"If You Fall in Love, You Don't See the Distances, Even If They Exist"

"Antonio Santos, Rafael María de Labra Street, Seville. With Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American girls aged 17 to 55." This advertisement, published in a film magazine in 1954 by some vengeful twins, marks the curious beginning of the romance between Antonio and Claudina. Separated by distance but united by more than 800 passionate letters, their daughter, writer Care Santos, intimately and emotionally reconstructs her parents' love story in 'The Love That Passes' (Destino). With her usual literary talent and through family chronicles, Santos portrays the Spain of the era while reflecting on chance, love, and the legacy we receive.

"In her diaries, your mother records even the aperitif she had."

"Yes, the aperitif was a ritual she practiced always. Towards the end of her life, her friend moved to Seville, she stayed in Mataró, and they would have aperitifs together over the phone. Each would prepare a tray with seasoned clams and mussels. And a Martini."

"How did this epistolary romance between your parents begin?"

"I've heard the story all my life because they boasted about it, and rightly so. My mother, a Catalan, responded to an ad she saw in a variety film magazine, in a correspondence section. She was 15, listened to coplas on the radio, and wanted a Sevillian boy to say those things in that way, so she and a friend wrote to the only Sevillian available that day, who was my father. But my father hadn't sent the ad; it was placed by two twin sisters he dated simultaneously, who, upon discovering it, sent his details to that section to put him in a serious bind. It was a well-planned and very sophisticated revenge."

"Your father was a bon vivant, and your mother had a strong character. How did they manage to fit together?"

"Yes, they were very different. There was a vast distance, but also a chronological one: my father was 10 years older, had already worked, and faced very unpleasant things in his life, and it showed. But I believe that, in the end, love and friendship are two emotions that smooth everything out. If you want and if you fall in love, you don't see the distances, even if they exist. Another man would have been frightened by the difficulties and her personality, which was not easy. But for my father, it was no problem because he was always a man who could handle everything, with great drive and optimism, and that is evident in the letters."

"You had to wait for your mother to pass away to tell her story."

"About 20 years ago, I started writing it. Since my mother was alive, I fictionalised it so it wouldn't be exactly her story, but it didn't work because it was too incredible. Sometimes, life is so unbelievable that if you tell it as it is, it doesn't work, so it had to be told differently. I realised this and stopped, but I was about to ruin it by publishing it prematurely. It would have been another story, a silly love novel."

"The last gift from your mother was leaving you the letters."

"It seems fictional, but it's not: I found them on my birthday, when she had been dead for almost two months, and I had spent my whole life asking her for the letters. If she was angry, she would say she was going to throw them away; if she was very angry, she would say she had thrown them away, and if not, she would give the neutral response: 'When I die.' I searched when I started clearing out the flat, and I didn't find them where they had always been. But she left them in a box with my name, and it was the best gift she ever gave me."

"And what did you discover about her through that correspondence?"

"Look, I didn't have a good relationship with my mother. She was a very difficult woman; it's much easier to write about her than to be her daughter. But I began to see her through my father's eyes, with that generous and passionate way of looking at her, always forgiving her mistakes. Children are very harsh judges of these things, and it did me a lot of good, and I learned a lot from my father's perspective."

"The letters are also a portrait of post-war Spain."

"Of course. My father dedicated half of each letter to telling her he loved her in every imaginable way, and the rest was about what he did, his activities inside and outside the office, and all that ends up being a chronicle of a time when the Civil War and its consequences were very present in their lives. Moreover, my parents are a faithful reflection of an era when men assumed an almost paternal, protective, guiding role towards women. But my mother was almost more macho than my father: she wanted a man who was that way, who would protect her, guide her. Today it seems shocking, but it was like that."

"Your father left his city, his family, and his job for love. Would you do the same?"

"Well, I am my father's worthy daughter. That, said by my mother at some turbulent moment in my life, means I was killing her with worry. I also have a powerful love story that, at some point, required an important decision."

"Will you write it someday?"

"Yes, everything worthwhile is written, but sometimes you need distance. It still requires a lot of time."