A Barcelona Heiress

  The muggy heat typical of Barcelona in the summer was beating down and, though we were shaded by an awning, I could still feel my linen suit soaked with sweat. My perspiration only became more profuse as I chatted with Güell. In recent months the situation in Spain was becoming untenable under a Unidad Popular government which was clearly careening to the left. Talks had been suspended with conservative forces, and government authorities could no longer maintain public order, overwhelmed by both right-wing radicals and infighting among its own divisions. Once again the streets of Spain were stages for a grim succession of political assassinations that claimed victims on both sides of the spectrum, as if the epidemic which had broken out in Barcelona during the decade prior had spread throughout the Peninsula.

  “Pablo, do you remember the era of the Military Juntas?” the aristocrat asked me as he salted some radishes on the plate before him. “They had conspired, though it is not very well understood what for; some said they were republicans, and ended up precipitating Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, which brought about, not too long afterwards, the monarchy’s collapse and the declaration of the Republic. Well, what is being plotted now is much more important.”

  I myself had also heard rumors that something was in the offing, but due to his family ties, his fortune, and his old contacts, Güell was obviously privy to much better information than I was.

  “What do you know?” I asked.

  “There are several prominent military leaders who are in favor of a coup d’état. A military conspiracy is brewing. They believe that the Republic is on its last legs and that plans must be laid before a revolution breaks out. They are backed by a group of longtime supporters of the monarchy, headed up in Madrid by the Luca de Tena family, which has made available all the resources of its newspaper, ABC, to aid in the plot, along with important financiers. They can also count on assistance from the young pseudo-fascists of the Falange Española.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “I’m very jaded with politics. As you know, I was the mayor of Barcelona during the monarchy’s final year. I had to put up with protests directed against me …”

  “Yes, I remember when you appeared on the balcony of city hall and, confronting the protestors, brandished the mayor’s scepter, shouting at them, ‘As far as I’m concerned, you can do whatever you please,’ and then you threw it at them!”

  The count gave a hint of a smile.

  “That practically marked the end of my time in Plaza de San Jaime. In any case, my time in public service represented a paradoxical experience during which I learned many things. First, that any initiative undertaken in Catalonia must have the backing of the regionalists. It is wishful thinking if one believes he can get anything done through exclusive accords between Barcelona society’s centralist sympathizers and Madrid. Second, pacts are hard to come by and require a lot of tact and amenability. One must exhibit some true savoire faire in order to survive. Third, negotiating with the unions could try anyone’s nerves, but it is also unavoidable … Why was I telling you all this?”

  “The conspiracy being hatched …”

  “Oh, right! The problem is that it is the military that wishes to set the situation right, and there are corners of society willing to help them. I have many friends in the Army. I myself served in Morocco, though I could have avoided doing so by paying my way out of it. I know them well. I know that the problem, when one turns to the military, is that if they take over, they really take over. They don’t mess around. And if they have to line people up and employ a firing squad, that’s just what they do. It’s the kind of thing they’re trained to do. You cannot reach an agreement, assigning them to deal with such-and-such, asking them to leave the rest to the civilians. No, when a military leader takes over power he does so with a militaristic mentality, which is systematic and hierarchical, and seeks to thoroughly regulate everything. People thought that Primo de Rivera would stop at ridding the country of anarchists and union rabble-rousers, but once in power he also prohibited people from speaking Catalan and censored everything that crossed his mind before he focused on building highways. It is illusory for us to think that working with the military we are going to have anything but a military dictatorship. This is why, though I have received requests for financial support for the insurrection, for now I have managed to play for time. We will see how long I can stave them off.”

  “Who has approached you?”

  Güell looked from left to right, arched his eyebrows in an exaggerated expression, and lifted his index finger to his lips in a rather histrionic gesture of secrecy.

  “Pablo, just between you and me, and in strict confidence, my friend, a few days ago the Baron of Viver, the man who preceded me as the mayor of Barcelona during the years of the dictatorship, held a meeting at his Argentina estate to which various eminent figures of the Catalonian nobility and business elite were summoned. At this function he directly asked us for funds to finance a military putsch. I must say that most of my counterparts expressed great skepticism, and I suspect that he was not able to gather much at all there.”

  “Why are you telling me all this?”

  “I think that there are very few of us who, like you and I, come from the monarchical world, believe in the institutions and the law and, though critical of this republic, which has proven to be overwhelmed by events, are reticent to a solution imposed by force. Having seen what is in the works, I was eager to share my concerns with someone. You, moreover, are a writer. I hoped that one day you might document this pleasant conversation we have had today, because this small, elegant, and pleasant world of ours, at least for those of us who belonged to it, is about to be obliterated, forever. Don’t ever forget what I have presaged here. By the way, this ship sails for Genoa on the twenty-third. Remember that, just in case you have to make a getaway.”

  From the white balustrade I stared at the clock tower presiding over the port, and asked myself whose side time was on.

  * * *

  One evening a couple of weeks later, my wife and I were preparing to go out to the theater with friends: the famous actor Enrique Borrás and his wife. I had been representing Borrás for some time, handling his famous contracts for major international tours through Latin America, so we saw each other quite frequently. We first dropped the actor off at the nearby studios of Radio Barcelona, where he had to recite a few poems, and we arranged to meet up with him during the intermission. At the Poliorama it was the premiere of Pedro Muñoz Seca’s La tonta del rizo, which the author had personally directed. The work had generated great expectations. Everyone assumed that it would include a ferocious criticism of the politics of the day, and it was said that the Andalusian writer had chosen Barcelona, rather than Madrid, as the site of its premiere precisely because of Catalonia’s insurrectionary character. The theater was packed and there were rumors on everyone’s lips. Just days before, the conservative leader in the Parliament, José Calvo Sotelo, had been assassinated by a group of Assault Guards, the Spanish Republic’s security force. At the theater we received hazy accounts of uprisings carried out by legionnaires in Morocco, stories which the interior minister himself, Don Juan Moles, had gone on the radio to controvert, dismissing them as nothing but a factional hoax.

  Muñoz Seca was one of the most successful playwrights in the period prior to the Civil War. The work he turned out was as prolific as it was irregular. A few years earlier, while working as a young theater critic, I had not hesitated to pick holes in his plays on more than one occasion. I found that his madcap comedies featured a vulgar and crass sense of humor, although they did achieve their objective of getting big laughs all night long. My opinion began to shift after the Barcelona release of Trianerías, a feature length sainete, a farce artfully staged with typical local color, about the machinations of a Sevillian potter to get a German to abandon a beautiful young lady, whose mother has a dubious past, and marry his daughter instead. The story functions as a pretext to weave together a series of
admirably realistic Andalusian scenes. He would go on to win me over with a number of ingenious comedies, unforgettable works such as La venganza de Don Mendo, the famous, quick-witted farce that ranks among the finest works of Spanish comedic literature of all time.

  Right-wing and staunchly pro-Spanish, Muñoz Seca wrote La tonta del rizo in the wake of some early works in which he satirized the leaders of the Republic, such as La O.C.A, Anacleto se divorcia, and La pluma verde.

  The first act of La tonta del rizo, which starred Isabelita Garcés, unfolded with few great surprises, and, above all, without exhibiting Don Pedro’s wit. Burdened by an excessively discursive text, the work lacked the author’s typically scintillating humor. His friends applauded, those who expected something more political were disappointed, and Muñoz Seca’s devotees, who expected laughter more than anything else, were not very pleased.

  At the end of the act Borrás approached me, looking pallid and grim. He whispered to us, “I’ve come from the radio station. The military has taken it over. They cancelled the program immediately and kicked us all out. It has been confirmed that the Legion has, in fact, risen up in Morocco. Some battalions in Melilla and Ceuta are following their lead, and they’ve seized the public buildings there. Based on the conversations I’ve heard, the government has reacted in the most dramatic way. They have issued arrest orders throughout Spain, and I imagine that tomorrow when we wake the country will be at war. This has gotten very ugly. When I came down Caspe Street I saw the streets packed with groups made up of those special types with frightening faces who show up at all the revolts. It seems that nobody knows where they come from, or where they disappear to in normal times. I saw faces right on La Rambla that I could have sworn I saw during the last revolution to which we were witness, in Mexico.”

  Although the ladies wanted to go home, Borrás and I decided to remain in our box so that our departure would not be interpreted as a slight to Muñoz Seca. So we stayed.

  Chaos broke out in the second act. In response to a simple farmer who claims that he is paid a handsome wage, has never worked less, and lives like a prince while his fellow laborers work like dogs, the “tonta del rizo” exclaims, “Don’t tell me … you’re a Marxist leader!”

  The audience in the back began to hiss and boo, while those down in front and in the side balconies counterattacked by applauding. The tension had become manifest, and there would be shouting and whistling during several of the work’s subsequent scenes. The intermission brought shouting in the aisles and the vestibules of the Poliorama, and members of the audience began to push and shove each other, prompting the ushers and guards to intervene to break up several altercations.

  The play, which was clearly not among the author’s best, ended with a fizzle. After the show Muñoz Seca, tweaking his long and sharply pointed handlebar mustache, appeared onstage, to the sound of both applause and heckling, along with the rest of the cast. Borrás and I later went over to apprise him of the situation. Some actors and friends were encouraging him to leave out the back door of the theater, which opened onto Plaza Buensuceso, instead of heading directly for La Rambla, where he was liable to be attacked, but the writer refused. Accompanied by the actor Pepe Moncayo, Borrás, and myself, Muñoz Seca sauntered out onto La Rambla with his head held high and without anyone accosting him, and calmly climbed into the car which was to take him to his hotel.

  My wife and I and our two friends then walked out onto the street. Something was awry in Barcelona. The streets were deserted. The city was empty. The terrace in front of the Hotel Colón in Plaza de Cataluña, normally packed with people coming out of the movies or the theater to have a drink, was completely abandoned and of the dozen or so waiters that were there, we saw only one, smoking quietly on a corner.

  Borrás dropped us off at home, and a while later the phone rang. It was Enrique.

  “We’re in shock. From your house at 80 Caspe Street, on the corner of Bailén, to ours on Vallcarca, we have been down Diagonal Avenue, Salmerón Street, República Argentina Avenue and, after crossing the bridge, we’ve just arrived. And in our entire journey we did not see one car, not a single soul, or even an open door. It’s eerie. What is it? What’s going to happen here?”

  I would not see Enrique for another three years.

  * * *

  The Spanish Civil War had begun. Throughout the days of the eighteenth and nineteenth in Barcelona the regiments that rose up against the government of the Republic had to square off against significant anarchist contingents, in addition to the forces of the Guardia Civil, which remained loyal to the government. The rebellion directed by General Goded failed when the president of the Generalitat (the Catalan government), Lluís Companys, a former lawyer representing union activists, agreed to turn the arms stored at the barracks over to the anarchists, who took control of the city. I spent those forty-eight hours at home with my wife and children as we waited for events to unfold, heard distant shots, and nervously listened to the radio, as if even that were dangerous.

  First thing the next morning, the actor Fernando Vallejo, a great friend of Pedro Muñoz Seca’s, came to my house. Devastated and very nervous, he told me that the writer had been detained as he was walking down La Rambla and that he was at the police station, waiting for me to come, as the commissioner had told him that I was a friend of his. Vallejo and I braved the unpeopled streets, down which a few shots echoed. It was true that on a few occasions I had happened to deal with the commissioner, who allowed me to see Don Pedro. Characteristically garrulous, the writer had proven entertaining company for his fellow detainees at the jail. He told me that he had asked the police chief to immediately transfer him to Madrid, claiming that he was a State civil servant.

  In his youth Don Pedro had passed a civil service exam and entered the Ministry of Labor, and he had actually never abandoned this position—not even during his heyday as a writer when he was earning a fortune and more than one hundred of his plays graced theaters all across the Peninsula. I told him that I considered his request to be a grave mistake. In Barcelona nobody knew him, except for the theatergoers who attended his comedies just to have a laugh. In Madrid, on the other hand, there were envious “colleagues,” actors he had not hired, those circulating rumors of his friendship with Alfonso XIII, and, above all, a certain lady wielding power on the new political scene who had not forgiven Pedro for scorning her as an actress—and perhaps as a woman.

  I was unable to convince him. He believed, with a naïveté that was incredible for a man of his talent, that everybody loved him in Madrid, and he claimed, with an infantile certitude, that many would defend him there. This was not so and, I am very sad to say, in the end I was right. Not long after arriving he was taken from jail in one of those infamous sacas, when prisoners were removed en masse, and transported to Jarama where he was executed. He maintained his sense of humor to the very end.

  “You have taken everything from me, but there is one thing that you cannot take,” he told his captors.

  “And what is that?” they barked at him.

  “My fear.”

  But I wouldn’t find out about that for months.

  * * *

  Two days after my encounter with Muñoz Seca, a patrol of soldiers rang my doorbell and barged into my house.

  “Pablo Vilar?”

  “What do you want?”

  “You have to come with us.”

  “Where?”

  “Come with us. Don’t give us any trouble.”

  I tried to calm my wife, but I myself was rattled. After putting on my jacket and hat I followed the churlish characters to an immense Lincoln, which had obviously been requisitioned, got in the back, and uncomfortably settled in.

  The car cruised down to Las Cortes Street, onto which it turned, and soon stopped, to my surprise, in front of the Marianao palace, on the corner of Paseo de Gracia where seventeen years before the infamous El Chimo bomb had exploded. There were soldiers at the entrance and everywhere I looked.
Still stunned, I followed my captors up the magnificent staircase of that beautiful building, which no longer stands today, and which had also been commandeered. They conducted me to one of the meeting rooms on the second floor where a makeshift office consisting of desks and several chairs had been set up. On the floor there were stacks of files.

  “Wait here.”

  I sat down in one of the satin chairs, which already bore a few rips, to which I may have added by nervously squirming in it for some time. I had been waiting for close to forty-five minutes when a tall and strapping man with a head full of gray hair entered the room. His visage was gaunt and there were deep bags under his eyes. He was dressed in an anarchist uniform, with a black shirt and a red scarf around his neck—a garment which had spread like wildfire throughout Barcelona. “Lacalle!” I shouted.

  “Hello, Vilar. I see that time has been kinder to you than me.”

  It had been over a decade since I had last seen him, unconscious in the operating room at Dr. Vidal Solares’s hospital. I was aware that during the dictatorship he had been in exile in France, conspiring against the government. I later read in the papers about his triumphant return to the country in 1930, his return to prominence as the celebrated leader of the National Labor Confederation and as key player on the Spanish political scene, a high-profile figure at protests and rallies.

  “I’m glad to see you. The manners of the men you sent had me fearing the worst. Why have you brought me here?”

  “I’ll get straight to the point. Time is precious these days. We, the anarchists, are now in control of Barcelona. But …” He shook his head with a gesture of sadness “But there are some things that never change. I have it on good account that there are some factions within our organization, in collusion with elements of the Iberian Anarchist Federation and José García Torres, circles wielding more and more power that aim to take advantage of the chaos to get rid of elements they consider pernicious and undertake what they call a ‘thorough purge.’ The most rampant violence is going to break out in the city, and I fear I shall be powerless to stem it.”