CABEÇA DE CRIANÇA

Sempre detestei rotina. Antes de cursar medicina, trabalhei numa firma onde era encarregado de preparar as reuniões sobre produtos novos a serem lançados. Embora estes mudassem constantemente, a metodologia de preparo e lançamento era sempre igual e muito chato.
Quando me formei, achava, ingenuamente, que iria encontrar pouca rotina pela frente. Ledo engano! O atendimento ambulatorial que prestava era pura rotina, mesmo sabendo-se que cada caso era um caso.
Portanto, quando surgia um atendimento diferente, era mais que bem-vindo, para colorir um pouco o ambiente insosso.
Foi o que ocorreu nos dois relatos abaixo, em dias quase seguidos.
A mãe foi quem chegou primeiro. Chorava copiosamente.
— Meu filho, meu filho!
Imaginando que a criança estivesse correndo risco de vida, fui a seu encontro.
A cena era tão cômica, que desatei a rir. Fui agredido com uma bolsada dada pela mãe.
— Você ri, é, você ri?
Entrou um menino com cerca de oito anos, sorrindo de orelha a orelha. Preso à testa estava um dardo, daqueles que se usa para jogar contra um alvo redondo de cortiça, preso a uma parede. Alguém jogara e lhe acertara. Como atingiu a tábua óssea interna da região frontal, ou seja, perfurou as duas camadas de osso da parte da frente do crânio, o dardo não veio pendurado e sim, espetado num ângulo de 90 graus.
Nem se discute a sorte que teve por não ter sido atingido em um dos olhos.
Foi uma simples questão de girar o dardo e retirá-lo. Nem sangrou. Um pequeno curativo e uma vacina contra o tétano e o menor foi dispensado.
O outro caso foi parecido.
A mãe entrou correndo no ambulatório, gritando para salvar-mos a sua filha.
Essa criança era mais nova que a outra. Chorava, chorando mais ao nos ver.
— Não vai precisar cortar a minha cabeça, né?
— É claro que não — afirmei.
— Mas, Doutor, não consigo tirar a lata da cabeça dela — disse a mãe.
E, de fato, a lata que a menina enfiara na cabeça não saía, por mais força que se colocasse. Era óbvio que formara um vácuo.
Pedi que a enfermeira trouxesse um abridor de latas da cozinha do hospital. Bastou uma pequena abertura no fundo da lata e esta saiu com facilidade.
Recebi um beijo agradecido da criança e as duas foram embora satisfeitas.

HAVE YOU EVER COME ACROSS THIS MOVIE?

I am looking for a movie that could have been made in the late 1940s or in the 1950s. I remember three takes: a tree (Tyburn?) is hit by lightning and two spirits are freed (father and daughter) that wish to avenge themselves of the family responsible for their deaths by hanging from that tree as sorcerers centuries before. The daughter falls in love with the man that represents that family, much against her father's wishes. The next thing I remember is the couple riding in a taxi at night and she asks the man what time is it. He looks out of the window directly at Big Ben and discovers that the taxi is flying. Who is driving? The girl's father. The film ends with the couple miniaturising the father and putting him in a bottle, closing him in with a cork, and placing the bottle on the mantelpiece so they can live in peace ever after.

If some reader can identify this motion picture, please let me know, by sending an E-mail to  wwharris@gmail.com

Thanks.

Walter

O RESGATE

extraído do livro
“A Árvore de Chocolate:
a saga de uma família”,
2ª Edição, 2001

Em plena Primeira Guerra Mundial, um acampamento inglês em solo francês fora duramente bombardeado e os soldados ingleses batiam em retirada.
Os alemães estavam fazendo de tudo para acabar com a Divisão, atacando com forças de terra e de ar e sua pontaria era certeira e mortífera.
Comandados por um oficial, saíram em fila indiana. Um atrás do outro, tentavam manter certa disciplina, apesar das circunstâncias, evitando as estradas e andando rapidamente, na tentativa de se afastar o mais rápido possível dali.
O caminho estava cheio de percalços, de terreno naturalmente irregular. Nas áreas de vegetação densa, sentiam-se seguros da aviação alemã, mas nas regiões descampadas, doíam-lhes os pescoços, de tanto olharem para o céu para ver a chegada de aeroplanos inimigos.
Não tardou muito para que o grupo de cerca de trinta homens fosse avistado por alemães que se encontravam num balão de observação. Mais que depressa, avisaram os colegas de terra. Estes, por sua vez alertaram os pilotos que partiram à caça de suas vítimas.
A aproximação de quatro aeroplanos fez com que todos procurassem abrigo, muito difícil naquele momento. Estavam atravessando um enorme pasto. Havia pouco gado, mas o pouco que estava ali, nem tomou conhecimento da presença dos forasteiros.
Ouviram-se os primeiros tiros vindos dos aparelhos. Arthur, que se deitou próximo de uma ribanceira, levantou a cabeça para ver o que estava acontecendo. Viu quando uma vaca foi atingida em cheio. Pareceu explodir, com pedaços de carne voando para tudo quando era lado. Arthur sentiu ânsia de vômito ao presenciar a cena, mas logo a esqueceu, preocupado com sua segurança.
Viu Walter, que estava do outro lado da mesma ribanceira e acenou. Ele respondeu também com um aceno e indicou uma vala mais à frente, sugerindo, por sinais, que fossem até lá. Arthur se levantou e saiu correndo. Walter fez o mesmo.
Um aeroplano britânico apareceu e começou a atacar os alemães. Um deles se separou dos demais para travar combate, enquanto os outros trataram de metralhar os soldados em terra. Um a um, os homens foram tombando, feridos demais para se erguer.
O piloto britânico conseguiu eliminar um dos aeroplanos alemães que caiu com grande estrondo de bico no chão. Os outros alemães tentaram, em vão, atacar o inglês, mas era um exímio aviador e não tiveram sucesso. Saíram do local, para se reagruparem.
Por sorte, Walter e Arthur não sofreram nenhum ferimento, mas perceberam que estavam sozinhos. Gritaram por seus parceiros, por cima do ruído dos motores, mas ninguém respondeu. Os homens tinham sido dizimados.
Sabiam que estavam liquidados. O aviador inglês, do ar, também percebeu a delicada situação em que se encontravam. Não havia mais nenhum soldado em pé. Os aeroplanos alemães estavam se direcionando de novo para eles.
O britânico, num gesto arrojado e destemido, baixou o biplano que pilotava e tentou pousar, fazendo sinais com uma das mãos para que os dois soldados chegassem mais perto.
Arthur e seu companheiro entenderam de imediato qual era sua intenção. Largaram tudo que carregavam e correram como doidos em sua direção. Os aeroplanos alemães estavam chegando mais perto.
Assim que tocou o solo, o piloto gritou com toda a força de seus pulmões:
— Depressa! Segurem em alguma coisa! Vamos sair daqui! Vamos! Vamos!
Tanto Walter como Arthur se atiraram no chão quando as asas do aeroplano passaram por cima deles e conseguiram se agarrar ao trem de pouso.
Satisfeito com o que viu, o piloto abriu o acelerador e puxou o bastão contra si. O motor reclamou e gemeu com o excesso de peso, mas obedeceu ao comando.
Com as pernas balançando perigosamente ao sabor do vento e os corpos pendurados do trem de pouso, Walter e Arthur faziam um esforço sobre-humano, tentando se ajeitar numa melhor posição, para não caírem. A trepidação do biplano nada os ajudava. Suavam profusamente em sua concentração de se manterem agarrados à vida. Era sua única chance e sabiam disso.
Os alemães, reconhecendo o drama e o heroísmo do piloto e dos dois soldados, passaram por eles, balançaram as asas em cumprimento e foram embora, deixando-os à própria sorte.
Não tardou e estavam sobrevoando uma região tranqüila, atrás das linhas aliadas.
— Vou descer — gritou o piloto, erguendo-se do assento e se esgueirando perigosamente para fora, para se fazer ouvir. — Quando estiver quase tocando o solo, larguem-se, com o corpo bem mole.
O campo que escolheu era de feno, que estava pronto para ser colhido. Quando as rodas estavam tocando o feno, soltaram-se do trem de pouso e caíram no meio da plantação.
Ambos perderam os sentidos e foram encontrados por camponeses que viram o aeroplano praticamente aterrizar e depois arremeter. Um deles estava certo de que vira uma pessoa pendurada do aparelho e que ela não estava mais lá quando o aeroplano subiu de novo.
Foram carregados para a casa da fazenda e colocados de cama. Quando despertaram, mal podiam acreditar que estavam vivos. Ao lado deles estavam um casal de camponeses franceses, dois rapazes de dezesseis-dezessete anos de idade e também o piloto inglês, que lhes sorria amigavelmente, por entre dentes e bigode amarelados por nicotina.
— Fico contente que estejam vivos — disse.
— Não... não sei como agradecer — balbuciou Arthur. Tinha dificuldade em mover os lábios. Seu rosto estava todo esfolado pela queda ao chão.
Walter só olhava para o piloto. Faltava-lhe palavras para exprimir sua gratidão por ter-lhe dado nova chance de viver. Mais tarde, com suas emoções sob controle, pôs em palavras seu pensamento. O piloto, que se chamava Alaric Hugh Farrar, ficou encabulado.
Assim que Arthur e Walter voltaram para Abbeville, fizeram um relatório do ato do piloto Farrar. Em virtude disso, o piloto recebeu a maior comenda militar por bravura da Grã-Bretanha, a Victoria Cross.

HUNKY-DORY

There I was sitting in a deckchair that late afternoon in January, sipping a delicious cool beer. As usual, the ceiling fan on our veranda was going at full speed, giving off a slight breeze, an illusion that outside it wasn’t as warm as it really was.

The veranda is closed in with fine netting to keep out flies and other insects, common to the countryside, from bothering us. I had no other alternative than to put in the netting so we could pass the hot afternoons and evenings there. For years it had been an open veranda, an area of our country place that was hardly ever used. One day I got the idea of the netting, and ever since it has been a central gathering place for all our friends.

On that particular afternoon, our front door neighbours wanted to know why our country home was called ‘Hunky-Dory’. I looked up at the main entrance, to the painted iron plaque and for a moment my memories took the best of me. That metal plate had followed me all my life, though it had been in the family even before I was born.

“My Dad,” I began—and had to stop as I became emotional—and then continued: “When Dad and Mum got married, they spent their honeymoon at the seaside.”

I kept looking at my friends. They knew as well as I what they were in for. Once someone got hold of me I was supposed to be a good and interesting storyteller.

“Well, Dad and Mum stayed at a sort of bed and breakfast hotel belonging to a German lady. In those days, the 1930’s, the relationship between Germans and the English (my parents) was quite cordial. During the days they were there, they became very friendly. One day, the lady told Dad that she had just bought the house but almost didn’t, due to a metal plate on the wall beside the front door. She could not understand what was written on it and was unsure if it was meant as some kind of a joke or dirty words! Even so, the price asked for the house was such and she had the money inherited from her deceased husband to purchase the propriety. So she decided on the place, finding a temporary solution by covering the plaque with a piece of wooden boarding.”

My children were sitting around me drinking in every word. Quite obviously they had heard the story many times before. My wife and my friend’s wife stopped talking to hear it too.

“Overcome by curiosity, Dad asked permission to remove the board and have a peep at the metal plate.”

Pausing dramatically, I pointed to the plate over our main entrance, and said: “That plaque is now here.”

With no exception, everyone looked up at the metal plate. It seemed to shine from all the attention it was receiving.

“Yes, well,” I continued. “Dad understood the meaning immediately and offered to take it down. The German lady was beside herself in gratitude and he went back home with Hunky-Dory under his arm.”

It was in his possession for over thirty years. He promised himself to put it up on the first home he built. Unfortunately, not all dreams come true and he was never to have his own home, always living in rented houses. When he realised it would not be possible, he passed his dream and the old rusted plate on to me. Ten years later I was able to build this lovely country home in this wonderful place.

“It was a tremendous shame that Dad was unable to see the first house built by one of his children and that it would be called ‘Hunky-Dory’. He did see some photographs though while it was being built, but he died, at the age of 85, a few months before completion.”

A respectful silence ensued. Everybody knew my feelings for my Dad, even so many years later and his frustration in not having come here.

My Brazilian friend asked me: “What does ‘Hunky-Dory’ mean?”, trying to pronounce the foreign words as correctly as possible.

To end the story, I told them all the meaning of the words on the metal plate that had been restored before putting it up over the front door: ‘Everything is as it should be’. Summing up, Dad’s wish had come true and everything was in place.

Forgotten beside the deckchair, my beer had lost its freshness. I got up to get another one from the fridge. A tear rolled down my face. With my back to my friends and family, no one saw my renewed emotion that I always feel every time I remember this episode, so intimately related to my own existence.

This chronicle was written in 1994. 
Nothing is ever certain in our short lifespan. 
After twenty years, we sold our country home in 2000. 
‘Hunky-Dory’ is now affixed to a column in our flat.

MADRIGAL DE VERÃO

Acordo ao som de pássaros a cantar,
Já então raiou o Sol no céu a brilhar.

Passeio entre árvores e arbustos;
As aranhas na grama fogem de susto.

Flagro gotículas da noite de chuva
Como cristais pingentes na penca d'uva.

Inspeciono carambolas e mangueiras,
Amoreiras, lichias e castanheiras.

Há muitas frutas para colher, sim, senhor!
Outras amadurecem; estão com verdor.

O meu Jardim, folhas e flores enfeitam,
Borboletas coloridas voam e deitam.

Nos galhos das árvores, tenho orquídeas,
Nos canteiros, muitas alamandas floridas.

Às belas quaresmeiras rosa e lilás,
Junta-se o pau-brasil, de flor fugaz.

Verde encantado de manhã de anil,
Quais mudanças haverá ao chegar abril?

Lembrei-me do poem' amado e altivo,
De sentimento tão real e vivo:

Estamos mais próximos de Deus num jardim,
Do que em qualquer outra paisagem assim ... §

§

The kiss of the Sun for pardon,

The song of the birds for mirth —

One is nearer God's heart in a garden,

Than anywhere else on Earth.

(God's Garden - Dorothy F. Gurney)

THE RESCUE

taken from my novel
“The Chocolate Tree: a family saga”
2nd. Edition, 2001

In the midst of the Great War, a British camp on French soil was being badly bombarded and the soldiers were in retreat. The Germans were doing their utmost to finish off the Division, attacking by land and air. Their aim was accurate and mortal.
The officer in charge made the troops leave in single file. One behind another, they tried to maintain some sort of discipline under the circumstances, avoiding roads and marching rapidly, trying to get away as fast as possible from the camp.
The going was hazardous as the terrain was naturally irregular. They only felt safe from the German airplanes in the dense vegetation. On open ground, they felt pain in their necks from looking upwards at the sky trying to identify enemy aircraft in time.
Soon the group of thirty-odd men were seen by a German observation balloon that warned the ground crew. They in turn got in touch with the pilots that were soon in the air preparing to hunt down their victims.
Four planes closing in obliged the troops to take cover, a difficult task at the moment, as they were crossing a vast pasture. There was little cattle grazing about, but the few animals took no notice of those strangers in uniform.
They heard the first outbursts from the aircraft cannon. Arthur, lying flat in a deep ravine, lifted his head to see what was going on. He saw a cow being directly hit. It seemed to explode, with bits and pieces flying in all directions. Arthur felt sick at the scene, but soon put it behind him, as he was worried with his own safety and survival.
He saw Walter on the other side of the ravine and waved at him. He too answered with a wave of his hand and pointed to a deeper place ahead, suggesting by signals that they meet there. Arthur got up and ran. Walter did the same.
A British airplane came into view and attacked the Germans. One of the planes separated itself from the others to fight the intruder. The others started shooting at the foot soldiers. One by one, the men were downed, too wounded to get up and react.
The British pilot eliminated the German plane that crashed to the ground nose first. The other Germans tried to combat the adversary, but he was an excellent aviator and they were unsuccessful. They left to regroup.
Luckily, Walter and Arthur suffered no wounds, but they perceived that they were alone. Shouting at their companions above the sound of the aircraft doing battle, the answer had been total silence. The men had been razed.
They knew the end was near. The British pilot from the air also saw the delicate dilemma they were in. Not a soldier was on his feet. The German aircraft were coming at them again.
The Brit, with boldness and fearless of the consequences, dropped lower with his biplane to try and land, motioning with his hands for the two soldiers to get nearer.
Immediately, Arthur and his partner understood his intentions. They got rid of all their equipment and ran crazily in his direction. The Germans were getting too close for comfort.
As soon as he touched down, the pilot shouted with all the strength of his lungs:
“Quickly! Hold on to something! Let’s get going! Come on! Come on!”
Walter and Arthur threw themselves to the ground as the wings passed over their heads and they grabbed at the plane’s landing gear.
Satisfied with what he saw, the pilot opened up the throttle and brought the stick against himself. The engine complained and whined with the extra weight, but obeyed his command.
The soldiers held on for dear life, with legs dangling dangerously in the wind and their bodies swaying from the wheel carriage. The plane’s trepidation was no help as they tried staying in the best possible position not to fall off. They were sweating profusely as they concentrated in maintaining themselves alive. It was their only chance and they knew it.
The Germans, recognising the drama and the heroism of pilot and soldiers alike greeted them by waving their wings and were gone, leaving them to their own fate.
It didn’t take them long to fly over peaceful landscape and reach the allied lines.
“I’m going down,” said the pilot, balancing precariously in his seat so he could be heard. “When I touch down, release yourselves with your bodies limp.”
He chose a hay field, ready for harvesting. The wheels struck the hay and the soldiers fell into the plantation.
Both lost consciousness and were found by local farmers. They had seen an airplane almost landing in their field and were certain they had seen someone hanging on to the plane that wasn’t there when it took off again.
They were carried to the farmhouse and put to bed. When they regained consciousness, they could hardly believe they were still alive. Besides them were the couple of French farmers, two 16-17-year-old boys and the British pilot, that was smiling broadly through teeth and moustache tinted yellow by nicotine.
“I’m glad you’re alive,” he said.
“I don’t think I can ever thank you enough,” muttered Arthur. He had difficulty in moving his cracked lips. His face was a mess of scratches from his fall in the hay.
Walter could only stare at the pilot. He just had no words to express his gratitude in having a new opportunity to live. Later, with his emotions under control, he was able to put his thoughts into words. The pilot, whose name was Alaric Hugh Farrar, was decidedly embarrassed.Once back in Abbeville, Arthur and Walter reported Farrar’s heroism. Due to that, the pilot received the Victoria Cross, the highest military award for bravery in Great Britain.