CHAPER ONE. April, 1931

CHAPTER ONE





April 1931


On a day like today sixty years ago, my beloved, Inés Valiente, died in my arms. Hardly three months had passed since the military uprising that degenerated in the long and fratricidal civil war that put a bloody end to the Second Spanish Republic1. 

In 1931 Ines and I were two naïve and illiterate teenage villagers, sons of a miserable village of just over a hundred families. Inés attended literacy classes because she knew that those first letters would make her feel more dignified and respected. I felt good about my routine occupation of leading the family herd to the nearby hills to graze and had no interest in learning to read and write. 

Today I remember with enormous pain and sadness, that it was Inés who overcame my stubbornness teaching me to read and write herself, and today I have shown her my posthumous gratitude by writing this book with my memories of a republican spring and fascist autumn, in which her short and miserable life. 

My memories go back to the first days of April 1931, when “with the first leaves of the poplars and the last flowers of the almond trees”, as our immortal Antonio Machado sang, Inés climbed as usual on the way to town while I was trying to take care of two dozen stubborn sheep and a goat impossible to control. She had been playing with her writing pad, scrawled for every space available, and tossed it into the air like a kite, picking it up again as if it trained her. When he came to my side, she was laughing, perhaps at my stubbornness as an illiterate teenager, while looking at me provocatively, rehearsing those woman’s arts that arise naturally in all teenagers with no one teaching them. As she got closer, it seemed as if the wind was shaking harder, the rough rockrose seemed to bloom, like honeysuckle, and the song of the monotonous hurray seemed to be goldfinches or nightingales.

When she was around, she blushed or made me figure out she blushes, because Inés was never ashamed of me, which made me lose my integrity, as if she was twenty years older than me and knew everything there is to know about life, while I, a fifteen-year-old, almost sixteen-year-old, hardly knew where the children came from.

Close already, on the bank, at a certain height from where I was, Inés was arranging her rough dress stretching here and there, putting on the shoulder pads and adjusting her apron, as if preparing for a performance:

“Ea, Andrés doesn’t look at me so much that you will wear me down!”

She said it knowing that I was glancing at her when apparently I was attentive to several lambs that went up the slope in search of fresh grass, but I didn’t even see them.

“Can’t you see it unravels the goat?”

It was true, that damn goat, that not all creatures must be from God, always went to the slopes and there was nothing to do. For a little milk cube that gave us the day the work of having it next to the sheep it did not compensate, but my father insisted on having it, more out of nostalgia than out of utility. Ever since my poor mother died, we had that wayward goat as if it were her soul was still in the world, and that only she respected. She bought it herself at the cattle market in Sigüenza, in the fall of the 27th, because she wanted me not to be short of milk, even if it was from the goat. “If you want to be a good man, and you will be, even if you have to beat yourself up, drink a lot of goat’s milk.” She said it as if that milk were the ointment to confirm from the Bishop.

“You are a foolish shepherd who doesn’t even know how to keep an old goat firm!” Inés reproached me.

But I knew that since my mother died, she had an affection for me, but not only out of feminine compassion, but for other reasons that I don’t want to mention yet. 



"You're a stupid shepherd who doesn't even know how to hold an old goat!" Ines reproached me.

She enjoyed torturing me as if she believed she had an obligation to. It was as if she wanted to replace my late mother and set out on a mission to wake me up and make a man out of me based on scavenging and recriminations. I would whistle at the damned goat, yell at her, throw a pebble at her and try in vain to bring her back to the herd, because I didn't want to go looking for her and get away from Ines. She was my only joy in the world and I waited for that moment, when I returned from school, as the sun is expected after a cold, freezing night.

Everything around me was silence and grief. My father did not smile again after my mother died; My aunts seemed to wait for the moment to enter our soulless and cold house to remove any sign of happiness from their faces, and they seemed to believe they had to pity me at every moment. «My poor son! Without a mother to take care of him, how can he become a man! "

For everyone I was "poor Andresito," the motherless child, almost an orphan, because my father already looked like a corpse.

The other children of the village, cruel and ruthless like all children, showed me everything that only a mother can do, such as their well-patched shirts and pants, the succulent snacks, and they smiled maliciously at me when their mothers called them to pick them up at dusk. . "Wow, I'm leaving because my mother calls me. Of course, you can't stay as long as you want. What luck! ».

Their cruelty was as immense as their ignorance.

"I'm sick of that goat, so sick that one day… well, I don't know what I'll do with it!"

"Don't even think about it, Andrés!" That goat was bought by your mother and you have to respect her!

Like everyone else, when I mentioned my mother, Ines also believed they had to feel sorry for me, but she barely allowed a moment of melancholy to be seen and immediately her face would shine again, her cheeks would light up and her lips would smile again.   

I did what she expected me to do: I gathered the herd, reduced the damned goat's revolutionary aspirations, and once everything was in order, I would return and sit next to her, like a child waiting for the kiss of his mother for his good behavior. But she was following her methodical system of provoking my dignity.

"I would never marry such a foolish pastor; Wow, I won't even marry a pastor, so be smart!

"Don't talk nonsense, Inés, talk about marriages now!"

"I'll be like those ladies who spend the summer in Sigüenza." I will wear pretty organza dresses, with a good neckline so that the boys rage. Because I am not going to marry just anyone. That's why I go to school, I don't earn for shoe soles!

When she mentioned the school, her expression became solemn, her gaze was lost somewhere in the valley, she remained a few moments in the most absolute silence, rare in her, as if she understood that only with the four scribbles of her lined notebook her dignity of person could live up to your dreams. Then she became even more aggressive, took her worn notebook out of her apron pocket and berated me:

"How can an ignorant pastor understand how important it is to go to school? A young lady needs to know how to read and write, because…" And she stopped suddenly, as if she knew that those letters scrawled in a charity notebook were not enough to make her into a young lady. However, those signs intimidated me, because, in effect, I had not had the opportunity to learn to read and write, and she seemed to me an important person with a future. I had the feeling that they held meanings that they denied me because of my ignorance. Maybe they told stories, they talked about life, nature, everything that was necessary to know to understand all the mysteries that the world holds. Only to contemplate those signs that hid their dry dock from me meaning they haunted me, "whatever! Whoa, I've already said enough nonsense!"

She almost always ended her reflections in such a bewildering way, but almost immediately regained his joviality. It was as if he had returned from an imaginary journey through his future, after having strolled wearing his desired dresses by the mall, provoked the boys for his brazen neckline and he had not found the expected satisfaction. Therefore, she returned to town; on the dusty road to school; to the bank of the stream covered with reeds where the frogs croaked; to the distant sound of the church bell, the shearing of the sheep, and the whistling of the larks among the fields. As if in reality that dream of her city lady was not her, but they had tried her to instill those poorly written doodles in her rickety notebook.

Suddenly Ines became maternal again, she lost her attractiveness as a young marriageable woman, and she scolded me harshly:

“Why don’t you go to school too?”

“Me to school? And who does all the work in my house?”

“What will become of you being illiterate? A man do not  have  any future if do not  know how to read and write and the four rules!

“Having land and sheep, why do we need  to know accounts?”

“But what if you lose them; if a bad year is coming or the sheep get sick and they die? What are you going to do?”

“I will not be short of work while I have two arms!”

“A pawn in the field and dying of misery?”

“Whatever!”

Outraged by my stubbornness, she got up angrily and beat her worn notebook over my face, as if trying to get the letters to enter my head by hitting me with them.

“If you don’t learn to read and write I won’t accept you as my husband, even if you asked me on my knees! Just so you know!”

She believed that this was the best way to stimulate my unconsciousness and my stubbornness because for Inés life was reduced to living happily until the inevitable day when she had to get married. Then life would stop being a game and become something serious; a kind of natural mission that every woman must fulfill, such as taking care of a husband, running a house, and raising children. Therefore, everything she did before this momentous undertaking was nothing but a game, which had to play the best of her ability.

“I’m can not  making letters like that!” I defended myself, but inside I knew it was not like that also, I thought I understood them even without knowing what they meant.

“You don’t serve as a pastor either, nor do I want you to be a sheepherder! I want you to be someone important, because I will only marry someone important, like those gentlemen who come by car from Madrid to spend the summer in Sigüenza.

“But what silly ideas get into your head? What’s wrong with us, huh? Also, where do you get those ideas from being a brat who, total, has not been in school for half a year? What do you think, that knowing how to read and write and the four rules you can already aspire to all that nonsense of summer ladies and gentlemen? Come on, come down from the fig tree, Inés, that things are not as you dream them! We are but two peasants as are all peasants. You will be like your mother,  married one of our people, you will take care of sheep, you will scalp the chives, you will dig the beans, you will fatten a pig for the slaughter of San Martín, you will reap and thresh the harvest every summer, and God grand  you with four or five children and you can raise them with health so they take care of you in your old age. What is all this nonsense ? For that, it would be better off not going to school!”

It was as if I had slapped her. Pressing her lips together violently, she got up angrily; she crucified me with her gaze, that if it had been a sword, it would have nailed me in the heart, and, putting herself on her hips, she told me everything that I undoubtedly deserved and still for her good natural She fell silent:

“Do you see it? You are just a silly illiterate who knows nothing about life! Just so you know, at school they not only teach us how to read and write and the four rules, but how to be people … Well, I don’t mean that it is bad to be a peasant, but you have to aspire to be more than just illiterates, starving and destitute. You think this is good because you know nothing else. Why? What can you learn from life if you are in the bush all day, or driving the mule in the fields or digging the garden? Do you think it all ends here? That the poor do not may eat something finer than stale bacon, or sausages, and blood sausages? It does not mean that I don’t like them, but there are other things: cakes, sweets and things to drink that are not just water and wine? Do you think we have no right to dress in anything other than these patched rags? Look at your pants, they are more patched than the roof of my house! Why do you think stores are full of beautiful things? For decoration, huh, silly boy?

 And how are we going to buy those things if we don’t see the money when there is a baptism and they throw four bitches of Christmas bonuses at us!”

I was silent because I did not understand very well what she wanted to tell me. For me, life was fine as it was. I liked the intense smell of thyme, lavender, rosemary, sage or marjoram, even the acidity of the broom flower; I breathed with satisfaction that clean mountain air; I enjoyed watching the hare scamper around the fields or the procession of the chicks behind the mother; I liked to imitate the song of the scary cuckoo, with its image cut out in the distance above the oak tree. I was happy to see the sun go down at twilight when the clouds turned vermilion as if they burned. All this had for me the solemnity of the divine and I would not know how to live without it.

Suddenly Ines was crieying, and I knew it because two thick tears were streaming from her big green eyes, sliding down her flushed cheeks.

“And now what happens to you?”

“I don’t know, I want to cry, that’s all!”

“Wow, just like that!”

“Yes, just like that! Women cry just because we do!”

“Then what nonsense!” She always spoke of herself as a woman, despite not being fourteen yet.

“I cry because something, I don’t know what it is, presses my chest, and if I don’t cry I burst!”

“But does it to have an explanation?”

“It has an explanation! Does it seem little explanation to you we are poor, living here in this half-ruined village, abandoned by God, without a bad light bulb in the town square, lighting us with lamps? Does it seem little explanation to you that your mother got the flu, that doctors already know how to cure with four pills?”

“Leave my mother, who rests in peace, and if she’s gone, God will know why!”

“That, always the same; good or bad, God wants everything! Well, what God is that of yours who does not know how to distinguish between what is just and what is not? Go, God forgives me if it exists, but there is no justice in the world and He must know why, but I do not know!”

“Do not blaspheme, Inés, that God will punish you with some evil!”

“Leave me alone! You go to a priest, and if not the time!”

Angrily she walked away, storing her notebook in her apron, until I lost her, without even turning to see the stupid face with which she had left me.

That was a premonition because Ines knew more about my character than I did. I felt it as a curse from heaven and not as a blessing. Being a priest was turning away from her, giving her up, when somehow we lived with the naïve conviction that they made us for each other, but that it was only a matter of letting time fix our differences. This would happen as soon as I stopped being a teenager and became a man, but I didn’t know when or how I would know that I already was. I was just sure it still wasn’t. However, she had been a woman for a long time; she thought as a woman and behaved like a woman. She even cried like a woman!

That recent discussion did not cool our friendship and even I would say that our mutual affection could already be loved. On my return from the field, I found her sitting at the fountain, with a jug that had been overflowing for quite some time because she was undoubtedly waiting for me. I passed by her confused, afraid that after our discussion she would not speak to me again, and I gave a severe blow of the stick to a poor sheep that stopped to nibble on herbs that grew next to the pylon, right where she was sitting. The animal, frightened, jumped on its hind legs and was about to crash against the stone of the fountain had it not been because she stopped it.

“Do you want to kill the poor animal? Look you’re a beast, Andrés!” Inés reproached me.

I said nothing, but I was sorry. I grabbed the poor sheep by the shearing collar and tried to calm her as if she wanted to apologize for my misbehavior, but the animal wanted nothing more than to get rid of me. Ines picked up the jug, carried it on her hip, and walked beside me in silence.

“What I told you about being a priest I have not felt …” she said after walking together and a few meters from his house. I don’t want you to be a priest … Priests are not authentic men; They know nothing about life because they don’t get married. Suddenly she stopped, changed the heavy pitcher on her other hip, and laughing she screamed at me. “But if you go to a priest, I become a nun!”

I, once again, was confused and bewildered, because something inside me told me I could never enjoy the love of that girl, who, however, already saw herself as a woman.

Pre-election time

It was a week before the 1931 municipal elections and the town had become a circus. Outsiders we had never seen before, appeared on foot, on horseback. They even arrived in some cars labeled with large white initials, corresponding to the political parties they represented, and who could barely climb the hillside, especially because with the morning dew the road becomes slippery. Signs with political slogans also appeared, painted with little skill and even with the odd spelling on all the walls, especially in the plastered on the pediment wall. “Peasant, remember your harvests, that they are not again for the lord. Vote for your PSOE candidate, the peasant party”. But in our town, the elections did not seem to be more important than that of ratifying the mayor, Don Mariano. This was the only landowner in the town, with over five hundred head of cattle and the best piece of the valley for cereal, besides other badlands, but good for the boar and roe deer, where people from Madrid hunted, and even from Aragon and Catalonia. The preserve was well guarded against poachers with a pair of sworn guards, father and son, who did not ask before shooting those who were prowling for it. Finger had named Don Mariano during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. The opposition candidate was Genaro Martínez, nicknamed the "Potter", because he worked as an officer in the town's tile factory, a miserable ramshackle industry owned by someone from Guadalajara that almost nobody knew who he was and that we had only ever seen by the people, to the roe deer hunting season, for parties or on the occasion of some local solemnity. There was still another candidate from a republican party, but who withdrew at the last minute to favor the socialist. It was not that our votes  were important, but for the left and republican coalition parties all the mayors or councilors that they could get were important. Instead, the conservatives seemed to give up the elections, because they barely moved.

The tavern comments were passionate and everyone in town seemed to know about politics without even being able to read the names of the leaders that appeared in the newspapers, supporting their party candidates with their articles."This is Gil Robles, an educated person and, also, he is the most prepared, because he is of good birth, not like us,” they commented. "Wow, all politicians are the same. Now they remember us to vote for them. I neither like one nor the other. I don't vote", he said.

"Well, I will vote, lest the reds take the mayor's office." "There will be all the votes they want, that even the deawill rise for the elections.”. "Don't be fool, these elections are serious; that things are already quite heated from Morocco, and this Admiral Aznar is not worth even to regent  in a nunnery. That without a hard hand and someone with a good cradle who commands and tempers this country will go into chaos in a few days”. "Sure! even Romanones no longer hunt as much in these lands as when the Primo de Rivera was there, they must all be with their necks not reaching their shirts."

Groups of junior people came from Guadalajara, Madrid, and even Zaragoza. Sometimes to announce a rally in Sigüenza, others themselves, accompanied by their candidate, improvised one in the town square which almost always ended in heated discussions.

The most active Socialists read some of Lenin's proclamations and then commented on them, ostensibly lowering their claims and without mentioning private property.

“The product of labor cannot be delivered to the capitalist, but must be fairly distributed among all workers.”

To which some peasant responded by waving his stick in the air.

“¡Go with your stories elsewhere!, here we do not know capitalisms or productions, all we are honest people and would not take away what is ours gained with the sweat of our brow, and less this Leni, or whatever you call!”

"But do you not understand?" The makeshift orator struggled. “We are all equal because we have all been born by a woman, so we all have the right to a dignified life without penalties. Large estate ownership and poor exploitation of land cause the misery of the Spanish countryside. It requires a modern agrarian policy. We need to carry out an in-depth agrarian reform that better distributes the fruit of the peasant's work and makes his work more profitable. But the peasant”, insisted while continuing to brandish his club threateningly. “Everyone has what they deserve, because there are lazy and hard-working people, that we are like swallows, there are lists and there are fools. The clever is fine if they have properties and the fools are worth nothing more than being pawns. What the hell is that all we are the same?”

To which another farmer replied:

“Look who talking about clever, all you own you have a heritage; and work, what it says to work, you do not get tired, no, that your pawns do it, that you have them half-starved and of misery. That here we all know what you pay them …”

Then the brawl was inevitable.

"And who gave you a candle at this funeral? Inherit and with honor, and I will let no one come to me with those of which we all are the same. The first one who crosses my field will try this one, that some here present already know how it itches in their kidneys!”

Finally, there was a chaotic clamor in which each expressed their opinions aloud: "If there can be no justice without a heavy hand!" "That the human being has no solution!” "Without a revolution as God commands there can be no solidarity or justice!"

Don Mariano gave a commitment speech to please those of the Sigüenza party, but for his poor skills as a speaker, it was a resounding failure and almost a mockery, compensated by the acrimony of his co-religionists:

“I don't like to be preachy, that to be mayor it is enough to have good judgment and common sense. As long as I am mayor we will have peace of mind, which is the most important thing. What use is that progress of the city to us if it comes to us poisoned by evil and corruption. What matters is the tranquility and good health, which we have to carts and that we do not lack here.”

But his co-religionists in Sigüenza were not satisfied with the simplicity of these small-town arguments, and they put their malicious intentions against the socialist candidate. 

"The socialists and communists want to take away your lands, burn the church, and declare free love so that everyone can go to bed with your women. Is that what you want your children to learn?”

Despite the provocation, the aftershocks were humorous.

"Go to your town, marquis, we don't want people outsiders in this town!"

‘“This is also my town, because this is Spain, and Spain is the most sacred thing! The reds are sent by Moscow and if they win the elections here, the Russians will send and not the Spanish!”

But the peasants disliked conservative politicians as much as of socialists.

"Russia is very far away so they can send us! That for four bushels of wheat that we collect a year, half a dozen lambs, and a few horses that fall from old age I do not think they bother to come from so far to rule us.

"But what about the universal values, and the homeland, the religion, God, and all that is sacred in our land? Are we going to allow those reds to desecrate them?"

“Do not exaggerate, for me, the only sacred thing is a well-ham cured and the red wine of Aragon, and I think we would not be short of that, even if the Russians came!

The laughter was unanimous, and the conservatives finally understood that their catastrophic arguments did not impress anyone.

For me, everything about the elections was just an opportunity to get out of my routine. The town has never been so lively, nor have so many outsiders arrived. The tavern was always full of clients, where there was nothing but politics to discuss. My countrymen seemed to have recovered the illusion for the future. It was inspiring to see people in the tavern talk about social issues, such as work, education, the right to express themselves freely, to criticize politicians or the monarchy. The most educated read the political lampoons between glass and glass of wine, while the illiterate nibbled the badly bundled cigars in haste in doing so not to lose the detail of what was being read. Occasionally, if they didn't understand something, they would scratch their hair, momentarily pulling away from the cap that showed off their whitish bald spots.

"April 12 will be the spring of Spain, because the workers will vote en masse for the Republic," read the enlightened peasant. "The workers' vote will put an end to the history of the working class of this country has suffered because of the oppression of the oligarchy formed by the military, debased nobles, and unscrupulous financiers, which will give way to an honest Government, from the people to the people. A new democratic government, honest and committed to the well-being of the people and not only in defense of the privileges of a few.”

Inés's brothers, Juan, Damián, and Benjamín Valiente, were the most attentive and did not hesitate to interrupt the reading if they did not understand something. They seemed eager for knowledge and visibly suffered from their ignorance.

“What does pri ... pri ... ?"

“Privileges? Well, what is it going to mean, that a few are left with everything that must be shared among all …” 

“Go on, go on, I already understand!”

«In this historic electoral consultation, the worker can have no doubts for voting, because the coalition of the left and the Republicans is the only one that defends their interests…»

That was how they gave so many at night. The lamp ran out of oil and the innkeeper complained that they talked a lot, but they drank little, and that he was fine with rallies in his tavern; that politics could only bring misfortunes to the people, especially the poor. In the end, as if waking up from a dream, they stretched their legs, put on their berets, and slowly left the tavern, continuing to comment on what they had heard. 

Outside, only the glow of the dim tavern lamp illuminated the poorly paved alley. The cats, who were huddled in the tavern's door waiting for some rasp of sardines, leaped nimbly off the walls and engaged in territorial fights. Some rooster sang prematurely the dawn of this special day and from some window came the monotonous crying of some hungry or aching creature

"I am decided," commented the eldest of the Valiente brothers, "I will vote for the Potter."

"I don't trust the Socialists, who were with Primo de Rivera!" Said the medium.

"But now it's different!...

"I would vote for a candidate who was an anarchist or a communist. Here half measures are not worth, or all or nothing!”

"I would also vote for the anarchists," added Benjamin Valiente.

 "But the Plotter is better than the dum of Don Mariano.” 

“For what can be arranged here I don't think it matters who wins. As Damián says, what they need is a good revolution that changes everything in the bud!”

"Do you think the revolution is a game or what? That is a very serious thing and can bring much suffering to the people!”, replied the eldest of the brothers.

"All things that are worth are hard to get an!"

“Do not dream on  revolutions and you two  vote for the Potter!”

I, who had been sitting in a corner of the tavern, discreetly followed the Valiente brothers, hopping that Inés was awake, waiting for her brothers, and could chat for a while with her before going to sleep. But she was not there.

When I got home, my father was awake but, as always, motionless and sitting on his stool, in front of the stove, stoking the embers repeatedly with the same monotonous movement, as if it spellbound him. He didn't even move or speak to me when I entered. But I was used to his silence, I went to the cupboard to get a piece of bread, and I sat next to him nibbling on the crust, while I followed his monotonous movements with the poker. We stayed like that for a long time until I dared to ask him: "

“Father, are you okay?" But he didn't answer me. I knew he would not answer me, but it encouraged me to continue talking about anything hoping it would interest him.

“The townspeople are in turmoil with this election. I have heard that the Valiente brothers will vote for the Potter, but Benjamin says that he would vote for anarchists. If I had the age, I don't even know who I would vote for, because the socialists seem extreme to me ... which are not what this country needs ... I think …” 

I didn’t know if he listened to me because his face remained unchanged and his interest continued focused on the embers of the stove, but I continued with my monologue because I thought I might be interested. 

“To me, the Valiente brothers seem like good people, I don't know why should vote for the anarchists. They say that if the left win there will be a revolution. But what does that mean  the revolution? I don't think it's okay to burn churches and kill priests and nuns like I think they did in Russia.”

When I said what to burn churches and assassinate priests and nuns, my father reacted, struck with the poker that raised a cloud of incandescent embers lighting the room, and said a laconic phrase:

“A people without God, that's Russians came!”

He said nothing else. I retired trying to imagine what he might think after his laconic phrase. Did you imagine all the Russians burning between the embers of the stove? As soon as I leaned back on my bunk I fell asleep, and my last thought, like every night, was for Inés.


On the eve of the elections, the mayor installed a loudspeaker on the City Hall balcony, connected to a car radio brought in by members of his own Sigüenza party. The contraption sounded little but sufficient to radiate the speeches of Gil Robles and the Count of Romanones himself with a metallic and shrill tone of voice. A group of peasants crowded around the contraption, approving with methodical affirmative nods of head why they should vote for conservatives.

I went early to the field with the sheep. The elections did not matter to me, although they worried me, because I had seen new looks of hatred in my countrymen, and suspicious of each other because of political ideas, and that could not be a good thing. From the field, he could hear the distant murmur of the exalted candidates, but could not understand just a few loose sentences.

Since it was Saturday, Inés would not go to school. Most likely, she went to church at the ten o'clock mass, so Don Gregorio would soon appear on the path. He seemed to be a kind and patient priest, but he had a soon all the people feared that. He exercised his useless apostolate with a certain resignation and conformity. He was not what they call a village priest, hunter, good eater, and even a generous drinker, but a restrained man with almost monastic habits. He was not from the region but from Valencia. He had been in Italy and met the Pope, and that never revealed me, he ended up being chaplain of a convent in Sigüenza and parish priest of our town, whom he arrived on foot, either in the harsh winter or in the oppressive summer. Luckily for him, it was spring, and the fields were generous and hospitable, and walking along its fragrant trails was no longer suffering but a pleasure for him. 

"Good morning, Andresito, tomorrow I want you at noon mass!"

"Tomorrow there will be no mass, Don Gregorio," I answered, not quite knowing why he was saying it, but it certainly had something to do with the "revolution" that the municipal elections meant.

“You are right, Andrés, I had almost forgotten it…” and he remained silent contemplating my sheep, that as if they were feeling affection for the priest, they were looking at him with candid eyes. After a few thoughtful moments, he continued to exchange his initial joviality for certain grief. Tomorrow serious things are going to happen in this town!… Yes, you are right, most likely there will be no noon mass.

I knew the reason for his grief because he had the same feeling, that's why I had told him about the mass. After a while, when the priest looked around the breadth of the valley as if he were saying goodbye to him, he continued changing his tone completely and recovering his usual sobriety and temperance:

“But God will continue to exist tomorrow, and the day after, and after we are all dead and leave this world!”

"Man, Don Gregorio, God has always existed!" I replied, just to please him, but not knowing what he was talking about. Don Gregorio tested the consistency of my faith.

“What do you know about that! Let's see, Andrés, why has God always existed?”

“Wow, Don Gregorio, I'm not very smart for explanations, but I feel that way ..." I replied, stammering. Don Gregorio shot me a penetrating look as if he was trying to read things in my mind that I was not able to see myself.

“You would be a good priest, because faith is not reasoned, but felt ... but I will tell you in two words why God exists. The world is like a tree and some of us are the fruits and others are the leaves. The leaves serve no other purpose than to sustain the world and so that it can bear fruit. But the fruits are coveted by the birds and have to be sacrificed to fulfill their mission. Do you understand Now comes the second part: the fruits know nothing about reality but what they see during their short life in the tree, that is, they do not know the winter of the tree. That is the afterlife. Do you understand?

I mechanically nodded but did not understand what he was talking about, although I confess that that brief talk would mark my entire later existence, as it showed me with devastating simplicity that reality is nothing more than pure appearance. But Don Gregorio, aware of my inability to understand the tree metaphor, summarized his thought as briefly as possible.

“In the other life is where you can see God, that's why in this one we can't see him. Do you think your poor mother no longer exists because she is dead? Think about what I have told you about the tree and you will see that it must continue to exist in the afterlife; the one who cannot see the fruit. There it is and it will be waiting for you the day when God also takes you to the afterlife. Do you understand

"Sure, Don Gregorio!"

"No, you don't understand, but it's the same, you'll understand someday." He gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder, squeezed his devotional, sighed deeply, and continued his ascent towards the village, while still muttering. That is only understood by those of us who have faith!

Naturally, I was left in deep distress, because if Don Gregorio had said that my mother continued to exist, perhaps he was even walking around, like a soul in pain, walking through the mountains, looking at me and trying to speak to me without my being able to hear her. Instinctively I turned several times looking in all directions, in case it appeared. Suggested by this idea, I even thought I saw some pebbles moving, or as if the brambles were shaking more than usual, when there was hardly any wind. I was about to call her and ask if she was around and I couldn't see her, but fortunately, I recovered from the suggestion and told myself that this idea must mean something else that Don Gregorio did not want to clarify for my ignorance. Unfortunately, I thought more calmly, the dead are dead and their bones are in the cemetery. If any of them remains, it must not be in this world and if there is another world, how can we know if it is another world?”. That was the first time that I used my mind with a certain logical sense, which would mark my later education and my fondness for philosophy.


 

 

1. The Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed on April 14, 1931 l, after the victory of republicans snd left-wing coalition.