Barcelona Sunset

by Jeremy D. Rowe

  Daily, Jordi would return from the city with news of more teams, and he was very excited the day Barcelona received news of a team of Jewish exiles, athletes who had been forced to flee their homelands. With the new autonomy of Spanish regions, there was great pride in the teams representing Galicia and the Basque country, and of course Catalonia rapidly put together its own team, with Josep Sunyol offering training facilities at the city’s football ground.

  Lluis Companys called a meeting of journalists when he received particularly exciting news: he’d received a letter from Joseph Stalin himself. The Soviet Union had already announced its boycott of the Berlin Olympiad, and at the last minute threw its support behind Barcelona’s endeavour. All was set to stage a huge snub to Senor Hitler.

  With less than a week to go before the opening ceremony, athletes began to arrive in Barcelona. Mostly the European athletes and their excited followers, arrived via Franca Station, and Jordi was among the posse of journalists who welcomed them at the station and helped them find transport to Montjuic and makeshift accommodation.

  Jordi was astonished by the huge number of French workers arriving in the city to watch the games. He was told that about ten thousand had come by train from cities like Perpignan, following the unexpected granting of two weeks’ holiday for all French workers, as celebration of the anti-Nazi Olympiad. “We’re becoming a city that attracts tourists,” he thought.

  Jordi continued to send optimistic reports to London, extolling the virtues of the huge stadium, now enlarged and finished, standing proudly on Montjuic. Ferrer brought news, that the expected athletes, and their supporters, would far outnumber the hotel rooms set aside for them. A total of six thousand athletes were due to arrive. Several large hotels had been built near to Jordi’s apartment for the International Exhibition, but they were full of visitors who had arrived to watch the games. As the schools were on summer holiday, classrooms became dormitories, and camp beds provided by the army were erected by a team of volunteers including Jordi, who used the experience as the basis of yet another enthusiastic column.

  In addition to the usual sporting events, the People’s Olympiad would feature chess, folk dancing, theatre and music. Entertainment for the athletes and the thousands of spectators would be provided by demonstrations of “castells”, the human towers of Catalonia.

  It seemed that everything was ready for the grand opening of the People’s Olympiad on Sunday 19th July, 1936. The evening before, Jordi took Laura to the Theatre Grec to watch a rehearsal for part of the opening ceremony. The famous cellist and conductor Pau Casals was rehearsing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which would be performed. The famous chorus was to be sung in Catalan. Suddenly a messenger arrived from Lluis Companys, interrupting the rehearsal. Jordi and Laura watched as the messenger and Casals had a prolonged and anxious conversation. The orchestra and chorus watched and waited in silence.

  Casals turned to the assembled musicians, and in a state of considerable shock, read the note which the messenger had given him, announcing that the scheduled performance had been cancelled, and that everyone should leave the theatre immediately. Everyone gasped. Casals continued, “Our President tells us that a military coup is imminent.” He paused and looked around. “You may leave immediately, but if you prefer to stay, we will perform the final movement of the symphony as a way of bidding each other farewell. Perhaps we will never play together again.”

  There was a silence. No-one moved. The entire orchestra and chorus chose to stay. Casals could hardly read the score for the tears of grief, as the choir sang the great Ode to Joy. Jordi and Laura clung together. Taking the black cat from his pocket, he placed it in Laura’s hand, and then closed his hand over her’s. They were moved to tears hearing Schiller’s words in their own Catalan.

  In the sad silence which followed the final chords, members of the orchestra embraced and packed up their instruments. The choir shook hands, and dispersed. As they hurried down the hill, streets were already being blockaded with barricades in preparation for what was to come.

  Laura stopped halfway down the hill, and turned to Jordi. “Are we at war?”

  Jordi looked lovingly at his young wife. “I suppose so. It doesn’t seem real.”

  They got home to find Ferrer and Alvar waiting for them. “What’s happening?” said Ferrer.

  “I don’t know,” said Jordi. “There are rumours of fighting in Madrid. Apparently even the police have been fighting one another in our capital city. But I don’t know what’s happening here. Is this some kind of anarchist chaos, designed to disrupt the games? Please stay here with Laura, and I will go to the Generalitat. As soon as I have news, I’ll be back. I’ll need to send word to London.”

  “Take care, my love,” said Laura, and Jordi ran down the stairs.

  Setting off along the darkened Gran Via, Jordi bumped into Josep Sunyol. “Thank God, a familiar face,” said Jordi. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ve no more idea than you,” replied Josep. “Listening to the radio, I hear word of a military uprising in Morocco, and there are rumours of fighting in Salamanca and Navarre.”

  Suddenly a group of soldiers appeared from nowhere, rifles at the ready.

  “Stay where you are,” instructed one of the group. Jordi and Josep froze on the spot.

  “What’s happening?” said Jordi nervously.

  “What has happened,” said the soldier calmly, “is that the army has had enough of this communist nonsense. General Franco has started a rebellion in Morocco, and the army throughout Spain is in open rebellion in support of him.”

  “We are unarmed, and want no trouble,” said Josep.

  “We are both journalists,” said Jordi.

  “And I am a newly elected member of the Spanish parliament,” said Josep.

  “Not communists?”

  “No,” replied Josep, discovering an ability to lie brazenly when necessary. Jordi nodded in agreement, unable to speak.

  “On your way, then,” said the soldier.

  Once out of the soldier’s hearing, Jordi said, “I still don’t understand.”

  “Nor I,” replied Josep.

  The two journalists were stopped several more times by small groups of soldiers who seemed to be wandering the streets, fully armed, but unsure what to do. Each time they were stopped, they were in fear for their lives, but in the early hours of the morning, they got safely to the Generalitat. The building seemed to be suspiciously empty, and a lone guard told them that Lluis Companys had moved for safety to the main police station on Via Laietana. At the police station they were directed up the stairs to Companys’s temporary office. A number of other journalists were there, together with several members of the city council. The President was sitting at his desk, with his head in his hands. He looked up.

  “I’m sorry, friends,” he said. “I knew about the troubles in other parts of Spain, but I did not dream we would be dragged into this … violence and fighting. It seems that General Franco, who was in the Canary Islands, was flown by the British to Morocco, where he declared war on the socialist governments in Spain. He has called upon the army to back him, and everywhere they are heeding the call. With much regret, I have to announce that we are in a state of war, civil war.”

  Hardly had he spoken, but there was a prolonged burst of gunfire. A moment later, and footsteps clattered up the stairs.

  “They’ve opened fire on Placa Catalunya.” shouted the breathless messenger. “There are many soldiers, some on horses, but they’re outnumbered by ordinary local people who seem to be well armed.”

  Another racket of footsteps on the stairs brought another messenger. “The army are in retreat. The people have killed many of them and are driving the rest back into buildings. There’s a whole lot in the Hotel Colon.”

  “The world must know what’s happening,” said Companys. “Those of you who are journalists, and I recognise many of you, must send reports as soon as you can.”

  Jordi turned to Josep and
spoke quietly. “Let’s see what’s happened in Catalunya. That will tell us how serious this is.”

  Dawn was breaking as they got near to Catalunya. Keeping in the shadows of Portal de l’Angel, they could hear the rattle of a machine gun. They approached the grand Placa anxiously. “By the Virgin,” said Jordi, “Look at that.”

  Dead horses and soldiers lay on the ground, and many civilians, mostly wearing worker’s blue, lay among them. Jordi was struck that the people simply looked asleep, fully clothed, lying on the ground; but the horses, huge bulks of flesh, seemed more tragic in the innocence of their death. Some trees had been destroyed, and from the roof of the Hotel Colon, a machine gun was raking the square.

  “Stay back,” cautioned Josep, and the two squeezed into a doorway.

  “Sunday morning,” said Jordi. “Who would have thought it? This is the day that our great Olympiad should be opening; instead we have a city of death and destruction.”

  The deafening noise of the machine gun stopped, and there was a silence broken only by the snorting of injured horses, and the cries of dying pedestrians. Suddenly a lone rifle marksman, who they had not noticed, standing frighteningly close to them, fired at the soldier behind the machine gun. The bullet went clean through the ‘O’ of Hotel, killing the soldier. The comparative silence that followed was broken by distant gun fire, and it appeared safe to venture out into the square. Others started to emerge from various buildings, to try to care for the few injured who were still alive. One elderly man with a gun, and tears running down his face, went from horse to horse to shoot those not yet dead. Jordi told Josep that he would get home as quickly as he could, and send a message to London.

  Back at his room, he found that Laura had been persuaded to go to bed, but the others had remained vigilant, and had been joined by Steven and his wife Eulalia, both looking tired and dirty.

  “A group of soldiers came rushing out of the barracks near Estacio Nord,” said Steven. “A group of us were at the Begemot, having a late drink before the games, when we heard the shooting. At first we thought it was fireworks, like Sant Jordi’s, to welcome the games. Then we became suspicious, and looked outside. Groups of soldiers appeared to be shooting people at random, anyone out late, walking home. By chance, several in the bar had their guns, and we rushed across to the Arc de Triomf. As soon as they saw us, the soldiers started firing at us; we did not fire first, but when they saw that our group was armed, and we started firing at them, they retreated.”

  “We decided to come here to see what’s happening, but walking here was terrible,” said Eulalia. “We’d got halfway, when we had to hide behind a wall near the university to escape a group of trigger-happy soldiers on horses. That’s why we are so dirty.”

  “It’s the same all over the city,” said Steven. “Groups of workers, communists and anarchists, seem to have extraordinary numbers of guns, rifles, pistols, all kinds of things, and they’ve brought them all out. The army have no chance.”

  “I know about the stores of guns,” said Jordi. “The anarchists having been stock-piling for some time.”

  “What’s happening?” came Laura’s voice from the door. “I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t, and then I heard footsteps on the stairs.”

  Jordi hugged his wife and reassured her that he was unharmed. He looked around the room. “Ferrer,” he said, “will you go up to the stadium and see what’s happening there? Alvar, go with him, but for goodness sake you two, take care. You never know what’s round the next corner. Steven, you must stay here and rest with Eulalia. I will try to telephone London.”

  Jordi was surprised that he got through to London fairly easily; and Ivy Prim at the News Chronicle was very pleased to talk to him. “London is awash with rumours,” she said, “and we’ve been anxious that you are safe.”

  By telling the truth, learned from first-hand experience, Jordi was able to give an accurate report to Ivy. She admitted that many of the correspondents reporting to London, were not actually in Barcelona, and seemed to be inventing their reports. Jordi promised to give regular reports, and promised that they would always be accurate. He had only just put down the telephone, when Ferrer and Alvar rushed back into the room.

  “Chaos at the stadium,” said Ferrer. “Most of the athletes spent the night there, and are wandering about, unsure what to do. We advised those we spoke to, to get out of Spain as soon as possible. Now it’s daylight, some of the groups are setting out for Franca Station, but they’re all very frightened. Some want to know more of what is happening, and are talking about staying to fight alongside us. And there’s smoke rising down at the port. Something very big is burning. We don’t know what yet, but I’ll try to get down to see.”

  Despite the chaos of noise, Jordi fell asleep with Laura in his arms as soon as Ferrer and Alvar had left. Steven and Eulalia remained alert whilst Jordi slept. It was not long before Ferrer was back, and the noise of his footsteps on the stairs woke Jordi.

  “It’s Santa Maria del Mar,” he said, “burning fiercely. There’s not much left but the stone walls. By some miracle the roof’s not fallen in, but there’ll be nothing left inside.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Laura. “Have the soldiers set it on fire?”

  “No, of course not,” said Ferrer. “It’s the anarchists. They are expressing their hatred of fascism and the Catholics all at the same time, shooting soldiers and priests, setting churches on fire. They are well-armed, and it seems that most of the army is in retreat.”

  “Where’s Alvar?” said Jordi.

  “Coming back a different way. He was going to see what’s happening in the Placa de Catalunya.”

  “Let us hope he doesn’t get himself shot.”

  Eulalia was watching out of the window. “Quick,” she said, “come and look at this.”

  They crowded to the window expecting to see soldiers or armed workers, and were astonished to see an ordinary family walking along as if it was an ordinary summer’s afternoon. The father in his Sunday best, his wife in a gaily patterned dress, and two children, a little boy dressed as a sailor, and a little girl in a pretty frock. The children’s nanny, in her uniform, pushed a perambulator. The man was carrying a large basket, presumably a picnic, and the family were making their way happily towards Montjuic, obviously expecting to have a summer picnic in the woods at the top of the hill.

  “Should we stop them?” said Laura.

  “I don’t know,” said Jordi. “May be we should just celebrate some part of normal life going on amidst all this confusion and violence. Perhaps we should join them and enjoy our Barcelona sunshine.”

  As they watched the little family going up the hill, a contingent of athletes was walking down, carrying their suitcases, and holding white flags. “There’s no trams,” said Ferrer. “They’ll have to walk to Franca Station. Let’s hope there’s some trains.”

  At that point, Alvar ran up the stairs. “Maria de Pi is on fire; the rose window destroyed,” he reported, “Santa Anna also on fire, you know, the nunnery close to Catalunya, the work of anarchists again.”

  “We sheltered near Santa Anna this morning,” said Jordi. “Things are getting very confusing.”

  “And here’s another thing,” continued Alvar. “They’ve opened a recruitment office in the Hotel Colon.”

  “Already? Only a few hours ago it was occupied by the army. We saw a machine gunner shot on the roof.”

  “The rest of the soldiers, and there weren’t that many, ran away after their mate was shot,” said Alvar. “Companys authorised it, and it’s being opened as the enlistment headquarters for militias. I’m heading back there now. I’ll be proud to be one of the first to enlist. I’ve no job, there won’t be any Peoples’ Olympiad, so I’ve nothing to lose.”

  The women embraced him and the men shook his hand. They watched from the window as their friend marched purposefully off along the Gran Via.

  “Good luck to him,” said Jordi.

  “I wonder if we will
ever see him again?” said Ferrer.

  “Don’t say that,” said Laura.

  “We must be realistic. This is very serious now. Our future in this city is a matter of life or death,” replied Ferrer.

  “You good people go home,” said Jordi. “It’s Sunday, and we all need time to rest. Steven, come to work tomorrow as usual, and bring Eulalia if you wish. Ferrer, take extra care going down to the docks, and come and see us tomorrow. We must stay calm, and wait and see what happens. Laura and I managed a little sleep, and if she would like it, we’ll walk up to Montjuic and enjoy this lovely sunshine. I never thought I’d say this, but everyone must keep their gun with them. We cannot tell what will happen next. How strange it is, to walk out on this beautiful afternoon, on the first day of war.”

  For a few days, they lived in a state of continuous fear, and constantly changing dangers. Groups of confused soldiers, took indiscriminate pot shots at random, without being clear who they killed. Anarchists, often acting alone, would be hiding in buildings, and like the soldiers, take random shots, both at soldiers and supposed communists, as well as any obviously wealthy citizens. The communists were becoming increasingly likely to be carrying weapons, and beginning to use them.

  Jordi tried to make sense of the confusion in his reports to London. Ferrer and Steven both helped by bringing descriptions of the chaotic and patchy violence in the city; at the same time they noticed how crowded the streets were, and how the businesses seemed to be flourishing under the control of the communist workers. The days passed, each one bringing a new crisis.

  They were relieved to see many of the platoons of soldiers retreating to their barracks, and then leaving the city in trucks. Jordi assumed they had been given orders to join other regiments in other parts of Spain. It was good to see them go, but ominous to know that they might return in far greater numbers.