【正文】 中國最大的管 理 資料下載中心 (收集 \整理 . 大量免費資源共享 ) 第 1 頁 共 47 頁 星火 30篇文章貫通考研詞匯文本 unit 1 The Permit I think the building must have been used as a farmer39。s winter store。 I found piles of fotten dried chestnuts and grain in rotting barrels. I tried the chestnuts but they tasted sour and sharp, and some of them had small teethmarks in their dark, peeling skins. Paulo said he would bring me food, but that was three days ago. Yesterday, I heard a car engine getting closer, and climbed up to hide in the rafters of the patched roof, but the Guardia Civil men just looked in quickly through the smashed windows and broken doors before they left. I clung to the dusty wooden rafter, feeling it creak and bend under my weight, and tried to make no noise. My arms and legs grew numb, then began to tremble, and I longed to move, but I waited until I heard the policemen drive off. I know that Paulo would not have told them about me. And I know that they will return. When we began the final part of our journey, we were warned that the police patrol the land around here regularly. They are always searching for us, or others like us。 the coast of Morocco and the Presidio of Ceuta are only ten miles away across the Straits. That is how I got here: squeezed in with fifteen other men in a shallow boat meant for eight, with the cold waves reaching over the sides and the night deep and black as a tomb. I have never been more scared. I prayed all the way across, and thought about my family. I told myself, over and over, that I was doing it for them. That trip took almost all of my money. All of the money I had saved back home in Ecuador, all of the money I had worked for on the way. The boatmen left us on a beach in the middle of the night. We lost sight of them but we could still hear their small engine across the waves. Six of us started walking inland but the others waited for the contact, the friends of the boatmen, as they had been told, and met the Guardia Civil instead. We were lucky: we met Paulo. We found the town and waited until the 中國最大的管 理 資料下載中心 (收集 \整理 . 大量免費資源共享 ) 第 2 頁 共 47 頁 first bar opened。 I went in alone while the others hid in the orchard nearby. When I asked for coffee, the young barman looked at me and nodded. He made the coffee, then disappeared into the back room. Cold and without strength, I wrapped my hands around the warm cup, not caring whether the barman had called the police, not caring about the next moment, just about the present. But the man had called Paulo, who came and helped us. Paulo is always smiling, always happy. He is from Seville, a busy city of many people, and he knows many people. Paulo found work for us. I made good money on the farms. I picked cabbages, and cauliflowers, and artichokes and broccoli. I picked great round yellow squashes that smelled of rich perfume when you broke them. The farmers hired us by the day, and were content. The local people will not work for the wages we are paid. But there were many farms, and many crops to be picked. We were weled. I shared a small clean house in the town with seven other workers. We had journeyed from Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, even Argentina. Paulo found the house for us he knew the landlord and arranged a good price. We lived well, with enough food and sometimes wine. I earned more in a week than I could in three months back home, if there had been work to do there. I sent most of the money that was left to my wife and parents, and wrote many letters to them. Then the government changed the rules, so that we needed work permits. I queued with hundreds of other workers outside the Ayuntamiento, waiting for the application forms. We sat on the stone benches beneath the trees in the Pla?a and read the forms. Some of the other workers are from small villages and towns, and cannot read as well as I can, so I explained to them that the government wanted our birth certificates, driving licences, passports and many other documents. Many of the workers had perhaps one or two of these documents, but most had none. I helped the others plete the forms and we gave them to the clerk in the Ayuntamiento. He looked at our documents, stamped the forms many times and told us that they would be sent to Madrid, and our permits would be returned in two or three months. If the forms were approved. We had to wait. Even Paulo and his friends could not help us. 中國最大的管 理 資料下載中心 (收集 \整理 . 大量免費資源共享 ) 第 3 頁 共 47 頁 The first month was not too bad, as most of the farmers continued to use us。 their crops were rich and heavy, waiting to be picked. Then some men from Madrid visited all of the farms, and maybe half of the farmers stopped using us. The farmers told us that they were sorry, and we believed them. So the second month was worse: few of the farmers would use us, and those that did paid very poor wages. We shared what we had, and ate once a day: rice, pasta, bread, cheap food that would fill our stomachs. We began to stare at each other, and wonder which of us would find work. There were fights in the morning, between different groups of workers, when the farms39。 foremen came to the Pla?a to choose who would work that day. But still we had some hope. We lost the house in the third month, as we had no money for rent. We were able to get some food from the charity kitchens around the town, and the church, but we found always a long queue and very little food. We took our bags and blanke