Tapestry of Spies

“Ach! Ich ? er, Gruenwald wait for papers, zen ship out. Nein, missy, I haben zie ? haf place to stay. Und food. Ah, my head, it aches so bad zumtimes. Bombs. The Great War. To end all wars, ja? Metal plate, ja?” He tapped his skull, smiled broadly.

“Missy Fraulein, it’s, ach, zomething zo stupid. It’s mein frau. My wife, ja? She is still in Deutschland and, ah, I have no vord from her. And of course, here, hah! politics gets in da vay. Dere is no Deutschland embassy?”

“No, of course not. They are for the other side.”

“I vish to zumhow send vord dat ? dat I am all right. Ja. I remember from boat. Mr. Florry a journalist; he vas goink to zee Mr. Raines, another journalist. Ja? Perhaps such an intelligent fellow, Herr Raines, the journalist, he know a vay to reach my poor frau in Deutschland, ja.”

“But Herr Gruenwald, I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

Levitsky, looking past her in the mirror, saw four men in overcoats enter. The largest of them was Glasanov’s Amerikanski.

“Julian Raines and Robert Florry have joined the militia. They are at the front, at Huesca.”

“Ach, a fighter,” Levitsky said, thinking, the fool! The utter idiot!

Bolodin stood with his men at the front of the room, looking through it.

Levitsky could not look at Bolodin in the mirror. Bolodin would have that extremely fine-tuned sense of being observed; he would feel the eyes upon him and swiftly locate their owner.

“Look here, let me make some inquiries for you,” Sylvia said. “There are many Germans in our party. Perhaps I can locate somebody who knows a method of communication.”

Bolodin was moving through the crowd. Levitsky kept his face down, his body hunched as if in rapt attention to what she was saying. He tried to concentrate on exits. He could dash for the back; no, they’d have him, strong young Bolodin would have him and smash him down. Bolodin approached; there were suddenly secret policemen all around.

“Comrades,” somebody was saying, “you’ll excuse if we ask to see your papers.”

“And who are you,” one of the POUMistas said defiantly. “Perhaps it’s we who should ask to see your papers.”

“I am Ugarte, of the Servicio de Investigacion Militar. We are responsible for the security of the revolution. You excuse this boring formality, of course. One has to take so many precautions these days. There are so many spies about.”

“The revolution is in far more danger from Russian secret policemen than from anybody in the POUM,” said Sylvia. “You show us your papers.”

“There are no Russians here. I don’t understand why our brothers and sisters in the Marxist Unification Party are so difficult,” said the policeman. “One would think they hadn’t the revolution’s best interests in mind.”

It suddenly occurred to Levitsky: they mean to kill these children. It’s part of Glasanov’s ?

“I don’t think we need to resort to extreme methods,” said the smooth young secret policeman. “If, perhaps, we could all go outside and get this settled quickly and quietly with a discussion, then?”

Bolodin stood at an oblique angle to Levitsky, his face impassive, his eyes hooded, almost blank. He had not looked at Levitsky at all. He was looking instead at the older man called Carlos.

“I am Comrade Carlos Brea, of the executive committee of the Party of Marxist Unification, and I will not?”

“Comrade Brea, your reputation proceeds you. Surely you can understand the point of a few mild security precautions. We mean nobody any harm; we mean only to establish identities and then walk away.”

Bolodin quietly separated himself. Levitsky watched as he pushed his way through the crowd and exited into the street.

“Well,” said Brea, “I’ll go with you to our headquarters. Let the others stay. They have worked hard enough for their pleasure.”

“That’s the spirit of cooperation. Indeed, the comrade is to be congratulated. Who says the different workers can’t function together?”

“Carlos, don’t go,” said Sylvia.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’m sure the SIM can guarantee my safety in front of witnesses.”

“Of course, Comrade Brea.”

“Carlos, some of us will go along.”

“Nonsense. Stay here. I’ll be off; the rules, after all, must apply to everyone.”

He rose and, with a smile for the youths at the table, threaded his way out with the policemen.

“I don’t like it at all,” said one of the men. “They are getting more and more brazen. It’s a very disturbing trend.”

“We ought to arrest a few of them and?”

Sylvia turned to Levitsky. “Perhaps you could meet me someplace tomorrow night, Herr Gruenwald. In the meantime, I’ll make some inquiries and?”

Then they heard the shots from the street and a second later a woman came in shrieking, “Oh, God, somebody shot Carlos Brea in the head, oh Christ, he’s bleeding on the pavement!”

In the panic, and the grief, and the outrage, Levitsky managed to slip away. He knew he had to get to the front now to get to Julian. And he also knew who had shot Carlos Brea.

16 THE ATTACK

They could hear the diversionary attack of the Anarchists on the other side of the city: the heavy clap of bombs, followed by the less authoritative tapping of the machine guns. The plan called for the Anarchists to go in first, from the west. The Fascists would rush reserves over to meet that assault; then the POUMistas and the Germans of the Communist Thaelmann Brigade would jointly rush the city from the east.

Florry shivered in the rain: it had turned the trench floor into mud and made its walls as evilly slick as gruel. It would be a terrible ordeal to scramble up and out. He peeked over the parapet. In the mist and dark, the Fascist lines were invisible.

“Do you think they know we’re coming?” somebody asked.

“Of course they know we’re coming,” said Julian cruelly. “D’you think they can keep a secret on the Ramblas? That’s the fun of the evening.”

“Julian, do be quiet,” said Billy Mowry strictly. “It’s only a few minutes now.”

“Yes, commissar, of course, commissar,” said Julian. “Do you know,” he said to Florry, not dropping his tone a bit, “in the Great War they kicked footballs toward the Hun. Perhaps we ought to kick copies of the bloody great Das Kapital.”

“Julian, damn you, I said stuff it,” yelled Billy Mowry.

“Touchy chap,” Julian said. “I was feeling quite gallant, too. Best to go into battle with a quip on one’s lips, eh, Stinky?”

“I’m too wet for quips,” said Florry.

“Yes, well I’m too frightened not to quip. Hush me if I bother you. But I cannot seem to stop chatting. Dear old Julian, never at a loss for words.”

It was odd; the wait affected each differently. Florry felt sleepy with dread; he could not force himself to think about what lay ahead. Julian, on the other hand, could not think of anything else.

“Gad, I wonder which will be worse. The machine guns or the wire. In France, the men hated the wire. It would snare them and they’d be hung up like department-store mannequins. The more one struggled, the more one was sucked in. My poor father at the Somme ran into a bit of the stuff. Ghastly, eh?”

“I know about your father. Can’t you recite some poetry or something?” Florry said.