Unearthing the drama of the 'botxí' Nicomedes

In that urban landscape populated by protests, bombs, repression, bourgeois splendor, secularism, Catalanism, and anarchism, Méndez was going to execute his last victim, Juan Rull, the Lame Man of Sants, the first person executed in the history of La Modelo prison. This episode closed the long professional career of a character whose life drama García Jiménez recovers through an imposing, profusely illustrated and documented volume.

The book explains the history and the stories, but also traces the life and character of a man who lived his profession with a fiercely competitive spirit: an fiery passion for the work of executing as cleanly and humanely as possible, while the world repeatedly fell on him, again and again.

--- I need to clarify, first of all, one question: How does a gentleman from Murcia decide to delve into the life of one of the characters of 19th-century Barcelona, crafting an essay that so well captures the spirit of that expanding and transforming city?

--- I consider myself an international writer and I live in Murcia as I could live in Paris, Tokyo, or New York. In fact, I have published in Mexico, Argentina, and Germany. In addition, I have books published by several Catalan publishers such as Libros de la Frontera, Ariel, Melusina, or Plataforma Editorial. In the current literary landscape, mediocrity is overrated; the Planeta Prize serves as an example. I try to write works that are not disposable, to investigate the life of a transcendental character, to squeeze it, with a great number of weapons: those of a poet, narrator, essayist, and researcher of all archives and newspaper libraries, willing to pay the price for the copyright of any image or document.

--- Let's talk about the protagonist...

--- Nicomedes Méndez began to be for me the master of all Spanish executioners, worthy of appearing in a fictionalized biography. This is demonstrated by the fact that, in a proposal from the Cortes to save money on paying the executioners of all Territorial Courts, they intended to appoint him the sole executioner of Spain, just as Anatole Deibler was for France in charge of the guillotine. Years ago, impacted and carried away by the lives of these justice officials, repudiated by the people, I began to unearth the drama of the obscure botxí Nicomedes, reaching the bottom of all his anguishes and secrets. I thoroughly studied the habitat and history in which he had to live. The map of his actions to garrote those condemned to death was extensive, which is why more than fifty towns in the Territorial Court of Catalonia where he erected the great public theater of his scaffold also appear.

"I consider myself an international writer and I live in Murcia as I could live in Paris, Tokyo or New York"

--- In the investigation I spent several years, with infinite patience, because I had to delve into the archives of notarial protocols, parish archives, photo archives, historical press, books related to that era... sometimes discovering precious jewels in the form of unpublished documents. For example, in the Valencia library I stumbled upon the diary of an executioner who cited Méndez on several occasions, and I managed to get a collector of photos about the death penalty to grant me permission to publish a totally unpublished photograph of him in full action, executing four prisoners in Vilafranca del Penedès. Of all the images preserved of him, this is the one in which he can be most clearly seen. Writing the book and scrupulously correcting it on several occasions took me about four years.

--- Can we consider this work a kind of continuation of your book No matarás, célebres verdugos españoles (Thou Shalt Not Kill, Famous Spanish Executioners), published 14 years ago?

--- That was the book from which the Melusina publishing house's catalog obtained the most interviews, reviews, and comments: it contains nine biographies of Spanish executioners contemporary with Nicomedes Méndez. The portrait I dedicated to this character was the germ of the 455 pages, plus the terrible illustrations, that make up the new book. At that time, parts of my research were plagiarized in newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet, without citing the source. This can be seen in Wikipedia itself, which copies several of the errors I made, such as calling the executioner's wife Alejandra Amor or reducing his list of assignments solely to the Territorial Court of Catalonia. In this new and definitive biographical essay, I provide hundreds of new data that demonstrate the plagiarism of all those who spoke of Nicomedes Méndez in the shadow of No matarás.

--- For example?

--- Nicomedes Méndez's wife was named Alejandra Barriuso Amo, 18 years older than him, and the executioner began working at the Territorial Court of Valladolid, remaining there for eleven years before moving to Barcelona. Following the publication of this book, Wikipedia and all those who spoke of Nicomedes without investigating will have to delete their pages and throw them in the trash. This is also another of the reasons that led me to write the book: my rejection of the plagiarists who have proliferated so much in this country, from President Pedro Sánchez to academics Antonio Pérez Reverte and Camilo José Cela, without forgetting Manuel Vázquez Montalbán.

--- And how did Nicomedes live in Barcelona?

--- About Nicomedes, the popular Barcelona lore portrays him already old, in the cellars of Vila i Vilà, recounting his sorrows and exploits in exchange for a few glasses of wine. But his was a dense and hard life. For example, with the death of his daughter in what was undoubtedly the saddest night of his life. It is true that he tried to perform in what would now be called a café theater, recounting his executions while presenting, converted into wax figures, the protagonists of his gallows, but the City Council denied him that gloomy project. I began to write the tragedy of his existence on documents spread out on my office desk that no one even knew existed, lost among thousands of files that I was able to rescue with great effort. I had the death certificates of his daughter and his son; his will, the documents of their burials in the Montjuïc cemetery, the plans of the house he built on Verdi Street and a long etcetera.

"I began to write the tragedy of his existence on documents spread out on my office desk that no one even knew existed, lost among thousands of files that I was able to rescue with great effort"

--- His daughter Paula, 20 years old, committed suicide by shooting herself in the temple with her father's pistol, devastated because her boyfriend had broken off their relationship after finding out that her future father-in-law was an executioner. And his son Juan, also unable to bear the practical lessons his father subjected him to in order to inherit his trade, went mad and in one of his attacks died immobilized in a straitjacket in the poorhouse. The night Nicomedes desperately caressed his daughter's corpse, the police saved his life by snatching the shotgun he held with the barrel pressed against the side of his neck from his hands. In my opinion, this tremendous biography of Nicomedes, a legal serial killer, would deserve a movie or series.

--- What is the Catalan garrote that Nicomedes Méndez invented? Did it really shorten the agony of those executed?

--- It consisted of placing a punch in the ring that tightened the necks of the condemned to strike them down instantly, without any convulsions, by piercing their medulla oblongata. Nicomedes, a man who deep down loved his work, compassionate, tried to ensure that the condemned who sat on the bench did not suffer a second of agony. His invention was approved by the Audiencia de Barcelona, its good results having been verified, as most of the condemned preferred him to be the one to kill them due to the reputation for diligence and perfection in the trade he had achieved. Every time he finished his intervention, he used to say coldly: "Let's take our music elsewhere." He also repeated, proud and puffed up by that fateful mission that the law had entrusted to him in the heart of Barcelona, a monumental square of his consecration: "I am an inventor. I have invented a procedure to prevent my man from sticking out his tongue." In fact, he had devised a way to put the tongue of his garroted prisoners back into their mouths with a spoon to avoid that horrible gesture.

--- Let's talk about that Barcelona that finally transcended its walls and was, little by little, getting healthier.

--- On November 7, 1893, while the second act of the opera William Tell was being sung at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the anarchist terrorist Santiago Salvador threw two Orsini bombs from the gallery into the stalls. Only one exploded, resulting in twelve dead and 35 injured, of whom another eight would later lose their lives. As a consequence of these bombs and those that anarchists would detonate years later in the streets, Barcelona would begin to be known internationally as the Rose of Fire. Nicomedes Méndez executed Santiago Salvador years later amidst the applause and shouts of a large crowd, who celebrated these macabre acts as if they were a party.

--- The city is, undoubtedly, another protagonist of this book.

--- Another chapter is set against the backdrop of the Barcelona Universal Exposition in Ciutadella Park, where Nicomedes' son worked as a carpenter, after having learned the trade by manufacturing the gallows with which his father executed murderers. Trips to France were frequent. Nicomedes himself, as he liked to be called, an admirer of Anatole Deibler, who was referred to by the pompous title of executor of High Works, went to Paris to witness how he guillotined the heads of two dangerous murderers. To exhibit himself in the Territorial Court of Barcelona, in front of the judges, lawyers, bailiffs, and civil guards who escorted him, as the most knowledgeable executor of Justice in the world, he promised himself something he could not fulfill: to embark for the United States, eager to witness how convicts were electrocuted in the electric chair. I also report, after my investigation, all the houses where Nicomedes lived in Barcelona, and the contact he had with Blasco Ibáñez in Valencia prison and with Antoni Gaudí in the temple he was building, the Sagrada Família.

"Nicomedes Méndez years later executed the anarchist terrorist Santiago Salvador, who attacked the Liceu, amidst the applause and shouts of a large crowd, who celebrated these macabre acts as if they were a party"

--- Indeed, the then Territorial Court of Barcelona was his second home, and his wife, Alejandra Barriuso, reproached him for spending more hours there than at home. Nicomedes took refuge there like a turtle in its shell. He visited it on the first of every month to collect his civil servant's salary, wandered through the orange tree patio, climbed its stairs, attended trials where the death penalty was smelled, and used to hear mass in its chapel of Sant Jordi. Repudiated by all society, he sought a gesture of friendship from the ushers, bailiffs, court doormen, and mossos d'esquadra. He also went there to clean and grease the handles and collars of four garrote vil instruments he kept in the basement cubbyhole.

--- I see.

--- The Gothic staircase of the Barcelona Court, traversed thousands of times by the executioner or by inmates condemned to death, is now occupied by the President of the Generalitat to give his press conferences or is ceded to the head of the Government to meet with the highest authority of Catalonia. In this palace that was once of Justice, everyone wore a uniform: lawyers wore a gown with a biretta; prosecutors, a gown, medal, and staff; doormen and bailiffs, dark blue trousers and jacket with gold buttons, gold braid, and a pointed hat. The only official allowed to work in plain clothes, with his bowler hat and abundant mustache, was the executor of Justice. In this guise, Nicomedes Méndez worked as the arm of the law in this beautiful Gothic building for 31 years, from his inauguration in 1877 until 1908, when it became the headquarters of the Provincial Council of Barcelona.