Merry, Franco’s granddaughter, when the grave opened in the exhumation: « Here I am again, grandfather, with your desecrators. » | Spain

He chose a dark navy blue pants that reinforced under a black body and a cloth coat of the same color to face the cold. He had meditated a lot about the locker room. He could not show himself in mourning, nor covering himself with anything that gave rise to sterile confusion, but to show the sobriety that the situation demanded to impose the necessary respect. What no doubt was of the choice of shoes: the most comfortable. Also that, during that morning, no one could say that on his face he glimpsed any smile.

He left the house around six in the morning and did not want to talk With anyone during the fifty kilometers of the journey. Only concentrate on the transcendence of what was preparing to certify as a majority notary of the kingdom that morning of October 24, 2019: exhum the body of Francisco Franco del Valle de los Fallen and verify that he was inhuming that same day again in the Mingorrubio cemetery.

I knew that it would not be well received by family members. They refused to direct the word, except on occasion. Her. Concretely and expressly, to her. Thus they had specified the other authorities during the months prior to the operation.

The president of the Government had reached office with that radically symbolic idea in the head. Imposing normality for which there are many doubts from the legal and moral perspective in a rule of law was, however, in a country of artificial sacralities assumed, still, forty -four years after the burial, a risk.

He began to move after his appointment and went through the Executive’s opinion, the approval of the Legislative and the endorsement of the courts. The three powers had given a free way to a mandate that was going to materialize that sunny but intensely cold autumn day. A plan had been drawn so that the unforeseen events did not affect the planned scenario. Everything had been bent, even tripled, in case something failed: from cars to coffins or the necessary personal and the necessary utensils. The journey of the coffin between the basilica and the helicopter of the Air Force adapted inside to enter the coffin well measured to the millimeter. It was the ship that used to use the head of the State or the President of the Government for displacements. The area was monitored days before to avoid any boycott or altercation. The Benedictine monks raised suspicion. The Vatican had forced Father Prior not to oppose any resistance. The exhumation would be carried out with the weight of the law, but against its will.

The family had left Madrid in two police vans. The seven grandchildren with their spouses and almost all the great -grandchildren, accompanied by lawyer Luis Felipe Utrera Molina. Upon arriving at the Valley they went to the Funicular cafeteria, where the monks were waiting for them to receive them and apologize. They had not been able to guard, as they had been entrusted, the body of the leader and that failure hurt. Father Prior Santiago Cantera offered confession and some took it.

Francis, the biggest grandson, carried the flag that on the day of the burial covered the coffin to put it back on the coffin when they went out with the box on shoulders. He did not take it out until after the exhumation. Within the basilica everything had been arranged for the work of the operators. The grave had protected with canvases and a scaffold that allowed work.

Only a few could enter from half past ten in the morning. They deposited the mobiles at the door. They respected the desire for family intimacy so that nothing was filmed. Francis, the grandson was that day the visible head and Utrera Molina, son of whom he had been a regime minister, served as a link and spokesman. On the part of the Government, Félix Bolaños, then Secretary General of Presidency and Antonio Hidalgo, Undersecretary, under the first vice president of the Government. The highest authority in the Basilica, inside and outside, was she, Dolores Delgado, Minister of Justice.

The relatives were left to the left of the main altar. They could only access two of them inside the tent: María del Mar, the one known as Merry, Martínez Bordiú and his brother José Cristóbal. The only witnesses, together with the three authorities of the State and Pedro Garrido, General Director of Registries and Notaries, who wrote the minutes, a coroner and some civil guard agents. Everyone who accessed the tomb placed metacrylate glasses and masks as job security measures. Merry sat on the floor to lighten the wait until he was offered a chair, but she, Dolores, stood up and without taking an eye on every detail of the operation.

The work began with a noise that rumbled in echoes of interrupted eternities, such as when it is challenged to the universe and conjured in a jaleo of discussions without possible agreement the forces of good and evil. The radials reverberated in an unbearable way, as if they undertook a struggle with the same God. The last word was pronounced by the slab to be removed with a dry blow that made several tears and sobs jump among the relatives on the other side of the tent. When the silence ruled, Merry went to the hole: « Here I am again, grandfather, with your desecrators. » Few right to understand how he could pronounce word in the middle of that plague to formalin that tarnished the eyes and produced dizziness.

The family did not want to take the body and put it in Another coffin, as would have been the desire of the senior officials. They did not mind running the risk that the wood would not have resisted the passage of time and the bones were scattered through the temple marble. Merry had a role that Utrera Molina had written to prevent it. Nothing serious, just risks, according to the family, led to the conclusion that it did not resist. The grave had been covered with lead walls inside a zinc box. Only in the event that the coffin walked seriously damaged it. The granddaughter demanded that she record her intention. But the writing was also an allegation and Dolores denied it. There everything was already resolved. There was only the execution of the act of exhumation itself. Nothing else. The coffin was, in the opinion of the family, reasonably well, unless it had been taken by the cobwebs. The operators reinforced it and covered with a brown canvas. Francis wanted to decorate him with the burial flag and his preconstitutional aguilucho. They did not allow it. Utrera measured and even consented to the current, even another, without any symbol. The Franco had to settle for their coat of arms and the Laureada cross of San Fernando del Abuelo. To her added a laurel crown and five roses that the lawyer contributed. Merry said, without further ado: « I hope you never forget the curse that falls on the profanadores of tombs. »

Before opening the gate, Father Cantera prayed a response. He had dressed in the same chasulla who had behaved his predecessor in the funeral. Before loading the body, José Cristóbal inflated the moods of the bearers: « Get out with your head high. Remember that you have the honor of taking the best man who has had Spain. »

When the bronze portalones were opened, on the esplanade, I expected the funeral car that had to move it to the helicopter. They lowered the stairs to the vehicle, wrapped in the choreography of their mourning while the three representatives of the state, with the minister in the middle, were guarding the closure of the basilica. So it was. No unforeseen unforeseen, without loose ends. That coral step of a Spain divided between the family and the institutional representatives crossed the exit and inside the black of history was melted in an opaque tunnel, without time, but loaded with the subject that the present memory conducts. It was a rigid and locouaz black, like the universe particles.

Behind, she, the highest authority, guarded by her two companions, six interwoven hands, the sober gesture, the attitude of her symbology exposed to all, the duty of the minutes, fulfilled. That place would never be the same again: a stony mausoleum of exaltation to infamy.