It had been 75 years since anybody referred to as her Solita, the identical years that she had not set foot on Isla Cristina. But there she was, nearly 90 years previous, touring immediately from Buenos Aires to her childhood in a fishing village in Huelva. A journey of hundreds of kilometers together with her sister Antonia de ella to see once more the city from which they emigrated once they have been nonetheless solely two women.
After a complete life in America, at this time they’ve returned to go to Carrera road the place they lived. His home is gone, neither is his faculty. And every little thing that after was their world has disappeared or shrunk earlier than their eyes. “Now every little thing appears smaller,” says Soledad, “earlier than we have been women and we noticed every little thing greater, the streets wider…”.
What stays the identical is the Pavón pastry store within the coronary heart of the city. Here Soledad and Antonia spent nearly each afternoon consuming merengue with the household. “We additionally ate la gloria, which was one other meringue cake,” she tells NIUS… And whereas Soledad went round remembering flavors, her childhood got here alive behind her.
Reunion on the Pavón.NIUS pastry store
“Alone!” somebody yelled behind her. She all of the sudden turned 75 years again to fulfill Maria Teresa, her greatest good friend when she was a baby. “She was so excited that she wished me to die”, she confesses to NIUS, “she pinched me to see if it was true”. An surprising assembly as a result of they did not even know if María Teresa was nonetheless alive… And there they have been, the 2 of them embracing the previous as if time had by no means superior.
“We talked about our lives, he even remembered my home,” says Soledad. She additionally remembered how her moms had the identical manila shawl-type quilt that they’d ordered collectively from Barcelona. “Her mom’s was white and my mom’s was fuchsia,” she tells NIUS Soledad.
Small particulars of an important story that got here again to thoughts as if they’d occurred yesterday. “My mom has at all times had Spain in thoughts,” says Jorge, Soledad’s son, who has spent two years making ready this journey for his mom and her aunt to return to Isla Cristina.
Soledad and Antonia in a photograph in Isla Cristina. The Sea of Isla Cristina
“My mother and father at all times considered coming to Spain,” says Jorge, “it was like a pending debt.” They could not afford it. Jorge’s father and Soledad’s husband died just a few years in the past. Now they’ve acquired the widow’s pension and with it they’ve paid for the airplane tickets. “It’s like my dad gave it to him,” says Jorge.
Even so, Soledad was afraid to return. “She did not wish to come as a result of she thought she was going to overlook him a lot once I left,” she confesses. Now that she has come, nevertheless, she has no regrets. “She has even welcomed us to the mayor,” explains Soledad. At the city corridor, a small tribute ended with the supply of two bouquets of flowers to the sisters. “We have taken them to the cemetery,” says Soledad. There she rests a part of her household, together with her father, shot on August 27, 1936, when Soledad was 3 years previous.
This is the primary time they’ve visited their father’s grave as a result of he didn’t have it till 2010. That yr, within the Isla Cristina cemetery, they positioned some plaques with all of the names of the individuals who have been buried there in a standard grave. “I depart strengthened by seeing her identify on a tombstone,” says Soledad on the final cease on a journey of feelings that has taken 75 years to finish.
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