Last tour with Carlos Celdran

By Jessica Zafra

WE HAD AGREED to meet for a drink at 4 p.m. at the café at Reina Sofia Museum. It turns out there are two cafés at the modern art museum, and of course I picked the wrong one. Carlos Celdran was waiting at Nu-Bel, the one inside the museum. When we located each other there was just enough time for a coffee before crossing the street to Atocha Station. In Madrid the streets are wide and the sidewalks spacious, so “It’s across the street” entails a 10-minute walk.

I had not told Carlos I would be in Madrid — it was my first visit to that city, and I wanted to get lost in it by myself. I knew that if I saw Carlos I would be swept up in his orbit and abandon all my plans because face it, his would be more fun. Nevertheless he found out. Carlos was one of those individuals who were so vivid, they could double as light sources. That intensity could be exhausting. Yes, he was a drama king; the most painful part of that sentence is “was.”

That day 20 people had signed up for Carlos’s inaugural Jose Rizal Walking Tour of Madrid on his Facebook page. When we got to the meeting point — the garden inside the train station — there were 54 people waiting for Carlos, mostly Filipinos working, studying, or on vacation in Spain. Not a problem — Carlos loved a crowd, he was a walking flashmob. “Welcome to the test run of the Rizal Walking Tour,” he said, handing out maps he had drawn and printed. “When Jose Rizal arrived in this station he was a 22-year-old college graduate who was living in Europe on his parents’ money, not unlike some of you.” Carlos’s walking tours were part-theater, part-stand-up comedy; performance art got him hauled to court for blasphemy. We had talked a bit about his exile, and he put a cheerful spin on things, but it cannot have been easy. Many of us would be happy to live in a city of grand architecture and museums, where everything works and the traffic does not resemble a hostage situation, but Carlos loved Manila. He looked at its squalor and pollution and saw its complicated history, its possibilities.

He pointed to the palm tree in the garden and said it was too tall to be of local origin. It must’ve come from the Philippine Exposition of 1887, he said, holding up his iPad to show photos of said event. Then 54 of us trooped out of the station towards the Museum of Anthropology. Carlos stood on top of the museum steps to brief us — in his barong Tagalog, backpack, jeans, scarf, and beret, he looked like he was leading some sort of artsy invasion. The museum’s collection included artifacts from that exposition: a model of a nipa hut, stone and clay implements, manton de Manila, and weapons. We fanned out inside the building, causing some alarm among the staff who were unused to seeing so many Asians outside of a school field trip.

Next: A 15-minute walk to the vast public park Parque del Buen Retiro, where along an artificial pond stood the Crystal Palace that was built for the exposition. Carlos produced packs of the Spanish cookies called Filipinos, which might be problematic if they weren’t delicious, and invited everyone to sit on the grass and have a snack. He reached for his iPad to show us pictures of the 19th century cast-iron, glass and ceramic conservatory — and realized his iPad was gone. Had it fallen out of his backpack? Oh well, he shrugged, and continued his talk. Carlos was not unduly troubled by possessions. I hate losing things, and will scold myself for days afterwards. My excellent hotel, the Catalonia on Gran Via, provided a free mobile phone in each room to spare guests from roaming charges. I called the museum to ask about the missing iPad, and it was still there, on top of the display case where Carlos had left it. I was pleased with myself — I could not end his exile, but I was not entirely useless.

I should’ve had one of those chocolate-covered Filipinos and a drink, because the next stage was a half-hour walk to the Ateneo de Madrid. Which, contrary to assumptions, is not the original of the Philippine Jesuit university, but a cultural association with a library and art gallery where concerts and lectures were held. On the way there we paused outside the Prado Museum, whose collections include the painting by Corregio called Noli Me Tángere. Carlos theorized that the Corregio painting of the resurrected Christ was the source of the title of Rizal’s novel. Rizal was an ophthalmologist, he pointed out, and noli-me-tangere was an old term for cancer of the eyelids. The other title of Rizal’s novel is Cancer.

Rizal spent a lot of time at the Ateneo de Madrid between residences — he kept moving from one rooming house to another in search of cheaper rent. At the Ateneo he could leave his luggage and get a meal. Many have written about the parallels between the lives of the 19th century ilustrados and Carlos’s new reality as an exile; I don’t have to repeat them. Carlos wanted to build a cultural outpost of the Philippines in Spain, to assemble writers and artists to recover the history that has been lost to us.

At the Madrid Art Exposition of 1884, Juan Luna and Félix Resurrección Hidalgo had won medals for their paintings. They were feted by the Filipino community at Restaurante Ingles, where Rizal had given a toast that is now in the history books. Our walking tour ended on the site of that restaurant, which is now a bar called Viva Madrid. A plaque on the wall commemorates that happy event. We tried, the 54 of us, to put several tables together on the sidewalk, but this was against regulations.

Most of the tour group moved on to their next appointments; some of us stayed to talk. As always Carlos was full of fantastic stories and bits of information. Facebook had recently reminded him of his Lindsay Lohan-type social media meltdown. “Don’t remind me!” he laughed. “I didn’t know about bots then!” He always said what was on his mind, though he knew there were consequences. I’ve heard it said that if he were a true patriot he should’ve stayed in the Philippines and served his prison sentence, but I don’t see how that would’ve benefited anyone.

Carlos and several friends were heading to Las Cuevas, a wine bar frequented by Ernest Hemingway. I’d been to three museums and done a walking tour that day; my feet felt like they were shod in cement and I returned to my hotel while they still worked. We agreed to meet at the Rastro the following day, Sunday. There was so much to see and talk about, so much history to dig up and fabulous meals to be had. But there is never enough time, and now there is no time.

The Collected Stories of Jessica Zafra, published by Ateneo University Press, is now at Fully Booked, Shopee and other stores.