Magyar Baráti Közösség

elbeszelesek  :: Miklós Cseszneky de Milvány: My Mediterranean ::

Közölte observer Időpont: 2009. július 02., csütörtök, 21:04 PST (2061 olvasás)     

The Mediterranean - when I hear this name the first image that comes into my mind is the sea. My first encounter with the sea happened to be in the Mediterranean, on the Montenegrine coast. It was really an encounter in the broader sense of the word, not only a meeting, but also a duel. It was late night when after long hours of hitchhiking in the shadow of rattling guns and walking along untrodden paths in the Black Mountains at last I arrived at the coast. I was staggering in the darkness, hardly could see any stars in the overcast sky and public lighting also was switched off in fear of a possible missile raid. My flask was empty and I felt tortured by thirst. The camping, the address of which I had found in a ten-year-old travel book, still existed though, but the door was locked and the porter had gone. The tap was within arm’s reach yet it seemed unreachable.

I tried to climb over the barbed wire fence but it hurt my hands which started bleeding. There was no way to get in unless... unless by crossing the sea. I was stunned by the idea. I saw and heard nothing, just the rhythmically recurring din of the sea. I have never been a good swimmer and even now was carrying a heavy rucksack full of things unnecessary for swimming in the raging water. Okay, I hove a deep sigh and started listening to the roars: at first it was frightful, but I restrained myself and in the next minute I was on my way for the swell of the sea: The Mediterranean Sea!

While stumbling towards my fate in order to calm my mind I was trying to evoke the memories and visions I had of the Mediterranean. I was spellbound to realize that I was going to touch the vital force of ancient civilizations, the course of human history and culture. I was going to be part of something that was bigger than me, that connected me with the flow of the very life. I was going to sail with the Phoenicians, witness the siege of Troy, maybe even see Poseidon holding his three-pronged spear and listen to the sirens' song as Ulysses. But I forgot to tie myself and a mysterious force was drawing me closer and closer to the source of the song which indeed was promising me wisdom and knowledge of past and future.

I wanted to see how great civilizations in the Mediterranean had emerged, clashed and declined while fertilizing one another and all those who came to follow their foot-steps. In spite of the darkness around me I clearly saw Hannibal and Scipio, the Moors invading Hispania, Crusaders setting off for the holy land claimed by three word religions. I was observing a swarming crowd of Pagans, Jews, Christians and Muslims being born, traveling, trading, fighting and dying on the waves of the Mediterranean, making it a cradle, a pathway, a market, a battlefield and a grave.

I was in the bay of Sutomore, and recalled what was written in the guidebook about the medieval fortress which had been called Spizza by the Venetians and had been donated by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to the Markovich family: In 1981 when Mehmet Ali Ağca, a son of the Mediterranean, had shot and wounded Pope John Paul II the doctor who had saved the pontiff's life had been Ferenc Markovich, the last Count of Spizza. I suddenly understood the Mediterranean was an eternal source of death and life for civilizations and individuals alike and I had to give myself up to this flow. I felt my shoes were filled with warm water, then took off my rucksack and made a few more steps forward, when the salty foams reached my chest I knew I was lured by the sirens and if so I joined their choir and started singing Joan Manuel Serrat's evergreen: Nací en el Mediterráneo, I was born in the Mediterranean.