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‘When the dull red eye of day is level with the lone highway and some to
Mecca turn
to pray And I towards your bed ...Yasmin.’
James Elroy Flecker
"Antonio, do you remember our city when we were students and the future
destiny of the world could be shaped by us alone. Do you remember the
heady days during the student uprising when we felt as if we were
storming The gates of the winter palace in St Petersburg when in fact we
were drying Out from the rain in Mario's cheap trattoria, bundles of
sodden posters and spray cans for graffiti at our feet while we waited
for Mario's infamous soup (boiled-up leftovers). They claim that on
Mario's paper-tablecloths epic poems, symphonic scores, historical
novels had been composed by customers waiting to be served, while
outside rain gushed down the gutters of Via del Moro and the horse drawn
carrozinas whined on the cobbles as they clattered back to their steamy
stables near the Ponte Sisto. Yes, Antonio, how we used our time at
Mario's to change the world- but the world is more stubborn than we
think and it is only we who have changed. You, Antonio, became by
chance, choice, or circumstance not the great composer you dreamed of,
but a humble 'bush' doctor in remote places far from the haunts of the
‘cognoscenti’ you once so envied. I, to my surprise, for as a student I
despised teaching as propaganda of the establishment, became a
university professor and Yasmin Ah, Yasmin, how even now after all these
years mention or memory of her halts me in my tracks. Yasmin, who was at
the centre, the core of our lives, and perhaps is still. Writing to you,
Antonio is like corking a letter in a bottle and casting it upon the
whims of the waves, for I can never keep up with where you are, or have
moved on to, or even if you are alive, but two things conspired to get
me to send this letter. One is that whenever --as recently, we see
television pictures of students protesting meetings of the world's Rich
and Great, I see Yasmin in the thick of it, banner in hand, storming the
barricades, no matter whether it is Berlin, Beijing or Bangkok. And the
other reason is a faded photograph that fell from my bookshelf the other
day. Taken long ago by some street photographer sheltering from the
rain, for their is cross-eyed Mario clutching plates behind the three of
us; you, Yasmin, and I and although it is black and white and grainy I
can see her green bewitching eyes and strands of dark wet hair sticking
to her pale cheeks- a magical face. Had I been younger I might shared
your infatuation but I had fallen in and out of love enough times
already to recognize that as only a temporary madness that happens to us
all and that love itself is very different.
What brought you to our city, Antonio? Apart from your music classes at
the Santa Cecelia Institute where did you really belong? Yasmin too I
remember the first time we came together, studying her and thinking how
the blood of Europe and Asia mixed in her veins. She claimed, proudly to
be stateless but wasn’t their rumor of a rich Lebanese father, and a
mother; actress or danseuse part French, from Macau. So there we were in
the same city. Each morning, Antonio , you caught the tram that clanged
along the river and uphill past the museo dei belli arti and the
borghese gardens where you got down and walked through the fashionable
Via Veneto where everyone who was rich and famous-or who wished to be ,
sat outside the elegant overpriced cafes to see and be seen while you
read the Times Newspaper to an elderly blind contessa in Via Sardegna,
or dashed off to give mandolin lessons, or waited at Cine Citta-Cinema
City, hoping to be chosen as an extra by some aspiring director. We
finally came together-trapped you said, by an advert in the daily
newspaper announcing a new literary magazine. What a strange band of
co-conspirators we turned out: a couple of political exiles from
Argentina, one heavily pregnant, an Italian count- so he claimed, a
jolly Englishman from the British Council who wrote music reviews and
raved over performances by Stockhausen, Cage and Nonno. There was an
American painter who identified himself only by the picturesque
sobriquet of "Pittore Euforico" and a writer who declared that writing
his first novel was like carving a marble sculpture with a feather-
which provided him with an excuse for never completing it. Antonio, I am
sure you remember those boisterous editorial meetings in Mario’s where
enough hot air was generated to float the foundations of society. We
argued over everything, even the name 'the Rome Review'. For Yasmin the
magazine was never more than a mouthpiece for her politics which
recently under the influence of Che Guevarra had taken such a lurch to
the left that even Marxist Leninism seemed bourgo is. But that didn't
prevent her pinning a hammer and sickle badge to your sodden coat lapel.
In honor of what, I wondered?
Your nightly forays knocking noses off the marble busts of noble heroes
of the past, spraying graffiti, pasting posters and even, as you once
candidly admitted, making love in the damp shrubbery behind the Museum
of Fine Arts, which to Yasmin, for whom every action needed to be
politically inspired seemed to suggest sufficient symbolism. At any rate
your membership to the exalted club of such champions of peoples'
liberty as Lenin, Stalin and Mao at least entitled you to a 30% discount
at student restaurants even if, according to Yasmin, Mario drew his
tawny wine straight out of the Tiber River.
Yes, Antonio, you never denied Yasmin’s jibe that you joined the
communist party solely for economic reasons. But what was that
photograph of us celebrating? Looking closely at a date penciled faintly
on the back I am wondering if it was taken the night before you both set
off to join your fellow revolutionaries in Paris. And next morning it
was with mixed feelings I accompanied you to the bustling railway
station, the train carriages festooned with red flags, Yasmin waving
excitedly , singing of the 'international' interrupted by whistles of
guards and shunting carriages and suddenly the track empty and the
crowded platform of supporters falling strangely silent. Public
transport being on strike I walked back across the city and over the
ponte sisto bridge to my apartment in Trastevere where from the window I
could view the statue of Garibaldi proudly saluting on horseback beneath
the umbrella pines on the Gianicolo hilltop. Yes, Antonio, I thought
Garibaldi setting off with his thousand strong motley band of red
shirted militia a hundred years before to liberate the Nation- he would
have approved. And how was Paris when you got there? Of course I never
expected a letter. You were too busy being revolutionaries and the
Italian post was on strike. I learned most from your anecdotes later.
You found lodging in a cheap hotel in the rue St Jaques and how all
night as you tried to clutch the excited Yasmin in your eager grasp,
while she kept running to the window to cheer on the marchers below, and
how the car horns hooted a cacophony of support,-in the intensity of
your frenetic love-making did you not wonder with a pang of jealousy if
Yasmin's passion was not as much or more for the chanting crowds in the
streets below as it was for you. Yes how hard it is when we are young
and everything matters so much and all at the same time. Then came that
inevitable finale, that final confrontation in the boulevard san
Michele; the riot police waiting lined up in neat squares at the street
inter sections near the river while higher up the rising street students
it fires, unfurled banners, hurled cobblestones, yelled taunts and the
shopkeepers hurriedly pulled down their shutters expecting the worst.
And when it came the students seemed quite unprepared for the speed and
pitiless efficiency of the charges-which reminded you of phalanxes of
Roman Legionaries with their long shields, helmets and batons raised
like swords.
Except the Romans did not have teargas grenades to toss into sides
streets as they ran, these modern mercenaries of the state were just as
ruthless, clubbing the students down regardless of sex, and booting them
bloody and senseless in the gutters. Somehow you managed to pull away
the red flag Yasmin was brandishing and dragged her into one of the few
cafe entrances still open, escaping with only a few cudgel blows and a
ripped shirt- prized mementoes of your participation. And yet Yasmin
didn't seem to regard this episode as a defeat. Back in Rome she never
ceased to marvel at the extremist tactics of the Paris students. She
denounced non- violent protest and declared that only direct action
would force governments to change. But now-for the moment at least-a
welcome lull. Summer had arrived. Italy in august is far too hot for
revolution. The cities empty apart from perspiring tourists and the
entire population heads for the coast. Politics are put aside for a
month or two. Antonio, do you still play the mandolin- for it was with
the proceeds of your lessons we bought that leaky little yacht-oddly
named "dreamer”, from a penniless Englishman who had somehow reached
Fiumicino. "She leaks just a bit," he advised off handedly as he counted
the payment, adding,” be sure to pump her dry before going to sleep." We
realized why the boat was so cheap when we loaded it onto trailer to tow
across to Brindisi; the plywood hull was rotten and the bilge keels on
the point of falling off. As there were only two berths in the tiny
cabin it was decided I should take the ferry and wait for you in Corfu
from where we would sail together to Ithaca following Ulysses course
across Homer's wine dark seas. At Brindisi we sat eating with the
fishermen who feted Yasmin with admiring glances while you played
neapolitan songs on the mandolin. But the fishermen's infatuation with
Yasmin didn’t stop them mocking the proposed voyage.
"Do you really expect to cross the Adriatic Sea in that coffin?" "This
yacht,” you corrected,” has sailed from England." but the fishermen
laughed even louder.” People swim across the English channel,” they
scoffed. I waited and worried for five days in Corfu. Morning and
afternoon I walked down the steep narrow alleys of Kerkira the old
Venetian town, to the harbor in specting new arrivals and anxiously
scanning the horizon. Finally on the feast day of St Nicolas-patron of
seas and sailors, I was happily rewarded by the sight of a familiar sail
flapping in a dying breeze and a small yellow quarantine flag hoisted in
the shrouds. Warning of what impending plague, I wondered. For these
were troubled times in Greece. Following a military coup a junta of
Colonels ruled the country. King Constantine had fled to Rome and
Colonel Papandreous declared himself Regent and Head of State. All
opposition was ruthlessly repressed. Watching you pry a mooring space
between fishing boats while Yasmin waved from the stern, the yellow flag
reminded me of Churchill’s comments when Lenin was dispatched in a
sealed railway carriage from Switzerland to Russia, 'like a plague virus
sent to start an epidemic'. I wondered how the Colonels might have
reacted had they known about Yasmin's political background. Re-united
and exhuberant we wound a way through the festive throng. Parades of Boy
Scouts, brass bands, and gold-coated priests with long beards
accompanied the saint whose skeletal remains hoisted into a glass canopy
wobbled dangerously as acolytes waving gilded icons danced and pranced
like whirling dervishes. In a cafe under the long colonnades at the top
of the town we had to bellow to hear ourselves speak. The tale of your
voyage emerged. "For two days we were held up by storms," yelled Yasmin
between greedy mouthfuls of mousacha. "Then came the ‘tramontana’-the
wind from the sunset and the fishermen told us to go, but no sooner had
we cleared the coast than a gale blew up from the south." She waved an
arm dramatically at the sky,” Waves as tall as the mast." Antonio, I
remember you explaining how the charts indicated an anchorage, Punto San
Cataldo, marked by a lighthouse and tucked behind high rocks but the
seas were crashing with such force you couldn't see the way in. "Then
crash, bang!" rejoined Yasmin. "The skies exploded. Shells falling all
around!" It seemed you had unknowingly strayed into a military firing
range and were being used for target practice. But Saint Nicolas must
have been on your side and drew you out of danger. Now on the shore
there were figures waving and pointing. Heading the boat straight into
what seemed a solid wall of surf you suddenly found yourselves flying
through a narrow opening into the quiet security of a little lagoon.
Fishermen helped you tie up. Antonio, you took a photograph we later
enlarged of Yasmin in a yellow sailing jacket, hair stiff with sea-salt,
seated on a coil of ropes against the mast. Those fishermen were so
proud of their catch they feasted you at the taverna on fried octopus
and next dawn you set off for Otranto from where at evening having had
your papers duly stamped by the port commandant you headed across the
night sea for the Ionian islands. Ah, that was a night to savour, flying
fish falling on the deck, a misty moon in a silvery aurora, the ocean
rollers splashing lazily past and finally the welcome glimmer and flash
of the Fano lighthouse. Reaching the island at dawn just as the rising
sun lit up the soaring Pindus Mountains of Albania you moored in a
sheltered bay and sitting beneath a pomegranite tree a fisherman’s wife
cooked you red mullet. South acrss the wine-dark seas lay the mythical
islands of Samothraci and Merlera.Later with a wind filling the patched
sails you crossed to Sidari on the north coast of Corfu, attended by a
school of pla yful dolphins leaping past the bows into the clear blue
depths. That night you moored in a still bay that the moonlight magicked
into quicksilver and night birds sang among the olive groves.
Now, though, luck changed. Could it just be possible that the Colonels
whose portraits dominated everywhere sensed a 'viper' in their midst, or
was it just that yellow flag or talkative fishermen who drew us to the
attention of the authorities. Without warning the police arrived and
took away our passports. After long difficult discussions aided by a
dictionary we gathered the problem lay not with our papers but with the
boat. According to the maritime regulations which the port police thrust
before us –despite the fact that our boat floated (at an angle) had
mast, sails and even a small engine, it lacked two vital features which
every international yacht must possess- a cooking galley and a toilet.
The port commandant was adament. Next morning there would be an official
inspection to decide our fate. We hastily removed a poster of Che
Guevarra and other revolutionary emblems that might offend the scrutiny
of the Colonel’s emissaries, secured the paraffin cooking stove and
worried how to improvise a toilet. Promptly next morning, wearing
immaculate white pressed uniforms the three senior port officials
descended from the dockside trying to maintain their dignity as they
stooped inside the tiny cabin.
The galley looked quite presentable with a plastic bowl and cups but
where was the toilet? From beneath her bunk Yasmin drew out a Chianti
flask with a large green funnel. "Toiletta", she announced with a
flourish. Banging their heads and glaring with distate the three
officials backed out. From the dock the commandant tossed down our
passports. "Go!" he declared and we did so at once in case he changed
his mind, hoisting the sails and slipping past the old ruined citadel
and the steep wooded shores beyond. We managed to reach Lefkimi, sailing
up a narrow river to what the guidebook described as a 'decayed
township', where not even Colonel Papandreous countenanced his portrait
being displayed. A drunken fisherman adopted us. His Italian was limited
to "Domani nienti venti", (tomorrow no wind), something he repeated
again and again until collapsing in the cockpit he commenced snoring
like an artillery barrage. By dawn he had vanished but he was right
about the forecast-all day we drifted over a limpid sea towards the hazy
green outline of Paxos Island. In the end we never got any further.
Ithaca would have to wait. Paxos provided enchantment enough. We renamed
it Prospero’s island. Massive gnarled olive trees covered the island
from end to end. Yasmin was sure that beneath their veil of mystery the
ancient Gods still thrived and looked out for any large horned goat that
might oblige her by turning into Pan. Pungent scents of myrtle and wild
thyme followed us as we wandered along stony tracks and ruined
farmsteads.
We moored the boat at Gaios where a pine covered isle sheltered the
harbor seawards. All the cottage s were whitewashed with tile roofs and
the small square beside the quay contained a tiny church so white in the
sunshine it blinded us. Every shop was also a taverna, selling along
with nets and ropes retzina wine that tasted of the sametar the sailors
used on their boats. Antonio, do you remember how the Greeks love to
discuss politics. Greek men think quite naturally they are better than
their women, so it came as a shock for them when Yasmin held forth with
vigorous tirades denouncing the military junta. They never quite
understood her-perhaps a good thing- for, as you know their are two
Greek languages; the official 'kathourevu' and the ordinary 'demotici'.
Our phrase book contained the former, so when we inquired at the taverna
we frequented where was the toilet the 'apokoritirio', we were surprised
when the fishermen rose and doffed their caps in mock respect. It
appeared we had asked for 'the ladies and gentlemen’s retiring chamber'.
"We call it 'topos' the place. It's round the back." Adding candidly,
"We only use it at lunchtime when all the flies go to the kitchen!" In
the evenings I can still hear you strumming the mandolin. The Colonels
had banned Merlina Mercuri's songs, but there was one local renegade
with a wind - up gramophone in his rowboat who used to paddle about the
harbor in the dark playing her songs.
Then, one Saturday evening, defying all regulations you started
strumming "Never on a Sunday" and within minutes the town went wild, the
entire population of Gaios lined up , linking arms , dancing and singing
along the quayside, Yasmin in the middle. Finaly, you remember, she went
up to the young lieughtenant - the military representative, on the
island and persuaded him to join in, waving his arms and dancing with
the rest. What a night that was! One of Yasmin's political partisans was
Spiro the baker. Late at night in the bakery they drank ouzo and argued
reform.
Spiro tossed flour into the open revolving drum and chased out
cockroaches with his toes. One night he slipped and the blades took off
his big toe. "I've lost my toe!" he exclaimed, and Yasmin probing the
ball of dough around his foot replied, "Why, so you have." While she
helped him hobble to the doctor, Spiro's wife returned and finding
nobody about promptly shaped the dough into loaves and put them in the
oven. Next morning after the bread was all sold we wondered what family
was surprised to discover a big toe in their breakfast. Sometimes we
walked across the island to the wilder western side and one day standing
high above Mousmouli bay on the very edge of the cliffs of Hiros with
the dark sea thundering in the caverns far below Yasmin raised her arms
in exultation or supplication to the Gods. "If I had wings!" she cried,
"I would fly to the sun like Icarus." Then on impulse she grabbed both
our hands as if to gather us in one great leap into space. "To throw
away our lives is the ultimate liberation, " she challenged, as we
dragged her back and collapsed laughing hysterically among the
undergrowth. The narrow harbor mouth was guarded by a statue of a Paxos
patriot brandishing a firebrand. Island legend claimed that during a
naval battle when the islands were fighting the turks for their
independence, this young hero swam to the Turkish fleet and set fire to
the armaments vessel which exploded and blew up most of the boats.
During our evening strolls along the harbor Yasmin always paused by the
statue. I rather think the gesture symbolized for her the blowing up of
present-day society, for she was as scathing in her criticism of the
complacency of the masses as for their political overlords. "Religion is
not the modern opium of the people!" she declared to an astonished
priest. "Materialism and well-being are far more seductive drugs." But
you know, as well as I do, Antonio, there was nothing sinister in these
statements. It was as if she was teasing the world, poking her tongue
out at society. Despite all that happened later Yasmin was fired by
simple idealism there was nothing demonic about her. And how she loved
to laugh-at herself too, at her own irrationality. It was joy to watch
her laugh, green eyes shining; head flung back, hair flying in the wind.
She never wore make- up. It was as if nature had given her adornment
enough. Antonio, you know I never meant to pry- for I loved you both
equally, 'amici miei'- but I wondered on Paxos did you and Yasmin grow
closer together or go further apart. I, of course, did not live on the
boat. There was no room and it would have been an intrusion. Instead,
you may remember I lodged with a delightful old woman, "Aunt" Euridice.
This sprightly lady spoiled me rotten and charged me next to nothing.
The little garden of her house overlooked the harbor - there were lemon
and pomegranite trees. In the early evening looking eastwards she
related how during the war they sent boys up to the ruined fortress
among the pines on the harbor island to watch out for German planes. To
reassure me she insisted she
bore no ill- feeling for the Italian occupation. "We share the same
culture," she said, but she did not disguise her hatred for the Germans
and the attrocities they committed. Our holiday drew to a close. At the
feast of the Madonna we all rowed out to the windswept island offshore,
where following the mass there was a simple meal of bread and wine and
olives and goats cheese. Next day our little yacht was hoisted aboard a
ferry bound for Brindisi. So we arrived back in Rome rather dejected.
The boat was sold to a policeman named Pesce (fish) which helped cheer
us up because we were convinced he would soon be joining them.
Antonio, you remember we had whitewashed the hull as we couldn't afford
real paint and on the day of the sale when we lowered the boat into the
dock at Fiuicino she 'wept' in a spreading pool of milky white. Pesce
seemed unconcerned. He thumped the hull - fortunately missing the rotten
patches where his fist world have gone straight through, christened her
‘the mermaid of the sea,' and set off for Anzio, twenty kilometers to
the south. Perhaps he even got there. By now Yasmin was completely
beyond control. Even you, Antonio admitted as much. Megaphone in hand
she addressed the massed thousands of students. "Communism," she
derided,” was an elitist, intellectual, philosophy that manipulated the
masses with spellbinding rhetoric but simply drove them into another
state of slavery." Anyone else would have been shouted down with howls
of derision, but Yasmin somehow held her audiences spellbound- perhaps
it was her sheer audacity. She went on, "Nowadays the masses are more
educated, they can see through the pretence of the so-called democratic
process, they realise the corruption of the party system, the vote
buying, the big business interest. People are not so easily fooled by
grand sounding words such as Globalization-when they know it is just a
tool to colonise and dominate small economies. Why," she demanded, her
voice hoarse but afire as ever, “Why should the world be run by a few
multi- nationals who buy up and starve out al competition. What is wrong
with village economics, tarifs to protect the small local producer; the
local ice-cream, the village firecracker maker? Why should countries and
cultures be forced to unite. What is wrong with city states? Why have
states at all.
Do away with States, with laws, with money- start again from scratch!"
Antonio, how many times have we stood together in the crowd fearing for
her safety as Yasmin held forth, cheered, booed, heckled, but I think
always admired. She was a female Che Guevarra- nowadays she even wore
his black beret, and her hair whipped by the autumn wind lay over the
collar of her black raincoat. By now she had been expelled from the
university but that didn't deter her. She had moved in with you,
Antonio, until one day your landlady declared she needed the room. Oh,
we knew it was a setup. For days a detective- you can always tell them
as they model themselves on the movies; the turned down hat, the turned
up collar, the big newspaper they pretend to read for hours- had been
waiting in your alley. The landlady had been told to chuck you both out.
So you moved in with me. I had a spare room. But it wasn't long before
the strange telephone calls started; - warnings, threats, obscenities.
Of course it wasn't all gloom. Yasmin was magnificent and her face shone
with excitement. She delighted in the challenge. "At least they are
worried," she argued. But she also had a precarious existance. Her
father would have nothing more to do with her. It appeared she really
was stateless and had papers to prove it. Perhaps her father was
frightened the whole family might be deported. Antonio, we could not
keep up with her. Even at night she hardly slept. Sometimes I could hear
her talking to you until dawn. We tried cooking at home to be more
economical we agreed, but it never was, and Yasmin was not made for
domestic life. So we returned to Mario's and a pizzaria in Via Giovanni
Vecchi where Yasmin scandalised the more bourgois artisan customers by
her outspoken opinions on eveything.Even religion did not escape her
scathing- if God is creator, God must be a woman. "Madre nostra qui es
in coelis" (our mother who is in heaven), became her credo. But there
was nothing hostile about her. Yasmin's charm was warmth itself. We sat
around her just as we sat around the ceramic stove that warmed the
apartment. I had recently bought an old open lancia and us sometimes we
drove around the city late at night with Yasmin standing up singing
arias from Verdi. She liked Verdi, saying that a hundred years before
instead of Viva Castro painted on the walls it would have been Viva
Verdi-which also stood for Victoria Emmanuelle Re D'Italia. Sometimes we
drove out to Lake Bracciano and lunc hed in a cave- Yes, a cave at
Anguillara reached by steps and dominated by two old moustachioed
sisters who were forever quarelling while the customers consumed their
patience playing chess. And then the violence began. Bombs at railway
stations in Milan and Bologna, parcel bombs at post offices and the
university. And the kidnappings. Now a new name began to emerge, Brigati
Rossi (the Red Brigade). At first Yasmin denied absolutely any
involvement, but we suspected she knew more than she admitted. Just to
listen to her approval of terrorism was to doubr her innocence.
"Where does passive non- violence get us," she declared. "Where has
non-violence got the people of Tibet or Vietnam?" For this was the
height of the anti-war movement in America. Students shot at Kent
University. We had all been to see a film at the student cinema in Campo
dei Fiori, "Sangue e Fragole (Blood and Strawberries), and it seemed
somehow to chart Yasmin’s progress from a peaceful idealistic student to
a grenade throwing terrorist. And then came the day but for Yasmin's
timely intervention you, Antonio, would certainly have been a victim.
Late afternoon and you were hurrying to give a music lesson. The tram
stop was at the end of Piazza Navona, you could hear the tram car
clanging along the track hooting to clear the traffic, only you could
not yet see it
when yards from the stop Yasmin darted out of nowhere and literally
threw herself in front of you, blocking the way, before vanishing in the
crowd just as the tram you would have caught slowed to a halt abd blew
up- exploding in flames. Most of the passengers seemed to be carabinieri
who ran screaming into the street their uniforms ablaze. "I was
terrified you would be killed," Yasmin exclaimed later, hugging you
close. It was the first time I ever saw her burst into tears. You were
too stunned to say anything-but what did you think as you brushed the
strands of hair from her tearstained cheeks. A week later the police
arrested three leading members of the Brigati Rossi and with astonishing
speed considering the usual lengthy legal process they were brought to
trial in a steel cage. We watched on television. Yasmin commenting
merely, "I would kill myself before anyone imprisons me." She meant it.
She carried a phial of barbituates around with her. Yasmin was a
creature of the light and her one fear was incarceration. Viewing the
appalling scenes of maimed and mutilated bomb blast victims even her own
rhetoric failed to sustain her. Antonio, you were merciless in your
attack. "You consid er these legitimate targets," pointing to the
television pictures. "If your idealism is so fine why not direct your
terror at war ministries or munition factories or could it just possibly
be that mindless mayhem delivers a more brutal and effective publicity."
For once she was mute. Only later as the tension between us unwound did
she declare, "I could be a suicide bomber if it meant changing the world
for the better or getting rid of a greater evil," But ,Antonio, believe
me it was herself she was prepared to sacrifice- not innocent
bystanders. Yasmin was not made that way. She did everything
herself-you, of all people know that. She did not use others. The next
day a great demonstration was planned starting from the Colleseum to
gather in Piazza Venezia. No one knew how many would be there. Some
predicted half a million, but the police set up barricades and when the
students broke through the police opened fire. It went on all afternoon
and late into the night. I watched the news on television. Demonstrators
had been shot, it was claimed, but no one fatally. Later that evening an
anxious cry for help came up from the street below. Antonio, you were
supporting Yasmin. Between us we carried her up the narrow spiral
staircase to my apartment and laid her on the bed. Beneath her raincoat
her clothes were drenched in blood.
She had been shot in the chest and we were able to staunch the wound. I
didn't ask why you had not let an ambulance take her to the hospital for
the news earlier that contained the by now familiar pictures of the
court proceedings of the Brigatti Rossi - defiant in their steel cage ,
showed another picture.The photograph of a girl who was wanted for
questioning about the tram bombings. The photo was fuzzy and not so easy
to identify but had you gone to hospital the police would have arrested
her. So what were we to do? Then I remembered my cousin Roberto, a young
doctor at the hospital in Terni, one hundred kilometers north of Rome
and near the hill village where our grandmother lived. I was sure I
could persuade Roberto but I dared not use the telephone in case it was
tapped. We carried Yasmin down to the Lancia and sped off up the via
Cassia-avoiding the autostrada in case the police were stopping
vehicles. We reached Roberto’s apartment by midnight, fortunately he was
not on night duty. At first he was worried and confused but we managed
to calm and to convince him. We were anxious not to implicate him in any
way otherwise his career would be ruined. As a casualty officer Roberto
was the ideal person. He carried a bag of surgical equipment for
emergencies at any time. We did not bring Yasmin into the apartment but
transferred her to Roberto’s car and drove to grandmother’s village in
the hills nearby. It was one of those places where everyone is in bed by
ten o'clock and the piazza was fortunately deserted. Our grandmother
lived in a large house and Roberto had his own key. We let ourselves in
quietly, prepared everything and operated on Yasmin on the kitchen
table. Antonio, it was, you remarked later like something out of a
wartime movie; the table, the bottles, the bandages, a local anaesthetic
and Roberto trying to extract the bullet which had lodged between two
ribs just above the heart. With profound relief I finally heard the
metallic clatter as he dropped the bullet in a tin dish. He bound her
up, gave her a strong sedative and turned to us weary with exhaustion
but jubilent too. Roberto was one of us, remember Antonio. "Where are
you going to keep her?" he asked. "She will need time to recover and she
cannot stay here." "Or in Rome," I added, certain my apartment would now
be under surveillance more than ever. Then we hit on a plan. It came to
both of us at once. "Sensati," we exclaimed. Antonio, you looked
puzzled. I had never told you of this abandoned village in the
mountains. Everyone had left it years before and now only animals
inhabited the ruins, but there had once been a village school and that
house was still intact. I knew, because my family owned land nearby and
I had gone up there the previous winter. There was no road-only a track
for foot or a donkey. What made it more attractive was that it was
off-limits to hunting-an 'oasis of protection,' they called it. Once
installed there, Yasmin would have a safe refuge to recover in-if you
stayed with her, which you agreed without hesitation. By now the early
cockerels were crowing and the village would soon be awake. In the
cellar below the house lived the donkey, Rondinella- all village donkeys
are called Rondinella, I know. But we managed to get Yasmin on her and
guide her up through the village onto the mountain track above the
church. The story that Roberto would put about was that I and a friend
were going up to check on our land.
He returned to clean up the kitchen and sleep off what little was left
of the night. We three made our way slowly through the forest as the sky
paled overhead and the mountain peaks started to glow in the first rays
of the sun. It was a gruelling climb but Yasmin never complained. You
and I took turns to lead the donkey while the other propped Yasmin up-
for we were mortally afraid she might fall and her wounds haemorrage.
The path climbed steeply, leveled along a wooded valley side from where
we could hear the waterfall and once past it the path narrowed where it
cut across a cliff face before winding up to the village set out on a
spur above. As expected the lower floors of the houses were tenanted by
wild mountain cattle while in the church a little way off lived a
snorting bull. Yasmin even managed to joke that we should rename the
village ‘Animal Farm, ‘.Later she called the bull George in honor of
Orwell. Most of the roofs were fallen in but school-house as I
remembered had remained intact although the stairs shook precariously.
There were even school benches, tables and a decent fireplace. Now in
the daylight the view from the window was fantastic. The valley below
lay hidden in low cloud while all the peaks rose majestic-some just
capped with early snow. We had only managed to bring basic
supplies;-what we could take from grandmother's kitchen; eggs, pasta,
smoked ham, wine, olive oil, bread, but enough for a few days until I
could return. For we agreed that to allay any suspicion it was vital I
got back to Rome as soon as possible. Robert was waiting for me in the
village and after some essential gossiping with old acquaintances in the
piazza and assuring my grandmother-to her delight, that I would be a
frequent visitor from now on, Roberto drove me back to Terni and I
reached Rome in the late afternoon. Only the elderly Swedish artist, who
lived on the second floor, was suspicious. Old Bjorn knew everything
that went on. Yasmin joked that he painted green frogs for the walls of
French restaurants. Now he waited for me on the landing having
presumably watched me park the lancia."So where are your revolutionary
friends?" he chuckled. "Gone to join Marx, off to Cuba...” I forget how
I joked to get away from him. Antonio, I cannot tell you how anxiously I
waited those next few days for the T.V. news
bulletins, the newspaper reports and worrying about the two of you up
there in Sensati. Finally at the weekend I drove back, buying supplies
at a supermarket in Terni and parceling them into sacks I loaded up
Rondinella and climbed up to Sensati. How great was my relief to
discover you both well-Yasmin especially. There was even color in her
usually pale cheeks. You had been sitting out in the autumn sun. Yes,
and Roberto had been up the day before to check Yasmin over. And now I
had brought the mandolin.
We got out a flask of Chianti classico and lit candles and after a
wonderful meal of chicken stew (chicken by compliments of the village),
and wild mushrooms and panetone, we sang our old taverna favorites;-from
Puccini and Verdi and finally as the moon showed his face above the
imposing peaks you played Yasmin's song. Something I forgot to mention
earlier was the gun- pistol really, no bigger than ones used to start
races except it had bullets not blanks. We had discovered it in Yasmin's
capacious raincoat pockets when we unrobed her. She claimed and we
believed her that it was only for protection and she had never used it.
Where and how she acquired it we chose not to inquire for we realized
that Yasmin had enemies on both sides who would prefer her silence to
her witness,-- those of the Brigati Rossi still at large and the
authorities for whom she might prove an embarrassment. Why? because when
the threads start to unravel who knows where it all leads. Have not
recent events showed these Politicians at the pinnacle of power now
disgraced. So, who do we blame? Our own carelessness. Bjorn-the artist
of green frogs? He had once painted a portrait of Yasmin seated in a
high-backed wicker chair. I think he envied her capacity to live life to
the full, or envied you, Antonio. So was the motive jealousy? Or had I
failed to take precautions that my journeys along the Via Cassia might
be followed, or that every village has an informer with links to who the
local Carabinieri. So it was next weekend when I reached the village
anticipating a pleasant weekend- even scenting the wood smoke, the
cooking, grandmother snapped me out of complacency by commenting that I
should be careful as the woods were full of huntsmen. "Here," I asked,
trying to check my anxiety. She shrugged. "Oh, they have left here- gone
up towards Sensati I supose."How many, who, what were they carrying? But
grandmother didn't know- all Italian weekend hunters wear army
camouflage suits and carry automatic rapid-fire shotguns. All pretend
they are great men, returning with a few sparrows to prove it. And where
was Antonio, I asked. "Antonio has been here-this morning. So helpful.
He took the donkey. He had bought a sack of cement for repairs." I
rushed out and ran up through the village. "Your things!" cried grandma,
but I was deaf. I only needed to be ahead, ahead of you plodding up the
track, ahead of the hunters who should never be in an area banned to
hunting. I needed to be instantly at Sensati. I was out of breath before
I passed the church. I caught up with you, Antonio, securing the cement
more safely on the cliff path. And then above the roar of the waterfall
we heard the patter of gunfire. Oh, these were not the shots of ordinary
hunters. We left the donkey to find its own way and raced up the path.
There was still an acrid tang of spent cartridges in the room but Yasmin
lay on her side as if sleeping. Only as I turned her over I saw with
horror and disgust that the lower side of her face had been shot away.
Her eyes opened a little and she tried to speak. "Shoot me," she gasped,
her hand reaching limply towards the where the pistol lay on the floor
just out of her reach. I shook my head, aware she was focusing her
attention at you, Antonio, standing behind me, paralysed with shock. "If
yo u love me, shoot me," she begged. I pressed my eyes tight and opened
them only to reach the doorway. I glanced back once to see you kneeling
beside her, holding her in your embrace. Antonio, forgive me, my mind
was reeling. I stumbled to the orchard and collapsed kneeling among the
fallen leaves. I waited --It seemed an eternity for that single final
shot. The kiss of death, of love only you could deliver- death for love
for Yasmin. We laid her on a schoolroom bench and stepping carefully
between the stones carried her to the ruined church. For once even the
bull stood silent, barely snorting. A couple of rusting shovels did the
work and when it was over I left you sitting among the autumn flowers.
If there was a fitting resting place it was there -in a ruined chapel,
in an abandoned village high in the forests above a precipice with only
the sound of the waterfall, and an occasional eagle soaring overhead.
From far below in the valley I heard a church bell solemnly tolling but
really I was back in Paxos the evening you played the mandolin and the
whole population of Gaios danced on the quayside, arms linked, Yasmin
laughing in their midst.
"Shower downs your love, so burning bright for some night or the other
night will come the gardener in white, and gathered flowers are dead,
Yasmin."
James Elroy Flecker.
© Anthony Aikman 2001
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