Delia was said to be tireless in her work, like an ant. Thus “la Hormiga” (the Ant) became her nickname; years after her passing, her friends still tenderly called her “la Hormiguita.”
Delia was fifty when she met Neruda, who was twenty years younger than her. Inés Valenzuela, who would marry Neruda’s childhood friend Diego Muñoz, and who became one of Delia’s closest friends, said la Hormiguita always looked and acted much younger than her age (Inés was thirty-six years younger than her). Carlos Morla Lynch described her in his diary as being “crazy, affectionate, and good.” She’d often talk to him about communism: “It’s coming.”
Neruda, often with his beret, and Delia, wearing her red scarves, began to meet along with other members from the group every late afternoon at Cervecería Correos. The laughing and drinking began there. Delia would talk politics; Neruda would talk about any new poetry. If other poets were among them, perhaps some fresh verses were debuted. Later the two would head to the theater, the movies, or perhaps a party, or to the bar Satán, run by a young Cuban, or to the restaurant Granja del Henar. Or they might just walk the streets of Madrid with a bottle of wine or Chinchón anis in hand, eating calamari fried in olive oil from street vendors. As Ernest Hemingway had just written in 1932, “To go to bed at night in Madrid marks you as a little queer. For a long time your friends will be a little uncomfortable about it. Nobody goes to bed in Madrid until they have killed the night. Appointments with a friend are habitually made for after midnight at the cafe.”
In Neruda’s other life, with the pregnant Maruca, the couple occupied a brick apartment that Alberti had found for them. The building was located in the famous Argüelles neighborhood, brimming with vivid activity. This wasn’t just the territory of poets and intellectuals but of the people of Spain. Humanity throbbed through open markets full of salty food. Neruda would linger longingly in the market, strolling around, inspecting the celery, spicy peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, and piles of fish fresh from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, a staple of the Spanish diet.
Neruda mentions the “piles of fish” in a seminal poem he’d write, “I Explain Some Things,” describing the vibrancy of the Spanish Republic, as these heaps of collective abundance and substance were a bold symbol of the “essence” of life at the time.
He would buy produce, meat, fish, cheese, bread, and more and—if he didn’t head toward Cervecería Correos or a café to meet Delia and the others—would bring it all back to his new apartment. The building, part of a new block of rental apartments, was named La Casa de las Flores, because of the geraniums that flowed down five stories of garden terraces. It was a fresh, inspired, striking contrast to the traditional bourgeois architecture of Madrid, whose houses and buildings tended to be burdened with ostentatious facades and decorative molding. The building, which would one day be declared a national monument, took up a whole square block, with stores and a restaurant on the street level, and a large enclosed garden and patio, all contributing to the social functionality of the building. Perhaps best of all, their unit was situated at the ideal angle and height for the warm glow of summer light to illuminate everything inside. Lorca liked to compose poems there.
This was the perfect home for Neruda; its modern design, with clean angles, matched the literary projects that would blossom there. And as the light filled the Nerudas’ fifth-floor apartment, you could look out and see the vast, soulful, historic plains of the Castilla region, “like an ocean of leather,” as Neruda wrote in “I Explain Some Things.”
Neruda tore down an interior wall to turn two rooms into one large salon, and he filled it with books. He decorated the walls with masks from Siam, Bali, Sumatra, the Malay Archipelago, and Bandung—“golden, ashen, the color of tomato, with silver eyebrows, blue, infernal, lost in thought,” as he noted in his memoirs. Perhaps they reminded him of Josie Bliss. Masks followed Neruda in many ways, literally and literarily, and he treasured them; they would decorate all of his homes.
The bohemian nights with poets and friends often ended at the Nerudas’ apartment. The fact that Maruca was enduring the discomforts of her final months of pregnancy didn’t seem to matter. Sometimes the parties would keep going into the next day, or the next, fueled by Neruda’s powerful punch concoctions and his disregard for time. Guests would share beds for brief naps, only to wake to find the fiesta still in full swing.
The gatherings frequently culminated in the “inauguration” of a public monument, a ritual invented by Lorca and Neruda, whose friendship had deepened even more. The guests would all find their way to a monument in Madrid, where the two poets would pose as official government representatives. Just as they did in the Hotel Plaza in homage to Rubén Darío, they would spontaneously deliver a poetic speech dedicated to the subject of the monument, while their friends played the role of an imaginary ceremonial band to add more character to the event.
Just as in Santiago and Buenos Aires, Maruca did not participate. A wall had formed between the couple, and the Spanish language helped enforce the barrier. Maruca could speak it, but not quite fluently. For Neruda’s new group of friends, Spanish was the essence of their communication, creation, and interest. Some of them were averse to Maruca. The Chilean diplomat Carlos Morla Lynch referred to her as “the giraffe” in his diaries.
Meanwhile, the shy, isolated Pablo Neruda with mood disorders was relegated to the past. Now, his personality blossomed and flourished in this magical Madrilenian life and fellowship; he was enthusiastic. There was also his increasing intellectual, romantic, and physical intimacy
