How did your father experience the war?

Compared to the losers, because he was a ten-year-old, because those in the middle don't defend. He had fun in the war, he enjoyed it. They all went to the shelter and she went to the orchard to see the planes. I thought it was a lie and lived happily under the cover of fantasy.

This attitude was, perhaps, a protection, a cruelty to reality.

Yeah, he knew what was going on, but a kind of shell was invented. The older brother had been injured twice, his parents told him nothing, but a neighbor who was Gudari told him about the issues of war. The neighbor was killed in the war when he was 20 years old, but shortly afterwards a letter from him arrived to my father, sent before he died. Then the father believed that the neighbor had sent him the letter from the moon, that people wouldn't really die.

Did you do as in La vita è bella?

I have been told many times, but for me they are not the same. In the film, the father, conscious of the truth, invents the lie for the child. Here it was he who invented the fantasy and mixed three brothers. It was so stupid or maybe so wise that it made it a fun.

Exile followed its path.

From Santander to France and there, a year and a half, they came alone to a small town called Tenay de los Alpes, lost from their parents. My father and my three brothers walked very free. They returned to the year and a half, with great fear… Their parents had lost four children in the war, since during that time they had not heard of them... It's the story of big losses.

When they returned, he once woke up to the reality of Franco.

The terrible silence that followed the war was discovered. The people of Tenay had allowed them to return with great fear, for fear of what awaited them in the hands of Franco. His father remembers how he walked across the bridge of Santiago. He thought the Francoists would have branches and tails. Terrified, he touched a guard's ass to check his tail. When they arrived in Bilbao they found themselves in a very poor environment.

Can you imagine a Martintxos in Syria or in Iraq?

Yes, and without wanting to look into the images that come from there. Once in a refugee camp, I saw some children doing interviews with reporters, inventing cameras and imaginary microphones with a broom and a sweeper. Fantasy has risks and benefits: when you're a child, your parents protect you from fantasy, so you don't have it, thinking you can fly, skip the fifth floor, but at the same time fantasy has a beneficial effect, it distances you from reality.

Sagardoaren hizkuntza. What is the language of secrets?

Basque. In the father's family they spoke in Basque, but around them, in the Abusu neighborhood, all the others spoke in Spanish. The Basque country was confined to the interior of the houses, for a long time in decline and also prohibited. Secrets were told in that language so that others could not understand them. It has another meaning, that of the relationship between my father and me. The book has been the path we have used to get to know each other.

Has it been for you to return to my father?

It has happened to many of us to move away from our father to identify ourselves in the time when we are growing up, but after time, to feel compelled to return to him. Luckily, I came back in time, telling my life, and it was a very nice meeting. In an instant, I saw that I was getting older, with my heart fluttering and with memory problems, and I feared that our relationship would become incomplete. I knew I had a beautiful story to tell, but I was going to lose, we couldn't waste time. It was a three-year journey, I completed the novel with the letters I sent him, and he wrote his memories every day, just in case, out of fear of dying the next day. We've both worked together, even after we pulled out the book, in the presentations. Now, after all that, she has relaxed and already started to lose her memory.

The novel has also changed your name to a matter of shame.

Yeah, when we started with the book, my father and my aunt didn't feel comfortable with some things he was putting in his mouths. It came very well for us to rename, they were quieter. Abrisketa is also the place name and family name of our surroundings, and Martintxo, by Zalakain de Baroja. At first I didn't think the book would change my name, but since I'm the son of Martintxo, I've taken a new name. The truth is, I'm shy and the nickname protects me.

You wrote before.

I dedicated myself to journalism, also to the television camera and to the writer. These tasks have helped me a lot in writing and representing blueprints. I finally found my story with the novel. It's also helped me grow, for many years I was a little naive Peter Pan, and the novel has helped me join my family.