The path that leads to Sacramental of San Justo —a Madrid cemetery that shares a wall with the oldest in the city, that of San Isidro— is arduous and tortuous. We do not know if it was for those who rest in it, but certainly that is how it is for those who have to climb its steep entrance slope, especially on a hot summer morning. Luckily, Paloma Contreras knows them all and she waits at the bottom of the slope with her car to cover that section. Once through the gate that gives access to the first patio, the oldest in the complex —surrounded by niches because in the 19th century burials were avoided in favor of the heights, located one step closer to Paradise—, the guide specialized in art mortician and blog founder Between stones and cypresses he begins to release the reel and reveals some of the innumerable secrets that reside in perpetuity in this stately cemetery inaugurated in 1847. “In the 19th century, the important thing was to have the three Ps: the mansion, the box in the theater and the pantheon in the cemetery”, details about its origins. “But since, in the Civil War, they began to shoot on the walls of the cemeteries, death was returned to these spaces.”
Contreras begins the tour of the white tombstone of Sara Montiel, the actress and singer who rests like this, with her diva name inscribed on the stone and without date of birth. Then the last resting places of Larra, Espronceda, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Jerónima Llorente, the Álvarez Quintero brothers, Manuel Altolaguirre, Julio Camba appear… to name just a few of the many artists, politicians and illustrious people who lie between these walls. . Dressed in black with a skull printed on the T-shirt, short blond hair, sunglasses and a fan in hand, for Contreras, however, her brilliant stories have no greater value than those guarding the tombstones with unknown names. To investigate and disseminate them, along with the artistic treasures that decorate these spaces, she dedicates her efforts channeled through her association (which she leads together with her partner Ainara Ariztoy), funeral you. “They are the stories that we like to tell the most in our guides,” she defends. Later on, as he advances through the template of geometric corridors, he will elaborate on some of those anecdotes that, even separated by thousands of kilometers, are reminiscent in spirit of those told in a recently published book.
As a child, Scottish journalist and writer Peter Ross used to visit his grandparents in the city of Stirling, in the center of the country. Over its old town, in the shadow of an imposing castle, is a bucolic cemetery where that boy spent hours. “This was in the late ’70s, early ’80s; I liked to frequent that place and just hang around there,” Ross recalls by phone. Those walks with a friend between crosses and tombstones fueled his inner conversation. “Some people think that spending time in a cemetery is something morbid, but I found it fascinating, like a story,” he says. “Also, walking among the graves definitely improved my vocabulary, seeing archaic words and expressions like ‘remembrance’ and ‘let the children come to me.’
From that childhood dazzle grew an interest that has led Ross to visit dozens of cemeteries in Great Britain and Ireland. Like Contreras, he has accumulated data on some of its most famous inhabitants (in this vein, Cees Nooteboom wrote a book in which he dialogues with great writers through his graves, Tombs of poets and thinkers, edited by Siruela) but, above all, he wanted to pay tribute to those who found no space between the pages of the history books. They are the protagonists of A tomb with a view (Captain Swing), an essay from which the funeral guide says with a laugh: “I have fallen in love exaggeratedly, because it is my life.” Originally published in English on the eve of confinement, the author is pleased with the reception he received at that difficult moment. “I think it’s because it’s not just about death, but also about life. And more specifically, of love. I think people found comfort in the book, because instead of denying them, it addresses the big issues. And deep down, that is like a vaccine, with which, to attack the disease, you inoculate yourself a little ”.
Unnoticed until suddenly Contreras mentions it, a thread of music sounds in the Sacramental de San Justo. As he emphasizes, there is no other cemetery like this in Madrid, with a soundtrack. Drawn to cemeteries from a young age, like Ross, she has read her book with true devotion. She acknowledges a huge number of connections and also some difference between the British and Irish burial grounds and the Spanish ones. One is obvious: this morning, in San Justo, hardly a soul can be seen walking among the graves. A lonely woman comes to visit her husband, who died six years ago, while a man worries about the fate of his parents’ bones, buried in an area that is currently being redeveloped, with the destruction of the Civil War still patent.
For the rest, only classical music that accompanies the steps itself is heard in San Justo. Visits like the ones made by Contreras are not commonplace —they have only been offered, not so long ago, in Madrid and the occasional city like Barcelona and A Coruña— nor is the presence of many of the characters who parade through the book. de Ross: in addition to the most diverse guides, workers, teachers, volunteers and other burial pilgrims who keep those spaces busy. “For me it was very important not to make a book about the most beautiful cemeteries in the United Kingdom, or the best known, but one that treated these places as living spaces,” says the author. “I wanted to reflect the relationship between present and past and between the people who lie in cemeteries and those who go to them. Because it is a continuum: those people are us; One day it will be us.”
A tomb with a viewinevitably introduces the reader to the sociology and history of the United Kingdom and Ireland. From the ghosts of the IRA to legendary figures like Phoebe Hessel, an English woman who fought in the army disguised as a man. With her differences as Catholic and Protestant countries. “I think in Ireland there is a feeling that the relationship with the deceased continues after death, whereas in the UK the idea is more of visiting the cemetery as a duty,” explains Ross. “It seems to me that there is a greater denial of death or a greater desire not to think about it in the UK than in Ireland or other parts of Europe.” The tradition of burying, in fact, is gradually disappearing in those islands. As the journalist points out in his book, although there are more than 14,000 cemeteries, three quarters of the current population opt for cremation. By way of comparison, and according to data from the National Association of Funeral Services, in Spain there are 17,682 cemeteries and in 2021 less than 45% of the deceased were cremated.
Mariana Enriquez already wrote it in her book someone walks on your grave (Anagram): “There are more dead than alive, it’s a simple truth, and they all end up on the ground.” So, perhaps, the cessation of burials will be an inexorable fate. Like Ross and Contreras, the Argentine author feels a powerful attraction to these places. In her 2021 book, she summarized 24 trips made over the years to necropolises around the world —Spain, Mexico, Australia, Argentina… —, after being captivated by the La Plata cemetery in her adolescence. “It is a cemetery with many masonic tombs, shrines, sphinxes. I used to visit him often with my boyfriend at the time, ”she says by email. “Over the years I became used to taking notes about the cemeteries I visited, but I only decided that they would be travel chronicles and a book when I attended the burial of the remains of a friend’s mother, who had been missing. That is, the burial of bones identified by the Argentine forensic anthropology team, which had been in a common grave for 30 years. Then I realized the personal and historical importance of cemeteries in countries that have suffered massacres.”
With the enthusiastic look of theflâneur”, that is, without anthropological or historical intention, Enriquez takes advantage of his stays in places like New Orleans or the island of Martín García to get lost among graves. “When I tell about a cemetery it is because it has some outstanding story or characteristic, or because something happens to me in that place, some narrative”, he explains. The writer does not think that a particular sensitivity or personality is necessary to enjoy the stories of the cemeteries. If anything, an “aesthetic inclination”. “Of course there are people who are afraid of them, but I don’t understand why,” she settles.
a bright vision
In his visits, Contreras borders on everything related to the afterlife. Same as Ross in A tomb with a view: They are not interested in the supernatural, nor the sinister, but the luminous. That which breathes life. Which does not mean, of course, that they do not run into stories torn by pain: especially, those of the babies secretly buried for not having arrived at the baptism that Ross collects in his book. Or those of the children who, in San Justo, rest in niches with their names engraved in diminutives and between exclamations —“Pepito!!”; “Palomita!!”—, as was the custom a hundred years ago.
With the increasing bureaucratization of death, modern sections of cemeteries are increasingly indistinguishable from one another. New pantheons or singular tombs like that of Agustín Mansó, one of those anonymous characters that Contreras likes so much, are rarely erected. “He was like a precursor to El Corte Inglés,” the guide illustrates. “Twenty years before Ramón Areces, he had an English clothing import store near Puerta del Sol, called New England. When this man died, shortly after he opened El Corte Inglés in the same area”.
Despite the transformations, the cemeteries continue to be a mirror of the society they accompany: in San Justo, all you have to do is look at the austere and identical tombs of some religious who all died on similar dates, around March 2020. , the peak of the covid. “Until the 19th century, cemeteries told us that we were going to die, the memento mori famous. For this reason, the decorations were skulls, tibias, scythes…”, sums up Contreras. “After that all that changed and people began to think about ‘I was here’ and ‘remember me’. And I like that idea: not to forget because, when you are forgotten, you die a second time”.
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