Rosa

Rosa, the daughter of Oscar Amalfitano and Lola, stands at the center of a brief, emotionally complicated reunion between her parents. When Lola returns after years away, Rosa first embraces her and then retreats to her bedroom; during Lola’s five-day visit, however, the two walk hand in hand and spend time together at home. The visit ends when Lola leaves to return to her young son, Benoit, while Rosa remains with her father. Her story is told largely through the adults’ attention to her: their fears, their incomplete knowledge of one another, and their efforts to interpret what she needs.

Identity and family

Rosa is Amalfitano’s daughter and Lola’s child. At the time of Lola’s return, she is old enough to attend a public elementary school in Sant Cugat, where she leaves in the morning and returns later in the day. Her ordinary school routine provides the setting for the sudden arrival of a mother she has not been living with.

The reunion takes place after Lola has been away for years. Amalfitano has had no news of her for five years, and Rosa’s response makes clear that Lola’s return is not a familiar part of her daily life: after Lola identifies herself as her mother, Rosa screams, hugs her, and almost immediately runs to hide in her bedroom. The embrace and retreat belong to the same moment, holding welcome and alarm together without resolving either.

Reunion with Lola

Lola has returned because she is very sick and wants to see Rosa once more. She tells Amalfitano that she will probably die and shows him French papers stating that she has AIDS. Rosa is therefore reunited with her mother under the pressure of Lola’s illness, although the account does not describe the illness to Rosa in detail or establish what she understands about it.

The following day, Amalfitano sees Rosa and Lola walking near the station holding hands. He follows at a distance rather than interrupting them. Later, he finds them watching television together at home. These scenes mark a change from Rosa’s initial flight: the physical closeness of the walk and the shared time indoors show the two of them managing a connection during the short visit, without suggesting that the earlier estrangement has been undone.

Lola’s thoughts about Benoit arise in a conversation with Amalfitano after Rosa has gone to sleep. Asked about her son, Lola recalls his features and expressions and says he was the first to know she was going to die. She explains that he understood by looking at her, and insists that children should not be lied to. The conversation places Rosa and Benoit in parallel as Lola’s children, but they occupy different circumstances: Rosa is with Lola during this last visit, while Benoit is the child Lola says she must return to.

The end of the visit

On the fifth morning, as the medicine Lola brought from France is nearly gone, she says she has to leave. She gives Benoit’s smallness as the reason, then complicates the claim by saying that he does not need her, before concluding that she must go see how he is. Her departure is not presented as a rejection of Rosa; it follows from Lola’s divided family life and her decision to return to the son living with her in Paris.

Amalfitano leaves a note and an envelope containing much of his savings, expecting Lola to be gone when he returns from work. Instead, she remains at home while he collects Rosa from school. The family shares dinner; after Rosa goes to bed near midnight, Amalfitano tucks her in, while Lola waits in the living room with her suitcase packed. Amalfitano suggests that Lola stay the night and claims that no more trains to Barcelona are running. Lola says she intends to hitchhike, kisses him on the cheek, and leaves. Rosa is not shown responding to her mother’s departure. The next morning, Amalfitano turns on the radio to check whether a hitchhiker nearby has been killed or raped, a sign of the danger he associates with Lola setting out alone.

Life with Amalfitano in Santa Teresa

Elsewhere in Rosa’s life with her father, the move to Santa Teresa is registered through small domestic adjustments. Amalfitano notices that the local water seems denser and tastes of earth, and he and Rosa begin brushing their teeth more often because he worries the water is staining them. Rosa, more concerned with her appearance, brushes six or seven times a day. Their shared response gives a concrete measure of their new surroundings, while showing that the same concern takes different forms for father and daughter.

Rosa also encounters Amalfitano’s increasingly peculiar conduct at home. After he hangs Dieste’s geometry book on the clothesline to see how it survives the assault of nature and the desert climate, he tells her not to take it down and asks her to pretend it does not exist. Rosa looks at him as if she does not understand what he means, then says she hopes he is not going crazy. He replies that she need not worry and appears cheerful. She accepts his request and shuts herself in her room. The exchange makes their household’s distance visible: Amalfitano tries to explain an act that has become meaningful to him, while Rosa registers its strangeness and withdraws.

Narrative significance

Rosa’s role is shaped by the gap between what the adults know and what they can share with her. Lola arrives with a grave diagnosis and a limited supply of medicine, but the reunion is rendered through ordinary acts—an embrace, a walk holding hands, television, dinner, and bedtime—rather than through an account of Rosa’s understanding. Her initial retreat and later closeness remain side by side, resisting a simple account of reconciliation.

The departure also leaves Rosa at the meeting point of two family attachments. Lola’s stated reason for leaving is her responsibility toward Benoit, while Amalfitano remains the parent present in Rosa’s daily life. The narrative does not supply a lasting resolution between mother and daughter: Lola goes, and Amalfitano’s later memory of her is shaped by uncertainty and fear. Rosa’s importance lies in this unresolved intimacy, and in the way her presence makes the consequences of Lola’s absence and return legible without granting either parent full access to her inner life.