The Man Who Loved Dogs (67 page)

Thanks to books that revealed the diverse horrors archived for decades in Moscow, and the capacity for judgment that those revelations extended to the experts, I came to the conclusion that now we were getting to know or at least could learn about Mercader’s world and the ins and outs of his crime more than Mercader himself had managed to discover. Only with glasnost first, and then with the inevitable disappearance of the USSR later, and the ventilation of many details of its perverted, buried, covered up, rewritten and rewritten-again history, was a coherent and more or less real image obtained of what the dark existence of a country had been that had lasted exactly seventy-four years, as long as the life of a normal man. But all of those years, according to the evidence that I was reading—going from surprise to surprise—(and to think that Breton said to Trotsky himself that the world had lost its capacity for surprises forever), all of those years, I was saying, had been lived in vain from the moment in which the
Utopia was betrayed and, worse still, turned into the deceit of man’s best desires. The strictly theoretical and so attractive dream of possible equality had been traded for the worst authoritarian nightmare in history when it was applied to reality, understood, with good reason (more, in this case), as the only criterion of truth.
Marx dixit
.

So when I thought I was starting to have a more or less complete understanding of that entire cosmic disaster and what Mercader’s crime had signified in the midst of so much criminality, one dark and stormy night—as you could expect in this dark and stormy story—at the door of my house came knocking the tall, thin black man who, in 1977, had accompanied Ramón Mercader and his Russian wolfhounds when they entered my life.

25

Jacques Mornard felt a hair-raising chill go down his spine: Harold Robbins, smiling, let him in after shaking his hand. With a paper bag in one hand and dressed as if he were going out for a stroll, he crossed the fortress’s threshold without the bodyguard bothering to look at what he had in the bag. When the lead door closed, Ramón Mercader heard how History was falling prostrate at his feet.

After the attack by the Mexicans, he had returned on two occasions to the house in Coyoacán to ask about the state of its inhabitants. It was during the second visit that they confirmed that the Rosmers would leave for France from the port of Veracruz on the afternoon of May 28, and since, coincidentally, he had to travel to that city for some business by the end of the month, he proposed to Alfred Rosmer, with Robbins and Schüssler’s authorization, to be the one to take them. That way none of the bodyguards (two of them were still being held by the police) would have to leave the house, something that was especially dangerous after what had happened in the early hours of the twenty-fourth.

The police investigations had already dismissed the presumed participation of Diego Rivera in the attack, and despite the fact that they persisted in their hypothesis of a self-attack, the renegade’s insistence on
pointing to the Soviet secret police as the author of the assault kept the Mexican authorities in check. With anxiety, Jacques waited for Tom’s return with his explanations and, above all, with the orders and final adjustments for his call to action.

Despite the fact that several people had spoken to him of what existed inside the walls, that afternoon Jacques Mornard was surprised to see the layout of the fortress’s central yard. His first impression was that he had entered the cloister of a monastery. To his left, close to the stone wall, were the rows of rabbit cages. The part not covered with asphalt had been taken over by plants, mainly cacti, between which one could still see the effects of the massive invasion a few days earlier. The main house, to the right, was smaller and more modest than he had imagined. Its windows were closed and the walls were pockmarked by the bullets shot a few days before. Alongside a small building that he identified as the guards’ sleeping quarters rose the tree from which, he presumed, the attacker with a machine gun fired into the yard. How was it possible for that assault to have failed?

Robbins pointed at a wooden bench while he alerted the Rosmers of his arrival. In the main watchtower, from which there was a privileged view of the street as well as the yard, Otto Schüssler and Jake Cooper were talking without worrying too much about him, and Jacques asked himself why the tower’s machine gun hadn’t neutralized the attackers. He lit a cigarette and, without making his interest too obvious, studied the structure of the house, the distance separating the renegade’s study from the exit door, the garden paths through which a man could move less exposed to gunfire from the towers. Like someone who is waiting, he walked looking for a better place to observe the whole scene and turned around when he heard a voice behind him.

“What can I do for you?”

Despite having seen him in hundreds of photos and fleetingly in a passing car, the tangible presence of the Exile, just six yards away from him, stirred Jacques Mornard’s senses. There he was, armed with a bunch of grass, the most dangerous adversary of the world revolution, the enemy for whose death he had been preparing himself for almost three years. What had begun as a confusing conversation on the side of the Sierra de Guadarrama had finally led him to the presence of a person condemned to die long ago—and he, Ramón Mercader, would be the one in charge of executing him.

“Good day, sir,” he managed to say as he tried to force his lips into a smile. “I’m Frank Jacson, Sylvia’s friend, and—”

“Yes, of course,” the old man said, nodding. “Did they alert the Rosmers?”

“Yes, Robbins . . .”

The Exile, as if he were annoyed, stopped listening to him and gave a half turn to open one of the compartments and place the fresh grass in the basket from which the rabbits would take it.

As he felt his emotions calm down, Jacques observed the nape of his enemy’s neck, unprotected and easy to break, like any neck. The man, seen up close, seemed less aged than in the photos and bore no relation to the caricatures that represented him as an old and feeble Jew. Despite his sixty years, the tensions and physical ailments, the renegade emitted firmness and, despite his multiple betrayals of the working class, dignity. His graying, pointed goatee, the wavy hair, the sharp Jewish nose, and, above all, the penetrating eyes behind the glasses emitted an electric force. It was true what many said, he looked more like an eagle than a man, Jacques thought as he remained immobile, the paper bag in his hand. What if he had brought a revolver with him?

“The grass must be fresh,” the renegade said at that moment, without turning around. “Rabbits are strong animals, but delicate at the same time. If the grass is dry, their stomachs become ill, and if it’s wet, it causes mange.”

Jacques nodded and only then did he realize that it was difficult for him to speak. The old man had started to take off the gloves with which he protected his hands and placed them on the roof of the rabbit cages.

“But they’re going to be late,” he said, and walked toward the house. When he passed, barely three feet away from him, Jacques noted the soapy smell coming from his hair, perhaps in need of a cut. If he had stretched out his arm, he could have taken him by the neck. But he felt paralyzed and breathed in relief when the man walked away from him and said, “Good, there they are.”

Marguerite Rosmer and Natalia Sedova were going out to the yard by the door that, according to what Sylvia had told him, led to the dining room and toward which the Exile walked. The women exchanged greetings with Jacques, and Natalia asked if he wanted a cup of tea, which he accepted. When Natalia turned around, Jacques stopped her while digging into the paper bag.

“Madame Trotsky . . . this is for you,” he said, and held out a box tied with a mauve ribbon that made the shape of something resembling a flower.

Natalia looked at him and smiled. She took the package and began to open it.

“Chocolates . . . But . . .”

“It’s my pleasure, Madame Trotsky.”

“Please, Jacson, you can call me Natalia.”

Jacques also smiled, nodding.

“Does Madame Natalia sound all right?”

“If you insist . . .” she accepted.

“Seva’s not here . . .? I’ve also brought something for him,” he explained, raising the bag.

“I’ll send him right away,” she said, and walked to the dining room.

The boy took a few minutes to come out, and he was wiping his mouth as he walked. Without giving him time to greet him, Jacques held out the bag. Seva ripped the paper covering the cardboard box, from which, at last, he extracted a miniature airplane.

“Since you told me you liked airplanes . . .”

Seva’s face shone with joy and Marguerite, next to him, smiled at the boy’s happiness.

“Thank you, Mr. Jacson. You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”

“It was no trouble, Seva . . . Hey, listen, where’s Azteca?”

“In the dining room. My grandfather has gotten him used to eating bread soaked in milk and now he’s giving him dinner.”

Marguerite excused herself, as there were some things left to pack and it was getting late. With Seva and the recently arrived Azteca, the visitor walked around the area with the rabbit cages until he saw Alfred Rosmer exit the house and, behind him, the renegade. His nerves started to settle and the certainty that he could enter that sanctuary, carry out his mission, and exit while saying goodbye to the watchtower guards calmed him. Jacques shook Rosmer’s hand and reassured him that they had enough time to reach Veracruz by the appointed hour. Natalia then came out with a cup of tea and Jacques thanked her. The renegade watched them all but only spoke again when he sat down on the wooden bench.

“Sylvia told me you’re Belgian,” he said, focusing on Jacques.

“Yes, although I lived in France for a long time.”

“And you prefer tea to coffee?”

Jacques smiled, moving his head.

“In reality, I prefer coffee, but since I was offered tea . . .”

The renegade smiled.

“And what’s this story about you being called Jacson now? Sylvia said something, but with so many things in my head . . .”

Jacques observed that Azteca was coming back from the rabbit cages and he snapped his fingers to call him over, but the animal kept going and settled in between the legs of the old man, who mechanically started to scratch his head and behind his ears.

“I have a falsified passport in the name of Frank Jacson, a Canadian engineer. It was the only way to leave Europe after the general mobilization. I have no intention of allowing myself to be killed in a war that isn’t mine.”

The Exile nodded and he continued:

“Sylvia didn’t want me to come here because of that passport. In reality, I am illegal in Mexico and she thought that could hurt you.”

“I don’t think anything hurts me anymore,” the Exile assured him. “After what happened a few days ago, every morning when I wake up I think I’m living an extra day. Next time, Stalin isn’t going to fail.”

“Don’t talk that way, Lev Davidovich,” Rosmer interjected.

“All of those walls and guards are just scenery, Alfred, my friend. If they didn’t kill us the other night, it was a miracle or for reasons that only Stalin knows. But it was the penultimate chapter of this hunt, of that I am sure.”

Jacques abstained from participating. With the tip of his shoe, he moved some small rocks among the gravel. He knew that the renegade was right, but the calm with which he expressed that conviction disturbed him.

The two men talked about the situation in France, whose defeat at the hands of the German army seemed imminent, and the renegade tried to convince the other not to leave. Rosmer insisted that now, more than ever, he had to return.

“I’m turning into an old egotist,” the Exile said, as if he were concentrating only on the caresses he was lavishing on the dog. “It’s just that I don’t want you to leave. I am more and more alone, without friends, without comrades, without family . . . Stalin has taken them all.”

Ramón refused to listen and tried instead to concentrate on his hate and on the nape of the man’s neck, but he was surprised to discover that he was surrounded by an ambiguous feeling of understanding. He
suspected that he had spent too many months in the skin of Jacques Mornard and that using that disguise for much longer could be dangerous.

Tom’s silence turned into a dense cloak that began to crush Ramón’s will. It had been more than two weeks since he had heard any news, and he still hadn’t received his orders. As the days of inactivity went by, he began to fear more insistently that, after the failure of the Mexican assailants, the operation had been postponed, even called off. Enclosed in the cabin at the tourist complex, he immersed himself in the most diverse reflections, convincing himself that he was ready to carry out his mission and that nothing would be able to impede it after having accomplished the most complicated part of his work, penetrating the Trotsky sanctuary. He knew he could and should overcome his nerves, and he had managed to keep them under control in front of the renegade, although they had played a bad trick on him when he left the fortress in Coyoacán and when he missed the road to Veracruz a couple of times, which caused Natalia Sedova to ask whether he traveled frequently to that city or not.

“It’s that my mind is somewhere else,” he said, almost with all sincerity. “I’m not too interested in politics, but there’s something about Mr. Trotsky . . . Sylvia had already told me.”