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16 Chapter 2 Spain it may have been that i met only pro-fascists in perpignan, on the French side of the Pyrenees, but everyone I talked to told me to expect the worst in “Red Spain.” I had intended to obtain a Spanish visa there but was advised that it would be better to enter the Loyalist side of Spain without one, for the Spanish consul in Perpignan was for Franco. The civil war was six months old, and anti-Loyalist propaganda, promoted everywhere by Rightists, was at its height. I heard many stories of the killing of priests and nuns and the burning of churches. All Loyalist territory was a shambles, assassins were everywhere in Barcelona, and Madrid was worse. The mere wearing of a necktie would stamp me as a capitalist and might cost me my life. I could hardly believe there were any people so depraved as the tales indicated, but started out to see. I had no trouble at the frontier; the passport officer was of anarchist leanings and didn’t believe much in credentials. He simply took down my name and address and said he hoped I’d enjoy my visit. The train on the Spanish side moved at a snail’s pace because of damage done to the line by bombings, and it was late at night when it pulled into Barcelona. There I saw my first blacked-out city and other ominous signs of war—hospitals and air-raid shelters. Outside the station, I observed one dim light two blocks away and walked toward it. It was a restaurant. After a meal, I told the waiter I had just arrived and was unfamiliar with the city; could he 1. The Spanish Civil War began with a military uprising in July 1936, and the insurgents soon came to control a large part of Spain. They were known as Nationalists; their opponents, supporters of the legitimate government of the Republic, were called Loyalists . The Nationalist victory in the spring of 1939 ushered in the lengthy dictatorship of Francisco Franco (d. 1975). SPAIN 17 get me a room for the night? Yes, there was a comrade in the restaurant who could do that. A misshapen man in a cap agreed to take me to a room. As I lugged my heavy suitcase, we turned into a side street, then an alley, all in darkness . We could not talk much; I knew only a few words of Spanish and no Catalan. Suddenly, the quiet was pierced by the shrill crow of a cock. The surprise of such a cry in the middle of a city was appalling. All the superstitions of my remote ancestors seemed to pour out of some recess of my brain. It was plain: this ugly little man was leading me to the end of an alley to shoot me down for the money and baggage I carried. A second before I had been wholly at ease; now I was gripped by an overwhelming fear. The situation seemed so hopeless that I simply resigned myself to an almost certain doom. My guide stopped before a door and unlocked it. I followed him in, thinking now that the job was to be done indoors. He led me to a shabby room, turned on a light, and pointed out the toilet down the hall. Then he smiled, gave me the clenched-fist salute, and said, “Buenas noches, Camarada .” I looked at him in the room’s dim light; his was indeed an ugly face, but there was no evil in it. It was rather the face of the oppressed, of the eternal underdog. I said goodnight and thanked him, chagrined over my fear and mistrust and hoping he had not detected it. The trip to Valencia was another long ride in a train filled with soldiers of the Republic, in uniform or semi-uniform. Some had their girlfriends along. The railroads, seized by workers in the first days of the war, were at that period operating under the supervision of the two big labor federations , Anarchists and Socialist-Communists. Trains departed at uncertain hours, made long intermediate stops, and eventually got to their destination. We pulled into Valencia at 3 a.m. My predecessor had left before my arrival, turning his files over to the American chargé d’affaires. Before starting to work, I wanted a fill-in on what had been happening in Valencia and what news had been sent out, but...

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