LITMIR.BIZ

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been at home my mother would have died there and then, in that tiny bathroom beside the water tank. As it was, Berta shouted for help, the neighbours came running, someone called an ambulance, which arrived fifteen minutes later and my mother was carried carefully out of the apartment and driven away.

      ‘What’s going to happen?’ I cried, terrified, slumping down on one of the wicker armchairs. ‘Tell me, what’s going to happen!’

      ‘There’s no way of knowing,’ my father said, gravely. His expression was very serious. I could tell he was making a huge effort to appear calm, but he was not quite succeeding.

      ‘We’ll have to wait and see how she does after the operation.’

      ‘But, Papi, what if she doesn’t …?’

      ‘We’re not going to solve anything by worrying,’ he said, like an order.

      Nobody spoke. I lowered my head and, bewildered and afraid, went to the bedroom. My sisters did the same.

      My father brought me some food and put water to heat on the stove for my bath.

      ‘What’s going to happen now?’ I whispered to my sisters, but their faces only reflected the same question back at me.

      I ate and bathed. My father turned out the light. We went to bed.

      In the darkness, I stared longingly at the outline of the bed I had shared with my mother for so many years. I had never felt so empty. It was as if my heart had been split in two. I remembered her smile, every detail of her face, how she used to hide herself sometimes in one corner of the patio and ask the moon to keep us healthy and well.

      ‘Papito, I can’t sleep,’ I whispered, sitting up in bed.

      His cigarette, which was floating restlessly, remained suspended for a moment in the middle of the living room until, slowly, he came towards me and sat down by my side.

      ‘Do you remember the time we took you to the beach at Santa María?’ he asked.

      This response confused me.

      ‘What’s that got to do with Mamá?’ I asked him.

      But he took no notice and continued.

      ‘It was the hottest summer we’d had in a long time. They used to organize activities like that at my work, once a year, as an incentive. All my workmates were there, the new ones as well as the old: Almides, Guardiminio, Dolly, forty people in all. There were so many casserole dishes filled with rice and black beans, chicken, pork and fried plantains that we set a new record, we ate enough that day to last us the whole month. You used to like singing that song about the prince and the beggar, remember?

      ‘At the end of the road I heard this song

      From an old countryman as he ambled along …

      ‘I remember watching you. It was like watching my own self as a boy. I used to like singing too, but I did not have a father, and we never got the chance to go to the beach with dishes filled with beans and roasted pork. It was good to see all of you enjoying the things that I had never had and I gave thanks to heaven that day. Do you remember that we lost you? We all started to search and it was Bertica who found you, sitting under a pine tree, singing that song.

      ‘At the end of the road I heard this song

       From an old countryman as he ambled along

       He was singing of freedom, of friendship and faith

      Of the prince and the beggar …

      ‘Sleep … my little prince … sleep …’ And those were the last words that I heard.

      * * *

      I woke up the next morning to find that my father had already left for work. I washed myself and, as my mother was not there, I made my own milky coffee. When the time came for my kiss goodbye I felt horribly sad and sat down for a moment, with thoughts of my mother swirling through my brain. Then I picked up my rucksack and went down the steps. Alexis and Alexander did not talk to me during the journey; they knew what had happened and left me alone with my melancholy. They demonstrated their sympathy with a couple of little pats on the back and that was that. I did not speak. I felt completely disconnected from the outside world.

      At school, as Nancy dictated the lessons with her customary gentleness, everything echoed in my ears as though it were 200 metres away. Her voice seemed to come from miles away and her image was blurred. I was in another dimension. I could not make out what my classmates sitting nearest me were saying either. Maybe they were answering Nancy’s questions or maybe they were just chatting; perhaps they were being playful, or perhaps they were laughing at me. All I could hear were sounds I could not decipher.

      When class was over Nancy dismissed everyone else and asked me to remain behind.

      ‘What’s the matter, Junior? Are you unwell?’

      She looked me straight in the eye and I lowered my head sadly. Then suddenly, I could not bear it any more and I clung to her. Tears streamed down my face. She did not ask any more questions. She stroked my head and told me that everything would turn out fine. The pain and incomprehension seething inside me kept bubbling up and spilling out onto her blouse. I poured my heart out to Nancy until, exhausted, I stopped babbling and she lifted my chin up, dried the tears from my eyes, gave me a kiss that was filled with tenderness. She led me outside, explaining, in the way that one does to a child of nine, that sometimes everything turns dark and the sky is covered with grey clouds but that, after the storm, the sun always shines and everything becomes bright again. I smiled and, feeling slightly more positive, caught up with my classmates.

      * * *

      The next day my mother was allowed to have visitors. We arrived very early at the Hospital of Neurology. The cool breeze from the air conditioning was mixed with the sour smells of all those pharmacological products typical of hospitals, and seemed to taste of anxiety and pain. Outside, the weather provided an appropriate backdrop to this dismal scene – thunder, lightning and fat raindrops falling from leaden skies.

      I searched the faces on the ward. None of them looked like Mamá. The nurse signalled to us, and we moved forward cautiously, not wanting to disturb the silence. There, in cubicle four, stretched out on a solid iron bedstead, lay my mother. Her fragile body rested on a thick mattress, covered by a cream-coloured sheet. We were only a metre from the bed when Papá stopped us and told us not to come any closer, but it was too late. We had already seen what was left of our mother.

      They had completely shaved her head in order to operate to remove a blood clot. During the surgery, she had lost her left temporal bone. The gap in her temple made her look much older. How is it possible for a woman of thirty-five to look like a woman of sixty? It was not Mamá. It was a horrible vision of old age.

      My sisters began to weep inconsolably, gasping with despair, while I stood silently by, watching. My mind clouded over with questions. Why had Mamá, out of all the people in the world, been chosen by God for this fate? Why, I asked Him, did He never explain the reasons behind His actions? Was there something I did not know? What lesson was to be learnt? I wanted to sob and scream, but I did not cry. I just stood, motionless, detached, as if I was a stranger observing the scene unfolding before me.

      I watched a grey-haired old man approach this unrecognizable woman – a nurse held him back and told him that the woman was still very weak and must rest. I saw two adolescent girls weeping in despair and I saw the grey-haired man holding them both close to his chest. For a moment, it seemed to me that they were all crying, but I could not be sure. I moved a little closer and witnessed something that I shall never forget – I saw tears rolling down my father’s face and dripping onto the granite floor. I could not believe that my father was crying. He looked at me like a child lost in the woods, then he turned to look up at the sky through the big glass window.

      After some time, my mother slowly opened her eyes. She looked all around her,

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