The Mayor Who Came Out of the Cellar

Like many towns that fell to the advancing forces of Generalissimo Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War, the mountain resort village of Cercedilla (current pop. 4,000), 35 miles north of Madrid, suffered its share of Nationalist vengeance. Some Republican sympathizers were imprisoned and a few were shot, while many more fled to exile. One of those never accounted for was Protasio Montalvo, the Socialist mayor of Cercedilla during part of the war. For years villagers wondered whether he had died fighting on some distant front or had been a victim of mass executions after the war or perhaps had taken up a new life in exile.

Last week they learned the answer-blinking in the bright sunlight, his hair snow white and his skin almost alabaster, "El Senor Protasio," now 77 emerged nervously from the home where he had hidden in fear since 1939 Blue eyes shining, he told the improbable story of his self-imposed 38-year imprisonment, which outlasted even Franco's long dictatorship.

Montalvo explained that he went into hiding to escape the "justice" being meted out by Franco's forces For the first few years he lived on the dirt floor his house among the chickens and rabbits. Later, assisted by his son Andres, he constructed more livable quarters in the cellar. He amused himself by feeding bread crumbs to sparrows on the windowsill and teaching tricks to several generations of dogs in the household. He read voraciously, and claimed to be fully aware of Spain's recent advances toward democracy. His wife Josefa, dressed in widow's black, worked as a cleaning woman and in later years managed a small dry goods store.

Montalvo's secret was shared by his wife, two daughters and son, and a brother and sister; three other brothers died without even knowing what had become of him. In all his years of hiding Montalvo left the house only three times, on secret visits to Madrid doctors who knew nothing of his past, for treatment ol an ulcer and muscle paralysis.

Too Young. Why had he waited so long? Said Montalvo, with tears in his eyes: "I wanted to come out of hiding before, but only now did I think it was. safe. The Nationalists shot my brother-in-law dead, and my family told me of friends who disappeared or were shot. I had to hide."

Old friends and young relatives tearfully embraced the frail old man last week hardly able to believe that he was still alive. Most of Cercedilla's villagers however, are too young to remember the war, and to them Montalvo's reappearance was strange and almost incomprehensible, part of a Spanish past they never knew. Said Mayor Enrique Espinosa, who was born a month after Montalvo's ordeal began: "I embraced him and told him we all are glad to have him back among us, and he just kept saying Gracias, gracias, gracias.' We will never know what he did in the war and 11 never ask him. I've never asked my own father. All of that's forgotten now "

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