“Tovarich Karkov,” he said.
“You are preparing the attack?” Karkov said insolently, nodding toward the map.
“I am studying it,” Marty answered.
“Are you attacking? Or is it Golz?” Karkov asked smoothly.
“I am only a commissar, as you know,” Marty told him.
“No,” Karkov said. “You are modest. You are really a general. You have your map and your field glasses. But were you not an admiral once, Comrade Marty?”
“I was a gunner’s mate,” said Marty. It was a lie. He had really been a chief yeoman at the time of the mutiny. But he thought now, always, that he had been a gunner’s mate.
“Ah. I thought you were a first-class yeoman,” Karkov said. “I always get my facts wrong. It is the mark of the journalist.”
The other Russians had taken no part in the conversation. They were both looking over Marty’s shoulder at the map and occasionally making a remark to each other in their own language. Marty and Karkov spoke French after the first greeting.
“It is better not to get facts wrong in Pravda,” Marty said. He said it brusquely to build himself up again. Karkov always punctured him. The French word is dégonfler and Marty was worried and made wary by him. It was hard, when Karkov spoke, to remember with what importance he, André Marty, came from the Central Committee of the French Communist Party. It was hard to remember, too, that he was untouchable. Karkov seemed always to touch him so lightly and whenever he wished. Now Karkov said, “I usually correct them before I send them to Pravda, I am quite accurate in Pravda. Tell me, Comrade Marty, have you heard anything of any message coming through for Golz from one of our partizan groups operating toward Segovia? There is an American comrade there named Jordan that we should have heard from. There have been reports of fighting there behind the fascist lines. He would have sent a message through to Golz.”
“An American?” Marty asked. Andrés had said an Inglés. So that is what it was. So he had been mistaken. Why had those fools spoken to him anyway?”
“Yes,” Karkov looked at him contemptuously, “a young American of slight political development but a great way with the Spaniards and a fine partizan record. Just give me the dispatch, Comrade Marty. It has been delayed enough.”
“What dispatch?” Marty asked. It was a very stupid thing to say and he knew it. But he was not able to admit he was wrong that quickly and he said it anyway to delay the moment of humiliation.
“The dispatch in your pocket from young Jordan to Golz,” Karkov said through his bad teeth.
André Marty put his hand in his pocket and laid the dispatch on the table. He looked Karkov squarely in the eye. All right. He was wrong and there was nothing he could do about it now but he was not accepting any humiliation. “And the safe-conduct pass,” Karkov said softly.
Marty laid it beside the dispatch.
“Comrade Corporal,” Karkov called in Spanish.
The corporal opened the door and came in. He looked quickly at André Marty, who stared back at him like an old boar which has been brought to bay by hounds. There was no fear on Marty’s face and no humiliation. He was only angry, and he was only temporarily at bay. He knew these dogs could never hold him.
“Take these to the two comrades in the guard room and direct them to General Golz’s headquarters,” Karkov said. “There has been too much delay.”
The corporal went out and Marty looked after him, then looked at Karkov.
“Tovarich Marty,” Karkov said, “I am going to find out just how untouchable you are.”
Marty looked straight at him and said nothing.
“Don’t start to have any plans about the corporal, either,” Karkov went on. “It was not the corporal. I saw the two men in the guard room and they spoke to me” (this was a lie). “I hope all men always will speak to me” (this was the truth although it was the corporal who had spoken). But Karkov had this belief in the good which could come from his own accessibility and the humanizing possibility of benevolent intervention. It was the one thing he was never cynical about.
“You know when I am in the U.S.S.R. people write to me in Pravda when there is an injustice in a town in Azerbaijan. Did you know that? They say ‘Karkov will help us.”
André Marty looked at him with no expression on his face except anger and dislike. There was nothing in his mind now but that Karkov had done something against him. All right, Karkov, power and all, could watch out.