Tommaso Tanini, from the series H. Said He Loved Us
We want our people to be happy, they’ve got to be happy. Anything that upsets them is a crime. Truth, justice, and happiness are all theirs. They have no secrets. They can live out their lives in the light of day, with nothing to hide. They mustn’t hide anything from each other. The whole world must be clean, free of shadows, doubts, secrets, poisonous memories and desires.
Corrado Alvaro
Man Is Strong
1938
Tommaso Tanini, from the series H. Said He Loved Us
“Can’t we pull down the blinds?”
“There are no blinds, and no curtains either.”
Corrado Alvaro
Man Is Strong
1938
Tommaso Tanini, from the series H. Said He Loved Us
A chill in the vein; perhaps the door will open. The door stays shut. The chill is over. One throw oneself wearily on the bed and lets one’s imagination run riot.
Corrado Alvaro
Man Is Strong
1938
Tommaso Tanini, from the series H. Said He Loved Us
To leave the building, and even this meant facing the unknown. In his mind’s eye he surveyed the way back, trying to guess on which side of the street he might be ambushed. His frail and insignificant self was strangely transformed into an object of suspicion, and everything pointed in his direction.
Corrado Alvaro
Man Is Strong
1938
Tommaso Tanini, from the series H. Said He Loved Us
In the early morning light everything was pure and good; the morbid imaginings of the previous days retreated into the realm of nightmares. The city looked the way it had looked a hundred or two hundred years before.
Corrado Alvaro
Man Is Strong
1938
Tommaso Tanini, from the series H. Said He Loved Us
Inside each room the occupant could hear, through the incompletely closed doors, which were held by a piece of rope or stuffed with papers, the talking and dreaming and snoring of his neighbours.
Corrado Alvaro
Man Is Strong
1938
Tommaso Tanini, from the series H. Said He Loved Us
Many human beings must have waited in this room, but they had left no mark upon it, everything was gray, a cloudy gray, the colour of waiting.
“What do you want? Why are you here?” – the gray walls the cloudy air, and the hanging lamp seemed to ask her, echoing the facts buried in the files and card indexes that recorded the fate of so many human souls.
Corrado Alvaro
Man Is Strong
1938
Tommaso Tanini, from the series H. Said He Loved Us
“Aren’t we going to see each other again?”
“No. When you leave here don’t look back. Don’t look for the name of the street. Don’t try to remember the outside of the house. Or did you look last time?”
“I didn’t, I promise you.”
Corrado Alvaro
Man Is Strong
1938
Tommaso Tanini, from the series H. Said He Loved Us
“One day someone investigator or other says: ‘Arrest that fellow – what’s his name?’ The fellow’s arrested and eventually he admits his guilt. He did or thought something criminal and forbidden.”
“But what if it’s not true?”
“It’s bound to be true. We all harbor criminal thoughts.”
“And so it may happen to anyone.”
Corrado Alvaro
Man Is Strong
1938
Tommaso Tanini, from the series H. Said He Loved Us
They had hit me, kick me and beat me.
Since this time I’m very sick on body and soul.
I have panick attacks, nightmares and I can’t sleep very hard only and I wake up often by night.
1980 and 1981 I was in 7 prisons. And than Federal Republic of Germany pay for release. I’m coming to West-Germany. I’m free.
But even to day I’m member of any freedom movements (Amnesty International, International Campaign for Tibet etc..). Do you remember I’m an Buddhist.
This is shortly my story.
I hope that I you can help and you can understand my English. Please let me know, how you are. I’m waiting for your answer.
I wish you all the Best, Love and Peace on all your Ways.
I salut you
heartly
Wolfgang
(Letter written by Wolfgang Arndt in 2012 to Tommaso Tanini)
Tommaso Tanini, from the series H. Said He Loved Us
Our society does need a crime occasionally. They have a sort of mysticism of crime.
Corrado Alvaro
Man Is Strong
1938