Image cascade. Summer vacation in Malvarrosa. Bottles of sarsaparilla. Pepe el Chatet and the sardine boat. My father, teaching me to swim in the waves of Las Arenas beach. The unforgettable paellas of Estimat and Pepica. Billiards on Calle de la Reina. Aunt Pilar, uncle Pepe and the cousins, who lived in the great Vía de Ramón y Cajal. Doña Amparo Martí, in a room at the London Hotel, where actors are touring or filming, mother of the García Berlanga saga, including Luis, the great Valencian, Spanish and universal filmmaker, friends and clients of my father, lawyer . Wrestling evenings in the arenas: the White Angel and Hércules Cortés. Horchatas with fartons in the shade of Micalet. The frozen chestnut, this charcuterie, what has become of it? The blinding light of Sorolla, the garden and maritime stories of Blasco Ibáñez. The Ibiza ferry.
Time passed and we remained linked to Valencia and its cultural center. Seeking to reconstruct the last weeks of Basiliso Serrano, the Manco de la Pesquera, legendary libertarian maqui, filmed in Paterna. What was intended for a novel remained in my story “The Eyes of the Mountain” (Revista Añil, n° 23, 2001). With Carlos de la Ricathe poet, priest and publisher, who took off his cassock and dressed in colonial white, looking like a prince exiled in Venice. It was the year 92, that of Sephardi, and with the poet and fellow philologist, Salvador F. Cavawe edit for The clay bull in a Valencian printing house, two books, two facsimiles, by the great Judeoconverso author of Baroque Cuenca, Antonio Enríquez Gómez: Zelos no offensen al sol, a comedy, and Sansón Nazareno, a long epic poem. And some time later, now in the 21st, annual presence at Cinéma Jove and its short film market, always guided by Carlos Gil and accompanied by a group of young filmmakers from Castilla-La Mancha. Very present the poetry and memories of the greats Juan Gil Albertthis Valencian Proust, returned from Mexican exile and who wrote a “Hymn to Life”: “He alone knows who it is who becomes master of himself,” he wrote. Las Fallas, this apotheosis which merges political satire and artistic and visual genius into a total celebration, enjoyed from his apartment in the Plaza del Ajuntament, which he generously offered to us Fidel Garcia Berlangaa Valencian who favored the growth of Cuenca in the 50s and 60s from his Posada de San José, which he created and founded in the old school of singing boys, as well as from Venta de Contreras, in Minglanilla, on the “border” or Col Cabriel.
Malvarrosa Media, in Alboraya, the world capital of horchata: working meetings where I collaborated as a script advisor on the series on Don Quixote that he produced in 2004 José Luis Garcia Berlangawho now serves as an ambassador of great Valencian cuisine at the Berlanga restaurant, opposite Retiro.
At night, the sensuality of Valencia, the pioneering character of its Carme district, its jazz and techno (the cod route began in La Manchuela), its night fairies with Valencian charm (“I want to dance all night “), the water of Valencia, the whole recreational side, would be the subject of another article and requires another emotional climate, different from this damn Halloween that Dana brought us to Valencia, without forgetting Mira, Letur and other cities.
In Cuenca, our hearts were divided between Madrid and Valencia. Cities in the Valencia metropolitan area that on Tuesday, October 29, the fury of the waters devastated, that Dana, which was previously called cold drop, flood or inundation, Their growth was exponential due to the emigration of Cuenca residents in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.. They went to Quart, to Manises, to Torrent, to Chiva, to Paiporta, with everything from their villages in the Serranía Baja. With everything, even with its images and devotions, such as the Virgin of the Holy Cave of Mira and the middle Cabriel. Utiel, also seriously flogged by this Dana, was part of the bishopric of Cuenca. until the 19th century. Where it rained the most was in the Utielan mountains and at the headwaters of streams and torrents. These are rivers, even the small tributaries, courageous, low, with wild floods. On that unfortunate day, the Poyo ravine or ravine quadrupled the average flow of the Ebro. Logs from the Júcar, Cabriel or Turia woods took weeks to unload.. In the event of a flood or flood, those of the Turia were in 4 or 5 days ravaging, enraged, the bridges and gates of the old Turia canal which crossed Valencia. In the neighboring towns of Valencia, already located in the pre-coastal plain, it rained, but not as much: it was, apparently, the raging rivers and torrents which caused the disaster.
Seal of the South Plan of Valencia, with the Tower of Santa Catalina, which facilitated the diversion of the bed of the Turia river and reduced the risk of flooding in the Valencian capital
Valencia hurts us. This hurts us a lot. And we think this should not be repeatednot the event itself, which will do it, but its prediction and treatment. After the experience of Covid and Filomena, the volcano of La Palma or the earthquake of Lorca, or the most distant Galician chapapote and the fires of every summer, we know that devastation can occur at any time anywhere in Spain, from the Cantabrian Sea to the Strait or the Alboran Sea. And since demonstrations of solidarity, altruism or simple and obvious charity are admirable and welcome, they must be complementary to immediate official action, both anticipatory and reparative of emergency situations. This is why we pay taxes. This is why we are in a modern, European and advanced nation. This is not such a community offering its resources to those most affected or that the degree of interaction with central government is appropriate in each case. This is not a one-off generosity. Unfortunately, things like this have happened before and will continue to happen. There must be a unified, central and articulated protocol with immediate entry into force and application.whenever the damage occurs and wherever it occurs, within Spanish territory.
The absence of a national hydrological planwhich rebalances dry and less dry Spain, always talking about excess water, could also be very useful for everyone. Not just for the thirsty oases of the Southeast. Also to mitigate, for example, with a simple pipeline in the Upper Ebro, the risks of flooding and annual flooding in large cities like Tudela, Logroño or Zaragoza and in many other riverside towns, by diverting excess water water towards the southern basins. My teacher Fidel García Berlanga knew a lot about all this. But we’ll talk about that another day.
Today we cry for this Valencia which has always given us so much joy, creativity and vitality. These days, grief dulls everything.
