My memories of Madrid are mostly slideshow-like, remembered from the mind of a four and five-year old. There was Paco the portero of our apartment building, a wonderfully kind old man (with a wonderfully kind wife). I recall the hot chestnuts he bought us. I remember walking to the corner store to buy beer for my father. Could this really have been so? These were the last days of Franco; pornography was illegal but selling beer to small children may not have been.

Feeding small children olives and anchovies in El Retiro park was another fine custom we adopted. Sitting at a white table outside a park cafe with my father, being served by a smiling, gold-toothed waiter; that is another enduring memory. I have no memories of fear of the Spaniards I met, only memories of graciousness and friendship.

So there are other memories to peruse at leisure; mostly happy, but even young lives have their traumas. The memory of Franco's death is conflated in my mind with a bad ear ailment I had, and the absence of my father for long stretches of time, as he had his shifts of monitoring the situation from the embassy in order to cable Washington the minute the news of the death came. At any rate I was present during the last Fascist dictatorship in Europe. I can only hope that today's terrible events further strengthen the democracy that was born when I lived in that beautiful city.

So my heart hurts for Madrid, but my gratitude to that city and its citizens is renewed whenever I am drawn to my memories.