A reconstructed life · The Atlas
One family, two sides of a history
“As Duas Fardas”✦Portugal✦1965–1975✦2 fragments
Two uniforms hung in the same wardrobe and were never spoken of in the same breath. A family divided by a history too large for its rooms, told through what was kept and what was hidden.
Follow this life on the Atlas- 01
The letter that outlived him
The letter that arrived after the telegram, Cerdeira · Summer, 1965
My Ermelinda,
I am in good health, thanks be to God, and I hope this finds you and the boy the same. The heat is easing; they say the rains are done. I cannot tell you where we are, but the worst of it is behind us.
Tell my mother the vines will need me in the spring, and in the spring she will have me. We will whitewash the house. I will teach the boy the rows, small as he is — a man is never too small to learn the vines.
Kiss him for me. Keep the window facing the road.
Manuel
- 02
The mother's confession
A mother's confession, sent to Luxembourg · Autumn, 1975
My son,
You grew up on your father's letters, the ones I read to you at the kitchen table. I chose them. There are four others, sealed in the sewing box, and in those four your father is afraid.
I hid them so you would have a father made of courage. That was wrong, or it was right — I no longer ask. But you were nine days from the war yourself, and I said nothing, and now no war can take you, so you may have all of him.
He was afraid, and he went. That is what brave is. Open them or leave them sealed — they are yours now, like the vines.
Your mother