CANADA

A principios de los 80, me fuí de Ibiza. Mi colega me presentó a toda su familia en Madrid.(venerable familia republicana, era nieto del que fué ministro de educación en la II República). Dijo a su familia que se iba a Canada conmigo y con mi hija. Tambien era mas joven que yo y no sé si a su familia le hiciera mucha gracia que se fuera a Canada conmigo y con mi hija... pero él lo quiso, porque yo me iba a ir igual. Nos fuimos a Estados Unidos primero, a Nueva York. De ahí, el se fue a Boston a ver a su prima que a la sazón era la jefa bibliotecaria de la facultad de arquitectura en Harvard y yo me fui a San Antonio, Texas donde residia mi hermano, cardiólogo. Dejé a mi hija con mi hermano hasta que tuviera mi vida encaminada en Toronto. Era Noviembre. Me reuní con mi colega en Boston y de ahí cogimos un autobus (Greyhound) hasta Toronto. Llevábamos poquísimo dinero. En la frontera, nos hicieron muchísimas preguntas, yo no tuve problemas porque tenía mi pasaporte canadiense pero mi colega era español. Lo que le salvó es que hablaba un "Queen's English" (un inglés muy refinado) que los aduaneros pensaron que era un Lord. Llegamos a Toronto con 50$ entre los dos. Buscamos un hotel barato. Encontramos uno que costaba 25$ la noche. Pero tuvimos la gran suerte que solo nos podíamos quedar una noche porque al dia siguiente todos los hoteles de la ciudad estaban llenos a rebosar ya que se celebraba el final de un torneo de football nacional que ese año tocaba en Toronto. Empecé a llamar a todos mis amigos. Di con una amiga, catédratica de la Universidad de Toronto, que vivía sola y tenía espacio para acogernos. Nos quedamos tres meses. Como ya era diciembre y antes de Navidad, una vez paseando por el centro vi un restaurante que se llamaba "La Maison Basque". ¡Aha! me dije, este es un restaurante vasco y seguro que necesitan trabajo extra para Navidad. Entré y pregunté por el dueño. Resultó ser un vasco francés de San Juan de Luz. Le dije que era vasca-canadiense y que buscaba trabajo. Me dijo que en el restaurante no necesitaban a nadie pero que tenía otro negocio en una de las partes más "chic" de la ciudad y que ahí sí podía darme trabajo. Era un "delicatessen" frecuentado por la "intelligentsia" local. El propietario vasco era un amor de persona y al final de la jornada me dejaba llevar lo que sobraba, todo tipo de comidas deliciosas con lo cual no gastábamos nada porque comíamos gratis. Mi colega, sin embargo se tenía que buscar la vida. Como no podía trabajar, decidimos que volviera a retomar sus estudios de Economicas que había dejado a medias en Madrid cuando tuvo que exiliarse en Londres y que sus padres le ayudaran. Le ayudaron y el se matriculó en York University. (Esto se está haciendo muy largo, por lo tanto, continuará)

At the beginning of the 80's I left Ibiza. My colleague introduced me to his whole family in Madrid (a very venerable republican family. His grandfather had been Minister of Education during the II Republic). He told his family that he was going with me to Canada. I don't think they were very happy to see their son, much younger than me, going off to Canada with me and my daughter...but he wanted to come because I was going to go anyway. We went to the States first, New York. Then he went to Boston to stay with his cousin who at the time was head librarian at the Faculty of Architecture in Harvard and I went to San Antonio, Texas where my brother, the cardiologist, lived. I left my daughter with my brother until we had our lives set up in Toronto. It was November. I flew to Boston to meet my colleague and from there we took a Greyhound bus to Toronto. At the border we had some problems, not I, because I had a Canadian passport but my colleague was Spanish. We hardly had any money between us. The border officials asked all sorts of questions but my colleague spoke a "Queen's English", so they thought he was a Lord. They let us pass. We arrived in Toronto with 50$ between the two of us. We had to find a cheap hotel. We found one for $25 a night. But we were so lucky, we could only stay one night because the following days all the hotels in the city were booked up due to a national football final match which that year took place in Toronto. I started calling my friends. I hit up with a dear friend who was a professor at the University of Toronto. She lived alone and had space to put us up. We stayed three months. Since it was before Christmas, one day walking around downtown I saw a restaurant: "La Maison Basque", I said, OK, this place must belong to a Basque. I went in and asked for the owner. He turned out to be a French Basque from St. Jean de Luz. I told him I was Basque-Canadian and that I needed a job. He told me that they didn't need anyone for the restaurant but that he did need someone for another business he had in the most "in" area of the city. A delicatessen where the local intelligentsia hung out. The owner was a lovable person who let me take home all the leftovers. So we didn't spend anything. We had great free meals. But my colleague had to do something with his life. He couldn't work so we decided that it would be best for him to go back to university and finish his Economic studies that he had left pending in Madrid when he had to exile himself to London. He would need his parents' financial help to do that. They helped him. He signed up at York University (this is becoming too long, so it will continue).