A Barcelona Heiress (29 page)

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.”

Staggered, I nodded as I listened to his account. “Well, get out! If you are unable to make the organization over which you preside come to its senses, abandon it.”

He gazed at me with a melancholic smile. “I can’t abandon a whole life dedicated to my ideals. My duty is to strive for more sober voices to prevail, even if I’m not always able to do so. Now that it seems clear that a revolution has finally broken out in Catalonia which may do away with social injustice once and for all, I’m not going to sit idly by as it unfolds. In any case, none of this would have happened if your military friends hadn’t gone and risen up against the Republic.”

“They are no friends of mine, and I have always been critical of military intervention in politics, and more so of coups and overthrows, even against this regime in which you anarchists do not believe.”

“That may be so,” he cut me off. “The issue is that there are many lists being circulated these days, and I spotted your name on one of them. You are in grave danger, Vilar. You have been singled out as a reactionary and a rightist. In the coming days, or even hours, a patrol is bound to show up at your apartment looking for you, but next time it won’t be to bring you here, rather to dump you on the side of a road with a bullet in your head.”

I was indignant.

“But I left politics years ago! And I have represented dozens of destitute workers as a public defender! How can they have me on one of those lists?”

Lacalle tut-tutted at me before explaining, as if he were bored.“You’re a member of the bourgeoisie, a well-known lawyer with a long history as a supporter of the monarchy. You’re a practicing Catholic who is well-connected with influential figures in the city, and you write for conservative papers. Little more is required for a man to be condemned to death at this time. You must escape. You must leave Barcelona, and that means today. A few years ago, under very different circumstances, you saved my life a couple of times, so I am indebted to you. Flee, Vilar. The government of Catalonia has suspended all passports and you’ll require a special permit to leave Barcelona. I’ve prepared one for you. Here it is.”

“I cannot and will not go without my family.”

“Right now it’s impossible for me to provide everyone with protection, and I have only this one for you. You have my word that in a matter of days your wife and children will receive a pass, and I shall personally see to it that they get out. But, for their sake, and if you value your life at all, you don’t have a moment to lose.”

I took the document the anarchist held out for me. I offered him my hand. He shook it vigorously.

“Thank you, Lacalle. You are an honorable man. I wish you the best.”

“And I you. Pray to God for all of us. I don’t know where the conflict that has just broken out is going to take us.”

“Weren’t you a theosophist? My God and yours are not so different. May He protect us all.”

I headed for the door, but before reaching it, I stopped and turned to ask him one last question. “What ever happened to Libertad?”

The anarchist sighed before answering me.

“After the assassination attempt she followed me into exile and we lived together for a few years in Paris. We had two children. She died giving birth to the second.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“Thank you,” he replied drily.

* * *

Once back at home I explained what was going on to my wife, who reacted with her usual composure, meeting the situation head-on.

“You must leave this house immediately. There’s no other option.”

“But I don’t want to leave you and the children.”

“We’ll look for someplace safe, and once we know that you’ve left, I’ll contact Lacalle and ask him to get us out.”

We talked about various options until I remembered Horacio Meneguetti. The Argentinean consul in Barcelona had always treated me with the greatest respect. Together we had organized some tango shows, and I had helped promote some of his country’s writers through the Casa América in Barcelona. I called him and asked him to take me in at the consulate for a few hours.

“Come as soon as possible. We don’t have much space, but we’ll put you somewhere.”

It was inconceivable that Barcelona’s telephones continued to function in that situation, but the fact was that they did.

I drove my children and my wife to her parents’ house on Muntaner Street, and left the car there. I fought to hold myself together as I said goodbye to my children, in order not to frighten them (who knew when or if we were going to see each other again!).

“Pablo, your hat and the carnation! This is no time to be walking around Barcelona as if you were headed to a cocktail party,” was the farewell I received from my wife, ever the pragmatist.

With a tinge of melancholy I left the red flower and the cocked hat and set out, with a small suitcase in hand, for the nearby consulate. Fortunately I wasn’t intercepted by any patrols, and fifteen minutes later I found myself theoretically out of harm’s way, on Argentinean soil in my own city.

Horacio Meneguetti, with his Pancho Villa–like mustache and his curly hair, was a well-read and capable man who seemed to be overcome by the circumstances. There were close to fifty people there who, like me, had turned to the consulate as a safe haven. A couple of secretaries toiled at the telephones, which were ringing off the hook.

“Pablo, we’re going to look for a way to get you out. You can’t stay here long because hundreds of Argentinean citizens are getting in touch, asking me to help them leave Spain, and I’m afraid we’re going to be overwhelmed any moment now. I have an idea. There is an Argentinean cargo shop, the
Isauro
, anchored in the port right now. You can take it to Lisbon.”

“Excellent! What do I have to do?”

“Embark. There’s just one problem: you don’t have papers to be on the boat, and under the circumstances, they can’t send anyone to pick you up.”

“But I have a valid pass …”

“It doesn’t matter. They’re not going to let anyone onto a vessel where they’re not supposed to be. We would place the crew of the
Isauro
in danger if word spread that they were boarding Spanish citizens. What you would have to do is get out down to the port, and once there, swim out to the boat.”

“Impossible!”

“Why?” my friend the consul inquired with surprise.

“Because …” My face turned as red as a tomato. “I don’t know how to swim.”

And that was the truth. Despite being a sailor’s son, I had never even learned to stay afloat. In those days fewer people were able to swim than is the case today. I realized then and there that my inability might have graver consequences than I ever could have imagined.

“There’s another possibility,” I mumbled to myself as I remembered the Count of Güell’s offer. “If I can use your telephone, I think I can still sail out of here.”

* * *

The
Giuseppe Verdi
cruised out into the Mediterranean with her four-thousand-horsepower steam engines propelling all three hundred feet of her through the sea.

As the ship was flying an Italian flag, it had not been seized when the war broke out. The departure had not been easy. With the vessel surrounded by armed soldiers who scrutinized my pass and gave me the third degree, I was trembling inside until the very end. But there I was, leaning on the stern railing and looking back at my city, not knowing when I would see it again, thinking of the wife and children I was leaving behind.

Someone tapped me on the soldier. I turned around to see an attractive lady in her forties draped in dazzling jewelry.

“Do you remember me?”

“María Nilo! I see that you haven’t abandoned your old ways. Did you actually walk around Barcelona, in the wake of the uprising, with that jewelry? You are truly brave.”

María smiled at me. “Yes. I was on a very brief visit for work, and my brother—you know, Ángel—warned me that Barcelona wasn’t going to be safe, so we decided to take to the sea.”

“A prudent decision. Well, then, tell me about your life. I lost track of you back in those years.”

The old showgirl gave me a sad smile.

“Well, what happened is that I lost my way. The vice, which you knew about, destroyed me. I couldn’t be counted on for anything anymore, and I began to do anything, no matter how low, to pay for it. I was a lost soul. Luckily a good man came along and saved me from drowning. Ernesto! Ernesto! Come here. I’m here with Pablo Vilar.”

Hearing María’s cries, the man came toward us. With a dashing air, his hair slicked back, and sporting a double-breasted blazer with gold buttons worthy of an admiral, my old friend Ernesto Vilches gave me a hug.

“Vilar, what a pleasure to see you!”

“I never imagined running into Wu-Li-Chang himself on the deck of this ship …”

The actor bellowed with laughter before María spoke up. “Ernesto helped me to get off the drug and clean up my act. In exchange I promised him that I would abandon the
varietés
and seedy dives. Now I work for his company, but behind the scenes, taking care of production and
the wardrobe side of things. We’ve been successfully touring Spain and the Americas for years.”

“And what a woman she is!” Vilches chimed in, as if he were acting in one of his shows at the Teatro Goya. “What a woman!”

* * *

Parting with my theater-loving friends, I wandered about that deck crawling with priests without cassocks, nuns without habits, bourgeois gentlemen without hats, and aristocrats without servants. The uprising had turned life upside down for all these social types, who watched the Catalonian coast drift away with a satisfaction and relief that it’s difficult to describe. It was then I heard a vivacious laugh echo through the melancholic air with all the subtlety of a hurricane. I spun to my left and there she was, in the center of a circle of passengers. As luminous as always.

She eagerly waved for me to approach her, drifted away from her group and grabbed me by the arm.

“It’s so good to see you! I thought that I would have nobody to
really
talk with on this voyage.”

“I was under the impression that you were safe from any kind of threat in Barcelona.”

In recent years Isabel Enrich had established herself as the premiere patroness of the city’s cultural life. Her events attracted internationally famous figures, from Chesterton to the Count of Maeterlink, great Spanish artists visiting the city, such as Bergamín and García Lorca, along with eminent Barcelona residents such as Sagarra and Soldevila. Her talks at the Conferentia Club attracted everyone from theologians to socialist crusaders, from flamenco
singers to opera divas. Rich and poor, revolutionaries and conservatives, Catalonian regionalists and Spanish centralists, monarchists and republicans … all of them came together, debated, fought, and settled their differences, with her at the center of it all. She seemed untouchable.