I couldn’t help it: “She is a slave again?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way.”
But that’s exactly what she was doing, just like in America. Their life had not changed at all, despite the freedom.
“I’m telling you this just because… I don’t know if they can afford a dog. You have to ask her, if you can give it to him, you can’t decide on your own.”
I was looking for trouble, but I still wanted to go all the way.
Abraham and his mother lived in the church, or rather in a closet next to the rectory. It was a tiny room with a single window that didn’t make much light, and there were almost no furniture, just two mattresses thrown to the ground.
I felt like an idiot to ask that question. There was no place to hold an animal in that hole.
Mom came to my aid. “Children would love to celebrate Abraham’s birthday. Guglielmo wants to give him a present.”
I forced myself to talk. “A puppy.”
She was worn-out, that woman, and sad. But that day she smiled. “It seems to me like a good idea.”
It wasn’t. But I would have understood it only long time after.
When I went with mom to Mr Ferri, there were only two puppies left. He had already given them a name: Blackie was a male, all black, lively and intrusive. He put him in my arms, proud of his champion. Then there was Cindy, the last born. She was much smaller and shy, and above all she was completely white.
When I pointed to Cindy, even Mum made a grimace. “Do you think this is the case? Perhaps Abraham would prefer the other.”
I was sure. Just because Abraham had black skin, it didn’t have to have his dog of the same color. I was sure he would have loved Cindy.
Mr. Ferri also disagree with me, but that day I pointed my feet on the ground, perhaps for the very first time in my life, and when we left that house Cindy was sleeping on my knees.
It was a great party and Abraham enjoyed it. He fell in love with Cindy at first glance and she loved him back. Mrs. Lincoln smiled often that night. There were also mom and reverend, and a couple of church ladies. No other child was present, although I had invited many of them.
It was the last day of true happiness, or perhaps the only one.
That a color could transform that way our existences seemed impossible, but the fate of millions of people has been laid down by a color.
Problems started slowly, and at the beginning I didn’t realize it.
As soon as Cindy was big enough to be carried around, it became our shadow.
Abraham loved her, washed her continually, Cindy was as white as the snow, she didn’t have one hair that was not immaculate. And she was beautiful, the most beautiful dog we had ever seen. And most of all, he loved Abraham and blindly obeyed any order he gave her.
At first it was few walks, and it was me to hold the leash while Abraham pushed the wheelchair. She was spending time with us in the long afternoons by the lake. We played together.
At that time, there was always someone who stopped making compliments, but only because they were under the impression that the dog was mine.
Then the voice spread and the compliments stopped.
The day came that we took her to school with us. Cindy couldn’t get in, it was obvious, but Abraham had already trained her well. We tied her to a tree in the yard, and she was good enough to wait for us all morning. She never barked.
We seized every opportunity to look at her from the window, Abraham at least did, I had some problem moving. Then we went home all together.
In the early days, Cindy was very popular among our friends. It attracted them, it couldn’t be otherwise, but the news soon ended. They didn’t want them to come close to Cindy: the parents of our friends, but even the teacher.
The reaction continued, inexorable.
Eventually we got it.
Cindy wasn’t liked. Nobody liked Cindy anymore. Nobody liked the idea that a black kid owned such a white dog.
If no one interfered, it was only because my presence. In fact, to be precise, it was only because of my wheelchair, because me and Abraham were always together, and they all saw how much I needed him. So, as good Christians, they tolerated him.
But Cindy’s presence was getting more and more difficult to tolerate.
Even Mr. Ferri would not expect Cindy to become as such. Now she was even overshadowing his Blackie champion. There was nobility in that dog, there was elegance, as she was even better then a pure breed.
This worsened everything.
I realized it, even though I didn’t fully understand the magnitude of that problem. But I was trying to solve it.
More and more often I was leading Cindy, and if Abraham was taken by enthusiasm and started playing with her in public, I immediately found him something to do to make him stop.
One day, by the lake, Abraham faced me.
I would never have expected that he would find the courage to face me.
“Do you want my dog?”
Oh yes, I would have wanted her. I had chosen this dog for him, but it was my secret wish, what Mom would have never realized. But we both knew that wasn’t the reason why I behaved like that
“Don’t say nonsense!”
“With you it would be better.”
Did he want to give me Cindy? I knew how much he loved her, his behavior was silly. Was he jealous because I was always holding the leash? But he had to push the wheelchair!
The truth was another, and we both knew it, but I didn’t want to deal with the problem and I was wrong. Nor did he find the courage to face me all the way.
I returned the leash. “Keep it, I can’t do it. She pulls too much.”
He remained uncertain for one moment. “Sorry.”
The accident was closed and I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore. From that day only Abraham was dealing with Cindy.
The time came when the coldness around us could no longer be ignored.
Mom explained to me that there had been disorder, and it was said that they were caused by the refugees. She also told me that she didn’t believe that it was the pro-Americans party to foment them, just for the sake of completeness. She said it was a very bad situation, that there were too many refugees and they couldn’t find a job; and that some political parties were using them to increase intolerance.
She said that certain problems had reached us, in that remote village.
I didn’t understand. Abraham was only a child, what fault could he have?
Mom didn’t have an answer. Indeed, it was likely that she regretted to put me in that situation.
“You should go back to your friends”, she concluded, without looking at me. “Don’t always stay with Abraham. Now he has learned our language, he can continue on his own.”
I no longer had friends. I even asked myself if I ever had them. If a notebook fell, nobody bent over to pick it up. No one pushed my wheelchair unless Abraham was doing it.
Even because of Cindy we had few problems.
Every time we brought her to school, leaving her in the garden, at the end of the lessons we found her all dirty, as if she had broken into the mud. But there was no mud around there.
Then it went worse. One day we found her dirty, painted with black paint, and it took many days to get her back to her original color.
In the end, Abraham had to leave her at home, locked in the closet, but she didn’t like it, and even the priest complained about her barks.
Abraham and I often talked about the past and the future. He was curious, he was craving for knowledge, but at the same time he was always a slave, and would have never dare to impose himself. Even the teacher became harder with him, often ignoring his questions and being very tough with every mistake he made.
The state of grace that Abraham and his mother had enjoyed at the beginning had gradually disappeared.
One day, I accidentally heard a conversation between the mothers of two of my schoolmates, which was a good synthesis of ou
r situation.
“We’ve also greeted them with open arms, those ungrateful people, and that’s how they paying us back? They deserve to be sent back to where they came from.”
I didn’t understand who they were talking about, whether Abraham or the refugees in general, but it didn’t make much difference. Tempers flared, without any reason. Abraham had not hurt anyone, he had always been remorseful, and his mother was still more than him. It seemed impossible to me that everything happened because of a dog.
“Next week there will be elections”, my mother said one night. “This time they will win.”
“The Pro-American?”
“Call them as you want, nationalists, pro-Americans, intolerant. Their policy is one, Italy to the Italians.”
I was afraid to ask. “Will they send them away? Back in America?”
“I don’t think they can. That would be against the whole world.” Then she grimaced. “What am I saying? See what’s happening in Germany, it’s even worse there!”
She bowed her head. “I don’t know what will happen, but it will be bad. Stop going to Abraham, please. You are not strong enough, you can’t do it.”
I wasn’t self-sufficient, that was the problem. A B class citizen to be tolerated, just to show the world how good Christians behaved. How they had tolerated escaping slaves until they were too many and they had not become a problem.
They even murmured that the Americans would let them escape on purpose, to drag Europe into chaos. Governments fell and those who replaced them were more and more nationalists.
Of course, I didn’t think that way, but at a more basic level I understood the problem as well.
“You have to leave”, I said to Abraham one day, sitting on the ground watching the pond. “You and your mother need to find a safer place.”
Abraham had changed a lot in those last months, and I was the creator of that change.
“Do you think there is such a place?”
I didn’t know, but I was really scared.
“Mom lost her job”, added Abraham. “They say there is a recession and they can no longer afford a maid.”
I swallowed. “Who says that?”
“All the ladies she worked for.”
“How are you going to live then?”
“Mom has managed to put something aside in these months. We carry on. The Church also helps us.”
“What…” It was difficult to ask some questions. “What about you if they send you back?”
Abraham’s gaze was impassive as he watched the water. “Nothing, I guess. It will be like here.”
It was not true, Cindy was here, and he could never keep her there.
I was here too, though I still couldn’t figure out what relationship tied us. Were we friends, or was I just a burden that he had to take care of? The wheelchair to be pushed, the backpack to carry, the desk to be re-ordered? What I gave him was just a payment for his services?
I was with him for courage, for loyalty, for true friendship, or just because I needed him, because without him I would be miserable, a useless invalid?
Those thoughts were insinuating, I couldn’t get rid of it. But I kept staying by his side. We were all one thing, myself, Abraham and Cindy.
Cindy was killed the day before the election.
As it happened and who did it we never found out. The only thing that was certain was that Abraham had left her in the canonical room, like every day, and when we got back from school we found her in the garden hanging from a tree. She was hanged.
I doubted it had happened there, we would have heard it, even with the windows closed. It was more likely that she’s been killed somewhere else and then they carried the body there to teach us a lesson.
I wasn’t expecting that reaction from the kids, no one was making fun of us and a couple even burst into tears, because despite everything Cindy was liked by them too.
The teacher did not interfere, but she got angry and went back to school to make a phone call.
I couldn’t get my eyes off Abraham’s impassive face, I felt guiltier than all the others, because I was the one to give her to him.
Cindy was painted entirely black, to the point that we did not even recognize her at first.
Abraham didn’t cry, he didn’t even try to cut the rope. He did not even touch her. He just left.
He forgot about me. Even today I don’t know if it was his choice, or he was so upset that he had erased me from his thoughts. However, it didn’t matter much. In the immense pain he tried to hide, Abraham was alone, he had completely cut me off his whole life.
I could have called him, but I didn’t. Maybe because I was terrified by the idea that it was not a lapse and that it would not come back anyway.
I stayed there, alone. And even when the other children were taken away, I kept looking at that dog hanging until my mom came to pick me up.
Because I was useless, I could not do anything.
I thought a lot about it that day. I wondered if it could have been avoided. If I didn’t do all wrong, if Cindy wasn’t dead for my fault.
Did Abraham know that this would have happen? That’s why he tried to give her to me?
And did I know that? If I didn’t know, then why did I try to make everyone believe that Cindy was mine?
We fooled ourselves, were we idealistic about it? Who paid for that, who was suffering more now?
Even mom was feeling sad. She had put me in that situation, she felt guilty. But it was not only that, she was fighting a serious conflict, which saw her faith, her ideals against the reality.
And the ideals were crumbling, now that I’ve been hit too, because her son’s security came before everything else.
“I have to see Abraham”, I said.
No way she would allow me to go, for no reason in the world.
“I have to see Abraham”, I repeated, like a broken disc.
Abraham had not come back home. Even her mother was worried, she knew what had happened to Cindy.
We went to look for him, all together.
We found him in the park, our park.
Mom pushed my wheelchair, and there was Mrs. Lincoln with us.
Abraham was by the lake, as always, and was down like the first day I met him. Down as before Cindy entered our life.
I asked my mom to leave me alone, and I asked her, too, to Mrs. Lincoln. The ground was rugged, full of stones, sloping, for me it was a danger. I had never driven the wheelchair in the park.
Mom was uncomfortable next to Mrs. Lincoln. Her who had always helped her. Yet at that moment her only desire was to run away, never having known either that woman or her son.
She agreed, and I went alone.
“Hello”, I said, stopping the wheelchair on the shore. Abraham didn’t make a move to help me.
At that time, I would have wanted to be his friend, but I knew it would never happen.
I spoke without breathing because I was afraid I couldn’t finish.
“Do not give up”, I said. “Never give up. They are wrong and you are right. It’s good that you want to be free. It’s wrong that slavery still exist. It should no longer be anywhere in the world. You have to fight. You must win.”
Even he was amazed and turned to look at me.
“You have to fight. You all have to fight. You must prevent that they send you back, putting the chains back on you. You must oppose. Don’t accept charity, pretend! They owe it to you! Everybody need to be blamed if slavery still exist, not just Americans! Don’t trust those who accept you, that’s not enough! You have to be equal to them and that’s it! There is no middle ground, there is no compromise!”
My heart was pounding. I needed to cry for Cindy. To weep with him. But it would never have happened.
I tried to turn the wheelchair to go away, and Abraham instinctively got up and came to my help.
“Don’t do it!” I yelled. “Don’t you ever do that again!”
It was very difficult to go back uphill on
that ground, on my own, but I made it. Mom was waiting for me. They split up there, she and Mrs. Lincoln, without even a word, and the woman went to her son.
We never saw them again, Abraham and Mrs. Lincoln.
That same evening, before they knew the results of the elections, they left in great secrecy, directed to Switzerland. The reverend organized everything, finding a good woman willing to host them.
I knew it would happen, but I suffered too much.
I knew that our meeting at the lakeshore would have been a farewell, yet me and Abraham didn’t even say goodbye.
I was alone now, as I had never been before, without anyone who would help me ever again.
Yet I had to carry on anyway, I had to make it.
Forty years have passed since then, me and Abraham have never met again, maybe he doesn’t even remember me. Perhaps he forgot Cindy as well.
He is on television now, and his speech is on. He is talking to the United Nations, but it’s difficult to understand his words. The bar is full of people and they are all whistling. There are also those who give him insults. At the end of the day is normal, it’s full of pro-Americans in here.
So many things have changed, but everything has remained the same. There was a war, governments alternated, yet at the end of the day everything is identical to back then. As always happens in human history, the ones in power today are the same people who in power forty years ago, and the people are happy about it.
I just don’t care, I stopped thinking about it long time ago, one evening at the lake.
I did nothing in my life. I have an office job, offered by the community, tailor made for a disabled. An empty house now that my mother left me. My life is useless, and continuing to survive is difficult and painful.
Now I have to ask, if I drop a pen to the ground, I always find someone who collects it. But he complaints and he’s often rude. “Be careful, next time.”
The wheelchair is fortunately powered, and this is an advantage. You can make it yourself.
The Prison Page 46
