There are many times that María Asunción Mateo has been asked if she would ever write a memoir in which she would detail the years she lived with Raphael Alberti (El Puerto de Santa María, 1902-1999). “Who was I going to talk about? The people who surrounded Rafael at that time were not people of stature, ”he often answered. The editor Carmen Balcells herself advised him to tell anyone who asked that he did not write “widows’ books.” But everything changed in June 2021, during a cleaning afternoon, when a folder full of writings and memories along with the poet fell on his head. “In an act of courage I decided to open it, face its content.” And there she found a page in which her husband gave her “the widest and absolute permission to reveal all my secrets, the most intimate and dark ones.” And so she just did it in his new book, My life with Alberti. You came for something, Altair (Almuzara), which has just arrived in bookstores.
“Since I read his words I knew that I had to tell everything. I thought it was a sign and I began to write in one breath. I hardly ate or got up from the table until October, when I put the full stop. He had a lot to say about the great story of love and passion that we live, ”he confesses to The vanguard the widow herself by phone call from her home in El Puerto de Santa María. “I could go back to Valencia with my whole family, but my memories with him are here.” Throughout 352 pages, Mateo narrates from when he met his “great love”, 44 years older, in April 1983 in Baeza during a tribute to Antonio Machado, to his clandestine meetings with the poet in Madrid or the smear campaign that he considers that a series of poets made him when Alberti passed away.
“What I want is for the world to find out about the atrocities that have been done to me,” says María Asunción Mateo
“When I wrote it I did not put names or surnames. I thought it wouldn’t be necessary, that people would know who I was referring to. Then they made me see that only four intellectuals would understand me, and what I want at this point is for the whole world to find out about the atrocities that have been done to me. I have been silent about the machismo I suffer for twenty-three years and now they are going to listen to me ”.
The former professor refers to the group made up of Luis García Montero, Luis Muñoz, Benjamín Prado and Eduardo Mendicutti, among others, whom she baptizes as “widowers emeritus” and who, according to what she recounts in her book, consider themselves “heirs of her work”. and they waged a campaign against it. “They have not only messed with me. They have done the same with other women, like Susana Rivera, the wife of Ángel González, who the day she decides to speak up and take all the documentation from her, they can run away ”.
María Asunción Mateo, widow of Rafael Alberti, in a file image
Mateo does not contemplate that his words may not sit well. “Everything I say is proven, the good and the bad. So no one can protest. They wrote things like Rafael was a wimp or that I was one of the many who walked through his life. They have also called me a totalitarian and that I came to annul my friends. Are they going to deny it? It’s dated and all. It’s not that it’s my truth, it’s the truth, period.”
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In addition to Alberti’s invitation to speak, the wife acknowledges that the feminist movement also encouraged her to tell everything. “That politicians and intellectuals let what I have experienced go by, I cannot understand it. But now yes, I see myself strong, and more with everything that is happening with the World Cup. I also want to have my place, gentlemen. I have a lot to say, ”she assures.
“Everything I say is proven, the good and the bad. So no one can protest,” says the widow.
He clarifies that “I have never argued with them. The most I have done has been to make them food and endure. The moment they saw that we were serious and that we were getting married was when we distanced ourselves, since we didn’t invite the majority. We walked down the aisle at 8 in the morning, and if we could have it would have been at 7. We wanted something intimate and, above all, avoid the press. Of course, while Rafael lived they did not dare to write anything. It all started when they already knew that he could not raise his hand.
María Asunción Mateo with Rafael Alberti, in a file image
Mateo concludes that, “although he never imagined the rebuffs that I have experienced later, my husband tried to give little importance to everyday things for which others kill themselves. After all, he always told me that our life could not be easy, but it was something that we always accepted ”.
