Fault Lines - John Knoop

Now it’s dark and the electric tension has faded from the air. It’s over. But no rain in
those heavy clouds that blew in with the shalloc. There hasn’t been a rain since Christmas. The
torrent, which ran until July last year is already dry. We will have no electricity at all soon. The
crops down on the plain are withering up. But the tourists are in full bloom.
Tanya’s character is beginning to emerge now at fourteen months. She is quick to sense the
feelings of others; she sniffs out the emotional weather of every situation immediately. She likes attention
but is subtle about only bidding for it with all her charm when she knows the people well. A coy streak
shows occasionally, perhaps fed by the knowledge that she can get her way when she wants. This is
evident also when she is thwarted and shows an uncanny awareness that she is cute as she performs the
tricks that Judy has taught her like ‘baker’s man’ or ‘did you ever see a lassie?’ There is something self-
satisfied in her manner, which is totally lacking in her innocent pleasure when she succeeds in blowing
out a match. She learns very rapidly, falls quickly into patterns of play. Living here may slow down her
ability to learn English well at an early age, but she understands simple orders and ideas in both
languages, often without our having any memory of teaching them to her.
June 17
Juan March, Mallorca’s grim pride, is reputedly the richest man in Europe and one of the
richest in the world. He was born in Sta. Margalida, about sixty years ago. I was talking to a taxista
about him the other day at the Old Cafe.
“He’s richer than the state,” the man said. “And he started out herding hogs.” Local boy makes
good. He soon went on to better things and got his real start running contraband during World War One.
“One of his skippers—a friend of mine—got caught time after time. If there were a dozen boats,
his was always the one they caught, while the others got through. So one night, instead of taking the
course March plotted for him, he set his own. He got through, sailed to France, sold the cargo, and has
lived there ever since.” A fair enough exchange after all the man had suffered as March’s decoy. March
got control of the petroleum monopoly, CAMPSA, and during the second war, he fuelled German ships
and subs from bases in the Baleares. He did a good business on the side tipping off the British about
movements of the German fleet. About 1943 March advised Franco that the Axis was going to lose the
war. Franco asked how he could say that and March said, “It’s the way the money’s going.” Franco
gradually and carefully switched sides.
The taxista told me another story about March going to Geneva on vacation and checking in at
a big hotel where several Spanish lumber dealers were staying, having come to attend an auction. When
they saw March, they panicked and decided their only hope was to offer him a million pesetas to not
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