At the Canadian border, I started talking to an Iraqi who would be our guide that day as we entered the wilderness of the United States. I was surprised that the company we hired assigned us a cicerone who was clearly not fluent in English. In any case, he was lucky: not only in terms of his professionalism, but also in terms of his biography. How and why did he come to the United States? The answer was almost obvious: his cooperation with the American military during the years of the occupation of Iraq (he explained to us as a translator and, who knows, also as a spy) made him an ideal candidate to be eliminated by the United States. rebellion, once for Washington to leave the country. I thought that he must be a Christian or a Jew – not for nothing did Baghdad rank among the historical cities of Judaism until the 20th century – or belonged to some other religious minority in the region; But he was wrong: he was a Muslim, although he had theosophical components appropriate to a universal religion. He was a curious man who kept many secrets, but also suffered despite the almost constant smile that lit up his face. I realized that the North American visa – or perhaps it was a passport – was a reward for services rendered, in short, an act of loyalty. The beautiful edition of history was written by these men.
I was traveling with my family and an American friend. Our guide grew up in Afghanistan, where his father served as a spy (the first generation of the CIA) on the border of the USSR, until the Pravda newspaper published his name and he was forced to flee. Secrets accumulate in families, and often even children cannot reveal all the keys that the past holds. Javier Marias He fictionalized some of these mysteries in a surprising way in his latest works: Berta Isla and Tomás Nevison. Silence heals some wounds; This too becomes incurable, although it leaves others open. Natalia Ginzburg He considered some types of silence to be mortal sins. However, literature, and therefore humanity, is full of these sins.
There is a characteristic melancholy of a man who has seen too much: That’s what I thought when I came to the hotel back then and my children were swimming in the pool. I was out for a walk and met a singer from the 80s who was walking the streets of that town, maybe looking for someone to talk to. When told he was Spanish, he was humming a Panchos song. The world is truly a wonderful place, I thought; Here, lost on the border, I wander among former spies and singers. I wondered if he was joking with me, but I was later able to confirm that he wasn’t and that he was a comedian in New York comedy clubs before being forgotten. A girl was playing the piano in the park, other young people were playing chess or table tennis. Squirrels were running in the gardens and wandering among the children. I photographed an Amish family looking across the border. They were walking alone, unaware of the world, guided only by their eyes. What happened to them? What were they looking for? That night, we had dinner at a hotel management school where we were the only customers. The waiter who served us wanted to leave that town and live in the city. Reality is also a mental state. Thoughts and ideas are hidden beneath appearances.