In her column last Sunday, the writer Elvira Lindo wondered if she could be friends with a flat earther.
Being a faithful reader and admirer of her work allows me to answer her disturbing question.
I am also united with her by being married to the poet Roseana Murray, one of the most widely read writers of children's literature in Brazil.
And I still remember friendly chats with her and Antonio in her apartment in Madrid when I worked on the
Babelia
supplement .
Like Elvira, the possibility of being friends with someone who was the opposite of my ideological convictions always caused me some uneasiness.
Until I became convinced that friendship, celebrated from the biblical texts to the Greek and Roman classics, is something that belongs rather to the sacred and to the mystery, and is capable of going through dark tunnels that surprise us.
I understood it better when, in the midst of the dictatorship, as a correspondent in Italy for the newspaper
Pueblo
de Madrid, I was a friend of a Francoist who was at the same time one of the least boastful and one of the most generous people I met in my life.
I found out later that I owe it to him, who has already left, for not having been arrested by the Francoist police.
Apparently, every time he went back to Granada to visit my mother, the forces of the dictatorship followed me every step of the way.
Also in Italy.
I remember that every time I gave a conference for young people, a man in a suit and tie always appeared at the end of the room.
I found out later that he was a spy sent by the dictator's embassy.
My friend told me one day: “Juan, stop speaking ill of Franco in Italy, they are following in your footsteps”.
With characteristic humor, he added, “Besides, you're ruining me.
Every renewal of your passport costs me a gold watch.”
Today, when I remember him, I cannot think how he, a highly cultured cardiologist, could believe that Francisco Franco was a good and honest person.
I prefer to remember that, despite what I thought of his idol, he selflessly saved me from his clutches.
Something similar happens to me now that I live in a town next to Rio de Janeiro.
My pharmacist is an inveterate Bolsonarista who, despite knowing what I write about his idol, stays awake to find out of stock medicines that he needs and even comes to bring them to my house.
Could I deny him my friendship?
In a world where the most terrible ideological monsters of the past are resurrecting, the friendship that challenges even our convictions is one of the few things left to us.
That is why I allow myself to send you these verses, Elvira, which has inspired me by your tender and heartbreaking column:
Dude
Ship always anchored
in the look,
hoping to set sail
fleeing from oblivion.
The heat of your flame
in the veins of absence,
sting relief
of heartbreak
when the ashes
and the withered leaves
dress in mourning in the sun,
from the hands of the friend
flowers are born
Open hand
in the hour of shipwreck,
drunk nectar
in the shade of the sun
while the monsters flee
of rancor.
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS América
newsletter
and receive all the key information on current affairs in the region
50% off
Exclusive content for subscribers
read without limits
subscribe
I'm already a subscriber
