"I would have preferred to have my name hanging on Las Ramblas"

--- How do we do this?

--- Pardon?

--- Do you understand me in Catalan?

--- I love Catalan. "¡Cunill!"! "¡Cullereta!"

--- Yes, but can I interview you like this?

--- Of course I understand you. I have sung several popular songs in Catalan at the piano, and I signed manifestos in favor of that language. Don't worry about that.

--- Certainly: Sagarra defined you as "an authentic Catalanist and honorary Catalan."

--- I am a furious Catalanist.

--- Man... what do you mean? With these words?

--- I measure my words very carefully.

--- I can attest to that. "Mounted on a mother-of-pearl mare without reins and without stirrups."

--- I sympathized a lot with Catalans and Catalanists, people so well-built and so fed up with Castile.

--- But politics aside, did you feel good here?

--- Oh, no doubt, I was very well received. Everywhere: both at the Ateneu Barcelonès and in the flamenco taverns of the Chinese quarter.

--- Or in the workers' circles! They say that on some posters your name appeared translated as Frederic!

--- Among the reeds and the low afternoon, how strange that my name is Federico!

--- In fact, in Barcelona you premiered your most important theatrical works.

--- Barcelona is something else.

--- Well, let's go: what is Barcelona?

--- Ah! There is the Mediterranean, the spirit, the adventure, the high dream of perfect love.

--- Now the city is a bit more boring, I have to tell you.

--- There are palm trees, people from all countries, surprising commercial advertisements, Gothic towers and a rich urban high tide made by typewriters.

--- Palm trees and typewriters are everywhere, Mr. Lorca…

--- But I don't mention all places.

--- Okay. That said: in any case, before Barcelona, you set foot in Cadaqués.

--- Naturally! invited by Salvador, my companion at the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid.

--- Well, you have him very close. You will find him two rooms beyond the museum, in the painters' room.

--- I know, but he is from another dimension. He is angelic, I am human. I am fine here, between Shakespeare and Maragall.

--- What did you think of Cadaqués?

--- Cadaqués, in the heart of the water and the hill, raises staircases and hides seashells.

--- You even recited María Pineda before it premiered in Barcelona.

--- You have to listen to the family first.

--- By the way: Anna Maria, Dalí's sister, said she had vertigo when sailing.

--- Ah! Anna Maria. Daughter of the olive trees and niece of the sea!

--- And an obsessive fear of death.

--- Well, when one goes to mass all those fears go away. Especially before the baroque altarpiece of the church of Cadaqués.

--- And the figure of Saint Sebastian.

--- Salvador introduced me to that aesthetic mythology. He said I was a Christian storm and that I needed his paganism.

--- Pagan, Dalí? I doubt it.

--- Me too, but the thing is he is the best faithful of his own religion.

--- I believe the theme of Saint Sebastian goes much further than religion.

--- He is the most beautiful figure, if not of all art, of art that comes with the eyes. But in any case my Saint Sebastian is of flesh and dies at every moment and with every arrow, while Salvador's is of marble and does not flinch.

--- What I mean is that Saint Sebastian has been a gay icon for over a century.

--- Oh! Look, there's something very clear: imagination doesn't shrink with repression, it grows.

--- They say Dalí was much more repressed, in that sense.

--- On the other hand, I never hid anything, but the fact is that not even Buñuel liked us being so close.

--- Neither did Gala. She destroyed all their correspondence!

--- I remember one of those letters well: "In my Saint Sebastian I remember you a lot and sometimes it seems to me that it is you... Let's see if it turns out that Saint Sebastian is you! / A hug from your Saint Sebastian".

--- He said it was an erotic and tragic love.

--- Perhaps it was an "amor intellectualis". Who knows.

--- But after the war Dalí distanced himself a lot from leftist artists, like Picasso, like you. I regret seeing how he put this friendship aside.

--- Art is not the light that blinds our eyes / It is first love, friendship or fencing.

---Well, I'm afraid he put art, or genius, above friendship.

---Well, neither he nor Buñuel liked my Romancero Gitano.

--- They said it was old-fashioned poetry.

--- So what? An Andalusian Dog was a tiny little piece of crap.

--- I see we're going strong.

--- Even so, Salvador remains a genius, and I never stopped considering myself his twin spirit.

--- The day you were shot, he exclaimed "Olé!".

--- Seriously?

--- It was like crowning his life, or rather his death, with the poetry of a bullfight.

--- The rest was death and only death / at five in the afternoon.

--- He said they didn't kill him for being a communist, since you were the most anti-political being he had ever known.

--- Look, I feel at once Catholic, communist, anarchist, libertarian, traditionalist and monarchist. But I never joined anything, nor did I lose any friends for any of those reasons.

--- They say he was even a secret friend of José Antonio Primo de Rivera.

--- He was just a great lover of poetry.

--- Well, perhaps Dalí was not wrong… He says they shot him because he had too much personality. That they killed him for being Lorca.

--- How nice. But deep down, for him, I was always Federico. Lorquito.

--- We have been searching for his body for decades. You won't tell me where it is, will you?

--- My poor father's is in a much better place, that I do know.

--- In New York.

--- New York of mud, / New York of wire and death.

--- In any case, since you won't tell me, know that shortly after his assassination, they named Carrer del Bisbe after him.

--- Oh! What an honor.

--- He was a symbol of anti-fascist resistance, but it didn't last long. Until '39.

--- I would have preferred to have my name hung on a little piece of Las Ramblas.

--- Well, right now we are in a museum that is right next to Las Ramblas.

--- The street where the four seasons of the year live together at once, the only street on earth that I would wish would never end, rich in sounds, abundant in breezes, beautiful in encounters, ancient in blood.

--- Perhaps specifically on the Rambla de les Flors, you would have liked to have a name, right?

--- These stalls of joy among the city trees…

--- But are you more from the Gothic Quarter, or from Raval?

--- Both. In the Gothic wing, Roman fountains and fifteenth-century lutes are heard.

--- And Raval?

--- The other wing is colorful, cruel, incredible, where the accordions of all the sailors in the world are heard and there is a nocturnal flight of painted lips and laughter at dawn.

--- Now there is chaos equally, but without bohemia. What else do you remember about the city?

--- Everything. The Excelsior, Villa Rosa, Criolla, the Majestic hotel, the Condal, the Colón, the Ritz, the solemn office of the Cathedral, the Suizo café, the Glacier, the transvestites, the taverns, the sardana, the Tibidabo, the Turó Park, Oro de Rin, the Lyon d'Or, Miramar, El Canari de la Garriga…

--- Ah, there in the guestbook he wrote "Visca Catalunya Lliure!".

--- Just words from a potential prisoner.

--- And in Raval, you also have the monument to Xirgu.

--- Ah! How to forget her, Xirgu, Goya theater, Barcelona theater, ​​Principal Palace theater, unfiltered passions. Xirgu, luminary of Spanish theater and admirable creator!

--- Exactly as it appears in the inscription on her monument.

--- The best time of my life. Yerma, Blood Wedding, Doña Rosita the Spinster or the Language of Flowers…

--- Well, but in Vic and Igualada Yerma was not liked by the most conservative.

--- Nor in some circles in Madrid. There are people who see sin everywhere.

--- But you saw noise in the Sagrada Familia.

--- Noise, yes. A vertical stridency that rose to the pinnacles. It tensed me up a lot. But I think that's precisely what it's about. Right?

--- You should see it today, they will finish in a few years.

--- I imagine it even more vertical, and more strident.

--- Someone must be exaggerating, Mr. Lorca.

--- Someone has to be human, too.

--- And the Dalmau galleries? It seems you even exhibited drawings.

--- It was thanks to my artistic friendship with Sebastià Gasch. Beautiful gallery, beautiful Paseo de Gràcia!

--- But weren't they in Porteferrisa?

--- Not that I remember.

--- Ah.

--- We have not lived the same Barcelona, ​​my dear sir.

--- In any case, they were very delicate drawings. Even very similar to early Dalí, I must say.

--- All life slips on a very fine spiderweb thread.

--- And now tell me: ​​After having died so tragically, do you rest in peace?

--- Of course. No Barcelonian can sleep peacefully if they haven't walked along the Ramblas at least once.

--- I suppose now you are just another Barcelonian who has stayed on the Rambla.

--- But not to sleep, but to wake up. My awakened heart spoke of its loves.

--- You should know that now in Barcelona people go to bed very early.

--- But this city dreams awake.

--- What do you mean?

--- It's an idealistic city. Better this way: always wake up, even if you are asleep.

--- Why?

--- Upon waking one returns to who one was to the one who has the name by which we are called.