First Chapter

I was young … And not so long ago, it seems something different. I can assure you! It was another time, I know … but we were happy! We also had problems, joys, conflicts and hopes. It was definitely a different time that are sure to be quite similar to now, to yours. With their differences, of course, with its changes, with a clear distance, but at bottom the same, exactly the same, now I do not like leaving home, I see, with your legs under the tea table by the fire, because the legs do not have the same force as before … Because outside on the street, it’s very cold, you have not noticed? Surely tonight snows, snowy, white flakes, ice flowers … some time that falls into this town! Things are not like before when it was really cold and went to sleep with the hope that the next day had no school because we could not open the door! And no school, we would not … and came snow, snow baskets, hand over fist, all white, all dark at the same time, low light … And open the window without noticing that the mother and only saw the snow and snow and more snow comes and the sky was so white and thick … Screamed my sister … Sara, who does not look like fall! Yeah, back to my bed, to feel again the warmth of the blankets over my body. Because blankets weighed before, not like now that you see, that are not blankets or anything. It seems that whether paper with four hairs y. .. those previously wool, the saflades, I know you longer don´t say this word, and really warmed … was something else!

There were winter days that my mother put us so many blankets that we got up with the feeling of been beaten … A pain in the bones, for the oppression they had endured throughout the night. But we warmed, though. She was … with all this of the snow that fell and fell all night. Now I remember. Once, my older brother, grandfather Andrew, which I have spoken on other occasions, failed to return the theater where he had gone for the afternoon to see some of those sometimes funny sketches that were in town Sunday afternoon . While in the theater, it stopped snowing and it snowed so much that appeared almost a meter of snow in the street kept them from even opening the doors. When the work began and it was snowing, but nobody could imagine that for an hour long so much snow fell. Finally made it out through the windows and went to the nearby houses, to come home because our parents had to cross the road that linked the house to the road and this access, as it rained or anything else happening, it was impossible pass. I remember there was the asphalt we have now, no, or anything … but everything was so pretty, so white as snow … what memories! What childhood dreams! Jaume son, so you want to check that the cable is properly connected to the stove … is cold to die and I notice that it enter in my bones … And I pay attention to the dreams and the memories of the past … already, you’ll see I’m right, that my seventy-four years I have seen of all the colors …
I was a kid like the rest, yes, very smug and well placed. They said he was glad to see me when I managed to go out. For though I only had fourteen or fifteen years, I painted … and therefore he did, but only modestly, to anyone saying strange things about me, I hear nasty things said about other girls in the neighborhood … Pepita seems that if a banner with red lips, that if Paquita has thrown in the pile, as the godmother, and see what clothes you tighter and everything. The dress, very long, because I cannot see above the ankles, the belt well adjusted, with enough loose fold of her dress, my body unmarked. Because I was and am still a little chunky … you know the quirks that women always have: to think that everyone look at you as if you were a bag of apples or oranges. My mother, grandmother Antonia, had always tight me with fajitas, of those who pull the meat as a child, because she said so, I would not have belly, and my father, he did seem not know that with that waist he could prevented him from tying his shoes … Tight and well covered, so I enjoyed walking over the bridge to go into town. And I knew I looked, but concealed. I never liked being observed … and less for a man! None of them dare to say nasty things, because I disappeared at once: Eva looks, how nice! Like her mother, when she was young! What to say! I would like Mrs. Antonia have had half the pleasure that is the girl. If you like a lady!
We had no water in the houses … were in the postwar period, that war, the bloody war who now attend classes as remote and strange and that to me, we lived as the people of my era. My father had died in the last bombing by German planes, machine gun, because the Fascists were not here, no planes no shame, no nothing. My father died while trying to go to the shelter after leaving work. Poor John, my father, who was with us soon! I was small, the menuet, as he said, because I do not know if you know who was in Alicante and when I called he said, the menuet, Where’s My menuet, and other things he said that amused me and my mother : so long in this town and still not know how to speak well, and is that my mother told me that I married you, he had no profession or property and you’re a bum, a real criminal, like all of your people , which serves only to wander, Alicante, drunk and fine … My mother always scolded my father for not bringing home the money he earned at the factory, said he had paid for the food of that week and I do not know what else, but she, poor Antonia knew that was not so, that he was seen at the casino, the game was his undoing. The four brothers watched, the listening and not understand a thing. We just knew we lived in a house without water and had to go to the source twice a day to fill the jugs and laundry, I liked it … because neither Sara or Teresa, none of my sisters would. And I did, got all the laundry into the bucket with the soda and brush, and walked toward the river to the laundry that had recently inaugurated mayor, Jose Llorens, in honor of all women in this town who resisted the power of the reds … I had gone that day and did not understand what he meant everything in the red top and red bottom. And to me, certainly, I wanted to wear the red dress of her godmother, Mrs. Paca, the baker, who was also godmother of Paquita, my friend, whom I have told you that speak ill of their ways of fitting dress .. . therefore, that, that she had given me, sewed very well, indeed, with hands by passing the yarn in a way that unintentionally made a few blouses and dresses so I think that every women of the street wanted to be the godmother of her daughters. And so, I see there with the red dress, so pretty in the opening day of laundry in the background, was merely a ditch, a pond well prepared for us women …leave the kidneys. And Don Jose comes to say that if we were the future of the country and again that if the Reds had failed and that … at bottom of nonsense to force the village women to wash clothes to men like him … sure that his wife spent the day with the shirt starched … Don Jose was the neck stretched out, that my mother told me so, and that she, Mrs. Rosario, who for my mother was Xarit, the fishmonger, his family had always sold fish on the market, but later said his father was a merchant marine, it is known as blow some cold broth, always unhappy with a face of anguish and suffering, that while the man said those words I imagined her face with the brush to the sink and Don Joseph with the belt, saying, come, come, stronger, stronger … All this, as you can imagine, I thought inside, outside kept me quietly watching the spectacle of the mayor and the mouths of the rich ladies painted, the people who went to an opening that cared little for surely they would not go on another occasion to turn kidney … their servants, yes, of course, but they … I also saw how I looked at some of these women of good family, watching my red dress and I heard they said, “look the daughter of Antonia, it seems, that a year ago her father died … But women, if the color that has been the father … and daughter is an atheist who is also … and devilish as the whole family! A red dress for mourning, yes sir, what education gives Antonia! Those were times of hatred, revenge, envy for one thing or another, because the war was over, but the differences remained the same and, as always, those most affected were those who had nothing, now in red today atheists, now live in the countryside … assault were reasons for those crooks who were many rich people … Women still talking … poor Antonia! what cross had with her husband and now, you see, the younger daughter has emerged as the little loose … And I did not mind; ahead, praised me, how beautiful you here, daughter!, Behind, criticizing me. In my head I just spent the idea of coming soon to the house and wash clothes, my toothbrush and soda. Because the laundry had been nice and the place, the river was a beautiful meadow with the grass amid the rocks, clear water, flowers, a place where you could sit for hours waiting for clothes to dry . When I got home got very good face, her cheeks red from the sun that had caught me and well perfumed clothes on his arm. My sister Sara preferred to stay home with the mother, with food, with other things at home, I preferred to go out, to air, sky, clouds, river, streets. I liked to see the people going through the village and I saw one more, way down the river under the bridge, with my tools and my songs, because I liked to sing, of course, some tunes of love: songs from before that were not like now! Those did have rhythm and lyrics and love, much love and passion, and some … I do not know which side would the friends of Doña Rosario when they heard, because it was all heart, your body, your chest and die for you, my love. Surely the eavesdropping, and weeping, as I did, I have no doubt! Well, that … way down and never, I assure you! – Single again … there was always some girl who asked me attention, telling me that if I helped, she was very pretty, I had seen the day of the festival and as I said and you cannot go up the road with all this weight and help. I, in a sneaky way, I was the undecided, said he could not accept it, you do not know of anything that my mother does not like, than what other women think of laundry if I see you. .. but finally agreed, and both! I will save the weight of the bucket full of material, the heavier wet clothes, washing machines now … do not know, you have not known, but it’s true. Young people who accompanied me, with the side to put, I am sure that they would repent, because I played with them and told them in a hurry, we had to arrive early because my mother would not notice anything because if I knew who accompanied me. .. And they, with their tongues out and up and that … when we meet again, what day, what time, and I said that my mother does not want to leave, I’m too young, we are still mourning for the father and that … I do not like any! The truth is that left much to be desired, this I can tell young people because you understand me, at that time I could not have told anyone, not even my best friends Paquita and Pepita, because I do not know who would have think of me, though they told me something else. The guys I were disgusting, dirty, smelling, although it put a lot of cologne, but it filled me with joy, no, no, he did not want. But I came nice, do not you think? At the end of the day, they were the ones who wanted to help … and I was carried away. What would you do, my Mireia?