1. Look at the image, what do you think the story is about?
2. Look at the image, where was the text written?
3. Read the text
I never forgot my tenth birthday. All my other birthdays are lost in my memory,
perhaps in a combination of excitement, anticipation, the joy of opening presents, and
the inevitable disappointment because birthdays, like Christmases, are over very
quickly. But my tenth was different.
It is not only because the shiny silver bike my mother gave me that I remember that
day so well. I tried it out once, in my pyjamas. I was filled with joy and pride and I rode
it around the block, hoping all my friends would see out of their windows, admiring and
feeling a bit jealous too. But even my memory of that vanished over the years. When I
came back and sat down for breakfast, my mother gave me something else too. It is
this second gift that made my tenth birthday impossible to forget. I can´t honestly
remember what happened to the bike. Maybe it rusted away in the garage; maybe I
grew up and got too big to ride it. I don’t know. I do know that I still have the second
gift. I´ll never be too old for it and I’ll never throw it away.
My mother put down beside me on the kitchen table what look at first like an ordinary
birth card. She didn´t said who it was from but I could see that it was something about
this card that made her feel deeply upset.
“Who is it from?” I asked her. I wasn’t interested at first; after all, birthday cards were
never as intriguing as presents. She didn’t answer me. I picked up the envelope. There,
written in handwriting I didn’t know was my answer: For Carlos, a letter from your
father.
The envelope had been folded. It was dirty and there was a tear in one corner. The
word father was barely legible. I looked up and saw my mother´s eyes filled with tears.
I knew immediately she wanted me to ask no more questions. She simply said, “He
wanted me to keep it for you, until your tenth birthday.”
So I opened the card and read.
Dearest Carlos,
I want to wish you first of all a very happy tenth birthday. I´d love to be
with you on this special day. Maybe we could go riding together as I used to do
with my father on my birthdays. Was it also my tenth? I can’t remember. I do
remember we rode all day and had a picnic on a high hill where the wind blew
through tall trees. Or maybe we could go to a football match and scream
together at the referee and jump up and down when we scored.
But then, maybe you don´t like horses or football. Why do I think you
have to grow up like me? You are a different person, but with a little bit of me
inside you, that´s all. I do know that your mother and I would sing “Happy
Birthday” to you and watch your eyes light up when you opened your presents
and blow up the candles on your cake.
But all I have to give, all I can offer, is this letter, a letter I hope you will
never have to read, because if you are reading it now it means that I am not
with you, and I was never with you. It means that I died ten years ago in some
stupid, stupid war that killed me and many, many other, and like all wars did no
one any good.
Dying, Carlos, as you know, comes to each of us. Strangely, I am not
afraid, not as much as I was before. I think maybe love conquered my fear. I am
filled with so much love for you and such sadness too, a sadness I pray you will
never have to feel. It is the thought of losing you before I even get the know
you that makes me so sad. If I die in this terrible place then we will never meet,
not properly, as father and son. We will never talk. For a father to be separated
from his son is always a terrible thing, but if it has to happen, I think in a way I
prefer it to be now. To know you, to watch you grow and then lose you would
be much worse. Maybe I’m just trying to convince myself.
You will know me a little, I suppose, perhaps from photographs. And
your mother will tell you some things about me, about my childhood, about
how I grew up on the farm in Patagonia and I was riding horses before I could
walk. Maybe she told you about the day we met, when her car had a puncture
and I was riding and stop to help her change the tire. I’m quite good with
motors but that day I took longer than I needed, you can imagine why. By the
time I had finished I knew I loved her and wanted to spend my whole life with
her. Later I found out that after meeting me, she went home and told her sister
she have met a young man who had nice eyes and a nice horse, but who talk
too much and was very bad with cars. Anyway, against our family´s wished, we
married six month later.
For a short time life was sweet and perfect. Then came my conscription
papers, the separation and the long weeks of military training. I didn’t care
much because it was something we all had to do and I knew I would be over
soon. I had so much to look forward to, most of all the birth of you.
I came home to see you only once, and now, only a few weeks later, I
find myself sitting here in Malvinas, high in the rocky hills, above the town.
Night is coming and I am waiting for battle.
As I write this I’m so cold I cannot feel my feet. I can hardly hold the
pencil I’m writing with. The British are coming. They know where we are. They
have been bombarding us all day. We cannot see them, but we know they are
out there somewhere. We think they will attack tonight. We all know, in our
hearts, even though we don´t say it, that this will be the last battle. In battle
men die. I do not want to think of that, but it is difficult not to. The officers say
we can win, that if we can hang on, reinforcements will be here soon. But we
all know that´s not true. They said that because they have to.
I can see you now in my head as you were, three months ago, the
morning I left home. When I looked down upon you the last time, I remember I
tried to imagine you as a grown boy. I couldn’t then, and I still can’t. For me,
you are the sleeping baby, peacefully wrapped in your mother´s arms. But you
will grow up. And now that you are old enough I want to tell you myself how I
came to be here, fighting a war in a dreadful place, how I died so far from
home. I want to speak to you directly. At least you will know me a little because
you can hear my voice in my writing. It is true that I’m writing to you also
because it helps me. If I think about you I don´t think about the battle ahead. I
wrote another letter to your mother. She will read it as soon as she gets it. This
is your letter, Carlos, you might call it our hello, but it is also our goodbye.
I didn’t think it would end like this. All the soldiers believed what the
officers told us, what we read in the newspapers. Malvinas belong to Argentina,
that is the undeniable truth. They were stolen from us, they said. We had to
fight to restore Argentina’s honor and get our islands back. Our flag would fly
over Stanley again. They told us it was going to be easy, we were going to
attack in full force and overwhelm the British in only a few hours. There was
going to be only a little shooting and Malvinas would be ours again. Then, we
would come home. I was excited, we all were, proud to be chosen to do this for
our country. It was going to be so simple.
And it was, at the beginning. We got to the shores. No one fired at us. As
we marched into Stanley we could see our flag high over the town. The British
marines were by the roadside, defeated. The war was over almost before it had
begun. At least that’s what we thought. We won. Malvinas are ours again. We
imagine the people back home cheering and celebrating the victory. We were
heroes. We laughed and drank and sang that night. We did not feel the cold or
the wind then. In those early victorious days, Malvinas seemed a paradise to us,
an Argentinean paradise.
But here I sit only a month or two later and we know we are about to
lose our last battle. The reinforcements did not come. The supplies did not
come. But the British did. First their planes, then their ships, then their soldiers.
We did what we could, Carlos, but we were too young, too hungry, too
exhausted. We had no guns and no leaders, and we were fighting against a
strong army. From the moment they sank the great battleship Belgrano, the
pride of our navy, we knew we could never win. I saw many man die, good
men, men with wives and children, men who were my friends.
I grew up fast in the following weeks. I learnt that in wars people really
do kill one another. I did not hate those who I killed and those who tried to kill
me didn’t hate me either. We are puppets, playing a deathly game, and our
masters just watch us on television. What they don´t understand is that these
puppets are made of flesh, not wood. War, Carlos, has only one certain result:
suffering.
When I heard the British landed at San Carlos bay I thought of you and
prayed in the church in Stanley. I prayed for a miracle: to survive and see you
again. I lit a candle and prayed for me, for you and for your mother. There was
a woman in the church, too. Her eyes met mine as I was leaving. My English is
not good but I remember her words clearly. They still echo in my head.
“This is not the way,” she said. “This is wrong.”
“Yes,” I replied, and I walked away.
That was weeks ago. Since then we are stuck, freezing in Stanley, digging in and
waiting for the British to arrive. They get closer and closer every day. And the
wind is so cold and strong that takes away most of our courage and strength.
Whatever courage we have left, we will use it to fight, but courage alone is not
enough.
I must finish now. I must fold you away in an envelope and face
whatever comes my way. As you grow up, you may not have a father, but this I
promise you: you will always have a father´s love.
Goodbye, my dear Carlos.
And God bless.
Papa.
4. Answer these questions
a. why do you think Carlos got the letter when he turned 10 and not before?
b. why do think the officers lie to the Argentinean soldiers?
c. why does Carlos´ father say that the letter is their “hello and goodbye”?
d. when did the soldiers know they could not win the war?
e. why did the father went into the church?
f. what do you think he means when he says “courage alone is not enough”?
5. Give the text a tittle.