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Of how Aleks left his homeland to reunite with his brothers
Some men have the same face since they are born, except for a few little details here and there, a moustache, the gray hair, a random scar… the semblance of old souls is imprinted on them. They just die older and their soul keeps migrating from body to body in their search for eternity, for the union with the Cosmic Mind.
Such is the case of Aleks. Take away the thick moustache and the strands of gray hair on the sides of his head and you find the same air of defeat, the same longing for a state of being not achieved, the same anxiousness for searching. They are all present in his first photograph at age five, in 1877 after a labor day in the family farm in the village of Drenova in southeastern Albania, as in this other one dated 1947, a few months before his death in Bucharest, Hungary.
If one characteristic he must be remembered by, it should his curiosity for knowing his roots, his mad love for his country -no, not Albania as the Westerners and Soviets had renamed it, but Shquipëria, as it is called by the nationals in the ancient language of Illyrian. “Shquipëria, Shquipëria”, he repeats with languor like a mantra as if holding to the last vestige of a culture that survived the Greek, Roman, Slavic and Turk invasions.
“How was my mother?” he asked his father at age ten while helping his father toll the field with an oxen. “She was like autumn leaves chased by the wind, like a passing moment that escapes us, or a summer night’s dream that veils its trace”. He never asked again. Not to his father, who grew ill day by day, or his two older brothers who had left to Hungary earlier the same year in search of a better life. “Why did my brothers leave?” he asked candidly his father. “They grew tired of my melancholy and so will you, if I don’t beat you to it”. This last part was more a mumbling than a response, and less a thought than a menace. The sun shone hard on the squalid soil, away from the gentle breezes of the Adriatic. Two shepherds hushed in the distance to a large flock of goats. The ruins of a Roman castle where his brothers used to spook him watched from a nearby hill. Ideas boiled in Alek’s mind.
Later in his room he repeated in the language he had learned in elementary school: “”. Was it then when he decided to be a poet?These very same lines are found in his poem “Forgotten Memories” contained in his third and last book Psallme Murgu (Psalms of a Monk) published in Bucharest in 1930. In one of his diaries he wrote: “Maybe one does not decide to be a poet, one is chosen by the Muses, one is entrapped, incarcerated, and raped by them. They never let go of you. You do not want to leave”.
The day he found his father hanging from the high beam in the living room, he did not blink or cry. He readied himself to attend school like always. He presented and successfully passed his oral exams. He met with the Headmaster and explained he would not be attending high school after all. “I have to leave the country. My brothers need me”. “How about your father?” Mr. Noli inquired. “Not him, he does not need me. He has all he needs and is where he wants to be”. He walked back home at 3:00 PM. On returning to the house he did not look at the corpse. He went to his room, packed a few belongings on a small valise and took his diary under the arm. He went then to the living room and said “You beat me to it”. He then left the house and started his trip to Bucharest, in search of his brothers. He was thirteen years old.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The gloved hands
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The gloved hands
“Truth is what is real to me”, whispered the voice in the penumbra. But wait, look down, a gloved hand is also writing the same phrase on a white piece of paper. We can fairly conclude that the voice and the hand belong to the same body, to the same brain. It is the same mind directing the act of writing, the symbol of language, herein written, not spoken.
The hand is using a fountain pen made of black lacquer. The ink flows rich and dark blue on the rugged surface of a paper that seems to be handmade, with one of those kits you can buy in a neighborhood store like Target or an on-line website like Arnold Grummer’s. We infer this because of its rustic texture and odd mix of several hues of white and fibrous appearance. The rasping of the metal tip on the paper surface resonates in the stillness of this moment. This is a left hand writing so the tip stays away and from the humid letters, not cursive letters but block letters, as to not blotch the phrase. The right hand, also wearing the same black leather glove, holds down the paper to assist in the writing.
Now they fold the paper, it is a note written at the center of an 8 inch by 5 inch piece of paper. They fold it, the hands, that is and now they move away. We catch a glimpse of an old dark oak desk the person was sitting at. We still don’t have enough light or a reflecting surface, like a mirror or a window pane, to make who this person is. We just see the gloves and a long black coat moving through the shadows.
The person stops in front of an open box. It is one of those brown boxes with a lid that you use to place your meager belongings when you quit a job or are fired. But instead of some dear files, personal books, the quasi dead orchid your other half gave you, or the photograph of rigor, this box in particular contains… books? No, not books, journals. Yes, journals like those a teenager or an amateur writer acquires at Barnes & Noble or Borders. Or better yet at Michael’s when they are on sale at 99 cent apiece. These are not the famous Moleskine, nevertheless, the ones that advertise “culture, imagination, memory, travel, personal identity” and claim these are the same used by van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway and Chatwin, as if using them will make you a better writer or a writer at all. The journals in this box look different. They are not black. They display different covers. One has a Doric capital in sepia with the words Kirche zu Constantinopel (nacht Salzen.., another has a series of fountain pens of all types and colors sitting atop postcards with post stamps from different countries, France, Luxembourg, Bettlembourg, Munsing, etc. Another one has a map of the world and the date 1752 at the bottom. This is all we can see when the hands open the flaps of the box and place the note inside.
The person folds the flaps, tapes them and places a glued white 4 inch by 6 inch card on top that reads “HORACIO P. 1234 MOLERA DRIVE, AUSTIN TX 76108”. The person then turns in the shadows and we see another person standing close by. Again, because of the lack of light we only see a gray dress shirt with black buttons. This person moves away along with the one with the gloved hands, and we see a room. It is a bedroom, a bed, undone, in disarray. Someone is in there… dead? Sleeping? We can’t say for sure. We hear a door slam. A lock click. Then, silence. We move closer to the bed, are those blood stains? We can’t tell for sure. We must end this chapter and move on in search of the truth.
The gloved hands
“Truth is what is real to me”, whispered the voice in the penumbra. But wait, look down, a gloved hand is also writing the same phrase on a white piece of paper. We can fairly conclude that the voice and the hand belong to the same body, to the same brain. It is the same mind directing the act of writing, the symbol of language, herein written, not spoken.
The hand is using a fountain pen made of black lacquer. The ink flows rich and dark blue on the rugged surface of a paper that seems to be handmade, with one of those kits you can buy in a neighborhood store like Target or an on-line website like Arnold Grummer’s. We infer this because of its rustic texture and odd mix of several hues of white and fibrous appearance. The rasping of the metal tip on the paper surface resonates in the stillness of this moment. This is a left hand writing so the tip stays away and from the humid letters, not cursive letters but block letters, as to not blotch the phrase. The right hand, also wearing the same black leather glove, holds down the paper to assist in the writing.
Now they fold the paper, it is a note written at the center of an 8 inch by 5 inch piece of paper. They fold it, the hands, that is and now they move away. We catch a glimpse of an old dark oak desk the person was sitting at. We still don’t have enough light or a reflecting surface, like a mirror or a window pane, to make who this person is. We just see the gloves and a long black coat moving through the shadows.
The person stops in front of an open box. It is one of those brown boxes with a lid that you use to place your meager belongings when you quit a job or are fired. But instead of some dear files, personal books, the quasi dead orchid your other half gave you, or the photograph of rigor, this box in particular contains… books? No, not books, journals. Yes, journals like those a teenager or an amateur writer acquires at Barnes & Noble or Borders. Or better yet at Michael’s when they are on sale at 99 cent apiece. These are not the famous Moleskine, nevertheless, the ones that advertise “culture, imagination, memory, travel, personal identity” and claim these are the same used by van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway and Chatwin, as if using them will make you a better writer or a writer at all. The journals in this box look different. They are not black. They display different covers. One has a Doric capital in sepia with the words Kirche zu Constantinopel (nacht Salzen.., another has a series of fountain pens of all types and colors sitting atop postcards with post stamps from different countries, France, Luxembourg, Bettlembourg, Munsing, etc. Another one has a map of the world and the date 1752 at the bottom. This is all we can see when the hands open the flaps of the box and place the note inside.
The person folds the flaps, tapes them and places a glued white 4 inch by 6 inch card on top that reads “HORACIO P. 1234 MOLERA DRIVE, AUSTIN TX 76108”. The person then turns in the shadows and we see another person standing close by. Again, because of the lack of light we only see a gray dress shirt with black buttons. This person moves away along with the one with the gloved hands, and we see a room. It is a bedroom, a bed, undone, in disarray. Someone is in there… dead? Sleeping? We can’t say for sure. We hear a door slam. A lock click. Then, silence. We move closer to the bed, are those blood stains? We can’t tell for sure. We must end this chapter and move on in search of the truth.
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