Sería muy distinto si consiguiéramos narrar esta historia de uniformes y sotanas, delirios y miserias, enfermedades y resucitaciones, supersticiones e intrigas, como quien recuerda sucesos ocurridos 700 años atrás.
Porque en realidad, fíjense, para casi todos los que hacemos ETDLV, escribiéndolo o leyéndolo, lo que sucede en isla de la que ahora me separan unos pocos kilómetros ―Cuba― en muchas ocasiones suele tener la misma «presencia» que cualquier bucólica estampa precolombina. Guarina de niña espantando a majá con jutía acorralada, por ejemplo. O Guamá mirando a hurtadillas un cemí.
Poner distancia, por un lado, y abstraerse de la maraña mediática. Ello requiere apartar antes las muelles taras que tanto nos solazan, claro, que si no es difícil que lleguemos lejos.
¡Va y así ganamos todos! Al menos lo haremos, creo, en tanto escritores y lectores de prosa historiográfica. Bien visto, y a fuer de que se me tome por trasnochado nietzscheano, hace dos milenios que estamos subidos a noria que no cesa de girar.
Atiéndase si no a este relato. Es de Barbara W. Tuchman en A Distant Mirror. The Calamitous 14th Century [1] (pp.498-99).
Léaselo y a ver qué tal de resonancias…
…As the awful report of the King’s madness spread, rumors of sorcery and poison were on every tongue, and popular emotion so aroused that the sick chamber had to be kept open to the public. All the tears and grief attending a royal demise filled the room and “all good Frenchmen wept as for an only son, for the health of France was tied to that of her King.” Sobbing clergy conducted prayers, bishops led barefoot processions carrying life-size wax figures of the King to the churches, the people heaped their offerings on relics known for healing powers, and prostrated themselves before Christ and the Saints to beseech a cure.
Few believed the affliction had natural causes. Some saw it as Divine anger at King’s failure to take up arms to end the schism; others, as God’s warning against that very intention; still others, as Divine punishment for heavy taxes. Most believed the cause was sorcery, the most so because a great drought that summer dried up the ponds and rivers so that cattle died of thirst, waterborne transport ceased, and merchants claimed the worst losses in twenty years.
In a morbid time, belief in conspiracy rose to the surface. Whispers circulated against the Dukes. Why had the “phantom of the forest” not been arrested and interrogated? Had he been planted by the Duke of Brittany or by the uncles to cause the King to turn back? Had the King’s excess of anger causes by the Dukes’ delay brought on his madness?…