HETALIA BELONGS TO HIDEKAZ HIMARUYA

FRANCISCO JOSÉ DE GOYA Y LUCIENTES WAS A REAL PERSON (1746-1828)

"I want to perpetuate with the brush the most notable and heroic actions or episodes of your glorious rising against the European tyrant."

That was what Francisco de Goya said in a letter to Spain, but the truth was that what he was mostly seeking with this commission was to be on his good side after the war. Make him see that he was still loyal to him. Many hadn't forgiven him his ideas or the fact that he had worked for France and his Bonapartes. He had known the nation personally and wanted to remind him of the good times they had together.

Good thing Spain hadn't forgotten. Life was hard after that war destroyed everything, but since the king was coming back from exile, he deserved a sumptuous welcome, and those paintings of his would be perfect on his Arc of Triumph. He sent him the money with a long letter remembering the good old times together. The portraits he had painted of him and the royal family. Those paintings Minister Godoy kept in his secret cabinet, huh? That gorgeous lady lying on a couch which revealed her secrets when one pulled a cord..., he knew what he was talking about...

Goya guessed he had to be thankful he kept his sense of humor despite everything and was still interested in a deaf pariah like him. People could be so cruel...

It was often said that Spain treated the dead better than the alive. Goya expected that he had forgotten about him completely, just like the rest. It was a relief. He did love him.

Francisco de Goya considered himself a patriot. Being the painter of the main families and the royal family itself, he had the chance to meet him personally and could even say they were friends. He got to love him dearly, that's the truth.

And when you love someone dearly, you want the best for them. That includes correcting them when they are wrong.

Those days, he couldn't go around saying he thought France was right, not even speaking in past tense. It was very risky. Many people didn't like it. They got very violent, even, as if war had not ended two years before. Almost as if it wasn't enough to kick the French out of the country, but they also had to destroy everything which had the smallest French scent.

What could he say? Like many back in the day, he thought France's head was filled with good ideas.

Goya prepared the canvas and started drawing the sketch with a pencil.

He got to meet him too. He walked into Spain's house like he was in his own. They were introduced at a little club for intellectuals. Spain had a lot to do with this encounter, since he knew of his admiration towards France and wanted to compensate him for a nice drawing he had given him as a present. France seemed to Goya like a distinguished gentleman with exquisite manners and a silver tongue.

"Spain relies too much on tradition." That was what he said, sipping a glass of bourbon. Goya would always remember it, could paint it just relying on his memory. "He is like a man glued to his mother's skirt. One day he must grow up. I will help him."

Their alliance was so close it was almost a marriage. They fused into a single creature. Spain mimicked all trends and things France showed him. His noblemen loved it, his peasants—not so much. But what do villains know? They've got no idea of what's good for them. They only knew what the priests told them, that France went around banning religion and tearing down the sacred institutions, allowed vice...France had done and allowed terrible things, Goya admitted it, but didn't it all end up being for good?

Horses, swords, men with knives, corpses lying on the ground with their heads split...

Replacing superstitions and religious dogmas with science and philosophy, working with the brains instead of relying exclusively on the fruits of nature, eliminating all those social barriers which brought so many brilliant minds to waste, bringing the treasures the higher classes and the Church kept in their cold, dead, unproductive hands to those who could do something with them...Was it so terrible? For Goya, it wasn't. Yes, perhaps some ideas were radical, and he certainly didn't like the idea of having to recur to the guillotine for no reason, but that was what mistakes were for. France had so much to teach Spain. Other countries had tried all these advances and were doing good. He wanted this for his friend. It was the push Spain needed. Oh, the things he could do if he used his whole potential! He could conquer Europe back, not by force but with the power of the intellect! Because, to be frank, Spain was a nice fellow, but one does not live on a good personality. He had his head on the clouds way too often for his—everyone's good.

He mixed the pigments to create the red color, and started applying it everywhere. Everywhere at all.

"Does it please you, my Lord?"

Spain gazed at his creation from close. A simple cardboard painting for a tapestry, really. Just a group of people playing blind man's bluff. That man in the middle trying to touch one of those surrounding him with a wooden spoon could have easily been him. That pastime was one of his favorites.

"But don Francisco, when have you done something I dislike? As superb as always." Was Spain's response. "I'm dying to have it hanging on my wall."

Where were those games the morning of May 2nd? Where was Spain's glee? Who was laughing? Goya painted what he saw from the window of his house, what he heard when he walked away from the windows in a futile attempt of escaping from what was going on outside. There were no giggles, but shots, screams, insults in two different languages, horses galloping and neighing, glass and clay breaking. Priests abandoned their usual peacefulness to rouse the mob, tell them to grab anything that they could and kill all French they could, kill them, kill them, send all those atheists to Hell!; perhaps because, when soldiers break into the Lord's house to steal everything of value, destroy what could not be sold and hurt or killed anyone who tried to stop them, one couldn't turn the other cheek—didn't Christ himself grab the whip when the temple as violated?

A man at the forefront, grabbing a horseman to stab him repeatedly, his teeth gritted like an animal.

Spain's voice was heard shouting in the streets as well. Goya couldn't recognize him at times. "Death to the French!", he shouted like mad. It was his temple which had been violated. He had turned the other cheek enough. Now it was time to grab the sword. Find all French in Madrid. Dispose of them.

France wouldn't have lost his temper like this. He was way more restrained, elegant. He embodied civilization. He would have never done such a thing. Sure he would peacefully make Spain understand that he was making a mistake.

France also got to see his work. He loved Godoy's little whim and had a good opinion on his portraits. The day they met, they talked for long about painting; he, being what he was, knew and mastered the art. France himself praised his work.

"One of these days I'm commissioning you."

And he did. He commissioned a portrait for the new king of Spain, José Bonaparte.

How could have Goya included him in the picture? He tried to remember the way he looked like in that hall, but the image he got was what he saw through the curtains. Of him mounted on his horse, directing everything along with his general Murat. Spanish blood splattering his immaculate uniform, blue eyes gleaming like a devil, sword on one hand and musket on the other to kill as many rebels as possible, and his beautiful face distorted shouting: "Kill them! Kill them all!". Because that was the only thing that could be done with those who didn't want to be civilized.

Goya's hand worked like it was possessed. It was like opening a window to the past. To Puerta del Sol, where France had summoned Turkey's horsemen to stop the revolt.

Some trembled and invoked their Maker when they saw them. Others grabbed everything they had, anything they could find. In moments like this, one either fights or flees, and most Spaniards, encouraged by their nation, decided, if they had to die, they would die fighting, with that Spanish sense of honor. Even the women grabbed their seamstresses' utensils, the weapons the dead dropped, used the cannons, brought ammunition. There was not a single person from France's clubs in the street that day, that was for sure.

How could he portrait this day of fury, the explosion of Spain's contained wrath? The Mamelukes, the French soldiers and France taking advantage of their superiority, filling the streets with corpses, their swords shinning in their hands like Death's reaper? Spain and his people fighting like animals, driven by the most basic instincts of survival?

Goya hadn't finished the first painting when his thoughts turned to the next, the one dedicated of what happened just hours after that. What he saw through the telescope, with his servant taking notes, in a dark night. Those who had been arrested—men of all ages, some women too, including maidens—being taken to the mount of Príncipe Pío, where they were put in line and...

The shots still echoed in his mind. He had to stop his work to shoo them away. Leave me alone! Let me work!

France told him! He came to help Spain out of his error! He came to bring light! He was supposed to come and save him from barbarity and civilize him...

He couldn't take it off his head. He left the first painting aside and started working on the other. He had to imprint of this blank canvas what he saw through the telescope, in Príncipe Pío...He didn't need to check the notes. He remembered. When facing death, most men lose their courage, a few look at it to the face. He saw many cry, whimper. There was a little woman, no older than fifteen, sobbing in the face of the executioners. A lantern illuminating the scene. France was supposed to bring light...His soldiers were all exactly the same, were efficient like machines. Men lying on the ground with their heads burst, the next about to join them. A man with arms open, like begging them to stop. He had seen a priest blessing those who were about to die, and telling the French, even if they didn't understand his language, that he forgave them. A pictorial scream.

The shots, the shots! He couldn't get rid of the shots!

It was so good that Spain still trusted him...After this, he barely trusted anyone, and less if they brought ideas from outside. He had defended his king's empty throne and traditions so fiercely he almost depended on them. He was proud of not being like France the least, and didn't want anything or anyone who saw any kind of virtue in his enemy.

His hand couldn't stop painting the blood and his mind couldn't stop reminding him of what he had seen. The bodies. The raping. The cruel ways to dispose of the enemy. The barbaric executions. The bodies abandoned in the streets, in the mountains, vexed and dismembered even...

He really thought France would keep his good friend Spain away from this horror and help him see the light...

Blind man's Bluff...Goya wanted to laugh. He couldn't paint pretty things again. Now he could only scream through his art: "I saw that."

THE END