PRELIMINARY NOTEThis story is based on an event from my very distant early youth, when I was 18-19 years old. Then I fel

PRELIMINARY NOTEThis story is based on an event from my very distant early youth, when I was 18-19 years old. Then I fell in love for the first time in my life, with that passion or vehemence and enthusiasm, also the irresponsibility and carelessness of that age in which there is still much of the teenager that you were at 15-16 years old but without reaching the poise, responsibility and serenity of 25-30 years old; that age when you are no longer the teenager you were but neither the complete and sensible man you will become. I then went after that girl two or three summers in a row and when I believed that she would finally agree to be my girlfriend, it happened that she "herded" me a memorable pumpkin while we were dancing on the floor that the casino installed outdoors for the Fairs and Festivals of the town where we both spent the summer: That as friends, very holy and very good, but not at all as boyfriends. That at one moment it almost seemed like maybe, but no, no and no. Thus, in triplicate, so that I would have no doubts. In a short time that girl was a thing of the past that no longer moved anything in my mill, but she became for me the beautiful memory of a very beautiful and dear time in my life. And I think that the person, man or woman, woman or man, who was our first love remains perennially in our mind as what it is, a beautiful memory that takes us back to a time, perhaps idealized, that for us is usually pleasant, even better than the present, perhaps because he left never to return. It is something like doing well what Jorge Manrique, a 15th century Spanish poet, says in his “Coplas to the death of his father, D. Rodrigo Manrique”: “Any past time was better.” That girl's name was Carmen, which is why the protagonist of the story is called that, and she was the niece of the town's confectioners in whose house she spent her summers. By the way, the candy store I mention in the story is his uncles', and the closest thing to a cafeteria that there was for miles around at that time. The town in the story is really the one that was the homeland of my mother and her ancestors, even of my own sister; and the mansion, the ancestral house of my maternal family, at that time already the exclusive property of my parents. The square and Main Street that I describe are those of this town and it is true that this square causes an impact on those who see it due to its extraordinary and sober beauty of the Renaissance from the time of Charles I, who was Vth of Germany, built around 1516. The parish church also makes an impression, a jewel of late Gothic, 13th century, with later Renaissance additions, more or less contemporary with the construction of the square. The town is located in a mountain range, but not in the province of Cuenca but in another of what is now Castilian-La Mancha. The story is of course pure fantasy and only real is the fact that the protagonist falls in love with someone who does not fall in love with him. The rest, what has been said, is a fantasy more false than a penny or, better yet, a lead euro. But it is also a kind of dream, letting the imagination fly in a dreamlike way in pursuit of that time of such kind memory. A dream through which I relived my early youth, immersing myself as a simple observer of the setting, the time and place in which the story takes place and which gave me very pleasant moments while I wrote the story because I remembered many almost forgotten things from that past: My stays in that town to which I have not been in decades; the friends who were close to me and whom I have not seen for almost centuries; cousins of mine who, more than relatives, were friends since childhood, many of them already gone on to a better life.... The town itself, which perhaps has been most endearing to me of all... And the fact is that dreaming costs nothing and it doesn't hurt anyone. And in the end, what Mr. Pedro Calderón de la Barca says in “Life is a Dream”: Dreams... are dreams. Finally, I would like to tell you, dear reader, that the story is a bit long, it will comprise several chapters and you may soon get tired of reading it, but how much I would appreciate it if you reached the end. Maybe, when you see the END at the end of the last chapter, you will even be glad that you got this far, because I think that, as a whole, the story didn't turn out bad at all. An affectionate greeting to all of you, dear readers who honor me with your attention. See you forever. Hannibal. THE REUNIONCHAPTER I Both Carmen and I were natives of the same town in the mountains of Cuenca, but we had not lived there for a long time because we moved to Madrid shortly after the end of the civil war and Carmen's people left for Valencia a little later. But both families returned to their ancestral home every summer to spend them there, away from the heat of Madrid and Valencia. We both knew each other since we were little, since we were almost the same age, she was only a few months younger than me. Thus, from children's games we went on to join the same gang of teenagers to start dancing in those “guateques” of the mid-late 1950s. Little by little I became more and more interested in dancing with her, first out of pure friendship at the age of 15-16 until in the summer of 1955, when I was 17 and had passed my high school diploma, my friendship with her turned into true love, a rare thing at that age, but that's how it happened. She, at my flattery and compliments, laughed. I would say that he liked listening to them although he never gave in to my claims of becoming boyfriend and girlfriend. When I asked him, he would laugh again, saying that he was crazy; yes for you he answered her and she repeated the laughter, but nothing, without consenting to it. Of course, he continued to accept me as a dance partner regularly, exclusively you could say. The following year, 1956, already 18 years old and in my first year of law, although with a couple of subjects “for September”, I returned to the “siege” of the fortress of my dreams. Carmen began receiving me the same way, with a lot of affection and accepting me even more exclusively as a dance partner, to the point that by the end of July she was only dancing with me. I was overwhelmed, sure that I had finally fallen in love with her. But the first bucket of cold water was poured on me by his brother, a boy almost my age, maybe a little older. She approached me on the street one afternoon in August, a couple of days before the 15th, to tell me that her sister was still too young to be seriously dating anyone, that I should leave her for a while, in short, anything but what I wanted to hear. Sure, bad family relations, I thought, and, very proud and sure of myself, I told her that she was the one who should tell me. And boy did he do it. The 15th was the worst day of my life until then. For the festival of the Assumption that afternoon there was dancing in the casino, especially for us young people. Carmen, after avoiding me for a good part of the afternoon, finally agreed to dance with me, but only to confirm what her brother told me: That she was too young, less than 18 years old, for a relationship as serious as I intended. Also, and this was what hurt me the most, I was not her type and therefore she would never be my girlfriend. He liked me as a friend, he even loved me a lot: I was funny and he liked my jokes at first. But she was tired of always having me attached to her, of monopolizing her and not letting her live. And so, he couldn't stand me anymore. When I heard that my heart broke. It was as if something broke inside me, causing an inner death. I only told her that I was sorry for having bothered her, that I apologized and I left her immediately; I left her there, planted in the center of the court, and went to the bar. There I began the alcoholic “pilgrimage” of the evening, almost more night than later, with three glasses of cognac, one after the other as they say. When they served me the third glass, two friends approached me to calm me down; that I should leave that, that no one was worth losing my mind like that, that I should return home, that they would accompany me if I wanted... At the same time I saw how she, Carmen, even dancing with another boy, was almost more attentive to me than to her partner. And I liked that: He cared about me, even if it was as a friend, it only hurt him to see me like that. Well, let him suffer! I wanted to hurt him, as much damage as possible. Idiot of me, because that attitude, going on a “pilgrimage”, was the one that could harm me the most, but 18 years old is just that, 18 years old. I "drank" that third drink in one gulp, and, after sending my two friends to hell with intemperate boxes, I left the casino down the stairs to the plaza. And from there I continued my “pilgrimage” until after twelve at night and with a fairly decent excess of alcohol I staggered down to the town gas station. Once there I took refuge in a nearby area, full of low forest and some trees. I didn't want to be watched by anyone and at the same time I wanted to clear things up for myself. I fell asleep as soon as I settled on that floor. I woke up after three in the morning. I felt better and went to the gas station. It was deserted except for the owner, also the town's mechanic, who was dozing behind the glass office window. A truck appeared to refuel and, at the sound of the horn, the person at the gas station woke up and went out to serve the customer, reaching the driver's door. After refueling and while the gasman returned to his office, I approached the truck through the other door, asking the driver if he could take me. And so I began the trip to Madrid. Although the alcoholic intoxication had almost disappeared from my body, the idea that it would mature during that afternoon-night was still intact in my mind and I was determined to carry it out. Enter the Army, specifically the Legion I had fallen head over heels in love with Carmen, in that way that usually lasts a lifetime if extraordinary events do not prevent it and that is unusual for it to happen at such a young age. But it happened to me and what's more, that night I was aware that the thing could not only come from last year, as I initially believed, but from quite a while earlier, perhaps from when I was ten or eleven years old, when I began to appreciate that boys and girls are not equal and, without knowing why, I was pushed to despise them a little. Then his rejection had done me terrible damage: My living body and mind coexisted with a dead and unburied inner being that demanded burial so it could rest. And not being able to rest from the being that was dead inside me did not allow my living body and mind to rest either, so they wanted to bury that internal dead person that they could not tolerate. But that burial was not possible without burying myself, without me physically dying. Maybe because I was 18 years old I thought and felt like this; Perhaps if that same intimate pain had come to me later, when I was capable of reasoning more sanely, I would have faced the situation more responsibly. But then, with the thoughtlessness and enthusiastic idealism of being 18 years old, the only solution for not resting, not seeing myself able to enjoy life again was to die. But not the sordid death of a suicide, no, I didn't want that because, in the end, the only person I would hurt would be my parents, because for the whole town, maybe even for her, I would be nothing more than an idiot who had taken his life because of a little thing. I wanted a dignified death, a death that could be felt by everyone, not just my parents. A death that she, Carmen, truly felt, that hurt her. Well, what I also wanted was to hurt him, to make him suffer. It was my sad revenge, so to speak. And, what death is more felt by everyone, what way of dying that could hurt her the most, pricking her conscience with a “Because of me, because of me” than a heroic death, a death in combat, for example? That night I remembered what I had heard my father say so many times lately: “Soon we will have to defend our African colonies with weapons.” And it is that, although it did not reach the general Spanish public due to censorship, certain privileged circles such as that of my father, a lawyer of a certain name, did reach the alarming news that had been coming from the African colonies for months before (1), to the point of being highlighted in the territory of Ifni the First Parachute Flag and creating a new Flag of the Legion, the XIII, which arrived in El Aaiun on July 1. So if I intervened in that war, which seemed so close, finding the heroic death I wanted would be more than possible. And if the grim reaper had the whim to respect me, in an environment as hectic, as vital as the military situation with Carmen, if I didn't get over it, at least I would handle it better. In short, in the Army I could solve my regrets and, of course, the urgent thing was to join the Army; but not in just any unit, no, but in one that would ensure I was on the front line and in the most dangerous position and... what unit was more appropriate for that than the Legion, the shock corps par excellence of the Spanish Army, the one that was always on the front line and in the hardest and most risky places? Well, the Legion would be my goal. Finally, around five in the morning, the truck parked next to the Legazpi market, where a good part of the trucks that supplied Madrid with fruits, vegetables and fish were unloaded. The driver invited me to a coffee with milk and batons; Although I insisted on not taking the batons and paying my share, he did not consent. He also proposed to help me unload the truck, which would cost me some money. I accepted and with two other men who were almost twenty years older than me, we unloaded the truck. Those guys turned out to be good people; They asked me if I had run away from home (my evident youth and the clothes I was wearing seemed to make evident the real event of the escape). I answered yes, to be a bullfighter! And they liked me, one of them even told me that, in his younger years, he also wanted to be a bullfighter, but that a goring in a town bullfight discouraged him. They helped me and I was able to work until almost ten in the morning. Then, although crippled, I walked through the market stalls looking to get something in exchange for some specific work, and yes, at noon I had in my pocket what, for me and at that moment of extreme hardship, represented capital. I spent that afternoon sleeping and, after having a hot sandwich for dinner in one of the bars in Legazpi, I went back to sleep until four in the morning, when I got up and headed to the market to my current job: Unloading trucks until ten or ten thirty in the morning and then to "retail" for the market stalls that wanted to order me something to earn, at least, that mid-day meal. Since I escaped from the town, I was very clear that life in La Legión would be very hard and the training would be terrible, so I wanted to be as well prepared as possible, both physically and morally, to endure and overcome all that. That's why I decided to make an effort, discipline myself, and drew up a plan that I strictly followed: In the mornings, from five to 1-1:30 p.m., hunting for pesetas wherever I found them. At one or one thirty, to eat in the market canteen, where they prepared me whatever they gave me in the morning at the "retail" stalls and to sleep until five in the afternoon to go for a little run, do push-ups and sit-ups in the next Arganzuela park and breathe cleaner air. Anyway, spend the afternoon like this for now... In this way, a couple of weeks passed until I gathered the necessary money to enroll in a boxing gym, practically the only ones that existed at that time in Madrid and in Spain in general. I wanted to harden muscles and develop my physical strength, which, combining the gym with unloading trucks, was not difficult for me to achieve in just a few months. There I did weights, pull-ups and extensions on machines. I left the push-ups and abdominal exercises for the park, although there they told me the best way to do them. And also self-defense, boxing. All this cost me infinite work, since I did not rest all day. I only took Sundays to rest, sleeping almost all day, because at that time Saturday was just another working day of the week, the 40 hours had not yet arrived. Every day I went to bed exhausted, and, almost every day, I told myself: "Enough! The next day I would apologize to my parents, I would put up with their anger... and, surely, slaps, but I would return home, to my normal life as a student"... But when the alarm clock rang at four in the morning, I would get up and go to the trucks that were waiting to be unloaded. In the end, all of this was very good for me, because it made me disciplined and strengthened almost infinitely my willpower, my determination to achieve the goals I set for myself. And April 18th arrived. In the Javier Andrade of today, there was barely a trace of the one who escaped from the town just eight months ago. More than eight months it seemed like years had passed for me: I was always rather tall, 1.73 meters, and somewhat corpulent, although somewhat overweight with the 78-80 kg that I weighed at that time; Well, now he was barely over 70 kg, 72-73 at most, but 72-73 kg of bone and strong muscle, with almost solid arms and legs. The facial features had also changed, with a complexion somewhat swarthy due to the Madrid winter cold plus the wind, the rain lashing day in and day out. The happy smile that had previously illuminated my face almost perennially disappeared from my lips and the candid look from my eyes gave way to another cold and hard one like Krup steel. At almost 19 years old, I was barely two months away from opening them, I could perfectly pass for more than 20, even more than 22. Well, that day, April 18, around 10:30 in the morning, I saw myself in front of the door of the Pennant of Enganche of the Legion in Leganés, a barracks that, seen from the outside, had high walls, sentry boxes, and at the door a legionnaire, tall, strong, with enormous beard, immaculate uniform, black belt and belt, machete on his belt and rifle on his arm. To the stentorian scream that came when, already next to him, I asked how I could enlist, a scream that more than a human scream seemed to me like the bark of a large dog, a German shepherd or a Pyrenean mastiff, with the "Cabo de Guardia!", from inside another legionary emerged, this one with a corporal's stripe on his chest, and with as impeccable uniformity as the one on the door, but without a rifle, who took me to the enlistment office where, after the pertinent medical examination of pure procedure, they enlisted me. (2) Then they sent me to the warehouse to pick up the uniform and equipment of an aspiring legionnaire, a quality that I would obtain once the Training period had passed. Next, I was shown accommodation in the destination company, attached to the offices on one side, deserted at that time because people were on instruction or on their duties. That afternoon, after the food that, as the propaganda proclaimed, was quite good, without delicacies but not badly seasoned and enough for any glutton, was my first day of instruction. That didn't seem as terrible to me as I expected, but the thing wasn't "serious" yet, let's say a simple "warm-up" so as not to laze around here and there. The “good” would come later, in Africa, in the company where we were later assigned. After dinner, which was not bad either, although not as bad as the food, off to the Company to sleep. The call of Silence ended this my first military day. In order not to rest on my laurels, the next day I looked for my first problem. Diana's touch dutifully got us out of bed, three-high bunk beds, and we made the beds as quickly as we could. These had quilts with the Legion's shield; Well, in my haste to finish I left the quilt with the shield upside down, and when Corporal Martos passed by inspecting men and beds (the three of us who slept in each bunk formed up right in front of it), when he saw my bed he stopped dead and bellowed more than asked. Who sleeps here? Then I, with all the poise and face in the world, respond by pointing to another of the “recruits” who entered with me the day before. This, my corporal And...Plaasss!... What a slap that “fell” on the poor man in question! But the uncle didn't object. He endured the “caress” undaunted, without defending himself, without accusing me.... Of course, as soon as the corporal continued forward, losing sight of us, he gave me a look... murderous! The “referred to”, a Catalan as tall as a tower and strong as a bull, accosted me as soon as we left for breakfast, shouting at me. If you have hair "down there", come to the woodshed after the instruction! Of course I went to the woodshed after the instruction and... what a "fuck" we had. God, what a salad of “cakes” we were able to give ourselves! Until, both of us exhausted, we both fell to the ground, one next to the other, huffing that it was a life of mine, both he and I. In my life he had hit me, and they had hit me, in that way!; like beasts seeking to annihilate each other. Then, lying on the floor as long as I was and without breath in my body, I told him Macho!... Can you give me one of those epoch-making slaps and we'll settle this? Okay, man? Okay! I had started to sit up while I was making the peace proposal, but I immediately returned to the ground from the tremendous punch he hit me while saying “Okay.” But after the tremendous blow and me falling to the ground again, he extended his hand to me saying Friends, Javi? Friends Mario. We shook hands and were good friends until... death took Mario. On May 3, they took the 17 volunteers who met there throughout April in a truck and took us to the Getafe Air Base, from where, in an Air Force Ju-52, we flew to Larache.(3) After disembarking from the plane and collecting the luggage and impedimenta that we were carrying, we formed up on the same runways and, at the voice of Ar!, well... road and blanket to El Krimda!, the camp where the Tercio “Juan de Austria” III of the Legion was based, in the surroundings of Larache, and where we were destined. There, assigned as transients to a company, we spent almost six months of training, since the months of pure instruction were followed by an intensive and extraordinary parachuting course, a unique case until then in the Training of the Legion, but it seems that with us the training was extreme, to which the proximity of the "hot" operations would surely not be unrelated. There is no doubt that they were preparing us to go directly to combat.(4) It is said that reality almost always exceeds fiction, and in this case the popular saying was no exception: I always took it for granted that the Legionary Training period would be hard, very, very hard, but what I encountered during those months was unspeakable. Apart from the intrinsic harshness that the training in The Legion represented, since there they did turn us into true elite soldiers, there was the iron legionary discipline, with sanctions and punishments for the slightest fault that could sometimes even be considered inhumane. The number of times I had to grit my teeth to not even cry like a child! The times when I even had to brace myself more than clench my teeth to be able to endure all that; that I had to test a willpower that I thought was strong, but that there, under the harshness of the tests, under that horrifying discipline, I crumbled almost every day. And again I began to tell myself many nights: “It's over, tomorrow I'll go home and let it be whatever God wants”; but again, like when he unloaded trucks, every morning at reveille he would form again to begin another day of instruction. Here, what began with the trucks finally settled into my character and I discovered that by facing the challenges that were set for me as a good person and by overcoming them I felt happier than ever before because I felt like a MAN in a way I had never felt before. And that made me proud of myself in a way I had never felt before, not even when I passed high school. But that was not the only change that occurred in me during this period of legionary preparation, no. The most important thing was the way I began to see life, the sense with which I began to live it: As a legionnaire and proud to be one. I learned that the cry “To me the Legion!” It means camaraderie taken to its zenith because it makes us legionaries one man in the face of any contingency and that never, under any concept or situation, a comrade is abandoned, "with reason or without reason." Also the pride that it means to be a “Soldier of the Brave Legion” because it means being one of the best soldiers in the world, not because of our equipment or weapons, which are rather poor, remnants of the civil war, both weapons and ammunition,(5) even vehicles that are also insufficient, but because of our heart, our decision to win or die when entering combat, making our motto good: “Legionaries to fight, legionaries to die.” And the pride of being direct successors, heirs and repositories of the honor and bravery of those Spaniards who made up the legendary Tercios of Flanders, Naples, Lombardy, Sicily, or those of Mar, of those Spaniards who were in Lepanto, Third Island, Breda, Bruges, Ostend, Antwerp... and so many other places tinged with Spanish blood. And the love for The Legion, permanent in the heart of any man who has passed through this Body at any time in his life, since legionaries, like priests, are “In Eternum”, until Eternity. The budget I took there also varied. Of course, if necessary, I would not turn my back on the risk, on the danger no matter how high it was, but I would defend my life in any circumstance. I wouldn't run away from death if it came my way, but I wouldn't look for it foolishly either. That was another of the consequences of my joining the Legion, giving my life a meaning that I lacked when I left the town and that, I am sure, in a different environment I would not have found, at least in such a short time. So to speak, the Legion had redeemed me from myself and, of course, the heroic death that had brought me there was no longer an objective. I still loved Carmen with the same passion and intensity as then and her rejection hurt me as much as before, but now I could live with it. Of course, trying not to think about it, to not think about her in short, something that sometimes I did not manage but that in general, absorbed as I was in preparing myself for a future elite soldier, I normally managed. And what happened later, when he was that type of soldier, we would see. And finally, one day in mid-October of that year 1957, when I was 19 years and four months old, the instruction period and the intensive skydiving course ended and I was finally able to wear the typical legionary hat, the “chapiri”, with the long tassel falling almost to my nose, and the “paraca” wings on my chest. My enthusiasm for the event was overflowing... I almost didn't believe I had achieved it. In front of me, I was the biggest guy in the universe. And, logically, the same thing happened to the rest of the 17. As is easy to imagine, the celebrations broke alcohol records... and the occasional visit to "certain" bars, clubs and houses with ladies behind the bar or in the reception rooms of the "visitors." But the celebrations were cut short as soon as they began because on the third day of being Legionary Knights they embarked us on another Ju-52 that took us to El Aaiun, capital of the territory of the Spanish Sahara, where we were assigned to the XIII Bandera, to its 3rd company, the “John of Austria in the Rayán Mansur barracks, base camp of the Bandera. Things in that still Spanish land were getting worse every day (6) so in June of this year 1957, the IV Flag of the Third Duke of Alba, IInd of the Legion, was sent to Villa Cisneros. On October 23, after a short week of stay in El Aaiun, some mujahideen (soldiers or combatants) of the Moroccan Liberation Army, the ELM, (7) attacked and occupied the villages in the belt of Sidi Ifni, Goulimine and Bou Izarguen and on the 27th three Ju-52s of the Spanish Air Force were shot at from the ground. These events lead to the sending of the IIª Flag, Tercio “Great Captain” I of the Legion to Ifni and the VIª Flag, Tercio “Duke of Alba”, II of the Legion to El Aaiun, at the beginning of November. In addition, the punishment battalion of Cabrerizas, a suburb of the city of Melilla, was also transferred to the capital of Western Sahara. All this in addition to the sending of regular troops, mandatory replacements, both to Ifni and the Sahara. Another curiosity. In 1953 ben Mizzian was Captain General of Galicia and, as such, he had to make the offering on behalf of the Head of State and Spain to the Apostle Santiago; to “Santiago Matamoros” who, according to legend, charged against the Moors in the battle of Clavijo, back in 844, on the back of a spirited white horse and sword in hand at the head of the host of Ramiro Iº of Asturias. And the most curious thing is that Ben Mizzian was a very devout and fervent Muslim, then that of making the offering to “Santiago Matamoros” well... fabric! 10.