All My Life by Your Side

by Claudio Hernández

  Laura was suffering a lot with everything that was happening. Her heart broken with pain, and she did not know how to face it. Especially, when the fateful day had arrived.

  Ana, Adrienne´s daughter and thus Laura´s granddaughter, was twenty-four years old when the end came. Adrienne had also left a granddaughter named Claudia with just seven years old, who did not understand why they were all afflicted and dressed in black like crows that cold day of late 1978. Neither, she did not know what all the bustle was for, almost eleven months and why her grandmother was growing bald and extremely thin.

  Joseph, her widower, was crying like a child in the first row of wooden benches, of the San José Church, located in the Plaza España, in front of the Town Hall.

  Laura, weak in her weakness, felt dizzy and spent the whole mass outside, sitting on a bench, her face bowed to the sky with her eyes closed. The cold wind that morning, on the eve of Christmas, scratched her cut skin on her face.

  Adrienne's brother Claudio was on his knees beside his uncle, his baggy eyes and fists clenched so tightly that one of his nails dug into his palm like a crescent, where a drop of blood spurted.

  The priest extended his hands and ended the Mass. The hearse was waiting at the door, on the edge of the generous stairs built of stones squeezed together.

  The thing had become complicated, and a metastasis had taken over other internal organs and her blood. That was her final point. In only two years Laura saw her parents die and now her daughter. Her heart, broken with pain, could not stand it anymore. But the thing did not end there. She still had a lot to see.

  The coffin that went hand in hand until the back of the hearse. It was pushed into the funeral car by the hands of her father, brother, daughter and men in black. The wood of the coffin emitted a loud squeal until it reached the top in what looked like a rectangular refrigerator with a bottom of almost two meters in length, all shielded from a shiny metal, probably the lock or steel. When closing the door, this one emitted a clank sonorous and the wreath of staggered in its hook. A few petals of some of the flowers that were clustered in a circle, fell inert to the cold soil of that Easter month, as had Adrienne's life, which was now inside a box of pine or oak, all painted in mahogany, in absolute darkness and resting eternally.

  The hearse began the slow march to the graveyard where the gravedigger waited with a plaster bag and a paddle in his hand. Now there were niches. The dead were no longer buried in a grave, forgotten underground. Now the niches resembled a giant beehive, where all the dead rested in a row, within a suffocating space for any living being. The right rectangle to hold a coffin.

  On the gloomy, decaying day of that December, Pedro and Laura, clutching their arms tightly, were following the hearse slowly, while their porridge heads shed tears on a gray day of ashes.

  Claudio, who had always been a tall, strong man with a cheerful character, was shuffling along, his body bent forward, like an aimless zombie. Ana, crying disconsolately behind him, hugging her boyfriend that now it did not matter who he was.

  The road from the San José Parish to the cemetery was about five kilometers and took more than forty minutes to cross the gates of the cemetery.

  When the hearse parked in front of the open niche, with a dark background, silence seized the cemetery. An instant later the squeaking of the coffin wood as it was dragged by the two men disconcerted many of those presents who shook their heads in unison.

  Laura was now at the mouth of the niche, in front of the undertaker. The two men in black were helped by Pedro, Claudio and other relatives and friends, and there was now the coffin, facing the niche, on a second floor, like a bullet that was to be loaded in a huge rifle to shoot us ever.

  - "Do you want to see her one last time?" -Said the priest, who had also moved to the place, walking behind them, as if incognito.

  Laura and Pedro nodded.

  Then the coffin opened a little, enough to see for the last time the angelic face of Adrienne. Now totally cadaverous, hairless, with blackened skin and dry, very dry and whitish lips. Eyes closed.

  - "My daughter!!! -Laura's scream sounded like the siren of a strident ambulance and the ringing of her voice. With one blow, she threw herself literally on the coffin and touched the little hair remained in Adrienne with the tips of her fingers. She was so cold! And she kissed her lips as sweetly as she could, and she panicked.

  Uneasily, her hair had turned a gray ash, and the dark blond had stopped shining ever since. And she cursed her own stamp and hated for the first time what was called "Love."

  15

  Year 1980

  The Cosmopolitan City of Barcelona

  Two years later Laura and Pedro decided to go to live in the cosmopolitan city of Barcelona, ​​to forget, to start a new life. To write new letters now would not make sense. To forget his first letter inserted in a green bottle that was thrown into the sea since a long time. To stop punishing herself. But she did not succeed, because fate gave her a new surprise, although the years she was in Barcelona, ​​which was six, was the reencounter with Pedro, his first love. She needed to grow old without further suffering in the heart, in the soul, inside her. She needed to start a new life, as she did in France without carrying any luggage. Just that at this time, she will take it. And Laura was already sixty-six.

  It was the last conversation she had with his son Claudio before leaving for Barcelona.

  - "Mama, will you be all right alone there in Barcelona?" -Her son Claudio was holding his mother's hand in his warm hands.

  - "Aguilas bring me too many bad memories," -Laura said with a duller look than ever. She looked sad, disheartened, and now her hair was ashen. The blue of his eyes was still there, but they seemed to have darkened in tone.

  - "I know, Mom. Many things have happened in the last few years," -Claudio said without count Adèle since he was unaware of her relationship with her, even though he knew that she cried a lot for her. Adèle was a secret of her mother and grandmother. - "But I think you should be you and Dad around the family," -Claudio insisted, rubbing his hands.

  - "No, son. It is time to start again. And I've already told you that this town brings me too many bad memories." She paused, staring, and added. - "I have also had good times ..."

  - "You see Mom!" -Exclaimed Claudio, shaking his chair.

  - "There's no going back," -her mother whispered, pulling her hands away. It was already too hot. - "This is not a break or abandonment. They are a vacations, so we'll keep in touch by mail or by phone."

  - "You better, Mom," -said Claudio.

  And this time it was one of those times he saw her dark gaze and round face.

  It had been a long time since she had not been travelling by train, since she returned from France, and seeing the train station, it brought her too many memories, yes, very nice all of them. She thought of how much she suffered from her ass, sitting on those benches with wooden boards that led her to Perpignan. But she enjoyed the trip. Pedro was serious, and though he was never a funny man, although generous and kind, he was standing, with a serious countenance, clutching one of his suitcases resting on the floor.

  - "Let's go to Barcelona, says the song," -said Pedro on that early morning of April 1980. Laura glanced at him in the shadows of the streetlights of the station, and saw in him a Pedro, sad, but beginning to reawaken, as when she met him.

  ... One of those eggs, you will cook for me ...

  But this time there were no eggs or escape for love. Claudio and Ana and the rest of the family had been said goodbye the day before, but they insisted on keeping them company until the train station. Laura did not want to.

  The commuter train was purring on the rails on the track number one. It was quiet, but the noise of its diesel engines could be heard several hundred yards around. It was no longer a steam train, that was the first difference that Pedro discovered even keeping his gaze fixed on a dead-end.

  There were people around them who only carried the bag on their backs, th
e women, and the men their hands sunk in the pockets of their pants for heat. Although it was spring, at six o'clock in the morning, there was frost. Pedro noticed in one of his head movements, a young couple loaded with dark and swollen suitcases and thought, that unlike the rest, they would be starting a long journey, like them. The rest, it would be workers or the routine visit to go to the specialists of lung, heart or ... His curious mind made a stop and lost his gaze again.

  Laura by her side, waited with her arms crossed under the damp dawn that wrapped her as a fresh rag took out of the water. She was silent.

  The reviewer began to open the train doors one, by one and the lights of the carriages blinked before turning on. Pedro thought that even the trains had fluorescent lamps while at home they kept the light bulbs.

  People started to get on the train, taking special care of the steps. Pedro and Laura grabbed the handles of their respective suitcases and advanced towards one of the open doors. A young man, seeing them tremble with the weight of their bags, offered to help them. They nodded and forced a grin. Two hours later and after an incessant rattling, although not as abrupt as those of the past, they arrived at the station of Carmen de Murcia, lounging in the comfortable seats of the train. The stop was mandatory. At ten-thirty a long Talgo train, as Pedro had never seen it, was on track number three. With a powerful roar that narrowed down anyone. It was a big monster breathing in its nostrils. The smoke, this time came out from under the train machine fired like a flamethrower.

  That train, even more, comfortable and fast, would take them to the Sants station in Barcelona. Laura had stayed the whole trip quiet, looking out the window as the silhouettes of trees and houses blurred. Pedro, however, was more active, watching every part of the Talgo wagon and getting excited when it caught high speed in the straight lines without making almost noise.

  When they got off at the Sants station in Barcelona, ​​a whole new world suddenly appeared in front of them. From a quiet town to an awakened, multicultural city and people moving greedily from side to side. Something like what they found in Paris, but more to the beast.

  Pedro had seen for the first-time mechanic stairs, and it was such a scare that he gave himself up the stairs of a lifetime. Laura was behind him, quietly, pulling her suitcase until a young girl offered to help her and she sketched another forced smile.

  They lived six years in Barcelona until Pedro passed away at the age of seventy-two and returned to Aguilas with his feet ahead.

  One night, two months after being installed in an old apartment on one of the streets overlooking the Ramblas of Barcelona, ​​which ran between Plaza de Catalunya, the city's nerve center and the old port. From the third floor of the street known as Carrer de Saint Pau, Laura was encouraged to write, something that, nevertheless, did not stop at all. Her now, cursed desires, turned into reflections of herself and of what was happening around her. Of what she would have avoided seeing if she had planned the plan well.

  She tightened her pen with her faint bony fingers and began to write in master's handwriting.

  My husband is sleeping as usual, sideways to the left and snoring too loud. Now we're both together and alone, trying to recover our love that seems to have been lost. I have not made love to him since I met Adèle, which was surely my great love of my life. With her I felt what I do not feel for Pedro now, nor so much as at the beginning that everything was wonderful for both of us, although we spent hardships for a few months in France. We loved each other with madness, and the fruit of them was born my two children, Claudio and Adrienne. Now my daughter Adrienne and Adèle are no longer in my life. Both succumbed to the disease, one before the other and God, if it exists, I doubt it, it snatched them from my life, as happened with my parents. At least my father died of sadness. I am still alive, and I have no desire to do anything else in this cruel life.

  I still wonder what happened to that letter I wrote at the age of sixteen and I throw into the sea in a green bottle. Will it appear in the port of Barcelona sometime? Who knows, maybe it´s been lying on the bottom of the sea since the same day, and that's why everything has gone so wrong for a while now.

  Now I must confront my reality and my fears and make new friendships to forget and try to find the lost love again for my husband, who is still snoring in the bed ...

  She left the letter down on the dining room table and headed straight to the room. This time, yes, after many years of sleeping in different beds, now they only had one bed.

  Laura, leaning back on the bed, put her thin, spotted hand on Pedro's shoulder and let herself be carried away by the sound of the cars outside, which sounded like a purr until she fell asleep.

  In 1983 Laura was sixty-nine years old, and her face had rejuvenated a few years with the help of her two new friends, Montserrat and Paula. When Pedro was absence, with whom she had not yet managed to start a new stage between them, the three of them went to the movies together, drank coffee in the cafeteria and walked along the Ramblas in Barcelona, ​​where they always found that spirit of life and joy.

  Her two friends were widows for a few years ago and were a slightly older than Laura. They were past seventy years and looked so jovial, Laura thought over and over. Both, neither had an extraordinary but rather painful life because of the death of their parents and husbands. Unlike Laura, they had not planned their lives, and all the losses of their loved ones were the fruit of the course of the lifetime. By aging. The most natural in the world. So, they were not so distressed by pain but rather by memories.

  Together, they travelled throughout the province of Gerona, visiting a multitude of rural places with centuries old green and leafy forests that were submerged in the silence of nature, except when a hare jumped above the tall grass or a bird sang from a twisted branch and moldy.

  And although Barcelona had beaches, they discovered the other beaches of Gerona. All of them arranged in the line along the Mediterranean known in Catalonia, such as the Costa Brava. It began at Blanes and ended at the border with France in Portbou, which brought so many memories to Laura and then the alcohol appeared in her life.

  - "Mom, how are you and Dad?" -It was Claudio's distorted voice over the old phone.

  - "Yes. We are very well as I have written to you several times."

  - "I know mom, but it's because you never talk much about Dad, just like something happens between you two ..."

  - "No way! "We got along great," -Laura lied in a shaky voice. I have two new friends; you know that?"

  - "Yes, for several months. You always mention them more than Papa," Claudio's synthesized voice grumbled.

  - "Oh! -Laura entered the silence as something clicked on the telephone line. - "I spend more time with my friends than with Dad. You know that Daddy has changed a lot lately and it seems like he has been lost from all that ..."

  - "I know," -cut Claudio's blunt voice. - "Do not remind me that."

  - "And how are you all there in Aguilas-?" "Laura acted quickly with a counter-offense.

  - "Good Mom. It's all the same here; we're all getting older, and the kids growing." -There was a click that silenced Claudio's voice, and finally, he said, - "We look forward to seeing you. We do not know how you are now physically. I need, we need to see your faces."

  - "The time will come to see us, son," -Laura said, throwing the stone on the neighbor's roof. For some strange reason, now she did not want to have the family by her side.

  - "We can make a trip ..."

  - "Do not! -His mother cut him roughly. - "Needless. We, your father and I, will go to Aguilas very soon."

  - "Okay, Mom." -There was another click on the lines. - "And change the phone you hear very badly at this stage in life."

  - "I'll do it, my son."

  But she did not. When she hung up the phone, she dialed her friend Montserrat's phone number to stay with her for a few drinks ...

  One night, as usual, Pedro was asleep and snoring in too much of a hurry, Laura and her friends were playing Parc
heesi in the dining room while their eyes watched with eager longing, the whisky glasses on the table. And then the hands reached out to them and with an exceptional dexterity ended on their lips and the fire descended throughout the throat, feeling at the same time, how life looked better that way.

  Two bottles of good whisky were falling every night, which each day brought one of them alternating and then something happened that impacted Laura, a moment of which her bluish eyes briefly shone after a long time.

  Montserrat and Paula toasted the two glasses and then drank it anxiously. After a quick blow, as they set the empty glasses on the dark wooden table, their eyes met in the middle of silence. And then they brought their faces close to touching their lips painted with dark red. Paula put a hand on Montserrat's neck and kissed her dry lips. Laura remembered then how she tasted the kisses of Adèle and felt those extreme and strange sensations inside her body again.

  Then the three of them laughed together in the middle of drunkenness that would not be the last. Not the only kiss, when her marriage with Pedro was fractured at all.

  In a conversation with Pedro with serious gentleness, she became sincere with him.

  - "We do not have sex anymore, darling," -Pedro whispered, sitting on the couch with his arms on his back.

  - "You've already told me that a hundred times."

  - "And I'll tell you a thousand times if necessary!" - Pedro's voice rose in volume. Outside the murmur of people would burst through the open window.

  - "I just do not feel like it. Many things have happened, and I think I should visit a specialist." -With his index finger pointed her temple.

  Pedro lowered his arms to his knees. The palms of the hands faced down and breathed deeply with a strange noise as if something was raging in there.