Tags
Battle of the Ebro, Dolores Ibárruri, Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, General Franco, Jack Hammersley, Mercedes Keating, The Blue Brigade, The Spanish Civil War, The Sun also Rises
When I was at college in Dublin I had a Spanish teacher named Mercedes Keating.
I used to go to classes with her after school once a week on Thursday evenings. She was in her mid seventies then and lived in a flat in an Edwardian terrace house not far from my boarding school.
My Spanish wasn’t bad and one day I asked her where she learned the language because she spoke it so fluently. She replied “In Barcelona and the Basque country in Spain.”
It took me weeks to get it out of her but eventually she said “I was a Communist then. I went to Spain as a nurse and worked with my friend Dolores Ibárruri, “La Pasionaria.”
She said “Tim hijo [son] you are here to learn Spanish.” and I replied ok but tell me the story in Spanish then, and she did. And that is how she taught me the language which I speak so fluently today.
She told me of the camps where they lived in tents and of old shepherds huts of stone high in the mountains in the Basque country where they lived. The hunger and disease and death that surrounded them. The wounded that she tended. The armed men who came down from the mountains in their wool-lined leather jackets, their faces drawn because they knew that death was near to them.
I addressed her always as Mrs Keating then of course. She used to make us a cup of tea and gave me a few bits of cake on a little plate. I was always hungry.
Months later she said “Tim, your Spanish is excelente. I am so happy to have helped you.”
We did not speak after that for a while; we just sipped our tea in silence together. She knew that she had opened her soul to me, and that I had listened with respect.
About seven years later I was living in Sydney. I got a letter from a close friend who knew her to say that her last remaining family had paid for her travel to Australia and rented a small house for her where she could end her days.
I went to see her one Saturday afternoon at Brighton-Le-Sands near to Sydney where she lived then.
She gave me a huge hug and then made the tea and her little cakes. Her blue eyes said it all; she was so pleased to see me again, and I had to hide my tears.
I said Mrs Keating “Now I know.”
And she replied “Tell the story one day but not about me. About the Civil War, tell it about our struggle in the International Brigades.”
She passed away a few months later but by then I was gone again to chase my dreams in the Middle East. I loved that lady.
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Note by the author:
I have visited the site of the Battle of the Ebro several times. I used to live near there in Tarragona.
It is a sad and desolate place. The open ground was too hard to dig into to shelter in trenches from the Nationalist army artillery, and aerial bombing from the skies.
They ended up on a bare hill on open ground in August when the temperature was highest.
Franco’s troops cut off their supply lines by bombing them. They had no food, medicine, water or ammunition. They died in thousands on that hill and the war was lost.
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“Better to die on your feet than live forever on your knees.” ~ Dolores Ibárruri
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Well Tarragona (or Tarraco in Latin), not far from the Delta of the Ebro was once the base of the Roman Empire in Spain (Hispania). It was the most important port of the Eastern seabord of the peninsula in the reign of Julius Caesar around 25BC, and then Augustus who lived there too. Where 50,000 of the Roman legions and sailors spent their winters and watched the gladiators fight in the great Ampitheatre which largely survives today.
When I was there around 2005 the US 5th Fleet visited on an historic tour and anchored their huge aircraft carrier offshore. Of the 5,000 men and women on board there were only two who visited the old Roman city on their shore leave. And that was told to me by the old man who looked after the ticket-box at the entrance.
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Tim, when I attended an explosives recon (EORA) course in the Philippines I met a Filipino guy who told me his grandfather was Irish and I asked him the family name, he said it was Briscoe and that he had left Ireland to fight in Spain, from there he traveled to France and ended up in the Philippines. He sounded like an adventurer, but what was oddest of all in meeting this man was that my dad’s mother was also a Briscoe, so the connections continue. Was it not a fantastic coincidence that your Spanish teacher went to live in Australia and that you had the chance to meet her again, another thread in life’s story, and a lovely story it is, thanks for sharing Tim
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Hi James, it’s a small world as they say! What a coincidence to meet someone like the Filipino man who is related through your mother’s family. I wonder if he is still alive? Would he have written anything down about his own father and grandfather? Yes, at the end of the Civil War a lot of the Red’s escaped across the Pyrenees into France where they were safe. Sadly many thousands didn’t and were either killed or imprisoned for life.
Did you know that in the early 70’s Franco offered a general pardon to old Republican fighters who were still in hiding (after 30 years). The ones that did accept were promptly arrested. He was a monster, but I have to agree there were atrocities on both sides.
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What an amazing story of an amazing lady, made me cry
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Thank you Colette, so glad you enjoyed the story. She was an amazing lady and very humble. What I recounted is absolutely true. I never did find out exactly what happened to her apart from what she told me and she would not say any more. But I suspect that one of those men who came down from the mountains was her husband.
“Better to die on your feet than live forever on your knees.” ~ Dolores Ibárruri
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This is a little strange but… I have a book called, A Happy Death, by Albert Camus. You might have heard of it. I bought it in 2013 from a second hand book shop in Melbourne. I’m sorry to say I scribbled all over it during one of my manic phases. You know, highlighting sentences, making notes. But at least I did it out of love.
I opened it up tonight, for the first time in quite some time, only to find out it was published in 1973. I also found a name and address on one of the first few pages. The name was ‘Mercedes Keating’ and the address was, well… I don’t know how personal that is, so I’ll just say Dublin. I looked it up on Google maps and found a house. I don’t know if it’s hers or not, but it could be. Then I found myself here.
So, what do you think? It seems to me I’ve found the Mercedes Keating I was searching for.
Do you know if she read Camus? Or how one of her books would’ve ended up in Melbourne?
I’m sure she’d be mad about me scribbling in her book. If I knew then what I know now, I never would’ve done it.
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Hello! Thank you for your interesting comment. I think Mercedes may have taken the Albert Camus book with her from Dublin when she settled in Sydney in the mid-eighties. She was an avid reader and had hundreds of books in her flat when I met her. I am not sure how the book you bought came to rest in Melbourne; perhaps after her death her belongings were sold.
It is a long time ago but I seem to recall that she lived in Wellington Place in Dublin. Does that match the address she wrote in the book? I am sure she would only laugh about your scribblings in the book, she had a great sense of humour! Where do you live?
Kindest regards,
JH
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Reblogged this on United Irish Ex-Services Association Australia.
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