The Second Son: A Novel Read Free Page B

anarchists. The anarchists hate the Communists. And the Communists have no power whatsoever and seem to hate even themselves.
I think there’s a central government somewhere, but Barcelona doesn’t like to admit that. The Lefties they elected in February—socialists calling themselves a Popular Front, which is bizarre when no one really likes them and they’re well behind the curve at every turn—are a kind of mythological beast that shouts at everyone from Madrid and tells them how to be proper Lefties—who to adore, who to hate. This week, I think it’s the anarcho-syndicalists—I still have no idea what that means—whom we’re all supposed to be burning in effigy. And that’s just the boys who are in their own camp.
It gets much easier when they turn to the Right. There it’s basically two groups that the Lefties scream at—hard-line monarchists and hard-line fascists, and both of them marching with crosses. Very big crosses. Vast crosses. Epic crosses. There’s a scent of the Crusades in all this.
The first call themselves Carlists. They want the king back. Very Catholic. Lots of pedigree. Spanish arrogance drunk on holy water.
The second are the Falangists, a version of Mussolini’s Fascisti, although I suspect they find Hitler just as inspiring. They’re relatively new. I think they invented themselves around the same time the Reichstag burned. Catholic (as long as the priests tell the people to follow them). Militarists. And hell-bent on rooting out anyone who even recognizes the name Marx.
Unlike the Left, the boys on the Right actually talk to each other. That makes them far more dangerous.
It’s only a matter of time before it all blows up. So it’s going to be news, and that means you’ll have to bear with me. You’ll also have to make sure Lotte can bear it as well. I need you for that. I’m asking you for that. Not for too long, I hope. But then there are always those unnerving conversations.
Anyway, I’m losing my train of thought. And I’m tired. That seems to be a constant.
I imagine most of this letter is blacked out. I know. My apologies.
Watch the papers. It won’t be long. And Pathé Gazette will be there.
    Cock-a-doodle-doo,
    Georg
    He was right, of course. The opening ceremonies of the Olimpiada Popular, slotted for the nineteenth of July, never happened. Instead, two days earlier, all hell had broken loose.
    *   *   *
     
    The first reports started arriving on the afternoon of the eighteenth. They were of no help, wires and rumors coming in from Morocco and the south: ten dead, then fifty. Something had happened in Melilla on the northern coast of Morocco; a colonel had arrested a general. The question was, was the colonel on the Left or the Right? More than that, whose soldiers were dying, and what were they dying for? By the time Georg made it to the consulate for confirmation, the number was at two hundred. A fascist group of officers—calling themselves rebel Nationalists—had secured all of Morocco, and another group on the mainland was heading for Seville.
    Georg read the wire from the prime minister in Madrid— THEY ’ RE RISING ? VERY WELL. I SHALL GO AND LIE DOWN —and knew the Lefties had no idea what they were in for. By 9 p.m., word had come through that Queipo de Llano—one of the more vicious generals in the uprising—had marched into Seville with four thousand rebel fascist soldiers and taken her in a matter of hours. Queipo was clever: he simply arrested and shot anyone who wouldn’t join him.
    Hoffner took his camera and headed for the Rambla. Everyone was out. News never waited long in Barcelona.
    There were already loudspeakers up on the trees, music for the most part—for some reason Rossini was getting the majority of the playing time—but every so often an announcement would come through:
    “These are isolated incidents.”
    “The government has put down the failed military rebellion.”
    “Do not take matters into your own