A Million Drops by Lisa Dillman & Victor Del Árbol

Author:Lisa Dillman & Victor Del Árbol
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2018-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

José Díaz was a passionate, headstrong man, and in his eyes—dark as his rakishly disheveled hair—you could still see signs of the boy from Seville who’d started off as a baker. But he was also coldly analytical and had rare organizational skills. All of these qualities combined had led to his becoming general secretary of the Spanish Communist Party, after successfully orchestrating the strikes that followed José Sanjurjo’s attempted coup in 1932. He walked slowly, bent slightly forward, and Elías thought he caught a grimace of pain as the man brought a hand to his stomach. When they came to a clearing in the pines, Díaz stopped at a bronze sculpture of Stalin, giving it a matter-of-fact glance.

“He’s not that tall, and a little heavier.”

“You know Stalin?”

Díaz puffed on his cigarette, holding it between the fingers of a black-gloved hand. Then he dropped it and crushed it with his heel.

“No one really knows Stalin. Great men are veiled in mist, and Stalin is a great man.” He gave the statue a friendly pat and they walked on.

After a brief silence, Díaz stopped short at a dirt path leading to the respiratory wing of the sanatorium. This was where those with consumption, tuberculosis, and cancer were treated. People with money or influence. No worker could ever afford to come here, and Díaz gazed at the building with infinite sadness, as though the existence of this exclusive facility heralded the failure of what they were attempting to build.

“Have you heard the news from Spain?”

Elías shook his head. “I’ve been busy trying to stay alive.”

Díaz was an uncommon leader, but he was a common man, and not ashamed of it.

“What you’ve been through, I can’t even imagine. I wouldn’t have lasted a week.” He cast a quick glance at the eye patch Elías wore. “I know you were surprised by what Lenin’s widow said. Let’s just say that empathy and social niceties are not comrade Nadezhda’s fortes. But she is right. Velichko’s report must not be made public.”

He waited for Elías to protest or show some sign of disapproval, but the young man simply turned his head to focus on the entrance to the infectious diseases building, where patients and white-coated staff came and went. His empty gaze, lost forever, filled Díaz with sorrow. And yet it was still his job to make the young man see that it was better to bury the whole affair.

“Spain is preparing for war. No one wants to believe it—despite the evidence all being right there—but it’s inevitable. It started the very day the Republic was declared. King Alfonso XIII himself predicted as much before going into exile. ‘I will go to avoid the spilling of Spanish blood,’ he said. The truth is, he went because we kicked him out, but in a way he was right. Sanjurjo’s coup was just a warm-up, a trial run. We responded, but now the government is in their hands, CEDA has the backing of the Church, the landowners, the Falangists, and the Sunday school teachers.

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