The New House. Silvia Molina
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The new house
Silvia Molina
Of course I don't believe in luck, mom. You're just like my dad. Don't tell me it was a
dreamer; he was a sick man ─with your pardon─. What else? For me, fortune is
It’s either there or not at all. No talk of winning the lottery. Which lottery? No, mom. The
Life is no illusion, it is life and that's it. It's good for children who believe in everything.
in the 'I'm going to buy you a little bed', and after waiting so long, they start to forget. Although they
I will say, sometimes time passes and one refuses to forget certain promises; like that afternoon in
that my dad took me to see that new house.
The journey in the truck from San Rafael felt different to me, mom. As if it were another one...
I was observing the trees - they are called ash trees, he insisted - in the ridges full of
orange and yellow flowers ─they are sunflowers and daisies─, he was instructing me.
Thousands of times we had traveled Melchor Ocampo, but never until Gutenberg.
I liked the amplitude and the cleanliness of the streets more and more. I didn't want to remember San Rafael.
so sad and so old: "It's not dirty, it's the years," you always used to say, mom. Do you
Do you agree? I didn't want to think about our private space without intimacy and without water.
My dad stopped before entering and asked me:
What do you think? A dream, right?
I had the white gate, recently painted. Through it, I saw the new house for the first time...
A uniformed man was taking care of her. It struck me as... just like when you buy a piece of fabric:
smell of new, of fresh, of wanting to feel it.
I opened my eyes wide, mom. He was taking me from here to there by the hand. When we went up, he told me:
This is going to be your bedroom.
He had puffed out his chest and it even seemed that his voice was cutting off from emotion. For me alone,
I thought. I wouldn't have to sleep with my brothers anymore. As soon as I opened a door, he rushed in:
─ So that you can store the clothes.
And the truth is, I placed it there, very neatly on the shelves, and my three dresses hanging; and my treasures.
in those drawers. I felt like jumping on the bed with pleasure, but he stopped me and opened the
another door:
Look, a bathroom.
And I laid down with my thoughts in that immense thing, letting my body go so that the water could...
to lull
[7] Then he showed me his bedroom, his bathroom, his dressing room. He would twirl his mustache like when
I was anxious. Then you came out, just bathed, smelling of peach, of apple, of cleanliness.
Happy, mom, very happy to have embraced him without the disturbance or the cries of my
brothers.
[8] We passed by the girls' room, pink like their cheeks and the twin beds; and then,
Mom, in the children's room, they say, 'You'll see, they're going to put the little cars and the soldiers here.'
We walked through the living room, because it had a living room; and through the dining room and the kitchen and the laundry room and
Ironing. He took me up to the rooftop and brought me down quickly because 'you have to see the room for me.'
restrainer'. And I locked him up so he could do his drawings, without screams or fights, without children be quiet that your
Dad is working, burning the midnight oil as a draftsman to feed us.
I never wanted to leave there, mom. Even being locked up, I would be happy. I would wait for them to arrive.
you all, I would look at the smooth walls, I would sit on the mosaic floors, on the carpets, on the
padded room; I would bathe in each of the bathrooms; I would go up and down hundreds, thousands of times,
stone staircase and the spiral one; I would bake many breads to savor them slowly, in the
dining room. There I would wait for your arrival, mom, Anita's, Rebe's, Gonza's, the baby's, and
Meanwhile, I would also write a composition for school: 'The new house.'
In this house, my family is going to be happy. My mom will not complain about the dirt anymore.
what we live. My dad won't go to the cantina; he will arrive early to draw. I will have my room for
I alone; and my brothers...
I don't know what made me let go of his hand, mom. I ran upstairs to my room, to
see it again, to take a good look at the furniture and its large window; and I touched the bed to be sure of
that it wasn't just one of my dad's many promises, that everything there was as real as I myself was,
when the uniformed man ordered me:
Get down, we are going to close.
I almost rolled down the stairs, my heart was in my throat: 'What do you mean they are going to close, dad?'
Isn't this my room? I haven't been able to forget, not even with time. What was supposed to be ours when it
I would do the raffle!
Silvia Molina (1985). Hispano-American Narrative 1816-1981. History and Anthology VI, The Generation of 1939 in
forward. 21st Century Publishers.
(Adaptation)