The caves built at the foot of the mountain close to the beach, and theirs, mainly overlooked at the open and blue sea, breaking waves next to the metal bridge of the Hornillo located on the wharf of the Hornillo. This bridge was inaugurated in August of 1903 and was part of a line that connects Aguilas with the Hornillo, with a length of 1207 meters. Also, Laura knew it had something to do with the British. There were mornings in which they had moored up to three huge ships to load iron ore that they extracted from the mines of Bacares. All this she knew for Dad, who told her many things about the railway line and the iron mines. Her Dad worked a few months in the mines to breathe into his lungs a bad combination of toxic dust; he told Laura. That would make him bad one day but did not say what and why he started to work in the garage of the Railway. And in the meantime, he told her how the Hornillo bridge was built, and what all that tangle of crossed iron was like a skein of woolen yarn. Dad told her many things that seemed kind of interesting to her, but she did not speak with him what would happen to her body over the years. She did not tell him anything about menstruation or that sexual awakening that Laura discovered without needing to be with a boy.
One summer morning in 1929, a year before she thought of the letter. With the sun that begun to come out of its refuge, high in the sky and completely blinded by sight as soon as she left the cave, she decided that she was going to take a bath in the sea. But this time not on the beach of the Cocedores, which was right next to the Hornillo about fifty meters away, but just around the big rocks as she and her three friends called it. That August morning, they would not go to work in the country to serve water to the lads with an earthenware pitcher that at the end of the day weighed her like a big ball of lead. That morning she and her three best friends, Sara, Carmen and Raquel would do other things.
Dressed in a long white dressing gown, the four young women walked carefully along the blazing path that led to the large rocks. Once there, juggling they went up to them and with bare feet did all kinds of tricks not to scratch the soles of the feet. Laura headed the group of four girls who glowed in the rays of the sun like opaque mirrors. Underneath the gowns, they wore a swimsuit that covered them from the neck to the ankles, and they wanted to get rid of them.
- "Give me your hand Sara," -Laura said as she reached out and extended her hand. Sara clutched at his long, thin fingers and she pulled from her weak body. Sara was the thinnest of the four young women, but that did not seem to be a problem. There was also a shortage of food at home from time to time.
- "Oops! -Sara groaned as she set foot on the dark, damp rock of the sea, which was not so calm that morning, at least on that part of the coast.
- "Will our parents miss us?" -Rachel asked as she looked at them both, climbed on the great rock.
- "Of course," -Laura said with a smile on her lips. The sun was beginning to rise high in the blue sky, projecting its rays with ever greater force.
- "They'll give us a good scolding!" -Exclaimed Carmen, who was behind Rachel. All of them were the same age, fifteen.
Laura smiled again and this time two dimples formed on both sides of her face. Her eyes shone in the blinding sun. - "So, what?" -She let out her innocent lips. A strike of air licked her blond hair, and she tidies them up with her invisible fingers.
- "Damn it, one day it's a day," -Sara said, putting her arms in a pitcher. The curves of his waist marked, and someone from the Hornillo bridge emitted a loud, loud whistle. In the distance, a hand moved like a blade of a mill.
- "Uyyyy!" They have seen us!" -Carmen panted, climbing to the top of the rock of a strange jumping. Her white gown discovered part of her dark bathing suit in a strike of air that made her flip over like a cloak.
- "They are cheeky," -Rachel snorted, still standing on the first rock.
- "Go up Raquel. Give me your hand," -Laura said, her hand outstretched and the palm upwards. Her skin, soft and pink, marked several streaks in the palm of her hand. One of these was very long, something she never noticed and would not tell her anything.
- "We're going to have a lovely time this morning." -Sara's voice sounded like a whisper. And his dark hair rocked in a new blow of air.
They went up two more rocks that seemed set in that place, so well fitted and mostly with a flat surface like a cobbled road. The strange things of nature, Laura thought as she walked with great care not to slip, for the base was damp.
Then it was time to get off those rocks, to the other side of the beach, where the waves broke with less force on the shore. It was a cove of yellow sand and soft to the touch, so the waves were extinguished languidly in its path that lowered its thrust and foam, but did not hit the rocks that had already left behind and were somewhat violent to a Constant rhythm of continuous hammering.
- "The sea is calmer down here," -Rachel objected, marveling to see the sight of that little cove that she was seeing for the first time.
- "The waves are always more violent in the rocky areas," -Laura explained. It seems that the sea is on end, but on the banks, the big waves become thin layers of water moving on the sand. Push it and forming a soft bottom to the touch.
- "How much do you know! you seem to write poetry," -Sara wondered, smiling at her from ear to ear.
- "I'm susceptible," -Laura said, raising an eyebrow.
- "Did you know that Laura writes every night?" - Said Carmen, forming a straight line with her lips.
- "Oh yeah!" -Exclaimed, Sara. - "What do you write?"
- "My life." -Laura pointed to the sea with her index finger.
- "The sea?" -Sara's voice sounded rough.
Laura looked at her out of the corner of her eye as the sea breeze combed her hair with sweet puffs and filled with an indescribable scent. And again.
- "No," -Laura said again with her soft voice. I write things that happen to me, or that is what I want to be ...
- "That's what I think about every night," -Rachel said, nodding. - "Only I do not know how to transfer my thoughts into the paper."
- "It's easy and fun," -Laura explained, showing off her famous dimples.
- "Well, let's go inside the sea," -Sara interrupted. From that place, you could not see the caves nor the bridge of the Hornillo, not at least everything, only one end.
There were no men working, that was for sure.
Carmen was the first to enter the waters of the sea. Just a single step and the cold felt in her feet, made her feel a shiver as she ran all over her body. She drew in a breath and took a deep breath as if she suddenly needed all the oxygen in the world. Her arms remained for a while like twisted twigs, still and adopting a strange posture. Then the water was already pleasant to the touch, and the chills disappeared. Now it felt hot.
- "Come on! It's cold at first, but then it's good, " -Carmen explained with a smile on her lips.
Laura was the second to contact the sea and went deeper, up to her knees, and water poured into the nape and chest. The skirts of the white robe floated in the water in the form of a jellyfish ready to attack its prey, floating inert over the foamy water.
- "It's good!" -Her voice was shaking a little, but none of her friends noticed it.
Sara was the third and suddenly came out of the water flapping her hands saying it was cold for her, but she got back into the water, and it became warm, nice.
Raquel, the chubbiest of the four was the last, and her body sank under the sea water forming a small whirlwind and waves around where she had suddenly submerged herself. A moment later, after the bubbles and the fluttering of her feet, she peeped her freckled face, for she was a redhead, and spat out some water she had held inside her mouth.
Sara was staring at her with stupefaction or really surprised.
- "What a brutish!" -See said, rolling her eyes.
Then they all laughed and what happened on that hot morning in August 1929 was not typical for the time and was a secret.
- "Shall we take off these ridiculous clothes?" -Laura asked as she floated, thanks to the movement of her
arms in the water.
- "What do you mean by that?" -Rachel asked, staring into her eyes. The four of them were floating in a circle.
- "What if we undress?" -Laura's words were accentuated, each in a chain, as if she wanted to do something wrong.
There was a long, ominous silence between the four of them, as they floated in the deep waters of the yellow beach, looked at each other. Laura's blue eyes shone like never. The water moved around them gently, warm, and the white robes floated on the surface like abandoned rags.
- "Will anyone see us?" -Carmen asked, looking at what was a tiny part of the Hornillo bridge.
- "No," -Laura said, sinking her head into the water. When she lifted his head, the drops caressed her bright face.
- "It's okay. Let's do it," -Sara said flatly.
And they began to remove the white robes with strange movements in the water. These left at the mercy of the sea currents like a drowning that is drifting. Then it was the turn of the swimsuit. And finally, they were naked, hidden under the water, but their pink bodies could be seemed from the air. Very sharp curves and brown flesh and breasts floating above the water, with her nipples erect. They all smiled as they took hold of one another's hand and suddenly the water turned red.
- "What is this?" -Laura asked when she saw it.
- "It's just that I have my period," -Carmen explained, and they all laughed, and for more than half an hour they swam and played, totally naked under the more radiant summer sun.
They lay on their backs in the water making the "dead", and their sculptural and virgin bodies shown to heaven for those who were up there spying on them.
At the age of sixteen, just one year after last years’ experience on the yellow beach with her friends, Laura had the idea of writing a letter with her wishes and needs of this life. She considered that she was already a mature woman to know what she wanted to live. And so, she put it in the paper, in the letter that later would go inside a bottle and that would throw into the sea. To the yellow beach.
She took the pencil with his thin fingers and pressed it to the yellow paper. And in the late August sun, as the sun turned red and surrounded by reddish clouds that licked the peaks of the mountains, he turned on his darkest desires.
My name is Laura, and I am sixteen years old, and no, I will not tell my hardships, thank God, I do not have them. I will not mention battles with my friends because that would be something timeless; well, something that disappears with time when we each chose our ways and then we did not greet each other when we crossed. What I want to write or explain is something that belongs to my future. It's a decision of mine, a fervent desire that has me obsessed, but that I think is normal for any girl my age.
It also affects my past, because somehow my life plan has already begun. I have already gone to school, and I have learned to read and write. I also have a present, three trusted friends and a job in the field delivering water in a bottle. They are few real a day, but they help at home. Now I have a future ahead to live the life plan I want. After discovering myself, I want to fall in love for the first time. I want to feel or know what it is to be in love and the first time. I want to know how it is the first time of a kiss and what comes next. I want a man who has bright ideas with the capacity to form a family. So, this wants to say that I should get married. And I want to marry in love with him and him with me.
I need to know what it's like to be a mother. I would like to have two children, a couple if possible, give them an education, feed them, take them to school and watch them grow up in a quiet space. My children will give me grandchildren I suppose, and I want to know what it feels like to have them. I want to be a very young grandmother.
Another desire is to have my own home, whether here in Aguilas or elsewhere. But I want it to be a warm and safe home where to see my children, my grandchildren grow and see my parents grow old, but not see them die. I do not want that. If God hears me, I want to die the first, so I will not see them die before them. I do not want to grow old and see what is disappearing from this life. I do not want to see my future husband die, much less see one of my children or grandchildren die and for that, I have taken a decision.
At fifty, when everything is at its peak or better, I want to die suddenly so as not to see everything I have written down before. I want my death to be quick and do not make my people suffer. I suppose the fifty is a suitable age to die neither too young nor too old. I guess until that age nothing bad happened in my family, my life plan.
But to die, I must draw up a plan that is effective. Maybe I kill myself or maybe hire a doctor to make death a part of me. I do not know what I'm writing, the future is about to see, but I want to die no matter what it costs. There are many ways to die without suffering, I suppose, at my fifty years there will be new ways to say goodbye to everything without pain, without prejudice, like the smoke that extinguished in the air.
I write this letter to put it in a bottle that I will throw tomorrow to the sea and if you find it and by chance, you discover who I am, and want to state that everything has been voluntarily and premeditated. Although I do not know if one day this letter will be found, or on the contrary, it will end up at the bottom of the sea like algae or in the stomach of a hungry fish.
But this is my desire, although I must say it, I am afraid, because I am human.
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, I love you my love, but I do not know yet who you are ...
Thus, ended the letter.
Laura folded the paper and rolled it up like a parchment. Then she picked up the green bottle at her feet and inserted the letter. The bottle had a cork stopper that looked safe. With all her strength, she pushed the stopper to the edge of the mouth of the bottle, and the letter remained inside forever. She put the bottle under her mattress and tossed the pencil unconsciously.
That night Laura did not sleep, and the next day when the first rays of the sun fell on her face, she rose with avid speed and took the bottle from under the straw mattress and went out looking for the waves of the sea. Barefoot climbed the same rocks she had laid out again and again to reach Yellow Beach. Once there, with her feet submerged in the soft sand and salty crystalline water, she threw the bottle with all her might into the sea.
When the bottle touched the water, a sharp ´splash´ sounded and waves formed around the bottle that was beginning to drift.
- "Goodbye my life," -she whispered, her eyes low, without the natural glow of her heavenly eyes.
After a while, she returned home.
And the bottle was carried away by the currents of the sea, inland, until you lose sight of it in the distance.
4
Year 1931
The First Love
Her first love came when Laura turned seventeen, and everything happened very fast. More than she expected. She discovered what it was like to be in love, felt the taste of the first kiss and perceived something deeper in her of strange and new pleasant sensations that came to fruition. But it was not so for her friend Carmen. Not quite the same ...
That year was made some modifications in the structure of the bridge of the Hornillo and Carmen had been infatuated of a young Englishman who worked in those works. She had infatuated that it is not the same as falling in love. The man who was already twenty-one was tall with blond hair and grey eyes. And he instantly seduced her with his penetrating gaze like the rays of the sun.
He saw her first and whistled hard and long as if he had a whistle in his mouth. His companions murmured something as they looked up to see Carmen, who was walking along the beach of the Hornillo, just below the bridge, in the precipice of the height that separated them. The Hornillo bridge towered over the rocks about thirty feet high and Carmen was a tiny woman on the large thick sand floor of the beach. The surf, which broke against the stones rhythmically and steadily, showed the foam at the top of the ridge and dissipated like the bubbles of a hot pot of water. But the Englishman glimpsed his dark hair at that distance, and his eyes slit lik
e a lynx sees its prey in the farthest distance.
- “Hey! Girl! What is your name?” -The man's voice barely heard through the emptiness that separated them. So, Carmen did not answer, just looked up for a single moment, after which it caused a certain tingling in the stomach and below.
So, the man insisted on another distant, sharp whistle at the same time. Carmen greeted him and hurried away from there walking barefoot on the gravel of the beach and the algae that were drying in the sun. But it would not end there. There was more. Everything happened so sudden ...
That same afternoon Carmen come upon a tall man with strong arms and a sailor cap turned upside down over his blond hair. It was him, and Carmen froze for a moment even though the heat was tightening that summer. The man showed her a perfect white smile, and his appearance did not seem to hide any strange restlessness. They crossed the yellow road, which ran from the caves to the Hornillo bridge. They called it that for the color of the soft sand that always showed that unusual color. Like the one on the beach, Carmen thought in an unthinking act.
- "Hello." -The man's voice was grave, thundering, and it sounded loud. Something that frightened her at first but soon succumbed to his words. – “My name is James.”
Carmen blushed and understood "Yames" but did not let him know. The boy had his appeal in the miserable light of the sun that lay for one more day, at the end of the day.
- "I'm call ... I'm Carmen," -she said, blushing a little more until the color was visible all over her face.
- "Do not be afraid, woman. I do not bite.”
He had called her a woman! This had made an impression in Carmen, who saw her heart pounding hard in the chest.
-What is your name? He asked quietly.
- “I have already told you!” -She exclaimed more loosely and crossed her fingers. The man liked it. She felt certain attraction for him, or maybe not?
- "Oh! Yes, sorry! The man tapped his forehead on the palm of his hand and added. – “Carmen.”
She laughed, crossing her feet without realizing it. It was forming a red spot to the Englishman where he had hit with his open hand. Carmen caught the spot with her eyes and pointed with a trembling index finger.
All My Life by Your Side Page 3
