No Pasarán!

by Pete Ayrton

  Our footsteps keep echoing round the vaults, in an eardrum shattering din. Apparently beset by the fear we ought to be provoking in the enemy we unconsciously quicken our pace and are forced to protect the flames of the candles in the palms of our hands.

  The gallery lengthens out, forks, criss-crosses other networks. In some stretches rudimentary wood and brick structures reinforce the ceiling and our hearts sink at each new change. We find a large empty food tin, the remains of a recent meal and fine-tune our cautious movements even further. The Madrid lad takes a hand grenade from his belt and grips it tight in his hand.

  ‘If you throw that in here, we’ll be crushed to death like little chicks.’

  ‘But the others will keep us company.’

  Occasionally the idea that the others might have their own problems isn’t sufficiently re-assuring. Our voices now reverberate in a strained, if hollow way; the surrounding earth compresses and lifts the sound around us. If we’d been ordered to go on this mission, we’d be thinking somebody wanted us out of the way, that we were victims of a great injustice. But right now, despite everything, we don’t want to backtrack and a tremendous curiosity drives us on.

  At a bend in the mine, to our right, we come across a half-closed door. A ham-bone on a string is hanging on a nail knocked into the wood, and, underneath, a notice says: ‘If you’d like some more, come on in’. It’s a macabre joke; a large pool of blood has seeped under the door and dried on the earth and a strong smell of dead bodies hits our senses.

  ‘Shall we go in?’

  ‘No need to bother. We can appreciate the sparkling wit of the author of this notice from here.’

  ‘We might be able to identify a corpse.’

  ‘And what good would that do? We can’t bring it back to life.’

  We don’t feel like going in and continue walking. We’ve been making steady progress and are already a long way from where we started. We’ve twice had to retrace our steps because rubble blocked our path. They’re places where powerful explosive charges were laid to blow up particular buildings. There are stretches that are the result of high blocks of flats collapsing under the ground and blocking entrances to the mine. Once we’ve even seen the sky through a narrow open slit above our heads. A bright moonbeam entered the gallery and the light on the candle-wicks turned pale. A metal helmet from our side lay on the ground; it’s peppered with machinegun holes.

  ‘What will we do if we meet a group of fascists?’

  Everyone has thought of that likelihood and imagined the way he’d survive it.

  ‘For the moment, we’re a bit scared, but they must be too. We must be on the alert and react and shoot before they do. Besides, if... ’

  We hear voices and footsteps and break off our conversation. There are people very close. We are breathless. Our spirits are choking in our throats; we’re afraid the candle light will give us away, but even more afraid of being in the pitch-black.

  Something drives our wills on, beyond any reaction or feeling, forcing us to press on. We hold our weapons at the ready, put our feet on the floor ever so warily, entrusting our lust to live to our eyes and ears.

  The mine now begins a steep descent, in one long, almost straight stretch. We don’t know if we’re sinking deeper into the earth or if the gallery runs parallel to surface terrain. Some stairs giving access to the mine are leaking dirty water and detritus that give off a horrible stench. We hear a persistent drip that echoes off the walls and reaches an absurd high pitch. That sound becomes an obsession, gives us headaches.

  A huge explosion shakes the gallery ceiling; we’ve been half-covered in earth and our faces show that we are terrified of being buried alive.

  ‘That’s a mortar shell that’s exploded outside. We must be very close to the surface.’

  We quicken our pace, our hearts beating so loudly we’re scared the noise will give us away. The voices sound nearer and nearer.

  In front, the path ahead swings blindly round to the right. A sudden, total silence. What can be happening? Maybe they’ve seen the light from our candles and are about to give us a nasty surprise. We decide to snuff out the flames and grope along in the dark. Right now we can’t believe we’ll ever see the light of day again, let alone breathe fresh air.

  As our eyes get used to the dark, we see a vague light entering from around the corner, like a moonlit clearing. We advance a few steps, then accelerate to the bend hoping our primed guns will frighten the men we think are waiting for us.

  A blast of cold air penetrates our clothes and makes us shiver; we don’t have time to recover our composure before a powerful reflector is dazzling us and preventing us from seeing anything outside the disk of the spotlight and its luminous glow.

  ‘Don’t move. There’s a machinegun aimed at you. One move and we’ll shoot.’

  That firm, confident voice froze any spirit we had left. For a moment we stay stiff and still against the ground, our eyes bulging. We hear a loud, shrill laugh from behind the spotlight, and that hurts us much more than any sense of our complete impotence.

  Half-hidden by a companion in front, the Madrid lad inches his hands up his back. He’s holding a grenade and his fingers reach out to the detonator catch; he moves imperceptibly. The fingers of each hand reach out, reducing the distance separating them millimetre by millimetre.

  The man behind the spotlight shouts out again: ‘Hey, you fascists, drop your weapons on the ground!’

  Fascists? Life rushes back to our lips in cries of relief that resound through the whole mine.

  ‘Don’t shoot, comrades! We are frontier police, dynamiters from the shock brigade.’

  The people who’d so paralyzed us now exchange a few words: ‘They’re wearing armbands, they’re ours’; ‘They’ve got stars on their helmets’.

  ‘Walk forward, compañeros. Don’t be afraid.’

  We take a few steps and, past the spotlight, find ourselves in the middle of the street, a broad sky overhead with the stars lighting up the world. We immediately recognize where we are: in the immediate area around Terol station.

  ‘What were you doing down there?’

  ‘We decided to hunt down fascists off our own bat.’

  ‘Your timing was superb. We were within a whisker of hunting you down.’

  We laugh. But we haven’t recovered enough to enjoy our laughter.

  Along the track there’s a row of Falangists tied up that our compañeros dragged out of the mine to put at the disposition of the commander. On the ground, near to us, we see a pile of shapes, covered by a piece of tarpaulin.

  ‘So what’s that?’

  ‘They’re the bodies of the guards who disappeared.’

  Our voices clam up and we find it hard to swallow.

  ‘Can we be of any help?’

  ‘No, the best you can do is clear off. If the officer sees you when he comes back and he doesn’t like your bright idea, he’ll give you a hard time.’

  ‘All right. Keep well. And thanks a lot, camarada.’

  Crestfallen, they start the trek up the slope to the city. Small fires blazing at the top of some houses near the station give the impression that they’re still inhabited.

  Before we enter Terol, the Madrid lad looks back towards the station.

  ‘If we’d taken a second longer to realize we’d got it all wrong, I’d have chucked that grenade, and not even heavenly angels would have got to them in time.’

  Pere Calders, born in Barcelona in 1912, was trained as a graphic artist and set designer. During the 1930s, he contributed articles and cartoons to the Catalan press and began writing fiction, publishing a novel and short story collections. He belonged to the Catalan Socialist Party and enlisted in the Republican army in 1937. He was sent as a cartographer to the Teruel region. From this experience comes the 1938 story published here, as does the very fine collection of writing on the Civil War, Unitats de xoc (Pieces of Conflict). In 1939, Calders went into exile in Mexico, where he stayed until 1962, b
efore returning to Catalonia. Dagoll Dagom’s Antaviana, a theatrical version of some of Calders’ stories, brought his work to a wide audience and made possible his recognition as a major 20th-century Spanish writer. He died in Barcelona in 1994. This story is included in the excellent anthology of Civil War writing Partes de Guerra, edited by Ignacio Martínez de Pisón.

  ANTOINE GIMENEZ

  OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE

  from Sons of the Night

  translated by Pete Ayrton

  THE SPEAKER BEGAN.

  ‘Comrades, I ask forgiveness in advance from those who will be shocked by what I plan to tell you. Marriage, an institution, I was going to say, a million years old but in any case, more accurately, many centuries since the coming of Christianity. Marriage, in its current form, is the tomb of love. A wife must obey a husband, submit herself to his will since he is the master. In exchange, it is his duty to feed her and, since she belongs to him, to defend her as he must defend his herd. I am talking about all women; those who are born in the lap of luxury as well as those who since the very beginning lie on these rough beds. In this society that we want to destroy, the proletarian marries to have a maid by day, a woman by night and to perpetuate the race of slaves and paupers who drag their feet the world over. And this for the great good of the ruling classes that crush us.

  ‘Working class women, worn out by work, weakened by a lack of food, deformed by too many pregnancies, are old at thirty. If you don’t believe me – look around you. Yes, I know what you tell yourselves; a girl without a husband is a plant without leaves, a tree without fruit ... and to escape your father or your brothers, hoping to gain some little freedom, you are ready to give yourself in exchange for a name. NO. I am against all prostitutions, even those made legal by the mayor and blessed by the priest. The cause is these prejudices that come from long ago that the female of the species, heavy with child and unable to sustain herself, needed someone to hunt, fish, climb trees in search of food, defend her and her child against wild animals if necessary. She was obliged to accept the severe law of nature that everything must be done for the species to survive. And the species did survive.

  ‘Through the generations, mankind has multiplied, invaded the world, invented machines, tamed lightning and domesticated fire. Males have imposed the law of the strongest and made of women a plaything, a servant or a beast of burden. She was conditioned by centuries of submission so that still today there are countries where a man buys a wife or parents exchange their daughter for goods, beasts or food. In our so-called civilized society, it is often the case, if not always, that marriages are made in which what matters are property, capital, the wealth of parents and in no way the emotional choices of the engaged couple. If a man has many mistresses, it is said of him: “what a stallion.” If a woman has a lover, it is said of her: “what a whore.” I demand for womankind, for all women, the same rights that us men have. I demand for half of humanity the right to free love, to free maternity.’

  This did not go down well with some in the audience, especially with the older males. In Spain, young women were far from having the freedom of their sisters in France and other countries of Europe. To not offend their parents, they kept quiet.

  Young and old men were in heated discussion, the former in favour, the latter against. Some women joined in. Questions were asked of the speaker. He was asked what his reaction would be if he were married and found out that his wife had a lover.

  ‘Listen, amigo, if my wife is also a libertarian and has the same respect as I do for her liberty and for mine and informed me of her wish to sleep with another man for sentimental or physical reasons, we would decide together how things should proceed. If my wife does not share my views, she would not confide in me and were I to learn about it, I would have to ask myself the following questions.

  ‘1. Do I satisfy her erotic needs? If not, it is fair that she seeks elsewhere what I cannot provide. An example: I invite you for dinner. You leave still hungry. Should I be angry if after leaving me you buy yourself a sandwich. Surely not. Sexual needs are like nutritional ones. They vary from person to person. Some have a large appetite, others are sated with very little. All I can do is keep my peace; perhaps, reproach her for not telling me.

  ‘2. Does she look for a lover to satisfy her material needs, necessary or invented, and I am to blame since I am not able to earn enough so that she can get what she wants?

  ‘In both cases, what should my behaviour be? In the first case, there is nothing I can do; nature has not given me the necessary strength to satisfy her and I would be a right bastard if, taking advantage of the power given to me by written law and morality, I prevented her from enjoying the pleasures of the flesh just because of my pride. In the second case, what can I do? Keep quiet and acquiesce? No... because I would be taking advantage of her beauty, her elegance, her wealth, unwillingly for certain, but I would feel myself to be the moral equivalent of pimps, of ponces who live off the work of whores like capitalists live off the work of workers, since prostitution is the oldest profession in the world. So I would leave her, however great the affection, love and friendship I had for her.’

  ‘You do not experience jealousy?’

  ‘Indeed, I am jealous of my mistresses. No contract binds me to them. We are only together in the search for erotic pleasure. It is normal that when this pleasure ebbs or disappears, we part company to find with other partners this pleasure that nature dictates is necessary for the psychological stability of each one of us. I am jealous of my mistress since I hate lies and hypocrisy. I hate the gratuitous, unnecessary lie that we commit only for the pleasure of hiding what we have done from those close to us, as if we did not think we had the right to do it. As if we were not free and responsible for our actions.’

  From the beginning of his answer, there was silence. A young woman had come closer and listened, all the while looking at him. Dolores, a young woman of around 25, seamstress by trade asked:

  ‘Pedrito, what would you think of a woman who here on this very spot was to say “I love you”?’

  ‘I would think she was an intelligent and free woman. I would think she was well ahead of her time and for this, I would admire and respect her even if instead of talking to me, she had talked to someone else. Is this what you wanted to know?’

  ‘Yes, but also, what would be the motivations that had led her to this statement?’

  ‘They are many. You know them as well as I do. In general, they are the same for men as for women: desire, curiosity to know how an individual reacts in a given situation, the wish to know the virile prowess of the chosen one. All this can, in the last resort, be mistaken for love which makes us all think that we seek the happiness of the loved one, when in fact all we are looking for is the flowering of our subconscious. And, as the way we see things is always different, they collide, come into conflict, clash... and it’s marital hell with its tears, complaints, gnashing of teeth. So, the need to part, to seek elsewhere the fulfilment of our hopes, the achievement of the fancies that haunt us.’

  ‘You don’t believe in a love that lasts a lifetime?’

  ‘Yes, if it is based on frankness, on understanding, on the tolerance of all things that can divide a couple: differences of material or aesthetic tastes, moral or intellectual aspirations. It is very rare that two people with the same tastes, the same aspirations come together to make what is called a “family”.’

  The conversation ended very late. All those with work to attend to the next day had long ago gone to bed.

  Antoine Gimenez was born Bruno Salvadori in the province of Pisa, Italy, in 1910. In 1922, the year the Fascists came to power, Antoine saved a school-friend in a street-fight and was taken to his friend’s home where he met Errico Malatesta, a prominent figure of Italian anarchism. So began the extraordinary political life of this anarchist rebel who in July 1936 joined the International Division of the Durruti Column and fought until the retreat at the end of the war. After crossing the border,
Gimenez was interned in the camp set up by the French government at Argèles-sur-Mer. Like many other Civil War fighters, he was active during the Second World War in the French Resistance around Royan. After the war, Gimenez moved with his family to Marseilles, where he worked on building sites. It was at that time that he started writing his memoir Les Fils de la Nuit (Sons of the Night), finished in 1976 but published only thirty years later in 2006 – a racy document that captures, warts and all, life and love in the anarchist movement on the Aragon front. The book gives a unique insight into what the revolution meant on a day-to-day basis to the local people. An activist all his life, Antoine Gimenez died in Marseilles in 1982.

  JOHN DOS PASSOS

  THE VILLAGES ARE THE

  HEART OF SPAIN

  from Journeys between Wars

  Off the main road

  First it was that the driver was late, then that he had to go to the garage to get a mechanic to tinker with the gasoline pump, then that he had to go somewhere else to wait in line for gasoline; and so, in pacing round the hotel, in running up and down stairs, in scraps of conversation in the lobby, the Madrid morning dribbled numbly away in delay after delay. At last we were off. As we passed the Cibeles fountain two shells burst far up the sunny Castillana. Stonedust mixed with pale smoke of high explosives suddenly blurred the ranks of budding trees, under which a few men and women were strolling because it was Sunday and because they were in the habit of strolling there on Sunday. The shells burst too far away for us to see if anyone were hit. Our driver speeded up a little. We passed the arch of Carlos Third and the now closed café under the trees opposite the postoffice where the last time I was in Madrid I used to sit late in the summer evenings chatting with friends, some of whom are only very recently dead. As we got past the controlposts and sentries beyond the bullring, the grim exhilaration of the besieged city began to drop away from us, and we bowled pleasantly along the Guadalajara road in the spring sunlight.