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Mural a Penelles - una fotografia de Fra Miquel |
Children of Love
A hot August day is drawing to a close. The sun sinks lower and lower over the mountain range to the west, painting a bizarre picture of clouds on the horizon with its iridescent brushstrokes.
The man watching this spectacle, as he has done so often in the course of his long life, mutters into his shaggy grey beard: ‘Just a few more minutes, and it will be gone – for today, at least.’ Then he sinks back into silent thought; and, trembling slightly as they feel their way, his withered hands find a grip on a rotten, gnawed fence post.
Several times the old man shakes his head and furrows his brow. But suddenly his eyebrows lift, his pressed-together lips seem to smile, and his eyes gaze clearly and wide-open at the source of his musings.
He maintains this expression for a few moments, then, whilst swaying his head slowly from side to side—as if in surrender, or perhaps just in a comically desperate manner—he exhales sharply through his nose and murmurs, his lips barely moving: ‘That she might look at this down here anew every day.’
After these words, now leaning firmly on the fence post with his hands, he tilts his head to one side, squints at the sun and calls out softly, raising his voice slightly: ‘Hey, tell me, why were you laughing so much today? And what at? ... Was it about everything you’ve seen down here … what is … or was … or about what’s to come?”
Smiling, the old man turns round. It’s time I sat down, he thinks, and walks towards his little house, in front of which, in the shade of a huge maple tree, stands a bench.
Reaching it, he turns his back to it, bends his upper body gently forwards, bends his knees slightly, feels behind him with his hands for the edge of the bench and, once he has found it, carefully lowers himself onto it.
Now he pants for a moment until his breathing settles again. Then he reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket with his right hand and pulls out a small pipe. With his left hand, he takes the desired amount of tobacco from his trouser pocket and begins, deliberately, to fill the little pipe.
Having finished, he leans back. His back rests against the wall of the house – a house that is perhaps twenty-five or thirty years younger than the old man himself.
The old man tilts his head back, letting his gaze drift along the rain gutter in need of repair, then across the small garden and finally, when it reaches the old maple tree, resting on it.
And between the old man and the tree a silent dialogue unfolds, a mutual recollection of ‘Do you remember?’, which needs no words: for the old man knows the tree, and the tree knows the old man.
Together, the tree and the old man immerse themselves in the book of life, and the serenity of their souls remains undisturbed as they turn back the pages, for they have overcome melancholy, and their fear of the unknown has been vanquished by a timid yet hopeful anticipation that enables them to bear the wrinkles of their existence.
And as they thus immerse their souls in the past, they feel the wings of the great invisible harmony fanning the breath of eternity upon them – and in the depths of the tree, the cheerful laughter of children rustles, whilst in its crown, tender words of love whisper softly.
‘It was lovely, and it is good as it is,’ thinks the old man as he awakens from his dream of the past, and he looks at the bench on which he is sitting.
His … their bench: a tree trunk split in half, which he’d thought to cut when, one autumn – which one? – he’d felled a few trees so they’d have firewood for the winter. Yes, their bench …
He snaps out of his thoughts and looks at the pipe in his left hand, which he still hasn’t lit. How could he? Smiling, he sets the pipe down beside him, slides slightly to one side, straightens the faded chequered blanket spread across the bench, half-rises and pulls the cushion from beneath him – the one he’s been sitting on the whole time – shakes it out, places it beside him and smooths it down, yes – strokes it smoothly.
After this, the old man looks up and gazes towards the mountains, behind which the now almost blood-red sun has already disappeared by nearly half.
‘I’m running late today,’ he says to himself and promptly begins rummaging through all his pockets, one after the other, with both hands, very thoroughly and very laboriously, and a smile lights up his face—one that is mischievous and knowing, yet profoundly innocent: the smile of anticipation. Suddenly, he turns his head and calls out: “Mary?!”
Immediately, a voice answers from inside the house. “Yes, John?”
“Mary, I’m afraid I’ve left my matches in the house again.”
A brief silence. Then, right where the voice had just replied from, a door opens. An old woman steps out. She walks towards the bench, and a smile flits across her face – a strangely knowing smile.
When she reaches the bench, she leans forward, kisses the old man on the forehead, sits down beside him on the cushion, hands him a packet of matches and says, ‘Here, John, here you are.’ Then she watches as he strikes a match, holds it over the pipe bowl and, puffing away, tries to get the tobacco to glow.
But today he can’t quite manage it, so she lets her gaze wander to the distant mountains, to the sun and the multicoloured clouds. Just as quickly, she lets her gaze return, wandering through the garden—which feels so much more familiar—and finally climbing up the trunk of the maple tree to the very top, where the tree’s leaves dance in the evening breeze or nestle lovingly against one another.
‘It was lovely, and it’s fine just as it is,’ she thinks. Her thoughts rest amongst the treetops, and her voice sounds as though it’s coming from a great distance as she asks, ‘Have you ever actually carried any matches with you, John?’
Meanwhile, the old man has lit his little pipe and enjoyed the first few puffs; now he leans back with his eyes closed, his hand reaches out beside him and finds hers as he says, ‘No, Mary, never.’
© hrj 1977
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