from Simone Perotti’s blog (august 31, 2013)
I don’t know his face and even his name. I followed him already on arrival, passing over the head of the pier of the port. Then I look for him this morning, there he was, still, slow but accelerated. But I was far away. I’ve only seen this man’s history. Rowing against wave ferry, rowing against the engines. Arms for his life.
When I expanded the view, I saw the lady. She’s arrived, she sat on the bench, her purse on her legs, a decent dress such as grandmothers seventies. She waited. He seemed to me just accelerate the pace of the oar, perhaps imperceptibly stand on the trunk, give a tone. How many times has taken her from one end to another. Even as children, perhaps, the girl with her dress clean for the party, the handsome boy with vest and muscle to hope.
Goran, I call him that, he works and live bringing people there. To where, no one knows. Walking by foot they should take a ride down to the bridge, a long route. His office is the orange boat, his raw material are the arms, his market this reach of the sea. Work, effort, dignity, the assets of the Mediterranean. I try to remember his face while Mediterranea entered into the port of Zadar.
Goran goes. Up and down, like a quiet undertow. Always wait for the right moment to cross, pulling the large ferries Jadrolinija and sailing boats. With his eyes tight, with his heart slow, give her short strokes of the oars , never to release the blade from the water. They will give you a coin, he will make a wave. Only to make a lady smile. He brought to life , back and forth , but she is always there. Maybe it comes and goes for no reason. Only for him. That’s why , she smiles.
Mediterranea was in the port of Zadar 7.116 N 44 ° – 15 ° 13,665 E, waiting, August 31, 2013 . On board we obsere and imagine.
Even more exciting was when the next morning in a comment to this blog post we will read this:
Hello, I’m Hrvoje a Greenpeace activist from Zadar. The man on the red boat is my father!!! I noticed your sailing boat Medeteranea in the harbour. I googled it’s name and reached this blog, where, surprisingly, I could recognise my father! As far as I understood your italian piece of writing, it seems a marvellous poetry! but his name is not Goran, it’s Miro. He was a manager at Karlovacko Brewery, till the year of the yugoslavian dissolution. He left the brewery when he was still quite young, about 45, to jump on “Persistence”, an ancient wooden sloop, and made a trip around the world with two friends and me. Now he’s old but he’s happy, and spends a very quite life among the banks of Zadar’s harbour. He needn’t to transport people across the harbour to earn his living, he does it just for his own pleasure, to meet people and perhaps to run into Mihaela, the lady you’ve mentioned. Every day. I guess he’s in love with her… That’s all! I hope to meet you again in Croatia and join your trip around the Mediterranean Sea next year.
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Just a moment… Could my comment be fake? Am I really Hrvoje? Is the man on the red boat truly my father? Aren’t we all fallen into a novel? Oars & Smiles… …..
This is mediterraneo too.
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