Mr. Robinson was my funny, wise history teacher. Band leader as well. In my final year at school, I‘d asked him if I could play trumpet in the school band instead of piano for the school choir. His serious demeanour had turned mischievous. “I wish I’d known earlier,” he said regretfully. “All the trumpets have been taken, but I do have a tuba. How about trying it out?” He could see, of course, that I was a mere five feet tall, that I would have to parade with that cumbersome horn. But I was game. I could forget the piano. And despite his mischief, I knew he could be serious. He was interested in politics, in what was going on in the world, not just someone who followed the crowd. He would take me seriously.
Still, I was a little hesitant about knocking on his classroom door, appearing out of the blue. But I had to overcome my ignorance about the war. And though I hated to admit it, I was a little apprehensive about what Einar was doing. Of course there was a conflict between Einar’s decision and the law, but was he morally wrong to defy the law?
Being there again in my old third-floor classroom was re-assuring: out the window the same day-dreamy view of the bay guarded by the Sleeping Giant. The same map of the world hanging down over the blackboard, and the framed print of Wolfe’s men scaling the ramparts of Quebec. And just as I knew he would, Mr. Robinson listened carefully as I told him how muddled I felt.
He was his usual wry, measured self. Sympathetic. He didn’t know Mother, but he understood her fear, knew it stemmed from ‘a little knowledge’. He wasn’t surprised at all the misconceptions about the war. Most newspapers, including ours, gave only one side of the story. The propaganda was doing its work.
“The war in Spain is hard to sort out,” Mr. Robinson told me. “It didn’t develop overnight. The last straw was when General Franco returned to Spain from Morocco and overthrew the government. A government,” he added, “that had been elected by the Spanish people. Many countries, including Britain, the United States, and Canada, chose to remain neutral. That’s when over a thousand Canadians, many of them out of work or recent immigrants, defied the law, and along with volunteers from several other countries, went to Spain.”
He paused.
“Did they believe in democracy? Or were they seeking adventure? Probably both. Whatever their reasons, they knew the Spanish government needed help. Not only did Franco have the backing of the wealthy landowners and the Catholic Church, but he was receiving huge loans, planes and weapons from Hitler and Mussolini.”
As he stopped to light his pipe, I told Mr Robinson about a conversation I’d overheard after church a few weeks before. Our family physician, Dr. McKibbin, had just returned from a visit to Germany with the news that Canadians had nothing to fear from Hitler. The German people liked and trusted him, and were willing to do his bidding. And even though they resented the exorbitant reparations payments the British allies had forced on them after the Great War, Dr. McKibbin was certain the Germans were reasonable people.
Mr. Robinson smiled wryly at that.
“Of course he would say that. I know McKibbin and his views on communism. He’d be sure to approve of Mackenzie King’s ban on travel to Spain.”
He appeared lost in thought for a moment or two, and then said, “Listen. Here are a couple of examples of what our government is afraid of. Recently the Spanish government released 30,000 political prisoners. Pretty scary, right? Besides that, it announced that henceforth tenant farmers would be rent-free, and that in order to distribute the land more fairly, the government would break up the huge estates owned by powerful landlords.”
He stopped and let me absorb all this. Gradually I began to see why Britain, the United States, and Canada were so worried. In their eyes this Robin Hood idea of taking land from the wealthy landowners and giving to the landless peasants amounted to communism. What if such an idea spread to their own countries?
I came away feeling relieved. A cloud had lifted. I had a much clearer sense of what was happening. Mr. Robinson hadn’t made me feel stupid. He hadn’t denounced Einar. He even seemed sad and a little angry that Canada’s government had remained neutral when Hitler and Mussolini were anything but. Mr. Robinson had seen a lot—–had served in the Great War—I guess nothing surprised him.
I left more confident than I’d felt for a long time. Like a new person. After church the next Sunday, when Mr. McCann shook hands with me and said in an undertone ‘I hope you have taken to heart my warning’, I knew exactly what he meant. Einar going to Spain illegally. But this time I was ready. Mimicking his reverential tone, I solemnly recited that re-assuring verse from the new testament: “Render unto God the things that are God’s”. No longer would I be intimidated.
Weeks later, another letter came from Einar. This time I whooped for joy, waved it in the air, childishly taunting Mother, daring her to react. To my surprise, I waited in vain. No rebuke followed. I felt a huge relief! I read it aloud to Mother.
May 5, 1937
Dear Margareta (your name in Finn. Do you like it?)
Your letter arrived at last! Can you see us here when mail comes in? All crowding around, short fellows try”Agrop to see over tall ones, waiting to hear our names.
You want to know what it is like here. To hear about my comrades. I never met anyone like Tony. He lives in New York. Speaks Spanish. A guy who reads books. He worked in a cigar factory in Florida and they paid him to read to the workers. He knows about people like Cervantes and Tolstoy and Marx. Have you read them? Tony knows many stories, and when there is time, we sit around listening to them.
Some days is like war disappears. We traveled in countryside of orange trees and olive and grape vines. Villages where churches and castles seem like growing out of mountainside. Where only sign of war is Spanish women singing the Internationale. (‘’Change will not come from above!’ Tony tells us.)
They hold up jugs of wine, call to us ‘bebid, por favor’, please drink. We are like sons and brothers. A young man and his girl stand under a huge tree, fists in air to cheer us on our way. Children call to us ‘Salud! A la Frente’.
In another letter Einar talked about the resourcefulness of some of the Finns, finding a stone building on a farm they had taken, repairing the stonework, fixing up a stove that was inside, and transforming it into a sauna.
In another letter he wrote about a buddy who’d escaped one of Franco’s ghastly prisons, a stinking black, watery dungeon full of rats and filthy ooze where every day he’d been interrogated and beaten by Germans. Franco’s allies.
Still, despite the horror, the prisoners put their spare time to good use: carving chess men from bread or wood or soap. Making cards to play bridge. Organizing classes in Russian, Spanish, German and Greek; teaching each other math, algebra, electricity and journalism. They formed a choir.
I loved his letters. He seemed in good spirits. But later, the tone changed. No longer light-hearted, he sounded despondent.
(I think August)
Dear Maggie,
For weeks rain and more rain. Still we march on and on, soaked through our skin. There is no sense. We are all tired. No billeting in villages our French commissar shouts. If we want shelter we must take the town of ***. He says we are taking ‘evasive action’ against air bombardment. What does that mean? He is not a real person. All the time shouting, calling us cowards! Why am I here? I do not feel myself.
Yes, always complaints. About food. Never changes: lentils, bread, bacalav, garbanzos. I dream of Kivela rye bread.
And lice. In every crack. Crawling in our socks, in our shirts, in our trousers. Every place on our bodies. Also typhus. Spread by lice. I was sick for days. Still weak.
Worst is how they treat us. Harsh punishings for small misbehavings. We are volunteer but we are thrown into dungeons by our own officers. Last week I can not believe. Two men sent out in the night to dig trenches in no mans land. Only one came back. You call it justice?
Our new commissar will maybe change how things go. Last night he order us to sleep in barns near the village where we can stay warm and dry. I want to sleep and sleep and never wake up.
Much love to you.
Einar’s last letter from Spain has disappeared. I tried to put it out of my mind. He sounded confused, frightened, completely unlike the young Einar, so eager to leave for Spain to fight Franco. I could feel his terror—fighting on unknown ground with out-of-date, useless weapons. Terrified and helpless under enemy bomboardment. The drone of planes circling overhead; bombs exploding; the sharp retort of rifle fire, knowing the next bullet could be fatal. The screams of the wounded, calling out for their mothers. I could tell his faith in the cause had been shaken.
And now this letter. Waiting in France to come home. I look again at the envelope. The right address. But the word ‘unknown’ in that feathery handwriting. Where did that come from? I’ve always lived here, in this same house. Who could have written it? Only one determined person.
I read the letter again. Written from France. He’d been on his way home. With 300 others. But no money for passage. Nothing. Threatened with confinement in the camps. Then a glimmer of hope. Money might be found. What had happened?
I knew some of the men had returned to Canada. Unheralded, of course. They were the ‘undersirables’ who had broken the law. Subversives. Criminals. Only the RCMP was interested.
***
