“Good Ol’ Spain”
The lady was French though she’d either been born in Spain or came as a little girl. Her father was a diplomat. He didn’t request Spanish citizenship for her so though she stayed in Madrid she always remained a French citizen I believe. I don’t know what happened to her father but she and her brothers remained in Spain. During the Spanish Civil War she was a teenager and became a Socialist. She was denounced and arrested and spent the whole war in prison. Almost every night women were taken to be executed and each time she expected her turn. But she survived. After the war she was released with orders to leave Spain. She was horrified. Spain was impoverished but it was the only country she knew. She didn’t even know her family’s whereabouts in France. She absolutely wanted to remain in Spain and went to some office to speak to a functionary: “Here I am ordered to leave Spain. Could you advise me how to stay in Spain?” He angrily replied: “You criminal. Wrong thinker. Foreigner. And you dare to ask to stay in Spain?!” She answered, “I know that I am a criminal, wrong thinker and foreigner. Could you tell me, please, how, with all this, I can stay in Spain?” He opened a small notepad, wrote a telephone number and gave it to her: “Say that this came from me.”
You can get a lot from the Spaniards if you don’t push too hard.
#110 Excerpt “Three Anecdotes” March-April 2009