A Necessary Action (11 page)

It took almost two hours to take the smelting works, although it was continuously showered with grenades and automatic fire. A tank arrived finally and shot away the great iron doors and the walls round them. The assault was undertaken by a company of the civil guard, as the regular troops had begun to demonstrate
a marked lack of the will to fight. Many of the soldiers were Basques and Catalonians, and the firing had not always been exceptionally accurate. The civil guards showed good judgement and used mostly hand-grenades and tear-gas bombs. It took them only ten minutes to make the conditions in the smelting works unendurable and the strikers capitulated. Thirty-three men and fourteen young women came out of the building with their hands clasped behind their necks. Some were wounded and all were dirty, drenched with sweat, and exhausted. They had had no drinking-water for twelve hours. The women were wearing soot-covered overalls and most of them had tied red rags round their arms or waists. The rebellion had been crushed.

Of the strikers, thirty-four men and seven women had been shot or blown to pieces. A further six men, who were accused of murder and mutiny, were executed immediately. Many were injured, three so seriously that they died within a few hours.

A civil guard and five soldiers were killed, the latter in the hand-to-hand fighting in the first barrack. A few more were injured. In the guard-post, one gendarme had been shot dead and another injured.

The regular troops were put to work burying the dead Asturians in a mass-grave, and then they were withdrawn.

All roads were blocked within an area of ten kilometres.

Reprisals were left to the gendarmes, who had experience of the circumstances in the place and a good eye for the younger Asturian women, some of whom possessed a kind of wild, abandoned beauty. Of the fourteen women who had taken part in the fighting, one was raped and smuggled away and one simply died. The rest were driven into the machine-room where the gendarmes tore off their overalls and burnt them between their legs with blow-lamps.

Their screams were so prolonged and irritating that the windows of the mine office, which Colonel Ruiz and his staff were using as their headquarters, had to be closed.

During the course of the day the strikers were transported in small groups to different prisons and transit camps. The workers who were to have fetched the ammunition waited in vain at the meeting place, all night and most of the day. Not until the afternoon were they discovered by a patrol and arrested.

The rebellion at the zinc mine had widespread repercussions.

Ten workers were condemned to death for murder and mutiny. Five of them were garrotted six months later, the other five being reprieved and given life sentences of hard labour. All the rest received prison sentences of between five and twenty-five years.

The head of the civil guard-post was promoted and all his subordinates were decorated.

Colonel Ruiz was made a general.

Within the course of three weeks, all officers in the civil guard headquarters and at the local branch in Santa Margarita were changed and replaced with well-qualified personnel from other parts of the country.

The arms, of Spanish and Czech manufacture, could not be traced despite intensive interrogations. The strike leaders who might have known anything had, with ignorant industry, been executed immediately after the rebellion.

No official information about the event was publicized until long afterwards and then only in very vague terms.

In the surrounding communities during the morning hours of the day the rebellion was crushed, the state of emergency and increased military activity caused a certain unrest.

They drove down to the puerto at about four and although it was siesta time, they passed three road-blocks. The first two were manned by civil guards, who contented themselves with smiling in recognition and waving them on. The third consisted of a patrol of Policia Armada. Both policemen were sitting in a grey jeep parked in the shadow of a tree on the roadside. When they saw the camioneta had a Spanish number plate, they walked out on to the road and made a sign that they should stop. Then they walked round the truck and looked at it from every angle. Their faces were very serious. When they had convinced themselves that the passengers were foreigners they let them go on.

‘I think everyone’s mad today,’ said Dan Pedersen. ‘If I see one more cop I’ll scream.’

The puerto seemed almost completely deserted, only two trawlers at the quay and all the shutters firmly closed. Everything had been done to keep the heat out.

They sat down under the awning outside one of the bars and Dan Pedersen clapped his hands. The proprietor came out and they ordered vermouth and soda-syphons. There was one other guest in the bar, a middle-aged foreigner in grey trousers, a shirt which hung outside them, sun-glasses and a white cap. He was sitting a few tables away, drinking brandy. A camera in an elegant leather case lay beside his glass.

Siglinde and Dan bickered between themselves over all kinds of things. Now and again they said something in German to Willi Mohr, so that he should not feel left out of things.

After a while the man in the white cap rose and came towards them, stopped two strides away from them and said: ‘I happened to overhear that you were Scandinavians. I hope you won’t think I’m intruding if I ask whether I might join you. It’s a little lonely among all these …’

He made a gesture, but could not find any Spaniards to point at.

‘No, do, by all means,’ said Dan Pedersen.

The man fetched his camera and glass of brandy. Then he shook hands with all three of them and each time repeated his name: ‘Berg.’

‘Swedish, from Malmö,’ he added, and sat down.

Siglinde and Dan had forgotten to say their names and Willi Mohr had not understood anything. After another pause, the man said:

‘Excuse me … but I did not really catch …’

They all gave their names and there was another silence. The man cleared his throat and said: ‘Perhaps I can get you a drink or something?’

He looked vaguely round for someone to serve him.

Dan Pedersen clapped his hands. The proprietor came out at once.

‘You couldn’t exactly do that at home, could you?’ said the man. ‘I mean, clap for the waiter.’

‘Why not?’ said Siglinde.

She had a feeling she was not going to like this man very much.

The proprietor came out with a bottle and poured out the drinks.

‘Leave the bottle here,’ said the man.

The proprietor shrugged his shoulders and put the bottle down on the table. It was still almost full.

The man raised his glass and said: ‘As we’re so far from home, we Scandinavians needn’t be quite so formal, need we? My name’s Ivar.’

They drank.

‘Do you live here?’ said the man, after a while.

‘Up there.’

Dan gestured up towards the misty grey spot in the mountains.

‘It looks wonderful,’ said the man. ‘This is a wonderful country.’

They considered this for a moment and the man filled the glasses again.

‘As I was saying, wonderful. They don’t cheat you and everyone’s so nice and friendly and helpful.’

‘Yes, they’re good people,’ said Dan Pedersen, for something to say.

After their third glass, the man said: ‘I was here four years ago for a brief business trip—this is a business trip too, in fact. I’ve just taken a few extra days as a holiday before I fly home.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Dan Pedersen, who easily became quite unnecessarily rude when he drank spirits.

‘Everything’s much better since then,’ said the man. ‘Not at all the same bother at the borders and much more democratic.’

‘This is no democracy,’ said Dan Pedersen. ‘It’s a corrupt dictatorship which the fascists call democracy to kid foolish foreigners. One shouldn’t really come here at all.’

‘Why do you live here then?’

‘Because we don’t give a goddam what kind of régime they have as long as it’s warm and as long as we’re left in peace. It’s fine living here, especially for foreigners and in many cases for Spaniards too. Most people do exactly the same things whether they live in a democratic community or under tyranny. The difference in daily life is very small. People work, eat, have sex, go to bed tired at night and wake up even more tired in the
mornings. On Saturdays they drink or sit at home listening to the radio or go out for a walk. We don’t bother with politics and so we can live here. But that doesn’t stop us thinking it’s all wrong.’

Siglinde looked at her husband with amusement. She liked the way he said ‘we’. She loved him. She thought about the night before.

‘And it’s all wrong here, is it then, as you put it?’

‘Yes, definitely.’

The man filled his glass again, though only he and Dan were drinking now. Then he said: ‘You’re wrong. Franco has done a lot for this country. Before his time everything was chaotic and disorderly, the economy was even worse than it is now and people shot each other dead in the streets. He cut the Gordian knot and freed both the country and the people from their worst problems. He brought order. Aren’t I right?’

‘Yes, if the right way to free someone from his problems is to kill him.’

‘Skoal,’ said the man.

‘Skoal,’ said Dan Pedersen.

The bottle was empty now.

Santiago was approaching their table, still looking drowsy after the siesta.

Siglinde took the opportunity.

‘Here’s the friend we were waiting for,’ she said.

They got up and said goodbye to the man from Malmö.

‘Hell,’ said Dan Pedersen to his wife. ‘Lots of people reason like that. It almost made me angry.’

He thumped Santiago on the back.

‘Now let’s go on up to Jacinto and bust a bottle of champagne,’ he said.

Willi Mohr walked a few yards behind the others up the slope towards the church. Although he had drunk very much less than Dan, his head felt fluffy and he felt abnormally light. The brandy had quite an effect in the heat. He definitely did not like being drunk and thought it would be best if he took things carefully for the next few hours. And yet he felt in a good mood and was expecting good of the evening. He had begun to feel a sense of solidarity with Dan and Siglinde, which he could not explain but
which gave a certain content to the days. He often found himself being curious to know what was going to happen next.

Dan Pedersen walked in the middle with his arms round the other two. Santiago was wearing his faded cotton shirt and blue trousers rolled halfway up his calves. He held himself very straight with his hands in his trouser pockets. Siglinde had pulled in very close to Dan, with her arm round his waist.

At the top of the hill, she freed herself and turned round with her hand stretched out.

‘Come on Willi,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t be walking there all alone.’

She laughed and her grey-brown eyes shone clearly despite their indefinite colour.

The bar was dark and there were no customers sitting inside. Along the far wall was a bar counter with an old espresso-machine on it, and the shelves behind it were filled with bottles and a radio-set. In the middle of the floor stood a tall iron stove with a crooked chimney pipe leading up to a hole in the chimney breast, and in one corner there was a well with a single rope for the bucket. The ceiling was blackened with grease and soot, but the walls were covered with colourful posters for films and bullfights. The abuela was sitting in an old rattan chair by the stove, knitting, with the cat sleeping on her knee, and behind the counter Jacinto was dozing on a stool, a sporting paper spread over his knees. He had been a civil guard from Santa Margarita and had resigned when he had succeeded in marrying into this bar. He ran it well with no concessions to elegance or modernity, and he did well out of it too, especially from the resident foreigners to whom he gave relatively generous credit. If he was ever cheated, then he retrieved more than just his losses through the juggled bills he presented after special parties. He needed the money, as he had to support both his own and his wife’s parents, and his wife never for a moment forgot that the place was really hers.

When the customers came in, he rose sleepily from his stool and automatically wiped the counter in front of him with a dirty cloth.

‘Champagne,’ said Dan Pedersen, ‘and bring a glass and come and join us.’

Jacinto got up on the stool and took down two bottles of the cheapest champagne from the rows hanging above the shelves. Then he went and sat down with the others at the table.

‘Five glasses,’ he said in passing to the abuela.

The old woman put down her knitting and shooed off the cat.

Jacinto opened the bottle skilfully and let the cork pop. They raised their glasses and drank.

Drinking began at six in Jacinto’s bar and would go on more or less continuously for the next nine hours.

There was talk, noise and drinking. More people came and joined in. Some came and sat for a while and then vanished again. One man brought a guitar with him and started playing. He was one of those who stayed to the end, as were a young Englishman and his red-haired wife. Now and again a couple of patrolling civil guards came in and leant their carbines against the bar. They allowed themselves to be offered brandy, smiled with white teeth and went out again into the night. The talk was like crossfire, in several languages, and at intervals Jacinto went behind the bar to scribble on the bills. The little Finnish painter who had drawn attention to himself in the fight a few months before came in for a while and tossed back a row of conciliatory drinks. He drank too quickly, was soon drunk and staggered away.

At about ten, Santiago made an attempt to get Siglinde to go bathing, but she shook her head and patted him indulgently on the arm.

Willi Mohr, who was sitting between them, was probably the only person who saw this.

Dan Pedersen was deep in an endless argument about women with the Englishman and on the whole noticed nothing at all.

The drinking went on. Everyone seemed very happy.

Shortly before midnight Santiago got up and said indifferently to Siglinde: ‘The boats’ll be coming in now. Are you coming down to meet Ramon?’