The Communist's Daughter Read Free Page B

of stairs. The air grew thin and dank as we descended the steps, and the thud of the exploding bombs grew muted.

    Upon entering this basement I saw quickly enough that it was unlike any other shelter I had seen in Madrid, or anywhere else for that matter. It was a magnificent labyrinth, an intricate series of rooms linked by a main tunnel that branched off into smaller, darker tunnels that ran even farther beneath the city. Rooms waited at the end of four of the tunnels, each one representing, in miniature, a stage of a bullfight. Like the bar upstairs, they were decorated with ceramic tiles, depicting scenes that took up an entire wall. The mosaic of the first room we entered was that of a vestiary. On one wall the tile showed the bullfighter’s brightly decorated suit of lights, gold with red sequins along the arms and legs. The room was crowded with customers from upstairs, people still holding their drinks. We found the main tunnel again and walked through the dank air to the chapel, where the matador pauses for a word with his Maker before entering the ring. The scene was well lit by the open window portrayed in the mosaic, and visible in its frame was a bright day, with the Virgin Mary hovering in the centre. Radiance emanated from her outstretched hands. The ceramic also showed a desk, on which sat a Bible propped up against a stack of books, an unlit candle, notepaper and a fountain pen. This room, too, was full of people. We exited and continued down along the main tunnel.

    We entered a circular room constructed to represent the main bullring, the
plaza de toros.
It was less than ten paces across and also near capacity. The tiles showed stands filled with people facing us, creating the perception that we ourselves were the main attraction and not some hapless bull and matador. The bombs falling outside, perhaps ten blocks away, sounded as dull thuds over our heads. The room shook with the force of the distant explosions. Tiles scattered on the dirt floor had been shaken loose by previous bombardments—or this one, it’s impossible to say.

    Frank had found a seat and sat with his back to the wall, talking quietly with an old man. Your mother and I continued along the main tunnel to the fourth and last room.

    She said, “This would be absurd if it wasn’t so terrifying.”

    *

    Absurd moments in Madrid, there are plenty of those to choose from, and I shouldn’t be so surprised. I suppose that is the nature of war. I remember my first encounter with the absurd very well. It was on my first morning in Madrid, in early November of 1936, a few months before I met your mother. I recall taking my breakfast at the hotel cafeteria on the Gran Vía, Madrid’s principal east-west thoroughfare, only a few doors up from a bar called the Museo Chicote. I knew very few people in the city at the time and had brought with me nothing but my few items of luggage, a small amount of cash in the form of American Express orders and safe-conduct papers issued to me by the Spanish Embassy in Paris. I had begun walking east along the Gran Vía when an annoying little creature approached from behind and grabbed me by the elbow. Of course, I had no idea what this man was trying to tell me. He spoke very fast and I didn’t understand any Spanish. I was just then indicating to him the impasse, shaking my head and gently but firmly pulling away, when his free hand casually slipped under his coat. He patted something there and raised an eye. It was a gesture he might have picked up at the movie house just down the road.

    Having no option but to take his lead I followed him the few steps back to my hotel, where he rang the service bell and waited for the lady to appear at her desk. She was, I know now, a typical
patrona
of the type you find all over that country—efficient and powerful in the small world of her clean hallways and uncomfortable, tubular pillows, loud, talkative and helpful. She helped me