I was watching it for a while and I began to think about how curious it is that even in nature, there are massive differences. Tiny plants born next to towering trees, long-necked giraffes alongside large-shelled turtles with almost no neck at all, although I do know that in Australia, there is a native species of turtle with a long neck. That’s rare of course, but there are many things there that can’t be found anywhere else except for in those distant lands, from what I’ve read about them.
Well, this wasn’t the time to think about that, although one day I would like to visit that distant country and check out the curiosities of its culture for myself.
We Galicians have always boasted about the antiquity of our land, but I think the aborigines in Australia say that they have lived there for 40,000 years, that the gods had left them there to take care of everything and that one day they would return and hold them accountable for it.
Of course it’s important to see that different beliefs are held in different places, and I dare say, something really must be hidden behind traditions, because if not, where did they come from? Who was the first to come up with them? And why have they not been lost with the passage of time?
Too many questions always arise as soon as you start to really think about something, but it would be interesting to know all the answers.
I remembered that there is a belief in witches, or “the Meigas” in my beloved Galicia, and when you ask people, as I had asked my grandmother on several occasions:
“Have you ever seen a ‘Meiga?’” I asked her inquisitively, so she would tell me.
“No, child, never, but I’m sure they exist, as they say, ‘Just because you haven’t seen them, it doesn’t mean they’re not there,’ and if you don’t believe in them, they come and punish you,” my grandmother would answer very seriously.
That subject had scared me for a time, and it made me not want to go to my grandparents’ house. I was almost sure that because my grandmother believed in them, even though she had never seen one, a “Meiga” was roaming around her house, and I didn’t want it to see me. When it saw that I didn’t believe they existed, it would punish me by not letting me play or by taking away my snack, which was worse, because as my brothers say, I have always been a glutton.
My father used to say that I must have “Tapeworms,” because I was always eating and I was like a toothpick. I didn’t understand it, but the truth is that I’ve been thin all my life. My mother put it down to soccer, and more than once when she got angry because I had borrowed something, Carmen had called me scrawny, which she knew bothered me a lot.
“It seems you’re jealous of me,” I would say, “for not having my slim figure and you can’t eat all the bread you want, because you say that bread is fattening. It must be for you because I eat sandwiches and I’ve never put on weight. Maybe it’s that the bread knows who’s eating it, and since it knows that you don’t like to be chubby, the bread stays inside your body just to annoy you and it sees that such nonsense doesn’t matter to me, so it leaves me in peace.”
The discussion would have to end, because my mother would get between us and say:
“That’s enough, everyone eats their own food, case closed.”
Leaving a piece of her snack as soon as my mother left, she would hand it to me and say:
“Let’s see if this’ll make some of your bones less noticeable.”
I was delighted that she would give it to me, I don’t remember ever saying no.
CHAPTER 5.
A mild ache in my belly reminded me that I hadn’t eaten anything for a long time. At that moment, I suddenly heard a noise and I said to myself, “What’s that sound? It sounded like someone was raising a metal shutter, the kind they have in some stores. Let’s see if I’m lucky and it’s a coffee shop or something. Whatever it is, at this point I’ll settle for anything, sweet or savory, it’s all the same to me, but I can’t hold out much longer without getting a bite to eat,” I thought, “I’m going to end up fainting.”
Getting up from those stones that I’d spent such a long time sitting on, and becoming aware of some pain in my buttocks, caused by the discomfort of my seat, I headed toward the place where I thought that sound had come from.
I was walking slowly, my legs seemed to be half asleep because of the way they’d been positioned, when I suddenly saw a girl walking a dog. She was calling it beautiful and other things that I found amusing.
Why do people imagine that animals are listening to them? I have stopped to think about that at times. I had a neighbor who lived alone, and with the idea of keeping loneliness at bay, or so he told me, he bought a puppy. It was a tiny little thing, a Chihuahua, I think it’s called. If you weren’t careful, you could step on it, and when I would meet him on the porch as he was coming in or setting out for a walk, my neighbor would tell me:
“Manu, you have no idea how good company he is.”
Smiling and doubting his words, I would leave and hear him talking to his dog as I walked away.
“Let’s go here or there, I know you like it there,” he would say to the dog.
How did he know what his dog liked? What an imagination. Well, this girl was so entertained talking to her dog, that when I said, “Hi,” having not seen me approach, she was startled, so I immediately added:
“Don’t be afraid, I just wanted to ask you if you knew where there was a coffee shop that would be open at this time.”
After her fright, she had pulled on the dog’s chain and placed him between us, to defend her. She made a gesture with a shrug of her shoulders to show that she hadn’t understood me, which made me realize that I had spoken to her in Spanish.
I immediately said the same thing in Italian, and when she heard it, smiling, she extended her arm and pointed to a place for me. I looked toward the place she had indicated and saw that the curtains were being drawn at that moment. Yes, that must have been the place where I had heard them raising the shutter earlier, I had no doubt. I thanked her and headed over there with long strides.
I pushed on that glass door and looking over near the windows, I saw that a waiter was finishing drawing the curtains, he still had the cord in his hands.
“Buongiorno, can you give me something to eat?” I asked immediately, trying to pronounce it properly and in a way that he would understand me. He didn’t react as that girl had just a moment ago.
Looking at me in surprise, he replied:
“We don’t have anything at all. This is a coffee shop, there is no food, we’re only just opening,” he told me in Italian of course, but speaking slowly. It was clear that he was used to talking to strangers, perhaps visitors from other countries, because he understood very well.
As I sat there at a table, I said:
“Whatever you have, cake, bread with butter or coffee with some cookies, whatever you want, but surely you have something in there that could placate my stomach,” and I put my hand on my stomach to make it clearer.
He didn’t seem to understand me as well that time, even though I had taken a lot of care when I said it, but turning around and without saying anything, he went into what I assumed must be the kitchen, and immediately came back out with a plate full of pastries.
My eyes widened when I saw that treat. Given my sweet tooth and the hunger I felt, surely I wouldn’t leave a single one.
I held back, but as soon as he left it on the table, I thanked him and took the first one, I wasn’t going to be fussy.
I reached out for the biggest one, which was decorated, it was covered in chocolate. I could not believe how lucky I was while I took my first bite. “Food finally,” I told myself.
I was like a little kid, but I was already feeling very faint, so I said to myself, “Why should I wait before I have more?” and when I’d finished with that one, I took another.
I was starting to eat that one when the waiter approached me. He was holding a cup of steaming hot coffee in his hand, which smelled… Aaah! It smelled so good! How wonderful! That made me forget all my aches and pains.
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Ever since my student days, coffee has been my drug of choice. I’ve never even considered trying any others, even though “certain companions” have invited me to on occasion, I have always been clear, no drugs. They bring a lot of problems, but I had never been able to resist coffee.
Of course I picked up the habit at home, with the coffee my mother made. I’ve never had any quite like it, and of course I dare say, knowing how much mothers love their children, none would consider giving their kids a substandard version of something.
Therefore, if she made me that delicious coffee every morning, well, it was sure to be a decent brew, not that she would give me a lot. Whenever she poured it for me, I would ask her for “one more little splash,” and she would top me up with a few more drops on top of what she had already given me, saying:
“That’s enough to keep you alert.”
That’s how I gradually fell in love with coffee and I’ve never gotten out of the habit. It’s not that I abuse it, but it’s true that I prefer it to anything else.
A warm sip of that coffee that the waiter had given me made me recall that now long ago day and that decision I had made. I had to learn everything I could about those three children, and about what really happened.
Surely they’ll all be stories whipped up by priests. They were Portuguese and when communism was introduced there, someone very smart must have said, “Let’s fight it,” and the plan was surprising at best, they would have to have had a lot of resources to implement it.
Because of what little information I’d been able to glean so far, led by my curiosity, there were people who really believed it, even that “the sun had danced”, what nonsense! How far did superstition go? How can you be deceived like this and believe that nonsense?
But I was ready and willing to discover the deception. I had no idea how difficult that would be, but I had nothing better to do. I would devote myself to it for as long as necessary, because when I set out to do something, I go all in to reach my goal.
