short story

  1. Turinbaar
    Turinbaar
    Mason Holcomb
    English LA_110
    Jim Sidel
    12:00 pm – 2:50 pm
    Brannan
    5/8/09


    Catalonia Burns

    The sun leered down at the thin column of men marching along the dusty road. The air smelled of spring and gunpowder. Salvador adjusted the shoulder strap on his father’s rifle. He had only fired it once since the night he ran away with it, and that was to save Fyodor, a man he met in battle. He still remembered the brute force of the gun, which sent him falling backward as he blew out the brains of the black-clad Falange soldier. Since then, Fyodor has been his close comrade and companion.

    Some of the men of the column, foreign volunteers sent by the USSR to Salvador’s homeland of Catalonia, along the slopes of the Pyrenees, were singing a song in praise of what Fyodor called “the glorious workers revolution,” which he claimed had created a paradise beyond the Ural Mountains in Stalin’s Russia, where the people were free from ignorance and hunger. Some of them carried pictures of their leader, whom they often called “Uncle Joe Stalin” with a sort of reverence and affection. They had been sent by him to aid the Spanish Republic in its war with General Franco, who commanded the Falange uprising.

    Salvador wiped the sweat from his brow. He glanced backwards, quickly surveying the tired dirty faces of his fellow militiamen. Many of them had not shaven in weeks and looked dirty and undisciplined next to their Soviet allies. There was a fairly large town a little way up the road. Like much of Catalonia, the workers of the town had risen up and split from the Spanish Crown and the Republic in its time of crisis, and declared their independence. Salvador’s father had warned in the early days of the civil war of a coming hell from this new world without the King or the Church.

    “These anarchists want to create a world with no authority, no morals!” Salvador remembered his father yelling. “Without the law of God, there can be no order, no civilization. You’ll see very soon. These men will turn His house into a brothel!”

    His father, a man addressed to by many as Don Iglesias, was a pious man who owned a vineyard in the countryside west of Barcelona. He felt that modern society had made people too soft and liberal and despaired at the thinning congregations at Mass. Years of toil under the hot sun had darkened his skin and thickened it like leather. His rough voice could shake the room if he was angry enough, and this was often. He was a firm believer in the redemption of the sinner through suffering, and sought to bring as much suffering onto his son as possible, for he believed Salvador to be hell bound for his refusal to accept communion and his constant defiance. He welcomed the news of Franco’s rebellion. Salvador could still feel the thud in his chest from when his father slammed his fist down onto the hard wooden table.

    “Good,” His father barked, “Someone has to run the Reds and the Jews out of this country. He can burn Catalonia to the ground I say! It’s about time. Franco’s revolution will bring about a New Spain and save us from the immorality that’s plagued our home and turned Barcelona into a den of filth and lawlessness!”

    Salvador stuffed his mouth with a piece of bread and uttered a few unintelligible curses. His father leaned forward and laid a blow to the back of his head. Like it had been with the bruises on his back and his arms, there was a sudden shock of pain that shot through his nerves, but this particular blow was accompanied by a moment of blindness. Through the ringing in his ears Salvador was still able to hear the slurring, gravely voice.

    “Don’t curse at my table.” His father poured his third glass of wine, carefully observing the velvety red fluid slide out of the vessel he held in his rigid crusted hand. Those fingers, like so many long curving bricks, twisted the bottle gently as the level of the wine reached the brim of the glass.

    “This was blessed by Father Rivera,” He boasted as he set down the bottle, “He bought fifty crates just this morning. He and I have agreed that this debauchery has gone on too long. The wine will be sent west to the Falange elite generals as a gesture of good will for when they finally arrive here.”

    A gripping cold overtook Salvador when he heard those words. It was in that moment that Salvador realized the gravity of his condition and saw only one course of action left. He would not stand by while his father helped to bring on an iron-fisted tyranny, and be complacent when other chose to fight. Later that night he found his father sprawled out onto his bed, snoring loudly, an empty wine bottle resting at his feet. The room was filled with bookcases and paintings of the saints, which Salvador had spent long hours of his childhood staring at. Above Don Iglesias’ head hung the rifle he had used as a young man in the war with America over Cuba. Salvador did not know how many men his father had killed; he never talked about the war, he only said that God was the judge of all sinners.

    The weight of the gun was so heavy when he brought it down that Salvador almost dropped it onto his sleeping father’s head. The intricate mechanics of the weapon gleamed in the moonlight. A lifetime of resentment boiled over as his hands found the cold trigger. He tightened his grip, relishing in this newly seized power and turned it onto the slumbering monster that lay before him. His hands began to shake as he raised the barrel to his father’s temple. The cold steel trigger squeaked a bit when he tightened his finger’s grip. His father stirred and then began to whimper, caught in the course of a dream.

    “Papa!” He moaned, his eyes squeezed tightly, wringing out tears of pains suffered long ago. “Please stop I’m sorry, please stop!”

    Salvador hesitated for a moment, but then closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger as hard as he could. He braced for an explosion of force, but the rifle clicked harmlessly, but the noise alone was enough to wake his father, who let out a cry of horror at the looming black shadow that stood before him. Salvador’s hands moved unconsciously at a speed he had never known before, turning the rifle round and swinging it like a club at the helpless creature on the bed. All of the anger that had built up over the years flowed through his arms, down the hard wooden body of the gun and into his father’s skull. The pool of blood that soaked the bed sheets was like black and crimson silk glimmering in the moonlight. He would have to find ammunition later, he thought as he ran out into the warm Mediterranean night.

    Since then, Salvador traveled to Barcelona and joined an anarchist militia. He was one of many discontented radicals who rejected the claims to political and moral authority made by men of power and wealth and sought to bring an end to them and make a new world without masters and slaves. His company rarely strayed beyond the borders of which the people’s revolution in Catalonia had established. They had only seen a major battle once, and only the very end of the engagement. The company had stumbled onto the mêlée in progress between the Falange and a column of Soviet volunteers. Since Franco’s rebellion, Spain had become the center of the world’s attention. Men came from around the globe to fight against the spread of Fascism. Salvador felt at once upon seeing the sprawling field of smoke and bodies the horror of the nightmare he faced, though he also felt a sense of duty to these men who had come so far and had died on his country’s soil to resist the insanity. His heart raced as he and his company rushed into the fray. That was when he met Fyodor.

    Amid the smoke and the firing of mortars and machine guns, Salvador spied two men fighting hand and hand on the side of the road, near a grove of trees. As he approached closer the larger man threw his enemy to the ground and pulled a knife from his belt. He wore a black military uniform and thick leather gloves. Salvador raised his father’s rifle and fired a single shot. The man’s head disappeared, replaced by a cloud of red, and his body slumped and fell to the ground. The smaller man got up quickly and looked intently at the limp corpse sprawled before him. His horror quickly turned to a bitter coldness and he spat on the dead soldier’s body.

    Salvador turned his head to hear the cheers of his comrades. The Falange were retreating. The man he saved approached him, offering his hand. He introduced himself as Fyodor Pavlovich. He was a short man with a goatee and wore a red star over his heart. He spoke Spanish with thick accent but was generally intelligible. Salvador felt his hand being squeezed by the grateful soldier. His fingers were rough like stone and gripped tightly. Salvador could hardly speak. He had never felt himself a hero of any sort until he saw the look in the man’s grey eyes. The beaming Russian explained that his regiment was on its way to a town near Barcelona, when they were taken by surprise in an ambush.

    “Everything was chaos,” said Fyodor. His eyes grew dark and the wrinkles on his brow deepened like fissures in an earthquake. “I could hardly see who I was fighting through the dust and smoke. I thought we were finished for sure.”

    “We’re not finished by a long shot,” said Salvador boldly. His hands had not stopped shaking since he had squeezed the trigger. “This is a revolution!”

    “Yes,” agreed Fyodor zealously, “Death to Fascism!”

    His cry resounded among both of the ranks, which were reeling from their triumph. Salvador felt a warm rush of optimism overcome him. His eyes watered over and the world shimmered as if drowned in an opium sea. In that moment the future to him was a doorway to infinite possibility. The illusions with which a master dominates his slave would be dispelled, and the slave will throw off his chains and see for himself the truth of freedom. There would be no more ignorance or oppression, and Catalonia would never again hear the vicious tirades of the priesthood. The cathedrals would become music halls and playhouses. There would be nothing more in the world to fear.

    “Far from finished,” Salvador thought, “This is only the beginning.”

    Later that evening, they reached the town up the road as the sun began to set. The two companions discussed revolutionary matters as the regiments settled down in the barracks, which were improvised out of an abandoned church. They dined in and lounged amid the pews, the room dimly lit by torches and candles. The air smelled of wine, and freshly laid paint. Fyodor held on to a small portrait of Joseph Stalin. His rifle had been broken by a mortar shell and unusable after the battle, and now this was his sole comfort.

    “You see,” said Fyodor “The Soviet revolutionary model is the proven example for all others in the global proletarian struggle. It has brought Russia out of the darkness of Tsarist imperialism and has punished the corrupt money lenders and priests.”

    “We have done that here,” replied Salvador “We have run out the capitalists and severed our ties with the King and the Republic. The working people are in charge now. What is so superior about the Soviet revolution?”

    “Everything has been centralized into a single cause.” Fyodor explained, “Comrade Stalin has washed away the old world entirely, with all of its superstitions and class distinctions, and has refocused society itself on the revolution. That is not the case here. Look at where we are, a church for Christ’s sake! People here are still exposed to the lies of the past. The revolution can’t be complete until all vestiges of the ancient regime are buried and forgotten.”

    “Is that why you’ve white-washed all of the fresco paintings on the walls?”

    “They too are part of the old order,” said Fyodor “They are the illusory flowers woven into the chain of oppression. They must be discarded.”
    Fyodor took a long swig from the one of the many wine bottles that were taken from the church’s cellar. He looked solemnly into Salvador’s eyes.
    “I was about your age when the Tsar’s secret police murdered my mother and father. They were betrayed by their church elder to the police and charged with blasphemy and treason against the state. I watched men with guns, through the keyhole in the closet door, line my family against the wall and shoot them in the back. I vowed that day I would not rest until every priest was gutted like a lamb before an altar, a blessing for the new order to come. When the October Revolution began and Mother Russia was freed, I knew that I had been given such an opportunity.”

    Salvador shifted uncomfortably and looked around to the other Russians in the church. They tore out pages from the bibles and scrawled graffiti onto the walls where the paint had dried. Each weary bitter face looked eerily similar to the next. They all wore the same dark brown uniform, each with a red star over the chest. Salvador, like the other men in his company, was dressed in the same clothes he left home in. They were an unruly collection of headstrong guerrillas, where as the Russians moved and spoke with a mechanical discipline. Each soldier’s praise of the revolution and its great leader (the two of which were often used interchangeably) was a manufactured copy of the next. They were like so many cogs in a great piece of machinery.

    “Is there no art in the Soviet Union?” Salvador asked after a long pause.

    “The Soviet Union has not abolished art by any means.” said Fyodor, looking shocked at such a question. “Art is only good when it is put to good cause. We have replaced reactionary fantasy with true revolutionary art. People cannot just stand behind an idea; they need a leader of infinite resolve who embodies our struggle for world liberation. Without an organizing principle there cannot be any great movement.”

    “You’re absolutely right, comrade!” said a red nosed Russian soldier who joined into the discussion. He was leaning near a window, taking sips from a bottle of wine. He turned his head suddenly to look out the window “Ah yes, they’ve come!”

    He took a long swig of wine as two Russian soldiers enter the church carrying an imposingly large portrait of Joseph Stalin. They brought it up to the altar where a life sized crucifix hung from the ceiling. The soldiers cut down the old idol and replaced it with the portrait of the Man of Steel. Salvador and his fellow militiamen looked at each other uneasily. They murmured among themselves until the Commander of the Russian ranks rose to the pulpit. Behind him, the imposing glare of the Soviet Premier pierced into the souls of the congregation.

    “Today we have beaten back the Fascists and have shown them our unshakable resolve.” The Commander boasted triumphantly. He wore an oversized officer’s hat and several medals accompanied the star over his chest. He waited for the applause that would predictably follow. “But rest not, comrades, the enemy still runs amuck in Spain, spreading it’s reactionary beliefs, laying the seeds for counter-revolution.”

    “Death to reactionaries!” cried the Russians. Fyodor stood up with his fists raised in the air. He yelled louder, and made even more contorted faces than many of his comrades, as though consumed by hatred. This was remarkably different than the frightened and helpless look which he wore when Salvador first saw him.

    “This land soon rise to the world stage as an ally of the Soviet Union and the global revolutionary cause,” said the Commander, “Comrade Stalin is pleased with the progress we have made but feels that the attitude of some of our allies have not been enthusiastic enough. Just look at today, the battle was nearly lost and the locals, the so-called militia, only managed to join after the Falange were fleeing like insects!”

    Some of the guerrilla fighters began booing the Commander. He wore his chauvinism and ingratitude in the crooked smile that stretched under his bushy mustache. The Soviet ranks shouted down those who heckled the pulpit, some standing up with their weapons while doing so. The Commander pointed out into the congregation. Salvador was transfixed by the incendiary speaker, and did not pay attention to Fyodor slowly inching away towards his fellow Russians.

    “Their slovenliness cannot impede our march to the future. I have ordered that this town be put under the control of the regiment. All militiamen will answer directly to the appointed communist party official, namely myself.”

    The anarchists stood up in protest. Some began throwing garbage and bottles at Stalin’s portrait. The church was divided between the two factions each shouting insults and throwing whatever they could find. It was not clear who fired first, only that it took just a single shot for the church to erupt into chaos. Men were scrambling over the pews to avoid being killed. Some were knocked to the floor trampled underfoot. Those who were not stabbed or shot were fleeing for their lives.

    Salvador was quickly lost in the mayhem. He looked desperately for his father’s rifle, avoiding blows as best he could, careful to hug the church walls. In the writhing mass of brown and red, he spotted Fyodor, who had taken it and rushed headlong into the fray. Under the watchful gaze of Stalin’s portrait, Fyodor assailed one of the militiamen, beating him savagely with the butt of his rifle. There was a wild light in his eyes as he landed each and every blow. Salvador watched, his mouth agape, as the man he had saved let loose a zealous fury.

    Salvador rushed behind Fyodor and grabbed the rifle as the gruff Russian lifted it again to smash the militiaman’s already broken and disfigured face. Before he could get a good grip, Fyodor wrenched the gun away and spun round, not thinking to look who it was. It did not matter in the heat of battle. Even as their eyes met, Fyodor did not immediately recognize the face staring back at him and fired point blank at Salvador’s chest. The sheer brute force of the shot echoed in the vaulted ceiling of the church.

    The chaos all around him seemed to slow as Salvador dropped to the floor in a pool of blood. The dark wooden floorboards creaked and moaned under the shifting weight of the crowd as men killed one another in the house of God so that a vision of a world without illusion would be brought to light. A fire broke out, and men scrambled over the pews and the bodies to escape the coming furnace. Stalin’s portrait gazed intently as the revolution tore itself apart before him. Salvador felt the world slipping away into ethereal darkness as the ceiling gave way, and snuffed out the soul of a short and violent life.