Nominated for the Nordic Council’s Literature Award 2003

Have you betrayed your ideals – or have they betrayed you?

BY DAGNÝ KRISTJÁNSDÓTTIR AND SOFFÍA AUÐUR BIRGISDÓTTIR

Álfrún Gunnlaugsdóttir
Over the River Ebro
Mál og Menning. IS

Three Icelanders took part in the Spanish Civil War in 1936-1939, and one of them wrote a painful book about his war experiences. Álfrún Gunnlaugsdóttir (born 1938) bases her novel Over the River Ebro partly on the story of this Icelander, as well as on other historical sources and a thorough knowledge of Spanish culture and history. Álfrún Gunnlaugsdóttir studied in Franco’s Spain in the 1960s, and two of her previous books take place partially in Spain.
The novel Over the River Ebro contains a ruthless picture of the Spanish Civil War, which Hitler and Mussolini used as a laboratory for their new weapons of destruction while the rest of Europe kept its powder dry. The narrator, Haraldur, is old and ill when he starts his story. His dear wife has left him; but his son comes round almost every day to look after his old and difficult father, who spends most of his time sitting in the dark, lost in his memories. During the flight out of Spain in 1938 he was forced to leave behind his friend Anders, who had little chance of survival. Anders made him promise to tell the world what they had seen during their time as volunteers for the Republicans. He must tell the world about the betrayals committed by Europe’s Great Powers, who turned their backs on what was happening in Spain as the Fascists advanced. Teasingly, Anders adds “I won’t ask you to tell them about the betrayals committed by the Communists”. Haraldur does neither. He decides to say nothing, to draw a curtain of forgetfulness down over what happened and repress everything. This decision affects his whole life and his relationship with everything and everyone. But ultimately the things he has repressed return in full force. He realises that nothing has been forgotten, and nothing has been dealt with properly. The old soldier relives it all, and all his traumas re-appear one after the other. The memories return slowly and in no particular chronological order at first, but gradually they take shape and the horrors of the war become clear to him once again.
Over the River Ebro is a great anti-war novel. Many authors have written about the Spanish Civil War – Ernest Hemingway being the most famous of them, perhaps. But Álfrún Gunnlaugsdóttir’s version is different in a number of major respects. The volunteers spend most of their time waiting around in disgust, feeling that they have been dragged unwittingly into some kind of absurd play at the theatre. They are moved around like cattle, and are given very little information about the war – apart from vague rumours to add to the socialist slogans that become increasingly meaningless to them. Their heroic intentions of fighting for freedom and truth are transformed into an undramatic wait for food, delousing and clean clothes. Bodily functions play a big role in the novel, and so does food … will they get anything to eat, will it be edible, and will it satisfy their eternal hunger? Any food the volunteers do eat has been taken from the starving people they have come to help, which doesn’t exactly make things any easier.
Finally the young men get to fight against the enemy, and this is when disillusionment really starts to set in. The battles are lost before they start, the situation is totally chaotic, and the foreigners are used as cannon fodder. Gradually this all becomes apparent to them, and paranoia is added to their angst and exhaustion. They also discover gradually what is going on behind the scenes among the leaders of the freedom fighters, and learn of bloody conflicts between the socialists – a struggle for power and confusion that makes the war in which they are being killed even more chaotic. “I didn’t betray the ideals”, says Haraldur to his socialist brother-in-law. “The ideals betrayed me”.
The novel paints a completely undramatic picture of war, and it is interesting to note that this interpretation of war is the work of a female pacifist. But Over the River Ebro contains more than a criticism of the Spanish Civil War. It also criticises the promises and broken promises of socialism, which have left such a deep mark on the history of the last century. Remembering, reliving and dealing with his past constitute a painful process for old Haraldur. But the process also makes him realise that his beloved wife did not leave him – she is dead. At the end of the book he can face up to his situation – which is at least some sort of achievement…

Dagný Kristjánsdóttir is a professor of literature
Soffia Auður Birgisdóttir, MA (literature)

Translated by Nick Wrigley