Thanks to them, this blind Colombian founded the soccer club he leads, became and remains the coach of the team, comments on the matches on his radio program, sings to entertain the audience and, in his free time, he works as a lawyer.
July 14. THE LOSERS’ TRUNK
Helena Villagra dreamed of an immense trunk.
She opened it with a very old key and out of the trunk spilled failed shots on goal, missed penalties, defeated teams. And the failed shots entered the net, the ball gone awry corrected its flight and the losers celebrated their victory. As long as the ball and the dream kept flying, that backwards match would never end.
July 15. AN EXORCISM
On this night in 1950, the eve of the World Cup final, Moacir Barbosa slept in the arms of the angels.
He was the most beloved man in all Brazil.
But the following day the finest goalkeeper in the world became a traitor to his country: Barbosa failed to block the Uruguayan goal that snatched the trophy from Brazil’s grasp.
Thirteen years later, when Maracanã stadium put in new goalposts, Barbosa took the two posts and the crossbar that had humiliated him. He chopped them up with an ax and burned the pieces until they were nothing but ashes.
The exorcism did not save him from damnation.
July 16. MY DEAR ENEMY
White was Brazil’s jersey. But once the 1950 World Cup showed white to be unlucky, it was never white again.
The final match was over, Uruguay was world champion and the fans would not leave. Two hundred thousand Brazilians had turned to stone in Maracanã stadium.
On the field a number of players still wandered about.
The two best crossed paths, Obdulio and Zizinho.
They crossed paths. They eyed each other.
They were very different. Obdulio, the victor, was made of steel. Zizinho, the vanquished, was made of music. But they were also very much alike: both had played nearly the entire championship injured, an inflamed ankle in one case, a swollen knee in the other, and not a complaint was heard from either.
Now, at the end of the match, they didn’t know if they should give each other a slug or a hug.
Years later, I asked Obdulio, “Do you ever see Zizinho?”
“Sure. Once in a while,” he said. “We close our eyes and we see each other.”
July 17. INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE DAY
The Queen said:
“There’s the King’s Messenger. He is in prison now and being punished and the trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday: and of course, the crime comes last of all.”
“Suppose he never commits the crime?” said Alice.
— From Alice Through the Looking-Glass,
sequel to Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, 1872
July 18. HISTORY IS A ROLL OF THE DICE
One hundred and twenty years it took to build the temple to the goddess Artemis in Ephesus, one of the wonders of the world.
In a single night in the year 356 BC it was reduced to ashes.
No one knows who built the temple. The name of its assassin, however, still resounds. Herostratus, the arsonist, wanted to go down in history. And he did.
July 19. THE FIRST TOURIST ON RIO’S BEACHES
Portuguese Prince-Regent João, son of Queen Maria, visited the beach at the port of Rio de Janeiro on his doctor’s advice in 1810.
The monarch jumped into the water with his shoes on, wearing a barrel. He was terrified of crabs and waves.
His audacious example did not catch on. The beaches of Rio were noxious garbage dumps, where at night slaves deposited the waste of their masters.
By the time the twentieth century rolled around, the waters offered a much better swim, but take note: ladies and gentlemen were kept well apart, as the rules of modesty required.
One had to dress up to go to the beach. On shores that today are a geography of nudity, the he’s went in covered to below the knees, and the pallid she’s swaddled head to foot for fear the sun would turn them into mulattas.
July 20. THE INTERLOPER
In 1950 a photograph published in Life magazine caused a stir in New York’s artistic circles.
The top painters of the city’s avant-garde appeared together for the first time: Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and eleven other masters of abstract expressionism.
All men, except for an unknown woman in a black coat and a little hat, with a bag on her arm, standing in the back row.
The men could not hide their disgust at her outrageous presence.
One tried, in vain, to excuse the interloper. He praised her saying, “She paints like a man.”
Her name was Hedda Sterne.
July 21. THE OTHER ASTRONAUT
On this day in 1969, every newspaper in the world had the photo of the century on the front page: astronauts, lumbering like bears, had walked on the moon and left behind the first human footprints.
But the principal protagonist of the feat did not receive the congratulations he deserved.
Werner von Braun had designed and launched their spaceship.
Before taking up the conquest of space on behalf of the United States, von Braun had worked on Germany’s behalf for the conquest of Europe.
Engineer, officer of the SS, he was Hitler’s favorite scientist.
The day after the war ended, he used his smarts to make a prodigious leap and land on his feet on the other side of the sea.
He became an instant patriot of his new homeland, began worshipping at a Texas evangelical church and got busy in the space lab.
July 22. THE OTHER MOON
The astronauts weren’t the first.
Eighteen hundred years before, Lucian of Samosata visited the moon.
No one saw him, no one believed him, but he wrote about it in Greek.
Back around the year 150, Lucian and his sailors set off from the Pillars of Hercules, where the Strait of Gibraltar now lies, and a storm caught the ship, whirled it up into the sky and dumped it on the moon.
On the moon, no one died. The oldest of the old lunatics dissolved into thin air. They ate smoke and sweated milk. The rich ones wore glass clothing, the poor no clothing at all. The rich had many eyes and the poor, one or none.
In a mirror the lunatics watched all the terrestrial comings and goings. For the duration of their visit, Luciano and his sailors kept tabs on the daily news from Athens.
July 23. TWINS
In 1944, in the tourist resort of Bretton Woods, it was confirmed that the twin brothers humanity needed were in gestation.
One was to be called International Monetary Fund and the other World Bank.
Like Romulus and Remus, the twins were nursed by a she-wolf until they took up residence in the city of Washington, cheek by jowl with the White House.
Ever since, these two govern the governments of the world. In countries where no one elected them, the twins impose obeisance as if it were destiny: they keep watch, they threaten, they punish, they quiz: “Have you behaved yourself? Have you done your homework?”
July 24. SINNERS BE DAMNED
In the Aramaic language spoken by Jesus and his apostles, the same word means both “debt” and “sin.”