heroes
by
john
Anthony
oF The RePuBlIC
I
t's well known that Tarbena, in fact the entire Jalón region, became the
final heroic wall of resistance against Franco's army in the Spanish civil
war. In the town stands Casa Pinet a shrine to Communism in Tarbena and
also a pretty good bar and restaurant. The ever friendly host, Jeronimo Pinet
can be found there retelling the tale of how he lost his arm when the Fascists
bombed the beaches at Benidorm.
Well, this took me back to our
second year in Jalón, now some
16 years ago. We lived in an old
town house in calle alicante. On
one side of us lived Bartolome, 85
years old and built like the Peñon
itself. Short, stocky, solid, and still
working his fields, with a permanent
black stubby puro (cigar) hanging
from his bottom lip, and his faithful
old donkey that I was sure was as
old as he. On the other side was
Bautista, an erect, proud man,
never seen without his black beret,
the lesser mobile of the two, with
two walking sticks, probably a few
years older, both of them proud
old resistance fighters. Our first
conversation with Bartolome was
inevitable. We’d been in the house
a few weeks and summer was
upon us. He’d tied his donkey to
our front door and we couldn’t get
out of the house, plus the sun was
blazing away on his poor old beast
of burden, it was nearly midday, and
thanks to a light summer breeze,
our house reeked and was full of
flies! no doubt he’d been out in
his fields since 5am and was back
36 viva magazine viva magazine
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