My grandfather, Colonel Ernesto Rivas, never spoke of the War of the Pacific. Not once. Not even when the Chilean national holiday came around and the neighbors hung flags from their balconies. He would sit in his leather armchair by the window, watching the younger men march in the parades, and his left hand—the one missing two fingers—would curl into a fist against the armrest.
When he died in 1978, I was fourteen. My father gave me the old cedar trunk that had sat at the foot of Abuelo’s bed for as long as I could remember. "It's yours now," my father said, his voice hollow. "He wanted you to have it." adios al septimo de linea epub
A single, soft exhalation. Like a hundred men, finally allowed to rest. My grandfather, Colonel Ernesto Rivas, never spoke of
Instead, I folded it carefully, placed the journal inside the breast pocket, and drove north to the desert. To the old battlefields. To the hills of Tacna and Arica. He would sit in his leather armchair by
I lifted the jacket carefully. A small leather journal fell from the breast pocket.
The Seventh of the Line. The legendary regiment that had charged the heights of San Juan and Chorrillos. The regiment that had walked through hell.
Not a scream. Not a whisper.