MARIQUITA'S BIRTHDAY

In a Buenos Aires sanatorium last week things began to look up for darkly pretty, tuberculous, 22-year-old Maria Beatriz ("Mariquita") del Valle-Inclan. Many newspaper-reading Argentines were happy for her. It seemed at last that she might be saved both from tuberculosis and from the vengeance of Spain's Francisco Franco --which extends even to sick young girls.

Mariquita is a daughter of the late great Spanish poet and novelist, Ramon del Valle-Inclan, who died five years ago at the age of 67, a stoical man who once smoked a cigaret while his right arm was amputated. Separated years ago from Mariquita's mother, Actress Josefina Blanco, he brought up two of their children --Mariquita and her brother Jaime -- and instilled in them his own libertarian ideas.

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Mariquita and Jaime were natural Loyalists. Their mother favored Franco. She made no attempt to reach the children, even when they fled Franco's approach, first to Chile and then to Argentina.

After the war Franco suppressed the books of Ramon del Valle-Inclan. But almost simultaneously an edition of his works was brought out by an Argentine publisher, sold heavily throughout South America. Royalties were sent to the author's widow and children. Tuberculous Mariquita used hers to enter a sanatorium near Molinari in the Argentine uplands.

The arrival of the royalties in Spain reminded Mariquita's mother of the girl's existence. She sued to get Mariquita and Mariquita's royalties back to Spain, although there the invalid girl would certainly have faced a concentration camp or worse. Basis of the suit was a Spanish law that parents have custody of their children until they are of age (23 in Spain).

Last July Mariquita was rushed from her sanatorium to the Spanish steamship Monte Albertia in Buenos Aires harbor. The sisters of the sanatorium tipped off Buenos Aires newsmen. Theiraccounts of the case stirred up local lawyers, who got the ship's surgeon to examine Mariquita. He testified that she had a high fever, might not survive the voyage. For this he was arrested by the Spanish captain and thrown in the brig.

Next day a Buenos Aires court issued a writ of habeas corpus for Mariquita. She left the ship (see cut, p. 27), telling news men in a thin, frightened voice: "They won't succeed. . . . Somehow I'll find a way to escape if they put me on board again by force."

For weeks she lay in Buenos Aires, threatened by deportation if her temperature returned to normal. The thwarted Spanish Embassy was her persistent enemy. Her steady defenders were the newspapers. Last week, when she reached the age of 22 -- adulthood in Argentine law --her case came under Argentine jurisdiction.

It seemed as if the threat of Spain, at least, might be over. And Mariquita might get some of the rest that tuberculosis demands.

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