Ebria
Established Nation
Ander
I couldn’t sleep last night. April came and in Southern Ebria in general but in Hamrun especially meant that from a cool and rainy winter, we’ve been thrown directly into the summer. It shocked me last night as I was going back from the headquarters of the Armed Police Corps back home in the Ciudad Blanca neighborhood. It was warm and a perfumed late spring air filled the streets as on the green spaces along the street were being watered by the sprinklers. The late spring, early summer, whatever this was warm night took me by surprise and I just felt unable to find in bed any position to be comfortable enough to fall asleep. After two hours, that felt like an eternity, I went to the bathroom to pee and then instead of going back to sleep, I opened up my phone to check any other happenings on twatter. Some people were talking about continued fights in La Coria and San Jose, others about the victory but if there is anything that the end of the war gave a change to, as for the citizens of Valls to truly go around the city and photograph the destruction from the siege. Photo after photo after photo, I was mesmerized, even if I could feel my eyes burning from being so tired, and yet, I could feel the adrenaline going through me as I recognized streets and buildings that were just heaps of debris. I decided to turn off the phone, as I knew it made no sense to message Fer nor Romina, as they were probably sleeping, unlike me. The air was thick and soupy and suffocating, but I knew the alarm will ring soon so I had to get some sleep.
When the phone’s alarm rang at 6am, I felt like I barely slept an hour. At first I turned around, but feeling nobody on the right side of the bed woke me up more than the alarm restarting 5 minutes later. How weird that it’s been four months since Fer went to Valls and the war stopped all my chances of transferring, and yet, the apartment felt so weirdly empty without him, even if he lived here only for two months in the autumn. I woke up, went to the bathroom and then in the kitchen, where I started brewing myself some coffee. My phone vibrated and as I had a phone call. I checked it. It was a video call from Fernando.
“You look like shit,” he said as I answered the call. I smirked, imagining very well that I might have huge bags and shadows under my eyes. “You’re up early,” I said, especially as I knew there was an hour difference between Hamrun and the rest of Ebria, so it was a little over 5 in the morning on the mainland. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I’m just up very late. We’re parked in Campo de Marte, and pretty much chilling, with a 25% rate of alertness during the night, and I was the unlucky one that stood up this night. I looked at the clock and I hoped I would catch you before leaving,” he said. I smirked, as with one hand I poured the coffee into a cup, then added some milk and with the other I was holding the phone, as I didn´t find anything in the kitchen good enough to hold the phone. “Did anything happen?” I asked and he shrugged. It was dark where he was with the lights of probably some vehicle around him and the city faraway lightening up his face from time to time, but in general he was in the shade, and yet, I could recognize his features, which were soothing to see, as much as he felt probably even more tired and exhausted than me.
“No, I just wanted to see you and talk to you,” he said. “I was bored and nothing was happening,” he continued. A part of me was wondering if the war did affect him. He had some contacts with the Alfonsists, one in San Benito, another in Daimiel, one on the Autopista towards the mountains and then they were moved along the coast to take a detour to reach Valls faster than crossing the mountains and having to break the siege. He seemed like his usual brooding self, so at the moment, nothing much felt different. “Got any chance to go into the city?” I asked and he shrugged. “Not as much as I’d liked. It seems there were some clear up operations as some Silvershirts hid in the Ciudad Universitaria and they send soldiers to clear them out, but no, being with the armour, we just chilled most of the time in the Campo de Marte,” he said. Campo de Marte was a grand park that covered probably about a third of the city limits of Valls, between the city itself and the Cuatros Vientos Airport. It was the old royal reserve back in the Middle Ages, but in the 19th century it was renamed to give it a more ancient Tiburan vibe. “We aided some health organizations as they gave MREs to the people of the city, as the army is mobilizing to help avoid a famine,” he continued. “Did you see Doña Sabrina or Romina?” I asked but he just shook his head. “Spoke with them on the phone, but nothing more,” he said. He wanted to continue, but I could hear his surname, Gálvez, be shouted on the other side. “The boss is calling me. Will talk to you later. Miss you!” he said hushed and with a bit of a rushed tone. “Love you!” I said and I closed the call.
I washed my teeth, took the dark grey uniform of the Armed Police Corps, and at a quarter to 7, I was out and took a taxi to the headquarters. I used to have an ENA Calatrava for going around, but when the news of the coup within the Alfonsist camp came and everyone understood that the war is all but over officially, the army requested its vehicles back from us, and it was a sign that the Police Corps was moving back under the orders of the Ministry of the Interior and the Territorial Defense Units were being demobilized.
“How much do you like Valls?” Vanessa asked as I came to the police headquarters, after being called to her office. “Good morning to you too!” I said, to the surprise of a secretary that was clearly a bit afraid of her. I must be honest, at first I was afraid of her too, but the work in Valls, followed by the 6 months here in Hamrun, which clearly transformed me into this anchor of the network she had in Valls, made her much friendlier and closer to me, that now we started to appreciate each other’s snide comments. “So?” she asked insistently. “Used to love it, but now, fucked up by the war, it’s probably shit,” I said and she gave me a grimace that felt like she was a bit disappointed in me. “So shitty that you’d rather stay here in San Lawrenz?” she asked and to be fair, I started to see where this is going, so I started perking up and she immediately caught it and started smiling. “I don’t think Valls is ever so shitty that I’d chose Hamrun over it,” I said and she laughed, to the cringed eye roll of the clearly Hamrunite secretary.
“Transfers reopened, as the Territorial Defense Force of Hamrun is officially demobilized,” she said. “So, now will I finally be able to get my transfer back to the capital?” I asked and she chuckled, clearly having something planned. “I was actually thinking of keeping you with me,” she said, and to be fair, she said it so neutrally that I wasn’t sure if she was dead serious or not. “What do you mean? You want to reject the transfer?” I asked, this time a bit concerned. “You’re not the only one dreaming of transfers, you know?” she asked back and this time I knew that she too wanted to escape Hamrun.
“I received a new commission, this time to lead. The Armed Police Corps will be in time reformed into the Security and Assault Corps, as the militias will be integrated into the units of the Ministry of the Interior. What I’ve been told is that this new unit, which I’ve seen most people just call the Assault Guard, is that they will be, together with the military and the Police Corps, will act as the previous institution, as a gendarmerie, but what I care the most, is that this new commission would have us hunt for Alfonsist remnants in the Sierra Dorada. So here I am, ready to offer you a deal,” she said quite emphatically and proud of herself. “A deal?” I asked a bit concerned and incredulous. “Come with me to Valls and instead of being in the corps itself as a uniformed member, take my place. Join this Anti-Banditry Committee and I will request a promotion for you to detective. We will mostly do office work and analysis and planning, rather than field work, but we will do roam in the towns of the mountains a bit, yet most of the time we will be back to Valls,” she said. I was taken a bit by surprise. “Detective?” I asked. It was something I really wanted since getting this job that I managed to get with the aid of Juan Torrez, Fernando’s foster dad. She nodded. “No more uniform, better pay, safer, better contributions et cetera,” she said. “Are you sure about this?” I asked, as I felt like a bit of an impostor syndrome took control of me. She nodded again. “We managed to keep in check here much of the radicals that wanted to break Hamrun away. We managed to ensure that terrorists are rotting away in prisons. I’d say, we were extremely successful, even with the Alfonsist Uprising breathing down on us,” she said. “Dario Rios himself wanted the same committee to work on the Anti-Banditry Campaign in the Sierra Dorada,” she added. I nodded. She was for real and it was something I dreamed of. I really wanted to tell Fernando I’m returning, but I knew by now he’s probably sleeping after a night shift.
“How fast can you prepare to move?” she asked me. I shrugged. “My apartment is very empty since some of roommates left for Valls even before the war, so I can be very fast,” I said. “Even in a matter of hours?” she asked and that took me by surprise. “What do you mean?” I asked. “The day after tomorrow, Ana Isabel Gallego is presiding over the first meeting of the Supreme Junta of National Defence from Valls, rather than Sahagún, since the war started. She will have the usual members, Generals Saldaña, Ortega, but also Dario Rios and General Murillo and also leaders of the volunteer legions, namely Francesco de Ávila, and Marcus Rupnik, the liaison the trade unions have with the Communist International and the Socialist Commonwealth,” she said and she looked at me expecting to say something as she did see a gleamer in my eyes when she mentioned the Josepanian and the Carentanian. “Francesco is a surprise, to be fair,” I said and she looked at me even more inquisitively. “He lived in the same building with me in Valls and even now, in Hamrun, but went to the mainland when the war started. I followed his twats and I knew he was immersed into fighting the Alfonsists, but I didn’t know he went as far as to bring them int the defense council,” I said. “He is now heading the David Constantino Brigade. As for the Carentanian, I imagine because it has to do with either the integration of the militias into the new institution I told you about, or to talk about Csengia, because from what I understand, there is some revenge planned,” she said.
For the rest of the day, I helped Vanessa and her secretary write a series of reports and do papers after papers in regards to the disbandment of our anti-separatist commission and the creation of the anti-banditry one. I called my landlord and announced him that I too will be leaving faster than expected. He didn’t really accept it as my contract stated that I needed to tell him at least a month in advance, so he said he will keep the guarantee as a last rent payment. Vanessa laughed it off when she heard it and told me to leave it, as a future detective, in four months I will gain that money back only in the bigger salary.
The next day I made my luggage and cleared off the apartment. It took about two hours, as I didn’t really have a lot of things and most of them were still at Doña Sabrina’s, which were situated in Lavapiés, a part that wasn’t much affected by the siege. I came in the afternoon to the headquarters, where Vanessa told me that in the evening, a small military plane was leaving for Valls and that she managed to get us on it. I was skeptical at first, as I imagined Cuatros Vientos to be damaged, but as we set off, the pilot told us that one of its four runways is functional and used at the moment exclusively by the military and emergency flights. The transport was held secret, which again made me a bit skeptical that it was all happening, but later I found out it was because it was a prisoner transfer, as the separatist leaders like Abram Biancardi and his lieutenants were being transferred to the mainland, where they would be kept in a prison as far away from Hamrun as possible, namely in Amérida.
We were received by the military police at the airport and while they took care of the prisoners, they helped us get to the center of the city too. “Adónde estoy? (Where am I?)” I asked Fernando as I was in the Plaza Mayor, which was undamaged by the siege and still lit up, even if at probably only a tenth of its before the war levels of illumination. As I asked him, I used the videocall to show him the equestrian statue of the 1700s king Fernando III which stood in the center of the plaza. “¡No me jodas, pendejo! ¡¿Que cojones?! ¡Estas de vuelta en Valls! (Don’t fuck with me, asshole! What the fuck? You’re back in Valls!)” he said, nearly howling in the videocall. He was in a warehouse around the Campo de Marte, where they were preparing food aid for the citizens of the city. “Yessir! A long and very lucky story, but I managed to teleport myself here, with the help of the corps of engineers of the army which made a runway functional already at the airport and the Ministry of the Interior which is desperate, it seems, to have us back…” I say but I feel Fernando wasn’t really following. He was just caught in the news not stopping smiling. “Jesus, I never thought, when I came back to Valls in January, that we would get back in the same town after four months and a civil war,” he said. “Yeah, the civil war was a surprise,” I say, rolling my eyes.
I pretty much walked all the way from Plaza Mayor to Lavapiés. There were buildings that were destroyed, but by now, great numbers of people were working to clear up the road from the debris, even if it was late at night. In the neighborhood - my neighborhood, what surprised me was that the there were some buildings hit, but the city wasn’t greatly affected. Little to no streetlights were on, most of the light coming from the cars and from people walking around with the flashlights from their phones to guide them. There were few lights within the houses too, and from time to time, a destroyed or damaged building could be observed. As I ended up at the intersection of Calle Anton Martin with Calle de la Rosa and with Calle Luis Velez de Guevara, I was shocked to see the building of the Del Globo pharmacy destroyed. It was an old pharmacy that functioned continuously since the mid-19th century. As I walked about 50 more meters of Calle Anton Martin, I reached the building owned by Doña Sabrina and I felt like I finally returned home.
I went inside the building and as I was reaching the first floor, where mine and Fernando’s apartment was, I met with Romina, who was just coming out of the apartment opposite from mine. “Oh my fucking god! Ander!” she all but screamed and jumped to hug me. “I told you I’ll end up coming back!” I said, hugging her back. I knew we talked a lot, especially during the siege. I knew she kept Julio safe with Dona Sabrina who was taking refuge in the nearby metro station, while Romina even took up arms and was part of an all women volunteer group which mostly guarded the field hospitals in the neighborhoods in the back of the frontlines within the city. Yet, seeing people again face to face, just made the whole phone talking superfluous and we wanted to just retell all the stories. I tried to tell her that I was tired, but I didn’t manage to escape. She came with me to leave my luggage behind, insisting I’m coming for a nightcap with her and Dona Sabrina and Julito.
“It feels so strange,” I said as I put the luggage besides the bed, in the bedroom, already thinking of unpacking. “What do you mean?” She asked. “It feels familiar, yet different,” I said and then shrugged. “When the pronunciamiento started, Fer was called to arms in Sahagun, so he had to leave. He left the apartment clean and everything set up, but we had a bomb fall literally about 100 meters away and it pretty much broke all the windows of the street side of the building. You should have seen what a hero Dona Sabrina was, keeping Julion in a marsupium like thing while cleaning the apartments of glass shards, and then going around the city, despite the siege to find someone to redo the glasses. She really knows her way around a society in crisis. We did spend a few days to keep the apartment as clean as possible,” she said. That did surprise me, as back on the phone they never told me about it, and probably neither to Fernando, probably to not have us be concerned for them. Yet, the effects of the that bomb could be seen a building away on the other side of the road.
I washed up a little and she all but dragged me upstairs to see Dona Sabrina, because as she said when I always returned, “the prodigal son always returns,” and now it was the third time, Lavapiés, Valls and everything else pulled me back. In the end, it was home, much better than Amérida, even if I grew up there, and a million miles away from the provincial and weird Chiste or San Lawrenz.
I couldn’t sleep last night. April came and in Southern Ebria in general but in Hamrun especially meant that from a cool and rainy winter, we’ve been thrown directly into the summer. It shocked me last night as I was going back from the headquarters of the Armed Police Corps back home in the Ciudad Blanca neighborhood. It was warm and a perfumed late spring air filled the streets as on the green spaces along the street were being watered by the sprinklers. The late spring, early summer, whatever this was warm night took me by surprise and I just felt unable to find in bed any position to be comfortable enough to fall asleep. After two hours, that felt like an eternity, I went to the bathroom to pee and then instead of going back to sleep, I opened up my phone to check any other happenings on twatter. Some people were talking about continued fights in La Coria and San Jose, others about the victory but if there is anything that the end of the war gave a change to, as for the citizens of Valls to truly go around the city and photograph the destruction from the siege. Photo after photo after photo, I was mesmerized, even if I could feel my eyes burning from being so tired, and yet, I could feel the adrenaline going through me as I recognized streets and buildings that were just heaps of debris. I decided to turn off the phone, as I knew it made no sense to message Fer nor Romina, as they were probably sleeping, unlike me. The air was thick and soupy and suffocating, but I knew the alarm will ring soon so I had to get some sleep.
When the phone’s alarm rang at 6am, I felt like I barely slept an hour. At first I turned around, but feeling nobody on the right side of the bed woke me up more than the alarm restarting 5 minutes later. How weird that it’s been four months since Fer went to Valls and the war stopped all my chances of transferring, and yet, the apartment felt so weirdly empty without him, even if he lived here only for two months in the autumn. I woke up, went to the bathroom and then in the kitchen, where I started brewing myself some coffee. My phone vibrated and as I had a phone call. I checked it. It was a video call from Fernando.
“You look like shit,” he said as I answered the call. I smirked, imagining very well that I might have huge bags and shadows under my eyes. “You’re up early,” I said, especially as I knew there was an hour difference between Hamrun and the rest of Ebria, so it was a little over 5 in the morning on the mainland. He rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I’m just up very late. We’re parked in Campo de Marte, and pretty much chilling, with a 25% rate of alertness during the night, and I was the unlucky one that stood up this night. I looked at the clock and I hoped I would catch you before leaving,” he said. I smirked, as with one hand I poured the coffee into a cup, then added some milk and with the other I was holding the phone, as I didn´t find anything in the kitchen good enough to hold the phone. “Did anything happen?” I asked and he shrugged. It was dark where he was with the lights of probably some vehicle around him and the city faraway lightening up his face from time to time, but in general he was in the shade, and yet, I could recognize his features, which were soothing to see, as much as he felt probably even more tired and exhausted than me.
“No, I just wanted to see you and talk to you,” he said. “I was bored and nothing was happening,” he continued. A part of me was wondering if the war did affect him. He had some contacts with the Alfonsists, one in San Benito, another in Daimiel, one on the Autopista towards the mountains and then they were moved along the coast to take a detour to reach Valls faster than crossing the mountains and having to break the siege. He seemed like his usual brooding self, so at the moment, nothing much felt different. “Got any chance to go into the city?” I asked and he shrugged. “Not as much as I’d liked. It seems there were some clear up operations as some Silvershirts hid in the Ciudad Universitaria and they send soldiers to clear them out, but no, being with the armour, we just chilled most of the time in the Campo de Marte,” he said. Campo de Marte was a grand park that covered probably about a third of the city limits of Valls, between the city itself and the Cuatros Vientos Airport. It was the old royal reserve back in the Middle Ages, but in the 19th century it was renamed to give it a more ancient Tiburan vibe. “We aided some health organizations as they gave MREs to the people of the city, as the army is mobilizing to help avoid a famine,” he continued. “Did you see Doña Sabrina or Romina?” I asked but he just shook his head. “Spoke with them on the phone, but nothing more,” he said. He wanted to continue, but I could hear his surname, Gálvez, be shouted on the other side. “The boss is calling me. Will talk to you later. Miss you!” he said hushed and with a bit of a rushed tone. “Love you!” I said and I closed the call.
I washed my teeth, took the dark grey uniform of the Armed Police Corps, and at a quarter to 7, I was out and took a taxi to the headquarters. I used to have an ENA Calatrava for going around, but when the news of the coup within the Alfonsist camp came and everyone understood that the war is all but over officially, the army requested its vehicles back from us, and it was a sign that the Police Corps was moving back under the orders of the Ministry of the Interior and the Territorial Defense Units were being demobilized.
“How much do you like Valls?” Vanessa asked as I came to the police headquarters, after being called to her office. “Good morning to you too!” I said, to the surprise of a secretary that was clearly a bit afraid of her. I must be honest, at first I was afraid of her too, but the work in Valls, followed by the 6 months here in Hamrun, which clearly transformed me into this anchor of the network she had in Valls, made her much friendlier and closer to me, that now we started to appreciate each other’s snide comments. “So?” she asked insistently. “Used to love it, but now, fucked up by the war, it’s probably shit,” I said and she gave me a grimace that felt like she was a bit disappointed in me. “So shitty that you’d rather stay here in San Lawrenz?” she asked and to be fair, I started to see where this is going, so I started perking up and she immediately caught it and started smiling. “I don’t think Valls is ever so shitty that I’d chose Hamrun over it,” I said and she laughed, to the cringed eye roll of the clearly Hamrunite secretary.
“Transfers reopened, as the Territorial Defense Force of Hamrun is officially demobilized,” she said. “So, now will I finally be able to get my transfer back to the capital?” I asked and she chuckled, clearly having something planned. “I was actually thinking of keeping you with me,” she said, and to be fair, she said it so neutrally that I wasn’t sure if she was dead serious or not. “What do you mean? You want to reject the transfer?” I asked, this time a bit concerned. “You’re not the only one dreaming of transfers, you know?” she asked back and this time I knew that she too wanted to escape Hamrun.
“I received a new commission, this time to lead. The Armed Police Corps will be in time reformed into the Security and Assault Corps, as the militias will be integrated into the units of the Ministry of the Interior. What I’ve been told is that this new unit, which I’ve seen most people just call the Assault Guard, is that they will be, together with the military and the Police Corps, will act as the previous institution, as a gendarmerie, but what I care the most, is that this new commission would have us hunt for Alfonsist remnants in the Sierra Dorada. So here I am, ready to offer you a deal,” she said quite emphatically and proud of herself. “A deal?” I asked a bit concerned and incredulous. “Come with me to Valls and instead of being in the corps itself as a uniformed member, take my place. Join this Anti-Banditry Committee and I will request a promotion for you to detective. We will mostly do office work and analysis and planning, rather than field work, but we will do roam in the towns of the mountains a bit, yet most of the time we will be back to Valls,” she said. I was taken a bit by surprise. “Detective?” I asked. It was something I really wanted since getting this job that I managed to get with the aid of Juan Torrez, Fernando’s foster dad. She nodded. “No more uniform, better pay, safer, better contributions et cetera,” she said. “Are you sure about this?” I asked, as I felt like a bit of an impostor syndrome took control of me. She nodded again. “We managed to keep in check here much of the radicals that wanted to break Hamrun away. We managed to ensure that terrorists are rotting away in prisons. I’d say, we were extremely successful, even with the Alfonsist Uprising breathing down on us,” she said. “Dario Rios himself wanted the same committee to work on the Anti-Banditry Campaign in the Sierra Dorada,” she added. I nodded. She was for real and it was something I dreamed of. I really wanted to tell Fernando I’m returning, but I knew by now he’s probably sleeping after a night shift.
“How fast can you prepare to move?” she asked me. I shrugged. “My apartment is very empty since some of roommates left for Valls even before the war, so I can be very fast,” I said. “Even in a matter of hours?” she asked and that took me by surprise. “What do you mean?” I asked. “The day after tomorrow, Ana Isabel Gallego is presiding over the first meeting of the Supreme Junta of National Defence from Valls, rather than Sahagún, since the war started. She will have the usual members, Generals Saldaña, Ortega, but also Dario Rios and General Murillo and also leaders of the volunteer legions, namely Francesco de Ávila, and Marcus Rupnik, the liaison the trade unions have with the Communist International and the Socialist Commonwealth,” she said and she looked at me expecting to say something as she did see a gleamer in my eyes when she mentioned the Josepanian and the Carentanian. “Francesco is a surprise, to be fair,” I said and she looked at me even more inquisitively. “He lived in the same building with me in Valls and even now, in Hamrun, but went to the mainland when the war started. I followed his twats and I knew he was immersed into fighting the Alfonsists, but I didn’t know he went as far as to bring them int the defense council,” I said. “He is now heading the David Constantino Brigade. As for the Carentanian, I imagine because it has to do with either the integration of the militias into the new institution I told you about, or to talk about Csengia, because from what I understand, there is some revenge planned,” she said.
For the rest of the day, I helped Vanessa and her secretary write a series of reports and do papers after papers in regards to the disbandment of our anti-separatist commission and the creation of the anti-banditry one. I called my landlord and announced him that I too will be leaving faster than expected. He didn’t really accept it as my contract stated that I needed to tell him at least a month in advance, so he said he will keep the guarantee as a last rent payment. Vanessa laughed it off when she heard it and told me to leave it, as a future detective, in four months I will gain that money back only in the bigger salary.
The next day I made my luggage and cleared off the apartment. It took about two hours, as I didn’t really have a lot of things and most of them were still at Doña Sabrina’s, which were situated in Lavapiés, a part that wasn’t much affected by the siege. I came in the afternoon to the headquarters, where Vanessa told me that in the evening, a small military plane was leaving for Valls and that she managed to get us on it. I was skeptical at first, as I imagined Cuatros Vientos to be damaged, but as we set off, the pilot told us that one of its four runways is functional and used at the moment exclusively by the military and emergency flights. The transport was held secret, which again made me a bit skeptical that it was all happening, but later I found out it was because it was a prisoner transfer, as the separatist leaders like Abram Biancardi and his lieutenants were being transferred to the mainland, where they would be kept in a prison as far away from Hamrun as possible, namely in Amérida.
We were received by the military police at the airport and while they took care of the prisoners, they helped us get to the center of the city too. “Adónde estoy? (Where am I?)” I asked Fernando as I was in the Plaza Mayor, which was undamaged by the siege and still lit up, even if at probably only a tenth of its before the war levels of illumination. As I asked him, I used the videocall to show him the equestrian statue of the 1700s king Fernando III which stood in the center of the plaza. “¡No me jodas, pendejo! ¡¿Que cojones?! ¡Estas de vuelta en Valls! (Don’t fuck with me, asshole! What the fuck? You’re back in Valls!)” he said, nearly howling in the videocall. He was in a warehouse around the Campo de Marte, where they were preparing food aid for the citizens of the city. “Yessir! A long and very lucky story, but I managed to teleport myself here, with the help of the corps of engineers of the army which made a runway functional already at the airport and the Ministry of the Interior which is desperate, it seems, to have us back…” I say but I feel Fernando wasn’t really following. He was just caught in the news not stopping smiling. “Jesus, I never thought, when I came back to Valls in January, that we would get back in the same town after four months and a civil war,” he said. “Yeah, the civil war was a surprise,” I say, rolling my eyes.
I pretty much walked all the way from Plaza Mayor to Lavapiés. There were buildings that were destroyed, but by now, great numbers of people were working to clear up the road from the debris, even if it was late at night. In the neighborhood - my neighborhood, what surprised me was that the there were some buildings hit, but the city wasn’t greatly affected. Little to no streetlights were on, most of the light coming from the cars and from people walking around with the flashlights from their phones to guide them. There were few lights within the houses too, and from time to time, a destroyed or damaged building could be observed. As I ended up at the intersection of Calle Anton Martin with Calle de la Rosa and with Calle Luis Velez de Guevara, I was shocked to see the building of the Del Globo pharmacy destroyed. It was an old pharmacy that functioned continuously since the mid-19th century. As I walked about 50 more meters of Calle Anton Martin, I reached the building owned by Doña Sabrina and I felt like I finally returned home.
I went inside the building and as I was reaching the first floor, where mine and Fernando’s apartment was, I met with Romina, who was just coming out of the apartment opposite from mine. “Oh my fucking god! Ander!” she all but screamed and jumped to hug me. “I told you I’ll end up coming back!” I said, hugging her back. I knew we talked a lot, especially during the siege. I knew she kept Julio safe with Dona Sabrina who was taking refuge in the nearby metro station, while Romina even took up arms and was part of an all women volunteer group which mostly guarded the field hospitals in the neighborhoods in the back of the frontlines within the city. Yet, seeing people again face to face, just made the whole phone talking superfluous and we wanted to just retell all the stories. I tried to tell her that I was tired, but I didn’t manage to escape. She came with me to leave my luggage behind, insisting I’m coming for a nightcap with her and Dona Sabrina and Julito.
“It feels so strange,” I said as I put the luggage besides the bed, in the bedroom, already thinking of unpacking. “What do you mean?” She asked. “It feels familiar, yet different,” I said and then shrugged. “When the pronunciamiento started, Fer was called to arms in Sahagun, so he had to leave. He left the apartment clean and everything set up, but we had a bomb fall literally about 100 meters away and it pretty much broke all the windows of the street side of the building. You should have seen what a hero Dona Sabrina was, keeping Julion in a marsupium like thing while cleaning the apartments of glass shards, and then going around the city, despite the siege to find someone to redo the glasses. She really knows her way around a society in crisis. We did spend a few days to keep the apartment as clean as possible,” she said. That did surprise me, as back on the phone they never told me about it, and probably neither to Fernando, probably to not have us be concerned for them. Yet, the effects of the that bomb could be seen a building away on the other side of the road.
I washed up a little and she all but dragged me upstairs to see Dona Sabrina, because as she said when I always returned, “the prodigal son always returns,” and now it was the third time, Lavapiés, Valls and everything else pulled me back. In the end, it was home, much better than Amérida, even if I grew up there, and a million miles away from the provincial and weird Chiste or San Lawrenz.
