intimate secrets

Author's name: Noria Amat

Later, I wanted to get closer to my parents' grave, when I noticed someone following me. There was a heavy layer of gravel on the ground, protecting the stones from separating from each other, so the only noise I could hear was the footsteps of visitors. I was sure someone was following my steps. I assumed it was someone I knew, I assumed there were friends at the poet's funeral... So I turned my head surreptitiously and saw a middle-aged man with gold-rimmed glasses, tall, thin, and dark hair. He was walking behind me and stopped right beside me when I came to a stop in front of the cemetery where my parents were buried. I don't like to be accompanied at such moments, and as soon as I tried to turn my head, the man—his face, despite the darkness and the winter cold, seemed familiar to me—said, "We buried the last of the poets here." I understood that he was referring to the entire generation of Catalan poets, so I nodded in agreement.