Maruja Torres, journalist and author: “I went to a very handsome notary to dictate my last will and testament” | Culture | EUROtoday

“I haven’t been here for about 40 years. I think the last time I came was with a boyfriend who is now dead,” says Maruja Torres (Barcelona, ​​81 years previous), whereas ingesting tomato juice with pepper within the Richelieu bar in Madrid. Instead of exhibiting unhappiness for her previous and deceased love, Maruja, who was a journalist for EL PAÍS for 30 years and is now a dwelling legend of the career, laughs. She laughs with youthful vigor, she laughs with adolescent self-confidence as a result of, she says, the extra individuals die round her, the extra want she has to dwell.

And that's the identify of his new e book, The extra individuals die, the extra I wish to dwell (Today's Topics), a dwelling will, a memoir of previous age or, in keeping with her, a handbook on “how to grow old non-normatively”, “a recount of marujismos “interchoppy” in which he reviews his life and his daily life and in which he talks about everything: his childhood, sex, feminism, politics, and the love of his life, journalism. Professional writer and amateur Since retirement, she has done everything in her profession – war and conflict reporter, gossip columnist, cultural journalist, opinion writer – and beyond her profession – novelist with the Planeta and Nadal prizes behind her. Trained in danger, Maruja continues to be a kamikaze who fears nothing and dares to do anything. And she warns: “I will continue to be shameless and outspoken and possibly a slut as long as my mind holds out and my gymnastics allow my body to go as far as it can.”

Ask. You've been working on this book for a year. What motivated you to start writing again?

Answer. I was going to say no because I didn't feel like writing. I already had the column in Today for Todaywith Àngels Barceló. Àngels gave me my first “mouth to microphone”, she was the one who resurrected me. But a young man appeared in my life, Sergi Álvarez, who runs Temas de Hoy, and convinced me to write. I saw that he was so dedicated, so cinephile and sensitive, that in the end I had to say yes.

P. She says she writes because it helps her understand. What have you understood by writing this book?

R. It has helped me understand that getting older is a real pain. What else can I conclude? This book is a living testament. I just hope that my last wishes are fulfilled. Because I have known people who are absolutely atheists whose daughter organized a funeral with 27 altar boys. Thank goodness I don't have children and I have committed friends. As that saintly man called Tennessee Williams used to say: “We always depend on the kindness of strangers.” If I have a good doctor and a good nurse when I have the stroke, they will let me go; if not, I'll be screwed. When I die, I want to be in my right mind, I want to be aware that I'm dying and say: “I'm shitting myself, but here we are.”

P. Your appearance on Jordi Évole's show almost two years ago has given you a second life, a second youth. Have you not received requests for dates from suitors since you came on TV?

P. Jordi has introduced me to a whole new generation. Àngels [Barceló] He did the “mouth to microphone” thing and Jordi did the “mouth to screen” thing. As for dating, I don’t flirt anymore. Plus, I still like 32-year-old guys. What am I going to do with a 32-year-old?

P. It's a good age…

R. It's a good age because they have potential and have learned (laughs). I'm not at all excited when men of my age like the ones in this bar approach me. I'm not like a lady I know who goes to Imserso to pick up girls.

P. It's just that you are very young.

R. But I don't feel like fucking anymore. Although I do occasionally remember sex. Last night I dreamed that I fell in love with Ralph Fiennes, the Ralph Fiennes of The English PatientWe were in India, in a palace that looked like the Taj Mahal. A friend of mine, who is the Spanish ambassador in Lebanon, was going to marry us. I said: “How is it possible that Ralph Fiennes is in love with me?” Then I looked in the mirror and I was Marion Cotillard. That was when I understood everything. We hugged each other and the dream was over. Isn’t that wonderful?

P. So you are still interested in men…

R. I'm interested in people, but I never needed a boyfriend for a long time. I would make up psychodramas so that they would leave me. I liked it when they left me, so I could cry and blame them. I often made their lives impossible. As I say in the book, I now have Rodolfo Langostino.

P. That's what she calls her little mauve vibrator.

R. Yes, because it is shaped like a shrimp (laughs). I don't need one that takes off from Cape Canaveral, a shrimp-sized one like the one I have is enough.

P. In the book she acknowledges that as she gets older, she becomes a bit of a child again.

R. I make allowances for myself. I sleep with a stuffed animal shaped like a dachshund. I had a real dachshund for sixteen years. I hum at home and on the street, I talk to myself and I play. I really like to play.

P. Perhaps because he had a very short childhood. At the age of 14 he started working.

R. I started when I was 14 and that was a triumph for my mother. She started working at 12 in a factory. We were poor and had to help out at home. I started as an office worker in Capitol department store in Barcelona. That was like the movie The apartmenta room full of women typing. If someone dropped a pencil, I would pick it up. That's how I started.

P. I like that he now allows himself to enjoy the childhood he never had.

R. I was sad and grew up in a sad time, a time of violent men and victimized women. My father beat his first wife, he beat my mother, my half-sister and my brother. He never hit me.

P. Has a man ever raised a hand to you?

R. Dennis Hopper. He was promoting something in Madrid and he invited me to his room. Paco Rabal was in the elevator. I wish I had gone with Paco. When I entered the room, Dennis went to the bathroom and got into something. That day, ETA had killed several soldiers. When he came out, he said to me: “This is a country of murderers.” I replied: “And you exterminated the Indians.” He hit me so hard that I fell to the ground. I said to myself: “We have to flee.” I took all my clothes, my bag and left. But for me it is a good anecdote, I was not traumatized.

P. And have you ever raised your hand to a man?

R. No, but I caught one of them's hands in a car door. It was unconsciously on purpose because the guy was a psychopath.

P. Your father abandoned you when you were seven. Do you think that left a mark on you?

R. I thought it would leave a mark on me for the better. I was hoping my father would die, leave home, or separate from my mother. But what left its mark on me was my mother, who instead of becoming independent, went to live with her family and became a victim. She acquired a status of a whining victim that drove me mad. That left its mark on me. I began to feel indifferent toward her. There was the mother I had loved and the mother whose world was a swamp that sucked you in. If you got too close, you were sucked in.

P. In the book you say you were never good at true love. Do you think that has anything to do with all this?

R. Elementary, Dr. Freud. I have seen true love in other people. I know that true love exists and I do not deny it. Do I wish I had had it? I do not know. Maybe I would not have had my career, or I would have done so and now I would have children who would be reproaching me for my absences. Clearly I would not have been happy. I have been a joyful woman and as free as I could have been because I question free will. The luck I have had at work, thank God, I have not had with men.

P. Do you trust men?

A. Some yes and others no, like everything. I don't believe that all men are herds. But I do believe that there is a kind of man, or sub-man, who is primitive, archaic, arrogant and who continues to believe that he is superior to his girlfriend. And I see it among young people, among people Educadina who loves her grandmothers. And there are also women who follow that trend, who say that they “know how to listen” to men, like Isabel Preysler.

P. Do you know Isabel?

R. I once interviewed her and I found it very funny because she had a butler with a striped waistcoat tied behind her (laughs). In Spain we have had three great examples of women who have triumphed in the courts and I think that Isabel is the loser. Carmen Thyssen and Elena Foster won, they won in the field of culture and wealth. Isabel has had to work hard, Porcelanosa has had to do a lot. Poor woman. I am fond of her because she is a hard worker.

P. Before I said that she is a fun-loving person and in the book she paraphrases a great phrase from Women's Weapons: “I have a brain for criticism and a body for pleasures.” What do you enjoy?

R. I enjoy privacy, with my things: my books, my movies, my thoughts.

P. He says he is not afraid of death. What is he afraid of?

R. I fear fear because fear is paralyzing. In war situations, you can allow yourself to be cautious, but not afraid. You have to be cautious to save yourself and tell what you have seen, but you cannot be afraid. When Évole brought me out of anonymity for a whole new generation, I was afraid of traveling, I was afraid of mobility. He made it all so easy that I dared. Now I do strength training with the personal trainer of my friend Edu Galán and his wife, Marta Flich. I am not going to get thinner, I am not going to be more beautiful, but I do things with less fear.

P. And what about pain? Are you afraid of pain?

R. I have a very high pain threshold. Women tolerate pain better and live longer (laughs). I just need information. Every month I get an injection in my right eye and I also get a needle stuck in my bladder to keep chronic inflammation at bay. Since I already know what it is, since I have all the information, I am not afraid. I prefer pain to toothache.

P. He says he is not worried about when he will die, but how.

R. Everyone is worried about the how. I am not worried about dying, but the how…

P. And how would you like to die?

R. I don't know if the word “like” would be the right one. You can't choose how you're going to die, but I wouldn't like to lose my mind.

P. In the book you say that you plan to go to the notary to redo your last will and testament. Have you already gone?

R. I went to a very handsome notary to dictate my last will, a notary born to succeed: son of a philosopher, tall, handsome, kind, elegant, very intelligent… I won't tell you any more. I told him what I wanted and he wrote it down. I already know where they are going to put my ashes, in a very beautiful and very high place.

P. He says that he loved things happening to him and that in his old age nothing happens to him. I think that many things continue to happen to him.

R. I'm talking about war reporting, journalism, the love of my life.

P. Is it difficult for you not to be in Palestine now, for example?

R. It's not hard for me because I've only seen it get worse since I arrived in 1986. I'm in deep despair. I would go if it were the last report of my life and I knew I would be killed afterwards. Some Western journalist has to go into Gaza. The international Jewish community should speak out louder. There are people who speak out, but they should do so louder. This is the tragedy of two peoples who do not know or understand each other. The Jews who live in Israel have never set foot in that area and are unable to understand.

P. If they could go into Gaza and see what is happening there, perhaps everything would be different.

R. I think so. There should be an Erasmus program for Israelis to go to Gaza: “Come and see what you have done.” But without revenge. The English and the Europeans have screwed everything up in that area, as in so many other parts of the world. That is why I say that now it is the white man’s turn to screw himself.

P. She may be very energetic on social community X. Are networks now extra attention-grabbing than the media?

R. It depends on the media and it depends on what you follow on social media. I will never follow stupid people. I use social media like I use life, with its good parts and its bad parts.

All the culture that goes with you awaits you here.

Subscribe

Babelia

The latest literary releases analysed by the best critics in our weekly newsletter

RECEIVE IT