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From the stack of photos taken by an observer
emerge some from twenty, thirty years ago. Thirty years… a
flashback recollection. Memory leaps lightly back to times that
seemed to have flown away. Feelings surface of long-buried and
vanished things which carry me far away in time. Some solitary
figures catch my eye, all seen from behind. The man looks small,
with no energy, no plans; not the hard-working type.
My amazed stare cannot move on and wanders over
his image, the light softened by the silver nitrate. Until
sadness takes over. Thick and heavy, it builds up between the
throat and the heart and attacks them. My eyes won’t leave the
little man, they want to know who he was.
I tell myself there is no reason you have to give
him a face, he just happened to be passing by. But the lump in
my throat turnsand says: rubbish, he’s a chosen one, give him a
face, go on, try. I try, and into my mind come miners, farmers,
labourers and many, many others… but all from behind.
The lump says: they don’t count, they’re nothing
someone who counted, you would have photographed his face,
although not on purpose, certainly not, but just because it was
fate. Philosophically, I tell myself: it is the man’s destiny to
go through life with his back turned, but I know it is not true.
I bear the thought of all the people who have crossed my
pictures with their backs turned, whose stooping shoulders are
the only thing that is left behind.
I would like to say: “turn around”, but it would
serve no purpose. In all the pictures, a little man seen from
behind is always from behind, from wherever you look at him.
These people will live, until no one has a memory of the other.
But to die like this is like dying twice.
So why not build a monument to the unknown man?
For each will bring a stone and with the stones we will build a
pyramid, visible from far away. Every year on All Souls’ Day we
will bring flowers and recite the names of people who did not
count. We will bring more stones, and the pyramid will get
higher and higher, until it touches that sky in which even those
who have atheistic hearts would like to find a face. |
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" Negli ultimi
anni del famoso programma “Jonathan” di A. Fogar avevo come
assistente un tecnico del suono slavo. Il suo nome era Slobodan
Boba Mihajlovic, lo chiamavo “Libero” come il suo nome. Alla
fine di ogni registrazione si firmava sempre: “ Freebird ”
(uccello libero).
Era un giovane di
Belgrado ma viveva con la famiglia a Sarajevo.Tante volte ho
trascorso giorni spensierati nelle sua casa. Una famiglia
meravigliosa dove madre, padre e sorella erano tutti musicisti.
Poi venne il silenzio …buio completo.
All’inizio anni
2000, trovandomi in Bosnia per un servizio, provai di
rintracciarlo personalmente. Dopo tante difficoltà incontrai la
sorella. A stento mi raccontò che in quella guerra assurda aveva
perso i genitori e il marito, di “Libero” non ebbe mai nessuna
notizia.
A Sarajevo,
ripercorrendo luoghi gia visitati, non ho ritrovato le persone conosciute
anni prima ma solo
visi anonimi e diversi. Tra le migliaia di tombe, in quelli che
erano i parchi di Sarajevo, quante volte ho guardato in alto…
nulla… nemmeno un passero. "
“Piove a Sarajevo”. Un racconto struggente di luoghi che non
sono più tali e rapporti umani infranti e dispersi per sempre. |
