CUBA: ADORABLE NEIGHBORS. A REAL SHORT STORY.

CUBA: ADORABLE NEIGHBORS. A REAL SHORT STORY.

  They were two families that lived behind the back wall of the City Cemetery.Well that they helped each other: some management in the warehouse, home remedies for diseases, etc.

   Until a Guayabas tree sparked a war and divided that pre-mortuary battlefield on two fronts.

  Mirtha, that was the name of the patriarch of the house on the left side, had raised 10 children with a father almost absent, so she was a big woman, with imperious gestures and commands that didn't request a single replica of that troop of children of all the ages.

  Josefina, meanwhile was a slender lady of slow talking and convincing with the strength of reason and sweetness. Until the day of the drama occurred.

  -Mirtha-Josefina said to her neighbor- the Guayaba tree that is in the patio belongs to us. You put a fence that included the trunk for your patio and that's how it was on the side of your property.

  Josefina swallowed, keeping her anger and answered

  :-Look neighbor. With the tree you can do whatever you want, even put it where you know ... -she made a transition and breathe more relieved- Let me tell you that the only piece of land we have all guaranteed is  there in front of us- the cemetery.

  She turned around and locked herself in the house.

Mirtha, triumphant, asked her numerous children to help her. She started the fence and for a few inches she put it back so that the guabo tree was included in her own patio.

  But the Guayabo scatters its branches for the house of Mirtha. 

  Josefina had a great idea. She tied a wire string to the trunk of the tree and stuck the other end deep into the ground next to the kitchen.So the tree remained a few months throwing its fruits to the courtyard of Mirtha, who forbade their children, on pain of a good bout of lashes, not to take a single of the attractive fruits that hung or fell ripe until they could be as a snack forbidden for the children who did not understand these things as adults.

  When I left Cuba the tree was still standing. But the good work done by Josefina, the slow traction, etc., paid off and the guava tree finally stood up, this time, leaning towards the plaintiff's yard.Josefina saw that as a personal triumph.

   And so it was that two neighboring families, previously inseparable, fought over a common tree of guabos and were enemies forever.

  ORLANDO VICENTE ÁLVAREZ