“Tell me where to go and I’ll make a statement in his favor. Negrín is also prepared to answer for him.”
“Negrín has just been named minister in the new government… Didn’t you listen to the radio this morning?”
“I’ll call Professor Rossman’s daughter. She hasn’t slept in two nights.”
“You’re not going anywhere, Abel, only where I tell you to. They called me this morning from the Committee for the Restoration of the Artistic Patrimony asking for a favor, and I thought of you. They’re swamped with work, as you can imagine.”
“They wouldn’t be if they hadn’t burned so many churches.”
“You always blame everything on our side, Abel. You see only our errors.”
“The entire world sees them.”
“The entire world sees what it wants to see!” Bergamín’s voice grew shrill. “They have eyes and do not see, ears and do not hear, says Scripture. The entire world refuses to acknowledge that it was the insurgent planes that bombed the palace of the duke of Alba, and the people’s militias who risked their lives rushing into the fire and rubble to save artistic treasures that a family of landowning parasites has been usurping for centuries.”
Bergamín looked at his watch. He was uncomfortable and in a hurry. His pale face tinged by the colors of the stained glass, he watched the flow of people between the great staircase and the courtyard and grew uneasy when he saw André Malraux, who would accompany him on his flight.
“Speaking of treasures, you’ve probably heard about the retable on the main altar of the Capilla de la Caridad in Illescas. It has no less than four paintings by El Greco. The Committee asked for our help in rescuing it.”
“The enemy has already reached Illescas?”
“Don’t be alarmed, Abel. Someone will hear you and think you’re a defeatist.”
“If it’s not one thing it’s another. It’s obvious I don’t strike you the right way, Bergamín.”
“Don’t get angry. I’m alarmed by your political naïveté and would like to make you more aware or at least protect you. As you know, the militias are forcing the enemy to retreat on all fronts, including Talavera. If the Fascists haven’t been able to take Talavera with forces much larger and better armed than ours, how will they approach Illescas, which is much closer to Madrid? This is a different problem. We’ve been told that in Illescas those rather wild-eyed boys from the Iberian Anarchist Federation have seized power and decided to proclaim Anarchist communism. For the moment they’ve eliminated private property and money and converted the Capilla de la Caridad into a warehouse for collectivized foodstuffs. A Socialist councilman managed to call the Committee for the Patrimony yesterday from the only phone in the village. In the commune they’re debating what to do with the altarpiece — sell it and collect funds to buy weapons, which is the position of the more moderate members, or burn it in a bonfire in the middle of the town square. Don’t look at me like that, Abel. We can’t reproach the people for not appreciating what they haven’t been taught to appreciate. With the help of our friends in the Fifth Regiment, we’ve prepared a small rescue expedition. Discreet but effective. A few well-armed militiamen were provided with a decree from the National Directorate for Fine Arts authorizing them to remove the El Greco paintings from the retable and store them temporarily in the basement of the Bank of Spain, which is what we’ve been doing with many other endangered works of art. You’re the person chosen to direct the operation. Don’t protest. I’ve told you on various occasions: make yourself visible, make yourself useful. Make your loyalty to the Republic known with actions and not just words. Though words are also a good idea. Why didn’t you sign the intellectuals’ manifesto of loyalty to the regime?”
“No one asked me to.”
“Everything has a solution. Write something for the next issue of The Blue Coverall. A few pages on whatever subject you like, architecture in the new society, or something along the lines of what you gave me for Cruz y Raya that everybody liked so much. The masters of popular architecture, as anonymous as the authors of the old ballads. And please leave right away for Illescas, an Alliance truck will be waiting at the corner of Recoletos. Time is of the essence, Abel.”
“Give me your word that nothing will happen to Professor Rossman.”
“I can’t promise anything. I’m not in charge. Do as I advise and no promise will be needed. If you hurry, you can be back with the paintings this afternoon. Ask Mariana. She is in charge. She’ll have a message for you.”
This time Bergamín didn’t offer his hand when he said goodbye. He saw a tall man with an arrogant profile going down the stairs in a leather jacket, breeches, and riding boots, and in a hurry to meet him Bergamín forgot about Ignacio Abel, but not without first telling him who the man was.
“There’s Malraux.”
Why had he foolishly allowed himself to be persuaded, taking Bergamín at his word? Why, instead of climbing into the truck that would take him to an uncertain and probably dangerous destination, didn’t he leave the Alliance and keep looking for Professor Rossman, who might still have been alive that morning? The militiamen taking the sun at the entrance, sitting in wing chairs removed from the palace — smoking, chatting on the sunny sidewalk, their rifles across their laps — wouldn’t have done anything to stop him. Problems have a solution for a certain period of time, almost always brief, and then they are irreparable. He went into the courtyard and a militiaman told him the truck was ready, its motor running, the men prepared. Bergamín’s secretary came down the marble staircase, heels clicking, to give him a folder with documents whose contents she reviewed quickly with him, not giving him time to ask questions. How strange to have lost so easily the almost arrogant feeling of control that had become a character trait when he made decisions and gave orders at the construction sites in University City. The band was playing somewhere, he could hear the Linotype machines at work, orders and shouts around him, raucous engines and horns in the courtyard, boot heels pounding, weapons firing. In the rooms where only two months earlier liveried servants and maids in black uniforms and white caps went about their work, a disorderly crowd swarmed: unshaven men in blue coveralls, rifles over their shoulders, and women in militia caps, pistols at their waists. The war was a state of improvisation and urgency, a reckless, convulsive theatricality in which he was caught up, knowing that he shouldn’t allow himself to be persuaded, that he lacked the courage or simple adroitness to resist. He remained motionless, like an animal caught in the headlights. When he did nothing, the danger increased; if he did something, it was futile, wrong, and he knew it, but he couldn’t overcome his own incompetence. In one of the improvised jails in Madrid, in a dark basement where prisoners crammed together could barely see one another’s faces, Professor Rossman might be waiting for a door to open and someone to say his name, aware that in all of Madrid Ignacio Abel was the only one who could save him. That morning he should have turned again to Negrín, even more influential and activist, just named a minister. Through large open doors came the sound of the bugle that announced war dispatches on the radio, and people came from all directions to gather around a radio as ostentatious as the palace’s carved doors, desks, and credenzas. Militiamen, clerks, workers, musicians who interrupted their rehearsal, girls dressed in eighteenth-century ball gowns and wigs. Beside Ignacio Abel stood Bergamín’s attentive secretary. The first solemn, blaring measures of the Republican anthem sounded, and the voice of the announcer declaimed: “Attention, Spaniards! The victory government has been formed!” Applause rang out each time the name of one of the new ministers, Socialists and Communists now, was announced, but almost none when the name of Juan Negrín López, minister of finance, came up. Silence was restored with difficulty, and the rhetorical voice announced a speech from the new prime minister, Don Francisco Largo Caballero. As had happened so often in his life, Ignacio Abel found himself surrounded by a fervor he would have liked to share, yet it merely accentuated his feeling of distance, his sense of being an outsider. How strange that on those young faces, Largo Caballero’s unpolished oratory, his way of speaking in front of a microphone — an old man, disconcerted by modern inventions — should awaken unanimous attention and enthusiasm. The unbreakable unity of all the organizations in the Popular Front guaranteed the imminent defeat of the Fascist aggressors. The enemy retreated on all fronts, desperately trying to resist fierce attacks by the workers’ heroic militias. The Spanish people would expel the Moorish mercenaries and the invaders sent by German Nazis and Italian Fascists, just as it had expelled Napoleon’s armies in the War of Independence. To each “Viva” pronounced by Largo Caballero, the people grouped around the radio responded with a “Viva” that resounded in the hall. They stood up and raised their fists and sang “The Internationale,” played by the band. Ignacio Abel raised his fist too, with an involuntary yet true emotion awakened by the music and the beautiful words learned as a child at the Socialist meetings his father took him to: Arise, you prisoners of starvation! Arise, you wretched of the earth! They think the revolution is now reality, that they’ve triumphed just because they occupy the palaces of Madrid and march in parades with bands and red flags. They’re intoxicated by words and anthems, as if they were breathing air too rich in oxygen and didn’t know it. But perhaps it was he who was mistaken, his lack of fervor proof not of lucidity but the mean-spirited hardening of age, favored by privilege and his fear of losing it.