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Authors: Roberto Bolaño
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Irma had already left Paris, and gone back across the Spanish border to Burgos,
in the nationalist zone, where she was welcomed by the mother superior of a
discalced Carmelite convent, to whom she was distantly related.
The life she led for the rest of the war is legendary. According to
various reports she worked as a nurse in first aid stations on the front lines,
wrote and acted in
tableaux vivants
to raise the soldiers’ morale, and
befriended the Colombian Catholic poets Ignacio Zubieta and Jesús
Fernández-Gómez. General Muñoz Grande is said to have cried on seeing her for
the first time, because he knew she would never be his. She was, it seems,
affectionately known to the young Falangist poets as
Guadalupe
or
The Angel of the Trenches
.
In 1939, a pamphlet entitled
The Triumph of Virtue or The Triumph
of God
was printed in Salamanca, containing five or her poems,
celebrating Franco’s victory in finely wrought, symmetrically balanced lines. In
1940, having moved to Madrid, she published another book of poetry,
Spain’s
Gift
, and a play,
A Tranquil Night in Burgos
, which was soon
successfully staged and later adapted for the screen (it explores the joyous
vacillation of a novice about to take the veil). In 1941, she traveled around
Europe with a group of Spanish artists on a triumphant promotional tour
sponsored by the German Ministry of Culture. She visited Rome and Greece,
Hungary and Rumania (where she visited the house of General Entrescu, and met
his fiancée, the Argentinean poet Daniela de Montecristo, to whom she took an
immediate dislike: “Everything about her suggests that this woman is a wh—,” she
wrote in her diary); she traveled by boat on the Rhine and the Danube. Her
talent, previously dulled by insufficient stimulation and by a lack or an excess
of love, emerged and shone again in all its splendor. This rebirth nurtured the
seeds of a new and fervent vocation: journalism. She wrote articles, portraits
of political and military figures, described the cities she visited in vivid and
picturesque detail, attended to Paris fashions and to the problems and concerns
of the Roman Curia. Magazines and newspapers in Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia and
Paraguay published her features and stories.
In 1942, Mexico declared war on the Axis powers, and although the
decision struck Irma Carrasco as a blunder, or at best a ridiculous joke, she
was, above all, a Mexican, so she decided to return to Spain and await further
developments.
In 1946, the day after the première of her play
The Moon in her
Eyes
, which was greeted with discreet enthusiasm by the critics and the
public, there was a knock at the door of her simple but comfortable apartment in
Lavapiés. It was Barreda, reappearing on the scene.
The architect, who was living in New York, had come to make a new
start. On his knees, he begged forgiveness, and made all the promises and oaths
that Irma was longing to hear. The embers of their first love were rekindled.
Irma’s tender heart did the rest.
They returned to America. Barreda had, indeed, changed. During the
voyage he was tirelessly attentive and affectionate. The ship on which they had
embarked in Europe took them to New York. Barreda’s apartment on Third Avenue
had been specially prepared for Irma’s arrival. Their second honeymoon lasted
three months. In New York, Irma experienced moments of great happiness. They
decided to have children as soon as possible, but Irma did not get pregnant.
In 1947, the couple returned to Mexico. Barreda took up with his old
friends, seeing them every day. Those friends or the air of Mexico City
transformed him: he reverted to his former self, the fearsome husband of the bad
old days. His behavior became erratic; he started drinking again and seeing
chorus girls; he stopped listening and talking to his wife. Soon the verbal
abuse began, and one night, after Irma, in conversation with some friends, had
defended the honor of Franco’s regime and
Irma had already left Paris, and gone back across the Spanish border to Burgos,
in the nationalist zone, where she was welcomed by the mother superior of a
discalced Carmelite convent, to whom she was distantly related.
The life she led for the rest of the war is legendary. According to
various reports she worked as a nurse in first aid stations on the front lines,
wrote and acted in
tableaux vivants
to raise the soldiers’ morale, and
befriended the Colombian Catholic poets Ignacio Zubieta and Jesús
Fernández-Gómez. General Muñoz Grande is said to have cried on seeing her for
the first time, because he knew she would never be his. She was, it seems,
affectionately known to the young Falangist poets as
Guadalupe
or
The Angel of the Trenches
.
In 1939, a pamphlet entitled
The Triumph of Virtue or The Triumph
of God
was printed in Salamanca, containing five or her poems,
celebrating Franco’s victory in finely wrought, symmetrically balanced lines. In
1940, having moved to Madrid, she published another book of poetry,
Spain’s
Gift
, and a play,
A Tranquil Night in Burgos
, which was soon
successfully staged and later adapted for the screen (it explores the joyous
vacillation of a novice about to take the veil). In 1941, she traveled around
Europe with a group of Spanish artists on a triumphant promotional tour
sponsored by the German Ministry of Culture. She visited Rome and Greece,
Hungary and Rumania (where she visited the house of General Entrescu, and met
his fiancée, the Argentinean poet Daniela de Montecristo, to whom she took an
immediate dislike: “Everything about her suggests that this woman is a wh—,” she
wrote in her diary); she traveled by boat on the Rhine and the Danube. Her
talent, previously dulled by insufficient stimulation and by a lack or an excess
of love, emerged and shone again in all its splendor. This rebirth nurtured the
seeds of a new and fervent vocation: journalism. She wrote articles, portraits
of political and military figures, described the cities she visited in vivid and
picturesque detail, attended to Paris fashions and to the problems and concerns
of the Roman Curia. Magazines and newspapers in Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia and
Paraguay published her features and stories.
In 1942, Mexico declared war on the Axis powers, and although the
decision struck Irma Carrasco as a blunder, or at best a ridiculous joke, she
was, above all, a Mexican, so she decided to return to Spain and await further
developments.
In 1946, the day after the première of her play
The Moon in her
Eyes
, which was greeted with discreet enthusiasm by the critics and the
public, there was a knock at the door of her simple but comfortable apartment in
Lavapiés. It was Barreda, reappearing on the scene.
The architect, who was living in New York, had come to make a new
start. On his knees, he begged forgiveness, and made all the promises and oaths
that Irma was longing to hear. The embers of their first love were rekindled.
Irma’s tender heart did the rest.
They returned to America. Barreda had, indeed, changed. During the
voyage he was tirelessly attentive and affectionate. The ship on which they had
embarked in Europe took them to New York. Barreda’s apartment on Third Avenue
had been specially prepared for Irma’s arrival. Their second honeymoon lasted
three months. In New York, Irma experienced moments of great happiness. They
decided to have children as soon as possible, but Irma did not get pregnant.
In 1947, the couple returned to Mexico. Barreda took up with his old
friends, seeing them every day. Those friends or the air of Mexico City
transformed him: he reverted to his former self, the fearsome husband of the bad
old days. His behavior became erratic; he started drinking again and seeing
chorus girls; he stopped listening and talking to his wife. Soon the verbal
abuse began, and one night, after Irma, in conversation with some friends, had
defended the honor of Franco’s regime and
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