“And why does your Aunt Marta want to find out about her father’s mother?” asked Amelia Garayoa, the old ladies’ grand-niece.
“Well, like I said, she found a photo and thought that it could be a picture of Amelia Garayoa, and she thought that I could write a history, the history of this woman. My aunt wants to give it to her family as a Christmas present. It will be a surprise. I don’t want to lie to you: I really don’t care what my great-grandmother did and the reasons that made her do it, but as I said, I’m going through a bad patch in my career, and my aunt is paying generously for this story. I’ve got a mortgage, and I’m ashamed to be always asking my mother for money.”
The three women looked at me without speaking. I realized that I had been in this house for more than half an hour and that I hadn’t stopped talking, hadn’t stopped explaining who I was, while I knew absolutely nothing about them. Silly me, I had been so open it was almost ridiculous, like a teenager trying to talk himself out of a difficult situation.
“Do you have the photograph your aunt found?” the old woman in the white sweater asked in a trembling voice.
“Yes, I have a copy with me,” I replied and took it out of my jacket pocket.
The old woman broke into a wide smile when she saw the picture of this young woman dressed as a bride.
The other two women drew close to look at the picture. None of them said anything, and their silence made me uneasy.
“Do you know her? Do you recognize the woman in the photo?”
“Young man, we’d like to be left alone now. You would like to know if we knew this Amelia Garayoa, who appears to be a relative of yours... It’s possible, although Garayoa is not an uncommon name in Basque country. If you could leave us the photo and the copy of the baptismal certificate... it would be very useful,” the old woman in the gray sweater said.
“Of course, there’s no problem. Do you think she might be a relative of yours?”
“Why don’t you leave us your telephone number? We’ll be in touch with you,” the old woman in the gray sweater went on, without answering my question.
I agreed. There was nothing else I could do. Amelia Garayoa got up from the sofa to say goodbye. I bowed my head to the two old women, murmured “Thank you,” and followed the elegant woman who had led me to this room.
“What is a real coincidence is that you’ve got the same name as my great-grandmother,” I plucked up the courage to say as I took my leave.
“I don’t think so, there are a lot of Amelias in my family; I’ve got aunts and cousins and nieces with that name. My daughter is also named Amelia María, like me.”
“Amelia María?”
“Yes, to tell the difference between all the Amelias, some are just called Amelia and some are Amelia María.”
“And those two ladies are your great-aunts?”
Amelia wondered whether to answer my question. Then she spoke.
“Yes. This is the family home; when I lost my husband I came here to live with them, they’re very old. My daughter lives in the United States. We’re a very close-knit family: aunts, nephews, grandchildren... We love each other and look after each other.”
“That’s good,” I said, to say something.
“They’re very old,” she insisted. “They’re over ninety, even though they’ve still got their health. We’ll call you,” she said as she shut the door.
When I got down to the street I felt lightheaded, like I’d been punched in the jaw. The scene I’d just been through seemed surreal to me, although Aunt Marta’s request was also odd, as was presenting myself at the house of some unknown people and asking if they knew anything about my great-grandmother.
I decided not to tell my aunt anything, to at least wait and see whether the women would call me or see me again, or would close their door on me forever.
I spent a few days waiting for the phone to ring, and the more I thought about them the surer I became that I had found a clue; I just didn’t know where it would lead me.
“Guillermo Albi? Hello, I’m Amelia María Garayoa.”
I hadn’t got up yet, it was eight a.m. and the telephone had woken me up with a jerk, but I was even more surprised to hear Amelia Garayoa’s voice.
“Good morning,” I stammered without knowing what to say.
“Did I wake you up?”
“No... no... Well, yes, I was up late last night reading...”
“Right. Well, it doesn’t matter. My aunts want to see you, they’ve decided to talk to you. Can you come this afternoon?”
“Yes. Of course I can.”
“Alright, we’ll be waiting for you at five o’clock.”
“I’ll be there.”
She didn’t hang up the phone. She seemed to be waiting to speak. I heard her breathing on the other end of the line. In the end she spoke. Her voice had changed tone.
“If it were up to me, you’d never set foot in our house again, I think you’re only going to bring us problems, but my aunts have made up their minds and I have to respect their decision. So let me say now that if you try to cause us any trouble I will make sure you regret it.”
“What?” I said, shocked by the threat.
“I know who you are, an unlucky journalist, a troublemaker who’s had problems wherever he’s worked. And I am telling you that if your behavior goes beyond the boundaries of what I consider acceptable, I will do whatever it takes to make sure you never find work again as long as you live.”
She hung up without giving me a chance to reply. Now I knew that Amelia María Garayoa had been investigating me while I’d been waiting for a phone call instead of looking into the lives of these strange women. I told myself that this was a real disaster for an investigative journalist, and then, as I like to be kind to myself with regard to my faults, I also told myself that investigative journalism had never really been my thing, I was more used to covering politics.
I went to eat at my mother’s house, and ended up having an argument with her about my immediate future. My mother didn’t think it was bad that I’d taken Aunt Marta up on her offer, because it meant earning three thousand euros a month, but she reminded me that this was a salary with a time limit on it, and that once I’d found out things about my great-grandmother and written the account, then I would have to go back to earning money at my own trade, and apparently I was wasting time not looking for a better job than literary critic for an online newspaper.
My mother thought that online newspapers were less than nothing, because she would never dream of turning on the computer to read the newspaper online; what I did seemed irrelevant to her. She wasn’t entirely misguided, but I was too much on edge to listen to her complaints, and I didn’t want to own up that I was going to see the old women that afternoon. I was sure that she wouldn’t have been able to keep my secret and would have spoken to Aunt Marta about it.
At five to five I went into the entrance of the Garayoa’s building. This time the doorman didn’t make any trouble.
The housekeeper opened the door, and with a brief “Good afternoon,” followed by “Please come in, the ladies are waiting,” she accompanied me into the room with the fireplace that I had seen the last time I was there.
The two old women greeted me with serious faces. I was surprised not to see their great-niece Amelia María, so I asked after her.
“She’s working, she’ll probably finish late. She’s a broker, and there’s usually a lot of deals to be done with the New York Stock Exchange at this time of the day,” one of the old women explained.
This time, the one who appeared to be older was wearing a black dress, and the other one was again wearing a gray sweater, but a darker one than last time, and she was also wearing a pearl necklace.
“We will explain why we decided to talk to you,” the old woman in black said.
“Thank you,” I replied.
“Amelia Garayoa is... well, was a relative of ours. She suffered a great deal when she had to leave her son, Javier. She ne
ver forgave herself. You can’t turn the clock back, but she always felt that she needed to make reparations. She couldn’t, of course, she didn’t know how. But we must say that there was no moment in her life when she didn’t think about Javier.”
She seemed to think for a moment before continuing.
“We will help you.”
I heard with amazement these words coming from the old woman dressed in black. She spoke in a tired voice, as if it were difficult for her to say these words, and I don’t know why, but I felt that rummaging through the past was going to cause them a great deal of pain.
The old woman in black stayed silent, observing me, as if looking for strength to continue.
“I’m very grateful that you’ve decided to help me... ,” I said, without knowing very well what to add.
“No, don’t thank us; you are Javier’s grandson, and we are going to impose certain conditions,” the old woman in gray replied.
I realized that their great-niece, Amelia Garayoa, had not told me their names; she had never introduced us, and this was why I identified them by the color of their clothes. I didn’t dare ask them now, given the air of solemnity that they were giving to this moment.
“Also, it will not be easy for you to find out your great-grandmother’s story,” the old woman in black added.
These last words confused me. First they told me that they were going to tell me my relative’s story, and then they told me that this knowledge would not be easy, but why?
“We cannot tell you things we do not ourselves know, but we can give you clues. It would be best for you to rescue Amelia Garayoa from the past, to follow her footsteps, wherever they might lead, to visit people who knew her, if they are still alive, to put her life back together from the foundations upwards. That’s the only way you can write her story.”
The one who was speaking was the old woman in gray. I had the impression that the two women were turning me into their puppet. They moved the strings, they were going to tell me the conditions I would have to obey in order to approach my relative’s life, and they were giving me no other option than to accept their wishes.
“Of course,” I said unwillingly. “What do I have to do?”
“Step by step, we’ll go through it step by step,” the old woman in gray continued. “Before we start, you’ll have to agree to certain things.”
“What would you like me to agree to?”
“First of all, that you will follow our directions without complaining; we are very old, and we have no desire, or even time, to waste trying to convince you of things. So, you will follow our suggestions and you’ll find out what happened. Second, we will retain the right to decide what you can or cannot do with the text you end up writing.”
“But I can’t accept that! It makes no sense for you to help me investigate Amelia Garayoa if you won’t let me give whatever I write about her to my family.”
“She wasn’t a saint, but she wasn’t a monster either,” the old woman in black murmured.
“I have no intention of judging her. It might seem astonishing for you that a woman decided, more than seventy years ago, to leave her home and to place her son under the care of her husband, but there would be nothing at all strange about it nowadays. We can’t think a woman is a monster for abandoning her family,” I protested.
“These are our conditions,” the old woman in gray insisted.
“You aren’t giving me much of a choice...”
“We’re not asking for anything very difficult...”
“Okay, I accept, but I would like you to answer a few questions yourselves. What was your relation with Amelia Garayoa? Did you know her? And who are you? I don’t even know your names... ,” I protested.
“Listen, young man, we come from a generation where a man’s word was law, so: Do you give us your word that you accept these conditions?” the old woman in gray insisted.
“I have already said I do.”
“As for who we are... As you have guessed, we are direct descendants of Amelia Garayoa, and therefore indirect relatives of yours. In the past we shared her worries, her decisions, her mistakes, her regrets... You could say that we are the guardians of her memory. Her life ran its course parallel to our own. The important thing is not who we are but who she was, and we are going to help you find out,” the old woman in black declared.
“As far as our names are concerned... call me Doña Laura and call her,” the old woman in gray said, pointing at the other old woman, “call her Doña Amelia.”
“Amelia?” I said in confusion.
“My niece has already told you that there are lots of Amelias in our family... ,” Doña Laura replied.
“May I ask why there is such an affinity for the name Amelia?”
“It used to be common for daughters to have the same name as their mother, or their grandmother, or the godmother, so our family has lots of Amelias and lots of Amelia Marías. My sister was called Amelia María, although we have always called her Melita to tell her apart from my cousin Amelia, isn’t that right?” Doña Laura said, looking at the other old woman.
At least I now knew what the two old women were called, who as far as I could tell were sisters.
“I’m sorry for insisting, but I’d like to know what the exact relationship is between you and my great-grandmother. I think you’re her cousins...”
“Yes, and we were very close, that’s certain,” Doña Laura replied.
“Well, now that we’ve reached an agreement, the best thing is for you to get down to work. We are going to give you a diary, it will help you start to know your great-grandmother,” the old woman in black said.
“A diary? Amelia’s diary?” I said in surprise.
“Yes, Amelia’s diary. She started to write it when she was an adolescent. Her mother gave it to her as a present when she was fourteen, and she was happy, because she dreamed of being a writer. Among other things.”
The old woman in black smiled as she remembered Amelia’s diary.
“A writer? So long ago?” I asked in surprise.
“Young man, I suppose you know that there have always been women who have written, and when you talk about ‘so long ago’ don’t do it as if you were talking about prehistory,” Doña Laura said, sounding angry.
“So Amelia, my great-grandmother, wanted to be a writer...”
“And an actress, and a painter, and a singer... She had a great desire for life and a certain amount of artistic talent. The diary was the best present she was given on that birthday,” Doña Melita said. “But we’ve said that you have to go finding things out step by step. So, read this diary, and when you’ve finished it come and see us and we’ll tell you the next step.”
“Yes, but before you read the diary we should explain to you what the family was like, how they lived... ,” Doña Laura said.
“Sorry, but let me get things straight. You are Doña Laura, and should I call you Doña Amelia María like your great-niece, or Doña Melita?” I asked, interrupting Doña Laura.
“However you wish, it’s not important. What we want you to do is read the diary,” Doña Melita protested. “In any event, young man, ours was a well-off family of businessmen and industrialists. Educated, cultured people.”
“It’s necessary so that you can give some context to what happened,” Doña Laura insisted, irritated.
“Don’t worry, I’ll know how to do that...”
“Amelia was born in 1917, a turbulent time in world history, the year the Russian Revolution triumphed, and the First World War was not yet finished. There was a coalition government in Spain, and Alfonso XIII was king.”
“Yes, I know what happened in 1917...” I was scared that Doña Laura would start to give me a history lesson.
“Young man, don’t be impatient, people’s lives make sense if you explain them in context, the reverse is difficult if you don’t understand anything. As I was saying, Amelia, and I myself, grew up during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, w
e were there for the Republican victory in the municipal elections of 1931, and the famous declaration of the Republic and Alfonso XIII’s departure into exile. Then came the center-left governments, and the ratification of the Statute of Catalonia, Sanjurjo’s attempted coup d’état, the triumph of the right-wing CEDA groups in 1933, the revolutionary general strike in 1934...”
“I can see that you lived through some difficult times,” I said, trying to cut short the old woman’s speech.
At this moment, Amelia María, the great-niece of the old women, came into the room. I was getting confused by so many Amelias. She barely glanced at me, then kissed her aunts and asked them how they had spent their day.
After an exchange of pleasantries, which I listened to in attentive silence, Amelia María deigned to speak to me.
“And you, how are things?”
“Very good, and I’m extremely happy with your aunts’ decision to help me. I have accepted all their conditions,” I replied with a certain irony.
“Wonderful, and now, if you don’t mind, my aunts need to rest. The housekeeper has told me that you’ve been here for more than two hours.”
I was annoyed by the rapid way in which I was being thrown out, but I didn’t dare argue. I got up and nodded to the two old women. This was when Doña Melita held out two clothbound books, cherry red but faded with time.
“These are Amelia’s diaries,” she explained as she held them out to me. “Be very careful with them, and come back to us when you’ve read them.”