A Little Frog’s Heart: The Coming of Age

A Jailhouse Story IV-2

“This game is a rehearsal,” the Wind will continue to speak to the sand dunes. “You will play it, too, when we decide that you should reach the places promised by the immortal Time! He will enchant the deserted hills. The vast desert, your master, has a wicked heart, and he would not let you go easily. But, if you trained for different competitions, you could reach other lands, where he would send you! You’ll get his hopes high by promising to bring him many victory cups, made of North Pole ice, to quench his eternal thirst!”

“But how will you persuade him?” The sand dunes would ask in a disappointed voice. “Our master does not like games, does not want events in his kingdom, especially sport contests!”

The Wind would laughingly reply:

“Well… The desert, your master, will even accept to be the referee of this football match! You will see! It will suffice to find out that they are giving the North Pole ice cup as a prize! Of course, as a referee, he will be on your side, wanting his dunes to win all the games!”

“And if we lose, what happens to us?” They asked with the same distrust, knowing the anger of their master when things wouldn’t go his way.

“Ha! the Wind laughed. No worries, my dears,” he would calm them down. “I haven’t grown old for nothing; I should know by now how to get what I want. Let me tell you something: he was left on earth as an ancestral relic of what once was a sparkling River. His waters proudly carried bits of the wisdom in the lands it crossed.”

The sand dunes would listen carefully, and so the Wind will whisper in confidence:

“It is said that, when God put him on earth, to separate pasture from thick forest, the River asked the Creator: ‘Which is my purpose, God? Why have you chosen me precisely for this enchanted spot? The forest and the pasture love each other, obviously! Why should I separate them by passing through? Why cut with my crystal-clear waters through the fresh green of their meadows?’ It is said that God replied, all smiles, making an innocent joke: ‘Your waters will refresh and beautify Nature; as for the location of your river-bed, I chose it on purpose so that you will help the innocent lamb on the pasture stay alive, and the terrible wolf living in the thick forest to feel always sated!’

With this, the Wind became quiet. The proverb is indeed a wise one, teaching us there is equilibrium in everything. Of course that balance is hard to find, and many times we need to compromise in order to reach it.

“This is what we call diplomacy,” said the Wind through his teeth, winking to the sand dunes.

And then he added:

“That is exactly what I too will do: I will tell the Desert that whoever wins the game gets the crystal cup, brought right from the North Pole. And that whoever loses will have to collect all those wandering thistles, and to bear them on his back all along the face of the earth, as a sign of his defeat. The desert will agree, undoubtedly! He will want the cup no matter what. With it, at times, the wind would quench his dry soul with a purifying drop of water. And I will willingly let the cup go to him,” whispered the Wind in the end to the sandy hills. “I will give the ice-cup to the desert as a priceless gift. In it, filling it to the brim, the enchanted Elixir of Life. This is our secret project, to give life to the desert, even against his will”, the old Wind added. “And I strongly wish the Desert could be tamed, that he wouldn’t be so harsh on you, his sand dunes, or on those accidentally lost on his expanses. I think he will get to change when he tastes the Elixir of Life…”

“How about you, what will you do when you lose? You’ll be put to shame!” The sand dunes anxiously asked the old Wind.

“I…” said the Wind pensively. “Well, that’s exactly what I wish for! To lose this game! I will take the thistles on my back, admitting my failure. I will gladly take them out of the desert, for that will be my punishment. No matter how strong or great I am on this earth, being of the same rank as the Sun or the Rain, I could not take them without the Desert’s permission, without its acceptance. God put us to rule over the same place, but the law must be obeyed in any corner of the world, irrespective of its nature. No one is above the law! The supreme prize is the sacrifice itself, so that life may follow its natural course.”

The old Wind wanted to say that the Desert will be able to enjoy the victory cups, but the prize that really mattered, of an unparalleled value, was the one the Wind got. With God’s blessing, he will see his dream fulfilled: he will be able to give the thistles a precious gift: freedom! It is the most important gift in life, together with good health, which anyone could enjoy!

Freedom and health are the only gifts that God gave to each of us to enjoy, and in order to make the point that they are both equally important, He joined them together forever in holy matrimony from the beginning of times. We cannot live in the daily routine of life if one of them is missing. If one is missing, we are like blind people, who cannot see the road ahead.

After taking them out of the deserted lands using God’s gifts, the Wind will admit to the thistles that he did not invent the game out of pleasure, but for their sake and out of mercy for them. He will advise them to make it into the gift that keeps giving and to pass it on, helping those in need in their turn.

“I wanted to set you free, that is why I invented this game. I didn’t do it for master Desert, because his insatiable selfishness does not deserve any attention! You will be free!” He would speak to the thistles adopting a winner’s attitude. “From today on, you are free. But never forget that freedom comes with responsibility! As you roll across the face of the earth, tell everyone you meet to pay attention to the Desert’s deceiving mirage, that can easily lure the innocents into a deadly trap. You were lucky this time, because the Desert hasn’t put you in his prisons, hidden under the peaks of the abandoned hills… From now on, follow your destiny!” The Wind would urge the wandering thistles. “Just be careful not to stray from the path”, he would warn them.

The Wind knows that the thistles are not the ones responsible, that they are just blameless victims. They started wandering about the desert, chased by who knows which ghost, lured by deceitful echoes! That is why he offers his help, uniting their powers, donating from his endless hope, grooming them to follow him in a strange journey up to the unknown boundaries of the wasteland. Turning them up and down and taking them away, still further away. The Wind will whisper that at the end of this journey he will show them the right path their own ancestors prepared for them, from which the adventurous thistles had strayed a very long time ago.

In their turn, tired and overwhelmed by the pain of disobedience, the thistles are aware that the rediscovery of the right path with the help of the old Wind is worth any sacrifice. That is why they silently obeyed his will, letting him sing his victory song, a whistling which will suck all remaining life from their dry bodies. He will pull mercilessly, one by one, all those thorns that have once protected them. The Wind will carry them right where the Desert ends, but won’t let them cross the borderlines this time. He will sow them right there, on the very border. This way, all those wanting to trespass on the deceiving land of sands, driven by illusions, will feel the pain of their sting and will realise the mistakes they were ready to make. Then the Wind’s shriek will fade away, discretely meandering through the sand dunes. In the end, the thistles will be able to thank the dunes for going along with the old Wind’s plan.

This was the script developing in my heart. The Wind was my consciousness. The hills represented hope, and the Desert meant the trouble I found myself in, while I myself was the wandering thistle. Everything was unrecognizable around me, and a stranger I was to myself. It’s difficult when the desert lies all around you, but when your own soul becomes a barren wasteland, the sheer weight of the burden is impossible to bear.

I remember my grandfather, when I was a child, telling this story, that when your strength is diminishing, the tears are bitter, and the saliva deceivingly becomes sweeter, as if wanting to help you get out of the abyss. That’s exactly what I felt was happening to me. In the corner of the eye, the tears I stubbornly wanted to contain, made me burn from the high concentration in salt, while an unpleasant taste, sweet and sour, was stuck in my throat.

I sighed deeply; it was more like an involuntary sigh. Disappointed, I lowered my eyes and remained lost in thoughts. I wanted to summon up my strength, to focus on the situation at hand. I had to rebalance myself as I thought fit, because I had to appear, as the interpreter told me, in front of the French authorities. All sorts of thoughts were passing through my head, questions, answers, followed by more questions…

As I sat there, lowered eyes and scattered thoughts, all of a sudden my sight focused on the hands on my knees. At first, excited as I was, I did not realise whose those handcuffed hands were. I reacted like that because the handcuffs had been put over the sleeves of my sweater! That image shocked me! A sharp pain stabbed my heart. The sleeves of my sweater, crushed under the remorseless grip of the handcuffs, reminded me instantly of my Mother, making me feel the suffering she had endured at the time: the remorse for the suffering I had inflicted on her weighed heavily on my conscience. I had the feeling that those handcuffs were binding my Mother’s hands, her tired hands, and not mine! Her warm hands, that had knitted the sweater for me, by God’s will! The sweater made of the fleece of the legendary ram...

It was the hour my Mother milked the cow and, through the veil of my overwhelming sadness, I imagined her feeling lost. I imagined her feeling my pain, dropping the milk jar, terrified at her son’s misfortune. Certainly her motherly heart had told her of my suffering, the fate she had warned me about in my childhood.

I looked up, as if wanting to meet the weeping eyes I felt were watching me from far away. But the dark eyes I found instead, those of the lady near the driver, brought me back to reality, because my Mother had blue eyes.

The interpreter was looking at me with sadness. She had been moved by my grief. I wanted to ask her a favour:

“Dear Mother, since I suppose you have children my age...” I heard myself telling her.

She continued to look at me, slightly nodding; raising my handcuffed arms, I pleaded gently:

“I beg you to take the sleeves of the sweater from under these damned handcuffs. Only looking at them makes me sick inside! Will you roll them up for me, so that they stay away from the cold hard steel of the manacles? Please, do not deny me this favour! This sweater is made by my Mother’s hands! If you come from the same place as me, the land of Bessarabia filled with heart-breaking ballads, you must know the legend of the mothers knitting such a sweater, hoping that God would give them the child they wanted! Perhaps your own birth was an answer to such a prayer, a prayer coming from a Mother who wanted you more than anything in the world! I am sure your childhood was cradled by the same traditions, the same legends... My suffering is unbearable seeing these handcuffs squeezing my beloved sweater!” I continued my pleading towards her. “Looking down, I can see my Mother’s handcuffed hands, not mine... Please!” I raised my voice, begging her, while at the corner of my mouth I felt the salty taste of rebellious a tear.