Three men attempt to set fire to Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas

The attempted arson of Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas is a comic catastrophe that never reaches the church: Don Ibrahim, Niña Puñales, and Potro del Mantelete set out to damage the building on Celestino Peregil’s instructions, but their improvised incendiary device ignites in their own room. The episode turns a calculated effort to make violence look like an accident into an actual accident, one that injures the conspirators, exposes their amateurism, and ends in a tacit pact to forget what happened.

Causes and Intended Target

The scheme is connected to the conflict surrounding Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas, whose continued existence is protected by an old privilege requiring a Thursday Mass for Gaspar Bruner de Lebrija. The archbishop explains that the privilege complicates secularization before demolition; much later, Macarena Bruner describes the Thursday service as the condition that keeps the church from being demolished. Each Thursday, she says, an envoy of the archbishop and a notary paid by Pencho Gavira watch for a lapse that might invalidate its protection. The church is therefore not merely a building in the way of redevelopment: its survival depends, precariously, on a recurring ritual and on the priest’s fidelity to it.

The three companions are not the planners at the center of that dispute. They are acting on instructions relayed by Peregil, who wants the church damaged and insists that the damage appear accidental. The intended scale is deliberately ambiguous: the church need not be destroyed outright, but more extensive destruction would be welcome. The wooden pews piled against a wall and the old roof beams are expected to carry the fire onward. Concealment, rather than total destruction, is the essential requirement.

Don Ibrahim prepares the device with the care of someone claiming expertise. He uses a bottle of Anís del Mono, newspaper to protect the table, and premium unleaded gasoline rated at 98 octane. Potro has been sent to a nearby gas station with an empty Carbonell olive-oil tin to fetch a liter. Don Ibrahim claims to have learned the principles of a Molotov cocktail from Che Guevara over mojitos in Santa Clara, although his accompanying claim that it was a Russian invention by Karl Marx gives his credentials the episode’s characteristic air of absurdity. His preparation is meticulous in small particulars and dangerously makeshift in its essentials.

Conscience and Complicity

Niña Puñales resists taking part because the target is a consecrated church. The others persuade her by arguing that the money they expect to make could pay for Masses elsewhere to atone for the deed. Don Ibrahim also invokes a tortuous legalistic excuse: the three are only executing someone else’s crime, while ultimate responsibility belongs to whoever caused it—in his account, Peregil. The reasoning does not remove Niña’s reluctance. She refuses to participate in the act of setting the fire and limits herself to support work, including preparing eggs with blood sausage.

Don Ibrahim does not treat this dissent as insubordination. He thinks of the group as his tribe, clan, and family, and prefers to reason with its members rather than impose decisions. Niña’s scruple pains him precisely because he wants the scheme to remain a shared undertaking. Potro, by contrast, offers no argument. His habitual stillness and loyalty make him difficult to read, and he has raised no objection to burning a church, despite his participation every Good Friday in accompanying Niña through Seville behind the float of Esperanza. His conduct does not resolve into a simple opposition between believer and unbeliever: he is not religious, yet he keeps this annual, intimate ritual with her.

The Accident in the Room

The plan fails at the moment of preparation, before the device can be used against the church. As Potro passes the table on his way to the kitchen, he instinctively moves to extinguish his cigarette in the ashtray, where Don Ibrahim has put the gasoline-soaked rag used to wipe the bottle. Don Ibrahim recognizes the danger a beat too late. He calls out to Potro and tries to stop him, but Potro has already dropped the cigarette into the ashtray. Don Ibrahim then knocks over the bottle with his elbow.

The mishap produces a real fire where the conspirators had intended to stage one elsewhere. Don Ibrahim suffers superficial burns; his mustache and eyebrows are singed, and the table is scorched. Potro runs around the room with his left arm alight. Niña reacts quickly, spraying Don Ibrahim and Potro with a kitchen siphon before throwing a blanket over the table to smother the flames. By the time firefighters arrive, the fire is out. Smoke, explanations, and neighbors gathered at the door replace the carefully imagined alibi.

The aftermath is comic without making the danger unreal. Don Ibrahim checks his skin, which has been covered with burn cream, and reflects that the group has narrowly escaped a much worse disaster. He remembers Potro running ablaze as if in a Vincent Price wax-museum horror film; the image turns their supposedly controlled operation into farce, but the burns and scorched room register its physical cost. Niña goes to the pharmacy for ointment and gauze. Don Ibrahim declares that painful chapters of life should be forgotten quickly, and the three agree, without needing to say so, never to mention the incident again.

Narrative Function and Limits

The episode’s central reversal is exact: the men are supposed to manufacture an accidental fire at Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas, yet their own carelessness creates an accident in their preparation room. The demand to make arson look accidental becomes grimly self-parodic, while the proposed attack never becomes an assault on the church. The narrative keeps intention, attempt, and outcome distinct: an incendiary device is assembled for use against the church, but the evidence here shows a fire among the conspirators, not a church fire.

That distinction matters because Nuestra Señora de las Lágrimas is associated elsewhere with several deaths, but those deaths have separate circumstances. Peñuelas falls from a scaffold when a wooden railing gives way; Father Urbizu is struck by a falling piece of cornice after scaffolding shifts; and Honorato Bonafé later dies after a fall from the altar scaffold and crawls into a confessional. The arson attempt does not explain or cause any of these deaths. Instead, it belongs to the wider pattern of danger around the church while remaining a failed, separate operation.

The scene also makes the conspirators’ relationships visible through practical behavior rather than a declaration of loyalty. Niña’s conscience sets a limit on her participation; Don Ibrahim tries to preserve cooperation through persuasion; Potro’s fatalistic compliance puts the group at risk; and, when the fire breaks out, Niña is the one who acts decisively to put it out. Their silence afterward is not proof that the original plan succeeded. It is an attempt to bury an embarrassing failure before it can become another story told at their expense.