© UNBREAKABLE by DELAFOI

‘El Presidente’.

The unknown tale of Monsieur Dupont.

‘Bonjour mes chers amis.’

‘El Presidente’ smiles as he raises his hand to the stiff royal wave which gave him his nickname. He’s a tall, skinny man who never leaves the house without a suit and tie, refuses to speak anything but French, and greats everyone as long-lost friends, even those just visiting the village for a few hours.

Today is Church day, and he glances across the sparsely spread regulars of Café Deportivo before turning the corner toward the stairs and disappearing out of sight.

We all manage to mumble a courteous ‘Bon dia’ in return, but as soon as he’s gone, Javier, sitting at the opposite side in the shades, shakes his head with a laugh. ‘His real name is Marcel Dupont’, he says to anyone willing to listen, ‘And he’s a Marseille hybrid who’s never set foot in a prison.’

Maribel sticks her head out over the counter and waves her kitchen towel over Javier’s head. ‘You’re a coward, Javi’, she says, ‘Say it to his face if it’s so important to you?’

‘It’s not important.’
‘Then close your mouth.’

Maribel disappears back inside, and a smile spreads across the tables while Javier’s pinkish-red face turns dark.

Javier is old, with a lifetime of luck but no fortune, and as he continues his charade of reading the newspaper, his fingers tremble slightly with each turning of a page.

Marcel Dupont is a Marseille ex-pat who claims to have spent five years in one of Franco’s infamous ‘Hotels’ due to “un amour illégal”. Some believe him, Javier doesn’t, but nobody really knows. The rule regarding whatever happened during ‘El reinado del Caudillo’ is simple. If you weren’t there, you don’t ask. Instead, you politely nod as if everything is true — until it isn’t.

Javier may be a coward. It’s even possible this trait helped him avoid ‘hotel visits’ during the hard years. But it’s equally feasible that he’s one of those thrown in the basement from which few stepped out alive. Which certainly would explain both his looks and his manners.

The truth is — there is no truth.

Stories and lies of past days entwine, and everybody knows that if you start digging on a hunch, you’ll end up in a hole with a broken shovel. Javier never mentions his past. We don’t even know how he got here in the first place. How could we if we all abide by the rule?

Meanwhile, I’ve heard more than ten versions of ‘The Tale of El Presidente’, and at least half of them include the 1st Duchess. None of us are sure. All we know is that they all start and end in the same way;

Monsieur Dupont left Marseille in 1967. Nobody seems to know why, but it’s not hard to guess it was for guilt rather than pleasure. The French city was a well-established trading partner at this point, with all parties benefiting from avoiding the curious eyes of Palma, so it wouldn’t have been hard to find a ship to take you directly to the port.

With only two roads leading in, both across the mountains, and an understaffed port authority, another Frenchman walking across the pier on a Sunday morning wouldn’t have caught any attention. And within ten minutes, Marcel Dupont would have been on one of the trails leading to either Binibassi or Fornalutx, and then, he’d be gone and out of sight.

There’s an echo as the bells make their final call, and the last members of the congregation walk up the church stairs while Javier continues with his newspaper.

A few months before Monsieur Dupont’s french departure, the parish of Fornalutx got a new priest. A young and ambitious man from the mainland named Olivier de Cap.

Reverend de Cap had signed up for the service before he stepped on the ferry in Valencia, convinced he’d be helping God clean one of his gardens, only to learn that small villages far from law and government have little to spare for authority. Not that the fine folks of Fornalutx, or the valley as a whole, had any grief with God nor with strangers. On the contrary, they are all good people. Ways simply differ when it comes to nurturing the relationship with your maker.

One of those ways is to let all newcomers preach to empty benches for the initial six weeks as a humble reminder that they don’t go to church because of him. But the new Reverend didn’t allow himself to be discouraged, so he did his Tuesday prayers and Sunday sermons for an empty church, preaching his heart out between the hymns while the children giggled outside the gates.

On the fifth Sunday, after walking almost two hours from the port, Marcel Dupont opened the church gates in search of shelter, and the young Reverend welcomed him with open arms, not knowing he had just sat foot on the island.

Reverend de Cap lodged Monsieur Dupont for the night and helped him find a place to stay the morning after. Marcel, who’s polite and kind, always smiling, was quickly seen doing all kinds of work to pay the rent. Days passed, the congregation returned to the church, and weeks became months, and ever so soon, the small village of Fornalutx had found its place again.

During the spring of 1969, the student riots of Madrid and Barcelona reached Palma. With all eyes on the other side of the mountains, Monsieur Dupont broke into Señor Francisco Franco’s summer residence, Can Ribera, and stole the treasures ‘Caudillo’ had taken from the Spanish Jews in the early years of the Second World War before handing over The Yellow Star List to german Reichsführer-SS.

At least, that’s how the story goes.

One version includes Franco’s daughter, the 1st Duchess, a screaming maid, and a naked man seen running up Cami de Marroigs. Another says the priest drove the car. A third claims the family was already impoverished, and Marcel was simply the scapegoat. But they all end with a large empty safe, a local police force busy beating students on the streets of Palma, and a Marcel Dupont suddenly missing.

Five years passed until the Frenchman returned to the village with his story of the infamous prison ‘La Model’, or ‘Barcelona Grand Hotel’, as the opposition called it. Allegedly saved by Franco’s timely death, or perhaps, a tender nudge from the 1st Duchess herself.

Still, there’s another rumor, mainly from Javier, of a secret room under the altar in the local church, with fresh water coming from a well and a small bed in the corner. And five years in the care of a god-loving priest would have been an easy trade for anyone who’d heard the heartbroken stories from the “Hotels”.

“…juste des rumeurs.”

No one knows for sure. Least of all Javier, who, to my knowledge, never set foot in a church. And the lost content of the safe has, for obvious reasons, never been confirmed.

We know that on his return, Monsieur Dupont bought the abandoned estate on Camí de Balix from the local council. He invited Olivier de Cap to stay in the guesthouse and spent his days renovating it to its present glory. No one has seen him do any other work in the village since, and he changes his tie daily.

If you’d ask him about his young adventures, he’ll probably smile and say “juste des rumeurs” before blowing a kiss to the wind, nodding his head politely, and being on his way.

Today is Sunday. The humid winter is here, but if you find the right place, the Mediterranean sun will give you enough heat to get through the rest of the day. Javier lost his newspaper to its rightful owner and is now stomping off across the square with his half-filled recycling bag. I’m in a good spot, and Maribel serves me my third coffee. Decaffeinated this time to avoid getting the quivers.

We hear the church gates open before people start coming down the stairs. They smile and chatter, content with the sermon and grateful for being blessed with the same priest for so long.

As they scatter away in all possible directions, Monsieur Dupont holds old Reverend de Cap under the arm as they walk side by side down the stairs and pass the café. ‘El Presidente’ smiles at us, raising his arm in that funny wave.

‘Au revoir mes chers amis.’

Then they both turn the next corner and disappear out of sight.

/// M.