For Love of Piano and Friends

By Francesco Chiappelli

For Love of Piano and Friends intertwines stories of personal growth, triumph over tragic family histories, and the exploration of the burial linen & sudarium of Christ throughout history, as well as the Sacred Line of the Archangel - all in the context of the healing power of love, friendship and ... classical piano.

Chiappel

• Language: English
• Publisher: St. Polycarp Publishing House
• Release date: Dec 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781947707429

Book preview

cover-image, For Love of Piano and Friends

For Love

of

Piano and Friends

Francesco Chiappelli

For Love of Piano and Friends

By Francesco Chiappelli

Copyright © 2018 Francesco Chiappelli

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Images, adapted from the following:

Coffee and music: Shutterstock / Nejron Photo

Shroud: pl:user:Jadwiga, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=526224

ISBN: 1-947707-42-6

ISBN-13: 978-1-947707-42-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018946455

Published by St. Polycarp Publishing House

www.stpolycarppublishinghouse.com

[e-mail]

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

To Olivia: her love of piano, her love of life, her love of family and friends, her love of me inspires me every day.

Porter Ranch

31 March 2018

Contents

gaudeamus igitur

(let us rejoice)

Prologue

Perception is reality. In the same vein, fiction always has some truth - to some degree, at least.

This novel is not different. Of all the stories that are narrated here, all are grounded, to some degree at least, in real facts. Though, truth be told, in some cases - many cases perhaps - the facts are embellished. Sometimes, the storytelling finds itself bordering on uchronia: events that could have been true to fact - many may in fact just have happened, or maybe they could have, but not exactly.

The plausibility of these hypotheticals does not take away from the fact that they are simply products of one’s imagination, non-facts, fiction. But again, certain of the facts described here are historical reality. So, what is what? It does not really matter: what matters is that this story is purely fiction based on non-fictional verifiable history, in the tradition of Truman Capote and others, a novel, a collection of stories that captures a window of time in the lives of the main characters. Some of these stories are grounded in history, some others in the expanse of imagination, and other stories yet find their inspiration in legend. It is my hope that the reader will find it as amusing to try to tease out the imaginary non-truths from reality, as I found it diverting to intertwine them.

The word legend comes from the Latin, leggenda. At its origin, the word indicated those items that must be read. Typically, they were miraculous story, or passages from the Divine Scripture, the Lectio Divina. In its more recent evolution, the word has come to mean that which could be summarized as follows: "...a short (mono-) episodic, traditional, highly ecotypified historicized narrative performed in a conversational mode, reflecting on a psychological level a symbolic representation of folk belief and collective experiences and serving as a reaffirmation of commonly held values of the group to whose tradition it belongs…." (Timothy R. Tangherlini¹)

Well, there you have it. This fictional story based on historical facts ...leggenda est, must be read, because (or perhaps simply ‘and’) it deals as much with legendary events as anything else within the grasp of our perception of historical facts that really happened, ...perhaps.

As a first hint, I may say that Mary Zdekauer did die in a tragic elevator accident in Madrid about 1875. So, in a sense, this story, or part of it, serves to remember Mary, her forefathers and her descendants.

As a second hint, I adhere to the many millions of Christians on our planet today who believe that a teacher called Jesus, and later surnamed the Messiah, the Christos - Christ, died to redeem us from our innumerable failings, including our original innate one, and was resurrected from the dead, and that such an event was possible because He is God. None of us, mere humans, could perceive this event by means of any of our senses. But our faith, the gift of faith, the grace of faith instructs our reason and our thought, as Bonaventure and many other saints have taught us. Faith becomes the lens through which we, believers in Christ, perceive reality. He, we believe, left traces, vestiges, icons (from the Greek eikon, image) of His transformation. which we, Christians, call icons. But the question remains: what are really true icons - vera icona... ver’icona...

What is a fact is that as Latin became vulgarized into the early forms of present-day Romance languages - Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Romanian - words were contracted, mispronounced, mal-enunciated and corrupted in various ways and for different purposes and reasons. Case point, the phrase vera icona became ver’icona, and eventually transliterated to ver’onica.

The legend of Veronica, and her rag, does not appear anywhere in the Scriptures. It is purely fictional - a legend born from popular beliefs that Christ, during His passion and resurrection, left behind traces, vestiges, icons for us. Or is it?

This novel explores this fact... or this uchronia.

In brief, it is difficult to navigate across the dense confusion that emerges in the unlikely space perception and legend share, the intangible universe where faith and skepticism co-inhabit, the dimension that intertwines true reality and false reality, the realm where historical facts intersect possible or even probable uchronia. But, that is exactly what a historical novel should be. So, I offer this work to the courageous reader who will follow its theme of love, love of piano and love of friends, through leads and threads around the world, to the very end.

To my soulmate, Olivia, undoubtedly the person most deserving in this present instance, and all my work, goes my heartfelt reconnaissance. It was her idea, in absolute: ...of the two girls growing together in friendship and in a shared love for the piano - the center, the heart, the settings of this novel, it was, in truth, fully Olivia's creation. All I did was to build around it. And build, and build. This work is dedicated to Olivia.

I naturally acknowledge Fredi and Aimerica.

And of course, as all our efforts and endeavors always must, this work humbly seeks to honor...

… la gloria di Colui che tutto move

per l’universo penetra e risplende

in una parte più e meno altrove ….

(...the glory of He who moves all

which penetrates and shines through the universe

in a place, more and less in another...)

Dante Alighieri, 1265–1321

La Divina Commedia, Paradiso, I 1–3

1 Charles returns – For Love

It was a normal day in the 'Grand Est' of France. A normal day of gloomy weather. Through the silence of the fog, one perceived the muffled regular cadence of the train wheels hitting the rails - thun-thun ... thun-thun. Nature was quiet - almost: only man-made noise disturbed the peace. The train neared the station with a timid whistle. It slowed down, and calmly came to a halt.

The young man, alone in the compartment ever since they had left Strasbourg, awoke, a bit startled for having succumbed to sleepiness. He had promised himself to study the landscape of Alsace from the train window. That was a landscape well familiar to him, so laden it was with old and painful memories. And yet, as if to protect himself subconsciously, his eyes had shut closed, and he had slept for the last 90 minutes, missing the sad sight of the foggy hills and dreary fields running away from sight as fast as they had come into the field of vision as they emerged, like ghosts, from the grayish nothingness that blended earth to sky in an apparently wettish, inert matter suspended without consistency, form or purpose, except to entrap one's thoughts in its languid melancholy.

As the train slowly moved again to exit the station, Charles's heart dropped when he saw the name of the station: Thionville. Tears rushed to his eyes - a youngster's tears long repressed in the far corners of his subconscious, for decades. Old scars of a torn heart of many, many years ago burned again, as if they were ready to rip open.

The young man in his forties had his eyes transfixed on the borders of the Moselle river the train was now reaching. He seemed petrified by these innocuous sights - by the memories these innocuous sights brought back of a youth lost, of old and forgotten feelings of despair and loneliness: emotions long conquered, now rushing precipitously in his afflicted mind wounding his heart anew.

Charles was a tall and elegant man in his prime. It was clear that he had been an athlete in his younger years - a swimmer perhaps, considering his well-distributed musculature one could imagine from the sport shirt he was wearing. He had taken the jacket of his suit off when he had boarded the train in Lyon, but had kept his tie. Casual elegance of a truly handsome young gentleman!

Even asleep, he looked sharp and well-kept. Brown city shoes, with light brown socks matched perfectly his beige Summer suit. His conservative tie, stripes of varying tonalities of beige to dark brown in a light blue background, was thoughtfully blending with his light blue cotton shirt.

He did not have much luggage. Perhaps, he was returning home.

Well actually, yes, he was returning; but that was not what he considered his home: rather, his former place of residence - an unfortunate residence at that - for a little over a decade, a long, long time ago.

The train had left French territory now. He knew that because he was well familiar with that train ride, as he had taken it one too many times several years ago. He was perspiring with rising anxiety.

‘But why?’ He tried to reason with himself. Why have such a reaction? He had left those sites over two decades ago, had completed his education far from here and in a much happier environment that had made him become the self-assured young man that he was today. Despite the years here that had shattered his view of himself as a teenager growing up amid so much negativity, he had been able to complete his studies at a university not far from here. Then, he had established himself as a brilliant emerging academician in the field of his passion.

‘So, why so much anxiety today, at this moment...?’

Thoughts and memories of these places he was now seeing again fugaciously passing across the train window were, he thought, or they should have been, very distant memories. Yet, they were reemerging as raw and cruel, as stabbing and heart-wrenching as when he first experienced them twenty or thirty years earlier.

The train was traversing the Grand Duchy. It had left the Moselle behind, and was approaching fast, too fast, Charles thought, the city of Luxembourg.

And now all too quickly, before he could put a semblance of order and control over his thoughts, the train had begun to slow down as it was entering the station. Again, the sad whistle.

The train stopped. Charles put his jacket on, took his luggage, descended from the train, and saw her - as beautiful as he had remembered her. Close to three decades had passed since they had last seen each other.

Mother!

Charles - my son, my dear, dear son!

They embraced. An embrace that seemed to last forever.

The drive from the train station to Andreina's home seemed to Charles to be longer and more complex than he remembered. He had taken this same route on his bicycle so many times as a youngster. Back then, there was hardly any traffic - cars in circulation, yes, but not the three-lane traffic congestion that they were facing now. And the bridge over the park and the river of the Pétrusse - oh my god! it was still the same depressing brownish-grayish color that it always was - the Viaduc it was called, Charles seemed to remember - ‘but look’, Charles thought to himself, ‘the dirt path down to the river I used to take to meditate in loneliness, look: it is a nicely cemented walkway now.’

Memories of him riding his bike down that path furiously, as if to cast away the sad reality of his misadventures at school and elsewhere, with his dear dog, his faithful and only friend during those years, running as fast as he could to stay next to his master rolling down the dirt path… these memories came rushing to Charles' mind. He could visualize himself and his dog, the two of them rushing down that path like there was no tomorrow, under this the second largest, but the oldest, bridge of the city in those days.

Charles closed his eyes, and bemused himself in seeing in his mind this rather reckless bike-ride down that trail with the poor dog panting besides him. He saw them both stopping at the edge of the river, and the dog drinking, and he, refreshing his feet in the Pétrusse.

Without his dog, his life back-then would really have been in free-fall. And then, they had to give his friend away, because the owner of the home his mother was renting had changed his mind: he would not allow pets any longer. A year and a half after he had had to close the cage of the dog shelter where he had been forced to leave his best and only true friend, he had learned that the new owners could not deal with him, and were compelled to euthanize him. One of the most tragic losses for Charles as a teenager: a wound that never quite healed.

Charles melancholically thought of his dog. He had had many dogs after that, and presently owned, and loved and cared for two. But he, his first dog, his only friend during those years of anguish: he was the dog that was taken from him, that they had ripped right out of his heart, that they had killed just because they could not try to understand his free spirit and his love of life.

What is the matter, Charles? you seem sad all of the sudden?

Nothing mother dearest, just thoughts and memories ...

I understand - well, I have prepared something for lunch that .... will also trigger memories - nice ones, I hope: it used to be your favorite....

She looked at him with a bright and tenderly loving smile. He took her hand, and elegantly, as she had taught him to do, kissed her hand.

Andreina was driving, and glancing over, with immense pride, to her son - her only son, whom she had not seen since he had left Luxembourg in a teenage fit of rage and exasperation at age 18. He had left by train one day, with only a backpack, and sent no news for years.

One day, recently, she had found a letter in her mailbox from the university of Genova: Faculty of Music and Musicology. She was intrigued: she knew no one who taught music or music history at the university of Genova?!

When she opened the envelope, she almost collapsed: it was from her long-lost son Charles. It just said this:

"Mother, I love you and have always loved you, even if my pride has prevented me from writing or calling for over two decades.

I have done well, and life, after so many right turns and left turns, brought me back to your passion of always, and grand-ma's passion, and my newly found passion: music. I studied piano - a bit in your memory and grand-ma's, and have become, not a concert pianist like her or a fantastic lover of piano like you, but a teacher and critic of piano. In that capacity, I joined academia, and now am the chairman of our music department at the Genova university.

I write today to give you my home address in Sarzana, which is via Verdi 3, and to say that I miss you.

May I come to see you next week? I will come by train: Genova-Lyon and Lyon-Luxembourg. I could arrive next Friday early afternoon, and stay a few days.

Might I, mother dearest, I would love to give you a kiss."

Andreina had cried over this letter for hours. Not so much for the great happiness of knowing that her son was well, and had done well for himself, not so much for the exhilarating joy of his impending visit, but because those were the very same words that she had educated Charles, the child, and that he had faithfully learned to use every night upon going to bed for the night: "might I wish you good-night now: I would love to give you a kiss good-night".

That was one of the ways, she thought, she could teach young Charles to respect individual boundaries, particularly the boundaries of the women in his life, particularly in the evening and in relation to going to bed.

‘Despite life’, she thought, ‘despite the differences between us that life has imposed upon us, Charles has learned, and still retains some of the fundamental values I have taught him’. She had pressed her son's letter to her heart, and fully experienced this moment of intense and complete thankfulness.

Of course, she had immediately answered Charles, and the visit plans had been finalized. And now, here he was, next to her in the car exactly like twenty-five years ago or so, when on gloomy days like today she would drop him off at school for abundance of concern that he might slip off his bicycle on the wet road.

‘As if no time had passed’, she thought.

He was looking out the window of the passenger side with the same morose mood as back then, absorbed in his thoughts today as he was then. ‘The only difference’, Andreina thought to herself, ‘is that nice elegant well-trimmed beard that he carries now, and the nice suit’ - back then, he most often had his sport attire on because of the soccer match he had to play after school or the swim meet, or judo or what have you. And of course, he had more hair back then, and it was light brown back then, not thinning salt and pepper as it is today. Andreina smiled.

Mother dearest, why are you smiling? Are you happy that I came?

Yes, Charles - I am delighted.

Me too, mother. I would love to give you a kiss, if I may, when we get home....

Andreina felt a tear softly descending along her cheek. It is nice to hear you call it 'home', is all she answered.

Silence fell between the two as she drove the last few intersections until they reached the house where Charles had spent a decade of his youth, and where Andreina had settled now for over forty years.

The house was a simple two-story single-family house in the middle of the block, just a few meters from the intersection, across which the Catholic Church stood where Charles had received the Sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation, where he used to go to Sunday Mass with his grand-mother Carla until she became unable to walk.

He remembered every side and every angle of the neighborhood, of the street, of the block, of the house: there he had played, cried, meditated and dreamed for years and years, mostly alone with his dog, sometimes with the few friends he had, always digging deeper and deeper in thoughtful introspection.

But he remembered the house bigger, somehow, of larger dimensions - higher and wider. The driveway which led to the garage in the cellar under the house seemed longer and steeper in his memory - and he should remember it well: his task was, every week, rain or shine, wind or snow, to drag the trash up that driveway to the main road for trash collection - he well remembered how heavy that trash was, how arduous that task was, especially on gloomy days like today.

Here we are! Andreina joyfully proclaimed, welcome back home, Charles! Her bright and always charmingly captivating smile, which was echoed by the serene happiness that profusely exuded from her eyes, was contrasted by Charles’ morose aspect and the fugacity of his look scouring the environment, as if to verify that all the bits of his memory were undoubtedly corresponding with the reality he was now seeing again.

But in fact, it was almost as if he saw old friends, or old nemeses in those walls, the hung pictures, those old and familiar pieces of furniture - ahh, his favorite table of all time!, still there - how could he forget this ornate elegant wooden table, probably 17th century northern Italian carvings: it had been his great great grand-father's office table, then his great grand-father's, then his grand-father's; and his mother, Andreina, had promised him from the time they had to escape Prague when the Soviets invaded - he must have been 6 or 7 then - that it would be his table when he grew up. And then... so many things happened, and he grew up, and the table is still here - not his: a family tradition broken - another family tradition that he had broken.

That table was a real palpable symbol of the deeper family ties life had broken for him, or because of him - he wasn’t sure: he who loved family so much! life had destined him to sever all connections. He had become like a cut branch - maybe the branch that the Gospel... - God only knows which one, but the story is that if you have a fruit tree, and a branch is not producing fruits as it should, then, it ought to be cut off and burned. ...or something like that... maybe he was that branch, he thought.

The exact Gospel story was not clear in Charles' mind: he had not been to Mass, and had not heard that Gospel story for a while. But, he really felt, at this precise moment, that he had been as useless for his mother and his family for years as that poor tree branch. And maybe it was good then that he never got that table: he would have dishonored the memory of his forefathers.

Furniture, after all, like dogs and all things you love have a soul, or something like that. Especially old wooden furniture that have belonged to the family for generations: they carry their souls across from father to son, and further down generations after generations, and connect the lives and experiences, almost as if they were solid, rather than fluid, family blood.

But he, in his wanton late teenage years had, figuratively speaking, exsanguinated himself of all the family blood, declared his independence, and rushed into the night with only a few shirts and his pride.

The sight of this table was bringing all these thoughts back into his mind, rushing disorderedly into his heart. For an instant, a long moment, the rational young academician had regressed to be the confused, rash and immature teenager, who felt imprisoned by life, without understanding that he was enslaving himself to the weaknesses of his own biases and ill-conceived preconceptions about all which he could not control.

A very childish viewpoint to be sure, but, one, to Charles' detriment, that had plagued him until he had found himself alone, destitute and purposeless his early twenties. That is about when he found Stoneface wounded in the middle of the street one night. He had called that young adult dog Stoneface because she had apparently been hit in the snout with a stone by some irresponsible kids, and left for dead in traffic. Charles saved her, paid the veterinary bills for the stitches she needed and the bandages, cared for her, fed her and loved her. And Stoneface became his best and most faithful dog companion for many years.

In fact, unknowingly, Stoneface had done more for Charles than he for her: she had helped him to find the goodness of his own heart, the value of his own life, the purpose of his existence, the love he had for his mother and his family. While she was recovering, in that rather shabby small studio in Trier, which Charles called his home in those early years of his 'emancipation', he used a larger proportion of his then meager income to rent an upright piano, so that he could spend hours playing for her. He had heard of the great healing power of music. And he applied it to his new life companion.

He returned to practicing those pieces of Schumann and Chopin, those Bach fugues and those Clementi's sonatinas, his favorite, and the French Romantics, whom he remembered to be his mother's favorites. He practiced for Stoneface, and he played for Stoneface, for her to heal, for her to get better, for the love he had for that dog who was changing his life.

There was a je ne sais quoi of nostalgia in his playing, because those were the very piano pieces his mother had taught him - he would then stop and wonder how she was, his sweet beautiful mother, after so many years that he had left ...maybe he should not have left like that... maybe he should go and see her... write... - he remembered her always insisting that he practice the piano: 'For the sake of your grand-mother and her mother, who were great pianists, great lovers of the clavicembalo - for them, Charles, if not for me or for yourself, for them, practice ...not only the technique of hitting the right note, of reading the music sheet correctly, but of feeling the music - you must feel the soul of the piano, Charles!' She would exhort him to practice.

And so now, not for her or for himself, but for Stoneface, he was practicing the piano for hours on end every day. He was practicing finding the soul of the piano, the love of the piano, for Stoneface, his dog.

Music, piano had become his life: his gift of life for a dog he had saved and loved, and who was now saving him, unbeknownst to him, through music and piano. His mother had taught him so well that now, with feelings of love for a wounded animal, he was playing with so much intensity of oneness with the instrument that, in the depths of the sound of the music he was creating, his and Stoneface's souls were meeting and becoming intertwined in an unbreakable bond of faithfulness.

Stoneface grew stronger be the day, and he took her on walks, on hikes, on promenades with his girlfriend of the moment. And every time, she had to be perfectly groomed: he was paying more attention to pampering her than to caring for his own appearance. So, maintaining Stoneface was becoming more expensive - not more onerous, because he was doing it out of love, just …more expensive - than caring for his own well- being.

To maintain Stoneface, he applied himself to find a better job. In addition, to earn a few more coins, he was playing piano here and there and everywhere, with Stoneface lying under the piano - always.

Soon, Charles was 'discovered,' we'd say, by an elderly man: a pianist himself, a professor of piano at the university.

Professor Steinmetz held Charles in high esteem because he saw in his eyes the same passion for life that once was in his during his younger years, and because he recognized Charles' innate talent and enormous potential. Besides, he was a dog-lover himself, and had fallen in love with Stoneface's gentle eye - the left only: she had lost the right eye in that nasty stoning incident.

The Professor had convinced Charles 'to become interested in learning more about the piano', so Charles applied and was accepted to the music program at the university of Trier. He studied under Professor Steinmetz for several years, who had obtained special dispensation for Charles to bring Stoneface to class. So, you could say that Stoneface also received a higher education in classical music, and tuition-free no less!

When Stoneface died, peacefully of old age, Charles composed a Requiem for two pianos - his only composition ever - which he and Professor Steinmetz played to celebrate her life, and send off to her peaceful repose in dog heaven.

Charles had almost completed his studies of piano performance and theory by then, but the loss of his faithful friend had plunged him into a serious depressive episode. He could not make himself find the concentration and the determination to play any longer, knowing that Stoneface was not under the piano. He could find only faults in his playing - too mechanical, too fast, too staccato, too legato, too slow, not in line with the real meaning the composer had in mind when he wrote the piece, etc. He was raising all sorts of criticisms against his own piano playing, which all converged to one sentiment: 'you are violating the very soul of the piano by letting your emotions betray your playing, you play your feelings rather than the sentiment intended by the composer'.

Professor Steinmetz, as only seasoned academicians and dedicated mentors can, observed this cognitive and emotive dissonance in his pupil, and advised him to specialize, for his doctorate curriculum, in the subject of music critic, rather than composing or performance. And so, it was that Charles had become one the best known and most respected musicologists of Europe - a critic of piano like no other, and a superb academician himself.

He had accepted a faculty position at Pisa because it was the closest to Empoli, where Busoni was born and raised. There, he had fast advanced in academic rank from assistant professor, to associate professor, and full professor. Reluctantly, he had left Pisa for Genova to take on the post of chair of his department, but had done so only because he saw this move as an opportunity to reshape his faculty into better mentors - like Herman had been for him.

Herman Steinmetz had retired from his academic charge soon after Charles had completed his curriculum, and Charles had returned the affectionate friendship of his mentor by inviting him to live with him, since he had lost his wife a decade earlier and had no children or close family: his only possessions were a Boisendörfer Grand, and his vast collection of music books of the baroque and romantic genre.

There was something dark in one far removed corner of the Professor's heart. As the two men grew closer, lived together, and listened to each other's rendition of Chopin's études, it became possible for Charles to inquire, in a non-invasive manner, as to what was troubling his master and dear friend on some days more than others. And Herman felt at ease to tell him that, sometimes, sad memories of the war flooded his mind and heart.

He told Charles that, when he was about his age, as a soldier in the German army, he had been forced to participate in truly atrocious acts of cruelty as the Nazi army was being pushed up Northern Italy by the American V army fast advancing from the south, as they were defeating Fascism. Most of the acts of retaliation were directed against the Italians, because the Nazis now considered them as traitors. And we, the Nazis, Herman had said, had become overnight, the invaders: "we were the allies for years, then one day Fascism fell and we became the invaders. The 8 of September 1943 - the armistice of Cassabile: that day from a friendly soldier, I became an assassin for a cause I despised", Herman had lamented. He stated that from friends, they, the Italians had become traitors, so their role, as Nazis, had changed from helping and protecting the Italian population to imprisoning, torturing and decimating them.

Of course, all Italian civilians were, from that day on, considered to be working with the partisans ...thus, they must be questioned, to death if necessary! The tragic inhumanity of war, Herman had underscored.

And he had further explained to Charles that all it was, really, was pure and simple rationalized hellish mayhem - cruel irrational insanity. He was just a soldier, Herman had told Charles, ...ordered to follow orders - even setting fire to that church in the village of Sarzana on the hills above Lucca, where all the women and children of the village had been forced in, and the windows and doors boarded shut. He had set fire to that church. He had been given the order to set fire to that church, and all inside perished. But, he, Herman, he had set fire to that church with all these people inside. How could he have carried out such an act of horrible hate? How could he go on living after having killed so many innocent elderly, women and children?

He never could forget the screams of agonizing human beings - the smell of burnt human flesh. All he wished was to be able to go back to Sarzana, and atone.

Herman’s face was distorted by the grimace of pain and profuse tears. He had wept on Charles’ shoulders for a long while that day.

So that is why Charles had bought his home, for himself and for Herman and Iris, Stoneface's successor, in Sarzana, where his commute to the Pisa campus was relatively simple. And Herman lived his last few years atoning and praying for the deaths he had caused. Every day, until his last, he would walk with faithful Iris to the remembrance bench that faced the ruins that were once the church he had set on fire, and silently meditate for the repose of the souls of his victims. Then, upon returning home, he would play several Bach cantatas, with Iris lying under the piano, until Charles would return home from the Pisa campus. The same routine held when Charles transferred to the Genova campus, although his daily commute was now a bit longer. Every day, until his last, Herman prayed in atonement for the great pain he had inflicted on so many. Herman had just passed a few months ago.

Andreina had listened attentively to every bit of Charles' story, without interrupting him, looking in the depth of his eyes, which reminded her so much of her own mother's eyes.

She was so proud of her son. Andreina was so happy to have her son back home.

But, dear mother, tell me about you...

2 Escape from Prague

Mother and son, absorbed in their memories, were now silently looking at each other's souls through their loved-filled eyes. It was as if time was suspended in an infinitesimal moment of the eternal universe, as if it had been suspended like this for the past twenty-five plus years. Nothing had changed: they were still mother and son, alone in the world on fire around them, afraid, escaping the roar of tanks and army trucks.

That Summer 1968 was engraved in their memories for ever and a day: