A person’s childhood can hold stories of all colors, shapes, flavors and even smells. Over the last 50 years, society has experienced drastic changes that create generations very different from each other. Therefore, when an adult travels through time and returns to his or her hometown, his first home or his first school, the contrast of sensations experienced is overwhelming.
The guests of El Camino a Casa, the 7 and Acción program presented by Albert Espinosa on La Sexta, which premiered its second season this Tuesday, go through this series of experiences. In commemoration of this event, the writer and the protagonist of the first chapter, also the author and former minister Máximo Huerta, have gone to El Hormiguero and have spoken at length with Pablo Motos about his emotional experience.
One of the most difficult sections of the interview occurred when Huerta spoke about his late father, whose relationship during school time was not the most pleasant. The creator of the novel Paris Woke Up Late has confessed that the mere sound of his mother’s keys already intimidated him, and that it forced him to break that bubble of security formed between him and his mother. A fact that, a posteriori, turned him into a guard and for which he preferred to stay in his house.
“The life insurance was me,” said the native of Utiel, who became doubly excited after watching two fragments of the first episode of the program. Despite that difficult relationship in the 70s, after his death Máximo turned all that resentment into love towards his father, and it was demonstrated after a symbolic gesture from Albert Espinosa during his way home. The creator of Polseres Vermelles thrilled the former minister with a sample of cologne.
According to the Valencian writer himself, he could not remember her face or voice, but as soon as the Catalan brought him the perfumed sample, everything changed. Suddenly, the memories came back to him and he even had to receive a hug from Espinosa. “The smell opened everything to me,” Huerta confessed during the interview with Motos, also showing a second delicate scene when they both returned to their childhood home.
Currently, Huerta continues to care for his mother, who suffers from dementia as he himself explained a few years ago. In his own words, lying has become a habit to her every time he changes people’s names or sees people who have not been there for a long time. One of the harshest examples was what happened this past New Year’s Eve, when, being alone, he commented to her, “It’s a shame Maxi isn’t here.”
