Nina finally gathered the courage to continue walking. She saw where the black snow was coming from: the library was in flames. Like the Library of Alexandria, Nina thought. Our memory is burning, our language and our lullabies.
In front of the former concert-hall, its roof entirely fallen, hundreds of men were putting on uniforms and turning into soldiers. Armed with guns and pistols and bombs, they spoke loudly and excitedly, sharing bottles of liquor. As if they were just getting together to go to a sports game.
Her husband was among them, quiet and serious. Strange, Nina thought, he was not cut out to be a soldier, but now he looks just like them. She wanted to remind him that he was always the first to run in dangerous situations but stopped herself.
“Come, let’s look for the sea together.” As she was explaining to him the dangers of travelling through enemy fire, he started crying.
“I must stay, Nina, for I haven’t loved enough. The sea is foreign to me, the sun scorches your thoughts, makes you shed your self. I can love only in my own skin.”
The other men gathered around him and echoed his words in chorus.
“He hasn’t loved enough. We haven’t loved enough and we have to stay and fight this war so that we can love again. We’ll be together and protect each other. We’ll fight and cheer and hate and kill and imprison and liberate and win.”
Victory is a fallacy, Nina thought. Wars leave behind paths paved with dead bodies, anger and hatred.
“Take good care of my kids,” said her husband.
For a moment, Nina saw a young woman with a beautiful smile at his side, caressing his hair.
“He hasn’t loved enough.”
He hasn’t loved enough, Nina echoed. How true. Presented with the argument, Nina couldn’t help but show understanding. She tried to ask herself the same question (Have I loved enough?), but her pockets were too heavy and she had to leave before it got dark, so she had no time to ponder.
Wars are fed by men who haven’t loved enough, who don’t know how to love, or who lack the imagination to shed their skin, thought Nina.
She decided to turn her husband into a hero who had to clear the passage to the sea for his family. The story sounded right and, as she repeated it to her children over and over again, she added new elements to it, until it became more believable than life itself. The story became her memory and nothing could change that.
Memories are like clay. We can shape them the way we want to until we are satisfied and we can live with them.