Tapestry of Spies

“Look,” said the American, leaning across and pinching him playfully. “You do what I say, when I say it, and you’ll come out of this okay. Okay?” He spoke English because among Ugarte’s attainments was the language.

“Si, yeah, boss.”

Lenny’s other trusted aid was Franco, called Frank for obvious reasons, an ex-butcher who had beaten his wife to death in 1934 and was freed from his life sentence in August of 1936 by the libertarian Anarchists, who did not believe in prisons. Lenny stationed him outside the British consulate.

Both men carried with them hand-drawn copies of the original etching from the 1901 Deutsches Schachzeitung, as adjusted and improved by Lenny’s suggestions after having seen the old man at close range in the cell. It was a reasonable likeness. Lenny knew therefore that if things went as they should, it would only be a matter of time before one of them tumbled across the old man. He had a hunter’s confidence and a con artist’s patience.

He positioned himself on the Ramblas, across from the third and most likely spot where Levitsky might be counted on to appear: the Hotel Falcon, the enemy headquarters, with its flapping red POUM banner. It was full of Brits. These were the idealistic kids who came to take part in the revolution but didn’t quite have the guts to join the fighting. They always came here, no place else. As he sat in the 1933 Ford, he conceived the idea that it was like some kind of fancy college club or something, and there seemed to be a lot of screwing and drinking and singing going on. It was a party or something.

Lenny sat outside it day after day, smoking the Luckies he bought on the black market, quietly watchful, utterly imperturbable, in his blue serge suit, his almost handsome, almost ugly, blunt features calm and under control. He merely watched and smoked.

It was on the third day when he noticed her.

She was pretty and slim and lively. Everybody liked her, he could tell. She was the sort of girl you could like a lot.

I never had a girl like that, he thought.

In time, he grew to hate her. She made him think of who he was, and what he was, and he didn’t like that one bit. It was her eyes, those sleepy, calm, knowing gray green eyes, and the way she stood, so ladylike and refined, and the way she listened so intently. She seemed to work for their English-language newspaper, The Spanish Revolution, which they sent out, and it meant she knew everybody. One night, Glasanov had them do a crash job on some guy named Carlos. They picked him up at the Grand Oriente and the girl was there. Lenny hung back. He didn’t want her looking at him. He was so close to her, yet he kept his face down, not looking at anything because he was somehow ashamed.

The next day, a boy showed up and handed him a note from Ugarte which said he’d seen Levitsky; he’d been calling himself Ver Steeg and claimed to be a Dutch journalist and was heading out to the front. The boss had better get out there fast.

Lenny looked back at the girl. The POUM people were all low today because of poor Carlos.

He thought, You bitch, someday I’ll be really fucking big and then you’ll know who I am.

Some day I’ll have gold. And I’ll have you.

18 NEWS FROM THE FRONT

The intelligence and propaganda commissar of the Twenty-ninth Division, as the POUM militia was called, issued his communique about the glorious victory at Huesca a day and a half later at his headquarters at the big, battered house at La Granja. The recipients of the news were a crew of mangy reporters who had spent the intervening hours in transit to the front by any means possible, in the hope of actually seeing something.

The statement was typed and posted on a bulletin board outside militia headquarters. It read,

Our troops advanced in perfect order in a series of well-coordinated movements until in several places around the city, the Fascist lines were broken. In this new situation, they inflicted grievous casualties upon the enemy, taking from his stores much valuable war materiel. It was another example of working people, in service to the revolution, triumphing against all odds and defeating the German-Italian-Rebel Combine. Many prisoners were taken and much of intelligence value was also removed.

Later in the morning, our troops, sensing they had achieved their tactical goals, repositioned themselves so as to consolidate their gains.

“In other words,” said the Reuters man, “it was another bloody muck-up.”

“What I’m wondering,” said the man from the Standard, “is bloody why the whole thing was tossed together at the doubletime. They usually don’t like to move so fast, they like to take their bloody time. Manana, eh? Always bloody manana.”

“God, the Spanish. Anytime you’ve got the Spanish and the Italians in the same war, you’ve got the potential for a comic opera on a grand scale.”

There were several reporters, however, who did not take part in the cynical give and take, perhaps because they were new to the front or new to war reporting or new to Spain. One of these was a tall, elderly Dutchman of intellectual carriage named Ver Steeg ? Ver Staig, the pronunciation went, he informed them, his only utterance thus far ? who worked for a Dutch press syndicate. He appeared to listen intently to all that was said and when at last the bulletin’s author, Commissar Steinbach, appeared to answer, however obliquely, questions, this spry old fellow moved to the front of the crowd.

“Comrade Steinbach, we hear rumors that the Thaelmann Column of the PSUC Militia did not enthusiastically support the POUM and the Anarcho-Syndicalists in this attack, even though the worker’s militias have been theoretically combined under one leadership,” the Daily Mail man began.

“Is this an essay or do you have a question, Mr. Janeway?” Comrade Steinbach replied with an icy gleam in his famously bright good eye.

“The question, Comrade Steinbach, is, first, did the Communist militia aid in the attack, and second?”

Steinbach, a witty man whose incisiveness of mind was as famous as his bright eye, enjoyed these sessions, and interrupted swiftly. “Each militia performed its duties outstandingly,” he said. “The Anarchists were brilliant, the Communists heroic, and our own Workers Party troops solid as a rock. There is sufficient glory for each.” He smiled.

“Is it not a fact, comrade,” asked Sampson, the Times man, “that your forces are in exactly the same situation ? that is, the same trenches ? as before the attack?”

“Certain modifications of our positions were necessary late in the attack as a means of consolidating our advances.”

“In order, if I may follow up, to consolidate your advances, you had to abandon them?”

“It is well known that the Times will write whatever it chooses, regardless of the truth, Comrade Sampson, so why bother to press on this issue?” He smiled blandly.

“We’ve heard that the German troops of the Thaelmann Brigade, under the command of Communist Party commissars, never left their trenches, thus isolating your people in the Fascist parapets, and that the slaughter was awful.”

“Good heavens, how do these terrible rumors get started? Fifth columnists, gentlemen, fifth columnists spreading lies. In fact, political solidarity was observed throughout the operation. Losses were acceptable.”

“Why was the attack put together so hastily?”

“The attack was organized at a normal pace.”

“Comrade Steinbach, you know as well as we do these things are prepared weeks in advance. It seems clear this one was thrown together in less than forty-eight hours. What’s the reason?”

“The attack proceeded normally.”

“Is it true that the Twenty-ninth Division ? that is, the POUM militia and the POUM itself ? has staked its survival on breaking the siege at Huesca, and as external political pressure against POUM mounts, so will the pressure to take Huesca?” Sampson asked.

“This is a purely military situation; it has no political ramifications. I suggest you check with the Central Committee at Party headquarters in Barcelona for any political questions.”