TE19 Iberian Adventure

San, the Book of Miracles

giant abandoned honeycomb. First the moss and then, above it, the grass, have erased the graves. All the tombstones are pages of faded ink whose stories can no longer be read. The two stone angels, grasping swords, guard the absurd vanity of the pantheon which belonged to the Indian house’s former owner. Their noses are missing and the years of charcoal have turned their eyes into skull pits. From a distance, it is almost impossible to distinguish and appears to be on the point of drowning in nature between bubbles of differing shades of green. Except for three tombswhich glow, white and worn out. Two for her parents and a smaller one: a pile of earth with a footprint and a white wooden cross. This is the grave of her first child, a baby for whom, sixty years later, she still cries when fever or alcohol makes her sad. And the same goes for what was once her home. Small, poor, frozen, but with the windows intact, the roof in one piece, the weeds in check, the doormat, like a faithful old dog, in front of the door. What will she feel when she arrives, so alone, on the destroyed scenes of her memory. What ghosts will greet her at the entrance to thevillage andwhowill welcome herwithopen arms.Whatwill she feel when it gets dark, sitting on a little chair in front of her house, with a candle by her side and millions of shadows growing around her. Maybe she can see everything as it was. Perhaps where you see a small square teeming with shrubs, a stone bench where a single wild asturcón satisfies its thirst, hemmed in on three sides by the hollow houses, she sees the lads drinking a glass of wine on a bench in front of the bar after work, joking and complimenting the girls:

“How pretty you are, Sofia!”

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