Children of the Days Read online

CONSECRATION OF THE TOP SCORER

  In 1949 Giampiero Boniperti was the top scorer of the Italian championship and its brightest star.

  According to what people say, he was born backwards, kicking-foot first, and he began his voyage to soccer glory in the crib.

  The club Juventus paid him a cow for every goal.

  Altri tempi.

  July 13

  THE GOAL OF THE CENTURY

  On this day in the year 2002, organized soccer’s top brass announced the result of their global online poll, “Pick the goal of the century.”

  By a landslide, the winner was Diego Maradona’s in the 1986 World Cup, when he danced with the ball glued to his foot and left six Englishmen foundering in his wake.

  That was the last image of the world for Manuel Alba Olivares.

  He was eleven and at that magical moment his eyes tuned out forever. He kept the goal intact in his memory and he recounts it better than the best commentators.

  Ever since, to see soccer and other things not quite so important, Manuel borrows the eyes of his friends.

  Thanks to them, this blind Colombian founded the soccer club he leads, became and remains the coach of the team, comments on the matches on his radio program, sings to entertain the audience and, in his free time, he works as a lawyer.

  July 14

  THE LOSERS’ TRUNK

  Helena Villagra dreamed of an immense trunk.

  She opened it with a very old key and out of the trunk spilled failed shots on goal, missed penalties, defeated teams. And the failed shots entered the net, the ball gone awry corrected its flight and the losers celebrated their victory. As long as the ball and the dream kept flying, that backwards match would never end.

  July 15

  AN EXORCISM

  On this night in 1950, the eve of the World Cup final, Moacir Barbosa slept in the arms of the angels.

  He was the most beloved man in all Brazil.

  But the following day the finest goalkeeper in the world became a traitor to his country: Barbosa failed to block the Uruguayan goal that snatched the trophy from Brazil’s grasp.

  Thirteen years later, when Maracanã stadium put in new goalposts, Barbosa took the two posts and the crossbar that had humiliated him. He chopped them up with an ax and burned the pieces until they were nothing but ashes.

  The exorcism did not save him from damnation.

  July 16

  MY DEAR ENEMY

  White was Brazil’s jersey. But once the 1950 World Cup showed white to be unlucky, it was never white again.

  The final match was over, Uruguay was world champion and the fans would not leave. Two hundred thousand Brazilians had turned to stone in Maracanã stadium.

  On the field a number of players still wandered about.

  The two best crossed paths, Obdulio and Zizinho.

  They crossed paths. They eyed each other.

  They were very different. Obdulio, the victor, was made of steel. Zizinho, the vanquished, was made of music. But they were also very much alike: both had played nearly the entire championship injured, an inflamed ankle in one case, a swollen knee in the other, and not a complaint was heard from either.

  Now, at the end of the match, they didn’t know if they should give each other a slug or a hug.

  Years later, I asked Obdulio, “Do you ever see Zizinho?”

  “Sure. Once in a while,” he said. “We close our eyes and we see each other.”

  July 17

  INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE DAY

  The Queen said:

  “There’s the King’s Messenger. He is in prison now and being punished and the trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday: and of course, the crime comes last of all.”

  “Suppose he never commits the crime?” said Alice.

  —From Alice Through the Looking-Glass,

  sequel to Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, 1872

  July 18

  HISTORY IS A ROLL OF THE DICE

  One hundred and twenty years it took to build the temple to the goddess Artemis in Ephesus, one of the wonders of the world.

  In a single night in the year 356 BC it was reduced to ashes.

  No one knows who built the temple. The name of its assassin, however, still resounds. Herostratus, the arsonist, wanted to go down in history. And he did.

  July 19

  THE FIRST TOURIST ON RIO’S BEACHES

  Portuguese Prince-Regent João, son of Queen Maria, visited the beach at the port of Rio de Janeiro on his doctor’s advice in 1810.

  The monarch jumped into the water with his shoes on, wearing a barrel. He was terrified of crabs and waves.

  His audacious example did not catch on. The beaches of Rio were noxious garbage dumps, where at night slaves deposited the waste of their masters.

  By the time the twentieth century rolled around, the waters offered a much better swim, but take note: ladies and gentlemen were kept well apart, as the rules of modesty required.

  One had to dress up to go to the beach. On shores that today are a geography of nudity, the he’s went in covered to below the knees, and the pallid she’s swaddled head to foot for fear the sun would turn them into mulattas.

  July 20

  THE INTERLOPER

  In 1950 a photograph published in Life magazine caused a stir in New York’s artistic circles.

  The top painters of the city’s avant-garde appeared together for the first time: Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and eleven other masters of abstract expressionism.

  All men, except for an unknown woman in a black coat and a little hat, with a bag on her arm, standing in the back row.

  The men could not hide their disgust at her outrageous presence.

  One tried, in vain, to excuse the interloper. He praised her saying, “She paints like a man.”

  Her name was Hedda Sterne.

  July 21

  THE OTHER ASTRONAUT

  On this day in 1969, every newspaper in the world had the photo of the century on the front page: astronauts, lumbering like bears, had walked on the moon and left behind the first human footprints.

  But the principal protagonist of the feat did not receive the congratulations he deserved.

  Werner von Braun had designed and launched their spaceship.

  Before taking up the conquest of space on behalf of the United States, von Braun had worked on Germany’s behalf for the conquest of Europe.

  Engineer, officer of the SS, he was Hitler’s favorite scientist.

  The day after the war ended, he used his smarts to make a prodigious leap and land on his feet on the other side of the sea.

  He became an instant patriot of his new homeland, began worshipping at a Texas evangelical church and got busy in the space lab.

  July 22

  THE OTHER MOON

  The astronauts weren’t the first.

  Eighteen hundred years before, Lucian of Samosata visited the moon.

  No one saw him, no one believed him, but he wrote about it in Greek.

  Back around the year 150, Lucian and his sailors set off from the Pillars of Hercules, where the Strait of Gibraltar now lies, and a storm caught the ship, whirled it up into the sky and dumped it on the moon.

  On the moon, no one died. The oldest of the old lunatics dissolved into thin air. They ate smoke and sweated milk. The rich ones wore glass clothing, the poor no clothing at all. The rich had many eyes and the poor, one or none.

  In a mirror the lunatics watched all the terrestrial comings and goings. For the duration of their visit, Luciano and his sailors kept tabs on the daily news from Athens.

  July 23

  TWINS

  In 1944, in the tourist resort of Bretton Woods, it was confirmed that the twin brothers humanity needed were in gestation.

  One was to be called International Monetary Fund and the other World Bank.

  Like Romulus and Remus, the twins were nursed by a she-wolf until they took up residence in the city of Washington, cheek by
jowl with the White House.

  Ever since, these two govern the governments of the world. In countries where no one elected them, the twins impose obeisance as if it were destiny: they keep watch, they threaten, they punish, they quiz: “Have you behaved yourself? Have you done your homework?”

  July 24

  SINNERS BE DAMNED

  In the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus and his apostles, the same word means both “debt” and “sin.”

  Two millennia later, the debts of the poor merit the severest of punishments. Private property punishes those deprived of property.

  July 25

  RECIPE FOR SPREADING THE PLAGUE

  In the fourteenth century fanatical custodians of the Catholic faith declared war on cats in Europe’s cities.

  These diabolical animals, instruments of Satan, were crucified, skewered, skinned alive or chucked into bonfires.

  Then the rats, liberated from their worst enemies, came to rule the cities. And the Black Death, transmitted by rats, killed thirty million Europeans.

  July 26

  IT’S RAINING CATS

  On the big island of Borneo, cats used to eat the lizards that ate the cockroaches, and the cockroaches ate the wasps that ate the mosquitoes.

  DDT was not on the menu.

  In the middle of the twentieth century, the World Health Organization bombarded the island with massive doses of DDT to fight malaria, and they annihilated the mosquitoes and everything else.

  When the rats found out that the cats had been poisoned, they invaded the island, devoured the fruit of the fields and spread typhus and other calamities.

  Faced with the unforeseen rat attack, the experts of the World Health Organization convened a crisis committee and decided to parachute in cats.

  Around this time in 1960, felines by the dozen descended from the skies over Borneo.

  The cats landed softly, to the cheers of the humans who had survived the assistance of the international community.

  July 27

  THE LOCOMOTIVE FROM PRAGUE

  Today in Helsinki, the 1952 Olympics came to an end.

  Emil Zatopek, unbeatable long-distance runner, as strong and speedy as a locomotive, won three gold medals.

  In his country he was declared a national hero and given the rank of colonel in the Czechoslovakian army.

  Some years later, in 1968, Zatopek supported the popular uprising and opposed the Soviet invasion.

  The colonel became a street sweeper.

  July 28

  TESTAMENT

  In 1890, in a letter to his brother Theo, Vincent van Gogh wrote:

  Let my paintings speak.

  He killed himself the following day.

  His paintings speak for him still.

  July 29

  WE WANT A DIFFERENT TIME

  For three days in 1830, six thousand barricades turned the city of Paris into a battlefield and defeated all the king’s soldiers.

  When this day became night, crowds used stones and bullets to smash the city’s clocks: the grand clocks of the churches and other temples of power.

  July 30

  INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIP DAY

  As Carlos Fonseca Amador liked to say, a friend criticizes you to your face and praises you behind your back.

  And as experience says, a real friend is a friend in all seasons. The others are just summertime friends.

  July 31

  TIME FORETOLD

  In ancient times there was an uprising of things.

  As the Mayas know, before the before, all the mistreated kitchen implements rebelled: burnt pans, chipped mortars, nicked knives, broken crockery. And the gods supported them in their rebellion.

  Much later, on the plantations of Yucatán, Maya slaves, who were treated as things, rose up against the masters who gave orders by whip, because they said Indians had their ears on their backs.

  On this night in 1847, war broke out. For half a century slaves would occupy the plantations, and they burned the documents that legalized their enslavement and the enslavement of their children and the enslavement of their children’s children.

  AUGUST

  August 1

  OUR MOTHER WHO ART IN EARTH

  Today in the towns of the Andes, Mother Earth, Pachamama, celebrates her big fiesta.

  Her children sing and dance on this everlasting day, and they share with Mother Earth a mouthful of every corn delicacy, and a sip of each of the strong drinks that lubricate their joy.

  At the end they ask forgiveness for the harm the despoiled and poisoned earth has suffered, and they plead with her not to punish them with earthquakes, frosts, droughts, floods or other furies.

  This is the oldest faith in the Americas.

  Here is how the Tojolobal Mayas of Chiapas greet our Mother:

  You offer us beans,

  which are so delicious

  with hot peppers, with tortilla.

  Corn you give us, and fine coffee.

  Dear mother,

  take good care of us, do.

  And may it never occur to us

  to put you up for sale.

  She does not live in heaven. She lives in the depths below ground, and there she awaits us: the earth that feeds us will feed on us in turn.

  August 2

  CHAMP

  On this day in 1980, Colombian boxer Kid Pambelé, out cold on the canvas, lost his world title.

  He was born in Palenque, the old refuge for rebel slaves, and before becoming world champion he sold newspapers, shined shoes and boxed in little towns lost on the map in return for food.

  Eight years his glory lasted. More than a hundred bouts, only twelve defeats.

  He ended up throwing punches at his own shadow.

  August 3

  THE BELOVEDS

  This story began when the gods, envious of human passion, punished Zhinü the weaver and her lover, whose name has been forgotten. The gods severed their embrace, which had made them one, and condemned each to solitude. Ever since, they live on either side of the Milky Way, the great celestial river that cannot be crossed.

  But once a year and for one night only, on the seventh night of the seventh moon, what was rent can be sewn.

  Magpies lend a hand, or rather a wing. Linking wings, they form a bridge for the nighttime encounter.

  Weavers, embroiderers and tailors from all over China are on pins and needles, praying it will not rain.

  If it does not, the weaver Zhinü gets under way. The dress she slips on and will soon slip off is the work of her masterful hands.

  But if it rains, the magpies will not come, no bridge across the heavens will knit up what has been unraveled, and on earth no festival will celebrate the art of loom and needle.

  August 4

  CLOTHING TELLS THE TALE

  Some two thousand years ago the great city of the Miaos was razed.

  As ancient Chinese manuscripts reveal, somewhere in the vast plains between the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, lay a city where “people with wings who called themselves the Miaos lived.”

  There are nearly ten million Miaos in China today. They speak a language that was never written down, but they dress in clothing that speaks of their lost grandeur. With silk threads they weave the story of their origins and their exodus, their births and their burials, wars of gods and of men, and also the monumental city that no longer is.

  “We wear the city,” one of the oldest of them explains. “The gate is in the cowl. The streets run all over the cloak, and on the shoulders our gardens grow.”

  August 5

  THE LIAR WHO WAS BORN THRICE

  In 1881, when Pinocchio was no more than two months old, he was already an idol among Italy’s children.

  The book that narrated his adventures sold like candy.

  Pinocchio was created by the carpenter Geppetto, who in turn was created by the writer Carlo Collodi. As soon as Geppetto made his hands, pinewood hands, the doll pulled off the carpenter’s wig and revealed his
bald pate. No sooner had he made his legs than Pinocchio took off running to complain to the police.

  Collodi was fed up with the shenanigans of this mischievous brat and decided to hang him. He left him swinging from a holm oak.

  Soon enough, besieged by the children of all Italy, Collodi had to bring him back to life. That was his second birth.

  The third birth was a few years in coming. In 1940 Walt Disney stirred up a jam of honey and tears in Hollywood and resurrected Pinocchio, miraculously made good.

  August 6

  GOD’S BOMB

  In 1945, while this day was dawning, Hiroshima lost its life. The atomic bomb’s first appearance incinerated this city and its people in an instant.

  The few survivors, mutilated sleepwalkers, wandered among the smoking ruins. The burns on their naked bodies carried the stamp of the clothing they were wearing when the explosion hit. On what remained of the walls, the atom bomb’s flash left silhouettes of what had been: a woman with her arms raised, a man, a tethered horse.

  Three days later, President Harry Truman spoke about the bomb over the radio.

  He said: “We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.”