Desired Mercadal, the Mahonese musician of memory

PalmaIn the Balearic Islands, the Civil War is full of small great stories that would deserve a good film. One is the odyssey starring the Mahón musician Deseado Mercadal Bagur. The Alicante journalist Tomás Andújar, delegate of the Efe agency in the Archipelago, has just rescued him from oblivion in the book "Water is running out. The exile of Deseado Mercadal, edited by Dolmen. He has done it based on the testimony of Celeste, the granddaughter of the Minorcan, and on the two books she wrote years after returning to her island: I was in Kenadza: nine years of exile (1983) and The Civil War in Menorca 1936-1939: historical account of a witness (1994).

Mercadal's life began with a very curious anecdote. His name, Deseado, reflects the joy his parents felt in 1911 with the birth of a much-longed-for child, after two miscarriages and two premature deaths. That child would be the eldest of four siblings. “At 9 years old – Andújar assures – he already showed a special talent for the violin. At 13, thanks to a scholarship, he left for Barcelona to continue his musical training at the Municipal School. Four years later, he returned to Menorca to become the first violinist of the Orchestra of the Principal Theatre of Maó”.

Throughout his career, Mercadal would write nine lyrical works, four in Catalan and five in Spanish. In 1936, at the age of 25, he premiered the first, La canción del mar. In July of that same year, when the military uprising occurred, the Menorcan was also experiencing intense political activity. He served as general secretary of the Workers' Federation of Menorca. In September, he began directing the party's weekly newspaper, Justicia Social. In its pages, he covered the development of a war that would leave Menorca alone. The island, with 43,000 inhabitants, would be the only one of the Balearic Islands to remain loyal to the Republic until February 1939, a month and a half before the end of the conflict.

The Hell of France

The surrender of Menorca was an unusual case within the Civil War, as it was agreed. Winston Churchill's England offered the ship Devonshire for the evacuation of Menorcans. On the morning of February 9, about 450 boarded in a stampede, heading for Marseille (France). A few hours later, another 77 escaped to Algiers on the motor sailer Carmen Picó. Among the latter were Mercadal, his wife Celeste Gelabert, and their only son, 11 months old, who was named after his father. They trusted they would find refuge among the thousands of compatriots who, from the 19th century onwards, fleeing the island's famine, had left for the French colony in North Africa. After a 30-hour crossing, they received a pleasant surprise. “The right-wing mayor Agustín Rozis –states the author of Where the Water Ends– had declared that he did not want any more ‘Spanish reds’ in his city. Thus, all those newcomers were redirected on another ship to France, to Portvendres, less than 40 kilometers from Catalonia”.

The illusions would also fade in the new destination. France was then in the hands of the center-left Édouard Daladier, who in 1938 had replaced the socialist Léon Blum. With the fall of Barcelona on January 26, 1939, Daladier found himself overwhelmed by the nearly half a million Spanish Republicans who crossed the Pyrenean border. For this entire human tide, refugee camps were improvised on the beaches of the country's southeast. They were open-air prisons surrounded by barbed wire fences. The gendarmes separated the Mahón musician from his wife and son and took him to the Argelès camp, the largest that existed and where it is believed that about 15,000 people died.

Among the inmates of that 'hell' were already the Menorcans who arrived with the Devonshire, who immediately put Mercadal in a situation. "I learned – he wrote – that the previous day some refugees, to appease their hunger, had devoured a horse belonging to the spahis [Senegalese], who, in retaliation, had distributed butt strikes right and left. As a result, some were seriously injured. I also learned that numerous exiles who suffered from some chronic illness died every day and could not withstand, lacking medication and care, neither the low temperatures nor the humidity of the nights".

Escape

The same night he arrived in Argelers, the musician from Maó planned his escape. He escaped through a poorly guarded stretch of barbed wire. He then walked towards Cotlliure, the nearest town. "I had in my favor - he noted - to avoid being recognized as a refugee, the fact that I was wearing a new coat, made a few weeks earlier, which differentiated me from most of my compatriots, who were wearing half-torn uniforms or dirty and ripped clothes." In Portvendres, the Menorcan met up with his wife and son, who were in an unguarded warehouse with the women and children of Carmen Picó. On February 25, reality imposed itself. France, together with Great Britain, recognized the legitimacy of Franco's regime. "To avoid entering a concentration camp again - Andújar points out - Mercadal decided to return to Algiers, where he would have the support of the Menorcan colony. He boarded a ship as a stowaway."

In the Algerian capital, about 10,000 Spaniards would also gather, who since the beginning of February 1939, faced with the imminent Francoist victory, began a maritime exodus towards the African coasts. With all sorts of boats, they set sail from the docks of the eastern peninsula, especially from Alicante. Mercadal soon obtained a residence permit thanks to the efforts of a republican baker businessman, not without suffering cases of racism with his precarious French. In the spring, his wife and son were able to travel to Algiers. The Menorcan found work in orchestras, playing the violin and piano. At that time, the nights in the French colony were a song to the joie de vivre.

On September 1st, with the outbreak of the Second World War, the fun ended. Algerian Frenchmen were mobilized. “Thousands of foreign refugees,” the journalist states, “were pressured to enlist in the Foreign Legion, under threat of being confined to labor camps if they refused. Mercadal successfully resisted this for a long time. He survived with various jobs while his wife and son returned to Maó.” In June 1940, France fell into the hands of the Nazis. The new collaborationist Vichy regime, led by Marshal Pétain, ordered that Spanish Republicans and refugees from other countries residing in the African colony be transferred as prisoners to labor camps in the same territory – Jews from Europe would also be deported there. In June 1941, the Menorcan was sent to Kenadza, in the northern Sahara Desert, near the border with Morocco. It was a coal extraction center, which served to keep the distant war's industrial machinery alive.

Saved by music

After a period of hard work and seeing companions die, the camp manager, aware of Mercadal's musical talent, asked him to assemble a small orchestra with four more prisoner musicians. The quintet was to entertain the evenings in the camp's canteen. In November 1942, the prisoners' joy overflowed with the well-known Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa. In February 1943, Mercadal was already leaving Kenadza. The ordeal had lasted two years. He immediately resumed his former job in a liquor factory in Algiers. He also returned to playing in cafes and dance halls, which had been revitalized by the presence of young British and American soldiers.

The Maó musician reinforced his hopes with the end of World War II, in May 1945. Although the Allies did not dare to remove Franco from power, in 1948 he was able to return to Spain. He settled, however, in Barcelona, where he became part of different orchestras. He knew that his particular 'Ithaca' was still a hostile place for him. In December 1955, he made sure that nothing would happen to him by premiering the zarzuela El tresor d’Albranca at the Principal Theatre in Maó, a clear allegory to his exile that began 16 years earlier. The piece included a Hymn to Freedom and ended with the Hymn to Menorca, a song of longing for the island. “There were people in the audience – states Andújar – who shouted for freedom, which angered the Francoist authorities present. With the tension created, an acquaintance advised Mercadal not to prolong his stay in Menorca too much”.

In 1965, the Francoist dissident would have his return free of reprisals guaranteed. He then held the positions of director of the Municipal School of Music of Maó and of the Orfeó Maonès. He also had the opportunity to revive his journalistic flair for the newspaper Menorca. “With the books he wrote about his exile and the Civil War in Menorca – concludes the author of On s’acaba l’aigua–, Mercadal wanted to remind future generations that freedom and democracy are fragile gifts that must always be protected. They are gifts that, unfortunately, are once again in danger today”.