"To the Spaniards who've died in exile." "In those days when it happened, I was still a little girl." "What I wouldn't give to be so little now." "That is, if I'm not still that little girl." "Back then, there was something in the streets, something in the homes which later disappeared with that war." "That war which I once saw around the rooftops of the houses." "That war which appeared one day with the cry of that woman." "It was an afternoon like those at home often were." "A quiet, balmy afternoon, although in the past few days, there had always been strangers coming and going, and speaking softly with Dad." "Today the house was quiet again." "And the sun was coming into the room through the balcony." "In the living room, my parents were listening to music." "My sister was studying in her room." "And I was in mine, carefully taking apart a watch." "I was doing it very carefully, because the watch wasn't mine and I was afraid they'd see me and might punish me for it." "It was that afternoon when I saw that man climb down from the roof and hide." "Keep still." "Keep still, so they won't see you." "I won't say anything." "Don't be afraid." "Really, I promise I won't." "Just keep still." "Otherwise they'll see you." "Don't you see?" "I'm looking away." "I'll look somewhere else so they'll think you're not here." "Look, look at how well I'm doing it." "Aren't I doing it well?" "Don't move." "Make yourself tiny, tiny..." "Don't you see?" "They're leaving now." "There, there!" "Get him!" "Grab him!" "In the window!" "On the side there!" "He'll get away!" "Look at him!" "In the window!" "Point your guns at that red!" "That one, that one, grab him!" "I'm glad, I'm glad...!" "Stay there." "Don't move." "Mom!" "Mom, hey!" "War is here." "War, Mom!" "Good morning, Mom." "Go on, eat." "With one hand, with the other... with both... with one foot, with the other, with..." "Hello, Gabriela." " Hello, little girl." " Hello." " Don't you know who I am?" " I don't remember." "Well I know who you are." "You're Helizondo's daughter." "Gabriela, right?" "Yes, sir." "You can't remember me because you don't know me." "But I'm a good friend of your father." "Tell me, how is he?" " Good." " I'm so happy to hear that." "He's not at home, is he?" "Why don't you answer, darling?" "He's not there, is he?" "Then where is he, sweetie?" "Come on, come on." "Haven't you ever gone with your mother to see him?" "Now try to remember." "Is he at some friend's house?" "You must remember, come on." "Tell me, and it'll be our little secret." "I see, I see." "Don't worry, little girl." "We'll find him." "I beat you, I beat you." "I don't care." "The red, the red!" "Get the red, get the red!" "Hey you!" "GREETINGS COMRADES" " Hey, where's that man?" " What man?" "The one from yesterday." "Boom, boom!" "They killed him!" "Gabriela, Gabriela." "Come on, honey." "Get up." "We have to leave." "Come on, honey." "Get dressed." "I'll be right back." "Come on, I'll help you." "We have to hurry up." " Where are we going?" " Well..." "We're just going." " But why now?" "I'm sleepy." " Because." "Dad's going to try to escape later, and we'll meet him on the other side." "The other side?" "Enough questions." "I'm going to help Mom." "Gabriela, you can't take anything with you." "Okay, something that fits in your hand." "For the little monkey... for Andoni, for Maite, for Miren..." "And for the little chicken." "All of you, all of you." "Cheer up, girls, okay?" "And remember:" "we're going on vacation." "Someone who just got here told me." " I can't believe it." " At first I didn't either, but you can't put anything past those reds." " Jesus!" "It's like I told you:" "heads hanging from the trees." "Not one or two, but hundreds." "Severed, and hanging from the trees!" "They're along the roadways." "Antonio himself told me so." "He saw it, and he's not going to lie." "Come on, you know him." "He told me that they put out their eyes first." " How terrible!" " Those lowlifes!" "We already know what to expect from those people." "We saw it coming." "When that union thing happened, remember how they got?" "You couldn't even go out into the street." "It's disgusting." "And with this heads thing, at this rate..." "Goodbye, ma'am." "I have to go back." "They'll drop you off near the trail." "Get a move on!" "Good morning, and a fine one at that." "Yes... yes, I saw lots of thrushes." "Come on." "María, wake up." "Gabriela, come on." "We'll be there soon." "We're on the other side." "Come on, come on." "No, Mom." "We're not there yet." "I don't see the heads." "THEY SHALL NOT PASS!" "AGAINST FASCISM" "We were completely trapped, and we had to get out of Nafa." " I already told the commander." " Well of course." " Greetings." "Our cousins, our cousins!" "Our cousins are here, Mom." "Come here!" "Come here, I'll show you my parchís board." "Come on!" "Isabel." " Have you heard anything about Andrés?" " Isabel..." "I've already told you." "You do it, please." "I don't know what more to tell you." "Well..." "Something must've gone wrong during the escape, and they caught him, and..." "Has anyone seen him dead?" "Yes, a comrade." "He..." "You go to the bread line, and I'll go to the one for milk." "Gabriela." " Yes?" " Be careful." " Okay." "The girl was afraid." "Her fear was so great that she couldn't move." "What could the girl do with that fear weighing so heavily on her?" "For a long time, she'd been sitting with her fear in that hallway, hardly daring to move." "For a long time, she also wondered why she was afraid, and didn't know." "When she'd been bad, she knew what she was afraid of." "She knew not to be disobedient, or to shout, or to fight with her sister." "She also knew she had to study and be good or she'd be punished." "The girl knew many things, but didn't know why she was afraid." "What scared her today wasn't the devil, because she'd been good." "And it wasn't the boogeyman who hides and scares bad children." "No, it wasn't that, because she'd been good." "What then was the girl so afraid of, if she knew that good children don't get punished?" "But I remained huddled in that hallway, where my fear was so great and in a body too small to hold it, while the bombs destroyed the city." "And so, I took a stopper." "And now I tried to remember how things had been before, before that war came, and I couldn't do it." "I tried to remember the room I used to sleep in, my bed, my notebooks, my dolls... but I couldn't do that either." "And then I thought of my father's face, and I saw that I'd forgotten that too." "I searched for his smile, and his eyes, and his forehead... but I didn't find anything." "Oui, madame." "Cafe au lait, avec croissant." "Un, deux, trois cafes, un, deux, trois croissants." "La balle!" "He tol, la nouvelle." "Passe-moi la balle." "La balle!" ""Laball"?" "La balle." "Oh, the ball!" " La balle." " La balle!" "Tu m'écriras, he?" " Au revoir, Gabriela." " Au revoir." "I knew nostalgia, and now I would know... exile." ""It's incredible how time passes."" "I'd heard that phrase so many times, and now there it was, with me." "I was the one repeating it." "It's incredible how time passes." "Why hadn't they told me before what time was?" "Why hadn't you put it in my hands and shown it to me?" ""Look, little girl." "This is time."" "Time is ten fingers for counting." "I'm 7 years old: 5 on the right hand, and 2 on the left." "And later, time is Christmases." "The next Christmas, and the one after." "And later, it stops being time and becomes dates." "My saint's day, my birthday, and the day of my first communion." "And later, time becomes distance." "5 years after the war, 9 years after the war," "20 years after the war." "And later it becomes short." "How many years has it been?" "And later it's not there." "You don't mark time." "It simply passes." "6 years, 7 years..." "a pleasant afternoon." "But now I realize that I'm getting older." "When I'm older, I would say." "Then." "When I get married, then, then, then." ""Then" was receding into the past, "then" wasn't becoming now." "But what was "then"?" "What was I looking to "then" for?" "What did I have then that I need and don't have now?" "When I'm 8 years old again." "When I'm 15 again." "Yes, when I'm 20 again." "I've woken up to that sentence the past few nights." "Yes, when I'm 20 years old again, then I'll do it better." "What will you do better when you're 8 years old again?" "Watch..." "Watch everything closely to remember it all." "Store it in a box and lock it." "That's how I've woken up the past few nights, with something choking me." "Something I had put off would rise up in me and choke me." "Then I would curl up in bed and smile." "Next time..." "Yes, next time..." "When I'm 20 years old again, I'll do it right." "And now I realize that 20 years have passed." "20 years!" "Of what?" "Mother, please Mother, be well." "Tell me you are." "Tell me you're well." "Tell me that when I get home, I'll see you smile." "Tell me there won't be pain in your face." "Tell me I'll get there and when you hear me enter, you'll say:" ""You know, Gabriela, I'm feeling much better now."" "I wish you would say it." "I wish everyone would say it." "Yes, Mother, please." "I want to hear you say it." "I want you to say it to me, because if you don't..." "Who will I be able to ask why you've suffered so much?" "Poor, poor Mom." "Poor old Mom." "You were little once." "Who will I be able to ask so many things?" "Really, so many, many things." "Who will I be able to ask?" "Who will be able to tell me?" "If anyone even could tell me." "If anyone even could explain." "I don't remember anything." "I don't remember anything anymore." "I just want to live." "I don't want to understand, Mom." "Who will I be able to ask?" "Please be well, okay?" "Please." " Do you remember those cakes?" " Delicious." "I think that once, around Christmas, I brought you a strawberry or fruit salad one." " She lent it to me twice more." " You didn't borrow it; you took it!" "That's what I don't remember:" "if she lent it to me, or if I traded it to her for an album." " Oh, that blue one!" "Okay, I'm going." "If I don't, we'll stay here talking for years." "That's fine." " So you'll come eat tomorrow?" " Sounds great." "And so, I took a stopper." "She wasn't so young now when she returned to her house." "Maybe that was why she didn't remember it." "Many years had passed, as many as had passed since the start of the war in Spain." "And now, it was almost impossible for her to recognize it." "The house where she'd always lived, where she used to hear the voice of her parents, was now occupied by people she didn't know, and wouldn't have wanted to know." "But now the furniture was different." "Where there'd once been a chest that she'd hidden in as a child, there was now a shelf." "The walls, however, were the same." "Why then was it so difficult for her to recognize them?" "As a child, she remembered that, using a rock, she'd written in the window:" ""Mom and Dad"." "Maybe she'd find it there now." "She was looking for it, when she heard someone calling her:" ""Gabriela, dinner!"" "Wasn't that her father's voice?" "He must be home from the office, she thought." "Because I hear Mom laughing." "But..." "Why am I at the window?" "What am I doing here?" "What game were we playing?" ""We were playing hide and seek," she heard her sister tell her." "But where was her sister?" "She couldn't see her." "María, where are you?" "What was happening to her?" "She couldn't see anyone." "Why was she crying?" "And why had she grown so much?" "Mom..." "Why am I so tall if I'm only 7 years old?" "Mom!" "Answer me!" "Where are you all?" "I don't want to play anymore." "Don't hide." "Where is everyone?" "Don't leave me here on the balcony!" "Don't leave me alone!" "Please!" "Come play with me!" "They'll separate us and then it'll be too late!" "Come play with me!" "Help me." "Help me." "Help me!" "Please!" "Help me!" "Help me." "Why have I grown so much?" "When did I grow so much?" "Help me!"