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Elke Heidenreich
Not only do we have our pandemic. In the middle of the 18th century the plague raged in Sicily and then they didn't know anything about hygiene and viruses, but they already knew that people should rather avoid themselves, should go into a kind of quarantine. And whoever could fled to the country. The book "Trio" by the grande dame of Italian literature, Dacia Maraini, tells of such an escape. About 40 years ago she was doing research for her novel "The Mute Duchess" and came across a chronicle of the plague, back in Sicily. And she thought now, at the time of Corona, I can actually make a book out of it. It has turned out to be a slim, beautiful book. It's called "Trio," and it's a novel in letters. Two friends write these letters to each other. Agata from Palermo and Anuzza from Messina. In Messina it started with the plague. A ship has landed and a sailor must have dragged the plague into town. And the friends are now writing how suddenly dead mice, dead dogs, dead rats are lying around everywhere, how the first people die. And they know they have to get out of their cities.
And so they both flee, Agata to Castagna and Anuzza to Casteldaccia. And then write to yourself how they got there, what they eat, who they see, don't see how bored they are. And they write such wonderful "do-you-remember-letters" to each other. Do you remember how our friendship started? And do you remember how we met Girolamo? Girolamo is the third in the trio, that is to say "trio", a man whom both of them got to know at the same time. Agata married him or he married her. They have a child and a daughter together. But he also loves Anuzza. And the two women know that. And they don't want jealousy to destroy their beautiful friendship now. And they write letters to each other. He's coming to the country. Of course, he only comes to his wife and child. And Agata writes: “I notice how he longs for you. He will come to you soon. Take good care of him. "And Anuzza writes:" Oh God, I really want to give him up because that's so terrible, it will destroy our friendship. "And Agata writes:" No. If you give him up, he'll fall in love with someone else and that would be even worse. Dear in you. Take good care of him. We just love him and our precious friendship mustn't be destroyed. ”And now it goes on for months. They write what they read. You are both reading Calderón "Life, a Dream". You write about loneliness, despair. But they comfort each other and hold themselves upright.
And the man travels sometimes to one and sometimes to the other. And at the beginning of January 1744, Agata wrote to Anuzza, with whom he was at the moment: “Tell me more about Girolamo. I know he's happy with you, and I tell myself I want that to be. And yet it pains me and cuts my heart. Not out of jealousy, believe me. How could I be jealous of my sister of the heart? It's the feeling of being lost and abandoned. The thought that I was unable to awaken lasting and deep love in his troubled heart. ”But she was quite capable of awakening this love. Because it can just be that a man loves both of them. And that's the case here. And then she writes, the wise Agata: »I don't believe that love is an obligation or that you can put a person on a leash, no matter how stable it is. I hope that my humble philosophical spirit will help me face reality without losing my head and, above all, without sacrificing the most beautiful thing in the world, friendship. "
This is a book about friendship or what we are all currently experiencing: an epidemic, boredom, desolation, losses, fears, the breaking of all structures. But it is also a book about comfort, friendship, love, character and tolerance. And when things slowly get better and you know you can now return to Palermo and Messina - after a long time, by the way, even more than a year - perhaps to normality, Agata writes: »It seems as if the epidemic is slow would subside. They say the worst is over. But people are still dying. «Yes, people are still dying, even with us. So we have to be patient. Keep your feet still. Hold on. Keep characters like Agata, Girolamo and Anuzza in "Trio" by Dacia Maraini.
