Child of the Sit-Downs_ The Revolutionary Life of Genora Dollinger - Carlton Jackson [86]
By early July, Genora and Sol had crossed into post-Franco Spain (the dictator had died in 1975) and were happy to be back. She would “loved to have lived” in Parador San Telmo: “It’s so tranquil, so restful, so satisfying for those who love nature and beauty.” In Santiago de Compestela, Sol accidentally locked the car keys in the trunk. The young man who rescued them, and others at the Avis car rental office, turned out to be Socialists, another pleasing turn of events for the traveling couple.
Outside of Santiago de Compestela, Sol picked up two hitchhikers and learned that they were merchant mariners, just as he had been in World War II. They belonged to a seaman’s union that had gone underground during Franco’s regime; the headquarters was in Naples, Italy. Genora and Sol were impressed that a union could have been maintained during the Franco years. “We had grave doubts,” Sol said, “that an American union could have survived in similar circumstances.” They picked up another hitchhiker, twenty-five-year-old Pablo Prieto Gomez and were surprised to learn that he was a Socialist, too. He regaled the two Americans with the political activity of the provinces of Asturias, Catalan, and Galicia and how they wanted political autonomy, if not complete independence, from Madrid. He predicted troublesome days ahead. Coming out of Santander, they picked up a couple named Olga and Felipe. “What a surprise!” Genora exclaims in her diary. They were Trotskyists, still illegal in Spain, and took a terrible chance by telling the Dollingers who they actually were. (Perhaps they were so talkative because at first they took the Dollingers to be French tourists.) Olga was a government employee, no less, and Felipe a university student, and both worked in close contact with the Spanish Communist Party. The Trotskyists in Spain, Olga and Felipe told the Dollingers, numbered 30,000 strong, an unbelievably large count to the Americans.
In Valladolid, a “toothless” Spanish cop hassled them until he saw that they had written down the license number of his motorcycle; this was one victory the tourists savored forever after. They drove on through this most fascinating of European countries and finally arrived in Madrid, which was “noisier” and had “more bustle” than on previous trips. They looked for the Trotskyist headquarters in Madrid; Olga, their hitchhiker, had provided the address. It turned out to be the residence of an accountant in a middle-class neighborhood. Genora rang the doorbell and a young man opened it. She explained that she and Sol were Socialists from the United States and only wanted to find the headquarters for the Trotskyists in Madrid. “At the end of a long hallway,” Genora explained, “was a picture of Leon Trotsky when he was the leader of the 1905 revolution in Petrograd. . . . I was amused to think this was an underground organization operating illegally, and the accountant was giving me the address of their headquarters without checking my credentials.” The Trotskyist headquarters in Madrid “was reminiscent of the SWP Headquarters in New York City” in 1939. They saw mounds of promotional pamphlets on tables throughout the room, but the young host, “while polite,” showed no interest in talking to the Dollingers about the United States or the Trotskyist movement there.
By Saturday, July 16, Genora had fallen ill. She had a tightness in her chest and a sore throat. “Ain’t fair!” she told her diary. There were so many things to do in Madrid, and now she was laid