in a modest size adobe in the outskirts of a small sunny village in the guadaramma, relatives filter in through every door and gather in the living room. there are ranches, as well as woodland. there is a cake w lit candles being brought in and an old man in a blue plaid shirt sits alone at the end of a long four set. he is lucid, cheerful.. but it is not his birthday it is his wifes who has been dead for a long time. there are many reasons for the occasion, but the greater part of it is rudimentary; a son in law shares a birthday on the same week and the season was always most convenient for everyone. besides, nobody knows his, maybe not even he.
this year there is a recently adopted child. orphaned by the franco regime. it is expected to be the old man's last year and he is pleased to be welcoming a new great grandson into the family. he has a bad leg and his heart is weak but he fairs admirably. the child, thinking to pay respect, wants to give him something for a gift.
it is a pocket watch. broken. one of the hands is missing and there is no clasp to the backside, which comes loose in his hands and falls onto the table. the man in the plaid shirt squints down into the open machinery. there is a look of knowing in his face, as he briefly inspects the tiny gears and springs. formulating a semblence of gratitude.
the candles are blown, there is dinner, reminiscing. toasts are made, and so symbolically also to others recently deceased.. many loved ones didn't survive the war.
the old man dies in his sleep some days later. they find him on the floor of the same room, belly down and head cradled in the elbow of one arm.
the modest estate, on the edge of town, remains in the family and years pass. fourty.
fifty. sixty.
a wedding is put on. a pool out on the veranda, empty. kids playing through the courtyard and everyone is drunk. wearing black. white. it's spring and all of the dahlias and the vech.. spider lines trembling in the calm and in the latticeways and an old man in a blue plaid shirtsits at the head of a long table. he is very old, but lucid and cheerful. It is his birthday, or so it's just as well, what's another year.
A small boy he has never seen before approaches quietly and reaches out his hand to give him something. A piece of it falls out of his hand onto the table. Pretending not to notice he looks down and nods, marveling but not because it is a broken watch w an arm missing and the gears rusted over but because he remembers then the words that are engraven on the back. Slowly, delicately, picks up the loose piece and for the first time looks up into the boys eyes.
el temps es or
amb amor, aina