Instead of an Elegy
When I think of that terrible evening in Brussels, when those stunted and twisted morons we shipped over (why?) made a poultice for their inner-city aggro made up of some forty dead bodies, what makes my guts ache most is that while, I concede, we should be shamed and smirched whoever the victims, Germans or Poles or Greeks or French or whatever, it hurts me especially that most of the people they killed should have been Italian. Italians of course are not the only nation for whom I feel fondness, but for them I feel it so warmly: and while I acknowledge as a matter of fact that their sacred land has produced quite her fair share of unpleasant creatures (the Mafia, for instance, or some of the bullies and riff-raff who got behind Mussolini) most of them, none the less, make on the visitor quite a different impression; of openness, really, and being apt to find pleasure in welcoming rather than silently stoning the stranger.
When one asks Italian people for help in one's trivial concerns (enquiring the way, for instance, or getting some hill-village grocer to rummage around in his stock for something unlikely that one finds oneself unexpectedly quite unable to manage without, such as candles or wasp-sting lotion) they seem to find pleasure, not merely politeness, in meeting one's needs: it matters to them that this foreign person should have a good time while in their country, and go away happy. They are welcomers, givers; not all of them, surely, but still in adequate numbers to make that one's chief impression of being among them. Perhaps their minds are warmed and opened like daisies by their generous climate; but levels of sunshine alone won't explain their psychology.
It must be to do with their history as well, and their art, and the steep hills and stony earth, that make them aware that human beings survive by working together and that giving is needful.
Whatever its cause, it makes me think of them kindly: and whatever its cause, when I think of that hideous wave of slack-jawed dervishes racing towards them and yelling their tribal assault-cries it makes me feel cold inside, and diminished, and ill.
Yes, though we should all feel ashamed and sick whoever the victims, I can't help asking you, God, why that particular evening?
And why the Italians?
John Wain
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