At this time of the morning in Spain, it’s too early and too late here Ukraine, Hector Abad Faciolince, Colombian writer who was about to be assassinated last Tuesday evening in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, send a photo with wasap and the caption: “Crossing the border on foot. All good”.
In the photo you can see a quiet line of people waiting to enter through a door whose background is already known at that moment.
Although what the camera is projecting at that moment is the silent set of a fleeing crowd, surrounded by walls like civilian barbed wire, the echo of the news is heard in the distance, ruthless, self-forced to be a part of it. history of drowsiness
Héctor Abad is there with his partner. Sergio JaramilloHis citizen is returning to a bomb-free country, about to cross the border that will take him to the war-free zone, because until a while ago, even now, they were crossing the friend. Catalina Gomez AngelUkrainian journalist, writer victoria amelinaEven the air carries the news of death at the moment when the most serious danger to their lives is heard.
It’s a certain group of people out there who are in that row of shapeless marchers looking for the frontier. They are nameless people: they are running away. Those who are sad, like those who fled the Spanish Civil War or went to concentration camps, who knew that the rifles were there to kill them, not because they were there, those who left Ukraine, like Héctor, like his friends, have already heard the roar of death and smoke and death And here they are, photographed by the first light of day, and now it’s part of this wasap, which is friendly news to them. At dawn they asked the Spaniards: “Hector, how are you?”
In response, “Crossing the border on foot. All is well”, there are centuries of history of others, passing through similar places, barbed wire, searching for a place where the word shelter seeks at least a specific place where instant memory, fear, noise are alleviated. the brutal blow that explained the full extent of the stupor a few hours ago. Speaking of something else, this author, presenting this two-line post from life itself now, in his book describing the heart of a friend of a Colombian priest, says something similar from the title: “Everything is fine except my heart.” Fernando Arrabal said that the future moves with blows. And there is the past that covers this image of the future with danger and blood, the people fleeing the war in the aerial image that has just passed, to settle in a distant home where news of Héctor and his friends are awaited. They are at the border, going “everything is fine”.
Appeared in photos of the day before yesterday Héctor and his friend Sergio are tainted by the scourge and consequences of war. In the case of a former Colombian peace commissioner like Hector, accustomed to the word war and news of brutal shrapnel, he was seen hanging from a leg struck by the falling shrapnel. the crust is on the restaurant they just sat in. In this case, there was a pain on Sergio’s face that was as strong as a battle wound. Héctor appeared across the board as he stared at the camera, with the ‘Hold Ukraine’ badge attached to his jacket and all his clothes sewn with black spots like blood. But what his eyes condemned was not blood, but the trace of all the splinters that had participated in the disaster. I’ve never seen Héctor Abad Faciolince show that stupefaction on his face, as if he’s seeing the darkest past of his life again..
He, Victoria Amelina and Sergio were laughing at anecdotes that were usually at the end of the afternoon, no real beer, you should drink non-alcoholic, at the end we sit, they laugh and at the top This laughter blew the bomb and at the same time it was part of one of those smudges that merged with Héctor Abad Faciolince’s face. exploded the proof of the future. If you stop looking at your heavily stained clothes or your wife’s aching feet and look into her eyes, into the eyes of the writer looking at the camera, you can see her full size, incredible, full size there. numbness.
It is impossible not to fall into a dream at the end of that look, like a verse written by someone fleeing from death. What happened in the life of this man, who was then a child, his own father, Dr. He saw Héctor Gómez, bloody, dead in the street.. On August 27, 1987, in Medellín, Colombia, he was in the middle of that huge collection of stunners as well as murders. on its own, such a poetic book of the same name is now a living part of the stupor of another war where he went with the others to proclaim ‘Hold Ukraine’.
weeks ago, Madrid Book Fairhe wrote about the living conditions of others and laughed at the events that took place in the bookstore booth. without platform Where was he signing? Already dressed for lunch, that boy in August 1987 was this man from 2023, counting down the hours or days left to move to Ukraine in search of what he had always been before adolescence, that noise that broke human passion. .author: tell about life, reject death.
He took notes, took notes of everything he heard; with his lowercase pen, his very near-sighted glasses, his heart repaired some time ago, maybe with the same guayabera he went to Ukraine, he was going to go to the epicenter of the disaster and found himself, now on the radio in Colombia, on the radio in Spain, on la Ser Carles Francino That’s what he said while talking to her wherever they looked for him.
Coincidence and death, together, as they work their meticulously against people’s lives, The horrific brutality of the Russian army, which collapsed to the peaceful laughter of those who proclaimed life to death in Ukraine. “We sat, there was no beer, we laughed, the bomb was designed to do harm.”
Everything happened in slow motion and he suddenly realized after the noise. Victoria, her friend, upright, in her chair, clean, unresponsive… Then there would be some very serious news.and in Héctor’s memory, what remains of that face seen in the photographs, what he called “horror and horror.”
This morning, in the long queue for the escape, he wrote this telegram to a Spanish friend, which he attached to that line of hope and drama, as if, once again, he was naming that book about the hearts of others with his own heart. to those who managed to get out: “Cross the border on foot. All good”. Stupor’s syntax is finger falling on the keyboard to ease the restlessness of those who are so far from that line of escape, walking beyond fear and death.