Al-Alim

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Al-Alim العليم

 

It wasn’t me! The cat was near that small guitar when I left the room and the next thing I hear is a big bang. I was in the bathroom, and I went back to see what happened. The cat run away to the balcony and there was your guitar, on the floor, broken in two.I am sorry!  I’m so sorry! That’s what the teenage girl said when he came back from a ride in the Colombian city.

 

It wasn’t a guitar. And it wasn’t the cat. The cavaquinho is useless now. It fell or perhaps it was a change on temperature or humidity in this weird weather. A long crack on the soundboard and the neck removed from the body. It is a sad view. That cavaco was traveling with him during months. It was the perfect instrument to carry in a bicycle. Small, light, flexible. He could play all type of melodies and he could also accompany local musicians. Everybody liked its percussion-type quality when strummed it. But it is done now.

 

I will pray for you. And you, the girl says looking at him, you should put yourself in God’s hands. God hands? He’s furious. What do you mean? Does He have hands? What for? He needs nothing, right? He doesn’t need any hands either. I mean, she insists, you should just control yourself and ask God for a new guitar. It’s not a guitar, whatever.

 

He left the apartment rather upset and went down for a coffee or something. He sat on a bench in the nearby park. I’m fed up of this place. Fed up of this host family. They are nice people though. So kind, so generous. They have been hosting me for a week now. Difficult to put a label on them. They laugh, they pray, they speak about God’s will. So religious. With all their Jewish rules and rituals. They remind me of another period in my life, so long ago. A young student at a Catholic off-campus residence in Buenos Aires. Winter.

 

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June 1974. A rainy day in the incredibly humid winter of Buenos Aires. Water pouring from balconies, flooded streets, treacherous sidewalks. Cold and windy. The city succumbs to the chaos of traffic and blocked streets. The political climate gets along with the dreadful weather. A deranged government can’t manage feuds between uncontrolled extremist groups. Fear is is out there every day in the streets, parks and public places. Photos of murdered people are so frequent on the newspapers that attract no attention anymore. Guerrillas attack army units, police detachments, government security forces. And they fight with other guerrilla groups. Kidnapping is a commodity. Politicians, businessmen, labour union leaders move from one place to another protected by private armies of heavy-armed guards. Eventually, when adversaries meet, there are battles in daylight with plenty of blood spelt on the streets. Bombs explode in offices, police stations, private houses, cars, parks. On top of all this, the Argentinean national football team was beaten by Poland, a rather depressing piece of news to add to the general situation.

 

But there is a group of people who are smiling. They gather at beautiful houses in well-to-do neighbourhoods. Strictly separated in men and women, they laugh, they make plans, they organize. Their “Father” Josemaría Escrivá is arriving for a visit to the agitated country. Preparations are made for various gatherings: members, non-members, married people, unmarried men and women, domestic aid workers, priests. There is a weird excitement in the air, good humour, even jokes, so out of place within the context of the aggressive political violence.

 

The Father is a Spanish-born saintly man. He lives in Rome, near the Vatican and close to the life of cardinals and bishops and papal regiments of priests, nuns and officials. He knows how to deal with big audiences. One of the “tertulias”, a large meeting by invitation only, is in the Coliseo Theatre, with capacity for two thousand seated persons.

 

You follow Guillermo, Daniel, José and other friends who are already Opus Dei members. It feels good hanging with them. They say “let’s go home” referring to the Opus Dei centre where they live.  It’s like family. They are respectful, educated, clean, well-dressed. They laugh and they can be serious as well. We all get into the big theatre hall. The Father appears on the stage with other priests and important members. Among them there are a few armed guards in plain clothes.

 

We pray, everybody seats. He speaks clearly with a heavy Spanish brogue and has a nice smile. He thanks Argentina for the reception. First question, a fat banker (he later finished in prison in Mexico). Then comes a lady saying that she hated him when two of her sons joined Opus Dei, but later she understood and now she is also a member. The Father says something about Opus as a family. Other questions. A man speaks against gynecologists who recommend abortion, a horrendous offence according to the Father. Somebody else makes a reference about the political situation. “Communism is a sin” he replies. Everybody applauds. “I’m not speaking about politics”. But this means supporting the right-wing at the government and the bankers and the elites, including the army and the security forces. More questions.

 

Suddenly, out of the blue, he is bursting out: Maldita sea Medellín!, damn Medellín. This is met with a heavy silence from the audience. Nobody dears to move. But many of us know someone supporting the “option for the poor”, like that father Mugica, the third-world priest who lived in the slums of Buenos Aires and was murdered a few weeks earlier in cold blood. Indeed, the Father is referring to the group of bishops in Latin America who met in Medellín in 1968 and laid the foundations of left-leaning liberation theology, the option for the poor supported by this progressive sector of the Catholic church. I will not forget those words, and the hatred with which they were uttered: Maldita sea Medellín. I was shocked, and I felt certain confusion between the spiritual good vibes of Opus Dei and the strong opposition to the new winds in the church.

 

I went back home. I told my mother and she also felt puzzled. She was born in Medellín and she was a practising Catholic with traditional values. We tried to understand but it was not easy. We remained some time seating there in the lounge. In silence. Maldita sea Medellín!

 

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So many years later. He’s now a seasoned researcher in history. He corresponds via email with Pablo, an Opus Dei member and a historian for the group. He mentions some common friends and you tell him about the story of Medellín comment. He says he isn’t aware and he promises to check with the documents. Some days later he writes back. He went to read the transcript of the audio recording and it wasn’t there. He added that it wasn’t as well in the movie nor the original recording tapes. They chat online.

-        It must be somewhere. I heard it.

-        I checked with the video of the meeting, with the transcription of the audio, with the audio itself. And nothing.

-        But I was there! I heard it. And when I went back home I told my mother. We were shocked because she was from Medellín.

-        I’m sorry, there is nothing there.

-        Listen, I remember he also spoke about women wearing trousers. Porque hay algunas que tienen cada globo terráqueo en pantalones de hombre, or something like that. Is that in the documents?

-        Didn’t see that either.

-        And what about the bodyguards? There were bodyguards hired to protect him during the visit. I recall a blond one with the looks of an executioner behind the Father.

-        What bodyguards?

-        There were guards behind him when he was speaking. Los custodios. They were with him all the time. And they had guns.

-        Sorry, no bodyguards there.  

 

 

Did they edited out? You ask people. Many of them are angry. They have been enthusiastic members and supporters of Opus Dei. Now they feel betrayed for some reason or another. There are websites against Opus Dei. You ask them about re-writing of history but there are just a few general replies.

 

He did say Maldita sea Medellín… You know that. You were there. You listened to it. You commented later with your mother. You also feel betrayed.

 

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Patroness of cyclists, Magreglio, near Lake Como.

A cheap hostel in Macedonia’s Ohrid lake after an exhausting cycling day. You watch in your phone a documentary about Charlemagne’s clepsydra. A water clock sent by Harun Ar-Rashid, the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad in the early ninth century, as a diplomatic gift to the Frankish emperor. Every hour, one of twelve small doors opens and releases little spheres. The balls fall into a brass drum sounding the hour like a modern bell tower. At the twelfth hour a mounted horseman appears and closes the doors. This technical wonder was received with suspicion at the royal court. It was considered as a mysterious conspiracy by the King of the Saracens. It was said it a work of the devil and consequently discarded.

 

You switch to a news show with the president of the United States addressing his followers. He threatens the Chinese, the Arabs, the immigrants from Latin America and other regions. They are criminals, rapers, murderers. They live, he says, in those dirty places like shitholes, and that’s what they want for our cities.

 

Another video, now speaking about the supposedly fake process of canonization of Escrivá de Balaguer. The unusually expedite way of the process. The critical voices that were silenced. Documents and witnesses that not included in the cause. History re-written. You don’t want to know. You think on tomorrow’s journey. The high mountain pass you have to reach to cross the border and visit a new region. Another language, religion, politics. The heroes honoured with monumental sculptures. Sometimes they fall, their heads cut, their names desecrated. So many things can change in such a short time. You also try to re-write your history, sometimes. Stories, pictures. Your heart.