- All the paths that I trod while in Spain
Like so many others, with great hope I arrived at the old village of Montrondo, León. The night fell without warning as we were immersed in an interminable conversation with both sides rejoicing: the Cubans and the Spanish. Communicating more and better was the purpose of the newly met family. The energy carried a load of a century of waiting.
An inexplicable shudder invaded me when I laid my feet on that soil. To make me go from sobbing to laughter, cousin Juan invited me to tour the town and we ended up, with the whole family, in the cemetery, paying tribute to Aunt Lecinia. Not even by chance I dare entering a cemetery at night in Cuba, but the village - and I did not know that until dawn - was like the backyard of their own house. They knew each stone, each source of spring, each shadow of the mountain. So I identified the one that does not allow the sun to illuminate it when winter arrives. I enjoyed the delicious start of the fall, which I do not see in the Caribbean. That "march" with a light coat in the morning reminded me all the time: “you are here, now, in Spain.”
You would have to see the joy of my face and feel the joy of my soul. I would wake up with rattling joy at the proposals of the members of each house, who claimed our presence: the first Cuban-Spanish member of the family to arrive there.
My grandfather Constante arrived in Cuba one day in 1920 to "make the Americas." Finding in Montrondo his letters preserved, clarified for me the true story of his life in Cuba. A cousin kept them with such zeal that she did not allow time to yellow the remembrances. Her stories made me shudder.
For you, grandfather, my tears are today also tears of joy, as I fulfill this dream. As for so many Spanish emigrants, the return was unattainable, given the burden imposed by life and time. For you, Constantino Fernández, who treated my curiosity as a curious child when in the afternoons you told me -as not to let them go- your memories of Spain.