Mary Low and Juan Breá Red Spanish notebook

Mary Low and Juan Breá
Red Spanish notebook
The first six Months of the Revolution and the Civil War
The first edition of this book was published by Martin Secker and Warburg, Ltd., London, 1937.
Contents
I. Journey there (Narrative by Mary Low)
II. Round the town (Narrative by Mary Low)
III. Communal life (Narrative by Mary Low)
IV. A meeting at the grand price theatre (Narrative by Mary Low)
V. A full day (Narrative by Mary Low)
VI. The Aragon front (Narrative by Juan Breá)
VII. The firing line (Narrative by Juan Breá)
VIII. Tierz (Narrative by Juan Breá)
IX. The clinic hospital (Narrative by Mary Low)
X. Flood tide (Narrative by Mary Low)
XI. Madrid before the bombardment (Narrative by Juan Breá)
XII. A last sight of Toledo (Narrative by Juan Breá)
XIII. Another front: Siguénza (Narrative by Juan Breá)
XIV. Women ... (Narrative by Mary Low)
XV. The council of the generality of Catalonia (Narrative by Mary Low)
XVI. The changing aspect (Narrative by Mary Low)
XVII. The journey back (Narrative by Mary Low)
XVIII. Conclusion (By Juan Breá)
I. Journey there (Narrative by Mary Low)

JULY 19TH, 1936, WITH ITS WHOLE SURGE OF bravery, fine deeds and the violent foretaste of new life had already passed over Barcelona. 212 The month was moving on the train of those days. The streets were untidy, streaked with dust and old paper, and the air was hot, eager and compressed. The excitement, the feeling of living again, of being reborn, that was what 241 struck one most. Everything seemed about to come true.

We had come straight from the other side of Belgium to go to Barcelona, but there was no connection in the trains in Paris, and we had to spend the day. In Paris it was very early morning. We lingered about the station, un­certain what to do with ourselves. A curious, early smell, native to Paris, penetrated into the glass nave of the station and hung about under the vaulting. It was a mixture of warm croissants, fresh air, street washing and a flavour of gas. We had no money, and knapsacks on our backs. The porters walked past where we stood, the ends of their blue smocks frilling out round their hips like ballet skirts below the tight elastic belts. They made jokes. I only wanted to get to Barcelona; their jokes irritated me, especially because of the French sound of the words which I heard as they walked past me talking.

The train with third class to Barcelona left at night from the Gare d'Orsay. After we had spent an idle day in the streets, we went across the arch of a bridge which made a soft and languid shape in the darkness, with spears of light quivering down into the river. The Gare d'Orsay looked like a wedding-cake on the quay opposite. This station has stories and a basement, and the Spanish train was leaving from the basement. It was lying at the bottom of the stairs, squat and green, and people were jamming in a mass through the ticket-barrier at the last moment. We were at the end of the line, almost the last.

The ticket-collector was holding my ticket in his hand. I looked down. The palm was deep, thick and ridged, seamed with hard work and long hours. He fingered the ticket for a time, and bent over it looking at Barcelona while I was guessing his eyes in the circle of darkness between the rim of cap and the moustache.

”Is that where you're going?”

”Yes,” I said.

He pushed the cap back off his forehead and shook me suddenly by the hand.

”Comrade!” he said, still holding my hand tightly and looking at me, ”good luck to you, comrade. And to all of them,” he added. ”I wish I was you.”

The train had nearly gone. I jumped into the last carriage.

It was full. The lines of people's swaying bodies stood in the corridor, blocking out the profile of the town. The blue light was already turned on in most of the compartments, and people slept in mounds. At the same time I felt as if there was a trail of excitement, like gunpowder, running through from one carriage to another. How many of them are going there?

They had nearly all been sifted out before we reached the south of France. Three men suddenly got in at a small station, two of them very dark and sallow, with thin noses, and the other short and fair who seemed to be of a different race. One had his arm in a sling, and in several places the blood had pierced through the rough and dirty bandages. They talked a great deal together in Spanish, and seemed tired. After listening to them for a time we thought the young one might be Belgian.

”Are you going to Spain?”

They looked at me. One of them had big irises to his eyes, the brown fading to liquid yellow at the centre.

”Yes. Going to and coming from.”

The Belgian spoke to me in French and said:

”We got cut off by the Fascist advance in the north-west. You know they're pressing on Irun. Their troops got between some of us and the coast. Some of us got through their ranks – it's like being hunted—and we took a ship and came to France. Now we're going back again by the other frontier.”

I looked hard at them. They were the first militiamen I had seen.

They lay back and talked, their feet resting on the bench opposite. There were few people left in the train now. The militiamen wore canvas shoes with rope soles on their bare feet, and had on blue jeans. They rolled cigarettes fondly and dexterously and seemed now not tired at all, but excited and restless. They told a number of stories of Fascist atrocities which they themselves had witnessed. The Belgian said:

”I left my job and ran away to come and fight.”




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