Journeys I´m made of... - Dachau (2003)

Visitors approach Dachau on foot. When I saw the guard tower in front of me, between two rows of barbed wire, I shivered. I felt my knees getting weak and I had to slow down. This was not a movie. This was the real thing, where everything happened to real people, by real people.

Visitors walk around the camp in silence. You just hear their steps on the pebbles of the main camp road. There used to be rows of prisoner barracks on both sides of this road. All but one have been taken down. It feels like we are walking among huge tombs.

Ten years before, in 1993, I had entered my city´s synagogue for the first time with my father, to attend a memorial service for the victims of the holocaust. Of the 1.950 Jews living there in 1941, 1.870 were deported. During the service, a lady sitting next to me started crying. I realised history was there, next to me.

I feel particularly attracted to the history and culture of jewish people. I love their language and their music. I respect them for keeping their traditions. I loved Richard Zimler´s The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon and Noah Gordon´s The Last Jew. It was a big emotion for me visiting Jerusalem, Toledo, the Holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, the Jewish Museum in Copenhagen, the Dachau Museum - that had just reopened when I visited and is one of the best-, Lisbon´s Synagogue, more recently the Anne Frank Museum and Jewish Museum in Amsterdam. Last year I finally visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. They are particularly involved in raising awareness regarding the prevention of genocide. At the time of my visit, they had a temporary exhibition on Darfur. Next time it might be on Palestine.

Yedid nefesh means "beloved of my soul"

The night Pessoa met Cavafy

It seems that Pessoa and Cavafy met unexpectedly on a cruise ship in 1929. Nothing was planned, they didn´t know each other. They were supposedly on their way to London. Their real destination was New York. They both wanted to see the New World, but they hadn´t told anyone.

So many coincidences, how can it be... Two soul mates that met briefly and then took their separate ways again. Didn´t they feel it? Isn´t it unbelievable that they didn´t try to keep in touch?

The beautiful documentary about this encounter, by Greek director Stelios Charalambopoulos, was shown today at the Gulbenkian Foundation. Among others, we heard this poem by Cavafy, one of my favourites.

AS MUCH AS YOU CAN
And if you can’t shape your life the way you want,
at least try as much as you can
not to degrade it
by too much contact with the world,
by too much activity and talk.

Try not to degrade it by dragging it along,
taking it around and exposing it so often
to the daily silliness
of social events and parties,
until it comes to seem a boring hanger-on.

(transl. Edmund Keeley)

Barbarians and "barbarians"

WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS
C.P.Cavafy (transl. Edmund Keeley)

- What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum?

The barbarians are due here today.

- Why isn't anything happening in the senate? Why do the senators sit there without legislating?

Because the barbarians are coming today.

- What laws can the senators make now?

Once the barbarians are here, they'll do the legislating.

- Why did our emperor get up so early, and why is he sitting at the city's main gateon his throne, in state, wearing the crown?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and the emperor is waiting to receive their leader.
He has even prepared a scroll to give him,
replete with titles, with imposing names.

- Why have our two consuls and praetors come out today wearing their embroidered, their scarlet togas? Why have they put on bracelets with so many amethysts, and rings sparkling with magnificent emeralds? Why are they carrying elegant canes beautifully worked in silver and gold?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and things like that dazzle the barbarians.

- Why don't our distinguished orators come forward as usual to make their speeches, say what they have to say?

Because the barbarians are coming today
and they're bored by rhetoric and public speaking.

- Why this sudden restlessness, this confusion?(How serious people's faces have become.) Why are the streets and squares emptying so rapidly, everyone going home so lost in thought?

Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.
And some who have just returned from the border
say there are no barbarians any longer.

And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?
They were, those people, a kind of solution.

I wonder, did Cavafy´s heart sink? Did his steps become heavier and slower?

On the other hand, Eugénio can read. Eugénio likes to read. I hope he enjoys the book.

The "arrumador"

Eugénio is the arrumador in the street where I work, that is, he helps drivers find a place to park in exchange for a small change. I know very little about him, we talk a bit from time to time. He´s a decent man, eternally grateful and obliged towards those who try to help him a bit in his difficulties.

I met him yesterday and he asked me how I had liked Madeira. "Didn´t I tell you", he exclaimed, when I told him I had loved it. "That´s where I would go if I could. I would go to live in the countryside. That´s where it´s nice. Here in the city we just get to know life´s miseries."

Luis Sepúlveda´s novel The Old Man who Read Love Stories finishes like this: "...he started walking in the direction of El Idilio, his shack and his stories, which spoke of love with so beautiful words that sometimes made him forget human barbarity."

Misery, barbarity... They take different shapes in our heads. We all seem to try to run away from them and find refuge in beauty. I don´t know if Eugénio can read. I think he might like The Old Man who Read Love Stories.

Journeys I´m made of... - Arctic circle (2001)

Absolutely unforgettable. It was the 'cold desert', the 'middle-of-nowhere' that always fascinates me so much. Vast frozen lands, reindeers, isolated houses. I just missed the aurora borealis, although I looked so hard and was so hopeful...

When travelling at night, we see almost nothing. Absolute darkness. And then, from time to time, a tiny light appears. It´s a lamp the Swedish put by the window, marking a human presence in this seemingly hostile land. And it comforts us.



P.S. I found a newspaper cutting on my desk this morning. It was a quote from Euripides: "Be happy; friends disappear when we are unhappy". I wonder how old he was when he reached that level of wisdom. And don´t rash into conclusions about who´s to blame. Euripides hasn´t said it all here.

Hospitality

After all, lunch was a surprise today. It was not by the sea, but up on the mountain. What an amazing landscape Madeira has. We went to taste local specialities at a small restaurant by the road. It made me feel a traveller. Long wooden tables and benches, bolo do caco (delicious garlic bread), espetada and fried corn. In front of us a eucalyptus forrest and far away, when the sky cleared, the sea.

I had the pleasure of Henrique´s company, who´s responsible for this:


I had always thought of myself as a person who talked a lot. I realise now that I prefer listening to other people´s stories and find out what touches them, enthuses them, moves them. We discover so many things through other people. And we don´t have to talk much ourselves...

People in Madeira reminded me what hospitality is. And how warm it feels.

A gem in Funchal

Photos kindly made available by the Museum

The Frederico de Freitas House Museum is a gem in the centre of Funchal. He was a lawyer and had rented this 17th century house, marked by late 19th century interventions that gave it an exotic look. Freitas collected sculpture, paintings and ceramics, but also beautiful-beautiful furniture. What I loved the most, though, was the Winter Garden. It´s like coming out of a novel, it makes you dream.

Funchal is a pleasant surprise. I don´t know what I had expected exactly, but I feel surprised. And nothing like being shown around by a proud local, who wants to show you everything and has stories to tell about each and every corner, interrupting them only to say hello to acquaintances passing by.

A very pleasant dinner last night at the naval club, listening to the sea. Today, coffee at Golden Gate (how much I love beautiful coffee shops!). Tomorrow, lunch by the sea at Camara de Lobos. I look forward to discovering the mountain in three weeks time. They say it´s breathtaking.

For LMC

This is for LMC. Who loves theatre also when it is not 'useful'; when it is the creation of a moment of exceptional happiness, of pleasure for our senses. Who is scared of intellectual loneliness. Whose 'saints' are people with moral values; values they cherrish, they are faithful to, they hold on to, heroically.

THERMOPYLAE
Honour to those who in their lives
are committed and guard their Thermopylae.
Never stirring from duty;
just and upright in all their deeds,
but with pity and compassion too;
generous whenever they are rich,
and when they are poor, again a little generous,
again helping as much as they are able;
always speaking the truth, but without rancor for those who lie.

And they merit greater honor
when they foresee (and many do foresee)
that Ephialtes will finally appear,
and in the end the Medes will go through.

C. Cavafy

Journeys I´m made of... - London (1993-95)

The truth is that I didn´t mind the gap. I plunged into it. And an immense world opened up to me.

What I loved the most? The accents; talking to a stranger that happenned to sit next to me; being greeted in the small shops with "Morning, love"; the sounds of "Please, mind the gap" or "Spare a change, please"; the neighbourhood pubs; the smell of Sainsbury´s; the smell of fried onion when coming out from Covent Garden tube station; the word "tube"; walking along the South Bank; rushing out from the last class to be at the Royal Festival Hall at 7 for a concert; the strong wind currents when reaching the Barbican at night; the Camden Town market; the below the average italian restaurants; walking in Belgravia and Chelsea; Regent´s Park;...

And I liked myself, then, there.

Journeys I´m made of... - Mountaineering (1992-93)

Every Sunday. Places I could have never seen otherwise. The long way ahead of us; the expectation; the effort; the thrill of reaching the top; the exhaustion; the extreme beauty of it all; the bliss. Being embraced by God.

When the mighty fall

"When the mighty fall"... they are on their own. Once they accept it, they learn how to live with it.

I´ve realised that the world is full of exhausted Pollyannas.

Mel das Arábias

Breakfast today at Mel das Arábias with two good and long lost friends. Sweet jasmin tea served in a glass, sesame biscuits, baklava, rose and pistacchio lokum. On the shelves cans with stuffed aubergines, humus, dolma... Nice, long conversation leading to the ultimate state of nonchalance, at least for me, sitting on a beautiful middle-eastern-like sofa, having talked so much and having consumed all that sugar.

I spoke to the egyptian owner for a while. It´s incredible how close I immediately feel to people from that (our) side of the world. Shukran!

While we were there, one of the songs we heard was Lama Bada Yatathana, a tunisian version of a mouachchah, a type of song about love and drinking. Before you can listen to it, here´s the translation of the lyrics:

Lama Bada Yatathana (When the lissome girl appeared)
When she appeared, aman, aman,
my lissome love,
her beauty enslaved me, aman, aman.
When for a single moment she was mine, aman, aman
bending like a graceful branch, aman, aman.
To my fate I must submit,
and no mate have I
to listen to my lament, aman, aman.

Here it is, by SavinaYannatou and the group Primavera en Salonico.

Scent of a woman

Not the film this time, not even a tango. A passage from The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink.

“…In the past, I had particularly loved her smell. She always smelled fresh, freshly washed or of fresh laundry or fresh sweat or freshly loved. Sometimes she used perfume, I don´t know which one, and its smell, too, was more fresh than anything else. Under these fresh smells was another, heavy, dark, sharp smell. Often I would sniff at her like a curious animal, starting with her throat and shoulders, which smelled freshly washed, soaking up the fresh smell of sweat between her breasts mixed in her armpits with the other smell, then finding this heavy dark smell almost pure around her waist and stomach and between her legs with a fruity tinge that excited me; I would also sniff at her legs and feet – her thighs, where the heavy smell disappeared, the hollows of her knees again with that light, fresh smell of sweat, and her feet, which smelled of soap or leather or tiredness. Her back and arms had no special smell; they smelled of nothing and yet they smelled of her, and the palms of her hands smelled of the day and of work – the ink of the tickets, the metal of ticket puncher, onions or fish or frying fat, soapsuds or the heat of the iron. When they are freshly washed, hands betray none of this. But soap only covers the smells, and after a time they return, faint, blending into a single scent of the day and work, a scent of work and day´s end, of evening, of coming home and being at home.”

When I first read this passage I had to stop. I read it again and again and again. Then I read it out loud, so I could have the pleasure of actually listening to the words that could turn everything so precise, so familiar, so comforting in a way.

"How wrong can one be?", he would ask himself later. How wrong was he?

Journeys I´m made of... - Egypt and Israel (1991)

Back in Cairo, where this time I discovered Oum Kalthoum and the market of Khan-El-Khalili, full of smells – strong perfumes, spices and narguiles.

Then the trip through the desert to get to the border with Israel. Everybody very nervous, because of the questions we could be asked and to which we all had to give the same answers.

Jerusalem. What an intense city! The people, the monuments, the markets, the traffic, but, most of all, the presence of God, everybody´s God, everywhere. Orthodox jew boys passing next to us and covering their faces with their books, so that there would be no possible contact with us, girls. Arab boys yelling “enti helweh” (you are beautiful).

Then travelling by bus along River Jordan, the desert of Sodom and Gomorrah, St. George the Chozevite monastery, the Dead Sea, the amazing-amazing site of Masada... Strong images, mainly from the Old Testament which I had studied at school when I was 9, were coming back to me.

And then, the long trip to Sinai. A once-in-a-lifetime experience. The thrill for 'end-of-the-world' or 'middle-of-nowhere' places has never left me since. We arrived late at night, after travelling through a lunar landscape that the full moon had turned blue. We got in bed just before the lights in the monastery went off, woke up at 4 in the morning, got dressed in the dark and walked to the top of Mount Horeb to watch the sunrise.

So many the faces of that trip…

Left: Cairo, Café at Khan-El-Khalili market
Centre: Israel, St. George the Chozevite Monastery, Father Ioannikios
Right: Sinai, bedouin helper

Being taken

I realised today that I particularly like sitting backwards in trains. It´s a nice feeling of 'being taken' without wishing to resist. It´s like when Holly Hunter places her foot in the rope and goes down with her piano. There are some instants there where we feel a kind of relief; she is calmly going down, she is not fighting back, she is being taken, in silence.

Happiness? Good friends from the other side of the ocean coming over for dinner, bringing with them joy and the comforting feeling that not everything changes...

Journeys I´m made of... - Italy (1991)

That summer I participated in an archaeological excavation in South Italy, in a village called Poggiardo, near Lecce. Sleeping in a school, using the same sheets for three weeks...; waking up every morning at 5, to avoid working under the sun during the very warm hours; breakfast at a tiny local café (‘cappuccino’ in a waterglass and chocolate croissant every day); eating the same pasta for lunch during the whole time, or so it seemed; washing just with cold water in improvised showers in the school toilets (two english girls always the last in the queue, so that they wouldn´t have to shower in front of the others, making fun of themselves and their upbringing); taking long siestas, waking up to wash and register the findings during the afternoon; in bed by 10 in the evening, at the latest. A very special suntan that summer, with my neck, arms and legs marked by the clothes I was wearing at the field. Free time only on Sundays. And… I loved it! Yes, me, Miss Comfort. I simply loved it.

Restlessness

Just this today.

The comfort of strangers

They said that Edward Hopper pictured the frustration of being alone when we’re so damn together. What I see, though, in my favourite painting of his is the frustration of being so damn together when all we want is to be alone. Don´t let the solitary character fool you. Hopper´s brilliance is in the things we do not see, but we can feel they are there.

The comfort of strangers. And a tango.

The Long War

I confess. I was really after Alan Rickman, not the poem. But I came across it and it made me think of yesterday´s post. It was written by english poet Laurie Lee.

THE LONG WAR
Less passionate the long war throws
its burning thorn about all men,
caught in one grief, we share one wound
and cry one dialect of pain.

We have forgot who fired the house,
whose easy mischief spilt first blood,
under one raging roof we lie
the fault no longer understood.

But as our twisted arms embrace
the desert where our cities stood,
death's family likeness in each face
must show, at last, our brotherhood.

Now, close your eyes and listen to Alan Rickman reciting it at the Globe (I´ll cheat and keep mine open; I want to enjoy him with every possible sense…).

Journeys I´m made of... - Deeper in Turkey (1989)

Second time in Constantinople. It left me once again with a sweet melancholic feeling. We then headed south: Smyrna, Ephesus, Myra. Always welcome, especially for being who we were. I remember an old fisherman in Smyrna, speaking very little english, asking us where we were from. And when we answered, he started crying. He said he was from Crete. And I, still so ignorant at that age, couldn´t understand why someone who was not speaking greek was crying and saying he was from Crete.

And then we took the road to the interior and reached Afyonkarahisar, where we were supposed to be hated (see the statue, we are the ones on the ground…) and where we avoided saying where we were coming from. The roles were reversed here and the feeling was awkward.

Afyonkarahisar
Many-many years later, after I read the books I had chosen (not the ones taught in school or even university), I was revolted. Not only for what had happened to 'us', but also for what we had done to 'our' people and to the 'others' (whos´s who, though...). Look it up in Wikipedia, it´s called the Asia Minor Catastrophe.

I call it a fisherman crying in Smyrna in 1989. This is for him. From Tassos Boulmetis´s film "A touch of spice" (Politiki Kouzina): "Baharat, tarçin ve buse" (Spice, cinnamon and kiss), music by Evanthia Reboutsika.

Journeys I´m made of... - Egypt (1988)

First time in Egypt. First time outside Europe. I can still remember gasping when I came out to the hotel balcony and saw far away the pyramids, dark triangular volumes against the setting sun. I loved the exciting confusion of Cairo. The heat. The voice of the muezzin calling for prayer from the loudspeakers.

Left: Cairo / Right: Luxor

The desert. The villages where barefoot children were playing by the river, next to their mud-made houses. The people, smiling and very polite. The men, particularly obliging and extrovert when it came to fair-coloured girls...

Left: Near Abydos / Right: Thebes, Cheik Abd-El-Gournah

Dendara

My best-best memory: embarking on a felucca in Aswan, at the end of a long, hot day; the Nile, calm and majestic; the felucca driver singing a song. Apart from that, absolute silence. The word for it is “nonchalance”(I only know it in french). That´s what it was.

Aswan

It felt so good choosing the photos for this post. I hadn´t taken that album out for years...

Journeys I´m made of... - England (1988)

First trully life-changing journey: my first time in England. Two weeks in Cambridge, staying with good friends: Colin, classics professor and beautiful poet (he writes in ancient greek...), and Mishtu, whose batik works always accompany Colin´s poems, mixing cultures, mythologies and landscapes. I loved the peace in Trinity Hall´s 'secret' garden; the green; looking from my bedroom window at the cricket players on the field across the road; discovering a new way of being, thinking, behaving. Took short trips to London, Chester, the Lake District. An intense feeling of 'being at home'. Total bliss, but an underlying sadness.

Huge cultural shock when I eventually got back home. Still suffering from it...


Trinity Hall, 1988.

P.S. The storm finally came (is it all a matter of patience?). Strong but quiet, beautiful. Happiness? Getting caught by it. I could have looked for shelter, but didn´t want to. I went ahead, in the middle of the road, and got home completely soaked.

Vivan Sundaram´s family

I went to the Modern Art Museum in Sintra to see the exhibition of Vivan Sundaram and I discovered a whole family of artists: the grandfather Umrao Singh Sher-Gil (photographer), the hungarian grandmother Marie-Antoinette Gottesman-Baktay (opera singer) and the aunt Amrita Sher-Gil (painter). Some breathtaking photos. So exciting the stories behind them.


Umrao Singh Sher-Gil
Left: After a bath. Self-portrait (1904) / Right: Amrita playing the sitar (1936)


Left: Umrao Singh Sher-Gil with grandson Vivan (1946)
Right: Vivan Sundaram - Black Nude (2001)


Vivan Sundaram
Left: Amrita dreaming - 2 (2002) / Right: Amrita dreaming - 3 (2002)

Happiness? The discovery. Planes leaving. Another grey day on the beach and the promise of a storm (that did not come).