Charity Podría contarse quizá como una historia del París negro de entreguerras, aunque sus ramificaciones nos llevarían a Barcelona, Moscú y Méjico. O también como un relato de espionaje clásico, con agentes infiltrados, operaciones encubiertas y demás ingredientes del género. Pero la realidad suele ser más prosaica, y terrible, sobre todo si de lo que hablamos es del terror y de sus epígonos.
Se llamaba Caridad del Río Hernández. Nació en Santiago de Cuba, en el seno de una acomodada familia española. Tras la pérdida de Cuba, los del Rio moved to Barcelona where they are installed by goods made in overseas family. Charity, receive a thorough education in expensive religious boarding schools as a child of good bourgeois family, England, and later in Barcelona, \u200b\u200ba period in which Charity had strong mystical outbursts, reaching professed as a novice for a short time. At nineteen she married the scion of a respectable family in Barcelona, \u200b\u200bPaul Merchant. Five children were born of the marriage between Paul and Charity: Jorge, Ramon, Pablo, Luis and Montserrat. Soon things start to go wrong, life as a respectable wife and mother Caridad bored and looking for distractions elsewhere. The truth is that the devout Mercader hidden life of dark passions, her husband took her sometimes known brothels for, say, illustrate it with regard to sexuality varied, or perhaps with other motives as shameful, but sex is not what really matters to Charity She wants something more in keeping with their religious passions of youth, and looking in bohemian circles that are not in married life. Like many of his class, came to communism pure aesthetic pleasure, or mysticism, rediscovered, which is to be the same. And here it in the new faith Charity found their raison d'etre. In 1925 he decided to break with everything, leaving Paul Merchant and moved to France with their five children, Toulouse and Bordeaux at the beginning, and in 1928, Paris, surpassing any suicide attempt and a failed attempt at reconciliation with Paul. Charity then is now a fervent communist militant, worship a new god: the working class ever belonged to, "and how could it be otherwise acquires the zeal of the convert.
His delivery does not go unnoticed GPU agents in Paris, which soon captured Soviet agent. Charity has a lot to offer, but everything has its children, who educated in the new faith, and give as a present to the new prophet of the Revolution: Stalin. In Paris, Charity receives direct orders of the Comintern and the GPU, working on issues related primarily to Cuba and Mexico. Not separated from their children, especially of Montserrat and its two most promising male offspring, Ramon and Luis, a true communist family. Charity in their new holiness feels fulfilled.
civil war begins in Spain, and Charity cross the border again, a new socialist motherland is possible. He became one of the most active members of PSUC, and one of the most esteemed pawns Men's NKVD (formerly GPU) in Catalonia. It failed the test of what would work to perfection Republics European folk. Charity is relentless, even approved the punishment of one of his sons, Paul, a punishment that led to the death to move to the forefront. What did Charity at the news? "Mourn in silence and say that the revolution demands sacrifices? Or not even that? No one saw signs of repentance, not of weakness. At that time Charity works closely with Erno Gero "Pedro", the man in Moscow in Catalonia, by Leonid Eitingon he knows, another influential figure in Soviet intelligence services abroad. They became lovers, at least we must assume, the fact is that since then is the real Eitingon Charity mentor and his son Ramon before the Soviet authorities "trusted people", as noted in several reports. The silent and obedient Ramon away from Spain in 37, unknown location, we now know that the USSR was preparing to be a good agent for espionage services. Ramon learns quickly, his mother taught him well, we think perhaps the attitude of rapture of Charity to the promising career of his son.
Eitingon After the war, and Charity living between Mexico and Paris begin to work on sensitive "special missions", basically betrayal, and in some cases, liquidation of Soviet diplomats suspected members of Trotskyist circles, or simply suspects without more, are at the height of Stalinist terror. The group: Eitigon, Caridad and her son Ramon, Moscow is known as the "Group Mother." Ramon hopes will soon be their turn. Charity is dazzled with Eitingon, or what it represents, the action, the dangers, the "vanguard of the struggle for communism" new aesthetics, aesthetics of terror, that dazzles to a bourgeois family well in Barcelona. Eitingon promised marriage, nevertheless has a wife and children in Moscow, Caridad ended up knowing it, and did not care, perhaps because what united Eitingon was not love, if not thanks to what he could achieve: to be the protagonist of history, becoming a martyr of the Revolution. After the failed assassination attempt against Trotsky, Beria and Sudoplatov, the highest authorities of the Soviet security, the task entrusted to Eitingon and Ramon enters the scene. The story of the assassination of Trotsky is known and would for another chapter, perhaps the count, but I would like to end with the story of Charity.
After the death of Trotsky, Charity stops in Moscow. As an agent has given all I could give of, now only a name in a classified file. An apartment in Moscow, a modest pension and a couple of medals, full stop, welcome to the socialist homeland. Was used to good double life outside agent, here everything is different, Caridad is consumed. Get a job alternative, Bulgarian diplomats spying in Moscow, some foreign travel, poor thing, as the agent is burned. Wants to go to Cuba, Mexico ... anywhere, but the authorities give long, dilate your requests, respond with evasive and good intentions, to leave anything, let alone to Mexico. In a conversation with a English exile Moscow, Charity said: "... lack of soul and conscience. Annihilate your will force you to make you kill and then die ... Now I need ... I've done a murderer Ramón, my poor Luis a hostage and my other kids a pure ruins. And what is my reward? Four crap! ". Yes, speaking well is Charity, the inflexible, the martyr. What did you expect? Now get bored in a Moscow apartment, you might assail ghosts, I think not, and Charity wavers. Finally get out of Moscow in 1945, to Cuba, leaving his son Louis as a hostage, not to talk and do not ever go to Mexico. And what chance in Cuba Charity rediscovered his faith, it becomes a fervent communist who try to secure the release of a hero of the Soviet Union, his son Ramon. How easy is now, is Charity? Here in the Caribbean, how easy it is to return to rebuild paradise forever, far from the truth, havens that once they built a boring Catalan bourgeoise. Following the release of Ramon Mercader in 1960 is billed directly to the USSR, was a relic of the Stalinist period that nobody wanted. Charity, who had returned to Paris, he returned to Moscow to meet up with Ramon and Luis. An old skinny and serious, returned to see their children after so long, it embraced them, rebuked them for their unkempt, was once again the usual, perhaps, perhaps a shadow of reproach or regret crossed his mind, but it was late, too late.
Caridad Mercader del Rio, or terror as aesthetic option. Is not unique.
Valencia, Monday April 2. Beautiful weather, sun. No more rain. Splendid spring days are announced in Valencia, I hope, deserted. I do not understand why long.
PS A friendly "minister? Foreign arrives in Cuba to visit the coma-andante. Guided tour of course, no time for more, or will not.