I was sitting there in the sofa, getting emotional, wishing that the woman talked, knowing I would have given anything for having that kind of help back then. Thinking: "You don't know how damn lucky you are having those police officers at your door. Talk!" Just a word and you can be out of that nightmare... not like things were for me.
Well, last Sunday we had a similar "show", but this time live, at our next door. We heard our neighbors (who happen to be British) were having an argument. That's not unusual, but this time it was being stronger. There was a slam of the front door, her daughter was crying, the wife shouting he was an adult and he shouldn't be behaving like that. It looked like he had kicked them out. Some time later my boyfriend said the police was in our landing, talking to our neighbors. The woman must have called them, her husband didn't deny he had taken her by the throat and the hair, and we heard a police officer saying she had some bruisings and she had been hit in the head. An ambulance was called too. They finally arrested the man, who was trying to explain he is desperate, as he's an English teacher but he can't find a job here. He had to go with them in a car police (thankfully they didn't use handcuffs). Next morning I saw she took a taxi and left with a few suitcases.
All this has made me realize how common this kind of violence is still today, and how easily ignored. It has also reminded me of my own aunt, my dad's youngest sister, and it makes me wonder about how our memory works when we are kids. I was quite young then, maybe 7 or 8. She was the only family from my dad's side living in Madrid, and she had two main issues: being sterile and being married with an abuser husband. When she had problems with him, she could only resort to my dad (and of course my mum). I only have blurred memories, but somehow I know it was something that "resonated" with me, it's one of those instants in childhood when something catches your attention but you don't have a clue why. I remember I liked my aunt's husband. Uncle C was good-looking and always smelled nice. So, hearing my parents on the phone, or maybe discussing in the car while my brothers and I were in the rear sits, talking about what my aunt had said, how "he had dragged her along the hallway pulling her by the hair" sounded quite unreal. And it was scary. As far as I know, they didn't get separated, and she loved him... though the tears and the circles under her eyes told a different thing (and also her own words months later, though I always knew through my parents).
One day he died in a car crash. He was alone. I remember my aunt cried for him. I want to think deep inside she was as relieved as anyone else in the family (though of course you couldn't say that aloud). Luckily, she moved to the south with the rest of her siblings and she eventually found a new man, this time a good one.
It's sad I barely see her now. Anyway, I doubt she would want to talk about all that. But I wish so much I could sit with her and tell her: "You know, I understand you now, I perfectly know what you went through, I know how it feels, how alone and impotent you can feel".
The greatest thing of all is she's always been the merriest woman in all the family, before and after those events. And the most supportive for all of them. She always was my favorite aunt. She must be such a great soul.
