Looking for Lorca

30^th October 2007. I'm sitting writing this on a bench in the sun in the little orchard attached to the house where Federico García Lorca lived in Granada, Andalucía. This house, where he said he produced some of his calmest work, is now run by the local council, the Junta di Andalucia, and the visit times posted on the door bear no relation to reality. This afternoon, our coach party is booked to visit the Alhambra, and our guide has impressed on us the need to get there on time, because there is a timed traffic flow through one of the palaces and no possibility to buy an individual ticket on the day. OK, no problem. The first two tours of the Lorca house have been booked by school trips, but the third slot or the final one on the day would suit me fine.

I went into the reception office in good time, to be totally ignored by the custodian behind the counter. He was having two phone conversations at once, on a landline and a mobile. However, the “next tour” presentation folder on the desk showed my target time, still half an hour away, so I started looking through the books on display. I had hoped to find some parallel texts, English and Spanish, because my Spanish is still basic and it saves time diving into dictionaries for new words. However, they were all in just Spanish. No problem. So many nationalities visit, and it would be impossible to cater for all of us. I selected Poema del Cante Jondo, sure that I would be able to find a parallel text once I could get my fingers on a keyboard again.

Once my man saw that I wanted to buy something, he came off the phones to talk to me. I said I wanted to book a place on the next tour as well, pointing to the time on the folder. ¡Ah, no, that was not possible! He flipped the page to show me the next one, too late for my Alhambra visit. No good. So I flipped the pages to the final visit for the day, but with a shrug he turned back to what was really the final visit for the day, at a time when I would still be at the Alhambra. ¡Choices! ¿Lorca or the Alhambra?

Lorca was taken from this house on August 19^th 1936 by Falange militia, driven into the countryside and murdered. He was an intellectual, a socialist and gay. What more excuse did Franco's thugs need? I suppressed unworthy thoughts about the possible ancestry of the man behind the counter, and made my decision. I will come back to Andalucía on a pilgrimage when the almond trees are in flower. I will visit Lorca's birthplace in Fuente Vaqueros, which is now the Museo Casa Natal Federico García Lorca. I will visit the place of his murder, near Víznar, and I will come back to this house, La Huerta de San Vicente, with plenty of time to find an available tour.

¡Hasta la vista!

Miguel