A great day with a great man

Yesterday was a very special, highly emotional day. I was scheduled to meet Simeone Maggilioni – the meeting had been arranged by the mayor of Torrita Tiberina. Simeone Magglioni was a lifelong close companion of Aldo Moro, as well as the founder and director of the “Centro di Studio Aldo Moro” in Turi.

However, Maggilioni, who is 84 years old, had to go to hospital for surgery. This is where he received me. His son-in-law picked me up with his car and brought me there.

We were not alone, though: there also were press representatives and a city councillor from Turi. They all said that they were interested to hear what one of the last living witnesses of the Moro era had to say, and that they wanted to see me as well; two aspects that made the meeting attractive for them.

At the beginning it bothered me that Simeones tales continued to be interrupted by photographs being taken. Then everything calmed down and finally everybody was listening.

Simeone talked about how he grew up as a dirt-poor boy in the slums of Turi, stealing what he needed in order to survive. Aldo Moro got him off the street and made sure he got a proper education. Simeone became his closest confidante, assistant and friend.

He explained that Moro's “Way of the Cross”, as he called it, had begun when he was threatened by Kissinger during his trip to the USA. He immediately flew home and then struggled with the decision whether to give in to the threat or to resist. Simeone gave a detailed description of Aldo's fight with his own fear. Finally, he came to the decision to carry on.

Simeone shared with us the heart-breaking tale of how Francesco Zizzi had come to see him. “Can you help me to become a member of Moro's escort? I would love to work for Aldo Moro.” Simeone helped Francesco – and then saw him lie in his blood in Via Fani, on March 16^th, 1978. He was the one who had to notify his brother.

Everybody in the room fought to hold back their tears. Then I gave Simeone the drawing I had made for him. I could feel almost physically how much it meant to him. We said our farewells; he said: “May God grant that we can meet once again on this earth.” His eyes, as well as my own, reflected our awareness that this will not happen. His son-in-law drove me back to the hotel. And payed my bill there – a gift from the Maggilioni family. A great day with a great man. Soon I am going to be in Fasano where I will visit Fancesco Zizzi's grave.

Aldo Moro and his friends

The day before yesterday I stayed overnight on a large farm that belongs to Urbano De Leonardis.

By "chance" it turned out that Urbano is the son of Donato De Leonardis, a close and lifelong friend of Aldo Moro.

He also was with him during the war, when they were drafted for military service.

Donato De Leonardis wrote the book "L'umanitá di Aldo Moro" (The humaneness of Aldo Moro). Unfortunately he died a couple of years ago, but his son gave me the book.

Its 190 pages are a love letter to Aldo. All kinds of small stories and anecdotes from the time they spent together, all describing Aldo's character and demeanour. A unique work.

When I read it I found it almost totally consistent with what I learned from the reports of others who had known Aldo.

Nevertheless, I continued to ask myself: Was he really *such* an angel? Didn't he at least say "shit" sometimes?

Of course, here he is seen through the loving - and mourning - eyes of a close friend. Still, it is wonderful to get this confirmation that Aldo has truly deserved a pilgrimage.

Aldo was not a good soldier. He had already been a professor at the university when he was drafted.

An intellectual, only barely able to endure physical hardship. But his comrades, instead of mocking or bullying him, protected and supported him.

This book has not only increased my appreciation of Aldo (even more), but that of his friends as well.

Aldo did not want to receive any special treatment, which is why he kept his social status a secret. Therefore, due to his deficits as his soldier, he was treated especially badly by his superiors.

His comrades helped him as much as possible. When his puttees kept falling down because he was simply unable to put them on correctly, the others quickly wrapped them for him and prevented him from getting in trouble. They took some of his burdens when they saw that his strength failed on a march.

Aldo's sensitivity and vulnerability were experienced as enriching. Not as inferior, but as something that had to be protected.

And this is what I find truly remarkable. A tiny island of advanced humaneness - right in the middle of Mussolini's fascist Army.

The last part of the book contains letters from Aldo Moro to De Leonardis. This is an especially valuable part, since the texts are very private, even intimate, allowing a deep insight into Aldo Moro's inner life.

They are emotionally stunning and simply breathtaking.

I am astonished - and shocked - how much pain and inner desires still dwelt within him. How empty he often felt, and how overstrained by his surroundings, his social rank and his responsibility as a statesman and head of the family:

"It seems to me as if I am asleep, as if it is not me who lives my life."

He clearly mourned and missed his time with Donato for the rest of his life, something he expressed in melancholic, deeply emotional letters.

"Do you remember that Sunday afternoon when I was freezing, body and soul ... This unforgettable life we shared?

Sometimes it seems to me that time stopped than. When the pain was shared by two hearts beating in unison, melting into pure joy in this union. This is something that can not be experienced in lonely pain, something others are unable to understand. Not as you did understand it."

"I know that you are lonely. I am lonely, too. Lonely amongst many people (...) I miss our songs under the gentle light of the stars."

These words, these paragraphs full of pain make me sad. I knew that he was a melancholiac, full of deep inner conflict, but I had thought he was happier, all in all.

At the very end there is a letter by De Leonardi to Aldo in the afterlife: he apologises for publishing his private letters and some intimate details. He explains to him that it was his concern to let the reader discover the human being behind the politician.

I am sure Aldo has agreed.

And again, after this tsunami of emotions, I remember that terrible photo of the dead body in the car boot.

Ant I still can not understand how it was possible that such a wonderful person had to suffer such a deeply miserable fate.

Sometimes I wish I could indeed meet Mario Moretti as well. Theoretically, it would be possible. I would ask that arsehole whether he has even the slightest idea of the actual consequences of his crime.

The suffering he caused goes far beyond Aldo Moro's personal suffering.

Donato De Leonardis

"L'umanitá di Aldo Moro"

Capetta Editori

Aldo Moro's Grave

It was only a short way to the cemetery, on a little sandy path. Everything here is much greener, more natural and romantic than it looks like on Google Maps.

On the cemetery itself there are the alcove graves that are so typical for southern countries, but also one or two earth graves as we know them in central Europe. I walk around, do not search, allow myself to be guided, and then - a line of mausoleums, individual catacombs.

Very polished "mini villas", well taken care of ...

... no, it's not them, but there, at the very end of the line ... a building in a totally different style. Simple, no splendour ... my heart beats faster ... that's not it, is it?

 Yes, it is.

Inside is the white sarcophagus. The name: Aldo Moro.

1800 kilometres on foot, across mountains, ravines and rivers - and now I am here. Ivy grows into the mausoleum from the outside. Everywhere lies dust. A picture has fallen down next to the sarcophagus. There also is an A4-sized photograph of Eleonora Moro, who is buried here as well.

Yes, I already knew the grave from a photograph, and yes, last night over dinner I was prepared that it is "very quaint". And yet - this shatters me.
All these pretty chapels with brightly polished gates, crucifixes and gilded engravings - and next to them, shrouded in dust and ivy, lies a former statesman, a part of world history. Not even the dates of his birth and death have been engraved. And there is no cross either.

He, the practicing Catholic ... but his last remaining written statement was a criticism of the pope.

I search for "peace" at the grave. But there is none.
The sarcophagus is a scream turned into stone.
The simplicity is an accusation. No statesman rests here, no "historical figure", and definitely no "political symbol". Here lies a human being who wanted to live and to go home.

I sit down while my thoughts race like cars on a motorway. The first tears come. I visualise the many letters he wrote during his imprisonment, I physically feel the fear, the hope, the anxiety, the despair ...
And the answer to all of it is this sarcophagus.
I break down and cry bitterly. Without even realising, I say "humans are shit".

I am desperate because there is absolutely nothing I can do. I can make a pilgrimage to this place, I can cry, I can draw, but I can not travel back in time in order to help him. However, there is nothing I would love to do more in this moment.

And while I cry, it comes: the vision, the waking dream. The encounter.

A long silence. Then Aldo says to me: "Come on, let's go."

I walk back, return soon afterwards to take photographs and walk back again.

Later, I meet the father of the owner of the hotel where I am staying. Yesterday, I had eaten dinner with the family. They were CLOSE friends of Aldo Moro. He goes with me to the cemetery once again. More tears. Then he shows me the burial vault where Aldo was buried for the first year - as you can read on the internet, he was first buried "in the grave of a friend."

This friend was the father of my hotel owner. He guides me into the vault, shows me the alcove where "Aldo Moro" is written by hand, hardly legible still. Now it is empty.

"Will someone be buried there again?", I ask. "I don't hope so - at least not too soon", the friend responds, and we both start to laugh. For the first time. A little bashfully, but aware that Aldo is laughing with us.

Then he drives me to Aldo's little house here in Torrita. No luxurious villa, rather a witch's cottage. It is emtpy and overgrown.
He tells me about Aldo, who was his professor at the university. "He was able to listen for hours. During the students' revolt in 1968, many feared for his safety, but he was not afraid of the revolutionaries. He listened to them, only sighing sometimes "I find it a little difficult to understand these kids." No, he did not understand everything, but he listened.
He went shopping, alone or with his kids, even when he was a famous politician.

I meet elderly people in Torrita ... they all knew Aldo. They talk about him with deep love but also deep grief. The image I had gets confirmed. On the one hand this is very beautiful, but on the other hand my pain is increased: I see Aldo with my inner eyes, dead in the car boot, haggard, deeply exhausted, absolutely lonely. This merges with what the people here tell me. It becomes unbearably cruel.

He listened to others, but nobody listened to him. He opposed the death penalty, but he "had to die" - strangely, political faction of both the left and the right agreed on this. He was denied the kindness he had given to others.

He was plainly left do die in misery.

In a world where something like this is possible, it is no wonder that refugees' shelters burn and people are murdered or left to starve.

We go to the town hall. Aldo's friend introduces me and asked when the mayor was going to be back, because he wanted me to meet him. I am given the gift of a book about Torrita. It also contains a chapter about Aldo.
It is to some extent comforting that there are so many kind people in Torrita, who protect and shelter him. I am sure that the coming days will be very intense.

Piazza Aldo Moro

Today, for the first time, I was afraid of not finding a place to stay. We had followed the coast for 30 kilometres, from Pietra Ligurie to Noli.
My legs were hurting and, frankly, I should have turned to the mountains much earlier in order to find accommodation there.
In Noli, I asked around in the shops and was told that I would have to go quite far into the mountains in order to find places that might be appropriate.

So I got going. After crossing a couple of streets, a man came running behind us, he was totally out of breath. He talked to me and said that he had a piece of land at the edge of town, with donkeys, and I could stay there. Yes, he had heard from the people in the shopping arcade that I was looking around. And the place was not far away at all.

All at once, the worries were gone. Relieved, I looked around, with a clear head and an open mind now.
Then I saw where I was:

Pure chance? I don't think so. Aren't we a good team, Aldo and I?

By the way, this is the first Aldo signpost I have seen since arriving in Italy.

It's interesting that the bodyguards who were murdered during the attack are mentioned as well:

“E Martiri della Via Fani”

Most often they have been even more forgotten than Aldo himself.

The little paradise with the donkeys Gamin was allowed to join is ideal. I am even allowed to spend our day of rest there. Which means that tomorrow I will do important chores, but also relax on the beach.

Those who sleep

Sleeping Beauty, Rip Van Winkle ... my two favourite fairy tales. In both stories, a person falls asleep for a long time and awakes only when the environment and the situation have totally changed.

Here in the south, many things are deeply asleep, just like Sleeping Beauty: old stone huts, forgotten recesses, gnarled olive trees with faces ... they doze in the scorching sun, unnoticed at the wayside.

If you listen closely, you can almost hear a whisper: "My story is not yet finished. It was just put on a hold, a long time ago. Perhaps it will still take a hundred years, but I will wake up again. Awakened by whatever or whoever will come along."

Those who want to awaken such a sleeping being must initially understand why it has fallen asleep in the first place.

For Rip Van Winkle it was a gift of grace he received from the ghost Hendrick Hudson: "Drink your beer, sleep a while, and when you wake up, 25 years will have passed. Your wife, who tortures you now, will be dead by then." This is probably what Hendrick had in mind. During a time when divorce was imposible, it was the only way to run from domestic violence.

More than that: Rip Van Winkle also sleeps through the bloodshed of the war of independence. 

But there was a heavy price: Young Rip woke up as an old man. He slept through almost his whole life. Only his children, who were adults by then, recognised him and at least enabled him to have a good, peaceful old age.

The initial situation was rather different for Sleeping Beauty. Her family loved her, her surroundings were good - apart from one issue: The thirteenth fairy godmother and her deadly curse.

No precautionary measure was helpful, not eving burning all spinning wheels within the kingdom. Inevitabely, her fate approached this tragic day, without mercy and even the slightest chance of preventing the disaster after all.

Sleeping for a hundred years becomes the only hope in this fatal hopelessness. What did the good fairy godmother say: "I can only soften the curse, not lift it."

Sleeping Beauty's parents will not live to see their daughter wake up. The only remaining comfort is the fact that her cry after the sting of the spindle was not the end, not the final word.

That all which was was stopped now will one day continue.

In the complex simultaneity of experiencing everything on this pilgrimage, Aldo and I are sleepers, wakers and the awakened at the same time.

Aldo Moro is Sleeping Beauty, and I am Rip Van Winkle. 

Just as the the literary model I did prefer to sleep for many years rather then face the frontline and really tackle the problems. Now I wake up, but I am old already.

I face the thorns in the forest of forgetting that guards Aldo's sleep. The thicket rips my hands, legs and heart bloody. And I call to him. "It's me, old Rip! I have woken up and now I come to get your clockwork going again somehow!"

And in return he gives me all the roses of the thorny forest.

Pass of Horror

Readers of my old weblog know that I have massive problems with my back. The full program: a birth defect of the pelvis that got worse over the course of the decades, plus damaged spinal discs. There were times where I could hardly walk, especially because the inflammation - and therefore the pain - radiates down into my left leg. 

With medication and thermal treatments I was able to get to grips with the whole issue quite well.
During the year of training in 2014, both the back and the leg hardly ever made themselves known. Somehow I thought that the whole thing was over.

Although, of course I know that it won't "heal".

Days ago, my left hip started to hurt again. It was still manageable.

The Col de Brause between Contes and Sospel is not very big, really. Ca. 9 km of ascent, and a descent of 12 km. A 20 km pass, just like the ones I am already used to. The ascent went without a problem.

But during the first steps of the descent, a stinging pain fired from my hip bone into the pelvis. 

I immediately limped to the roadside, sat down on a rock and rested for a while. It'll be better soon.
And indeed. A brief respite, the pain becomes bearable. The next steps are okay. But not even ten metres further on ... new stings. Firy, painful. 

I almost lose my footing. Another rest, before continuing. The pain increases. Now I must drag myself from resting place to resting place. Every twenty metres. The scorching heat makes everything even worse. As well as the cars and motorbikes that rush by.

12 kilometres! How on earth shall I manage this?

A couple of villas appear; I ask whether I could pitch my tent there. The people refuse, but tell me that they feel sorry for Gamin because he is so heavily laden.

I drag myself on, down the winding road. I close my eyes. Somehow, this makes it less painful. I open my eyes to check whether the next ten metres ahead are clear, then I reward myself with closing them again. And every 20 metres comes the big reward of being allowed to sit down.

It takes hours. It is only a damn 20km pass! Normally I would have handled it long ago. Gamin does not understand why we stop so often. But he accepts it, nibbling gras on the wayside.

Sospel is my destination. I had asked my mother to sent me Artotec und Baclofène to Sospel, as poste restante. The medicine should have arrived by now.

Finally we reach Sospel. The Camping Municipal. Officially, it isn't even opened yet, but it doesn't matter, since the tent lawn is freely accessible and many camping cars have already arrived.

With my last strength I pitch my tent.

On the next day, I immediately go to the post office. Yes, the medicine is there! I take the first pills straight away.

Then I call the local vet. Gamin needs his second basic immunisation and, of course, the customs certificate. It is only valid for eight days. Which means that I have to cross the border during this period!

Fortunately, the medication works. The pain is not totally gone, but it is manageable.

And yet I feel uneasy when we start early in the morning. Another pass - this time, to Italy!

Countdown towards the border

We are slowly approaching the Italian border. In a couple of days, we will have reached Sospel, and then it's not far any more. The harbingers appear. Many signposts are in two languages, the names sound more Italian, and people now know where Apulia is but have hardly an idea about the location of the Ardèche.

JFK: "We come closer to the border. The prohibition signs are in two languages."

Sign: "It is strictly forbidden to pluck flowers, to eat them, to have a poo, and to breathe."

The crossing of the border is one of the very big milestones of this journey. I have almost gotten used to walking through France. Where I am always and everywhere able to speak the language. Where I can chime in. Where I share the culture. The thought that I am totally covered by my health insurance in case of emergency was also comforting. Of course I am also insured in Italy, thanks to the European insurance card. But still ... everything will be getting more complicated.

Yes, it could have continued for a long time. And yet, the French leg of the journey was merely a taster, a warm-up.

The action is on the other side! Inevitably, the day comes closer when everything will be different. A different culture, a different language. Will my knowledge of Italian really be sufficient? I have studied for a year, but was it enough? Of course I will learn a lot on the road. Soon I will have to dive head over heels into this new world. I will be in such a situation for the first time since my childhood, when I threw myself head first into the francophone culture. 

I can feel almost physically how much Aldo looks forward to this day. This is what he wants, what he is after.

I see him smile behind the fig tree that grows here, between palm trees and cacti.