Blind Sunflowers by Alberto Méndez

Author:Alberto Méndez [Alberto Mendez]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908129512
Publisher: Arcadia Books Limited
Published: 2011-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

At this point an argument broke out in the cell. A squad of guards burst in. They threatened the prisoners, forcing them to stand facing the wall with their arms in the air for more than two seemingly endless hours. The two men who had been arguing, an Aragonese trade-unionist and an anarchist from Cadiz, were beaten until they had long since lost their convictions, and their ideas lay splattered all over the floor. Juan spent most of the time he was forced to stand trying to imagine what reasons the chaplain would dream up to censor his letter this time.

By now, some of the prisoners had been allowed visits. Those family members who had connections with the Church, Francoist officers or Falange party officials, were given permission to visit relatives in jail who were not facing serious charges. They brought news which helped relieve the silence in the cells. Hitler had failed in the Battle of Britain, resistance groups were being organised in several northern regions of Spain; there were even rumours that the United States was going to invade the south of the Iberian peninsula. Everyone was longing for time to go by. They learned that by counting the seconds, after sixty another whole minute had passed. But each day still seemed an eternity.

Amongst the prisoners was one prematurely old, silent man who avoided all contact with the others even at night, when everyone else huddled close together for warmth. The others called him the Babe, because they did not know his name. He bore the cold, the hunger, and his companions’ mistrust with the same equanimity. He had a long scar on his forehead that parted his hair in two. The only memorable things about his gloomy face were his silence and his enormous eyes, which never seemed to blink, as though he was in a state of perpetual amazement.

He never spoke. He listened to the voices out in the yard or on other floors, to the sounds floating through the air, but appeared unaware of anything said by those with whom he was sharing his captivity. His name was Carlos Alegría. He was an acting captain in the rebel army. He was from a family of wealthy farmers who lived in a village near Burgos. On 18 July 1936 he had been about to board a train home from Salamanca, where he was an assistant in the Faculty of Roman Law, when he heard rumours that the army in North Africa had risen against the government. ‘Defend what is yours,’ he thought, and looked for a way to join the insurgents. Thanks to his university background, he was immediately appointed to the rank of lieutenant. He was no hero, and never once experienced the terrors of war. He spent the whole time in the barracks supplying stores and equipment to the troops. The most urgent orders he ever gave referred to his stocks, and were given to greedy suppliers whose allegiance to the nationalist cause he always doubted.

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