Lost Cause by John Wilson

and that does not even exist in my mind, now that I am gone. Yet, if, at the end of my long and eventful life, I were offered the chance to relive any three months of my life, despite the pain, it would be my time in 1938 in Spain.
    I have traveled all over the world, but I never voluntarily returned to Spain. After I was shot down in the Second World War, I was smuggled through Spain on my escape, but that was all very secretive and I barely knew where I was. After the war I was not allowed back into Spain—had I gone anyway, I could have been thrown in prison or worse. Later, when it would have been safe for me to return, I didn’t because I convinced myself that there was nothing left there for me. The letter I received from Maria proved that I was horribly mistaken in that assumption, and I sometimes wonder how my life could have turned out differently. Of course, I have had the best life a man could hope for, filled with the wonderful love of my wife, my children and my grandchildren. Still, I can’t help but wonder.
    I think, if I am honest with myself, it was fear that stopped me ever going back. Not physical fear, although I experienced enough of that in Spain to last a lifetime. Oddly, I think it was two opposite fears: fear that Spain would not be as I remembered it, and fear that it would be too much as I remembered it.
    To you, this is probably just an old man becoming nostalgic. I hope it will mean more in time. What is important now is your present and your future, and I fervently hope that the suitcase before you will give you a tiny fragment of the wonder and passion that was mine so many years ago.
    Good luck with your quest.
    Give my love to Maria, and know that I love you and wish you everything you wish for yourself for a long and happy future.
    Grandfather

SEVEN
    I let the letter drop and stared at the battered suitcase. This was it, what Grandfather had wanted me to find. There was a tremendously important part of his life in this case, a part that no one else knew about and that I was about to discover. I felt as if he was sitting beside me, more alive than he had ever been when I knew him. But something was wrong.
    I looked up at Laia. She was watching me intently. “Where’s Maria?” I asked. “Who is she?”
    Laia lowered her gaze to the table and blinked rapidly. When she looked up at me, there were tears in her eyes. “Maria was my great-grandmother,” she said softly. “She died the night before this letter arrived.”
    â€œI…I’m sorry,” I stammered. I felt helpless. More than anything, I wanted to put my arm around Laia’s shoulder and comfort her, but I’d only met her minutes ago. “You were close?”
    Laia took a deep breath and wiped her eyes. “Yes, we were very close. She always claimed that I was her soul mate and that watching me was like once more being young. She said looking at me was like looking in a mirror that turned back time.” Laia smiled sadly. “We both have a very stubborn streak. Even when she turned ninety years old and the stairs took her an age to climb, Maria refused to leave this place. She said that it had always been her home and that her past was here. She told me many times that without a past we are nothing more than fallen leaves that blow around the park at the whim of any breeze that comes along. Our past anchors us and makes us real. That is why you are here, no? To discover your past.”
    â€œMy grandfather’s past,” I said.
    â€œIt’s the same,” Laia said with a shrug. “The past does not begin when you are born. It is a line, a thread that winds back through your parents, grandparents and all your ancestors. You live in Canada?”
    I nodded.
    â€œThen at some time an ancestor of yours stepped onto a boat in the Old World to seek a better or a freer life in the New World. He or she is a part of you, just as the Moors who ruled this