Birth of Our Power by Victor Serge Richard Greeman Read Free Book Online Page B

circle—not far off—at a round table. (We have an old trick we play every few weeks—of all pretending to sit down for a long evening together, and then having the waiter, a comrade, serve them burning hot coffee. As soon as the steaming cups of coffee are placed before them, we gulp down our drinks and hotfoot it out of there. Only El Chorro remains, laughing silently at the spectacle of the crestfallen faces of those “sons of bitches” who are forced to choosebetween losing the coffee they’ve paid for, or losing their “clients.”) The “ego-anarchist” corner is full of foreigners. If an overly elegant bull-necked gentleman, one of those habitués of swank bars who traffic in white slavery, happen to find his way into our group, the unlikely attention of the police informers and the forbidding indifference of the workers scare him off immediately. He recovers his aplomb on the terrace, at the sight of some French girls sipping orangeade through long straws. A calliope fills the hall with arias from operas and love songs. Through the din of the mechanical brass band, we are able to discuss things among ourselves without worrying too much about being overheard by the informers.
    Five of us were there, late one afternoon. Eusebio, a plasterer with the handsome, regular features of a Roman legionary, a bristling mustache, large, soft, brown eyes—luminous, primeval, accustomed to bright colors (but not nuances). Andrés, an editor of the Confederation paper, a thin, swarthy Argentinean with sharp, squarish features, a pointed chin, and a querulous look, held a pointed cigarette between purple lips. Lolita, Eusebio’s “wife” (and someone else’s), a pale, skinny factory girl with hair so dark it seems blue-tinted, sunken eyes concealing a lusterless gaze (like an indifferent caress), pale nostrils, a double fold of pursed lips as red as the inside of a pomegranate. Heinrich Zilz, his necktie carefully knotted, his face slightly flushed (for he has a yen for Lolita) was smoking with a smile on his face.
    Eusebio leaned toward us over the white marble table, his eyes shining. He opened his thick muscular hands and said:
    â€œHow many of us will fall tomorrow! How many! But what’s the difference? What’s the difference!”
    He repeated the same words twice over, at a loss for others. He cracked the joints of his fingers. How to find the words to express the power, the joy, the earnestness, the faith in tomorrow?
    Hardly moving his lips, Andrés said:
    â€œThe people over in Manresa have promised some grenades. Sans, Tarrasa, and Granollérs are ready. Our pals in Tarrasa already have a hundred and forty Brownings. The Committee is negotiating with a junta of infantrymen. But what cowards these republicans are!”
    â€œSo you’re really itching to get yourselves chopped down, eh?” Zilz broke in, lighting another cigarette.
    â€œWhat? What?” Eusebio cried. “What are you saying?” He heard well enough, but the hostile notion took a moment to sink in.
    â€œI said,” Zilz continued, “you can count me out. My skin is worth more than any republic, even a workers’ republic.”
    A heavy silence fell over us. Then Lolita got up stiffly. Her mouth, a bleeding pomegranate, narrows: eyes now nothing but two shadows under the horizontal ivory of her forehead.
    â€œLet’s go.”
    A few feet away I heard a shuffling of chairs at the table of informers.
    â€œGood-by, then,” Zilz said. “I’m staying.”
    We went out. Lolita, in front of us, moved rapidly through the crowd, silent, her head—with its stubborn rebel forehead—high. Andrés said what we were all thinking.
    â€œThe ego-anarchist poison. People like that, you see, don’t risk their necks any more except for money.”

    Lejeune’s clothes were cut from British cloth; he wore silk shirts and underwear,