Last month, the president (also known as prime minister) of the kingdom of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, stepped away from his duties to spend five days stopping and reflecting. The good name of his wife was in question. When on the fifth day he confronted the cameras (without admitting questions from the media), he said, matter-of-factly, that he had decided to remain in office.

The president’s apparently unusual behavior is not, by any means, as uncommon as it might seem among leaders and enlightened ones. Moses went up Mount Sinai only to come down after six days with two stone tablets under his arm, on which the ten commandments were written, which still accompany us, more or less.

Jesus of Nazareth spent forty days in the desert without drinking or eating, an extreme that the devil took advantage of to try to convince him that, if he were truly the son of God, he should turn the stones of the desert into bread. Jesus did not bite.

They say that Pythagoras, upon arriving in Italy, built an underground dwelling and ordered his mother to take note of what was happening and when, to write it down on a tablet and send it to him below, until he came back up. When after a time Pythagoras returned to the surface with a worn-out appearance, he presented himself to the assembly and said that he had come from Hades, and read to them the things that had happened during his absence. Those present trembled at his story and cried and believed that Pythagoras was someone divine. Nor should we forget that Jesus Christ did not reappear until three days after his death.

Even the famous British novelist Agatha Christie disappeared in 1926 for 11 days without anyone knowing her whereabouts. None other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the father of Sherlock Holmes, and thousands of volunteers went out in search of her. It was later revealed that she had allegedly been to the sumptuous English seaside resort of Harrogate.

In 1967, Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt, a man very fond of underwater fishing, entered the waters of the Pacific, and was never heard from again. Nothing, no trace. Evil tongues quickly claimed that he had been kidnapped by a Soviet submarine, although no one to date has been able to prove it.

The following year, in 1968, in the midst of a student and worker revolt, the veteran French president Charles de Gaulle vanished. It was later learned that he had traveled to Baden-Baden, where he met with high-ranking French military personnel. Better not to ask about his motives.

And throughout history, leaders have lived under pressure that sometimes requires a superhuman effort to support the weight of the position. In his 2011 film Habemos Papam, Nani Moretti presents us with an elected Pope who is reluctant to assume such a high ecclesiastical commission, and who knows if Pope Francis has not felt more than once a crazy desire to put earth in the middle and, at After some time, he sent a postcard to the Vatican from, of course, Buenos Aires, saying that he went to get tobacco.

Like Boris Yeltsin, Catherine the Great’s valet, Prince Potemkin, suffered from bouts of depression that kept him away, sometimes for weeks or months, from his state duties. During his absences, documents that required his signature piled up alarmingly in the ministries. Every attempt to get him to sign them failed, because the prince, dirty, worn and maintaining a stony silence at all times, did not move from his chambers.

At the end of one of his longest absences, a certain Piatkov, a shabby and ugly minor official, appeared before a group of desperate ministers and ambassadors. He assured them that if they entrusted him with the documents that most urgently required the signature of the valid, he would obtain it as soon as possible. Astonished at his courage, they handed him a large bundle of files.

Piatkov entered the gloom of the prince’s smelly chambers, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, his eyes vacant. He introduced himself and immediately placed the documents on the valid man’s lap and then placed a colorful quill pen between his fingers, inviting him to sign them. To Piatkov’s own surprise, the Great Man began to stamp his signature on each of them.

The smiling official emerged from the gloom and triumphantly handed the papers to his elated superiors. The euphoria, however, did not last long: all the documents bore, instead of the valid signature, a single name: Piatkov.

If Pedro Sánchez, already emboldened after the success of his April experiment, decided in the future to disappear for five, ten or more days, and not just to stop and reflect, an episode similar to Potemkin and the good guy could occur. by Piatkov. Now, what name would the president stamp at the bottom of the urgent state documents? Bolaños? Koldo? Puigdemont? Bets are allowed.

The game is going on among hoaxes, and let each leader – or enlightened one – look for his Yuste… or Waterloo, it doesn’t matter. Amen.