The End of Confinement

Before Carabanchel was Razed

   Alesander had endured four years of, solitary confinement and deprivations that can hardly be described. Harry observed the Civil War guidari, veteran of Guernica and the Battle of Madrid… Los Oscuros (the Dark Ones) with the infamous Galvan, who never surrendered, the Maquis of the Basque struggle, and the Resistance in France and Spain… The list is long and Harry had only respect for the man… were it not for Alesander’s embarrassing passion.

   They met in a safe house of one of the enlaces in Huesca as Harry spoke first to make arrangements… the betrayer with the betrayed, “We meet again, Alesander.”

   “It is difficult to say why,” Alesander answered, “but I am glad to see you again, Bird Dog,” His frail frame sank into the easy chair on the other side of a small table.

    "Down to business. You will be on the train through the Canfranc frontera as an Argentine tourist," he slipped a passport and visa across the table.

   Harry watched, fascinated by the reed of an arm that was barely able to pick up the papers, “Didn’t they try to fatten you up before they released you?”  Harry knew that his negotiations, 1.e., bribes of prison officials, were formally resisted and backhandedly accepted, that Alesander was released: by the guard at the sally-port, blinded by Harry's forged papers and high ranking Policia Armada Officer uniform, pushed the button to open the gate as he, at midnight, escorted Alesander Gotson out to freedom and finally, managed the Maquis’ escape.

   “No, I expected the usual treatment,” setting the cup down and pointing to the back of his head… “You know, a bullet there, the usual treatment: killed while escaping.”

   Harry didn’t marvel at Alesander’s lack of bitterness. Even four years of isolation, sense deprivation, physical and psychological torture did not destroy the quality that preserved him through twenty years of post Civil War concentration camps in France, guerrilla warfare and, now, Carabanchel: he never hated his enemy. Even the Stalinists back in Madrid or the PCE (Communist Party of Spain), when their purges of non-communist leadership, kidnapped and assassinated, summarily judged and shot resistance fighters after the failed assault on the Aran Valley in ‘44; or when the Central Committee of the PCE suspended support for the Spanish guerillas, Agrupacionesor Guerrilleras (the A.G.E.), in’48: Harry had never heard a sour word spoken by Alesander against the Stalinists, Nazis, the Civil Guard, the paramilitary Somaten, or the horrors committed by Franco’s Moroccan division. To Alesander, a soldier was a soldier and soldiers do as soldiers must. The horrors of war hardened him against its cruelty and it didn’t matter how inhumane the atrocities were: even for mad and vicious crimes against humanity by mercenaries like Harry Baker… Alesander didn’t forgive or forget… he just understood.