To Oriana

A youngster on holiday in Canada often finds himself spending a large number of hours wandering around, walking the streets of the city that hosts him. As he hits sidewalks he cannot help noticing all sort of things. I will put them all aside to tell you about one in particular: a small and insignificant one for many of you but of priceless value for this young guy who experienced it.

In the beginning of November the Canadians – like many others in various countries – have a small red flower buttoned down on their chest. Due to the large number of flowers necessary to beautify millions of chests someone had the clever idea to produce artificial flowers. Therefore, the young guy had run into hundreds of them. Initially he thought of some sort of identification for those employed at the Canadian government. Such an idea however was quickly dismissed: the youngster had caught eye of a man wearing the flower, who undoubtedly could not have been considered particularly trendy: his untied shoes, torn jeans and unlit cigarette-end would have hardly granted him free access to any government office. So what was that flower about? The boy thought of a congregation, perhaps… No, the number of people wearing it suggested a larger event. The young guy could not figure it out.

“Never mind” he thought to himself, “possibly its significance is incomprehensible to non-Canadians”.

As anyone would expect from a typical November day, one morning the weather suddenly decided to force everybody to find shelter indoor: a rain storm offered an unusual display of its power, and even the most audacious Japanese tourist would have had his touristic intensions drowned.

“And now? What am I gonna do all day?” the guy thought. Indeed, due to his Mediterranean origins and habits the last thing he would have thought of was to include an umbrella into his luggage. Hoping that the weather would turn well soon, he gladly welcomed the idea to spoil himself with a huge breakfast at the pub located on the ground floor of the hotel where he was housed. Now, the readers are not aware that, despite the comfortable furnishing and a tasty menu of the pub the young guy did not intend to spend a minute longer in there than the time required for a good full breakfast. Indeed, it is useful to remark the appearance of the pub’s regular customers: elderly people – or individuals on the way of being classified as elderly – or people whose outstanding blank eyes were noticed by the guy, those blank eyes that many people from around the neighborhood seemed to have…

Once breakfast was over, our boy felt the irresistible call of one of those vices that, in his opinion, formed any human being’s right: the pleasure of a smoke. Alas, due to the strict smoking policy in force in Canada at that time combined with the non-Caribbean weather outside, he was to join a small smoking room in the pub. Contrary to what one might assume, this room was rather comfy, well furnished and spacey enough, especially set for those people who – like him – believed the joy of a cigarette a perfect day starter. Needless to say however, the customers present in this small room had the very same attributes of those seated outside of it.

“Who cares?” he thought, “We all have one thing in common at least…”.

You will agree that this common ‘love’ – which is by the way the precise word the young man used to describe the relationship between him and cigarettes – is by many authorities considered a vice that kills.

Three high tables, some chairs, few candles, a bar stretched all around the perimeter, many beer glasses – despite the early time of day – a bunch of people, ashtrays – God bless them – and a very small air conditioner. Such was the furniture our young boy found himself surrounded by.

“May I join ya at your table, sir?”

The young man turned around to see from whom such request came. A man of about 60 years old, with regular and pleasant face features; tough body; rough skin and strong hands; well kept beard and moustache spotted here and there in white. But above all, an honest and sincere smile. A hat that hid a pair of eyes of which its vivacity and aliveness would have driven anyone 30 or 40 years younger jealous. All these where the sensations caused by the man to the guy in the moment he replied,

“Sure”.

With an easiness and spontaneity that belong only to whom is well acquainted with himself, the people around him and his surroundings, the man with the hat started up a conversation with two others, apparently of the same age. Canada was their topic of conversation, or at least the one with which they began. Soon, they started talking about weapons. Each expressed which gunfire he preferred, among those in force in the Canadian army in who-knows-how-many-years from now. Plus and minus of various double-letter named rifles and guns. The young man could only catch Magnum and MG-something.

As if to make up a topic that involved means by which the Canadian army used to kill people, the three men soon took shelter under the topic of ‘Canadian History’. It is worthy for the readers to notice that the knowledge of such a topic amongst the three men was as extensive as the advantages and disadvantages of a Kalasnikov rifle. Nevertheless, the young man couldn’t help to notice the genuineness and devotion of speech that only belongs to people over a certain age: each of them listened carefully to the speaker, who would speak quietly and clearly, and in turn each would show honest interest. Suddenly the young guy realized how lucky he was for being a listener of such a conversation.

“Oh, there are so many things I would like to ask!” he thought.

At last, he loosened his breaks and decided to say,

“May I ask you a question, sir?”

As the time passed by he found himself listening to how the city of Vancouver was born; who first arrived in that area; relations with the United States (a hard laugh upon this matter was caused when one of the men shouted, “Ah! Americans ain’t nobody!” The young boy for a moment wished it was so in reality as well…); the Confederation; the unique multi-ethnicity of Canada and its citizens; to what military group each man had served in; the status of that very neighborhood where the four men were at moment, said to be the poorest in North America; and much more.

All of a sudden, the young man’s eyes were caught by the third man. A spot stood on his jacket. A flower; red. A red flower was hanging on his chest, at heart-length. The boy wondered why he had not notice it before.

“Perhaps that small air conditioner isn’t working properly…” he said to himself, as if to give the presence of smoke in the room the responsibility for a lack of grabbing visual details that had always cursed him in his life. He smiled to himself and thought,

“Will you ask him what that flower is about or you wanna bring this secret back to Europe with you??”

In the exact moment he finished to formulate the question to the man with the flower, the other two turned their head to the guy simultaneously. The first one, who was first to give a word to the boy, with one finger raised slightly the peak of his hat and stared at the guy. The poor boy had the impression of being in front of a parent whose 4 years old son asks him the utility and significance of a condom.

“I’m sorry but I don’t have the least idea…” mumbled the guy.

“It’s a symbol” replied telegraphically the man in front.

“Uhm, I guess I had come up with that myself already…” thought ironically the boy.

Then he comprehended.

“Of course! They have given for granted I am Canadian too! They have no idea I’m a foreigner!”

Luckily enough, the three men welcomed gladly the understanding of the guy being of Mediterranean origins. Consequently the young man felt curious to know what – if any – had been the contribution of his own countrymen to the evolution of Canada as a country.

“Uhm, not bad” he thought at the end. “It is therefore true then that only the French hate us!” said with a bit of irony. To this conclusion followed an acknowledgement by the three men that confirmed what the young boy just stated: everybody hates the French, even Canadians!

At this point, after being held in high esteem by the three men again he desired to ask further about the significance of that red flower.

Meet the Poppy Flower. It belongs to the family of Corn Poppies. This poppy is a common weed throughout Europe. However, it is particularly numerous in Flanders Fields, Belgium. On this location lays a big cemetery where hundreds of Ally soldiers were buried in the Second World War. Here now find eternal sleep Canadian and American men. Most of Commonwealth countries – therefore Canada included – wear this flower to commemorate those men. Years after WWII, the Poppy Flower had been chosen to symbolize all those perished in warfare times. The Remembrance Day is November 11th.

The man with the hat was carefully weighting his words as he explained all this to the young man. The man’s voice had become lower and more solemn, and the boy noticed a sparkling light into his eyes as the man stared at him. Instantly our young man understood the importance of this celebration day for Canadians. For many instants he felt a bit ashamed of not-knowing of this flower before. Such shame however, was also mixed with a thought that had always come up on his mind every time he found himself talking about WWII with other foreigners: sure, his country joined the Allies’ side before the end of the war, but he couldn’t help to think of all those soldiers whose death his own countrymen had contributed to in such large numbers, when they still were on evil’s side. And now he had been seeing so many of those flowers onto so many coats around him…

The young boy shared these thoughts to the man in front of him. His eyes stared below, he had no courage to look the man in the eyes. In a moment, a paternal look of forgiveness formed onto the man’s face.

“Ah! Young ya are, sir!” the man replied, “And besides, think of all those underground fighters who raised against that son of a … him … Musilini!”

“Mussolini”

“That’s right! Your country contributed to the war with the largest number of rebels, I’m tellin’ ya!”

In that very moment a clear image suddenly formed in the boy’s mind. A photograph of Oriana Fallaci – Italian writer and former war reporter – whose picture he had seen years ago when he first opened one of her books, one of his favorite ever since. He had read many times that Ms. Fallaci, when she was just a child, had been a messenger in war time, carrying letters, food, weapons and such to the rebels during the German occupation of Firenze. Ms. Fallaci had died only few weeks before.

Then, for the first time that evening – or was it still morning? Yes it was morning yet – our young boy got shocked. One of the three men – the one wearing the Poppy Flower, the least talkative among them, the one whose words hit the guy’s mind the most – walked out for a while. He walked in again and stretched a hand towards the table where the guy was seated. The guy felt as if the man’s hand was moving in slow motion towards him. Between him and a glass of beer offered to him by one of the three fellows was now laying a Poppy Flower. The guy, his lips slightly parted, raised his eyes towards the man’s. He nodded slightly and reached his seat again. The guy stared at the flower for a while, as if expecting it to talk to him.

“I can’t… really … I…” mumbled the guy, his eyes still on the flower.

Then he understood. He got up his chair. He stepped to the man with the hat. He handed him the flower and showed his neck, as lovers do when they want to be kissed right there. The man silently placed the flower onto the collar of the boy’s shirt. The guy was staring at the floor, because that sparkling light he had seen before was now in his own eyes. He reached his seat again and did not say a word for a long while.

The conversation took up again the tones and vivacity of few minutes earlier. The young man had the impression of having been in the centre of the world for long moments. Then he finally took a grip of himself and re-acquired that clearness of mind of which he had always been so proud of.

“In a smoking room, in a hotel of 40 euro per night, in the poorest neighborhood of North America…” he thought for a moment of all prejudices and stereotypes concerning the nature of his accommodation,

“…What a fool!” said himself smiling.

Before taking off he promised the man with the hat he would have told his dearest friends about the Poppy Flower. He got up and shaked the men’s hands. He walked away with the awareness of – despite what he thought only few hours earlier – having in common with those men something unspeakably more precious than a mere passion of smoking a cigarette in company…

He looked out the glass door of the hotel and Japanese tourists were to be seen nowhere. It was still pouring rain, as if God left the tap open.