This part of the Spanish Pyrenees wasn’t in Nationalist territory, not yet. The town had a slumbering feel as I approached, and of course the borderline itself was invisible. One moment I was in France, at peace, and the next in Spain, at war. And what it all meant for me—and all that would happen—was still ahead in the dark, entirely unknown.
Ah, Marty, I heard my father say, as if I were suddenly carrying him on my shoulder, just under my right ear. You think you can just traipse off to war, do you? Have you thought this through?
Had I? Did I really know what I was doing here? Perhaps not, but I was on my way.
* * *
—
Just before dawn, I boarded my second train, this one bound for Barcelona. It was unheated, knitted together out of icy little wooden cars that shuddered through the countryside. Each carriage could seat six, but I was shoehorned into one with half a dozen beautiful Spanish men in civilian clothes. They might have been students, they looked so young. All sorts of people had become soldiers overnight, drawn into battle because there was no other way, now, with Franco on the loose. Liberty was entirely contingent. Life was in the crosshairs. Of course they would fight.
They wore what clothes they had as a uniform, brown peasant cotton shirts and rope-soled shoes. One pulled a long, flat loaf of simple bread—almost black in color—from a carpetbag. Another carried sausages, dense with garlic and chilies, in his handkerchief, along with a wedge of flinty sheep’s milk cheese. When they shared their meal with me, thrusting the offering into my lap without saying a word, I wanted to write a poem for them and say it out in Spanish. I would have to learn more Spanish immediately. I would have to learn all sorts of things. For the moment, I smiled gratefully, and ate.
For the rest of that day and into the night we rode together. I fell asleep at some point and woke in the very early morning, my head on the shoulder of the boy next to me. For a moment, before I was really awake, I felt like his sister. That he could be Alfred and we could be anywhere, headed to Key West, maybe, on a dusty but promising bus, looking forward to whatever lay just ahead. But of course this was another place. A more perilous one, too, though for the moment I saw only the beauty. Outside, as I yawned and stretched, dawn light streaked through falling snow, broad flat flakes that swung their way to the frozen ground, looking like petals. The trees were glazed with ice. Everything seemed to be made of crystal.
A few hours later, we reached Barcelona. The whole city seemed to whirl, even from the train, a carnival of bodies and busyness. Spanish, English, French, American—everyone talking excitedly, their eyes bright, though they shouldered guns. One had a canteen bumping along under his waist on a knotted cord. Another had a wine cask instead, and boots strung around his neck, and a face out of Botticelli.
I said goodbye to my traveling companions at the station, hoping they understood what was in my eyes, since we shared no proper language. I could still feel them behind me as I walked off to find my next move, and I wanted to say a sacred prayer for them, though I had never really known how to pray. Would they live to find their way home to their sisters and mothers and sweethearts? Would I survive even a week in Spain when already my heart felt so wide open and so susceptible?
I took a room at the first hotel I came to. I was dying for a bath, but apparently the entire city was flush out of coal. So I fell face-first into the bed as if I had never seen one before. Clothes on, boots on, I slept the thick and cottony sleep of the displaced. I didn’t remember dreaming or moving at all until cold sunshine pierced the shutters facing the square. I rose and stood blinking at an enormous silk banner that read WELCOME COMRADES FROM AFAR. Morning. Barcelona. I was actually here.
I needed coffee desperately, but there was only minute coffee, dark crystals you poured boiling water over and tried to pretend it wasn’t too bitter to drink. I took myself to the crowded little café off the lobby, but before I could down enough espresso to even think straight, I found everyone was talking about what had happened the night before. There had been a fierce attack in the wee hours, the air-raid sirens wailing as the city shook.
“I can’t believe I slept through it,” I told the concierge, who spoke English well. “I wouldn’t have thought it was possible.”
“You are lucky to have such a skill.”
“Sleep isn’t a skill.” I laughed at him.
“But of course, señorita. The innocent have it. They’re born with it. Somehow you lose it as you age. Worry steals it away.”
I was about to explain to him that of course I was worried, but suddenly realized it didn’t matter, because I had slept, right through everything. Skill or gift or accident, the result was the same, and I would take it.
11
I stayed in Barcelona another twenty-four hours, just long enough to see how alive the city was with revolution. Anarchist, Socialist, and Communist banners hung everywhere. The streets were strewn with what looked like confetti but was really thousands of colored propaganda leaflets and manifestos all swirled together brilliantly. Workers and servicemen had taken over the once-privately-owned villas and businesses and turned them into collectives. The ruling class had either surrendered their possessions for the greater good and stayed to fight, or fled to France. Everything belonged to everyone, and that was extraordinary to see. When I got into a taxi, the driver refused my pesetas. He was a servant of the people, he insisted, in Spanish I barely understood because it was Catalonian. Still, we smiled at each other. And it was wonderful.
The next day I packed my things quickly and found a munitions truck that would take me as far as Valencia. Apparently, skirting the coast to the south and then angling north again across La Mancha, toward Madrid, was the safest route for the moment—though that was always changing as the front changed. For two days, we bumped along with a large caravan of vehicles on a coastal road, with sloping, climbing hills, now and then coming to small villages that appeared all but deserted. In the distance I could see the Mediterranean, bright and hard and blue, sometimes flat looking as starched cloth, and sometimes whipped and angry.
North across the span of water, I knew, was the Côte d’Azur, that sun-drenched paradise where a decade before, newly sprung from Bryn Mawr, I’d swum and guzzled oysters and bicycled along sandy cypress-lined roads. That place had been beautiful beyond words, but also seemed like a confection now, compared with Spain. This was another kind of country altogether, rougher and simpler and purer, and so clearly worth fighting for I felt it as a clenching in my throat.
Like the recruits on the train before, when I was pointed at Barcelona, the men on the munitions truck had become like family to one another very quickly. They sang snatches of wistful Catalan songs that seemed to bring the sun out of hiding. The air warmed as we rode, and I realized that at least for the moment, at least in this place, spring was on its way. Not here yet, not quite, but a clear promise.
No one seemed to mind my being there, or my being a woman. They hardly noticed me, in fact. I could simply look at everything and absorb it, jostled by the great tires shuddering along the road, while sunlight palmed the top of my head, and lightly brushed the tips of my eyelashes. This was a country wracked by war and chaos, but already I knew that it wouldn’t take much at all for me to love it.
* * *
—
At Valencia, I walked into the heart of the city, intent on finding a place to sleep and getting the lay of the land. I took a room at the Victoria in the central square, and the next morning went looking for the press bureau office, to see about arranging transport to Madrid—a train or truck, or some sort of caravan. But I didn’t even make it two blocks from the hotel before a car pulled alongside me, a dinged and dusty coal-colored Citroën that looked like it had tunneled its way through a mountain or two.
A small, dark Spanish man leaned out the open window as the car rolled to a stop beside me. For a moment I thought something t
errible might be happening, but then a voice called out from the backseat, and another man pushed his way forward, smiling at me as if he were a friend.
“You’re American,” the man said as he angled out the back window. Ashy hair fell straight over his forehead. He had a large, rubbery nose, rather like a handsome yam. His eyes were deep set and sensitive looking under full brows. He looked familiar somehow.
“Martha Gellhorn.” I offered my hand.
“Gellhorn,” he said. “Say, it’s lucky we met. Sid Franklin.”
“Sidney! How’d you find me?”
“By not looking at all.” His smile tipped and widened. “You’ve been all right? No trouble?”
“No. Everyone’s been so kind. Your visa must have come through, then.”
He shook his head. “Hem tried like hell, but it was nothing doing. This car isn’t exactly sanctioned. I guess I’m not either.”
“Ernest found the car for you?”
He grinned. “I sort of borrowed it.”
“I’m even more impressed, then.”
I couldn’t help noticing how heavy the Citroën was on its wheels. I leaned in and saw the backseat was piled with flats of supplies—fruit and coffee and chocolate and canned tomatoes. Somehow Sidney had found prawns, too, in large tins, and marmalade, and fresh oranges in a bushel basket. Stuffed in around the boxes and suitcases and baskets were several large cured hams wrapped in cheesecloth.
“You’re going to eat well, at least,” I told him.
“That’s the idea…if we don’t get blown off the road. Get in.”
I had them drive me to my hotel, where I ran and got my things and was out in minutes, feeling excited about this chance meeting, and ready to be in Madrid. Sidney’s driver looked like something out of a painting, with a narrow and swarthy face, and heavy eyebrows under a brown cap. His name was Luis, and as we navigated our way out of Valencia, he told us in heavily accented English of the recent Loyalist victories at Guadalajara and Brihuega. Mussolini was aiding Franco, and had sent twelve thousand troops over, but our own troops had defeated them. Had crushed them, in fact.
“It’s the biggest Italian defeat we have heard of,” Luis said proudly. “You should have seen the fiestas that followed. My father is still drunk at home, and may be that way for a month. Viva España.”
“Viva España!” we echoed, beaming, and passed out of the city and over the pale green Valencian plain, past healthy-looking orange and olive groves, and up into the dry, tan hills.
* * *
—
Madrid was several hundred miles northwest over the coastal range and across the great plateau, La Mancha, flat brown fields that went on and on, possibly forever, full of trees and goats and the kinds of windmills that Don Quixote had flung himself at. It was mountainous and broad, rolling in every direction, and there was a sense, as you drove, of how old it was, too, how full of history.
For more than a day we drove steadily, on tamped and dusty and curving roadways, past sentry posts and roadblocks that rattled me each time we saw one coming. My palms dampened as I offered my flimsy letter from Collier’s with my passport, sure it wouldn’t suffice this time, and that I’d be sent packing. Sidney had a document Ernest managed to have written up in Paris to look official, saying that he was a part of the war effort, and bona fide, and somehow it all worked, over and over. Somehow, improbably, we got through.
Since early November, Madrid had been an entrenched front line in this civil war. Franco’s Nationalists had dug in to the west and north, while the Republican forces fought to push them back, reinforced by volunteer brigades. The city was under siege, and bombed at regular intervals. Any day, Madrid could fall—that was a real possibility—but for now you could still approach from the east and southeast, and that’s what we did.
When we arrived, it was nighttime, and blacker in the dark than anyplace I had ever been. We drove in through the center of town, along the Gran Vía, which was ravaged from shell fire. The roads were deeply rutted and entirely dark, visible only in the beams of our dim headlamps. At several places the street was splintered and impassable. Gutted buildings yawned to either side, and my heart went cold at the core, suddenly, because I knew, at last, that this was really war. And there would be no escaping the reality of that again.
At a sentry point near a hulking arena, we were stopped and asked for a daily password Sidney knew—thank God—from a telegram Ernest had sent to Valencia.
“That’s the Plaza de Toros,” Sidney told me while we waited for clearance, jutting his chin at the shadowy arena. “I’ve been there many times.”
“But not like this,” I said.
“No, it’s a different city. I didn’t know what to expect, only that it seemed important to come.”
All I could do was nod, feeling very moved.
Back in motion we passed buildings smashed and ransacked, storefronts covered with plastic sheeting and also cardboard. We drove slowly to avoid the shell holes and because it was so dark. It was strange to be in a place that was so black and ravaged, as if the city were dead and this place were its ghost. I had never been fearful as a child, but if I had been, this would have been the stuff of my nightmares.
Finally we reached the Hotel Florida, on the Plaza del Callao. Much of the surrounding neighborhood had been brutalized, but the exterior of the hotel was still intact. It looked like an aging starlet, with a marble façade and black iron fretwork, all of it climbing into the black sky.
Inside, the lobby had a vaulted ceiling and broad curving staircase, but the tile and decor had seen better days. It was empty, too. There was only one man other than the porter, and he was stooped behind the reception desk, his face mottled with candlelight, poring over what looked like a stamp collection. He barely looked up from the pages to tell us that Señor Hemingway wasn’t in his room. He’d gone to dinner at the Hotel Gran Vía, the designated mess hall for correspondents. We could find him there.
I followed Sidney up the street, keeping my eyes on my boots. The street was uneven, littered with rubble from recent explosions, I guessed. In the distance I heard a thundering sound that I knew was gunfire. I clutched my jacket nearer, feeling like I was floating a little apart from my body. Here I was at war, where anything could happen at any moment. Nothing could have felt stranger or sharper or more sobering.
Farther along the boulevard, past several sets of barricades and sentries armed with bayonets, we finally arrived at the Hotel Gran Vía and were directed down several dark flights of stairs to a snug, dim sub-basement. The whole place swam with smoke. Long planks were set up as makeshift tables and Ernest was at the end of one of these, surrounded by men in uniform. He wore his wire-rimmed glasses and a light blue shirt rolled-up at the sleeves. As we made our way over, he stood up, shook Sidney’s hand, and then folded me in for a quick, breathless bear hug.
“Hello, daughter, you’ve made it.”
Suddenly I was aware of everything that had transpired to get me there. I felt cold and dusty. My knees and shoulders ached from being too long cramped in the small car. So much had happened, but somehow all I could say for the moment was “Yes.”
There was a bustle of trying to squeeze us in at the table, finding chairs, calling over the waiter, and was there enough food? “You’ll have to hold your nose,” Ernest warned. “This isn’t the Ritz.”
On the table was some sort of fish served on a pyre of jaundiced-looking rice with oily bits of salami and hard chickpeas. I managed to shovel it down somehow between sips of my drink. The gin was surprisingly good.
“This is a war after all,” Ernest said when he saw my expression. “If they spared the booze, everything would go to hell quick.”
“I brought all the supplies,” Sidney said. He’d pushed away his plate after a few bites. “I can start cooking for you.”
“Sidney here m
akes eggs that would break your heart,” Ernest told me. “He’s also a terrific bloodhound. I knew he’d find you.”
Sidney and I locked eyes and grinned at each other at the hidden joke. “Yes, he’s clearly gifted. Thanks for sending him, and for worrying about me.”
I felt Ernest appraising me, his eyes fastened to my face with something like pride. Daughter, he’d called me again. He seemed to use it with other younger women, too. It felt affectionate and concerned more than proprietary, and didn’t bother me at all. It was actually nice to hear him gathering me toward him. My days of solitary travel had felt smooth and even fated, but it was so much better to be among friends now. Vouched for and understood.
* * *
—
After dinner, the three of us walked back toward the Florida. The city was densely black and cold. I had my shoulders hunched for warmth, my back full of knots. In the distance, gunfire came again, a chattering stammer of sound.
“That’s University City,” Ernest explained. “That show goes on all night.”
“How far away is the fighting?” I asked him.
“A mile or more. I’ll take you up tomorrow, and also to the Telefónica to get you your safe-conduct vouchers. It’s the tallest building in Madrid, and built like an iron battleship. That’s where the censorship office is. You’ll file your stories there. They have lines to London and Paris. It’s all pretty cozy, you’ll see.”
Cozy didn’t begin to describe anything I saw or could imagine, but I felt safer than I had all day, walking between Ernest and Sidney, whether that was actually true or not.