A Barcelona Heiress (22 page)

“I don’t know. I’m not sure, General, if I’m the right person to help you, but I’ll consider your request, and we’ll see how things play out.”

“I hope you will. Enjoy your evening, Vilar.”

“Thank you, General.”

On my way out of El Círculo I spotted Rocabert’s strong back as he faded into the darkness of the night. Farewell, farewell, José María.

* * *

At a time when so many disappearances were going unpunished, others were subject to the intense scrutiny of the law, with its myriad procedures. Why were some investigated while others were not? I often asked myself this question in those days. One possible answer was that many violent crimes had an identified and detained culprit, while the infinite series of political attacks were enveloped in a thick fog.

The case of the son who killed his mother’s lover, one of the most widely covered of all those in which I was involved during those years, was summarized by the prosecutor, Mr. Torres Badía, in his closing brief as follows:

“Jesusa Hidalgo Casas and Antonio Sánchez Pacheco lived as a couple in a shanty in the La Prosperidad district, in the town of San Andrés, with her son, the defendant Luis García Hidalgo, age seventeen. There were frequent fights between the two lovers, and on the evening of April 1, Sánchez Pacheco quarreled with Jesusa, verbally and physically attacking her, for
which the defendant reproached him. Antonio then told Luis García that he was going to blow his brains out and, drawing a revolver, threatened him and the woman with it. In response, Luis García grabbed a knife lying on the kitchen table and stabbed Sánchez in the second intercostal space, puncturing his aorta and lung, wounds which would prove fatal.”

According to the prosecutor, the actions of Luis García constituted a homicide and, accounting for the fact that the defendant was a minor, he asked for a sentence of six years and one day of prison, and the award of legal costs, and compensatory damages of three thousand pesetas to the victim’s family.

I, meanwhile, argued something that was plain as day: Luis García did nothing more than defend his mother from an assault by her companion, who had threatened to kill her. In light of this, I asked for my client’s complete acquittal.

The tribunal in this case was made of the section magistrate Don Ignacio Rodríguez Pajares and justices Don Evaristo Casado and Don Saturnino Bajo. Seventeen witnesses were summoned to testify.

After the provisional conclusions of the parties were read by the secretary, the questioning of the defendant proceeded. A tanner by trade, he had no criminal record.

The young man explained that on the day in question he had returned from work exhausted and yearning to get to sleep. His mother asked him to wait for Antonio Sánchez to arrive so that they could all eat together. After tiring of waiting, they had supper at nine thirty before retiring to their respective bedrooms.

Antonio arrived later and, as was his habit, began to berate and verbally abuse the defendant’s mother. Luis, awakened by the shouting, admonished Antonio for his conduct,
telling him not to raise such a ruckus, as the whole neighborhood was asleep and it was too late to be making so much noise.

Sánchez Pacheco faced off with him and threatened to kick him as he began to beat his mother, simultaneously insulting both. When Luis intervened again on behalf of his mother, Sánchez produced a revolver, with which he threatened the defendant, who opened a window and shouted for help.

With the man continuing to pose a threat, and finding himself defenseless and convinced that he was going to fall victim to his aggressor, in order to repel the attack Luis grabbed a small knife from the table, one used to cut bread. Without intending to cause wounds as serious as those he did, he then stabbed Sánchez with the weapon. Seeing him wounded, he proceeded directly to the nearest police station to explain what had happened and turn himself in.

The defendant told the jury that the year before, after returning from the festivities at the
romería
of San Medín, Sánchez had battered his mother severely and, as a result of a blow to her chest, they had to remove part of her breast at the hospital.

Then it was time for the accused’s mother, Jesusa Hidalgo, to testify; she provided the same account of events as that given by her son. The coroners, Saforcada and Rois, then explained how the wound was produced and the causes of death.

After this, the witnesses proposed by the prosecutor were questioned by the defense, one by one. María Juvernos and Antonio Martínez, neighbors of the defendant, reported that the latter was an excellent young man, while the victim as an irascible character who was constantly abusing Luis’s mother.

And then the defense’s witnesses testified: the former warden of the prison, Don Juan Álvarez; police officer Ricardo Medina; security guard José Calvet; and José Soto, a neighbor.
All of them vouched for Luis García Hidalgo’s character, the officer and guard confirming that he had turned himself in at the station immediately after the incident.

With the testimony phase completed, the trial proceeded with the examination of the evidence, and we proceeded with our closing arguments.

The prosecutor’s performance was able and eloquent. He began by talking about the jury’s duty and asked for a guilty verdict, in accord with justice. He then proceeded to describe the facts, pausing to examine those points where, in his view, there were contradictions. He analyzed the defendant’s and his mother’s statements, expressing his surprise at how perfectly they coincided, “as if following an agreement.”

He pointed out some minor inconsistencies in the testimony given and, finally, argued that it was a case of homicide, albeit with the mitigating factor that the defendant was under eighteen years of age and, as such, a minor, before requesting a verdict of guilty.

Then it was my turn, and I gave it all I had. Defending Luis García Hidalgo before a jury, which tends to decide with its heart rather than its head, obligated me to seek to touch and move them. Thus, I underscored the young man’s good conduct, attested to by all the witnesses, including those called by the prosecution, and how he suffered seeing his mother enduring constant beatings and harassment from a heartless villain.

The members of the jury nodded and there were clear indications of agreement amid the public. I was doing well. It was time to lay it on thick.

“This young man before you did nothing but defend his mother. So, let me talk to you about my own mother, who died just a few years ago, under dramatic circumstances. If death, which tore from my arms that blessed woman who had brought me into the world, had taken earthly form, I too would have assailed it with all my might, employing any and every instrument
at my disposal to do so, proud of having fulfilled my sacred duty to defend my mother’s life. And I would have sat as a good son, unrepentant, at the same table at which my client sits today, for having defended her life.”

In the front rows some ladies were sobbing, and shouts of support echoed from the public, forcing the judge to call for order in the court. I concluded my argument pleading for a verdict of not guilty.

After being instructed by the judge, the jury recessed to deliberate. They quickly came back with a verdict. The charges were officially nine, and on every count the jury declared the defendant to be absolutely innocent. As a result, the court issued its verdict, acquitting Luis García, and announcing that the court costs would be borne by the state.

Upon hearing the decision, the defendant, a decent young man, was overcome with emotion and embraced me, while his mother passed out, a common reaction in these situations, and had to be revived right there at the courthouse.

* * *

When I came out of the courtroom, several people approached to congratulate me and to discuss aspects of the trial. I lingered for a while to speak with them, but they were not enough of a distraction to keep me from noticing a ragged-looking street urchin standing next to a lamppost, observing the situation and waiting for me.

After concluding my chat with my curious well-wishers, I walked across the Salón de San Juan and noticed that the boy was following me.

I spun around and asked him who he was.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Vilar, you can trust me. El Chimo sent me.”

“I’m fine, I just don’t like people following me. And tell me, what happened to Joaquín?” I asked, sincerely interested in the boy sent off at too tender an age to be held in a state correctional facility.

“I shared a cell with him for a few months at the jail in Burgos, and we talked a lot. You know El Chimo, he gets around and makes friends right away. He told me, when I got out, to come and give you some information. He also told me I’d find you at the High Court. I’ve come lots of days, and today I’ve finally found you.”

“Here I am. Tell me what El Chimo had to say.”

“He told me in the Modelo de Barcelona prison he’d met Cándido Fagés, also known as Albert Blum, who was locked up for assaulting a woman you defended, a singer called María Nilo. Blum managed to escape when they were transferring him, and El Chimo says that he’s certain his guards let him get away. El Chimo says he’s also sure—because people he trusts have told him, you know how you hear about everything in jail—that Blum’s the killer they call Danton, and he wants you to know because he’s grateful to you for the good job you did defending him, free of charge.”

I tried to calmly digest the flood of information pouring from the youngster. “What you’re telling me is very interesting … How long have you been looking for me?”

“About a week.”

“Where have you been sleeping this whole time?”

“In the street.”

“We’ll have to do something about that.”

I gave him twenty pesetas and wrote down the address of a parish shelter where they would give him room and board for at least a few days.

“Thank you, Don Pablo. El Chimo said you would help me out.”

“I hope it’s the last time I have to. It wouldn’t be good if you had to contract my services.”

The kid ran off as I lit up a Cuban to help me reflect on the new turn of events.

One morning, as Eduardo Dato was returning to his Madrid residence after a debate in the Senate, he was the target of shots fired by three terrorists who approached the Navy ARM 121 vehicle in which he was riding. His assailants rode on a dark red motorcycle with a sidecar, its license plate number erased. To shouts in Catalan of “Long live anarchy!” they opened fire on the president of the Council of Ministers and his driver, Juan José Pascal. Rushed to the emergency room, Dato died minutes later.

The news came as a terrible blow to me personally, since Dato had taken me under his wing as I made my first forays into politics. During my time in Spain’s capital he had taken me on at his practice when I was but a neophyte and his political career was blossoming with a series of ministerial positions.

That elegant, conciliatory, and upright gentleman who had backed the first Spanish legislation to protect his country’s working class was the least just and, at the same time, the most logical victim of Spain’s most demagogic and violent villains. Dato had always refused to accept personal security. In the different political posts he held, however, he had seen to it that both the monarch and several of his associates were protected when he had it on good account that they were facing serious threats. Dato was opposed to the death penalty (“I shall not shoot!” he used to say), though this did not keep the anarchists from executing him. A firm believer in
the Church’s social doctrines, he was the Spanish politician among all those leaders in office who fought hardest for the country’s workers, whether conservative or liberal.

His contributions to the welfare of his nation’s workers were many: rest on Sundays, invalidity and old-age insurance, the right to cheap housing, care for pregnant women, scholarships for their children, legislation governing accidents on the job, and the regulation of hours, among others. And now a group of men purporting to be representatives of the workers had assassinated him, just hours after a meeting of the Council of Ministers in which he had supported a nascent workers’ retirement law, sponsored by him and designed to benefit those who worked much but had little to eat.

From my first meeting with Dato, I remember that he struck me as a worldly man, an elegant courtier whose air suggested a prolific yet private Don Juan type of past, and that characteristically Latin trait of always placing one’s desire to be pleasant before his professional and political qualities—perhaps based on the sound perception that, in life, stridency betrays bad manners.

A tireless worker, he dedicated hours to study, many nights holing up in the small office of his second-floor apartment on Lagasca Street to write professional articles and monographs, later published by legal journals around the world.

He was a man who did not hold grudges. On many occasions I sat at my humble secretarial desk and read with surprise the brotherly letters he addressed to men who were “officially” his greatest enemies, granting them all they had requested of him. I will never be able to forget a strongly worded letter penned by a poor man who in a Barcelona rally had gone so far as to call Dato a “bastard.” Although Don Eduardo remembered the incident in question as
well as I did and had a newspaper article on his desk in which this insult was cited, he answered the letter in a magnanimous tone.

Many mornings he went to the Ministry on foot, or took a walk around Madrid without allowing a police officer or anyone else to accompany him. “I need to go alone, to think about things,” he would say.

He was very religious. He never missed Mass and observed the sacraments. Every morning his wife affectionately placed a religious picture card in the president’s wallet. In what was an instinctive gesture, Dato would often place his hand on that object, as if in order to feel that Divine and domestic love accompanied him.

The first time he was named president of the Council there was a kind of conspiracy at home to persuade him to retire from politics in which his children, his son-in-law, and his grandchildren were all involved. Don Eduardo did entertain the idea and actually attempted to retire, but unsuccessfully, as his party was very much divided, and had he retired the Conservatives would have fallen apart.