A shiver of anything 
Go, go, girl. Let me not raise, at my age the bones ...
journalist, eh. Encantado. I've already been told that you walk around town asking about the war.
Ah, only interested in the case Requena.
Well no sir, not a legend. And that sentence was true both surprised. Just like that.
course I'm sure, young man. I was there, front row.
Yes, that is. Her name was Adelina Fernandez. Sit down, man, sit down. Manuel Requena
for more than ten years had left the village, and for some of those chances in life had posted back here. Or maybe it was he who asked that office, that I never knew. He was a guy kept distant and more friends than his work. He was unmarried and lived alone since his return, on the second floor del edificio que hoy ocupa la Caja de Ahorros.
Era mi primera semana como ayudante suyo, y la última, porque después de aquello no volví. Mi tío Alfredo había movido algunos hilos para alejarme del frente y colocarme en aquella comisaría. Estaba situada a la derecha de la Plaza Mayor, y ya por entonces era un edificio viejo, con un suelo de madera apolillada y quejumbrosa. Ocupábamos el despacho tres personas: Requena, en su sillón de cuero, frente a una mesa enorme y brillante, Fermín, el mecanógrafo —que en paz descanse—, y yo.
Era febrero y olía a humedad y frío.
Serían las doce de la mañana cuando trajeron a Adelina bien sujeta por los brazos, entre two, as if afraid to go to escape. Poor old. I do not know if they were too big or her little thing, but the fact is that the picture was extremely disproportionate. The left front of the table of Requena and not even allowed to sit. She had been taken from his home three days earlier, with nothing to push, without further explanation that the rifle butts. Apparently the crime had been to give shelter to a neighbor and her two kids. The father was hiding in some mountain and ate hunger. How could he allow this?, Told me, he did what he had done with Manolito Requena, putting them at home.
Right. Adelina was the one that came to me when completed war. I knew I wanted to know if any more information about the case Requena.
No, he made no gesture of surprise when she entered. Come on, I did not notice and he said nothing. She said nothing, only looked at him with rapture. Normal, right? He confessed how despite everything she was proud of him, seeing him sitting there with his big desk covered with papers. So it had seemed more robust, you see, he who always was a worm. Who knows, it would be for the shoulder straps. Or gals.
I was a kid when Requena left town and I always thought he was one of the sons of Adelina, but it was she who told me who had raised him:
Manolito was eight and his mother had to destroy a freight across a level crossing, one was in front of the dump where he worked washing coal. A child of sin, she called it. Do not laugh, young, times were different, and people had modesty when talking about certain things, not like now. Well, what was he told me that the kid had given birth to a father who never intended to be. The child was left alone in the world.
"Adelina, please!, Do not leave me here! "Sobbed the little boy said he grabbed her waist-Let me stay with you, please, please!" What could I do?, Was the son of her best friend. He looked at his face full of snot and lacked the courage to leave him at the orphanage. So they took him, bathed him, added to the pot over a handful of beans each day and slightly less milk in the glasses every night and Manolito raised as their own. And when he went out into the world to make a living, he embraced with the same penalty as if he had given birth. Let
. Requena took the report that the accused and read aloud the reasons for his crime. When finished, he leaned back and asked
"Have you understood everything, Adeline?". And it seems that I see, Like a black bird, wrung her hands wrinkled and nodded.
Then he added: "Do you have something to say?".
"Nothing" he replied.
No, no relatives. At that time the poor woman had no one. She was a widow. His eldest son had died of tuberculosis before the war began, and her daughter, already married, lived in Zamora. Here only had two cousins \u200b\u200bspinsters.
As I said, when Requena confirmed that Adelina had heard all charges, he handed me the report. I took a long book, a red anotábamos where data from convicted prisoners, and added those of Adelina. While doing my job, he said, "Well I'm sorry, but the conviction in these cases is the execution." That's when Adelina
, shivering, and eyes wide, spoke first: "How? What are you going to condemn me only shelter that poor family? "
And he said," Look, Adelina, I can not do anything. You are the culprits after the fact that this war continues. Just following orders. "And thereupon took the report I had just returned and sealed the last paper. I have yet made up his mind the sound of that bloody tampon. Then she threw
hands to his head and repeated several times: "I can not believe it!"
I do not believe I finished it. I thought everything would end in order to drive a macabre joke. So when he rose from the table and approached her, thinking that I relaxed embrace. But instead, he said, "Sorry, but so it goes. Tomorrow, at dawn, in the cemetery, is the implementation. "She, horrified, as I" took a step toward him, put his hands on his chest, and with tearful voice said: "But, son for God's sake, will you let me die?! "And then
when he, putting his arm around her and pulling her departure, said: "Quiet, woman, if you're not going to hurt. Only be a shiver of anything. "
So young. Just like that. With these words he said.
No, she did not say anything more. Nobody said anything else. Nobody.
Before closing the door, and while the guards were dragging the dead as the hallway, Requena told my companion: "Hurry, Fermin, then move to the next. You know I like to eat on time, then I'm late for a nap. "
No. I was not who freed her. That is not ever knew. She told me that when was returned to jail gave him a glass of milk and a bar, thought it was a tranquilizer. He fell asleep and when she awoke the next day, was in a shepherd's hut in the middle of the mountain, alone. He had to walk several hours to get back to town.
"Requena, you say? Man everything is possible, I thought so too, but as you know, was that afternoon when they found him dead in his home.
No. No idea. The investigations of then-little-, failed to conclude whether it was suicide or murder.
Until his death two years later, Adelina never ceased to find out who had released. I think in the end, needed to believe that was the work of Requena. But the poor are left this world with that knife.
(2nd Prize in the Short Story Competition XII Cultural Association Dafne de Oviedo - December 12, 2009)
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