On the wings of freedom
My name is Marina. I will not tell you my name, nor age. Suffice it to say that I come from a country that no longer exists. It was murdered and buried in the early 90s.
When I came to live in your country I was just a child. A frightened and alone little girl who had lost everything in a blink of an eye: her family, her home; her homeland, her childhood; her dreams. I could not speak a single word of your language. I stuttered still with excitement and fear that didn’t abandon me even by night. To express myself I was using few words of my mother tongue that had remained inside of me.
If I am here today and I can talk to you, and not about me but about the real protagonists of this story and if you are patient I will introduce them to you soon, I owe it to two special persons. Two angels that literally have saved my life the day they opened the door of their house to me, the house that has become over time my home in every sense. They made me grow up and study. It’s their merit if I am today a strong and level-headed woman with the colorful and joyful present I shared one day with the man I love and our baby. Of that dark past that had stollen my origins it didn’t remain a trace. I was born for the second time when my path crossed the one of my saviors: Pietro and Serena, my adoptive parents.
The past can be deleted, at least the most negative part of it, from your memory. You can forget the bombs, airplanes, screaming or the slaughtered bodies of people that have given you life. However, sooner or later, the painful memories can emerge. Suddenly, you remember everything, or almost everything, and you decide to listen your heartbeat that seems telling you to stop for a moment to pick up the pieces of your life gone shattered. You feel encouraged to come back in the game thanks to two bright eyes that look at you with extreme frankness and seriousness for a moment that seems an eternity; thanks to a question that makes you feel bad but you have to answer it with the equal sincerity.
"Teacher, what does it mean a war refugee?"
You get puzzled. Your legs and voice are shaking while you are trying to explain to a seven years old kid one thing that even yourself wanted to know at a certain age. You are trying to remember the exact words that Serena has told you at the time. You weren’t seven. You were much older than your pupil but you had the same light in your eyes, the same sadness in your voice. You were identical to Marco, your special student, the real protagonist of this story; one of the real protagonists of this story.
Marco is an extraordinary young man, a little bit too much lively perhaps but always smiling. He is intelligent and very perspicacious for his young age. Despite his seven years, he has already figured out how life can be harsh and sad. He was only four years old when all of a sudden his gilded world rocked by the sea fall apart. One day his beloved father, always away from home to give him and all the children of the world the possibility to live in peace, did not return from a mission in Afghanistan. One day, that Marco has never forgotten, his mother has hugged him strongly and with tears in eyes announced the sad news. For a child of his age it was an immense pain, unexpected as a slap given to a disobedient child by a too rigid and severe parent. Since then it's been more than two years, a long period in which Marco had to grow up quickly.
Marco looks incredibly like his father passed away too soon in the manner of doing, always kind and gracious. He has the same immense sensitivity with which he always faces life. Everyone in the village loves Marco, his family and classmates, but who appreciate mostly him are the old ladies from the neighborhood. When they meet Marco in the street they usually greet him with a simple: “What a nice and polite child. A real golden boy!” He smiles back wondering if with that gold they refer to the color of his hair, glistening and sparkling on the sun like the most precious of metals or there is some implicit meaning that Marco sincerely doesn’t recognize.
If Marco grew up in an extraordinary young man, he owes it to his mother Anna, a stout woman with the blue eyes and light hair from whom he has not only inherited the traits of the face and the enlightening smile but also the outgoing character, for which he is mostly appreciated. And there's also Mirco, his grandfather. Since the death of Marco’s father, that kind old man has put aside his own pain to give support and love to the only grandson suffering more than a wounded animal. He has approached him with the wisdom and tenderness typical of older people, doing his best to fill the emptiness remained after his beloved son. It was not easy. The searing pain was obscuring the mind of both, grandfather and grandson, who instead of hiding behind the sorrow have joined forces to overcome their loss. Mirco was the right person to help a fidgety grandson whose destiny unfortunately was to get to know, from an early age, the greatest tragedy in the life of a man.
When he writes themes in class, which have a family for object, Marco always talks about his grandfather Mirco, known in the village especially for angling skills and a big heart ready to help anyone in trouble. If we’re reading between the lines is evident there is a very strong relationship between the two. Anna, the mother, instead of being happy she often complains, led by inexplicable fear that a grandfather might harm the mental health of a grandson. Mirco speaks with unusual frankness to Marco, especially about the actualities, and that bothers a lot a daughter in law, who often searches in me, the modest teacher of the village, an ally.
When Marco has asked me the meaning of the word refugee, without knowing he has touched a very sore point. Decades before I was also considered one of them, a war refugee, moreover an orphan. I’ve forgotten some things. I’ve tried to bury the painful images. I do not have that fragmented memories of the trip in the military truck. I do not even remember the hands that subtracted me to evil, pulling me out of the rubble in time. I do not remember Pietro’s face, the man who brought me back to life, but I remember very well the feeling of discomfort I’v felt every time someone uttered that word. Even if I remember little or nothing of those years, that is the word that defines me as well, what I was at the arrival in Italy: the refugee rescued by a kind and gentle man who had risked everything, his life above all, to give me hope. To give me a future.
Marco looks at me with those big blue stormy eyes and says nothing. He has expressed his questions and expects an honest answer. His look is almost of defiance that seems telling me: I was right, you don’t know it. I have a feeling that this time Mirco has made me fall into a well-designed trap. Anna has a point, he fills the grandson's head with the things that a so young human being should not even know. After a brief sigh, a tactic to gain some time, I take him by hand and we go to sit on the wall of the school. We are having break in this moment. Other children prefer to play but Marco is different. Marco has his own vision of being child. I would rather say that he’s almost an adult trapped in the body of a seven years old boy. Today he wants to talk about serious things and I know why.
It is not the first time. Our Sicily has been in the recent years the scene of so many tragedies at sea. These days, here on the island, people do not talk about anything else except the last sunken vessel. Many people have died. Since the beginning of the year the victims are uncountable. Unfortunately, the sad story always repeats and the man does not do anything to prevent that from happening. The truth is that those people are forced to run away to save their lives. They seek peace they have lost and a better future for themselves and their children. Some unfortunately fail to arrive on our coast still alive. Others, the lucky ones, some of them are war refugees, manage to find the shelter in our country.
"Honey, the word refugee means a person who is obliged to leave his home and seek a refuge here, because in his country there is a war."
Marco looks at me and nods seriously. He is waiting a few seconds before he succeeds to floor me with his words.
"Zaira, then, is a war refugee. Thank you, teacher Marina!"
I do not know who this Zaira is and I try to hold my curiosity off. I see the flash of light in Marco’s eyes, a flicker of excitement of those who have a secret that can’t wait to share with you.
"Grandpa last night was very brave. He freed the captured fish and went to help, as always, people in need. "
I feel a surge of pride in his voice. I’m smiling with delight. Marco dotes on Mirco with the same passion with which I worship Pietro, my father. I strike his hair as a sign of encouragement.
"He saved from the sea in storm Zaira and her pregnant mom. Her father died unfortunately during the crossing. She is an orphan like me!”
I make a nod trying to untie the knot in the throat. Even my mother was pregnant when she was killed. My real mother, Vera. Who knows why I remember it only now. I’ve already said, but it is the second time today he is touching a sore point, a very sore point of my life.
Luckily I am saved by the bell. The break is over. We’re going back to class but before entering the classroom Marco hugs me strongly and says with complicity that tonight he’s waiting for me at the port, at 7 o’clock. “To let you know Zaira”, he adds almost in a whisper that I'm wondering if he has really done it or I’ve just imagined it.
I cannot hide my curiosity and impatience. I'm counting the hours as if I were to go on a date with my husband and instead I just have to meet one of my students and his new friend. A very special friend, I guess from the few and rather mysterious Marco’s words.
I arrive at the port on time but there is no Marco to wait for me. Instead, there is the hero of the day, the sprightly and always available to others Mirco: seventy years of the island fishing history in a meter eighty and 95 kilos. In the past he must have been a handsome man. He kisses my hand and makes a little bow. He is not only attractive and kind, he is also vey gallant.
"Teacher — he takes my arm in his — I will take you to a secret place but you must not tell anyone. Do you agree?"
I nod silently. A secret does not need words.
"The children have found refuge in the cave of freedom."
I've never heard of such a place. I do not know if it really exists. I just feel that it is a special place. Special just like the two of them are: Mirco and his grandson, Marco.
Upon arrival, after walking a bit, I see on the beach a green military tent. In front of it there is a bonfire. In the distance a blond, tanned boy, we are still in summer, and a black girl, long curly hair, chasing each other. They are smiling and singing. I do not even know the name of that song, nor I understand the lyrics, but I recognize the joy that radiates. The joy that emanates.
Only later Mirco will tell me that it's called "The hymn to freedom."
The same freedom that I have found one day on this island. The same freedom that Zaira and her mother have found today. I run and reach the kids. I join them with my uncertain steps of the then little girl, the woman of today. We celebrate life and our freedom.
©2016 Emina Ristovic
This story is a part of the anthology in Italian language AA.VV. Premio Prato città aperta 2016; Poesie e racconti, collana Viansca Poesia e narrativa, Marco Del Bucchia editore.
When I came to live in your country I was just a child. A frightened and alone little girl who had lost everything in a blink of an eye: her family, her home; her homeland, her childhood; her dreams. I could not speak a single word of your language. I stuttered still with excitement and fear that didn’t abandon me even by night. To express myself I was using few words of my mother tongue that had remained inside of me.
If I am here today and I can talk to you, and not about me but about the real protagonists of this story and if you are patient I will introduce them to you soon, I owe it to two special persons. Two angels that literally have saved my life the day they opened the door of their house to me, the house that has become over time my home in every sense. They made me grow up and study. It’s their merit if I am today a strong and level-headed woman with the colorful and joyful present I shared one day with the man I love and our baby. Of that dark past that had stollen my origins it didn’t remain a trace. I was born for the second time when my path crossed the one of my saviors: Pietro and Serena, my adoptive parents.
The past can be deleted, at least the most negative part of it, from your memory. You can forget the bombs, airplanes, screaming or the slaughtered bodies of people that have given you life. However, sooner or later, the painful memories can emerge. Suddenly, you remember everything, or almost everything, and you decide to listen your heartbeat that seems telling you to stop for a moment to pick up the pieces of your life gone shattered. You feel encouraged to come back in the game thanks to two bright eyes that look at you with extreme frankness and seriousness for a moment that seems an eternity; thanks to a question that makes you feel bad but you have to answer it with the equal sincerity.
"Teacher, what does it mean a war refugee?"
You get puzzled. Your legs and voice are shaking while you are trying to explain to a seven years old kid one thing that even yourself wanted to know at a certain age. You are trying to remember the exact words that Serena has told you at the time. You weren’t seven. You were much older than your pupil but you had the same light in your eyes, the same sadness in your voice. You were identical to Marco, your special student, the real protagonist of this story; one of the real protagonists of this story.
Marco is an extraordinary young man, a little bit too much lively perhaps but always smiling. He is intelligent and very perspicacious for his young age. Despite his seven years, he has already figured out how life can be harsh and sad. He was only four years old when all of a sudden his gilded world rocked by the sea fall apart. One day his beloved father, always away from home to give him and all the children of the world the possibility to live in peace, did not return from a mission in Afghanistan. One day, that Marco has never forgotten, his mother has hugged him strongly and with tears in eyes announced the sad news. For a child of his age it was an immense pain, unexpected as a slap given to a disobedient child by a too rigid and severe parent. Since then it's been more than two years, a long period in which Marco had to grow up quickly.
Marco looks incredibly like his father passed away too soon in the manner of doing, always kind and gracious. He has the same immense sensitivity with which he always faces life. Everyone in the village loves Marco, his family and classmates, but who appreciate mostly him are the old ladies from the neighborhood. When they meet Marco in the street they usually greet him with a simple: “What a nice and polite child. A real golden boy!” He smiles back wondering if with that gold they refer to the color of his hair, glistening and sparkling on the sun like the most precious of metals or there is some implicit meaning that Marco sincerely doesn’t recognize.
If Marco grew up in an extraordinary young man, he owes it to his mother Anna, a stout woman with the blue eyes and light hair from whom he has not only inherited the traits of the face and the enlightening smile but also the outgoing character, for which he is mostly appreciated. And there's also Mirco, his grandfather. Since the death of Marco’s father, that kind old man has put aside his own pain to give support and love to the only grandson suffering more than a wounded animal. He has approached him with the wisdom and tenderness typical of older people, doing his best to fill the emptiness remained after his beloved son. It was not easy. The searing pain was obscuring the mind of both, grandfather and grandson, who instead of hiding behind the sorrow have joined forces to overcome their loss. Mirco was the right person to help a fidgety grandson whose destiny unfortunately was to get to know, from an early age, the greatest tragedy in the life of a man.
When he writes themes in class, which have a family for object, Marco always talks about his grandfather Mirco, known in the village especially for angling skills and a big heart ready to help anyone in trouble. If we’re reading between the lines is evident there is a very strong relationship between the two. Anna, the mother, instead of being happy she often complains, led by inexplicable fear that a grandfather might harm the mental health of a grandson. Mirco speaks with unusual frankness to Marco, especially about the actualities, and that bothers a lot a daughter in law, who often searches in me, the modest teacher of the village, an ally.
When Marco has asked me the meaning of the word refugee, without knowing he has touched a very sore point. Decades before I was also considered one of them, a war refugee, moreover an orphan. I’ve forgotten some things. I’ve tried to bury the painful images. I do not have that fragmented memories of the trip in the military truck. I do not even remember the hands that subtracted me to evil, pulling me out of the rubble in time. I do not remember Pietro’s face, the man who brought me back to life, but I remember very well the feeling of discomfort I’v felt every time someone uttered that word. Even if I remember little or nothing of those years, that is the word that defines me as well, what I was at the arrival in Italy: the refugee rescued by a kind and gentle man who had risked everything, his life above all, to give me hope. To give me a future.
Marco looks at me with those big blue stormy eyes and says nothing. He has expressed his questions and expects an honest answer. His look is almost of defiance that seems telling me: I was right, you don’t know it. I have a feeling that this time Mirco has made me fall into a well-designed trap. Anna has a point, he fills the grandson's head with the things that a so young human being should not even know. After a brief sigh, a tactic to gain some time, I take him by hand and we go to sit on the wall of the school. We are having break in this moment. Other children prefer to play but Marco is different. Marco has his own vision of being child. I would rather say that he’s almost an adult trapped in the body of a seven years old boy. Today he wants to talk about serious things and I know why.
It is not the first time. Our Sicily has been in the recent years the scene of so many tragedies at sea. These days, here on the island, people do not talk about anything else except the last sunken vessel. Many people have died. Since the beginning of the year the victims are uncountable. Unfortunately, the sad story always repeats and the man does not do anything to prevent that from happening. The truth is that those people are forced to run away to save their lives. They seek peace they have lost and a better future for themselves and their children. Some unfortunately fail to arrive on our coast still alive. Others, the lucky ones, some of them are war refugees, manage to find the shelter in our country.
"Honey, the word refugee means a person who is obliged to leave his home and seek a refuge here, because in his country there is a war."
Marco looks at me and nods seriously. He is waiting a few seconds before he succeeds to floor me with his words.
"Zaira, then, is a war refugee. Thank you, teacher Marina!"
I do not know who this Zaira is and I try to hold my curiosity off. I see the flash of light in Marco’s eyes, a flicker of excitement of those who have a secret that can’t wait to share with you.
"Grandpa last night was very brave. He freed the captured fish and went to help, as always, people in need. "
I feel a surge of pride in his voice. I’m smiling with delight. Marco dotes on Mirco with the same passion with which I worship Pietro, my father. I strike his hair as a sign of encouragement.
"He saved from the sea in storm Zaira and her pregnant mom. Her father died unfortunately during the crossing. She is an orphan like me!”
I make a nod trying to untie the knot in the throat. Even my mother was pregnant when she was killed. My real mother, Vera. Who knows why I remember it only now. I’ve already said, but it is the second time today he is touching a sore point, a very sore point of my life.
Luckily I am saved by the bell. The break is over. We’re going back to class but before entering the classroom Marco hugs me strongly and says with complicity that tonight he’s waiting for me at the port, at 7 o’clock. “To let you know Zaira”, he adds almost in a whisper that I'm wondering if he has really done it or I’ve just imagined it.
I cannot hide my curiosity and impatience. I'm counting the hours as if I were to go on a date with my husband and instead I just have to meet one of my students and his new friend. A very special friend, I guess from the few and rather mysterious Marco’s words.
I arrive at the port on time but there is no Marco to wait for me. Instead, there is the hero of the day, the sprightly and always available to others Mirco: seventy years of the island fishing history in a meter eighty and 95 kilos. In the past he must have been a handsome man. He kisses my hand and makes a little bow. He is not only attractive and kind, he is also vey gallant.
"Teacher — he takes my arm in his — I will take you to a secret place but you must not tell anyone. Do you agree?"
I nod silently. A secret does not need words.
"The children have found refuge in the cave of freedom."
I've never heard of such a place. I do not know if it really exists. I just feel that it is a special place. Special just like the two of them are: Mirco and his grandson, Marco.
Upon arrival, after walking a bit, I see on the beach a green military tent. In front of it there is a bonfire. In the distance a blond, tanned boy, we are still in summer, and a black girl, long curly hair, chasing each other. They are smiling and singing. I do not even know the name of that song, nor I understand the lyrics, but I recognize the joy that radiates. The joy that emanates.
Only later Mirco will tell me that it's called "The hymn to freedom."
The same freedom that I have found one day on this island. The same freedom that Zaira and her mother have found today. I run and reach the kids. I join them with my uncertain steps of the then little girl, the woman of today. We celebrate life and our freedom.
©2016 Emina Ristovic
This story is a part of the anthology in Italian language AA.VV. Premio Prato città aperta 2016; Poesie e racconti, collana Viansca Poesia e narrativa, Marco Del Bucchia editore.