—Why Heidelberg?
—Too long story, ten minutes isn’t enough, a half hour neither. Better move on to the next one.
—Ten minutes, half hour or more, as long as you want, Sir, I have no hurry.
—Please don’t say Sir to me. By the way, do you believe in God, the Lord?
—Thanks for being so friendly, but no questions, okay? I make here the questions. Can’t you put it all in one sentence?
—Listen, I’m a singer, opera singer, and in my country, who wants to be on time with your bills, rental, taxi, filet mignon, whiskey, flowers for the bride, etc., has to be insurance agent, encyclopedia salesman and things like that. Have you listed? [The blonde says yes with a smile.] That’s why I decided to come to Germany, the mecca for opera. After some years in the “Frankfurter Musikhochschule”, which by the way didn’t help me at all, almost nothing, on the contrary, I got a job offer in this jewel of a city. So I grabbed my bag and took the train, well, here we are.
—And I thought that you, Sir, oh sorry, that you were a writer, a poet.
—Don’t you know that writers and poets have an even more thankless fate than opera singers? My living is due to the music, singing, opera, concerts, recitals. Here you can live on that. A poet to be, well, just to myself, in the free time. In a strange land … is it possible to be a poet in another way? I can’t give it up, I've already tried to, but I can not. I always fall into temptation. Poetry may be something like a girl in full bloom, wasting beauty and casting on the head of headless people like this fugitive of the tropics the most fancy dreams. I prefer to adapt the liturgical text and tell: induca me in tentationem, and I'll take care of succumbing to.
—Nothing personal, right? But as for me, I feel flattered. I’ve already been warned, when I said I wanted to make this interview. Brazilians are supposed to be all terrible, as Rilke’s angels.
—Hey, look! If I consider all the malicious gossips and jokes about blondes. Well, Rilke is not my favorite poet, but he has some high moments. The “Duino Elegies” and the “Sonnets to Orpheus”, pure genius and art.
—And what are your favorites?
—German poets?
—For example.
—Hölderlin, Heine, Trackl, Brecht, Lavant, Kaschnitz … and others.
—What? Christine Lavant?
—Exactly. As plain-Jane as great, don’t you think? For me she certainly has more genius, or rather more poetic intuition than lack of physical beauty, then beauty was not really her case at all, the soul yet beyond any question, a diamond mine, a starry sky, a field of poppies, and an abyss of grief, but also of endless beauty, capable of giving their pains, torments, doubts and disappointments, some joy, little, and yes, the most perfect poetic expression.—Interesting, I have to reread. Can I ask now where they come from, both, the love of music, singing and poetry temptation, to use your words?
—Before being someone and learn to survive … I was a monk. So to speak. I studied with the Salesians, who are not monks, but at the time the regime was monastic. It filled my second decade of existence. It has only begun to open after the Council of John XXIII, but then I was already out exorcising pseudo-theologic ghosts and beliefs harmful to the mental health of any brain a bit critical of the contradictions inherents to clerical paraphernalia. The following decade, lived in the madness of the “Pauliceia”, opened my eyes to reality … compelled to, I would say. The world outside, the street, the survival instinct soon teach you to distinguish theory from practice.
—Wow! How about a brief tour of the sentimental field?
—Hum, danger in sight! Let's see, write down, women I had a thousand and one … more or less. One for each night. [The blonde laughs, naturally.] Not a Sheherezade. I was married for some time, a bit silly, obviously. Like everyone I have wounds and scratches. After the first love, late in my case because of the closure regime, and that broke my heart, as often happens with teenagers unprepared for such a disaster, I've only met a woman who in a very critical phase broke into my life, radically changing it. She saved me. She redeemed me. So as you heard. She is well known everywhere, I can’t give her name.
And right now I have the devastating impression that here, in this city of such a romantic tradition, another name, another woman, the definite one, is going to cross my path and break all barriers, transforming the course of my life, this time for good, and once and for all is going to save me, for life and more and more.
Who doesn’t know the famous song? “Ich hab mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren …”
A few months after meeting that blond young woman, almost casually, “almost”, then obviously it was planned ahead by the irresistible creature, whose Germanic name – well sounding, though, poetic, musical, symphonic – I will gladly save for my crazy memoirs…
and after many other less literary meetings, the summer came, the decisive summer, signed by the gods or by a well-meaning goddess, mistress of our fates and of the course of our steps on earth, the ultimate summer came, the real turning point, that’s the word, and with it the sun, the light of life, the heavenly glow of all enlightenment, and at the same time —SHE!— the dreamed human being who would become “The Woman” … the very special and unique one for the whole life and eternity, too – if there were eternity.