Saggistica in lingua inglese
           di Franco Viviani
           Pagine: 204
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       E-mail: franco.viviani@unipd.it
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    PROFILO DELL'AUTORE

    FRANCO VIVIANI, padovano cinquantaseienne, biologo, ha insegnato scienze, chimica e geografia nelle scuole medie superiori, antropologia fisica per quasi trent'anni a livello universitario, psicobiologia per un decennio presso la facoltà di Psicologia dell'Università di Padova.
    Ha compiuto ricerche antropologiche e psicobiologiche in vari paesi del mondo e ricerca in campo sportivo. È autore di un centinaio di pubblicazioni scientifiche, di filmati e testi universitari ed è stato invitato in vari convegni nazionali e internazionali.
    È membro di varie associazioni scientifiche internazionali ed è Presidente dell'International Council for Physical Activity and Fitness Research. È il rappresentante italiano del NOCIRC, un'organizzazione internazionae no-profit che combatte contro tutte le modificazioni genitali.
    Figura nel Who's Who per scienza e tecnologia e nel Who's Who in the World.

     

     INTRODUCTION

    This is a story written in a simple English. Let’s say, the scratchy Anglo-American of a European, non Anglo-Saxon speaking person. It is a report written without particular attention to form, like when you’re telling somebody a story. Imagine you are traveling alone and one night, only a few people around, you invite a fellow traveler to your table – just to chat. He is a clearly alone, a tall elegant man in his fifties who, like you, was looking around for somebody to talk to. After the ritual presentations and various exchanges of civilities, you ask him the reason for his journey. He politely drifts the conversation towards the policy of the host country. During the conversation there is more or less a meeting of minds and as the discussion proceeds you notice a sort of tastelessness in his voice, as his interest in the topic is fading.
    "Let’s have a drink"- you propose.
    And the night wears on, talking of this and that. At dead of night a reciprocal feeling of empathy and complicity has been established. A glass too many and the conversation takes off: this is the report of what he told you that night and during the following days, just like in a book, where one page comes after the other. Bearing in mind Jorge Luis Borges’ father’s warning(2): a recuerdo(3) is reworked every time you remember it and each time you recollect the earlier story you rehash it. Yes, because there are always small differences. A recollection is like a stack of coins: when you remember something you take away the coin lying on top. This is the last recollection. The underlying coin is more or less the same recollection, but with some differences. And so on.

     

     

    Passionflowers

    You know how alluring it is to run along the narrow roads of this volcanic island. A bay here, a headland there, another bay with lowering sky, a promontory and then another bay, this time sunny. To make le tour(4) of this island I rented a motor-bike, one of those battered monsters you see running around these roads. One brake only worked and to put the bike into gear was a really hard job. In spite of these problems I set out for the Ylang-ylang resort, located in the other side of the island - a really pleasant place - and towards late afternoon I decided to return since here in the tropics sunsets are short and darkness is a dive-bomber. More frightening, there are no lights along these pot-holed roads.
    The wheezing bike adventurously advanced along the zigzagging ups and downs of the autoroute    (5) (as the inhabitants call the speedway, the only asphalted road they have) and ran at breakneck speed along the few straight stretches of road it found. I was riding along one of these and suddenly – pffffeeee – a puncture, caused by a slender twig from one of those dark species of trees growing here. I was unable to cope with the side-slide and the monster, after two or three skids, finally tossed his rider. I found myself lying shocked, but unhurt, in the thickset hedge formed mostly of passionflowers, lining the road. I got up, checked for injuries, railed against my misfortune and finally sat down in the middle of the road, under the shadow of a big mango tree, the only place I considered free from insects and other bugs in the place.
    Nobody on the road, nobody around. The silence was now and again broken by some dry leaves which, following the vagaries of the breeze, fell from the boughs and took flight, heavily, coming eventually to lie on the soil with a crumpling sound which alarmed me every time. A giant bat, after a sweeping flight, suspiciously collapsed on the new branch of a tree full of ripe reddish berries. Se    (6) looked around, then spotted me - es(7) eyes on mine, I don’t know how, but somehow I reassured se: "I have no bad intentions guy".
    Then se took up position, hanging head-down and finally, le gourmet    (8), fussily chose a dozen fruits. The banquet was interrupted by a sudden shot-like crack: a big dry leaf crashed to the ground. The bat took flight and the noise it made gave me one more start. The sun was very close to the horizon now, and I decided that it would be a good idea to stop wasting time and do something to help myself. Just as I was about to decide upon a plan, something, a rain of passionflowers, fell all around me and my heart missed a beat. I stood, looked upwards, but saw nothing, as the sun’s rays, filtering through the foliage, dazzled me.
    "Est-ce qu’il y a quelqu’un?"
    "Is there somebody there?" I said. Nobody answered, I heard a slight rustling amid the leaves and then the peace and quiet of the glade.
    "Hey, est-ce que vous voulez vous faire voir?
    "Hey, will you come out into the open so I can see you?" I asked. No response at all. After a while, the silence was broken by a bow cracking, and a flexible green branch crashed to the ground. The noise startled me and I was so taken aback that I had just enough time to see a boy rapidly climbing down the tree and disappearing into the thick of the bush.
    But something captured my attention. First of all the boy’s legs were covered in hair. Not curly like that of the blacks, but bristly like that of wire-haired dogs. Secondly, while escaping, he helped himself up the slope close to the road with his hands, like knuckle-walking apes do. I was sure he was a boy, as he wore white shorts and a t-shirt. He was about the size of a 13 year-old boy. But why that strange hair and the knuckle-walking rolling pace?
    My state of bewildered astonishment was interrupted by the noise of an engine. A pick-up truck picked me up, the monster was put in the back and, accompanied by the driver’s witticisms – that reached me from the broken back window - we were finally deposited home, at the Relais. When I asked the driver if there were any monkeys on the island, he laughed at me:
    "Non monsieur, nous n’avons pas des singes ici et, á mémoire d’homme, nous n’avons jamais eu".
    No monkeys in the island, nor within living memory    (9)"-
    Man on iron-color patch. Iron chair with wheels. Seat on wheels. Up-down. I see close, I want. Man see big mouse with wings eat red fruits. Fruits no good, mom forbidden eat, Ron no big mouse with wings. Ron disturbs now mouse with wings. Bow break and crack make. Black bird frightens and flies up sky. Man on patch scare too. Ah ah. Ron bring crossflowers and head man throws. Man stands up and complains. Leaves dark hide Ron. More complaints man towards Ron, like questions. I afraid man knocks Ron; I stay, man with seat on wheels complains mom voice-like, no knock Ron. Man big nose but good eyes, I want speak with man with black bag on shoulders, Ron is frightened. Eyes good that man has; man tall, Ron short, I am afraid.. Ron goes home.

     

    Zoheli

    You know, Zoheli is the smallest of the islands of the archipelago. With its 211 square kilometers it is very easy to see. The soil is rich and therefore almost all of its valleys and slopes are cultivated. This is no place for monkeys, I said to myself, but the apparition in the forest intrigued me. To make quite sure, I asked the owner of the Relais if there were monkeys somewhere on the island and then I told him briefly what had happened to me. He asked me where, and when he was able to locate the place his eyes lit up:
    "Monsieur, vous avez vu quelque chose qui tout le monde ici voudraient avoir vu: le fils handicapé du docteur Weissmuller"
    "You have seen something that everybody here would like to have seen: doctor Weissmuller’s handicapped son!"
    The individual – permit me to call him Bonobyl from now on and I will explain the reasons to you later on – was apparently a poor boy, weak in the mind, who lived with his parents in a villa on the promontory, practically segregated from the rest of the island. His seclusion was complete, since the parents never permitted any Zohelian to see him close-up. More or less twenty years previously an American Study Center had asked for permission to occupy the promontory and build a house. They paid a lot for it. All the building materials and furniture arrived by ship in the small harbor that was rapidly built beforehand. The isthmus connecting the promontory to the island was barred with barbed wire. Rumors spread among the Zohelians, as no workers were recruited from the island population to do the job. Everything came from the sea, workers included. But doctor Weissmuller was to donate a new harbor with reflectors to the island. Manpower from Zoheli and abroad was required to build it and this scotched all rumors. When, two years later, the buildings were finished, all the island authorities were invited to a party and they later reported that the Center was made up of the house and two laboratories containing the most sophisticated research equipment. It was not possible to see the baby (he was sleeping, it was said). Officially, the Center had been created to study the variety in the marine ecosystem there, but nobody was able to explain how, since the motor-trawler and the motor-launch they had at anchor broke away from their moorings only a few times a year. Gossips said that they were researching on Latimeria, a living fossil which could be found only in the waters of the Indian Ocean and Indonesia. The curious, armed with binoculars, reported that the boy was given lessons by his parents every day and spent the afternoons in the trees surrounding the house.
    I asked if it was possible for me to get there, but my host said it was practically impossible, even from the sea, as barriers had been created between the three islets surrounding the promontory. Officially, these had been constructed in order to safeguard the small harbor from the stormy sea, but in practice the inlet was inaccessible to intruders. And Doctor Weissmuller? Did he never come inland? Two or three times a year, supposedly for emergencies or to talk with the representatives of the local Government. But now, after the military coup led by the army’s chief of staff and the period of anarchy following the deposition of the government of Yaronde, he was never seen around.

    continua

    - VETRINA LETTERARIA -

     
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