Transición española

The Transición española appears in the novel not as a sweeping account of political change but through the unresolved fate of a displaced Romanesque chapel. Its history exposes a gap between the arrival of democracy and the repair of an injustice inherited from the Franco Era: the old arrangement could be described as a compromise, but it left the chapel away from its home and its return uncertain.

The Chapel’s Displacement

In the 1950s, plans for a reservoir threatened to cover three villages. The dead were moved from their cemeteries, and two churches were dismantled stone by stone for relocation. A small Romanesque chapel was also supposed to be moved, but the reservoir was never built. The churches returned to their original sites; the chapel did not. A minister under Franco had become enamored of the building and kept it for installation at his Galician country estate.

An Unfinished Democratic Settlement

With the arrival of democracy, demands began for the chapel’s return. Yet the village to which it belonged had emptied, as its inhabitants had died or emigrated, and successive governments and mayors did not pursue the claim firmly. The minister’s heirs resisted, while ambiguous laws neither clearly protected the community’s claim nor condemned those holding the chapel. The novel presents this impasse as characteristic of the Transición española’s compromises, capable of leaving past wrongs unresolved even after political change.

Irene’s Intervention

Irene made the chapel’s return a priority as soon as she took office as mayor. Rather than abandon the effort because the original village no longer had residents, she persisted until she secured its return to the comarca and sought a new location acceptable to those concerned. The recovered chapel, placed near the cliffs, became Irene’s first major success as mayor. Its eventual return offers a specific counterpoint to the inertia associated with the transition: an inherited injustice could still be addressed through determined local action.