The Story of H

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I am a granddaughter of the Spanish Civil War, a member of a very long-lived family. As a baby, I was rocked to sleep by two great-grandparents, and I have been able to have mature conversations with two great-grandparents and all four grandparents. From such direct and vivid testimonies, I understand to some degree the fear of losing one’s life, the tragedy of killing a brother, the hunger and the chaos that follow a bombing. One of my earliest memories is an image: in Toledo, when it rained, red rivers flowed down the paved slopes, the rain mixing with the blood of neighbors, the baker, the teacher, who from one day to the next went from being friendly when they met one another on the street to being mixed in the flow of the same water pouring downhill. For me there was no Snow White, no Little Red Riding Hood—the stories my great-grandmothers told me were their own dramas: their husbands were soldiers who got drunk to ease the weight of their consciences; their children lay in the common graves of Spain without names on their tombstones.

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