my war
noon12 March 2022 – 09:06
Our eyes speak and understand each other
Of Massimiliano Virgilio
My war my mom’s gaze. the worried look of my mother, who has known war in the hunger of children and in her mother’s stories. the melancholy gaze of my grandmother, who at the table recalled her brothers and her father who died under the American bombs at the Casalnuovo station. the sad look of that Istrian mother who after the Julian-Dalmatian exodus did not move anymore and became for all of us a somewhat strange aunt who lived “under a tree: they were the trees of the Capodimonte Wood that welcomed the exiles, another story, another world. My war the gaze of the mothers displaced after the earthquake, of the shackled by the earthquake who for years haunted me with their big eyes and the dark circles of those who are hungry and sleepy. Eighties, another kind of war. Like that of the desperate mother who saw her son die in a clan struggle and that she found a way not to succumb: repent, find refuge in faith and start a new life from there.
My war then are the wars I witnessed as a young man and later as an adult. Former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, the forgotten Yemen. There have been antiwar demonstrations, all kinds of warfare. And then: Ukraine. 2014. These are the looks of misunderstood mothers who demonstrated in via Marconi, outside the Rai, to denounce the forgotten war, the split of the Donbass: looks that make it difficult to penetrate, to convince us, to touch us. How many mothers are there in the wars we don’t see? We are today. The war in which we are participating in live streaming. Images of devastation and death, stumps of buildings, corpses of children, refugees at the border, Russian soldiers, rulers of this or that country, negotiating tables, journalists under bombs scroll on our screens. and finally the war here: in our hearts, in our minds, in our eyes.
My war, today like yesterday, a look from mom. The woman who until last week I didn’t even know was Ukrainian, who for years sweeps and washes the stairs where every day I walk around, who speaks little Italian and the mother of a child who doesn’t even know where her country is. For the first time in five years now his eyes are circled, he hasn’t slept tonight, he hasn’t slept for many nights: his gaze glued to the television until late, wants to understand how far the abomination will go, glued to the screen of his smartphone while keeping company with his mother who lives beyond the security curtain, her mother who has remained under the bombs of Mariupol, her mother who is unable to escape, her mother who organizes caravans of aid.
I gave her some money as a sign of solidarity and to buy some basic necessities to send there. The next day, with her eyes circled by insomnia, she returned to the stairs to be cleaned with a receipt and the details of the goods purchased: Diapers and baby food, she said in her broken Italian about her. It doesn’t matter, our eyes speak and understand each other. History always repeats itself. The war of her the look of a mother. the worried look of the umpteenth mother who has known war in the hunger of children and in her stories of her mother.
12 March 2022 | 09:06
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