grand finale washed themselves-swearing a blue streak in the icy mountain water and splashing each other with childish glee. Kulic’s time in the Serbian mountains had taught him the critical importance of domesticity in the context of
They had found the deserted village quite by accident, but it was perfect for a guerrilla base: no road led there, the approaches were well covered by dense tangles of underbrush, and it lay high enough in the mountains that radio communication with Madrid Base could be maintained on a more or less regular basis.
There was not much left of the village: a few huts-all but three open to the stars-built of dry-masoned stone native to the mountains. They often speculated about the place-perhaps it had been the home of the early Visigoths, western Goths, who had populated Spain in ancient times. It was not difficult to imagine. They would have hunted bear and wild pig in the mountain forests, with spears and dogs, and worn wolf pelts against the weather. Or perhaps another race, unrecorded and unremembered, had died out in the village, the last survivors wandering down onto the plains to become part of other tribes. In any case, with time the piled stone walls and weedy vines had achieved a harmonious truce, leaving the village a sort of garden gone wild and an excellent hideout.
On the Thursday following the destruction of the Nationalist armory, while most of the band was occupied with housekeeping, there was a small commotion at the perimeter of the camp. Kulic, walking down the hill to see what the shouting was about, found his two sentries with rifles pointed at Maltsaev, the political officer from the Madrid embassy.
He was a dark, balding young man with bad skin and a sour disposition, a man much given to sinister affectations. He wore tinted eyeglasses and a straw hat with top creased and brim turned down, and spoke always as though he were saying only a small fraction of what he actually knew. He had arrived alone, on horseback, having left his car in the last village before the mountains, some twenty kilometers distant. Thus it was immediately apparent to Kulic that this was anything but a casual visit. To protect his city clothing during the journey, Maltsaev had worn an immense gray duster coat, which, with the hat and glasses, gave him the look of a Parisian
They sat together on a fallen pine log at the edge of a small outcrop above the village. From there, they could watch the guerrilla band shaking blankets and capering in the stream, and strident voices-cursing, laughing, joking- rose to them. This was Kulic’s thinking place. When the sun came out, the scent of pine resin filled the air and blue martins sang in the trees.
“You don’t have it so bad,” Maltsaev said, looking about him.
“It is Dia de las Esposas today,” Kulic answered, taking off his peaked cap and smoothing his hair. “We rest and gather our strength. It is a little different when we fight.”
“One would suppose so. Now look here, Kulic, I won’t beat about the bush with you. My mission is not a happy one.”
“It’s a long ride up here.”
“Too long,” Maltsaev said ruefully. “And I’m a city boy, a Muscovite, I admit it.”
He took off his left shoe and pulled the laces apart. From the pocket of his duster coat he produced a razor blade and began cutting open the leather tongue, finally revealing a yellow slip of paper. “And I had to come through the fascist lines,” he added, in explanation.
“A nervous time for you, then,” Kulic remarked.
“Yes. And I am unappreciated,” Maltsaev said. “My poor backside has no business on a horse.”
He handed the paper to Kulic, then pressed the layers of the shoe tongue back together again as best he could. “Of course,” he said, almost to himself, “one may not carry glue.” Kulic noted that he wore fine silk socks.
“What’s this?” Kulic asked, studying the paper. There were four names on it. Four of his men.
“We have discovered a plot,” Maltsaev said.
“Another plot? Shit on your plots, Maltsaev, these men are not Falangistas.” He thrust the paper back at Maltsaev, who was busy putting on his shoe and declined to take it.
“Nobody said they were, and please don’t swear at me. Give me a chance, will you. You field commanders have short fuses. A little bad news-and boom!”
“Boom is what it will be,” Kulic said.
“Shoot me, comrade, by all means. There’ll be ten more tomorrow, Spetsburo types, Ukrainians-just try reasoning with them.”
“Very well, Maltsaev. Say your piece and ride away.”
“If that’s how you want it. These four are members of POUM-there’s no question about it, we have copies of the lists, right from Durruti himself.”
“Durruti? The anarchist leader? He claims these men?”
“Well, from his office.”
“And so?”
Maltsaev made his hand into a pistol-bent thumb the hammer, extended index finger the barrel-then pulled the trigger with his middle finger.
“Are you insane? Is Madrid? Moscow? These men are fighters, soldiers. You don’t execute your own soldiers. Only for cowardice. And these are not cowards. They’ve stood up to gunfire, which is more than I can say for some people.”
“Yes, yes. I’m a coward, please do abuse me, I don’t mind. But you must take care of the problem-that’s an order from Madrid.”
“Marquin, the second name on this list, climbed to the roof of a convent and poured gasoline down the chimney, which enabled us to blow up a Falangist armory. Is this the behavior of a traitor? Besides, all these men are of the UGT, not the POUM.”
“Kulic … no,
“You’re ruining me-you know that, don’t you?”
“Four men amount to nothing.”
“You believe the other sixteen, having witnessed their comrades’ unjust executions, will fight on?”
Maltsaev thought about that for a time, studying the ground, pushing a pebble around with the toe of his shoe. “Your point has merit,” he said. Then he brightened. “One could report, ahh, yes, well one could report that the disease has spread throughout the group, and it was determined to be of no further operational use. I could try that, Kulic, if it would help you. They would transfer you elsewhere, but your record would be clean at least. Better than clean, now that I think about it. Fervor. That’s what it would show. It’s just the sort of thing Yezhov likes, you know, going it one better.”
Kulic stared down the hill at his men. A word to Maltsaev and they’d all be dead. Julio Marquin, the spiderlike little shipfitter who’d climbed the convent drainpipe, was poking at a pot of rice over a bed of coals. They cooked by day-there could be no fires at night in the Guadarrama. The fool! Why had he gone and gotten his name on the wrong list? He despaired of the Spaniards, their instinct for survival had been eaten alive by their political passions. The Spanish Legion, under Yague, had a regimental hymn announcing to the world that their bride was death, and the Republican side was no better. Thus they slaughtered each other. What did it matter if four of them went to heaven early? His own pride was in his way, surely. How he protected his men. Took every care to protect them, to keep them from getting hurt.
He recalled, suddenly, that he’d killed his first man when he was fifteen, in a tavern brawl in Zvornik. Such strength and determination it had taken to do that. Where was it now?
“Well,” Maltsaev said, “how shall it be?”
“The best time,” he took a deep breath, “is during battle. All sorts of things happen. It could not be arranged
