Pep Brocal: "There is still much to be written about Caridad del Río"

BarcelonaIn 2020, a 14-page comic biography of Caritat del Río made Pep Brocal (Tarrasa, 1967) the first winner of the Premi ARA de Còmic. A few years later, the cartoonist revisits and expands that project in the form of a graphic novel –published by Garbuix in Catalan and Spanish– to continue delving into the chiaroscuro of one of the most mysterious figures of the 20th century, a spy in the service of communism who pulled the strings of history.

What drives you to turn the 14 pages of Caritat del Río

into 144?

— The very fact that in 14 pages I had to greatly condense the story of Caridad del Río. The conditions of the prize forced me to undertake a very interesting synthesis exercise that was a great challenge. And when the editor Montserrat Terrones came with the proposal to turn it into a long book, I thought that would allow me to develop it. However, it could have been 400 pages, because the era allows for a lot: a civil war, a world war, the Cold War, Soviet espionage, communism, Barcelona, Moscow, Mexico, Paris... But, in the end, it is the story of a woman.

And what attracts you so much to this woman to have already dedicated two works to her?

— It is polyhedral and evolves over time. As a child, when she entered the Carmelites, she had mystical outbursts and wanted to dedicate her life to Jesus, but that didn't last long. When she married Pau Mercader, son of the industrial bourgeoisie, what was expected of her was to be a lady from Sant Gervasi, a bourgeois woman. But she is a rebellious woman and the marriage does not make her happy, especially when her husband admits her to a psychiatric hospital. This will be the definitive break. But she had more loves, and with one she got to know communism closely. And when this man has an accident and disappears, Caritat enters into self-destructive drift and only communism rescues her. She will cling to it like a red-hot iron. Her faith, which was previously for Jesus, she deposited in Stalin. And for Stalin she marched to the front in the Civil War, but she realizes that it is very dangerous and that there is another way to fight for communism: behind the scenes.

In the comic you quote a phrase from Dolores Ibárruri, laPasionaria, who said that she and Charity were equal, but that she worked in broad daylight and Charity moved behind the scenes. Both had lost a son fighting for communism.

— Yes, it is true. Charity finds her way to fight and tries to instill it in her son, Ramón, who is fighting on the Madrid front. She goes to look for him expressly and tells him not to risk his life, that there are other ways to fight for his life.

But it ends up entangling him in a plot to kill Trotsky with an ice axe, which doesn't seem like the safest way to fight for communism.

— It is the POUM people who place her behind the operation, as the shadow soul of the conspiracy. But over time, all this has ended up being explained in other ways, and Caridad's direct involvement in the murder is not so clear. There is still much to be written about this woman, she will have more impact in the form of novels, comics... or in the audiovisual world: films will be made, of Caridad del Río, because she offers a lot of possibilities.

The ARA Award comic strip you made during confinement with the information you had at home. What have you discovered about Caritat del Río now that you have researched her better?

— Which explained an infinity of exaggerations about herself to make her legend bigger and which, at the same time, allowed her to do her job more calmly. She had created a character and lied even to the Soviets about things where you would say: "And now, why is she lying to them?" This is where the comic's subtitle comes from: Truths, half-truths, and lies, because many things that are taken for granted are lies, and they are all things that depend on a single witness, which is herself.

It's a challenge to make a biography of such a character.

— Yes, that's why the subterfuge of the half-truths of the subtitle, which is a kind of position from which I can work. An essay on Caridad del Río like Gregorio Luri's has to be measured, realistic, but the comic or the novel are in the dramatic realm and I have to take liberties for it to also work as a narrative.

Trotsky's death in the prize comic was much more brutal than in the graphic novel. Why?

— Because I had already done it before and to differentiate the two projects. Furthermore, it is easy for the character of Ramon Mercader to end up stealing many pages from his mother, and I want to explain the story of Caritat del Río. It is inevitable to address the facts of the murder, but I tried to redirect the gaze so that it was not so present, and also so that, at times, it works better if we have to imagine it.

It is curious that through Caridad del Río the great historical events of the 20th century can be followed.

— It is that Caritat del Río stars in the history of the 20th century. She is at the forefront of the communist vanguard and works for Stalin, but she is also one of the founders of the PSUC and, when the Civil War breaks out, they see her with a rifle on La Rambla, she was directly involved. She also plays a leading role in the arrest of General Godet and in the organization of the columns that go to the Aragón front. There was one called the Caritat Mercader column, where two bombs fell near her and she miraculously survived. Furthermore, she is the first foreign woman to receive the Order of Lenin, of great prestige for the Soviets. Beyond the Trotsky affair, she starred in many other missions: in Turkey, in the Scandinavian countries, Belgium, Hungary... Even in Franco's Spain.

Did he/she return after the war?

— He first tried in the 50s, and they denied him permission. But in 1971, it seems he asked to enter and Arias Navarro granted him permission. All of this is information that needs to be investigated further and verified. Perhaps it will never be fully known, but it is clear that he participated in the Cold War. In the same way that, towards the end of his life, he began to be disappointed with communism.

But his disillusionment has more to do with personal matters than with Stalin's purges and mass exterminations.

— Yes, it is a self-interested disappointment: she is basically disappointed with the treatment she and her son receive. She is, after all, a drawing-room revolutionary, and believes that her task is extremely important and deserves commensurate treatment. And that's why they give her caviar, a wonderful apartment in Moscow, and finally, a luxurious retirement with a lifelong pension in Paris, because it's so cold in Moscow that she can't live there. Even so, she is convinced that she deserves even more.

Deep down, she never stopped being a lady from Sant Gervasi.

— Surely. The thing is that she also has the anarchist component that they instill in her when she is young. She is a character who takes a lot of risks, she puts her whole self into it. In Paris, she is already living a period of decline and withdraws into her circle of close friends. She dedicates herself to smoking, reading detective novels, and knitting and crocheting. She stops being the protagonist of the story and wonders to what extent it has all been worthwhile. Why didn't she dedicate her life to horses, which made her so happy. From a fictional character, you always expect them to be dynamic and evolve, and she was.

Speaking of evolution, how do you see that of Catalan in comics? When you won the Premi ARA, you had never been able to publish in Catalan. Since then you have published two works in Catalan, El llibre de les bèsties and now Caritat del Río.

— The difficulties still exist. And for publishers, it remains a risk to publish comics in Catalan. But I think we have to do it. Publishers and authors have to bet on it. And readers too. There is work to be done in convincing and understanding that, if not for us, this will not progress. Publishers, authors, and readers form a circle, a virtuous chain that we have to keep feeding. Are we doing it out of militancy? Yes. Now, what is the alternative? Giving up. And that is not the solution to anything. It is up to all of us, as much as possible, to keep insisting. It is the only way to bring about change.

Behind the enthusiasm for the good news that Catalan comics have left in recent years, could there also be an excess of complacency?

— Perhaps yes. Catalans have always been undone by triumphalism as much as by defeatism. Neither one nor the other is the solution to anything. And there is no reason to feel triumphalist.

By the way, after Caridad del Río, you published another comic with Astiberri, Anatomy of a Skeleton, your return to fiction.

— It is the story of a comic book artist who returns from love to reclaim his work, with a lot of lived experience but also a lot of fantasy.

And the transcendental line ofUnderworld or Alter and Walter or the invisible truth…?

— It has elements of these works, because it is also a journey to the other shore and, in a way, to the search for oneself. It has an existentialist component behind it. It is difficult to detach oneself from some discourses and ideas.