Epiphany

Epiphany, also known as Three Kings’ Day, is a recurring date in the novel on which apparently private acts disclose the pressures of political history. On 6 January 1937, Clara Stauffer stands at the center of the Falange’s first national congress while stepping back from its most visible office; eleven years later, the same feast day becomes the occasion for Manuel Arroyo to give Guillermo García Medina a Smith & Wesson and insist that he learn to use it. The recurrence links political influence to practical preparation, and public ambition to the intimate ties that make dangerous work possible.

The 1937 Congress

The 1937 observance falls during wartime, in Salamanca, where the women’s branch of the Falange holds its first national congress. Founded in June 1934 with modest, primarily charitable aims, the organization had initially sent members to visit imprisoned Falangists and accompany their families. The conflict transformed its standing: delegates arrived from the provinces under Francoist control, making the congress a public demonstration of the organization’s expanded importance. Madrid’s leadership was the exception, with Pilar Primo de Rivera remaining National Chief, the first, last, and only holder of that position. The hierarchy placed Marichu de la Mora as National Secretary and Clara Stauffer, responsible for press and propaganda, immediately below her. Stauffer was thirty-three and still known familiarly as Clarita. Born in Madrid in 1904 to Konrad Stauffer, a Nuremberg master brewer recruited by the Mahou family, and Julia Loewe, a Madrileña from a prominent German business family, she had been educated in Germany and still held German nationality alone. Foreignness did not prevent her from distinguishing herself in women’s sport, particularly swimming and skiing, or from advancing in the Falange. Instead, it made her useful in relations between the Burgos government and the Third Reich.

Influence Behind the Office

At the congress, Stauffer gave up the post of National Delegate of Press and Propaganda so that de la Mora could occupy it, leaving herself as Central Assistant in the same field. The visible arrangement suggested de la Mora’s triumph, but it did not transfer the work’s substance. Stauffer continued to control the organization’s propaganda: she wrote the unsigned material and edited the signed contributions in the official book of the Women’s Section, first published in 1938 without an imprint because Madrid remained in Republican hands. Epiphany thus frames a reversal between title and power: Stauffer steps down in the public hierarchy while retaining decisive influence over what the organization says and publishes. The contrast is sharpened by the women’s different family backgrounds. Pilar was the daughter of the former dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera and sister of José Antonio, the Falange’s founder, executed in November 1936 and elevated by his followers as a martyr. De la Mora was the granddaughter of Antonio Maura, a leading conservative politician. Stauffer’s bourgeois origins appeared less illustrious beside these lineages, but her German connections and work would prove important to the party’s rise and to Francoist military interests. The feast day’s political significance therefore lies not simply in a formal gathering, but in the placement of a foreign-born organizer at a consequential junction of propaganda and international relations.

The 1948 Gift

On 6 January 1948, the date returns in a different setting. After leaving Ingrid’s house, Manuel Arroyo, living under the assumed identity of Adrián Gallardo, walks with Guillermo, who is using the name Rafa, to Guillermo’s home on Calle del Pez. Manuel has brought a delayed Christmas present, selected with Meg’s help. Its wrapping—gift paper secured by a pale-blue gauze ribbon and a large bow—makes the package look like an ordinary holiday offering. Inside is a bright Smith & Wesson, well oiled but bearing the marks of a registration number punched away. Guillermo, a surgeon, is startled by the weapon. Manuel points out that he does not know how to shoot and says it is time he learned. He stresses that the pistol is unloaded and has no ammunition, and proposes finding a place to teach him before taking him to Don Eduardo’s small shooting ground at his house in Cercedilla, where comrades practise on Sundays. Guillermo objects that his work is to repair the damage such weapons cause, not to use them, and doubts he will ever learn. The episode turns a Christmas gift into a sign of the danger surrounding the network: the physician’s role of mending wounds is being supplemented, however reluctantly, by preparation for armed risk.

Recurrence and Meaning

The two Epiphany episodes differ in scale but share a movement from appearance to consequence. In 1937, Stauffer’s withdrawal from a senior title conceals the continuity of her command over propaganda. In 1948, a carefully wrapped present conceals a firearm altered to erase its registration number. In each case, what matters is not the surface form—the congress appointment or the holiday gift—but the power and danger carried underneath it. The date also places women’s political agency and private labor beside the predominantly male world of weapons, combat, and escape. Stauffer’s influence rests on sustained organizational work, international connections, and the commitment she gives to her cause and comrades. Meg helps find the gift for Guillermo, while Manuel turns it into practical instruction. Epiphany does not erase the novel’s political history or offer a simple moment of renewal. Its repeated function is more unsettling: a feast-day gesture becomes the point at which influence is exercised, loyalty is made tangible, and the next danger is acknowledged.