Javier Marías - Your Face Tomorrow 1 - Fever and Spear

I remembered that Tupra had also said: 'The truth is that, initially, everything tends to be believed. It's very odd, but that's how it is,' I remembered his words while I continued to read snippets from one book and from another: to crown all these mad calumnies, a book was published in 1938 by a certain Max Rieger (surely a pseudonym, possibly of Wenceslao Roces, whose name I knew because, later on, he translated Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind), supposedly a Spanish version based on the French translation by Lucienne and Arturo Perucho (the latter was the editor of the Catalan Communist organ, Treball), and with a 'Preface' by the famous, more-or-less Catholic and more-or-less Communist writer José Bergamín – oh dear, these mixtures – which, under the title Espionage in Spain, collated all the tall tales, falsehoods and accusations hurled at Nin and at the POUM, presenting them as true and bona fide, sanctioning them, repeating them, elaborating on them, documenting them with fabricated proofs, embellishing them, adding to them and exaggerating them. I remembered once hearing my father talk about this prologue by Bergamín as an act of rank indecency, justifying as it did the persecution and slaughter of people from the POUM and denying its leaders the right to any defence (Bergamín was pushing at an open door there: for this had already been denied to quite a few people, tortured and imprisoned or executed without trial), one of many acts of indecency committed by various Spanish intellectuals and writers from both sides during the War, and even more afterwards by those on the winning side. I read one dishonest, incompetent commentator – it may have been Tello-Trapp, but it could have been someone else, I had begun rather randomly taking notes on bits of paper, poor Peter's study was rapidly becoming a complete tip – who tried to excuse Bergamín, because he had known him in person ('a charming, fascinating man', 'a worthy Don Quixote, a lover of truth') and because he loved his poetry, 'profound, pure and romantic' and 'the lamp-light glow of his voice' – I gulped down another chocolate and a truffle and some wine to recover, I wondered how he could possibly come out with such schmaltz and still go on writing – but the preface in question, which I found widely quoted elsewhere, left no room for its author's salvation: the POUM was 'a small treacherous party', which had not even turned out to be 'a party, but an organisation for spying and collaborating with the enemy; that is, not an organisation merely conniving with the enemy, but the enemy itself, part of the international fascist organisation in Spain… The Spanish Civil War revealed international Trotskyism at the service of Franco in its true colours as a Trojan horse…' The duplicitous commentator could only regret and condemn this prologue, but 'we do not know', he said, if its author 'wrote it while in the sway of the Communist Party, or in good faith', when the most likely and obvious answer is that he wrote it perfectly freely and in the worst possible faith; as the almost always considered and objective Hugh Thomas remarked: 'He could not possibly have believed what he wrote.' The text of that 'lover of the truth' makes a good pairing with the poster or vignette which, according to Orwell and others, circulated widely in Madrid and Barcelona in the spring of 1937, and which showed the POUM taking off a mask bearing the hammer and sickle to reveal a face stamped with a swastika. My father was not exaggerating when he spoke of rank indecency.

That was when I noticed that Wheeler also kept on his well-stocked shelves, in six large bound volumes, the part-work brought out, under the title Doble Diario de la Guerra Civil 1936-1939 ('Double Newspaper/Diary of the Civil War 1936-1939') by the newspaper Abc between 1978 and 1980, that is, between three and five years after Franco's death. Before that, such an initiative would have been impossible, for it consisted of a facsimile reproduction, in two colours, of whole pages, columns, editorials, news items, interviews, advertisements, gossip columns, articles, opinion pieces, reports, from the two Abcs in existence during the War, the Republican one in Madrid and the pro-Franco one in Seville, in accordance with whichever side had prevailed in those two cities at the start of the conflict. The one published by the Madrid office was printed in red ink, and the one in Seville in blue-grey, so it was easy to follow their vision or version of the same events – though they never seemed like the same events – according to the press on either side. I was tempted to look up the issue corresponding to the spring of 1937, although the incidents relating to the POUM would have taken place mainly in Barcelona. Rather tired now and rushed, I did not find much at first glance. But one of those few news items made me momentarily set aside the larger tomes – one book always leads to another and another and they all have something to say, there is something unhealthy about curiosity, not for the reasons usually given, but because it leads inexorably to exhaustion – and to ask myself foolishly about Ian Fleming, the creator of Agent 007 and author of the James Bond novels. The note in question appeared in the Madrid Abc of 18 June 1937 and was, as far as the newspaper was concerned, probably of secondary importance, for it took up only half a column. The headline read: 'Various important POUM members arrested'. I read it very quickly and then carelessly pushed various books on to the floor to make room on the table for the old electronic typewriter I had noticed lying covered up and dumped in a corner, and transcribed the whole article. I didn't even dare think about what would happen if Wheeler or Mrs Berry woke up and came downstairs to discover the chaos into which that clean, tidy study had been plunged, and in far too brief a period of time to justify such anarchy: dozens of books taken from their shelves and left wide open and scattered about the floor, even a disrespectful invasion of Wheeler's two decorative lecterns with their dictionary and their atlas and their respective magnifying glasses; the plates of chocolates and truffles strewn willy-nilly, with, as I noticed in some consternation, the consequent and inevitable chocolate crumbs and smudges left behind on a number of pages; the glass and the bottle of whisky and the can of Coca-Cola that I had brought from the fridge as a mixer, and a beaker containing a few half-melted ice cubes, one or two or even three drops spilled and doubtless rings left on the wooden surface, it hadn't occurred to me to get a coaster; both my ashtray and Peter's filled to overflowing and, who knows, an ugly, yellowing nicotine mark in some highly conspicuous place, or even the odd scorch mark on certain key pages; my cigarettes and my lighter and my matches and an empty pen cartridge floating around or half hidden, perhaps an ink stain made while I was replacing it; and now a typewriter with its cover off and sheets of papers, scrawled on or typewritten, in English or in Spanish depending on the quotes. I would have the devil's own job putting everything back in its place, in order to leave the room just as it had been before these ruinous, impromptu, nocturnal studies of mine.

'Barcelona 17, 4 p.m.,' said the first and briefest part of the report:

The Police have arrested various prominent members of the POUM, amongst them Jorge Arques, David Pérez, Andrade and Ortiz. Nin, who was arrested yesterday, has been moved to Valencia.

This was signed 'Febus', another obvious alias. The second part added:

Barcelona 17, 12 midnight. During the day the Police have continued their arrests of prominent members of the POUM. As readers will be aware, the best-known of the party's leaders, Andres Nin, was arrested a few days ago and taken from the Delegacion del Estado in Catalonia to Valencia and from there to Madrid. There were approximately fourteen subsequent arrests, amongst them, that of the editor of the newspaper La Batalla, the organ of the POUM, and of some of that newspaper's journalists. The newspaper's printing works, editorial and administrative offices were seized by the authorities. Following statements made by those under arrest, further investigations ensued, which led to the arrest of another fifty people. They have all been taken to the Delegacion del Estado in Catalonia. Amongst those arrested are several singularly beautiful foreign women.This work is being carried out by officers of the criminal and social brigades with the assistance of officers from the Public Order and Security divisions. All the organisation's offices in Barcelona have been seized and a specialist team of twenty-five officers have carried out a detailed study of documents found in the files there. A meticulous search is being made of a house in San Gervasio, which was the property of Beltrán y Musitu, where the POUM had set up a barracks, and where several thousand complete sets of kit for soldiers, all of the latest design, were found.