Acerca de alondras y ruiseñores

If you would like to read the story from the beginning, click here and start from Part 1 at the bottom of the page. In her long trip to "the America ", Wladyslawa forever left behind the dream of a love that left her an empty soul until the end of her days. Ahead was the love of her life, a kind of real love that makes you put brick by brick with your bare hands, side by side building the dream of owning a house; a love that makes you take turns to generously change smelly diapers; a love that insults you in the morning, refuses to speak to you in the afternoon and forgets everything in the evening; that kind of love that is always there and makes you take it for granted, just like the water flowing from the tap or the light always awaiting behind the switch ... How could you do without such a love? Behind she left a thorn, a needle stuck in the middle of her heart that she could never overcome. The boyfriend of her teenage, associated by everyone in the village to her fut

If you want to read the whole story, click here and read it from bottom to top (Part 1, Part 2, Final Part). They are planning to have lunch. As for me, I have nothing in my pocket. The transfer to the airport was paid in advance, and I have only one hundred U.S. dollars, which I have not changed, and not a single Turkish lira. I tell them I have already had something to eat; I am not hungry. It is not completely true, but I'd rather wait a couple of hours for the tray on the airplane. Just around the corner from the hotel, as it is summer in Istanbul , a small bar with its tables displayed on a pedestrian street shows its daily specials on signs hand-written in chalk. My friends order exotic soups served in clay pots which come along with a basket full of pieces of bread, so many that four people could barely finish off. I shyly take one and satisfy my urge. In my backpack I carry a bottle of water. I do not need anything else. So we started a conversation about many things,

Immigrants: migratory birds that have never returned to their places of origin. That's why they wear such a sad look in their eyes. Antonio’s parents had ended up in America in the late 20s as most European immigrants, weary of the crisis in which the First World War had left the countries of Eastern Europe . Animals had been lost because of bombing, starvation, or plundering by passing armies that took with them what was needed to move forward. There were not enough cattle and sheep -sources of food and clothing-, or oxen or horses for work. Whole families worked the land by driving the plow with their bare hands in the absence of draft animals. The mother would usually guide the plow by the handlebars. The iron would open a wound in the earth helped by the work of the father and children of different ages, who would pull, fulfilling the role of the missing working beasts. Little by little, they had started to gradually emerge from the crisis, hunger was becoming a thing of

If interested in Part 1, click here . I pulled out a handkerchief to blow my nose. "Flu?" she asked me, her English accent being peculiar. "No”, I decided not to lie, "I’ve been crying.” Her gesture was equivalent to a question mark, mouth half open, an eyebrow barely raised, inviting me to keep on talking. "My mother-in-law died during the conference; I loved her; I knew of her death in the middle of the conference but have not been able to internalize it. I was just worried about the fact that my husband was alone with our children when this happened". Her expression of intrigued interest softened into a look of tenderness. "My mother also died two months ago", she said; "How many children do you have?” I told her about Emiliano and Leandro, fifteen and nine years of age respectively, and her expression turned into surprise. She said: "Your face is very sweet, like the one of a newly wedded wife, or even a single woman; I would hav

(Mis amigos de habla española: no me hago la sofisticada... es que hay gente que no entiende español y me lo pidió! No me censuren!) My bags are ready; I have just handed them at the reception for safekeeping until my final departure, and I'm in the lounge beside the entrance door facing Abdulhakhamit street , which appears quite tranquil for what the rest of Istanbul is like at noon. I realize that this is the time that I have been waiting for since I heard that my University had financed the trip to this conference in Turkey : my return. I generally do not like travelling, I do not like leaving the children outside the aegis of my control, I dislike to overwhelm my husband with long lists of activities and recommendations. But this time it was a little worse. Not only because I'd never made a trip to such a distant place, but because my mother-in-law died in the middle of my stay. I still remember the shock the word provoked in me -"died"- when I read the emai