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occupied the family. Because of his political ideas, Professor Leal was placed on the list of undesirables, and forced to retire. He lost none of his optimism when he found himself without work and on a minimal pension, but printed leaflets in his kitchen offering literature courses, and distributed them wherever he could. His few students helped stabilize the family budget, and allowed them to live simply and still help Javier. Their eldest son encountered serious difficulties in providing for his wife and three children. The Leals’ standard of living declined, as it did for so many in their situation. They gave up season tickets to the concerts and theater, books, records, and other refinements that had cheered their days. Later, when it was evident that Javier could not find a job, his father decided to build a couple of rooms and a bath in the patio and take in the whole family. The three brothers worked on weekends laying bricks under the direction of Professor Leal, who derived his knowledge from a manual bought in a secondhand book sale. As none of them had experience in masonry, and as several pages were missing from the manual, the predictable result, upon completion of the work, was a building with tortuous walls that they attempted to disguise by covering them with ivy. Javier opposed to the end the idea of living at his parents’ expense. He came by his pride naturally.
    â€œWhat feeds three will feed eight,” said Hilda, imperturbable as always. Once she made up her mind, there was seldom room for argument.
    â€œTimes are bad, son. We have to help each other,” added Professor Leal.
    In spite of the problems, he felt satisfied with his life and would have been totally happy had he not been tormented from his earliest years by the devastating revolutionary passion that shaped his character and his life. He dedicated a good portion of his energy, time, and income to spreading his ideological principles. He educated his three sons in his doctrine, he taught them from the time they were small to operate the clandestine printing press in the kitchen, and he took them with him to hand out pamphlets at factory doors behind the backs of the police. Hilda was always at his side in union meetings, with her tireless knitting needles in hand and her knitting wool in a bag in her lap. While her husband harangued his comrades, she drifted off into a secret world, savoring her memories, embroidering affections, reliving her happiest recollections, totally divorced from the clamor of the political discussions. Through a long and gentle process of purification, she had succeeded in erasing most of the privation of the past, and guarded only the happy moments. She never spoke of the war, the dead she had buried, her accident, or that long march toward exile. Those who knew her attributed her selective memory to the blow that had split open her skull when she was young, but Professor Leal could interpret the small signs and suspected that she had forgotten nothing. She simply did not want to burden herself with ancient woes, and for that reason she never mentioned them, nullifying them through silence. His wife had accompanied him down life’s road for so long that Professor Leal could not remember his life without her. She marched steadfastly beside him in street demonstrations. In intimate collaboration, they raised their sons. She helped others more needy than she, camped outdoors on nights during strikes, and rose at dawn to take in sewing when his salary would not stretch far enough to support the family. With the same enthusiasm with which she had followed him to war and into exile, she carried him warm meals when he was arrested and put in jail; she had not lost her equanimity the day their furniture was attached, or her good humor as they slept trembling with cold on the third-class deck of a refugee ship. Hilda accepted all her husband’s eccentricities—and they were not few—in