“Would you like a tomato?”

* * *

Only part of the manuscript of Memory of Darkness has survived, but everything seems to point to the fact that Mataix decided to give in. There are no signs of him handing in a first version of Miguel Ángel Ubach’s autobiography until well into 1939. Indeed, when the war came to an end and Franco’s troops made their victorious entry into Barcelona, he was still working on revisions and changes he’d been asked to make—most of which presumably came from Federica, Ubach’s wife, whose devotion to Fascism was linked to a great sensitivity for literature and the arts. Once he’d handed in the final manuscript, in 1940, Mataix might have considered his publishers’ advice to try to leave the country with his family and his fees, but in the end he ignored the warning and decided to stay. The most likely reason for that decision, which he kept postponing, was that his wife was pregnant again, this time with their second daughter.

By then Ubach had already returned triumphant to Spain, enjoying the highest levels of acclaim and gratitude among the top echelons of the regime, thanks to his work as banker for the national crusade. Those were days of revenge, but also of rewards. All circles of Spanish life were being restructured, and while many people were cast into oblivion, internal exile, and poverty, just as many acolytes rose to fill posts of power and prestige. There wasn’t a single corner of public life where that purge was not undertaken with relentless zeal. Becoming a turncoat, a deeply rooted Spanish tradition, grew into an art form. The war had left hundreds of thousands of dead, but even more forgotten and damned. Many of the old acquaintances and colleagues who had looked down on Mataix with such scorn reappeared, desperate, begging for his help, his recommendation and compassion. Most of them would soon end up in prison, where they would linger for years until what was left of them was snuffed out forever. A few were summarily executed. Others took their own lives, or died from illness or sadness.

Some, predictably the most pretentious and untalented, switched sides. As protégés and courtiers of the regime, they made all the progress they had been unable to achieve by their own merits. Politics can sometimes be a shelter for mediocre and failed artists. There they can prosper, gain power with which to lend themselves airs, and above all, get back at all those who, through their own work and talent, have achieved what they’ve never come even close to achieving, while they declare, with a look of holiness and sacrifice, that everything they do is for the country.

In the summer of 1941, two weeks after the birth of Sonia, the second daughter of Susana and Víctor Mataix, something unexpected happened. The family was enjoying a sunny, peaceful Sunday in their home near Carretera de la Aguas when they heard a stream of cars approaching. Out of the first car came four armed men in suits. Mataix feared the worst, but then he noticed the second car, a Mercedes almost identical to the one used by Generalissimo Franco, out of which emerged a gentleman with faultless manners, together with a blond lady covered in jewels and dressed as if she was going to a royal coronation. They were Miguel Ángel Ubach and his wife, Federica.