The Dream of the City (5 page)

CHAPTER 4

“Are you sure it's around here?” A cloud of vapor emerged from Arnau's mouth and Dimas nodded his head. “These alleys in the Barrio Chino are like a maze …”

Dimas motioned for him to lower his voice. It was already nighttime and the cold, unusual for mid-March, kept the Barcelonans off the street. The two workers needed to find the former headquarters of the banned National Confederation of Labor, the CNT. The anarchist union was helping them to organize the strike and had a good number of affiliates among the workers in the tram bays. The instructions were precise: Go one by one, or maximum two by two, to keep from attracting attention; if they met with a police patrol, they were to pretend they were drunk and had just stumbled out of some tavern. Normally the police would let them go, though they might be arrested and have to spend the night at the station. As Daniel Montero reminded them, it was much better to be arrested for that reason than for being at a clandestine syndicalist meeting; in the latter case, the risk of torture was very high.

Arnau had taken the instructions seriously and would not let go of his jug of wine. “At home you can spill a little wine on your shirt and it adds to your cover story,” he explained to Dimas. He smiled and they went on walking through the narrow streets.

They arrived at a place with the door sealed shut and broken windows—it looked completely abandoned. They would have to jump through one of the windows, five feet off the ground, and sneak inside. Cold and afraid, they managed to get in and looked for the trapdoor that would give access to the basement where the meeting would take place. In that broad subterranean space, the air smelled of damp, of tobacco, of sweat. Oil lamps cast a bit of light and gave a spectral aspect to the faces of the attendees. Daniel Montero passed in front of a makeshift stage formed by some piled-up crates and looked impatiently at his pocket watch.

“We'll wait another fifteen minutes for the assembly to begin,” he announced. “Then we'll assume that those who haven't shown up couldn't make it.”

The conversations took place in hushed tones, those who spoke swathed in a fragile but protective blanket of silence. They knew that only a thin membrane protected them from danger, and it could be torn by the slightest noise out of the ordinary. Soon, Montero stood up.

“Comrades,” he began with a hoarse voice, “we are here today to lay out our strategy. We've been striking now for two days. Two days of success!” Murmurs of approbation rose up. “Everyone has heeded the call, all the workers are united. But now it is up to us to decide the next step.”

“The next step is to negotiate, no?” one of them asked, unsure. “Wait for the bosses to sit down and talk with us, that's what the strike is about!” he said, turning toward the rest, looking for the approval of those gathered. Various voices agreed.

Montero raised a hand to restore calm.

“You see, what I'm trying to say is, how many days can we go on like this?”

“However many it takes, goddammit!” Ramiro bellowed. He was known for his warmhearted, but rather coarse character. Amid their laughter, they hissed at him not to talk so loud.

“Let's be honest,” Montero said, walking through the room. “We can't hold out indefinitely. The owner doesn't want to budge. It would set a bad precedent. He would rather lose money because in the long term, that hurts him less than giving in to our demands.”

“Fucking bourgeois!” someone clamored.

Montero steeled his gaze. Dimas seemed to see a cruel edge in it.

“Then it's clear what we have to do, right, Rubio?” he asked.

Montero turned to an old militant from the Workers' Solidarity union who'd later joined the CNT and had promised to help them with the organization of the strike. Rubio climbed up on the crates and coughed before he began speaking; he always liked to weigh his words. He kept his voice down, but vocalized clearly so everyone would understand him.

“You are the real motors of the business and the real generators of wealth. The overseers, the owners of the means of production, will not hand over the surplus value unless they are obliged to do so. Clearly the strike is one method, but it's not the only one. We should be prepared to raise the intensity of our struggle, to apply more pressure, so that the owner won't be able to see any way out of this conflict besides sitting down to talk. That means we need to think very seriously about carrying out direct actions.”

“What actions would those be?” Arnau asked, standing beside Dimas.

“Rough up the boss!” Ramiro blurted.

Rubio shook his head.

“Not the boss, the machinery. Rough it up, as our comrade says. Sabotage the machinery.”

An uncomfortable silence arose. They all knew that to take that step meant to risk a confrontation where they could end up the losers if they weren't careful. Montero took the floor again to rally the people there.

“Don't be afraid, reason is on our side; we are not criminals. We're just wrecking the machinery to let them know that we're in this 'til the end. We have to set a date, and if it goes on past it, we have to do something. I propose that if the owner doesn't respond to our complaints in two days … then we act!” he exclaimed, raising his fist.

The workers began to argue among themselves about how soon it would come to a head. Some looked dismayed at the idea of anything that could put them in danger. Montero insisted on doing it as soon as possible, but finally, after Rubio's mediations, they agreed to let Sunday and Monday pass as well. If nothing had changed, then on Tuesday, March 16, they would all show up at the workshop first thing in the morning. Montero, who had a copy of the key, would make sure it was open. All would go in together and they would go after the machinery.

After coming to this agreement, they called the meeting off and left in a staggered order. Daniel Montero waited to be the last to leave. He looked nervous and was pacing through the room. Dimas was surprised by how, all of a sudden, the foreman had become the most belligerent of all the workers. He thought there was something strange in his attitude.

Once they were back on the street, Dimas circled around to pull away from the rest of his coworkers and then retraced his steps. Close to the site of the meeting, he took refuge in a doorway. He didn't know how long he would have to wait there, so he pulled up the collar of his worn-out corduroy jacket, pressed down his cap, and tried to stay in the shadows, away from the streetlight. The cold crept into his clothes and soon froze his sweat. He prayed that what he waited for would not take too long; otherwise he would soon start shivering violently.

And not long after, his hopes were fulfilled: the thin silhouette of the foreman appeared in one of the windows. After looking from side to side, he jumped nimbly to the street, put his hands in his pockets, squeezed his arms tight against his body, and began to walk rapidly away. Dimas hid as best he could and held his breath. The foreman was about to walk past him.

Montero took no notice of the man's presence there in the shadows, and Dimas began following him at a prudent distance. He wasn't sure what the point of all this was, but he felt a sense of duty inside, a distant rumble like those that announce the arrival of a storm.

He didn't know where Montero lived; they had never walked together on their way out of the bays. When they reached the Plaza Cataluña, Montero walked up Paseo de Gracia and headed toward Calle de Caspe. It was impossible, with his salary, that he could live in this part of the Ensanche. All at once the foreman stopped in front of the corner of Caspe and de Bailén. He looked at his pocket watch and gazed at the horizon. Dimas smiled: a bourgeois lover? Or maybe a maidservant employed in one of the wealthy houses? He felt a little stupid for following him and was about to go over and greet him when he suddenly understood everything: a luxurious black vehicle stopped on the corner, opened the door, and Montero got inside. It was the car belonging to the boss, Señor Ribes i Pla.

Enraged, Dimas began walking at a furious clip, hoping that in doing so, he could calm down and gather his thoughts. The first thing he considered was exposing everything, trying to find Rubio or some other comrade and telling everything he had just seen. Then he stopped himself, realizing that perhaps they wouldn't believe him: It would be his word against the foreman's, and Dimas had never been known for his commitment to the workers' struggle. They all knew he stuck to going back and forth between work and home, and he even feared they might think he was accusing Montero in order to try and take over his job.

He felt powerless. He took the road home full of the desire to do something, and even to find a way to take advantage of the situation. He wasn't going to change the workers' destiny, but maybe he could change his own.

The next day, Héctor Ribes i Pla got into his car, ready to discharge his obligations, as he did every day, in the bays in Horta, the most important of many prosperous businesses he was involved in. He took his place in the backseat of the automobile and lifted his chin slightly. He rested his right hand on the polished silver handle of his cane and held down his bowler with the other while he watched his chauffeur put the vehicle in gear. His elegant black wool coat looked impeccable.

He was waiting for the workers to reconsider and agree to return to their jobs once and for all. He knew he couldn't give any ground. If he did, it would only be the beginning of a spiral that would end up swallowing all his profits. If he asked for help from his friends, the industrialists and politicians, it was even possible that they would lend a hand so that the claims didn't extend to other firms. The world of transit required costly investments in technology, and Ribes i Pla didn't think he was acting wrongly or with too much severity; he was simply defending the company, which also meant defending more than a handful of jobs. But there were times when being at the head of everything and having to bear all the responsibility meant that his decisions were often not well understood. Luckily the conductors, who were eager to distinguish themselves from the rest of the personnel, hadn't gone along with the strike. For the moment the city government was not pressuring them, but it wouldn't take long for the first breakdowns to come, and then, the service would be irreparably affected.

As soon as the vehicle approached the fence that opened onto the bays, Ribes i Pla saw a group of workers surrounding the entrance and knew that everything was still the same.
Worse for them
, he thought while he turned a deaf ear to the insults they hurled his way. What did surprise him, though, was what he found afterward, when he arrived at his office: One of his security men approached him and spoke in a low voice, as if confessing a secret.

“Señor, one of the workers is waiting for you. He says he would like to speak with you.”

“The representative of the strikers?” he asked. “Then he should talk to the head of the workshop; I'm not in the mood for trifles.”

“He says he has to speak with you about the strike, says that he can help you,” the man then clarified. “He's unarmed, señor,” he added, wishing to show that he'd done his job and that the mysterious employee wasn't hiding any ill intentions.

“Fine,” he said, sighing. “Bring him to my office in five minutes.”

Héctor Ribes i Pla sat down in his leather armchair after hanging his hat on a walnut coat tree beside his desk. He arranged various papers and left out an example of his elegant handwriting.

Shortly afterward, a knock came at his door and a young worker entered his office, tall, strangely elegant despite his humble clothing, strong-looking, though thin and wiry. He held a corduroy cap between his sinewy hands. He liked the look of the young man: serious, formal, with a decisive stare, ambitious. Ribes didn't know it yet, but his name was Dimas Navarro.

“Have you come to announce you're going to return to your workstations?” he snapped, without motioning for his visitor to sit, wanting to give the impression that he had no time to lose.

The worker shyly said no. Ribes i Pla was surprised. Before he could formulate a response, the worker went ahead: “What I can do for you, if you wish, is come up with a good handful of workers ready to occupy the vacant posts during the strike.”

Ribes squeezed his eyes half closed.

“What kind of joke is this?”

“I've got contacts in Peking Beach,” Dimas said, referring to the neighborhood where the Chinese immigrants from Cuba had settled after the War of Independence. “Workers there are always looking for jobs. Those people are so needy they don't care if they get labeled as scabs; they'll take any job under any conditions. They're not skilled mechanics, but they can take care of the small jobs without any problems. That way, the streetcars will keep running and the workers will see they're not irreplaceable.”

“What's in it for you?”

“Money. And a promotion.”

“Right. And how do I know I can trust you?”

“Tonight I'll come with them and you will see what I'm saying is true. Have money ready, because you'll have to pay them ahead of time. And me, too.”

Héctor Ribes i Pla looked straight at him; he was waiting for the young man to crack, but Dimas didn't even blink.

“Come around midnight,” he conceded. “And be sure you're not just playing around. You can't even imagine how terrible it could be to have me for an enemy.”

Dimas smiled enigmatically.

“That's why we'll get along, señor.”

Dimas kept his word and brought the workers to the workshop that night, one by one. They came from the shanties at Peking Beach, next to Camp de la Bota. Héctor Ribes i Pla was waiting for them with two roughnecks with pistols shoved in their belts.

“You'll show them what they have to do,” he said to Dimas.

“That'll cost extra,” he answered without hesitation.