The woman who won the Nobel Prize... for her husband
On the Cap de Creus peninsula, within the municipality of Roses, lies Cala del Calis, also known as Cala del General, inside the bay of Montjoi. This is where the El Bulli restaurant once stood—now a kind of museum without food—and next to it, right above the small cove, stands Casa Camprubí, a former hermitage acquired in 1885, half a century after the Mendizábal confiscations, by Brigadier General Fèlix Camprubí Escudero, grandfather of Zenobia Camprubí Aymar Jiménez.
This corner of the world is a paradise, especially on mild winter and spring days. It used to be just as lovely in summer... The house now belongs to the Galí family, also descendants of the Camprubí family. Fèlix Camprubí paid 1,750 pesetas, or about 11 euros, to its previous owner, Joaquim Vergonyós, for an estate in Castelló d'Empúries that he had inherited in 1837 and which, according to Josep Pla, was a "recalcitrant card player and staunch Catholic"—an excellent player—who spent time in Montjoi eating good fish, playing cards like "canario" or "burro," and attending mass. Pla was greatly envious of and impressed by these kinds of conservative, dissolute characters.
This story is at the origin of the book Zenobia Camprubí and the secrets of Montjoi cove, (Calígrafo Publishing House), by Francesc Galí, publicist, photographer, and musician. His great-grandfather José was also a brigadier general and brother of Félix. Another brother, Raimundo, was Zenobia's father. The house has been enjoyed by different generations of the family. The last tenant was Oriol Galí, who died tragically two years ago when he fell into the sea while walking along the coastal path. He lived like a hermit, alone. His sister is the architect Beth Galí Camprubí, partner of Oriol Bohigas. Beth had also spent summers here.
Francisco Galí inherited from his grandmother, Josefina Camprubí Darna, some letters addressed to his cousin Zenobia, dated the 1930s, during the Republic. Now he has dusted them off and has been piecing together threads related to Zenobia and Montjoi. The result is this puzzle-like book, written as a kind of diary of an investigation. It's a page-turner; you always want to know more.
Zenobia and Juan Ramón, who had met at the progressive and vibrant Residencia de Estudiantes (Student Residence), where Lorca and Dalí also resided, lived in Madrid in the 1930s. There, they met Josefina's fiancé, Francisco Galí, an engineer working on the construction of the Madrid Metro. These were exciting, hopeful years. Zenobia was one of the first women in Madrid to drive a car. She spoke languages, read, and wrote. She was always on the go.
The war brought everything to a standstill. When it broke out, Zenobia and Juan Ramón took in a group of twelve orphaned children. But on August 20, 1936—the day after Federico García Lorca's assassination—they went into exile, leaving their cook in charge of the apartment and the children. They gave her money and continued to send it. The couple entered France through La Jonquera on August 22. “I want to believe they spent their last hours in Spain, happy, gazing at Cape Norfeu from the terrace” of Casa Camprubí, where she had spent memorable summers, writes Francesc Galí.
They were never able to return from exile. In New York, one of Zenobia's brothers owned the famous Spanish-language newspaper The PressFrom there, she raised funds for the Spanish Republic. Her exile took place between the US—where she had lived for many years as a student—Cuba, and Puerto Rico, the home of Zenobia's maternal family. He was depressed, and she had cancer; the couple's end was complicated, and it was a race against time to win the Nobel Prize: it was Zenobia who ultimately achieved it, moving heaven and earth. An emancipated and intellectually accomplished woman, a translator of Tagore, she was Juan Ramón Jiménez's muse and pillar of strength. Exhausted, she died a few days after her husband was awarded the Nobel Prize in October 1956. He died a year and a half later.
The Camprubí house is part of Zenobia and Juan Ramón's collective memory. The people of the Magrigul valley, with its farmhouses of Montjoi de Arriba (inhabited) and Montjoi de Abajo (now being restored), historically knew it as Can Rubí, a variant of Camprubí. The renovations in Montjoi de Abajo, where until not so many years ago there stood an imposing medieval tower that collapsed and has since been rebuilt, are being carried out by the new owner, an American descendant of another lineage with a Rosinco pedigree, the Pi-Sunyers, Larry Williams Jr. Pi-Sunyer.
The Camprubí, Galí—the author's paternal great-grandfather was the Noucentista painter Francisco de Asís Galí i Fabra—and Pi-Sunyer families, who also spread throughout the American exile, all appear in the book. The author doesn't forget El Bulli, of course, with Hans Schilling and Marketa, with Juli Soler and Ferran Adrià. Francesc Galí has personal memories of his childhood and teenage summers there.
The Camprubí house, so beautifully situated overlooking Cala del General or Cala de Calis, stands as a witness to lives that deserve to be remembered. A patch of white light on the sea.I know that when I leave, / like my soul I must return / to this land where I wait today.".