Lorca

by Leslie Stainton

  That afternoon, the Huerta’s newly installed telephone rang for Lorca. It was his old friend Constantino Ruiz Carnero, editor of the Defensor de Granada, calling to welcome him home. The next day, July 15, the Defensor announced Lorca’s arrival in a front-page article headlined “García Lorca in Granada.” The piece noted that Lorca’s stay in the city would be intentionally brief. On July 16, the conservative Ideal followed suit with a line in its Travelers section informing readers that “the poet Don Federico García Lorca is in Granada.” Ideal had recently resumed publication after a four-month absence caused by damage to its offices during the political demonstrations that followed the February elections. The city’s remaining daily, El Noticiero Granadino, announced Lorca’s presence on July 17.

  Lorca tried to settle into old routines, but Granada, like Madrid, though to a lesser extent, was in the grip of political upheaval, and the atmosphere was tense. Since the February elections, nearly six hundred granadinos had joined the local Falange Party. Transit workers had gone on strike in late June. On July 1, its first day back in print, the unabashedly right-wing Ideal had declared that Granada was “in a state of unrest which stems from the total absence of public Power.” The paper went on to note that the road ahead, toward “God and Spain,” would entail sacrifices, “to be certain, but sacrifice has never been futile when carried out in defense of a just cause.”

  During his first days in Granada, Lorca read The House of Bernarda Alba to friends and endeavored to work on a new play, The Dreams of My Cousin Aurelia, which he hoped to complete that summer. He had begun the script earlier in the year and planned to premiere it in the fall, perhaps simultaneously with The House of Bernarda Alba. Both works take place in villages Lorca had lived in as a child—The House of Bernarda Alba in Asquerosa, Aurelia in his birthplace, Fuente Vaqueros. He described Aurelia as an “elegy of provincial life,” a homage to the days when human existence still yielded to fantasy and dreams, before the advent of the machine age with its factories and engines.

  Set in 1910, the year of Lorca’s twelfth birthday, a time Lorca had long associated with a loss of innocence, both personal and cultural, Aurelia belonged to a sequence of so-called “Granadan chronicles” that began with Doña Rosita the Spinster and was to continue with a play called The Nuns of Granada. Lorca based the work’s protagonist, Aurelia, on a cousin he had known and loved as a child, a young woman, Aurelia, much celebrated for her “mad and feverish dreams.” As a boy, Lorca used to race to Aurelia’s home in Fuente Vaqueros whenever thunder struck, to watch her collapse into a rocking chair in a faint and shriek, “Just look at me, I’m dying!” He relished the girl’s impromptu theatrics.

  Aurelia knew Lorca wanted to write a play about her in 1936 and was charmed by the idea. He completed a single act of the work, much of which is a long and comic exchange between Aurelia and three older women, who read and discuss a novel as if its characters were close personal friends. For Aurelia, fiction is a more compelling reality than everyday life. “Do you think one can live without reading novels and putting on plays?” she asks. “Especially in this village, which has a pack of men I’ve never once seen laugh.” She scorns her suitors and dotes on her young cousin, Federico García Lorca, a small boy whose face is sprinkled with beauty spots. Fact and fantasy blur as Venetian gondoliers serenade Aurelia and the child during the town’s Carnival festivities; the boy is entranced by the spectacle of masked figures in his village. He adores Aurelia. Nestled in her lap, he murmurs, “Cousin, how beautiful you are.”

  “You are handsomer.”

  “You have a waist and breasts and curly hair with flowers. I don’t have any of that.”

  “But it’s because I’m a woman.”

  “That must be why.”

  “You, in turn, have moles, like tiny little moons of tender moss. Why don’t you give them to me?”

  “Take them!”

  Lorca had rendered the figure of the boy before—in his suites, in Songs, in the New York poems, in lectures, and most compellingly in his plays: The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife, Once Five Years Pass, Doña Rosita, and now Aurelia, written on the cusp of middle age, in Lorca’s thirty-ninth year, in the midst of cataclysmic social and political change. As always the child is an emblem of the purity and evanescence of youth, but in Aurelia he is more: a wistful self-portrait sketched with the same naive strokes that mark Lorca’s drawings, a precocious reminder of the last generation born before the advent of modern war and technology.

  Much as he longed to recover the past, Lorca had learned to live in the present, something his heroine Aurelia has failed to do. Had he completed the play, he intended to end Aurelia with what he described as a “therapeutic slap in the face to its protagonist,” an incident so startling that it would transform Aurelia’s dream-filled stage into “the four real and true walls of her house.” Lorca did not finish his script, however. Instead of a “slap in the face,” the play’s sole surviving act ends with a bittersweet song about love, performed in unison by Aurelia, a band of gondoliers, and her young cousin Federico García Lorca:

  Lovestruck gondolier,

  with your matchless face,

  row, row without rest,

  for love will never come

  Never, never come

  never, never come

  Never, never will love come

  Love, love (Ah, what a beautiful thing!)

  yes yes yes, gondolier, no.

  Farewell, beautiful girl, farewell.

  Farewell, beautiful girl, farewell.

  Toward nightfall on Friday, July 17, the day before Lorca’s saint’s day, word reached Granada that army officers in garrisons throughout Spanish Morocco had risen in arms against the republican government. The news was sketchy and confusing. Radio Granada, in conjunction with Madrid’s Union Radio, broadcast optimistic reports suggesting that the rising had failed. But households able to receive broadcasts from Tetuán, in Spanish Morocco, heard otherwise. According to the Tetuán Civil Guard, the rising was a triumph. The jailed leader of the Falange, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, issued a manifesto that night announcing his party’s endorsement of the military rebellion.

  By dawn the following day, July 18, Nationalist troops under the command of Generals Francisco Franco and Luis Orgaz had taken control of Las Palmas, the capital city of the Canary Islands, and declared martial law throughout the archipelago. At 5 a.m., Franco released a manifesto denouncing foreign influences in Spain and threatening “war without quarter against the exploiters of politics.” This manifesto was immediately broadcast in both the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco. For its part Radio Madrid announced later that morning that “absolutely no one” on the Spanish mainland had taken part in “this absurd plot,” and that the rising would quickly be quelled. It was the republican government’s first official acknowledgment of the insurrection. Few listeners were reassured. Even as the broadcast was being read, army garrisons throughout Andalusia—in Seville, Cádiz, Jerez, Córdoba, and a number of smaller towns—were rising against the government. In Granada, left-wing sympathizers marched in the streets.

  Friends and family members dropped by the Huerta de San Vicente all day long on the eighteenth to pay their respects to Lorca and his father on their saint’s day. They brought liquors and sweets. But fewer people than usual showed up, and the atmosphere was strained. Lorca was clearly preoccupied. He talked to his cousin Vicente López about Sotelo’s murder earlier in the week and admitted that he was worried. To Eduardo Valdivieso, he seemed uncharacteristically silent, as if unable to think. “He was frightened, he had doubts, uncertainties,” Valdivieso saw. That morning, apparently in honor of his saint’s day, the Heraldo de Madrid had published a striking black-and-white cartoon showing Lorca in profile, wth an enormous black eyebrow, wearing little-boy shorts and a white shirt with a cravat. A tongue-in-cheek caption read:

  García Lorca. “Precious child, Mama’s pride.” He’s a delight. You’ll see: he’s only seven a
nd a half years old. He hasn’t had appendicitis, and they claim he has the brain of an adult … And yet, Federico García Lorca isn’t badly educated, and he’s now over thirty.

  By dusk Seville had fallen to the Nationalists. General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano seized control of the city and captured its radio station. At eight o’clock he made the first in a series of inflammatory broadcasts. Listeners in Granada heard Queipo announce the “victorious advance” of the Nationalist movement throughout Spain. He told of military columns advancing on Córdoba, Madrid, and Granada, and warned that the “rabble” who resisted the rising would be shot “like dogs.” Radio Madrid meanwhile declared that the Nationalist insurrection had been crushed across the nation, even in Seville, and that several rebel officers, including Generals Franco and Queipo de Llano, had been dismissed. It was the first indication from the government that anything unusual had occurred on the Spanish mainland. Strident patriotic music followed the Madrid broadcast, punctuated by exhortations to the “people of Spain” to “stay tuned in. Do not turn off your radios. Rumors are being circulated by traitors. Stay tuned in.”

  At 10 p.m. the communist leader Dolores Ibarrurí came on the air from Madrid and urged citizens to resist the rebellion. Women, she said, must prepare to fight the insurgents with knives and boiling oil. Ibarrurí’s closing words became the rallying cry of the Left: “They shall not pass! ¡No pasarán!” Later that night both the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister resigned and appointed party stalwart and master of compromise Diego Martínez Barrio in their stead, with the expectation that he would strike a deal with the rebels rather than fight them. Cries of “treason” and “traitor” greeted the news of his appointment. Workers poured into Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, demanding “arms, arms, arms.”

  Granada’s Ideal announced the following morning, July 19, that a state of war had been declared in Seville, but that the rest of Spain remained loyal to the government. According to the civil governor of the province, “absolute” order reigned in Granada, and security measures had been taken to prevent a military insurrection. Radio broadcasts from Madrid informed Spaniards that the country’s new government had accepted “fascism’s declaration of war upon the Spanish people” and would begin distributing arms to the working classes.

  The Spanish Civil War had begun. Before the sun rose on the capital, trucks sped through Madrid carrying rifles to trade union headquarters. Civil governors throughout the country were ordered to do the same. But in many cities it was too late; a second wave of military risings had already begun. By the end of the day Nationalists had seized Burgos, Zaragoza, Pamplona, Valladolid, and Segovia. In the south, troops from Africa began arriving in Algeciras and Cádiz to shore up existing nationalist strongholds in Seville and Cádiz. Republicans held on to Madrid, Valencia, and Barcelona. In the countryside, zones alternated from town to town. In Granada, republican supporters marched on the city hall, demanding arms. The civil governor responded by sending troops into the streets to disperse the crowds. Opposing factions clashed throughout the night.

  Dawn broke the next day, Monday, July 20, on a city braced for war. Military squads patrolled the streets of Granada. As sunlight burned off the last vestiges of night air, shots rang out in the center of town. Two bodies were found, victims of a confrontation between republican and Falangist youth. By noon, downtown Granada was jammed with people calling for arms. The civil governor refused to distribute weapons, despite orders that he do so from the city’s military general Campins, a republican loyalist. At 5 p.m. soldiers in the Granada garrison rose against Campins. Within an hour rebels had forced the general to sign a declaration of war and had seized the airport, city hall, republican outposts throughout the city, and Radio Granada. They arrested the civil governor and his staff as well as the city’s newly elected mayor, Manuel Montesinos, husband to Concha García Lorca. A socialist physician, Montesinos had been voted into office just ten days earlier by Granada’s city council. He was herded into prison along with dozens of other detainees. Jail cells meant to hold one prisoner quickly filled with as many as twenty men.

  Sometime before 6 p.m. Nationalist rebels made their first radio broadcast. “Granadinos!” a voice declared. “At this moment Granada joins the National rising for the salvation of Spain. The army is now on the streets.” Stores abruptly closed, taxis vanished, all public transportation ceased—including bus and rail services out of the city. Residents shut themselves inside their homes and listened intently to both Radio Granada and Radio Seville, desperate to glean some truth from the vague and often contradictory broadcasts they heard.

  Republican resistance fighters took to the Albaicín, the tangled white Gypsy quarter sprawled across the city’s northern edge, below the Alhambra. At entrance points to the neighborhood they dug trenches and skirmished with rebels. From covert positions on the Alhambra, Nationalist soldiers fired down onto the quarter. Gunfire and grenades sounded through the night.

  In huge black letters, the July 21 edition of Ideal announced a declaration of war throughout Granada province. Citizens possessing weapons were ordered to surrender them immediately to the nearest member of the military or to the Civil Guard. Anyone caught using or manufacturing firearms would receive the “maximum punishment.” Assemblies of more than three persons were prohibited. Left-wing publications and political parties were banned. Labor strikes became punishable by death. Throughout Granada, members of the Civil and Assault Guards stationed themselves in squares and on street corners. Right-wing crowds cheered as Nationalist troops made their way through the city. Non-soldiers incurred ridicule. “Those who don’t wear uniforms should wear skirts,” people jeered.

  The fighting in the Albaicín worsened. Artillery fire from six cannons positioned in the Alhambra punctuated the clatter of machine guns as rebels continued their siege on the neighborhood. Workers shot back from terraces and balconies. Early the following morning, July 22, Radio Granada broadcast an ultimatum ordering female residents of the Albaicín to surrender. Shortly afterward a column of women and children filed out of the quarter. They were searched and taken to a camp on the outskirts of town. Rebel planes attacked the men who remained with bullets and hand grenades. Cannonfire jolted the neighborhood. By the morning of Thursday, July 23, white flags hung limply throughout the Albaicín. A full surrender followed. Soldiers entered the quarter and went methodically from house to whitewashed house in search of republican partisans. The Nationalist victory in Granada was complete. For the first time in three days the city fell silent.

  Within two days General Franco had sent an envoy from Africa, General Orgaz, to reinforce the Nationalist hold on Granada. Cheering citizens lined the General’s route from the airfield to the center of town. Orgaz promptly ordered the formation of local Nationalist militias and began recruiting troops. Some 5,000 granadinos enlisted. Nine hundred civilians also joined the Falange. Soldiers took charge of the city and its administration. On August 3, further reinforcements from Africa flew into Granada. That evening troops marched through the city to the sound of military bands and shrieking crowds. More troops from Africa followed. The city’s cafés and bars filled with men in uniform: Falangists, Civil Guardsmen, legionnaires.

  So-called “undesirables”—former members of the civil government, republican partisans, prominent members of trade unions—were arrested and jailed by the hundred. Officials drew up lists; neighbors denounced neighbors. The city’s first execution took place July 21, one day after the Nationalists seized Granada. From then on, each day before sunrise, truckloads of condemned prisoners were driven to the town cemetery above the Alhambra and shot, or taken to more remote locations on the outskirts of town. From his carmen not far below the city cemetery, Manuel de Falla could hear vehicles straining uphill every morning with their human freight. By August Ideal had begun publishing official announcements of executions. The paper noted twenty deaths on August 8; three days later the number rose to twenty-nine. Because the city was surrou
nded by republican territory—at some points the republican zone lay as close as ten miles—the repression in Granada was severe. The civilian population yielded in terror to the caprices of the Nationalist regime.

  Eduardo Valdivieso went to visit Lorca several times during the first days of the insurrection. He arrived one afternoon to find Lorca just waking up from a nap; the poet had dreamt that a group of women clad in black dresses and veils had threatened him with black crucifixes. As Lorca described the nightmare to Valdivieso and his mother, Eduardo watched Vicenta Lorca. Her face, he recalled, was “beset with anguish.”

  Like most of Granada, the family was petrified. Concha’s husband, Manuel, was in prison. Isabel García Lorca remained in Madrid, cut off from her parents and siblings; Paco was in Cairo, serving a government now at war. Although the Huerta de San Vicente lay roughly a mile from the center of town, in the midst of the vega, Lorca and his parents could occasionally hear gunfire, especially at night, and they were aware of the arrests taking place daily throughout the province.

  At 11 a.m., Wednesday, July 29, republican planes bombarded Granada for the first time. Residents of the city heard the purr of war planes, then the blast of explosives hitting the earth. Citizens panicked. The republican air campaign lasted two weeks. Several civilians perished during the assault. Granada’s single warning siren was so ineffective it sounded only after bombs had fallen. At the Huerta de San Vicente, Concha García Lorca and her children’s nursemaid, Angelina Cordobilla, hid under the family’s grand piano whenever bombs fell. Lorca invariably came downstairs in his bathrobe and crawled under the instrument with them, murmuring, “Angelina, I’m terrified. Let me in beside you, I’m frightened.” He always remained with the women until the barrage ended.