I close my eyes and remember the harrowing noises from the war; they are still damp with tears. I watch these memories all go by like a film; the people, the fear, that first time a bomb burst into the silence of the night. Sweet dreams shattered by a gunshot. I remember my people, the horror on their faces and the feelings come flooding back. I quickly got up from my bed and ran to find my little sisters in the room next to mine. Everything was rumbling, the walls were cracking, the ceiling was cracking and the dust that had sat on the corners of the high walls, began to fall like snow on our heads. The smell of old, forgotten blood and fear filled the air.
Renzo Puntarelli Valenzuela
My mother always said, ‘Sunny days are the best days to plant white gardenias on the balcony.’ She might not have enough money to buy bread, but there was always some money for her gardenias. I almost felt sorry for her; everyone in the family knew about her obsession with buying the elegant, aromatic flowers. They framed the old, forged ironwork of her balcony. She bought them every day until the day she died.
It’s a sad story. We never spoke about it. Without even agreeing to it, we had a family pact to not ask her about it. The truth is we knew and didn’t want to remember. Over the years, the pain of the story faded away. My sister, Charo, hated our mother’s ritual. Not because she thought it was stupid, but because for her it was a morbid thing. These days I take the gardenias to my mother’s grave. A person’s memory can be deep, like the ache in your feet after a long road travelled. I close my eyes and remember the harrowing noises from the war; they are still damp with tears. I watch these memories all go by like a film; the people, the fear, that first time a bomb burst into the silence of the night. Sweet dreams shattered by a gunshot. I remember my people, the horror on their faces and the feelings come flooding back. I quickly got up from my bed and ran to find my little sisters in the room next to mine. Everything was rumbling, the walls were cracking, the ceiling was cracking and the dust that had sat on the corners of the high walls, began to fall like snow on our heads. The smell of old, forgotten blood and fear filled the air.
‘What was that? Flavio, save us!’ Luisa Aurea said in a trembling voice whilst she hugged Charito under the bed.
My sisters’ screams made the situation tense. I pulled them out from under their bed as our parents peered out, ready to run with us from the chaos.
‘Let’s go. Hurry up! Down to the basement. Follow the neighbours, they’re already heading there. Run, quickly.’ Don Julio shouted to us whilst taking one of the girls from me. We followed the crowd and the trembling candlelight held by our mother.
‘Where was it this time?’ I asked anxiously.
My father’s face was sombre. He reminded me of Jesus, on the day of his crucifixion. ‘I think they blew up the florist, around the corner,’ he whispered. ‘They won’t stop until they bury everyone under the rubble.’
‘Hurry up!’, my mum hissed, urging us down the stairs.
The crowd of neighbours swarmed through chaos. Cries of fear filled the air. We heard one neighbour, Don Baltazar, shouting about his collection of toy soldiers. He was trying to push against the crowd, trying to get to the fourth floor to fetch his relics. Don Alvaro held him tightly by the arm and pulled him back. I remember this moment of absurdity, observing the stubbornness of a man in the middle of a war. But I understand that when a man’s ideals are crossed by fire, what remains is to die or to bow down. Despite his insistence, he was forced to follow the mass of frightened lambs, as if to the slaughterhouse itself.
The bullets sang along with the scream of my sisters. Muffled cracks as they became embedded in the walls of the building. Blessed are they, because if not for these walls we wouldn’t be here. We’d be riddled with bullets, half dead. Outside, the bursts of bullets, the bombs, the expletives and screams became louder and louder. The calm spring night was streaked with pools of libertarian blood.
Upon entering the small and dark cellar, Doña Angustias did a head count. A calmness lulls the residents as they stand amidst old pipes, dusty boxes and forgotten motets. Suddenly, they heard a scream. A dry, howling scream that breaks the calm and incessant banging starts at the entrance of the old building. The old door, which separates them from the surrounding chaos, clangs in its stained-glass windows to the sound of a girl’s screams.
‘Help, please!’ exclaims the desperate stranger, ‘open the door!’
‘Who’s there?’, asked my mother.
An unnerving silence fills the basement, no one knows.
‘It sounds like the florist’s daughter, Lucia. I’m going to open the door’, Doña Angustias said in astonishment, heading up the stairs.
‘No!’, shouted my father. ‘If we open the door to her, we could let the insurgents in. We could all die’, his tone was firm and bitter. In the background, the screams of the despairing girl filled the air.
‘But Dad, she’s our friend. She always gives us gardenias and she’s good to us.’ Luisa Aurea shouted, indignantly.
‘Her father was arrested by the nationalists.’ Don Alvaro voice was thick, a with a hint of rejection towards the girl. ‘They’re raiding houses and are arresting rebels to the throne. Maybe they are coming for her.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘What I find strange is that she is outside at this time of night anyway.’
‘Lucia is good!’ Charito cried out, and without fully understanding the situation. She sobbed, worried about saving her good friend of the flower shop.
‘She is just a young girl, she is diligent and polite, she has been working in her father’s shop since her mother passed. She always helps in the neighbourhood, she doesn’t have any bad habits, we must help her for God’s sake! How can we leave her at the mercy of the brutal streets?’ said Doña Fina, reprimanding those present with her moral tone,
Everyone averted their gaze. Some to the floor, others to the emptiness of the room itself. Some neighbours hug their young tightly, who were crying into their mother’s skirts. There was panic, you could smell it. The men’s manhood was tamed with every bullet they heard. Suddenly, without question or permission, Doña Angustias rushed out of the doorway to help the desperate Lucía. She as followed by Doña Fina, emboldened by the solidarity of saving their young neighbour. Lucía’s screams were heart breaking.
‘Let me in! They’re coming, they’re coming’, she exclaimed in horror from the street.
I don’t really remember how it all happened; I could only hear the uproar from below. My mother spent weeks in silence, staring into the void. I could never understand her, even when we got off the boat in the port of Valparaíso. I kept seeing her with her lifeless gaze into the void, observing the vastness of the sea, searching for the girl with the flowers.
It was violent. A hail of bullets invaded the atmosphere. The windows of the doorway flew out of their frames, and the women who went to the rescue threw themselves to the ground, covering their heads. The bullets flew swiftly down the long corridor that led to the stairs. Everything happened amidst the dim flickering lights of the building, which struggled to stay on with the rumbling of the nearby bombs. It felt like an eternity of chaos for the panicked neighbours, but it couldn’t have lasted more than three seconds. Then there was silence, and the metallic smell of fresh blood.
‘Oh my God oh my God, what’s happening!’, sobbed Doña Angustias, clinging to the ground.
My mother, stunned by the surprise of the angry spectacle, slowly got up from the floor. Amidst broken glass and the smell of gunpowder she looked straight ahead towards the doorway, hoping to see Lucía. She was dazed by all the gun violence that had just befallen them. She can’t quite understand what is happening, she saw blood splattered on the doors and pieces of window still hanging from the frame. She didn’t need to understand any more. There wasn’t even a whisper from Lucía. Only the disconcerting screams of Doña Angustias broke up the scene. Everything happened so fast she felt dizzy. Her body was heavy, her ears were ringing. Everything felt far away. A hand, from behind, lifts her forcefully just as her eyesight begins to blur.
My father and I rushed to help when we heard the bullets and found her lying on the ground trembling. She slumped in my father’s arms.
We quickly ran back to the cellar. Into the darkness.
Behind us, two bloodstained gardenias sat, between the rubble and the bullets casings.
This story was translated by Jack Caine and edited by Jasmin Griffiths.
Renzo Puntarelli Valenzuela was born in Viña del Mar and grew up between Chile and Spain. Nowadays he lives in Madrid where he’s studying a Law degree with the UCM. In the past, he studied Philosophy at university level at the UCH and graduated with a degree in Legal Sciences at the PUCV. He’s written La Danza de los Faisanes. He is also a traveller, volunteer at various non-governmental organisations and a passionate bohemian.
Jack Caine is a twenty-something freelance translator from the Lake District, England who translates documents from Spanish, German and Italian into English on topics such as literature, other cultures, travelling and more.
Jasmin Griffiths is a Plymouth University graduate with a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing. She grew up in the south of Spain and after moving back to England decided to pursue her passion of writing. She has performed music and her poetry all over the country and also enjoys writing creative nonfiction and short stories.
This short story is part of a research project on speculative historical fiction in Ireland and Spain funded by the AHRC and the University of Plymouth.
Picture credits: Adam Tracksler
THE WANDERING BARD 