what are you saying? Who did you talk to about this before us?” my father asked interrupting what she was telling us.
“Dad, I just told the superior, I needed to talk to her and clarify things, and she said:
‘Don’t worry, you know you’re not alone, follow the call, and from there you’ll find the strength.’”
“What are you talking about?” asked my father. “What call? I don’t understand anything today, and who is that woman?”
“Well, she’s the superior of the place where I want to go,” said my sister smiling and approaching him. She wanted to give him a kiss.
“No, don’t try to flatter me, you’re not going to convince me,” he said, pulling his face back. “You, the best lawyer in La Coruña, the one that everyone wants to work with, you’re going to throw everything away, I could never agree with that. In my opinion, it’s a very unfortunate decision.”
Turning his back, he left the room and locked himself in the bathroom for the rest of the afternoon, and even though we asked him to come out, he refused and said:
“Nope, I’ve had enough upsets for today.”
It was only when Carmen had left, saying that it was getting late and that she couldn’t stay any longer, that he came out and went to his bedroom.
I ran into him in the hallway when he left, I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and I could see that his eyes were bloodshot. He had been crying, so he hadn’t wanted to come out and his face was gloomy. I didn’t say anything to him and I let him go into his bedroom, where he apparently went to bed and did not want to come out for dinner.
Our mother told us that when she went in to tell him that dinner was on the table, he had answered:
“I’m for dinner!”
<<<<< >>>>>
I haven’t told you yet. My name is Manuel, I’m from Santiago de Compostela. My father is a civil servant in the Treasury Department, his father was a lawyer, I’m named after him.
I have four siblings; two brothers and two sisters. The oldest is Carmen, who’s named after my maternal grandmother, and the youngest is Sagrario, after my paternal grandmother, but we all call her Chelito. My two brothers are twins, which always surprised family and friends, because there had never been any twins among anyone we knew. One is called Antonio, we affectionately call him “Tono,” after one of my grandfathers, my mother’s father, who passed away some time ago and we never met him. The other is Carlos, or “Carlitos” to the family, after my uncle, the only one we have, my mother’s brother.
As a child I had always said I wanted to be a doctor, to heal the wounds of other kids, even though my family, and above all my grandfather, wanted me to be a lawyer like him.
“You’ll help me when you’re older and you finish your studies. I’m getting older and I need you to give me a hand in the office,” he would say whenever he had the chance.
That couldn’t be and he was disappointed, although never for long, because when he said that to me, Carmen would always respond:
“I’ll help you Grandpa and you’ll see, you just teach me what to do, and I’ll do it well.”
Although it wasn’t really the norm for a woman to study law, she was clear when deciding and choosing a career. She never doubted it for a moment, and of course nobody in the family was surprised, although my mother protested saying:
“Girl, that way we’re never going to get you married. Who’s going to want to be weighed down by a little know-it-all who knows so many laws?”
But everyone had assumed that it was truly what she wanted to do, and they always supported her.
Our life was simple, all things considered. Before I was born, my parents and Carmen lived in my grandparents’ house. Some houses were built; I think they said they were for civil servants. My father requested one, and he was lucky enough to be allocated one. It was a great delight for them, although my grandmother Sagrario wasn’t very happy about it. She asked how she would see her granddaughter grow up if they took her away from her, that they didn’t have to leave, that there was room for everyone in her house, which was indeed very large.
Those houses were a little outside the center of Santiago de Compostela, and of course my grandmother said:
“That’s why they’re so cheap, because no one can get there. That’s just a field for animals, not for people to live in.”
They were accustomed to always living in the heart of Santiago, right next to the cathedral, which of course has its advantages, but I’ve always wondered how they could sleep with the bells ringing every so often.
When I stayed in the house for the night every now and then, it seemed to me that they never stopped ringing. When I heard it I would think to myself, who cares what time it is in the middle of the night, when everyone is supposed to be asleep? Who was listening? Of course I don’t think anyone would be listening for the first bell, but surely everyone would hear the bell after it. Just being in those rooms we would already be lying there with our eyes wide open and then the bells; at one, at two, at three… Yes, we already knew that every night has those hours, and no it wasn’t necessary to remind us.
My grandmother found my protests amusing, but said:
“Young Manu, the bells are good company.”
I never understood. I always wanted to tell her that they were really annoying and that they sounded awful.
Shortly after being in the new house, my parents had me, according to what I’ve been told, because as you would imagine, I was too small to remember. It was an excuse for a big party. My father invited all of his colleagues and my grandparents also came with a friend. It was unusual for a son to have his own house, rented yes, but to own it? That was unheard of. Where would a young man get the money to pay for it?
We’ve been a family like so many others, very close, but also like many other Galicians, we’ve had an emigrant; my uncle Carlos, my mother’s only brother. He said one day that he was leaving and there was no way to convince him otherwise. That’s what my mother told us, when any of us asked her about why he had left.
I have a memory from those happy years of my distant childhood. When I was little, “Evita Perón,” at that time the wife of General Perón, who was the leader of Argentina, was going to come to Spain. At school they told us how after the war, she had insisted that meat be sent from her country to Spain, and it seems that thanks to that, many people were saved from starvation.
Because of their visit, they showed us where Argentina was, and I still remember those old pictures the teacher showed us. Depictions of gauchos with those big pants, mounted on their horses with their bolas in hand, those cords with the little ball at the end. Even though Don Juan, the teacher, explained to us how they used them, none of us could understand how they could hit their target from a running horse. What an aim they must have had.
He also showed us pictures of the Argentine pampas, those enormous plains without a single mountain, something that really fascinated all the children in my class, accustomed as we were to seeing mountains everywhere.
We could not imagine
