Tell Me Who I Am by Julia Navarro
My father seemed indifferent to all these events. Some days, after having breakfast, he would stay caught up in the foreign broadcasts from the shortwave radio that Amelia kept like a treasure. But neither her comments nor ours seemed to interest him.
On November 1 he collapsed and we took him to the hospital, but my colleagues said that there was nothing we could do for him, and that it was best for him to be allowed to die at home, quietly, so we took him back to our apartment.
Amelia never left his side, not even for a minute. I think that she grew old very fast in those days. Even though she was seventy-two, she had seemed younger, she was always well dressed, with her white hair tied back in a bun.
On the afternoon of November 9 Amelia called me to come to my father’s house straight away. My father was starting his final agonies.
This lasted several hours, with periods of lucidity when I was able to say goodbye to him and tell him how much I loved him and how happy I had been by his side.
“I couldn’t have wanted any life other than the one I had with you,” I told him.
Night had fallen, and hundreds of people were in the streets. The authorities had announced that after midnight special permission would no longer be required to cross the border.
I looked at the wall that stretched along in front of our house. I was used to its presence, and I thought about how strange fate was. My father was dying, and thousands of people were in the streets celebrating something.
It was round about midnight when Amelia beckoned for me to come to the side of the bed. He had opened his eyes and grasped hold of Amelia’s hand, I saw his eyes filled with love, then my father took me by the hand as well and brought the hands of the three of us together on his chest, and died.
Amelia and I stayed still, without moving, with our hands on his chest, my father’s chest. His heart had stopped beating and ours were beating faster because of the emotion of the moment. Shouting from the street pulled us out of ourselves. Amelia kissed him gently on the lips.
We heard more commotion and went to the window. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. Thousands of people were going up to the Wall, carrying pickaxes and hammers and chisels, and they started to beat at it in front of the soldiers. We stood silently looking at this spectacle, and then Amelia looked me in the eyes.
“You’re going,” I said, knowing that this is what she was going to do.
“Yes. There’s nothing left for me to do here.”
“I understand.”
She took a bag and put some clothes into it. Then she opened one of the drawers of her bedroom cabinet and took out a box, which she gave me.
“Here is all the money I earned working for the Americans. It’s dollars, they should be useful. The documents of ownership for the possessions your family had are here as well. Who knows...”
She went up to the bed and knelt down next to Max’s body. She stroked his face and put her head on his chest. She shut her eyes for a few seconds, then got up. We hugged, and I felt her tears on my cheeks and mine on hers.
She left without saying goodbye, although both of us knew that she was going forever.
I saw her walk out of the door and approach the Wall. She joined with the thousands of Berliners who were beating at it and tearing chunks of concrete and brick away with their bare hands. They had made a large hole, and a goodly part of the Wall was broken down. I saw how she stepped over the rubble and walked with her back straight to the other side of Berlin, where other Berliners were shouting and singing with joy. She didn’t turn back, although I’m sure that she knew that I was looking at her. I didn’t move from there until I saw her lose herself among the crowds.
Friedrich fell silent. He was obviously moved, and I was as well. I realized that Ilse was looking at us from the door, I don’t know how long she had been there.
“And she never came back,” Ilse finished.
“No, never.”
“But didn’t she say where she was going, or what she was going to do?”
“No, she didn’t say anything, she just left.”
“Did she ever write to you, or telephone...”
“No, never. And I didn’t expect her to. That night she recovered her liberty as well.”
I had dinner with Friedrich von Schumann and his wife Ilse and we speculated about where Amelia could have gone but, as Friedrich himself said, my great-grandmother was unpredictable.
“I have no idea where she died or where she is buried. If I knew, I would go and put flowers on her tomb and say a prayer,” Friedrich assured me.
I thanked both of them for having been so kind as to receive me, and above all for what they had told me. I promised them that if I found out where Amelia’s tomb was, then I would tell them.
I couldn’t do much more in Berlin. No one could tell me where my great-grandmother had gone, so I went back to London, convinced that if I insisted with Major Hurley and Lady Victoria, then they would tell me what had happened to Amelia. I was sure that they would know.
Major Hurley seemed surprised when I called him.
“I’ve told you, I can’t tell you anything else. I can’t reveal official secrets.”
“I’m not asking you to tell me any state secrets, just to give me an idea about where my great-grandmother might have gone. As you can see, I hope, no one cares about what a seventy-two-year-old woman who is already dead did in 1989.
“Don’t insist, Guillermo. I don’t have anything else to tell you.”
Lady Victoria was friendlier, but equally firm in her refusal.
“I assure you, I do not know what became of Amelia Garayoa, I would like to help you but I cannot.”
“Maybe you could convince Major Hurley...”
“Oh, impossible! The major will stick to the rules.”
“But I just need to know where my great.-grandmother is buried, I don’t think it could be a state secret.”
“If Major Hurley doesn’t want to tell you anything else, then he will have his motives.”
I couldn’t arrange a new meeting with either Major Hurley or Lady Victoria. The major told me that he was going fox-hunting for a few days, and Lady Victoria was planning to go to a golf tournament in California.
5
Over the next few days, back in Madrid, I called all the people who had helped me find out about Amelia’s wanderings, but no one seemed to know anything about what happened to her, it was as if the ground had swallowed her up.
I decided to get in touch with Washington to get permission to look in the National Archives there.
I remembered that Avi Meir had told me about a friend of his who was a priest and who had been in Berlin in 1946, and who now lived in New York and was an expert on the Second World War.
Avi seemed happy that I had called him and gave me the address and telephone number of his friend.
Robert Stuart was an old man who was just as charming as Avi Meir, as well as being a walking encyclopedia.
He did as much as he could to help me, he even got me in touch with a retired CIA operative whom he had known in Berlin in 1946. But it was useless. If the British were extremely cautious about their secrets, the Americans were even more so. Although they had declassified some of the documents that contained the names of people who had worked for American intelligence, there were other names that were still secret. The most that I could discover was that a friend of this former agent confirmed for me that during the Cold War there had been a Spaniard collaborating with them from East Berlin.
In despair, I decided to try my luck with Professor Soler. I turned up at his house in Barcelona without warning.
“Professor, I’m at an impasse, I can’t go any further without your help.”
“What’s happened?” he asked me with interest.
“Amelia disappeared from East Berlin on November 9, 1989. Does the date say anything to you?”
“Of course, the fall of the Wall...”
“Well, it’s as if she were s
“Don’t be a pessimist, Guillermo. You should talk to Doña Laura.”
“She’ll think that I’m a failure.”
“Maybe, but you do have to tell her that you can’t carry on with the investigation.”
“I tell you, I’m trying everything. There’s not even a trace of her on the internet,” I said.
“Well, if something’s not on the internet, then it obviously doesn’t exist,” he said, ironically.
“So what should I do now?”
“I’ve told you, call Doña Laura and tell her that you’ve reached a point where you can’t continue any further.”
“After so much time and money... I’m ashamed.”
“Well, it’s better for you to tell her the truth as soon as possible, unless you think you can find another clue.”
“If you don’t help me...”
“I don’t know how to, I’ve already put you in touch with all the people I know who can help you.”
I had to have a couple of drinks before calling Doña Laura. She listened to me in silence as I gave her an account of my wanderings and of how I had lost track of Doña Laura on November 9, 1989.
“I’m sorry, I would have liked to have told you where she is buried,” I said apologetically.
“Write down what you’ve found out, and when you’re done, give me a call.”
“Write it down? But the story isn’t finished...”
“I’m not asking for the impossible. If you’ve got to 1989, then that’s good enough. Write it down and try to be as fast as you can. We can’t wait very long at our age.”
I hadn’t seen Ruth for a very long time: What with her traveling and mine, there hadn’t been a time when we coincided in the same place. And I went to see my mother as soon as I arrived in Madrid, but she was so cross with me that she didn’t even invite me in to dinner. I told her that I had finished my investigation, but not even that moved her.
“You’ve spent so much time acting the fool that I don’t care if you do it a bit more. At least my sister has given up on the idea of giving us some absurd storybook for Christmas.”
In fact, I had spent these months not just investigating, but also writing up all the episodes in Amelia Garayoa’s life as I had been told them, so I almost had the story ready and written out.
It took me three weeks to put it in order, to correct it and print it. Then I took it to a printer who made it into a book with a leather binding. I wanted it to be presentable, and not too much of a disappointment for the two Garayoa women who had been so generous to me.
Doña Laura was surprised when I told her over the phone that I had the story all written down.
“How quick!”
“Well, I’ve been writing it up as I’ve been going along.”
“Come round at four o’clock tomorrow.”
I felt satisfied, and a little melancholy at the same time. My work here was over, and once I’d handed in the book I would have to find my own life once again, and forget about Amelia Garayoa.
Epilogue
I brushed down my only suit. I wanted to be presentable when I saw the two old ladies. I even went to the hairdresser in the morning.
The housekeeper who opened the door took me through to the salon and told me to wait.
“Madam will be through shortly.”
I didn’t sit down. I was impatient to give the two old ladies the report that had cost me so much to put together.
Doña Laura came in, leaning on a cane. She had grown older, if that is something one can say about a woman who had passed ninety some years ago.
“Come on, Amelia is in the library.”
I followed her, walking at her rate, ready to meet her sister Melita.
“Amelia, Guillermo is here.”
“Guillermo? Who is Guillermo?”
She looked lost. She was so thin that she looked as if she were about to break.
“The boy we asked to investigate... He’s finished, and he’s written the history you wanted.”
“Guillermo... yes, yes, Guillermo...”
Her eyes seemed to flit back to the present day and she looked straight at me.
“Have you written it all down?”
“Yes, I think so...”
“Come closer, Guillermo, and tell me who I am.”
I was struck dumb and didn’t know what to say. The old woman’s eyes were begging me.
“Guillermo, tell me who I am, I’ve forgotten, I don’t know who I am.”
I looked for Doña Laura, who had stood up and was leaning on the cane, looking at the pair of us.
“I... I don’t understand,” I managed to say.
“Tell me who I am, tell me who I am,” the old woman insisted desperately.
I held out the bound book and she took it in her arms and hugged it tight.
“Now I can find out. I remember lots of things, but there are others that have grown cloudy in my memory. There are days when I don’t know anything, not even who I am, isn’t that right, Laura?”
Suddenly, the old woman sounded perfectly lucid, although she wasn’t talking to me but to herself, or her own ghosts.
I didn’t understand anything, or else I was starting to understand it all, but I didn’t dare move, or speak.
“Is it all in this book?” Doña Laura asked me.
“Yes, up until November 9, 1989. That’s the day Amelia disappeared and... ,” I said.
“Yes, that’s what happened,” Doña Laura said.
“But...”
“Everything finished that night, there’s nothing else to look for, Guillermo.”
“Do you know who I am, Guillermo? Will you tell me?” the old woman asked, still hugging the book to her chest.
“I don’t need to, I’ve written it all down, you can read it for yourself.”
“I don’t want to lose my memories, they’re being taken away, Guillermo, they go away and I... I don’t know where to find them.”
“I’ve found them, and they’re all here, and no one can take them away from you.”
The old woman held out her hand to me and smiled. I took her hand: She felt firm and fragile at the same time.
Doña Laura made a sign and we left the library.
“She is... she is... Amelia,” I babbled.
“Yes, she is Amelia.”
“But isn’t she Melita, your sister? I thought she was Melita... I’ve thought she was Melita all this time, you made me think she was her.”
Doña Laura shrugged indifferently. She didn’t care what I might have thought.
“So, she’s my great-grandmother?” I was just about capable of saying this without stammering.
“Yes. But now you must forget about her. Remember your promise: You would do this work for us, not for your family, and you would keep secret everything that you found out. Those conditions still apply, alright?”
“Of course, of course. But why did you trust me?”
“Fate brought you to us, and Amelia, in her moments of lucidity, decided that she trusted you, that you would find her secret and be able to keep it. She believes in you.”
“And I will not betray her. I won’t tell anyone that she... well, that she is alive.”
“There wouldn’t be any sense to it. It would be a shock for her family to discover that she was still alive, and for her... Well, Amelia would not be able to resist meeting her grandchildren. It’s too late now.”
“When did she come back?”
“In November of 1989. She turned up without warning. Edurne opened the door and screamed the house down. We all ran to see what had happened. I recognized Amelia as well. Just imagine! She was twenty-something when we had seen each other for the last time, and she was more than seventy when she came back, but we recognized her at once.”
“And... well, what about... explanations?”
“She didn’t give us any. And we
“How did you know?”
“We never stopped getting information about him, gathering it in case Amelia came back one day. We knew about his wedding, his successes, his children, everything, even though we never got close to him. When Santiago died we went to see Javier, I went with my sister Melita, but he made it very clear that he preferred to have nothing to do with us. He was right, what could we say to that?”
“So you have always been here, knowing everything about us, but we have known nothing about your side of the family.”
“That was your great-grandfather Santiago’s wish, and your grandfather Javier’s; he could never get over the knowledge that he had been abandoned by his mother. She didn’t blame him for it. The terrible part is that Amelia outlived him. We went to his funeral, no one saw us because we were up in the choir. Amelia cried out of despair.”
“And you, didn’t you have family: children, grandchildren?”
“My sister Melita died two years ago, shortly after losing her husband. Her children Isabel and Juanito are married and live in Burgos, but they come to see us very often. My brother Jesús and his wife died a year and a half after they had married and had a son. I took charge of my nephew, and brought him up as if he were my own. He died of a heart attack. He was the father of Amelia María, my niece who lives with us. My great-niece, I should say.”
“So you gave up your own life...”
“No, I didn’t give up anything, I chose the life I wanted to live, the life I have lived, and I have been happy.”
“I can’t understand how you stopped yourself from asking her questions, or how she stopped herself from telling you where she had been all this time.”