Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

"My son! My son!" she wailed. "Don't leave me! Don't leave meall alone!"The dead man's sisters, along with other female relatives andfriends, joined in the lamentations, forming a chorus of mourners,of pkz6idera-r. As in the Middle Ages, death had weight in Calanda;omnipresent, it was an integral part of our lives.The same was true of faith. Deeply imbued with Catholicism,we never had a moment's doubt about these universal truths. Oneof my uncles was a priest, a sweet, gentle man we called Tio Santos.He gave me Latin and French lessons every summer, and I served ashis acolyte. I also sang and played the violin in the Virgin of Carmenchoir, along with one of my friends, who played the double bass,and the rector of Los Escolapios, a religious institute in Alcaiiiz, whoplayed the cello. We were often invited to the Carmelite convent,later usurped by the Dominicans, which stood at the edge of thevillage. The convent was founded toward the end of the nineteenthcentury by a man named Forton who lived in Calanda and wasmarried to an aristocrat from the Cascajares family. Both were fiercelypious and never missed a Mass. Later, at the start of the Civil War,the Dominicans in the convent were taken away and shot.In Calanda there were two churches and seven priests, in additionto Tio Santos, who fell off a cliff during a hunt and then persuadedmy father to hire him as an overseer of his estate. Religion permeatedall aspects of our daily lives; I used to play at celebrating Mass in theattic of our house, with my sisters as attendants. I even owned analb, and a collection of religious artifacts made from lead.Our faith was so blind that at least until the age of fourteen, webelieved in the literal truth of the famous Calanda miracle, whichoccurred in the Year of Our Lord 1640. The miracle is attributed toSpain's patron saint, the Virgin of Pilar, who got her name becauseshe appeared to Saint John at the top of a pillar in Saragossa duringthe time of the Roman occupation. She's one of the two great SpanishVirgins, the other being the Virgin of Guadalupe, who always seemedto me vastly inferior.