Loneliness and hatred behind the walls of the barracks in Intxaurrondo
Loneliness and hatred behind the walls of the barracks in Intxaurrondo

Adrian MateosSEGUIRBilbao Updated: Save Send news by mail electrónicoTu name *

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The red line, the one after which the agents enjoyed a certain feeling of refuge, is located just a few hundred meters from the barracks of the Guardia Civil in Intxaurrondo. Beyond that invisible boundary, the abyss. There were many who one day crossed it for the last time before you get caught in the web of ETA. Even in San Sebastian it has rained so much since those times of fear, yes, but above all of solitude”, pointing to Lorenzo Silva (Madrid, 1966), which has been located in that fierce stage a good part of his new novel, “The evil of Corcira” (Destination).

The writer from madrid returns to the hand of their most iconic characters, the second lieutenant of the Guardia Civil Rubén Bevilacqua (“Vila”, for those who makes them ball the “possessed” surname) and the sergeant Virginia Chamorro . A new case of murder, in this case of a former member of ETA, whose body is found on the island of Formentera, requires Bevilacqua to roll back to that time in which, with just 26 years old, he fell “a little bit by accident” in Intxaurrondo.

“Vila is a rare type, I don’t know if has never been very clear what I wanted to do -pointing Silva, who receives ABC in the bowels of the infamous barracks-. As you are in a time of crisis, disorientation, says “hey, I’m going to ask here because there is adventure””. is “When one is young, makes these things” , sentence the novelist, which recognised that, after many visits to the cantonment, yet becomes captivated by the “character” of its architecture and the “footprints” left by those who inhabited it during the years of lead.

The hostility “absolute”

Affects the novelist in you to be civil guard in San Sebastián the last decades of the last century supposed to be “an extreme danger”, especially for those in uniform, although he asserts that the dregs left in the professionals he has spoken to prepare your book “is of solitude”. “The reception in some environments was of outright hostility, of hatred full . Exit to the street and feel that you are alone, that they hate you and that in the end will be glad that you pass something… Live is complicated” sentence.

Well it is true that its walls were not accepted only to guard civilians, even though they were the ones who paid the highest price for daring to defend freedom in the mouth of the wolf. A panel of homage with the face of a hundred officers of the garrison, murdered by ETA at the entrance of the offices illustrates that stage of pain, in the capital of guipuzcoa. In the whole of the Basque Country were 167 the agents who died at the hands of the terrorists. But also the families of the agents, including their own children, they suffered harassment from the violent, who carried out an indiscriminate campaign of harassment and extortion to all those people who were linked to the body.

“It’s an important story that interested me as a child,” says Silva, who does not hesitate to affirm that the relating to terrorism etarra “is the great detective story in contemporary Spain”. Why then has not come to the libraries up to now? “It is not easy to know the history, getting to its deeper layers -claimed-. Turn it in adventures single is probably one of the most difficult things I’ve done as a novelist. That’s why I never hurry.” It also highlights that the disappearance of ETA enabled him to focus on the novel “more free” , because “when there is a phenomenon that causes pain” can even compromise the security of the people”.

of course, only a minority of the basques took part of it, and there were even those who, despite the “bullying” of the terrorists, broke lances in favor of the Security Forces, although generally the samples of honey were hiding: “There is a scene that appears in the novel, a police control in the who are a uniformed and identified the people. There were people that were intimidated, but in the midst of all of that once in a while someone, in a low, said: “we are with you”, she says.

The novel does not go long by the that is another of the large shadows that settle on the barracks in Intxaurrondo: the of the torture of eta members. That there were, “although not as many as were reported,” says the madrid native. He has been interviewed exmiembros of the terrorist organization to write “The evil of Corcira”. People who “believe they have a argumentario moral and political-to justify the killing in those years,” says Lorenzo Silva, which underlines that neither the prisoners resettled have “the easy life”. is “We stayed in the “ongi etorri” -the receptions after leaving prison-but the next day you have to get up” .

Lessons

At his trial, little is left of those chimeras. Yes, “lot of pain”, and especially “many lessons”. “For the basques, the Spanish, who from that place of the ideological spectrum believed at some time in their violence,” he adds. Another thing is that those teachings fall into oblivion: “But if, before erasing the blackboard and read and got up an act of what there is, is very valuable to all” sentence.

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