We have declassified Carmen Díez Pereira. The focus on Antonio Tejero Molina’s wife has been the true original contribution of the penultimate operation to dominate the public conversation.
The documents that prove how he verbalized his opinions as the 18 hours of taking over Congress progressed allow us to see all that absurdity through new eyes. Those of a woman who knows perfectly well her husband’s (many) limitations and reads the move with admirable clairvoyance. A precision in the x-ray of the person sleeping next to you that is not at odds with love.
Spanish audiovisuals would be wrong to miss this opportunity to return to a well-known issue – we have just found out that it is more so than we thought – from this other perspective. It’s not hard to imagine Chus Lampreave in the role. AI may already make it viable. In any case, there are plenty of actresses alive to achieve excellence playing that role.
We are seeing her following through the radio the assault that she must have at least assumed. Crossing himself shortly before turning up the volume. And, shortly after, proceeding to answer all the phone calls from those who know that the one who is holding the Government and the deputies at gunpoint is her husband. Best use of split screen since Rock Hudson and Doris Day. We cannot ignore the casting of her friends. Herminia, Trini or Carmen Elvira cannot be left to chance either. Marta Fernández-Muro, Kiti Mánver, Gloria Muñoz… all of them could create work worthy of a Goya nomination.
But let’s go back to Carmen Díez Pereira.
Oh, your Antonio. He cheats like a disgrace. Throw it away like a cigarette butt. With no human way to talk to him. All night looking for an official car that would take him closer to Congress. Let’s see if talking to him face to face can make things end in the least bad way. Nobody is able to put him on the other end of the phone. What will be the number of that happy “hemicycle” where it is supposed to be. He still laughs remembering the proposal to record himself to convince him to back out. As if she were not going to think at the moment that she would be doing it forced, also, by violence. Because of her, they could have lived in Australia for a long time. But not. «How unfortunate, so much love for the country, so much giving everything, look how they have deceived him. “It’s stupid!” You couldn’t feel more sorry for him.
He’s an asshole, but it’s his asshole.
That the late Carmen has been the big star of the thing shows that the hangover from the declassification does not leave the panorama that her hasty announcement made one suspect. The habit of intuiting some twisted and Machiavellian plan behind every step the Government takes does not go well with the result of the effort. When Javier Cercas was invoked, it was suspected that they had not listened to his arguments properly.
The writer has always been convinced that the reality of 23F does not differ much from what has been considered its “official version.” He ended up being right.
The image of Juan Carlos has returned to that of his best days. What in recent years had been interpreted as a dream from which we had abruptly woken up has turned out to be something quite close to reality.
Even the Government seems to approve Feijóo’s initiative to bring him back. There are those who already see a brilliant plan hatched in Moncloa to guarantee that they can face the final stretch in Spain.
Perhaps the explanation lies in the simplest hypothesis. Whoever decided to go with this role was simply looking to occupy television spots. We have public powers focused on entertainment. Today it was this and tomorrow it will play something else, perhaps already deployed with the usual trumpeting by the time you have these lines before you.
Carmen’s success and the serendipitous death of her coup-mongering husband when the editorial staff had not yet finished scrutinizing the documents show that Spanish public life is not such an easy spectacle to script. Let’s better channel that talent for creating stories. Let’s soon see that anatomy from another moment on a screen.