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on her face.

      “What was that?” I asked absently.

      I didn’t know what she was talking about, time had passed, I was reading so much information that reality, the place, the circumstances, had passed into the background, and at that moment I had forgotten what we had talked about or what she was referring to.

      “Leave something for tomorrow, it’s not going anywhere,” she said as she turned around and started off down the long corridor.

      Closing the book that I had in my hands, and taking the others from the table, I returned them to their places on the bookshelf and followed her. Seeing that she was moving faster than me, I had to pick up the pace. What a way to walk, I thought. Of course she will have to pass through these corridors many times a day and that will have given her that agility.

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      It was an important day. I was so nervous! I don’t think I’d ever felt so nervous. The others told me not to worry, that everything would be very simple, but I found that strange to say the least. How would it be done? What would I have to do? What task would they assign to me? I hadn’t considered how difficult it might be until now, when I was going to meet those who would be my companions during this stage of my life, which was now so novel and at the same time so strange: a summer spent working.

      I was a university student who was used to having everything done for me. At home, Mom had always taken care to make sure that everything was clean and ready. I had never even considered that one day I would have to do it myself, so I had never bothered to learn, not even how to wash my socks, much less how to sew them if they ever developed any holes. That was normal in my house, and I think the same thing should happen in all homes. The boys didn’t help with anything, well, sometimes to set the table, if my sister Carmen was busy.

      But on that day, when I left home to go to the Student Residences, I didn’t think about all the work that I now had to do for myself. I had to make an effort to be clean, since my clothes piled up in the laundry hamper, without me knowing how to put on the washing machine, even though they wanted to show me at home.

      My older sister tried hard to tell me over and over that everything was simple, you just had to hit that button. Yes, of course, but what about the detergent? When should you use it? And how much? The washing machine was women’s work, that much was clear, only they understood it.

      There are some things that are very difficult to understand compared to how simple they were at home. Going into the closet, everything was in its place, clean and ironed, just waiting for me to reach in and take it. I don’t know about other mothers, but mine always had everything under control, nothing I needed to go to class or to go play with friends was ever dirty or wrinkled. I had left things unrecognizable when I returned home after of an afternoon of games, but she took care of it. She never explained to me how she did it, it seems that mother’s days last longer. Maybe they have more time, because it’s ridiculous how much they have to do.

      How I’ve missed her stews since I left home, especially her superb “Caldo Gallego,” or “Galician broth,” which sings to you on cold winter days, how she gets my shirts ready with their starched collars and even polishes my shoes. How could she have removed the mud that I left my things covered in when I returned from my games?

      The truth is that I never thought about it, she must know everything, where would she have learned it? As far as I know, an electrician has never come to my house to fix an outlet, not that I can remember, and me with my fixation on pulling the cord without giving it a thought. I pulled them out of the wall, tore the whole plug right off, as she said to me:

      “Manu again? Son, please be careful.”

      But when I needed it again, it was fixed. If only she was at home, there was no doubt who had bothered to fix what I was damaging, and who always covered my books? Of course it was her.

      “Mom, this is broken,” I would tell her, “can you fix it for me?”

      There she was with her smile saying:

      “Go get it, it’s alright.”

      “Mom, I’m having trouble with this, can you help me because I have to finish it?”

      “Let’s see! Look, this is how it’s done,” she would tell me and stop whatever she was doing to show me.

      “Mom, this one, or the other?” and she would help me as if I were the only person in the world. Of course, now that I think about it, she did the same for my brothers and sisters, and I think to myself, how many hands did she have? How could she spare time for everyone? On top of this, she painted. I really don’t know when she found time for it.

      Sometimes in the morning, I saw that she had, there in the corner where she didn’t want anyone to touch anything. I would contemplate one of those paintings that she had created. Such color! Where would she get them from? I always asked myself. Why did I never see her painting them? I only ever heard her, when I was little, say:

      “Manu, don’t touch, that’s been freshly painted.”

      She would tell me in a serious tone, the one she used when she said something important and that all children know so well. We did our best to obey, fully aware that she wasn’t joking.

      But if I’d just gotten out of bed, did she do it while everyone else slept? I got the answer when I got a little older. It was actually when we were all asleep and the house had already fallen silent. When she had finished the multitude of tasks, when she had prepared the clothes that we all had to wear the next day, she started painting. She said it helped her to rest and be fresh the next morning.

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      We went out onto the street, she closed the door firmly, then she locked up. I was surprised that such an ancient and huge door had such a small key, and looking I noticed that the lock, the opening that served as the lock in ancient times, was now just an ornament, because of its size. The key that would have been used must have been very large, surely those iron keys that weighed so much could certainly not be carried in that small bag, where I saw that the librarian kept the key.

      She headed confidently toward one of the side streets. She moved so fast, just as I had seen her move through the corridors of the library and it was difficult for me to keep pace with her. Although I tried, I had no choice but to say:

      “Please Miss, a little more slowly or I can’t follow you, you’re going very fast.”

      She looked me up and down as if she wanted to take an X-ray and muttered:

      “Hmmm! What kind of young man are you! Tired after such a pace, really? Surely you prefer to be sitting for hours, without realizing that your body needs to move to make you feel good and so that the passage of the years will not be noticed in the bones,” she replied as she slowed down slightly.

      “Yes,” I mumbled softly, but in reality, what had I answered? That I had spent the day sitting or that my bones were already beginning to claim my attention? In my younger days, I would play sports practically every day, now I had to take a pill some days to be able to withstand the pain, especially in the knees, which I think wasn’t due to a lack of walking, but rather the endless hours I spent sitting.

      She was right, what she had said was correct. I forced myself to follow her without protesting again, when I suddenly thought that I had been sitting the whole time, looking for information in those books that I’d taken from the shelves that she had indicated, but from there I could see her back at her work station, where I had noticed that there was nowhere for her to sit. She’d been standing the entire the time.

      “What strength!” I thought. “‘I would not have endured it. Well,” I reasoned as an excuse, “she’ll be used to it; a specific result of the years she’s been doing this kind of work.”

      Since I was distracted by my thoughts, and as she continued on in silence, I hadn’t realized where we were, nor the streets we’d passed. That usually happens when you’re

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