Letter from Casablanca

DOLORES IBARRURI SHEDS BITTER TEARS

He was a happy child, really happy. He was always laughing, so happy, and he even had a sense of humor. For instance, my sister Elsa was crazy about jokes, she knew a hundred of them, and when he saw her he would run up to her and cry, Aunt Elsa, a joke! Aunt Elsa, a joke! And he would laugh, but as if he were amused, like an adult. Perhaps he really got that happiness from Elsa, who was so vital, even too much so, maybe a little reckless, but at least she enjoyed her life, after all, in her own way. Affectionate, too. And he remained that way when he was grown-up. Happy, well, no, but very affectionate. Never once did he forget my birthday, even when he was far away, always something, a rose from Inter-Flora, a telegram … Would you like to see his telegrams? I have them here in this little Droste cocoa tin. Look, from 1970 to today there are eight telegrams. This one here, for instance, is from four years ago. Listen, it says He thinks of you with gratitude for the life that you gave him. Yes, it’s signed Piticche, we called him that. It’s never come out in the newspapers, nobody knows it, it’s something kept in the family. For us it was a pet name. I’d be grateful if you’d be quiet about it, too. Afterwards in the newspapers it comes between quotation marks after his real name: “called ‘Pilicche.’” It’s awful, don’t you think? How do you get people to understand that Piticche’s a pet name? Even you don’t understand it. If only I could explain to you the origin of the name, its meaning, but no one can understand what it means to me. In names there’s the time spent together, persons who have died, things done together, places, other names, our life. Piticche means little one. He was really tiny when he was young. He was blond, look at this photograph, he’s four years old — not that one, he’s eight there — this one here crouching near Pinocchio. Don’t you see that Pinocchio is taller than he is?

At our house there was a lemon tree. It grew espaliered against the facade facing south. Its branches reached the window of the upper floor. He spent his childhood playing with a Pinocchio, this one here in the photograph. “Oh, ho! Here comes Pinocchio! …” I still hear his voice repeating that refrain down there in the courtyard. At that time Rodolfo was already sick, I spent a lot of time in the bedroom taking care of him. His little voice came to me through the window. He was always playing with Pinocchio, it was his only company. He usually made him die, hanging him from the lemon tree as the cat and wolf disguised as brigands do in the book, and then he would make him a little grave of earth with a cross of reeds, but naturally he hid Pinocchio somewhere else. Then the fairy with the dark blue hair would arrive and go and cry over the tomb of her Pinocchio — that is, over the flower bed by the lemon tree. I was the fairy. He would watch me mischievously, because it was all arranged between us. I would kneel down in front of the lemon tree and cry, “Pinocchio, my poor little Pinocchio, I’ll never see you again, oh! oh! oh!” And then I would hear a weak voice, because the pretense was that it should seem to come from under the ground, which said, “My beautiful little sister, do not be in such despair. If you love your Pinocchio, he’s alive!” I would look around in amazement, searching for that voice, and see him standing like a puppet on his matchstick legs, thrusting out his arms to me, moving them like a marionette, and I would run to hug him and hold him tight to my breast. And while this scene was going on, he was laughing crazily, jumping up with his hands behind his back and doing a kind of ballet, singing, “Oh, ho! Here comes Pinocchio!” And the game was over.

Yvette gave him his name, Piti, but it was he who called himself Piticche, pointing to his chest. It was ’49. Elsa had brought Yvette and Gustave, she’d found them in the station at Livorno some years before. They didn’t know where to go. They had with them four frying pans and a Siamese cat they called Mayer that died a month later. He was a beekeeper in the Ardenne. They escaped to the south without a plan, just to escape, otherwise they’d have been deported. Elsa told them they could come, to our house, soup was always a good remedy. They said they’d go when the front had passed, then they stayed for four years. They were refined persons, they became like relatives. Yvette died last year. They have a son, a dentist in Marseilles, she was pregnant later when they returned to France…. Am I straying from the subject? I know that I’m straying. Let me stray, then I’ll come to the point.

I’m sure we loved him very much. Do you have children? Do you love your children? I know, there is more than one way. Look, it was ten years before we had him. We’d done everything. I had a fibroma, not that it bothered me, but if I wanted a baby I had to have an operation. It was ’39, there wasn’t penicillin then, I got septicemia. To save me they gave me paraffin injections in the thigh so the infection localized there — an abscess comes and the surgeon cuts it. I have legs full of scars. He was born in ’46, it wasn’t a good time to be born. Many were born in ’46, the soldiers came home, those who hadn’t died. No, Rodolfo didn’t get his illness in the war, he returned healthy, only a little thinner. He got sick the first time in ’51. Who knows why? If we knew why we get sick, we wouldn’t get sick. But he lasted a long time, until ’61—ten years. A little longer, in fact, he died in December. Excuse me if I cry. I didn’t want to cry, but the tears come down by themselves. It’s good for me to cry? You’re right, it’s good for me to cry.

The film I liked best among the few I’ve seen was called Roman Holiday—I remember that one as if it were yesterday — with Gregory Peck, and I liked Gregory Peck very much. I don’t remember the actress, she was very good. I know it doesn’t interest you, but it has something to do with it, I’m just telling you that Rodolfo had promised that all three of us would take a trip to Rome. He seemed to be better, there were years when he seemed to recover, we made a lot of plans for a long time, Rodolfo even bought a map so he could study the two-day tourist itineraries. I won’t repeat it to you, but I could, I remember it perfectly. Then all of a sudden Rodolfo needed dialysis, there wasn’t any money to go to Rome, so we went to see Roman Holiday. We even took the boy, though maybe it was a boring film for an eleven-year-old. However, we did see a lot of the famous places in Rome. There was one very funny scene when they go to visit some historic buildings and at a certain point he puts his hand into the mouth of a big stone mask on the porch of a church, and the legend says that if someone tells a lie, the mouth bites off his hand. He turns toward her — oh! it was Audrey Hepburn — and I think he tells her, “I love you,” and at that point he gives a cry and pulls out his arm without his hand, because he’s hidden it in the sleeve of his jacket, and they both laugh and hug each other.

We were always close to him. He never lacked affection, if this is what you were thinking. We were a very united family and he never gave us any worry, with Rodolfo in that condition, only comfort. He was so intelligent and particularly gifted in school, he was always an exceptional student — diplomas, medals, prizes. I didn’t want to send him to the lyceum, it didn’t seem to me a school appropriate to our situation. Afterwards what can a person with a lyceum certificate do? On the other hand, with a diploma in bookkeeping or surveying it’s always possible to find a job. But it was his professor who prevented me from doing it. He said that it was a crime, it really was, a boy of exceptional intelligence with A’s in Italian and Latin — to send him to a technical school was a crime. Besides, I never had to spend anything for his studies, not even later. He always supported himself with his splendid intelligence. He’s a little poet, his professor told me. This he got from Rodolfo. You say also his political ideas? Lei’s not talk nonsense. When Rodolfo died, he wasn’t yet fifteen years old. What ideas is it possible to think about at that age? Of course Rodolfo had his political ideas, they were well-known, I’m proud of them, yes. He was in the Resistance, of course, and also the war in Spain with the International Brigades, he took part in the battle of the Ebro. He knew the great people of that time — Longo, El Campesino, La Pasionaria. He always talked about this, you know, they were his favorite memories, especially in his last years. When he talked about La Pasionaria he called her Dolores, or else Ibarruri, as if she were an intimate friend. I see him again on the divan, he spent the afternoons on the divan with a lap robe. He was emaciated, hollow cheeks, the shadow of my Rodolfo…. And Piticche stayed to listen to him with his eyes watchful, he liked his father’s stories very much. Then they sang some Spanish songs together that Rodolfo knew, Piticche had learned them right away, too, “Gandesa,” for example: Si me quieres escribir ya sabes mi paradero, en el frente de Gandesa primera linea de fuego … No, he was not a communist, he was a libertarian socialist. He said that La Pasionaria had been a friend, too, that they had fought side by side, that she was an exceptional woman. Then they had had a furious quarrel, she said ugly words to him, and he retorted that one day she would cry bitterly over the mistakes she had made. He talked about it with much pain. He said that she had sold herself to the Russians, that she had committed atrocities against her comrades.

He was a dreamer, my Rodolfo. This he taught our son. And then he loved culture, books, he read a lot of them in his life, a kind of adoration. He said that in every book there’s always a man, and that to burn a book is like burning a person. He taught him the pleasure of reading … and writing, too. They wrote each other letters. They played a game, it was a beautiful game, I mean I think it was a very poetic thing. They read the books and then they wrote letters to each other as if each of them were a character in the books that they’d read, imaginary characters or historic personages. It was the last year of Rodolfo’s life. They wrote each other dozens of letters. Whoever received a letter read it at supper that evening. For me they were very beautiful moments. Excuse me if I cry. Rodolfo received many letters from Livingstone — Piticche liked being Livingstone so much — and then from Huckleberry Finn, from Kim, Gavroche, Pasteur. They were written with much maturity. I must have them somewhere, someday I’ll set out to look for them. And yet he was only fifteen years old, a child.

Rodolfo died in December of ’61, I know that I already told you. He spent his last days very upset, but not because of his illness. He was tormented by what was happening in the world, that is in Russia, I wouldn’t know exactly, I know that Khrushchev had revealed the atrocities committed by his predecessors, and he was in anguish. He didn’t sleep anymore, even the sleeping pills had no effect on him. Then one day a letter arrived for him. The return address said: “La Pasionaria, Moscow.’’ And inside was written: “Dolores Ibarruri sheds bitter tears.”

So, that was my son. What did they do to him? I saw his photo in the newspapers. They slaughtered him, and I couldn’t even see him. They wrote that he did … I don’t have the courage to say it … dreadful things. Did they say dreadful? However, you’ve heard another story, the story of a person you don’t know. I’ve talked to you about my Piticche. I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention this name in your newspaper. Excuse me if I cry. I didn’t want to cry, but the tears come down by themselves. It’s good for me to cry? You’re right, it’s good for me to cry.