Antonio Molina - In the Night of Time

“I should’ve guessed.”

“Don’t try to talk me out of it. Don’t. Any reason you can give me for not going I’ve already thought of myself and heard many times. I’m not going to change my mind. As soon as you start telling me what I already know you’re going to say, I’ll get up and go back the way I came. You have to live according to your principles. I can’t ease my conscience by occasionally attending an event in favor of the Spanish Republic or going out to the street with a money box to collect donations. I don’t want to think one thing and do another. I don’t want to read the paper or listen to the radio or see a newsreel and die of rage seeing what the Fascists are doing in Spain, and then go on living as if nothing were happening. It’s that simple.”

“And what will you do? Madrid’s about to fall.”

“Why are you so sure? So you’ll feel less remorse because you left? The Soviet Union’s begun to send aid. Just this morning I heard on the radio that the French are going to open the border to let armaments through. There are things the newspapers don’t publish. There are thousands and thousands of volunteers traveling to Spain right now.”

“And what will they do when they arrive? You don’t know what it’s like. My country is nothing but an insane asylum, a slaughterhouse. We don’t have an army, or discipline. And almost no government.”

“I never heard you use the first person plural when talking politics.”

“I didn’t realize I was doing it. I must’ve got into the habit when I left Spain.”

“Not everything is lost.”

“You don’t know what war is like.”

“Stop telling me the things I don’t know. I’m going so I’ll find out.”

“Do you plan to join the militias?”

“Don’t talk to me in that tone.”

“What tone?”

“As if I understood nothing. As if I were acting on a whim. I know very well what I’m going to do.”

“Nobody knows. In a war nobody understands anything. The ones who seem to understand are the biggest charlatans of all, or the most demented, or the most dangerous. I’ve seen war. Nobody told me about it. I saw it in Morocco when I was young and now I’ve seen it again in Madrid, and it’s the same thing, nothing to do with two armies and a battle with advances and retreats and then a bugle blows and everything’s over and you collect the dead. In a war nobody knows what’s going on. The professional military pretend they know, but it’s not true. At best the only thing they’ve learned is to dissimulate or push others in front of them. A bomb explodes and you’re dead or bleeding to death and holding your insides in your hands, or you’re left blind or missing your legs or half your face. And you don’t even have to go to the front. You go to a café or a movie theater on the Gran Vía and when you leave a mortar shell or an incendiary bomb falls and if you’re lucky you don’t know you’re going to die. Or someone denounces you because he doesn’t like you, or because he thinks he saw you coming out of Mass once or reading the ABC, and they take you in a car to the Casa de Campo and the next morning the kids have fun with your body, putting a lit cigar in your mouth, calling you an idiot. That’s war. Or revolution, if you think that word’s more appropriate. Everything else they’re telling you is a lie. All those parades that look so good in films and illustrated magazines, the posters, the slogans — They Shall Not Pass. Brave, honorable men climb into an old truck to go to the front and the other side mows them down with machine guns, and they don’t even have time to aim the rifles that in most cases they haven’t learned to handle properly, or they have very little ammunition, or it’s not the right kind. In half an hour they can be dead or lose both arms or both legs. The ones who seem the fiercest and most revolutionary stay behind the lines and use their rifles and clenched fists to get free service in bars or whorehouses. The Fascists have machine guns mounted on their planes and amuse themselves by firing on the lines of campesinos and militiamen fleeing toward Madrid. The militiamen waste ammunition firing at the planes because, even if they know how to aim, they don’t know their guns aren’t powerful enough to reach the planes. The pilot is annoyed, and instead of continuing on his way he turns around and machine-guns them in an open field as if they were ants. The only ones who end up on the frontlines, where death is almost certain, can’t help it because they were dragged there or because they believed the propaganda and got drunk on banners and anthems. Every man who can, escapes, except the innocent and the deluded, and they’re the first to die or be mutilated or disfigured. Not on the first day but in the first minute. Some don’t even carry weapons. They think that going to war means lining up and keeping time while you follow a band playing ‘The Internationale’ or ‘To the Barricades.’ They see the enemy coming and can’t run because their legs are trembling and they shit themselves in fear. It’s not a figure of speech. Extreme fear causes diarrhea. The other side hunts them down with no difficulty. Just like hunting rabbits. Do you know what they enjoy? They get bored when it’s so easy to kill, and they look for entertainment. You can imagine what they do to women. With men they often cut off noses and ears and then slit their throats. They cut off their testicles and stuff them in their mouths. They put a head with the ears and nose cut off on a broomstick and carry it in a parade. But our men do that too sometimes. Don’t look at me like that. It’s not enemy propaganda. I saw the decapitated head of General López Ochoa marched around Madrid. The leftist parties and the unions hated him because he led the troops in Asturias in ’34. On July 18 he was in the military hospital at Carabanchel because he’d had an operation, and some brave man got the idea of killing him right there. They dragged the body through the streets and cut off his head, ears, and testicles. It was like a procession, a carnival, with a swarm of children running behind. You’re going to tell me the other side is worse. I don’t doubt that at all. I’ve also seen what they do. They rebelled, and it’s their fault the slaughter began. They deserve to lose, but we’ve done so many savage and stupid things, we don’t deserve to win.”

“And you’re above it all?”

“I’ve gone as far as I’ve been pushed. They could have killed me in Madrid — the other side surely would have killed me if I’d stayed with my children that Sunday in the Sierra. I’m not a brave man. I’m not a passionate man. I’ve almost never had strong emotions, except for you, or sometimes for my work, imagining it. I’m not a revolutionary. I don’t believe history has a direction or that you can build heaven on earth. And even if you could, if the price is an endless bloodbath and tyranny, I don’t think it’s worth paying. But if I’m wrong, and revolution and slaughter are necessary to bring about justice, I prefer to step aside if I have the chance, at least to save my life. It’s the only one I have. I’m not a man of action like my friend Dr. Negrín. I learned it these past few months, spending so much time alone. I hardly spoke to anyone and often couldn’t sleep and thought about what I really like, what I need. I need to do something well that is also useful and lasting and solid. People obsessed by political passions frighten me, or seem ridiculous, like those who turn red shouting at a soccer game, or the racetrack, or a bullfight. Now they also disgust me. I think there are many more despicable people than I ever imagined. The old intoxicate the young to take revenge on their youth and send them to slaughter. Many people who seem normal become savages when they see and smell blood. They see a neighbor shot who until yesterday had greeted them every morning, and if they can, they steal his wallet or his shoes. My poor friend Professor Rossman was a saint. He never hurt anyone. He’d get on a streetcar and take off his hat if there was a woman in front of him. He made his bed every morning at the pensión to save the maid work. He’d been eminent in Germany, and in Spain he earned a poor living selling pens in cafés, but I never heard him complain about the country or lose his patience. You met him. Well, they killed him like an animal because some cretin must have thought he was a spy because he spoke with a German accent or carried a briefcase filled with newspaper clippings and maps of the front. Before they killed him, they beat his face to a pulp. And I didn’t see his daughter again, either. They didn’t know anything about her at the pensión or the office where she worked. As if the earth had swallowed her. I couldn’t help either one of them. I probably didn’t have any luck or was afraid to insist too much and put myself in danger. That’s the truth. My wife’s brother came one night to ask me to hide him because they were looking for him. I didn’t open the door. If I’d let him in, I probably couldn’t have left, or I’d have had to postpone the trip again, or they’d have locked me up for helping him. Maybe they killed him that same night. He was a Falangist and a fool, but nobody deserves to go around hiding in doorways like an animal. And that’s not all. He really loved my children, and they loved him, the boy especially. He loved his uncle so much it made me jealous. And if in spite of everything he managed to escape and get to the other side, he’ll be so full of rancor he’ll become a butcher. It’s possible he goes to see my children, and they admire him all the more seeing him turned into a war hero, and he tells them their father betrayed him. I could have told him to stay and denounced him. I would have done my duty, since my brother-in-law was in one of those Falangist groups that shoot militiamen from roofs or drive in a car at top speed machine-gunning people who line up for bread or charcoal. A traitor. A saboteur. But it’s not that I felt compassion for him. I didn’t want my trip ruined because of him.”