Fiesta in April Read online

  Fiesta in April

  Berta Reich, Ph.D.

  Austin Macauley Publishers

  Fiesta in April

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Copyright Information ©

  Acknowledgement

  About the Work

  Part One

  Fiesta in April

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Part Four

  About the Author

  Berta Reich, formerly known as Berta Savariego, is the author of bilingual texts for use in medical and business settings. She has also published a compilation of poems and short stories, and other academic works related to Sephardic life and culture. She has been writer and producer in educational television series and has received awards for her work in academic and community circles. Fiesta in April was first published in its original Spanish-language edition in 1981.

  About the Book

  Originally published in Spanish in 1981, Fiesta in April is a story about political prisoners, and the abuses and psychological torture they face. As opposed to using conventional prose, the author weaves dramatic poetry into a reportage-type of narrative, capturing the heavy emotion and raw expression of people in unthinkable situations. This new English-language edition stays true to the original musicality and poetry of the Spanish, and rings heavy and true with current events and the state of the world.

  “Poetic impact is obtained by merging seemingly incongruous things and repeating resonating songs and phrases. Some verses have a rhythmic accent together with a variety of cadences. The final passage of the book, composed in the form of a dialogue, possesses a marked poetic quality.”

  Dedication

  To my friend and partner in life, Hershel. May there be many healthy and long years together to do God’s work on Earth.

  Copyright Information ©

  Berta Reich, Ph.D. (2019)

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

  Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  Ordering Information:

  Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

  Reich, Ph.D., Berta

  Fiesta in April: A Prisoner’s Memoir

  ISBN 9781645367758 (ePub e-book)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019910722

  The main category of the book — FICTION / Contemporary Women

  www.austinmacauley.com/us

  First Published (2019)

  Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

  40 Wall Street, 28th Floor

  New York, NY 10005

  USA

  [email protected]

  +1 (646) 5125767

  Acknowledgement

  I hold in high esteem the entire publishing group at the New York office of Austin Macauley for being supportive and encouraging at crucial times in the development of this work. I feel especially indebted to the editorial staff for so carefully combing through the manuscript and improving its original form. The book should do good, and I very much hope that it does, by binging the light of information to a particular area of darkness that still exists. We, as responsible human beings living in our time, will do more than just be entertained by it as with a piece of fictional work. Reality lies under its format, and here the written word exposes it.

  About the Work

  Fiesta in April is a novel about political prisoners. It focuses on the human issue; the psychological development of those who find themselves as the victims, their alienation, the physical and mental torments that are a part of their everyday life. All of the information in it is authentic; it is based on actual research and interviews. If the theme of brutality and the atmosphere of violence are here treated in a mood that is both calm and lyrical, it is an effort to use literary technique to disclose a subject of contemporary impact.

  Time in Fiesta in April is neither chronological nor mechanical. Events do not follow a linear pattern but instead are interspersed, as the images are released by the mental associations of the prisoner. The focus is on the action itself, not when it happened, since the past is always present and any part of it can be brought back at any time with the appropriate stimulus such as the sound of ‘clanging metals.’ The only concrete reference to time is the month of April, associated with dead memories and lost hopes.

  Since the narrative develops as an interior monologue, the reader views reality as the character perceives it, from within. This reality is then psychological and it is up to the reader to infer concepts and derive conclusions from it on his own. The prisoner’s story could have been a nightmare, his own distorted vision, or it could be the insight into a truth that should not be ignored.

  As opposed to using conventional prose, Savariego weaves dramatic poetry into a reportage type of narrative.

  “Poetic impact is obtained by merging seemingly incongruous things and repeating resonant words and phrases… Some verses have rhythmic accent together with a variety of cadences. The final passage of the book, composed in the form of a dialogue, possesses a marked poetic quality,”

  – Harvey L. Johnson, University of Houston, on the 1981 original Spanish language edition.

  “It is exasperating to realize that people still consider literature to be like the playing of a violin: an entertainment that can harm no one.”

  Camilo Jose Cela, La Colmena, 2nd edition.

  "April is the cruellest month, breeding

  Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

  Memory and desire, stirring

  Dull roots with spring rain."

  T. S. Eliot, “The Burial of the Dead”,

  The Waste Land and Other Poems

  Part One

  Fiesta in April

  The room was smaller than my cell. There were six of them; we were seated at a metal table. Two were in front of me and two on either side. There were no windows in the room, only white walls and glaring lights that struck me in the face, so intense at times I had to shut my eyes. Then their faces would change before me, strangely distorted. Their eyes seemed to disappear in their sockets, their features to take on a strange cast.

  There was no room for me to move at all. The interrogation began decently; it was casual at first, the conversation, almost congenial. I answered their questions, but wouldn’t give them the information they wanted. They didn’t like that and with every question, the tension increased. The one facing me said, “Look, you, you may as well talk; nobody’s getting you out of here in one piece, no matter what.” I was more aware of the danger I was in than they were, but I was determined not to break the promise I had made to myself, the one that had caused me to fall into their hands in the first place. These men with odious faces would never get anything out of me; my hide was of little concern to me now. The light glared in my eyes; the gesturing shapes loomed over me.

  Now, they were getting impatient. It had been eleven hours and they hadn’t wrung a confession from me, not one name, not one word that would compromise anyone on the outside. The man on my right yelled out, “Here you keep shoveling out this crap while some guy out there is fucking your woman right this minut
e. She’s living it up, listening to one of our comrades telling her how sweet and pretty she is. They’ve told her you’re not ever getting out of here, not in one piece. She’s a whore! Man, is she wild.” I already knew that some of those men with cars and nice clothes spent their time making love to prisoners’ wives. The women gave in out of desperation, to be able to live.

  These men had but one objective: to destroy our morale, to make us give up our convictions. But it wouldn’t work on me; I wouldn’t allow them to insult my life companion. For the first time I yelled back at them, “You look in your own house for a whore; you won’t find one in mine.” As I spoke the walls seemed to close in on me and the light burned me with its heat, and I screamed loudly so they would hear me clearly, “You are a rotten excuse for humanity, lower than any animal. I’m a man; a real man dies fighting for his cause.” Before I knew what was happening, the man on my left slammed his revolver down on the table. I was so startled by the clanging metal, I thought the walls and ceiling of that tiny room were caving in on me. As I jumped up and grabbed a chair to defend myself from those beasts, I heard the one who had banged the table with his gun yell, “Motherfucking coward.”

  They asked me if I was ready to talk. I told them I was, so that I could rest a while. They had given me an injection to wake me up. They do that whenever a prisoner has lost consciousness. They had kept me standing in the middle of my cell with my hands bound and then tied to the shackles on my feet. From standing there, day after day, my feet were swollen and my legs ulcerated where the veins had broken from lack of circulation. I had had to relieve myself right where I stood, in the middle of my cell.

  A man told me that if I confessed and cooperated with them, that is, if I decided to collaborate, they would be generous with me. They were the captors; I was the captive. All I had to my account was a conscience and a body struggling to survive the daily inhumanity around me. I refused to talk. Then one of them said, “Go to Hell. You’ve really fucked up now.” They didn’t take me back to the same cell.

  Incommunicado—sixty to ninety days. In the floor, a hole; all around me, windows and doors. From out there they watched me, spied on me. Then the light, the unbearable heat, the light that forced my eyes shut. After that, darkness and hunger and cold. When I would be lost in thought, they would slowly open one of the doors, very quietly, so I wouldn’t hear them. Then as I turned my head I would be startled, shaken. Holding a revolver jammed to my head, they would force me to contemplate my own death. My struggle had become one of sheer survival. I had no weapons, no means to do battle; I answered with my only recourse, my will power, determined not to let them break me.

  Dogs, vicious dogs—they were coming so close and we were bound—even closer; we stiffened in horror. It was daybreak now. We had been carted off to a place so remote there was no sound of cars, only an occasional whistle of a distant train. Naked and frail, we shivered from the morning chill and from the fear of being suddenly ripped to pieces. The dogs’ teeth glistened in the dim light of dawn with the piercing whiteness of the teeth of the men who held us there, bound.

  The grass looked high and it looked damp. Too green, too dark, and too disturbed for that late hour of the night. Why was the condensed milk sprinkled all over us? They sat us in the grass that swarmed with ants and bound us to the trees. Inconceivable, excruciating pain. Grass and men—devouring us. If we cried out, our mouths were stuffed with gauze and sealed with tape. They kept us there for hours, to the point of madness.

  Still bound, we were thrown into a nearby well. Could that have been a symbolic act, perhaps a kind of baptism?

  One evening they offered us the opportunity for a bath. We were outside; our hands were tied. No one objected. About midnight six of them showed up, in a car. “Stretch out there, you sons of bitches,” one of the fellows yelled at us. “Now you’ll remember your goddam mother,” added another.

  Cursing the members of our families in the coarsest manner, they proceeded to engage in the lowest form of sexual behavior. We were left in a miserable state. The moon had waned, pale with shame.

  All we had wanted was tranquility, honesty, constitutional order, a hope for peace, and a happy future for our people. But we had failed. Too many had obtained places of high position who were motivated by a desire for controlling power and selfish gain. Then from the sierra, a voice of deceit demanded loyalty and obedience from the workers of the country.

  The exodus was considered respectable, even for those whom you thought might have stayed to fight. Some said, “I’m afraid; if you’re detained, you’ll be forced to talk.” Others squeezed you by the arm and asked, “So you’re a patriot? Not me!” It would have been easier to take that route, but I had long since made my decision.

  Those of us that continued as activists regrouped. We had an infiltrator in the new organization. Eight of us were imprisoned.

  I could no longer see my brothers and sisters, my fine, dear wife, or the extension of our love who had been alive for three short years and who at such a tender age would miss the affection of her father and the warmth of his presence, and fond glances.

  By that time, I already had the feeling they were looking for me. I thought I would be taken before too long. Some man had called the house repeatedly and insisted that it was urgent he saw me. I had been successful in avoiding him up to that point. Whenever he called, someone would tell him, “He’s out of the city right now.”

  I had considered trying to escape, but had had no luck in providing asylum for my family. If I left by myself, my family would suffer the consequences. I couldn’t let my wife and daughter be punished for my crime, whatever that might be. I had no idea really of what I would be accused of when they took me. I realized that that uncertainty was to be part of my punishment.

  I decided to agree to the meeting. We were to meet at my car that evening. The man identified himself as being in charge of strategy and sabotage; he said he needed my help. I knew, of course, he was a traitor to our cause. “Where are the other men?” he asked, beginning his ploy.

  Realizing the tact, I responded, “That’s what I would like to know.” It was hot inside the car in the dark. I sensed we were being watched from a nearby corner. Thinking I would put him off the track, I added, “I was out of town the night they rounded them up.” The glint in his eyes made me afraid, not only for myself but for many others, because the man seemed to savor his insidious power over me in this situation.

  Then he surprised me: “And what about you? Are you in hiding?” I felt the sweat breaking out on my forehead and neck.

  I unbuttoned my shirt slowly, deliberately, and measured my words in an attempt to act as if it didn’t concern me, “Well, of course, I take precautions; but look, as far as the fight is concerned, forget it. It’s lost. I haven’t had anything to do with it for a long time. I don’t get involved.”

  Two-faced scoundrel that he was, and well-trained in this sinister game, this official of the State didn’t believe one word of what I was telling him and he was visibly upset; while I, on the other hand, continued to declare that I was reluctant to go on fighting and had no desire to be further involved.

  “Start the motor,” he said, pointing to the steering wheel. I thought I was being kidnapped. I had to keep calm, to appear undisturbed and confident. “Turn here, toward town.”

  “Listen,” he said, pursuing his effort to get me to talk, “we have to reorganize and keep up the fight.” And he added, “Look, don’t play dumb. I’m sure you know where the arms are kept; we’ve got to free our men in prison.”

  But I insisted, “I don’t know anything about any arms and, in any case, I don’t see the least chance for success.”

  Then he talked about reorganizing our strength and men in order to join new contingents and carry out a rescue. He planned to use me as the liaison between the forces since I was a veteran of the fighting. When I wouldn’t cooperate, he decided to look for another way to get to me and he said, “Well, I’ll ma
ke the contacts but I need money.”

  He complained that he didn’t have the money, that the organization wouldn’t pay his expenses, that his little girl had hardly anything but milk for the last two days. I told him that not because of the movement but because I had a daughter too, I would give him the money I carried with me so his child could have something to eat.

  After I had given him all I had in my billfold, he asked me to let him out downtown at the next corner. As soon as he got out, I drove to a cafe and called my wife to tell her I was OK, and would be home shortly.

  The meeting was over. I knew that by daybreak I would no longer be home.

  I warned everyone I could and took everything out of the house that might implicate us. I looked thoughtfully at my daughter and I kissed my wife. Ten-thirty. I decided to try to catch some sleep. At four-thirty they came for me. After a careful search, they told my wife I was going with them but would not be long. I was thankful she managed to stay calm.

  They put a pistol to my back to make me leave and headed me toward my car. One of them asked me who it was that lived in my basement. I lied, “A family I don’t even know.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” he retorted. “Right now, you’re our concern.”

  “Drive,” he ordered, still pointing the gun at me. They took away my car keys when we reached the office for interrogation. My car must have been really popular; my family was bombarded with traffic tickets despite the fact that my wife repeatedly reported that I was in prison.

  The truth was that I had hidden someone there in my basement—a man who was in charge of weapons in one of the provinces had been hiding from those pursuing him. He needed my protection and I had offered him a somewhat precarious asylum which served his purposes while he planned his escape.

  Later, during all the initial interrogations, the character who was in my basement was mentioned again. I was told that he had been caught and that he had stated that we had close connections. I had tried to warn him that my own detention was imminent, before those men came. I thought that he had succeeded in escaping through the back when they came to get me. I remained inscrutable in regard to that matter. I would repeat, “I know nothing of that man. I have absolutely no connection with him.” And I insisted that they present evidence if they had it. I thought that if that were the case, the sooner the moment was passed the better. Besides, I was concerned that if that man had been taken, others connected with us could have been detained.