and sit in the frame of the carriage door to share a cigarette, before ascending to Pablo’s loft.
“So, Pablito, when are you going to decide?” he asks after an awkward silence.
“When am I going to decide what?”
“You know, to work with us.”
“I don’t know. If old Faure says no, we can’t do much. You fellows are crazy if you think I’m going to be able to convince him.”
“We don’t want you to convince him. Just print the broadsides without telling him.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because the old man isn’t stupid. How many copies are we talking about? A few hundred, a few thousand?”
“More like a few thousand.”
“Think about it. I can’t make thousands of sheets of paper disappear without him noticing. Also, all the sheets bear the press’s letterhead. He’d end up hearing about it, even if they were only distributed in Spain.”
“What if we bring the paper ourselves?”
Pablo takes the last drag from his cigarette and flicks it toward the far gutter with his thumb and middle finger. Kropotkin runs to look for it, thinking it is a game.
“No. I don’t want you finding a way to convince me.”
And the two friends go upstairs to bed, each wrapped up in his own thoughts.
ON SATURDAY AND SUNDAY ALIKE, PABLO gets up at dawn and rides his bicycle to the printing house. He spends the whole day doing piecework, since in addition to correcting, laying out, and printing the material left for him over the week by the various writers for Ex-Ilio, he has to do his own work with the eight pages published by the International Group of Anarchist Editions, Spain: One Year of Dictatorship, written by Durruti and the elder of the Orobón brothers, Valeriano, who, despite his youth, is already making a name for himself as a writer and translator (his adaptation of the Polish “Song of Warsaw,” A Las Barricadas, will be a rallying cry in the Spanish Civil War). There is so much work that Pablo has had to invent a clever trick to incentivize the lazy Julianín: the boy will be paid five cents for each error he finds in the galleys; however, for each one he misses, he will lose ten. The bonus tends to be a pittance or even negative, but at least Pablo manages to keep him motivated and working.
After the hard day, the typesetter returns to his loft and smokes a cigarette with Robinsón before going to bed. For his part, the vegetarian takes advantage of Pablo’s intense hours to get a bit of extra sleep on the mattress when his friend leaves for work, at which point he opens the door and lets in Kropotkin, who slides between the sheets like a little lord, as if to confirm the words of the Englishman who gave the dog to Robinsón: “Take care of him, boy, this perro is a direct descendiente of Queen Victoria’s last teckel.” However, this noble lineage does nothing to prevent the dog from leaving the sheets littered with hair, which Pablo of course notices, but says nothing. Robinsón also takes advantage of the weekend to meet with the Committee at the International Bookstore and inform them of his progress in recruiting. It is decided that once the pamphlet is ready, Robinsón will take care of distribution in Paris, using his recruiting work as an opportunity to distribute pamphlets and using the pamphlets as a tool to draw in more recruits.
On Monday morning, October 13, Spain: One Year of Dictatorship starts circulating from hand to hand through the City of Light, while Pablo sleeps in the train on his way to Marly, after an exhausting weekend that finally ended on Sunday at the cusp of midnight.
III
(1896–1899)
“THE LUMIÈRE CINEMATOGRAPH.” AND UNDERNEATH, IN smaller letters, the price of entry: “One peseta.” Pablo and the newsboy had arrived at 34 Carrera de San Jerónimo with their hearts racing, after passing the offices of La Época on Calle Libertad, and now they found themselves standing in line to see the never-before-seen, the unthinkable, the unimaginable: moving pictures. The first session was going to take place at ten o’clock and they did not want to miss it for anything in the world, even if they had to spend everything they had in their pockets. When their turn came, the older boy asked:
“Children pay half price, right?”
The ticket man shot them a grumpy look through his monocle. “If you’re less than ten years old, yeah,” he said curtly, stroking the thick beard sprouting from his cheekbones.
“Ten years between the two of us, or ten years each?” the boy asked.
The man was so surprised by the question that he said, “Go on, give me a peseta and get inside before I change my mind.”
Pablo placed his two reales on the counter while the newsboy rummaged in his pockets producing small coins until coming up with half a peseta. The clerk gave them two tickets and muttered a few incomprehensible words, while the sky suddenly went overcast, envious of the two boys’ happiness.
Inside the building, a few men and women were discussing the virtues of the new gadget. The optimists claimed that the cinematograph would improve people’s lives and contribute to the development of human thought. The pessimists seemed to be convinced that it would never be anything more than a sideshow gag, like so many others that had appeared and disappeared with more pain than glory. The doomsayers predicted that it would shrink children’s brains and end up another petty entertainment like the theater and the opera. But there they all were, expectant, impatient to attend the event of the year. Soon, a side door opened and a sharply dressed little man entered; he walked beneath the great white cloth dominating the end of the room and sat down in front of a splendid German Spaethe piano. Only then, with rigorous punctuality, did the room lights go down, and everyone ran to get a seat. In the darkness, the thick cloud of cigarette smoke appeared to condense and the spectators all held their breath when a humming sound started up behind them. Almost immediately, a spotlight illuminated the white cloth and before the spectators’ eyes appeared the image of a Parisian street, with its cars, its houses and its inhabitants frozen, immobile. A murmur of disappointment spread through the room, but then, suddenly, the crowd all hushed at once, a shiver running down their many spines as the image began to move, like a black-and-white version of real life. The carriages traveled from one end of the screen to the other; people got into and out of the cars and disappeared beyond the white cloth; some children were playing with a dog, which barked silently and leapt wildly in the air; a few cyclists passed in front of the camera, smiled, and waved at the astonished spectators in Madrid, who instinctively raised their hands to return the wave. All of this enlivened by the joyful music of the sharply dressed little man.
“Oooohh!” said a few voices when the reel was finished, after running barely a minute.
But there was not much time to discuss the clip, because immediately, another gray image took over the screen and started moving. This time it was a train, approaching the spectators at high speed.
“Aaaaahh!” shouted some, ducking their heads or holding tightly to their chairs.
Fortunately, the train passed by, disappearing to the left side of the screen, and those who had been most startled breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, the train stopped, and several people got into and out of the cars. After a few seconds of darkness, an image appeared of a gardener watering some flowers, followed by a street urchin who entered the scene silently and stepped on the hose without realizing it, cutting off the flow of water. The gardener, surprised, looked into the end of the hose and at that very moment the child lifted his foot and the man received a gush of water full in the face.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” some spectators laughed, including Pablo and the young newsboy.
After the gardener, there appeared three men playing cards around a table. Then, various people walking by the sea. Later, there were lithe horses galloping in an equestrian show, followed by workers coming out of a factory. Finally, the spectators of Madrid were treated to an idyllic