Ties. Roberta Mezzabarba
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something, Gemma but not as much as I was expecting though; anyway it is a start. There is too much mystery around these events and I am not convinced. Maybe there’s more to it than what has been written, after dozens, hundreds of years,..something that nobody was supposed to know. I wonder whether I could find something out…»
Guglielmo was gazing blankly into the distance as if he was the only living soul who could see things through a hole in the atmosphere that no one else could.
«Your mother told me that last night you had another argument with your father, she was a bit upset over it, and I can’t blame her… could you not at least try to…»
Come on Gemma, you know perfectly well how things are between us. It’s not up to me. Last night I was in the sitting room browsing through some books that I had taken from the library. He came over and told me that I should not waste so much time with books, life is something completely different… as if he really knew… Gemma I don’t want him to make me into a professional soldier, the same as his ancestors, following the inviolable family tradition. I love my family but I do not want it to be like a loop around my neck, I do not want to feel suffocated by them, no matter what I do, I do not want them to make decisions on my behalf. Surely my parents brought me into this world, they raised me, they made me into who I am now but I do not want them to go over my head and make decisions for my future. Can you understand what I am saying?»
Gemma was looking at him with a tender and sympathetic smile. She felt so sorry that he was so upset about that, but she felt she could not help him because she knew that family matters have to be kept within the family itself.
After that thought had crossed her mind, without saying a word, she got back to reality and looked at her watch. It was 10:45am, his lecture in History of the Civilizations was starting in just 15 minutes. She got up from the chair and put her black backpack on her shoulders.
«Guli, I am off, damn, if I don’t hurry up, I am going to be late for my lecture. I will talk to you tonight».
She gave a hasty kiss on Guglielmo’s forehead, then she disappeared among those shelves full of books, almost swallowed by all that paper.
Four
Guglielmo kept on reading that tiny book. After a good search, he also managed to retrieve the cover, which gave out the title and the author of the book. Those pages were already providing him with some answers to quite a few questions. It was written by some guy called Mr Duby, and was entitled “The year 1000”.
He borrowed that tiny book from the library, under the inquisitive eye of the librarian, in order to take it home and read what was left in peace and quiet.
It was late at night and he was lying on his bed, his book resting on his chest, he was greedily taking in all the words written on those thin pages, looking for some new information.
[…] of the feudal period, there is just one chronicle left which depicts the year 1000 as a tragic year: the one written by Sigerbert of Gembloux. There were in those days many prodigies, a horrific earthquake, a comet with a blazing tail; the bright and intense light brightened up even the inside of the houses, and in the sky, that seemed to cleave, it traced the image of a snake […] Many people thought it was the anticipation of the last day.
[…] in the Annals of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire an important announcement about the year 1003, pointed out an unusual flooding, a mirage, the birth of a monster who was drowned by the parents; but the place of the thousandth year of the incarnation is empty.
Further ahead in the book, he came across a reference, just a few lines, which drew his attention. Saint Abbon, abbot of Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire Abbey left a record of one of his memories from his youth:
[…] about the end of the world, I hear someone preaching in a church in Paris about the Antichrist coming at the end of the year 1000 and that the final judgement would come shortly after.
While reading those words, his mind wondered off to a previous event that happened going back a few years.
In 1997 comet Hale-Bopp could be seen at the same time of the spring equinox. Something strange happened while she was shining in the sky: roughly thirty cult members of a religious sect from southern California, computer experts, committed mass suicide in the belief that they would have hitched a ride on an alien’s spaceship travelling in the wake of a passing comet, and be whisked to the “next level”. In a footage that they made while committing suicide, they felt they were the chosen ones, lucky people who were being freed from weaknesses and meanness related to the human condition.
During the same year a number of disastrous events had hit poor souls all over the world: earthquakes, strong winds, torrential rain, tornadoes. It seemed that history repeated itself.
He had just photocopied some pages from another book written by Jules Michelet about the oppressed waiting for the end of the world to free them from sufferings tormenting them:
The prisoner was waiting in the black fortified tower, in the sepulchral cell; the serf was waiting on his furrow, in the shade of the despised tower; the monk was waiting, among the abstinences inflicted by cloistered life, solitary inner turmoil, among temptations and falls, remorses and strange visions, despicable devil’s decoy who was cruelly goofing around him, and pulling his cover at night time, was gaily saying into his ear “You are doomed!” All of them wished to put an end to their dreadful living condition, it did not matter at what price. However, it should be quite charming to see the moment when the trumpet would blast into the tyrants’ ear. Then, from the fortified tower, from the cloister and from the furrow, a terrible laughter would burst amid the sobbing.
In order to demystify mass suicide, scholars in the 90s engaged themselves to convince people that the spot in the tail of the comet was just a star and that the cult members had been brainwashed with all the lies told by their leader. However, the press kept on publishing articles with sensational and allusive headlines.
Was the end of the world really so close?
Would the terrors of a new medieval period spread all over mankind in a few years’ time?
Guglielmo’s mind was racing. He was matching theories, comparing events, combining events. He thought that at the dawn of the year 2000 it would have been much easier to spread panic and turn it into an obsessive psychosis.
After all, in 999AD, a persuasive voice, a public square or a pulpit in a church and a big crowd, hadn’t all this been enough to spread the universal belief that the world was about to end?
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