Yes, people say I'm crazy.
Everyone in this fucking country thinks I'm crazy.
Rosario Murillo smiles at the journalist, who stares at her with those blue eyes that for her are two spotlights for an interrogator who wants to torture her.
"The truth is that I don't care if they think I'm crazy.
Maybe I am, but I've decided to live my life without strings attached.
I have been under Daniel's shadow for a long time, subjected to the rigors of the government, submissive, tied, cloistered in suffocating requirements dictated by power.
No, I am no longer that Rosario.
—What is the reason for this personal change, Mrs. Murillo?
—The journalist looks down at the recorder that he has left on the table, attentive to the fact that the little red light continues to blink.
He is wearing a light blue linen shirt, in the armpits of which croissants have formed, damp from the heat: he is sweating and it is barely ten in the morning.
He is tall and blond, with a beard that is also blond, bushy, sensual.
He wears his shirt unbuttoned at chest height, revealing well-formed pecs.
Rosario Murillo thinks he is a handsome man, although he hates his Galician accent.
"Call me Rosario.
Look, Ignatius...
"Call me Nacho," the journalist interrupted her with a smile.
-Ha ha ha.
Good, Nacho.
Look, Nacho.
The loss of the elections was a heavy blow for everyone in the Sandinista Front.
We never imagined that the Nicaraguans would give us this blow.
We always thought that people admired us, that they loved the revolution.
But obviously we are wrong.
They were all wrong, drunk on their delusion of power.
I realized that we were actually kidnapped by a dream that existed only in our heads and that we had to make sacrifices for that dream.
I soon decided that I could not continue in the role of a submissive woman, always ready for protocol.
Perhaps that's why I made the revolution!
No. I understood that the role of women in the revolution was not one of submission.
So I decided to do my thing, set an example, because women also like power.
We had to rise up.
Yes, go crazy.
"Which also caused a lot of headaches."
His enmity with the poet Cardenal is well known.
—That is in the past, Nacho.
We have to build a new Sandinista Front.
They are other times.
—You talk about the role of women, but the Sandinista feminists seem to disagree with Rosario Murillo.
I have spoken with several of them here in Managua and they show a rejection towards you.
They say, and I quote my notes, that you are arrogant, unstable and dangerous -the journalist closes his notebook and stares at her.
Rosario Murillo smiles at him.
—Those people you call Sandinista feminists are actually retrograde, fundamentalist women.
Do you know what they say about me?
That I spent the years of the revolution in a horizontal position and with my legs open.
It bothers them that I have raised a healthy and beautiful family with Daniel, with our nine children.
Daniel adopted my two eldest children, gave them his last name and we have all been happy.
They represent a false feminism.
Actually, Nacho, they have deformed feminism, they have manipulated its flags and its postulates.
It is a treacherous and cruel act of treason.
The true interests of these women are personal interests, petty and with perverse political intentions.
"What intentions?"
—the journalist approaches the recorder towards Rosario Murillo.
-The power.
They are interested in increasing their control of the Sandinista Front and designing a party to sell it to the right, because they are sold to the right, to gringo capital that finances their organizations.
They destroyed the beautiful women's organizations formed by the revolution, appropriated them, and now wield them as political weapons in a battle for power.
The cover of the book 'I am the commander's wife!'
(Grijalbo, 2023).Courtesy (Grijalbo)
—I'm interested in knowing what feminism is for you —the journalist opens his notebook, ready to take notes.
-Is love.
Love, Nacho.
Feminism, as I understand it, is inclusive and promotes human values.
False feminism beats war drums against all human values.
It is an instrument of penetration and political and cultural occupation.
Stripped of its liberating mission, false feminism in Nicaragua has reached the extreme of marching in favor of social oppression, shoulder to shoulder with the phalanxes of capital and with the most notorious exponents of a quarrelsome and brutal machismo.
These women are frustrated, deranged, suffocated by hate, without peace of mind.
But I'll tell you something, Nacho, love is stronger than hate.
They are at La Luna, the old revolutionary bar now also converted into a cultural center, where actors, poets, writers and the old cultural guard of the defeated revolution continue to meet every night.
But at this time of the morning the place is empty of customers.
The waiters clean and arrange tables, arranging everything for the opening of the night.
The feline Raúl, Rosario Murillo's loyal adviser, closely follows the interview from a corner, sipping a cup of coffee and watching his watch, ready to stop the conversation when the time agreed with this insolent journalist passes.
"You're talking about your family, but I understand that you don't have a good relationship with your daughter, Zoilamérica." The journalist once again buries his blue gaze on the face of his interlocutor.
Rosario Murillo in turn fixes him with a fiery look.
She looks towards the recorder and wants to destroy it.
—Zoilamérica is ungrateful.
Daniel and I gave him a dream life.
The daughter full of privileges in a country torn apart by war.
We did everything to protect our children.
It is true that at some point we could fail, be absent, but the revolution took a long time.
If she has a complaint, she can be that, no more.
—There are rumors within the Sandinista Front of certain inappropriate behavior of Comandante Ortega...
Rosario Murillo interrupts the journalist.
The cat twitches, attentive to any order.
—I didn't know that journalism is based on rumors and more in your newspaper, so important and prestigious.
—Sometimes rumors, if they come from politics, must be listened to.
It is up to us journalists to corroborate them, to verify their veracity.
But I'm not going to talk about rumors.
—You, surely, have heard what is said.
I myself have spoken with Front sources that...
—If you continue there, the interview is over.
I will not talk about rumors.
"Okay, Rosario.
Let us focus then on the relationship with Comandante Ortega.
How are you now, after having experienced so many intense things together?
—Now we have a tense relationship, very difficult.
I knew from the day that Daniel was part of the Governing Board, after the triumph of the revolution, that our lives would change forever.
Our relationship as a couple, as a man and a woman, went to another level.
It was very complicated for me, difficult to accept.
Most of the time he was dedicated to his work with the vocation of a priest and he did not realize that I needed him.
But we love each other.
He loves me, but he needs me above all.
What happens is that I decided to find myself after the defeat of the revolution.
I wanted to break the chains imposed for so long, to return to my roots.
And yes I have found myself again, it's me again.
I always wondered what had happened to that young rebel, who gave herself up to the fight against Somoza, who was conspiring,
who gave his poetry to the guerrilla cause.
And I realized that this woman was not dead.
That she was resting inside me and that she had to come out again.
And I decided to free myself, to be happy.
I've even changed my appearance, although many people don't like it, because they don't understand me.
That's why I'm telling you that people in this country think I'm crazy.
—Perhaps it will help that idea to see Rosario Murillo walking barefoot in a shopping center in the capital, as the newspapers recently showed.
-Hahaha.
Yes, maybe I'm crazy.
The cat makes a sign to him from the corner where he is crouched, marks his watch with the fingers of his left hand.
Rosario Murillo winks at him and nods.
The journalist realizes that time is up.
Before turning off the recorder, he asks one last question.
—Do you think that the Sandinista Front will return to power, will govern again in Nicaragua?
—Look, Nacho, sooner rather than later he will.
Listen well to what I tell you: stay in Nicaragua and you will see how the Front regains power.
And this time forever.
Ha ha ha.
Carlos Salinas Maldonado,
Nicaraguan journalist, is a writer for EL PAÍS in Mexico.