Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

The Civil War (1936-1939)I59going to Geneva with several students to attend a political convention.They asked me what kind of papers I was carrying."But you'll never get across the border," Suai' cried, when I toldhim. "You need a visa from the anarchists to do that!"The first thing I saw when we arrived at Port Bou was a groupof soldiers ringing the station, and a table where three somber-facedanarchists, led by a bearded Italian, were holding court like a panelof judges."You can't cross here," they told me when I showed them mypapers.Now the Spanish language is capable of more scathing blasphemiesthan any other language I know. Curses elsewhere are typicallybrief and punctuated by other comments, but the Spanish curse tendsto take the form of a long speech in which extraordinary vulgaritiesreferringchiefly to the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, God, Christ, andthe Holy Spirit, not to mention the Pope~are strung end to end ina series of impressive scatological exclamations. In fact, blasphemyin Spain is truly an art; in Mexico, for instance, I never heard a propercurse, whereas in my native land, a good one lasts for at least threegood-sized sentences. (When circumstances require, it can becomea veritable hymn.)It was with a curse of this kind, uttered in all its seemly intensity,that I regaled the three anarchists from Port Bou. When I'd finished,they stamped my papers and I crossed the border. (What I've saidabout the importance of the Spanish curse is no exaggeration; incertain old Spanish cities, you can still see signs like "No Beggingor Blaspheming-Subject to Fine or Imprisonment" on the maingates. Sadly, when I returned to Spain in 1960, the curse seemedmuch rarer; or perhaps it was only my hearing.)In Geneva, I had a fast twenty-minute meeting with the minister,who asked me to go to Paris and start work for the new ambassador,who turned out to be my friend Araquistan, a former journalist,writer, and left-wing Socialist. Apparently, he needed men he couldtrust. I stayed in Paris until the end of the war; I had an office on