A thick string tied to a nail driven into the wall that neither the rain nor the scorching heat have ever managed to scratch.
A non-armored yet impregnable prison for Maria (the name is fictional) that she lived in a kind of small stable without heating reachable only by a spiral staircase for twenty-two long years.
She beaten by her brother and her sister-in-law, she psychologically nullified, never treated by a doctor, without the possibility of using a bathroom, she is never loved more than her.
Her only company was her own voice and her thoughts.
In 1995 Maria was 40 years old, she had just been widowed. She was wracked with grief, and her brother convinces her to move into her home, into the room that had been their parents.
In the first years everything seemed to be going well, Maria was better with her brother and sister-in-law, but things were destined to change for the worse and for a long time.
Maria had become a burden for that couple, and so she was thrown out of the room that had become the refuge of her memories of her and forced to move to a room created next to the woodshed, without heating.
Once a month her sister-in-law took her to the hairdresser, but Maria was never able to confide in anyone even there because of the threats and the look of her relative who watched her on sight, promising blows if she spoke, slaps that always came and in any case.
She could only wash once a month in a stone washhouse
.
She was never even allowed to go to her husband's grave, she was not allowed anything of what is called her life.
But someone, a few months ago, gave a tip to the carabinieri of Bojano,
in Campobasso and thus saved the life of Maria, who is now 67 years old and has white hair.
The military went to verify that story so dramatic it doesn't even seem true, they saw the terrible conditions she had been in for so long and took her away.
Only after being reassured that nothing would happen to her, the woman finally, in a very lucid way despite the long slavery, sighed and told everything she had suffered.
Even the various attempts to rebellion, to escape, to ask for help, all failed.
She has always known that life was near, only beyond that string and that cursed nail that never gave way and that was opened after 22 years by trusted hands.
Maria was treated in a sheltered facility, treated like a human, slept on a bed, had a bathroom and clean clothes, ate food cooked for her and no leftovers, received smiles and listening.
She started living again at the age of 67.