1987


There were only four or five of those devices in the whole country. Suárez had received one, Juan Carlos too, and now Spain was the proud owner of a Nokia portable phone. The problem was he had no idea of how that thing worked exactly.

"Juancar?"

Nope. Nothing. That thing made weird noises but he didn't hear his king. He had pressed all buttons they had told him to press, why didn't it work? He didn't want to break that thing, it cost 700,000 pesetas. So he looked at the instruction paper again and pressed the buttons more carefully, in case he missed a step or something, sure of what he was doing now.

But a sudden, horrible feeling inside of his stomach, like if he was burning on the inside, made him drop the precious device and made him writhe in pain, and people around him in the park approached.

"Mr. Spain?"

"Somebody call an ambulance!"

He was taken to the hospital, where the doctors found a third degree burn in the right side of his torso, something incomprehensible for a human being, because Spain had not been near a stove or any source of fire that day. It was all explained when agents from the government came to pick him up and told him the whole story.

He didn't want him to see the images, but he did. Because he wanted to know why he was feeling what he was feeling.

He saw the first floor of the parking of the Hipercor mall in Barcelona destroyed by a car filled with hundreds of kilograms of explosives and chemical products anyone could buy at the supermarket—home-made napalm. He saw a great hole which made a ball of fire ascend to the supermarket. What made him fall to the ground in pain was the shock of twenty one painful deaths, many of them burnt alive due to the ingredients used in the explosion, carefully selected to adhere to the skin and carbonize it.

E.T.A. claimed they warned the authorities but Spain only cared about one thing: his people had been injured, killed, and none of them were influential or worked in the military or the police. They were just families who wanted to buy groceries.

They were only civilians...

His tears were shared with Catalonia, when they saw each other at the funeral.

"Why do they do this...?" she wept in his shoulder.

Spain had to wipe the tears off his face before replying.

"Some people just don't know how to love nations..."


President González left the pen on the desk and grabbed the papers.

"So, we agree that the terrorist group Euskadi Ta Askatasuna does not represent the Basque nation."

He glanced at Basque Country, who nodded gravely. He looked like he would have spat on those people's face if they had been in the room.

"Also, and due to the abominable actions they have committed, we condemn the methods used to this day, consisting on extortion, intimidation and murder. All representatives of the Basque nation here present will have to publicly reject said actions and collaborate with the central government in the chase and arrest of all members of the band. No political party shall negotiate with the band again. E.T.A. will be required to cease all violence and surrender their weapons immediately."

González looked at both nations.

"Will that be alright?"

"Yes" Basque replied. Spain nodded too.

They should have known the band wouldn't take this pact well.

Spain lost balance for the second time in that year on December, when a car filled with explosives entered a civil guard barracks house in Zaragoza and caused the collapse of one of the building inhabited by families of members of the Civil Guard. Out of eleven casualties, two of them were wives and five, little girls. The youngest, twins, were only three years old. Some of the thirty six injured were left dramatically mutilated.


Spain was half asleep in front of the television when he got a call.

"Yes?" he answered.

"Antonio. It's me, Felipe."

"What Felipe?"

"What Felipe?"

"Ah, yeah. Sorry. I've met so many Felipes before...Did something happen?" he thought he was alright, but those days he wasn't sure about anything...

"It's good news, don't worry. France is going to collaborate with us to find these E.T.A. terrorists."

"Is he?"

"Yeah, don't you know?"

"I haven't talked much to France these last decades."

"Funny because he..."

Ding dong!

"Wait, wait a second."

Spain left the phone aside and rushed to answer the door. And who was there?

"...is here. I had a meeting with him this morning. Antonio?" González kept talking.

Spain gazed at France for long.

"...France..." was it a question? an exclamation? was he happy to see him or kind of angry? France couldn't read the tone of his voice.

"...Hello, Spain..." France also gazed at him with his hands inside of the pockets of his suit. "...May I come in?"

"Uh, sure..."

Spain walked to the phone, said to González he would call him later, hanged up and welcomed his guest as he deserved.

"Sit down, sit down. Uh, sorry about the mess. If I had known you were coming, I would have cleaned a bit...Yeah, that's my underwear, give it to me. Thanks. Sorry. Do you want something? I've got...let me see...orange juice, beer, soda, coffee..."

"No, thank you. I just had dinner" France replied, taking off his jacket and sitting down.

"I've got crackers. If you want something to eat..."

"No, no."

In that case, Spain returned to the living room and sat by France's side.

"Felipe just told me you came to offer your help against..."

"Yes...Uhm...I am really ashamed. Those who did what happened in Zaragoza...They were people from my house. They think I am not going to do anything to them because you have no jurisdiction in my territory...But I will find them and give them what they deserve."

"Are you serious?"

"Uh-huh. I really hate murderers...specially those who harm children..."

"...Gee, France, thanks a lot. That's a huge help."

France gazed at his own lap, then glanced at Spain.

"...How have you been? I mean..."

"Good, good...Well, you know, the recent events have left me a bit...scarred...but it'll get better, I know. Now that you guys let me join the European club I feel like a big boy, and I am so excited. Get to know people I have never talked to, hang out with friends, to important stuff..."

"Well, this is enough, what are you playing to?"

Spain hushed, staring at France blinking with confusion, his smile fading.

"...Pardon?"

"All of this you are doing" France snapped. "You know very well that I didn't want you to join and tried to convince everyone to leave you out. I turned my back on you when you most needed a bit of sympathy. I have not respected any pact we've made. I have done to you the vilest things I could come up with ever since the day we met. And you know what? I don't regret it. Not one bit. And what do you do? You welcome me in your house, offer me coffee and crackers and talk to me like we were lifelong friends. What are your intentions? You can't be stupid enough to just overlook all of that. If I was you, I wouldn't have even opened the door. I would have refused any help."

After a moment of silence, the smile returned to Spain's lips.

"You said it once. I am really, really silly. The silliest person alive" he chuckled.

Still smiling, he sighed.

"Of course I remember all of that. How could I forget. I still have some scars, mostly here" he pointed at his forehead. "And you know why it hurt so much? Because, despite everything, I have always considered you my brother. I still remember the times when all I had was you, a little girly boy called Gaul. That...that is the only thing I want to remember. The times when we were just Hispania and Gaul, two provinces no one cared about, who only had each other in the world. Grudge...let me tell you something about grudge, France...it only takes you to very dark places...I've lived in the dark for too long. Nowadays things are different. I have the chance to get to know nations who used to be so far away, I was angry at for a piece of land or a different belief...I have friends, I am no one's puppet anymore...I feel like I can be myself at last...A new me, a me who has learned a lot of valuable lessons...I know you, and some others think I am a fool, a clown. Yes. I know. But that's because I'm happy, okay? I'm happy welcoming people in my house, cooking for them, dancing and singing for them, showing them around my cities, swimming with them in my beaches. Even you. It doesn't compensate many of the things I did, but it does make me feel better. France...I don't know if you are jealous of me, or you think I am a second-class nation, or what, but I can't help it: you'll always be a very important piece of me. So every time you come here, I will greet you with coffee and crackers, and smile at you, and talk to you as if we were friends. We may not be, but to me...you are something close."

France lowered his head and Spain couldn't see his face with the hair. When he raised it again, he saw a big grin on it.

"Sweet Lord, you are the stupidest person who ever lived..."

And he got closer to place his hand on Spain's cheek and kissed his nose with affection. Spain returned the gesture embracing him.


1989


They passed by the remains of the wall, decorated with messages and graffitis, and Spain wondered once again if Prussia was still with his brother Germany, making up for all of those years being apart from each other. Had he been separated from his family in such a way, he said to himself, he would not have let go of them in four centuries, at least.

But there was Prussia, in the place convened. And it was funny for Spain to see him dressed in the modern fashion, with jeans, t-shirt and anorak. They embraced tightly.

"I'm so glad to see you again..." Spain muttered.

"They fed you well, I see" Prussia observed. "Good! Last time I saw you you were a walking skeleton—no, no, wait: you couldn't even walk."

"You are a walking skeleton" Spain chuckled. "What? Russia didn't treat you well?"

"Shut up! I don't want to hear that name as long as I live!"

"I have a solution. My cuisine will make you both recover the lost weight and remember what food is" France smirked.

"France! Gee, I haven't seen you in a while, either, come here, you!" Prussia laughed, embracing him too. "You guys came together? Weren't you enemies or something?"

"You've missed tons of things, my friend" Spain wrapped an arm around him. "But we've got a lot of time to catch up. I don't know you, but I do want to eat France's food."

"Worry not, Papa France will feed his babies" France also put his arm around him, involving Prussia, and the three of them walked together through the streets of Berlin.


E.T.A. (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) was a Basque terrorist group which was born in the 60s with the intention of making Basque Country independent, using all methods necessary, including murder. We have seen in previous chapters that they even got to assassinate the president of Spain, Carrero Blanco. But they were considered to be fighting the Francoist regime, so nationally and internationally they were kind of excused. However, it all changed when democracy came and they still killed policemen, politicians and civil guards. The year which changed the public perception of E.T.A. was 1987, when they started to kill civilians. The Hipercor bombing is by far their most brutal attack and is considered the second most deadly act of terrorism Spain has suffered after the 11-M. They were negotiating with the government but this changed it all: president Felipe González (we saw him in the previous chapter as the leader of the opposition during Suárez's period) passed a bill by which all institutions, even the regional from Basque Country, would hunt them down. As a response, a branch which came from France attacked the civil guard barracks house in Zaragoza, most of their victims being children. All of these attacks brought immense fear in the lives of the Spanish people. Our parents often tell us about the times when they looked under the cars in case there was a bomb. Many people had to leave Basque Country because they were scared of their own neighbors.

But the bright side is that Spain and France started improving their relationships from this period. It seems France was reticent about letting Spain join the EU, because it would damage it would be a commercial competitor—in our country we don't hate the French, but we do have this belief that they hate us for some reason and are always trying to boycott us. However, the French police and intelligence has contributed an awful lot to capturing and judging these criminals, since they operated in France and have also killed French citizens.

Since this happened close to the year when the Berlin Wall fell, I like to think this is the beginning of the Bad Touch Trio.