I write again with a knife between my teeth, next to the embrace of an emergency nurse in an ambulance, next to two plainclothes policemen, next to a charming blonde, light-eyed doctor from the San Sebastián Hospital and an affable social worker with many bracelets on her hand. I know she has a son.
I know she shakes her head at many things I say and that she holds my hand very tightly. I know almost nothing about these people and I don't remember their names. I know they were angels on one of the worst days of my life.
Then there is forgiveness, which lives inside one eternally. A forgiveness trembling because in reality she does nothing. She is the victim, although she doesn't see it yet. She cannot see in her state, she barely verbalizes. Then, they say, oblivion will come, and "I will have killed the angel of the house", in allusion to Virginia Woolf. That will be as long as the violence does not reach its highest point and we manage to escape. Otherwise we will be another dead gardenia.
As Laura Freixas says, let's get closer to them, to the victims. The great writers or filmmakers who have committed abuses will remain in the history books, they will continue to put their names on airports, they will remain in the libraries of the world. But what will happen to those who are raped or abused, to those used as an object of pleasure who get bored in three months? As I heard the Catalan writer say in allusion to Pablo Neruda's rape, "I want to listen to her - referring to his Tamil employee - I don't care if she makes spelling mistakes."
Let's also get closer to psychological violence, to insults, to humiliations, to pain, and, ultimately, to human dignity.
There are already 15 women murdered this month of July. We don't know if their husbands were writers, drivers, architects, policemen or anthropologists. None of that matters. The figure is shocking. Male chauvinist violence continues in our country. To deny it is to deny reality, the data, the studies. And no, that is not politics. As I recently read on the net, we have won a football final in the European league against racism, and another final in the women's football league, against machismo.
We have seen in London a woman dressed in purple - who may have gone unnoticed - but has made an entire stadium stand up for her courage. She presented the cup to our great tennis player, Alcaraz.
We have seen princesses who travel for the first time alone on state trips - one day I will write about that wonderful book by Leibniz "Philosophy for princesses", and Infantas who support football - female and male - that is, a country in equality.
We are learning that little by little or seed by seed courage wins, companionship wins, spirit and human nobility win. Let's continue fighting against machismo and educate in equality. We don't want more dead gardenias this summer.
I make public here, I trust with your permission, a phrase that Amelia Varcacel recently wrote to me.
"From you a small step each day, you will get out of this."
