History (111 page)

At the shot which killed the dog, Ida's head gave a brief jerk : and this, apparently, was the last stimulus to which the woman reacted as long as she remained alive. Her existence was to last more than nine years after wards. In the ledgers of the hospital, where she was taken that same day, never to leave it till the end, her decea is dated 11 December 1956. She apparently died of pulmonary complications after an ordinary attack of fever. She was fi ty-three years old.

From the information I have been able to gather, it seems she re mained frozen in the same attitude from the fi day to the last of those

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nine and more years : the same pose in which they had found her when, breaking down the door, they had taken her by surprise that late June day in Via Bodoni. She was seated, her hands clasped in her lap, moving them every now and then, entwining her fi as if to play; and in her face there was the luminous and bewildered stupor of someone who has just waked and doesn't yet recognize the things he is seeing. If you spoke to her, she had an innocent and meek smile, full of serenity and almost of gratitude; but it was useless to expect any answer from her. Indeed, she seemed hardly to perceive voices, understanding no language, perhaps distinguish ing no words. At times, in a dreamy murmur, she would repeat some vague syllables to herself, which seemed to belong to a forgotten language, or the language of a dream. With the blind, with deaf-mutes, it is possible to communicate; but with her, who was not blind or deaf or dumb, there was no possible communication.

I believe, really, that the little senile fi whose peaceful smile is still remembered by some in the raving wards of the Asylum, survived those nine years and more only for the others, that is, according to others' time. Like the advance of a reflection, which, from its ridiculous, small point, is multiplied in more and more mirrors, over a distance, the duration of nine of our years was barely the space of a heartbeat for her. She too, like the famous Lesser Panda of legend, was suspended at the top of a tree where temporal charters were no longer in eff She, in reality, had died with her little Useppe (like his other mother, the Maremma shepherdess ). With c:Jat Monday in June 1947, the poor history of Iduzza Ramundo was ended.

548 H I S T O R Y
. .
. .
.
.
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• • • • • •

Muerto nifi muerto mio. Nadie nos riente en la tierra
donde
haces caliente el frio.

M I G U E L H E R N A N D E Z

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. . . . . 194&- 949-1950-1951

In Italy, the series of crimes organized by landowners in the South against peasants and farm-workers and their associations continues (in two years, 36 union organizers are killed ) .-In Rome, attempted assassination of Togliatti.-Martial law and violent repressions in Greece ( 1 52 guerrillas executed) .-Mahatma Gandl1i assassinated in New Delhi by a right-wing extremist.-In Palestine, the Jews found the republic of Israel and defeat the Arab League.-In South Africa, the National Front controls the govern ment and initiates the policy of racial segregation of the blacks.-The cold war between the Powers of the two blocs is exacerbated. The dispute over the fate of Germany continues. Accesses to West Berlin blocked by the USSR, thus preventing supplies reaching the Allied sectors of the capital. Airlift established by the Allies to continue fl of supplies. Intensive mobilization in the USSR.-The armament race goes on, incessant, and so does underground activity surrounding the nuclear secret. The technology of ballistic missiles is perfected.

About tw y years after the beginning of the civil war in China,
defi victory
of the Red army. Mao Tse-tung
and the
other Communist leaders enter Peking. The Nationalist leaders fl to Formosa.-The Western Powers with the nations of their bloc (including Italy) sign a military alliance known as the Atlantic Pact ( NATO) .-First Soviet atomic experiment.-With the breaking of the American atomic secret, a new stage in the armament race begins. The Major Powers, with the total and progressive employment of their sciences and their industries, dedir; themselves mainly to the increase of their stockpile of bombs (proliferation of nuclear weapons ). This competition will take the name of balance of
deterr
or of terror. In it, the two leading possessors of Power in the world ( United States and USSR) will spend
a
great part of their enormous resources of wealth and labor.-It is calculated that in the poor countries of the globe the number of deaths from starvation is 40 million annually.