«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.»
Gall and Copic, who were men of politics and of ambition, would agree and later, men who never saw the map, but heard the number of the hill before they left their starting place and had the earth of diggings on it pointed out, would climb its side to find their death along its slope or, being halted by machine guns placed in olive groves would never get up it at all. Or on other fronts they might scale it easily and be no better off than they had been before.
But when Marty put his finger on the map in Golz’s staff the scarheaded, white-faced General’s jaw muscles would tighten and he would think, «I should shoot you, André Marty, before I let you put that gray rotten finger on a contour map of mine. Damn you to hell for all the men you’ve killed by interfering in matters you know nothing of. Damn the day they named tractor factories and villages and co-operatives for you so that you are a symbol that I cannot touch. Go and suspect and exhort and intervene and denounce and butcher some other place and leave my staff alone.»
But instead of
