Las dos en punto

Poetic justice at two o?clock sharp

Las dos en punto [Two O?clock Sharp] is an exercise in poetic justice that takes its place beside many others that little by little have shed light on the life of the renowned Marías of Santiago de Compostela. It is high time they were called by their names and, above all, by their surnames: Fandiño Ricart.

The thick mask of pancake make-up worn by Maruja and Coralia (the protagonists) conceals a long history of cruelty. A person who causes suffering without feeling pity, or even takes pleasure in it, is cruel. There is, therefore, a story of pleasure on the flip side of the coin of this story steeped in institutional, ideological, political, social, economic, sexist, gender-based and sexual violence. And violence, according to the dictionary, is the unjust and arbitrary (generally illegal) exercise of power or force. I rest my case, Your Honour.

But Coralia and Maruja?s story is also one of bravery, of courage, of struggle, of irreverence, of (civil) disobedience and of dignity. In a word: of FREEDOM. A story about the madness needed to live in this world of madmen (and madwomen!). Maruja and Coralia Fandiño Ricart took a walk every day at two o?clock; a rainbow flag that contravened the grey of the Franco dictatorship in the Galician capital. They were mocked, abused, insulted, silenced; they were reds, they were whores, they were nothing. They were hunger. But no one could stop them. They never stopped walking. And never means never: they are walking still.

After their death in the 80s, they continued walking in the collective imagination. And, in 1994, César Lombera immortalised them ? walking ? on the boulevard of Santiago de Compostela; that's how I met them. They have walked silently day and night since then, and not even Covid-19 could keep them from their walk: they were the only passers-by on the deserted streets of Santiago. They have walked so much that they are going farther and father, and, in 2021, they will turn up in Madrid.

Their stubborn presence gives us hope.
Esther F. Carrodeguas