GAL

Patios de luz

A estrada dende o Eirado ata o Patio de Luces, tiña máis de cen curvas. Era a estrada pola que marcharon as miñas veciñas, os meus avós, nós.

Cando as nenas preguntabamos por qué tantas curvas, na aldea sempre daban a mesma resposta, fora un ingeniero que cobraba por kilómetros e a nós non nos sorprendía.
Davi e eu intentabamos contalas pero pola curva trinta comezabamos a cantar máis alto cos partidos de fútbol que soaban de fondo na radio. Sempre nos mareabamos

Nese camiño de ida moitas veces, ó chegar, perdíamos a fala, menos cando as nais cantaban pola noite cantigas de berce que resoaban en todo o patio, coma se fose unha catedral aberta, co cheiro da comida de mañá, o marmurio do tráfico, o vento morno e o trapicheo de fondo. As nenas durmían soñando co sabor de doce caseiro nos que as súas nais amasaran todo o amor que lles fuxira das palabras. Os pais quedaban durmidos diante da tele e os paxaros metíanselle nos soños

Mentres na suburbia de Dublín cada mañá Luci erguíase para ir traballar ó seu patio traseiro, en pixama, facendo traballos invisibles. No camiño había unha maceira e aquel outono, recolleu as súas follas, pegounas como se fora unha sábana, botouna ó sol e sentou agardando que a luz se filtrase ó través e semellara que estaba no monte

A Traspielas e o barrio do Calvario separábano unha estrada de máis de cen curvas e cada domingo os habitantes dos patios voltaban cos maleteros cargados de patacas porque nos patios case todas sabían que comer patacas era coma comer terra, recordos, memoria.

EN

Patios of Light

The road from the small plots of land around the houses down to the Patios of Light counted more than a hundred turns. It was the road my neighbours took, my grandpa- rents, the women, us.
In the aldea, when we'd ask why so many turns, we always got the same answer; the engineer was paid by the mile, no surprise there. My brother Davi and I would try and count them but by about turn thirty we'd start into singing and get louder and louder against the football match on the radio. By then we’d be dizzy.
So often on that journey, we’d get back to the city and all fall into silence. Until our mothers sang lullabies that rose through the patios, as if they were open Cathedrals, with the smell of tomorrow’s dinner drifting up, the hum of traffic, the soft, warm wind and the street-deals down below in the alleyways. The children slept dreaming of homemade desserts into which their mothers had kneaded all their love that could never find words. Parents fell asleep in front of the television while birds flit through their dreams.
Meanwhile, every morning in a Dublin suburb, Lucy got up to go to work in her back garden, still in her pyjamas, to tend to her hidden craft. There was an apple tree on her way to work and that autumn she collected all the leaves, rolled them onto a sheet, which she hung out in the sun waiting for the light to shine through, till it felt like she was back on the mountain.
Traspielas and the neighbourhood of Calvario were separated by a road of more than a hundred turns and every Sunday the inhabitants of the patios came back to the city with their bags bursting with potatoes, because in the patios everybody knows that eating potatoes from the mountain was like eating earth, reminiscence, memory.