Suddenly the sound of the matches, it was a match that was lit in the darkness and came trembling toward the cord of a candle. The miserable light illuminated between dancing shadows on the walls and ceiling, a dark room two meters by three meters. In the center of the small room was a small metal cabinet with a toilet and a chair. There was nothing else.
- "The toilet is two more doors down this street," -the tall woman explained, holding the candle in her hand. The flame moved from side to side with the movement of the woman's hand. The toilet is used by your neighbors as well, so I suggest you be quick when you defecate. At last a wince appeared on the face of the tall woman. His clear eyes shone before the candle flame.
- “What? -Laura was stunned. But she was not far from the cave where she lived with her parents in Aguilas. And suddenly she realized that love has its hard principles and the pillars afterwards would be stronger.
- "It's either there, or they take it or leave it," -the woman burst.
- "We'll have it," -Peter said quickly.
- "Well, you'll have to pay in advance."
- "Is that agreed over the phone, right?" -asked Pedro.
- "Yes." -the woman's voice was hoarse.
And for the rest of the gestation of the baby, they remain in that little room, thriving, of course.
- "Do you know how to work with the meat?" -The man seated at a small wooden table full of papers, and he wore a plastic apron that covered his whole chest and stained with blood.
- "Yes, sir," -lied Pedro.
The man looked at him sideways. Nothing wrong and Pedro was glad that the French knew how to speak Spanish mostly because otherwise, things would have been worse.
- "Here we deal with various types of meat, especially the bovine, but the pig is also booming. We freeze them, and then we cut them. It is hard work to do by hand. But it is well re-numbered."
Peter just wanted to get the job.
- "I'm interested," -said Peter with attitude.
- "I see you're a strong man. Your arms amaze me. I think you'll be ideal for transporting frozen meat from one refrigerator to another."
But what he had not told him was that they were whole pigs and calves, from the feet to the nose, even though they did split into halves. But the effort for nine hours a day was brutal.
- "I've found a job," -he said to Laura and brought his lips to hers.
- "That´s good! -She exclaimed, and her lips brushed his. They kissed sweetly for a long time, while his hand caressed the bulk of Laura's belly.
- "What will it be, boy or girl?" -Pedro asked when they had kissed. Her eyes were full of life.
- "If will born well, I'm glad," -she said and hugged him. - "I am so happy with you darling. I'm so in love with you, Pedro."
And then he kissed her again, on the floor of the small room they had rented and thought that the first thing he would do would be to buy a mattress. And he wondered how the hell there was no electricity in that house if it already existed. Every night he watched how mean light bulbs illuminated the interior of the houses. He would have that light, he told himself, as he kissed her gently.
Pedro started working the day after the interview and his job was what the man said. Carry pieces of frozen animals from one refrigerator to another. Each of those refrigerators was much larger than their rented room because it could not be called home. And it seemed to him that inside those freezers, it was much less cold than where they lived. And as he loaded with the heavy pieces, rigid like a block of ice, on his shoulder, he thought of the future and what he would do with his first money earned.
And then Laura began to write a letter to her parents. It was the best choice for her. Listening to his parents' voice on the phone would be insurmountable and painful. Besides, she would not know how his parents would respond; If the kindness they had had with her all her life had now become a trail of insults and shouts. She did not want to know. So, she chose the wisest way to express herself. A letter. Alone, in the middle of the room with the cold covering her completely, she began to write with the pencil.
Hello, Dad and Mom.
I confess that what I have done is wrong. But it is a part of my life that I formulated to follow long ago. I have fallen in love with an enviable man and we are expecting a child, well, what is usually said in these cases. We really love each other, as you love each other. It's real love. He is called Pedro and no, he did not live in the caves, but in the town, towards the center. I met him working on the railway station and from the first day I knew he was my man. The destination was marked, I knew from the beginning.
Why did I do it if I hurt you? I do not know. Soon we will return to Spain, and everything will be wonderful. But for now, I think I'm going to stay here for a while in France. People are more earnest than Aguilas, but they are good people. They help you and put everything reachable. By this, I mean that we are well, that I am well.
I miss you, and I cry every time I remember my farewell, my departure from home, but love reigns over everything and what is going to be born needs a stable life, which is what I have with Peter. He is a very responsible man, knows what he wants, and loves me with madness. Now we have little, we are renting, but soon we will be better. Pedro has found a good job, and I am sure that everything will go very well for us.
For now, this is everything, Dad and Mom. I will write to you soon. I love you. I must suffer, but I recover soon. I hope you too, and soon we will be a larger family. How nice.
Until next time!
A week later her parents received the letter, and it was the mother who read it aloud. Tears bloomed from the eyes, and every tear slipped down his cheeks like a drop of fire that left a mark on burned fire. At the end of the letter, the father, Gonzalo, leant on the back of a chair, ducked his head and began to cry like a child. At the bottom of it all, he was happy after all.
Almost at the age of eighteen, as her birthday would be at the end of September, she was in labor. Laura started for the first time in sex that month of November, and three months later, in January, she had left home, and now she was going to be a mother for the first time in July. Another of his goals she wrote in that old letter, which she would see fulfilled.
And she had to give birth on the new mattress they had bought months ago, and although there were hospitals to give birth to a child, must be the midwife (because like that were called the midwives there that help labor), the one that had to go to the little Pedro and Laura´s house, the gynecologists nonexistent in those years in Aguilas, in France, was called obstetricians and there was spinal analgesia. But Laura had to push with all her strength as her mother did in 1914 in the cave with the only help of the midwife.
A neighbor had given the alarm by making a call to the hospital, and several minutes later, the ambulance was in the door, occupying with its flashy yellow lights that stood on after the sharp siren had ceased. This neighbor could not speak Spanish. But to see the door open at the top of the stairs and heard inside sharp cries of pain, and when she saw her lying on the mattress with her huge belly pointing toward the ceiling of the room and red and light green stain between her legs, she knew what was happening. It was a birth.
At first, the doctors had thought to take her to the hospital, but the baby was in a hurry to come to this world. They saw a cucumber in her dilated vagina. Laura was sweating copiously, and her long, curly blond hair was now a hotchpotch of striated and wet spikes. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her dimples had given way to a lot of wrinkles all over her face. From the neck came two bundles that swelled in each contraction and then deflated like balloons exploited by a mischievous child.
The neighbor had already warned that it was a birth, when she called the hospital, so the midwife and an obstetrician had come. His name is Jean, and she is Alice and was not more than thirty years old. Jean was something older. He saw what she had and let the midwife do the work.
- "The baby is in a good position. It will be easy," -said the obstetrician in French
. Laura had not yet learned the new language more than a few words and between contractions "caught" some of those words. Despite everything, that reassured her.
- "I need hot water and towels," -Alice said in French to her assistant. He moved quickly, asking the neighbors, who were talking at the door below, to heat water. Laura understood nothing and only listened to unintelligible voices out there but assumed that everything would be fine.
The midwife was telling her to take a deep breath and squeeze in each contraction, that the baby's head was already peeking out, but to Laura, it all sounded like Chinese. However, she guessed right some words thanks to the gestures that made the midwife.
The pain writhed her on the mattress feeling like a hot liquid coming out of her parts and how had it each time bigger and bigger. She did not see it, but she felt it. The three of them were staring at her, in that area. The midwife is handling her vagina and baby's head very carefully.
... Everyone was watching her pussy there, Laura thought in one of the pauses ...
The midwife's assistant dropped all her weight on Laura's belly, producing great pain and relief at the same time. Peter was not there in those moments. He was working. A new contraction with shout included made Laura's half-body straighten as if pushed by a spring, and then the vagina split and the baby's whole head got out with blood and fat. And the noise of the liquid Laura would never forget. In the air, it smelled of a strange human fragrance, water, blood and alcohol. Alcohol? Pushed once more and the baby's shoulders came out through the same huge hole through which he had passed his head, and more liquid came out, and the midwife`s face showed an extended smile. The pain had suddenly disappeared and Laura's heart that had been about to explode decelerated its pulsations little by little, when she felt the baby's small feet come out of her pussy.
- "It's a boy," -said the midwife, gently lifting the baby smeared with blood. And although Laura did not understand what the midwife had said, she imagined it when she saw the baby's large black balls.
Outside, the curious neighbors began to applaud, and much later, after everything was over, Pedro returned home and did not see her there. As he already mastered some French, he talked to the neighbors and went directly to Sant Germain Hospital.
7
Year 1936
Adrienne Is Born
Life in France in those years was not exactly simple because of the death of the Third French Republic leaders. Even though it already seemed France abandoned the order of the republic with the death of its leaders Aristide Briand in 1932 and that of Raymond Poncaré in 1934. These events left some revolts in that decade of the thirties, especially reaching the critical point with the disturbances of February 6, 1934, with the threat of the fascist forces in the middle of a new radical change in the way of life. Pedro lived unaware of all that. He could leave that knackers´ yard, where he had to carry large blocks of heavy ice and went to live in Paris, in a modest little house on the outskirts of the city. With a double bed, own toilet, kitchen and a four years old boy called Claudio running around the house. Pedro, on one of his free weekend afternoons, being a mechanic by profession, recalled the day his son was born on July 10, 1932, a difficult year for everyone in France, he began to cry like a child of happiness. Laura brushed his hair and kissed him on the head. And on the radio, that day July 17, 1936, news broke that Spain had declared the Civil War. Laura was surprised, and for an instant, her heart stopped beating. Laura was pregnant again, seven months.
Pedro asked his neighbor, who was peeking out the door on July 10, 1932, to the woman with white hair and skeletal arms told him that his wife had given birth at home but had already been taken to Saint Germain Hospital to finish the labor. Without further delay, Pedro, who had bought a bicycle to go to work, the first investment they made after the mattress, looked for it, mounted on it like a cowboy in his horse's saddle, and began to pedal with his heart in a fist. And suddenly, as he pedaled through the streets of Paris, while he beat his ass rhythmically with the bicycle seat, Pedro felt a mixture of feelings between worry and happiness. Later it was explained that these were reactions. No doubt as he approached the hospital Pedro did not know what he had had, whether a child with brown eyes or a girl with heavenly eyes like his mother. Now that did not matter; the important first, he thought, was that everything had gone well. He would know that when he gets to the hospital.
On the way, he crossed with a multitude of bicycles and had to ring the bell like a buzzer on more than one occasion because he was without brakes that noon. Finally, he saw the building, rising behind some big trees that kept the green color in their leaves despite being summer. An entry ramp forced him to get off the bike and raise it and dragging it this time as if it were a broken toy.
He left the rusty bicycle on the hospital door, next to the large access door. An ambulance with its lights on at the back had the doors open. At the entrance, there was a stretcher with creaky wheels’ noises crossing the threshold of the door. Pedro entered behind the stretcher and those two men in white robes with small pockets.
- "Has Laura Rostan Lopez admitted here?" -Pedro's forehead was sweaty, and several drops slid down his nose to the counter in a thud that only animals with an acute sense of hearing could hear. The receptionist looked the check-in register by following each line with her index finger as if she was learning to read. - "It was an assisted labor!"
- "Oh! Yes, is here. In room 102. You will have to go up the stairs to the first floor. Just watch the corridor, turn right. That will be her door. " -The woman spoke in French something that Pedro was already doing well, better than Laura, for the moment.
- "Thank you, Miss! -Peter's feet began to move like a greyhound's.
- "Mrs.! -the receptionist corrected.
Pedro climbed the marble steps two at a time, taking special care not to stumble, prisoner of emotion. Sweated copiously and the heart now in his mouth. At last, he reached the first floor, its walls as white as the psychiatric ones. And here it was, the door, of course. With his hand already in his heart, he knocked the door with his rude knuckles. He recognized Laura's voice. Pedro pushed the door gently and then, now, he saw it.
The baby was on Laura's lap covered with a little white sheet and clinging at the Laura’s breast nipple.
- "Look honey; she's already breastfeeding!" -she exclaimed, her eyes bright and an open smile forming her dimples.
- "Is a boy or a girl? Are you well?" -Pedro was confused and did not know which of the two questions to ask first. Which question would be the most interesting. It did not matter now; the two were made.
- "It's a boy," -Laura said, lounging on the hospital bed with big steel bars painted in grey.
The sweat now gave way to a tear that slipped down his cheek and landed on his chin. Peter knew that strange feeling was called joy.
- "You've moved, honey."
- "Yes. Look at him good. He is our son. Fruit of our love."
- "I know honey. It is the fruit of our desires." -Laura remembered at that moment the letter she had written at the age of sixteen. The second wish had fulfilled, and she felt comforted.
- "Let me see him carefully." I want to see his eyes", -Peter said and held out his strong arms. The baby had momentarily left the nipple opening his small eyes.
Laura lifted him with great care, and Pedro showed his hands of his now, sensitive and delicate hands, to catch the baby. His fingers found warmth in the wrapped body of the baby who stared at him puzzled with his large blue-sky eyes. He opened the little pink-lipped mouth in a yawn and smiled at him. A second tear escaped and a third. Suddenly, the sight clouded, and he felt a sharp pain in her throat. His emotion contained.
- "Look Laura! How preciously is." -The words made it difficult to pronounce and brought the baby to his lips and kissed him on the forehead with the same tenderness that the first time he had kissed Laura. Then he put him on her breasts and hugged at her neck crying like a child.
- "Hi name will be Adriene," -L
aura said, and a tearful sea of tears welled up beside her husband.
Pedro returned to reality, lying on the sofa at home. Claudio was already four years old and had been a precious but very naughty boy. He looked in character to his mother. He looked out the window, and the rays of the sun bathed the dining room with its most bright welcome light. But Laura's eyes had been darkened by the news on the radio.
- "My parents!" -She said in alarm, putting both hands to her head.
- "We can bring them to live with us," Peter offered. Now we get along, and we could bring my parents too ..."
- "That's a good idea."
But none of them, her parents and his parents, wanted to leave Spain, even though Aguilas was bombed twice. One at the port and another on the train tracks. Laura wrote many letters and always received the same answer.
"... We are good, daughter, now we do not sympathize with any side, and that has saved our lives. We are invisible to them. Every night they executed several men in the cemetery. We can hear the shots, but people talk about different sides and carte blanche. We do not understand any of that, and we are all day in the cave locked up. Around here have not come any heartless to take anyone away ..."
But, despite these words, Laura was afraid; even though she felt at any moment that any of her life plans distorted; just, things were happening that she would never have imagined. Things that made life harder, but nothing more.
On one occasion Pedro proposed to Laura that he would ask permission in his work to travel to Spain and bring, both of their parents. Something that Laura declined for the moment as she knew they were well within the worst.
And the day came. Then she woke up in the middle of the night sweating and with a great pain in his belly. She noticed how a dirty water smelled like dried seaweed, filled the mattress between his legs.
All My Life by Your Side Page 6