When Silence Falls

 

Dust. At first it was matter, hard work, drowned iron, toil. It was the pleasure of gathering around the set table after washing away the sweat. It was dad, friends, neighbors, and mom, who kept busy in the kitchen convinced there was never enough for everyone. Noise. I thought I had learned. I thought my ears were trained to recognize the very essence of noise. From the north, from the south, from the sea. Sometimes they come from the sea, and if the wind feels like playing games, you notice them only when they're already upon you. Tremor. It's what takes you away from the earth, and if the earth is a floor, hell might begin under your feet, your own hell. Sun. That's one thing they haven't learned to take from us yet. True, it hides for a few hours, but when the enemy leaves, it shines again. But who is the enemy? Sometimes shadows cross the city so quickly that if you look at the sky, you risk being blinded and seeing nothing more. The whistle isn't always the same; it changes, updates itself. A free-falling bomb arrives with a sound like wingbeats, and then it depends on how big it is. The small ones, if possible, are even worse. They break through roofs, slip into alleys, roll around, and sometimes don't even explode. They wait for someone to come clear the rubble, make their way through twisted steel, challenge the flames and water that attack you simultaneously, seemingly mocking you. There are shards, pieces of brick, human fragments rendered unrecognizable. If you're lucky, you can take a shovel and dig. In the dust. If you're not lucky, there's a mechanism that triggers when you least expect it. The screams, crying, orders, and frenzy that had formed next to that pile of rubble suddenly cease. Like ants. More help arrives, they rush in like ants following the queen's orders and resume digging. They don't have time to ask who did it. That's what Western newspapers and their television stations are for. They change their version according to convenience, rattle off death counts as if discussing soccer league rankings, listen to witnesses whose makeup has just been retouched by a TV crew. To make them credible, they cover them in dust.

My child grew up like this: he learned to recognize helicopters. He can tell the model by the sound of the blades, anticipates where the strikes will fall based on flying altitude. Planes are harder. They're accomplices of the wind, they fly low, and sometimes disappear after a boom. With missiles, it's impossible. They arrive with a hiss and, if you hear it, you need to know a prayer short enough and be good at reciting it rather quickly. Missiles don't care about prayers, weddings, or funerals. They especially like to arrive when people gather to pray.

This morning I heard they were distributing medicine. You have to cross two neighborhoods and, most importantly, to navigate, you need to remember them as they were before. My child is better at this than I am. He isn't influenced by how the city was before because he's only seen that in photographs. Sometimes he's bewildered by the panorama of white roofs, domes, and endless towers, and by the ancient fortress on the hill that has stayed in place. It seems to have replaced its usual doormat with a worn-out one. He's guided by the skeleton of the traffic light at the corner, by the bare sewage pipe smoking like a big cigar, by the bicycle shop with bikes thrown on top of each other like in the pile of scrap metal in front of the foundry. They no longer have tires, and the pedal reflectors stopped shining long ago. My child navigates by the group of trees fed to the flames where I, as a young girl, had my first kiss. It tasted of cedar on a bed fragrant with red oleander blossoms. A kiss is like wine: it inherits the character of the land around it and, if good, you never forget it. My child has learned to walk fast and to make the most of the half-centimeter of sole that grows thinner each day. My child was born with the war and talks. He talks continuously and doesn't worry about being noticed. I hold his hand while we zigzag between houses reduced to landslides, and he tells me that airplanes and helicopters can't hear, and that the soldiers are so tired they no longer want to lift their rifles. He points to a wall of broken glass that looks like a punched-in set of dentures and announces we're almost there, that after the building, the one with floors laid against it like dog ears, there are medicines. And then, without warning, comes the evil whistle, the one where you must recite prayers. You must do it quickly and hope for forgiveness if you fail to pronounce some words. I feel his hand pull. I feel a first jerk that reaches up to my elbow along with a shock, and then a second even stronger one. I'm paralyzed with fear, and my fingers end up tightening on themselves. I see him slip away and run like the wind. He stumbles, gets up, and ends up taking shelter in the darkness of a garage, with the roller shutter crumpled beside the door. There's noise, there's tremor, there's dust, and there's silence. It's pure silence, coming right after the rain of rocks and bricks and objects and small flames that settle on the ground, continuing to burn. That thing bouncing down there must be a washing machine door, and a roof twists like a worm thrown into fire. Through a window, you can make out a surge of dirty clothes. I don't even try to escape the wall of dense dust that hits me like a train. It's a punch. I manage to cover my face with the scarf and feel my blood. It comes out of my nose and ears and gets messy, forming mud on my face. I don't hear crying, I don't hear anyone calling for mama. Perhaps my ears will never be capable of hearing a sound again. As my breath fills with dust, I realize I'm kneeling on a layer of pebbles. Perhaps my body will never be capable of feeling pain again. There is silence. That thing about sirens sounding a second after tragedy is nonsense. It only happens in movies, where bombs at most mess up your hair. That thing about heart-wrenching screams echoing among the rubble is nonsense. Explosions silence everyone, they undo people and strip them bare. Often there are clothes and bags and suitcases and shoes scattered around, sometimes still with feet inside them. To scream you need air, and here, now, the air has been borrowed by war. I notice my heart alive in my chest but it's mute, like a movie on a broken TV. I notice blood still flowing in my veins but it's poisoned, like a river at the end of its course. I notice that my child has remained hostage to the ruins of that building. I listen. Not a cry, not a moan: only silence. Opening your eyes, even for a second, is like letting an evil sandman throw sand in your face. I stand up. I had read about fog, its mysterious charm and the cold it brings with it. I had read about silence in the morning mist, about that search for solitude with which men at peace try to fight their ghosts. I had read about some who climb mountain peaks to gain silence and others who immerse themselves in sensory deprivation tanks. Amateurs. I had read that silence brings you closer to God. When the city takes a slap it doesn't cry: it withdraws, bows its head, and seeks refuge in silence. That morning, somewhere, a colonel with a hot cup of coffee by his side must have pointed his finger at a map and given the order to fire, in silence. He didn't even speak: he just tapped his fingertip on that intersection of streets and made it clear with a look that he would stay in front of the monitor to see what happens. I take a few steps, delirious in the dense white surrounding me, and feel my cry getting stuck in my throat. I'm a walking plaster statue. I wish I could hear calling, screaming, or crying. I wish I could hear a child's voice begging for help. That missile has laid a tombstone on my life. I push, scratch with my nails, try to move it, but a blindness that accompanies silence leads me to slow, inexorable resignation. But I'm standing. The dust slowly settles and lays yet another white shroud on the miserable remains of this city. I can make out the building with floors laid like dog ears and that other one, which before had only broken windows and now kneels to war, surrendering unconditionally. The roller shutter that was in front of the garage where my child took refuge has flown to the opposite side of the street. It's leaning against the luthier's shop door, and a broken pipe is making it drunk with rusty water. The silence is broken. If you concentrate, you can perceive the sound of iron under the jet. Nothing like the sound of violins that the dear old luthier knew how to build so well, but still music. The building where my child took refuge is still intact. Looking at it carefully, it has perhaps lost a couple of balconies, and a third has remained clinging to the wall like a troubled mountain climber. The black eye of the garage is there waiting for me. It smells of rot and the humid draft carries out the smell of death. I approach with stones under my shoes trying to make their way through the soles. When I finally manage to look inside, I see the ceiling full of holes and electrical cables everywhere, hanging like vines. It drips. On the opposite side, you can make out a crack that crosses the wall diagonally. It lets through a blade of light that draws something on the floor resembling children's scribbles. When they were alive. When they went to school. When they ran after the ball in the street. What I hear is related to friends' voices, in those summer nights that started late and were never cold. They called you through the noise of music at parties, and voices came filtered through thick, substantial cotton wool. Those were the times of butterflies in your stomach, of stolen kisses, of nights spent watching the stars and skies where planes flew without bombs, and we, young girls, had fun guessing where they would go. Those were the times when we looked at the sea, without thinking that the gray color of a ship was synonymous with death. Those were the times when dust was lifted from furniture, noise brought joy, tremor was what took your legs when the most handsome boy in school smiled at you. Those were the times when silence was made out of respect, for the dead or for tired people. What I hear comes from the darkness, cold and dense at the back of the room. They are footsteps, running in a puddle and skillfully avoiding the wounds in the floor. They are echoes, they are breaths, they are tired structures creaking under the weight of a frightened child. The word "mama," I swear to you, is among all the most beautiful to hear.