The Chilean Ministry of Foreign Affairs quickly sent Mistral to Portugal and promoted Neruda from cultural attaché to consul in Madrid. It was a matter of time before he too would be in trouble with the ministry, when his new political activities grew loud and controversial.
* * *
Even before the Spanish Civil War broke out, with Hitler and Mussolini gaining power, the rising global fascist threat was alarming progressives around the world. At the same time, the burgeoning Popular Front, the new alliance among Communists, Socialists, and others on the Left, was trying to accelerate its progress toward electoral victories, particularly in France. Toward this end, and as part of a campaign to safeguard culture “from the menace of fascism and war,” the First International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture was held in Paris in June 1935. It was a star-studded event, with 230 delegates from thirty-eight countries. Neruda attended to represent Chile.
The diverse audience consisted of students, youth, and members of the working class. Speakers included Aldous Huxley, Anna Seghers, Louis Aragon, E. M. Forster, and Bertolt Brecht. So many people converged on the three-thousand-seat Maison de la Mutualité that for many of the sessions, loudspeakers had to be set up outside for everyone who could not get in.
Neruda was not a declared communist yet and was cautious of being partisan, as he was still an official diplomat of the conservative Chilean government. However, he was making a statement just by attending the conference as an official delegate. He made another statement at the end of the conference when he signed his name to a declaration condemning Latin American governments who were repressing intellectuals and writers.
* * *
On this trip, Neruda was finally part of the scene on the Left Bank. Discussions that started at the International Congress continued into the night at sidewalk cafés. He had told his travel companions to be prudent with plans and costs, trying to stretch out their stay with limited funds. This was not just for political and literary reasons; Neruda’s heart was presumably pounding with pure lust. There is a long poem in the third volume of Residence, “The Furies and the Sorrows,” a poem of romantic and erotic love, longing, and, in the end, sadness. Mystified by who the subject might be, in the 1960s scholar Hernán Loyola asked Neruda directly who the feminine figure in the poem was “in the extratextural reality.” He answered, somewhat elliptically: “Carpentier’s woman.”
Through diligent, resourceful research, Loyola deduced that Neruda was referring to the young Parisian Eva Fréjaville. She was supposedly the illegitimate daughter of Diego Rivera and a Frenchwoman. In December 1934, she was with the influential Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier when he came to Madrid. It seems that sparks ignited between her and Neruda, despite his growing devotion to Delia and his respect for Carpentier.
Neruda knew Eva would be in Paris during the conference; perhaps it was at his insistence that Delia stayed in Madrid. While Delia was twenty years older than Neruda, Eva was quite a bit younger, just twenty-two or twenty-three. Delia was beautiful but not erotic. That was not the case with Eva. While she remained devoted to Carpentier, she loved to flirt, to test her power of seduction, not just with Neruda but with others, without committing to any of them. Neruda felt dejected, cheated of the chance to betray the lover with whom he was betraying his wife. His Parisian trip was not an uplifting experience.
* * *
Even with civil unrest in the air, Maruca and Malva Marina aside, Neruda’s life in Madrid was idyllic. Delia was spending so much time at Neruda’s apartment (while maintaining her own) that Carlos Morla Lynch once wrote that she “lives with him, his wife, and the sick baby. A drama that won’t end well.”
Lorca swept in and out of the city with his contagious euphoria, busy directing his theater group, La Barraca. It was made up of university students who traveled to poor villages throughout Spain to perform Cervantes and other classics. Morla Lynch remembered how one evening Lorca burst into a get-together at his house “like a strong gale,” announcing his aim to bring Spanish theater “within reach of the people,” his ideas on how to do it “erupting in his constantly effervescent spirit.” Lorca, so vibrant at this time, was driven by the energy of the Republic and his commitment to addressing social problems through theater.* La Barraca typified the enthusiasm of the young Republic; the government made it a priority to help fund Lorca’s initiative, promoting its own progressive ideals while providing important validation for the participating artists and students.
Neruda, Lorca, and other members of the gang celebrated Christmas 1935 at Delia’s apartment. They decided to feast on a turkey, charging Isaías Cabezón, the Chilean painter, with buying it. He got a live one. Someone suggested they should give the bird a glass of vintage wine so the meat would be juicier. Cabezón took this seriously, or at least acted like he did, for when he finally arrived at Delia’s at ten that night, he confessed he had gone from one bar to another, serving it wine, beer, and vermouth—serving himself as well. The turkey was so big it wouldn’t fit into a normal oven, so they took it to a bakery to roast. They didn’t eat it until two in the morning.
A week later they spent New Year’s partying in the streets. With their jacket collars up high to protect them from the bitter cold that had set in on the city, they went to the Puerta del Sol, the iconic, gracious plaza, where they ate their traditional
