Unhealthy work Introductory account

A street of thick cobblestones, thick, worn cobblestones, with a thin thread of grass growing between them, a thread of grass sprouting and expanding, just as Lucia does in her memory (I adore cobblestones, she tells me, I have lived surrounded by them, I have etched my own history and they always appear. Distant cities, of sap smeared by footprints that mix too much with the indifference of the stone). He bends down, cuts a strand of grass, puts it in his mouth, and stays like that, nibbling on it.

The formula that inspires those who like to move from here to there for cities, countries and continents is always the same: count. No matter the length of the trip: two days, three months, a year, it doesn’t matter. You leave with the certainty that you will return. There is another category of people who avoid knots, and opt for a sideways version of the trip; They close the door and that’s it, kisses goodbye. Hector belongs to this group. He left Valencia at 21 – before Lucia, the girl he had with a girl he met in a bar and frequented for a week – was born, and today he is 47. He left (ran away?) knowing that he would never come back, and that he would never see his daughter in person. Since then, he has lived in almost every recognizable city in the world (he never chooses rural areas, he hates them). He speaks six languages, including Greek, which he masters with some difficulty. He maintains a small apartment in Valencia that provides him with a low income (650 euros per month). Thus, in addition to what exhausts him from his temporary jobs, he is able to establish himself for the period he considers in the place he wants; He said he can pay for plane, bus or train tickets when he decides what to do next. Here, in Leuven, he spent just over four months learning about the full cycle of barley, from the land being cultivated and cultivated, until it is bottled and made into beer.

The broken tree leaning its branches over the canal, its stuttering flutter, is also the memory of the willow spitting out its bristles in another time, when nothing but the trembling of its leaves against the sky will happen, anything, something more. (Any of my journeys, even the highest ones, Hector adds, will always begin by burning my wings in the pale fire, and any of my journeys – he reiterates -, even the longest – are complete with a short respite from siesta -).

Behind, against the background of ornamentation that gives a distinctive flavor to our conversation, the soft, dense grass rises above the gentle waves of the mountainous land. In pots made on the side of the valley, the first flowers of the season are born: blue, yellow and also red. Two children pulling a rope hanging over a wire fence; A simple man feeding pigeons. They reach for the hand that gives them seeds or crumbs. However, sparrows approach humans with the same confidence as pigeons. I think I feel a hidden sense of security. It’s four in the afternoon, and I’ve stopped drinking thermal cups containing hot water inside bags, tea, and pancakes. As well as bunches of white and maroon grapes.

Weary of the hustle and bustle of travel, of running without return, of the bones in the weeds pressing in such a way as to take away the sighs. Clearly, thinks Hector, who has learned to retain only the memory of enemy and love, the only memory that cannot be forgotten or forgiven. to defeat, rum; For victory, my heart. (It’s an unhealthy profession to live.) From time to time, his history is stirred up by the claw of a ghost that wanders and haunts. I think of the strange thing: In these lands where summer never hurts, where the sky never burns, the nostalgic rain falls, and suddenly he remembers that name, seething with love and anger, like a distant moan from the sea: Lucia.