'Andreu Nin lost his life,' I said at last, my improvised studies of the long previous night still floating in my head. 'Andres Nin,' I said, when I noticed Wheeler's confusion, which I noticed despite the fact that he had still not moved, and remained motionless and apparently drained. 'He didn't talk, he didn't answer, he gave no names, he said nothing. Nin, I mean, while they were torturing him. It cost him his life, although they would probably have taken his life anyway.' But Wheeler still did not understand or perhaps he simply did not want any more bifurcations.
'What?' he managed to ask, and I saw that he was opening his eyes, saw a gleam of stupefaction, as if he thought I had gone mad, what's that got to do with anything. His mind was too far from Madrid and Barcelona in the spring of 1937, maybe what he had experienced in Spain, whatever it was, had dwindled in importance compared with what came afterwards, from the late summer of 1939 to the spring of 1945, or possibly even later in his case. And so I tried to return to the country we were in, to Oxford, to London (sometimes I forgot that he was well over eighty; or, rather, I forgot all the time, and only occasionally remembered):
'So the campaign was counterproductive, then?' I said.
He slowly uncovered his face and I saw that he was looking refreshed again, it was extraordinary how he recovered or recomposed himself after those moments of low spirits or of weariness or inability to speak, it was usually interest – his scheming mind, or the desire to say or hear something, something more – that revived him. Or else humour, a flash of irony, charm, wit.
'Not exactly,' he replied, slightly screwing up his eyes, as if they were still stinging. 'It would be both facile and unfair to say that. There was very little malice in people, not really, not even amongst the most indiscreet and boastful of blockheads.' And this last word he said in Spanish, 'botarates', sometimes you could tell that he hadn't visited my country for quite some time, because you never hear that word there now, or, for obvious reasons, other similar words: after all, when a society consists largely of imbeciles, halfwits, blockheads and oafs there is no point in anyone calling anyone else by those names. 'And there were others, too, who remained silent as the grave. I'm not referring to the dead, but to certain scrupulous, strong-willed, tenacious people with a keen sense of duty, who unhesitatingly sealed their lips, even though no one would ever know of their obedient response or congratulate them on it. There were many such people, although perhaps not that many, it was a very difficult order to carry out, almost absurd really, "Don't speak, not a murmur, not a whisper, nothing, because they can read your lips, so forget your language.'" ('Keep quiet, then save yourself, was what crossed my mind and, also, just for a second, I wondered whether my Uncle Alfonso would have talked or kept silent, we would never know.) 'The reason I say that the campaign failed overall is not because people were not prepared to comply, the majority were; and it served a purpose, it served to give us a general awareness that we were not alone, but had as many companions as actors in a theatre; and that beyond the spotlights, in the penumbra, in the shadows or the darkness, we had a packed and very attentive audience, each member of which was endowed with an excellent memory, however invisible, unrecognisable and scattered that audience might be, and was made up of spies, eavesdroppers' (again that word which is so difficult to translate into Spanish), 'fifth columnists, informers and professional decoders; that each word of ours they heard could prove fatal to our cause, just as those we stole from the enemy were vital to us. But at the same time, this campaign – and this was where it was bound to fail despite its indisputable benefits and successes – increased, inevitably and incredibly, the numbers of the verbally incontinent, the out-and-out blabbermouths. And although many people who had previously always talked freely and unconcernedly did learn, as one of these cartoons recommends, to think twice before speaking, there were many others who had always tended to be silent or, at least, laconic, inhibited or taciturn, not out of choice or prudence, but because they felt that anything they might say or tell would be dull, unworthy of anyone's interest and utterly inconsequential, but now they found themselves unable to resist the temptation of feeling dangerous and reprehensible, a threat, and thus deserving of attention, to feel, in a way, that they were the protagonists of their own small world, even though, for the most part, that protagonism was mad, unreal, illusory, fictitious, mere wishful thinking. Whatever the reason, they began to talk nineteen to the dozen; to give themselves airs and pretend they were in the know, and anyone who pretends that usually ends up trying to be genuinely in the know, within their capabilities, of course, and thus becomes yet another entirely gratuitous spy. And whether they succeed or not, it is also true to say that everyone knows something, even when they don't know that they do, even when they imagine that they know absolutely nothing. But even the shyest and most solitary of men who merely grunts at his landlady if he should happen to meet her during the day, even the scattiest or most obtuse of women with barely an ounce of intellect, and even the least curious or sociable and most self-absorbed child in the kingdom, all know something, because words, that fierce contagion, spread without any need for help, they overcome all obstacles and proliferate and penetrate more, much more, unspeakably more than you, or indeed anyone, could ever imagine. All it takes is a sharp, detective's ear and a malicious, associative mind to capture and make the most of that something and to express it. The people in charge of the campaign were aware of this, that all of us know some effects and some causes, however unconnected. As I said, what valuable information could those two ladies on the Underground possibly know, or that very ordinary man in the cap, saying: "What I know – I keep to myself"'? And yet the campaign was also directed at them, at people like them, trying to persuade them to forget their language. A vain endeavour, don't you think, trying to encompass everyone? And a pretty pointless task given that a partial result was no use at all.'
Wheeler stopped and indicated my packet of cigarettes. I held it out to him, offered him a cigarette, and immediately lit it for him. He took a few puffs and looked with bemusement at the lighted end, thinking perhaps that it had not taken, doubtless unaccustomed to the feeble, insipid cigarettes I usually smoke.
'And what did you have to do with all that?' I finally asked.
'Nothing. With that, nothing at all, or, rather, I was just one of many, albeit in a privileged position. As I told you, for most of that time, I was in far less uncomfortable places than London, something that still weighs on my conscience. But I was involved in what the campaign indirectly brought with it: the formation of that group. When MI6 and MI 5 realised what was tending all too frequently to happen, what we would nowadays call the collateral effect, which, indeed, ran counter to the initiative, it occurred to someone that we should take advantage of that, or at least turn it a little in our favour, place it at our service. Someone, whoever it was (Menzies, Vivian, Hollis or even Churchill himself, it doesn't "matter), saw that just by listening attentively and allowing people who wanted to talk and wanted to be heard (sometimes not even that much was necessary), and observing them with a mixture of shrewdness, deductive ability, interpretative boldness and a talent for making associations, that is, with precisely the skills that we assumed and even conceded in the German experts who were infiltrating us and in the hidden pro-Nazis who were on our territory from the start – just by doing all this, we could get to the depths or the bottom, almost to the essence of people; to find out what they would and wouldn't be capable of doing and how far they could be trusted, their characteristics and qualities, their defects and limitations, if they were by nature strong or fragile, corruptible or incorruptible, cowardly or intrepid, treacherous or loyal, impervious or susceptible to flattery, egotistical or generous, arrogant or servile, hypocritical or candid, resolute or hesitant, argumentative or docile, cruel or compassionate, everything, anything, everything. One could also find out beforehand who would be capable of killing in cold blood or who would submit to being killed, should that prove necessary or were they ordered to do so, although the latter is always the most difficult thing to be sure of in anyone; who would turn tail and who would go forward, however insane such a decision might seem; who would betray, who would support, who would fall silent, who would fall in love, who would feel envious or jealous, who would abandon us to the elements and who would always cover us. Who would sell us down the river; and who would do so dearly or cheaply. It might be that the people who rarely spoke would have nothing very grave or interesting to say, but they always ended up revealing almost everything about themselves, even if they were pretending. That is what they discovered. That is what continues to happen today, and that is what we know.'