fearful look of the haunted.
Olive said in extreme disbelief: “Storm, in the mountains . . .” She lit her cigarette with heavy sighing puffs.
It came again, eager and deep. They all knew what it was.
The Belgian woman pulled the compartment door open, slamming it back fiercely in its groove so that it slipped half-shut as she cried out: “The cannons are coming! Don’t you hear them coming nearer?” Her hair was pulled in disorder, her fat soft shoulders rocked.
Helen trembled. The woman stood above her, agitated and moist, pushing at her forehead as if she had gone mad.
The great sound boomed again.
“Oh, God,” said the Belgian woman, pushing at her hair, “somebody come back with me to my compartment. I can’t stand it when they come nearer.” She was appealing to the two school teachers. They did not move. She threw her hand out.
“You babies!” she shouted. “What do you know about guns!”
That pulled them to their feet. The sickly school teacher took the Belgian woman’s shoulder and steered her through the door; the one with the long teeth went out after them.
The sounds came up like giant plants around them, a forest of noise.
Peter lit cigarettes for Helen and himself.
“She has to think it’s coming nearer,” he said.
“She’s Belgian.” He grinned in sick humor, the grin of pain that sick babies show.
“We have to have something to do,” Helen said suddenly. “From the minute they said G
eneral Strike, I’ve been wanting to push through until we could do something.”
“If there were only something close to us, beside the noise,” said Olive. “Why should it be so remote?”
The Swiss in the corner looked sharply at her. He had not said a word. He did not understand at all.
“Well,” said Peter, “if this were a meeting—”
Olive laughed, “It’s manifesto time,” she said,
“OK, Olive.”
“She’s right it is,” said Helen abruptly.
“Yes,” Peter answered, on two slow notes. “From the train to the town—a manifesto. A letter.”
The Swiss began to understand. His slow, kind face churned. “And a collection,” he announced.
The two women were back in the doorway. “Collection?” asked the sickly one. “The Belgian woman went in with the English.”
“Come on in,” said Helen. “Come help us. We’ll take a letter through the train, to tell the town we’re with them.”
“It isn’t true,” Peter contradicted. “The train’s not.”
“We have to do this well,” said Olive. She found a sheet of paper. The Swiss leaned forward.
“We’ll compose,” he said. “Write: ‘The passengers of the train standing in the Moncada—’”
Olive looked out of the window for the spelling. The station sign was directly outside their window, half buried in leaves, lit by a raw white light.
“‘—wish to thank the citizens of the town for the courteous treatment they have received—’”
“No. ‘Treatment received during their stay at the station.’ You can’t tell how long we’ll be here.”
Helen and Olive looked at each other, startled.
“‘—and to express our sympathy—’”
“We can’t,” said the Swiss.
“We’re foreign nationals,” explained Peter. “It was like that in Paris on July fourteenth. The government asked all foreigners who wanted to march to mingle with the demonstration, and not to go as foreign nationals. Can’t, in a revolutionary situation . . . Incorrect.”
“To express our understanding of the hardships of the people’s cause, and to present this, this—”
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