Read a piece of ‘Otaberra’, the latest book by Elisa Victoria, author of ‘Vozdevieja’

-What’s happening? He asks, realizing that his behavior is unusual and must imply an extraordinary circumstance.

Eusebio’s mother just called and asked if her child was not in bed, if she was at home, if she knew anything. Renata doesn’t know where she is, but she knows where their paths diverged badly, without telling anyone about her secret travels. A screaming panic takes over her and she jumps awake. His speed of thought accelerates and in a few seconds he unravels a complex plan in his head; this plot leads to the conclusion that he must say he knows, even if it requires confession of a mistake. They were not allowed to go this far, they were not allowed in any house, they could argue that Eusebio had disappeared because of him and that it would be painful but not entirely fair. The priority is that the data comes out in a dry, concise and practical way, while still lying on the bed. Where they went, at what point, when they parted ways.

His parents go through six conflicting emotions and in one breath they go from pure anger to frown to pure torture. Fearing the worst, they silently accuse her of disobedience while pitying her daughter, who just wants to have a little teenage fling. The father tenderly puts his hand in his hair, while the mother rushes to the phone to convey information about what it will do. Both are thinking the same thing. Damn brats, who would have thought, these were forbidden and it was for their own good, we should have watched them better, been tougher, more careful with them, or maybe softer, listened to their fantasies, offered to drive them around, not leave them alone , to be bored, to walk the roads at dawn to have fun but what else did they want, if these kids are spoiled, we give them every comfort, we just want them to read. Their future is good, at their age we were already working, we were chained, our houses were worse, our parents were heavier, what else did they want, what would they look for? That biker bar, if it’s a pigsty, should we just buy the goddamn brats? From such a lumpen place, from people living badly? Luckily it wasn’t our daughter, she was the only one if anything happened to them by chance, it didn’t make a good impression anyway, how relieved she was not to have her here in the room we prepared for her. I had so many girlfriends before I was born, how quickly time flies, if something had happened to her and she hadn’t come back and the room was empty, oh my God, how disgruntled the poor thing would have been, but thank God it wasn’t him, if that boy if it looked like it was going to go astray one way or another, if it had to be either, luckily it wasn’t.

Renata finds no solace in the feelings of her father’s hand and, without saying a word, gets up and starts walking down the hall. In her pink pajamas she rips her fingernails as she waits for news, imagining Eusebio’s voluminous black hair on his black jacket and thin legs sticking out from under him, his furious steps in his thick shoes, the smoke from a cigar around his head. and Trina learns that he went to the bus stop, fled to Madrid or Barcelona to start a new life, went to work as a waiter in a bar where he didn’t fight last night, to save money and go. to London.

He repeatedly reflects on the way he will go, on the way to the bus, falls asleep intermittently with his head against the window, and wakes up with the feeling of escape that he had dreamed a thousand times, finally realized, it lasts for a few minutes. hours of journey, maybe he still hasn’t reached his destination, maybe it wasn’t Madrid or Barcelona, ​​maybe he was having a good day somewhere else. No longer a place with floors and walls, but an altered state of consciousness, a loop of repetitive well-meaning images, he waits for his news as he walks down the corridor. The phone rings several times, but it’s never Eusebio. His mother speaks to him with a smug face and answers on another plane, unable to deal with any new information about his friend’s whereabouts, and hopefully covering up the pain of his confusion, wishing he would ring again and ring again. they are so happy that they don’t even have to say they forgive each other, the woman talks about persistence and futility, she talks about toughness, maybe plans involving her, why not, she might invite him to visit. As soon as you have a place to settle in, get into your backpack. Last night’s fight was completely buried, taken out of context and a laughable misunderstanding with complicity for decades, remember when you asked me out, how stupid was I? How much boil I needed, it suddenly grabbed me and I got scared and fatally got it, thank goodness it passed, thanks for not counting, you should see. He dreams of participating in these trips with few resources but dying of laughter, trying to realize this by perceiving it as vividly as possible, seeing everything from afar, meeting different people, being friends forever, and easing the misery. , more contact, more fun, more intense, more interesting, the town is out of focus, like a short and distant scene, like a funny anecdote on the night of the conflict, a pinch of foam in the sea.