Saturday Story - 'Always the Innocent'

Since WWII, in excess of 20 million people have died in wars and lesser conflicts. Today there are more than 15 million refugees in the world, all as a result of war. At any day, there are wars, in which people are killing other people – and often it’s usually the innocent who suffer.

Let us hope that the Ukraine doesn't become yet another statistic...

 

ALWAYS THE INNOCENT

 

Nik Morton

 

Sarajevo, ruins near the Vrbanja bridge - Wikipedia commons

 

May, 1993, Sarajevo

I had thought it would be cold in the chill wind of Sarajevo's Bogomil cemetery, but I didn't feel a thing. Standing quite alone amidst the pockmarked once-fine tombstones, I looked down at the fresh grave, bereft of flowers because not even weeds survived long here. A surprising mixture of emotions coursed through me: anger, hate, despair, and great sadness: all these manifestations of humanity racked me as I looked upon her name carved in the simple wooden cross. But most of all I experienced an abiding love, for what we had shared and been to each other.

When only eight, we had watched the 1984 Winter Olympics, enjoying the bequest to our school by a Bosnian philanthropist.

Marta was Bosnian; I'm Rihad, a Croatian Muslim. We played in the streets, oblivious of our country's tragic future. Boy and girl, in love, the same the world over.

We were book-lovers, and enjoyed reading to each other from the world's classics. Our favourites were Dickens, Cervantes, Hasek, Kumicic, Bozic, Virgil, Popa and Shakespeare.

We both liked history at school. Marta and I grew up with this sense of a new order emerging, throwing off the shackles of the doctrinaire past. Our future seemed so full of promise, so bright.

We had hoped that one day Sarajevo's name would no longer be linked with the start of the first world war - the assassination of the arch-duke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his consort: the place, Princip Bridge, is marked by the student assassin's footprints in the pavement; now, there are so many assassins around, it would be pointless to mark their footprints.

 
Our two families were close. Inevitably, we married - about a year before the fighting broke out - and honeymooned in the once-beautiful old walled city of Dubrovnik, a city founded thirteen hundred years ago by - irony of ironies! - refugees fleeing the destruction of their Greco-Roman city. Here, too, as early as the fourteenth century, an old people's home was built and slavery was abolished. An enlightened place, then, where we spent blissful days and nights.
 
Marta and I strolled Dubrovnik's old narrow steep streets, with their shadows, overhanging lanterns and flowers, and gazed at the seemingly immutable old Sveta Klara convent where Europe's first orphanage was founded in 1432.
 
We prayed in the small Renaissance chapel of Sveti Spas and visited the monastery's library of old manuscripts and pictures; here, we viewed a painting of the city before the great earthquake of 1667, not appreciating an equally devastating future awaiting us and this city. The statue of the city's patron saint, Sveti Blasius, held a model of the city in his hand - ‘until,’ Sanala, an evacuated friend said, ‘it was blown off...’
 
Sometimes we made love in the wheat-fields, breathing in the fragrance of oleander, camellias, orange trees and each other. At Dubrovnik we felt invincible in our love.
 
We had no idea how it all went so very very wrong. Greedy men in power grasping more land and power, perhaps. Whatever their reasons, they seem totally inadequate to explain the horrors inflicted.
 
With growing unease on our return to the village, Marta and I watched the newsreels until the fighting was too close.
 
Then, our families packed their most precious belongings and fled with so many others into Sarajevo.

For the first few weeks, the city could support us; but the flow of frightened refugees continued to fill the city's streets. Food became scarce, and the black market flourished.

 
Electricity interruptions were commonplace.
 
Then the siege began.
 
Street fighting started as various factions formed, even neighbour against neighbour, some groups composed of looters - sadly, there are always those who will profit from the misfortune of others.
 
Now, the city's survivors scrabble in the wreckage of a once-proud and beautiful city. Everything about this civil war is prefaced with once-, it seems. The people walk as if drugged, lacking sleep, sanitation and even hope.
 
We earnestly hoped the European Community would help us, that they would enforce a 'cessation of hostilities' - euphemistic jargon for 'stop the killing'.
 
Through the countless worthless cease-fires, we never gave up hope that one day we would be rescued. The humanitarian convoys bolstered our repeatedly dashed hopes. We could see the shame and frustration in the young UN soldiers' faces. They were simply feeding us until the inevitable end.
 
Marta and I had been foraging for wood and food - the rest of our family were too ill or too scared to venture out. Returning, we had pockets crammed with grass and an armful of books each.
 
Marta's red-rimmed eyes still managed tears, even after shedding so many, at the thought of burning books to survive: we had to sterilise the water retrieved from the drains. The Miljacka River was the only moving thing that could enter and leave Sarajevo with impunity; but tackling its muddy banks was often too dangerous.
 
When we turned the corner and saw the devastation of our friend's home, we were shaken. A mortar bomb had destroyed our families, huddled together, Moslem and Bosnian, in a friend's cellar.
 
I find it difficult to relive those awful moments of realisation, when those you love dear are gone, snatched from you before their time, by the will of some military man.
 
Of course the fact the perpetrators were Serbian is of less relevance than the fact that people of any kind could commit these acts. There are no victors in a war, this is a universal axiom, yet the people who direct their military men seem to ignore this truth. And the innocent suffer; it's always the innocent!
 
Later, in the ruins, we listened to the car radio hooked up to an old battery. Soldier of Happiness is the most popular song: ‘I don't like bullets, You can kill my summer but my spring will survive. If a bullet should shoot me, please don't cry.’
 
We cried over our lost friends and family. Alagic the sublime pianist died from shrapnel wounds, Sanala of the shining eyes and tender heart from gangrene; and Alan, Muhamed and Rosa were mortared as they tended wounded children. Good loving people with talents to share, to bring happiness into other lives, all gone.
 
Afterwards, we burned our books in the roofless kitchen, and heated water and grass. We shared the grass soup. We shared everything we could.
 
When we had finished, our stomachs still rumbled.
 
Marta looked wan, cupping the chipped mug in her thin hands, her dark hair straggly and her brown eyes lacking the old lustre. My heart ached, though I wondered what state I presented to her: no better, I felt sure.
 
We didn't speak much now. As one, we stood up. The meagre fire spat sparks - the cover of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man crinkled and curled in the embers, then it was gone, blackened beyond recognition, like our homeland.
 
Gripping our cherished copy of Shakespeare to my chest, I held Marta's hand and we strode over the rubble and across the street.
 
Often in the last few weeks we had spoken about the poor demented souls who had had enough, who decided to commit suicide by simply strolling outside in broad daylight, down streets once tree-lined and bustling with life, echoing with the sounds of leather- and copper-ware vendors, of sellers of filigree work and linen cloth sewn with fine gold and silver thread; streets vibrant with the songs of birds and the discord of vehicles.
 
The Begova Dzamija mosque is silent now, its forecourt's covered fountain is dry and no worshippers perform their ritual washing. Water is a luxury, to be hoarded.

Everywhere you look, there are buckets, guarded by old men and children, under drain-spouts, ready to catch any rain.
 
Instead of the city's usual sounds there is the staccato report of automatic weapons, the crump of mortar shells, and the crying and moaning of an abandoned people.
 
As we boldly walked the wide street of Obala Marsala Tita that runs alongside the municipal park now stripped of its bark and firewood, I quoted from the Serbian poet, Vasco Popa, his words resembling so many menacing signals of despair in a seemingly empty universe,
 
‘We danced the sun dance,
 
Around the lime in the midst of the heart.’
 
And Marta looked up and smiled, adding,
 
‘The miserable have no other medicine but only hope; I have hope to live.’
 
She was ever hopeful, ever cheerful, and I ached with love for her and dismissed the rest of the quotation from Measure for measure - ‘...and am prepared to die.’
 
At that blessed moment of togetherness we kissed amidst the rubble. The bullet-scored smoke-blackened buildings shimmered, transformed into waves of wheat, the debris-strewn cracked paving-slabs became warm earth under our feet, our bodies revelled in the heat of a glorious summer sun, and the fragrance of oleander was in the air: we were shot by a sniper. A single bullet - we even shared that - killed us both.
 
The picture of us lying in each other's embrace was sent round the world, courtesy of satellite technology. For a day and a night, we lay there, and my lonely ethereal self hovered watchful over us, waiting for someone to defy the snipers and retrieve our earthly vessels, to accord them some last ritual of remembrance and thanks for our all too brief lives.
 
Eventually, two brave UN soldiers dodged bullets to carry us into shelter. That evening, under cover of darkness, we were buried.
 
As I gaze down at Marta's cross, I smile. She must have been uncertain about her incorporeal state, for only now has she been able to take on her old form. The stresses and privations of the last year have washed away from her features: she rises from the mound of fresh soil smiling and beautiful.
 
I take her hands in mine and kiss her.
 
As one, floating a little above the cemetery, we turn and stare at the orange halo over our strife-torn city. We feel sad, not only for the dead and dying, the bereaved and injured; we feel sorrow for all the men - and some women - responsible for death and destruction throughout the world. Perhaps if they too had enjoyed love like ours they would not commit such heinous crimes. They cannot comprehend that whatever they do, they cannot vanquish love.
 
I hold Marta tenderly and feel tears.
 
We laugh, not appreciating until now that ghosts could cry.
 
There are many ghosts crying in this once-beautiful land.
 
And Marta remembers another quotation, from Virgil, ‘Love conquers all things: let us too give in to Love.’

***

Dedicated to Bosko Brckic, Admira Ismic, little Marza and all the other dead, wounded, maimed, and bereaved in former Yugoslavia – and indeed in all war-torn lands…

Wikipedia commons

This is the Suada and Olga bridge (previously Vrbanja bridge) of Sarajevo, named after Suada Dilberovic and Olga Sucic, the first victims shot a the beginning of the Siege of Sarajevo.

***

Obviously, this is a fictional treatment inspired by a real event. The real victims were left on the Vrbanja bridge for eight days for fear of snipers. They were reburied in 1996.

Previously published in The New Coastal Press, 2010, and in the now out-of-print collection, When the Flowers are in Bloom (2011).

Copyright Nik Morton, 2014.

 

My short story collection Spanish Eye,

featuring Leon Cazador, private eye in 22 cases is  published by Crooked Cat Publishing and can be obtained from

Amazon UK here

Amazon COM here

 

Windmills of our mind – ‘outrageous giants’

It’s probably not surprising that windmills figure in writing, both fiction and poetry over the years, since these structures were vital, hard-working machineries of joy in their time. Windmills were one of the first eco-friendly machines. Here on the Costa Blanca we see many derelict windmills; you'll see a tilt of windmills in La Mancha.

The most memorable reference in popular culture is doubtless the song ‘Windmills of your mind’, music by Michel Legrand, English lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman. This version was used as the theme for The Thomas Crown Affair, starring Steve McQueen, and it won an Oscar for Best Original Song; it was performed by Noel Harrison, who died last year, aged 79. A version by Sting featured in the 1999 remake of the film.

 

The Windmill Theatre, London was opened in 1932 and had the motto during WWII that ‘We never close’. It was built on the corner of Great Windmill Street just off Shaftesbury Avenue. An enjoyable film about the Windmill Theatre at this time – and the notorious nude tableaux – is Mrs Henderson Presents, starring Bob Hoskins and Judi Dench.

In literature, perhaps Cervantes’ inclusion of windmills in his masterpiece Don Quixote (1605 & 1615) is now iconic, where being quixotic means ‘tilting at windmills’:

As they were thus discoursing, they discovered some thirty or forty windmills are in that plain; and, soon as the knight spied them, ‘Fortune,’ cried he, ‘directs our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished: look yonder, friend Sancho, there are at least thirty outrageous giants, whom I intend to encounter; and, having deprived them of life, we will begin to enrich ourselves with their spoils: for they are lawful prize; and the extirpation of that cursed brood will be an acceptable service to Heaven.’

- Part One, Book I, Chapter VIII Don Quixote, translation by P.A. Motteux, 1700.

Quixote: Dore illustration, engraved by Pisan



In the same chapter and scene, Sancho Panza says, 'Did I not tell you they were windmills and that nobody could think otherwise, unless he had also windmills in his head?' - which gave birth to the phrase 'To have windmills in your head', that is to be full of fancies. 

Crime writer P.D. James featured a windmill in her Adam Dalgliesh thrillers. In Devices and Desires, Commander Dalgliesh has just published a new book of poems and takes a brief respite on the remote Larksoken headland on the Norfolk coast in a converted windmill left to him by his aunt. But he cannot escape murder, as a psychotic strangler of young women is at large in the area…

The 1974 film The Black Windmill starred Michael Caine and Janet Suzman. It was a spy thriller based on the Clive Egleton novel Seven Days to a Killing, involving Caine as Tarrant, a spy involved in an investigation of an international arms syndicate. Tarrant’s son is kidnapped and held to ransom… The film was made, in part, on location at Clayton Windmills, south of Burgess Hill, in West Sussex.

 

Molinology is the study of windmills and other kinetic energy devices, the term coined by a Portuguese industrial historian João Miguel dos Santos Simões in 1965. Molino is Spanish for a grinder or mill, and a molinero is a miller.

My short horror story features a windmill, too, and can be read here

In April, my wife Jennifer is planning to sing a solo of ‘The Windmill’, words by Longfellow, music by George Rathbone:

The Windmill

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Behold! a giant am I!
Aloft here in my tower,
With my granite jaws I devour
The maize, and the wheat, and the rye,
And grind them into flour.

I look down over the farms;
In the fields of grain I see
The harvest that is to be,
And I fling to the air my arms,
For I know it is all for me.

I hear the sound of flails
Far off, from the threshing-floors
In barns, with their open doors,
And the wind, the wind in my sails,
Louder and louder roars.

I stand here in my place,
With my foot on the rock below,
And whichever way it may blow,
I meet it face to face,
As a brave man meets his foe.

And while we wrestle and strive,
My master, the miller, stands
And feeds me with his hands;
For he knows who makes him thrive,
Who makes him lord of lands.

On Sundays I take my rest;
Church-going bells begin
Their low, melodious din;
I cross my arms on my breast,
And all is peace within.​

***

The modern version of the windmill, wind turbines, figure in my novel set in Tenerife,

Blood of the Dragon Trees published by Crooked Cat. An article on these and an excerpt can be read here

 

 

 

 

Blog guest - Jennifer Morton - I ode her this

From time to time, I’ll be featuring blog guests with the name Morton. This stemmed from my discovery of all those Mortons and Moretons on HMS Victory at the battle of Trafalgar (see the end of my post here )

First up, then, close to home, is Jennifer, my wife of forty years.  She sold the following to The Coastal Press here in Spain and it was published in the September 2005 edition. I’ve edited the first line of the introduction only, which referred to the 400^th anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote.

AN ODE TO DON QUIJOTE

Jennifer Morton

Don Quixote - Wiki-common 

It is 409 years since the publication of Part I of Don Quixote. Perhaps this offering may be of interest, particularly to those who have an understanding of some Spanish and haven’t read the book – 672 pages in Spanish, 765 pages in English. (Part II of Don Quixote didn’t appear until 1615). The following macaronic poem briefly tells the famous story.

Macaronic poetry was coined in the sixteenth century by the Italian poet Teofilo Folengo. He was referring to a kind of burlesque verse he invented in which Italian words were mixed in with Latin ones for comic effect. Macaronic as a word first appeared in English a century later and expanded its scope to refer to any form of verse in which two or more languages were mixed together.

There lived a man in days of yore, Quijote was his nombre,

He was a very gallant and inestimable hombre.

To while his time he read great tomes of noble knights andantes,

Of quarrels, battles, challenges ’gainst moros and gigantes.

He read by day and night until his reason was perdido;

But none could turn him from his quest for he was decidido

To roam the world and right all wrongs and seek for aventuras.

His friends, the barber and the priest, avowed this was locura.

“We'll burn his books!” They burned his books. It made no diferencia;

He'd rescue damsels in distress and hang the consecuencias!
 
He cleaned his armour till it shone, a helm, a shield, a lanza,
And took to squire a village-man, by name of Sancho Panza.
 
His nag, bare flesh and bones, but brave, he dubbed him Rocinante.
 “My trusty steed!” he cried, “With you, I’ll conquer mil gigantes!”
 
Now who could be the lady fair for knight so muy famoso,
But Dulcinea? A country lass who hailed from El Toboso.
 
And so, our bold, intrepid knight, Quijote, and his Sancho
Set out ere dawn one summer's day, ‘cross plains of broad La Mancha.
 
With giants he fought, though they were nought but sails of a molino.
A barber’s basin chanced he by, the Helmet of Mambrino.
 
More giants in dreams he fought with sword, which really made him angry;
But, waking, found he'd pierced some sacks of wine which flowed like sangre!

Why masters beat their serving boys, he could not comprender;

And wretches chained to slave in galleys rough, he'd defender.
 
Revenge, alas, was sweet but short, his efforts all en vano,
For those he freed abused him, stoned and scorned our good cristiano.
 
And knights come to the end of days, and one morn on the playa
The White Moon Knight approached him and did shout, “Your Dulcinea”
 
“Is not as fair as my lady!” Our Don, with face severo,
Could scarce believe the arrogance of this brash caballero!
 
The challenge he accepts. They charge; White Moon unseats our Don.
“My honour’s slain, so kill me now!” He bares his corazon!
 
“No, Sir Knight! I'm content with this! Dulcinea is muy hermosa!
But you must retire, give up your arms, go home, return to your casa!”
 
With sorrowful countenance, Don Quijote confessed he had been muy loco.
But now he was sane and smiled again; but knew that his time was poco.
 
He made his peace with Sancho, his niece, the curate, the barber, and then
He sighed one last sigh and en lágrimas died, and went to his Maker. Amén!
 
Vocabulario
Nombre – name
Hombre – man
Andantes – walking
Moros – moors
Gigantes – giants
Perdido – lost
Decidido – decided
Locura – madness
Lanza – lance
Muy famoso – very famous
Molino – windmill
Sangre – blood
Comprender – understand
Defender – defend
Cristiano – christian
Playa – beach
Severo – severe
Caballero – knight
Corazón – heart
Hermosa – beautiful
Casa – house
Muy loco – very mad
Poco – little, few
En lágrimas – in tears

Bio
Jennifer attended Bolton Girls' School and then Newcastle University, obtaining her degree in Spanish. She met Nik February, 1973 and they were married one year to the day after. Nik was in the Royal Navy and he was drafted to Malta, where they both stayed for 18 months, returning to UK for the birth of their daughter Hannah in 1976. Jennifer taught history, music, French and Spanish in schools then became a college lecturer in Spanish. She and Nik emigrated to Spain in 2003 where she soon took up singing in choirs and became the MD of the ladies' choir Cantabile in 2007. She has completed a novel, The Wells Are Dry, a romantic thriller set in contemporary Spain and is looking for a publisher or agent for that. When not preparing for choir performances, she writes poetry and short stories and has embarked on a historical novel set in 10th Century Spain.

Saturday story - 'All my life'

ALL MY LIFE

 by Nik Morton

‘Oh! My dear companion and friend,’ said Sancho to his ass,

‘how ill have I requited thy faithful services!’

- Don Quixote, Cervantes

Open-clipart, public domain

 

In the high sierras I lived in a small hamlet, the name of which is not important. All my life was wrapped up in my smallholding, the two sheep, a goat, a scrawny dog, and a donkey. My fifteen-year-old daughter Dulcinea attended to the domestic needs.

            As the master I wasn’t malicious, it was just the way of things. If my donkey didn’t do what I wanted when I wanted, then I thought nothing of whipping him. Give him a good hiding, show him who is master. Sometimes Dulcinea pleaded with me to spare him, but I simply reminded her she was not above being chastised also. Perhaps because he had a hard hide prompted such punishment, to test its hardness. Or maybe I was a bully, like Dulcinea said once; I chastised her for that comment.

Dulcinea came into the world when my wife left it; I did not blame the child, but it did mean that I was not destined to be blessed with a son, which was a bitter blow to bear. When my black moods fell upon me I had to take out my frustration over life’s unfairness on someone, so Dulcinea served. Indeed, on my last journey away from my home, I was in a dreadful mood and my countenance must have seemed woeful to anyone who saw me.

The last of our sacks of wine was finished and I was on my way over the mountains to the bodega in the town to get more. I wasn’t looking forward to the journey as it took a good five hours on the back of my reluctant beast of burden.

            Anxious to return home and taste the wine, I set out on the way at once. The damnable beast seemed reluctant to go, bowed by the weight of the four sacks and other provisions, but I persuaded him in the usual fashion. On our way back I added to the load by calling in at the mill and buying two sacks of flour. Dulcinea could bake me some bread.

            Just as I was about to leave, I’d been too busy chatting to Senor Mambrino, the miller, and the rotating windmill sails hit me on the head, knocking me to the ground. My pride seemed more hurt than my bruised skull and shoulder. To save face, I cursed and kicked the donkey then set out for home.

            Unfortunately – and typical for the mountains – the weather abruptly turned bad. Wind and rain battered us both, the donkey and me, but he struggled gamely under my considerable weight and that of all the sacks. We rode along a narrow rough path cut into the mountainside, sheer rock above and below. Mercifully, I couldn’t see too far up or down because of the driving rain.

            The sharp drop in temperature, combined with the after-effects from the blow to my head, thrust me into dark moments of oblivion, when I must have swayed precariously from one side to another upon the beast’s back. With a start, I’d shake myself conscious and each time I felt my head pounding and my heart hammering.

During one of these blackouts I must have fallen off my donkey and landed on the narrow ledge. The harsh contact with the ground brought me to my senses, but everything was hazy. The blurred mountain peaks appeared like threatening giants and the storm howled like wild beasts. All my life – my pitiful miserable uninteresting life – passed before my eyes. Ahead I made out the shape of my laden donkey, its rear facing me. I groaned, pleading for my donkey not to leave me behind, but I feared that my very words were whipped away before they could reach the animal’s ears.

            Wiping rain off my face and eyes, I saw my donkey lean against the rock wall and repeatedly push until the wine and flour sacks on that side burst. Then, moving dangerously close to the edge, he turned round and did the same again on the other side. He stood looking at me with his big black eyes, breathing heavily amidst a slush of bubbling pink, a mixture of flour and wine. I cursed him for spoiling everything. Slowly, he walked back towards me and gently stepped round me with only inches to spare. A few small stones tumbled away. He must have turned again because he came back and stood next to the rock face and, head bowed against the pummelling rain, he knelt down beside me.

            Dazed, angry, hurt, I suddenly realised he wanted me to climb onto his back.

Shivering and cold and half-delirious, I grabbed the shreds of sacking and hauled myself up onto the beast’s back.

            I don’t know how long it took to return to my home. My donkey knew the way and was exhausted and, braying loudly, he collapsed at the door.

Dulcinea rushed out, shock in her face. She hurried to help me as I lay sprawled in the mud and rain.

            I pushed away her solicitous hands and cried out, “Never mind me, see to the animal!”

            Over the next few days, Dulcinea and I took turns to nurse and tend to the sick donkey in the warmth and shelter of the barn but, sadly, he never fully recovered; in the early hours he passed away. Kneeling there with the dead beast’s large head on my lap, I gave a start and found my daughter standing over me, staring. She was looking at my eyes; they felt wet. I wiped the moisture away as it reminded me of that terrible rainy night.

Over the years I had shouted at my donkey, cursed him and hit him, inflicting pain, and he docilely accepted it, because I was his master. And yet he saved my life, my pitiful life. I reflected that all my life I had been hoarding money to no good end. All my days since my wife died I’d been annoyed with my life and everyone in it – even my blameless daughter. All my life.

            I remember asking Dulcinea to forgive me, and she did, with surprising grace. I knew that it would never be enough, but I paid for a statue to be erected in the town’s plaza. A statue of brave Jote, the donkey. Donkey Jote.

 

Previously published in 2008 in Siesta Time magazine. Copyright Nik Morton, 2013. Yes, it's a play on Don Quixote - Donkey ho-tay...

 

Short stories set in Spain -

22 cases from Leon Cazador, private eye, half-English, half-Spanish - Spanish Eye:

 

Spanish Eye (Crooked Cat Publishing)