Wide Is the Gate (The Lanny Budd Novels)

by Upton Sinclair

  XI

  The sound of cannon and the rattle of machine guns could be heard from the windows of Lanny’s room all that Sunday and late into the night. There was no restaurant in this cheap hotel, but one just across the street, and that was the only place to which he ventured. He had the hotel porter file two cablegrams for him, one to Robbie and one to Beauty, saying that he was safe and well; after which he sat in the lobby, in conversation with the owner of a tobacco-shop near by and a cattle-grower who had come to town with his vacas and was worried because the Anarcho-Syndicalists had seized them and given him a piece of paper which would be worthless if the other side won. Which side he wanted to win he carefully avoided saying. All of them agreed that civil wars were bad for business of any sort, whether it was cigarros, vacas, or pinturas.

  No more news that day; but next morning’s papers blazed with headlines about the attempt of the Fascists to seize the city. Government planes had bombed the arsenal and the artillery barracks, and heavy fighting was still going on in many places where the rebels had seized buildings. General Goded, commander of the rebel regiments, had been made a prisoner of war. Some rebel officers had committed suicide rather than surrender. The militia of the Marxist unions was patrolling all streets and arresting suspects; which was hint enough to Lanny to stay right where he was.

  He sent the porter of the hotel around the corner to a radio shop to buy a small instrument, and with that in his room he had plenty of visitors and opportunity to improve his Spanish and even his Catalan. Sailors of the warships had revolted and locked their officers below decks, or thrown the active Fascists overboard. Five such vessels had been bombing the rebels in Ceuta. General Mola, marching against Madrid from Pamplona, had been stopped in the Guadarrama Mountains thirty-five miles from the capital. Heavy fighting was reported in Seville and other cities which Lanny had visited; he thought of the people he had met in them and the parts they would be playing. He listened to the comments of his visitors—people of the middle classes, destined to be ground between the upper and the nether millstones. They kept their hopes and fears to themselves, and Lanny professed to be interested in but one thing—getting out of the war zone alive. He didn’t mention the oil painting of a long-dead-and-forgotten grandee of Aragon, for fear that someone might mention the law against exporting it.

  The fighting went on most of Monday, and every few minutes there would be news; not always reliable, but the general trend was plain. The organized workers of the city were successfully defending their government, with the help of leaders sympathetic to their cause. In Madrid it was different, for there the government leaders were terribly afraid of the label Red or even Pink, and were still trying to make peace with Franco and distressed because he went ahead fighting them. There the people had to force the government to act; the unionists had demanded and obtained arms, and then had swarmed to the Montana barracks, headquarters of one of the revolting regiments, and were laying siege with one old cannon. By noon they had forced the garrison to surrender; and the same at the Getafe barracks on the outskirts. Truckloads of people’s militia were now patrolling the streets of the capital and storming all buildings where there was rebel resistance.

  XII

  Late that afternoon Raoul Palma turned up. He had been in distress about his friend, and had sat at a telephone and tried every hotel in the city; this was one of the last—he had found it so hard to imagine Lanny in a small obscure place. Lanny said he was getting along fine; if the fighting lasted long enough he would know both languages of Barcelona. He had made a number of friends—and Raoul mustn’t upset them by any bad news!

  Locked up in Lanny’s room they talked freely, and Raoul told how he had been traveling here and there addressing meetings of the workers. The moment the fighting stopped they would proceed to take over the principal industries and reorganize them. Some would be conducted on the anarchist principle of local autonomy and some on the Socialist principle of state control. The Fascists would realize too late what they had accomplished by their coup—they had turned all Catalonia and perhaps all Spain over to working-class control, inspired and guided by Marxist leadership. Raoul was full of excitement, riding on the clouds and skipping over the mountain tops. Spain was going to be a new Soviet Union, conducted with more skill and less violence.

  “Oh, Lanny!” said his friend. “It is too bad for you to be missing all these things. If you could come with me and let me introduce you at headquarters they would welcome you with open arms.”

  “Perhaps so,” said Lanny; “but then the story would go back to France and the picture business would die a slow death.”

  “I suppose so,” agreed Raoul, sorrowfully. “But you are missing wonderful events.”

  He described what had happened on the Paseo de Colon, the broad esplanade of the Barcelona docks, on that Sunday morning while Lanny had been looking out of his hotel window at the burning of the church. Near one end of the Paseo is a military barracks, and the workers of the docks got word that the troops there had joined the rebels and were setting up a barricade. The workers came swarming out of their homes, men, women, and children, many of them half dressed. They had only such weapons as they could grab up, sticks and stones, carving-knives and clubs studded with nails, such as Raoul had told them to prepare. With these they had swarmed against barricades defended by twelve machine guns. In spite of the massacre they had attacked again and again. Some twelve hundred lay dead or wounded, but they had beaten down the troops and captured the machine guns and turned them against the barracks.

  That was the way history was being made, and Barcelona and Madrid were being saved for the workers’ cause. The Pink orator was so excited that he began a speech about it to his friend. But then he broke off in the middle, saying: “Take care of yourself; you have a job to do also. Keep off the streets, and call me if you get into any trouble.” He gave his telephone number—and then: “Adios!”

  XIII

  Lanny spent the next two days very cheerfully and agreeably, watching what he thought was the victory of his side in an abortive civil war. He read in the morning and afternoon papers, now all Red, and heard over the radio, no less Red, how the militia had stormed the Nautical Club and found in it four thousand hand-grenades and a store of dynamite; they had burned the club, and several churches which had also been used as arsenals by the conspirators. He heard that four thousand militiamen were on the way in trucks and busses to put down the rebelling regiment in Saragossa; probably his automobile was retracing its flight from that city, perhaps transporting the commander of the expedition. He saw a photograph of the very large Hotel Colon, considerably damaged, but he restrained his desire to visit the scene.

  On Wednesday morning Raoul came again, and now his state of fine fervor was greatly reduced. “Lanny,” he said, “I think you ought to get out of here without any more delay.”

  “What’s the matter?” asked the American. “Haven’t you got them licked!”

  “We have Franco licked, but that’s only the beginning of our troubles, I’m afraid. It’s the old story of factional splits. The Marxists and the Anarcho-Syndicalists are quarreling among themselves over the question of power and how industry is to be resumed.”

  “But I just heard over the radio that El Presidente has ordered everybody back to work!”

  “I know; but will they go, and how long will they stay? I’m afraid there may be more fighting, and what’s the use of your taking the risk when you can’t do a thing about it?”

  “You don’t want to come along, Raoul?”

  “Oh, I can’t do that; I have a job here. I have managed to get some influence, and I’ll be working day and night trying to reconcile the different groups and persuade them to make concessions. We Spaniards are terribly poor compromisers, but we have to learn, if we’re going to make democracy work. Somebody who has lived abroad has to show them how.”

  “All right,” Lanny said. “But how can I get out? I’m told the coast road is b
locked, and I’d probably be stopped by a hundred patrols before I got to the border.”

  “There’s a ship just come from France to take the athletes home, and I think you ought to try to get on that.”

  “The athletes” referred to an odd situation, which provided a sort of comic relief to the battle of Barcelona. It so happened that the Olympic games were being held in Berlin this summer, to the delight of all Nazi-Fascists and the disgust of all humane persons. The workers of Europe were boycotting these games and had arranged for their own to be held in Barcelona. Wherever there were class-conscious unionists in numbers sufficient to afford the luxury, they had sent a team of competitors; the French had sent more than a hundred, hoping to make a great sweep of the events. The opening was to have been on Saturday, the day after the Fascists started their coup; Sunday, when the principal events were scheduled, saw the hottest fighting in the city’s streets and the athletes had to spend their time like Lanny Budd, sitting in hotel rooms and hardly daring to look out of the windows.

  Now the French government had sent a small steamship to bring their team to safety. The vessel had been admitted to the otherwise tightly closed port. Lanny said: “Do you suppose they would take me?”

  Raoul answered: “You know how to use money.”

  That was true. Lanny had learned from his father that the captain of a vessel always has a cabin of his own and will share it with somebody if he is offered a sufficient inducement. Lanny knew that what he had sewed up in his belt would be enough for any such purpose; so he packed his bag, disconnected his radio set and presented it to Raoul, and the two of them put the Comendador on their shoulders and marched him downstairs. Lanny paid his bill and said good-by to his various acquaintances, and the pair set out for the docks. No use thinking of a taxi or any such luxury; they would ride Shanks’ mare, and Raoul would explain matters to any patrols they encountered.

  XIV

  Such was Lanny Budd’s unheroic retirement from the battle of Barcelona. No one took any potshots at him, and after a long walk he found the passenger steamer Chella at her dock, and was informed that the vessel was taking extra passengers at two hundred and fifty francs each—about ten dollars—which Lanny promptly produced. A constant stream of foreigners arrived, some of them brought in cars of the French consulate with large flags for their protection. Before the small vessel sailed there were more than a thousand persons aboard, and Lanny found that he was to share a cabin with five other men. He didn’t mind, because it was a clear night, and a proper douceur had procured him a steamer-chair on deck with his name on a tag. Another douceur entitled the painting to a corner in the captain’s own cabin, in consonance with the Comendador’s dignity and prestige.

  Lanny enjoyed conversations with a number of members of French trade unions who had athletic ambitions: small and wiry ones who did the hundred-meter dash; tall and lean ones who ran five thousand meters or ten thousand; giants with mighty muscles who put the sixteen-pound shot or hurled the discus or engaged in wrestling-bouts. One and all they were certain that they would have broken some of the world’s records, put the Nazi Olympics to shame, and vindicated the honor of the class-conscious proletariat of the world. One and all they were certain that the date of the Franco uprising had not been an accident, but was part of the Nazi conspiracy to deprive the labor internationals of glory. One and all they were proud to carry home the story of a workers’ military victory—even though they had had to be hidden in hotel rooms while it was being won.

  The Chella reached Marseille next day, and all came ashore. Correspondents of the American press associations were on hand, for news out of Barcelona was being awaited by the whole world. But the reporters hadn’t heard about the son of Budd-Erling, and before they had time to scan the passenger list, Lanny had come ashore with his suitcase and his painting, had satisfied the French customs and passport authorities, and found himself a taxicab not commandeered. When he told the driver that he wanted to drive to the Cap d’Antibes, that son of the warm south was startled, but said: “Je m’en fiche”—which meant in substance that he didn’t give a hang provided the passenger had the price of a two-hundred-kilometer ride. Lanny assured him that he had plenty.

  But first he would go to the nearest postoffice. There he wrote a cablegram to his father, saying that he was safe and please to notify Irma; one to his mother saying that he was safe and please to notify Rick; and one to Zoltan Kertezsi in Paris:

  “Just arrived with Goya my property twelve bullet holes through Goya none through me want your advice are you coming south if not will come to you proceeding Bienvenu wire me there grand story but revolutions no fun Lanny.”

  BOOK SIX

  Through Slaughter to a Throne

  22

  PUT MONEY IN THY PURSE

  I

  Lone of the communications which Lanny found at Bienvenu was a cablegram from Joseph Barnes, asking if he had any plans for coming to New York, otherwise “Uncle Joseph” wished to come to Europe to meet him at whatever place he might indicate. “I suppose that means Irma wants a divorce,” said Lanny to himself; he had nobody else to say it to, being alone on the estate except for the servants. He cabled that he was planning to leave for Paris and then for London, and would be happy to meet Uncle Joseph in either city at approximate dates which he gave. Then he called Jerry Pendleton to come over and play tennis, go swimming, eat dinner, and spear fish in the evening. It was well enough to use his reason and say that it was necessary to cut Irma out of his life, but emotionally she was an amputated limb that still ached.

  Zoltan Kertezsi had been resting at Spa, in Belgium, and wired that he would come to Paris at once. Lanny got himself a new car, less expensive than the lost one, and some new bags and other belongings. He got a secretary and attended to his accumulated correspondence. He dictated an account of his adventures for his father and mother, with copies to Bess and Rick and Trudi. He paid a visit to the Senora Villareal and told her about her paintings. She had already taken his advice and had the Zuloaga shipped out to her, and Lanny had found a purchaser by cable; now he received the money from his client, paid it over to the Senora, and saw to having the picture shipped. He called on Raoul’s wife and gave her some money. After that he was ready to set out for the north, with the Comendador and his own thoughts for company.

  Mixed thoughts, derived from his reading in the current newspapers. All accounts agreed that Barcelona and Madrid were firmly in the hands of their governments; but in both north and south the rebels had been gaining. General Mola was holding a position in the Guadarramas, an hour’s motor-ride from Madrid, while Franco was landing shiploads of troops in Cadiz and apparently establishing himself firmly in the southwest. It appeared that Spain was in for a real civil war—a dreadful one, for Franco was taking few prisoners.

  The most alarming news, which Lanny got from the, left-wing papers, was that in the first week of the outbreak eighteen bomber planes manned by Italian Army pilots had been flown from Italy to Spanish Morocco, apparently to be used for ferrying troops across the Strait. Rather embarrassing for Mussolini when two of them were forced to land in French Morocco, and the French government asked for an explanation. What Il Duce said was that they were “volunteers”; they had flown of their own accord, motivated by intense sympathy for their Fascist brothers imperiled by the wicked Reds. When you tried to imagine eighteen officers of Mussolini’s army stealing his planes and running off with them, you had something to smile over—unless you were made sick by the spectacle of brazen lying in public affairs. Lanny wondered: “Was this going to be the next device of Fascism: to destroy the people’s government of another country by means of volunteers?”

  II

  Paris looked good on a still and warm summer evening: a city with no buildings on fire and no bullets imitating the wailing of lost souls; a city where everybody said what he or she thought, printed it in newspapers or leaflets, shouted it in public meetings, put it on banners or transparencies and p
araded it on the streets. Sometimes, to be sure, you got your head cracked while doing this, but you had a fair chance to crack the other fellow’s head, which seemed at least an attempt at equity. Lanny, as usual, was not able to make up his mind to a choice betweeen evils; he wanted very much to see capitalism ended, but he hated to see people killed or killing.

  He took his precious burden to his hotel suite—the same he had had on his last visit, for you could take your choice at the end of July. He had a wooden frame made, unrolled the Comendador and tacked him onto it, and then invited Zoltan to have a look. A great moment in a grown-up playboy’s life, for he thought he had got something extra special, and was on pins and needles until he had it confirmed. Little shivers ran all over him while Zoltan took a long look, and little golden bells tinkled inside him when his elder and mentor exclaimed: “Lanny, that’s the real thing! You’ve got a Goya, beyond question.”

  It was unfortunate that the ancient grandee had got these modern war wounds, but Zoltan said that none of them was mortal from the point of view of repair technicians. If there had been a hole through one eye, or anywhere in the face, it would have been difficult indeed; but such things as firestones, and the cloth of a uniform, the shine of boots and the dark background of a curtain—expert doctors of paintings could cover these holes, especially when they were no wider than the caliber of a machine-gun bullet.

  Lanny had supposed that little patches of canvas would be put under each hole, but Zoltan said this wouldn’t do, because bubbles of air would get under in places, and the doctored spots would show unevenness in the course of the years. What would have to be done with such a valuable work was “relining” it; a complete new canvas would be added, in back of the old. Zoltan would take him to a clever demoiselle who had done a great deal of nettoyage, the cleaning of old paintings, for the Louvre. She did it directly with her sensitive fingers, lightly rubbing off the dirt and the old varnish. She was an ethical person, and never did any repainting except in cases of actual damage, such as Lanny had in this instance. Neither did she put on a heavy glassy coat of thick new varnish, the favorite device of dealers to delight the unwary and sell them old masters at inflated prices.