A POETS LIFE & DEATH
(Federico Garcia Lorca’s past in Fuente Vaqueros, Granada & Viznar)
Ric Polansky ©
When visiting a poet’s place of birth there are rules to be followed—none of which are carved in stone. It is helpful to have his collected works on hand so they can be recited on journey but not essential; a few critical tomes and a biography or two is useful but not indispensable. Most important is a proper Bohemian attitude-- you’re taking an adventure into the past—enjoy it. Today’s trip will make tomorrow a better day. Of course, a good map is fundamental and a pensive mood accommodating.
Federico Garcia Lorca was born to well off parents in the farming community of Fuente Vaqueros just a few miles west of Granada. His mother was the village school mistress his father a substantial land owner. Until the age of nine he lived in a serene setting surrounded by sons of the soil and harmony of nature. His village is located just off the A-92 auto via very near the Granada airport. Chronological decorum insists that you visit first Garcia Lorca’s place of birth. Get off the motorway at the Chauchina exit and travel north following the few signs. The slated wooden sheds lining the narrow road are for drying tobacco one of the local main products and favourite addictive vice of Federico’s.
If the day is pleasant you’ll drive under sturdy white poplar trees embossed with a garland of gold. In the distance you will hear the constant trickle of water. The village is the perfect birthplace for a poet of colours, scents and romanticism. Along the main street at the end is a modern monument that well symbolises what the poet wasn’t. City father’s revere that way.
Nearby is the house of his birth and, in fact, the very bed. The home cum museum is excellent because of it’s simplicity. A detail like an ashtray full of cigarette’s in the garden where he most likely sat and discussed life’s themes creates the mood. The house has been restored in detail by his sister (who used to spend her summer’s in Mojacar). Every detail is authentic except for the upstairs which was a granary and now holds many tributes to the poet and an excellent sculpture of Rafael Alberti. (English historians might like to know that this village was once English, owned by the Duke of Wellington as part of the estate given to him in gratitude for chasing out the French during the Peninsula Wars.
I recommend lunch in Granada. Drive toward the capital staying on the ring road getting off at Recogidas. It takes you to the centre of town. A good place to eat is Chicote near to the Hotel Monte Carlo, which was then a house where he lived.
Federico grew up a sheltered yet intellectual life. His first love was music. He became competent with the guitar and piano. Reputedly taught by done other than Manuel de Falla. Great predictions were made for his musical future however it was his penned lyrical ballads about the free spirits of his surroundings, the gypsies, that inspired others to his genius. He wrote, went to Granada University then passed on to Madrid. There he roomed with surrealist painter Salvador Dali and film director Luis Bunuel. They met others and formed the group known as the generation of 1927 bumping elbows daily with Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso, Jorge Guillen, Pedro Salinas, Rafael Alberti, Nobel Prize winner Vicente Alexandre, Luis Cernuda, Damaso Alonso, Gerardo Diego and more. Their movement was indeed an affront to the staid Victorian attitude of the times. Not being a covert homosexual didn’t help either. The artists were carefree and purported an attitude of avant-garde, a modernist illusion brimming with optimism. The aesthetic revolution lead on to a real one. Their respective free spirited world’s came to an abrupt halt with the outbreak of the horrendous Civil war. Most fled.
Get back on the motorway heading east from Granada and take the Viznar exit. It’s a small hillside town with excellent panoramic views. Pass through the village to the far western side. On a bend in the road is a small memorial cemetery that made me shed tears. This is pretty much the spot where he was shot. He had been hiding with wealthy Fascist sympathizers and suspected he’d be OK. He was rounded up at ten PM and driven to a small cortijo just below the memorial. There he spent the last few hours of his life with a village schoolteacher and two minor classed bullfighters. They chatted into the night. Then, one by one taken away. In the near background the deafening sound of a single bullet discharging left no doubt as to their fates. The waiting must have been interminable. On the night of August 19th, 1936 Lorca sat smoking in the dark. What then were his visions? He was collected at 2 AM then walked out to a field, ordered to kneel, a single pistol barrel was placed against his head-- smoke flamed and screamed.
History has it that Lorca was buried in an unmarked grave beneath an olive tree. The priest who had come to listen to confessions never heard Lorca’s voice.
Some trips need be reflective if our life is to be lived with meaning.
PS/ A recent unconfirmed story apparently published in the paper Granada Ideal reported that he was shot but not killed. He was led away totally brain damaged by the bullet and lived in a convent attended by nuns until his death some ten years ago.
“Verde—te quiero verde”.
