Redemption

Dear Mama, dear Papa, the fevers have returned.

Uncle sent for the doctor from Vila Real who brought the medicine.

I disliked him,

he was not sociable and didn't offer me sweets

like dad sometimes did for the children sick with malaria.

The good thing was not having to go to school for the last few days

(but don't you worry because I have arranged for a colleague

to pass me the notes of the missed lessons).

I have a new teacher who came from Lisbon.

She is a hippie, she's called Ms. Minda.

She smokes many cigarettes

and my eyes sting if I look at the board for too long.

Therefore I rather look out of the window

and watch the sawmill in the distance with its roofs white with snow.

But snow is after all not as great as I told you in the last letter.

It never snows quite enough to cover the mud of the tracks.

The cold is so harsh that it freezes the slope outside the school

and I have to tread really carefully in order not to slip.

There are kids who laugh at me,

the same kids that called me those ugly names

that Uncle forbade me to repeat.

I know that they are dumb and poor, that it's not their fault,

because their parents are even worse than them,

they drink and hit them.

But I feel no sorrow for them, I think they deserve each other.

I miss you both very much.

I know that it won't be long before mama comes over

and that will be good but I miss being there very much,

I miss our home very much.

I also miss Bolinhas, Ms. Judite and the twins,

and I even miss Cuca...

I think that if he saw me now

he would be reminded of how good he had it with us,

and would stop hanging around with those evil people

who want to kick us out of there,

maybe he would even cry

and call me 'sweet little boy' again.

lam sure there are still plenty of people there who are friends of ours

and don't care for revolutions,

people who one can climb trees and have picnics with.

Papa and Mama,

I know we must leave that place solely because we are Portuguese

and that it is no longer Portugal.

But what does Portugal matter

if Portugal is just an ugly bunch of people

taking scrawny oxen for a walk, without being able to feed themselves?

Maybe papa and mama have forgotten what Portugal is really like,

just like the primary school teacher over there had also forgotten

and would name the train stations, the rivers, the provinces and its customs

without mentioning the cold, the poverty and the sadness.

Portugal is very sad and it will always be so.

You may all rummage through my biography

- journalists, inspectors, policemen and altri buffoni !

But you are destined to fail,

you foolish and presumptuous men,

because the deep truth of matters is not found

in journalistic research or judicial processes

supported by false and biased testimonies

of those who know nothing.

How could they know

if there was no one else there that day, except for three or four other classmates?

It was eleven o'clock in the evening,

at a barren plot of land in the outskirts of Milan.

I was opposite the factory and my legs were trembling.

I was ten years old and had three stones in my hand.

My idiot friends inveighing against me

as they thought my legs trembled because I didn't have the balls to do it.

But I believe nowadays that,

none would doubt that few Italians have them in their place as much as I do.

I was not afraid of the police

or of the fat drunken watchman who snoozed off on duty.

I threw the stones and shouted: Fuori fascisti!

A week later, the owner put the factory up for sale for next-to-nothing

and left Milan for an undisclosed destination,

taking with him his wife and daughter - Alessandra, my love.

I am an old man.

I had a full life

and was therefore subject to infamous lies and the envy of others.

I made many friends and just as many enemies.

I loved more than one thousand women

and I assume some of them have also loved me back.

Those are public facts.

But those who think they know my story ignore - and always will -

the countless nights I woke up in tears calling out her name.

Alessandra, where are you?

Have you ever imagined how much I loved you?

Would I ever have had the courage to tell you

if I had not thrown those stones

that drove you and your fascist parents out of the city?

The only thing I feared in life was your silence, grave and mysterious,

even when you did less noble things

such as picking your nose when queuing next to me in the rations line.

I whistled the latest hits of the Italian song to you,

while my hands in my pockets tried to push down my petite shorts

that made me look slightly ridiculous.

Did you get married, Alessandra? Did you have children?

Did you vote for me, Alessandra?

Or, as in my dreams,

did you continue to levitate two feet above the ground

with the theatrical arrogance of a trapeze artist?

Do you remember the circus, Alessandra?

You, a blonde silent angel,

much higher than two feet above the rest of us,

walking in slow motion up the street, down the street,

indifferent to the crumbled facades of the buildings

and the agitation of the carabinieri's dogs.

Did you descend to earth, I wonder, Alessandra?

Did you look down, in shame and resentment

of your father before you left, I wonder?