Building bridges, not walls
Marina found herself alone with four children under her wing, and when the government rejected her request for a widow’s pension. They said that her husband was not deceased, and she could not prove her husband’s death. She was forced to sell her brooches, fabrics and everything that her husband, in an attempt to buy her affection, had given her over the years of their marriage.
Marina se vio sola con cuatro hijos bajo sus alas, y cuando el gobierno rechazó su petición de pensión de viudedad, ya que su marido no estaba fallecido y no podía demostrar su muerte, se vio obligada a vender sus broches, telas y todo lo que su marido, en un intento por comprar su cariño, le había ido regalando en esos años de matrimonio.
Teodoro finished his cigarette. It was 9 o’clock in the morning on August 8th, 1936, in Sant Celoni. He knew that in fifteen minutes the CNT truck will come for him, to do the unimaginable. There was nothing to be done. Resisting would be suicide. He never imagined that things would get this extreme.
Teodoro termina su cigarrillo. Son las nueve de la mañana del 8 de Agosto de 1936 en Sant Celoni. Sabe que en quince minutos pasará a buscarlo el camión de la CNT, a ejecutar lo inimaginable. No hay nada que hacer. Resistirse sería suicida. Nunca imaginó que la situación llegaría a estos extremos.
Ever since they boarded the Baltic they’ve killed the hours with long conversations, which at times have been a welcoming respite and other times a tedious condemnation. Aquilino tends to favor silence and has little in common with these middle-aged married men. But half of the village has decided to emigrate to San Francisco, so Aquilino is resigned to the company that destiny has provided.
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.
THE WANDERING BARD 