by John Wilson
It only took us a few minutes to find Avinguda Catalunya, 21. It was a door covered in peeling red paint, in the wall beside a Farmacia. Laia rang the bell. For a long time nothing happened and we were about to leave, when I heard slow footsteps descending the stairs. The door creaked open to reveal an old man leaning on a cane.
“Pablo Aranda?” Laia asked.
The old man frowned but nodded slowly. Laia introduced us both, explained that we had been given his name and address by Aina and wished to talk about the war.
“No hablo de la guerra,” the old man grunted and began to close the door.
“My friend, Esteban, has come all the way from Canada to hear about the war,” Laia explained.
The old man stopped and stared at me. Despite his age, he stood straight and held his head high. The skin of his face was wrinkled and weather-beaten, but his eyes were sharp and peered hard from either side of a hawklike nose. “You are from Canada?” he asked, switching to heavily accented English.
“I am,” I said.
The man continued to stare at me. Before I could think of anything else to say, Laia spoke. “You were rescued by a Canadian during the war.”
Both the old man and I swiveled our heads and gazed at Laia as she continued. “We know a boy was rescued from a ruined house here by a Canadian during the battle in 1938. That was you, wasn’t it?”
The old man looked long at Laia before returning his stare to me. “Pasen.” Follow me. He made it sound like a military order. Then he turned and clumped slowly up the long flight of stairs. Laia caught my eye and winked broadly.
The room that Pablo Aranda led us into was sparsely furnished, but the walls were covered with black-and-white photographs. Some were obviously family shots, but others showed businessmen in suits and ties, and several were of soldiers. I didn’t have time to examine them in any detail. There was an empty coffee cup and a half-eaten pastry on the coffee table, but Aranda didn’t offer us anything, merely grunting and waving an arm toward a worn couch.
We sat and the old man settled into the armchair opposite and regarded us with a stony stare. “As a boy you were rescued by a Canadian?” Laia asked encouragingly.
“Sí,” Aranda said.
“Here in Corbera d’Ebre?” Laia asked when Aranda didn’t contribute anything else.
Aranda didn’t answer for a long time. He seemed to be considering something at length, and Laia and I waited. Eventually, he sighed and began speaking. He spoke in halting English laced with Spanish expressions when he couldn’t think of the right word, but we listened patiently and, with some help from Laia, his story emerged.
“Yes. I was”—he held up a hand spread open—“cinco años when the aviones, the planes, came. Los Comunistas were in Corbera, and mi madre, my mother, and I hide in our house.” Aranda glanced up at a photograph on the wall behind us before continuing. “Mi padre was away at war.”
Laia turned and looked at the picture. I felt her tense, but she said nothing.
“Estalló la primera bomba.” Aranda furrowed his brow in concentration.
“The first bomb exploded,” Laia said.
“Sí.” Aranda nodded. “The first bomb exploded”—he glanced at the window—“outside. My mother, she was in kitchen. I was in bed. I hid…” Aranda made a scooping motion with his hand.
“Under the bed?” I suggested.
Aranda nodded. “I live because I hid. La segunda, the second bomb, exploded in kitchen. My mother flew through the window. She awoke in la calle, the street. I only knew the noise—muy ruidoso.”
“Very loud,” Laia translated.
Aranda nodded again. “Next, I lay in the dark. There was heavy—something heavy on my legs. My oídos—” He touched the side of his head and looked at Laia.
“Ears,” she said.
“Sí, ears. It was like the sea roaring. I was dead, I thought. Much time went on. Grité—”
“You cried out.”
“Yes, cried out. Next there was a giant lifting the heaviness.”
“Tiny,” I blurted out.
Aranda glanced at me and continued. “A soldier pulled me and carried me outside. He say, ‘Soy Canadiense,’ many, many time. I saw my mother.”
Aranda appeared to have finished his story. He sat back and looked at us. “He must be the boy that Tiny and Bob rescued,” I said to Laia.
“It seems so,” she replied quietly. I was puzzled; she didn’t seem nearly as excited at our discovery as I felt. She turned to Aranda and spoke rapidly in Spanish. I caught the names Tiny and Bob and assumed she was telling him our part of the tale. Aranda watched her without expression, occasionally glancing at me. Laia finished with a question, and Aranda nodded and said, “Sí.”
When she had finished, she said me, “I told him the story from your grandfather’s journal. I described them and told him the date. I asked him if he thinks Tiny and Bob were the ones who saved him. He does.”
“This is incredible,” I said, thrilled at discovering a living link to my grandfather’s adventures. “We must ask him more about what happened here.”
“I don’t think so,” Laia said. Before I had a chance to ask what she meant, she turned back to Aranda. “Sobrevivió la guerra su padre?”
Again Aranda nodded. “Sí. Fue alcalde de Corbera.”
Laia translated, “I asked him if his father survived the war. He said he did and that he became mayor of Corbera.”
“That’s great,” I enthused. “He did well.”
Laia looked at me for a long time before she spoke. “After General Franco won the war, he began a campaign to cleanse Spain of all undesirable elements. Any Socialists, Communists or Anarchists were shot. I showed you the wall of Sant Felip Neri church in Barcelona where people were shot. Many thousands of people, some say hundreds of thousands, were shot after the war. Mass graves have been found all over Spain.”
“That’s tragic,” I said, “but why are you telling me this now?”
Laia swiveled round and pointed to a large framed photograph on the wall behind us. It showed a crowd of soldiers standing in front of a church. There were two men in the foreground, shaking hands, both dressed in smart uniforms. “Do you recognize the man on the right?” Laia asked.
“Yes. It’s General Franco.”
“Yes, and the other man is the mayor of Corbera, Pablo Aranda’s father.”
As the importance of this was sinking in, Laia went on. “After the war those who had helped Franco win it were given positions of power—judges, police captains”—she hesitated—“and mayors. It was their job to weed out the undesirables in their town or neighborhood, those who had fought for the Republic, been active in the trade unions or against whom they simply had a grudge, and deal with them.”
A chill ran down my spine as the meaning of what I was being told sank in. I looked back at Aranda. He was sitting calmly watching me. “Your father was a Fascist?” I asked.
Aranda nodded slowly. “Your abuelo—” He glanced at Laia.
“Grandfather,” she translated.
“Your grandfather was a Communist?”
“But he was fighting for the Republic. He fought for what was right,” I said indignantly.
Aranda threw his head back and let out a coarse laugh. When he looked back, he was smiling. “‘He fought for what was right,’” he mimicked, bitterly. “The sister of my father, mi tía, lived in Barcelona. She was muy pequeña.” He held his hand out to one side to show how short his aunt was. “She was a woman of God, a nun. My first remembrance, I was tres años, three years in age, was a visit to her convento. She gave me caramelos.” Aranda lifted a hand to his mouth and kissed his fingertips with a loud smacking noise. “They were delicioso. I thought, this is an ángel and this is what paradise is like.”
Both Laia and I sat silent. As the old man talked, his smile faded. “When la guerra, the war, began, los anarquistas burned the little church of mi tía. But first, they took rope and tied mi tía and eleven oth
ers to el crucifijo, the crucifix. All burned to death.”
Aranda’s eyes filled with tears, and he lowered his head. He looked sad and old. “That’s horrible,” I said.
Aranda’s head snapped up. He blinked rapidly and the hard expression he had welcomed us with returned to his face. “He fought for what was right,” he repeated, his voice ugly with sarcasm. “My father fought for right. For God. For Spain. I am agradecido.” He flashed a look at Laia. “Grateful,” she translated.
“I am grateful for your grandfather and his amigos, for aiding me. But they were wrong.” Aranda stood up, stiffly. “Now you must go. You have disturbed too much past.”
Laia and I mumbled our thanks and retreated down the stairs and onto the bright street in silence. Without discussing where we were going, we walked back up to the ruined old town. We sat down in the sun with our backs to the old church wall.
I guess I had assumed that everyone today knew that the Republic had been right and the Fascists evil, that the volunteers had fought for something just and right while the rest of the world betrayed them.
“It wasn’t simple,” Laia said as if reading my thoughts. “It isn’t simple. Both sides of the war live on in Spain today. Many people miss the stability that Franco’s dictatorship gave them. I told you before: you can’t escape history. And history isn’t good or bad; it simply is. Dreadful things happen in war, on both sides. I think your grandfather was beginning to realize that when he shot the soldier on the hillside.”
I sat and thought for a long time. Laia was right, and I had been naïve to believe that something as complicated as a war could be a simple question of black and white. One side being right didn’t mean there couldn’t be evil and tragedy on both sides.
I took the journal out of my pack and opened it. Laia started to stand up. “No,” I said, “let’s read it together.”
JULY 28, MORNING
Where are the tanks? They were supposed to be here early so we could attack at dawn, but the sun’s well up and there’s no sign of them. Everybody is tense.
We came down from the hills in the dark, and now we’re spread out through an olive grove. I can see the houses on the edge of Gandesa across a wide stretch of flat farmland. There are figures darting between the houses, but it looks quiet. Occasionally, shells whine overhead from our artillery back up on the hills and explode in the town with muffled crumps and clouds of smoke and brick dust. I can hear more explosions and the crackle of rifle and machine-gun fire from the far side of town. I hope that keeps the enemy busy when it’s our turn to attack. Where are the tanks?
Planes continually fly overhead, but they are all Fascist and all heading for the river. I commented to Hugh that it would be nice if we had some planes here, and he said it would make no difference, they would be shot out of the sky like every other time. He pointed out the long barrel of a gun pointing at the sky between two buildings in Gandesa. “That’s an eighty-eight,” he said. “A new German anti-aircraft gun. I suspect it would simply pick our little air force out of the sky one by one.”
It’s odd how the seven of us left in the squad handle the tension. We tried to leave Carl back up on the hill—he’s obviously still in shock—but the commissar insisted he be brought down for the attack. He even threatened to shoot him for desertion if we left him. So we brought him, although there are times when he merely sits and stares wide-eyed at the ground between his feet, completely unaware of where he is.
I write in these pages to calm myself. Bob sings quietly. He has a good voice, but I think if I hear “Red River Valley” once more, I will shoot him myself. Christopher reads a small volume of poetry he carries everywhere with him. It’s by an English poet called Keats. Marcel and Hugh argue about everything, from how incompetent the generals were in the Great War, to the subtleties of socialist philosophy. Tiny flits between us, asking how each of us is and checking that our weapons are clean and ready.
I am amazed that it is only six weeks since I crossed the mountains. I look back at the pages I wrote then and they seem to be by someone else. Someone much younger and more naïve. Would I still have come here had I known what was in store for me in those six weeks?
Yes, for two reasons. What I am fighting for is right. It is not as simple as I thought, but it is still right.
The second reason is the nurse in Barcelona. I cannot get her out of my mind. I only met her very briefly and we only exchanged a few words, but I dream of her eyes. Perhaps it is only the loneliness and the fear of the past few days, but I will find her when I return to Barcelona and tell her how I feel.
I must stop now, there is rumbling behind me. It must be our tanks. We are ordered to leave our packs, so I will carry this journal in my breast pocket. Its fate will be mine.
JULY 28, EVENING
The first word is the hardest to write, and I have sat and stared at this blank page for an age. Had I not promised to fill this book, I would write nothing. It is too painful. However, I did promise and I have begun, so I shall take a deep breath and continue.
Bob and I are in a gloomy barn filled with wounded men, awaiting an ambulance to take us to the train back to Barcelona. The place smells of blood and death, an odd, sweet smell. It is an antechamber to Hell. The wounded lie in rows along each wall, the lucky ones with some filthy straw between them and the hard ground. Some are missing arms or legs. The faces of others are hidden behind blood stained rags. One man with a stomach wound has died already, and his body was carried outside. Most are silent, although some whimper quietly, and I shudder at the occasional scream.
There is one man who calls himself a doctor, but he does nothing other than mumble a few words of comfort and offer water to drink. Not that there is much he could do since there are no medicines, bandages or nurses to help him.
Bob has a piece of shrapnel in his shoulder. The wound bled a lot—that is his blood on the cover of my journal—but it’s not too serious. At first he lost the use of his left arm, but already the feeling is returning to his fingers. Unless some incompetent doctor causes more damage digging for the piece of metal that is still in there, he should heal.
I have a bruise the size of a basketball on the left side of my chest and, I suspect, several broken ribs. I can only breathe very shallow, and coughing is agony. One ambulance has been already, but it took the most serious cases. I suspect Bob and I will be here for some time.
Why are conditions so bad? Did they expect there to be a battle without casualties? Is there really nothing to give us, or is it simply bad organization? Hugh would say the latter. But then, Hugh will never say anything again. Bob and I are all that remain from our squad and I am searching for things to write about to postpone going back to tell the story of this terrible day.
The tanks arrived this morning, five squat things that rattled and clanked along between the trees. Orders were shouted, and they pushed on out into the open. We followed with high hopes, although Carl soon fell behind and I never saw him again.
At first all went well. The Fascist fire was not heavy, and the bullets either zinged overhead or pinged off the tanks’ armor plate. Then the lead tank, off to my right, exploded. The turret cartwheeled off, and a ball of flame rose from the gaping hole.
I looked at Gandesa and saw that the barrel of the anti-aircraft gun that Hugh had pointed out earlier was now horizontal. I saw a flash, and a column of dust rose beside another tank. Not every shot counted, but the gun fired rapidly and every hit went through our tanks’ armor plate like it was paper. It was like a training exercise for the German gunners. Marcel died when the tank near him blew and a heavy piece of metal caught him in the head.
The machine guns opened up when we were about halfway over and the last tank had been destroyed. Some men had bunched up behind the tanks, and they suffered badly. Our squad was more spread out, and we were three-quarters of the way over before we were targeted.
“Down!” Tiny yelled.
When the machine gun moved on, he ordered
, “Up!”
Between his orders, I either lay still or moved forward in a stumbling run. Oddly, I was much less frightened with men being killed and wounded all around me than I had been waiting for the tanks to arrive. Rationally, I knew what was happening and that I was in great danger, yet it was as if I was watching everything from a distance. Even when Christopher was too slow getting down and a line of bullets caught him across the chest, my mind simply recorded the fact and I felt no sorrow. It was as if I had given up all responsibility for my existence to Tiny and, as long as I did what he told me, I would be all right.
We progressed like automatons, concentrating only on Tiny’s orders and obeying them. Miraculously, we were suddenly at the buildings on the edge of Gandesa. I caught a glimpse of figures running through the streets ahead of me but didn’t have time to get off a shot.
Tiny yelled at Hugh, who lobbed a grenade through the nearest open window while the rest of us crouched against the wall. The explosion shook the ground, and then Tiny kicked in the door and disappeared. Hugh, Bob and I followed. The room was filled with smoke and ruined furniture but otherwise empty. We cleared the other rooms and paused, listening to other brigaders working their way through the houses on either side of us.
“Well, we’re in Gandesa,” Tiny said, peering out the doorway and down the street. “Anybody see what happened to Carl?” The three of us shook our heads.
“A lot of use the tanks were,” Hugh said. “Those eighty-eight shells didn’t even slow down when they hit them.”
“Glad I wasn’t inside one,” Bob offered.
“They wouldn’t be much use in these narrow streets anyway,” Tiny added. “I wonder how many of us made it across those open fields.”
“Not enough,” Hugh said.
“Well, some did,” Tiny pointed out. “Hear all that fighting around us? I guess we’d better press on as far as we can. Take a drink and make sure you’ve got a full clip in your rifle.”
At the mention of taking a drink, I suddenly realized how dry my mouth was. I drank greedily. Then I checked my rifle and was surprised to find I hadn’t fired a shot on the way over. The safety clip was still on. Sheepishly, I flicked it off.
