Last week, Peni had a vacation. No, we didn't go anywhere. Half a month ago, when the kids arrived in New York, Tago had the flu and cough. Days later, Koke fell ill. Then, it was Peni who got infected. So, she spent her vacation days sick, resting at home.
I downloaded an ebook on her Kindle to read while she convalesced. Las Leyes de la Frontera is a novel by Javier Cercas that I enjoyed. Years ago, I came across a fantastic book: Anatomía de un Instante. I read it avidly. When I finished it, I continued with the other books by the same author. I came to the story of el Zarco, Tere, and Gafitas. When I gave it to Peni to read, I remembered that I liked it a lot. I remembered the boy who was bullied at school, who fell madly in love with Tere, a girl who was always with Zarco. In 1978, that group of young people, some minors, discovered freedom after Franco's death, used drugs, and lived in precarious conditions. Many of them formed gangs to commit crimes. I remembered that they raided wealthy Catalans' chalets on Girona.
Peni enjoyed the novel. She finished it in two days. From time to time, she stopped to tell me something about the book. I discovered that I did not remember anything apart from what I said. Just the opposite happened to the protagonist of Flaubert's Parrot, by Julian Barnes. When Geoffrey Braithwaite visited the shores of Normandy, many years after landing there with Allied troops in World War II, memories came out of hiding, but not emotions; not even memories of emotions.
In my case, I remember the emotion of reading some books of which I only remember fragments. I must make a list of those that I must reread. I don't know if the book by Cercas will be on that list, but there will be others that I will refer to in this diary.