A Barcelona Heiress

by Sergio Vila-Sanjuán

I was still at the hospital when Isabel Enrich came to see me one day.

  “I have been wicked, leaving you alone these past weeks. But I was very depressed and had to get out of the city for a change of scenery. First I stayed here, keeping vigil over you. I swear that I didn’t leave your side until they told me you were out of danger. Then I went to Paris, to forget about everything. But not before asking Rocabert to look after you and keep me informed, which he has dutifully done. I think he’s forgiven me for jilting him. He is, moreover, an intelligent man, and I have agreed to invest in some business deals he has presented me with.”

  “Tell me why you were depressed.”

  “Simple. My driver Manolo’s death was a terrible blow. The poor man was killed carrying out an assignment which I had given him. I also suffered thinking about you.”

  “What happened with Lacalle?”

  She wavered for a moment. “I … realized that our relationship would never be the same the moment Libertad, that languid-looking anarchist, showed up at Dr. Vidal Solares’s hospital. She took over control of the situation in no time. He only had eyes for her, and it was soon clear that our relationship, which already seemed destined to be an ephemeral episode, was already a thing of the past. I was forced to beat a dignified retreat, which was not easy. As you can understand, I’m not accustomed to being rejected. And even less for such an apparently harmless little schemer.”

  “You’re very wrong about her. She’s neither languid nor a schemer.”

  Her eyes were wide as saucers. “You know her?”

  “Yes, I spent a brief time with her. She’s an extraordinary woman. There are many things you could learn from her. In any case, as Rocabert says, it’s time for us to be positive. How about we begin with a good dinner for two at Maison Dorée?”

  * * *

  In the months that followed I continued to see Isabel Enrich, though after the episode with Lacalle it wouldn’t be honest to say that the tone of our relationship hadn’t changed. In some way that sense of affinity and deep understanding that had always been between us, and which drew us together with an instant spark every time we saw each other, had vanished. And the sweet spell of intimacy we enjoyed after the success of the sacramental testament ceremony was never to repeat itself. Over time, I even began to question whether it had ever really happened at all.

  As for the anarchist who had come between us, he simply fell off the face of the earth. I went to the Community of the Sun one day, but they told me that Libertad had also disappeared. Ever steadfast, Floreal Gambús explained to me that, although Isabel Enrich had agreed to continue financing the project, once Lacalle and his friend had vanished the anarchist cooperative began to lose its way. It needed direction, and he feared that the project would end up disintegrating.

  * * *

  State visits to Catalonia increased during the following months, just as Rocabert had announced they would. One day I received an invitation from Emilio María de Torres, Marquess of Torre de Mendoza and King Alfonso XIII’s personal secretary, to come to Madrid for a special audience which the king of Spain wished to concede me, without me ever requesting it. For a few weeks I eagerly counted the days until I would take the train for Spain’s capital.

  I went to the palace, where the monarch received me. He was tall and slender with sparkling eyes, a pronounced jawbone, and a rather small forehead below his hair, parted on the left and combed straight back. From a seat in his office armchair he offered me a long cigarette with the royal crest printed on it, and subjected me to a friendly interrogation about Barcelona. He had called me, he explained, above all as a result of the interest he had taken in the troglodytes, the vigilante Danton, and the attack I had suffered.

  He was affable from the very first moment, and exhibited a certain ironic tone at many points; we hit it off and enjoyed a long conversation in which, breaking protocol, he allowed me to ask him something. He told me that he had read several of my articles and that, although some were “very strongly worded” and he could not officially endorse them, off the record and in his heart he actually agreed with me. He went on to explain that, through my writings, he had come to feel that he knew me, and that in recognition of them he desired to appoint me a royal gentleman-in-waiting, making me part of that body to which Rocabert already belonged and which then constituted a kind of advisory council (though seldom consulted). The position was as honorific as it was envied, as it stood just one step below the nobility.

  The monarch underscored the fact that this honor was to be bestowed in exclusive recognition of the excellence of my writings, and was totally independent of any political, heraldic, or social associations. Springing up, he stepped over to a small chest and withdrew a finely bound journal in which, as explained to me, he recorded his most private reflections. He had me read a passage from it, dated 1902, the year of his coronation, and written in his own hand:

  “This year I have taken over the reins of the State, a matter of the greatest consequence given the current situation. Because it depends on me whether Spain shall be a Bourbon monarchy or a Republic. And because I find before me a country destroyed by the wars of the past and yearning for someone to rescue it from this situation. Social reform to aid the most needy is at a standstill, our Army’s structure is outdated and has not yet embraced modern advances, our Navy lacks vessels, our flag is defiled, and our governors and mayors flout the law, etcetera. It is within my power to be a king who brings glory to and restores our Nation, one whose name goes down in history, forever revered by the kingdom, but I might also be a king who fails to govern, deferring to his ministers and finally, one who is banished from his country.”

  I don’t know why he shared those lines with me. Perhaps it was to impress upon me that he himself was the person most acutely aware of what was at stake at that time. After I read it, the monarch courteously saw me out, stating that I was to be convoked a few days later to be sworn in and to receive the key symbolizing my position from the royal valet.

  * * *

  In the months that followed, the king was to visit Barcelona often, where our most elegant ladies were able to don their finest, sparing no expense to organize a succession of celebrations held in palaces throughout the city center and amid the spacious mansions in our residential districts. As a gentleman-in-waiting my duties included welcoming and seeing the king off, and my presence was required at all of the celebrations in his honor, which I attended clad in my striking black cloth uniform lined in red, with its collar, cuffs, and pockets embroidered in gold.

  On one of those occasions the king took advantage of a meeting with high-ranking members of the Army and civil officials to address a far-reaching and thorny issue: the Military Juntas. These constituted a body within the Army, theoretically charged with its improvement, and which for some time had been operating in a clandestine manner. In recent months this activity, under the leadership of one Colonel Márquez, had come to light. Some of those involved in these Juntas had shared their Republican sympathies with the press. Don Alfonso had decided to confront this challenge in a speech in which he sought to address, above all, the members of the garrison. The banquet where he would appear was to be held at Las Planas restaurant, conceived as an act of homage and tribute to the king. Everybody was there for the event and, with the notes that I took on the scene, and after reflecting upon all that I had heard, I headed immediately to El Noticiero Universal to compose a few lines (below which my name would not appear) reporting on the act and the king’s comments.

  The essence of the monarch’s message was the need and obligation shared by all members of the military to loyally serve the nation. There was no room, he made clear, for idealistic positions, which he personally respected, while reminding all of those present that they had voluntarily enlisted in his academies, where they were fully apprised of Carlos III’s ordinances, and the door was open to anyone who wished to depart. With reference to the difficult situation the country was facing, he assured his audi
ence that he, the king, would never be an obstacle to progress. Rather, he would scrupulously fulfill his obligations as a monarch and as a Spaniard, and he stood willing to obey the will of the people, while expressly stating that he would not recognize the authority of any who were not their direct representatives. In summary: a clear message to the military not to meddle in the political sphere.

  I handed the lines to my editor who, after looking them over, reacted with a dramatic gesture before passing them on to be printed. El Noticiero was already going to print when an emissary of the Civil Government arrived with an officially authorized press statement announcing the speech in question, along with a few typed pages describing its contents. The account delivered was quite different from my own; it avoided any mention of the royal disquisition’s most controversial aspects with regard to the military. As Julián Pérez Carrasco fulminated, the paper had to stop the presses, remove my article, and replace it with the one sent. I gathered my original submission along with the papers already printed with my version, convinced that they would soon exculpate me.

  And so it was. The next evening found me at the Liceo attending an opera in the Marquess of Alella’s box where the Marquess of Viana, an amiable Andalusian nobleman, inseparable from the monarch and serving as the high steward of the royal house (according to some an accessory, if not an instigator, of his worst frivolities), approached me and said, “Oh, you’ve got him in a fine mood. Prepare for a real roasting.”

  During the intermission the king found me in the foyer and, with a harsh scowl, snapped, “I read your newspaper. That is not what I said. It seems that you would all like to separate me from any contact with the people because I said a few things that needed to be said.”

  Without uttering a word I proceeded to produce my original article and the corresponding galley proofs from my tailcoat pocket. I handed them to Don Alfonso and waited. As he read them the king gave visible signs of approbation and, upon finishing, exclaimed, “That’s exactly what I said, and what I meant. You have perfectly interpreted my thinking!”

  At that point I told him what had happened. And, as always, the chain broke where its link was weakest. The civil governor who had succeeded López Ballesteros was dismissed that very day. Don Alfonso, lamenting the affair before the interior minister, added prophetically, “The people will never truly know me if that is what is done.”

  * * *

  The experience with López Ballesteros did not turn me against the military class, just as a broken heart is not enough to keep us from the opposite sex for a lifetime. During his time at the Captaincy General of Catalonia, Don Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, Marquess of Estella, on many afternoons attended the aristocratic tertulia, a cultured gathering which took place at the home of the Marquesses of Castell-Florite (she, Anita Olano, was the sister of the Count of Fígols; while he, Don Ángel Dulce, was then a general and the military governor of Barcelona) where I had the opportunity to personally converse with him. His irresistible affability and the fact that we hailed from the same parts (he was from Jerez and I from Cádiz) allowed us to forge a fast friendship, despite the difference in our ages and certain principles we didn’t share. The marquess and I met up at the Círculo del Liceo, where we both showed up every night, and our friendship grew stronger when he began to attend the Friday dinners a group of friends and I regularly enjoyed.

  One night after dinner, he suggested that I accompany him to the Captaincy, and alone, heading down La Rambla, we made our way toward Paseo de Colón. There we ran into his personal secretary, Commander Ibáñez, who had rushed out to greet him. I accompanied them into the great building, and we ascended to his personal quarters. On the telephone from Zaragoza, where he was in charge of the Captaincy General, General Sanjurjo was shouting in his dull voice, which was perfectly audible to me through the receiver, “Miguel, what are you waiting for?”

  During our stroll Don Miguel had confessed to me that he had decided to publish a manifesto in response to the chaos sparked by the revolutionary strikes, ambushes, shootings, and bank robberies that had afflicted all of Spain, hitting Barcelona particularly hard, after the brief respite López Ballesteros had brought to the city.“The military, General, should not interfere in politics. The king himself made this quite clear in the speech he delivered at the Las Planas banquet in this very city.”

  Primo de Rivera answered that his proclamation would do nothing more than voice the common grievances of the principal Spanish divisions, which had designated him as their spokesman because he was the Captain General of Catalonia, Spain’s primary military region.

  “The king, my friend, shall ratify our objectives.”

  The next day Primo de Rivera promulgated the manifesto, and three days later received power from Alfonso XIII. With this maneuver many saw a king who had to reluctantly concede the need for a surgical operation on the country’s wounded body, although he could have quite as easily done the opposite.

  * * *

  A few months later I had to go to San Sebastián, where I happened to run into a Catalonian marchioness, a close friend of mine, who during that week was offering Queen Cristina her services as a noblewoman. I had met the king’s mother, for many years the queen regent of Spain, a long time before, when she was holding a washerwoman’s daughter in her arms. In the second decade of the century, during my time in Madrid when I worked on behalf of several publications in the city, I attended the Christmas party at the Washerwomen’s Refuge, which Doña Cristina had founded on Cuesta de San Vicente in order to take in, educate, and feed the children of the women who were toiling all day long at the nearby River Manzanares to wash half the city’s linen. I had dedicated a column to the effort, and a few days later Doña María Cristina had graciously called me to express her appreciation.

  In San Sebastián my friend the marchioness told me that Doña Cristina, who was frankly terrified by the dictatorship, had read articles I had written for different Barcelona and Madrid publications, before and after the insurrection, and that she looked forward to meeting me.

  I was given an appointment the next day at Miramar, a palace on the city’s beach, La Concha. It was a private home owned by Doña Cristina in which the king and queen and infantes spent their summers as her guests. She received me with a smile. She was wearing a dour dress in her favorite color, pearl gray, with a high collar and sleeves stretching down to her wrists, the garment adorned with a subtle lace edging. Her features, hardly feminine but of lordly distinction, energy, and verve, transmitted a tender sadness. As queen regent, Doña Cristina was a loving mother who cared for and looked after her sickly and impulsive child with a steadfast and unflagging spirit of sacrifice.

  We spoke at length about the situation, how far it had gone, and its possible consequences. Doña Cristina maintained a respectful distance in her demeanor, but while exhibiting a truly admirable degree of discretion and an elevated vision of national interests and international politics.

  While I was saying my goodbyes to the marchioness in the vestibule, she shared a brief anecdote with me. The king had descended the very stairs before us in order to get in his car, bound for Madrid, where he was to turn over power to Primo de Rivera. Doña Cristina, as she helped the king don his traveling coat, gave him a kiss on the forehead and whispered to him, “Be careful, my son. This one is going to throw us out. Or at least give us a push.”

  * * *

  And that is just what happened. Primo de Rivera ruled as dictator of Spain, with the king’s endorsement, from 1923 to 1930. One of the first measures he took was to appoint as interior minister the man who had been his comrade in arms and friend in Barcelona, General López Ballesteros, who, once in power, continued to employ an iron-fist policy against anarchists and leftists of all stripes. The general, in turn, named as his second-in-command and security director none other than our old friend Miguel Beastegui.

  The dictatorship ushered in an era of prosperity and apparent peace, at the expense of suspendi
ng the constitutional system and rescinding freedom of expression. Ultimately Primo de Rivera’s support eroded and he left power, giving way to a period of “soft dictatorship” that lasted a little over a year. Finally, after the pro-monarchy parties were defeated in municipal elections, the Spanish Republic was proclaimed on April 14, 1931, and the king set out on the road to exile. The confusion between military authority and political power, and the contempt for the law by those who should have been the first ones committed to upholding it—two circumstances which had yielded disastrous consequences in Barcelona from 1919 to 1923, along with other factors I will not address here—had ended up overturning Spain’s secular monarchy. It is possible for the force of our sentiments, our impetuosity in response to situations we find intolerable, our need for efficacy, to often lead us to conclude that the law is an instrument wielded by the sanctimonious and the hypocritical. But those who so conclude overlook the fact that, for better or worse, in the end the only true difference between our society and the jungle is that which is established by the law, constantly revised and redrafted, at times so scorned and disdained.

  I hung up my gentleman-in-waiting uniform and braced myself, once again, for turbulent times.

  Epilogue

  In early July 1936 the Count of Güell invited me to dine on the deck of the Giuseppe Verdi, at that time anchored in the Port of Barcelona. Although sailing under an Italian flag, it belonged to the passenger ocean line Compañía Trasmediterránea, of which my friend was the majority shareholder and president, and for which my father had worked. At noon the sunlight was blinding, and even the perpetually polluted waters of Barcelona’s port glimmered like a pair of freshly shined patent leather shoes.

  “I like my ships to be registered in different nations,” the count explained to me. “During tempestuous times like these one must hedge one’s bets and diversify. You never know what could happen tomorrow.”