A Letter for The Dead

Arthur, you have gone again out of my life and this time it is forever

Gadfly and Gemma in one meeting





Execution scene

Dear Arthur,

Let me call you once more by the name of the old days when I was just an ugly little girl with a pig-tail hair down my back.  It has been ten days since you were executed. For ten days, I have lost my consciousness of time and space since you have taken it with you.  You have gone again out of my life and this time it is forever. So, my dear, you have gone far away twice, and both times you have never said good-bye to me. You have gone leaving behind at the bottom of other comrades' consciousness a great empty space - a space that nothing and no one would fill up, now that you- the Gadfly- was dead. 

The day I realized it was you- the man with nasty sabre-cut across the face, with a past like hell in silver-mines, coffee-fields, variety shows; my dear, I wished if only you had been drowned at the Darsena shipping basin thirteen years ago. I turned out to bring upon you something worse than death.  It would drive me mad every time I sit down thinking of what you had been through those years

Yes, my dear, now "the variety show is over" and you are no longer tortured.  They have shot you in an extreme fear of a revolutionary hero.  They have executed you but you are still alive in my mind, in our comrades' hearts.  We are still here together fighting until the last breath of ours, until the day we see the "great thing" as you said.  My dear, if only you knew how vehemently you had inspired our comrades with your courage, determination and indomitableness.  The Swiss guard of the fortress on the hills who passed on your letter to me told me that he did that for you because you asked him to and he would have done more than that for you.  You have even conquered the soldiers of our enemy, my dear. 

My dear Arthur, I would like to inform you that  Padre Montanelli has just passed way today due to a so-called aneurism.  But I know for sure that he has died because he cannot bear the pain of losing you.  He has loved you and never stopped loving you.  Please never doubt that.  I know you have loved him more than anything on this world.  It is just that he was put into a dilemma under the choice of either you or Jesus.  And I believe he has died realizing he has made a wrong decision. 

It is weird upon thinking that I am writing to a person who has died.  I believe your spirit is still here around me and you are still able to read what I write. There is one last thing that I have never had a chance to tell you: I Love You, my heroic Arthur. 

Love you,

Gemma

 09/6/2010

Jeffrey Thai