“Francisco, it’s getting too dangerous,” Mom whispered. “We have to get the children out of Madrid.”
“But the war can’t go on much longer. The fascists have hardly advanced, and we’re holding the fronts. Largo Caballero says the tanks from Russia are coming any day now. Plus, we’ll have new airplanes to stop the German attacks.”
My mother shook her head. “I don’t believe Largo Caballero. We’ve known him since we were kids, and we both know he lies through his teeth. We don’t have a proper army. The militiamen are brave, but wars aren’t won with volunteers.”
My father glanced at the tables around us. What my mother had just said about the war could get us in trouble. A few weeks prior, groups of militiamen had started hunting down traitors in the capital and taking them “on a little walk.” It was known they were being executed, a practice becoming more and more indiscriminate.
“Any negative comment could be construed as treason,” my father warned.
“I know. Since that load of fascists was massacred at Modelo prison, the political commissioners aren’t letting even one woman sneak by,” Mom said.
“That was for the bombing of Argüelles and in retaliation for the fascists’ killing spree in Badajoz.”
“No, it was because the government doesn’t have control. Prieto was horrified by the massacre at the jail, and so was Manuel Azaña, but the communists and Largo Caballero know how this increases their power. It’s the heyday of the radicals. This war won’t be over until they exterminate anyone who disagrees.”
My father frowned. “What are you saying?”
“Well, that if our own people don’t kill us, the opposing party will. There’s no place for moderates, and—”
“I’ve been in the party since I was fourteen.”
My mother rolled her eyes. My father’s innocence drove her crazy, but in that moment one thing was clear to me: Mom would get us out of Madrid the very first chance she got. My sisters were still slurping their juice, and a light rain had begun to fall. The monotonous silence of the street was interrupted when what started as a murmur gradually grew into the clamor of a thousand voices.
“Look, the International Brigades have come!” my father said, beaming.
“There won’t be enough shrouds to go around,” my mother said, lighting a cigarette and looking out the window at the idealistic young men that had left their countries for the Republic. Her admiration for them was soaked in pity.
They seemed so young and determined, and I was jealous. Right then growing up seemed to mean getting my hands on a gun and killing the fascists. Only later did I understand that maturity means protecting your own and holding their hands until you discover safety.
Chapter 6
My Friends Aren’t Going to Heaven
Madrid
November 18, 1936
Humans are beings that suffer. This may not seem like a very optimistic definition, but as soon as we come into this world until our inevitable departures, pain is a significant part of life. War is a grand cause of this terrible suffering. Besides death, hunger, fear, and the wounds opened in the hearts of those who endure it, war brings out the worst of humanity and dehumanizes us to the point of monstrousness.
Five months into the war, we had grown used to the routine of emergency alarms telling us to seek bomb shelters and the concerning food rations. No one failed to notice that the government had moved its headquarters to Valencia, which led to widespread fear that Madrid could not hold out much longer against the fascists. The traitors of the Republic pressed in from south and west of the capital. They had taken Navalcarnero, Illescas, and Alcorcón, and in the north were approaching from Casa de Campo and University City. The war was no longer miles away from the capital but on the outskirts. We could get there on a trolley and be back by lunchtime.
A few days before, the fascists had bombed the Prado Museum and the National Library. My father, who had changed regiments, could no longer abide the indiscriminate executions that included everyone the militiamen considered suspect. He had managed an assignment defending the Prado, and I often joined him so we could spend some time together. The war meant he rarely had time with us at home, and we all missed him terribly. That afternoon the fallout from the museum bombings was still evident and painful. Part of the building’s roof was on fire, though somehow none of the paintings had been critically damaged.
We were sitting in one of the museum’s halls sharing a bite to eat. Despite the war, the museum continued receiving visitors, though many of them came to see the art with their rifles at the ready.
As we sat in front of a painting called The Garden of Earthly Delights, one of my dad’s favorites, we ate our sandwiches slowly. The bread was very bad, all black and splotched with heaven knows what, but at least we had something to chew. Everyone was nervous about the winter to come. There was no coal to be had, and it was harder and harder to find the basics for life.
“Marquitos, don’t forget: When museums become targets of war, take it as a sign that civilization is ready to disappear. Same thing goes for ransacked churches. This is why I detest ignorance. It’s much more dangerous than fascism.”
“Maybe they bombed it by accident?” I suggested innocently.
“And was the National Library an accident also? Do you know what the rebel factions fear most about the Republic?”
I shook my head.
He continued, “What they fear most is culture, that people know things. Of course they know that people can read and write and do math. What I mean is, they’re afraid of people thinking for themselves. Though, to be frank, I’ve heard something similar is happening in Russia.”
His words took me by surprise. Until recent years he had been an ardent admirer of Lenin and always talked about how Spain needed a revolution like Russia’s of 1917. In a way, their revolution was the model that the left in Europe was following.
“The proletariat revolution is liberation,” I answered. It’s what I’d learned at school. Anywhere I looked I saw Soviet symbols, and people said that for the twentieth anniversary of the revolution a monument to Stalin would be erected in Puerta de Alcalá.
My father didn’t answer. He just took another bite and then a swallow of wine.
“What do you think of that painting?” he said, pointing to the wooden panels of the triptych.
“I don’t know. It’s weird,” I said. I knew he loved teaching me things and loved how I would eat up his lessons.
“It is a strange piece. One time the poet Rafael Alberti explained it to me.” I knew my father had been friends with the poet, though it had been some time since they’d seen each other. “He told me that Bosch, the Dutchman who painted the work, unlike most artists, tried to express what was inside a man’s heart, not what could be perceived with the human eye. This is how we really are: vengeful, prideful, insatiable.”
“So then what good is utopia?” I asked, somewhat fearful of his answer. I had heard him talk hundreds of times about the need to believe in and fight for utopia.
Dad was thoughtful, as if he had wondered the same and still had not settled the matter. “You ask hard questions. Your mother has always said your mind is an anomaly. But anyway, utopia is the perfect society: a just society, in peace, that strives for the common good—”
“But it doesn’t exist.”
“No, utopia is always our goal, our objective. And the closer we get to it, the further away it inevitably moves. That’s why we always have the sensation of dissatisfaction. We move a few steps forward, and utopia retreats as if hoping to escape our small, selfish desires. The moment we make utopia fit our plans and schemes, it disappears. It never serves individualistic interests because there’s always something to improve, something else to fight for.” His gaze now bore into mine as he spoke. His own eyes, worn-out and tired from so much pain and suffering, held melancholy.
“But if we can never reach it, what good does it do?”
“True, we’
ll never reach it, but that’s exactly what it’s good for—to push us forward so we don’t lose hope.”
That I could not understand my father’s words was my only surety. After a few more minutes, we stood up and went to look at The Surrender of Breda.
“Look at the battle, all those spears, the governor handing the keys to the city over to the enemy army,” my father said. “Velázquez is trying to show us that war has a meaning, a point . . . that everything boils down to victory and defeat, but at the core that’s a big lie. So many times what we do doesn’t end up bringing us happiness. But the paradox is that if we sit here twiddling our thumbs, we’ll never reach the perfect world, that utopia, we long for. Each generation believes it’s destined to change the world. It’s fallen to our generation to keep fascism from subjugating us, but without even realizing it, we’ve turned into destroyers.”
I stared at him, hypnotized. He was giving me a lesson I would never forget, but I could barely understand it at the time. His words were seeds that would take years to bear fruit.
“I’ve learned a lot over the past few months,” he went on. “I’d been taught that individualism was a bourgeois principle, that a man is only truly human when he’s among the masses. I thought war was the end of loneliness, that by joining my comrades against a common enemy and with a single purpose all the loneliness would dissipate like fog. Instead, war has made me feel new depths of loneliness. The one thing I know for sure is that if I have to choose a side, I can’t be allied with those who write history from their offices or studying a map. My place is with those who suffer, who endure history. But sometimes your enemies are enduring and suffering as well. Everyone’s shouting for liberty now, but if there’s no justice, liberty has failed.”
“Who are our enemies? The fascists, then?” I asked, dizzy with confusion.
“When I was younger, I was told we would have to kill in order to create a world in which nobody would kill anybody else. It’s not true.” Tears formed in my father’s eyes as he spoke. “For every free man who dies in this war, five slaves will be born. The world will lose hope, lose its utopia.”
We trudged out of the building with low spirits. It was dusk, but the streetlamps were dark to make it harder for the fascist bomber planes to see their targets.
Then we heard the roar of the bombers. The alarm rang out, and we ran to the metro, though my father was apathetic about the whole thing, as if death were the only gift a desperate man could hope for. As we descended the stairs, surrounded by the crowd, the bombs began to whistle overhead. Then the explosions shook the ground, making us feel insignificant and small.
We stayed underground in the dark for almost an hour, listening to the cries and groans of the crowd that jostled and pressed in from all sides. The dust falling from the ceiling choked us as we struggled to breathe, but no one talked, until one girl began to sing:
Through Casa de Campo,
little mama,
and over the Manzanares River,
the Manzanares River,
the Moors want to pass,
little mama,
but they shall not pass,
but they shall not pass,
Madrid, how well you resist,
little mama,
the bombings,
the bombings!
The citizens of Madrid,
the citizens of Madrid,
little mama,
laugh in the face of the bombs.
The song had a calming effect on the crowd. When we returned up to street level, the courage the song had given us was enough to face the fires resulting from the bombing and the stench of death. My father and I had walked less than a mile when we passed my school. There were no classes at that hour, but a group of boys played ball and girls always skipped rope in the front yard. Smoke rose from inside the main building, and a few trees were burning like torches illuminating the dark city. We heard the strangled cries of women before we saw anything more. And as we drew close to the fence, what I saw reminded me of Bosch’s inferno: amputated limbs, destroyed bodies, mothers clinging to what remained of their children. My father ordered me to look away, but the images were seared into my soul forever.
“Dad!” I cried out, clutching his arm. It was all I could say. If I hadn’t joined him that afternoon on his watch in the museum, I would’ve been there, playing with my friends in the schoolyard.
He had no words either. We walked, downcast, back to our apartment—relieved and grateful to have survived, but also full of guilt. Nothing is more absurd than death or more terrible than war. From that day on, I understood that the most important thing we do every day is to fight to live, even though life may be unbearable.
Chapter 7
My Grandparents and the Trip to San Martín de la Vega
Madrid
November 25, 1936
Hate is the fuel of war, and the two sides must continue to feed it. The local newspapers focused on the atrocities of the enemy but hid our own. Attacks, rapes, robbery, and death were the daily fare of the papers and radio broadcasts. I didn’t have to work hard to learn to hate. That autumn we had no time for tears, only enough time to despise the enemy and wait for revenge. The city was under siege on the west and part of the south, but the northern limits were also pressed. The citizens of Madrid were under no illusions. From Valencia, the government kept sending instructions, but the government officials were not there with us in the city holding out against the siege.
My mother had decided we children should go to her parents’ house in San Martín de la Vega, a town along the Jarama River. It wasn’t much safer than Madrid, but she hoped that at least there would be fewer bombings and a bit more to eat. Her parents always kept a well-stocked pantry, as well as a half-dozen hens, some rabbits, and a cow—all of which provided most of what they needed. This trip was the cause of a heated argument between my parents. I had never seen them so angry with each other. The emotions of war were affecting their nerves.
Escaping the city was not easy, especially in the direction of Valencia. There were no trains and hardly any buses. The only vehicles that continued to circulate were delivery trucks and those transporting troops, but my mother, who knew plenty of people in government headquarters, managed to convince an old friend of my father’s to take us in his truck. The four of us sat in the back while the driver sat up front with an armed escort in case we were assaulted on the road. Pillaging and rape were constants in those days when nothing was safe.
“What is it, Marco? You’ve been so sad lately. Are you still thinking about what happened to your schoolmates?”
I shook my head, though Mom knew very well that their murder had infuriated me. A few days afterward, I had tried to enlist in the army, but my parents wouldn’t allow it.
“You want to go to the front to kill the fascists? You think that’ll make you feel better? That’s like swallowing poison and hoping it’ll kill your enemy,” she prodded.
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t understand her attitude. The fascists deserved a horrible demise, just like what they’d given my friends.
“You think I don’t hate? Yes, son, sometimes hatred slips into our souls and corrodes them from within. But you know what I do? When I find hatred inside me, I try to defeat it with the invincible love you three give me. Women are capable of producing life. Men seem only good at destroying it.”
“I don’t want to love those people,” I spat out, furious.
“I’m not asking you to love them. I’m just begging you to not let the hate overcome the love you hold in your heart. In the midst of all the tears and suffering, I’ve discovered an indestructible joy inside myself. War has led to the greatest disorder of all, robbing us of the life we had. But inside I possess a peace that no one can take away from me. This cold winter will pass, spring will come, and that makes me happy. I want you to learn something.”
“What, Mom?” I was paying more attention now. Her words were clearly com
ing from a heart of pure love.
“It doesn’t matter how hard life pushes. The love I have for you—the love you must store up so hate won’t control you—will be stronger than anything that ever comes against you. When I go back to Madrid, you’ll have to take care of your sisters. You’ll be alone, but my heart will stay with you. What are you going to teach them? The strength of hate or the power of love?”
“I’ll try my best,” I said, unconvinced. But she knew I really would try. No one in the world knew me like my mother.
“Marco, darling, when your heart gets used to suffering, you forge a very deep connection with tragedy. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. You’re a very fortunate child.”
The trip was too short. Once we arrived in town, the truck took us to my grandparents’ house on the outskirts. The small farm seemed older and more run-down than on our last visit. I remembered swimming in the river, and the smell of oranges sprinkled with sugar—the way my grandmother would fix them for me.
Benito and Sara, my grandparents, stood in the door to receive us as soon as they heard us pull up. My mother looked so much like my grandmother, though her face was both more lucid and sadder. Grandma and Grandpa smothered us in hugs and kisses. We went in and sat down in the warm living room. The heating element my grandparents used, called a gloria, had always captured my imagination: they kept a fire going in a cavity beneath the floor, and the heat was pumped throughout the house through pipes. For a moment I forgot about the war and ran around rediscovering the farm with my sisters, life once more a game.
* * *
The time spent in San Martín de la Vega was no country holiday. On the contrary, it felt like exile to me—the first taste of orphanhood, which would follow me the rest of my life. I had to care for my younger sisters and help them stay calm and show them they could trust me. None of us had ever been away from our parents. We had always been a very tight-knit family and spent most of our time together. The war hadn’t managed to ruin our ability to enjoy life and each other, and we were lucky enough that all five of us were still alive. I could understand why Mom wanted us to be farther from the bombings and the dangers that stalked us in the city, but I doubted we would be much safer in the country.
Remember Me Page 4
