MINERVA
A small audience has come to the performance tonight. This is
finishing, and nothing can be done to give life to something that has almost
completely lost it. In the good times, we had always ensured three quarters of
the entrance and even sometimes, especially at weekends, we had hung up the sold
out bill. Of course, this happened already many years ago. When we were all like
a family and we always met up after the show to drink hot chocolate in winter or
frozen tea in summer. There were many more artists that now, and performances
went through from parents to children. The circus was our life, and this was
evident when you went out to the arena. Authentic professionals - some of them
risking their life in every performance. Today, with the nets of the trapeze
artists and the hooked ropes of the acrobats, that real feeling of danger that
was lived in the past is no longer experienced. And let us not talk about
animals. Children love animals, and any circus without them loses a big part of
its soul, which is what is currently happening. Precisely yesterday, the job
inspectors of the city council came to confiscate the last two elephants that we
had left. The next time it will be Minerva’s turn and this will then be the end.
It is natural, every time more and more countries forbid animals to take part in
the show because they argue they are forced to live a cruel life. And they are
probably right. The cold that we have to suffer in winter and the suffocating
heat inside our caravans in summer seem both quite cruel to us too. Putting food
on plates depending on how the ticket selling was - and we already know every
time is worse - mending clothes by adding spangles to hide darns, and never
knowing how long are we going to stay in the same place. We cannot choose
because we were born this way and there is nothing else we can do, and those
living in the civilisation neither. It is difficult to make new friends in this
job too, so if you do not get along with your workmates you do not have many
possibilities out there. This summer, strangely enough, I met quite a young boy
who was hung-up on me, although I really never managed to know if he was more
interested in discovering the different tattoos I have all over my body or in
Minerva. He was authentically devoted to her, but she never got to appreciate
him. She let him caress her a bit, but when he insisted or tried to take her,
she would then turn over and there was no way to take her. I think she guessed
he was not trustworthy. In fact, our relationship did not last long. One day he
left saying ‘see you tomorrow’ and he did not come back anymore. Just a bit
later, we dismantled the big top and we left to another city. Thus, even if he
had come back our relationship would not have continued for long anyway, but
maybe I would now have a better memory of him. It is a bit sad to say, but
really, I would have liked for a change to be the one ending the relationship.
Minerva is very intelligent; I could immediately see it, and that is why I gave
her this name. We have been together for seven years already, and we understand
each other like two good friends do. The other boa constrictor that I had died
of a cold and it was very difficult for me to find a good substitute. It is
truly beautiful, with this robust and shining green olive body with wavy dark
brown spots and these hypnotic honey coloured eyes. When we perform, she can
delicately bend over my body, and at the end of the performance she places her
mouth close to mine pretending she is kissing me. The public usually loves this
and they always applaud a lot. The truth is that I do not have the same relation
with my other two snakes. She is my favourite and she knows it. Whenever we do
not have light (which is something that unfortunately happens every now and then)
I let her sleep with me for her not to feel the cold, and she stays there, the
whole night attached to my body without moving at all. She understands me better
than many human beings because she knows all my life, as every day since we are
together I have been telling her bits of it. When the other day I started crying
while explaining her again the way I lost my baby after giving birth, she came
towards me and rubbed her face on my cheek as trying to dry up the tears that
were falling down on me. This is the reason why I know she will help me. Now I
do not have anything to fight for anymore, not even the desire to do it.
Precisely yesterday, I discovered the one who had to be the father of my son
making love with one of the Chinese acrobats. He was panting on her as an idiot
while whispering the same lies that he had said to me. She will believe them for
sure, as I did in the past. I needed to believe that I was truly pretty, that I
was the best thing it had ever happened in his life, and that I was going to be
his love forever. How short men’s words last in their mouths! Minerva agrees.
This evening I have explained it to her and I know she will do it. She knows
they will come later to take her to the terrarium in the zoo, where she will
have food and warmth ensured. Perhaps in the future she will be a bit bored, as
no one will ever tell her stories as I do. But I guess at the end it is all the
same anyway. They usually were sad stories of a chronic loser so Minerva, I do
not think you will miss them. When in a while I will go to bed and you will
softly slide yourself over my belly and later over my breasts to end up tying up
my throat with a strong hug, there will just be few moments of anxiety in which
I will try, just mechanically, to make the air go through a canal that will be
inexorably closing. It will be as when I gave birth to my son. At that time, I
was trying to forget the pain when the contractions were violently opening my
pelvis, trying to imagine the face of the beautiful being that I would kiss when
finally everything would finish. Now as well, in a little bit, while I feel the
clattering of my vertebrae and with the last drop of life, I will try to think
on this peaceful place where my son remains, hoping to see him again very soon.
Do not be impatient Minerva, I am coming, I am coming …
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Traslation by Ciro Avolio and Addaia Marrades:
aiaroundtheworld@gmail.com
