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Grime. Muddy shoes. Greasy kitchen walls. Dirt on the rump of a portly woman.
Rump and dirt which are nothing but whatever mischievous meaning you might like to attach to them.
There is nothing moral or immoral, just a moral interpretation of things. Belin means "outsider",
beauty by name but not by deed. But behind the ugliness there hides the beauty of a legend which
frightened, frightens and will always frighten the inhabitants of Sauris.
Fear is a big word, perhaps we should say intrigue; intrigue involving mystery,
the unknown and trepidation.
The night and the forest.
"Nights of ordinary yet inexplicable noises. The rustling of the wind in the leaves and uncertainty;
the uncertainty born of not being able to put a name to what is happening".
Night in the forest. Sauris, where legend is far from being urban. No crocodile in the sewers.
Nothing like that. But something that only the imagination can create, nourished by evenings spent
sitting around a fire telling stories and baring the soul, in a confusion of reality and dreams.
Sauris, where in the winter the dead were kept close by, not only in the spirit but also in the body.
They were put on "stand-by" on the upper floor. In the attic.
Too much snow and the cemetery closed by a padlock of ice. Only the springtime could open the lock
and hence the hereafter. Sauris, the highest town in the region, 1300 metres and higher.
Rarefied air in the lungs and shortness of breath, heart in mouth. The eyes cast downwards,
afraid of seeing her. The Belin. Stick in hand, like the blind so she can see in the darkness
of the tunnels which lead down to the valley, towards Ampezzo.
The lament of the river Lumini which for centuries has carved out the stone of the valley.
The Belin, ugly as sin but perhaps as good as gold if it is true that she has never torn
anyone limb from limb.
The anthropologists speak of "initiatory rites", the customs officials talk of customs duty
and the people of Sauris more simply of buttocks to be kissed. An oral levy to be paid when you
leave the town. A pinch of initiation for anyone leaving the territory for the first time, on
their way to Cadore or Carnia, when the Belin appears. Or, rather, when her overlarge rump appears.
As large as a mountain, as dirty as the bottom of a blackened pan.
An organic pass. Too good to be true, if it really were good. |
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