It Is Not a Christmas Gift to Suffocate!
A story of welcome in a world darkened by hatred
Previous episode
It was not enough
When I knew that Mr. Long had passed away, I adopted his motto: “I breathe,” to keep his essence with me. The disappearance of his discreet presence from my life had left me both poor and rich in sparks of wisdom. Poor because he was no longer there, and rich because I felt he had bequeathed the spring of inner peace to me.
So, adopting his motto was not enough. It would have been like owning a wonderful painting without understanding its profound beauty, and I wanted to understand.
I could start from only one source of information about Mr. Long’s life: his gentle and fragile widow. At that time, I didn’t know I was beginning lifelong research. You know what they say: the longest journey starts with the first step. Interviewing Mrs. Long was my first step.
How Mrs. Long met her husband
My friendship with Mrs. Long had a shy start in November 1991.
We took a cup of tea together after I revealed that I was her husband’s friend. She was so kind. She was used to thinking of Mr. Long as a solitary man, and she was delighted to discover he had such a young friend.
She was eager and proud to tell her story.
There’s no need to look at famous people to get incredible stories. The way Mrs. and Mr. Long met was astonishing.
It happened 52 years earlier, on a winter day. She was waiting in line in front of a small kiosk to buy a packet of roasted chestnuts. It was on the eve of Christmas. She had not eaten in days; those chestnuts would have relieved hunger, the only solace she could afford because she was penniless. She was Jewish.
It was Christmas 1939 in Torino, Italy — not yet at war, but already racist and rapidly moving toward that catastrophe. At that time, she was not yet Mrs. Long but simply Anna the Jewess.
The year before, due to racial laws, she lost her job. Anna was alone in the world. She was a teacher in the primary school, and her children were her only family. When the Duce decreed that Jews were an inferior race, her whole world shattered: she still could not understand how all her pupils’ parents had turned their backs on her. Everyone, no exception.
Anna lived for her students; they were her all. Now, she had nothing more than loneliness and poverty. Thanks to savings, she had managed to survive for a year, but savings were running out, and despair was taking over her soul.
She finally bought a package of roasted chestnuts and began voraciously eating one. This chestnut still had a big piece of peel, and it went sideways in her throat: she started coughing and suddenly could not breathe. The chestnut was stuck in her throat, preventing air from bringing oxygen and life to Anna’s fragile body.
Her meaningless life was eventually near the end, she thought with relief. Sure, Anna was suffering, but this pain was the door toward freedom. She was sure nobody would have helped her and welcomed death when the dark arrived.
Out of the blue, she felt squeezed in a vice just below the sternum. It seemed to her that she was a rag doll in the hands of a giant. Pressed once, twice, even more potent, Anna finally spat out the killer chestnut.
Anna collapsed but did not fall to the ground: she found herself in Mr. Long’s arms.
Mr. Long
When Anna returned to regular breathing, she angrily spat out of her soul a single question, “Why didn’t you let me die? That was my Christmas gift! Why?!” She was furious.
She shouted her anger just as she began to feel a long-forgotten feeling: being welcomed. Only at that moment did she realize that she was in the arms of a man. He was tall and thin, and his arms conveyed energy. He was Mr. Long.
Around them, people walked swiftly in indifference. It was cold.
“You were in big trouble, young lady. You were choking. It is not a Christmas gift to suffocate!” said Mr. Long.
He was staring at her, serious and mocking at the same time, with a warm smile ready to rise in that elongated and remarkably serene face. She felt he was a mistake in her life. More, she thought he was a mistake in that hate-filled world. When we get used to being rejected, the rule becomes rejection, as if it were a law of nature. So finding arms open to welcome appears as a gash in that law, an outstanding exception to the rule.
Anna abandoned herself in that embrace and began crying, a cry between despair and relief.
The notebook
Mrs. Long was crying, too. Telling her story was a relief but a pain too.
I drank my tea and thanked her for her time: that was enough for the day.
I was leaving when Mrs. Long called back and gave me a treasury: Mr. Long’s last notebook.
“He annotated his thoughts. My husband was a thinker with a pen. He firmly believed that just thinking is too fast and intimate to understand what we think. Besides, ‘If you don’t understand what you think, why do you think?’ — he used to say. Writing down thoughts was the solution: thinking becomes slow enough and stays outside on a piece of paper.
That’s his last notebook. I don’t know if there’s something important; I didn’t dare to read it. Now I know he would have wanted you to read it. Please take it.”
Many emotions took hold of me at that moment. I did not know what to say.
I nodded my thanks. I said goodbye and left with that notebook as if taking the essence of Mr. Long with me.
It was the beginning of a long journey. I could feel it. I did not yet know the destination, but I knew I wanted to get there.
Stay tuned to discover more about Mr. Long!
