Reynerio Lebroc was many things: he was a priest, a professor, a patriot, a conspirator and a chaplain of the invading troops in the Bay of Pigs.
14ymedio, Xavier Carbonell, Salamanca, 25 August 2024 — It is depressing that the same political dog bites you twice. The situation in Venezuela, a country crushed by my country – I say all the time that we have almost always been villains – has made me think of the Cubans who, fleeing from Fidel, sought refuge in Caracas and were surprised decades later by that moronic nephew of Castroism, Chavismo. I think especially of a couple I met in Madrid. They had left Cuba in the 60s and Caracas in the 90s. I think he was a doctor or a businessman; she offered me a rich pacharán from Navarre and could not resist making fun of Buesa: pacharán through my life without knowing that you pachaste*.
That day we talked about Carlos Alberto Montaner, who was already very ill and few knew that he had come to Spain to die. With Montaner we were losing the dream of a first president in democracy, a dream that Venezuelans are now living and that we – from afar, with envy – admire. He also spoke of the fate that awaits the library of an exile. “My children are not interested in my books,” he confessed to me. I suggested that he send them little by little to the Cuban bishops, who would find a way to nourish their libraries. Libraries are dynamite for the regime, I said, and if I didn’t say it, I thought it.
That day there was talk about Carlos Alberto Montaner, who was already very ill and few knew that he had come to Spain to die.
If it had not been for a library made of banned books I would not have been able to read Cabrera Infante, Arenas, Sarduy, Montaner, Rojas, the people of Encuentro and many others. Dazed by the pacharán and the drowsiness, I asked them if they had never come across Reynerio Lebroc in Caracas. I owe so much of my sentimental education to that bombastic name that I feel he is like an old relative. Every book in his vast library – he managed to send it from his exile to Santa Clara – ended up passing through my hands.
Lebroc was many things. He was a priest, an expert in colonial history, a professor, a conspirator, a bit of a spy and a bit of an adventurer. There is a photo in which, being less than 30 years old, he is seen descending the stairs of an Iberia plane. He is ski
