Surrounded by rubble, Natalia, a gardener from Kramatorsk, takes care of her gladioli and chrysanthemums, although no one will see them in the city abandoned by war. Surrounded by high cement walls, at the back of a module of the Madrid V de Soto del Real penitentiary center (Madrid), Rubén carefully pampers his cacti and succulents. “As for the Ukrainian gardener, also for me, within my sadness, plants are my oasis,†says the intern.
Natalia is one of the protagonists of Stories of a war. Rubén, one of the 190 spectators of a very special screening. In the show, a group of EL PAÍS journalists who have covered the conflict since the Russian invasion of February 24, 2022, try to present very personal stories from those they met there. The special envoys have been touring different venues for more than a year, but this Friday they were especially eager to bring the show to prison. On the way they asked themselves, what will the prisoners be like as an audience? Will the themes of the war – separation from family, fear, loss of normality – resonate with their own experience? ? Will they be up to date with current events?
The first question is resolved by Luis Carlos Antón, director of this prison with 1,250 inmates from 62 countries (a third are foreigners, no Russians and seven Ukrainians at this time): “We have the most grateful public in the world, eager to to see things… Because here time passes very slowly.
In the assembly hall, a respectful silence reigns while the journalists narrate topics that actually touch the prisoners closely on a bare stage, with the sober artistic direction of the actor Raúl Fernández de Pablo and traditional Ukrainian music performed on the violin by Teresa Gamaza Acuña.
The story of Boris (narrated by Luis Doncel, section head of Internacional), a young LGTBI activist whose life “changes from one day to the next” when he enlists as a volunteer in the army, has made Jose release “a teardrop.” “Here you are very used to hearing tragedies and you think you are hardening, but when they tell it to you in such a personal way, ugh†¦â€ he says, sighing.
Carlos explains that “inside†you “have sensitivity on the surfaceâ€: “Things that you didn't give much importance to outside, here they are a world.†. That is why he has been moved by the story of Tigram and the other children that journalist Óscar Gutiérrez has told. For that reason and because he has a five-year-old child who changes every month that he does not see him and because he still has two years left on his sentence. “Where is dad?, where is dad?†Tigram repeated to his mother in Mikolaiv, and she replied that she was working to prevent him from thinking that perhaps he would not return from the front. “It's the same thing my son asks,†says Juanma, a transporter with a sentence of months. At home they have also told their nine-year-old boy that he is traveling. “That image of the father with the rifle saying goodbye to the child has broken me,†says the inmate. “I talk to mine every day by videoconference and I know that we are going to see each other soon and even so he is very annoying.â€
Lives interrupted
The innocents who star in the Ukrainian stories and the guilty who make up the audience of Madrid V share interrupted lives, paused by war or prison. There are phrases that resonate in both. “The value of normal,” repeats the journalist Mónica Ceberio, director of the project, in her story about stopped loves: “The value, for example, of going to the market, making dinner and having it with the people you love.” . “Ugh, you can't wait for that, because before it could make you lazy,†says an inmate.
To Luis de Vega, a special envoy who is now in Israel, a suitcase lost in the middle of the conflict reminded him “that the vast majority of things are not essential.” Another prisoner nods in his chair, “that is so true, we carry so many things.†“In the most screwed-up moments, the dignity of the small gestures remains,†says reporter Jacobo García when he remembers the gardener from Kramatorsk, the sweeper or the bus driver who continued working despite the destruction. When Rubén, Soto's gardener, shows off his very tidy cell in the Man Project module, he does so with the same pride worthy of someone who is trying to move forward after the chaos.
During question time, most of the prisoners delve into geopolitical issues. Is this war that is now two years old actually a conflict between the United States and Russia? What is China's role in the balance of powers? Why doesn't Europe help more? sa Ukraine?…
A window
News matters a lot in prison because it is a window. That's why sometimes it hurts. “I don’t like to watch the news that has to do with my surroundings or my neighborhood because it makes me nostalgic,†says Eduardo, who prefers to escape with his small transistor from the commissary where he catches up culturally with Radio 3. “I can't stand the images of the children in Gaza, they remind me too much of my own,†says Carlos, who is more “paper-likeâ€: on Sundays he subscribes to El PAÍS. Jose, to EL PAÍS and The world: “My grandmother was illiterate and my grandfather read EL PAÍS to her, but she sent him to buy the Abc, saying that you always have to read the opposites too.” When she finishes with the newspapers she leaves them in the common room, “here each copy is read many times,†she says. He is “a Twitter buzz with a very politically active account” and with thousands of followers that he now tries to keep alive with bots. Because in prison there is no internet.
Gregorio, among the oldest of a group of nine inmates, between 32 and 60 years old, who have agreed to chat with EL PAÍS, misses the website “to delve deeper” into the news that interests him . He is “hungry for information”, his means of obtaining information, like that of the majority of prisoners, who spend about 14 hours a day in the cell, is television. Almost everyone has one in their cabin. Gregorio watches from Telemadrid to La Sexta, “a varied thing.”
Just as on the street, there is some skepticism among prisoners about bias and misinformation in the media. “Not everything there is is told,†says Victor, who prefers not to give his real name. For Óscar, who has been in charge of the commissary of his module for five years, the problem is the gaps: “Now Gaza has replaced Ukraine on the covers, but there are many conflicts, for example the African ones, which they never come to the foreground.”
The TV in the common room is watched above all on special occasions: the last time it was widely shared was during the women's soccer world cup, which thanks to the time change caught them outside the cells. “Here there is no discussion about football nor certainly about politics, there is less polarization than on the street,†says Jose. “What is talked about in the groups is articles of the penal code or internal regulations, things that you would never talk about on the street.†.
The very careful magazine Echoes of Sotowith an attractive and modern layout by Daniel Fortesque, contains many themes of this type: “In the end what matters here are the judicial and penitentiary themes,†says this member of the editorial team, “they tire me a lot. little, but that is our audience.†.
Back in the auditorium – where other prisoners are in charge of controlling the sound, the lights or passing the microphone among the audience – the last questions arise: there are many, the interest in participating is evident. One of the interventions gives the journalists a poem about the war that ends with the verses “no one wins, everyone loses.” And another is more of a theatrical review. An intern “with more than 20 years of experience in show business†sums up what he just saw as “an excellent verbatim drama†(testimonial theater) that reminded him of Pirandello. “Reading the news gets you distracted, but that's how well it's told and it catches you… And with no production, just four chairs… Less is more. He has moved me. You put this on the Gran Vía and it sweeps away.