Io Ghino di Tacco

My mother squeezed my hand and I felt the warmth of hers flow into me, penetrate my blood. For a moment I lowered my eyes and looked at my bare feet, covered in red dust. It was earth, my earth, so different from any other. So red it blended with the red of the setting sun, red because it was soaked with the blood of men and animals, red because it was lit by the flames of torches.

They had been imprisoned and tortured for months, and I had heard their screams, seen their suffering, their tears, their wounded chests, their stretched arms.

Shouting, they had cursed God, the pope, the jailers, and all men. They had even cursed life, the mother who bore them, the breast that nursed them, and the children born from their loins. They had cursed me and my brother, who would outlive them.

I had covered my ears not to hear and had stopped listening, rebelling against a condemnation I did not deserve. Orphaned and cursed by my own father.

I held my mother's and my brother's hands tightly to give them courage, a courage I did not possess.

Now they were being executed.

Justice! Was that really just justice?

And from what Authority did it come?

The people around screamed, in a feverish desire to see them die. Cruelty is contagious, it passes from one to another, excites the limbs and makes them move erratically. The heart beats diligently, and the sight of others' pain moves one to laughter. Laughter of satisfaction. It is the thirst for violence that grows, continuously, ceaselessly, and will soon demand more lives. I feel it and my heart turns to ice.

They lit the torches to prolong the spectacle. Everyone must see, to remember that Siena is powerful, master, and punishes those who do not obey its orders.

The torches spread the smell of resin, and the wind carries it. For a while, there is silence in the square, and peace. PEACE! At what price?!? My father is dead, my uncle is dead.

Of them remains only the dark silhouette swaying slightly, propelled more by the contempt of the armed men than by the breeze.

The sacrifice is complete, the unjust justice is done.

Useless and cruel, a vile hand brings a torch to their bodies. The rags catch fire and the flames rise high enough to engulf and hide them. My father and my uncle are within those flames, unrecognizable puppets moving erratically; their bound bodies, hung by the neck, dance the dance of death. Like the straw effigies built in the fields to scare away birds, which are burned after the harvest because they are no longer needed.

The final indignity, so we would have no body to mourn over, no face to caress.

The wind disperses the smell of burning flesh, which evokes joyful images of animals to savor, full stomachs, festive evenings.

It had been like that for years. The last day of summer, the great Thanksgiving celebration to God for the abundant harvest, for full granaries and numerous flocks of lambs and kids.

My eyes had been full of tears, blurring my vision, then the heat had dried them, and now they burned. My mother, instead, was sobbing, and her tears fell, like drops of a summer storm, onto the red earth. They were black, laden with soot and sorrow because, I had learned, sorrow and death, if there is no hope, are black.

Hope is light.

Hatred is darkness.

Love is light.

I was a boy, little more than a child, my mother squeezed my hand tighter in hers and drew me to her chest, but I refused her embrace. I did not want her love; I wished for hatred to grow within me. I wanted to be strong for revenge.

Love would make me weak. She looked at me and understood, or perhaps it was her hands that understood what was happening within me. Messages flowed through my skin to hers.

Had she not nourished me in her womb? Was it not from her body that mine had taken shape? Bones, muscles, flesh, and blood had been hers and had become mine.

"Avenge your father!" her hands said to mine.

"Avenge your uncle!" her smoke-blinded eyes said.

I looked again at my feet covered in earth, which the twilight and the dying fire had turned black. I could not distinguish them, but I felt them move, numb from fatigue and tension. Slowly, gently but firmly, I freed my hands from her grasp and moved away. I did not need to answer.