An ocean of time after having lost their mothers, many disoriented or sick elderly people scream for them when they see the end near, as those who have visited hospitals and nursing homes know. That cry (“Mom!”) that unites the end and the beginning of life echoed in the hell of Murcia. "We are going to die; Mommy, I love her,” was the last audio that a victim sent to her family.
She was a young Ecuadorian woman of 28 years old, who lived in the neighboring town of Caravaca de la Cruz. She traveled with her boyfriend and a group of friends to the Murcian capital to spend the night at La Fonda Milagros, very frequented by the Latin American community in the region. Jairo, the young woman's father, listened to her audio dozens of times yesterday before the press, in a gesture of desperation. He didn't know anything about his daughter or her friends.
“There is the car they came in. It's from a friend who doesn't drink. His parents don't know anything about him either,” said Jairo, whose head was undoubtedly hammered by a message of love and despair. "We are going to die; Mommy, I love her.” Fonda Milagros, from where the fire moved to the adjoining premises, could remain open until seven o'clock and many people hurried their celebrations and birthday parties.
One of those birthdays was that of Eric Hernández, Nicaraguan, who was celebrating his 30th birthday with about twenty friends and family (among them, his mother and brother, Marta and Sergio), almost all of his same nationality, except Jon, the husband of her cousin Tania, from Ecuador. The majority of victims are from this group: those mentioned above and Rafa, Gloria, Orfilia del Carmen... The flames surprised them on the upper floor of the nightclub.
Smoke, screams, darkness. The short circuit left the room in darkness. That and the speed with which the fire spread turned this part of the premises into a mousetrap. Someone shouts “light there,” while Jairo's daughter recorded her last audio (a gesture reminiscent of those made by many victims of the Twin Towers planes on 9/11, who also had the presence of mind to call their loved ones). loved ones and saying goodbye).
The chronicles will say that they were part of the Latin community. A half truth. The majority arrived in Murcia more than 17 years ago and, given their age, they had spent more than half their lives here or had matured here. Murcians from America, like Walter Hernández, another cousin of Eric, the one with the birthday. He was saved by a miracle because chance wanted the tragedy to catch him on the ground floor, near the exit.
When he saw Jordan, another of his relatives, Walter wanted to believe that everyone had already left and would be home. But he went to his house and there was no one there, so he returned to the discotheque area, waiting for news. “We don't know anything, we don't know anything,” he repeated, when the psychologists took him to the nearby sports hall, where the authorities installed support units for the families of the victims.
They were gardeners, bricklayers, waiters, caregivers for the elderly or delivery drivers, like Eric himself, who works in Coca-Cola distribution. Young people and workers, all between 20 and 40 years old. There were many people. Those downstairs were able to leave, but those upstairs... Until 1996, places like this closed at five in the morning, but in January 2013 the hours were extended. On that date, nightclubs and dance halls were allowed to remain open “from Thursday to Saturday and the eve of holidays” until seven in the morning.
The writer Alejandro Palomas explains that mothers tell their children that they know them very well because they have given birth to them. And it is the other way around: it is the children who know the mothers very well because they have seen inside their soul and their blood constellations. Perhaps that explains why a traveler on board a plane about to crash or the patron of a burning nightclub have the urgent need to say one last time: “Mommy, I love her.”
