by Andrea Nicastro
A hiking map in the pocket of one of the Mariupol displaced persons, 40,000 in one week: a man writes to his brother about finding his mother’s body. fell quickly, almost not noticed
FROM OUR SEND
MARIUPOL The piece of paper ended up in the pocket of one of the 40,000 displaced people who left Mariupol in the last week. written by a man, maybe a boy, maybe a soldier, defending the city of Maria and addressed to his brother with name, surname, phone number, address, apartment number. The recipient of the message is called Dimitry, but the brother left in the siege addresses him with the diminutive they used in games, in the family, laughing, Dima. The exclamation mark at the beginning of the writing is an appeal to all who find the paper in their hands: Let the people know!.
Dima, the mother who fell on March 9th. She writes like she’s a fighter. Fast, almost without noticing. After the house was destroyed, it burned down. Dima, I’m sorry I didn’t save mom! I buried Mama in the kindergarten yard. We don’t know how long it was along the way of this intimate procession. In Mariupol it is dangerous to stay away from the bunkers, the bombs are constantly falling, but the son still found the strength and courage to dig the grave in the frozen earth for a long time. We like to imagine that these steps, with the mother’s body in her arms, were the same as the younger woman walked to the kindergarten every morning with the children by the hand: Dimitry and the brother, who berates himself for not being able to save them . At the bottom of the page, the boy uncertainly traces some sort of map so that anyone, even if dead, can find his mother’s grave. When it’s all over The tree, the wall, the district heating pipes. And then the last caress in a tiny note to prevent a shovel from destroying his affection: it was two meters deep.
March 22, 2022 (Change March 22, 2022 | 14:44)
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