Post-war fascist rule in Spain

Postwar fascist rule in Spain is presented not as a clean break from wartime violence but as its continuation under changed circumstances. Fumero moves from wartime persecution into public prominence, while threats, surveillance, and political stigma keep shaping the lives of people he has targeted. The regime’s power is visible both in overt coercion and in the fear that makes people conceal their histories and limit what they say.

From wartime violence to public authority

Fermín’s account traces the transition directly. During the war, he watched Fumero and described him as dangerous; after Barcelona fell, Fermín himself became a persecuted fugitive. He was arrested at the port while trying to secure passage to France for his superiors, then held at Montjuïc. Fumero’s involvement in the interrogation left Fermín with lasting marks and memories that he describes as more consequential than the visible injuries.

The later regime does not erase Fumero’s past. In Nuria’s recollection, he has become an ambitious public figure within the fascist establishment, a position that seems to make pursuit of Julian less convenient, not impossible. She lives with the possibility that he may again turn his attention to the past. His authority therefore has two forms: the public standing that makes him powerful and the old capacity for personal intimidation that keeps his targets afraid.

Police power in daily life

Fumero’s visit to the Sempere bookshop shows political authority intruding into ordinary commerce. He displays his police identification and threatens Daniel and his father with trouble over the sale of supposedly communist material. The accusation is not presented as a substantiated offense; it functions as leverage, making the family’s livelihood vulnerable to an inspector’s discretion.

His treatment of Fermín makes the threat still more personal. At the Hospice of Santa Lucia, Fumero reminds him of their earlier encounter and threatens to take him to headquarters and resume the abuse. The warning is delivered while Fermín is with Daniel, extending the intimidation to the younger man as well. Past violence remains useful to Fumero because the possibility of its return can compel fear without being carried out in that moment.

The same reach appears in Fumero’s later threat to Nuria. He tells her he intends to find Julian and threatens both of them, using his knowledge of the family secret to intensify the danger. His threats connect political power with private vulnerability: the police officer can pursue a person, but he can also weaponize intimate information to frighten those around him.

Surveillance, stigma, and constrained choices

Nuria’s experience at work shows how repression travels through institutions beyond direct police action. After Fumero questions her, a rumor circulates in the office about her relationship with Mercedes Pietro. Mercedes tells Nuria that Sanmartí has received a police report concerning Nuria’s suspected communist past and disapproves of their friendship. Afraid of losing the job she needs to support her son, Mercedes withdraws in distress. Political suspicion thus becomes workplace pressure, while social stigma supplies another means of isolation.

The episode reveals the practical force of being watched or reported. A police file need not result in a formal prosecution to change how colleagues behave or what they believe they can risk. Nuria’s past constrains her present, and the people near her must weigh friendship against employment and security. The threat is diffuse: it passes from police intelligence to an employer’s judgment, then into private shame and separation.

Secrecy, memory, and the afterlife of repression

The novel places this political climate alongside a family silence formed during the war. Daniel’s father explains that Daniel’s mother made him promise not to tell their son about the war or allow him to remember what happened. His uncertainty about whether he was right to keep that promise shows how public violence enters family life as withheld knowledge. The past is not simply over; it is carried forward through silence as well as testimony.

The surrounding city makes that inheritance tangible without making every hardship an explicit political act. Daniel and his father walk through the Raval before dawn to reach a place his father insists must remain secret. Elsewhere, blackouts, rain, crowded streets, and journeys through Barcelona form the material setting in which people move under uncertainty. These scenes establish a world of restricted knowledge and precarious safety, while the more direct episodes identify police power and political suspicion as forces that shape it.

Postwar repression consequently operates through both spectacular threat and routine calculation. Fermín remembers what Fumero did during the war; Nuria fears that he may return; a bookseller faces intimidation over what he sells; and a colleague risks her livelihood when a police report shadows her friendship. Together, these experiences portray fascist rule as an afterlife of violence: authority persists through the capacity to punish, the circulation of suspicion, and the pressure to keep dangerous histories unspoken.