The Anarchist Who Shared My Name. Pablo Martín Sánchez

delicto trying to buy a war arsenal from a couple of workers from Reims. When they were arrested, they claimed that they wanted the weapons to sell them as contraband in the war in Morocco, but the police suspected that it was more likely part of a plot hatched by Spanish anarchists. In this, they are onto something: the two men detained near Voyennes, on the road between Amiens and Reims, are Juan Rodríguez, aka “El Galeno,” and Blas Serrano, his constant companion, assigned to the task of obtaining weapons for the revolutionary expedition.

      The fatal outcome was set into motion last week, when El Galeno received Pablo’s handoff of the letter assigning him the task of procuring weapons. Within a few days of setting about the task, he found the first offer—a Belgian war salvager had just found a German cache near Damery containing several rifles, cartridges, and grenades in decent condition. They were prepared to sell the rifles and grenades at the requested price, and would throw in the cartridges for free since some were damp and the powder was probably bad by now. Rodríguez contacted Vivancos and they decided to make the buy immediately so as not to lose this great opportunity. So Vivancos traveled to Amiens on Monday to pass El Galeno the money, an operation that the police very nearly thwarted and which only succeeded because Pablo happened to be on that train. Some people thought that the gendarmes’ intervention was not a coincidence, and the rumor gained momentum yesterday afternoon, when a patrol unexpectedly showed up at the planned site of the swap.

      The meeting had been planned for seven o’clock in the evening. Rodríguez and Serrano were leaving Amiens in a meat truck, a rattling Renault. They arrived half an hour early at the meeting place near Voyennes. The salvager, a man of few words, so blond that he looked like an albino, arrived twenty minutes later. With a gesture he invited them into the truck, and they accompanied him along a dirt road leading into the woods. Soon they reached a house in ruins. El Galeno and Blas Serrano exited the vehicle and entered the house behind the albino, who lifted a few planks from the floor and opened a trapdoor to the cellar. Down there, in crates, there were over one hundred Mauser rifles, several dozen grenades, and a few boxes of ammunition. They assessed the inventory by flashlight and handed over the corresponding money. Without saying a word, the three men started loading the truck. It took several trips. When they stepped out of the house with the final load, the police were waiting for them, pistols drawn.

      Pablo still doesn’t know the whole story, but he leaves his stew half-eaten and asks for the check. The diners’ conversation has ruined his appetite, because he suspects that the arrests in Amiens have a direct relationship with the Committee of Anarchist Relations, and more specifically with the man on the train to whom he has passed an envelope and a briefcase in the past two weeks. Pablo doesn’t know what the former said, or what the latter contained, and he still doesn’t even know the name of the man with the medical bag, but if it turns out that he’s one of the two who have just been arrested, and he ends up singing, Pablo’s future looks very dark indeed. The police took his information on the train, and it’s possible that his name is already circulating around the commissariat. But one needn’t be so pessimistic! It’s also possible that the man from the train won’t squeal, that he’ll take the fall. Because, as the two diners at Madame de Bruyn’s bistro said, the arrested men claimed that they wanted the weapons to sell on the black market in Morocco. You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow, little Pablo, when you get back to Paris and can learn more about what has happened. For the time being, though, everything seems to indicate that the authorities are hot on the heels of the revolutionary movement.