Madrid | Muriel Murch

The Rain in Spain

Written and produced by Muriel Murch with WSM by my side

View from the Victoria Hotel over the Santa Ana Square in Madrid by WSM

Falls mainly in the plain. And we saw that as we sat in the plane, in the rain, for three hours at the Madrid airport waiting for it to ease off enough that a Spanish pilot – who must be used to such things – was cleared for take off. It was a bumpy ride but we got from A – Madrid to B – London and home. Only three days earlier – as we drove to the city center we passed the dry dusty outskirts, the soil a pail ochre yellow that looked like sand and made one wonder how anything could grow there. But it does. Between the houses – jostling for a patch – olive trees claim their space clinging and begging to be allowed to stay, offering their untended fruit as payment for the soil. As the motorways slice through the land the trees give way to factories and then block housing before entering the old city center.

It has been six years since we were last in Madrid and at this film school. Beloved faculty who were young men then are – like us – just a little bit older while our young minders all seemed very much younger. It was a fully packed two days as Walter gave four lectures on Senses + Brain = Reality, as seen in the editing of Motion Pictures. A bit of a mouthful for a title but the four talks were all swallowed, hungrily by most – and cautiously by a few – in the full-house audience for both days as the students and old professionals bravely went along with him. Such is their affection for and trust in the man. These talks are where Walter can give encouragement to them and try out new ways or show what is right in front of – and in our faces – or noses – on this occasion taking a very deep dive into the concept of the Golden Ratio as it applies to the human face.

WSM is made an honorary professor of the University. Photo by MAM

We arrived in the middle of the third week in October and as the wars slide from one continent to another, the new war of the season is well underway. The conflict in the Sudan never reaches the papers, the Ukrainian war remains but is now a side column as the bombing, threats of more bombing, retaliations, and death on all sides of this Middle Eastern mess unravel before us. Hostages had been taken and at that time none released. Politicians began lining up their positions while planning out their strategies, looking for who are their friends, who owns what, and what trades and compromises are available. Each day the war moves forward and it is not a pretty picture. Walter speaks of this at the beginning of both talks reminding us that this is the world we live in, and we are fortunate to be speaking and thinking about art and ideas for this short period of time.

A new translation of ‘Blink’ in Spanish needs signing. Photo by MAM

While waiting and watching Walter sign a new edition of his old ‘Blink’ book I am gently surrounded by the young people who are there for us. They hover like bees finding a new flower but instead, it is I who take from them, as each has a story, and war, government policies, and economic hardships feature in everyone.

The purple-haired bright-smiling young assistant from the film school is from Puerto Rico. While her family are scattered and separated in California, she has turned East and has found her way to Madrid, and this film school. Deeply conscious of the neglect of the various North American government administrations, her dream is to return to Puerto Rico and help the country with the film and radio skills she is learning.

Peter, the photographer, was born in Ukraine. He is young, with a mop of blond hair, and is slipping from gangly youth into adulthood. His parents – maybe seeing the future with fear – emigrated to Spain while they could. Peter speaks modest English though better Spanish and now his mother forbids the family to speak Russian – their native tongue – in their home. He doesn’t talk much about Ukraine but his mother worries. Peter’s grandmother is still there, not in the thick of the war zone but close enough, choosing to stay in her home and her mind until she dies.

Argentines Queuing to Vote in the Hague. Photo by Agustina Izurieta

Cecelia, our main minder, is a young and beautiful Argentine. As Argentina crumbles and falls – with the Argentine peso now at 1000 to 1 US dollar and rising – she too has left her home searching for a new life, a safer place to live and has come to Spain. This weekend our son-in-law took the train from Utrecht to the Hague to vote in Argentina’s first round of elections. Throughout Europe, the lines around the Argentine Embassies were hours long as those who had fled rallied to send the crazed Javier Milei out of the ballot box.

Coming home we reach out to Lika, another young friend who last year managed to leave Russia for Israel and then bring her mother with her.

She writes from her point of view in Tel Aviv, “Me and mom are ok. We have a bomb-shelter in the apartment and it’s the best you can get in this situation. North doesn’t get as many rockets as in the South up to Tel Aviv, but from day 1 we have constant shootings from Lebanon and even Syria. I have a panoramic view of the whole bay and I already saw and heard explosions, rockets being caught by the iron shield, and sirens from the border areas. It’s intense. To be honest I still can’t fully comprehend that it’s the second war in my life and at the same moment. We’re very much invested in the war in Ukraine and now this. And the ugliest thing is that the terrorists here are all in one bed – Russia, Hamas, Iran… and Israel and Ukraine have one thing left – to defend themselves. We have many Ukrainian friends here who were evacuated from the bombs and they are incredible to watch – very brave.”

The wars are pushing Britain’s local government squabbles off the front pages. Slipping the two conservative safe seats bi-elections – that they lost – well out of the spotlight. The wars, in the Ukraine, and now in Gaza and Israel are rolling over our consciousness like the winter storms hurtling through forests and along rivers in eastern Scotland. Yet they are not random acts of nature but preplanned with maps and political strategies that are embraced with little thought nor care for the collateral destruction and deaths that follow. It is as if a giant combine harvester is scraping the fields of our planet Earth, leaving stubble where there was wheat, stones, and dust where there used to be rich soil. We cry out but can do little more than weep.

This has been a Letter from A. Broad. Written and read for you by Muriel Murch. Note an error correction – in the recording I say the pesos to dollar is 350 to 1. It is 1000 to 1 and falling.

By Saturday morning the sun had come out in Madrid, where we were staying at the Hotel Reina Victoria in the center of town. Around the plaza and on the sidewalks the cafe owners had already pulled out their tables. Tourists and workers were stopping for their first cup of coffee. As I began to write I was given courage and comfort that we are nestled in the Barrio de las Letras, home to Lope de Vega, Cervantes y Quevedo.

The Barrio de las Letras

My days began with an hour and a half scribbling in my notebooks at breakfast. As I came downstairs Walter would be all ready to leave for the film school. He had two and a half full days of lectures to give and, while he loves the speaking, thinking and people, he would be tired by Sunday.

WSM thinking about what to say next

The hotel restaurant is a destination unto itself and through the early morning quickly fills with hotel guests, tourists, city residents, and business folk meeting and breaking bread together as they plan out the day ahead. At 10.30 a.m the music, though still easy listening, gets turned up 4 decibels to remind us all this is a happy place. The three young people beside me all start out their breakfast with a full bowl of pineapple and a tall glass of orange juice. I think how disciplined they are until the second arrives, scrambled eggs and pancakes with syrup. They are young.

Choosing breakfast

On my first morning after breakfast, I left the hotel and turned left, down a one-car-width cobbled street, knowing that three lefts would bring me past the Teatro de la Comedia and the National Teatro Real, which is performing a play by Virginia Wolf, and back into the Plaza St. Martin. The streets were quiet and not all the shops were open. Deliveries were being made. A man stood in the middle of the street speaking on his cell phone while leaning on a roll away bag full of medical equipment. A young man scooted by, propelling himself with one foot on his dolly which was stacked high with boxes of supplies. Older, maybe than me, women walked slowly with crumpled shopping bags only half full. Some were pulling their reluctant toy dogs along with them. The poorer women come out early and are alone. It is the middle-class women who have time for companionship and coffee.

We have not been in Spain for 53 years and, as we drove in from the airport on Thursday afternoon, it was strange to look around and not recognize anything from that time. But the dry scrubby landscape reminded me of the drive into the city of Buenos Aires from that airport in their summer time. Entering the city I become aware of the influence of Spain, as strong as any Parisian or Italian, on Buenos Aires and am suddenly homesick for that city.

When the first evening’s session came to a close a group of ten of us, some from the school and some professionals and academics from Barcelona, returned to the hotel. Gathered around a long table we were quickly served with a series of small plate tapas and glasses of rioja. We began to unwind and explore each other’s lives. Riccardo is a sound designer, now living in Barcelona, and was the one who drove us back from the school into the city. He is from Argentina. He is a grandparent like us, his little Otto lives in Berlin, while our David is in Buenos Aires, where Ricardo comes from. Our grandsons are born on the same day and we are full of simpatico laughter as we talk about our comrades in film, our grandchildren, and struggles with each other’s languages. He assures me that the tiny little fish balls he is offering me are a type of Jaws and it takes us all a while to understand he means shark!
“You must come to Argentina again and see us there.” I say. His face turns serious and he quietly replies, “I will never go back.”
“When did you leave?”
“1974.” And he looks at me with deep sadness as I take in what he is saying. He left, fled, during the troubles.
“There are many Argentines here in Madrid and in Barcelona.” He repeats, “I will never go back. Here in Spain the dictatorship was forty years, in Argentina only seven but the results were very similar.”

Slowly it dawns on me, or do I suddenly come to understand and accept something I have known all along, that the displacement of peoples, one tribe for another, by one government for another, a nation overtaking another, is a constant occurrence. That the sweeping push of power that flows over and through continents, brushing peoples down and away, always crushing many even as a few can rise, survive and thrive, is ever with us. The big questions are found in the smallest of gestures and remain for us all. Who will help the other? Who shares the open hand and gives from the heart?

That first evening a taxi was waiting outside of the hotel to take me to the film school. The driver spoke little English but had a picture of his three year old son on his phone. We talked of sons and grandsons. After over twenty minutes driving through and out of the city he stopped at the address he had been given but we were both unsure. That building looked very closed up. I got out of the taxi and rang the buzzer on the locked door. Soon an elderly guard came out and looked at my instructions. Luckily the young driver had waited and talked with the guard before he held the door open again and gestured for me to get back into the taxi. We drove further on and around a corner to the ECAM. A woman leaned out of a window and told him where I needed to be. He opened the door again and I gave him my hand. I really am too tall for taxis. I was grateful for his kindness as he pointed the way forward, where I should, and he could not, go. I thanked him in shy Spanish and with a smile. He held onto my hand for a moment longer and looked at my face with a masculine appreciation. Whatever happens next, I am grateful.

Photographs of WSM from the ECAM staff and twitter feed

WSM and some ECAM Staff at the close of the seminar

This is the end – my friend