Borders or thresholds? The child facing the border during the Spanish exodus of 1939. Mosaic stories

Abstract

Any recall is a conscious or unconscious staging, whose “cipher” should be found. This is the more evident in the precise case of accounts of borders as borders become a point – or even an abscess – fixing memory. They have struck the child by revealing suddenly “strange” beings and things. Struck with astonishment, the child had to scrutinize and question the world with increased acuity and sensitivity. There are many borders to cross, internal and external, material and immaterial, and all leave traces (journey there and back). The voices convoked here converge towards on an unsinkable “asombro” – a word we have borrowed from Ana María Matute and that could
be translated as “stunning” – against “a world upside down”, facing a sudden loss of bearings.