‘It means I have no foundation for political belief.’
‘Your father — was he a rightist?’
‘I have no father.’
‘But was he?’
No answer from me.
‘What was his work?’
‘He owned a hotel.’
‘Then he was of the right,’ says Oscar. ‘Did he go to Mass?’
‘Only to drink the wine.’
‘Then that is your foundation. You learn politics at the dinner table.’
‘And your father?’
‘He was a doctor.’
‘Difficult,’ I say. ‘Did he go to Mass?’
‘We don’t have Mass.’
‘Even more difficult.’
‘He was a socialist,’ says Oscar.
‘Then you are surely in the wrong place.’
‘I shot him on 27th October 1923.’
I look up, but he continues to study the chessboard.
‘You’re dead in three moves,’ he says.
23rd November 1937, Cogolludo, near Guadalajara
Our bandera has been broken up and we have been distributed around the rest of the army. We think we have been positioned here for a new attempt on the capital. Oscar is not speaking to me because here I record my first win on that most arduous of fronts — the chessboard.
15th December 1937, Cogolludo
The leftists have surprised us by mounting an offensive on Teruel just as we were preparing to overrun the capital and spend Christmas on the Gran Via. We only know that Teruel is the coldest place in Spain and that 4,000 Nationalists are besieged inside the town.
31st December 1937, near Teruel
Brutally cold: -18°C. Blizzard. Snow a metre thick. I hate it. I write this with difficulty and only to take my mind off the terrible conditions. The counterattack has ground to a halt but we continue to shell the town, which is no more than snow-covered rubble. We stop when the visibility drops to zero.
8th February 1938, Teruel
We started an attack yesterday, trying to force an encirclement. The fighting is fierce and Oscar is hit in the stomach and we have to carry him back to the rear. I have taken over his role as NCO.
10th February 1938, Teruel
I found Oscar in the field hospital and even with the morphine he’s in terrible pain. He knows he will not survive the wound. He has left me his books and chess set and has given me strict instructions to burn his journals without reading them. He is sobbing with pain and as he kisses me I feel his warm tears on my face.
23rd February 1938, Teruel
We buried Oscar this morning. Later I burnt his diaries. I obeyed his instructions and dropped the first book into the fire without opening it. As it burned I could not resist looking through the pages of the next book which were all about a love he could not seem to bear. He never mentioned the girl by name, which did not surprise me as we never talked on a personal level except when he told me he’d shot his father. In the third book he began using imaginary dialogues, which were easier to digest than his stolid prose. It was with a jolt that I saw my own words and came to the electrifying conclusion that I was the inconsiderate lover. This was further confirmed when, enraged by some unconscious remark of mine, he referred to me as Die Kunstlerin. I burnt the rest without reading it.
I sit now writing with a candle clenched between my knees. It occurs to me that all Oscar’s urging me to write down my thoughts was in the desperate hope that I would reveal myself to him. He must have been disappointed by my endless remarks on military manoeuvres.
I feel no disgust even though Oscar was physically repellent. I am sad to have lost my teacher and friend, the man who was more of a father to me than my own. I am lonely again without his brute appearance, his snapping mind, his sure military guidance. I am having incomprehensible thoughts. Something has been disturbed in me which I can only recognize as some shapeless need. I do not understand it. It refuses to be defined.
15th April 1938, Lerida
I was knocked unconscious for some hours and have been brought to the hospital here, which I have to be reminded we captured nearly two weeks ago. I have made no entries since Oscar’s funeral. I am furious with myself because I cannot remember whether I made any progress with my thoughts. This ‘need’ I wrote about is a blank in my brain. Events have been reasserting themselves. The relentless advance after we put the republicans to flight at Teruel. Crossing the River Ebro and taking Fraga. Even the assault on Lerida takes some shape. But however much I squeeze my mind I cannot recover what I was thinking of, what it was that Oscar’s diaries had levered open. I am bereft without knowing why.
18th November 1938, Ribarroya
This is the last republican bridgehead. They are all now beyond the Ebro and the situation has returned to what it was in July except that now the snow falls and more than 20,000 men have lost their lives in the mountains. I remember all those chess games I played with Oscar before I learnt a subtler insight. I was always the attacker and Oscar the defender who, having read my undisguised plans, would then become the fierce counter attacker and wipe me off the board. It has been so with our armies. The republicans attack and in doing so reveal the concentration of their forces and the paucity of their aims. We defend, marshal our response and drive them
