Isabel `{`host`}`: Sometimes you don\u2019t have to go very far to find stories of silences.<\/p>\n
`{`Voice from intercom`}`<\/p>\n
Rosana: Hello?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Hi Rosana.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Hi Isabel, I\u2019ll let you in.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Okay, thanks.<\/p>\n
`{`Door opening`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: Today, for example, only three minutes have gone by since I left my house and now Rosana is opening her door to me.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Hi, how are you? Good to see you. Welcome.<\/p>\n
Isabel: What a nice house!<\/p>\n
Isabel: Rosana is 55 years old and has very big eyes. And she\u2019s just recently moved into this apartment.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Do you like it? Well, it\u2019s new. I just moved in.<\/p>\n
Isabel: That\u2019s why it looks like it\u2019s still half empty.<\/p>\n
Rosana: It\u2019s \u201cthe 5-balcony house.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: Really?<\/p>\n
Rosana: Yes.<\/p>\n
Isabel: It\u2019s true that a lot of light comes in through those balconies, but also a lot of noise. It\u2019s Sunday afternoon, Madrid\u2019s nap time. But tourists aren\u2019t aware of that and it seems like all of them have gathered below Rosana\u2019s apartment. That\u2019s why we lock ourselves into the kitchen, we close the doors, balconies and windows, and start chatting. Rosana wants to share something with me.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Well, my name is Rosana Acquaroni. I\u2019m a professor at the Complutense University, I\u2019m a poet\u2026 and the truth is that every day I become more convinced that it\u2019s absolutely necessary to share family secrets, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m here.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: This story is related to her childhood: when Rosana was a little girl, her mother would disappear from home without any explanation. It\u2019s also related to her youth: when Rosana was 18 years old, they received a phone call at home that revealed a secret. This story is about her mother\u2019s story. And about what Rosana, as an adult, decided to do with all of that.<\/p>\n
Rosana: I\u2019d summarize it as: I had a very brave mother who was a victim of her time even though she isn\u2019t considered as one.<\/p>\n
Isabel: I\u2019m Isabel Cadenas Ca\u00f1\u00f3n and you\u2019re listening to De Eso No Se Habla `{`We Don\u2019t Talk about That`}`.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: To start telling Rosana\u2019s story we need to go back to her childhood home. They called it \u201cthe big house\u201d. As a child, Rosana spent a lot of time there by herself.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Well, let\u2019s see, my childhood\u2026 I always remember being among grown-ups, you know? Because I\u2019m an only child, I didn\u2019t have much of a relationship with cousins either on my father\u2019s or mother\u2019s side\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: And when I ask her what her childhood memories are\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: Playing by myself, talking by myself\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: \u2026 There\u2019s a memory that stands out from the rest.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Spying\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: A child spy needs, above all, accomplices for her investigations. And in the absence of other girls her age, Rosana found those accomplices in the furniture of the house.<\/p>\n
Rosana: For example, if you ask me which was my favorite place as a child, I\u2019d say it was the kitchen table, because\u2026 I loved it, you see, I loved to hide under that table, to take shelter under it, and there I made up stories. And at the same time, I listened to conversations. It was a very evocative place. And very, very intriguing on the other hand, you see.<\/p>\n
Isabel: But perhaps her greatest accomplice was another piece of furniture.<\/p>\n
Rosana: There was a large cupboard in the hallway of the house, a white cupboard where my mother kept all the tablecloths\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: And in that cupboard Rosana found, above all, mysteries.<\/p>\n
Rosana: I didn\u2019t understand why there were so many different plates, so many different sets of glasses. One amazing thing I remember\u2026 In that cupboard my mother kept some\u2026 little things\u2026 sort of colored gadgets. For example, a collection of clips with colored macaws and each macaw was different, each parrot was different, and\u2026 Do you know what they were for?<\/p>\n
Isabel: (I had no idea.)<\/p>\n
Rosana: To locate drinks at a party. You put one in your glass so you knew that your glass was the one with the blue macaw. So I wondered\u2026<\/p>\n
`{`Muffled voices`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: But in addition to so many plates, and so many tablecloths and so many macaws, the white cupboard held other secrets.<\/p>\n
Rosana: And that\u2019s where I found them. I don\u2019t know if she kept them there for a reason or if they were hidden, you know?<\/p>\n
Isabel: (They were photos.)<\/p>\n
Rosana: Most of the time I found them between the sheets, between the towels\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: (Very old photos.)<\/p>\n
Rosana: They were always close-ups\u2026 They were all excellent, professional photos, right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Her mother was always in those photos. Her mother\u2026and a man.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Rosana: Who is this man?<\/p>\n
With the hat and\u2026<\/p>\n
A very bright smile, very\u2026 very seductive\u2026<\/p>\n
It was all so enigmatic and so evocative\u2026<\/p>\n
It was a man who wasn\u2019t my father.<\/p>\n
`{`Silence`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: When Rosana grows up, greater mysteries occur in her house: her mother begins to disappear, to be absent from home with no explanation. And it seems like her mother had her own accomplices.<\/p>\n
Rosana: A French style desk<\/p>\n
Isabel: (Another piece of furniture in the house.)<\/p>\n
Rosana: Such a beautiful piece of furniture<\/p>\n
Isabel: (Full of secrets.)<\/p>\n
Rosana: Where my mother kept all her treasures, and she would open it to get her jewels or certain papers.<\/p>\n
Isabel: which she would take with her as she left the house.<\/p>\n
Rosana: And I didn\u2019t understand what she had picked up, where she was going, why it took her so long to come back.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Leaving little Rosana with even more questions.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: Rosana was born in 1964. Her childhood, her playing make-believe at being a spy, the questions of a child who doesn\u2019t understand what\u2019s going on, all happened in the last decade of Franco\u2019s dictatorship. By the time the Socialist Party won the 1982 elections, Rosana was 18 years old.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s when, one afternoon, at her house, the phone rings.<\/p>\n
Rosana: The call\u2026 I remember that moment, yes, yes, of course I remember that moment\u2026<\/p>\n
Well, I remember my mother going to the phone\u2026<\/p>\n
An old phone, typical of that time\u2026<\/p>\n
I think who answered the phone\u2026 I think it was my father.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone\u2019s asking for you\u201d, he said\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cBut who is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know, someone\u2019s asking for you\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: Shortly after that call, Rosana\u2019s mother left the house. She returned a few hours later. When she returned, she entered Rosana\u2019s room.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Yes. My room had a small table with two armchairs next to a balcony.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And there, in the room of a young teenager, with the door closed, her mother told her.<\/p>\n
Rosana: It was like a confession, rather than something she was sharing with me as a mother and daughter\u2026 She wasn\u2019t making me an accomplice. It was really like a confession, you know?<\/p>\n
Isabel: That story was her mother\u2019s biggest secret.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Rosana: And I think this is about what that story\u2026 the burden\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: And to tell this story, we have to go many, many decades back.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: To tell the story of Rosana\u2019s mother, first of all, we need to stop calling her \u201cRosana\u2019s mother\u201d.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Well, my mother\u2019s name was Manuela<\/p>\n
Isabel: And we need to continue with the \u201conce upon a time\u201d of a poor girl who came to Madrid from the countryside.<\/p>\n
Rosana: She was born in Zaragoza and they moved to Madrid almost at the beginning of the war.<\/p>\n
Isabel: That is, in the mid-30s.<\/p>\n
Manuela\u2019s father got a job as a janitor in a building in the neighborhood of Salamanca , one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Madrid. There, there was a great contrast between the luxury of the buildings and the precariousness of janitors\u2019 apartments.<\/p>\n
Rosana: It must have been a pretty dark place, quite\u2026 not a very healthy or nice environment.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And that contrast was also noticeable on the outside.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Because, of course, somehow you don\u2019t belong. You\u2019re there, your family has a purpose, but I don\u2019t know to what extent you\u2026 Well, you don\u2019t belong to that world, do you?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Despite these differences, Manuela became friends with some of the girls in the building. And one day, in the early 1940s, already in the midst of the post-war period, she was invited to a birthday party.<\/p>\n
Rosana: They invited her to join them one night at one of the most glamorous venues of the time.<\/p>\n
Isabel: That venue was called Pasapoga Music Hall, and it had just opened, in 1942. It soon became the most important party hall in Madrid, and the most exclusive one. There, for example, you could find Josephine Baker, Ava Gardner and Jorge Negrete when they visited Madrid.<\/p>\n
`{`Ambient sound of the Gran Via`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: The Pasapoga officially closed in 2003, but the building is still there: today it\u2019s a clothing store in the middle of Gran V\u00eda `{`the Main Street`}`. So I went there with Rosana to see the inside and to imagine, together, that afternoon in 1942 when her mother\u2019s life changed forever.<\/p>\n
The dance floor was in the basement, and we can\u2019t access it because today it\u2019s the shop\u2019s storage room, but the upper part still preserves all the glamour of the time.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Those stairs on each side, those lights\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: The lamps\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: Those chandeliers, maybe some of them are\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: The colored marbles\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: I don\u2019t know if they are from that time but at least they are very inspired by it, right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: The very high ceilings\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: The stairs are genuine, the marbles\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: The banisters\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: The banister, you know?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Even those balconies.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Like stair landings\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: Rosana pictures her mother there.<\/p>\n
Rosana: The balconies\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: On one of those balconies.<\/p>\n
Rosana: And what would she be feeling? Because, of course, on the other hand, she must have felt incredibly out of place. Imagine a woman who was the daughter of a janitor, suddenly\u2026 What dress would she be wearing? Now that we\u2019re surrounded by so many clothes\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: And that\u2019s where she imagines her mother\u2019s encounter with that man. Rosana doesn\u2019t know how they met. She thinks maybe someone introduced them.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Of course, my mother came with her friends and as far as I know that man was there with a relative of his and he told that person something like \u201clook at that girl, she\u2019s so beautiful\u201d, something like that.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Or maybe there had been a performance\u2026<\/p>\n
`{`Music from film`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: \u2026 And then the orchestra started playing again\u2026<\/p>\n
Host: And now, gentlemen, after this\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: And the two men approached her, just like in that scene from the film Los ojos dejan huellas `{`\u201cThe Eyes Leave A Trace\u201d`}`, which was filmed here, at the Pasapoga.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Man: So, do you want to dance?<\/p>\n
Woman: Of course I do.<\/p>\n
Man: Oh, sorry, I have to make a phone call, I had completely forgotten about it. Would you excuse me? It\u2019s a friend from the Supreme Court. I\u2019ll be right back. Why don\u2019t you guys dance together? Come on, come on, Mart\u00edn, one must act young, mambo takes years off you!<\/p>\n
Isabel: What we do know is that they talked.<\/p>\n
Rosana: And what would they have said to each other?<\/p>\n
Isabel: That they may have danced.<\/p>\n
Rosana: What music would be playing in their heads, right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: And that -we don\u2019t know how- they met again.<\/p>\n
Rosana: And how would my mother sleep that night, huh? That too. And\u2026 and how would they meet again? Because of course there had to be\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: Manuela was 19 years old. And that man was 20 years older than her, he was from Cadiz, a Catholic, a married man who had three children. His name was Pedro.<\/p>\n
Rosana: I don\u2019t know if she idealized him or if it was really love at first sight, you know? Something very brutal. It must have been something very brutal because, to make the decisions they made, obviously\u2026<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: It was the 1940s in Spain. The year of the opening of the Pasapoga, 1942, is known as \u201cthe year of hunger\u201d because of what it meant for many people in terms of poverty and exile; meanwhile, others continued to live as they did before the war, or even better. But for women, the new regime meant one more degree of silence.<\/p>\n
Rosana: At that time there were two options: either give up that love story, that emerging love story, that bedazzlement, or make the decision to become his mistress.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And Manuela chose the second option.<\/p>\n
`{`Music continues`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: We don\u2019t know how fast it all went: whether they saw each other in secret for a few months, or whether the decision was sudden. But we do know that it meant a radical change.<\/p>\n
Rosana: And then my mother goes from living in the gloomy janitor\u2019s apartment to suddenly living in a big apartment on Alcal\u00e1 Street\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: (One of the most expensive streets in Madrid).<\/p>\n
Rosana: \u2026 To be photographed by one of the most incredible photographers of the time, the one who photographed Ava Gardner\u2026 To, I don\u2019t know\u2026 to be dressed by Balenciaga\u2026 to have amazing jewelry, and to travel\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: With that decision, Manuela broke some of the strictest rules of that society: she lived alone, she was not married, she had no children\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: The power of the Church at that time\u2026 We can\u2019t forget what the Secci\u00f3n Femenina `{`the women\u2019s branch of the fascist party`}` was, what it imposed on every woman. The model of femininity. The thing is, my mother didn\u2019t fit into that model at all. Not at all.<\/p>\n
Isabel: But that also meant a life of constantly awaiting: waiting for him to contact her to let her know that they could meet. Rosana doesn\u2019t know how secret their relationship was. Most probably he led a double life: a respectable husband and father in C\u00e1diz, and a man with a great social life and a very young lover in Madrid.<\/p>\n
Rosana: I don\u2019t know if it was a secret, obviously they had a social life together because my mother held parties, I don\u2019t know if they were parties or dinners or what, but obviously all those tablecloths and all those wonderful\u2026 collections of macaws to put in glasses, they had a purpose, right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Sometimes he would call her and tell her to get ready, because that night they were going to have dinner at Maxim\u2019s, a luxury restaurant in Paris. Or that they were going to Venice, just like that, overnight, to wander along the canals. There are pictures from those days.<\/p>\n
`{`Rosana showing photographs`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: A gondola ride in Venice\u2026<\/p>\n
That night at Maxim\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: This one is from that photographer, Yenes, you know?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Her, posing for that famous photographer\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: She looks so beautiful. These are from that time\u2026 see? She looks super sophisticated\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: But that mustn\u2019t have been entirely easy for Manuela.<\/p>\n
Rosana: The thing is that, well, at times it also must have been complicated, hard, lonely\u2026 I don\u2019t know\u2026 some people would inevitably judge her or have a double standard or\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: And as well as the loneliness and being judged by other people, there was also her own family.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Her father stopped talking to her. This means that her decision to continue with this man, the direct consequence of that, was breaking her relationship with her father. That\u2019s very hard, too.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Manuela and Pedro were together for almost 10 years. Rosana doesn\u2019t know why the relationship ended. She thinks that maybe her mother got tired of always waiting, or maybe they started fighting more often, or she wanted to be a mother.<\/p>\n
Rosana: At some point she told me something like that, that she wanted to be a mother.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And it seems that, in order to move on, the only option was to make another radical decision.<\/p>\n
Rosana: To put an ocean between them, right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: So Manuela got on a boat and left\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: To New York, to New York. And then she also lived a few years in Mexico.<\/p>\n
Isabel: In New York her life changed.<\/p>\n
Rosana: She worked as a babysitter, she worked as a necklace maker, she worked as a nurse for an eye doctor\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: There are also pictures from that time.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: Manuela with short hair and wearing pants, always elegant, with the children she looked after\u2026<\/p>\n
Or posing with a friend in front of the Hudson River\u2026<\/p>\n
Or in Mexico, in front of Lake Xochimilco.<\/p>\n
Then, at the end of the 1950\u2019s, at the age of 40, Manuela decided to return to Madrid.<\/p>\n
`{`Cafeteria ambient sound`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: In Madrid at that time, the new trendy place was a caf\u00e9 in the middle of Paseo de Recoletos: Caf\u00e9 Gij\u00f3n.<\/p>\n
Ava Gardner also visited this place. As well as Orson Welles and Truman Capote. In the mid-20th century, Caf\u00e9 Gij\u00f3n became the centre of Madrid\u2019s cultural and artistic life. The oak-wood walls, the seats covered with red velvet and the light fixtures still seem ready to host one of the many artists\u2019 gatherings that used to be held here. Or to welcome Manuela, freshly arrived from Mexico.<\/p>\n
Rosana: I imagine her coming in here\u2026 very sophisticated, I imagine she was wearing make-up\u2026 and she looked spectacular.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And here, in this caf\u00e9, she crossed her eyes with a man. His name was Miguel and he belonged to a world that had nothing to do with hers.<\/p>\n
Rosana: He was bohemian, a bohemian painter, struggling to sustain himself, in Caf\u00e9 Gij\u00f3n\u2026 He told me that sometimes he and his friends ordered a coffee and made it last the whole afternoon because they couldn\u2019t afford anything else, so they would order a coffee and they would sit at a table and spend the whole afternoon there chatting\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: And again, just like in Pasapoga twenty years earlier, someone introduced them.<\/p>\n
Rosana: He must have asked someone to introduce them. Because he was shy, and he certainly wouldn\u2019t have approached her like that on his own.<\/p>\n
Isabel: They talked a lot. They fell in love. And it all happened very fast: a few months later, Miguel and Manuela were already married. And a few months after that, Rosana was born.<\/p>\n
Rosana: My mother always told me that when she met my father, at first, she never thought it would all go so fast, so quickly. So, well, that\u2019s how it happened.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Rosana tells me all this on a table next to the third window of Caf\u00e9 Gij\u00f3n, under an engraving that pictures a seamstress in shades of blue. It\u2019s one of her father\u2019s paintings.<\/p>\n
Rosana: I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s curious, he always painted these women\u2026 with their necks like this, with their heads tilted\u2026 kind of melancholic, right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Was your mother like that?<\/p>\n
Rosana: Yes. I think so\u2026 Of course, it was one of my mother\u2019s symptoms. Either she was melancholic or euphoric, you know? She would go from one extreme to the other, you know? Yes, it\u2019s true\u2026<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: And that going from one extreme to the other, very often, would be followed by something else.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Her absence, right? I mean, the fact that she would suddenly disappear, not having her\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: Sometimes those absences were brief. Others lasted weeks. While her mother was away, the order at home was altered. When she returned, father, mother and daughter tried very hard to make it seem as if everything went back to normal very quickly.<\/p>\n
Rosana: There was\u2026 a sense of not talking. My father, her, and also me. Of not talking about what had happened. It was like a cordon sanitaire\u2026 The silence feels heavier. And apparently we were all making an effort to talk about anything but the fact that she had just arrived home.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And it was during that period of increasing absence that the call took place.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: That call from the beginning of this story, the one that Rosana remembers so well.<\/p>\n
Rosana: I think who answered the phone\u2026 I think it was my father.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone\u2019s asking for you\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut who is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know, someone\u2019s asking for you\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: It was a man asking for her mother.<\/p>\n
Rosana: He was one of her former lover\u2019s sons.<\/p>\n
Isabel: That many years later\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: Almost, I\u2019d say 20 years later, I don\u2019t exactly remember<\/p>\n
Isabel: \u2026 had searched for Manuela\u2019s phone number in order to talk to her.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Because his father was very ill\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: \u2026 And, as he was about to die, he wanted to see her one last time.<\/p>\n
Rosana: So he could say goodbye, right? So they could both say goodbye.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Manuela asked her husband, Miguel, for permission to go, and Miguel approved. And so, several decades after their breakup, Manuela and Pedro met again.<\/p>\n
Rosana: My mother was in shock when she came back from that conversation and that reunion.<\/p>\n
Isabel: The first thing Manuela did was enter her daughter\u2019s room, close the door and tell her what had happened years ago, when she was 19. That is, almost the same age as Rosana at that time. And she also told her what that man had just said to her.<\/p>\n
Rosana: That he had always loved her, that he had never stopped loving her, and then, well, he gave her a cane, a walking stick. He told her that he was giving her that cane so, in the future, she could lean on the memory of him, you know? So that she wouldn\u2019t forget him.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And then, all the mysteries that Rosana hadn\u2019t been able to solve as a child\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: All the pieces of that puzzle that I had found throughout my childhood, those photos, those letters\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: They all started to fall into place. And so did the biggest mystery of all.<\/p>\n
Rosana: The reason why my mother had disappeared on numerous occasions also began to make sense\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: Manuela had different ways of disappearing. In her shortest absences, when she would take something from her desk and then go out, she would wander around Madrid, or do things that she felt she had to do, often related to those years of forbidden love and luxury, like that time in a hotel in Madrid\u2026<\/p>\n
Rosana: I remember once in Pintor Goya hotel, on Goya Street, she went out, she took all the jewels she had left, ordered some champagne and there she was, with her champagne and all her jewelry on display, remembering\u2026 You can imagine, I had to call\u2026 I went to pick her up and I had to convince her to come back home.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Or those other occasions, when she would change her money into 2000-peseta bills, those red ones.<\/p>\n
Rosana: For some reason she liked those bills, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And, with all that money in her purse, she would leave the house.<\/p>\n
Rosana: She would go to Montera Street, the street where the prostitutes are, and she would give them money so that\u2026 so that they didn\u2019t have to work that day.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Rosana also learned that the other side of that forbidden love and that luxury, for a lower class woman in the 1940s, had been guilt and stigma.<\/p>\n
Rosana: I wonder how they made her feel, right? How must they have made her feel so that in that outbreak, in that delusion, what she didn\u2019t want was for those women to feel the same way they had made her feel at some point, right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: After those short absences often came longer absences: they were, in fact, admissions into psychiatric institutions. I asked Rosana what her mother had told her about that.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Well, my mother used to write. My mother wrote a short story called \u201cThe Silver Paper Star\u201d. It\u2019s a story about one of her admissions. There\u2019s a moment when she\u2019s describing what they did to her, what was happening to her, how she felt. And she says, \u201cThey tied me up with straps and turned the lights off.\u201d<\/p>\n
`{`Beep`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: What takes someone to a place like that? I ask myself and I ask Rosana.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Let\u2019s see, I imagine\u2026 that\u2019s why I say, it\u2019s a combination of many things. One doesn\u2019t get to that point just because of an experience like\u2026 well, the story of\u2026 that love story, that guilt\u2026 I am convinced that it also comes from further back, that the war adds up, the terror adds up, the poverty and the\u2026 and the post-war period adds up, doesn\u2019t it? Her class origin adds up\u2026 Well, what takes you to a place like that? I\u2026 That\u2019s the big question, isn\u2019t it? All those things I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
Isabel: There are many questions that Rosana never asked her mother. That explains why there are so many gaps in this story, so many questions, so many things we don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Maybe I also fell into making that kind of judgment, you know? By not wanting to know or feeling that what she was telling me was something private and something\u2026 That I didn\u2019t have to know or ask about, right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Rosana wasn\u2019t the only one who fell into \u201cwe don\u2019t talk about that\u201d. In fact, there\u2019s a whole part of this story that we don\u2019t know. The same way Rosana came to understand the silences of her childhood after talking to her mother, there is also a son who understood his own silences by talking to his father. This is a WhatsApp message that Rosana sent me a few days ago.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Hi Isa, how\u2019s it going? Well, let\u2019s see, I\u2019m going to start with the bad news. I\u2019ve talked to this person, this man, Mr. X\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: Mr. X is Pedro\u2019s son, he\u2019s alive and he knows his father\u2019s story. He is also the one who made that phone call when Rosana was 18 years old and who made it possible for Manuela and Pedro to meet again. We call him Mr. X because he doesn\u2019t want us to say his name.<\/p>\n
Rosana: And he told me that if it weren\u2019t for his family he would do it for sure.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And he doesn\u2019t want us to record him either.<\/p>\n
Rosana: \u2026 But no, no, he can\u2019t do it because, of course, even if his name doesn\u2019t appear, his family knows my name\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: Even though it\u2019s been 70 years since Manuela and Pedro ended their relationship, and both have been dead for decades.<\/p>\n
Rosana: But, anyway, what can we do? I\u2019m telling you now so you can take it into account, because\u2026<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: Many times I\u2019ve thought it was impossible to tell this story with just a single voice. Now I think it\u2019s almost a miracle that there is a voice that\u2019s willing to talk about it. For a long time, Rosana also felt the weight of having a mother who had dared to break the rules.<\/p>\n
Rosana: This was\u2026 never a topic of conversation, never. I mean, we never talked about this, ever. Because this was like my mother\u2019s scourge, it was her big flaw within our family, that\u2019s why nobody talked about it.<\/p>\n
Isabel: And, as I listen to Rosana talking about things that, until recently, she hadn\u2019t even told herself, I come to terms with the fact that this is a single-voice story.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Well, I don\u2019t know\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: And I also understand that the questions, the hesitation, the mysteries that surround Manuela may not be gaps, but the material her story\u2019s made out of. The same thing happens in many other lives.<\/p>\n
Rosana: But obviously it\u2019s all related to a time and a moment in the history of Spain, of this country, right? A moment that, from an ideological point of view, created monsters, and pain and a deafening silence, you know? And I believe that that silence was what made my mother cross over to the other side of the mirror.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: In theory, this story should end here: a mother keeps a secret for many years, and that silence penetrates deeply into her mental health. A daughter inherits that silence and it takes her many years to understand. And when she finally does, she gets reconciled with her mother and with her story. The end.<\/p>\n
Isabel: But there are still a few minutes left in the time bar that marks the end of this episode. And that\u2019s because facing silences never implies a clean cut: it doesn\u2019t start there and end here. Once you open something that was hidden, you never know what could happen. So in the minutes remaining, we\u2019re going to transport ourselves to a summer afternoon in 2016, to the university where Rosana works.<\/p>\n
Rosana: I had just finished teaching a class, in July, at the Complutense University.<\/p>\n
Isabel: Her students had already left, and there, alone in the classroom, Rosana began to write. The first thing she wrote was a verse.<\/p>\n
Rosana: \u2026 That says \u201call I remember about the Big House is that white cupboard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isabel: That white cupboard she refers to in the verse was the piece of furniture that she had considered her accomplice during her childhood, where she had found those photos, those dishes, the mysteries that, without her knowing, would determine who she was going to become. Rosana kept writing, and that verse became a book of poems. She called it \u201cThe big house\u201d, the same way her family referred to the house where she was born and raised. And as she wrote, Rosana began to realize that, while writing about her mother\u2019s story, she was also writing about her own life.<\/p>\n
Rosana: And\u2026many of the poems in this book, in fact\u2026 I was writing them to myself, clearly. So it was very important to me, not only because of my mother\u2019s story and to somehow shed light on something that was hidden and that was hurting me, clearly, but because it also helped me make decisions in my own life, right?<\/p>\n
Isabel: Rosana had been living with her partner for 29 years and they had a son. And the more she wrote about her mother\u2019s life, the more she realized that maybe it was time to make decisions in her own life.<\/p>\n
Rosana: Oh, my goodness, my divorce, well\u2026<\/p>\n
Isabel: Rosana got divorced a year ago, around the same time she published the book where she looks at her mother\u2019s story in a different light.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Rosana: But anyway\u2026 I think I wouldn\u2019t have divorced, I wouldn\u2019t have been able to make that decision, if I hadn\u2019t written this book that recovers and puts\u2026 It puts me and it puts my mother in a different place.<\/p>\n
Isabel: That\u2019s why she shares all of this with me in her new house, this house with five balconies that she\u2019s just moved into, alone, and that it\u2019s still half empty.<\/p>\n
Rosana: \u2026 It was when I started talking. It wasn\u2019t in my head before, what a thing.<\/p>\n
Isabel: It\u2019s the talking, you know\u2026<\/p>\n
`{`Background conversation`}`<\/p>\n
Rosana: And I think we should also talk about the fact that, once you\u2026 I don\u2019t know, when you look at it differently and you talk\u2026 Nothing is ever the same again. It\u2019s as if reality changes, reality changes and the story changes and you change. And one changes.<\/p>\n
`{`Music`}`<\/p>\n
Isabel: I started this episode by saying that it had taken me 3 minutes to get from my house to Rosana\u2019s. And even though we are both in love with our neighborhood, I must say, our neighborhood isn\u2019t special: in any city, in any neighborhood, in any house in our country, there are stories of silences.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m Isabel Cadenas Ca\u00f1\u00f3n and we don\u2019t talk about that\u2026 Or else we do.<\/p>\n
This episode was produced, edited and scripted by me. The pre-production and text editing are by Laura Casielles, who\u2019s also the engagement editor of this podcast. Vanessa Rousselot has edited the script. Our editing assistant is Paula Morais, who assists us in almost everything else too. Martina Castro and Silvia Vi\u00f1as have also helped in the editing process. The sound design is mine together with Chaliwa Studios. The studio recording was done in Isol\u00e9 Divisi\u00f3n Sonora. Our theme is by Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto. The collage that illustrates this episode is by Carmen C\u00e1ceres.<\/p>\n
Thanks to Diario Vivo and to Ernesto Garc\u00eda L\u00f3pez for making us stumble upon the same story twice. Thanks to Mar\u00eda San Miguel, Genoveva Galarza, Soledad Marambio and Felipe Mart\u00ednez for their comments on the episode, and to all those people who participated in our listening session.<\/p>\n
If you have a story of silences, talk to us. On our website, www.deesonosehabla.com, you can subscribe to our newsletter, listen to the rest of the episodes, or send us a voice or text message, or an email. We\u2019re also on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and we love to talk. If you liked this episode, recommend it to your friends, your siblings, your neighbours, your comrades.<\/p>\n
De eso no se habla is produced in the neighborhood of Lavapi\u00e9s, in Madrid, thanks to the support of PRX \u2013 Public Radio Exchange- and the Google Podcasts Creator Program.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll be back in two weeks.<\/p>\n
Thanks for listening.” text_direction=”default”][\/split_line_heading][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][divider line_type=”Full Width Line” line_thickness=”1″ divider_color=”extra-color-1″ divider_opacity=”41″ animate=”yes”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"excerpt","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5689,"parent":7631,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7692","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"yoast_head":"\n