Sepharad Read Free

one another, that they belonged to our land as much as we did, and when we took them by the hand on a Sunday morning and led them down Calle Nueva, just as our parents had led us, and lifted them up as a float passed so they could get a better look at the donkey Jesus rode as he entered Jerusalem, or the green, sinister face of Judas on the Last Supper float, we were consoled by the sense that life was repeating itself, that time didn’t pass in our city, or that it was less cruel than the nerve-racking and jumbled pace of life in Madrid.
    But the children have been growing up without our realizing it, turning into strangers, unsociable guests in our own homes, locked in rooms that have become dark dens from which sounds of insufferable music issue, and smells and noises we prefer not to identify. Now they don’t want to go back, and if one of us tells them something, they look at him the way they would at a pitiful old man, at some worthless bum, as if it were a snap for a person to find a secure and decent job after the age of forty-five. And they’ve forgotten all the things they liked so much, the thrill of the tunics and hoods (Godino insists that our word is
cowls
) that covered their faces like storybook masks, the noise of the trumpets and drums, the taste of the candy cigarettes that were sold only in Holy Week and the red caramel
pirulís
on a stick, spiraled with sugar, that we bought at the street stall of a small man appropriately nicknamed Pirulí; he died a few years ago, even though to those of us who’d been seeing him since we were children, he seemed as frozen in time as Holy Week itself. Our children are no longer drawn to the attractions of the fair, and it’s as if only we, their parents, have retained some trace of nostalgia and gratitude
for the modest carousels of all those years ago, the merry-go-rounds, as we called them as children and as we taught our children to say. Nothing we like has meaning for them now, and when from time to time they stand and stare at us with pity, or indifference, making us feel ridiculous, we see ourselves through their eyes: worn-out old-timers whom they don’t feel the need to thank for anything, who irritate and bore them more than anything, nobodies they walk away from as if wanting to rid themselves of the dirty, dusty cobwebs of the time to which we belong: the past.
    Â 
    TO LIVE BACK THEN, in the past, what more could I want? But a person no longer knows where he lives, not in what city, not in what time, he’s not even sure that his is the house he returns to in the late afternoon with the sensation that he’s a nuisance, even though he may have set out very early, not knowing precisely where he was going or for what reason, looking for God knows what job that would allow him to feel he was once again doing something useful, something necessary. At one of the last meals held by the association, the one we had for the purpose of awarding Jacob Bustamante our Silver Medal, Godino scolded me affectionately because it had been two years since I came home for Holy Week. I explained to him that I was going through a difficult phase, hoping that he, a man of so many resources and acquaintances, might offer a helping hand, but of course I didn’t ask for his help straight out, because of my pride and the fear of losing face in his eyes. My dejection and wounded honor kept me more removed than usual from the activities of our regional association, though I tried never to miss the meetings of the board and was scrupulous in paying my monthly dues. I wandered from morning to night, not myself, from one place to another in Madrid, from one job to another, following promises that never came to anything, opportunities where for some reason or other
I always failed, meaningless jobs that lasted a few weeks, a few days. I spent hours waiting, doing nothing, or had to rush to get to something that eluded me by a few minutes.
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