Pepa's Hell

PEPA'S HELL

Pepa was dusting the television box.

A group of people discussed the next national elections, insulting one
of the candidates, when the news-flash interrupted them. Pepa heard
something about an explosion in a train, and the name of a station,
Atocha, and stopped dusting.

Cleaning some inexistent dirt from her hands in her apron, she sat on
the corner of the coffee table, bent towards the screen. They didn't
have any images yet, the newswoman said. They could only inform of a
strong blast in Atocha.

Pepa was used to terrorist blasts. ETA had started killing when she was
a young woman, and most of the key moments in her life, had been
accompanied by the echo of their guns, and their explosions. And still,
every time the news-people announced a new death, Pepa felt sick
inside, sad, and scared. She was fifty-two years old now, and more
scared than ever.

Besides, Lorena was supposed to be travelling from Alcala to Atocha
that morning, precisely around the time of the explosions. Pepa
shivered, remembering Lorena's kiss a few hours earlier before going to
work. Lorena was Pepa's daughter, and always cached that train early in
the mornings to go to work in Madrid. Pepa frown, and rapidly shook a
terrible thought well away from her head. It would be a massive
coincidence. How many people took that same train every morning? But
why didn't they say the name of the victims? Or how many of them?

The phone went off. "Pepa! Did you hear?" Pepa could only say yes.
"I'll be there in ten minutes. Get ready, we'll go and see what's
happened." It was Alfredo, Pepa's husband, and Lorena's dad.

But Pepa didn't move from her little place on the top of the coffee
table, to follow the news, as they were becoming clearer. She changed
channels, first, second, tele Madrid, canal plus? coming back to tele
Madrid quickly. They had pictures now. Pepa thought for a second that
those images were from some other blast, in a country far away. All
those corpses, the blood, the bits and pieces of people? These things
never happen here!. But then she saw what was left of the train, opened
on the top, just like a tin of sardines, and broke into tears. Lorena?
Alfredo hadn't wanted any more kids. "It's better just one, we can give
her everything! We cannot afford two or more, cuchi. Just think, she'll
be able to go to university one day!" Yes? Lorena had been an
only-child, and had gone to university, landing quite a good job in
Madrid. If she hadn't she wouldn't have been on that train that
morning. But why was she thinking like that? Lorena was just fine,
probably in shock, helping the other passengers; there were lots of
people helping each other on the television. She must be just fine,
Pepa thought. Her chest was aching. She dried her eyes with the apron,
and once more rubbed her hands against it. The dusting cloth was still
on top of the television.

What they were showing in the local news was terrifying; Pepa had never
seen carnage like that before, and definitely, nothing half as bad in
Europe. For a second she thought it was too terrible even for ETA.
Alfredo was back home within minutes. "Woman! Are you coming out like
that?" Pepa was still wearing the old dress, the hairy old jacket, and
the dirty apron she wore every morning for cleaning. "They are asking
people to stay home," She muttered. "But Lorena?" Alfredo didn't have
the strength to finish the sentence. Pepa wanted to scream at him,
Lorena was fine, she had to be! But she didn't say anything. She didn't
feel anything. Pepa wanted to feel it. Mothers surely feel things in
these situations; they surely feel if their child has been hurt, so why
couldn't she feel anything one way or the other? Her eyes came back to
the mess of blood and iron spread all over the rail-track at Atocha.
She couldn't stop shaking now, looking for Lorena's face on everybody
who was walking out of the trains, like zombies. When she couldn't find
it in the bodies standing up, she started looking for her on the people
lying down, being attended by the paramedics, and the other travellers.
But still, no trace of her anywhere. The noises were just as terrifying
as the images, if not more. People crying calling their mothers,
daughter's, sons? little voices complaining of cold, voices that
wouldn't be around for much longer; the cry of a woman who had just
found out about the death of a loved one? and the tens of ambulances,
and police cars that were approaching and leaving the Station by then.
The air was grey, full of dust and smoke. Nothing was left of the
Madrid's sun that had illuminated the morning only an hour earlier.
"Lorena?" Pepa whispered, again and again, to herself. Alfredo looked
at her and broke down, crying like a little child, kneeling on the
floor. So much death? it looked like a scene of war. Something that
couldn't possibly be happening in their home. "Murderers" She
whispered."Murderers. Sons of Bitches. Murderers." The men from the
emergency services began attending the area, firstly the train. Pepa
noticed there wasn't only one hole in it; there had been more in other
wagons. She heard the newsperson talk about other explosions in other
stations, all in the same line were Lorena was supposed to be
commuting. Many policemen, firemen and doctors were looking as pale and
shocked as the victims.

Not too long afterwards the television emitted a phone number for
worried relatives. Alfredo tried to write it down in a piece of
newspaper, but his fingers were too shaky. "Give it here!" Pepa yelled,
and started writing frantically. There was no need to rush; the number
was to stay there, in every channel, for the rest of the day. Pepa
dialled it; Alfredo's sobbing was getting her sick. She heard some
welcome message from the Railway company, and then a male's voice,
asking how he could help. "My daughter, Lorena." "Surnames please." He
said quickly. Pepa could hear the rapid tic tics of fingers on a
keyboard. "Perez Moreno" "OK, bear with me for a moment please. But we
have very few names yet, you have to understand?" "I do" Pepa
interrupted. A few minutes passed, maybe only a few seconds, but to
Pepa they seemed like years. And then the male's voice was back. "No, I
cannot find her in the wounded, but as I said, we only have a handful
of them right now. You can call again in a few minutes. And watch for
he lists" "What lists?" Pepa asked. "They'll start printing provisional
lists of wounded and dead very soon, hopefully." The dead? Pepa put the
phone down without saying thank you to the young man.

The newsperson was calling for blood donors to come forward. "We must
go, Alfre," She said. Her husband couldn't stop crying, and made a sign
to say no with his right hand. "I am going then" Pepa continued, and
took her apron off, rubbing her hands against it yet once more, and
hanging it behind the kitchen's door. She put a decent cardigan on, and
left slamming the door. In her mind the images of legs, arms, and
different pieces of bodies, swimming in blood, where taking the form of
her daughter's. She didn't realise she was still crying, when she
climbed on the bus. But so were the other three women sitting close to
her. Did they all have Lorenas in that train? Or was it simply the
shock, and a universal sense of loss that trespassed family bounds? She
had a long journey to Atocha, a long road, to remember Lorena's dark
face, always smiling. Lorena's big dark eyes, that sparkled with youth
and dreams; and her tall figure, that made everybody joke about her
origin. Both Pepa and Alfredo had always been quite short, and plump.
Lorena didn't look like any of them. She was gorgeous. Or maybe she
wasn't any more. Maybe she was broken on the floor of that opened tin
of sardines, her arms and her legs positioned in impossible angle's
from her broken body, her blood poring out in little rivers, her big
dark eyes empty. Maybe she didn't know her parents anymore, she didn't
know anything anymore, maybe she had stopped being. "Nooo!" Pepa
groaned aloud, making the other women on the bus look in her direction,
to very quickly look towards the road again. They knew. Their eyes were
all red. Their faces swollen. Their children, probably, broken on the
floor on one of those trains with Lorena. Pepa held tight the front
seat, and looked at the river. Madrid seemed to have come to a stand
still. It looked like the scene of a film. Where had all the cars gone?
Where all the noises? And the people?

When the bus came to its final stop, in what seemed like ages, the
traffic of normal cars was practically inexistent in central Madrid.
She could only see ambulances everywhere, police cars, firemen? and
large lines of people standing outside special coaches, prepared for
the donation of blood. There was a long way from where she was to where
the scene of the bombings, so she decided against looking for Lorena
just yet, and donating some blood first. She stood on one line with
many others, lots and lots of people, of every sex, every age, and
every colour. All sharing the same expression of incomprehension in
their eyes. The silence was hair-raising, and emphasized the humming of
the emergency vehicles, rushing towards Atocha. Pepa let her eyes cry
for all of the people there, for everybody who had been wounded, or
killed, and for everybody who was right now anguishing waiting for news
of someone who could or could not have been close to the bombs. She
hated whomever had done it, like she had never hated any one in her
life; it made her understand how human the thirst for blood is; if
something had happened to her Lorena, she would kill them with her bare
hands. Bastards. Pepa looked down in shame, there was no apron to rubb
her hands with now. Her turn came, and she lied on the coach, waiting
for her blood to be taken, so she could rush to the train station. The
nurses who were taking it didn't speak either, but to give orders to
each other. The sense of urgency was a living thing in there.

When she had finished, and was walking fast towards Attocha, a noise
from her pocket made her stop and reach with shaky hands for the mobile
phone she carried in there. Lorena had given it to her last Christmas.
It had been only three months earlier, but it seemed like years now.
Pepa only left home to buy a French baguette and two pints of milk
every day. She hardly was the type who needs mobiles. But they lived in
the mobile age, when those who didn't have a little phone, were seen
just as badly as those who couldn't read or count, and Lorena loved her
mum too much to let her stay in that group. It took her many seconds to
answer the thing, she didn't remember how to do it any more; 'come on?
it's probably Lorena, trying to contact us, trying to tell us she is
fine. Come on!' She thought pressing every button in there. Finally the
screen illuminated, and she heard a voice: "Pepa, cuchi, are you there?
Pepa!" 'Alfredo' Pepa started crying out loud again. Where was her
daughter? "Pepa, what's wrong? Where are you? How are you? Have you?
Did you find? Is Lorena alright?" "I am not there yet, Alfre, I gave
some blood? I thought it was her on the phone now." She went on,
sobbing. "Calm down hon., tell me where you are and I pick you up in
the car. We'll look for her in the hospitals, if she is not at Atocha.
I've checked Santa Eugenia already, and she wasn't there. Don't worry,
cuchi, trust me." She trusted her husband, but sadly, this had nothing
to do with trust. Their daughter's life wasn't in his hands, or hers
for that matter. Today, Lorena's life had been in God's hands, and
those murderer's. It all depended in what wagon she had chosen to sit
that morning, and in what seat in the wagon. Lorena's image kissing her
before leaving home came back to her once more; she couldn't stop
sobbing. There was no reason not to, no shame, everybody around her,
even the policemen, was crying. Pepa felt very hot, as she run now. The
big glass front of Atocha, darker than usual, was right ahead of her
now, and the road was packed with ambulances, and people, some of them
covered in blood, everybody looking terribly scared and confused. She
thought it looked like a strange massive church, like a modern
Cathedral. Pepa couldn't believe a couple of hours had passed from the
bombings already. She found herself in the middle of a battlefield.
"You can't go there," A policeman yelled at her. "But, my daughter?"
Pepa managed to say. The policemen understood right away, after all he
had lived the same a thousand times before that day. "There are no
wounded left in the trains, lady, they've all been taken right there,
to the sport centre, and the rest to hospitals." Pepa felt cold on her
forehead, her sweat was icy. "Isn't there anybody left in the trains?"
The young policeman doubted again, and looking at the gates of the
station answered, "only the dead" The dead? Pepa repeated to herself.
"Isn't there anybody who can tell me if my daughter is ? there?" "I
don't know lady, some travel passes have been found, but they've been
taken away already, I believe. The News and the Home Office will start
publishing lists soon." He didn't want to speak to her any longer; he
didn't want to be there. Pepa could see the shadow of death in his
young eyes. That man wasn't coming back home tonight the same he had
left in the morning either. He might not have exploded into many parts,
he might have been having breakfast when the bombs went off, but they
had taken a very important part of his soul from him
nevertheless.

She looked all around and found the same expression in every official's
face. There was blood all over the floor, litres, a memory of the
people who had been bleeding around there until very recently. And a
strange chemical smell floated in the air, something bitter sweet that
got into Pepa's nostrils intoxicating her whole body in seconds. Pepa
would have that smell in her nose for the rest of her life, Madrid only
for a few days. She let some people accompany her to where hundreds of
wounded still were, lying over a covered Olympic swimming pool. Under
their bodies, in no time, men and women would come to get fit after
work, in their fashionable swimming costumes. Today, with the building
still unfinished, only broken bodies lied there, and the busy men and
women helping them. Pepa walked slowly within them. She saw how they
took a young man, barely visible under a coat of blood, to an
ambulance. She saw a woman crying words in a different language, the
language of suffering, Pepa thought. She saw a dark man lying livid
looking at her, his body shaking badly, his mouth half opened. Pepa saw
those and many other people, and tens of paramedics around them. But
she didn't see Lorena. Suddenly Pepa felt the weight of a hand on her
shoulder, and looked back. Alfredo! "Hi Cuchi, I am sorry it took me so
long. The roads are hell today." Pepa didn't need to be told, she knew
about hell by now. Alfredo looked around him, his eyes filling with
tears. "She is not here," Pepa said, quickly. Lets go to the
hospitals." "I've heard there is a provisional list of wounded. Why
don't we have a look first? If she is not there we can go to? IFEMA."
IFEMA, the massive exhibition site of Madrid, had today become a
mortuary. "She is not there" Said Pepa simply, walking out with him.
The dark man was still looking at her, his mouth still half opened. How
did they know he wasn't dead? He wasn't shaking any more. They both
walked holding each other through the streets of the capital, like so
many other times before. Like when they were boyfriend and girlfriend,
and their biggest worry was not to get caught kissing by Franco's
police. Like when Pepa was well pregnant of Lorena, and the streets
smelled of honey and lemon. But today the smell was bittersweet, today
the streets smelled of blood and chemicals, and neither Pepa nor
Alfredo felt like kissing. And their biggest worry was too big to even
talk about it. Lorena was all right, and they were going to find
her.

The search in the hospitals was never-ending. The personal was too busy
helping the wounded to spend a minute talking to the relatives.
Thousands of people wanted to know where their loved ones were, how
their loved ones were. Pepa just wanted to know about Lorena, and
Alfredo nearly lost his temper once when he was told by a doctor that
he had more important things to do than looking for their daughter. The
doctor had been right; hundreds of lives were depending on him that
morning, more than any other single morning in his career. He looked at
those desperate parents and his heart broke. He wished he could tell
them about their daughter, but for all he knew she could be anyone.
"She'll call you if she is alright. Just look at the lists" The lists.
There wasn't a list for the dead yet, and the one for the wounded
wasn't quite finished . Pepa and Alfredo sat in a waiting room, in the
fourth hospital they were visiting, trying to find Lorena's name. A man
whose child of 12 was in the hospital, had passed it to them. His
child, a girl, had lost both her arms, and he couldn't find his wife or
his other 2 kids, who had been in the train with the girl. 'Dead'
Thought Pepa, trying really hard not to think that way, but she wasn't
in control of her mind that morning anymore. They went through the
names, one by one. Next to them, there was the name of the hospital
were the wounded had been taken to. Lorena wasn't any of those
names.

When she came to the end of the list, Pepa broke down again. She cried
and cried, her head lying on her husbands lap. "Lets go to IFEMA then"
she said at last, and they walked off. They couldn't find the man with
the armless daughter anywhere, to give him the newspaper back, so they
just left it open on top of a chair. Other people would need it. "It's
only a provisional list," Alfredo said, while driving.

The roads were mysteriously empty, only a few cars, and lots of
ambulances and police cars crossed their way. Pepa looked out the
window, wondering what her daughter could see right that minute. Maybe
she was trapped, still under the iron of the train wagon, and could
only see the sky. Poor little thing. She was probably frizzing. One
always takes her coat off in trains. Pepa thought she would never take
her jacket off in a train again, then she thought some more, 'I'll
never ever go in a train again'. She had spoken aloud, not noticing.
'I'll walk if I have to' Alfredo looked at her distracting himself from
the road for a second.

As soon as they crossed the glass doors of IFEMA, a psychiatrist run
towards them, with a writing pad, and some documents on his hands.
"Hello, my name is Begonia. I am a volunteer, and if you wish I can
help you while you are here.' Pepa looked around in horror. Somehow the
scene was much more terrible here than it had been in the sports
centre. People waited for news of their loved ones in very small
groups, of one or two. They all grasped a mobile phone in one of their
hands and a tissue on the other. Many smoked. Their faces were
translucent. Pepa felt scared for a second, as if what she was seeing
wasn't the relatives of the dead, but their ghosts. She held Alfredo's
hand very tight. Begonia kept a much-needed silence while they walked
towards the provisional waiting room, set up by the local council for
the relatives. In two very long tables, there was a lot of very
appetising food that nobody ate, and warm drinks for an army. There
wasn't any appetite there, only fear. Pepa sat, with her arms bend on
top of her legs, and her head resting on her hands, staring at the
tales that formed the floor. Outside, hearses kept coming in a slow yet
uninterrupted line.

Alfredo gave the psychiatrist all the details about Lorena, until his
sobbing didn't permit him any more talking. Then Pepa lifted her head
"Sorry, what did you want to know?" She asked, very calm. Lorena wasn't
there, she knew it. "Anything you can tell me about your daughter, the
clothes she was wearing this morning, any earring, body marks,
anything". Pepa tried to remember. Lorena had been wearing a nice
shirt, dark blue jeans (or was she wearing the black suit? She wore it
a lot to work), and the black shoes with a very pointy end? Pepa had
asked her if she was trying to get rid of her toes or something like
that when she bought them. Ah! Yes! How could she forget it? The black
scarf on her head! "It's one of those Arabic women wear," she told the
psychiatrist called Begonia. "She's been wearing it for quite some time
now? she's been really silly with that Arabic thingy lately, I don't
know what it is all about. She wouldn't eat pork or let her beautiful
hair on? se reads a lot our Lorena? sometimes reading a lot is not a
good thing, you know? Young people get strange ideas from books, they
don't discern like us. My father used to say young people and women
shouldn't be left alone around books" Begonia looked lovingly at Pepa.
She reminded her of her own mother. She took some more notes and left,
promising she would be back within minutes with some information.

Maybe only minutes passed outside IFEMA; inside, years went by for all
those who waited in agony for the most terrible or the happiest news of
their entire lives. Pepa felt for those who didn't have anyone to wait
with them in those moments. There were lots of people all by themselves
in there. Probably their relatives still unaware of the fact that
someone they knew might be lying down in a black sack in IFEMA. Those
single-waiters looked as if death row was in the end of the hall,
waiting for them. Their eyes trembled, their legs too weak to keep them
standing. They all had a psychiatrist or a psychologist sitting with
them, not that a doctor made much of a difference in those moments.
Pepa wondered how they would have been without all those doctors by
their sides. Silence was everywhere. Only broken every now and then by
a timid cry, or a yelled insult towards the murderers who had done it,
otherwise, all silenced. Pepa wondered if the entrance to heaven looked
anything like that. Or maybe the entrance to hell looked very much like
that. Or maybe there wasn't heaven, and this life was hell. She looked
at her husband, who was still sobbing, his face hidden in his hands.
She massaged his back, gently, and swallowed hard. 'Lorena? why did you
have to go to work at all?' She thought 'we are all right with papa's
money. You could have stayed home, work from home if you had to. Why
leaving home? Don't you remember what mum always told you when you were
a kid? Be careful out there, there are too many bad men out there."
Pepa shivered? maybe Lorena had remembered her mum telling her just
that when the explosions torn her apart. "You are thinking aloud, Pepa"
Alfredo said, still crying.

Begonia, the psychiatrist, came back at last; death was now in her
face as well. She had found Lorena. Pepa took a lot of air in, and
stood up. "There might be a lead" Begonia said when she was already
close enough to keep a comfortable tone of voice. Pepa let a cry go out
from the deepest bend of her soul. A few faces turned to look at her,
only for an instant. "I must tell you, it might not be her. It's in a
very bad state and is hard to tell. There was no scarf anywhere close,
but clothes get turn apart and disappear in blasts." Pepa tried to pull
Alfredo up, towards her, but he wouldn't stand up. He was still crying.
"They only let relatives come through one by one, accompanied by the
doctor." "I'm coming" Answered Pepa quickly. She realised she was still
holding the mobile phone, just like all the others. 'Lorena, call mum'
she thought. But the little machine didn't make a sound, just as dead
as everything and everybody in that place.

Alfredo didn't look up at the two women leaving. Begonia took Pepa by
the hand through a long hallway. Pepa felt like a child, when a teacher
took her just like that to the headmaster after she had done something
naughty. As in a film, the hall got larger and larger as they walked.
Pepa didn't want it to finish. Her heart was painful, was this what
they call tachycardia? The muscle seemed to be dancing a different
style suddenly. She stopped briefly to take some air. "Are you alright
Josefa? Would you like to come back? It might be better if your husband
does it, actually?" No it wouldn't, besides, Pepa wanted to be there if
that body surrounded by death and strange doctors was that of her
daughter. She wanted to be the only in seeing it, and take care of it
until they buried it. Pepa didn't know anymore if she was crying or
not. The physical world had nearly disappeared around her. She was
floating in a different dimension. A place where only fear and pain
exist, and doctors. Pepa saw white robes everywhere. They reached the
end, and another doctor accompanied them to a table. There were
hundreds of tables in there, it was just like in a battlefield. Pepa
hadn't ever been in a battlefield before, but this is how she imagined
them to be. On top of the white tables, white big sacks with a zip on
the top, inside each of them a body, or what was left of it. Some
looked empty, but for a few little bulges. The doctor in the white robe
conducted them towards one of the tables, one of the bags... "Would you
like me to leave you alone" Pepa heard Begonia saying. She couldn't
speak, and held the young psychiatrist hand, as her only answer. The
other doctor walked back a few metres and waited, drying his forehead
with a hadnkerchief.

The body had clearly been cleaned, and arranged the best way possible,
though it was hard to believe that mass of meat covered on grey skin,
had once been a young woman. At first, all Pepa noticed, was the
stench. There was the most horrible smell in there, the smell of death.
The face was gone, and a cloth hid it from them. Pepa held her nostrils
together 'It's not Lorena, she always smells of roses' she thought. As
the doctor came back to unzip the bag farther, Pepa's heart kept on
shrinking, and her soul on letting go. She saw what was left of her
daughter's shirt, and the black suit. There was a body in that broken
suit, but so destroyed it would be nearly impossible even for a mother
to recognise her own daughter in there. Then the feet... One still had
a shoe attached to it, a beautiful black shoe with a rounded end, like
one of those women used to wear in the twenties and thirties. Certainly
not the pointy shoes Lorena had worn every day for the pass couple of
weeks. "It's not her!" She screamed, crying hysterical.

"It's not my daughter, it's not her!!" She cried and cried and cried
some more, all the way back to the big room where the relatives waited.
Every eye now on her, looking for some hope in the happiness of that
mother who had just found out her daughter wasn't the one dead in
there. Alfredo ran towards the two women as he heard Pepa's cry. First
terrified, then infinitely relieved. "She is not there Alfre, it's not
our baby!" They both sat down and cried, together. Begonia waited
standing by the glass panels, looking outside. She knew she couldn't do
that again, the stress of those families was draining all her energies;
she was absorbing too much of their pain and suffering. And then there
was the bodies? she had to be there when the relatives tried to
recongnise them, before today she hadn't seen a dead body in her life,
apart from the medicine school. And she was finding it too
gruelling.

When they calmed down the question came back like a punch on the
stomach. If Lorena wasn't there, and wasn't at the sports centre, and
wasn't in any of the hospitals, where was she? "O God, Pepa! She has to
be on the train! She is trapped in the train!" They both knew what that
would mean. "No, she is not, I know she is not. She is alright,
Alfredo, trust me." Alfredo wanted to trust her, but this time their
daughter's welfare didn't have anything to do with his wife, but with
those bastards who had decided to plant a bunch of bombs on four trains
full of commuters. "What do we do now?" Pepa asked Begonia. "You can
either go home, and wait there for the final lists to come out, or wait
here, in case there are other matches later. " Yes, more bodies were
continuisly crossing the doors of the exhibition site, and it looked as
if they wouldn't stop just yet. "Let's wait," whispered Alfredo. Pepa
nodded.

"Have you eaten anything? You must eat something, or at lest have a
coffee or a cup of tea." Ask Begonia. They were hungry and thirsty? of
news only, like everybody in Madrid and most of the country that day.
They could see the television cameramen outside the glass panels,
journalists from all over the world. Pepa looked the other way, and
wondered what was there to see. There were no bombs where she was, no
blood on the floor, no trains in pieces, and certainly no bodies they
could see. Why couldn't they let them moan in pace? Suddenly a mobile
went off, and a woman, close to them started screaming. "Oh darling!
Where were you? Where were you my sweetheart? Oh God! ? I've been
looking for you everywhere!" The woman was crying and laughing at the
same time. "You are not dead! Oh honey! Oh Thank God, my baby is not
dead!" she kept on yelling. Two doctors passed rushing the other
relatives, and took her away rapidly. Her joy was distressing for the
others. After all every minute without news meant less possibilities of
a happy ending. Lots of relatives looked at their mobile phones now, as
this went on? Pepa put hers back into her pocket, and rested in her
husband's arms, falling asleep within seconds.

Many hours had passed when she woke up, it was dark outside, and
Alfredo was nowhere to be seen. She checked her mobile, still nothing;
and started yelling for her husband. A young man came running to her
side, he wore a card with his name and his profession underneath:
psychologist. "Where is my husband? Is he all right? Did Lorena?? Is he
with a body?" The boy held her hands on his. "Your husband is in the
loo, and your daughter hasn't appeared." Alfredo came, with no shadow
of smile on his face, and sat next to her slowly. "I recommend you go
home and have a rest now. Tomorrow you'll have the lists published, and
you'll be able to check from there." "Mustn't we wait here?" Alfredo
asked. "Of course you can, if you rather doing so. I just thought you
would be more comfortable at home" None had told them already that
their chances of finding out their daughter dead were slimming, even
though very few bodies had arrived in the last many hours. So if she
was dead, why couldn't they find her? And yet again, if she was alive,
why didn't she call? Didn't she remember mum's mobile? Alfredo had
called all his brothers and Pepa's sister, in case any of them had
received a call from her, and to inform them of course. They would
arrive to the site any minute now. "We are staying" they both said, and
hugged again. Some minutes passed, and their relatives began arriving,
with death written all over their faces like the policemen, like the
firemen, like the psychiatrists, and psychologists, like the relatives,
like the wounded, like the dead, like most of Spanish that eleventh.
Pepa wondered if they could ever get some colours back to their cheeks
after that nightmare, not that it mattered, but her mind was wondering
everywhere by now, she felt exhausted and dazed.

The whole family hugged at IFEMA for hours. In the morning they tried
to have a bite to eat. Everybody had donated blankets for the wounded,
and the relatives, all over the city, and many businesses had given
food, sandwiches and drinks were abundant, sitting on the long tables
waiting for anyone to eat them. Like in a party that doesn't want to
begin. Lorena's uncles, aunts and cousins tried to talk about everyday
things, trying to bring some sense of normality to their pain, failing
miserably. Pepa looked a hundred years old that morning, and felt a
thousand. She had lost her only daughter. Lorena had been probably
sitting so close to one of the explosions that there wasn't much from
her to be found. Their wait was fruitless. "Lets go home." She said
simply, and stood up. All her people followed suit, the last one being
her husband, who could hardly move. One of his brothers drove them
home, Alfredo was too tired.

Once at their flat, they collapsed in front of the television and
followed the programs, all about the massacre. News reporters were
comparing it to the tragedy of New York, questioning ETA as the doers
of it. Al Quaeda name popped here and there. "The Muslims the Muslims"
Lorena had said that day at the table, as they saw the New York towers
coming down in dust. "Always the Muslims. Bloody Americans are the
biggest terrorists!" Pepa hadn't understood her daughter that day, she
was angry with the poor Americans instead of sad for them. What they
had done wrong she didn't know. Then again, Pepa hadn't gone to
university, she had barely finished school, so she should probably
listen to her daughter more. she didn't understand many things. Lorena
had always been so bright? and now she was dead. She was nothing
anymore. A life wasted. The most precious life in the planet to Pepa
and Alfredo. The most precious treasure of all. Nothing mattered but
Lorena.

Time passed by, the final lists came out with all the wounded and the
dead, and their daughter was nowhere. She wasn't the only one though;
another three people at least had disappeared in thin air. Alfredo and
Pepa hadn't been able to resume their normal day lives, moving as in a
dream, a nightmare, every day. People in the street, in the corner
shop, didn't talk about anything other than the bombings, until they
saw them coming. Then they would keep a very uncomfortable silence, the
silence people keep on the presence of death.

It happened one morning, only days after the desaster. Pepa saw the
bag, she was sure. Lorena had bought a few bags like that no long ago.
Sport bags. She remembered asking Lorena about them, and her daughter
giving some vague explanation and changing subject. The bag in
question, on the telly, was one of the belongings the police had taken
out from the shattered trains. They were saying something about
explosives. Pepa raised the volume of the television and sat on the
corner of the coffee table, as close to it as possible. Her ears
weren't what they had been years ago. Yes, the police had taken the bag
in question to a police station, with the rest of the belongings from
the passengers, they hadn't realised it contained explosives.
Explosives? then it wasn't Lorena's bag. Where was her daughter? Why
couldn't they say anything about her baby on the news? She couldn't go
on not knowing.

"Anything?" Asked Alfredo, carrying two cups of coffee on his hands.
"Nothing." She answered, laconically. "They found an unexploded bag in
the first wagon, and took it to the police station by mistake. It could
have exploded in the way!"

"Incompetents." Alfredo sighed.

"The bag looked just like Lorena's."

Alfredo looked at her with surprise. "What are you trying to say,
woman?"

"Nothing! I am just saying? it is the same make and same model.
Identical. She bought a few of them recently. What a freak coincidence,
isn't it?"

Alfredo's face couldn't recover its expression. "A few of them? What
would she want a few of them for?" He thought of her daughter's strange
behaviour for the last few years, the scarf she always hide her hair
in. he remembered how strong Lorena had been in not letting him meet
her newfound friends. And she spent increasing hours in front of her
computer every day. Sometimes whole nights, even when she had to go to
work the next day. She sang strange songs in other languages ? His
heart froze on his chest.

"Alfredo? are you alright? Leave those coffees there and sit down." He
obeyed, like a zombie. "Alfre, cuchi, are you alright? Do you want me
to call a doctor?"

"Call the police," He said with ice in his mouth.

"The police?" Pepa asked, horrified. "What can the police do?" her
sentence froze in mid-air. No way. How could he be thinking something
so horrible about their own child?. He was sick. Pepa stood up, and
walked backwards to the hallway. "Call the police Pepa, or I'll call
them." Pepa ran to Lorena's bedroom and sat on her tidy bed. She had
their photos sitting on the table, candle's with delicious smells,
hundreds of books piled up on the floor, and positioned on the shelves,
signs with Arabic writing on the walls, a head scarf hanging from the
bed-post, photos from her high school and university friends, and of
herself, always smiles in all of them.

Pepa didn't recall for how long she had been sitting there when two
officers knocked on their door. They wanted to know all kinds of stuff
about their daughter, how many sports bags she had bought, and why, did
she have any friends abroad?, relatives?, was she going out with a man
of Muslim religion lately?, any strange phone calls lately? Had they
found her behaviour out of character in the last few months or weeks?
Had she appeared nervous the morning of the eleventh? Had she said
anything out of character that morning?

"Stop!" Pepa yelled. Alfredo had to come and take the men away. Pepa
looked for something to do, tidying her hair towards her back. Alfredo
had switched the television off, tired of body parts, political
bullshit half trues and propaganda. The phone went off, he picked
up.

"Hello?" Pepa looked at him while he spoke. "Who? ? My daughter is
dead" He put the phone down rapidly. Pepa rubbed her hands violently
against her apron, trying to get rid of some invisible dirt in them,
but this dirt was too thick, too horrible to ever go like that; and
started dusting her home. An old lullaby on her lips, and a thousand
years of insomnia ahead of them both.