Guardia Civil

The Guardia Civil appears in San Esteban less as a distant institution than as a force encountered face to face through Jacobo, the officer whose work repeatedly intersects with village politics and family life. He investigates abuse directed at Irene, takes part in the arrests at a logging protest, and intervenes in a late-night bar incident. Those duties pull him into conflict with León, his partner, and with a family whose trust in him is tested by the possibility that information from inside the force reached the press.

A local presence

The novel introduces the Guardia Civil through the discovery that Jacobo belongs to it. León’s teasing reference to a faithful servant of the force prompts surprise from the others, including questions about whether Jacobo is a Guardia Civil officer and how long he has served. The reveal changes how his presence in the group is understood: he is not simply León’s boyfriend, but a uniformed officer working in the same small community where the family’s disputes unfold.

The force’s public image is treated with a mixture of familiarity and irreverence. A toast celebrates it, while León jokes that the village already has a firefighter and a Guardia Civil officer among its influential figures. At a family gathering, Bea’s father notices Jacobo’s piercing and remarks on how much the institution seems to have changed. These moments make the organization a recognizable part of village life, while showing how its authority is softened, questioned, or turned into family humor when its officer is among people who know him personally.

Duties amid village politics

Irene asks Jacobo whether the Guardia Civil has identified who painted insults about her on the town hall. The inquiry places the force at the intersection of policing and local political tension: the target is the mayor, and the incident takes place at a public institution. The available account does not establish that the culprit is found, but it shows Irene looking to the officer for information while still addressing him through the familiar relationships of the village.

That overlap becomes more contentious during the dispute over the biomass plant. The town is divided between supporters and opponents of the project, which Irene defends as a source of clean, inexpensive energy, a use for unwanted forest wood, and employment. Critics frame the project and its political consequences differently. The Guardia Civil is not presented as the author of either position; rather, its officers operate in a community where public arguments about development and authority can quickly become personal and politically charged.

The logging protest and arrests

When the family tries to stop logging in the chestnut grove, Irene urges the others not to let the workers touch anything and to climb the trees if necessary. She also asks for Jacobo, expecting him to call his colleagues. The intervention that follows is not described as a negotiation over the merits of the protest: officers remove the protestors from the trees, arrest them, and the felling resumes.

The arrests expose the strain between Jacobo’s professional role and his relationship with León. León is handcuffed by Jacobo and fights with him as the protestors are taken away. In the van, those arrested shout and kick, appearing, in Bea’s account, like aggressive troublemakers rather than participants in a peaceful demonstration. León directs insults at the officers, the workers, and especially Jacobo. Jacobo remains apart, visibly caught between embarrassment, distress, and anger, and unwilling to listen to León’s protests. The scene gives the Guardia Civil’s authority a concrete physical form, but it also shows the personal cost of carrying out that authority against someone close to the officer.

The arrests do not end with the van. Jacobo approaches the officer in a Patrol and negotiates; after about three minutes, he looks toward Bea and nods. The vehicle door is opened for the detained siblings. The account emphasizes Jacobo’s intervention and the family’s relief, but does not explain the formal terms of the negotiation or establish that the wider protest is over. For Bea, the gesture offers a moment of gratitude toward Jacobo even while León’s anger at him remains unresolved.

Jacobo between the uniform and his relationships

León describes the difficulty of being openly gay in the Guardia Civil of a village, contrasting the institution’s everyday reality with the more romanticized version found in crime novels. He points out that officers may no longer wear the traditional tricorn hat, yet the old image still seems present. His remark connects Jacobo’s relationship to the force with the pressure of its social environment: acceptance within a close-knit family does not necessarily mean the same ease in the workplace.

The tension continues after the arrests. When Irene summons the family to discuss a newspaper story, Jacobo is included despite León’s objections. The two do not speak to one another, and the family notices their estrangement. Irene confronts Jacobo because the article says that she threatened to expropriate land from two owners who would not agree to sell their trees to the biomass plant. Bea also warns the family about a planned report on the protest, which may draw on Guardia Civil sources and include photographs of her siblings being detained. Irene had believed Jacobo when he said his colleagues would keep quiet. The account raises a question of trust around the alleged leak, but does not confirm that Jacobo disclosed the information or identify the source.

Intervention beyond the protest

On another night, at three in the morning, Jacobo arrives at the family home in uniform after a disturbance at a bar. He explains that he and his partner responded when the bar owners called. A group of little people wanted to report a man and have him spend the night in the cells, but Jacobo persuaded them to drop the matter after telling them part of the man’s personal circumstances. His account presents discretion and de-escalation as part of his practical work, without suggesting that the Guardia Civil’s formal procedures disappear: the potential complaint and detention remain the stakes of his intervention.

Jacobo’s work also appears in smaller exchanges. He is present with Bea and her mother when he takes them in his fishing boat to a quiet cove for Ángela’s first snorkeling experience, a reminder that the uniformed officer is also part of ordinary village networks. He praises León’s helpfulness, and when Fin’s racing is discussed, he agrees that the circuit is not dangerous but dislikes the thought of Fin riding afraid. Such scenes do not add new institutional powers or policies; they show how an officer’s familiarity with the community extends beyond moments of enforcement.

Narrative significance

The Guardia Civil is defined here by the changing meanings attached to its local presence. At the protest, it is the authority that removes people from the trees and permits work to continue; in the Patrol, it is also the setting for Jacobo’s effort to negotiate their release. At the bar, his intervention prevents a requested arrest from becoming an overnight detention. At home, his possible connection to information reaching the press becomes a source of suspicion, although the evidence leaves the leak unresolved.

Because Jacobo’s public duties and private attachments cannot be kept neatly separate, the force’s role is experienced through a series of personal encounters rather than an institutional overview. Its authority can protect order, enable the continuation of contested logging, and place an officer in direct conflict with his partner. The resulting ambiguity is central to the organization’s portrayal: the village sees the uniform, but it also sees the person inside it, whose loyalty and discretion are repeatedly tested.