about orphans and Florence..

Under the scattered rain, as usual lost at the streets, i was walking along Florence, amazed. The silence and solitude I had savoured when arriving by train at 5 a.m… they had been replaced by the noisy tourists.
I admired hundred times the Duomo, the piazza... I imagined Savonarola there, defying the people and the bonfire,, but I also imagined the anonymous victims of the incomprehension, of the intolerance, of the violence of those times…
I shivered…maybe it was the drizzle, or the memories of a past I had not lived… or perhaps the beauty of the architecture, of monuments.

I followed my way and I arrived at the market. Polyglot salesmen, offering leathers, clothes… shouting marvels for few euros.. I bought a silk’s scarf and ran away!
Sky was opening showing a shy sun.. Around a corner, at a near street, an incredible building appeared. The simplicity of the forms attracted me immediately. Arcs, a staircase..
Then, I saw them…

Contrasting with grey of stone and white stucco of the facade, there were some terracotta’s medallions enamelled in white and turquoise … Against a broken background, figures of babies wrapped as in old times, with their opened arms, waiting..

They impressed me. I captured the image, knowing in advance how impossible was to transmit the feeling... When looking for more details to know what this building was, my eyes found those of an old woman, seated in the staircase, with some pigeons around. She smiled, and opening the arms, almost in the same position of those babies, she said to me: - The city and its stories!

I was intrigued.... -L'ospedale degli innocenti, here are you now – she continued - In 1500, the silk’s merchants, made it built to receive the orphans, the god-forsaken ones, to educate them and give them a craft.
I sat down next to her, and she went on telling me the history of this "spedale” as she named it. It had been the first institution of that side of the world, dedicated to help kids. Still at present, it kept on working, giving subsidies for the infancy.
While the woman was speaking, the image of those babies, in the medallions was pervading me.

-You know a lot about this city’s history, madam! - I told her .
- Not so much -she answered - but I like this place. I come often to sit down here, to be with the pigeons and some memories.

She stood up... smiling, again, and said: - My family dedicated to the silk for generations... but here began everything, with me. In this staircase, I was picked up by the spedale, when I was abandoned; here they educated me gave me a craft, chose me a husband, and gave me a dowry at the age of fifteen to begin the business. What would had happened to me at those years, if this place had not existed?.
I stood up , also thinking about the local history. I looked again at the terracotta babies… there I realized: What had she said? “for generations… those years.." I looked at her again, but she had disappeared.
I shivered again.. I had understood!

I took the scarf from the backpack and put it at my neck.
The cold contact of the silk warmed my heart.

Laila and Majnoun

Maybe her name is Laila?.. maybe she’s waiting for her Majnoun?..
Ahmad Shawqi is the only poet in the Arab literary tradition who was granted the title of " Amir al- Sho’araa’, literally the ‘Prince of Poets.
One of his works,the play "Majnoun Laila", or " Laila’s Love Lunatic" says at some verses..

Men turn as they pray to the holy place;
To Laila’s home I turn my face.
Twice people say their prayers at dawn;
When I think of her’
I know not the times I repeat my own,
Laila hid behind a crowd;
Her lip betrayed a smile,
Like the break of morn,
Or the sun as it shone.

3 of 3

He ran without stopping. The bad news had to be scattered immediately. Although all were expecting it would happen, as messenger from other hamlets had arrived time before to prevent them, they were surprised. They thought that the inhospitable kind of the place, that the unassailable of the location, would make them give up… but there they were coming...
They were many, too many… it did not matter. The battle would be unequal in number, but also it would be in braveness… and both forces would be balanced.

..........
While going on with her trip, she began to read a book that she had bought at the museum, where it was described how, after one hundred and thirty years, Quilme people had finished. One hundred and thirty years of defiance and bravery against the Spanish. Overcome by hunger, many of them thrown themselves and their sons from the hill, not to be captured.. others, the less, "were lead" on foot through those 1600 km to the place where 500 years later, she would live. There, some of them died infected by diseases unknown at their valleys, some due to the laziness of those who had conquered them.. due to abandonment.

She took the small piece of clay from her pocket.. when her tears wet it, she just realized what was the meaning of that line in zig zag, depicted there… the weeping now had been shared… the pain.
But then, she thought about her city, Quilmes, the one that had the name of the heroic natives, and not the one of their conquerors.
She tightened that piece of clay stronger.. she dried her eyes, and sighed a little bit of justice.

2 of 3...

She had learnt the meaning of the word “Quilmes”, the name of her city, at school. It was the name of natives who had lived at the very north of Argentina, at Tucumán province. The information provided at that time by the teachers had not deepened much..

Many years later, she made her first trip to those places, crossing the almost one thousand six hundred kilometres of Pampas, prairies, hills and mountains that separated the two cities homonyms. Because it still existed the ruins of a city there. In the slope of a big hill, it was the fortification from which all valleys could be observed. From where the Quilmse natives had resisted the siege of the Spanish conquerors for many years.
Thus was she told in the short visit that had been only a break in the way towards other destinies, more to north. She had visited everything very quickly, guided by a villager; but the time urged and she had to leave. Their fellows had already arrived at the parking, but she resisted hurrying up.


It seemed that the archaeologists had been working, but had not reconstructed everything. She walked between the rows of the former walls of the houses, wishing to climb the top there, where she was told the guards were posted to watch the distance.

She tripped and managed to lean in one of those demolished walls. She staggered, and in her hand slid something that at first sight seemed a stone. However, she knew. Because her profession was the pottery, she had recognized immediately that it was a ceramics’ small piece. She observed it, watched its thickness, wet her finger to touch it, to see how fast evaporated the water of the surface… it was made at low temperature, and still had the rest of painting, iron oxides that gave that red colour, so typical at those valleys’ ceramics…
She remained thinking what would be that depicted line in zigzag that was seen on the red … but the shouts from the car made her come back to reality.

She promised herself she would return, but with more time and information. Because when contemplating the hills, she had felt a strange emotion, almost comparable to the tepidity that she was feeling when tightening that cold small piece of ceramics that had kept in her pocket…

(to be continued, last part)

The zig zag.. or a story through five centuries in three parts..

(1 of 3)

He knew that day was going to be different.

The previous night, some strange dreams had often waked him up. In spite of the cold weather at the valleys, his body sweated.
He left the house and felt the sun, bringing him just a little bit of warmness, appearing among the tall cactus, called cardones
He sighed... with his calm step, he began to climb the stone’s road until reach that point of the hill where he used to spend almost all day long.
At home, he had left his wife, ready to go to the huge place where she and others women of the village grinded the maize.
Near , he had left his brother, who was preparing with other men, clay to model some utensils. When he passed near them, someone had specially attracted his attention. A potter with moist eyes was giving the last touches to the delicate decoration of an urn, beautiful pot that served to keep the rest of those who died. This one, specially, was small, because the little son of this potter had lived only few months. While observing the urn, our man thought that those tears incised in zigzag descending from the eyes drawn in shaped of two serpents, were those that contained the soul of the artist, those tears that hadn’t succeed to leave his eyes..
Again, he sighed. Life had to continue. The Pacha Mama, the mother earth, gave and took away.. it was fair.
But the dreams, the nightmares he had had, were not related to Pacha Mama. Or with something he knew from before. He had seen blood and horror; he had felt fear like never before… that visceral fear that arises from the impotence. Because when we don’t know our enemy , it is more difficult to let our braveness act...
The invaders advanced.. he had a presentiment..

When he finally arrived at the top of the hill from where he watched the far valleys, he tried to forget those ominous dreams and contemplated what surrounded him.. The sky was so blue that day… the smooth breeze made him feel better. He breathed deep… and thought about his son, still in the belly, plenty of desire to be born and to enjoy being alive...

A cóndor distracted him. It had approached from back of the hill flying high. It moved slowly, until it began to glide, and let take by an airflow that elevated it more and more… when it reached an incredible height, it began to fly again and moved away
He was always marvelled, although something daily, at the majesty and the beauty of the cóndor… his soul went away just a little bit with them, and he wished often to let himself elevate so easy and depart..
But while watching it to move away, he saw them. They were too many… coming from all parts…
He had the certainty... peace had died.

(to be continued)