Tag #137546 - Interview #78465 (Egon Lovith)

When my father’s business started going better we could afford to move into a better place. However, we never lived in a separate courtyard. I know that once we lived on Meave Street in an apartment that had two windows looking onto the street. It was a big thing since most of the houses were concrete apartments, the floors were arranged in a circle, with bars, and the doors and windows all opened inwards toward the big courtyard. There were huge yards where the tenants dealt with all of their issues as well as all celebrations and holidays. There was a celebration for children, when the entire house was staring at them [as they were performing something], and then they commented how the children performed. You could go through the floor and find every door open. You could smell what everyone was cooking all the time and you could also yell into the apartments saying, ‘Senora como esta? Bien, gracias’. [How are you Madame? Well, thank you.] They talked back and forth and we always knew who lived well, who lived poorly, who lived under bad conditions, who had fights; there were no secrets. My mother didn’t work, so together we, nicely dressed, we would wait for my father for lunch, or visit him at his store or go shopping. We only ate out in restaurants on Sundays.