AMDG
“My child, do not forsake your mother’s teaching,”
Proverbs 6:20
Ramon Mercader cannot remember any time when the hair of his mother Caridad wasn’t completely gray. At some point, when he was six or seven, his grandmother Lola had explained to him that his mother’s hair had changed color soon after the death of his infant sister Cristina, whom Ramon had never known. Such was his mother’s pain that from that day forward she dressed entirely in black and refused to dye her hair. She maintained her daughter’s room just as it had been on the day she died, never rearranging the furniture or allowing anyone to use it. For most people, grief diminishes with the passage of time, but not for Caridad. It did not help that her husband Fernando was a brutal man, often slapping her or pulling her by the hair, just like he often struck Ramon’s bare buttocks with his leather belt. “La letra entra con sangre[1],” he used to say to explain his abuse. Caridad was in an endless period of mourning, and were it not for her participation in politics she would probably have died by suicide years before. It was that blind devotion to Communism which also made her increasingly distant from Ramon, especially after his father’s disappearance. The more time she devoted to politics, the less time she had for him.
Caridad loved Ramon a su manera[2], as they say in Spain, never loving him too much for she remembered how abruptly Cristina had been taken from her and feared that she might lose him too. So she gave herself entirely to the cause of Communism and spent most of her time participating in party congresses or delivering speeches to the workers, eventually becoming head of the Communist Party of Spain as well as a deputy of the Republican Parliament. She was known as an impressive orator and pulled no punches when it came to criticizing her colleagues on the right during speeches on the floor of Parliament and beyond. The people of Spain began to call her la Mama Grande, for she treated the workers and the peasants like her children, passionately defending their interests. The moniker stuck after the Asturian uprising where hundreds of miners’ children were left orphaned and she took on the task of sending more than five-hundred of them to the Soviet Union. Since she could not love Cristina given her death and was lukewarm in her relationship with Ramon, Caridad Mercader was to become the “great mother” of the Spanish people instead.
In May of 1925, la Mama Grande visited the Soviet Union for the first time, along with her ten-year-old son and a group of Spanish Communists. Ramon would eventually spend five years in the Soviet Union against his will, learning not only to speak Russian but also French and American English. But he never forgot his first time in Moscow, even in old age. To a child, the Soviet capital was simply breathtaking: the vast Red Square, reputed to be more beautiful than any other plaza in all of Christendom; the enormous Kremlin on the banks of the Moskva River; Saint Basil’s Cathedral with its nine lovely domes, its corbel arches and its vivid colors; the Armoury Chamber preserving ancient state regalia and ornamental works of art; the site of Lenin’s Mausoleum which looked like a church built of marble, porphyry and graphite; the remnants of the Christ the Savior Cathedral left after Joseph Stalin attempted to destroy it. What Ramon found most awe-inspiring, however, was the people’s apparent devotion to Stalin, the multitudinous May Day parade where thousands of soldiers marched in his honor while hundreds of tanks advanced on the streets and planes flew overhead. The military carried enormous banners of the face of Joseph Stalin in front of a red hammer-and-sickle flag, venerating him as if he were a god. In fact, the parade reminded Ramon of nothing so much as the Corpus Christi religious processions in his native Barcelona, except that Stalin’s crowds were much larger, perhaps a million strong, all of them expressing an almost religious faith in Father Stalin. La Mama Grande told Ramon that Stalin was the protector of the Soviet state and all its children, the first country in the world with a Communist government, and that she hoped someday Spain too would be ruled by a man like Stalin.
“Wouldn’t you want to live in a country like the Soviet Union where there is no rich or poor?” she asked her son as they walked along the silent Moskva River. “What could be better than a country with no hungry children, a place where all children are well-fed and educated? You’ve seen the banners and the posters of the Young Pioneers surrounding Comrade Stalin with bouquets of flowers in their hands. ‘Thank you, Comrade Stalin, for our happy childhood,’ the children say. And they have good reason to say it. Joseph Stalin rules the nation with magnanimity as a representative of the peasants and the workers. He guards the children’s well-being above all.”
La Mama Grande did not forget that she was the daughter of an Andalusian miner who had barely been able to feed his children nor that an accident took his life when she was barely eight.
And it was true there were posters and banners of Comrade Stalin with children everywhere: Stalin holding a blond-haired toddler up in the air; Stalin handing a rose to a little girl; Stalin among a group of six-year-olds beneath a slogan stating, “Mommy loves you, daddy loves you, but father Stalin loves you most of all.” Ramon had also seen photographs of Stalin with children in the museums, always smiling faces, never a complaint.
“Is he like the King of Spain?” Ramon asked his mother.
“Absolutely not,” responded la Mama Grande. “King Alfonso XIII rules for himself alone while the great Stalin rules strictly as the embodiment of the working class.”
“Why do you think he is so great? I’ve heard he imposes his will through use of force.”
“Stalin fought a great war on behalf of the working people of Russia and beyond. He risked his life because he believed that a government ruled by the workers would lead to equality for all. That’s what I want to do in Spain, to establish a government run by the campesinos[3], directed by the working class.”
“Why do you say Russia is governed by the peasants? To me it seems like it’s governed by the army. Yes, there are a lot of peasants in the May Day parade, but the ones with all the guns and the tanks are the soldiers.”
The ten-year-old Ramon realized la Mama Grande was irritated by his line of reasoning.
“You sound like the capitalists and the champions of the bourgeoisie,” la Mama Grande cried. “I’m going to teach you something about the revolution. Of course the Soviet Union has to have a vast military force, to protect the interests of the working people. The ruling classes didn’t give up their power without a great war and you can’t fight a war without an army. Soldiers are needed to prevent the old-time despots from rising back to power. Sometimes military violence is necessary to defend the people’s project.”
“Father Agustin says Stalin is a dictator and a thug,” replied Ramon matter-of-factly. “He says that he even tortures and kills priests. There’s a word the old priest uses if I can remember well. He accuses Stalin of being anticlerical.”
Suddenly la Mama Grande could not contain herself. She slapped Ramon hard across the face.
“Don’t you ever disparage Comrade Stalin again,” she ordered, her face reddened by anger. “Do you understand me? If that’s what you’re learning in church, perhaps I should forbid your grandmother from taking you to Mass. Stalin’s Soviet Union is the country that promotes liberty more than any other.”
The following week, la Mama Grande and Ramon, along with the rest of the Spanish delegation, were invited to a private session with Comrade Stalin. The leader of the Soviet Union was at the center of a very long table with a bright red tablecloth, and the visiting Spaniards were seated all around him. Ramon noticed that he was much smaller than he had seemed on the images on all the posters , but he could not deny that Stalin spoke in the voice of a man with a habit of command. La Mama Grande had brought a bouquet of crimson roses which she had told Ramon to take to the mustachioed leader at an appropriate opportunity.
“Spanish guests,” began Stalin, speaking through an interpreter, “welcome to the people’s paradise. We thank you for supporting the Soviet Union from afar. Please know that you will always find a home and a shelter in the people’s republics. Here you will find a place to teach your children how to live in liberty. I know I have the reputation of not believing that Communism should be spread to other countries, but that is a lie. I shall always support the Communists in Spain and throughout the world in their quest to achieve an egalitarian and socialist society.”
Comrade Stalin spoke for more than three hours without cease, only pausing every now and then to give the Spanish delegation the opportunity to applaud. Whenever he made an important point, he was loudly cheered by his Iberian visitors. “¡Viva Stalin! “¡Viva la Union Sovietica! “Long live the future Spanish Soviet!” Ramon found it very hard to understand the Soviet leader’s words despite the presence of the interpreter. He did understand, however, what Stalin meant by an egalitarian society, a way of living where everybody would be equal. But Ramon, despite his young age, still questioned how such a reality could be achieved through Stalin’s methods. It seemed that Stalin hated the merchants, the clergy and the rich but Ramon could not comprehend how eliminating all of them, particularly the priests, could result in a more just society. And he could not help but think of the homilies of Father Agustin in church. He remembered the story of a young Soviet girl whose image was plastered all over the walls of the Soviet Union, with Stalin’s arms around her and the slogan “the children’s best friend” above the great leader’s figure. Father Agustin had said in Mass that the little girl’s parents were eventually assassinated by Stalin and the poster of the girl in Stalin’s arms had disappeared overnight. What Ramon heard from the dictator did not accord with what he had heard from the priest.
At the end of the Soviet leader’s remarks, Mama Grande told Ramon to take the bouquet of flowers to him. Ramon made his way around the table and delivered the roses to the supreme leader. Although Ramon was already ten, Stalin invited him to sit on his lap.
“Are you a young Communist?” asked Stalin in a mirthful voice. “Do you love Father Stalin and the Revolution?”
Ramon looked at the man with the moustache and wasn’t quite sure how to answer. So he opted to tell the truth, like the child in the fairytale about the emperor with no clothes.
“I’m still not quite sure what a Communist is,” replied Ramon. “And I don’t know that I love Father Stalin or the Revolution.”
“He’s lucky he’s a kid,” joked Stalin. “If he was an adult and didn’t love Father Stalin he’d be off to the firing squad.”
The dictator then broke into boisterous laughter and Mama Grande fidgeted nervously on her seat as she waited for the night to end.
***
Jacques Mornard was introduced to Sylvia Ageloff in Paris by their common friend Ruby Weil while they were all sitting at a café called Les Deux Magots. He was around twenty-five years old, somewhat swarthy for a Belgian and uncommonly handsome. He had vivacious dark eyes and a square, masculine jaw, spoke English and French with ease, and smoked on his pipe constantly as he told them about his business writing sports articles for several Parisian magazines. He also had the build of an athlete, with broad shoulders and well-muscled arms. He confessed to the two American women that he did not earn much money from his writing, but that his father had left him a significant sum when he died. The virginal Sylvia would never have expected such a man to show any interest in her, for she was a plain, mousy type with thick cat eye glasses and the slightest of humpbacks, no taller than four feet ten and with virtually no breasts. Nevertheless, Jacques dedicated most of the night speaking to Sylvia and ignoring Ruby, who was much more attractive than her friend.
“What brings you to Paris?” he asked Sylvia after the initial introduction. “Are you here for business or pleasure?”
She wasn’t sure how to respond. She averted her eyes from those of Jacques and looked at Ruby instead. Should she tell him the real reason she was in Paris or conceal it?
“You can tell Jacques all about it,” counseled Ruby, who understood her friend’s hesitation. “He’s not a political type.”
“I am here,” she said timidly, “to attend the founding meeting of the Fourth International on the outskirts of Paris.”
“The Fourth International,” echoed Jacques. “Does that have anything to do with La Internationale, the Communist song?”
“In a way,” answered Sylvia in a voice full of hesitation, “but it’s actually a meeting of worldwide Trotskyites.”
“The assassination of Trotsky’s son was all over the newspapers not too long ago,” responded Jacques as he smoked his pipe. “They say he was killed in a clinic. I also read about another Trotskyite whose body washed up on the shores of the River Seine with its head and limbs chopped off. But I prefer not to busy myself with politics or religion. I’d rather talk about sports.”
“Those men were killed by Stalin,” responded Sylvia.” The body had belonged to Rudolf Klement, secretary of the Fourth International. And Lev Sedov was definitely poisoned at the orders of Stalin. As a result, we are all very concerned about the safety of the delegates attending the conference. It seems that the Stalinists can kill Trotskyites anywhere they find them, even so far from Mother Russia.”
“Where will the meeting be convened? I can drive you there. I can wait for you in the car while you go to the conference. That way you’d know you’d have a means of escape if anything happened.”
“The conference will take place at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. But it will take all day. I wouldn’t want to importune you with such a long wait.”
“I can take a novel. What better way to spend the day than rereading Madame Bovary or one of the Russian masters?”
“My parents happen to be Russian Jews. I too love Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy.”
“What about Gorky? Have you read ‘The Mother’? The man died not too long ago.”
“Gorky has a mixed record in my view. Even shortly before his death he continued to write propagandist articles in Pravda and glorified Stalin. Of course he may have been killed by Stalin himself for near the end of his life Gorky was hardly a party stalwart.”
“I don’t read novels through a political prism,” Jacques replied. “I mainly read them for the plot.”
“Who is your favorite French novelist?” asked Sylvia, not wanting to engage Jacques in a political discussion since she was afraid that might ruin a night that was going so well.
“I love Zola,” responded Jacques. “And you may be surprised, but I like Proust as well.”
“Kudos for Zola,” said Sylvia in approval. “He was a champion of the working class. But Proust is a writer for the haute bourgeoisie. All his characters are rich men and women obsessed with their intimate lives.”
“Are you a student of literature in the United States?”
“No, I majored in psychology at New York University. I wrote my thesis on ‘susceptibility.’ It’s about how people can be seduced to do things against their will by those whom they admire, love or respect.”
“That can happen,” said Jacques as he caressed her hand. “I find I’m susceptible to women I admire and respect. And of course you’re always susceptible to the woman who raised you.”
After Jacques left, Sylvia had no doubt about it. She and Jacques had a certain chemistry between them. Perhaps, she thought, he was that rare type of man who falls in love with a woman’s intelligence rather than her looks. Her friend Ruby encouraged her in such divagations after he left.
“I see romance on the horizon,” Ruby said with a picaresque smile.
“Do you really think so?” asked Sylvia. “He’s such a charming man. “Why would he turn his attention to someone like me?”
“As to tastes and colors,” responded Ruby, “much has to be said.”
On the appointed day, Jacques appeared at Sylvia’s hotel and drove her to the inaugural meeting of Trotsky’s Fourth International at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. When they arrived, she suggested he accompany her, but he resisted. When Sylvia insisted, he shouted out in his baritone voice, “Let it go! Just let it go! Please, Sylvia, let it go!”
Sylvia realized Jacques had no interest in spending the day with a hall full of Trotskyites but could not understand the extent of his anger. She had the uncanny sense that he was somehow afraid. And her suspicions were not far off the mark. Jacques was in deathly fear that one of the foreign Trotskyites might recognize him among the crowds from his days in Spain.
***
Frank Jacson parked his red convertible on the Avenida Viena next to the house where Leon Trotsky was living in Coyoacan. The Mexican policemen recognized him instantly and gave him the go-ahead. They were used to sharing a cigarette with him when his supposed wife came to see the old man. When he banged on the knocker, Otto Schussler, one of Trotsky’s American bodyguards, opened the door. Seeing Frank alone, the American asked him, “You didn’t bring your wife today? Usually you just wait for her in the car while she visits.”
“She’s indisposed today,” answered Frank. “But I wanted to show Trotsky something I’ve written. It’s about the Trotskyites in New York. I did a little research when I was in the States and would like to publish it when I return.”
“You brought a raincoat,” Otto observed. “But the skies are clear this afternoon.”
“Yes,” responded Frank. “But I heard on the news that it might rain.”
“Well, come in,” said Otto. “The old man is in the garden, tending to his rabbits.”
Frank made a mental note. They wouldn’t frisk him even if he brought a raincoat on a sunny day. That was good to know. Nobody would realize it if the next time he came, he hid a weapon under his coat. The plan could work. He had gone over it with Eitingon time and again. He would come back within a week, under the pretext that he had a revision of the article for Trotsky to correct. Ideally Trotsky would take Frank to his study and Frank would do the deed in perfect silence, giving him the opportunity to escape.
“Well, hello,” said Trotsky in English when he saw Frank appear. Trotsky had been working in the garden and so his clothes were muddy. “Where’s your wife? This must be the first time you’ve come without her.”
“I’m afraid she has a bit of a catarrh. But there’s an article I want to show you.”
“You’ve written an article? I thought you were a businessman and not a journalist.”
“Well, I dabble in it. I had a chance to meet with many of your faithful Trotskyites when I was in New York City with my lady. They’re truly a wonderful bunch, so devoted to you and the Fourth International. I just had to write an article about them. I think you’re so misunderstood in America. I was hoping my article might help you in your efforts to get a visa.”
“Your countrymen will never understand. They think that Communism and Stalinism are one and the same.”
“I’m not an American, Mr. Trotsky. You know I’m a Canadian. But what you say is true. The Americans are terrified of the Communist bogeyman.”
“Let’s go to my study. Give me a second while I wash my hands.”
Trotsky’s study was a large room, with a large desk in the center and boxes of archives all about.
“Now, let’s see,” said Trotsky. “What is this? About twenty pages?”
“Something like that,” responded Frank. Of course he had written none of it. Eitingon had done all of the writing, aided by Frank’s American girlfriend, who didn’t know its purpose.
“It’s not bad,” Trotsky opined as he took off his reading glasses. “But you’re letting the Americans off the hook too easily. Had they aided Spain’s Republicans from the outset, they would not be facing an emboldened Germany today. The Spanish Civil War – at least at the beginning – did not mean a choice between fascism and Communism. But if there is another great war in Europe, that will be the choice. Either that monstrous Hitler will take over Europe or that monstrous Stalin will. The best the Americans can expect is for Europe to be partitioned after Hitler is defeated. Stalin’s tanks will take over Eastern Europe – and they will not leave.”
“Well,” Frank responded, “that would be the subject for a book. I was just focusing on New York’s Trotskyite community.”
“The problem is they’ve been infiltrated too,” said Trotsky. “I don’t think the Siqueiros’ attack two months ago could have happened without an insider.”
“Are you referring to Robert Sheldon Harte? I’ve heard some of the Mexican police think he voluntarily let the Stalinist saboteurs into your house.”
“I tend to disbelieve he was involved. That’s not how Stalin works. People are saying Bob was the one who allowed the Stalinist enemies into my compound. Why would Stalin have ordered the execution of somebody who had supposedly helped him so much?”
“So you’re basically saying Stalin takes care of his own?”
Frank was hoping Trotsky’s response would be yes. The old man probably knew Stalin better than anybody.
“Stalin is loyal to nobody,” said the old man. “But he won’t kill someone who is loyal to him until it suits his needs. And if Bob had helped Siqueiros’ men, there would be no reason to assassinate him.”
***
Even at a distance of thousands of kilometers, Caridad Mercader – la Mama Grande – continued to be a forbidding person for her son Ramon. He spent his teenage years in Moscow, at an academy for the children of foreign Communists, but la Mama Grande would often visit. In truth, Ramon didn’t know if she traveled to the Soviet Union to see him or see her lover, a Georgian man who often visited Spain. He was in the upper echelons of Stalin’s government and – as far as Ramon could understand – he was in charge of maintaining contacts with Communists throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. La Mama Grande, head of Spain’s Communist Party, frequently recruited young Spaniards to work as spies for the NKVD. While she was doing so, she had frequent contact with the Georgian and a relationship ensued. Ramon did not altogether dislike him for he was kinder than his mother and often took him on hunting and fishing trips. His mother, on the other hand, only cared about Ramon’s progress in school. At first, he did well on his courses on foreign languages but didn’t get good marks in Marxist philosophy or Soviet history. La Mama Grande was incensed. Her main purpose in sending him to study in Moscow was to make sure he learned about the proletariats’ ongoing class war with the bourgeoisie, as well as Comrade Stalin’s incomparable role in that endeavor. Of course she also sent Ramon to Moscow because the struggle in Spain did not give her the time to take care of him.
“If you don’t want to apply yourself, then we can send you to the camps where the workers toil, fervently devoted to the cause of Stalin. You can help them meet the quotas of the great leader’s Five-Year Plan. There you’ll learn to be a man – and a Communist man at that. You’ll discover the meanings of the works of Marx, Lenin and Stalin without even having to read them. As you observe the peasants’ courage and their commitment to Communism, you’ll also understand comrade Stalin’s glorious efforts to help them and achieve authentic Communism in the Soviet Union.”
“I’ll try to devote more time to my studies,” Ramon meekly responded.
“You’re losing a great opportunity in your lackadaisical approach to your courses. As father Stalin said, ‘education is a weapon whose effect depends on who holds it in his hand and at whom it is aimed.’ If you’re telling me that no matter what education is aimed at you, you won’t accept it properly, then perhaps you need to be educated in a different way.”
“No, Mama Grande,” Ramon said. “I’ll dedicate myself wholeheartedly to my studies. I’ll make you proud and comrade Stalin as well.”
“I hope you do,” responded the gray-haired woman, dressed in black as always.” I’ll have Eitingon routinely check on your progress with your studies. You don’t want to cross me, Ramon. I’m capable of doing everything I say.”
Gradually, imperceptibly, Ramon came to believe the lessons he was being taught. Gradually, imperceptibly, he accepted the glory of the Soviet Revolution and above all else the greatness of Stalin. Without father Stalin the great Communist quest would collapse and the workers would once again be little more than slaves. And Ramon was warned that Stalin had many enemies throughout the Soviet Union and beyond. That was the purpose of the academy, to prepare the students to return to their countries of origin and aid in the protection of Stalin and the Soviet State. Ramon’s classroom was filled with future cadres from all over the world, from Munich to Buenos Aires, from Manila to New York City.
At Ramon’s graduation ceremony, he was the student with the best marks and was asked to give a farewell speech. From beginning to end, Ramon’s valedictory address was a paean to Joseph Stalin. And the truth is that he meant everything he said, for it was engraved in his mind, embedded in his soul. His speech was not exactly original – he repeated everything he had heard about Stalin’s greatness during five years of schooling – but original or not the speech was very well-received.
Mama Grande was present, but didn’t hug her son or congratulate him for his stellar marks. Instead she gave him a two-sentence admonition and left it at that.
“You have learned all you can from books, Ramon. Now you must put all theories into practice through the crucible of the Spanish Civil War.”
***
Jacques Mornard still had something of a conscience, although he did not always heed it. He felt deeply remorseful about the way he was treating Sylvia Ageloff, but it had to be done. She was so naïve, so trusting, so needy. Jacques knew he had made her feel desired for the first time in her life. It had been so easy to seduce her, not so easy to consummate the act, for he found her physically repugnant. Undressed, she was even less attractive than with her clothes on and Jacques thought of making love to her as an unwelcome chore. In truth, she had the body of a prepubescent boy with the smallest of breasts and narrow hips. Sometimes he felt that he was the one who was repugnant – not physically but morally – for exciting the girl’s passions when he felt nothing for her and she felt everything for him. And yet he continued with the seduction, for it was necessary.
Every time he saw her, he brought her candy or flowers, or would invite her to sail on the River Seine on a bateau mouche. Sometimes he would buy her a book of poems and read them to her out loud – Pablo Neruda’s Twenty Poems of Love or Love and Honey by Victor Hugo. Jacques realized that when he was unable to perform in the bedroom at night, Sylvia did not guess that the reason was that he found her profoundly unattractive. Instead, she tried to be gentle with him, telling him not to be embarrassed for occasional impotence afflicts all men. She explained that she had learned it in one of her courses on sexual psychology at New York University.
Sylvia gave herself to Jacques with relentless abandon – physical passion as well as a deep, spiritual love – and once told Jacques she had begun to write poetry about him. When he asked her to show it to him, she desisted, thinking it was too mediocre for him to read it. But she did the next best thing and once gave him a framed copy of the first of The Song of Songs, which she had read as a Jewish schoolgirl with a mix of curiosity and awe. The Song of Songs exemplified a pure eroticism, a celebration of sexual love.
“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,” Sylvia read, somewhat embarrassed, as Jacques sat cross-armed on the bed, “for your love is more delightful than wine. Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the young women love you! Take me away with you – let us hurry. Let the king bring me into his chambers. My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts. My beloved is for me a cluster of henna blossoms…”
If only you were beautiful, thought Jacques Mornard, then we could share so much, yet a woman who loves beautiful things is not necessarily beautiful herself. But he knew that even if she had been lovely their relationship would have been impossible. There were so many things he hadn’t told her, so many things she could never understand. She was intensely political, as Ruby Weil had told him, but hers was a different politics than his. Sometimes Jacques had to hold his tongue when he did not agree with what she said. She was a fierce Trotskyite and detested Stalin, whom she blamed for the loss of Spain. What a ridiculous notion, thought Jacques, as he puffed on his ever present pipe. He felt that it was the Trotskyites who had weakened the Spanish Communists at Catalonia and thus led to the victory of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. But he never mentioned any of this to Sylvia, just like he never told about the existence of Africa de las Heras, a woman who had been his companion for years. Jacques had told Sylvia never to expect him on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, but had never told her the reason why. Sylvia was cautious enough not to inquire, but instead enjoyed the nights they spent together. After all, in a month she would be returning to New York City and the relationship was doomed to end. If Jacques had another paramour, Sylvia didn’t want to force him to choose between the two, for she was satisfied with a little of his love, whatever crumbs of tenderness remained.
Africa accepted the new modus vivendi as best she could, but one night she exploded in anger when Jacques rejected her suggestion that he see Sylvia only on the weekends. Africa was the opposite of Sylvia in every way. Where Sylvia was short, Africa was tall. Where Sylvia’s eyes were hidden by thick glasses, Africa had green penetrating eyes. Where Sylvia’s body had something of a boy about it, Africa was womanhood itself, with large breasts and the rounded buttocks of a sevillana.
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous of the little runt,” Jacques said. “I don’t want her to terminate the relationship now that everything is working out perfectly. Don’t forget the idea is for her to think I want to marry her. Indeed, I may need to marry her at some point.”
“I know and understand the plans, but don’t like the fact you seem to be spending every waking minute with her. And now I’ll have to wait in Paris as you spend your ‘holiday’ in New York City and beyond. Ruby told me that they mean to go back to the United States within a month. For how long will I have to wait for your return?”
“You know well that it is no holiday, and I’m not even sure if I ever will return. I still haven’t told her I’m planning to go with her to the United States. But I’m sure when I tell her she will be ecstatic. Why risk everything by telling her I will see her only on the weekends now? She has to be absolutely convinced that I want to marry her. Otherwise Operation Mother will never succeed.”
“Yes, yes, I’ve understood ever since I met with Ruby Weil. She’s been right all along, like when she suggested it would be easy for you to seduce Sylvia Ageloff. Now let see if Ruby’s right about the other part of the plan. A lot of pieces have to fall into place. One thing is to earn the love of a lonely woman. It’s quite another to somehow use her as a vehicle to get into the house of Stalin’s implacable foe. Don’t forget our enemy lives thousands of kilometers away from New York City.”
***
Once in Spain, Ramon became a soldier for the Republican cause, prodded by Mama Grande and her lover, the Soviet Eitingon. At that time, he realized that his mother had developed a cult among the masses, that some tried to touch la Mama Grande as if she were a saint. There were also a million leaflets with her image and the words “¡No pasaran!”[4]
It was during the battle between the Communists and the Trotskyite Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification that Ramon learned to hate the Trotskyites himself. In the Soviet Union, Ramon had acquired an understanding of Trotsky’s betrayal of Stalin’s cause, but it was merely theoretical and abstract. It was only during the Barcelona May Days of 1937 when he witnessed how his fellow Communists were felled by Trotskyite bullets that he learned to detest Trotsky with all his might. In their rejection of Stalin, the Trotskyites were opposing the Soviet Union, the only country in the world which had given substantial aid to the Spanish Communist cause. And rather than fighting against Franco’s army, the Trotskyites were fighting against their own Communist brethren, making it easier for the fascists to prevail.
At any event, the Trotskyites were swiftly crushed by the Communists aligned with Stalin and soon Ramon witnessed the examination of the Trotskyite leader Andres Nin by his mother and Eitingon. Since Mama Grande was the head of the Communist Party and Eitingon was the top man in the NKVD in Spain, the Trotskyite leader was turned over to them so they could perform his interrogation. At the beginning, Eitingon had questioned why Ramon had to be present at such a dire scene but Mama Grande had insisted that Ramon take part in the process. She wanted to teach her son that there were no half-measures in the grand Stalinist cause. So Ramon sat silently as he saw his mother inflict the most extreme punishments against the doomed Trotskyite, demanding he disclose the names of all the other Trotskyites in a position of power within the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification. When Nin refused to provide any names, Mama Grande subjected him to more brutal methods. She lashed his back, burnt his face with a cigarette, crushed his testicles. Ramon had never seen such conduct on the part of his mother and was initially repelled. But Eitingon attempted to reassure him, quoting Stalin himself. “To choose one’s victims, to prepare one’s plan minutely, to slake an implacable vengeance, and then to go to bed . . . there is nothing sweeter in the world.
Ramon didn’t think he would sleep in peace if he had done what his mother and Eitingon had done to Andres Nin. Even though he was merely a witness to the man’s torture, it quickly became the stuff of his nightmares. He could never participate in such a crime although he realized his gray-haired mother was trying to teach him how to do it.
Near the end of the war, when all hope seemed lost, when Franco’s forces were close to occupying Madrid, Mama Grande told her son that he needed to meet with her and Eitingon about a very important matter. It was not a mission an ordinary mother would give to her son, but then again Mama Grande was not an ordinary mother. Like the breasts of Lady Macbeth, her breasts were filled with gall rather than milk. So as they met in the apartment where they were hiding, shortly before they escaped from Spain, Mama Grande told her son he should make plans to murder Leon Trotsky.
“You will be a hero for the cause of Stalin, by bringing death to our leader’s implacable enemy. Leon Trotsky has secretly aided Franco’s Nationalist forces and as a result has brought about the failure of the Republic.”
“We shall get you the needed passports,” said Eitingon. “You are the perfect man for the job, given that you master French, English and Spanish.”
“And Russian as well as Catalan,” added Mama Grande with a grim pride.
“How do you propose I murder Trotsky?” asked Ramon. “He’s ensconced in a little fortress in Mexico City.”
“We have it all planned out,” said Eitingon. “He routinely allows American Trotskyites into his compound. We have a secret agent among the New York Trotskyites, a woman named Ruby Weil, who says she can introduce you to another American Trotskyite by the name of Sylvia Ageloff. The idea is for you to seduce her, gain her confidence, and convince her to take you to Trotsky’s home in Coyoacan.”
“And then you can use an ice pick to kill the man,” added Mama Grande in a stern voice.
“I don’t quite understand,” responded Ramon. “It sounds like a suicide mission. Even assuming I can seduce the girl and persuade her to take me to Trotsky’s home, what do I do after the assassination? I’ve heard he’s surrounded by Mexican police and American bodyguards. Once I kill Trotsky in his own home, how can I possibly avoid being captured or killed myself? And wouldn’t it be an unspeakable crime?”
“Better to die on your feet than live on your knees,” opined Mama Grande, repeating the mantra she had often used when addressing Spain’s Republican troops. “I think if everything goes right, you’ll manage to escape. An ice pick makes no sound and nobody will realize what you’ve done. But just in case, you should take a revolver with you. If Trotsky’s guards prevent you from escaping, you’ll die by your own hands. And it is not a crime to protect Stalin from his enemies.”
“Well, I won’t do it,” Ramon replied. “I don’t even see the point. The war is lost. What benefit could be derived from murdering Trotsky now?”
“Vengeance for one,” said Eitingon. “And the old man is still a threat. Have you ever considered that Trotsky might order Stalin’s murder first and destroy everything accomplished by the October Revolution? The return of Russia to capitalism is not an empty fear.”
“Doesn’t the NKVD have hundreds of expert assassins at its disposal? Surely one of Stalin’s spies can perform the feat much better than I can.”
“Do it for your mother,” said Mama Grande in a gentle voice. “We are thinking of giving the mission the name Operation Mother.”
“Listen,” said Eitingon. “You don’t have to decide right away. Meet the Trotskyite woman, court her, see what happens. If at the end you can’t go through with it, then so be it.”
“Stalin will be so proud of you,” said Mama Grande. “I’m sure you’ll be awarded the Order of Lenin for your service to the grand Communist cause.”
***
After what happened with his American girlfriend, Frank Jacson knew he had to act quickly with his plan to murder Trotsky, lest everything get unraveled. She had known for a while that he had come to Mexico City to get into the old man’s home, but he had assured her that his only intention was to steal some archives. This morning, however, he was careless and she had found the ice pick, the dagger and the gun in the pockets of his raincoat. The woman promptly became hysterical, for he had told her he intended to visit Trotsky in the afternoon and, naïve as she was, she could put two and two together. She already knew he was an agent of the NKVD and the purpose of the gun and the ice pick could only be to murder the old man.
“If you reveal this,” he warned her, “you’ll be signing my death warrant. If you inform the police, I’ll be put in a jail for years. But much worse, if the operation fails or if I don’t go forward with it, the NKVD will murder me on the orders of Stalin. He doesn’t allow his spies to have consciences. If you warn Trotsky, I’ll be blamed by Stalin for the failure of the mission and he’ll send another assassin to kill me. So you have to choose. Do you truly love me – love me to the point of death as you have told me so many times – or are you a slave to your bourgeois scruples?”
“Aagh!” she cried out. “You are trying to make me complicit in a murder. I can’t! I can’t! I’ll call him on the telephone.”
Then she ran and picked up the receiver. Frank ripped the phone away from her.
“Don’t you understand what will happen? They’ll kill my mother too. Stalin was furious when the first assassination attempt failed and won’t tolerate another failure. Please keep silent. Do it for my mother.”
“What does your mother have to do with it?”
“I can’t explain it to you right now. She’s been an agent of the NKVD for years. She will be blamed if the operation fails.”
“So has this been a charade from day one? Did you seduce me just to achieve this monstrous plan? Has our love always been a lie?”
“We can talk about all this later. For now, just lie down and keep calm.”
“I won’t. Do you understand that, Jacques? Or Frank or whatever your name is. I won’t let you do this.”
“Don’t force me to kill you,” Frank said in an even voice. “I’d rather have you die than my mother. There’s no rope to tie you up so you’re leaving me with no other option.”
“Would you really do it?”
“My love for Stalin is greater than my love for any woman except my mother. If Stalin doesn’t murder Trotsky, it is Trotsky who shall kill Stalin. Trotsky has his own spies and assassins. It’s either Trotsky’s death or that of the grand leader of the Soviet Union. And I won’t let anything get in my way.”
Sylvia bolted for the door, screaming she would not allow Trotsky’s murder, and Frank reflexively stabbed her in the back with his dagger. He didn’t have time to repent or to attempt to save her, for she lost her life instantaneously. Frank threw himself on the ground and cradled her in his arms, begging her not to die although she was already dead..
“There was no other way,” Jacques said grimly to himself as he wiped her blood off his shirt. Suddenly he felt sick to his stomach and suffered a strong instinct to retch. His girlfriend’s murder had never been part of the plan.
He immediately changed his clothes, left the apartment and drove his red convertible to Trotsky’s home. He noticed that the vehicle with Eitingon and his mother were already waiting close by, ready to disappear with him after he committed the crime. He parked his car two blocks away, for he needed time to think. He had just murdered a woman who loved him so it shouldn’t be hard to kill Trotsky too. But it wasn’t easy. Her death had happened suddenly, without any premeditation. But the death of Trotsky was planned and he wasn’t sure if he could bring himself to do it. He walked restlessly through the cobblestone streets of Coyoacan, trying to muster the necessary courage for the feat he was sworn to accomplish for Comrade Stalin and above all his mother.
Frank walked through the Plaza Hidalgo and the Plaza del Centenario, both filled with Indian laurel trees, as well as mimes, clowns, organ grinders, and musicians. It seemed like an ordinary day – the children tugging at their mothers’ hands, enamored couples walking arm in arm, the organ grinder’s monkey doing pirouettes – but Frank knew it was no ordinary day. It was the day when he was to put into practice what he had been taught during all his years in the Soviet Union, everything he had learned when he had been groomed for just this purpose. He smoked one cigarette after another and put a few coins in the organ grinder’s jar. But he was wasting time and knew it. There was no sense in delaying the inevitable. So he steeled his nerves and walked back to his car, where he found the raincoat and the weapons in the trunk. Then he slowly ambled to Trotsky’s home on the Avenida Viena. He was in no hurry to get there, but even walking slowly he arrived at the house in no more than thirty minutes.
He glanced at the policemen guarding the home and was suddenly worried. What if this time they decided to frisk him? What would happen to his mother if the plot was discovered by the police? Frank knew what Stalin did to his followers when they fell out of favor. When he walked nervously past the police kiosk, he barely looked at the guards and waved his hand in the air in a quick salutation. They told him, “Walk right ahead, Mr. Jacson,” and suddenly he knew the prize was in sight. Otto Schussler let him inside the house and commented on the raincoat, just like he had the last time Frank had visited. The assassin repeated what he had said before and told Otto he had heard on the radio that it would rain. Otto ushered Frank into Trotsky’s study, where the old man was sitting at his desk with the Dictaphone.
“What brings you back, Frank? Again without the wife?”
Frank noticed that Otto wasn’t leaving. That would make Operation Mother impossible.
“I just revised my little article,” said Frank. “You must be working on your biography of Joseph Stalin.”
Otto remained in the room, sitting on an armchair, seemingly with no intention to leave the study.
“I’m always working on the Stalin biography. It’s called The Revolution Betrayed. The world must learn the truth. It’s like I have a sword of Damocles over my head as I write. I have to finish the book before that son-of-a-bitch gets to me. When are you and your wife leaving for New York?”
Everyone in the Trotsky compound thought Sylvia was his wife.
“We’re planning to leave tonight. Yes, we’ll be gone by tomorrow.” Otto didn’t move. He even chimed in, “I love New York City in the summer.”
Frank was amazed he had the sangfroid to continue the conversation and was sure he was visibly sweating. If Otto didn’t leave the room, the operation would have to be aborted. And it couldn’t be left for another day. He had to disappear before anyone discovered the corpse of Sylvia Ageloff.
“I’m surprised you didn’t bring Sylvia with you,” said Otto. “I was thinking she’d come and say goodbye to the old man.”
Frank knew he had to think on his feet. He had been trained to do so.
“Well. You know how women are,” he said matter-of-factly. “It takes them the whole day to prepare a piece of luggage.”
“All right,” said Trotsky. “I’m done for now. Let me see the revised article you’ve brought.”
Otto rose from his chair.
“Well, I guess I’ll say goodbye. Send my regards to all the Trotskyites in New York City.”
Frank had to put his raincoat on a chair as he hugged Otto. He was terrified that the weapons would fall from the coat pocket. But Otto left and nothing happened. Trotsky began to read Frank’s article and Frank prepared for the estocada – the moment when the bull is pierced by the sword of the matador.
As Trotsky perused the article, Frank pretended he was standing behind him in order to read the text as the old man commented on it. Finally, the old man exclaimed, “This is much better than the prior version,” whereupon he saw the ice pick in Frank’s hands.
Trotsky reached for the revolver in one of the drawers of his desk, but was unable to reach it. Frank stabbed him in the head with his weapon. The old man did not collapse, but screamed a Heaven-rending cry and then began to struggle for the weapon with his assailant. Suddenly a group of Trotsky’s American bodyguards appeared inside the study. They quickly started to beat him, but the old man instructed his men not to kill him.
“He can’t be killed,” said Trotsky. “We have to make him speak so the whole world knows what Stalin did.”
“Kill me, kill me!” cried out Frank. “I can’t believe I’ve done this. But first take me to my mother. I need to nestle in her arms.”
***
As Jaime Lopez Pablovich lay on his deathbed in Havana, surrounded by his Mexican wife, two sons and three grandchildren, he suddenly asked for a visit from a priest. His wife Roquelia was not particularly surprised, for after receiving the diagnosis of lung cancer, he had started going to Mass from time to time. But he never went to Confession, for he found his crimes too grueling to confess and he could not bring himself to talk to anyone about them. Jaime had not even discussed his crimes with his own wife after more than twenty-five years of marriage. Now he knew he was dying and wanted to make his peace with God.
The priest arrived at Jaime’s apartment within a half hour of Roquelia’s call and asked his family members to leave him alone with the dying man. Father Armando pulled a chair close to the bed and began by putting both hands on Jaime’s head and pronouncing the Our Father. The priest asked Jaime, “When was your last Confession?”
Jaime struggled to breathe but was able to respond.
“I don’t know, Father. I last received the sacrament when I was a kid. Maybe fifty, fifty-five years ago.”
“Better late than never, Jaime. You can talk to me as if I was an old friend.”
“For starters, my name is not Jaime. It is Ramon. My family calls me Monchito. The Soviets gave me the alias Jaime Lopez Pablovich when I got out of prison about twenty years ago. My crime had become a public scandal and everyone had heard of my acts. The Soviets feared a retaliatory assassination and so felt it was better if I lived my life with my true identity concealed.”
“When you got out of prison? What crime did you commit?”
“I’ll get to that, Father. But let me give you the background. I don’t want to justify my crimes – they have no justification – but I think I should give you the context.”
“By all means,” said the priest. “We can do this anyway you’d like.”
“It all began when I was a child. My father was a tyrant and he even took my mother to brothels in order to commit unspeakable sins. He regularly beat me and my mother as well. So my mother – her name was Caridad – became a very hard woman. My mother’s father had been a Cuban and she was named after the Cuban Virgen de la Caridad. But by the time I was born I think she must already have been an atheist. Or maybe she stopped believing in God a few years later, after suffering through my father’s mistreatment or my sister’s death.”
Jaime paused. It was more difficult to do this than he had imagined. But after taking a deep breath he continued.
“At all events, I’m not sure if my mother ever loved me. Perhaps she saw something of my father in me and detested me for it. Or perhaps that’s the wrong word. Perhaps it was merely a deep-seated apathy. At all events, after my sister Cristina died, my mother became increasingly distant from me. She would feed me, dress me, take me to school, but there was no tenderness in her, only a sternness that made me feel like an unwelcome obligation. Do you understand me, Father? Do you understand how painful it is for a child to be rejected by his mother after having been abandoned by his father?”
“I can try to understand, Ramon. I am fortunate in that I never had to go through such an experience. And I gather that you’ve kept these feelings repressed for years.”
“A whole lifetime, Father Armando.”
And then Jaime began to sob uncontrollably.
“Do you want to take a break?” the priest inquired. “We don’t have to hurry.”
“No, that’s all right,” said Jaime, regaining his composure. “Where was I? I was telling you about my mother.”
“Yes,” the priest responded.
“Well, after my father left, her love was Joseph Stalin. His cause became the North Star of her life. For most of her life she lived without a lover and in some strange way Stalin filled that void. Only when I was in my teenage years did she fall in love with a man again, if you can call it love. His name was Eitingon, an ethnic Jew from the Soviet Union. I think she was drawn to him because he was a representative of the government of Stalin. Without that link to Stalin, I’m certain my mother would not have become his mistress.”
“So she was a Communist?”
“I would say she was the staunchest of Stalinists. It was the man himself she venerated, even more than his ideology. Stalin could do no wrong. When she heard about the purge of the Trotskyites Kamenev and Sinoviev, she applauded their show trials and their executions. And eventually she developed a fierce hatred for Leon Trotsky, especially after the loss of Spain to General Francisco Franco. It was because of my mother that I, too, learned to hate Trotsky.”
“Are you Ramon Mercader?” asked the priest abruptly. “Are you Trotsky’s assassin?”
“I am,” replied Jaime. “I was just getting to that. I’ve been living in Cuba for years.”
“Why did you do it?”
“That’s why I told you about my childhood and adolescence. That’s why I told you about my mother’s desamor.[5] When I was in my early twenties, my mother gave me an opportunity to finally earn her love. All I had to do was murder Leon Trotsky and for the first time in my life she would be pleased with me. She was asking me to sacrifice my life for the cause of Joseph Stalin, the purpose of her entire being. How could I refuse?”
“You don’t have to tell me all the details if it makes you uncomfortable. All you need for a valid Confession is to simply confess your crimes.”
“The ironic thing is that my mother finally fell out of love with Joseph Stalin. Her lover Eitingon was accused by Stalin of plotting to poison high-ranking Soviet leaders and tortured to confess. His rank and medals were all taken from him – medals earned through more than twenty years of loyal service to Stalin – and my mother could not forget that it was Stalin himself who had brought such disgrace upon her lover. Her raison d’etre – support of Stalin’s cause – had proved to be built on quicksand.”
“Did she go back to religion?” asked the priest.
“No, she didn’t, Father. But she was left completely unmoored. Suddenly she noticed her god had feet of clay. All the rumors about Stalin’s purges of innocent people which my mother explained away over the years had turned out to be a reality. Her longtime lover had been destroyed on trumped-up charges and there was no one to accuse of his destruction other than her beloved Stalin. In what, then, would she believe? Not surprising that after Eitingon’s incarceration she tried to die by suicide more than once.”
“She didn’t despair after you were jailed?”
“She did not. You have to understand that Eitingon’s incarceration didn’t trouble her merely because of the fact he had been imprisoned. If he had been convicted of a common crime, she wouldn’t have worried. But what cut to the quick was that he had been jailed at Stalin’s orders for an imaginary crime.”
Jaime started coughing and for a moment was unable to speak.
“Are you all right?” asked the priest. “Do you need something to drink?”
“No, I’m fine. Let me finish telling you this macabre story. The thing is I was lucky – if you can use such a word for the accomplishment of a monstrous crime. I met a young Trotskyite woman in Paris through another NKVD spy who had infiltrated the Trotskyites in New York. She was a very homely, melancholy girl and I seduced her according to plan. Once we were in New York, I urged her to go with me to Mexico City where I supposedly had some business. She agreed and that sealed my plan. Her sister worked as a secretary to Trotsky and slowly I became a regular presence at his home. But the poor girl discovered my intentions on the morning of the attack. She protested vociferously. Rather than disappoint my mother by aborting the plan, I plunged a knife into the girl’s back and made my way to Trotsky’s home.”
At that moment, Jaime paused and desperately clutched the priest’s hand.
“You must think I’m a monster,” he said under his breath. “That there is nothing to redeem.”
“Not a monster,” the priest replied as he held onto Jaime’s hand. “Just a sinner who is finally making his way home.”
“Well, you know the rest of it,” said Jaime. “You know of the great crime perpetrated by Ramon Mercader. I can never forget the way Trotsky wailed as I punctured his head with the ice pick. Even forty years later, I cannot forget that scream. I hear it always. I hear that scream when I’m unable to sleep. I know he’s waiting for me on the other side.”
“No,” answered the priest. “He’s not waiting for you. It is the Lord expectantly waiting for you on the other side when you awake. I declare you righteous, forgiven. The multitude of your offenses does not surpass the Great Physician’s skill.”
“I hope so,” said Ramon Mercader as he expired.
[1] “La letra entra con sangre” literally means “the letter enters by blood.” It implies that hard lessons must be taught by violence.
[2] A su manera means in her own way, implying in an unusual or incomplete way.
[3] “Campesinos” means peasants.
[4] “No pasaran” means they shall not pass, referring to Franco’s forces.
[5] Desamor means indifference and lack of love.
Sandro Francisco Piedrahita is an American writer of Ecuadorian and Peruvian descent, with a degree in Comparative Literature from Yale College. His stories have been accepted for publication by The Acentos Review, The Ganga Review, Synchronized Chaos, The Write Launch, Hive Avenue Literary Journal, Carmina Magazine, Peauxdunque Review, Sundial Magazine, Label Me Latina/o, Limit Experience Journal. and Foreshadow Magazine.