Among all the stories that could form part of my novel The more air there isthere’s something I haven’t forgotten. Like many others, I will meet you at the memory of the battles in Toñanes’s aldea. I enjoy parish booksbecause they are the only democratic documents of the past.
Judicial archives give voice only to certain persons: those entitled, those litigating. The same thing happens with wills: so I cannot care to sort the estates of those who have no property to leave. Even archeology is unfair to the poorIt is much more attractive for farmers to seek the palaces of the powerful than the huts of Madeira.
In the parish books, there is a place for everyone else in exchange. Women and men, children and old men, beggars and beggars: each has its place on its pages. For the medicine plume, illiterates and high school graduates need the same number of words.
The story that still haunts me fits that one of the same people you know will look in the books history. We never learn his name, his education, his origins: where he is or where he is headed. Even the language you speak is and always will be a mystery. If it wasn’t a piece of paper guaranteed in 1764, we wouldn’t have to worry about whether any of them existed.
Only we knew that she was a foreigner – “she didn’t know her name, homeland or origin”, says the priest – who appeared along the paths of Toñanes with a strong arm. The guy was a little boy. The woman fell ill and died without being able to communicate with Nadie – “I don’t understand the language she spoke” – she solves two problems: pay the tumba and bear the burden of the child.
I enjoy parish books because they are the only democratic documents of the past. There is room for everyone in them
I have thought of this woman and this boy many times. I am fascinated by the mystery of his progress. Was it a French temporera? A flamingo pilgrim? The life of a British sailor? We’ll never know. We know because the document hints at who paid for the two ducats that were on his tomb: the Toñanes concept.
As we also know that Joseph Francisco Antonio – baptizaron so; as if a saint were not enough, until nothing less than three to guarantee him spiritual health – would be mitigated sponsored by a certain Alonso de la Ribanear Toñanes. The story does not end here.
Many times we returned with him to meet him in the parish books, first and last home and last home and last home. Joseph Francisco Antonio de la Riba, a natural neighbor of the Toñanes: this always appears in archives. Like one more. Because there was one more, and it was from the moment Alonso de la Riba ran his head into the baptism pile.
When I realize the moral superiority of our time, in this vanity with which we feel better than our predecessors, I realize this story. I think in our frontal valleys, in our international centers, in our hot developments. Pienso en human hunters of ICE agents.
Because we must not shout at other tribes, nor should we die on the way to the Atlantic. We may have eradicated the Holy Inquisition and violated the absolute power of kings. But it is worth noting that Code XVIII is also a code in this huérfano could meet a man and a fatheruntil Nadie wondered what country she was from or what blood ran in her veins.
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