The morning when his memories were almost interrupted forever

‘It is not good to look back. But it shows us at the same time where we are walking and where we are positioned’-told to himself. It was clear to him that the totality of the figure that represents who we are appears to us only through some points, some moments.

At some stages of our life, it is totally necessary to look back to see in some way who we are. ‘Life is sometimes like a painful climb and in these places where the climb becomes hard is unavoidable to look backwards to see how much have we risked and see where we have leaned on to go up, before these attachment points become out of our field of vision.

In a similar exercise, we must review in our memory the significant events experienced in our lives, before they get hidden in the unconscious’- such ideas ran through his head while he walked through the Monterron park.

In that situation with a bittersweet feeling he felt somehow like a puppet.   He felt as if his body was being moved by strings like in the show ‘Colorín y sus muñecos’ (‘Colorin and his puppets’) that took place at all Saint John’s holidays.  He felt like a puppet moved by history. But if the two rocks would have hit him on the head that day...

He would not have seen what happened to Casitas, from Madrid, in the Universidad Laboral of Eibar. The bed sheets had to be changed every week. Then, at night, there were there the new ones to make the bed.  That noon Casitas had nothing better to do and decided to advance the work. He went upstairs and made the bed.

There, in front of the bed, he was scratching his head at night. ‘What the hell! The bed was unmade!’ On the other side, the student from the floor right below him was also scratching his head. ’What a joy! He had the bed made!’ How was that possible? The building where the bedrooms were located had three identical floors.

Our Casitas, instead of going up to the third floor, stopped on the second floor and made another student's bed. His wish to advance the work was unsuccessful.

He would not have seen also what made Martinez Climent in the Universidad Laboral of Eibar. In gym class he climbed onto the trampoline with his street boots and with every jump he took, those around him said: 'quack, quack '.

Because of this he got the nickname of ‘el pato’ (‘the duck') from then on. He was born in Lugar Nuevo de San Jeronimo, and his third or fourth family name was really curious: Gregori. Some agreed one day to get up at 5 in the morning to study for an exam. Back then it was not well seen to study every day. As someone said then: ‘If you study many hours now, how many hours should have the day in order to pass at the University?’ A very convenient advice for all to appease the conscience.

Martinez Climent went from one to one of the students who wanted to get up at 5 hitting them gently with his hand. In fact, he looked a bit strange, like a robot. Then at breakfast time he came there shouting: ‘but, ¿how, how you all not woken me up to study?’-he said.

Everyone totally amazed answered him:’ but you have been the person which has awaken us all up'.  Then he confessed: ‘if I say the truth, one day I went to bed in my pajamas and the next day I woke up dressed in street clothes’.

Nor would I have heard what a severe father Urdangarin, from Mondragon, was to his children. The education of a girl and two boys would not be an easy task.  He had a workshop in the vicinity of Kondekua bridge. However, some methods can be a bit extreme.

Whenever the eldest son got an unsatisfactory at school, the father made him ride a motorcycle to Kanpanzar so that there the owner of the hostel would sign a paper that father gave him.   

A few years later, such a signature was no longer available, given that the owner of the hostel, Iñaki Etxabe, was killed one cursed night. There were three murderers, who still remain without punishment nor identity. His only fault was having two brothers who were refugees in France.

They filled the hostel with his blood without any compassion. The entire town of Mondragon was following the coffin along Maala Street on that dark, leaden night. Only the footsteps of a dark, shapeless mass of people could be heard. A procession full of despair. Grim and sad faces. But if the two rocks would have hit him on the head that day...

He would not have witnessed how power is used unfairly with any excuse at any place. Jose Ramon Landa, known as 'Txintxeto' for his friends, was happy that day. To enter the ‘Cooperatives’ he only needed the last test, the medical analysis. There he was at the Mondragon Healthcare Center with the others wondering to himself what clothes he would have to take off for the analysis. Suddenly, the Chief of Personnel of the Cooperatives, I.A.Z., appeared before him and said to him: ‘go home, you don't do the analysis '. There he went with his head down, trying to assimilate what had happened to him.

The City Council, however, did not care that Jose Ramon Landa was a member of the Communist Movement of Euskadi. He spent his working life as municipal police of Mondragon. I.A.Z. calm and without regrets I would go by his bicycle the next day to the Gurea cinema. At work he would possibly talk more than about personnel issues about what film he would bring to the Gurea cinema to screen, but under a rusty motto of 'vade retro communists' he would feel calm.

Jose Ramon Landa studied for a while at the University of Leuven, where there were many left-wing people. This way, the town of Mondragon had for the first and possibly last time a municipal police officer who studied at the University of Louvain. What an unusual thing!

He would not have seen the sole of that Civil Guard's boot pass in front of his face when he was fleeing from the Gurea cinema. He had gone to listen to a concert of the group Errobi. He sat quietly in the third or fourth row. The singers were still on the other side of the curtain.  They were tuning the guitar and voice.

Suddenly the Civil Guard appeared armed with smoke canisters and rubber balls, shouting: ‘dislodge the cinema!’ Almost all the spectators ran out and at the entrance there was one kicking everyone who came out. The kick that was meant for him fell short, and the kicker lost his balance when he missed.

He escaped from being kicked in the nick of time. The next day he saw in the press the deplorable state in which the cinema was. Most of the seats had burns from the smoke canisters.

He would not have been in the gathering of protest at the Portalon that night. There was a political gathering and in the middle was the municipal police Jose Manuel Arriola, from Deva. Due to a war wound he dragged one foot when walking. That's why they nicknamed him 'Dongi'.

To imitate the sound of the irregular step, that is, in him the 'tap, tap' became 'Don, Gi' according to the one who gave him the nickname(1). He was a ‘bertsolari’ (a Basque poet who improvises verses) and he knew very little Spanish. That night was directing traffic among the crowds and what he said in Spanish was worth noting. Unfortunately, because it was not recorded, it was forgotten forever.

He used very formal words, far from street speech, which gave a very strange sense to his sentences. It is said that Stendhal read parts of the Civil Code before writing, our Jose Manuel seemed to have learned the little Spanish he knew by reading the Official State Gazette.  

Abruptly, on the left side, a jeep with its horn blaring went into the people, and another did the same on the right side. Some escaped up the middle street, and the others down Maala Street. He was not exactly one of the last to flee, even so, when he started running there was no longer the slightest trace of Jose Manuel Arriola.

In the town it was said that there was a new lieutenant in the barracks and that he was trying to make 'merits'. But if the two rocks would have hit him on the head that day...

The following one would not have happened. He was at the 'La Cepa' tavern in Ferrerias street with his friends Iñaki Berecibar ('Bere txiki') and Iñaki Garitano. There were only them and two other people in the tavern.  As they left the tavern, they heard one of those two people say to the other: ‘In the world ‘muitos porcus`’ but ‘os bascos todos’. Without being able to contain himself, he turned and said: ‘whatever you want, but in no way at all are we stupid’. And they left the tavern.

The other two people came behind them. ‘Wait, wait’- said the insulter. Each of those two people were around forty years old and the other three were barely eighteen years old. He told to his friends: 'We will go into the Biona bar.' They reached the bar counter and the couple entered the bar after them. The offender touched him on the shoulder saying: 'What were you saying?' And he, raising his voice so that the entire bar could hear him, told to them:’ but you were not saying that we all, Basque people, are pigs?’

He didn't know how, perhaps jumping over the bar counter, in a second Antxon Mendizabal was on his side. Someone else who was serving at the bar also came out. Another customer also put himself alongside. Between the three of them they had the insulter surrounded.  

His friend said to the offender:’ You have to admit that you have gone a bit too far’. In the end he wanted to pay them the drinks. The following week Iñaki Garitano saw the insulter with a black eye.  Apparently, he had found someone with whom to share his anger. 

He wouldn't have seen what he saw in the town square. During the Saint John ‘s holydays he had the young Iñaki Perurena close in front of him lifting stones with his father as the assistant.

Wrapped in fur he looked like an ancient soldier. It was quite impressive to see him so close up.  There the great Iñaki Perurena was beginning his fruitful sporting life.   

He would not have seen Francisco Letamendia, ‘Ortzi’, another day in the same square. There he was in front with his black beard giving explanations to the people. For someone who had internalized the spirit of May '68 and who had enough determination to read the three volumes of 'the Capital', it seemed like he were in front of the young Karl Marx himself, that night.

It was the time of the referendum on the Constitution and he explained why it was necessary to oppose it. He said that the Army was the last guarantor of that Constitution. And that didn't seem to be very coherent. His argument was the following one: How could an army that had kept Franco in power be the guarantor of the democracy? But if the two rocks would have hit him on the head that day...  

He would not have walked through the streets of Bilbao that day of the general strike. Two other students went with him, one from Arechavaleta and the other one from Zarimutz. The three students were walking down the street. Without knowing how, they got into the basement of the Franciscan Church of Irala. The floor was made of wooden and there were loose seats there.

They took three chairs and sat down. They were in the middle of an assembly. The topic of the day was how to organize pickets to close the businesses that were yet open. Abruptly, shouting and jumping, a national police officer entered with his helmet and shield. ‘Ahhhh!’ Until then, stampedes were only for him a thing for horses and bison in movies. But that what happened there was something very similar.

At the same point of time, everyone present jumped against the wooden floor. ‘¡Boom!’  It was a truly deafening noise. Like crazy, at full speed, in a crazy sprint, some of them climbed the stairs and there they stopped before a door holding their breath.

But soon a rude voice was heard outside saying:’ break down the door!’ And there was a tremendous knock against the door. ‘Whaam!’ Another mad dash down. Astonished they saw that there was no one left at the main entrance, that all the conflict there had ended. They went out into the street for it. Then they heard that the Armed Police had come from the Logroño barracks.

He would not have heard Felipe's voice at the Sarriko University of Economics either. These were times of transition and to the Socialist Party was given a certain advantage. The power was more permissive to allow his rallies.

There he went alone and had to stay in the entrance room since the University was packed.  Where there were few people every day, not even a pin could fit that day. ‘Well. I don't need to see Felipe González, just listening to him will be enough!’-he thought. In front of Felipe there was a group shouting:’ Felipe opportunist, social-imperialist!’ They repeated this slogan over and over again. Shortly the voice of Felipe González was heard saying: ‘It is incomprehensible that some ones who fight against the dictatorship’.

And that was all he said, since those in front of him began to sing the 'Eusko Gudariak' song. One of the maintaining order service 's group passed by his side, not knowing what to do. At the end, it all came down to that.

That day he was going with the group of Boy Scouts up the mountain, on the slopes of Udalaitz. The great Jazintxo Bergara, leader of the group, pointed to a place. There in the distance he could see a hare jumping through the grass. Very close, in front of them, were two mountaineers.

The day was clear and the climb was arduous and the ascension became steeper and steeper. They entered an area where the slope became ragged. There, a sea of large loose stones reminded us of the ancient glacier that the mountain had been.

He suddenly realized that something was coming at him, and he automatically moved his body to the side. A large piece of loose rock had passed just inches from his head. He looked up and shouted to the two mountaineers ahead. Still, a second piece of rock passed next to his head again. By then he had his full attention and dodged this second large chunk with relative ease.

To avoid causing a third piece of rock to fall again, the two mountaineers in front took another route. But then he realized that he had almost lost his life. That day his role as a witness could have ended. He had not seen the events he later witnessed.

He would have been erased from the list of witnesses of his time. A single blow from a large stone had been on the verge of cutting the thread of his life. Although at the time he hadn't been fully aware of it.

But then, the day he was walking through the Monterron park, the ideas were turning over and over again in his head. An accident can erase some lives, but that accident invented by humans, the war, turns the death toll into a slaughter.  Corpses pile up everywhere.

Suddenly an idea about the war dawned in his mind.  He had never understood why we separate adults from children concerning the effects of war. Put crudely, while we say 'poor children', adults are punished mercilessly. Then he found the answer to that difference.

Not only life, but something else is stolen from children. They are deprived of the opportunity of giving testimony. When they begin the process of living and seeing, before they have the possibility of transmitting what they experienced to others, they are killed.’ All the bastards who start wars, people without righteousness, be tormented during the night by the forever lost memories of the children killed in wars!’-told to himself angrily.

As he left the park a more positive thought calmed him somehow:’ thank goodness memories are like "flies, you kill one and a thousand others come to the funeral".

+++

Thanks to my cousin, Marga Zubia Lezeta, for giving me the name of Antxon Mendizabal 'Tonino'.

I met Antxon two or three times, but I never knew about his theoretical work or that he was a professor at the University of the Basque Country. Unfortunately, sometimes we know more about some who live far away from us than about those who live in the nearby.

Thanks to my brother Javier, for telling me at that time what happened to Jose Ramon Landa and for reminding me now his name.

(1) 

The explanation about the name Dongi was given to me by Juan José Garmendia Zubia. He also told me that my uncle Bixentiko Uribe-echebarria put him it. But taking into account that 'Don' and 'Gi' are too far from the 'tap' sound, the origin of that name could perfectly be 'Dongixoi' (that evil (Donge hori) in Basque), as José Mari Vélez de Mendizábal says. Once that nickname was known, all the prankster children in town could have dragged their feet as they repeated the nickname.