She had her humble business in one corner of the ancient, arched square, selling cigarettes, chewing gum and sweets.

I stopped many times to talk with her, although,  I didn´t need a packet of cigarettes. But she was an ageless woman, pleasant to talk with her if only for a short while. 

I realise now that I never asked her name and the only details I knew about her were that she came from Santander. She didn´t like pools and she lived in a boarding house nearby for which she had to work all day long to pay her rent.

“One´s got to sell many cigarettes to make the ends meet.” She used to say merely smiling.

Caring as I am, I always suggested why she didn´t try to sell her cigarettes in one of the countless cafes. She would have been warmer at winter time and cooler at summer time. She used to look at me

merely smiling. “I´m fine.” She whispered.

AUTUMN/WINTER

Summer has gone to other lands. Children are back to school and only few groups of tourists walk about. But she is there at her little table watching the passers.

When I arrive after my day´s work in the square and I get to spot her, it  makes me think that I am nearly at home. I may buy a packet of cigarettes and I may hold a short conversation with her.

Our topics are invariably on how hard it is to live in the asphalt jungle. Everything´s so dear and we never seem to have enough.

Her customers aren´t always polite to her, but she never complains about any of them.  

Her work collagues are the painters that paint for the tourists trying to get a living too. At given time time, any of them brings her a white coffee and a bun.

“Thanks a lot” She whispers as she reaches for the cup.

All of them are people striving to come afloat.

The two months of autumn pass fast and we soon reach to the festive season. The streets get busy again, although, it is cold and frosty. People´s faces glow red with the cold. The council workers work actively erecting the huge Christmas tree that will decorate the ancient square for some weeks and they have also installed the stalls where the sellers are going to sell all sorts of decorations and jokes to play in the coming joyous gatherings.

As the days pass by, the activity increases and so do her sales too. If she is lucky, she will able to pay her rents and, perhaps, treat herself to a good meal in the loneliness of her room.

JANUARY

Christmas is over. The square gets quiet again. As I walk through its cobbled pavement, I look to the corner where she always installs her little business. She isn´t there, but I think it is way too early. There is still some frost and mist from the night before. The council workers let drop the lights and branches of the tree and the different stalls pile up in the middle of the square.

When I return home from work late in the evening, I am surprised that she isn´t there selling her cigarettes. I ask to the other people about her. Some of them say they haven´t got a clue and others just shrugg. 

The days of that January passed, but every time I passed through the the square I looked to her corner. It seemed so empty without her and her little table. I wondered where she had ended up.

I missed her smart presence, because even when she didn´t have much and, as she put it, she had to sell many packets of cigarettes to pay her rents, she really was a lady.

How easily, thought I, a person can vanish without trace and no one will realise about it.