No Pasarán!

by Pete Ayrton

  The leaders of the mob broke into the house. Nobody there. Empty. In the waiting-room there was a table and a huge chronological album of the popes. Santi was among the first in, and he rang every bell his fingers could find. Down a gloomy corridor they came to the communicating door. They entered the church. Those who had remained outside were waiting for the immense door of the church to be thrown wide.

  When they heard the first blows, they rushed up the stairs, unable to restrain themselves, and, as one man, flung themselves against the doors, trying to help those struggling with them on the inside. At the sixth try, the doors gave way. And at that moment all the lights went on. Santi had discovered the switches in the sacristy and had illuminated the festival. The temple was incapable of holding them all. Shots rang out. El Responsable was firing his revolver at the Sacred Heart on the main altar. He did not miss a shot, and yet the image did not fall. Most of the times he hit it in the mouth, so that with each shot the expression of the image changed, which aroused the crowd more and more. The side altars and benches were broken up by others of the raiders. La Valenciana had drenched her face in holy water. Gorki had climbed up on one of the pulpits, and with a long stick someone handed him was trying to reach the great central chandelier with its tinkling prisms.

  The obsession of most of the mob was the confessionals. On each of them was a card with the name of the confessor. ‘If only a few of them were inside!’ The wood was hard and unyielding. The rifle butts hardly made a dent on it. Some of the crowd sat inside the stalls, others knelt beside them. ‘The things that have gone on here!’

  Future was the athlete. He was the first to approach the immense crucifix at the entrance. Taking hold of its base, he called for aid. ‘Into the river with it, into the river!’ he shouted. Dozens of willing hands were raised. ‘Gangway, gangway!’ The caravan set out. Christ lay flat, his feet higher than his head, for those bringing up the rear were taller than Future. When they came to the river embankment, the Oñar spread out muddy before them. To throw the cross over, they had to rest it on the railing, and raise it by a superhuman effort. ‘Heave-ho!’ Christ fell, describing a complete half-turn. He fell, and stood cleaving the mud like an arrow. The wooden arms of the cross pointed pathetically in all directions. The image rested head-down, like St. Peter.

  Inside the church the struggle of man against matter was at its height. Everything was of such good quality that there was no choice but to employ fire. Cosme Vila put the first match to the high altar. He decided on this because he calculated that, in view of the thickness of the stones, the building would not burn, so there would be no danger to the neighborhood. Only the altars would go. All the hangings took fire. A confessional burned, then several benches. El Responsable was firing at the chandelier, and he had many imitators. Seeing Gorki in the pulpit, Cosme Vila suddenly thought: ‘No question about it. He’s the one for mayor.’

  Professor Morales had not realized that it was so easy to destroy things that were centuries old. And what most impressed him was that everything was being done almost without the intervention of the human voice. Everyone was using hands and feet, pushing obstacles out of the way with his stomach, shooting. Some were laughing. Others were remembering that they had been married here. A tray gave an echo like a gong, arousing superstitious fears lest something fall and crush them. There was the legend Ave Maria Gratia Plena Dominus Tecum following the concavity of the crypt; colors; tactile surprises; but almost no intervention of the human voice. Professor Morales smiled as he watched the activity of Raimundo, the barber. Why were hypocrites taking part in this work?

  Suddenly the flames shot up. The smoke was growing thick. All, including Cosme Vila, realized that it had been a mistake to set off the blaze so fast. Now they would have to get out. With all the games they could have made up in there! Nobody was satisfied with his achievements. Except Future. Future was smashing the organ pipes.

  ‘Everybody out! Out!’

  They obeyed reluctantly. The fire was so aromatic. The whole temple gave off exciting smells – wood, incense. A good smell. At that moment the main chandelier crashed to the floor, and by a miracle the child of one of the Murcians was not brained.

  When Cosme Vila came out of the door, he had a great surprise. He had imagined that those of the crowd who had not been able to get into the church would be waiting outside, but they were not. ‘Where are they?’ he asked. Aside from those who had been inside, there was almost no one.

  ‘They’ve gone,’ someone informed him, ‘to the other churches.’

  That was what had happened. They had been unable to endure the torment of doing nothing, and another column had quickly formed, headed by Blasco, with the Church of the Carmen as its objective.

  Cosme Vila was enraged. He had wanted to organize everything methodically, but that had not been possible. It was then that El Responsable realized that Cosme Vila was directing the orchestra. With all there was to do in the city! He made a sign to his followers and without saying a word set off in a different direction, as though he had just had an inspiration. Before leaving the street, he looked back and saw the first gigantic flame shooting out of the main entrance. Odd that one should not even care to see the crowning of one’s labors, that one should tire so quickly of operating in the same spot! An embarrassment of riches. All the lairs of the opposition that were just waiting for his purifying touch!

  While the Jesuit church was being gutted by the flames, the same scenes, but perfected by experience, were being repeated in the Church of the Carmen, which Blasco and his gang had taken over. El Cojo, who hated to imitate – and especially to imitate Cosme Vila or Gorki – instead of mounting the pulpit and performing other cheap tricks, had made straight for the ciborium, smashing it with the butt of his rifle. His idea was to get at the chalice. He took it in his hands and turned around. ‘Fratres, fratres!’ he shouted, raising it as high as he could. He called to all to gather around him. The militiamen drew near, though for the moment they did not know what El Cojo was up to. Suddenly it flashed into their minds. Communion! El Cojo was calling them for that. Some of them knelt, others remained standing. El Cojo assumed a solemn air and came limping over to the communion rail. He began handing out a communion wafer to each of them, murmuring as he did so: ‘Miserere nobis.’ When he reached the twelfth, he could not restrain himself any longer. He let out a roar of laughter and, ripping open the shirt of Blasco, who was acting as his acolyte, emptied the remaining wafers between his shirt and skin. Blasco writhed like a dancer. The bootblack took one of the wafers and tried to stick it on his forehead. It seemed to him that the most fun would be when he started to run and the white disks began falling through his pants’ legs.

  El Cojo then climbed the steps of the high altar. With a push he threw down the image of the Virgin of the Carmen. Then he climbed into the niche it had occupied and stretched out his arms like a preacher. Someone had turned on the lights, which threw into relief the livid scabs on El Cojo’s lips. Veritable volleys of shots rang out, their targets the images. El Cojo began to fear he might be mistaken for a saint. ‘Hey, be careful!’ and he gave a leap. The wood of the altar gave way under his feet, and he found himself buried up to his waist, bleeding from deep scratches. Several comrades had to help him get loose. He was furious. On the floor gleamed a frame and glass. He stamped them to pieces with his heel. It was the Gospel according to St. John.

  This group of vandals seemed to have more imagination. It was gold that had dazzled Cosme Vila’s contingent. The gold of the candelabra, of the crowns, of the monstrance. To move about among gold objects they could destroy! El Cojo and his hordes were more given to horseplay. Thus, instead of dragging the main crucifix into the streets, they dragged out two confessionals. And a Communist came out of one of them with a collection of dirty postcards in his hand, saying he had found them in the confessional. Another claimed to have found a wine flask. ‘Sure, sure, to wash away the sins.’ And he raised it to his lips. They all want
ed to share in the fun. Some of the passers-by laughed.

  The wife of Casal, whose flat was close by, came to the window and called out: ‘Do any of you know where Casal is? Do you know where Casal is?’ Nobody paid any attention to her. Flames were beginning to lick out of the temple. Huge flames, monsters’ tongues of different colors. The building materials here seemed more inflammable than those of the Sacred Heart, the odors less pungent.

  A kind of contest had developed all over the city. What had begun as a multitude had now broken up into groups of from fifty to one hundred. The sense of being free had aroused in many the idea of making themselves leaders. They were not content to help Future throw Christ into the river. They wanted to operate on their own.

  As a result, in less than two hours eight churches in the city had been set afire and three convents had been destroyed. The desk at which Pilar had studied had been smashed to splinters, and the nuns’ beds and pianos urinated upon, the pianos of those convents whose Mothers Superior had not followed Mosén Alberto’s advice. Where had the nuns got to? The militiamen did not find a single one, but they did find out their secrets. At the Congregation of Mary, food supplies for five years; in the Convent of the Heart of Mary, an underground passage.

  ‘The catacombs, the catacombs they were talking about!’

  ‘Catacombs my ass. I’ll bet this communicates with the sacristy of San Félix, with the priests. Did you think they slept by themselves?’The leader of that group was Ideal. With a flashlight he groped along the dark passage. The others followed him, convinced that at last they were going to come upon the secret center where the ecclesiastical orgies and tortures took place. But they began to notice that it was growing damp and that water was seeping in. ‘How is this possible when it’s much higher than the river here?’

  ‘They’ve probably flooded it, they’ve flooded it so we can’t see anything!’They turned back angrily. But they soon discovered a side passage. Following this a few steps, they came to a kind of rectangular court with flagstones set into the wall, and mounds of loose earth. Ideal stopped. He was accompanied by Sergeant Molina of the People’s Militia. ‘Whats here?’ Someone brought a pick and hammer, and they easily pried loose one of the flagstones. ‘Skeletons!’There they were. ‘The beasts! That’s where they hid the bodies!’

  ‘The corpses of babies they got caught with,’ someone said. No question about it. They were rickety skeletons, as though shriveled up. One after another the stones were loosened. Ideal buried his hands in the bones of one of the skeletons, and it crumbled away. Others, however, were whole in their wooden coffins. ‘Get this outside, get it outside.’ They pulled out the coffins and carried them up to the convent. ‘Where shall we put them?’

  ‘Out there on the sidewalk so everybody can see them!’

  ‘The dirty sows!’

  ‘Bring that little one, the one of the baby!’

  The exhibit of skeletons on the sidewalk fired the imagination of all. Murillo, who had led his Trotskyite cell into the convent across the way, the rich Convent of the Congregation of Mary, was informed of the discovery made in the Heart of Mary. It seemed to him that his cohorts would look very silly if all they did was to break everything they could get their hands on and eat up a five years’ food supply. The dissenter must always go his adversaries one better in everything. His second in command was Salvio, the sweetheart of Don Emilio Santos’s maid. Murillo had seen too much broken plaster of Paris in his decorator days for smashing or even shooting images to make any impression on him. Besides, from that part of the city four other burning churches could be seen, the nearest that of San Félix. He had to do better than that. The convent square opened on the stairway to the Cathedral. The setting was therefore grandiose. Murillo and several others went into the sacristy, where they all put on religious vestments. Murillo pulled on an alb that came halfway up his leg, then a chasuble with gold embroidery and an old biretta he found on a hatrack. Salvio put on a surplice, which he tied around his waist with a red sash. And then a chasuble. Not one of them but found himself a chasuble. They took the aspergillum, two censers, and the missals. And then the pallium. Someone came upon a small pallium the nuns used when the Bishop visited their chapel. And then the monstrance, which Murillo took in his two hands. Thus attired, they went outside.

  On the sidewalk on the other side of the street, the skeletons. On this side, the improvised procession, chanting ‘Misereri nobis.’ All of them were singing ‘Miserere nobis.’ In the center the sweeping stairway to the Cathedral, then the soaring, majestic façade, and then the bell-tower, which went on telling the hours the same as always, the same as when Matías Alvear listened sleepless at night.

  The news of what was taking place reached Ideal’s ears. He came out to watch the show with the others. Under the canopy Murillo was ascending the Cathedral stairway. The censers bobbed in the air. Those carrying them were unskilled in their use and banged themselves on the knees, giving rise to great hilarity. Suddenly Murillo turned around. His walrus mustache gave him a ferocious air. At that moment he became bored with the whole business. To tell the truth, he felt that none of all that was a patch on the skeletons Ideal had stumbled upon. He tossed the monstrance into the air and started quickly down the stairs as though a wonderful idea had just come to him. But the chasuble interfered with his movements, making everybody laugh. Those holding the pallium were left deserted. Fortunately, someone was passing around a chalice filled with wine. This cheered everyone, though in a few minutes both groups were looking around, as though admiring what they had done and seeking new things to do.

  It didn’t seem possible that one could get so little fun out of a monstrance. Ideal had thought it would afford jokes for a lifetime; but once it was broken, it was nothing but a piece of junk like any old thing Blasco had in his room.

  The four fires, however, were growing and kept spirits high. ‘Let’s go see what’s happened in San Félix!’ All together, Murillo and his group, the anarchists, and the others rushed down the street. Only two or three women stayed with the skeletons, standing guard over the bones, and repeating: ‘Did you ever see such a thing! The sows!’

  The Church of San Félix smelled of blood. The flames were bursting from crevices everywhere, and there was a crowd in the square looking on. The bell-tower was as beautiful as when in other days, on St. John’s Eve, it had been illuminated by lights from below.

  José María Gironella was born in Darnius near Girona in 1917. A fervent Catholic, he fought on Franco’s side in the Civil War. Arrested for smuggling in the post-war period, he illegally walked over the Pyrenees in 1948 and stayed in France until 1952, during which time he wrote The Cypresses Believe in God, a powerful attempt to capture objectively the passion and loyalties of the Civil War. The book, which sold over three million copies when it was published in the 1950s, made Gironella a household name. His publisher Planeta said that the sales of Gironella’s books saved his business. Although not as impartial as the author claimed, the book is an ambitious attempt to capture the war on both sides. Gerald Brenan wrote in his review in the New York Times: ‘The sane and the moderate, caught helplessly in a dilemma they did not ask for, must throw in their lot with one violent party or another till mercifully the passions of the war submerge them and confirm their decision. It is this tragic unfolding of events which concerns this novel.’ Wealthy and famous, Gironella died in Arenys de Mar in 2003.

  KSAWERY PRUSZYŃSKI

  A PROLETARIAN BULLFIGHT

  from Inside Red Spain

  translated by Wisiek Powaga

  Arriba, parias de la tierra

  The train pushes its way through yet another tunnel – and out into another flash of sunshine, mountains and the sea. Harvest on the French vineyards has just begun. It’s only September. We stop at the large station of a small border town. The police – customs, security, political – stretch in a long line along the platform. Out of the train exit two passengers. All that magnificence of offic
ialdom, the entire manpower of document and passport examiners that populate all border crossings, throws itself at the meager prey dropped off today at the Spanish station of Portbou.

  A young Spanish woman, returning from Exeter in England via Paris, goes first. Opening of suitcases, checking of the passport and the visa. Done. Now they are opening my suitcase, examine everything carefully and professionally, leaving the packed things in perfect order. Exemplary job. They take the passport, look through the visas, extensions of validity, as if measuring their weight in hand.

  ‘Un instant, s’il vous plait.’

  My passport is taken away somewhere through a side door while the assigned to it body lingers on dolefully in the customs chamber. The office is large, completely empty. On the walls hang huge black-and-red manifestos and two brilliant, graphically perfect posters. One of them shows a laughing soldier in a battle dress without epaulettes, pulling at the strings attached to an officer-marionette donning a glittering uniform with a massive sabre on fancy slings. The officer is sporting hussar mustachios like yet another mark of power but it’s the soldier who makes him dance a frisky jig. The other poster is not made for laughs, more like a horror, or a monster tale. A big-bellied, nightmarish beast with goggling eyes of a frog puts its apish hand to a huge ear. The beast has brown skin the colour of a monk’s habit, a cross hanging on a rosary around his neck, and on its head – a royal crown, a small one, like the one on the Erdell monkey from the shoe wax ad. It’s revolutionary art warning that the enemy has his feelers, his eavesdropping ears and spying eyes everywhere.

  ‘Suivez moi, s’il vous plait.’

  My passport is back from a mysterious walkabout but its separation from my body and soul – of which it is a policing extension – continues. An official brought it back, but instead of returning it he escorts me out on to the platform. The platform is long, we are walking in silence. I feel I ought to break it. From under the station’s roof emerge mountains covered in olive groves bathed in sunshine. I turn to the official – ‘I look forward to exploring the new country.’ He replies coldly – ‘Do you now’ – and looks at me as if I were one of those feelers and ears, an embodiment of that brown beast from the poster. Not good.