Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War (63 page)

“a good approximation of hell”: Louis Delaprée,
The Martyrdom of Madrid
(posthumous pamphlet published in 1937 in French, English, and German), p. 40. Although Delaprée’s original dispatches were in French, for the English-language edition of this book I’ve chosen to use the contemporary English translation of his words.

“the abnormal … had become normal”: Capa,
Death in the Making
[unpaged].

For when Franco had found the prize: Thomas,
SCW
, p. 471.

And as Capa walked: Details from Capa photographs at ICP.

“Into the future one dares not look.”: Capa,
Death in the Making
.

“I don’t like coming up”: Barea,
FR
, p. 614.

“the most reasonable war censorship”: Lester Ziffren to EH, February 18, 1937, JFK.

“you must feed the animals”: Barea,
FR
, p. 617.

Up until now it had been forbidden: Claud Cockburn,
Discord of Trumpets
, pp. 299–300.

The maneuver had succeeded: Barea,
FR
, p. 617; Delaprée and Alving stories cited in Preston,
WSSD
, p. 371; Capa photographs, ICP.

He’d hoped he might write: Pierre Lazareff,
Deadline
, p. 134. Lazareff was Delaprée’s editor at
Paris-Soir.

“You have not published half”: Delaprée,
The Martyrdom
, pp. 46–47. The last phrase was omitted from published versions but a facsimile of the handwritten text, with Madrid censors’ stamps on it, was reprinted in
L’Humanité
on December 31, 1936, and I have quoted from that version here in my own translation.

“I hate politics”: Barea,
FR
, p. 632.

Neither of them knew: Virginia Woolf, “Three Guineas,” p. 12; John Richardson, “How Political Was Picasso?”
New York Review of Books
, November 25, 2010.

When a former associate: Barea,
FR
, p. 618.

“
We
are here for the story”: Ilsa Barea,
Telefónica
.

“the legendary Hemingway”: John Peale Bishop, “Homage to Hemingway,”
The New Republic
, November 11, 1936, p. 40.

pointing out where he planned: Key West
Citizen
, November 21 and 30, 1936. Although the pool was, in fact, completed, the trophy room seems never to have materialized.

“A man alone”: Hemingway,
To Have and Have Not
, p. TK. In the first published versions the word
fucking
was excised. And Morgan’s last words were added only in the very last version of the typescript, in July 1937.

“the old miracle”: EH to Arnold Gingrich, October 3, 1936, private collection, in Reynolds, p. 240.

here was a letter: John Wheeler to EH, November 25, 1936, EH/JFK.

“I’ve got this nice boat”: Matthew Josephson,
Infidel in the Temple: A Memoir of the Thirties
, p. 428.

“You were a genius”: Hemingway,
To Have and Have Not
, pp. 185–86. The most obvious model for Helen Gordon is Katy Dos Passos, who shoplifted just as her fictional counterpart does; but, as her biographer Ruth Hawkins points out, it was Pauline who (Hemingway knew) had had an abortion during their premarital affair, and had suffered internal damage during her second childbirth—both sources for the rest of Helen’s tirade: “Love is ergoapiol pills to make me come around because you were afraid to have a baby … Love is my insides all messed up…”

warm, newsy letters: Irme Schaber quotes liberally from them in her biography, although it’s not clear from the book’s source notes where these letters are located, and Ms. Schaber has been reluctant to share this information.

Georg’s sister Jenny: Material on the Kuritzkes family in Italy and Gerda’s stay with them from Schaber,
Taro
, p. 174.

The old militias: Preston,
SCW
, p. 250.

scores of people: Delaprée,
The Martyrdom of Madrid
, p. 14. Delaprée puts the figure in the
hundreds
, but the number seems extreme, given a total estimate of 10,000 bombing deaths for the entire war over all of Spain.

Barea said goodbye to his family: Barea,
FR
, p. 622; Ilsa Barea,
Telefónica
.

the Catholic Church had all but instructed: James L. Minifie,
Expatriate
, pp. 53–54, in Preston,
WSSD
, p. 19.

The New York Times
’s front page: William P. Carney, “Madrid Situation Revealed,”
New York Times
, p. 1, December 7, 1936.

“Simplicity is what works”: Regler,
Das Ohr des Malchus
, pp. 264–67, quoted in (and presumably translated by) Hans Schoots, in
Living Dangerously: A Biography of Joris Ivens
, p. 99. The wording is slightly different in the American edition of Regler’s memoirs,
The Owl of Minerva
(p. 202), but the sense is the same.

“like a high-school boy”: John Dos Passos,
Century’s Ebb: The Thirteenth Chronicle
, p. 41.

they’d begun talking: Schoots,
Living Dangerously
, p. 114.

MacLeish was captivated: MacLeish, “The Cinema of Joris Ivens,”
New Masses
, August 24, 1937, p. 18.

So MacLeish came up with a new plan: No print exists of the finished
Spain in Flames
, so it’s impossible to be certain of its final format. My account here draws on Ivens’s memoirs, interviews with Helene Van Dongen in
Film Quarterly
(Winter 1976), reviews of the film in
The New York Times
(e.g.), and Carlos Baker’s correspondence with the distributor, Tom Brandon, as well as Schoots,
Living Dangerously
, Alex Vernon,
Hemingway’s Second War
, Virginia Spencer Carr,
Dos Passos: A Life
, and Scott Donaldson,
MacLeish
.

Barea’s trip to Valencia: Details on the following pages, including dialogue, are from Barea,
FR
, p. 627–37, and Ilsa Barea,
Teléfonica
.

It was Martha’s mother: Edna Gellhorn and Sloppy Joe’s, Bernice Kert,
The Hemingway Women
, p. 290; Sloppy Joe’s description from Baker,
EH
, p. 192.

“glorious idol”: MG to ER, no date, in Moorehead,
Gellhorn
, p. 105.

“a fixture, like a kudu head”: MG to PPH, January 14, 1937, in Moorehead,
Selected Letters
, pp. 46–47. In a 1980 interview with Bernice Kert for
The Hemingway Women
Gellhorn maintained she visited the house only once (p. 291).

mostly they just talked: EH and MG’s conversations from MG to Eleanor Roosevelt, January 8 and 13, 1937, in Moorehead,
Selected
, pp. 44–46.

“Pauline cutie”: MG to PPH, January 14, 1937, in Moorehead,
Selected
, pp. 46–47.

“I suppose Ernest is busy”: Josephson,
Infidel
, p. 428.

Once, Hemingway was driving: Kert,
The Hemingway Women
, p. 290.

“the oldest trick there is”: Hemingway,
A Moveable Feast
, p. 209.

“I’m a fool with women”: Josephson,
Infidel
, p. 428.

He had let her read: MG to ER, January 8 and 13, 1936, in Moorehead,
Selected
, pp. 44–46.

they stayed in close touch: MG to Betty Barnes, January 39, 1937, in Moorehead,
Selected
, pp. 48–49.

“This is very private”: MG to EH, February 15, 1937, in Kert,
The Hemingway Women
, p. 294.

“Me, I am going to Spain”: MG to Betty Barnes, January 30, 1937, in Moorehead,
Selected
, p. 48.

PART II: “YOU NEVER HEAR THE ONE THAT HITS YOU”

The paunchy, red-faced general: Preston,
SCW
, p. 178, is only one of several sources for this description.

The Loyalist prime minister: Memo from Vladimir Gorev (“SANCHO”) to Marshal Kliment Voroshilov, People’s Commissar (minister) for Defense, September 25, 1936, in Ronald Radosh, Mary Habeck, and Gregory Sevostianov, eds.,
Spain Betrayed
, pp. 58–63.

If Moscow wanted to defeat: Ibid., October 16, 1936, pp. 66–70.

“I could not live”: Barea,
FR
, p. 642.

although Robles had been working: Much ink has been spilled about Robles, his motives, connections, work for the Soviet advisors, etc. I’ve tried to pick my way between varied (not to say opposing) versions of his story told by Paul Preston (see
WSSD
, pp. 62–92), Stephen Koch in
The Breaking Point
, and Ignacio Martínez de Pison in
To Bury the Dead.
As for Robles’s movements, Louis Fischer (
Men and Politics
, p. 395) places him in Madrid on November 15; by sometime in December he was in Valencia, and in custody.

a sure grasp of the stakes: Herbert L. Matthews, “Spain is Battleground of ‘Little World War,’”
New York Times
, published January 11, 1937. It should be noted that this story was written and bylined November 29, 1936; the
Times
’s pro-Franco night editors, Raymond McCaw and Neil MacNeil, frequently cut, spiked, or delayed Matthews’s stories because they perceived them as partisan.

even Cockburn admitted: Claud Cockburn,
A Discord of Trumpets
, pp. 307–9.

After all, the rebels were issuing: The Nationalist propagandist Antonio Bahamonde “described the process whereby ‘atrocity’ photographs were faked” (Preston,
SCW
, p. 205); and the collector Dr. Rod Oakland points out (
www.psywar.org/spanishcivilwar.php
) inconsistencies in such a photograph that illustrate how the process was managed.

the great man had told him: Barea,
FR
, p. 353.

a telephone call came for Ilsa: Barea,
FR
, p. 649, and Berdah, “Un réseau de renseignement antinazi au service de la République espagnole,” in Fréderic Guelton and Abdil Bicer,
op. cit.

She left the next day: Barea,
FR
, p. 649.

He’d gone to Madrid: Whelan,
Capa
, p. 109.

“a nest of newspaper correspondents”: John Dos Passos,
Journeys Between the Wars
, in Dos Passos,
Travel Books and Other Writings, 1916–1941
, p. 460.

with the exiled German composer: Although there is no photographic evidence to document this trip, Irme Schaber, using Kantorowicz as a source, places Gerda, Eisler, and Kantorowicz in Valencia at this time. See Schaber,
Taro
, pp. 178–79.

She told Ruth Cerf: Ruth Cerf Berg, interview, quoted in Kershaw,
Blood and Champagne
, p. 52.

“He shared the perils”: “Sur la ligne du feu,”
Regards
, December 17, 1936. My translation.

Perkins had confessed: MP to EH, October 1 and December 9, 1936, JFK.

Perkins should read: Kert,
The Hemingway Women
, p. 294.

He visited his sister-in-law: Ruth A. Hawkins,
Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow
, p. 196.

“If you didn’t get killed”: EH to PP, December 9, 1936, JFK.

was even more negative: PP to EH, February 9, 1937, JFK.

they asked Hemingway the question: The documentary evidence surrounding Hemingway’s initial involvement is thin, which suggests negotiations were handled in person. A letter dated January 28, 1937, from MacLeish to “Jerry” (possibly Jerome Chodorov, one of the people named by the director Jerome Robbins to HUAC in 1953—in a marginal note MacLeish identifies him only as “a communist in NY charged with … agit-prop”), says that “Hemingway has joined the group” working on the full-length film “and will write the dialogue if things go as anticipated.” [AMacL to “Jerry,” Archibald MacLeish papers, Library of Congress.]

“a great fair”: SWM, in Calvin Tomkins,
Living Well Is the Best Revenge
, p. 38.

He and Sidney Franklin left: GCM to PPH, January 22, 1937, JFK.

“very good reliable”: GCM to EH, January 8, 1936, JFK.

he stopped at his bank: Michael Reynolds,
Hemingway’s Reading, 1910–1940: An Inventory
, p. 28.

In the first months of the new year:
Le Temps
, “La Guerre Civil en Espagne,” February 2, 1937.

Gerda and Capa clambered all over: GT and RC photos, ICP.

“seventy miles of people”: T. C. Worsley, in Preston,
SCW
, p. 194–95.

he could give her his speedy compact Leica: Although the photos taken by Taro during her time on the Málaga front were made with her Rolleiflex, she appears in a photograph taken shortly after her and Capa’s return to Madrid holding the Leica II, and the photos she took from this point on were made with that camera, according to research by Richard Whelan, Irme Schaber, and Kirsten Lubben (see Whelan’s essay “Identifying Taro’s Work: A Detective Story” in Schaber, Whelan, and Lubben,
Gerda Taro
, pp. 41–51).

Up to that point their photographs: Richard Whelan, “Identifying Taro’s Work: A Detective Story,”
Gerda Taro
, p. 46; Kirsten Lubben, “Reportage Capa & Taro,”
The Mexican Suitcase
, p. 117. The stamp/credit issue is, however, something of a chicken-and-egg question: the surviving Almería prints at ICP don’t carry the “Capa & Taro” stamp, but the photos were published with that credit line.

his cameraman and compatriot John Ferno: Ferno, born Johannes Hendrik Fernhout, used the more easily pronounced “John Ferno” for his film credits and I have followed his usage.

a title MacLeish: EH to Waldo Peirce, July 27, 1937, in Baker,
Selected
, p. 458.

“a great struggle”: Ivens,
The Camera and I
, pp. 104–6. Ivens doesn’t identify MacLeish by name but MacLeish described his part in the scenario to Lillian Hellman (AMacL to LH, December 24, 1936, Lillian Hellman papers, Harry Ransom Research Center). MacLeish’s responsibility for the film’s title is mentioned in EH to Waldo Peirce, July 27, 1937, in Baker,
Selected
, pp. 458–59.