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 (Terrassa, 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 exploring 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 compress the story of Caridad del Río a lot. The conditions of the prize forced me to do a very interesting synthesis exercise that was a great challenge. And when 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, after all, it is the story of a woman.

And what attracts you so much about 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 doesn't last long. When she marries Pau Mercader, son of the industrial bourgeoisie, what is expected of her is that she be a lady of Sant Gervasi, a bourgeois. But she is a rebellious woman and the marriage doesn't 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 came to know communism closely. And when this man has an accident and disappears, Caritat enters into a self-destructive spiral 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 goes to the front lines of 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 the same, 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 find him expressly and tells him not to risk his life, that there are other ways to fight for his life.

But it ends up involving 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 soul in the shadow of the conspiracy. But over time all that has ended up being explained in other ways, and Charity's direct involvement in the murder is not so clear. There is still much to be written about this woman, she will have more scope in the form of novels, comics... or in the audiovisual world: films will be made, about Caridad del Río, because she offers a lot of material.

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

— That she explained an infinity of exaggerations about herself to make her legend bigger and that, 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 is a challenge to make a biography of such a character.

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

Trotsky's death in the award 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 one can follow the great historical events of the 20th century.

— It is that Caridad 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, she is seen with a rifle on La Rambla, she was directly involved. She also played a leading role in the arrest of General Godet and in the organization of the columns that went to the Aragón front. There was one called the Caridad Mercader column, where two bombs fell near her and she survived by a miracle. Furthermore, she is the first foreign woman to receive the Order of Lenin, of great prestige for the Soviets. Beyond the Trotsky affair, she carried out many other missions: in Turkey, in the Scandinavian countries, Belgium, Hungary... Even in Franco's Spain.

Did he 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 disenchantment 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 salon revolutionary, and believes that her task is of utmost importance and deserves commensurate treatment. And that is why they give her caviar, a wonderful apartment in Moscow, and finally, a luxurious retirement with a lifelong pension in Paris, because it is so cold in Moscow that she cannot 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 risks a lot, she gives herself body and soul. 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 taking center stage in history and wonders to what extent it has all served any purpose. 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 are still there. And for publishers it is still 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 to convince and to understand that, if it's not for us, this will not go any further. Publishers, authors, and readers form a circle, a virtuous chain that we have to keep feeding. Do we do it out of militancy? Yes. Now, what is the alternative? To give up. And that is not the solution to anything. It is up to all of us, as far 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 things from 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.