Day and night of love and war

Days and nights of love and war (excerpt)

[Uruguay]? Eduardo galeano/Wang Wen Tian Ai/Translator

Why do pigeons cry at dawn?

Because one morning, a male pigeon and a female pigeon went to the dance. The male pigeon was killed in a fight and someone tried to hurt it. The ball is beautiful and the mother pigeon doesn't want to stop enjoying it. She said, "I'll sing tonight and cry tomorrow morning." So, when the sun rose from the horizon, she began to cry.

Marlene dietrich Aguilar told me the story her grandmother told her. Her grandmother has a pair of gray eyes and a wolf-like nose. Relying on the weak heat of charcoal fire in the stove, she tells stories of soul loss and slaughter, which fascinates her grandchildren.

Slow light between eyelids

It happened this afternoon. I'm waiting for the train to Barcelona on the platform.

The sun lit up the clearing between the tracks. The land suddenly has an unusually bright color, as if the blood is boiling and expanding under the blue track.

I am not happy, but in this long time, the land is happy, I can understand and remember.

Chronicle of the hunted and Mrs. Night

In the morning, they met in a luxurious bar. In the morning, he woke up in her bed. She heats the coffee; They use the same cup. He found her biting her nails, and her hands were as beautiful as a girl. They didn't speak. When she was dressed, he tried to explain that he couldn't pay her. She didn't dare to look at him, easily open:

"I don't even know your name. But if you want to stay. The house is not ugly. "

He stayed.

She does not ask questions. He didn't ask.

In the evening, she goes to work. He hardly goes out.

A few months passed.

One morning, she found the bed empty. There is a card on the pillow:

I want to hold your hand. I stole one of your gloves. Forgive me. Thank you very much for saying goodbye to you.

He swam across the river with a forged identity document. A few days later, he was arrested in Buenos Aires because of a stupid accident. They have been looking for him for a year.

The colonel abused him and beat him. Grabbed him by the collar: "You will tell us] where you stayed before. You will tell everything. "

He replied that he lived in Montevideo with a woman. The colonel doesn't believe it. He took out the photo: she was sitting on the bed, naked, with her hands behind her neck and long black hair hanging down her chest.

"With this woman." He said, "In Montevideo." The colonel grabbed the photo and was furious. He punched the table and shouted, "That son of a bitch, son of a bitch traitor, I want her to pay, damn woman, she must pay."

Only then did he realize that a woman's house is a trap to catch people like him. He remembered that one day at noon, after making out, she said to him:

"You know what? I and others have never felt the joy of this muscle. "

He finally understood what she added, with a strange shadow in his eyes:

"I have to meet once, right?" She said, "I must lose."

This happened on 1956 or 1957. Many Argentines chased by the dictatorship fled the river and hid in Montevideo.

system

System and machine teaching, whoever opposes it is the enemy of the country. Anyone who accuses injustice commits treason.

The machine said, I am a country. This concentration camp is the country's mortuary, an empty wasteland.

Whoever thinks that the country is everyone's home is no longer his son.

1942 Summer

Several years ago, in Kiev, I heard why Dynamo players should get a statue.

I heard a story during the war.

Ukraine was occupied by Germany. The Germans organized a football match. German national team vs Dynamo Kiev composed of wool factory workers: Superman vs Hungry Ghost.

The stadium was packed with people that afternoon. The occupying forces scored the first goal, and the whole stand was depressed and silent; Dinamo equalized the score and the stands were brightly lit; At the end of the first half, Germany fell behind by 1 2, and riots broke out in the stands.

The commander of the occupying forces sent the adjutant to the dressing room. Dynamo players heard this warning:

"Our team has never lost a game."

He threatened:

"If you win, you will be executed."

Players return to the court.

A few minutes later, Dynamo scored the third goal. The fans stood and watched the whole game, and finally let out a long whistle. The fourth goal: the stadium was almost overturned.

Suddenly, before the time was up, the referee announced that the game was over.

All the Dynamo players who participated in the competition were executed at the top of the cliff.

system

500,000 Uruguayans are in exile. One million Paraguayans, half a million Chileans. The ship that set sail was crowded with young people who had escaped from prison, gravestones and hunger. Living is dangerous; Thinking is a sin; Eating is a miracle.

However, how many people are still exiled within the borders of their own countries? What data records those who are sentenced to submission and silence? Isn't the crime of hope more serious than the crime of man?

Dictatorship is the convention of shameless words and deeds: a machine that makes you deaf and dumb, unable to listen, unable to speak and unable to see everything that is forbidden to watch.

In Brazil, the first death by torture occurred in 1964, which was a national scandal. The tenth case will appear in the daily newspaper. The fiftieth case is considered normal.

Machines teach people how to accept terror, just like accepting the cold in winter.

Quito,1Introduction to American history in February, 976

There are two adjacent indigenous villages. They live on what goats and the land can give them. They cultivated terraced fields on the hillside, and the other side of the mountain leads to an unusually beautiful lake near Quito. The two villages have the same name and hate each other.

There is a church between the two villages. The priest is starving. One night, he buried a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary and sprinkled salt on it. The next morning, the sheep dug up the soil and the miracle virgin appeared.

The Madonna is covered with sacrifices. Both villages brought food, clothes and decorations. The men came to pray for the people who died suddenly in the neighboring village and killed them with knives at night-"This is the miracle wish of the Virgin Mary."

Every promise is a kind of revenge. In this way, the two small villages named pukkala became extinct in each other's hands. Priests make a lot of money. There are all kinds of goods, crops and livestock at the foot of the Madonna.

Then, the family crossed the hotel chain and bought the uninhabited land with a handful of coins.

A tourist center was built by the lake.

A person who knows silence.

Juan rulfo can say what he wants to say in a few pages, pure bones, fat-free flesh and blood, and then he keeps silent.

From 65438 to 0974 in Buenos Aires, Rulfo told me that he didn't have time to write freely because he worked too much in the public administration. In order to have time, you must get a sick note, and you must go to the doctor for permission. Rulfo said that a person can't go to the doctor and say "I feel very sad", and the doctor won't give sick leave for such a thing.

Buenos Aires,1March, 976: shadows and sunshine.

A woman and a man celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in Buenos Aires. They invited some couples whom they haven't seen for a long time. Everyone was eating, laughing and drinking on the yellow wedding embroidered tablecloth. They drank countless bottles of wine, told dirty jokes, ate too much and laughed too much, so that they choked and needed to pat each other on the back. After midnight, suddenly at some point, silence came. Come in silently, take root and win. You can't say half a word, and any laughter is out of place. In this way, somehow, the game began. The guests began to play the game of who died the longest. People ask each other how long you have been dead: twenty years, no, no, you must have lost your age. You've been dead for 25 years. And so on.

Someone in the magazine told me this story about aging and revenge that happened in his house the night before. Hardly had I finished listening when the phone rang. It's a Uruguayan woman I don't know very well. From time to time, she would come to tell me some political information, or see if there was anything she could do for other exiles who had no place to live and work. This time she called to tell me that she was in love. She told me that she finally found what she had been looking for, but she didn't know what she was looking for. She has to tell someone. I'm sorry to disturb me. She found that she could share something deep in her heart with another person. She wants to tell me because it's good news, isn't it? She said nothing, just thinking. ...

She told me that for the first time in my life, they went to the racetrack together, and the light of horses and silk shirts shocked them. They don't have much money, because it's the first time, and the gambling is very safe. They buy horses that look the kindest or have the most interesting names. They lost all their money and walked home, but they felt very happy. Because of the charm of horses, because of the passion of the track, because they are also young, beautiful and omnipotent. At this moment, she told me that I especially wanted to rush into the street, play the trumpet, hug passers-by and shout out that I love him. Being born is lucky.

dream

I will tell you the story of my childhood. You saw it in the window.

You see I ran across vilen when I was a teenager. I saw horses, and the light moved gently.

So you picked up a shiny green pebble from the window frame and held it tightly in your hand. From that moment on, it turned into you running and playing in the window of my memory, you flying on the grass, belonging to my childhood, your dream, and my wind blowing across your face.

See the world with locked eyes

You stole a calla lily from the flower shop. You breathe its fragrance deeply. You walk slowly through the yard, through the summer heat wave, holding this tall flower high in your hand. The cold tiles in the yard, barefoot is also a pleasure.

You go to the faucet You have to stand on a small bench to unscrew it. Cold water is poured on the flowers and hands, and I feel the water dripping on my feet. You close your eyes and swing in a strange pleasure, so a century has passed.

"I've lost all my thoughts, mom." Later, you pointed to the floor drain and explained that my thoughts had fallen there. "

The battle of the street, the battle of the soul

How many times have I been a dictator? How many times, judge? Examiner? Warden? How many times have I banned my favorite freedom and speech? How many people are my masters? How many people have been convicted by me for crimes that do not belong to me? Isn't the private right to others more disgusting than the ownership of things? How many people have I used who I think are on the edge of this consumer society? When I loudly curse the value of success, isn't there a trace of hope or gratitude for others' failure in my heart? Who doesn't rebuild the world that made him like this in his heart? Who can avoid confusing brothers with enemies? Because he confused the woman he loved with his own shadow?

Calelia de la Costa, June 1977: To create the world every day.

We chat, eat, smoke, walk and work together. These are all ways of making love without entering each other's bodies. Our bodies call each other during the journey from day to night.

We listened to the roar of the last train. Church bells. It's midnight.

Our own small train slowly glides and flies, taking you through the clouds and different worlds, and then arriving in the morning, the smell of freshly brewed coffee is wet. Your face is clean and your body smells wet.

The day began.

We counted a few hours before evening. Then, we will have sex and be sad to death.

If we listen carefully, we all form a melody.

I walked through Yuan Ye, which is full of ferns, and came to the river.

It's a sunny morning. The breeze is blowing gently. Smoke billowed from the chimney of the stone house. Ducks swim across the water. Ye Baifan glided through the Woods.

That morning, my body had the same rhythm as breeze, smoke, ducks and white sails.

Raila de la Costa, July 1977: Market.

You taught me that fruit juice can drown people in sweetness, plump plums should be eaten with eyes closed, and beets with firm and ruddy flesh should be watched. You like to touch peaches, take off your clothes with a knife, and like dull apples. You can rub them with your hands to make them shine.

Lemons make you respect, oranges make you smile. Piles of radishes are the kindest, and pineapples in medieval armor are the funniest.

The tomatoes and peppers in the big basket seem to be naturally basking in the sun, and they seem to glow lazily. In fact, the life of tomatoes should start with mixing with oregano, salt and oil, while peppers should wait until they are cooked in a red-hot stove and our mouths bite enthusiastically before finding their own destiny.

Spices constitute another world in the market. They are small, but full of power. They are all exciting and juicy. We all know that if there is no spice, we measure it. All meat beef, fish, pork, mutton-when it comes to spices, we won't be born in America, and our dining table and dreams will lack magic. After all, it was those spices that pushed Columbus and Sinbad the sailor forward.

The laurel leaves vibrate gracefully in your hands and gently land on the barbecue or small dumplings. You love rosemary, verbena, cardamom, basil and meat column, and you never know whether it's the aroma, taste or name. As a condiment for the poor, coriander has one more advantage than all other condiments: it will remain fresh and green only when sprinkled on a plate.

It's just that in the process, we become a little as sacred as it is.

I opened the red wine. In Buenos Aires, this is Burgundy, san felipe with a black pot-bellied bottle. This is cow blood from Torres winery.

I poured the wine and stayed in the cup to sober up. We smell it, look at its color, and glow by candlelight.

Under the table, our legs are looking for each other and intertwined. Kissing in a glass. Red wine satisfies our joy. It looks down on drunkards and turns sour in the mouths of undeserving people.

The sauce is boiling and bubbling in the casserole, and the thick sauce slowly rises and falls, red and wet: we eat slowly, taste slowly and chat slowly.

Eating alone is a physiological need. Eating with you is a mess. Wipe a smile.

system

Extinction plan: weeding, uprooting all living plants and irrigating the land with salt water.

Then, kill the memory of grass. If you want to control consciousness, delete consciousness; Delete consciousness and empty its past. Clear all the testimony to prove that there is something else in this place besides silence, prisons and graves.

No memory.

The prisoners were divided into several groups. Forcing them to cover the protests written on the walls of another era with white paint every night.

The heavy rain washed away the fence and the white paint gradually dissolved. Those fierce and stubborn words reappeared bit by bit.