God

  There had been a man member of the Spain’s Communist Party fired in the morning and that man was our father, father of all of us. That’s what my father told me just beside the roofless car my father had in the village, at a place with a sight of a lot of nauseating and ugly fascists celebrating the death of the man fired in the morning. My father squatted, his face near to mine and touched me tenderly at my chest and at my waist and told me to run as fast as I could against Franco and from 60 to 80 officers in uniform shouting to them to go away from there. It was Plaza de Cristo Rey in Madrid. I had began to weep and tears were rolling down my cheeks. My father told me: Do!

  I run against them from some distance taking in in sight a full view of them all, paying special attention to Franco himself. While running against them at my highest speed possible I started to shout as loudly as I could: You have killed my father, sons of a bitch! ¡Go away from here! Live King Christ!

  When they listened ‘You have killed my father’ I saw them all looking at where they guessed the voice of a child should be coming from, and they saw me and I was runnng against them and they immediately began to get on their vehicles hurriedly to escape. I saw Franco losing his ass. It seemed like a miracle. All them had as though directed by an orchrestra flew away coordinately and I stopped running. I had been weeping uncontrollably while I was running. Just for an instant I didn’t know what to do but stand at the spot where I had stopped running, once the square completely empty. My father had been calling me out loud Poldo! Poldo! I didn’t know where to go to. Poldo! Poldo!, insisted my father’s voice. I didn’t know where he was and looked at all sides. Down here! Down here!, he was saying. Then I saw him in the car he had in the village. Come here! Come here! I made my way to the car still weeping. When I got to the car my father said to me to get on the car by the coopilot’s door. I did without no words still weeping and panting from running and weeping. When I had calmed down as my father drove through Madrid’s streets I asked my father if we were going to have the car back, for we had been living in Madrid just for one year and we hadn’t got a car. He said to me he had taken it for what I had just done with Franco and the officers.

I was rather popular in Almendrales, even in Usera, name of Madrid’s quarter where I came to live in with my parents when I was six and a half years old. I told my friends what I had done at Plaza de Cristo Rey. We were too young friends comrades and some of them thought not much about it, but others began to tell me about parents, uncles or aunts, cousins or someone close to their families and their struggles in life and identified themselves in the same position I did. We were living under a fascist regime yet and people living in popular, working class quarters, enjoyed a common soul and a revolutionary spirit. So some of the boys of the gang were closer to me than others and we hatched plans for the future. I wasn’t a leader to be exact but I was conscious they all admired me.

To this kind of popularity among boys from 7 to 10 contributed much certainly the happenings in the world I used to tell the boys after my listening to channels on the radio my brothers and I could tune in: News issued by exiled people of the Spain’s Communist Party from Moscow, East Germany, La Habana… We talked about happenings not forgetting to play a football match later, crowd to hear about Schools, teachers and mates, tell us jokes and play other boys’ games.

I had a closer friend Alfonso his name, who came to Usera with his family from the village too at same time we did, even we shared a pension, waiting some days before the Ministry officials gave us our houses’ keys. One day, in Xinzo de Limia, the village’s name, my mother, Alfonso and I were standing on a sidewalk. My mother told us both we were going to kill a man that had abused of her. I remember I had an inwardly reaction of rage. We didn’t say anything more. We got in a lorry where there was a man at the steering-wheel. We made place inside the cabin, my mother behind the man, I beside my mother and Alfonso on the coopilot’s seat. My mother said to the man we were her son and a cousin of mine. I’m going to give them a gun for them to play with. With a quick movement my mother took a gun out from her purse and put it in my right hand pointing at the man´s forehead and we shot dead the man at the steering-wheel.

Alfonso was witness of my killing a man in the village, here in Madrid we were very good friends and went to the same School. There were another two closer friends that lived in Usera too: Pablo Cabo and Jorge Olivas. Pablo Cabo was good old comrade, he and me killed from 10 to 12 fascists attendants to Franco’s speech at Plaza de Oriente on a 18 July. It was 1968, Pablo and I ten years old only. Jorge Olivas was too very friendly to me. He told me once I was going to be considered a God some day. God? I asked him. Yes, a God, he told me. Why? I asked. You are necessary in the world, he said to me. How? I asked. You’ll be a presence in the world. Everyone will have something yours, he said to me. I knew they three made a very close team, clandestine I mean.

  We played football among friends every day. The two teams had as two soccer goals four pine trees trunks of the nine they were. I had told all the people my age what Pablo and I had done in Plaza de Oriente during Franco’s speech. Everyone called me Poldo and I felt proud of how they admired me. Soon in time I lost my left leg, I didn’t feel it, I couldn’t walk. Doctors examined my leg. It looked it would have to be so for a long time. The event was a circumstance crucial in my life. I wasn’t capable of moving my leg. My parents and my brothers were sad all day. I couldn’t stop weeping, sitting in a difficult posture on a chair in the living room. My friends my age were sad about it and came to my house to keep me company every day. It seemed so negative what the doctors’ diagnosis were I told my friends I would probably be unable to walk on my feet again. We were at my house’s door and my father said to me: I shall take you to see don José once more, perhaps is not time lost trying.

During those days I had been sitting on the chair or taken by my father sitting on his shoulders. Don José’s was just beside my house. My friends clapped their hands on seeing my father and I walking up the stairs of the place on the way to the doctor everyone knew. The doctor said to us I would have to accept my limping for life. Science and Medicine couldn’t do more. I was sad and weeping often on those days but on hearing don José assuring I had no other but to limp for the rest of my life, I suffered a convulsion suddenly and began to weep uncontrollably. My father put me on my feet on the sidewalk and squatted beside me trying to calm me down with tender words. Then he asked me to pay attention to him. Do you have your left leg sleeping? I doubted, I felt instantly I had not. My father was looking at me. No, no, dad, I said to him. I can feel my leg now. I’m cured, I shouted. In the same posture my father asked me again to pay attention to him. You haven’t been cured by doctors. I have cured you. I am God. Do you hear, Poldo? I am God.

I was so happy I wanted to walk down the stairs to the place where my friends were waiting but my father realized and said to me: Wait, Poldo. Come on, once more, and he again let me put my legs on his shoulders. When my friends saw me with my father at the top of the stairs began to clap their hands enthusiastically, for I had my arms high with fists clenched and I was shouting very excitedly: My father’s saved me! My father’s saved me! My father’s saved me! They shouted: Poldo! Poldo! Poldo! Poldo! Poldo!

One day we four took a ride through Madrid’s streets and compromised ourselves one day to Armed Struggle against all fascists existing. They told me I would some day watch the three of them on a film of revolutionary actions. Another day, by night, I was standing at grounds near my place and the three of them came to meet me. They were facing me. I was beside the trees. They have killed a couple of grises, they said to me. I know, it was you, I said. Suddenly the bullets of guns were heard like impacting in the trees trunks. Did you see? I asked. What? they asked. The bullets, I said. We don’t have guns, they said. Do you see? Not one of us. Then the sound of bullets fired towards the trees were heard again. Again! I said. It was you! I said convinced they used some magic to impress me. Come on, Leopoldo, We don’t have guns, you can see, they said. Who then? I asked them. Perhaps it is your father, said Jorge. My father? I asked. Yes, your father from your house, they all said. How could my father do if there is a building as a wall in the middle? I asked. My father could not do such a thing, nobody could, I said to them. Well, why not, perhaps your father can in all cases, was Jorge’s explanation, I should recall.

  I have thought during a long time about all my father’s tokens in my life and I remembered him telling me I was going to be the president, many things he wanted me to know. I remember thinking there was no doubt about it: I had seen my father walking on the moon and doing the communist greeting of arm high and fist clenched. My father had stepped on the moon before the day I had seen it. It was 1962 the day I had.