SPANISH LETTER
by one the accused, called on by court or prosecutor, rise and acknowl–
edge the confessions. Only one balks at a detail. He does not recall it.
He is ordered to look at the signature of the deposition. Is it his?
It
is,
but he cannot remember making the statement in point. Again, more
impatiently, does he recognize the signature as his own? He does.
Obviously, then, the statement is his. He is ordered to sit and he stiffly
obeys. All the prisoners with the exception of two elderly men rise and
stand with a military bearing, infected by the manner of the tribunal.
To see them play the soldierly game and stand like
hombres honrados
to verify confessions extracted, everyone knows, in the cellars of the
Seguridad
affects me painfully, like the injection of a depressant that
thickens the heartbeat. No doubt it is very
castizo,
purely and essentially
Spanish, that the prisoners should conduct themselves like captives in
an honorable war, and probably it also sustains them to stand at atten–
tion, but I have a horror of this game as I do of the commandante's
bouncing and pivoting game in the pension, his peevish chivalry.
Each of the prisoners answers questions. The defense does not
cross-examine them, no evidence is introduced, and there are no wit–
nesses. You become aware, when the prosecutor stands up, of his large
hands and powerful body; they give an effect of incongruity to the
meticulousness of his uniform. He makes a neat prosecutor's packet of
the depositions: "It is admitted ... it is admitted ... according to the
statements of Fulano de Tal. . . . " Not until he concludes does he
become bullish and exhortatory. He puts forth his strong voice suddenly.
In cold blood, lifting up his chest, he begins to thunder that crimes
"in a foreign spirit" against a whole people cannot be pardoned and
he asks that the leader of the ten be given a twelve-year sentence and
the rest four years each. W. whispers that this is relatively lenient. Then
the defense lawyer reads a short statement to the effect that in the
Christian democracy of the Caudillo's government there is room for
differences of opinion when the expression of those differences is tem–
perate. These words cause a sighing stir in the gloomy end of the room
where the families sit. The prosecutor speaks for another half-hour in
reply, his showmanship at times becoming perfunctory. This is a very
minor trial. He towers before the window in the clear morning light of
Castile and makes his last summation, reads from notes, and repeats
his demand for twelve years and four. The time served awaiting trial
does not count. The president of the tribunal now asks each of the
prisoners in turn whether he has anything to say before sentence is
passed. Six do not. The seventh, however, the leader of the ten, starts
227
