CHAPTER 10

Barcelona, 1936 (1936)

The author left London alone on July 18th. She was in the last train to enter Spain after fighting began and arrived back in London on July 27th. This was her first visit to Europe.—Editors1

As the train began to wake up, Cerbère was reached, the last town in France, and the old water, the Mediterranean. Very quickly, the terraces became mountains, covered with cactus and olive, the Pyrenees produced their little pale villages, stonemasonry and plaster and stucco became prominent as we crossed the Spanish border.

The big shed of the customs building burst into noise as the train drew in. Everyone lined up; they were taking down the names. One or two of the Olympic teams, traveling on collective passports, had some difficulty, and the change from the smart, green metal of the French express to the wooden compartments of the Spanish third-class cars, plus heat, plus a first strange cataract of Spanish spoken, pushed the passengers into confusion.

The train started into Spain, very slowly, its noise wiped out by a tremendous conversation. Seven Catalonian peasant women discussing Spanish politics will wipe out any noise, any scene, fill a compartment to henhouse madness, fill the head with “communista,” “monarchista,” “facisti,” “republica,” until the next town is reached, they all descend, and peace and slowness return.3 The train stands in this station an extraordinarily long time. More Spanish families get in; the Olympic teams, hurrying to Barcelona from Paris, Switzerland, all over France, begin to make friends. The train stops at every little station, rests, moves as if exhausted when it does move. Two Spanish soldiers, in comic-opera olive uniforms with natty yellow leather straps, patent leather hats slapped down on top, grin over English cigarettes and the conversation of the Spaniards, deep in political discussions with the Olympic athletes. Catalonians answer, “No,” with a swipe of the hand to all questions about the army, “Some on one side, some on the other . . . Not good to talk.” They are pointing out olive trees, castles, churches. There is time to point out any amount of landscape. At the little stations, the soldiers stick their guns out of the windows, and armed workers patrol the platforms. This impresses the foreigners. The Spaniards gossip about a change in government last midnight.4

The train stops at a not very important station. The town begins to circulate around it, dead in its tracks, getting hotter and deader, stopped twelve kilometers from Barcelona. An old Frenchwoman, who has lived in Spain for forty-eight years, says like a Sibyl, “This train won’t go, not anymore.”

A wildfire of rumors goes through the train from that moment on. The Catalonians, who have been fighting, leave the train, buy bread and sausages and wine, and begin lunch on the benches; the foreigners begin to meet each other after two hours of waiting. Word goes through, the news of a general strike.5

This, a slogan at the end of a pamphlet, the last words of a poem. Suddenly, the guns come through the train, following a girl who demands all photographs. The soldiers have disappeared. The tourists, inconvenienced and frightened, sit down, whispering. The lady from Peapack, New Jersey, who cannot wait to see a bullfight, lets her face go white and older. General Strike! The train will not move. The mayor, grave, with a black stripe of mourning in his lapel, speaks to the professor from Madrid, a man who will act as go-between from the train to the village. There is fighting in Barcelona. The government has moved farther left, the Popular Front has hardened to a battlefront. The army is insurgent, in the north, perhaps all over Spain. Rumors fly down the train. The lines are down. The soldiers who were on the train. Where are they?

The station begins to take on the appearance of a fête-day. Couples walk down the platform, looking with curiosity at the travelers. Small boys climb the little blossoming trees, hooting and whistling. The short, compact men, sandaled, with rifles over their shoulders, patrol, search, guard. The teams go into the main street of Moncada, where a camión is about to depart from Barcelona with nine armed volunteers. A Hungarian makes the clenched fist, saluting them, but they glare and make a clawing sign. “But who are you? Aren’t you communists?” “Communists? No. We’re anarchists.” “Well, what does it mean? What do you want?” What do they want? That’s different, perhaps . . . why, they don’t want law, they don’t want money, they don’t want government. The radio in the truck produces, startlingly, Beethoven’s Fifth. One of the mothers screams at the boys, but the truck starts off to Barcelona.

The rumors persist. There’ll be a battle in the village tonight, we’re right on the line of retreat to the border, the cables are closed, the lines are down, they’ll bomb Barcelona, the consulates won’t permit anything like that, the train will move in an hour, at the most . . . The tourists begin to make themselves at home. The handsome young English couple, on their way to Mallorca, have it in for the man at Cook’s, who should have told them there was to be a revolution.6 The chorus of six platinumed Rodney Hudson Young Ladies must go on to Barcelona, where they are to open in the evening.7 They fascinate the town, they are so blonde. The Olympic teams begin to round up everyone connected with the Games. The town has promised to feed everyone going to the Olimpiada.

Night shuts down. Two families, the fathers wounded, walk into Moncada from Barcelona with news. The radio goes at half-hour intervals, booming out: war news, government bulletins, tangos, Bing Crosby songs, “You’re Driving Me Crazy.”8 As long as the government holds the radio, all is in order in Catalonia. There has been a tremendous battle in Barcelona, many dead, many wounded, but the generals are beginning to be beaten, the army is partly loyal, General Goded is speaking over the radio, confessing that his troops are beaten; the radio goes on, loud into the soft romantic night.9

On the train, a committee is set up to convey a letter of sympathy and thanks for courtesy to the town. Two members go down the length of the train, taking up collection for the use of Moncada.10 Many have been wounded. The only stores open during the general strike are the chemists’ shops. Almost everybody gives to the collection: a couple of centavos here, a duro there. The only exceptions are a few tear-stained frightened families, and the well-dressed Frenchmen who have been reading Gringoire all afternoon.11 The Americans talk: this is what they have been talking about, in little rooms in New York, in meetings in Union Square.12 Everything is confused; John Reed could not tell what was happening during 1917, on top of a flight of stairs when something went on at the bottom, the revolution all around, almost silent, the rapid rumors.13 Remember the waiter who was asked where he was during the Revolution? “It was during the special dinner, sir.” One woman reads a French pamphlet on “The Problems of the Spanish Revolutionary Movement.”

The committee takes the money and document in two languages to the mayor, who sends it on. It is too important for him to accept; he sends the committee down the green-and-white, modernist building—the Secretary of the Committee will accept it. He sits under the portrait of Lluís Companys, President of Catalonia. The Committee, tired men, watch while he types out formal thanks. “Tell him that some of us are sympathizers,” somebody whispers. “No. No foreign nationals can intrude in revolutionary situations—in Paris on the 14th, word went out, too.”14 The passengers’ committee shakes hands with the Committee, and goes back to sleep on the benches of the train.

The roosters crowed all night, but at quarter of five they were stopped, as the train and their cages and the town shook with the bombing of the church. The peasant woman in third-class goes on with the fire she has been making to heat soup. The passengers begin to get up. News spreads. There have been five fascist officers killed in the early morning, and their captain has said as he was captured, “You can do as you please with me. I’ve killed two or three hundred of your men already.” Their bodies are on view in a cellar.

Cars begin to appear in the town, with U. G. T. and C. N. T., the initials of the united trade union groups which form a strong part of the Frente Popular, in great white letters on them.16 They are all guarded—the heavy guns point at the passengers who are walking in the street. A truck with a machine-gun in it goes down the street, behind another car marked LLET—the official milk-wagon.17 The town is warned that the fascists are retreating through the roads. Already the snap of bullets comes every few minutes, and the long echo of cannon passes from Barcelona through these hills. The train is given an hour-and-a-half to buy provisions, and then is to shut itself in.

In the stores, the fruit is running short, the town is buying bread and cheese and soda water, the foreigners stand helplessly around the fringes. Two little German children begin to fight with each other, and the scene becomes pathetic and intense: the town scrabbling for provisions, the foreigners, nerves going short, the little fair children in their playsuits knocking each other down. The mother stops them, cuffing the elder’s head, and he screams and weeps. The shops begin to close again, after their short opening, which had been ordered by the mayor. The train shuts itself in.

All during the hot noon, the train waits for the attack. The tourists set up bridge games. Somebody reads D. H. Lawrence, somebody an old issue of Variety.18 Shooting continues in the groves. During the afternoon, the train is given the use of the schoolhouse, a new building with water in which one may wash. The train is given its choice of place to sleep—the schoolhouse or the train. Some of the passengers make excursions, visiting peasants, and hide indoors when the houses are shot at. A few tourists, accustomed to luxury, are delighted by two things. The first is the removal of the train one hundred feet down the track. The town has permitted that for sanitary reasons. There has been little wind for two days. The other is the supply of gunny sacks in the town. An Englishman comes back, “So cheap—really such a bargain,” with one over his shoulder, “It’s really clean.”

The town is beginning to grow still and jumpy. In the street, boys are knocking a large doll about. The parochial school has strong doors, but they begin to give way. Priests have been firing on the people, fascists have been hiding in churches, and there are rumors: not a church left standing in Spain. The radio goes on. Trucks are promised for two teams, so that they may go to Barcelona. Nobody knows whether the games are taking place. The radio warns of enemy planes, enemy escapes. The train is empty, all the passengers stand before the schoolhouse, waiting for the truck, to see the teams off. It is perhaps more dangerous to try the road to Barcelona than to remain in the train, which, after all, preserves the appearance of neutrality. A few shots hurrah among the hills. Far off, clear along a line of olives, a little man is running, darting down into the grove. Suddenly, over the long range, a plane is heard—anybody’s plane, the high sweet motor-sound infinitely strange and frightening. It is far off, and the hundred people are perfectly quiet. But in a second, even that fear is absorbed, an American and Englishman are quarreling about whether the fascists are brave, people are discussing the possibility of sending cables with the teams, if they arrive safely in Barcelona. The plane passes overhead, almost unnoticed. The speed and externality of every incident is unbelievable—the terror and habit of guns and warnings and fear descend on every system and are absorbed. All but the hatred of fascists, which increases.

That night the machine-guns fought in the town. The soldiers reappeared, as loyal troops, Guardia Civil, marching through the train all night, the yellow leather straps shining in the half-light.19

Order began to be evident in Moncada. The next day the houses of absentee landlords were opened with dispatch; no signs of bombing or pageantry. The boys would try to force the doors, and after that failed, one might climb a garden wall and go through a window. This would be done systematically. The passengers watch the street facing the station. Door after door is opened, the holy oleos removed, little plaster saints thrown on the street, a gun is found, a fine piece in an expensive case, and is taken. The townspeople, who have been crossing themselves when they hear shots, come round and finger the religious objects and finally smash them to the ground with as fine a superstition.

Suddenly, the sign of pass is the clenched fist, cars appear with “Partit Comunista” painted on their sides, the machine-guns go down the road, continuing to Barcelona. The Swiss team prepares to leave in a truck, and yodels in the street to an amazed populace. Another retreat is expected. Nobody knows where there are fascists. The clenched fist is everywhere.

A truck is ready for some of the others, who run to the train, collect baggage, run back to the truck. The valises are set up around the sides of the truck for fortification. The truck is warned to watch for sniping fascists and to duck at the sound of gunfire. The communist leader, a man with a pale intellectual face and a bruise-like mark on his temple, asks for strict proletarian order and discipline. A guard is with the driver, another boy with a gun stands in the front of the truck, ready. The American says, in this hysterical moment, in the voice of Groucho Marx, “Of course they know this means war!” The truck starts at full speed, following another and two cars.

The road is lined with fortifications—bales of hay top the walls, as ramparts, later barricades of paving stones fly the red flag, there are little machine-gun nests. The Ford sign at the roadside is a grotesque.21 The clenched fist is everywhere. As Barcelona is reached, the white flags are apparent at all windows. Shots are heard, and as the man falls, the trucks swing wide, taking another road to the Hotel Olympic—immense building requisitioned for the athletes. In the streets, all the cars are armed and painted—the great squares show signs of battles, overturned cars stand where they stopped, there are a few dead horses, churches are burning all over the city. In the dusk, we come to Hotel Olympic.

Here the feeling is international and sympathetic; here the teams are arriving steadily, all with stories of a successful Popular Front in Catalonia. From the top of the building, Barcelona is laid out before you, dark and brilliant, the smoke rising from the churches, the squares illuminated, the Monumental y Arena across the way looking cavernous and a perfect place for snipers.22 The heights above the city are very beautiful, the gilded ball where Columbus rises over the port is a black circle in the distance. The Olympic is on the Plaza de l’España, one of the two principal centers of the fighting. Cars are overturned in the square, guards stream into the building, girls of seventeen armed with rifles go out to take their places in the cars. It is very dark as we set out for the stadium. Two thousand foreigners, thrown on the city on the day of civil war, are to be taken care of, lodged here and fed there.

We went to the dinner with the French governmental delegate in a car brightly lit to identify us. There was not a window that was not spangled with bullet-holes, and two bullet-holes were in the rear window above a long stain of blood on the upholstery. The car carried the government letters, and we passed others—F. A. I., the anarchists, who are in the United Front, P. C., the trade unions, C. N. T. and U. G. T. The stadium was filled with athletes and stranded nationals eating beans. News went round—the word was “On to Saragossa,” the fascist country. A workers’ army was being organized to fight as one of the columns sent from all over northern and central Spain against Saragossa. There is no other news, no other way to get news: but Barcelona is solidly Popular Front. The only fascists are those who cruise the streets in cars marked like the others, giving the sign, and then firing from alongside, or those few unorganized rebels who fire from behind blind walls or high windows.

Barcelona is a workers’ city today, occupied with putting down a fascist insurrection, conducting a general strike along the recognized lines.

A French athlete had been shot after a demonstration which the Olympic teams had made the day before, and was dying. The teams were meeting in their hotels, discussing procedure, voting to stay, voting to have the games. The French consul had insisted that the French—1,500 of them—leave on two French boats that were entering the harbor.

The athletes were forming great majorities intent on staying, on demonstrating the international People’s Front by having their games. The next twenty-four hours was packed with the stress of a city sending armies out—the young, tired boys marched down the Ramblas at night as crowds stood and cheered and saluted them with their fists and shouts of “A Zaragoza!”23 We knew Madrid was firm, and was sending more. In the morning, longer lines of soldiers went—and the Olympiad people and the sympathetic foreigners joined in a tremendous demonstration through the Ramblas and the Plaza de Cataluña, marked by fighting.

And during the speeches,

during the words of the Italian, passing his hand slowly over his hair, and flinging it far out as he claimed sympathy between his people and the Catalonians,

the Vivas flew open, from the army, from the armored cars, from the government officials, the soldiers in red-and-blue and silver standing among rooftops white with flapping laundry,

as the Norwegian spoke, the Belgian who had walked from Antwerp for the games,

as Martín spoke, telling of the athletes who had joined the Workers’ Army and were gone to Saragossa,24

during all the speeches and the marching and the rides in gun-cars down the fashionable streets,

the city held itself firmly in order.

The French had gone, on boats alive with voices singing The Internationale, fists thrown up, slogans shouted of the Popular Front—on the long waves, retreating into the port, the slogan carried, “Les Soviets Partout.”25

The torn armies left the city, blankets over their shoulders, a few helmets here and there, several women, many men with red scarfs about their heads.

We made a demonstration, wearing black for the fighting dead.

The governments sent their boats.

It was easy to foresee the long voyages into the Mediterranean. But now Martín, his square face with the heavy yellow eyebrows large over the crowd, was shouting to a mass meeting:

“The athletes came to attend the People’s Olympiad, but have been privileged to stay to see the beautiful and great victory of the people in Catalonia and Spain!

“These have come for games, but have remained for the greater Front, in battle and in triumph!

“Now they must leave, they must go back to their own countries, but they will carry to them . . .

(the tense sunlit square, Martín about to start for Saragossa, the people shouting “Viva!” in the streets, the friends among workers, the soldiers who stopped to talk to foreigners, the salutes, international and strong)

they will carry to their own countries, some of them still oppressed and under fascism and military terror, to the working people of the world, the story of what they see now in Spain.”

(Life and Letters To-day, 1936)