For Whom the Bell Tolls (61 page)

“It isn't here,” the sentry said.

“What is here?”

“The Comandancia.”

“What comandancia?”

“Well, the Comandancia.”

“The comandancia of what?”

“Who art thou to ask so many questions?” the sentry said to Gomez in the dark. Here on the top of the pass the sky was very clear with the stars out and Andrés, out of the dust now, could see quite clearly in the dark. Below them, where the road turned to the right, he could see clearly the outline of the trucks and cars that passed against the sky line.

“I am Captain Rogelio Gomez of the first battalion of the Sixty-Fifth Brigade and I ask where is the headquarters of General Golz,” Gomez said.

The sentry opened the door a little way. “Call the corporal of the guard,” he shouted inside.

Just then a big staff car came up over the turn of the road and circled toward the big stone building where Andrés and Gomez
were standing waiting for the corporal of the guard. It came toward them and stopped outside the door.

A large man, old and heavy, in an oversized khaki beret, such as
chasseurs à pied
wear in the French Army, wearing an overcoat, carrying a map case and wearing a pistol strapped around his greatcoat, got out of the back of the car with two other men in the uniform of the International Brigades.

He spoke in French, which Andrés did not understand and of which Gomez, who had been a barber, knew only a few words, to his chauffeur telling him to get the car away from the door and into shelter.

As he came into the door with the other two officers, Gomez saw his face clearly in the light and recognized him. He had seen him at political meetings and he had often read articles by him in
Mundo Obrero
translated from the French. He recognized his bushy eyebrows, his watery gray eyes, his chin and the double chin under it, and he knew him for one of France's great modern revolutionary figures who had led the mutiny of the French Navy in the Black Sea. Gomez knew this man's high political place in the International Brigades and he knew this man would know where Golz's headquarters were and be able to direct him there. He did not know what this man had become with time, disappointment, bitterness both domestic and political, and thwarted ambition and that to question him was one of the most dangerous things that any man could do. Knowing nothing of this he stepped forward into the path of this man, saluted with his clenched fist and said, “Comrade Marty, we are the bearers of a dispatch for General Golz. Can you direct us to his headquarters? It is urgent.”

The tall, heavy old man looked at Gomez with his outthrust head and considered him carefully with his watery eyes. Even here at the front in the light of a bare electric bulb, he having just come in from driving in an open car on a brisk night, his gray face had a look of decay. His face looked as though it were modelled from the waste material you find under the claws of a very old lion.

“You have what, Comrade?” he asked Gomez, speaking Spanish with a strong Catalan accent. His eyes glanced sideways at Andrés, slid over him, and went back to Gomez.

“A dispatch for General Golz to be delivered at his headquarters, Comrade Marty.”

“Where is it from, Comrade?”

“From behind the fascist lines,” Gomez said.

André Marty extended his hand for the dispatch and the other papers. He glanced at them and put them in his pocket.

“Arrest them both,” he said to the corporal of the guard. “Have them searched and bring them to me when I send for them.”

With the dispatch in his pocket he strode on into the interior of the big stone house.

Outside in the guard room Gomez and Andrés were being searched by the guard.

“What passes with that man?” Gomez said to one of the guards.

“
Está loco,
” the guard said. “He is crazy.”

“No. He is a political figure of great importance,” Gomez said. “He is the chief commissar of the International Brigades.”

“
Apesar de eso, está loco,
” the corporal of the guard said. “All the same he's crazy. What do you behind the fascist lines?”

“This comrade is a guerilla from there,” Gomez told him while the man searched him. “He brings a dispatch to General Golz. Guard well my papers. Be careful with that money and that bullet on the string. It is from my first wound at Guadarama.”

“Don't worry,” the corporal said. “Everything will be in this drawer. Why didn't you ask me where Golz was?”

“We tried to. I asked the sentry and he called you.”

“But then came the crazy and you asked him. No one should ask him anything. He is crazy. Thy Golz is up the road three kilometers from here and to the right in the rocks of the forest.”

“Can you not let us go to him now?”

“Nay. It would be my head. I must take thee to the crazy. Besides, he has thy dispatch.”

“Can you not tell some one?”

“Yes,” the corporal said. “I will tell the first responsible one I see. All know that he is crazy.”

“I had always taken him for a great figure,” Gomez said. “For one of the glories of France.”

“He may be a glory and all,” the corporal said and put his hand
on Andrés's shoulder. “But he is crazy as a bedbug. He has a mania for shooting people.”

“Truly shooting them?”

“
Como lo oyes,
” the corporal said. “That old one kills more than the bubonic plague.
Mata más que la peste bubonica.
But he doesn't kill fascists like we do.
Qué va.
Not in joke.
Mata bichos raros.
He kills rare things. Trotzkyites. Divagationers. Any type of rare beasts.”

Andrés did not understand any of this.

“When we were at Escorial we shot I don't know how many for him,” the corporal said. “We always furnish the firing party. The men of the Brigades would not shoot their own men. Especially the French. To avoid difficulties it is always us who do it. We shot French. We have shot Belgians. We have shot others of divers nationality. Of all types.
Tiene mania de fusilar gente.
Always for political things. He's crazy.
Purifica más que el Salvarsán.
He purifies more than Salvarsan.”

“But you will tell some one of this dispatch?”

“Yes, man. Surely. I know every one of these two Brigades. Every one comes through here. I know even up to and through the Russians, although only a few speak Spanish. We will keep this crazy from shooting Spaniards.”

“But the dispatch.”

“The dispatch, too. Do not worry, Comrade. We know how to deal with this crazy. He is only dangerous with his own people. We understand him now.”

“Bring in the two prisoners,” came the voice of André Marty.

“
Quereis echar un trago?
” the corporal asked. “Do you want a drink?”

“Why not?”

The corporal took a bottle of anis from a cupboard and both Gomez and Andrés drank. So did the corporal. He wiped his mouth on his hand.

“
Vamonos,
” he said.

They went out of the guard room with the swallowed burn of the anis warming their mouths, their bellies and their hearts and walked down the hall and entered the room where Marty sat behind
a long table, his map spread in front of him, his red-and-blue pencil, with which he played at being a general officer, in his hand. To Andrés it was only one more thing. There had been many tonight. There were always many. If your papers were in order and your heart was good you were in no danger. Eventually they turned you loose and you were on your way. But the
Inglés
had said to hurry. He knew now he could never get back for the bridge but they had a dispatch to deliver and this old man there at the table had put it in his pocket.

“Stand there,” Marty said without looking up.

“Listen, Comrade Marty,” Gomez broke out, the anis fortifying his anger. “Once tonight we have been impeded by the ignorance of the anarchists. Then by the sloth of a bureaucratic fascist. Now by the oversuspicion of a Communist.”

“Close your mouth,” Marty said without looking up. “This is not a meeting.”

“Comrade Marty, this is a matter of utmost urgence,” Gomez said. “Of the greatest importance.”

The corporal and the soldier with them were taking a lively interest in this as though they were at a play they had seen many times but whose excellent moments they could always savor.

“Everything is of urgence,” Marty said. “All things are of importance.” Now he looked up at them, holding the pencil. “How did you know Golz was here? Do you understand how serious it is to come asking for an individual general before an attack? How could you know such a general would be here?”

“Tell him,
tu,
” Gomez said to Andrés.

“Comrade General,” Andrés started—André Marty did not correct him in the mistake in rank—“I was given that packet on the other side of the lines——”

“On the other side of the lines?” Marty said. “Yes, I heard him say you came from the fascist lines.”

“It was given to me, Comrade General, by an
Inglés
named Roberto who had come to us as a dynamiter for this of the bridge. Understandeth?”

“Continue thy story,” Marty said to Andrés; using the term story as you would say lie, falsehood, or fabrication.

“Well, Comrade General, the
Inglés
told me to bring it to the General Golz with all speed. He makes an attack in these hills now on this day and all we ask is to take it to him now promptly if it pleases the Comrade General.”

Marty shook his head again. He was looking at Andrés but he was not seeing him.

Golz, he thought in a mixture of horror and exultation as a man might feel hearing that a business enemy had been killed in a particularly nasty motor accident or that some one you hated but whose probity you had never doubted had been guilty of defalcation. That Golz should be one of them, too. That Golz should be in such obvious communication with the fascists. Golz that he had known for nearly twenty years. Golz who had captured the gold train that winter with Lucacz in Siberia. Golz who had fought against Kolchak, and in Poland. In the Caucasus. In China, and here since the first October. But he
had
been close to Tukachevsky. To Voroshilov, yes, too. But to Tukachevsky. And to who else? Here to Karkov, of course. And to Lucacz. But all the Hungarians had been intriguers. He hated Gall. Golz hated Gall. Remember that. Make a note of that. Golz has always hated Gall. But he favors Putz. Remember that. And Duval is his chief of staff. See what stems from that. You've heard him say Copic's a fool. That is definitive. That exists. And now this dispatch from the fascist lines. Only by pruning out of these rotten branches can the tree remain healthy and grow. The rot must become apparent for it is to be destroyed. But Golz of all men. That Golz should be one of the traitors. He knew that you could trust no one. No one. Ever. Not your wife. Not your brother. Not your oldest comrade. No one. Ever.

“Take them away,” he said to the guards. “Guard them carefully.” The corporal looked at the soldier. This had been very quiet for one of Marty's performances.

“Comrade Marty,” Gomez said. “Do not be insane. Listen to me, a loyal officer and comrade. That is a dispatch that must be delivered. This comrade has brought it through the fascist lines to give to Comrade General Golz.”

“Take them away,” Marty said, now kindly, to the guard. He was sorry for them as human beings if it should be necessary to liquidate
them. But it was the tragedy of Golz that oppressed him. That it should be Golz, he thought. He would take the fascist communication at once to Varloff. No, better he would take it to Golz himself and watch him as he received it. That was what he would do. How could he be sure of Varloff if Golz was one of them? No. This was a thing to be very careful about.

Andrés turned to Gomez, “You mean he is not going to send the dispatch?” he asked, unbelieving.

“Don't you see?” Gomez said.

“
Me cago en su puta madre!
” Andrés said. “
Está loco.
”

“Yes,” Gomez said. “He is crazy. You are crazy! Hear! Crazy!” he shouted at Marty who was back now bending over the map with his red-and-blue pencil. “Hear me, you crazy murderer?”

“Take them away,” Marty said to the guard. “Their minds are unhinged by their great guilt.”

There was a phrase the corporal recognized. He had heard that before.

“You crazy murderer!” Gomez shouted.

“
Hijo de la gran puta,
” Andrés said to him. “
Loco.
”

The stupidity of this man angered him. If he was a crazy let him be removed as a crazy. Let the dispatch be taken from his pocket. God damn this crazy to hell. His heavy Spanish anger was rising out of his usual calm and good temper. In a little while it would blind him.

Marty, looking at his map, shook his head sadly as the guards took Gomez and Andrés out. The guards had enjoyed hearing him cursed but on the whole they had been disappointed in the performance. They had seen much better ones. André Marty did not mind the men cursing him. So many men had cursed him at the end. He was always genuinely sorry for them as human beings. He always told himself that and it was one of the last true ideas that was left to him that had ever been his own.

He sat there, his moustache and his eyes focused on the map, on the map that he never truly understood, on the brown tracing of the contours that were traced fine and concentric as a spider's web. He could see the heights and the valleys from the contours but he never really understood why it should be this height and why this valley
was the one. But at the General Staff where, because of the system of Political Commissars, he could intervene as the political head of the Brigades, he would put his finger on such and such a numbered, brown-thin-lined encircled spot among the greens of woods cut by the lines of roads that parallel the never casual winding of a river and say, “There. That is the point of weakness.”