The Man Who Loved Dogs (28 page)

Thanks to the information at his disposal, the playing out of events did not surprise Ramón, although the unpredictable consequences alarmed him. On May 3 the invasion of the Telefónica building by a police contingent, led by the commissar of public order, Rodríguez Salas, bearer of the order dictated by the
conseller
of interior security to empty the place and hand it over to the government, caused the predictable refusal by the anarchists and their entrenchment in the building’s higher floors. As was also expected, the confrontation began immediately between the police corps belonging to the Republic and the Catalan government and the CNT anarchists and syndicalists, who were joined by the POUM Trotskyists. The accumulated tension and hardened hate exploded and Barcelona became a battlefield.

A few days before, various contingents of anarchist militia, refusing to obey orders from the joint chiefs of staff, had abandoned the front and,
with their weapons, had stationed themselves in the city. The authorities, foreseeing possible confrontations, even decided to cancel the May Day celebrations, but on May 2, some members of the Catalanist party opened fire against a group of anarchists, and the tension increased. The police’s plan to empty the Telefónica building was the straw that broke the camel’s back and caused such violence that Ramón would ask himself if the government, with the support of the Socialists and the Communists, would be capable of controlling it and emerging victorious.

On the very morning of May 3 and against his expectations, Ramón received the order to remain in La Bonanova, no matter what happened, until one of Kotov’s men came to get him. At the first light of day, Caridad went out with Luis in her invincible Ford to place the kid with people who would take him to the other side of the Pyrenees. Ramón said goodbye to Luis with a strange presentiment. Before Luis got into the car, Ramón hugged him and asked him to always remember that he was his brother, and everything that he had done and would do in the future would be so that young people like him could enter the paradise of a world without exploiters or exploited, of justice and prosperity: a world without hate and without fear.

When in midafternoon he learned of the incident that had started at the Telefónica and the violent fratricide that followed, Ramón understood that Caridad was taking those precautions because not even those in the party were sure they could control the situation. The anarchists and POUMists, refusing to hand over their weapons, accused the Communist Rodríguez Salas of having provoked them to bring about a confrontation. The Communists, on the other hand, accused their political rivals of rebelling against the official institutions, of thwarting the central government’s work, of generating chaos and disorder, and, directly and indirectly, of planning a coup d’état that would have been the end of the Republic. The bulk of the verbal attack centered on the POUM leaders, who were labeled traitors, instigators, and even the promoters of a planned Trotskyist-fascist coup in collaboration with the Falangists. Ramón understood that he had had the privilege of attending the start of a political game that displayed such a capacity for planning and such mastery for the exploitation of the circumstances that it didn’t cease to surprise him. But he also thought that, as never before, the fate of the Republic was dangling from a thread and it was hard to predict the winner of this round.

Many times he was tempted to go down to La Pedrera in search of the evasive Kotov to ask him to revoke his order to remain far away. The hours of the day became interminable for him, and when at night Caridad returned to the palace of La Bonanova with a rifle placed diagonally across her shoulder, she called him down, saying that even if the Telefónica building had not been seized, that it was all merely a question of a few hours, and that the operation had been a success, since the uprising had proven the libertarians’ and Trotskyists’ crimes. Besides, she trusted that the skirmishes that were still ongoing would soon be under control, since various CNT leaders were mediating them to calm down spirits and an announcement had been made that army contingents were coming from Valencia.

“What I don’t understand is why they have me here,” Ramón complained as Caridad lit one of her cigarettes and, between drags, swallowed pieces of sausage that she washed down with wine.

“There are already more than enough people to kill fifth columnists and traitors. Kotov must know what he wants you for.”

“What’s supposed to happen now?”

“Well, I don’t know. But when we do away with the anarchists and the Trotskyists, it will be clear who’s in charge in Republican Spain. We couldn’t keep dealing with the undisciplined and the traitors or waiting for Largo Caballero to leave quietly. We’re throwing him out right now.”

“And what are the people going to say?”

Caridad put out her cigarette and took another one out of the pack. She took a long drink of wine to get rid of the taste of the sausage in her mouth.

“All of Spain already knows that the POUM Trotskyists, the libertarians, and the Anarchist Federation have gone too far. They’ve rebelled against the government, and in war, we call that betrayal. There are even documents proving the links the Trotskyists have with Franco, but Caballero doesn’t want to accept them. These sons of bitches were slipping maps and even army communication codes to the fascists.”

“Hey, hey . . . You know that half of what you’re saying is a lie.”

“Are you sure? Even so, even if it’s a lie, we’ll make it the truth. And that’s what matters: what people believe.”

Ramón nodded. Although it was difficult for him to accept the meanness of that, he recognized how important it was to win the war, and to
do so, a purge like that was necessary. Caridad smiled and let her cigarette fall to the ground.

“You have a lot to learn, Ramón. We’re going to set up Negrín and Indalecio Prieto’s radical Socialists with Largo’s conciliators. Rather, we’re going to serve them Largo’s head on a platter for them to tear apart between them.”

“But neither Prieto nor Negrín loves us very much . . .”

“They won’t have any choice but to love us. And as soon as they replace Largo and name Negrín or Prieto, we’re going to do away once and for all with the POUM. If the Socialists want to rule, they’re going to have to help us: either they govern with us or they don’t govern at all. We’re going to take the anarchists out of their way, and they’re going to have to thank us for that.”

Ramón nodded and dared at last to ask the question eating away at him:

“And is África involved in all of this?”

Caridad drank two sips of wine.

“She won’t leave Pedro’s side. So she must be very close to everything . . .”

Ramón nodded. Jealousy or envy? Perhaps both, plus a few drops of despair.

“And what’s my role in all of this, Caridad?”

“In time, Kotov will tell you . . . Look, Ramón, you must learn to have patience and to know that you don’t beat your enemies while they’re standing, but when they are kneeling before you. And you beat them mercilessly, dammit!”

The next morning, after seeing Caridad leave in the Ford, Ramón took the risk of disobeying his orders. He felt smothered in La Bonanova, where the sound of artillery fire barely reached, and went down toward the city, almost without admitting to himself that one of his hopes was to run into África. On the way into town, he avoided the streets where barricades had already been erected and from which sporadic gunfire came. Halted trams and buses cut off traffic, and there were flags unfurled everywhere announcing the political affiliation of the defenders on every corner: Communists, Socialists, anarchists, POUMists, Catalanists, syndicalists, regular troops, militia, and police, in a centrifugal kaleidoscope that convinced the young man of the necessity of the raid: no war could be won with such a chaotic and divided rear guard. The entire city was
still on a war footing and the Plaza de Cataluña esplanade looked like the backyard of a barracks. The Telefónica building, where the CNT anarchists were still entrenched, was completely surrounded and in the sights of various pieces of artillery. The besiegers, nonetheless, looked so confident that they were resting, taking advantage of the warm May morning. Avoiding the esplanade, he looked for Las Ramblas and, at the juncture with the Virreina Palace and the Hotel Continental and, further down, by El Falcón, the way was completely empty; only a hurried pedestrian occasionally risked crossing it while waving a white handkerchief. From just around the market, he observed that, on each side of the street, there were men stationed on the roofs, and he assumed that the ones on the Continental were POUM militiamen and leaders. From both sides they shot dispiritedly, and Ramón thought that the fate of the uprising was sealed: the rearguard war looked more like a reenactment than a real confrontation. He felt the temptation to slip back into Adriano’s skin and enter the POUM hangouts with it, but he understood that such indiscipline could end up being very dangerous. The ruthlessness he had sworn himself to could turn against him if someone identified him and denounced his presence in the Trotskyist precincts without his having been sent by a superior.

Just a few days later, Ramón would know the extent to which Kotov trusted Caridad, since the woman’s predictions began to come true. The sporadic confrontations, violent at times, continued for a couple of days, accumulating a toll of dead and wounded, but they started losing intensity, as if wearing out. Various syndicalist and anarchist leaders asked their comrades to lay down their weapons, and when the bulk of the troops sent by the government finally arrived, the rebels had recognized their defeat, the city was practically pacified, and the majority of the key posts were in the hands of the men chosen by the advisers and the party. The battle was now being waged on verbal grounds, with the continuous exchange of accusations in which the communist means of propaganda, free of censorship, had the upper hand and spread the opinion that the CNT syndicalists, the anarchists, and especially the POUMists had caused an uprising that seemed so much like a coup d’état. Ramón thought that the elusive Cataluña was finally falling under the control of the Soviet advisers and the men from the Comintern, while the government was headed into a crisis and Largo Caballero was as good as dead.

The events unfolded at a dizzying speed once the communist press printed that it had proof of the collaboration between the POUM Trotskyists and the fascists. They wrote and spoke of telegrams and even troop-movement maps passed on to the enemy. Largo Caballero, besieged on all sides—or perhaps accepting at last his inability to resolve the problems of the war and the Republic—tendered his resignation. Then, with the support of the Communists and the advisers, Negrín rose to the leadership of the government and, almost as his first measure, announced the outlawing of the POUM and his intention to try its leaders.

Ramón, who felt bothered by not having been closer to the action, was surprised when Maximus appeared, seeking him out. He was accompanied by two unknown men, obviously Spaniards, but who went without any kind of introduction. In silence they went down to the city, a true field after battle, with troops in the plazas, burned-out buildings, and the remains of barricades on the corners. Soldiers were posted everywhere. Ramón had the conviction that a Republican Spain should take advantage of the shakeup and accept once and for all the only salvation that could come from the most ironclad discipline and from head-on Soviet intervention. He thought perhaps André Marty was right when he had called them primitive and incapable, and when Kotov, in his almost poetic manner, had called them romantic and indolent. The young man felt ensnared by agony over the fate of his country and over the dream for which he had spent four years fighting, but an important step had been taken to save it.

Maximus, in the company of Ramón and the other two comrades, stopped the car on the road to Prat, already in the outskirts of the city, and waited for the arrival of another vehicle, which was also occupied by four men, two of whom looked foreign and another one with a resplendent military uniform, although it was missing his rank. Maximus gave the orders, which seemed directed at Ramón more than at his other two companions: the police were getting ready to take a prisoner out of Barcelona, a spy at the service of the nationalists, and he was entrusting them with the mission of taking that man to Valencia, where he would be interrogated. The information the man possessed was vital for breaking apart the enemy’s network and to revealing the extent of the Trotskyist betrayal. But that entire operation had to be carried out with the greatest discretion, and for that reason only men of the utmost confidence were participating.

A few hours later, as night was falling, the police patrol appeared on
the road and signaled with its lights. Maximus ordered the men in the second car to place themselves in the rear guard and he, with Ramón and the other two men, placed himself at the front of the convoy and headed toward Valencia. On a few occasions one of the men traveling in the car tried to strike up a conversation, but Maximus demanded silence.

In the predawn hours, they arrived in the outskirts of Valencia, where another patrol was waiting for them. The ones coming from Barcelona stopped and Maximus ordered them not to come out of the car and to remain on guard and, above all, to remain silent. Ramón watched how Maximus went over to the patrol, accompanied by the man dressed in uniform who had traveled in the car that was the last in line. In the darkness he tried to make out what was happening on the highway and he thought he heard Maximus and the men who were waiting speaking in Russian. One of those men looked familiar to him, and although he later thought it could have been Alexander Orlov, head of Soviet intelligence in Spain, the darkness prevented him from being sure. With a flashlight, the uniformed man accompanying Maximus signaled the convoy, and a few minutes later Ramón saw a handcuffed man led by two policemen pass by his car. Despite the sparse light, he was shocked when he was able to identify him: it was Andreu Nin.